Dan graduated from CalArts last night, with a Master of Fine Arts. Years ago, he had declined to attend his BFA commencement at Webster, so this was his first commencement. It was unlike any commencement that I’ve ever gone to. It was quite the party, quite the wild party. I’ve included some random crowd shots to give the feel of the ceremony. Amanda, Dan’s friend, also graduated last night. The rest of the people pictured, just think of supporting cast. The bad boys and girls of the School of Art lived up to their rep. Condemned to walk last, they suffered an interminable three-hour wait. What took so long, was that each graduate was alloted ten seconds of audio sound track as they walked the stage. Most of the grads had music playing and some tracks were embarrassingly popular. Best sounds went to a south Asian man whose audio recording was a well-timed correction of the pronunciation of his alphabet soup name, “No Dean so-and-so, my name is pronounced, …” Anyway, let’s get back to those bad art students. After the last of them had walked, it was announced that a beloved teacher was retiring. Spontaneously, the entire graduating art school rushed the stage and risked its collapse, much to the consternation of security. It all turned out well though and afterwards food and drink was served.