for 11 February 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Man on the Floor Huckster, Poor Chris Farley. He's been dead over a year now, and he still can't escape vicious, nasty, callow, nihilistic, amoral, and worst of all, mind-numbingly obvious screeds like today's Suck. I was never a big fan of his, but gradually, since his death (which I still believe was pathetic beyond belief), I've come to feel almost protective of the guy's memory, and I never even met him. Suck can do better than this ... or can it? Robert Anderson <roba@cadence.com> I am definitely trying to be as mind-numbingly obvious as possible. But I wonder if I've gotten there yet, since my intention was to satirize Jim Carrey's pretensions and the news media's genuflections in the face of those pretensions, rather than Chris Farley's. Best, Huck  Laughed out loud at the brilliance of "Smeli Forskin"! I laugh even as I write it! Thanks for the big chuckle. Lots of funny stuff in today's piece, but you've certainly got a flair for names! And I liked the "terribly, terribly; rare, rare; much, much" bit. Thanks, Sara L. Manewith <saraman@uic.edu> If you ever have a pet or baby or really anything that needs naming, let me know, and I will be happy to provide you with something snappy and funny. Huck are you run by the government? or is your company linked to a large multinational corporation? the stuff just isn't funny. you remind of the guy on the late late show — i suppose i would laugh if i were a brainwashed automaton. keep up the fine work, robot boy. i definitely wouldn't buy a ticket to see Jim Carrey portray you. lots of love, Dan Brennan I would definitely buy a ticket to see jim carrey portray you, even if all you do is write email. You know why? Because you are completely hilarious! That bit about are we "run by the government"? Sidesplitting! The "large multinational" jibe? Subtle, but still, really, really effective. True, I've heard the "brainwashed automaton" bit before, but the way you phrase it, you just make it totally your own. And totally funny! I was wondering how you were going to top that — and I was somewhat smugly assuming you wouldn't be able to do it, I have to confess — and then you hit me with "robot boy." What the fuck? Is there a team of you generating such corrosive wit, or are you a one-man operation? Seething with jealousy, Huck Blowing Smoke Read the 31 January 2000 Suck with much amusement on many levels. The link discussing Clever Canadians shows them taking credit for some dubious inventions: the V-chip, five-pin bowling (won't go near that joke), the game of Trivial Pursuit (from the country of same), and finally, Plablum ("baby food"), not to be confused with pablum ("baby food pronounced without swilling a lot of beer"). The cleverness in their inventions abounds in their Web page editing. I never knew that Canada is also home to Gordon Lightfood (no relation to Plablum). It sounds like your hitch in Georgia (Snow? The fuck you say! It NEVER snows there!) is going about like I figured mine in the Navy would, which is why I ditched after one year in ROTC and exposure to a stunning lack of intelligence in my unit. I have since found that there are a lot of intelligent people in the services at both the enlisted and officer ranks. Unfortunately, they learn early on (as it appears you have) that the only way to survive is to hide any trace of intelligence or evidence of exposure to (gasp) liberal arts. Don't worry, you'll be through it and living off base soon enough. Cheers, Colin <fdisk@mpinet.net> It didn't snow. It was supposed to snow like a (expletive deleted), as we say in the Army, and we shut down the post and hunkered down for a massive blizzard (I stocked up on booze and those really good soy-protein bars, the chocolate kind) ... and then it, like, rained for a few minutes. And I won't be living off post, not unless I get married. Which ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN IN OR AROUND COLUMBUS, GEORGIA. I mean, like, wow — it is not going to happen in or around Columbus, Georgia. So. Yeah. Loaded for Canadians, PFC Beers, serving listlessly You forgot to add that the absurd notion of "60 million advertising impressions per year" having any effect at all on smoking habits overlooks advertising's version of the Inverse Square Law of physics: The quality of the intended impression goes down exponentially as the quantity of exposures increases. The more one sees it, the more one gets used to it; except for the first few exposures, it ceases to have any effect at all and may actually provoke spiteful defiance (rather like a joke retold too many times over). This, of course, assumes advertising has any detectable effect on consumer attitudes in any case. I'm sure there's been some sort of academic psych-lab research corroborating my point; after all, there's been graduate-level research into how many shuffles one