for 29 September 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Listen Here, You piece really got me thinking- What does it really mean to be a democrat now a days? I'm kind of puzzled the more I think about it. I'm not really a hippie, ya know. I'm sure Rebublicans are having the same conflict. Somewhere along the line the Reps got connected with a far right/milita type image. If Al Whore wins you can kiss free speech in this country bye-bye. And what's with all this "focus on the family" shit any how- it just means more taxes for me- a single guy- to be paying. These are just observations- not meant to be entertaining in any degree. Oh and by the way- I know you have a soft spot for cops because I used to read your comic book, but fuck em anyways. For every one good cop there's 80 jackbooted thug-bullies, waiting to pound the bejezzus out of anybody who doesn't look like them. That cop had no business shoving you. A middle aged (heh), short haired dude with press creds on is not someone he should be messing with. He could have blew right by you. Actually, the more I think about it, you probably were in that fur protest, ya pinko.

Cisco
<fdv@hotbot.com>

Neither I or anyone else ever thought of myself as a cop apologist until this DNC piece went up. Have you really been routinely abused by the police all your life, or are you speaking in general terms? Anyhow, that cop threw me because I was being an asshole. I figured I could get away with ignoring them, and I figured wrong.

Peter Bagge

Your stuff sure doesn't suck. Sad commentary on the fourth estate, though. They (well, you too) have it made. Say anything they wish and if anyone even dares to criticize journalists, they scream CENSORSHIP!!!! and WE MUST PROTECT THE FIRST AMENDMENT, and by the way WE NEED TO POLICE THE BAD JOURNALISTS AMONG US!! (Of course, that does not mean me or those other journalists who are present discussing the danger of BIG BROTHER!! Big Brother is going to get you if you don't watch out! BOOOOOOO!

Jon Hilbert

Police the other journalists, eh? That's all we need — more cops!

Peter Bagge

Dear Mr. Bagge, All of online journalism should thank you for capturing so viscerally the hell that was the day-to-day life of the credentialed online journalist at the Democratic National Convention. >From the protesters that weren't quite, (One person told the tale of one of the protesters yelling "What do we want?" only to be met with... silence.) to the flimflam obstacle course that was the credentialing process (a possible contender for the 2001 journalistic olympics?), you captured it all in vivid 72 dpi color. You should be bronzed, I say.

Joshua Fouts

So who gets the Gold Medal, you? I'm glad I wasn't the only miserable scribe there. Thanks for making me feel like less of a wimp!

Peter Bagge

Polly~

i'm just curious...the letters that people write in to Suck... --especially the lame whiny ones-- are those real?

do you make them up as filler inspirations? or are there really people in the world that would send Suck an e-mail saying:

"Someone said 'Everyone is a critic' and its the truth, so here is my 2 cents. Your comics look great, the words suck. I think you are probably a highly inteligent person. So why do you ramble like a fool? You sound like a lesbian-scientist on crack! My advice... calm down a bit and write something that makes sense.

Andrew Magill <andrewmagill@yahoo.com>"

is it real? or is he some strange galatical/tactical joker writing in to sound clever? it just sounds so much like someone who i would make fun of in a chat room.

yours truly, long time suckster, occasionally clever but mostly just curious,

thephil
<>

Dear ThePhil,

Believe it or not, all the mail is 100% real. I would write fake mail, don't get me wrong, it's just that the stuff I get is so much better than anything I could write. Plus, it's much more interesting for me to try to come up with something stupid based on an email than it is for me to come up with a stupid email, then come up with a stupid column to base on the stupid email — or, worse yet, come up with a stupid final joke, then write a stupid column on it, then write a stupid email to create a big, stupid excuse for the whole mess. I think John Irving did this with a whole novel once — "A Prayer for Owen Meany." You know, everyone's favorite stupid novel. "Oh my God — so that's why his voice was so high! It all makes sense now!"

Not only are there really people in the world that would send Suck an email saying what you quoted, there are also people in the world that would send Suck an email saying this:

"Hey gang. Love yer work."

I mean, almost all the mail we get has something weird about it.

Let's just review a letter we ran yesterday:

"Yes I would like to sponser you. I have a pair of gym socks here that well, smelly rather frusty. I insist that you take them as I think that your site has too many scantly clad fish. And yes I know that fish have no feet, but i am thinking that they coulds use it as a shawl. I think that your fish would look very 'mod' with these socks."

