for 16 September 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Subject: My dear, sweet Sucksters Well, you're all off on a vacation and doubtless having the time of your lives. Well, perhaps not the time of your lives, but anything that involves a glass pipe and some burritos probably can't be all that bad. In the meantime, I recline groggily at my desk, nursing a hangover that would doubtless kill a lesser man, and browse your archives. I think I've read almost everything Suckly (whatever happened to Zero Baud?), and have been duly amused by this activity. I believe that you're the only online magazine to make such frequent use of the words apocryphal, screed, and Zeitgeist. Now don't get me wrong, because I really do love you all to bits, but do you have some sort of spin-the-wheel system in place, utilized to choose from the list of words that Suck has laid claim to? If so, I hope you can send me one. I think it could come in handy here at the office, where I often find myself lapsing into a serenely numbing state, groping for a k-rad word to build a rant around. But I digress. Not that I actually stated anything at the outset from which I could digress, unless it be your infamous crack habits. I just wanted to tell you that while sniffing the days Fish, I came across a banner ad. Yes, yes — this is probably not an unfamiliar scenario to you, but this one was for Sun and featured a version of Breakout! As memories of a childhood misspent, one hand on the joystick and the other in my pocket (please, the innuendo really is too easy, so's the Alanis Morisette crack) flooded back to me, I became — and this is the only word that does it justice — zombified. After I put the dot back in dot com, I realized I'd forgotten everything I'd read in Suck today! This banner ad is obviously some sort of nefarious plot from the Man to bring your riot house down. I just thought that you should be warned. Hugs and kisses, Liam Black <lblack@marlborough.ie> Well, we're just brimming over with apocryphal conspiracy theories, aren't we? Maybe such screeds are all too inevitable these days, given the approaching Zeitgeist. Just remember, it doesn't take a zombification process to forget everything you read in Suck. Forgettably, the Sucksters  Subject: The Electric Boogaloo I think that I may have evidence that kids today indeed are still break dancing. Real kids too, not some pasty goober who has spent the last 15 years languishing in his parents' basement, fretting over his dwindling supply of parachute pants. I teach saxophone at a music store. During a lesson last week, I asked one of my junior-high-age students what he does with his time (since he obviously isn't spending it practicing, buying new reeds, or learning to read music without having to write the note names under the staff). He listed a couple of activities. Aside from being interested in "metal and rap" (point of reference: picture an African-American Kidd Rock fan), he said that he and his sister were trying to learn how to break dance. I was skeptical until he mentioned, without prompting, the difficulty of getting good cardboard. Perhaps this individual is part of some line of near-troglodyte stock. But considering that he lives in rural Indiana (which has just discovered quinine and Richard Marx), it is safe to assume that any revival of breaking has preceded this by at least a year. MattReynolds <joodi@mindspring.com> Hmm. Thanks for that anthropological tidbit. We've also heard tell that men in some parts of North Carolina are still wearing acid-wash jeans. Slow trickle-down, or the first waves of '80s retro revivalism? You make the call. Finger on the fading pulse of the dying trend, the Sucksters Why do people write you such long letters? R. F. <anck_98@yahoo.com> People write to us from work. People have time to waste at work. People feel an affiliation with us because we're just as snotty as they are. People procrastinate in any way possible. People like getting published on the Fish page. People like getting published, period. Anywhere. People like to tell us where to go. People like to tell us what to do. People like to tell us what they loved or hated about what they read. People like to go on and on about what they think. We're living proof of that. We read all our mail. We respond to a lot of it. We like getting a lot of mail, even after all these years. Hard to believe, but true. We're not always sure, ultimately, why people write us such long letters, but we're sure glad they do. Feeling momentarily grateful, which is understandably very disconcerting for us, the Sucksters We Are the World Weary I love Filler. It is one of the many things that make my menial job with unlimited Internet access somewhat more bearable, and my uncontrollable snickering keeps my co-workers wondering all day long. I look forward to every Wednesday, with its hearty injection of cynical world-weariness and subsequent resolution brought to me by a master of the editorial. Thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you! Vyeto