needs to randomize a deck of playing cards, so why not this? Christopher Driskell <casaubon@ compuex.com> I'm reasonably certain that I've never bought anything — anything — because of an advertisement. But I may have to pick up one of those diseased lung things, if they start running pictures of 'em where I can see them all the time. They sound pretty cool. The following word will create an advertising impression for my name, Beers Dear Ambrose, Your piece, while highly amusing, contains several egregious errors. Firstly, no Health Canada officials have 2 billion fingers. Even those working on the biotech files. They may have 2 billion digits, but you didn't do your research, so I'm not going to give you the answer. Second, smoking may have gone up 4 percent, but doughnut consumption went DOWN. This is an important stat for some reason, I just can't think of it now. Finally, Ottawa doesn't even tax all that well. On the plus side, the government did consider sponsoring NHL teams to help equalize the exchange rate between our beautiful, multicoloured currency and your bland green stuff. Surely trying to bolster up an unsustainable, bloated professional sports league offsets our wacky antismoking legislation, eh? Yours, Will Murray <murray_29@hotmail.com> Canadian health officials don't have 2 billion fingers? They do when they work together, pal. Clearly what we have here is another I-hate-collectivism type, missing the proto-Canadian point about pulling together. Move south, son. You'll find plenty of people here who understand you in ways your country mates never will. American and alone as hell and, by god, proud of it, Beers Regarding "television everywhere," I've been running into it as a business traveler. The first "captive market" advertising was the dumb "magazines" they put in airline seats, with two shoddy articles and 75 pages of glossy ads, standing primly next to the SkyMall insert as a paragon of journalism. Now, we have two hours of "business oriented programming," which is slices of network news with lots of ads. Guess what? You can't avoid looking at them unless you put on your eye shield or bury yourself in a physical book or laptop. Of course, they pass out the free headphones for that segment of the flight. At least you can avoid the sound by not plugging in the headphones, although eventually they'll figure that out and turn the sound on — nonstop. Next, there's CNN. It's in the Heathrow express train, it's loud, it has many commercials, and the only way to avoid it is to sit in the "quiet zone" trains, where you can't take cell phone calls. For £12, I get the privilege of being forced to watch ads, all as a "service" to myself. The CNN loud boxes are springing up everywhere. Airport lounges are the most popular places. I think the worst was Philadelphia, where the sound was cranked to "unavoidable." I'm sure the airlines will start requiring hour-ahead check-in, just to make sure people sit in front of the boxes. It appears that the greatest benefit of flying business class these days is the business class lounge, where they don't put up with that kind of crap. Will the privilege of the ruling class be the freedom to think its own thoughts? Will people strive for riches just to avoid the chatterbox? If I could change the channel on the TV, or if the channel were something other than CNN with more ads than CNN usually has, it might almost be enjoyable. Or if they were Internet boxes that I could interact with, perhaps with a banner ad. But no. Crappy CNN; crappy ads. If it were only History Channel documentaries of Hitler. Hitler would be a pleasure. Regards, Brian Bulkowski <brianb@liberate.com> Well, given a choice between Hitler and Ted Turner ... Joining Jane at the door, Beers Hit & Run Subject: Unamerican activities cat flap (sorry for the idiot pun) Hi Suck: I also received those verbose emails from both Mr. Squeaky and ???srini, and when I first read the saga, something about it seemed disturbingly familiar. Not that I've ever punted a cat to its reward, but I think this little tale gives one pause to ponder the mighty and formidable maelstrom of roommate tensions, which seems to utterly decimate everything in its path, from social niceties to political philosophies to you name it. Someone neglects to wash the dishes for a week, and it's Lord of the Flies time. Or say you're both fighting the good, nebulous, dilettantish fight against The Man; a cat goes careening out the window, and suddenly Trotsky's escaping to Mexico. Every pretension, every preconceived notion is battered silly, and both parties are either left with deeper, even more horrifying levels of self-awareness, or continue to sullenly hurl residual invectives against each other without a trace of irony. Perhaps the lesson here is if you're going to adopt some sort of political stance in which the little man is king, make the hell sure you get along with