I don’t know why he chose that name and I don’t think he could tell you for certain either. I like to tell myself it originated from his mother, a VERY Filipino woman who made the word “CHRIS” sound like “KARAZZ” any time she yelled at him.

Regardless of origins, the “Oakland Park Posse” that was A-Train and Ka-Razz consumed quite a bit of my Middle School experience. The two of us would spend our money buying cassette singles with instrumental b-sides and our time recording in my room through the microphone connected to my stereo while I told my parents to stay downstairs. Looking back on it now, they probably thought we were gay. But they never said anything. Thanks mom and dad.

We wrote and recorded two full length tapes: “Blood Money” and “Blood Money 2: The Wreckaning.”  Again, I don’t know whose blood or money we were after. All I know is that we were two spawns of suburbia in the nation’s richest county, and “if bitches didn’t come correct they were bound to get wrecked.” Naturally.

We even had a rival “crew” that we “beefed” with. The Midnight Riders: comprised of Joe “Shades” Mannato, John “Lyrical Bullet” Shope (I called him the Lyrical Bullshit because my skill was that ill), and Fat Tony. They were three years older than us and supposedly had a record deal with something called Nitram Records. I saw the business card once and if memory serves correct the address was in a trailer behind what is now a Kohl’s. Death Row who? They were a legitimate threat to our crowns of “Kings of the Mostly White and Affluent Suburban Virginia Hip Hop Scene.” We only had a demo tape. They had a record deal and had performed a live show at Burke United Methodist Church in between an adolescent Guns N Roses cover band and a middle school Punk Rock Quartet. Eventually we “squashed” our “beef” and even made sporadic guest appearances on each other’s “mixtapes.”

Still, after all of that, all of the hours of writing and recording, all of the creating and squashing of beefs, I can only remember one line from one song:

“This game is my castle. I’ve graduated, thrown the hat, and flipped the tassel.”

I’ve often wondered:
Why the hell would I flip the tassel after I already threw the hat?
What did I graduate from? I was only 14 and our middle school and high school were one-in-the-same.
Why did I wear so much FUBU?

Clearly I was not as good an MC as I thought I was.
Probably explains why we never got that deal with Nitram Records.

His name is Paul Watcziowksi.

Paul was not supposed to be in this photo. He is the by-product of a picture of several members of the faculty of the collegiate program from which we graduated two weeks ago. Flipping through shots on the ‘Book (Facebook to the unhip), I was pleasantly surprised to stumble on him as I had remembered a few of us speculating on his situation graduation day.

Someone remarked on his resemblance to an impotent wizard.

Someone else presumed he ate babies not out of hunger, but humor.

One girl claimed he was a member of the biomedical engineering school faculty.

While any one of these may be true, I think he is neither wizard nor murderer nor biomedical engineering professor.

I think he is brought in simply and specifically for one reason and one reason only: To attend University graduation and to look scholarly, brilliant, intriguing, storied, old.

I mean, look at the guy. Dude is made for graduation.

Every year, on a first-come-first-served basis, University presidents pay Paul a hefty sum to fly in for the day of their respective schools’ graduations and give the impression of academic splendor. Scroll up and check out the look on his face. That’s the shit-eating grin of a man being paid $1,100/hour to walk in a procession line and smile and wave to parents and students and look like a bad mofo while doing so.

Look at the conviction with which he’s holding that commencement program. Look at that beard that’s just slightly too long, and the perfectly black-dyed eyebrows contrasted against the grayish white hair on the rest of his head. Look at that bemused expression on his face. That’s not the workings of a 58 year-old out-of-work Minnesota construction worker with asthma who never graduated high school and is not looking off into the distance thinking about quantum physics, but Carl’s Jr. combo meal #6.

That’s the workings of a professional.

I’ve never graduated from anything.  Well, maybe the third grade.  And the second.  And the first.  But that’s about it.  I left school after that.  I was a runaway.  I ran away to a boxcar when I was ten because my mom wouldn’t give me any cookies.

She was quiet and frail looking, but looks are often deceiving.  She was actually quite harsh, with Brillo pad hair, dull and gray and wiry.  Her temper was hot as fire and she had a mole the size of Texas behind her ear that I called Napoleon because it invaded her Brillo hair like a short man on a tall horse.  It was bizarre and made her temper explode when I mentioned it.  I loved talking about it almost as much as I loved cookies.

I attribute my lack of cookies to Napoleon.

I hate Napoleon, both the mole and the man.  And I hate Texas.  And Brillo pads.  And hair.  And anything else that reminds me of those cookies that my mom never gave me when I was ten.  They are the reasons that I ran away from home.  They are the reasons that I never graduated from anything.

A lot of people hate graduations.

High school maintenance workers (senior pranks aren’t funny).

Anyone with a dumpster (“I do not remember throwing out a desk, eighty cans of chili and the notes for Mayan Gender Dynamics.  Huh.”)

Most of the people graduating (“I put all these chemicals in my body thinking it would make wearing a nylon shroud better but it did nottttttttt.”)

But one group hates graduation the most, because it threatens their livelihood.
They dread the coming day when all of a sudden, in a rain of black caps and teary-smiles, their jobs will be threatened and their children may have to be yanked out of tennis lessons.

Those people are television show writers.  Specifically, the writers of teen sitcoms and melodramas.

The reason is obvious.  We’ve all watched in bemused horror as the graduation episode airs, knowing that because there is little creativity in Hollywood, and a whole lot of money, all our favorite characters will be sticking together.

