for 8 October 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Why We Didn't Run the Henry
Hyde Story

BarTel,

Are you telling me that a
72-year-old fart from Florida
actually contacted Suck with
his story? Am I supposed to
believe that SUCK is big with
the senior tour? I thought
your target demographic was
20- to 35-year-old slouches
(like myself) that talk about
revolution, but never do
anything about it ....

I think I see puppet strings
somewhere. I think this guy
is a shill (which is OK by
me, as long as he's upfront
about it).

Concerned,

Dave

You must not be aware of our
efforts to appeal to the
burgeoning seniors
demographic. Look for our
upcoming special features:

Filler Remembers: The Guy
Lombardo Years

Fighting Indecency on the
Internet: One Grandmother's
Story.

Trapped on a Tennis Court
with David Foster Wallace! A
Drama in Real Life.

Rest-Home Rib-Ticklers! $400
Paid on Acceptance.

What Your Gerontologist Isn't
Allowed to Tell You About
Adult-Incontinence Products.

Hit and Run and Break Your
Hip

It's all part of our effort
to attract more advertising
from Depends, Polident, and
those glass-eyed dress-up
dolls. Stay tuned.

BarTel

Dear BarTel (or Sucksters, or
Salon wannabees, or whoever):

Come on, let's call a spade
an ethnic minority. (Did he
say that? Sound effect of
bitchslapping.) Suck didn't
run with this major and
momentous story for three
reasons:

1. Nobody called you. You're
famous in your own minds. Get
over it, and deal with it. Or
some such.

2. Nobody at Suck would have
known what to do with it. By
the time Terry and Tim
finished fighting over who
could illustrate it in the
appropriately immature
manner, everyone involved
would be dead.

3. Nobody in the nonvirtual
world would have believed it.
Let's face it, you're right
up there with Hunter in the
"I've got to stop making this
stuff up" department.

Other than that, nice
article. And funny. Funny is
good.

Alan S Kornheiser
<ASKORNHEISER@www.prodigy.net>

Au contraire, Alan. We would
have known exactly what to do
with the Henry Hyde story. We
would have milked it for as
many stupid potty jokes as we
could make up. And in fact,
that's what we did.

Your mail has been rather
testy of late. Is everything
all right?

BarTel

Filler: Monicagate

Polly,

I failed to publicly decry
the invasiveness of it all,
and not only did I snicker
loudly every time I read the
word "fellatio," but I now
also find myself strangely
aroused by the word
"furlough." Please help.

Yrs.,

Patrick

Wow. We have the same problem
with the word "flanger" now.
Also, sometimes "fluctuate"
and "fastidious" provoke us.

But then, snickering and
getting aroused aren't the
worst ways to spend your
time.

Fluctuating,

Sucksters

Hit & Run

Ha - it's a good job voices
aren't an email facet cos I
think we'd have plenty of
criticism to dole out to the
author of this article - long
live correct pronunciation
and the BBC!

Another Mr M.
<matthew4@netconx-two.demon.co.uk>

You've got our number,
Matthew! A discussion of
accents would be extremely
embarrassing for the author
of this article, as his
pronunciation is all but
indistinguishable from the
madcap vocal characterization
Mickey Rooney did for his
role as Mr. Yunioshi.

l'Academie Suckoise

So we Brits have the "world's
most annoying accent," do we?
What, we don't use the word
"cool" enough?

Harrumph Lee Caulfield
<lee@faircount.com>

We're not talking about
"cool" here, Lee, but about
scientific fact. Having
measured the clipped London
accent on a sine meter that
assigns diphthong and plosive
percentiles, we've found
Londonese to be
insufficiently "phat," i.e.,
"wack." Now if all of you's
could talk more like Tinky
Winky it might not be so
bad.