A semi-legendary account of the 2008 Tri-Cities talk-off season, particularly following Jordan Jericho of the Acme Advancement Academy in her chase for a Perfect Year.
Though changes to some actual events have been made in order to best fit readership, this account has been painstakingly put together through countless research and numerous interviews with nearly all involved parties. Its veracity is, therefore, virtually assured, and a reader can feel comfortable in thinking that he or she is reading the definitive guide to competitive talking in 2008.
Part II follows the 2008 season through its final two Majors, the Dr. Pepper Open and the Gregory Dunn Memorial, presented by Tostitos. For Part I, which features the start of the season, see HERE.
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Excerpts
“Do you know who this is?” Shane asked, pointing to the Annual’s stage.
“I don’t recognize him,” Jordan answered.
“Really? I thought you knew every talker.”
“I do.”
At the end of Shane’s point, alone upon the Annual’s stage, there did, indeed, stand a young man whom Jordan, even upon second thought, did not recognize. In the next moment, the young man was announced over the speaker system as Johnny Applewood, of Washington High, and Shane saw Jordan’s confusion multiplied all about; for no one, it seemed, knew of Johnny. Considering the Annual’s status as an end-of-career exhibition for the well-known, there was no worse time than now for a talker to make a debut; however, such was, apparently, to come.
Of what followed, there are, as might be expected, many accounts, with many of them conflicting, as well. Such a situation is, of course, one of competitive talking’s most respected of badges, and all the way back in the annals of the first talk-offs can be found the seeds of the idea; for it does not take long to discern that a particular weekend’s highest quality speech is the one that is, by the hearers, most disagreed upon the week following. Exceptions, as might be expected, abound, and one cannot, for example, simply assume the obscure to be the well done; however, the test of time seems to clearly show that the truly great speeches are those debated after them.
-from Chapter 7
The season’s third Major, the Dr. Pepper Open, being now a little over a week away, the 2008 Midseason Report had been published a week prior, and Shane, in those seven days, had read it through seven times. Much of the ink, of course, concerned Jordan Jericho, and Shane took much delight in reading the praises of his friend and fellow pupil.
One name, however, that Shane found in those pages more than he both expected and liked was Johnny Applewood, that no-name who had so surprised Jordan, Shane, and everyone else at the July Fourth Annual. As it turned out, Johnny was, indeed, as Jordan had suspected, unknown to competitive talking at-large, and the Report used one of its feature articles to tell across several pages the tale of this young man who had so completely beaten the heaviest of odds. A second feature amounted to a short biography of Johnny, which the Report, by virtue of timing, had the scoop on. Moreover, the young man was found all throughout the rest-of-season predictions made by the publication’s pundits, and Shane, during his third or fourth reading, grew frustrated at the fact that counting the instances of Johnny’s name in the Report was not a simple matter.
In defense of that publication, one might say that the Report was under near obligation to so publicize Johnny; for even the most sober dealer in news, such as a competitive talking review, is still subject to the nature of it, that all-mighty inclination to the novel, as much a part of the media’s tendencies as is sensationalism. Reflection, of course, could have reminded Shane of this fact; however, partisan as he felt himself to be, the young man begrudged the many paragraphs and several pages of the Report that seemed to be dedicated to Johnny, feeling certain that they could have been better spent in chronicling Jordan, an all-time talker, and the all-time season that she was currently enjoying. As for the great amount of Jordan that was already in the Report, Shane had little complaint.
The facts of Johnny, as the Report was able to break them, were that, most basic of all, he was a soon-to-be junior at Washington High. Though apparently aware of competitive talking, Johnny had never, before July 4, 2008, competed in a talk-off, and the Report asserted that the young man had never so much as attended a talk-off before his entering in the Annual. The young man’s home was, of course, located by the publication, and though careful to avoid specifics, the Report revealed that Johnny’s family lived rather rurally; in fact, it was found that the young man lived so remote as to just be within the borders for Tri-Cities talk-off eligibility. Much more, there was in the pages of the Report, and whether through the publication’s writing or its information, all seemed tantalizing.
-from Chapter 8
“The second round is not yet done,” Mr. Deku reminded his pupil, “and there is still much talking to be said. After all, when we came here last year, she was in a similar position.”
“Last year, there was Lane, though,” Shane countered. “This year, there’s no one. I’m sure of it.”
Included in Shane’s dismissal, though unnamed, was he who had been, beside Jordan, the most speculated-upon talker going into the 2008 Dr. Pepper Open. Indeed, in the event’s lead up, whatever words not written about Jordan were about Johnny Applewood, the shock winner of that year’s July Fourth Annual who had, according to the Midseason Report, never so much as attended a talk-off before that victory. With both the surprise and unknown factors in his favor, Johnny was the obvious as well as ideal outlet for media speculation, and by those informed fingers, across many articles that served to sate deadlines, the young man was estimated to finish anywhere from a promised and second-shocking first to, in a few cases, a certain and over-hyped last.
As it happened, however, Johnny’s actual outcome proved to be unincluded in that wide range of expert prediction; for though the young man finished well outside the event’s top ten, thereby missing Sunday entirely, none could have imagined the manner in which he did so. After all, who could have predicted that any serious talker, particularly he with all the momentum of being an event’s wonder, would choose to center his speech, fifteen whole minutes onstage, on the goods of communism?
