for 28 May 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Subject: The AOL lifestyle

I recently moved to a new
neighborhood and met a
peculiar neighbor. He threw a
party and invited everyone
for blocks around. I had a
brief talk with him when I
arrived and, among other
things, asked him where he
worked. He quickly changed
the subject. During the
party, he would listen to his
guests' conversations and
then scurry off and discuss
them with a little coterie of
folks who arrived wearing
suits. He'd ask certain
guests he'd been
eavesdropping on to leave.
Later, I found out he works
for AOL. It seems the company's
business model extends to
its employees' social lives
too: Invite everybody (send
unsolicited AOL diskettes to
everyone in the phone book),
examine the ones who accept
(monitor their conversations
in chat rooms, etc.),
evaluate them according to
AOL's standards, and throw
out anybody with the least
scintilla of individuality,
originality, or intelligence
- leaving the perfect AOL
society. It also explains why
he wouldn't say where he
worked - there's no way I
would have even walked in his
front door if I knew he
worked for AOL, and if he'd
told me when I arrived, I'd
have left immediately. And
obviously, I'm not alone in
my assessment of a company
that tramples on the First
Amendment, provides online
services for child molesters,
and cheats its customers.
Seriously, I'd rather live
across the street from
somebody in the Mafia - it's
way more respectable.
Nevertheless, AOL's screening
techniques have allowed
it to acquire 17 million
mindless, idiotic sheep. What
do you want to bet they buy
AOLTV like it's something
new, hell, something good?
After all, they're already
stupid enough to think AOL
is the Internet.

Walter Bauer
<BauerW@DynCorp.com>

You didn't explain why he
asked the people he'd been
eavesdropping on to leave.
There must have been some
scuttlebutt at the party.
What was the AOL guy's
problem? Come on, there's
nothing more frustrating than
these half anecdotes. For all
we know, he was kicking out
narcs or something, and you
should be thanking him for
giving you a pad from which
to drink his Kaliber and eat
his assorted cheeses.

Sucksters

Greetings, fine purveyors of
Suck,

I am furious at your casual
disparagement of Hogan's
Heroes in today's Hit & Run.

I understand how mocking
pillars of American society
can make you seem "edgy" or
help you gain "street cred"
with the "kids these
days." However, there are
certain lines that should
not be crossed.

By casually associating the
seminal work of John Banner
and Werner Klemperer
with AOL, Suck has just
erased that line.

Disappointed,

Mark "beat-jackin' cracker mack"
Kundinger
<markk@metrowerks.com>

We only included the Hogan's
Heroes link because we're
always looking for an excuse
to include some Hogan-related
material. We bend over
backwards to honor Werner
Klemperer, and look at the
thanks we get. Look for more
Klink-related material in
upcoming issues.

Sucksters

Menace II Society

I am certain that many who
see this piece are going to
start screaming, "Where's
Terry Colon?" and "You
stink!" (or words to that
effect), but not me. Nice job;
I hope to see more of
your art in the future.

As for the piece itself, all
I can say is that after being
exposed to the first three
flicks, I'm perfectly happy
skipping the fourth and going
to watch something less hyped
and more entertaining. Now
if only I could find out
when Dogma will
be hitting the screens.

<doodles@primenet.com>

PS Don't let Terry Colon go
away completely, though. I
like his work too.

Just because it's overhyped
doesn't mean it has to suck.
I mean, what are you gonna
see instead? Aren't you at
least curious? Stop trying to
be so cool, man.

Sucksters

I loved this exchange from a
BBC radio show about The
Phantom Menace:



Critic 1: ...
it doesn't help that this
movie's been getting more
media attention than Kosovo.

Critic 2: Yeah, but then, it's
a bigger catastrophe.

Francisco Toro
<ftoro@mistral.co.uk>

It's just another media doggie
pile. Popularity is suffering
a major backlash lately:
Popular recording artists are
insulted just because they're
"too" Popular, popular movies
are trashed before anyone
gets a chance to see them,
popular kids are gunned
down before they have a
chance to breed and make
more popular kids.

Save the popular!

Unpopular but very generous,
Sucksters

St. Huck,

Very amusing paean to the
honkies that time forgot, but
some sampling credits would
have been nice, e.g., a nod
to "Unoriginal Gangstas: A
Collector's Guide to White
Rap Players" in the new
Motorbooty (the same source
that provided Suck with Mark
Dancey and David Merline,
creators of "Menace II
Society: Stop the Schmendrick
Cleansing," which, methinks,
provided some of the shoutout
flow at the end of your essay
(Awesome D, Maroon, Balthazar
Getty, Icy Blu, Misa, etc.).
You know what happens to
sucka MCs who bite other
playas' flava, now don't ya?
I wouldn't want to have to
get all Gilbert 'n' Sullivan
on your ass. You better
check yourself before
you wreck yourself.

Peace out (for now),

Mike, "the James Brown of
white rap research"

Chill, dawg. We're tight with
the Motorbooty crew and meant
no disrespect. Indeed, the
"Unoriginal Gangstas" feature
was our best source for the
names we used in the shoutout,
and any hardcore scholar of white
MC spitnology who wants the
full 411 on Maroon, Awesome D,
and a whole cracker barrel's
worth of other hip-hop chalk
children that time forgot is
encouraged to get his/her
own copy of Motorbooty #9.
All it takes is US$6, sent to:
Motorbooty,
PO BOX 02007, Detroit, MI

Huck

I like Suck. I like Filler. I
like your sense of humor.
That's all.

Andrew Hime
<hime1@gte.net>

PS If I write enough letters,
and they get printed,
can I be as famous as
Alan Kornheiser?

It would take you years to
catch up to Alan Kornheiser.

Polly:

We must have been separated
at birth because people in
the corporate world want me
to go away, but they are
afraid of how I how
high I will fly and who I
will land on. Thanks for
the weekly reality check -
you are awesome.

Deborah

Um. No one's worried about
how high I'll fly, Deborah.
Sometimes they worry about
how high I'll get, but only
because I eat all the Reese's
cups in the vending machine.

Polly

Polly,

Didn't you say something
like, "you always were a
stranger"? See, on one hand,
that song, which sounds like
it's addressed to a woman and
is condemning men, is
actually addressed to God and
is condemning, uhh, mankind.
Well, if you were aware of
that and then said to me "you
always were a stranger," then
that would be an extremely
fucked up thing to say. On
the other hand, if you
weren't aware of that fact,
then this is yet another
example of you, out of
ignorance, making a bad joke
that, in a certain sense,
amounts to blasphemy.
This is why you shouldn't
do that, right?

Thank you.

Demmy Rooster
<root@treehouse.dyndns.org>

Demmy, who are you to take
these many forms? You'll
never catch up with
Kornheiser - you know
that, right?

Polly

Polly,

I just discovered your Web
site. I am a therapist and
you are one sick monkey. I
have an opening this Friday
at 2:00. I think we should
talk. But then again, talk is
cheap, and cheap talk is
something I like but cannot
afford. I think we should
meet. But meeting is
complicated, and South
Carolina is so very far away
from where you are, I
suppose. I guess I'll have
to be satisfied with the
daily email for the cheap talk.

Your very best friend, really,

Jim

I already have a therapist.
He says professional,
trustworthy therapists don't
generally call prospective
clients "sick monkeys." But
when I really pressed him on
the issue, he admitted you're
not far off the mark. But it
was really late when he came
to that conclusion, and we'd
been drinking since noon, so
take it with a grain of
salt.

Mo'fessional,

Polly

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