It's almost the end of prom

season, and for the last-minute,

penguin-suited Romeo, no accessory

is more crucial than a slammin'

ride. Fortunately for kids in

the San Francisco area, Bauer's

Limousine Service offers a

variety of transportation

options, from hot-air balloons

to the popular urban assault

vehicles, which the Bauer's site

mislabels "hummers." (And while

we're on the subject, let's get

something straight: A hummer is

a blow job; the boxy military

conveyance coveted by decadent

Web trillionaires and Mogadishu

snipers is a humvee.) But the

season's real attention-getter

is Bauer's stretch limo sport

utility vehicle. We don't know

whether this is part of a

nationwide trend in all-terrain

glitter, but we called up

Bauer's to get the 411 for our

Just when we feared independent

thought might be stamped out

forever, the eruption of Jar Jar

Binks loathing suggests The

People may yet have some fight

left in them. "Jar Jar seems

like a total fruitcake who

couldn't tie his own shoelaces,"

TJM opines on Yahoo BBS,

seconding the view of

cloud9freak78, who declares,

"the plot is good, but i hated

the freaking character jar-jar."

In a jeremiad titled simply

"JAR JAR BRINKS-WHY?," mochiba

hastily types, "THET TRIED TO

USE HIM AS COMIC RELIEF BUT THEY

SHOULD OF LET THE STORY STAND ON

IT'S OWN MERITS (WHICH IT

CERTAINLY CAN)." Granted, true

Lucas devotees seem to have

accepted the Gungan swamp

creature with their

characteristically creepy lack

of resistance, but actor Ahmed

Best's hammy "ethnic" vocal

stylings prompted Corey3rd to

declare, "Jar Jar Binks is 1999

Amos plus Andy." And one actual,

paid movie critic says Jar Jar

does to this movie what Chris

Tucker did to The Fifth Element

- an airtight condemnation from

which, in our opinion, there can

be no appeal. Other reviewers

are just relieved that the Star

Wars universe finally has a

character more idiotic than

Chewbacca. Still, don't ask us

for comment. We decided to skip

this movie once we realized

Darth Maul would be played by

one Ray Park and not by smooth

jazz legend Ray Parker Jr., as

we originally thought. But we've

already got our places in line

for the 20th-anniversary

rerelease of The Phantom Menace

Special Edition. We understand

that by that time, Natalie

Portman's freshman-drama-class

English accent will be digitally

enhanced, and ILM will have

replaced towheaded virtual actor

Jake Lloyd with an entirely more

lovable special effect.

Star Wars perverts are fond of

suggesting that we ignore the

stuffy critics and "just sit

back and enjoy" the movie, and

lately even the highly

consolable George Lucas has been

cheering himself up with the

reflection that critics have

always "trashed" his films. (He

must be thinking of Vincent

Canby, who called the original

Star Wars "fun and funny" and

"the most elaborate, most

expensive, most beautiful movie

serial ever made," or of Roger

Ebert, who places the new movie

"at the threshold of a new age

of epic cinema.") But not all

critics are such gloomy Guses.

As promised last week, here's

part of a Star Wars review by

Harry Knowles, all in the bubbly

cinéaste's actual words:

"[Eating the blubber of a dead

gray whale] is not about money,"

said Makah tribe harpooner

Theron Parker. "[Rather,

devouring the gristly carcass of

an intelligent sea mammal] is

about a great tradition." This

seemed to be the shaky

consensus after the

no-longer-landlubbing tribe

finally bagged an unsuspecting

whale Monday. Viewers of the

Outdoor Life Network's new

environmental show, The Thin

Green Line, may have been

surprised last week when the

Makah hunt got a sympathetic

hearing from host Adam Werbach,

the alarmingly buoyant former

head of the Sierra Club. No

doubt, the nuanced coverage may

have been due to the fact that

Native Americans are really

spiritual and, like, down with

the planet, but a more ringing

note was struck by guest

commentator Julie "Butterfly"

Hill, best known for her ongoing

vigil atop a 200-foot redwood

tree. The battered activist is

more articulate on TV than in

the occasional poems that appear

on her Web site, and it's

encouraging to see Hill reaching

an audience beyond her woodland

friends. The show itself serves

as a reminder of how rare

concerted coverage of

environmental issues has become.

Still, watching Hill after her

17-month, treetop stay makes us

grateful that Lucasfilm has not

yet perfected Smell-o-vision.

The City of New York is hoping

to block a 27 May auction of

"1965 red diary with three

bullet holes," an artifact found

on the person of Malcolm X after

the legendary firebrand was

assassinated in February 1965.

Police are attempting to figure

out how this US$50,000 piece of

Americana made its way from a

Brooklyn evidence warehouse to

the San Francisco auction house

Butterfield & Butterfield.

Legally, the item should have been

returned to Betty Shabazz,

Malcolm X's subsequently

incinerated widow. One Suckster

who has experience trying to

recover his stolen property from

that very same evidence

warehouse suggests the boys in

blue cast their eyes inward. In

our case, the good news that the

police had recovered a stolen,

expensive watch devolved into a

Kafkaesque ordeal in which we

were allowed only to see and

identify the item, before watching

it disappear into the evidence

storehouse, where it lingered

for months after the relevant

trial was dismissed.

Evidence-yard apparatchiks

denied the existence of the item

entirely until, having struggled

through ever-sterner corridors

of power, our correspondent

finally coaxed them into

surrendering a watch - which,

needless to say, was not the

actual watch but a busted

Timex. Our correspondent threw

in the towel at last, and one of

New York's finest now has a

lovely, doubly stolen Adolfo. As

Suck insists on looking at the

bright side, we'd like to note

that the cops did not stick

a plunger up our reporter's ass,

and unlike Malcolm X, our

reporter will probably not have

his life story shoveled into an

insipid Spike Lee joint.

Since Terry Colon is the only

Suckster who regularly engages

in what can be called "work," we

feel he is entitled to the

occasional day off. However, the

waves of panicked email we

receive from soi-disant

Colonfanatics every time we

attempt to bring in a guest

artist have convinced us that

our readership is slightly less

open to change than Modern

Maturity's. Since we want you to

enjoy the talents of our

occasional contractors without

niggling fears of Terry's death,

disfigurement, or bodily

ascension into heaven, we

present the previous image,

whose occasional appearance you

should interpret

hieroglyphically as meaning

"Terry Colon's Day Off." Just

like Ferris Bueller's but

without the pain-in-the-ass

sister.