for 25 April 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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She Will Always Love Us Courtney Love's 'Celebrity Skin' better than anything Kurt wrote? Please. This no talent, wanna-be scenester titty dancer should never seen the spotlight. All she knows how to do is glom onto others more talented than her, and schmooze and fuck her way up another rung on the ladder. Hey Kurt, you missed! Eric Lange Thanks for providing more grist for the mill of rabid Courtney-hate. And hey, some of my best friends are titty-dancers. Sincerely, Eugen  I knew you were trying to make a point somewhere in this article, but I kept getting lost in the jungle of pop culture references. I tried snipping away all the superfluous, hipster, Andro-induced bulk and was left with, "We all have our own horror stories of being poked, prodded, delayed, and damaged And that's something we too often forget." Absolutely brilliant in it's Zen-like simplicity. You are a writer with a rare empathy for those struggling with survival in today's hyper-critical world. Thank you. Kevbones <andersonk@ChurchHealthCenter.org> And that was your first mistake. We all have our own horror stories of being poked, prodded, delayed, and damaged And that's something we too often forget. That's the speedreading version, yes. While that got you where you were going fast, I grant, you missed my touching shout-out to Shirley Hemphill. And I think the loss is yours, sir. Sincerely, Eugen Excuse me- I really liked your piece about black women getting short shrift by our society, but I have a rather troubling question: Did "Jew" become a slur some time when I wasn't looking? I've always referred to myself as a Jew, but never with the slightly sardonic attitude that other minorities would use when self-applying epithets; I thought that's what we are called. I've never understood goyim who say things like "Well, you're a Jewish person," or "How do Jewish people feel about..." I dunno, the extra syllable seems kind of stilted to me. But if the word really is a bad thing, I'm way behind the power curve, and should stop offending others of my ilk. Please let me know if this is the case, and when the evolution occured. Thanks, Ben Malisow <bmalisow@snap.org> Somewhere along the line, that simple factual statement began being considered rude. Or more precisely, the pointing out (when not definitely relevant) of someone's being a Jew, or Jewish, or whichever you prefer, was thought of as rude bordering on cranky, with a suspicious whiff of anti-Semitism. As someone with a Jewish mother, I have never found the term problematic myself. Best, Eugen If your aim in writing today's feature on Whitney Houston was to be simultaneously insulting as well as ridiculous, you've succeeded. It is insulting, to both women and black people everywhere, to insinuate that Whitney is being treated the way that she is only because she's a black female. That is what one can very realistically be labeled as horseshit, particularly given the number of white males who've gone through the same media ringer (Robert Downey, Jr., for instance). The fact of the matter is — and I can assure you that my sources on this are wholly accurate — that Whitney has had a problem drugs. You want to hear about how she [libelous details about hotel room stay omitted by Suck editors]? Or about all of the [libelous details about botched performances omitted by Suck editors]? Or about all the [more libelous details about hotel rooms and drug use omitted by Suck editors]? (oh, did I forget to mention Bobby's [libelous details about drug use omitted by Suck editors]?) Point being: if you're going to insinuate media causality, you need to at least have the full story before doing so. Clearly you didn't with Whitney and were basing your assumptions, ironically enough, solely on your opinion of what you read in the media. Jeff Kirk <jk@austin.rr.com> Do you have to ask those questions? Of course I do! Bring it on, mystery-man- with-connections- in-the- hospitality- industry that this reporter can't manage. And yes, insulting and ridiculous were effects I was going after at various points in that piece. Best, Eugen It was a great piece for most of the way, and I agree with the main premise, and it made me laugh, so one gross error is excusable. I had to bring it up, though: you can claim that Courtney Love made a better album than Kurt ever managed (although most people would laugh like crazy at that statement) since that's a matter of pure opinion. However, please don't tell us that the "lunatic shrew" label doesn't fit the scheming rocker/actress/whatever. Her most recent call for attention, if you don't remember, was a pathetic attack on Dave Grohl claiming Kurt hated Dave and liked her best and she wouldn't share her fingerpaints at recess anymore. I don't think I really need to explain why this qualifies her, do I? Thanks for the good stuff, Eric <eric99@hawaii.rr.com> Courtney