It may as well be our motto:

"four months." Less mantra than

wishful thinking, we've pined

for the death of Suck since day

1, slobbering all over ourselves

with baggy-eyed anticipation of

the day when we slit our digital

wrists and drift effortlessly

into The Big Obscurity. If it

weren't for those damned

contracts! Still, Steve

Steinberg seems to have

inherited the dream, giving the

embryonic Suck meme an expected

lifetime of four months in the

Wired 4.02 Hype List, which

avoids the question most crucial

to us: four months from

publication or four months from

when he must have written it (four

months ago)? We're hoping for

the latter - if we were to

suddenly become irreparably

passé tomorrow, we might

finally begin work on our

much-ballyhooed concepts in

erotic gospel singing.

Then again, the harder you blow,

the harder you go. We've had the

pleasure of digesting no less

than two well-directed diatribes

at the self-proclaimed "Johnson"

of the web, David Siegel. Justin

Hall, whose recent unprotected

encounters with us left him

infected with that nasty daily

content habit, lobbed the first

grenade, penetrating the thick

self-promotional miasma with a

few personal observations. But

while Justin sat pondering the

strange cracks in the pavement,

former Suck honoree Gregg Beato

rode in on his custom,

tricked-out steamroller. His

latest Traffic feature, The

Wayward Web: David Siegel's

Guide to Automythology,

untangles the methodology behind

Siegel's meteoric ascent from

Tekton to master of the physical

realm with surgical precision -

in 9 E-Z lessons, no less! We,

on the other hand, opted to sit

on the sidelines, slathering

nachos down our gullets,

interrupted only by the

occasional guffaw - y'see, the

pain is meant to be shared, and

not unlike those tasty chips, we

invite everyone to take all they

want - they'll make more. (And

our proclivities for prostration

have absolutely nothing to do

with that High Five award we

received...)

We'd often put ourselves on

record as advocates of two-way

communications, until we set up

the SuckU-SeeMe reflector and

made ourselves the center

square. Maybe it's just too

difficult to play Charley Weaver

to our Paul Lynde, but we

realized all media ultimately

longs to be broadcast-only

when we glanced at our

videoconferencing station to see

four men "interacting" (read:

masturbating) to an image of,

um, a pussy cat. Call it

CU-Sleazy or Seedy CU-SeeMe, the

line "Is that a QuickCam in your

pocket, or are you just glad to

CU-SeeMe?" has gone from cute

quip to bad trip. Our answer to

the dearth of TV-like

programming available via

CU-SeeMe: Suck Puppets. Get it?

Not sock puppets, Suck Puppets.

Ha ha. To quote Ron Martinez: "I

can see it breaking wide. Real

wide." Stay tuned.

Not since Klaus Theweleit's Male

Fantasies have we been so

fascinated with the fascist

aesthetic: lean yellow

supporting answers the question

"What do you get when you cross

Hitler and Duchamp?" with a

resounding "Duchamp.", but not

without implicating Duchamp's

work in the process. Perhaps

it's the destiny of things,

then, for us to receive news

that lean yellow supporting has

been given a week to alter its

content "for reasons of morality

and decency," or it will be

removed from its provider's

server. We don't expect Munich.

"Most men experience impotence at

some time in their lives as a

result of stress, fatigue, or

excessive alcohol consumption."

Um, good thing no one here is

getting any (sex, that is). But

if we were and tended to fall

short of the task at hand, we'd

look to the On-Line Guide to

Impotence for help. We might

probe into the FAQ section for

more answers: "I've read that

impotence is often 'just in a

man's head.' Is that true?"

Yes - thanks to the miracle of

modern science, importance AND

impotence have been traced

directly to a man's "head." But

how does the impotent man rise

to the challenge? You guessed it -

the key is a patented potion

brought to you by those

philanthropists at Upjohn.

Caverject: Its name alone will

turn you on. "Clinical studies

prove that when used correctly,

it causes an erection firm

enough for sexual intercourse in

approximately 80% of men,

regardless of cause." But not

firm enough to, say, prop open a

door or smack a kid in the head

with. Regardless of cause.

Seriously, though - we are

grappling with a real pickle,

and the upshot is: "[I]f the

situation persists or interferes

with normal sexual activity,

consult a physician." And if

you're impotent and claim that

it doesn't interfere with normal

sexual activity, then run, don't

walk, to the nearest, uh,

shrink.

We'd like to leave you with a

site that transcends praise, the

kind of site that speaks in such

mind-warpingly honest tones that

you rapidly become convinced it

must be a put-on, reconsider

just as quickly, and ultimately

conclude that it doesn't matter.

Authenticity be damned, this is

the shit. Walter Miller's

rudimentary Prodigy user home

page doesn't feature sleek

backgrounds, clever tables, or

meticulous copy-editing (it

almost seems anti-edited) - but

when Walter giddily notes that

"a few professonnal writers told

me to keap the speling, as i

have a particullar style and

syntax remminissent of diallect

writting--much like Marc Twain

and Willaim Foulkner," we can't

help but agree. We stand in awe.