I am giving a talk on Tuesday night April 16 at Southwest Writers. I've had some incredible moments speaking at SWW, but in today's blog I'm going to talk about the worst talk of my life.
When I was in college at Cornell, I took a class in Communications,Arts in the Agriculture College. I used to joke that the communications department was in the Ag school because it was originally there to train livestock auctioneers. For some reason, I decided to speak quickly. It worked. My first few topics went extremely well and was looking at an A.
With law school on the line, a three credit A would probably get me into Duke or Georgetown. While other people chose non-political topics like "Why you should support the opera?" and "Libraries are good," I went all out. My topic "The Secretary of the Department of Interior should resign." It was political, it was edgy, it was passionate. I was swinging for the fences.
I did considerable research on the topic and learning about mineral leases under the Secretary's realm. I learned about the difference between sweet crude oil and sour crude oil, which led to my opening joke. "Before researching off shore oil policy, I thought sweet and sour gas was something you got at a Chinese restaurant." Well, it seemed funny at the time.
And then on the day of the speech, the Secretary resigned. I rewrote my speech on the fly. "He should resign and he did resign, so that's good. Really. I guess so. Ummm....yes indeed. Really good. I'm glad. Thank you, the end. In conclusion, sweet gas is good, sour gas is bad. The end."
Needless to say, if my talk was an oil well, it would have spilled. That three minute speech cost me an A and brought me down to a B-/. I was waitlisted at Georgetown and Duke law schools.
My topic on Tuesday April 16 is "How to turn your career into a novel." I won't be making any sweet and sour gas jokes.
Jonathan:
ReplyDeleteSounds like your original Cornell speech was a humdinger, sometimes it is weird how events and other people's actions outrun our carefully drawn plans so quickly.
With more rewrite time, guess the speech could have been turned into a Gift of Prophecy/Remote Telepathy talk, but that might look too self-serving or other-worldly for most Cornell academics.
I like that sweet and sour gas joke--kind of crude, but that's what the oil business is all about!
Despite all your disappointment, you have overcome and done mighty well in both your legal and writing careers. Carry On!
John Orman
Thanks John!
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