for 5 August 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

The media is dishing out
"One, two, three —
grieve!" John Jr. might have
been the best of the lot, but
there are plenty of good
people out there who don't
expire due to waayyy too much
privilege and a lack of
judgment at the controls. And
if (when?) yours truly
ventures west of the Golden
Gate and doesn't quite make
it back, will the Coasties
(blessed be their names)
spend one hour longer than
the regulations require
before consigning me to the
food chain? I should think
not. Or perchance a Navy
Destroyer will sprinkle my
toasted cremains to the
Humbolt Current? Doubtful.

Born into privilege. Raised
with even more privilege. Now
this. Can we toss the rest of
the clan into the drink now
and just get it over with?

No kings. No popes. No
priests. No problem.

Charles

When are you west of the
Golden Gate? Hawaii? Guam?
Easter Island?

It's perhaps true that your Q
rating may not be high enough
to inspire our vigilant Coast
Guard to extra efforts, but
that sounds like a YP, not an
MP. And not a JFKJRP either.

Sucksters

Hey,

Thanks a lot. All I've been
able to think of since this
happened is the "Buckwheat
... A Nation Mourns" thing
from the old SNL.

Plus, any chance to discuss
Uncle Teddy's activities is
funnier than hell to me. We
all have the drunk uncle, but
leave it to the Kennedys to
take it to that level. Jeez.

Yours,

Eric Meisberger
<xericx@telerama.com>

As Tom Carson put it a few
years back, the saga of the
Kennedys is like the saga of
the Corleones, except that in
this one the brother who
comes out on top is Fredo.

Starting to Gel

Does pomade constitute hair
gel? I am not a rockabilly
hipster-type myself, but I
have friends in this
vein who introduced me to the
wonders of the stuff years
ago. Now, every morning as I
throw on my white button-down
shirt, slip the
Garcia-designed noose around
my neck, and step into
stifling leather shoes, the
last thing I do is slap a wad
of pomade onto my head and
drag sleep-numbed fingers
over my scalp. Head
glistening in the early
morning sun, I am off to the
whoredom I call a job, ready
to pimp my wage-slave ass to
corporate America as an
incredibly overpaid database
consultant. OK, so maybe I
listened to Ethyl Meatplow
back in the day, but I have
relinquished indie standing
for the life of an urban
professional.

Austin Sincock
<austin@goldendawn.com>

PS Sorry about the name drop,
but Meatplow still kicks ass.

Pomade is not hair gel.
Pompadours, however, are not
recommended.

Why Must I Suffer So?

First-time listener,
first-time caller. Nothing
better than long-winded
diatribes to make a person
feel a little better.

Society hates me because I
think for myself. I find
myself depressed because I
see good people fooled by
corporate America. Why does
"the American way" sound so
much like 1984? I work for
the American government out
of pride for democracy, for
freedom, and all the bullshit
that has fallen away before
my eyes. "The end times are
coming"? They came and went.
We live in a postapocalyptic
world, but no one bothered to
notice. I used to rant but
soon quit after I realized no
one was listening. How can
you compete against a brick
wall anyway? Big business
pisses me off: old greedy
men, getting older, getting
richer. Why do I struggle to
live in their world? Thanks
for deleting/reading this. I
needed to vent.

Nacho
<senornacho@geocities.com>

That's really beautiful, man.
Thank you for sharing.

Subject: Fantastic

Dear Plooy,

You are such a great Suck
writer! What kind of mail can
I send to help you get ideas
for your next article?

With hesitant admiration,

Spin
<xpin@home.com>

I don't know if the
compliment "great Suck
writer" brings me that much
satisfaction, frankly, but
there's got to be a joke in
your spelling of my name. On
the other hand, making fun of
dyslexics is stooping a
little low, even for me.

Maybe I'll just change my
name to Plooy and call it a
day.

It's a day.

Plooy

Subject: The kids column
today

How long have you been spying
on me and my family?

Dominic Collier
<dcollier@agency.com>

For several weeks. Why do you
guys make so many kissy
noises at each other? Do you
think that's cute? And did
you notice your youngest son
is throwing all the food he
doesn't eat behind the
refrigerator when no one is
looking, and that your dog
repeatedly pees under the
living room table? I'm
surprised you haven't noticed
the smell yet.

You people sicken me.

Plooy

Subject: Congratulations!

Polly,

I had no idea you were
expecting a column on having
kids. Congratulations! It
seemed like just a year ago
you were writing columns
about going out every night
and meeting different men,
and here you have a column
about settling down and
having children. Well,
congratulations.

But writing columns about
kids isn't an easy task. I
mean, just look at your
parents, or, um, Erma Bombeck
— they had to write
columns about kids every day.
They were forced to get up at
2 a.m. and 4 a.m. to walk
that column around and edit
words here or there, or wait
in a crowded editor's office
with a bunch of sick columns
waiting for the editor to
blame it all on them and say
they were bad writers.

This is hard work, and women
who spend their time writing
columns about kids do not get
the respect they deserve. In
other countries, some women
get like six months off their
normal columns to write
columns about children, but
the United States is so
profit driven they want you
up and out and writing
columns about business in
like six weeks — and you
only get to write columns
about hospitals for one
night! Damn HMOs!

Anyway, if you want advice, I
have some friends who are
really cool and just finished
writing their second column
about kids (I thought for
sure that first column
would've been enough for
anyone!) and they could
probably offer you some great
advice. So good luck to you
and that little column. Did
you have any tests run to
find out which column it was?

Don Smith
<dsmith@qrc.com>

Just because I write a column
on having kids once doesn't
mean I have to write columns
about having kids from now
on. I mean, I can always pay
someone to write columns on
having kids and just show up
now and then and approve
everything and get all the
credit for it.

Then I can write self-pitying
columns on how I don't even
know my own children.

Why, I feel sorry for myself
already.

Plooy

The Shit

"Gary's Trajectory," A Wanderer in the Perfect City, Lawrence Weschler, Hungry Mind Press, 1998 The Parallax View, Alan J. Pakula, Paramount Pictures DVD, 1974 Rogues to Riches: The Trouble with Wall Street, Murray Teigh Bloom, Putnam,1971 Actual Air, David Berman, Open City Books, 1999 Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Peter Hall and Michael Bierut, editors, Princeton Architectural Press, 1998 Canary-wing parrots, Dolores Street, San Francisco Super Shitty to the Max, Hellacopters, Man's Ruin Records, 1998 Request magazine (any issue after June 1999) On the Road to Vietnam, Bob Hope, Cadet 4046 vinyl, 1964 The Flying Ballerina, Drums and Tuba, TEC Tones, 1998 Dino, Nick Tosches, Delta Alpha Publishing, 1999 The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1999 Big Red soda