for 6 December 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Dear Polly —

Perhaps lack of sleep and a head addled by cough medicine are getting to me, but this last Filler was somehow less acerbic, more poignant than is your wont. Little Veronica (is that the squirrel's name? Can't remember — not as catchy as "Fish" or "Hack" or "Joey") silently endures countless callow slights; through this emotionally stunting accumulation of trivial harms, we behold her contemplating her lot in the perlescent gloom of a moonlit night. The final quiz teaches us a Romantic commonplace, Wordsworth's gnomic statement that "the child is father to the man."

This is all very sweet, but it could turn two ways:

a) Polly and her wacky friends begin to consider the insignificance of their problems in the clear light of reason.

b)You start writing greeting cards or TV movies.

c)You lapse into the typical biteness — snide, superficial, and highly amusing.

Your fan,

Jonathan Newman
<newmanj@chass.utoronto.ca>

Thanks to the constant shifting of moods, lapses are the most predictable occurrence in this unpredictable world of ours. Rest assured that my wacky friends and I already consider the insignificance of our problems in the clear light of reason, but all that clarity and light doesn't convince us to stop obsessing and start living. Why? Well, it makes the greeting card writing easier — you know, exaggeration is important to any wacky Hallmark author. It also gives us something to fill our empty minds with on lonely nights between now and the Survivor II premiere.

Lapsed and lapsing,

Polly

Jesus. Today's Filler almost bordered on poignant. The squirrel's hopes and dreams dashed against the rocks by her parents' inability to see past their own neuroses! Terry did a great job on her melancholic expression.

The end result is that all that Filler did for me today is dredge up old, deeply buried memories instead of the gleeful head-stomping mind-into-lime-jello-cubes "fuck it, i need another hit" that Filler usually resembles.

Thanks for the momentary switch to catharsis. Ya done good. But, really, I need another hit along with the rabbit.

yrs

Matt Brohammer
<m_brohammer@hotmail.com>

Hey, I need another hit along with Rabbit, too. I can't believe Janice married Ronnie Harrison. She's the pits, that Janice.

Lime jello sounds good. Why doesn't anyone throw parties anymore? Why are all the parties that people do throw so horribly dull? What's with all the melancholic expressions? Shouldn't catharsis be followed by frozen melon Daiquiris and sunshine? Why doesn't anyone worry about melanoma anymore? Who names their kid "Melanie"?

Poignantly borderline,

Polly

I've had my hand in 16 Super Bowl's Ms. Esther. I was interviewing O.J. Simpson when you were still running around in pajamas with feet, waiting for your Shawn Cassidy Shrinky Dinks to cool down. So don't you ever, ever dare presume about the consistency of my feces!

Yours if you want me,

Brent
<mburger@college.espn.go.com>

Beautifully consistent or resembling a conglomerate rock, no one's feces are that palatable, Brent, particularly when they're steaming. Don't take it personally, man. No one like snacking on poo, regardless of whether the poopies are firm, or if de doo-doo run run runs.

Polly

dear polly;

i'm conflicted by something. you see, i like hairy women, but all the guys I know are completely against women having any hair on their bodies. I just don't understand it. aren't swedish blondes some of the most popular women around? i know for a fact those scandinavian women are hairier than most men. are guys just not willing to admit to themselves that they like hairy women, or am I just the odd one out?

Ralph Harterstein

I'm not buying that made-up name, Ralph, but I am also completely against women having any hair on their bodies. I also take a strong stand against women having any wetness or odor to them, regardless of the source, and recommend that women dry all orifices and cavities to prevent oozing of any kind. I also dislike it when women speak or make any type of noise. I like them best when they're shiny, and just out of reach.

Why does it tear you up inside that your friends don't lust after hairy girls? Shouldn't that be a comfort to you, knowing they won't hit on your furry women? Or do you want approval from your male friends more than you want that gorilla girl? Maybe what you care what your male friends think because what you really want is a big hairy male. You want a bear, Ralph, just admit it and you'll be much happier.

Sleuthing like the Bloodhound gang,

Polly

Y'know, I read your piece about the elections a few weeks back, and I've got some thoughts about this whole situation. (Of course.) To wit: I actually want Bush to become the president. After eight years of ridiculous partisan infighting and struggling to get anything done with Clinton as President (and I love Clinton — think he's one of the best Presidents this country has ever had, and it's too bad he got caught with his dick hanging out), you can only imagine how impossible it would be for Gore to succeed at anything in office after a bitter close race like this, with all the bullshit that's been going on.