was merely joining into Grohl's already-launched public attacks on her, since Courtney-bashing is an always-in-season American sport. I still stand by her, blindly. For what it's worth, nearly everyone who has written today has done so to straighten me out on the Courtney Question. I remain steadfast. Best, Eugen great work, even considering Suck's consistently high standards. quite relentless. just one problem: how could a smart person think Celebrity Skin is better in any way than even the weakest Nirvana song? and you had so much momentum going... still, the rest of it tore right along, went on some fun tangents too. cheers John Mayer <jmayer@mail.findlaw.com.criticalpath.net> Thank you for your kind words. Everyone is ripping me on the Courtney stuff, but I stand by my sources. Best, Eugen Hmm, I was really enjoying your column about how unfair the world is...that is, until I read that fashion model Courtney Love has recently made a better album than her husband ever did! Astonishing! I'm really going to have to reevaluate my opinion of her, in much the same manner as the Violent Femmes. "Kurt's wife Courtney Love accompanied him on the tour. The Femmes thought she was a skanky, pasty-faced, pockmarked, drug-addled, no talent slut and bimbo. But they must have been wrong, because now she is a ROLE MODEL FOR AMERICAN FEMININITY!!!!!!!!" It's like, now, I can't even listen to In Utero without thinking, what if some cool famous producer paid a poor schmuck pennies to use Pro Tools to edit out all the off-pitch singing and amp noise, and just make loops of all the choruses. It would have been such a better album, because it would have been slicker and more commercially accessible. Then they could bring in an army of songwriters to really make stuff you can hoist your beer and shout to when you're kicking it with your buds at Chili's. This is the tactic that made Madonna such a musical powerhouse. Because, I mean, let's face it, "selling out" really isn't selling out anymore, and if you embrace your stardom and wealth and learn to live well and sing songs about it all, you're really not considered an irrelevant asshole like you used to be in the days of Puff Daddy, so we old punk-rockers should just get over our personal ideals and join the rest of America. I really want to thank you. Because of your opinion, I am growing as a person, and I didn't even need Dianetics. Yours in Christ, The Pie Guy Suggesting you commit hara-kiri for your crimes against wit, irony, and musical taste would be too obvious a joke, so I'm frankly at a loss for words. Courtney does bring out bad reactions in the fanboys, doesn't she? It staggers the mind. Pro-tools or Albini's spartan "no compression-no surrender" aesthetic aside, Celeb Skin is a better album than In Utero....and I get greater and greater pleasure the more often I have to repeat this ex cathedra pronouncement.... Sternly, Eugen It's the Economy, Stupid! You forgot the Xhosa disaster in the 1850's. After the defeat of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, a woman in what is now South Africa predicted that that the ancestors of the Xhosa people would arise and kick out the hated British. All the Xhosa had to do was stop planting crops and to kill their cattle. ( To the Xhosa, just as bad as the Inuit killing their dogs, with the added kick of burning your bank book and ATM card.) The cattle were killed, the ancestors did not arise, and the Xhosa starved to death. The British colonialists were horrified, but they still took over the now empty land. Michael Walsh MCSE MCT <michaelw@nh-chicago.com> That one I forgot, but so many I still remember. It was no less quaint a native than Ronald Reagan, our own slavering Don Quixote, who identified Russia as the Gog (or Magog, I forget which; it's late here in Jerusalem, and I have been sampling the holy land's unhallowed brews) foretold in Ezekiel's visions of destruction. Hell, the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970's was...no, notI'm Okay, You're Okay not Fear of Flying, but The Late, Great Planet Earth, a set of very specific and lurid predictions of how the world was going to end in the late 70's based on apocalyptic readings of that same old book of Ezekiel. Why do some people's bogus apocalypses result in strangled, charred corpses and others in book royalties that leave Eggers in the dirt? Ah, buddy. It's the economy. Hypatia That was elegantly written, nicely researched, and all in all an exemplary piece of work. (What it's doing in Suck.com is therefore anybody's guess, but even Tim nods.) I wonder, however, if you're not putting too big a knock on the followers of Joshua (late of Nazareth). The end of the world as we know it illuminates several other religious systems as well. The most obvious is that of the Shiites, who wait for the return of the hidden imam, but contemporary Judaism retains a messianic component, Shiva always waits within Hindu faiths, and most of the meso-American religions