for 17 February 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Hit & Run Do you guys hate Michael Lewis as much as I do? It's not his writing, which I will be the first to admit is clever and all. And sure, I love that bit he wrote in Harper's about how Europhiles derailed 20th century American art and architecture. No, what pisses me off is the fact that he's married to fucking Tabitha Soren! What the hell?! How does some journalism club, yearbook committee, paste-eating dork get off bagging an über-prom queen like Soren? A cornerstone of the relatively successful adult transition made by myself and all the rest of the AP English crowd is the conviction that we never really wanted cheerleaders anyway! Where does he get off pulling this Revenge of the Nerds crap? And you just know that when he imagines the looks on the faces of his old Chess Club buddies when they read his Slate diary about life in — sputtering with rage — Paris with his A-list, "I'm a model, but I also want to act!" wife, he laughs so hard that his milk comes out his nose. You should write something about that! Mark <markscottwright@hotmail.com> Getting angry at famous men with beautiful wives is the fastest way to drive yourself insane. I don't recommend it. Besides, I've met Lewis, and he's kind of dreamy in a paste-eating dork way. The real problem here is the postcards-from-Paris genre of literary journalism. Current practitioners now include Lewis, Adam Gopnik, and various others whose names escape me, all working the same well-tapped vein: The French are somehow like us and somehow unlike us; the subtle differences and quotidian quirks help make up the gorgeously ineffable mosaic of French culture. As I am currently finagling to head up Suck's Paris bureau, I share your bitterness. Last of all, it was not Michael Lewis who wrote that Europhile piece. It was that indefatigable smartypants Michael Lind, whose efforts there and elsewhere earned him a Suck EGG tiara a few years back. Yr pal, Tim  Letter from the Editorial Director Dear Whomever: When you wrote, "Now, many people, naturally, will suppose that this is some sort of prank. Well, it isn't, " you better have been kidding. If Suck is having income problems, you should just consider canning some of the dead wood. You could start with the editorial director, and I, for one, would probably never notice. I take the job of pissing away my so-called workday very seriously, so don't fuck with me this way. Thanks as ever, Aaron Headly <Aaron_Headly@baseview.com> Dear Aaron, We're not kidding. Income problems aside, it's cynical slackers like yourself who make life difficult for senior management. Continue to read the new Suck, and you may find yourself experiencing an "attitude adjustment" that could make you more productive and less hostile. Yours, Yogi Okaycola Editorial Director Suck Inc. selling out has nothing to do with who owns you. you just sold out. so fuck you. Brad Wilkening <Brad_Wilkening@prismmortgage.com> Dear Brad, Our owners are very kind and benevolent men who would never beat us or treat us cruelly. I hope you understand our actions. Thank you, Yogi Okaycola Editorial Director Suck Inc I think your new direction is a bad move. I am not going to sit here and type insults or rant and rave or anything, but one of the reasons I have liked Suck.com and have kept reading it is for all the things that you are now doing away with. Now it will be indistinguishable from any other site. I liked the "meandering column of bold type." I liked the sarcasm. I liked the "long-winded, link-addled monologs on abstract topics of no interest to the general reader." What audience are you now looking for? What do you classify as the "general reader"? People who spend their day reading mindless editorials? I liked the sarcastic wit of the old Suck.com. It was intelligent. It made a point. Now that you're changing your direction, you should also change your name. The old name was appropriate because it was in itself sarcastic, because the one thing that the site didn't do was suck. It seems to me that particular sarcasm will no longer be there. Nicholas Williams <nicholas@melia.com> Dear Nicholas, Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. We have received a lot of flak for our decision, but I hope you will give the site a chance in the coming weeks as we unveil our new features and distance ourselves from our former format and writers. Hopefully, now we can have a site that lives up to our name ;-). There is a little sarcasm for you. A little joke. Please don't get the wrong idea about Suck. It's not as if we are threatened by the proliferation of dot coms and are helplessly thrashing about trying to reposition ourselves. Yours, Yogi Okaycola Subject: Hi Roy, why the changes? Hi Roy, I've been a long time reader of Suck, for at least three years now. I am extremely cynical because of this, and I do realize that this is all a big hoax, but since this is my first time writing to Suck, I may as well make it a proper flame. I hope you don't mind; I mean, you guys have only given me three years of free entertainment without asking for anything in return, so I have a right to tell you off once in a while. Please don't take this personally. You guys are completely out to lunch this time. Right out of her. I mean you are worse than any Canadian Rabbit on crack. The reason everybody reads Suck (at least according to a recent Filler) is it gives us humble new-media types (God I hate that expression — new media is so old) a chance to dick around at work. I used to be a humble reader; I was thankful for Suck. I read Suck every day and bought all of the products and services advertised on your Web site and told all my friends what a great Web site Suck was. After this change, however, I will be forced to boycott all the products and services advertised on your site and will encourage my friends to do likewise. If I wanted John Katz's witty remarks and inane chattering about what geeks are and why they are important, I'd go to Slashdot. Well I wouldn't, because Slashdot is a crappy little piece of crappity crap, but many do. I won't even begin on Art Bell; that would take up a whole other paragraph, and I really have to stop dicking around at work. If you change Suck, it will be a huge shit sandwich, and all of your readers will have to take a bite. The next thing you know, you guys are going to change to i-Suck or e-Suck or something and advertise on the XFL before your IPO. (NOTE: I hope you hit and run XFL soon.) Thank you for your concern. In the off chance that you do use this, please withhold my company name. Feel free to use my name and email. Best regards, Jordan D. Sullivan Jordan, I find this