If Bush takes office, HE'LL have to deal with a huge anti-him group, a clear loss in the popular vote, and continuing challenges to the validity of his "win" in Florida. Nothing will get done in Congress. In two years, more Democrats will be elected, and in four years, there will be a reactive uprising to the idiot who is in office... which means after four years of nothing but annoying contentious disagreement, the backlash solution will be to elect ourselves a clear-thinking liberal! But if Gore wins, it'll be the opposite, and after four years of slightly better but still annoying nothingness, we're in store for a serious conservative uprising. I don't want that.

Of course, I don't want Gore to concede. Those fuckers, they think they can win just by calling "time!"?? They were lucky to have the numbers fall on their side in this coin toss. Punch-card machine reader accuracy isn't nearly good enough to deal with this three-hundred some-odd difference... Dole gets up there and riles the idiot dittoheads with flawed analogies to scoring points after the end of the fourth quarter, blah blah blah... Bush and Baker actually claim their victory on the grounds that "the people have spoken"!!

I want to see the Democrats PROVE they got screwed out of votes that should have been fairly given to Gore, and THEN I want to see the laws dictate that even though that information has surfaced, Bush still legally won the election. With all those cards on the table, with Bush losing the popular vote AND the electoral vote but winning because of technicalities and legal deadlines, THEN we're in for a seriously hurtful four years for the Republicans.

And that's what I'm all about.

:)

David Spancer
<david@deathworld.com>

You sound sort of like the guy who actually wants his girlfriend to go fuck someone else so she can see what bad lays most men are. I'm more the type to tie my boyfriend to a chair and then scold him for gazing at the door, longingly. Which is sort of like hiring a gaggle of high-priced lawyers — I'm not above doing a little bullying to make sure the outcome is "fair."

Anyway, let's hope we can all have your very mature nanny-nanny boo-boo attitude if things don't turn out quite the way we want them to.

Polly

Dear Big Four Oh:

Of course, maybe it's all just rock and roll. Maybe the best of the 60s is no better or worse than the best of the 70s or the 80s or the 90s...and maybe even the best is no better than it has to be. Maybe it all speaks — when it can be heard over all those teenage girls screaming — to teenage angst; and given the age, experience, and musical sophistication of those creating it...maybe it doesn't age all that well.

Perhaps, just perhaps, you never outgrow your childhood but your taste matures. In such a case, you might be willing to listen to the music of your youth more because it reminds you of how you felt when you first heard that music than because you really still admire either the music or the feeling behind it. In such a case, you might consider whatever is current as rock and roll mostly pretty thin gruel and tune it out...while accepting similarly thin gruel if it's YOUR gruel.

In such a case, we need not hypothesize any complex programming plots. The problem is inherent in the idea of radios and rock and roll.

We can imagine, in theory, a radio playlist that truly did try to present the best rock and roll of all time...a complex mix of music with little in common other than quality. Who would listen to it, though? The same demographics that now listen to the one or two classic or jazz stations that still survive? My truthful word, I think I've just reinvented late-night college radio.

Not to worry. It's got a good beat and I can dance to it. I'd give it an 8.

Alan Kornheiser
<askornheiser@prodigy.net>

You know, if I correctly remember the range of scores on the old American Bandstand segment, you just punked me out big time.

Yeah, I think the nostalgia comes into play exactly the way you describe. The creepy thing is as a kid growing up in central Indiana, the songs I was encouraged to listen to as a rebellious act were the same ones many of my teachers listened to, a crude prefiguring of the kind of Thomas Frank-described nightmare that's become very familiar these days.

I imagine that college radio in the mid- to late-'80s not only got a huge bump out of its relatively hip outsider status, but also because college students wanted to celebrate their "own music," being at that age when their self-absorption drives them to read all sorts of generation-defining magazine articles, and calculate the age of tennis champions in relation to their own.

40th Street Black

Much better than usual, Black. I think you've struck upon the right formula for success: find something to say, start writing, get really worked up about it...then really start writing. I didn't really get the point in the final analysis, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Lester Bangs never made much of a point either, but you got the basic idea anyway. Long live mock!

Chris Little
<clittle@epigraphics.com>

Thanks, coach.

Since I've given up hope of anything interesting happening while I'm still alive, I dream nightly of post-death notoriety like Bangs'. Sustained poetic incoherence sounds like a much better plan than my current strategy of doling out friendly advice to 13-year-old wannabe Web filmmakers and e-mailing Greil Marcus.

Best,

40th Street Black

How on earth do you know so much stuff? Hell.

