for 2 August 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY. |
![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
Tim Cavanaugh Special Guest Editor 
Terry Colon Art Director 
Heather Havrilesky Senior Editor ![[Phillip Bailey]](/fish/staff/images/phil.gif){kind=small}
Phillip Bailey Production Editor 
Joey Anuff Publisher 
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Filler
Subject: Faith in what? Polly, That's easy. Just have faith in yourself. The rest is just details. Seriously. Here's to our pointless little lives, Greg Pyatt <squeaktoy2000@hotmail.com> I don't lack faith in myself, trust me. If anything, I have way too much faith in myself. It's the details that get me down. Sweating the small stuff, Polly  You wrote recently in The Fish that "But drug dealers are more likely to push piles of cocaine around on a table with the butt of a shotgun and shout things like, 'fuck with me, you fuck with death.'" I think you'd be surprised by how many drug dealers, even big international ones, are really polite, cultured people who know how to conduct their business in a civilized fashion. On the other hand, its amazing how many library assistants here at M.I.T. can be found sitting at their desks with big piles of cocaine, waving shotguns and muttering ominously. FWM,YFWD: Ben Schwabe <bschwabe@MIT.EDU> You know, that Dewey Decimel system — that's the culprit! Dewey was actually a communist infiltrator, and his system was part of a secret commie plot to drive a stake through the heart of our intellectual culture — represented by library assistants and copyeditors, naturally. That stake was a system so twisted in its arbitrary nature (The 200s are Science? Why? What for?) and so difficult to memorize (Were the 200s Science? Or were the 200s History?) and so inaccurate and silly, more silly than the idea of trying to eat a little of each of the five basic food groups every day ("This ketchup on this burger covers my vegetable group, see?"), that library assistants across this great nation of ours have been slowly losing their minds for some time now. Why, just the other day I visited my local library and asked the librarian if Pornography was considered part of the Social Sciences or the Arts, and she pulled out an AK-47 and suggested I back on up before she fuck my shit up bad. One of the small, impolite, uncultured ones, Polly Pretty Polly-O, Congratulations. After years of relentlessly chipping away at my already fragile self-esteem, you've finally managed to completely obliterate the last few shreds of hope and dignity that were left after a life of disappointment and degradation. I've seen the light. I mean, what's the point of going on like this? Twenty-five more years of thanklessly toiling for impersonal corporate taskmasters, a seeming eternity of banal chatter from a spouse who just doesn't get it, and a couple of offspring who seem to think that old dad is some sort of ATM in a necktie. I'm going to sell my possessions, sever all personal ties, and spend the rest of my miserable life forlornly wandering the world's forgotten places. Thanks again, and keep fighting the good fight. John Harvey <fergsboy@airmail.net> Glad to be of service. Have a good time. It's pretty hard to find Fromm's Guides for those forgotten places... Good luck! Polly 1. Where did this unlosable pregnancy fat come from? I'm a guy! 2. How did I get suckered into this never-ending "Survivor" series horseshit? Wouldn't my time be more enjoyably spent playing my vinyl copy of "Double Nickels On The Dime" at full volume? 3. Exactly when did sex start to feel like a job? Why can't my job feel like sex? Turnabout is fair play, after all ... Enough already.... Gabriel Golden <golden@sfis.com> 1. Ever try Tae Bo? My friend Steve swears by it. 2. If they don't get rid of Rich this week, I'm going to soil my pants. 3. If sex feels like a job, your partner's job satisfaction is definitely at an all-time low. Enough is enough, Polly Lipstick Traces hi really an amazing piece. enjoyed reading it. MY PENIS is one of the great themes of western literature. This confirms it. Maralyn Lois Polak <Langwidge@aol.com> Maralyn, if your penis is one of the great themes of western literature, then the academy is far more accommodating than anyone thought. Just joshin' with you, Maralyn. I know what you mean, and thanks. Ann Glad to see your work appear on the pages of Suck again. The real problem with these books - if your summer book report is to be believed, and I can think of no reason why not -- is that the authors are halfwits suckered in by Clinton's carnie-level shell game. That is to say, the liberals now know how conservative Republicans must have felt after eight years of Reagan. What amazes me is that, despite his stubborn insistence on staying popular at any cost, Clinton still has any defenders on the left. As for Clinton dismantling the welfare state, well, I'd really like to see it. Can you give me even one instance where there's been sizeable or even actual cutbacks in any gummint programs? Clinton co-opts the sounds of the right when it's politically opportune, but in the end, he wants the Big State to be at the center of middle-class life (hence HillaryCare). If keeping the First Schlong fellated could somehow have translated to Clinton nodding off in the tradition of California's best politicos, I would cheerfully check off the $1 on my 1040 as my share of the trollops. The problem is that Clinton isn't Elvis; he's really Gov. Lepetomaine. Rob McMillin <rlm@pricegrabber.com> I couldn't agree more that Clinton wants