To be true, the talk-off rookie made sure to mention the ideology’s many ills, even stressing them in some cases; however, one of competitive talking’s most elementary lessons states that one should always employ a euphemism while, in the same sense of mind, avoiding all toxic terms, lest their up-hill battle in usage hinder one’s own battle of words. Thus, each time Johnny said communism, at which dropped many jaws, he did so in complete defiance of all convention, and in his naive, amateur manner, he spoke on the subject as if it was any other.
-from Chapter 9
“Is that what this is, Slowpoke?” he asked. “A call-out?”
“No,” Mr. Rodriguez quickly replied, “of course not. Chuck’s is supposed to be a friendly place, after all, and we would not want to harm any good names. Come on, Zachary, let us go and get the lunch that brought us here.”
Mr. Rodriguez, of course, well knew the result that would come to Zachary from a competitive talking duel with Jordan, even considering the fact that the young woman had not engaged in this type of street talking since her own days of being young and foolish enough to think of challenging every prominent talker. Thus, the AAA Academy founder began to lead his pupil away, and so swiftly did he handle the matter that Zarchary nearly missed the opportunity to spoil it. As it was, the young man had been ushered a few steps away before he suddenly turned back, leaning against his leading-from-behind teacher, and tried to land a parting shot on Jordan.
“Remember today as the day you were saved from me,” he said.
“I do not even know who you are,” Jordan quickly replied.
The young woman’s quip drew a chuckle from the small crowd that had gathered at sight of the scuffle, and though disappointed that there would be no call-out, they took delight in the sight of such a send-off.
“You will!” Zachary tried to reply, but the figure of Mr. Rodriguez, along with his own anger, sputtered his words. “You will!”
-from Chapter 10
“Thus, though Voltaire may have spoken them, the words are incorrect. He in whose shadow so very little was planted, much less farmed, famously called the Holy Roman Empire none of its three words, neither holy, roman, nor an empire. Well, a few minutes has heard through his error, which was that of, in his focus over the French crown, forgetting that context is king. A similar error, he made with Milton’s Satan, but that is for another time.
“Here, we can say for ourselves that the Holy Roman Empire was, indeed, holy; for if not there, where? It was, indeed, roman; for where was better claim? And it was, indeed, an empire; for who contests the fact of the Emperor? The Holy Roman Empire was, indeed, the Holy Roman Empire, and Voltaire was, indeed, in his own way, as identified by the Great Gibbon, rather the bigot.”
Thus concluded Jordan Jericho’s first-round performance at the 2008 Gregory Dunn Memorial Talk-Off, presented by Tostitos. Of her five minutes, the young woman officially used just over four and one half, and in that time, she made what became widely regarded as one of the tightest fives of her career. Indeed, many commentators of competitive talking rank the performance as among the greatest first-round showings of all-time, and it is, as the greatest testament to its greatness, regularly cited by teachers as the ideal standard for the stand-up portion of talk-offs, perfectly blending the lighthearted with the incisive.
-from Chapter 11
Rather ironically for something so well-attested, there is some discrepancy as to which talker first attacked Johhny for his prior expressions on communism, thereby starting the chain reaction that saw him become the focus of the Memorial’s final hour. The majority account, which has carried itself to very near a consensus, states that Amy Caldwell, the Dunn After-School talker, first went after Johnny, and we are told that the young woman, having entered the final round in fifth place, saw a major move as her final hope to capture for herself a podium finish in a Major; for her best career performance at competitive talking’s highest level was that of a fourth place finish at that year’s Summ Fest. The minority account, meanwhile, despite conceding that Amy was the first to truly take up the attack, makes a point of noting a few earlier words by Glenn Anderson, and these, apparently, included the debate’s first reference to Johnny’s prior speech. For our purposes here, we can say: Let the truth be as it may.
After this, the general course of events is rather clear, and we are able to follow it rather well. By the two-hour mark, the barrage against Johnny was in full swing, and we are assured that, until this time, the young man had done little more than attempt a few deflections in his defense. Ineffective, as might be expected, this futility inevitably resulted in a frenzy; for the nine other talkers, driven by both necessity and an awareness of each other’s necessity, took turns in taking shots, all nine intent on gaining any ground in the standings that might, through either error or ill fortune of another, be here offering itself in the very throes of the competition. In nearly all such cases in talk-off history, the wounded talker is brought down, and whatever confluence of fate attributable for the takedown in question becomes a lesson to be studiously learned by any up-and-coming talker, thereby never to be repeated. Thus, like a plane crash, such a debate crash is rare and almost never exactly repeated.
As has been abundantly pointed out elsewhere, this case of Johnny being piled on by his fellow finalists bears quite the resemblance to the similar case of Jordan at the 2007 Dr. Pepper Open. Moreover, as competitive talking commentators love to inform us, these similarities run rather deep, and a few, it seems, see some cosmic connection in the two events, as if each ordained the other. To fully address this issue is, of course, outside our present scope, but it would seem a worthwhile point to make that, most likely, the sheer fact of two all-time talkers being so linked between two all-time events is itself enough to create an aura of intense interest, which is ever susceptible to something more. However, we can, again, say: Let the truth be as it may.
