Tao of Gabe (Lachlan Review): On Conception Day 2005

Gabe the Revolutionary Beaver here at the Lachlan Review (or as I call it, the ‘View) with a review of Conception Day 2005.

It seems that every year Conception Days and first years get smaller. Though this year, our day was particularly fun because we didn’t have to see any new and interesting people. That is, of course, unless those sly devils managed to sneak in with the “SAM Card” that the good people at SAM made us get (it’s very useful for insignificant discounts in all of the many locations convenient located entirely within the SAM building).

In any case, the day started off somewhat slow, and there were at least three DJs that didn’t play to any audience whatsoever, but as soon as everyone woke up (about two, two thirty) the place began to fill like parking spots during final exams.

Now, a typical review of a day would tell you which musicians were danceable and which ones made your ears bleed. Unfortunately, since a musician’s level of suck was directly and inversely proportionate to my distance from them, I can only review the good portions of the day.

That reminds me. Who here can’t get enough Béóncé? I know I can’t. I like her so much, I’ve even looked up how she spells her name and accented it correctly (the other two are smudges, ignore them). I even went back to the indoor DJ stages time and time again and was shocked and aroused by the fact that they kept playing her latest song (the one with the music) over and over again.

And over and over again.

Damn, now I have that blasted song in my head.

But aside from that, rain, and the splendid and terrible music (You would have said ‘terrible and splendid music.’ It’s the curse of the music critic: I like whatever groups you don’t), Conception Day was great. There were even a couple of people in skin-tight outfits, a phunky guy in a cape, and myself: a meter-high walking, talking beaver. You didn’t see me? Oh, that’s fine; we probably overlooked each other.

Love,
Gabe D. Beaver

“Remember Kids! The Lachlan Review, now with humour too (while supplies last, not available with any other offers, limit one per customer per day, for a limited time only, please see dealer for more details).”

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It’s about Gender, my Friend

Bah. I had a whole post written, but decided it was too emotional, even for my current trend. Essentially the post asked, “why do genders matter in platonic friendships?”

Which they do, often to the point where it borders on non-platonicity. But enough about that. No one wants to hear me wonder how I would act differently if my male friends were female and my female friends were male. The change would change so many things that it’s just useless to wonder that.

No, what I want to say is that the very concept of platonic friends is skewed. Friendship, as I tried to show in this post, is not an on/off thing like my hairstyles are. Friendship is more of a broad spectrum. At one end you have Mortal Enemies, at the other you have True Friends, right in the middle are Strangers. It’s a bell curve (for most people), and like all bell curves, there are many, many, more Strangers than there are True Friends or Mortal Enemies.

Allow me to illustrate:

Mortal Enemies/Enemies/People you Dislike/Annoyances/One-way Strangers/Strangers/Byte-sized Acq./Friendly Acq./Buddies/Good Friends/True Friends

If your browser didn’t show awesomeness: get a new browser. The point is that the scope of Platonic Friendships and that of Non-Platonic Relationships (the term should be Erotic, but that’d mean something different to this audience) have similar points, but aren’t even on the same realm.

Case in point: You may hate your Ex, but he or she cannot be a Mortal Enemy. Ever. Whereas a True Friend can become a Mortal Enemy in much the same way a Life Partner (for hatred of the term ‘Soul Mate’) can become a Dreaded Ex.

Perhaps in a future post I will elaborate on the scope of Erotic Relationships (oh, grow up! Or get a Greek-English Dictionary).

The point is that unfortunately, any person you meet who is of your preferred gender will automatically be associated, in your mind, with the Erotic Relationship scale rather than the Platonic Friendship scale. You can stop this thinking, of course, but you’ll have to be around each other for a long time– in a friendly capacity– to break your minds out of the Erotic Relationship scale and back into the Platonic Friendship scale (the guy’s mind is usually the one that needs the extra push).

Unfortunately, it’ll take a lot of training to break yourself out of the cycle altogether, and even then, the other person will likely still be stuck in it.

Such is life.

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Tao of Gabe (Round Up): On Media

Gabe the Stupendous Beaver here, to enlighten and snub you. Be glad, I usually save that particular combination for Mother’s Day.

The question of the week is: Gabe, if you bash the media so much, why are you printed in the media?

Simple, kids, just because I poke fun of some media, doesn’t mean I hate each individual medium. I like newspapers if only because:

This is a whole paragraph.

Media is important to any free society (this message brought to you by Geico). But the problem is that media have to be self-sufficient, or else they’ll be as biased as purple dinosaurs in public television (don’t trust Barney, he’s a godless Commie. This message brought to you by ASNMSU). So media take advertising to inform. But since nobody likes information or advertising, the media also add entertainment (if you mention how I’m considered entertainment, I’ll smack you. This is an opinion piece, I’m allowed to do that).

But even the quality of that suffers. I’ll explain:

Have you ever been around a whole bunch of friends and you find yourself laughing at the stupidest things? The reason for that is that, since you can’t discuss deep and insightful topics (project: have a heart-to-heart with more than three people simultaneously), you end up playing to the lowest common denominator.

A general rule of thumb is that the larger the aggregation, the more basic the motivation need be. For instance, the speech needed to inspire your friend to light his underwear on fire must be a thousand times better than the speech needed to get 1000 people to light his underwear on fire for him.

Compare the dialogue between a personal interview with a political candidate:

“I believe that, though the economy is suffering a minor slump, my competitor’s plan will actually be worse for it will tie up transactions at an unparalleled level, leading to a result that is worse for the nation as a whole.”

and the same candidate on a stump speech:

“They want to enslave our free market!!”

Therein lay the problem for the mass media: how to communicate to a bunch of people no smarter than the same amount of grapes? We’re not talking about you, we’re discussing this on the hypothetical level.

Hypothetical means ‘imaginary.’

‘Imaginary’ means ‘not really real.’

So we’re forced to throw in silly things like comics, crosswords, movie times, and even horoscopes (by the way, watch out for Scorpios with birthdays coming up).

It’s that tension then, between what we want to write (Letters to Penthouse), what we have to write (this), what you want to read (Dr. Seuss), and what you have to read (Assistant Professor Seuss) that I make fun of. Of course, since that’d be too complicated to say, I just condense it all to “the media.” It’s a very ‘in’ thing to poke fun at. I know. The media told me so.

Mass Love,
Gabe D. Beaver

“Remember Kids: I love you, but only in a platonic, uncomfortable, but not yet illegal way.”

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