for 3 January 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Dear Polly,

It's not about the size of the Filler (although opinions vary, I'm told); it's about the essential truth you convey. I appreciate someone who can be concise and incisive. I have trouble being either.

I identified most with Theory #2 as this is the time of year when I become more introspective and thoughtful than usual. In this intolerable state, I often find it necessary to check my email or raid the cookie jar.

Your insights keep me reading, even when it pains me to read what you choose to tell me. I particularly appreciated your observation about people who "have difficulty dealing with regrets". I've just added that one to my personal pantheon.

Always trying,

Richard Banks
<rkbanks@swbell.net>

Well, at least you're always trying. Most people are always repeating the same fucking stupid mistakes over and over again, without recognizing what they're doing.

I, too, become more introspective and thoughtful this time of year. I wish I could say this introspection and thoughtfulness lead me to groundbreaking new insights into myself and others, but the truth is, they mostly lead me to conclude I need to change everything — you know, start from scratch so I can make the same mistakes all over again.

In any case, it sounds, from your tone, like I've been too strident with my advice. You wouldn't be the first to say as much. Rest assured that this hurts me more than it hurts you. I'm a bad mother, am I not? Full of self-righteous, indignant advice, talking more than I listen, full of blame and eager to point fingers? Well, behind every bad mother there's a bad mother.

Blaming Mommy,

Polly

I can imagine the general jist of the phrase from context, but I've gotten curious: What exactly is a piss boy?

Daniel
<methoddan@telocity.com>

In Mel Brooks' "History of the World" this king shouts "Piss Boy, bring me my bucket!" I haven't actually seen this movie. But back when I was a senior in college, my friend Steve had already graduated and was working as an assistant to a very important human being at Duke University. I met Steve because I was working for an assistant to another assistant to that self-same important human. Because I was an assistant's assistant, I mostly showed up hungover and surly and entered addresses into a database. Often, I fell asleep on the job, within view of all the assistants and the assistants' assistants, and sometimes the important human himself would walk through — I don't think I ever met him. He was this significant human who befriended other significant humans and drank wine with them, with the hopes of someday encouraging them to pull out their checkbooks and write huge checks to the university so we could all continue to walk through really cool buildings on our way to getting wretchedly drunk and molesting each other. Needless to say, I took my job incredibly seriously. Mostly it was fun to read the provocative language the important human used in his letters, which, among other things, suggested to super-rich and important parents that they need not be quite as concerned as, say, a not-so-rich and unimportant parent might be, regarding their children's ability to be admitted to said fine institution of higher yearning — er, learning.

My tasks were dull and insignificant, and I lost my position working for the assistant's assistant within a few months. Steve, on the other hand, continued to work for the important human, and his tasks were of a more personal nature. Fetching stuff, creating frivolous databases, attending snotty parties filled with kids who weren't smart enough to get into Duke on their own limited merits but did know how to hold a wineglass in one hand while balancing a tasty morsel on a napkin in their other hand while sounding intellectually curious yet high-spirited and witty — these are some of the multifarious tasks my friend Steve was forced to perform. As a result, his friend Carl and I took to calling him a piss boy.

Keep in mind, I hadn't graduated yet, and therefore had no idea how difficult it was to find gainful employment during a worsening recession. This was before I secured my own place in the world as piss boy to a piss boy to a very important and highly repugnant human at Wells Fargo Bank.

Looking back, I regret maligning poor Steve in this way. But then, he went on to med school and became a highly paid doctor. Perhaps without my tough love Steve never would've amounted to shit. In fact, I think we can be certain Steve never would've amounted to shit without my help. Steve owes me, I think.

Neither concise nor incisive, and a very, very bad mother,

Polly

Work?

No, seriously. Since my doctor refused to write me a prescription for Desoxyn on the grounds that he'd "never heard of it" and I can't get away with having sex at work anymore, I've been bored out of my mind. Which means, as I have so many times in the past, I turned to thesuck.net for "entertainment". Usually it's so long and full of big words and links that I can kill 1 and a half, maybe even 2 hours "reading" it, and get paid at the same time!

Except today, when I blew through it in like 20 mins.

What a crock!

You guys need to work harder.

Hard-working engineer at somecompany.com,

Robert St. James

It takes you 2 hours to read Suck and we need to work harder?

Selling my stock in somecompany.com,

Polly

One of the best ever...

Regina Liszanckie
<rliszanckie@organizationalresearch.com>

Dear Regina,

Ah, me public. While so many of the little people spend the holidays with their self-basting heads in the oven, I just bask in the marinade that is soothing, though patently false and misguided, accolades.

Yrs,

Mr. M

Subj That darned economy

Dear Mr. Mx,

I fully expect the unexpectedly sharp jolt to the economy to deepen as the xmas sales numbers are tallied. Reporting on the deepening recession and the inevitable bickering of talking heads casting blame this way and that (i.e., "Bush "talked" us into this recession!") will take the place of the recent news that election results are a bit less accurate than pre-election polling. Shoddy media analysis to the contrary, these little election snafus could easily be prevented with authenticated voting online. I'm expecting to wake up with the mark of the beast on my forehead any day now.

Still looking to the television for vapid and vacuous experiences,

Richard Banks
<richard.banks@cpa.state.tx.us>

Dear Richard,

Expecting TV to deliver your V&VE quotient is *so* 20th century I can barely stand to answer. But I will: the problem isn't with authenticated voting but with voting in general. Never having "voted" for a winning candidate I can assure that these things are every bit as much decided in advance as NFL games or the Golden Globes.

Color me new year's blue,

Mr. M

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.