When I was a young chap I used to write some pretty wild satires. In one particular class, called Creative Writing, taught by one of my favorite teachers ever Mr. Chaimberlain, I got to fully unleash my satirical potential. I have spent several hours trying to retrace any links to my one ‘famous’ satire that I wrote in high school, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I remember thinking this satire was far and away my best piece of writing in that class, and of my high school years. Well, let’s face it, it was probably my best piece of writing ever. And since I am the best writer in the world, this is probably the best piece of writing ever produced. It is probably a key to some kind of cosmic knowledge that would free us from the constraints of space and time. And I can’t find it. I guess we will have to wait a little longer before we can travel at the speed of light. My bad.

I remember after I wrote that paper I let a few of my buddies read it in our next class, which was a cooking class. My good friend Jon Brown, who was the quarterback of the football team, loved it and told my other good friend Colin Kelley, who was the captain of the hockey team, to read it immediately. Colin was laughing so hard he started to cry. It was awesome. More people read it and loved it. Colin even made his Dad read it and his Dad thought it was one of the funniest things he had ever read. And Mr. Kelley is not that easily impressed. And he is a smart, successful guy, who is pretty conservative. Which means that this piece of writing transcended time and boundaries….

Okay, it wasn’t that good. Mr. Kelley isn’t that conservative, and he does have a great sense of humor. But still, who am I kidding? The piece of writing was that good. And as I said, I lost it! I swear. It’s like that song by Tenacious D called “Tribute”. The song is about how they wrote the greatest song in the world but the song you are hearing called “Tribute” is “not the greatest song in the world, no, this is a tribute. Can’t remember the greatest song in the world, no, this is a tribute”. It’s kind of like the satire I am going to post below that I wrote that same year in high school. It’s not the greatest satire in the world, it’s just a tribute to that piece that I lost that actually was the greatest satire in the world. You know what I mean?

I also lost my graduation speech from high school! I’m not sure it was the greatest speech ever written, but boy my delivery, now that was awesome! Ha. I actually still get comments on my graduation speech to this day. In fact, the other day when I was over my buddy Ross Ajemian’s house, his father had a lengthy conversation with me about that speech. He told me his family still talks about it! Imagine that, a little Armenian like myself making a name for myself through a graduation speech in high school. Ross is a fellow Armenian (Ajemian, my last name is Najarian, go figure). In fact, there were two Ajemian families in my town and both families had a boy in my grade. Ross, aforementioned, and Mike. Yeah that’s right, Mike Ajemian. In my grade. Talk about confusing people.

“Yeah it was weird how I saw you a few months back at the supermarket, huh!”. “That must have been Mike Ajemian because I have no recollection of that”. “Oh yeah, that’s right, sorry!”. It even got to the point that we were blaming things on each other that we didn’t want to own up to. “So I heard you got arrested…”. “Mike Ajemian! How many times are you gonna get us confused!”. Meanwhile it was me who got arrested. Nice alibi though, right?

Back to my graduation speech. Obviously, it was sarcastic, a satire of a speech in fact, and I did mention that I was Armenian and came over to Duxbury, MA when I was 4 years old because I recited my multiplication tables perfectly to the Armenian king and he wanted me to be an ambassador living in the US. And some people actually believed this. Suckers. But the Armenian reference really drew Mr. Ajemian in, he was still psyched about it last week! I also made fun of the football team for crying after they lost the high school super bowl when we were seniors. I noted how I didn’t cry when our hockey team lost the state championship game. And Mr. Ajemian said to me right when he saw me, “Oh yeah, you’re the kid who didn’t cry!”. So the speech does, in fact, live on. I remember in years to come that they actually used my speech as a template of a good speech in the speech-making seminar that you have to take if you want to make a graduation speech. Yeah, we actually had a speech seminar, and my sarcastic as crap speech was used as a reference of awesomeness. What, what!

