for 12 April 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

I love your MP3 articles. And
I bet my pals in Big Poo love
them even more. But next
time, consider writing about
those few MP3 artists who
make actual, um, good music.
Like, (ehm, cough cough) me,
Master Zap, found at
http://www.mp3.com/zap/.

I was just selected, together
with 19 other artists from
MP3.com, to be on its first
widely distributed (10,000
copies, no less) promo CD.
That will be fun.

<zap@Master-Zap.com>

Master Zap,

If you're going to
shamelessly promote yourself,
follow through on the urge
and send me one of those
promotional CDs. Don't you
know that music critics don't
really pay attention to
anything until they get
something for free?

Best,

Huck

Interesting, insightful. I
particularly liked the
flash-forward about rappers
doing the news. Are you by
chance a Philip K. Dick fan?

On the other hand, I hope you
do 15 minutes in hell for
every person who spends yet
another day with that
plodding Sonny Bono song in
their head. "'Lectrically
they keep a baseball score,"
indeed.

Put a note in your will to
have them send you off with a
bottle of BBQ sauce,
à la Pigpen and his
JD.

<Glenn.Evans@metrokc.gov>

Have never read Dick. Do own
at least three copies of The
Beat Goes On, however, and
can't believe you're
dismissing it strictly on
account of its syntactical
inversions, which pretty much
every rock lyricist is guilty
of at one time or another. My
advice: Listen to it about
100 times in a row; you will
really start to like it.

Best,

Huck

While I have little
substantive disagreement with
your two columns regarding
MP3, I think perhaps you and
many others both hyping and
fighting MP3 are ignoring a
key fact. Namely, people
don't listen to music on
their computers. Sure, that
RealAudio feed of Beth Orton
makes for fine background
music while one slaves away at
the office. But a computer,
when compared to decent
stereo equipment, pales. The
Rio, you say? A portable unit
has some benefits, but if MP3
is ever to become as prolific
as it is hoped/feared, there
needs to be home rack units
and more affordable portable
units. Imagine an
Ellison-esque home MP3
player/smart appliance with
gobs of swappable memory and
the ability to download
straight from MP3.com -
lower-end versions with less
memory and no direct download
capability. While I'm
intrigued by the
possibilities MP3 holds,
until my computer can double
as a stereo (and I've seen no
multimedia speakers that can
handle that) or my stereo can
handle MP3, I'll sit on the
sidelines and watch, thank
you.

<EJameson@miller.shandwick.com>

While your point is a good
one, it seems software is
driving this market more than
hardware; I'm guessing
hardware will follow shortly.

Best,

Huck

I love Suck, but these
musings on the future of
music and the Internet are
the stupidest fucking things
I've ever read. Please stick
to making fun of people. What
makes you think you're a
social critic?

jusitn, sf
<neisulej@WellsFargo.com>

Justin,

I would be happy to make fun
of you if you tell me more
information about yourself.
Right now, all I know is
you're the loyal Suck boy who
can't spell his name right.

Socially,

Huck

It may seem strange, but I've
actually found the service on
Southwest flights to be more
pleasant than that of most
carriers, but I suspect it
has to do with expectations
as much as anything else.
When you spend less than US$200
on a round-trip ticket from
LAX to Seattle or San Jose,
you come to the airport
expecting the equivalent of a
Greyhound bus ride. Anything
above that level ends up
being a pleasant
experience. Another thing
that makes the difference is
the design of the plane's
interior. Many of the major
carriers use seating layouts
that are much narrower than
Southwest's so they can pack
in the maximum number of
people on the longer trips.
This markedly decreases the
level of comfort you get on a
typical flight. But I don't
want to concentrate on just
one airline. To a great
degree I do sympathize with
the folks working the
airlines who are stuck in the
same cramped planes a hell of
a lot longer than any of their
passengers ever are. And
having run into those same
surly customers you describe
in your article, I sometimes
wonder how the flight crews
keep from flying into the
ground.

Flying the unfriendly skies,

Steve Gattuso
<doodles@primenet.com>

We should always have the
lowest expectations possible
when we fly. And the
reduction in leg room has
been a major factor in
allowing the airlines to fly
more people at lower ticket
prices, thereby opening up
air travel to the riffraff
who do nothing but complain
about it.

Yr pal,

Bartel

What a funny article!
However, your reference to
"porn-starved Canadian
customs agents" is incorrect.
The agents in the Vancouver
airport were American,
according to the National
Post link in your story. You
don't think we
"mild-mannered" Canucks would
behave that way, do you? ;)

Have a good day.

Glen Dempster
<GDempster@mdsintl.com>

Hi Glen,

Since yours was the most
polite comment I received on
this matter, I'll let my
response to you stand in for
all the complaints.

You're right, the Vancouver
airport incident involved
customs officials from the
United States, not Canada.
The error was the result of
my inattention to the story
and is solely my
responsibility.

Readers occasionally point
out factual errors in Suck,
but in this case several
dozen of your "mild-mannered"
compatriots leaped at the
chance to do their little
factual-error victory jig.
And I sincerely hope they
enjoyed the moment.

Yr pal,

Bartel

Normally I wouldn't respond
to your work because I
figure, what the hell do you
care anyway. But I couldn't
stop myself from standing,
applauding, and then writing
after reading your column. I
sat in the Detroit airport on
9 March 1999, in hour 24 of a
total of 27 hours spent in a
place I wouldn't be paid to
stay, watching people turn
into bug-eyed, slobbering,
chest-beating Neanderthals,
and those were just the old
ladies. I can't agree enough
that the expectation level
for air travel has gotten way
out of hand. The airline
didn't put a special request
in to the weather fairies or
Mr. Cold from The Year
Without a Santa Claus to send
a storm across the country
and fuck up Joe and Jane
Redneck's flight to see
Grammy before she kicks the
bucket. I was really appalled
and saddened that most of us
have lost a sense
of common courtesy and
a simple understanding that
things don't always work out
as planned. And I for one
would be ecstatic if there
were some law passed that
refused to allow colicky or
unsedated children onto any
flight longer than an hour.
All these whiners should take
a flight on a Russian
airline, where relieved
passengers explode into
applause when their airplane
touches down.

Paula Guerra
<pguerra@apa.org>
research analyst
American
Psychological Association

Thank you for reminding me of
one of the few flying
experiences that truly makes
me happy - flying in an
exotically decrepit converted
Tupelov with a bunch of
non-US citizens who are so
happy to touch down safely in
Sofia or Damascus that they
break into spontaneous
applause and even songs in
some cases. It's truly an
infectious display of
appreciation.

Yr pal,

Bartel

The Shit

Left for Dead in Malaysia, Neil Hamburger, Drag City, 1999 The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, Mark Dery, Grove/Atlantic, 1999 Crazy from the Heat, David Lee Roth, Hyperion, 1998 Keep It Like a Secret, Built to Spill, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1999 Abbott's Pizza Company, near the corner of Abbott-Kinney and California, Venice Beach, Los Angeles (delivery hours limited) Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd, CD remaster, EMI 1994 Motorhead, CD remasters, all Det Som Engang Var, Burzum, Misanthropy, 1998 Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, Nashville, Tennessee A History of the Modern Fact, Mary Poovey, University of Chicago Press, 1998 V., Thomas Pynchon, HarperCollins Publishers, 1999 The Coffee Mill, Emeq Refaim, Jerusalem, Israel The Salesman and Bernadette, Vic Chesnutt, Capricorn Records, 1998 Good Morning Spider, Sparklehorse, Cema/Capitol, 1999 Third Floor, Anderson Building, Los Angeles County Museum of Art