Rob S. Friedman
September 2024
Boy, I Say Boy!
Chancellor Sanders, Provost Perdue, eminent faculty and imminent graduates of Chicken Tech, today is your day. Ol’ Leghorn won’t castigate you for not paying attention and I won’t be paddling poor Barnyard Dawg. Unwind your expectations of hearing “I say, I say, boy” — it’s not going to happen. As an alum, I’m here to support your proud moment with a word to the wise.
I’m proud of strutting down the Champs-Élysées once we Doughboys whooped those Nazis — not the decades of playing the overbearing buffoon, still bumping around your parents’ memories. That’s another storyboard, the one where your grandmothers fill their kids with Frosted Flakes and Nesquik, sugar-charging the absurdly happy violence of Merrie Melodies.
My booming baritone and down-home banter may have made them come back for more, but I’m not proud of crooning Foster’s Doo Dahh lines of racist minstrelsy that those fascists at Loony Tunes scripted this rooster to hum between gratuitous beatdowns.
Take note, roosters and hens: take care whose direction you take. Even these bloviators on the roost behind me here at Chicken Tech. Direction from egoists will trip up your fortunate future, when fate and chance are singing in the same key all the live-long day.
Rob S. Friedman 