Tao of Gabe: On Ninja Speak, Arguments

Jayna,

I’m probably going to take a week off soon. This is killing me. And Pix’s criticisms aren’t helping.

-Gabe

~~~

Tao of Gabe

Gabe the Jingoistic Beaver here with another lesson in ‘Ninja Speak.’ Ninja Speak is an elusive rhetorical skill practiced by only a handful of beavers worldwide. The goal of Ninja Speak is to give your opponent a concealed yet powerful ego slash that he will feel for weeks to come. It’s the most disheartening of the passive-aggressive oratory arts and the most dangerous to boot.

Boot means ‘use’ today.

Today’s lesson involves debate. A true Verbal Ninja never loses a debate, though it is . Especially when facts are not on their side. Heck, to a Verbal Ninja, facts are like child support payments: they’re impertinent to whether you can sell ducks to foreign individuals under the alias of Gilberto Ramirez.

Which brings us to our first lesson:

*use random facts. It’ll sound like you’ve put things together that your opponents haven’t. Try making the claims as wild and ridiculous as possible. The aim of the game is to keep them guessing where you’re going so that they lose track of their own argument.

*Bring the argument back to something you know. It is far easier than debating amongst things you do not and you’d be surprised how easily people let you guide the argument. All you have to do is do all the talking and pull the ‘expert’ card. Even if your expertise is completely unrelated.

*Use foreign words. Many people mistake this as ‘use big words,’ but big words only work against people that have a small vocabulary and those are the same people who won’t give in when they don’t understand something. They’ll insist the tax code can be explained in two sentences, but ‘intellectuals’ complicate things to look smarter. And they’re right: you’d just need a hell of a lot of semicolons.

*Kidnap their children. I can get away with inciting you to do illegal actions because I’m a humor columnist. If I were the fashion beaver, I might get arrested. Heck, wear plaids and dots, the fashion police can’t touch me.

*Give backhanded compliments. Pepper the argument with backhanded compliments.

*If all else fails, be nice. There’s nothing more disconcerting than a person who’s been beaten who doesn’t accept the defeat. The entire time you concede, have a knowing smile on your face and good thoughts in your head. You should be thinking of nothing but frilly flowers, fluffy kittens, pastel butterflies, rainbow kisses, and stars.

Just remember the cardinal rule of Ninja Speak: never use these powers against women. It’s not that it’s wrong, it’s just that they’re immune to logic. A woman always has the last word in an argument. Anything the man says after that is simply the start of a new argument.

Love you dearest,

Gabriel D. Groundhog

(Everyone’s a Groundhog on Groundhog day!)

“Remember Kids: Ninja Speak should only be used as self-defense… Or if it’ll be really, really funny at the time.”

February 2, 2006 at 1:20 am | In Gabe the Beaver's solo career | | No Comments

Tao of Gabe: On Writing the Tao of Gabe

Jayna,

This how to guide got me through writing this how to guide.

Love,

Gabe

Tao of Gabe

Gabe the Iconoclastic Beaver here with a lesson in humor writing. You might well have incorrectly gathered that writing humor is simple from my skillful presentation in this prestigious paper.

Ha ha. I hadn’t realized I’d already started with the jokes [JAYNA: You know I love you (in that naughty no-no way)].

Okay, first some tips:

1. Humorous topics make boring stories and boring topics make even more boring stories. The thin line is one such that it makes one out of every hundred people say “that’s not funny!” in an indignant voice—the indignant voice is important—often times the other 99 burst out laughing at the one person’s nasal voice.
2. Hire an indignant, nasal person.
3. Offend both sides equally. For instance, on religion, you might say “Jesus recanted on the cross,” but you must immediately follow that with “and all atheists’ head and ass are interchangeable.”
4. Use random words oddly juxtaposed [EDITOR: Not only is the grammar in this sentence purposely badly written, but so is the grammar in this sentence]. For instance: quasi-homoerotic bubble gum and diabolically mellow jumping beans can both describe either foods or personal states [JAYNOPOLOUS: use some funny clipart for this].
5. Border on para-hallucinogenic paranoia… but you already knew that. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?
6. Avoid brute jokes. A brute joke is anything that’s so obvious, 25 percent of the audience has already thought it up before. It can also be any joke having to do with beer, sex, or bodily functions (except for certain types of burping and explosive flatulence, those are still funny). See most college newspaper’s humor columnists or CBS’ late show(s) for examples of this.
7. Avoid numbered lists or you’ll end up making up a number seven just to satisfy the audience’s sense of symmetry. This is especially difficult for me as my right forepaw is so much more muscular than my left… for some reason.

Next, the process:

1. Think of a topic. It generally has to either interest you, the reader, or fall into the metaphysical, possibly non-existent category of ‘objectively funny.’ Possible examples of objectively funny things are: an old man slipping on a banana peel, a large man getting nutted with a hackey sack, and the exact opposite of the Family Circus. Here I could either be referring to the comic strip or the magazine, both ways apply and people will usually react to that which offends them the most.
2. Start with a standard introduction. I use ‘______________ reports’ [JAYNINSANE: pick whichever writer has the best sense of humor and put his/her/their/its/my name in the blank] because of trademark issues with a Gabriel Dwight Berver of Chupadero, New Mexico (pop. 318).
3. Write text. Make sure there’s some semblance of a connection between each two or three sentence paragraph.

People don’t say “loosy goosey” enough anymore.

4. Come back to the paper several hours and some illicit substances later and add jokes to the end of each paragraph.
5. Come back after that and edit the paper while sober.

If you’re in a real rush, like I am, you can safely ignore 1, 2, and 5 with dishearteningly few consequences.

Finally, the closing. You must have a good closing. People who’ve read 400 words with only four and a half laugh beats are going to need a good closing. I recommend “sex you later” as it instantly gives you street cred in the sexual circles.

Love you now,

Gabe D. Beaver

“Remember Kids: If you hear of any sexual circles, let me know. They have to exist, they just have to!”

January 26, 2006 at 7:48 pm | In Gabe the Beaver's solo career | | 1 Comment

Tao of Gabe: Welcome Back

Dear Fans,

Gabe the Hysterical Beaver here welcoming you back to another warm and joyous semester of beaver-related hijinks.

I’m your local newspaper’s humor columnist. As a 3’ 1” beaver with a bitch for a wife, a fox for a girlfriend, a paid off mortage, common and preferred stocks in Turner broadcasting, plenty of free time, a receding hairline-fracture in my skull, and a tame, sober, and chaste demeanor, I can relate to you, your mind, and your body in ways even you can’t. Ways that can only come from experience.

Think about that for a moment before you go on to the next paragraph.

…

I can relate to you with the experience that comes from a life of surfing Myspace for bands and poorly disguised pornographers asking to be my friends.

Apart from that, as I’ve already received a certificate of completion of remedial art from a prestigious university in Europe, I am well aware of both the pressures of uni life and the usefulness of a university diploma after graduation (hint: it’s about as useful as your high school diploma is to a blind, dyslexic mime with Alzheimer’s).

In fact, I’m thinking of creating a novelty toilet paper out of undergraduate diplomas. Or replacing the diplomas with something more useful for day-to-day living: like an oversized brick.
Thus, it is from my similarities to you and my advanced experience that I can weave humorous essays from which you will be incessantly amused.

‘Incessantly’ in this usage means ‘momentarily.’

Through these essays we will collectively laugh, uniformly cry, and alternately chuckle and gasp in offense. Remember: nothing here is serious. Everything here is a lie. Heck, even this sentence is a lie!

Actually, that’s not true.

So let me know what you would like to read. Remember Kids: this is your paper too! (In all but name, title, and all intents and purposes. Offer not valid in California.)

Just be careful to not ask me for advice. I’m not legally allowed to give you any (despite my doctorate in differential phrenology). I am, however, legally allowed to Incite you to set your underwear on fire. Isn’t media law fun?

It’s a little known fact that I first applied to the [insert paper name here] as an advice columnist. It’s also a little known fact that I first applied to USA Today as a horticulture specialist. The fact that my letters of interest were so amusing to the editors is something I take great pride and offense in.

To me it is the equivalent of being told that I caused your collective mother incessant pleasure.
‘Incessant’ in this usage is ambiguous.

Ha ha. Take that audience’s expectations! Ahh, welcome back. We missed you… but this is going to be a long semester.

Love, incessantly,
Gabriel D. Beaver

“Remember Kids: As a humor columnist with a current poetic license, I can get away with writing sentence fragments that would blacklist a weaker writer. Like this one.”

January 19, 2006 at 9:23 pm | In Gabe the Beaver's solo career | | No Comments

Tao of Gabe: On Finals Dreaming…

Gabe the Gorgeous Beaver is finally done with his final exams. And now all I have to do is wait for the results that will tell me whether my beaver papillomavirus (BPV) is still malignant.

