for 11 October 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Get Yer Ya-Yas Out enjoyd suck essay on bennett, but as a ragin' pagan, do have some little problems w/applying certain elements of our hallowed nomenklatur, such as "coven" to worthless right wing extremists/immoral fungoids like bennett and his ilk. and no, didn't miss the irony. still n' all, thought u might want to remember, a small addition to yr general knowledge base an old law of the euro-ancients: a bard of the higher order, a Truth Sayer [a judge and prophet, whose word was law, who saw far, and of whom Caesar himself was in mortal fear], if you will, caught using satire [a right and patent of the honorable domain of the lesser order of bards] was never permitted to prophesy again. why'd i recount that ... i luv satire. just came up. anyway, here's hopin in times of constant Constitutional erosion such as these, i hope you use all the tools in your considerable talent toolset to expose these no-good dominator paradigmers and all their thoughtless, funless Big Lies. also, could u pleez find a way to pack more terminal position alphabeticals in your fontographically stylin nom de guerre? may the greedoid naysayers and the rabid ignoramus gayslayers all the neo nazi bombers and their crypto rightwing racist sponsors the unpartiful, unartiful, thoroughly unoriginal unswingers the utterly boring and the left-brain bereft and all those fitfully so-obsessed with the half-life of guilt-instead-of- happy-multi-luvi-sex: may they all soon, and quite communally find themselves to a man maroony where the hell-on-earth they promoted is just precisely the real estate The Keepers of The Afterlife devoted and may they find themselves stuck all the hereafter on a nuclear waste polluted and deserted and desert island all lava rocky and convoluted in a superficial galaxy far, far away where no sentence is commuted and there is nevah evah no conjugal visitin'-type day and they're without a single raft there, or any other means of literal escape from the interminal undiluted politically fillibustered and demagoguically extruded hateful n' hot hot hot air that was, after all, their principal stock in trade; so may it be exactly the hell and brimstone they believe in and may it be long eons til' they're perceivin any window of emergence into that harmonic-style-convergeance into which we shall all happily enter just as soon as they have raptured into the hellish bad hereafter that their original perversion of the Life Force doth dictate. [nope, it's clear i ain't no bard, and i'm reeeeally clear i got no bardic pretensions, and dammit, i hate rhyme.but thought u might get a grin from a quasi retro invocation that just rolled right off my keyboard since I was so mad I couldn't sleep.] happi spellin, good samhain keep up the important work thnxs 4 adding laughter 2 da mix. jakwitch <devgreen@earthlink.net> Dear Jakwitch, Yeah, sure. But tell us, is Sabrina really nice in person, or is that all just an act? Mr. M  As a white, Protestant male raised in the South, I realize that I represent possibly the only geo-ethnic group of people that it is still OK to make fun of. Whatever; that's fine. I take no real umbrage at Suck's insouciant and sometimes harsh characterizations of the South. What I don't understand is why everyone seems to see Mississippi (see your article today) as the nexus of all Southern backwardness. It should be, in my estimation, Arkansas and, to a lesser extent, Alabama. Western Virginia is in a class by itself, and Eastern Tennessee is pretty bizarre as well. Maybe Mississippi jokes just play better ... all those "s"s. WDJIV <wdjiv@yahoo.com> Last time we checked, the supply of Dago, Mick, Hebe, et al. jokes was running pretty high — in fact, the joke factory is so overstocked, people are giving 'em away for free! And you are of course correct that Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee — not to mention the rest of the United States and its worthless possessions — are filled with comic possibilities. So why Mississippi? Sure, part of it is alphabetical — that "pp" is fall-down funny. But two words explain a lot of it: Trent Lott. Mr. M Hi, I think you should incorporate the Web site I made for my ex-boss (A-hole) into a daily Suck. You could do some sort of story about how the Internet allows people to get revenge on evil jerks. Check it out here: bobdevine.homepage.com. Thanks, Bipple <bipple@hotbot.com> Dear Bipple, As a responsible news organization that enjoys the full protection of the First — and more important — Second amendments, we refuse to use this liberating technology merely to mock people and settle personal disputes. Most of the time. Professionally, Mr. M I read the entire article and it made sense. There is just one thing I had a question about. "... Mississippi — a state that's generally considered to be among the most demonically possessed places in the contiguous United States ..." Does that mean there are parts of our country that are outside "the contiguous