Burrito Joe

If you are a friend of mine on Facebook, I apologize and you can skip this entry because I know I've been going on about it all weekend over on the ol' FB. But...for the rest of you:

Friday night Joey closed the door on his public school education. His high school graduation was upon us. Instead of having the class valedictorian speak at the ceremony, the school held auditions for two random students to present a speech to their class. We were proud of Joey for just trying out for the gig...we were even more proud when he snagged a spot...and his mother and I both were beaming with pride the night of the graduation and we heard the speech. Joey delivered a humorous, motivational, and totally engaging address to an audience of not only his peers but at least 1,000 other audience members crammed into every corner of the school's football stadium. There was a thunderous applause when Joey was done entertaining and inspiring the crowd.

After the proceedings, Joey and his mother and I were stopped by tons of people telling us how good Joey was and how impressed or moved they were with his speech. For the evening Joey was a rock star and we were his entourage.

The excitement carried over the next day when a quote from Joey's speech was the headline of the town's newspaper. "The World is Your Burrito" the headline read...a passage from Joey's speech which was actually a quote from a "Weird Al" song. (I have to take a little credit for introducing Joey to the world of "Weird Al" Yankovic.)

Here's a clip from the article:

It was likely the most important speech of Joseph [last name]'s life so far.

And, the [name of school] High School graduate said, while grinning in his cap and gown, he was wearing what can only be described as "a silky dress."

Luckily, 299 other graduates were right there with him at Friday's graduation.

"The world is your burrito," he said, drawing laughs from his classmates. "Think of your future not as a task, but an endless hallway with every door open."

After graduation, about 78 percent of the graduates are going on to higher education, 13 percent are going into the workforce, 4 percent are joining the military and 5 percent are undecided.

No matter what their next step will be, [Last name] encouraged all of the graduates not to waste their potential, but to never forget where they came from. "The past is something that should be cherished," he said.

That past has held many memories for the Class of 2010, from elementary school trips to the zoo and birthday parties, to sports games at the [team stadium], to first loves and first breakups, [last name] said.

Before heading off to Senior Week at the beach...for a full seven days of mini-golf, sandcastles and ice cream sodas - No doubt...Joey had time to upload my home video of his speech onto YouTube. For some reason, the site isn't giving me the code to paste the video on this site, so click through the link below to watch the video of Joey's phenomenal graduation speech.

Click on this link, not the picture, for the YouTube Video of Joey's Graduation Speech

New Stand Up From Joey

First of all, check out this totally 1985 dinosaur painters cap that Joey picked up at the Dinosaur Land gift shop this week. Wow!

Anyhow, you may remember back in February I mentioned that my stepson Joey had done his stand-up comedy act at a benefit variety show that was held at his school, but was open to the general public. Well, we managed to get hold of a video of the performance. There's more security surrounding video tapes at his school than there is on the new Wolverine movie, but Joye managed to borrow the official video of the show just long enough to upload his set. This audience is different from what he's played in the past so if you've seen his other stand-up video you may recognize some of the material. Either way, it's good stuff!



Joey is looking to expand his tour list, so if you know of any open mike nights that a 16 year old can do stand-up at, let us know!

No Respect!

You're probably thinking, "Boy, that's a horrible picture!" And, you'd be right! The sad thing is, this photograph is from our local newspaper. Joey performed some of his stand-up comedy material this past weekend at a benefit talent show at his high school. Joey was among many other talented kids...and not so talented adults...singing, dancing, playing music and acting in the talent show. Our town's newspaper ran a small piece about the show in yesterday's paper and featured this photograph along with a few others. I don't know if the photographer was trying to be artistic or what...but let's face it, this picture now only sucks it's should also be embarrassing to the newspaper. Really guys, you're going to run a photo that is 95% nothing! Wow!

Don't get us wrong...Joey was excited to have his picture and act mentioned in the newspaper, and his mother and I are very proud of him. But this ain't exactly the kind of newspaper clipping that's going to get him book on The Tonight Show anytime soon! Ya know!?

Comedy Central Presents

At the end of every school year Joey's school has a talent show. For the past five years Joey has performed stand-up comedy at these talent shows. It takes a lot of confidence and courage to pull something like this off, and Joey has nailed it every year. This year the school finally made available a video of the show for the students to keep. Here's Joey's performance of all his own original material.

Two Kids in Print

Joey just finished his sophomore year of high school! He brought home the school's literary magazine and showed us that he had two photographs published in it. Joey had taken a photography class and one of his assignments was to experiment with light. Joey snapped a few pictures of Elias with different light sources. One of those pictures made the magazine. So we've got two kids featured in this year's publication. The picture of Elias was used as a background for a poem someone else wrote: