Golden Grizzlies, it comes with great ambivalence that I give my last formal address, for some foolish human up the administrative ladder has determined I have sacrificed enough time and money to be granted a piece of paper with my name on it.

For three-some years now, I have embraced my inner clown, cut myself open and bled honest opinions to you. You have witnessed my bones and seen me do some impeccably stupid things. You may know me better than I know myself these days.

I thank you all for the vocal support, or mostly hatred, toward my off-beat blackened humor on the backside of this paper many of you use as a napkin for Café O’Bears crumbs. You have watched me grow as a writer, as a humortician. I take writing and humor a lot more seriously than when I started.

Take that with a grain of salt, since I still favor words like smegma and butthole in every article. In fact, I’ve probably done more long-term damage to myself by writing these columns. Who is going to hire me? I will probably end up a lifer at Applebee’s in a real life purgatory. 

In any case of my follies, I hope through my vicarious missteps and expositions I have forced your laughter. One article, one lesson, one single sentence hopefully made you chuckle. That’s what clowns do, after all – make you smile. Or sometimes they’re horrifying and watch you sleep at night. Sometimes sadness lurks behind the painted smile, but it always encourages laughter.

Let’s not get this twisted: I started writing these for myself, not you. You all were collateral damage in my hunt for personal gain. Sorry if I have scarred any of you for life. Mine are permanent. After all, we’ve been warned you can’t erase what’s on the Internet time and again. I have not learned much.

That may be the problem I’m looking at – pigeonholing myself as the clown. I’m pretty certain that human resource representatives from potential jobs have sourced me out online, looked at me and thrown their computers out the window.

I take joking quite seriously, even when it appears childish, and I believe most joke-slingers do. But we are/I am not just a clown. We all share the same skies. We have a similar pulse in us, unless you have a heart murmur or something, in which case you’d better skim this article to ensure you get through the whole thing.

We are all people. We can all do the world a favor and embrace our clowns every once in a while.

Don’t deny your laughter. I’ve been in ruts and I’ve seen a lot of people predicting the end of the world and feeling rather grim about it. Crack a grin. If you truly cannot bring yourself to a smile, I counsel you seek a prescription of Zoloft, or email me and I will raid my mother’s medicine cabinet and give you a grab bag of goodies.

So thank you for letting me share my jokes and heart with you, for having a splinter of interest. Thank you, OU, for never ejecting me from campus, despite the obnoxious public ass I have made of myself.

What am I talking about? Of course you won’t kick me off campus—you want to clean out my bank account! 

Farewell, Hasta la Vista, Good Riddance, YOLO. Remember, peers – smile 🙂 Clowns will always get a smile out of you. Or tears of fear. I’m comfortable with both.