for 9 February 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

I could Whine Bitch and Moan about reading the scribblings of the insane that were featured today. I won't because, I don't like hypocrisy, the insane are fun, and it was a good idea.

Thanks,

Rich Robinson
<psyco_path_industries@yahoo.com>

It's hard to convey just how much joy unsolicited submissions bring us here at Suck. But as they say in liberal institutions of higher learning throughout the country, privileged discourses have an utterly different tone than those that are not privileged. We're empowered by our status as published writers, and so we thumb our noses at those who wish to be published. Sad, huh? Plus, do we really want to send a message to hopeful writers that not only might we reject their work, but we might also have a hearty snicker at their expense? Talk about thumbing your nose to spite your face.

So, accept our apologies. It's just hard to resist — the stuff we get is so rich, so unfathomable. Maybe because people (mistakenly) believe that we at Suck love "rants". Rants! The name says it all.

A tip of the tinfoil hat to you,

Sucksters

Hi all,

A question about this feature (The Shit). I used to read talk.bizarre regularly on Usenet, and every December 1st on talk.bizarre is Fail To Suck day. The rhetoric used to promote the day sounded a good deal like yours to promote this feature. Not accusing anyone of plagiarism, I'm just curious about possible sources of inspiration? Any of you a teedotbee'er?

Matt Powell
<Matt.Powell2@compaq.com>

Our promotional rhetoric sounds like theirs, so you'd like to know our sources of inspiration? We're inspired by the manuscripts themselves, Matt, the unsolicited work of real people! We're inspired by the common man. What are you inspired by?

We didn't understand your last question, and we hardly even have the strength to say as much, let alone decode what you're driving at. Speak plainly, boy! Straight talk, that's what we want around here, so spit it out and stop beating around the bush!

Hoping our kids don't turn out to be anything like you,

Sucksters

re: Filler

I had friends who used to watch McGyver in syndication on a daily basis. It was aired just before preparing dinner and they would stop everything to sing along to the theme song. It went something like this:

" 'splosion dude, 'splosion dude, he's a-cool-a-cool-a-cool-a 'splosion dude!" (repeat)

I've yet to see an episode of McGyver.

Robert Blumstein
<robert.blumstein@eer.com>

You made our day with that one, Robert. Please, if anyone else has made-up words to TV theme songs, send 'em our way.

Sucksters

My dear friends at Suck,

'Love child' not a racial slur, as you reported on 1/25/01. (And abused Alexia Henke about afterwards.) And Madilyn Murray O'Hair's remains were not found on a ranch in Austin, as you reported yesterday.

Her remains were found in Camp Wood Texas. I speak as probably your only reader who has been to Camp Wood. It's 90 miles from San Antonio and even a longer drive from Austin. Geographically, you might do better to try to link this O'Hair thing to the restless ghost of LBJ than to George W.

That's two outright errors in two weeks, and both of them look like fudging to support your point. Does 'Hit & Run' mean you're reckless and never look back? Are you insured?

Cheers,

Walt

Insurance is for pussies, Walt.

So is fact checking.

Pussy.

Sucksters

Hey Suck:

Man alive, does I appreciate the coverage of my spam.

Kudos — to you, me, even those bone-brains at TheStinkers.com

I la-la-la-la-la-la-love Suck. Pay no attention to my grumpy explosions from time to time.

And, to make a few things for once and forever clear

1. The spam was my idea of a prank that would lure, say, a Mother Jones staffer to a site full of berserk, rock-hard-right bloviations from myself and others

2. On my links page, which I am still in the process of coding (slowly, dumbly), there are a MULTITUDE of connections to "Mirror, Mirror" and the importance of the Agonizer device in various Star trek role playing games

3. Mike McPadden is dead. Or at the very least, he works for a trade paper and keeps his nose (and other parts) clean and he don't need to be associated with no more articles about porno theaters.

4. Selwyn Harris is in charge of Agonizer.com

And everything else from now on forever and ever, amen.

Moist, sincerely,

Selwyn Harris
<TheAgonizer@aol.com>

Grumpy explosions?!!

'Splosion dude! 'Splosion dude! he's a-cool-a-cool-a-cool-a 'Splosion dude!

Sucksters

Sucks:

I was inspired to wage that particular spam when I received one, last week, from uber-eggheaded, thenthitive male scribe Rick Moody, who promoting his "dream come true" (oooh-gah!) collaboration with composer Meredith Monk on N.P.R.

The stomach-turning-in-a-good-way aspect was that the obviously naive gentleman poet's entire online address book was attached to the plug.

So consider: mere hours before launching my foaming, hair-yanking, groin-busting Web outpost for trash movies, pop exploitation, and pro-capital-punishment propaganda, some Powers That Am forked over to me direct access to the nattering nabobalongs of contemporary fiction's most begging-for-a-wedgie novelist.

(A while back, I snatched Moody's email addy from the Rolodex of a magazine editor friend, and sent Ice Stormed a few odd dispatches his way, at least one of which led him to the curious deduction that I was that "Soy Bomb" a-hole).

Response from the Purple Americans came so fast and funnily that I decided to continue the tactic elsewhere. Suck and the New York Post's Rod Dreher, I thought, would get the joke. Kcashman98@aol.com is a friend of mine, and likely a bit freaked that his email address is available to bad, bad people now.

People like me and Rick Moody.

Selwyn Harris
<TheAgonizer@aol.com>

Oooh-gah! Hard like us! Hard like me and Rick Moody! Doesn't take much to wriggle your way into the coolio scene these days, does it? Time was you had to have a trust fund, come from elite Manhattan lineage, and drink yourself sick just to write sentences like that last one. No longer!

You're a real rebel, boy. We're hot with envy and lust for you.

You truly deserve the exalted title of 'Splosion Dude!

Sucksters

Hello,

I find it odd that Alexa's reference to suck says, "Products Related to Star Trek."

I think I would kill myself if the associated browsing of four million people combined with the analysis of my site led to those five puny words.

Good luck,

John Bresee
<jbresee@staff.cellmania.com>

Maybe you would kill yourself, but we would get a strange tingle in the nether regions. That's because we're hard, man! You wish you were hard like us! Hard like me and Meredith Monk!

Avant-guardedly,

Sucksters