Failed pick-up lines: “Quick! Let’s do it while it’s in recession.” You , too, have probably dealt with finals (and possibly BPV). Actually, you probably just finished some of your own. (The finals, not the BPV.) Boy, aren’t you glad that you studied all semester and read your assigned texts regularly? Those silly short-sighted students that leave everything to the last minute. Boy, I don’t envy them for a second!

The life of the uni student is great. The only things that get in the way are classes and those pesky grades. But now that you’re done, all you have left to do is relaaaaax & until the grades come in and you realize how poorly you fared.

Failed pick-up lines: I’ve been tested for VD and the results were ‘inconclusive,’ baby.”

For the next few weeks, your life will be perfectly grand. Unless, of course, you’re moving out, moving in, getting a job, losing a job, graduating, celebrating a holiday with family, avoiding festivities alone, going through personal issues, dealing with other people’s personal issues or are a victim of one of the illnesses that is going around (the common cold, the flu, herpes … ).

To wind down after a semester of grueling study and prepare yourself for a long winter (it’s happy to see us), I’d recommend a night out playing strip/drinking Risk!” with your friends. I hear you can do it online now, too. Only instead of “strip,” it’s “rented porno, and instead of “drinking, it’s “crying into your pillow.” Also, you have no friends. — And nobody likes you. –
And you probably failed all your classes.

Or you could console yourself with the fact that someone somewhere had it worse than you this year. It’s true. Behind every stressed undergrad, there’s a graduate student who is researching how to tie a noose.

Every finals week, I have a dream in which I show up to my final exams only to realize that there was a class I never showed up for throughout the semester, and I need to make up for it by doing phenomenal on this exam. You might recall that dream by another name: freshman year.

Luckily, you are momentarily done with all that. Now you must concentrate on surviving Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas and the Solstice without killing someone for their parking spot.
A semester of uni should have given you adequate preparation for this. Sadly, as civilized creatures, stress never leaves us. Stay up all night thinking about that one, if you will. If only there were some sort of formula for liquid relaxation the way there is for luck (Felix Felicis).

Then again, I guess there is. Only we call it alcohol.

Happy holidays, children.

Finally: Love,
Gabe D. Beaver

“Remember Kids: Everyone fights themselves sometimes. It’s just that when I do it, I win.”

December 8, 2005 at 5:31 pm | In Gabe the Beaver's solo career | | No Comments

Tao of Gabe: On Love Analogies

Tao of Gabe

I’m Gabe the Fantastic Beaver and I’m in love. If you have never been in love, it is a strange feeling that I can’t really describe to you but with a series of increasingly terrible metaphors, similes, and analogies.

Love is like oxygen: it’s really a poison, but we need it to live. And if you have too much fire, it is consumed that much more quickly… also it corrodes apples and iron.

Or perhaps love is more like a credit card: you can get what you want now, but the things that you do stay with you far beyond the life of the actual credit card.

Love is like a camera: it captures the moment, but you have to pay to develop it… Unless it’s digital, in which case you can see the moment while you take it and perhaps decide you want to delete it from your memory so as to make room for more moments.

Love is like a fine wine: the deeper the red or whiter the white, the younger it is. Some keeps, some doesn’t, but if you stick a cork in it and lay it on its side for a few years, when you do bring it out, it will be that much more special.

Love is like a terrible analogy: people will scratch their head or laugh at the randomness but if there’s nothing to ‘get’ then even those that ‘get’ it won’t ‘get it’. Get it?

Love is like a VCR: it takes forever to program it, but once you do, you don’t need to touch it again until Daylight Saving Time… or the power goes out.

Love is like a phone: if it’s off the hook, nobody can reach you.

No, wait.

Love is like a phone: it connects you with a person… unless they’re busy, in which case you can connect with another person or try again later.

Love is like a poltergeist. If you’ve experienced it, no matter what anybody else says, nobody can convince you otherwise. It moves you and everything around you. And, if you’re not ready for it, you might be afraid at first and try to run away.

Actually, that last one was pretty good. I’ll stop there. Then, I’m going to content myself with knowing that you’re going to walk around all day thinking about what love is like and trying to come up with a better analogy than me. Luckily, better is relative.

And I have no relatives.

Except for my mom and my cousin Dave.

…But even though he’s an author, he’s not much better than me.

Besides, he’s only written two books: So you’ve ruined your life and its hit sequel, Baby’s first Pop-up.

Love is.

Love is a closing,
Gabe D. Beaver

“Remember Kids: Love lifts us up where we belong… Now look at where you’re standing and think about that for a bit. (Psst! You’re still on the ground.)”

November 28, 2005 at 5:42 pm | In Gabe the Beaver's solo career | | No Comments