Commie Girl
<CommieGirl@Flashcom.net>

Once I type in all the adverbs and references to Welcome Back Kotter, I only have to fake it for 400 words.

40th Street Black

I agree that Classic Rock programmers and fans can be reactionary. That was the group that coined and popularized the "Disco Sucks" movement, which was brilliantly examined in a two-part episode of "WKRP In Cincinnati," with Johnny Fever taking a job as a disco TV dance show host and becoming filled with self-loathing.

So the Classic Rock folks then railed, to a lesser extent, against the grunge movement in the 1990s. It's no coincidence that Adam Sandler's "Billy Madison" character kept listening to the same old REO Speedwagon and Billy Squier tunes he'd heard since 1980.

Will the "oldies" radio format eventually change its name to "classics"? That way, folks like me can pretend we're still "with it" long after the operatic, swooping, melismatic voices of Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, and the Destiny's Child girls become standard musical fare in the coming decades. Until the next thing comes along.

Rowdy Bohandas
<rbohandas@yahoo.com>

Hi, Rowdy.

I wish I had thought of mentioning WKRP as the video diary of classic rock and roll impulses, complete with well-positioned attacks on disco and punk rock. I'm pretty sure in a previous Suck essay I extolled the virtues of Gordon Jump defending John Lennon's lyrics, the videotape of which, as far as I'm concerned, should go on the next satellite fired from the solar system as evidence of all that's pure and wonderful about 20th Century America.

As far as finding a format on which to make a personal stand, I'm certain from years of crappy temp job that every radio format has its defenders, both sincere and insincere, no matter how obscure or widely available.

40th Street Black

40th Street Black:

After a long admiration for your seemingly bottomless reservoir of historical savvy and cultural insight, I am driven to respond to your Classic Rock piece because I might have something to add. You see, I work for a company that makes syndicated radio programs, and last year I was the producer/editor of a Classic Rock show hosted by Ray Manzarek (of the Doors...you know, the keyboard player who wore glasses, not that other guy in leather pants). Not being a fan of the genre, I had a professional imperative to shake off my attitude regarding Rick Derringer, Bob Seger, John Kay, et al.

The curious thing about Ray, considering the cash cow re-release licensing rights he's got under his belt, is that he was envious of REAL classic rockers, who make REAL money off their once-feverish posturing: Ray once told me he doesn't own a Kandinksy, but Gene Simmons of KISS does own a Kandinsky. As popular as the Doors were, they didn't hold a candle to KISS's mythic juvenalia. (And isn't it creepy to think that there's an original Kandinsky in Simmons' home?)

I particularly liked the way your wrapped up your essay, with:

"In a certain sense, the scorn one heaps upon the simplicity of music and presentation in what's known as Classic Rock turns into a reluctant admiration for breaking everything down into a rhythm-driven prayer for blissful excess and self-aggrandizement so painfully simple every single person can understand it."

The playlists of most AOL stations consists of about two dozen artists and about 75 songs, an amazingly efficient programming strategy with no room for flashbacking DJs to fuck up and and get "creative." My experience with Classic Rock (now canceled) did not bring me to an admiration for BTO or the Moody Blues, but the stranglehold the dinosaurs of radio have on the musical appreciation of the 20th century's most populous generation is as awesome as any T. Rex power chord.

Peter Crimmins
<p_crimmins@hotmail.com>

Hi, Peter.

Thanks for your note. I don't have to much to say, but I'm hoping my reply means we can share with Suck readers your update on Gene Simmons' art collection.

I never thought about it before, but a lot of those really vocal '60s rock guys sound like 1950s-era baseball player, guestimating the contract value of a modern-age Mantle or Mays. Of course, the unique thing about Classic Rock is I'm sure there are bands that came of age in the 1990s that wish they had Kiss' enduring, happily exploitative appeal as much as Manzarek might.

Best,

40th Street Black

The Shit

Physical Strength and How to Obtain It, by Eugen Sandow

Bamboozled, A Spectacular New Film by Mr. Spike Lee

G. Beato's all-new Soundbitten

William Demarest, Sultan of Snarl, in The Lady Eve (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

George Wallace: Settin' The Woods On Fire, directed by Daniel McCabe and Paul Stekler

1995

Bobby Darin, Darin at the Copa (Atlantic)

Shinji-San in the floating world of indeterminate duration, by Peter Richardson

American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation, by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor

Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1996, Merge)

45, by Bill Drummond

Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards, Singing in the Rain (ASV)

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