to keep Big Government at the center of middle class life, after all, they vote. It's the poor — whose voter turnout is notoriously low, and from whose abuse the middle class draws shameful righteousness — that Clinton has betrayed. Now, you are obviously one of those conservatives who (understandably) wish to believe that Clinton's mendacity and corruption can be severed from the political leanings that you share with him. Well, sir, I am a liberal and on behalf of all of us bleeding hearts, I'm going to have to remind you that many of Clinton's political actions were as obscenely conservative as his personal actions were obscenely libertine. Not only is he responsible for the de facto elimination of Aid to Dependent Children, but in his quest to make welfare dependent on "incentives" (read: "threats"), he has endorsed as his model such programs as Missouri's "Direct Job Placement" scheme, wherein the state serves as the corner barker for an auction of forced labor. In practice, this means that welfare recipients must often gut chickens for Tyson Foods or else lose all benefits. Thus Tyson Foods is supplied with a desperate, muzzled, non-union workforce in an industry where — according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — one third of employees a year suffer illness or injury due to the job. I can understand why you might want to distance Clinton — and his penis — from your politics, but that is, I'm sorry to report, where he belongs. Love and kisses, Ann Sudan? What about Yugoslavia? It is amusing and frightening to see the aging rock 'n rollers decend into Alzheimerism. Lee Roskin <ledros@got.net> I think I come down on the "frightening" side of the continuum, though one often has to laugh. Yours, Ann I thoroughly enjoyed "Lipstick Traces" on thesuck.net. It's great to read the words someone who has actually put some thought into what she is writing. It's easy to see why Mother Jones hired you. They obviously pay you to write for them, but I am not so sure about some of the other writers. Where did you edit/write before thesuck.net? Mike McLeod <starprinting@mindspring.com> To judge by the behavior at our office get-togethers, I am pretty sure Suck's other writers do get paid — in crack. As for the logic of Mother Jones' hiring decisions, you've obviously got more insight on the process than I do, as — contrary to my out-of-date bio — I don't work there any more. Live from the nation's capital, Ann I hardly consider myself an apologist for Clinton's reprehensible behaviour and even more unseemly prevarications, but the insinuation that the the bombings in Africa were motivated by Clinton's desire to deflect attention from his wang is a very serious one, even in jest. Maybe I'm being naive, but responding to an attack by Osama bin Laden against the American embassy seems plausible enough for me to accept, despite our yet unexplained bombing of what appeared to be a legitimate pharmaceuticals factory. Thanks, Oliver Mellet <melletog@hotmail.com> That Clinton obscures his wang with a bang — on multiple occasions — is a serious charge, and rest assured I do not make it in jest. You seem to understand the substance of the argument for his Wag the Dong strategy yourself — but the "accidental" confusion of a pharmaceutical factory with a legitimate (whatever that means in this context) target is the least suspicious action taken under the auspices of Operations Codpiece I, II, and III. Clinton ordered the use of force against remote — and convenient — enemies three times in 1998, each instance coincident with especially trying moments in his struggle against impeachment. Clinton ordered the strike against El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries on August 20, 1998 — the night that Monica Lewinsky returned to the grand jury and three days after his first "apology" to the American people. On the same night, Clinton ordered the attack on Osama bin Landen and his associates, claiming that the bombing was necessary because the gang had fortuitously gathered in one spot and there was only one window of opportunity through which to hit them. This can neither be proved nor disproved. But consider: Why they would gather so, on territory well known to US intelligence, is one question, how we could then manage to miss a single target is another. His bombing of Iraq on December 19, 1998 — a day after his second "apology" — occurred just in time to postpone the impeachment debate, a happy coincidence probably owed to Clinton's "discovery" of Hussein's non-compliance with UN inspectors — the nominal reason for the bombing — well in advance of the UN itself. I have shamelessly lifted most of this argument from Christopher Hitchens' No One Left To Lie To, a book whose slight length belies the fact that it carries much more weight than Ezsterhas' 400 pages of hot air. Heart on the sleeve, hand on the trigger, Ann Good to see your acerbic wit again ... it's always nice to see both WJC and his critics/defenders/wannabes/et al. skewered in my morning Suck. Andrew Sullivan <ajsullivan@att.com> And my acerbic wit is glad to see you, Andrew Ann Ms. O'Tate, By writing you, I intend neither to side with the "Touched by an Angel" contingent nor to detract from the brilliance of your evisceration of these two pieces of 'imaginative' non-fiction...but I must take issue with your assertion that "For every West Wing, there is a Touched by an Angel, for every American Rhapsody, another "Left Behind" book." I can hardly agree with the ratio. Despite ratings and sales numbers, I would argue that "Left Behind" has