for 31 January 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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From the Mouths of Babes Subject: Poor Elián Dear Suck Solomon or Just Suck: Your article on poor Elián strikes a chord. Think of all of the kids who rather quietly reside in poverty in the United States because being poor ain't no day at Disney with Kathie Lee. Maybe they should jump in an inner tube and float in Lake Michigan with the hopes of getting a cute dog and year-round passes to amusement parks. Drew Anderson <danderson9@uswest.net> While your comments are correct, they are in another, more accurate way wrong. Indeed, the INS has long dissuaded youthful tire-tube migrants from Haiti precisely by warning those downtrodden souls that, if they in fact make it to American shores, they will immediately be forced to spend a day at Walt Disney World with Kathie Lee Giff (who will beg for anal sex in the "make-your- own-videotape" parlor) and the rest of that happy family. Given that possibility, grinding Third World poverty suddenly looks pretty swell. Cordially, Solomon Grundy  I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I ENJOYED THIS COLUMN. I UNFORTUNATELY LIVE IN SOUTH FLORIDA, AND HE IS ALWAYS ON THE NEWS, WHICH MADE ME STOP WATCHING THE NEWS. THEY COVER EVERYTHING HE DOES, FROM GOING TO SCHOOL TO PLAYING OUTSIDE TO GOING TO THE CIRCUS. I AM WAITING FOR THE ELIÁN HANGNAIL STORY NEXT. THANKS FOR THE LAUGH. GIGI <Sissisonik@aol.com> Dear Gigi, Here's the saddest part of your letter: When Elián's gone — whether back to Cuba or to a gig as a plate-spinner in the Mulan parade extravaganza at Disney World — you'll still be in South Florida. One eerily unexplored sidebar to this whole tale of international — nay, intergalactic — misery is precisely why anyone lives in that entire quadrant of the planet to begin with. Cordially, Solomon Grundy Subject: Gary Coleman You forgot to mention Gary's 900 number deal. For a pay-per-minute charge, he's talking sexy to woo the ladies. It makes me wanna puke. Looking for extra cash, Gary? You mean you guys didn't hear about this? He must have really hit rock bottom. I wish you could find the number to listen to this trash. I heard it replayed, and it still makes me ill to think about it. Ugh! Wicks <dwicks@primary.net> We're not just former child stars here at Suck; many of us are former (well, not quite former) sex workers as well. So we take a much more positive view of Gary Coleman's 900 number. Pace you and your uptight bourgeois morality, it shows Gary is on a creative and commercial upswing, especially as it beats his talking dirty to Conrad Bain and Charlotte Rae for all those years on Diff'rent Strokes. Cordially, Solomon Grundy Vending Machine Shakedown Greetings Alice the Camel: I loved the way you ended the piece, indicating that the informal rules of the marketplace prevail. One solution is for the price-sensitive consumer to carry a small cooler of store-brand soda. Of course, "price sensitive" means doing away with the convenience of not being a pack mule away from home. With all of the different price models in today's marketplace, perhaps a vending company might even deign to lower prices of cold cola in hot weather, expecting that the volume of sales might compensate for lower per-unit margin. A flashing light (Kmart-style) could even promote the "sale," allowing this technology to benefit both consumer and merchant. Peace, love, 'n' capital gains, Daniel Corvino Trenton, New Jersey <DANCORV@aol.com> Thanks for the props, my brother. I think you might be on to something with this small cooler of store- brand-pop idea. In fact, a can of Fastco Diet Root Beer sounds really good right now. I gotta go. the Camel Subject: Sigh Every time I see a huge corporation trying to rip the consumer off, it just makes me want to reload another clip in my assault rifle. I mean, Jesus, how much money is going to be enough? I'm scraping by so I can have a pack of cigarettes, and Coke wants to pinch me for another quarter because I just broke a sweat in the damn heat? Give me a break. Nathan Schill <nas@yourinter.net> Yeah, assault rifle ... um, me too. Thanks for the feedback, (gulp) the Camel Messenger Service I thought you were in the army. When do you get time to write this stuff? Cisco Velasquez <fvelasqu@ball.com> One paragraph — 25 push-ups, one paragraph — 25 push-ups, one paragraph — 25 push-ups. Repeat until completion. It's been scientifically proven that you write better while you've got your swole on. True! Beers hi. i read suck. i've read your articles. i wrote you mail once. you replied. i saved it. can't say the same for replies from the other sucksters i've written. anyway, um, i read about this army thing (a bit too late. i took a suck hiatus this summer so i'm just catching up these days; my suck reading vastly declines when i don't have a stupid job that plops me in front of a web-equipped pc every day). it's weird. my first reaction was "um, ha, a joke." my second reaction was "um, ha, haa ha, funny? joke?" then i figured it was serious. i'm back to thinking it might be some elaborate joke. i'm so anti-military (not in a military-is-evil sort of way, but in an anti-authority- post-adolescent sort of way). so i just sort of weird out a bit when i hear about someone i can hold a coherent conversation with being in the military. one of my irc friends joined the marines. one of my friends who wore a dress one day to high school did too. he just got out, though. but i'm digressing all over the place. anyway, assuming it's true and you're in the army, good luck and stuff. have fun. i liked your email a lot and your articles, so don't, um, have problems. thanks. bye. christian nutt First of all, best use of declarative sentences since Sherwood Anderson. Now. It's not a joke, at least not in the "funny thing that someone made up" sense. And I'm having no problems, except for spectacular, mind-altering boredom and a mostly unmet need for an interesting conversation, just every once in a while. And the woman I was dating is dating a lawyer now and doesn't talk to me anymore, but she lives in Los Angeles and I live in Shithole, Georgia, and she thinks I'm insane for leaving, so that's maybe not so surprising. But thanks for the concern. Judging by the reaction I got that one time I was stupid enough to listen to the Smiths in the barracks, your dress-wearing friend must have had a really enjoyable term of service. Yeah. Wow. Peace, Chris Dear AB: Having nothing to add to your witty diatribe, I will tell you a joke that an Iranian friend told me (very much in private) when I was there. An American, a Japanese, and an Iranian are in an airplane, each bragging that theirs was the richest country of all. First, the American: "We're so rich and have so much food that we throw food away all the time." With that, he reaches behind him, pulls out a freezer full of steaks, and throws them out of the plane. "That's nothing," says the Japanese. "In Japan, we're so wealthy and have so many electronic gadgets that we throw away all our electronics as soon as we get them." And with that, he reaches behind him, pulls out an entire sack of Sony TVs, and throws them out of the plane. "Bah, this is nothing," says the Iranian. "Here in Persia, we are so rich and have so much religion that we throw it away all the time." With that, he reaches behind him, pulls out three mullahs by their beards, and throws them out of the plane. Trust me, you had to be there. Except for the minority that is getting rich from it and another truly devout minority that turns a blind eye, most Iranians have come to hate the mullahs: not for religious reasons, since your average Iranian is a pretty religious Shiite, but because they have become horribly corrupt. Turns out that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there is still nothing new under the sun. Nice piece. Thanks. Alan S Kornheiser <ASKornheiser@prodigy.net> You know, I bet there are all kinds of really enjoyable subversive Iranian humor floating around, very quietly, in response to the climate of general not-niceness there. Perhaps someone can publish one of those joke books that people read on the toilet: I'm seeing Madcap Mullahs as a title. I envy your trips to Iran. I work for the wrong employer to attempt this just now — except maybe with a few divisions of armored support, of course — but I very much hope to go someday. So save your unused bus tokens for me, and email the names of some good sports bars in Tehran. These three dissident editors walk into a bar, Chris |
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