Malesh <Vytautas.Malesh@fanucrobotics.com> I think it's really nice how a lot of readers think that their laughing and snickering out loud has their co-workers wondering what's so funny. People tend to picture their co-workers sitting around all curious, trying to solve the big mystery. It's more likely your co-workers are grinding their nails into the bottoms of their desks at the unbearably familiar sound of your laughter. More likely, they're squeezing their eyes shut and thinking, "GOD if that guy laughs his stupid laugh one more time, I'm going to go over there and punch the living daylights out of him." Now there's a hearty injection of cynical world-weariness that might just make you sick rather than inoculating you against nihilism. Heartily, Polly Marla, Marla, Marla This installment of Suck kicks ass!! I know Steve. I've seen Steve. At times I have been Steve. But what about Marla? You know, the short, brown-haired girl who takes some type of attitude no matter what you say? Marla, the girl who was cute enough to go out with but not cute enough to stay with? Marla, the girl who snickers and tells stories of how she was too good for you when you dated her but begins to cry when you introduce her to your wife and three kids? Keep up the good work. David Kolb <dkolb@tweisel.com> Are you certain Marla wasn't cute enough to stay with, or was she not docile enough to stay with? Did she take some type of attitude no matter what you said, or was she too smart not to have a critical opinion about almost everything, however irritating that might have been for ye of differing opinions? Was Marla crying because she was jealous of your wife and those three beautiful children, or was she crying because one of your spoiled brats threw dust into her eyes? Aw, forget it. I trust you. Marla sounds awful. Steve, on the other hand, is a face in a mystery cloud. Steve is the magnet and you ladies are the steel. Steve cries like a child but he's always a woman to me. Polly Take Off Polly, No. Making fun of Canadians will never, ever get old. Honestly, I don't like to make sweeping generalizations about any culture (OK, I do). I have nothing against Canada. I even have a couple of friends who are Canadian. All I know is that every single Canadian I've ever met and gotten to know (and there have been quite a few) have been a few fries short of a full Happy Meal, including my Canuck friends. I suppose, if you can judge people based on their associations (which I do, so I just assume everybody else does too), that this doesn't say too much about the strength of my own faculties, but it doesn't change the fact that getting our maple-leaf worshipping neighbors to the north all riled up with simple and seemingly harmless references to their lack of a real government or their lame television programming or their cute little not-quite-English, not-quite-American accents or ... gee, this list could go on for quite a while. Anyway, the point is, pissing them off is just dang funny. I'm not sure yet if it's so funny because it's so easy, or because their attempts at comebacks are always so lame, or if the humor operates on a more base and metaphorical level, something along the lines of the football team making fun of the marching band and relentlessly reminding them that they'll never be as popular because no matter how many contests they win or how many national parades they march in they'll never be heralded in quite the same way — or at all, for that matter. Nah, I'm pretty sure it's the first one. So please don't ever stop making fun of Canadians. I sure won't. Mainstream or not, it will always be funny. Still bitter over that one marching band incident, Jean Cousins Wow. I'm gonna do you a big favor, Jean, and refrain from printing your email address. Certain people are gonna be plenty pissed aboot your email, that's for sure. But perhaps you've forgotten that Terrence and Phillip are Canadian, and that Shredded Wheat is made in Niagara Falls, the prettier side of which belongs to the Canadians. And where, I ask, would Hawaiian pizza be without Canadian bacon? Time to rethink those hasty remarks, Jean. Polly Subject: So, how many Canadians have you met in your life? I'd like to know, before I comment on your pathetic attempt at trying to mask your country's ignorance, horny president, and racism, how many Canadians have you met? How many times have you been to Canada? Did you know that it only snows on the coldest winter days? We get as much snow as you do. We invented electricity. Nicole Griffiths <ndgriffiths@ home.com> By insulting Canadians like you on a regular basis, we've met more Canadians than you probably have. But we've got to give you serious props for inventing electricity. What an amazing invention! How'd you guys dream that one up? Do you still hold the patent on it? And how did Benjamin Franklin get so much credit for discovering electricity when you guys flat-out invented it? the Sucksters |
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