The speech seminar was called Senior Seminar. It was an eight week class that was optional, and at the end of the class you could audition a speech if you wanted to make a graduation speech. People in the class then voted on the 3 best speeches and the winners got to speak at the graduation ceremony. So there was the Valedictorian, Class President, the Principal, and 3 speakers from this optional seminar class. I wasn’t the Valedictorian, or the Class President, (or Principal), and my good buddy Colin Kelley thought I should make a speech, so he persuaded me to take this class with him in order to get my ridiculous ass to make a speech at graduation. He had assembled a little crew to take it with him and I think this definitely helped with the voting when it was time to cast the ballots for the 3 best speeches. But, honestly, I still had to win over the rest of the class because it was far too big to rely on our little clique to get me in. My first draft was vehemently vetoed by Colin, as a lot of it had to do with the intricacies of pooping in high school. I talked about the different public bathrooms at the school and the people who wouldn’t poop until they got home and thus, held it all day. Not a fan favorite he said, I could do better. And I did.

The people “trying out” for the 3 open slots had to speak at one of the last 2 classes. Luckily, I drew the last class to speak so I had extra time to write my speech, and got to hear half the competition a week in advance. The first half of my speech was a satire on a week 1 speech, made by a girl who moved in from out of town and had such a good, warm, welcome experience at Duxbury High. I made up a story about being from Armenia and loving Duxbury because I was smarter than everyone else in this country. Sadly enough, that same girl came up to me after I made my speech at Senior Seminar and said, “Wow, that’s crazy! We had such a similar experience!”, and she was serious. I just smiled and said, “Yeah we did!”. The second half of the speech got ridiculous and talked about me forging tardy notes because I swallowed too much mouth wash and was inadvertently too drunk to make it to school on time. I touched on such topics as showering with the hockey team, etc, etc. It was quite ridiculous, but got a good response, even from the top ranked kids in our Senior Seminar class (most of Senior Seminar was the elite, because let’s face it, who really wants to make a graduation speech and go to an extra class if you don’t have to).

The one person who seemed to actually not like it was our high school Principal Wayne Ogden, who voted with the class (his vote only counted as one person, luckily). I randomly was sitting behind him on voting day, the same day I made my speech, and I saw his votes. He was using a system of 5 stars as the best score and 0 stars as the worst score. Most scores he was giving out were 4s and 5s. There was the occasional 3, but not one score was below a 3… Except for mine. He gave me one half of one star. Yes, ½ of 1 star. Not even a full star. He really didn’t want me to speak and represent his school. Too bad Mr. Ogden, you lose on this one. Najarian gets to speak. I was actually pretty surprised because Mr. Ogden was a cool cat, I thought he would see the humor, as well as the insightfulness of the speech. He didn’t, but as I said earlier, the power of the satire prevailed!

Even when I actually delivered the speech I was satirical. The first thing I did when I walked up to the podium is notice there was a camera woman ready to snap a pic of me when I began my speech. Instead of beginning my speech I looked at her and said, “Hey, do you just want to get this over with… Take a few pics right now!”. Man, I was a little punk! But I was a well-respected punk (yeah right). But I actually was at the top of my class in high school and thus, the most dangerous kind of punk I would think. The crowd laughed at my opening picture gag and that gave me confidence. I wish I had this video or even a written copy of this speech, but again, I don’t have it. I need a file cabinet! But I do have an example of a satirical piece I wrote when I was all of but 18 years old. It is about a few girls going to see a concert in Massachusetts. And now, here it is, enjoy:

Lauren Rocking to MatchBox 20

“It’s 3 a.m. and I must be lonely!” Lauren blurted out, wearing her favorite MatchBox 20 T-shirt. It was red and black and she loved it. “I hope I never lose this T-shirt,” she thought to herself, “because if I did, then I would be completely and utterly lost… like a beaver stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert- like a bass guitar that has no strings- like a…”

“Hey Lauren! Are you up there babe?” It was Lindsey wearing the same MatchBox 20 T-shirt. She barged into Lauren’s room, slamming the door behind her. She threw her arms open and gave Lauren the special “look what I have on” look.

“AAAHHHHH!” Lauren screamed.

“AAHHHHOOOHHH!” Lindsey screamed.

“AAHHHOOHHHUUUHHHH!” Tricia screamed, as she too barged into the room wearing the same T-shirt as the others. “We all have the same T-shirt on!” Tricia screamed, “Now we can be T-shirt sisters!”

“AAAAHHHHHH!” they all screamed in unison.