foretold the coming of some great change, or ending. Probably somebody better read than I could add more examples. There is something inherently horribly human that wants neat endings and complains when it doesn't get them. That Christianity seems to be driving the worst of these may say less about it than about the news-gathering abilities of the societies that embrace that particular faith. Be that as it may, you make some solid arguments. Thanks again for the fine piece. Alan S Kornheiser The Doctor Is IN "That thing you're doing... don't do that." I think there is something special about Christian apocalypticism, something more attractive and virulent, but that's a gut feeling. If you take a look at the founding documents, the Jewish Bible ends with the promise of the rebuilding of the temple at the hands of a real, earthly ruler (Cyrus). The Christian one ends with a heavenly nukefest at the hands of the heavenly messiah. Go figga. On the other hand, given the implicitly Protestant and explicitly white European media reporting stuff that they've edited for comprehensibility and ability to fit our preconceived narratives, I can't claim to have much more than a hint of what's really going on. Hypatia That's a really good piece, Hypatia. Chris Tayler <chris.tayler@whatsonwhen.com> Are you insinuating something? If so, thanks! If not, thanks anyway. Hypatia I would like to thank you for an insightful and disturbing article that helps blow the trite, utterly miniscule conceptions of recent news out the window. It's relieving to see a blast of static like this really pound home a message (albeit a depressing and horrific one) instead of the usual sarcastic, self-involved filler (not that I don't like the filler, but this is real analysis of real news, whatever that means). So basically, thanks for writing this article, it gives me hope that other people online actually care about problems on a global scale that don't include multinationals and their debts and recessions. David Romine <david.romine@home.com> We tend to use one language and one filter for all this stuff. It's not that the other global phenomena aren't related in all sorts of ways to the debts and recessions, it's that we're not conceptually prepared to deal with it. To that end, I'd recommend Charles MacKay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, which has never gone out of print over its century-plus history. It starts with the John Law stock bubble of 1719-20, which scammed the King of France and thousands of the smartest people in Paris, and quickly moves on to Witch crazes. Putting stocks and the supernatural together isn't my invention; it works because they're part of the same phenomenon in cold, hard reality: the human imagination. Hypatia She Will Always Love Us Funny--but Celebrity Skin better than Nevermind? I think you must have had some of Whitney's wacky-tobacky. Anyway, any moment Courtney Love is singing is a moment she's not acting. As Houstons went, I always prefered Penelope to Whitney. I was starting to get temporarily insane during that period where you could not enter a store, a restaurant, a bar, or a funeral home without hearing, "I will always luhv youuuuuuewe-ewe, ewe ewe ewe ewe" on the muzak. "I will always love you, I will follow you around, I will sing this song under your window again and again and again until you go insane or yield yourself to the vaccum of my yearning." Still, it's not hard to sympathize with the persecuted woman. More evidence of suffering: that song "Da Butt" on the soundtrack of Spike Lee's immortal classic School Daze (with the lyric "Whitney's got a big old butt/big Jersey butt.") and the scene in American Psycho where Christian Bale extols the deep meaning of Houston's anthems just before stabbing a victim, as John Cale performs an orchestrated version of "The Greatest Love of All." A possible comeback role for her, post rehab: playing The Siren in Joel Schumacher's Yet Another Batman Movie, breaking glass and shaking masonry with her high-pitched warbling. Sincerely, Richard Von Busack <regisgoat@earthlink.net> Thanks for that example of Whitney's butt being mocked. Have these people no shame? I can sympathize with just being tired of her voice, but must everyone be so hateful? And, sorry, but Celebrity Skin is better than Nevermind. Warm regards, Eugen I seem to have a problem here mustering any sort of interest in these assembly-line pop icons - VH1 keeps trying to interest me in these Divas & anti-Divas, and yr article also sorta bounced off. Except for the part about Courtney Love - she's a viscous opportunistic moron and the mainstream fascination with her is a pretty ugly little drama. Yrs, Colin Rankine the little boy from the big apple This refusal to let go of all this damaging hate toward Ms. Love has characterized much of today's correspondence. Please, Mr. Rankine, can't you just let go and feel the love? Concerned, Eugen |
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