hardly penetrated the American cultural consciousness on the scale of one such as John Grisham - politically divergent, but equally devoid of literary merit. And the likes of Eszterhas or (an easier target) Oliver Stone (throw Sharon in there for good measure) have little to fear in Hollywood from the occasional success of a series like "Touched by an Angel" or "Little House on the Prairie." Looking forward, as always, to the next piece. Best, Xindong Wu <Xindong.Wu@businessmanager.com> If we are to discount "ratings and sales numbers" as a measure of rightish-wing penetration (a loaded term in this context, no doubt) of American culture, what other criteria should we use? If anything, "mainstream" accounting of book sales and television viewing vastly under-represents Christian popular culture. The Times Best-seller List famously avoids tabulating the sales of "specialty" book shops (including religious ones), and the Neilsens can hardly measure such separate-but-equal distribution systems as Sky Angel, a satellite cable provider that supplies right-thinking families with content carefully pre-screened for corrupting messages (though one presumes that advertising gets through). And by the way, all this illustrates quite convincingly the practical fallacy of both Eszterhas' and Marcus' "Elvis" theory; there are vast swathes of the country — not just Christians — for whom white-boy rock and roll is not a unifying force at all, except as something to rail against. Elvis was a hero to most, but Chuck D. is not his only detractor. Fight the Power, Ann while you make a compelling argument to lock the door and just have another beer on election day, i really believe that trading guns for drugs (the Iran-Contra-Clusterfuck that coincided with the advent of crack in the inner cities) and every other "we love you people" gesture that Republicans are willing to kill us for is a much Phatter reason to choose the Democrats over those who admit to liking Alan KKKeys and Gary "i love your children" Bauer..Shit, we are choosing an "American" president for christsakes, at least the Democrats of your particular derision chose to take the advice of all good drug dealers and "not shit in their own yard" i.e., their "misgivings" were, at least, overseas. So yes, when shopping for shit, please, get the one that doesn't stink up the house. I'm not your mother, Jeff <halcyon41@hotmail.com> Whatever you say, Mom. I'll call this weekend, Ann Ms. Cox, I wanted to write to commend you on your superbly admonishing article. I don't know if you've read it yet, but Terry Eagleton's The Idea of Culture points in a similar direction. He berates the usurpation of political culture by cultural politics. Of course, he then goes all old school leftist and teary-eyed for the British Labor Party's old agenda of radical redistribution of wealth, but that's forgivable. He's old. I much prefer a stern admonition to a stern sermon on the monetary, though. One question: do you think that Clinton's almost immediate attachment to the culture industry is one point of departure for the low signal to noise political attention that you point out? What I mean is, he seemed to implicitly accede to the political inattention that you lament by tying himself to rock (ok, Fleetwood Mac) and Hollywood early on. If anything, it seems that the pop-culture toss-off books that you mention are a result of him greenlighting the imaginative leap from mere politician to cultural figure. That's all. I should add, though, that I'm always excited to see you in Feed and Suck, however rarely that occurs these days. You're always on target. And kudos to the finishing touches you put on that awful debate in the Loop. Bully for you. Fawningly, Paul-Jon Benson <asslesschaps@yahoo.com> If you're asking me if Clinton was canny enough to substitute culture for politics long before Mr. Marcus started his dissertation, the answer is yes, though I hardly think that makes him especially smart or unusual. As I mention in the piece, the phony culture war goes back at least to the "Murphy Brown" debacle (does anyone else remember that the "Brown" analogy was Quayle's way of explaining not simply unwed mothers, but in fact the LA riots?), and of course Eagleton did criticize a similar short attention span theater in England. The practice continues today, of course, and if the Reform Party candidacy of Smithereen front man Pat DiNizio in New Jersey is any indication, it will only get more literal. Put down your CDs and vote, Ann Dear Mrs. Tate, Finally someone states what really mattered about the Clinton presidency. I quote from your article: "Eszterhas and Marcus - and maybe you - may care about what the president did with his penis, but we should have been more concerned with the dangling appendage that launched the attack on the Sudan." Well said and true. But of course, most Americans don't care if their President kills a couple of poor, black foreigners in a country they can't even point out on the map... :-( Keep up the good work. A.Yngve <alf@funcom.com> :-( indeed, comrade Yngve. I couldn't have said it better myself. !@$#, Ann Subject: welcome back ... and bravo. I'll be quoting you for weeks. Looks like you posed for this week's Filler, too. ;-) Paul Boutin <boutin @wired.com> "Posing" for Filler would require my presence in San Francisco. Sadly, I haven't seen Terry in some time, and so his portrait reflects a faded memory of my younger self. I am today twenty pounds lighter, much smarter, and far more beautiful. Really. Ann |
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