“Hey girls, the boys are going to be so cute at the concert. I hope I find a cutie to hang with!” Lindsey said excitedly.

“I hope so too,” said Tricia, “I want to hang with one that looks like Tom Hanks!”

“OOOHHHH! I can’t wait!” said Lauren.

“Wow! It’s already 4 o’clock! We have to leave for the concert!” said Lindsey.

“So, let’s go!” said Lauren. So just like that, they were off. Off to another adventure in the lives of three teenagers who were all aggressively searching for the meaning of life.

“Pass the Tostitos!” Lauren said to Tricia.

“Do you think Tostitos are the meaning of life?” Tricia replied.

“Maybe,” Lauren said, “but I am really hungry so pass the Tostitos or I will rip off your toenails one by one!”

“You are a disgusting warthog,” said Lindsey, “I hope that you fall down a laundry chute and go through a couple of washes and rinses with the dirty laundry. Maybe that will cleanse your potty mouth and sick mind.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Lauren said.

“Nothing,” said Lindsey.

“Well I think that nothing was something,” said Tricia. “Think about it Lauren. She sort of made fun of you and then tried to say it was nothing. The nerve of some people! I saw something like this on Oprah once. It was when a real life vampire and a skanky whore got into a fight. The whore goes, ‘Hey Vampire Boy, I hope you drink some infected blood’, and the Vampire goes, ‘Hey WhoreBag, what is that supposed to mean’, and the whore goes, ‘Nothing.’ That is sort of the same thing, huh.”

“Whatever,” said Lindsey. Just then they all saw the beautiful sight of the Great Woods parking lot. Lauren started to cry tears of joy. Tricia tried to hold back but her tears also started to flow. Lindsey remained calm, however, and only beeped her horn 60 times before she could regain her normal composure.

“We’re here!” sobbed Lauren, “Does anybody know what time it is?”

“It is 8 o’clock,” said Tricia.

“It took us 4 hours to get here!” Lauren sobbed even louder, “Lindsey, how fast were you driving?”

“Pretty fast,” replied Lindsey, “I think I even pushed it to 35 on route 495 for a little while.”

“That is pretty fast!” said Tricia. “But now it is boy time. Let’s go find some hotties!” So they all went to find some hotties. Lauren found Jean, Tricia found Claude, and Lindsey found Van Damme. And at 8:15 all six of them entered the concert.

The night passed like a dream for the three young ladies. MatchBox 20 played unbelievable, or in other words, just like usual. They all knew all the words to all the songs and they always sang along. They all fell violently in love with the three boys they were with, and asked the boys to marry them on several different occasions throughout the night. The boys evidently played hard to get. Regardless, this was turning out to be the perfect night! Until the Parking Lot… At 11:05 the three girls reached their car in the Parking Lot. They all gave their boys a nice long goodbye kiss and decided to hang out in the Parking Lot for approximately a half-hour, to avoid Parking Lot traffic. Little did they know that this would change their lives. Anyway, three brothers named Jimmy started talking to the three young ladies. However, Jimmy #1 spilled almost his whole cup of beer on Lauren’s cherished T-shirt. “For shame,” Lauren yelled at him, “Leave! All of You! Just Leave!” But the Jimmys did not leave. No, No, No, they did far from leave. Jimmy #2 was mad because of Lauren’s harsh terms and harsh words. So he took out his scissors and slashed Lauren’s shirt… and that was when Lauren passed out.

She woke up the next morning in her own bed, with Lindsey and Tricia crouching over her. “Who are you?” Lauren asked. “Where am I?”

“Oh No!” Tricia cried, “she is anorexic!”

“No she isn’t, you idiot,” Lindsey said, “she is anemic!”

“No,” said the doctor, “Lauren has amnesia. She forgets everything and remembers nothing of her past. I guess without her T-shirt she is like a beaver stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert or a bass guitar with no strings. The sad thing is that your friend Lauren will never be the same, I assure you.”

And the sad thing was Lauren was never the same.

So there you have it, a piece of Mike Najarian from high school. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my childhood and young adulthood. I actually did receive an A on that paper if you were curious about my grade, which I think was very well deserved. Don’t you? You better say yes…