letter to be very disingenuous. Why don't you believe us? I'll take you at your word if you take me at mine. Isn't that what the Internet is all about? Signed, The Boob Filler Dear Polly, I have been reading Filler for the last four months or so. I would like you to know that you have portrayed yourself as the most negative and insipid (ninth-grade vocab word) person ever created. Your narcissistic style of aggrandizement and egotism are enough to make George W. "he put the duhhhhh back in W." Bush shake his head in shock. Frankly, your character is shallow and a dum-dum. Sorry. Had to be said. It's really funny and light and cute and ... yeah, whatever. Yours, Josh <Noedig@email.msn.com> Hey, aren't you the guy who started that letter-writing campaign against Seinfeld, urging the producers to make the characters less selfish and despicable? Trust me, the narcissism and egotism are 100 percent real, and I'm pleased to see that my shallowness and stupidity are coming across, loud and clear. Any perceived cuteness is an unfortunate side effect that's caused by a combination of Terry Colon's illustration style and the apparent tendency of Web dwellers to find hateful behaviors appealing. However, these two factors are entirely beyond my control. Selfish and despicable, Polly Damn it, Polly, I don't read Filler because it's topical and informative; I read because it's chockablock with the classics: spite, envy, malice, and crack. Please, in the future, only mention practical topics like stocks in the context of ... oh, say, angry squirrels bitching about their ... uh, their failed IPOs with evilwhore.com. It'd be much more enjoyable for the all of us. I'm only saying this because I want you to be your gleefully savage best. Michael Locke <locke@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Savage, huh? Who me? Savage? Never! Wink wink! Nudgey nudge nudge! Tee-hee heee heee! Cute cute cute in her little red suit, Polly Subject: Amazon, thanks for the tip. Polly, I sold a bunch of my eBay that I bought at $10 and bought 5000 shares of Amazon today based on your great tip that "it rocks." Thanks a bunch. Earnings came in below the negative whisper number, the bookstore part has become profitable, and it's trading way up after hours. Let me know when a good time to exit is and I'll buy you some whimsical, lighthearted gifts. Kurt Ruckus Records <ruckus@teleport.com> PS My shoeshine boy says to check out WPNE. It makes CU-SEE Me video-conferencing software, which will be huge with the coming widespread availability of broadband. It totally rocks! Maybe I should replace the Filler I usually serve with incredibly misinformed stock tips. Today I had a definite sense that I was flailing in the darkness of an unpredictable market, waiting for the scary guy with the night-vision goggles to turn my nest egg to a scrambled mess. This is your nest egg. This is your nest egg on E-Trade. Day trading is evil. Being evil myself, I couldn't help but dabble, but my sanity has returned. If I went into massive debt, though, that sure would make a funny and light and cute addition to Filler! Tee-hee! Polly Hit & Run On the subject of choosing one's own name ... I worked in Hong Kong a few years back. There Chinese children are given a Chinese name by their parents but choose an English name for themselves when they become teenagers. For the non-English speakers, this proved somewhat of a minefield, as names would be chosen on the basis of "sounding good" rather than actual meaning. This was no more apparent than in the office where I worked, shared with Anthrax, Frankenstein, and Wanka. Not that I can talk.... Kosten Metreweli <kosten@metreweli.com> You can hardly blame those Hong Kong kids, given the tradition of Hong Kong parents giving their kids pseudo-British names like "Winston," that no actual British people have used for decades. I once tried to give myself a semi-phonetic Chinese variation on my own last name, meaning "Bold Dragon Bird Flying Fish of General Tzo," or something like that, but it never really took off. So who am I to make fun? Yr pal, Tim Dear Tim: Nice Super Bowl stuff. The pulldowns, with their implicit assumption of yadayadayada, are wonderful; I see them playing a major role in the current presidential race. Hell, I have a bad feeling they're already playing a role. But anyway, I can't work up too big of a head of steam over meaningless sports drivel; after all, how many ways can you say, "We lost because we scored fewer points." Much the same goes for huckstering: "Buy it because it's better." The tropes are inherently limited. It's comedy that's got me going. As I think you've done already, it's now possible to let a computer write most of the late-night monologs. And this is by pros who are paid weekly salaries. Large weekly salaries. Worse, this stuff is being delivered by pros who are being paid VERY large weekly salaries. Someone should know better. Someone should have some shame. Damn it, somebody should be worried that eventually people will stop watching comedy that isn't funny. No? Sure, mass-produced comedy, like mass-produced anything, is less than wonderful. And it is all in the timing. (See if you can catch Dame Edna if she ever drops by your neck of the woods or if you're ever in hers. The material is horribly weak, but the timing and the nuance are brilliant.) And maybe I was younger then. But didn't comedians once tell jokes in their standup? You know, with set-ups and movement and punch lines that were funny because they actually hurt, just a little? Didn't there used to be a certain antagonism between audience and comic, an "I dare you to make me laugh" that forced an edge or a point on the routine? When the audience applauds the comedian before he opens his mouth (just as when an audience in the theater applauds the entrance of a Big Name Star — have none of the people ever seen a play before?), the inherent tension between audience and act disappears to the detriment of both. This is going on too long. I liked your stuff. A lot. I really truly wonder who's enjoying the rest of what passes for comedy. Alan Kornheiser <askornheiser@prodigy.net> You underestimate content. "We lost because we scored fewer points" is like saying "The Germans lost because the Allies had more stuff." Quite true, but should that really stop us from endlessly second-guessing the Italian campaign, savoring the blunder at Kursk, or berating that goddamned Monty for not closing the Falaise gap? I think not! As for the devolution of comedy, two rules will always remain: "Comedy is tragedy plus time," and "If it bends, it's funny; if it breaks, it's not!" Yr pal, Tim |
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