United States" that are more possessed than Mississippi (say Hawaii, Alaska, or even Puerto Rico)? It makes you wonder why people want to take vacations in those places. <mquinn@ ece.vill.edu> Get yer head on straight, buddy boy. If you've been reading Suck carefully, you should be wondering why people take vacations at all. Mr. M Hit & Run Well done BarTel! We all knew this would be coming quickly, a defense of the brand of bottomless irony practiced at Suck. But then it's not all irony there at Suck, contrary to public opinion, and Purdy's book is not all anti-irony, if you're to be believed. That was a fair and interesting interview. Tom Castle <Tom@asizip.com> But public opinion is what matters. It's not like we consciously asked to become the Blue Meanies of irony, but we've accepted our responsibility — unlike Purdy, who is uniquely positioned to become the Hillary the Boob of sincerity but insists on not being typecast. Yr pal, BarTel I believe the "it's turtles all the way down" story comes to us originally from Bertrand Russell rather than Stephen Hawking, although the latter may be getting cosmological insights from his own "old lady." And BarTel d'Arcy, while he does, indeed, appear in Ulysses, figures more prominently in Joyce's short story "The Dead." Mr. D'Arcy is a tenor, and his plaintive rendition of "The Lass of Aughrim" evokes overpowering memories in Gretta Conroy. It is a remarkable, irony-free passage, one I am sure Habbakuk Purdy would enjoy. Reynolds Atkins <ratkins@loralorion.com> But it's in Ulysses that we learn the crucial facts that Bartell [actual spelling] d'Arcy has a waxed-up moustache and imagines himself to be some kind of lothario, character details that the great Frank Patterson ran with when he portrayed the singer in John Huston's movie The Dead. Sadly, Patterson now does ghastly duets with the dead, co-starring the wax-cylinder voice of John McCormack. It's so ironic! Yr pal, BarTel Subject: Because you sent it to me on consecutive days, I'll rip him on consecutive, etc. It is beyond funny to read an interview debating what type of intellectual a person might be, when the alleged "intellectual" in question — Mr. Purdy — has appeared in a point/counterpoint in a magazine (Slate) that he has never read. Nothing could more firmly establish that, when Mr. Purdy's time is up, he will be conducted (despite protestations in this life) to the pantheonic "pundit grid" mentioned during your interview. McLaughlin, Donaldson, and Roberts will be his companions in eternity, not Perkins, Parker, and McCluhan. Hmmm ... What did they say at Exeter about this? Or is there a road-kill joke I can insert here to appear folksy? Best wishes, Richard Piedmonte <humanmeal@earthlink.net> The real oddity is that the author claims he doesn't want to join the pundit grid. That's simply perverse. Who wouldn't want to get paid for shouting a set of talking points on television? Yr pal, BarTel Subject: Literacy? Is this for real? Whew! I just stumbled into this by accident after going to the fourth level of the pulldown list of Favorites in Win98. No wonder it is being said by more and more citizens in our country, USA, that we are in a state of moral decline, physically, intellectually, and religiously! Shame on you folks, whatever your rationale may be for putting that kind of junk on the Net! Anthony Correia <acorreia@earthlink.net> We're only on the fourth level of the Favorites list? Thanks for the heads up! the Sucksters La Cage Match Aux Folles I can forgive clichés ("permanent hammerlock on pop culture," "wrest the championship belt from those box-office titans") so bad that they smack of TV Guide headline tags. I can forgive puns ("Tae Boasters," "GLAADiators") so bad that I hearken back to Winona Ryder's internal monologs in Heathers. These bespeak lazy writing, but not necessarily an ignorance of the subject at hand. However, any beer-swilling, trailer- park-dwelling wrestling fan would have taken exception with your twice referring to WCW as "the WCW." World Championship Wrestling should not have been preceded by the article "the," unless of course you were using it in a faux-naive David Letterman-esque manner (e.g., "Say, kids, do you like the rock-and-roll?"). And I doubt you were, since you also referred to the World Wrestling Federation as the "World Wrestling Foundation," which sounds like some odd charity. <not_kornheiser@hotmail.com> Your critique would have been stronger had you condemned what you forgive and forgiven what you condemn. But thanks for the close read. And nice email address. Huck After a hard day philosophizing, René Descartes is in his favorite boîte drinking brandy and discussing the weather. The bartender asks him if he'd like another drink. He says, "I think, not." He disappears. I can only exist if you believe in me. Alan Kornheiser <askornheiser@prodigy.net> We believe in you! We believe in love! We believe in Santa Claus! We believe in magic! Gullible, the Sucksters |
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