for 26 August 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

I dropped this old dowager
from my click stream a few
years ago after one too many
mass-media moments — the
kind of angry, threatened
sort of reaction that leaves
you muttering to yourself
until you realize it's all a
put on, like Ed Anger columns
in the supermarket tabloids,
when you're 12 and pro
wrestling still seems real.
The problem is that the
editors didn't realize it was
a put-on; they clung to the
we-wrote-it you-believe-it
delusion that obsesses media
moguls, novice Net users, and
suburban couch jockeys and
rode it down into the depths
of irrelevancy at Internet
speed.

The fact is nobody, except
the extraordinarily
slow-witted, has the patience
or desperation anymore to put
up with the kind of
journalistic antics that the
Comical was built on:
spoon-fed factoids wrapped in
giant vortex waves of spin.

Kendall Willets
<kendall@relay.looksmart.com>

Too true, Kendall! We were
just remarking how the San
Francisco Chronicle (the
Comical to you folks who
don't live here) reminds us
of pro wrestling, an old
dowager, vortex waves of
spin, an Ed Anger column, and
many other things.

Here are some of the other
things the Chronicle reminds
us of:

The double-helix, crazy
holiness of a domesticated
giraffe.

The telemovie The Birdmen,
with Doug McClure and Chuck
Connors as POWs escaping a
Nazi aerie in a glider.

Schoenberg's Moses und Aron
performed by midgets dipped
in yellow paint.

A mangy jackass glimpsed in
the Umbrian twilight from a
moving bus.

A pile of bedclothes mistaken
for a nighttime intruder.

A delightful bon mot Woollcott
let slip one evening at the
Algonquin.

The unmistakable brush
strokes of the immortal
calligrapher Hu Shi.

Jennifer Lopez's ass.

the Sucksters

Hi,

There were several articles
written and TV reports made
about supposed
cybersquatting, about my companies,
and about San Francisco mayoral
candidates during the past
two days. Most of the reports
were inaccurate, yet none of
the organizations printed my
responses or interviewed me.
I believe they were simply
intent on hurting my client,
Clint Reilly. Thus, I have
posted my response here:
http://www.williebrown.com.

Sincerely,

Andy Hasse
<andy@hasse.com>

That should get the word out
to the people.

Re Hit and Run No.
CLXXXIV: The reason several
aging reviewers refer to
"Dick's" King Timahoe as
"Checkers" is that the film's
Nixon makes the same confused
mistake. Just thought you'd
like to know.

<ScalyOtis@aol.com>

We're all about confused
mistakes. At Suck, "confused
mistake" is our middle name.
In fact, our parents got
confused and used their
condoms improperly, leading
to the mistakes known as the
Sucksters.

Confused, aging mistakes,

Sucksters

It was another good H and R,
one more needless slam at the
Trentonian notwithstanding.
Are you in for the
SCOOBYPOOL? Please write.

XXXXOOOO

Your loving brother,

Sanford

Chuck and Peg
<cavanaugh@csi.com>

Chuck! You know I hate it
when you hug and kiss me in
public!

Scooby pool, shmooby pool!

Love,

Tim

Woodstock Innocence

OK, here's another comment on
your comments on Woodstock.

The kids didn't understand
what they were getting into.
I've been to Woodstocky
events many times before.
They go on every weekend on a
smaller scale, and it takes a
little time to overcome the
anger of dishing out a lump
of money for admission to sit
in a field for three days and
get fucked up on beer and
drugs and then have hippies
sell you stuff for outrageous
prices.

After several events, I've
become accustomed to the
scene and I don't even get
bothered by three day's worth
of dirt on my body. But now
that I think about it, I
totally understand the
drunken anger of Woodstock
'99.

See you all at Hookahville,
fall '99:
http://www.hookahville.com.

Paul Berezansky
<pberezansky@ctnet.com>

That's really beautiful, man.

Do you understand the rapes
of Woodstock '99 too?

Angry at outrageously high
prices? Why not sodomize that
chick in the minidress?

Filler was even stranger (if
funnier) than usual today.
Are you drinking plenty of
fluids? Dehydration can sneak
up on you in the summer and
do odd things to the higher
cognitive areas.

Alan S. Kornheiser
<askornheiser@prodigy.net>

OK, but it was funnier than
usual, right? So maybe I
should stop drinking fluids
altogether, thereby making
myself even funnier. Sure,
it'll take a lot of
self-control, but if it'll
make me funnier, hell, I'm
willing to make the
sacrifice.

Man, I'm thirsty.

Screw this.

Polly

Are the email and letters
that you answer in Filler for
real or just another figment
of your awesome imagination?

Marty Plumbo
<marty.plumbo@ uc.edu>

People often ask me that
question, Marty. The letters
seem too strange to come from
real people, they say. But
most of the letters I get are
way too strange to make up.

However, I wouldn't want you
to be less in awe of the
awesome powers ... er,
figments of my imagination,
now, would I?

So, um, I make all of those
letters up. In fact, I made
you up, Marty. You don't
actually exist, outside the
realm of the figment. You
hear that, Marty? You are
merely a figment.

Sorry. I'll try not to forget
you, thus annihilating you
from the universe. You might
want to send me a reminder
every now and then, in fact,
so that I don't carelessly
forget and annihilate you.

(Marty Plumbo! I gotta start
thinking up more believable
names than that....)

Polly

Subject: Sensitivity

Dear Plooy,

Good try on the couscous
column, but what about those
who are allergic to wheat?
Didn't you stop to consider
them for a minute? Is rice an
acceptable substitute, or do
you even know? Also, can bad
couscous break up a marriage?

Just thinking,

Chris
<xpin@ home.com>

Is couscous wheat? I always
slept through those
educational films in high
school. And in Catholic
elementary school, they'd
only show the couple going
into the restaurant, but they
wouldn't show what was
happening inside for fear of
corrupting our wee little
minds. Little did they know
this one kid drew pictures of
couscous in his notebook and
showed it to us, so we were
all vaguely aware of how it
looked.

Rice is fine for some people,
I guess, but it's sort of
like having a yogurt when you
really want a banana split,
know what I mean?

And no couscous is bad.
Couscous is like pizza. When
it's good, it's great, and
when it's not so good, it's
still pretty good.

OK, that's an optimistic lie,
let's face it.

Educational as ever,

Plooy

Polly,

Regarding today's column and
letters regarding children
and pets (when the fancy girl
collie dies it's a frog next
for sure: show me the
frog-specializing
veterinarian), isn't it
much more important to have
a car you can believe in?

Peter Robert

Peter, if I could make up
letters like yours, I'd be a
genius. An unemployed genius,
but a genius all the same.

My other car is a
frog-specializing
veterinarian,

Polly

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