Somehow.
Some way.  The band is sticking together.

And so we get “The College Years”.  We get Dawson and JoJo and Bradley or whatever all living together in Boston.  We get Fez and Hyde working at a camera shop, which, if you’d pitched that to an exec, would probably not have ever made it to the pilot stage.

The show collapses under its own grotesque, improbable weight.  A new crop of fresh skinned teens embarks on the voyage that is high school.  A bunch of TV writers get laid off and have to keep the same Lexus for a few years.

I think I’m going to pitch a show with 15 year olds that all drop out their sophomore year and start doing meth.  I’m going to call it “Montana”.

Graduation is a time to sit back, relax and bathe in the ecstasy that accompanies years of hard work.

Hogwarts is no different.  Just like us, they wrap up their tireless efforts with one, powerful stint of debauchery.  Yes, it is true; Hogwarts has a beach week.

Here is what they will be bringing:

At least three muggle chaperones that can co-sign for the week

Four cases of Mike’s Hard Lemonade

1 bottle of Blue Curacao

Griffinedore’s Gwenty-pack of lubricated condoms

The running from the cops spell: Wingardium Leviosa Swinus

Handcuffs

Footcuffs

Wandcuffs

The directors cut of Requiem for a Dream

An audio recording of Dumbledore singing Vitamin C’s song Graduation

Swimtrunks

A blended racoon

Crazy Flip Flops

Slytherin’s forget-me punch

13 frogs

Hufflepuff’s 90 person hookah

Five pounds of drain hair

Hagrid’s Secret Snozzberry Fungai

30 grams of Voldemort (even Harry wants to try a little)

Ravenclaw’s most awesome, best-in-the-world, not-to-be-missed, cure-all-for-everything brunch

Hermione’s twitter feed

A deck of cards

28 friends

1 week

1 beach house

Pure magic

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(the photo is courtesy of the-spine.com – it is the first image that comes up when you search Harry Potter on google.)

For some reason, though, people are willing to celebrate graduations. And this raises the question “Why?”

In my life I’ve had a lot of graduations. But what exactly did they all mean for me as a person?

1) St. Andews Musical Pre-School – Graduated with honors in triangle and safety scissors.
2) St. Marie’s Kindergarten – Still couldn’t read my diploma, but that didn’t mean we weren’t going to throw a killer party.
3) Babysitters Course – I learned exactly how to save an imaginary child from choking on an imaginary chunk of steak in an imaginary building that was burning down from an imaginary fire. I never actually babysat anyone other than my brother and sisters, and I would have let them choke on the real steak.
4) D.A.R.E – I learned that all the ways to avoid being caught with drugs in the event I ever decided to pick up a black tar heroin habit. I haven’t yet, but those are life skills.
5) Parker-Varney Elementary School – I learned that holding hands can’t get you pregnant but can lead to sexually transmitted diseases such as the rhinovirus or flu. I also learned that wearing suspenders was asking for it.
6) Summerbridge (Program for accelerated inner city youth) – I learned that I was smart enough but too poor for private school.
7) G.R.E.A.T (Gang Related Education And Training) – I learned that I was too much of a pussy to survive a jump in ritual, but that if I avoided joining a gang I could look forward to a middle management position at a grocery or hardware store. That is great indeed.
8 ) Parkside Middle School – I learned that anyone can be cool as long as they are dressed accordingly.
9 ) Manchester High School West – I learned that if you only intend to go to a state school there is no real need for students to apply themselves. I learned that this also holds true for teachers as well.
10) Red Cross Life Guard Course – I learned that you’re pretty much a goner if you ever drown at a pool I’m guarding. I also learned that with the right sunglasses it’s impossible to tell if someone is awake or asleep.
11) University of Connecticut – I learned that education at all levels is standardized. I also learned that four shots of espresso and four shots of hard liquor taken in succession will turn anyone into a monster.
12) VCU Brandcenter – I learned that binge working naturally leads to binge drinking. And that’s OK.

So as you can see, I’m extremely accomplished. No, really, my mother is so fucking proud it’s ridiculous. But I would hope that you can also see that most graduations don’t mean much of anything.
The truth is, a graduation is merely society’s way of saying congratulations for taking the road more traveled. Congrats on doing things the safer way. “Way to do things the way we approve of. Let’s have an awkward BBQ.” That’s not to say it’s a bad thing to graduate, it’s just to say that it doesn’t say much about you as a person. Graduations are merely a ceremony saying “you’ve made it this far, we’re as surprised as you are!”

For this reason, I’d rather give up graduations all together. I’d rather accelerate than graduate. If I say that I’m a College Accelerate it lets you know that I’m picking up steam in life. It references the idea that I’m building on to what I already have. For example, I could use the knowledge I attained from G.R.E.A.T to work my way in to a gang. Then using my knowledge from D.A.R.E I could establish a solid drug ring. The Brandcenter would then allow me to establish the gang within the community for our own differentiated brand of drugs and develop brand equity. See where I’m going with this?

At the end of the day, you may not agree with me. Maybe you love graduations more than tweens love horror movies. Maybe you feel like you are validated by your diplomas. Maybe you just love any excuse for old people and young people to awkwardly socialize in the middle of the day over bowls of dip, cans of “Mountain Lightning” and party napkins with mortar boards on them. I don’t blame you, and the cards with money in them aren’t bad either.