him reasonably well first. But I guess consistency is for the running dogs of the Establishment. Maria Schneider Contributor The Onion Inc. — America's Finest News Source <marias@theonion.com> PS On an unrelated note, I really liked the Peter Bagge cartoon about the infomercial awards. Although your grasp of roommate dynamics is impeccable, I think this is a case in which root causes can explain only so much. As a matter of fact, a roommate's cat once took a leak in my shoes. Good shoes too; they were permanently despoiled with that weirdly sweet/chemical smell of cat pee. And as the cat and I had already had a few run-ins, it was pretty clear that this was a case of malice aforepaw. But you didn't see me throwing the thing out the window. Cats are passive-aggressive little fuckers; if you kill the cat, it wins. Dunking it in Nair, of course, is another story. Yr pal, Tim Hey Sucksters, Here's a good link for Five-Card Nancy, despite the sad lack of actual Nancy pictures: http://www.scottmccloud.com /inventions/nancy/nancy.html. You should link it up. By the way, speaking of the Shit, have you seen the new issue of Roctober, containing Ivan Brunetti's epic Bildungsroman "I Almost Drew Nancy"? Any Bushmiller fan will get a kick out of it. His demo strips are eerily accurate yet just a tad ... off, and his commentary ("This strip would be humorous if the implication was that the mice raped the cat, but that's hard to imply, unless you draw stars coming out of the cat's ass ...") is pure Brunetti. XOXOXO, Jesse Fuchs <spooneye@escape.com> We're always on the lookout for newly discovered Bushmilleriana, and you'll be happy to know that a Submit Your Own link for the Shit will be instituted, um, as soon as I get around to it. Yr pal, Tim Subject: You're wrong — Mildred "Babe" Didrickson Zaharias should be athlete of the century. By a long shot. No, really — check out her bio at http://cnnsi.com/ siforwomen/ top_100/2/. I don't know how I feel about the rectal cancer bit, though. Joseph P. M. Foster <JFoster@creativepro.com> We're getting close to the whole men's sports versus women's sports controversy, which seems to me an unwinnable conflict. But you'd be pretty hard pressed to top Jim Thorpe's multisport artistry, and truthfully, I don't think the Babe does top it. Besides, Bright Path deserves the nod just for playing football with the Canton Bulldogs, reminding us that at one time even Canton managed to field a professional football team. Yr pal, Tim Subject: Hit & Run — Unamerican and the dead cat! Suck on this ... A light toss of the cat doth not the window break. But I laughed a wry little chuckle when my daily email from Dictionary.com revealed the word du jour — defenestrate (dee- FEN- ih- strayt), transitive verb: to throw out of a window. And I didn't even have to make it up! Byron Evetts, P. E. <jbe@consulex.com> Do you know that I went to high school with Mario Suarez, the kid who set the national record for most points scored at Defender? That's a true fact. For a few days, Mario's achievement lifted us all out of our filthy sty of adolescent shame. Hopes raised are hopes dashed, of course, but it was a heady couple of days! Yr pal, Tim Subject: I was wondering Do you know Ted Kaczynski's address at Florence State Prison? I have been searching like crazy. Marjorie Mosquera <mosquera@mmc.marymt.edu> Keep searching. Everybody knows Dave is the cool Kaczynski brother. Yr pal, Tim Cortney, give 'em hell. As this is the first time I have read your editorials you have my undivided attention. I just hope that is not too old and you are still as hot hot as your keyboard! Terry Thomasson <tsthomasson@sosinet.net> PS I didn't have ANY trouble getting laid in god ole SAN FRAN. Terry, I'm having a LOT of trouble getting laid in "god ole SAN FRAN." Please give me some undivided advice. Should I get some shorts that say HOME OF THE WHOPPER? Or maybe a lighter that says I'M SINGLE, LET'S MINGLE or something like that? Or maybe some BreathAsure? I'm hot hot and if I don't get a piece of ass soon I'll be HURTIN! Yr pal, Cortney Much as I hate to be citing Slate, check out http://slate.msn.com/ code/ Explainer/Explainer.asp? Show=1/ 7/00&idMessage=4330 for a discussion of presidential eligibility. Mr. Muscles' parents may not have had the benefits of American citizenship, but I'm sure he could get Pat Buchanan to testify that, as a good Aryan, he ought to possess that "natural born" state of grace to which so many much swarthier people lay claim. Yrs, Brian Zimmerman <b-zimmerman@ uchicago.edu> The guy who asked the question seemed to be some kind of furriner, and I was just trying to discourage any possible ambitions he might have. It's sad enough that a natural born retard like George W. Bush is about to join the Adamses and the Roosevelts in the ranks of America's presidential dynasties. Yr pal, Tim |
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