Now, what exactly does the word "frusty" mean? And why do they "smelly rather frusty"?

These are the kinds of artistic choices that simply baffle the mind, and keep our reader mail fresh and friendly.

Frustily,

Polly

Dear Polly,

I'm always afraid to write anything to you guys because I might end up just like the folks in today's Filler, but I just had to compliment you on your excellent work. Perhaps it's only me, because I love well executed running gags, but I was laughing out loud nonetheless! And I don't even know what the Hamptons are! Good stuff.

Jason
<>

You know, I hardly know what the Hamptons are, either, Jason.

You are not alone.

Polly

despite my bad reputation i've never flamed you before. i almost think of you as one of my peers, fighting the good fight against thesuck.net. as such i'm just going to write you a normal letter like i would write to anyone, not a performative filler thing.

last week when you were talking about psychiatry and the book of revelations and lsd etc you said something like "X number of deep therapy sessions to achieve Y" or "X number of acid trips to achieve Y". well you should have a more careful attitude towards your health. just as much as some strong medicine can have a strong help it can make you suseptible to a strong disease. there's no inherent benifit in a *strong* cure, except to say that IF you observe its correct placement in the entire universe of things going on inside and outside of you you can hit the right notes so to speak, and then they will be loud. going into strength-of-cure without mindfulness of the fullness around you is going to get you sucked into loudness-without-melody which is just a shrieking hell... which of course changes into catharsis, which is good. but the bad side isn't good just because it changes into good when it reaches its fullness. don't create the false impression for your peers that strength in-itself (the very concept of which is false) is worth meddling with.

the other thing i think you should think and talk about more, in the psychological line, is your family, and all your little followers' families. as remarkably simple and obvious as this may sound, the vast majority of the psychological problems of you and your peers are because these are all people who were chased away from their parents by evil forces. as leonard cohen would say, "it begins with your family but soon it comes around to your soul". not to play anthropologist but even the fact that people feel the need to NOT live with their own parents is the cause and symptom of an extremely deep disease. the ideal of the nuclear family, that is. if you could somehow re-position your psychiatric witticisms to allude to the fact that most of this pain comes from not being near your parents (or not being able to be near your parents), it would do a lot of good. you'd have to be subtle about it though -- how far are these people (in their thinking caps) away from thinking that their family is the least bit important.

stay down in it, doing the good work.

Demmy Rooster
<demmy@treehouse.dyndns.org>

Another fine example of the kind of artistic genius that hails straight from our mailbags.

I'll agree with your assessment that a lot of people our age (assuming we actually are peers) put their families low on the totem pole. I'll also suggest that at least a few of them belong there. I'd also like to point out that it's a very big country, so alienation from one's family can sometimes seem inevitable, and once it starts, it's tough to stop. I'd also like to mention that I'd develop an extremely deep disease if I moved in with any member of my family. This is my own fucking problem, really, as I am a bad combination of intolerant and intolerable.

See, whether or not people are close to their families, they have to learn to be tolerant, patient, accepting, and wise in building their own families, so the same lessons are learned eventually. It's tougher for those who can't handle their own families to start families of their own, because they're so out of practice in dealing with other, pesky, bizarre, stubborn, passive-aggressive people. Unless they're social workers. At any rate, most of us choose to put off the family-creation process for as long as humanly possible.

I can't believe I'm talking about important life lessons. What is this, Touched By An Angel?

Out of practice,

Polly

The Shit

Krushchev Remembers, by Nikita Krushchev (authorship disputed), translated by Strobe Talbott

Five-Star Day Cafe Athens, Ga.

Salon's "Action Figures" TV ad

Donna's Famous "Long and Short of It," by Donna Anderson and friends

Two-Lane Blacktop, directed by Monte Hellman (The Anchor Bay/Universal letterboxed edition)

George Bush, Dark Prince of Love: A Presidential Romance, by Lydia Millet (Scribner)

King Kong: The Complete 1933 Film Score, by Max Steiner Moscow Symphony Orchestra, William J. Stromberg conductor (Marco Polo)

Eightball #20, by Dan Clowes (Fantagraphics Books)

The ECW's Little Spike Dudley

Stan Kenton, City of Glass, featuring arrangements by legendary weirdo Bob Graettinger (EMD/Blue Note)

Comix 2000, Edited and published by L'Association, 2000

Star Dudes

Do you know of stuff that doesn't actively suck? Things so good they deserve to make the Shitlist? Send your suggestions to us.