for 17 January 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Hey,

You mentioned unemployment in the wedding plans- I've become very good at being jobless lately so I think I should be the one who has no job. Now get out of my face while V.I.P is on!

BTW- there's a Polly Esther's here in Denver and it's horrible.

Francisco Velasquez
<ciscov@avaya.com>

I'm not responsible for bad bars, Cisco, but feel free to blame me for everything else.

Hey, on "Temptation Island" last Wednesday, did you notice how, when the coupled guys were trying to decide which of the tempting single guys to kick off, they said, "What about that guy who looks like Cisco? He's got to go." Pretty high compliment, huh? If I had known you were such a looker, maybe I wouldn't have thrown your engagement ring down the Insinkerator.

Anyway, the real trick to remaining jobless is to learn how to wash the windows, program the VCR, cook chili in the Crockpot, and administer deep tissue massage with a smile. Do the words "house boy" mean anything to you, Cisco?

Dungeon master,

Polly

I had my wedding reception at a bowling alley. Should I have held out for Sizzler?

Phil Kos
<PhilK@solthree.com>

Are you the inspiration for that sitcom called "Ed" where the goofy lawyer guy digs this local chick and, you know, they're really good friends, and she's, like, sooo cute but she just got out of, like, this REAL serious relationship, and so there's ALL this sexual tension between them but they've only kissed, like, once?

If so, I'd suggest you move back to New York City. A town called Stuckeyville should at least have a Stuckey's in it, don't you think?

Burger me,

Polly

Dear Polly,

I must say I am encouraged by the amount of mail you seem to receive from lovelorn males purely from being a Zeitgeist surfing on a weekly wave of cultural ennui. You see, I am also a bad tempered female who only becomes vaguely pleasant after a champagne or two. But Filler has shown me that this might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Do you have any advice for a grumpy woman wanting to develop a cult following? I don't want to have to get out of my chair, though. Will this be a problem?

Meredith Badger
<MBadger@actf.com.au>

I'm surprised and encouraged by the amount of mail I receive from lovelorn males, too. This must mean some kind of shift in the female ideal is occurring. No longer do men want soft, lovely, sweet-smelling, demurring, polite women. No! They want crass, awkward, self-satisfied, abrasive, self-obsessed, stinky types like you and me!

Isn't it great? We're like the Marilyn Monroes of the new millennium. Who'da thunk it? It makes me want to sing "Happy Birthday Mr. Stupidest President Ever" while pounding away on my piece-of-shit guitar.

Except that would entail getting out of my chair. My chair is really soft. Is your chair soft, too?

Soft, smug, and stuttering,

Polly

Thanks Polly. I had been planning to get married in April but now I've called it off and will spend the $20,000 on cheap hookers, heroin and Beastie Boys cds.

May you continue to be an inspiration to us all.

Treachery
<treachery@disinfo.net>

Cool by me, as long as the hookers embody the New Female Ideal, in that, they're caustic, foolish, and unwashed. Watch out for diseases, though. The New Female Ideal doesn't involve responsible behavior, beyond making sure there's icy cold ginger ale in the fridge, and setting the VCR to tape Temptation Island.

The Beastie Boys are sooo '90s Male Ideal. I'd suggest the new PJ Harvey CD instead. Needless to say, PJ Harvey embodies the New Female Ideal. Dirty pillows, baby! Yeah!

Saucy, slack-jawed, and snickering,

Polly

Subject: Lesbianism as the new Survivor Island

I've got to write this quickly because my boss could come along at any minute and start bitching about my doing any "work". Jesus, where do they get these guys?

Anyway, I'm writing to you because you're influential and people listen to you instead of just ignoring you and walking away really quickly because they think you're having a "peth fit" whatever that is. Maybe you can explain it to the world:

What's with all the lesbians on Prime Time television? I mean, lesbians are cool and all that, but did TV just discover them or what? First it's DeGeneres and that piranha-faced woman who got a cameo on Ally McBeal. Sure, fine, whatever. Then it's Sandra "jagger lips" Barnhardt showing up on Will and Grace, but everybody's gay on that show, so no biggie. But then we get that "dropped panty" scene in West Wing and now it's Dr. Kerry Weaver and that psychiatrist chick on ER! Am I just missing something or is Lesbianism the new Survivor Island?

Robert St. James, Somecompany.com

Is Lesbianism the new Survivor Island? No, Robert. Lesbianism is the new Frasier. Lesbianism is the new Macho Nachos. Lesbianism is the soundest investment advice on the Web. Lesbianism is bursting with real fruit flavor.

What makes you think that, in my day to day life, people listen to me instead of just ignoring me and walking away really quickly? Also, do you suppose people in your office are trying to suggest that you're having a "meth fit" meaning you're on speed? Maybe you should slow down and concentrate a little harder. I think if you slowed down, your use of metaphor might improve, too.

But then, what do I know? I'm the new full-sized luxury sedan.

Compact economy pick-up,

Polly

In my opinion "All About Eve" is a better story and movie. It is unsentimental and more true to life than the silly woman good man bad wishful thinking of Terry McMillan preaching to the converted.

Colin Freebury
<freebury@magi.com>

Well, Colin, I have a feeling that if we start arguing about whether A Star Is Born beats All About Eve we're going to end up looking like a couple of drag queens having a bitchfight outside David's Potbelly Stove.

I do think if you take a fresh look at the Gaynor/March Star — or for that matter even the Garland/Mason version — you'll find it's a lot hipper, darker and more artful than it gets credit for — especially, maybe, because it's a can-do success story rather than a satire of show business vanities.

yr pal,

Vicki

So, How Stella Got Her Groove Back isn't actually about international sex tourism? Going black on the perennial Star is Born is an excellent idea, though--did you see that Samuel Raphelson, plawright of the original Sabrina, had recommended that Sabrina be African-American for the Harrison Ford remake? Such a tactic would have sharpened the theme of snobbery.

One thing about all this. is that the original novel seems to have been inspired by the John Gilbert/Greta Garbo romance; Gilbert, a heavy drinker, used to love to bring his personal problems to work after a fight with Her Majesty ("She wouldn't sleep with me last night," he'd tell aquaintences at the studio.) After a rocky career in the talkies, Gilbert "drowned" in a sea of booze, which, to make the metaphor clearer, he walked straight into.

Also, the book Monster by J.G. Dunne tells of how the Jessica Savitch story was transformed in the movie making: from cautionary tale of no-talent newscaster who has one too many, drives car backwards into a canal bordering picturesque New Hope, Pennsylvania. After multiple rewrites which, it is implied, drove Dunne to cardiac problems, "Up Close and Personal" turns out to be A Star is Born (again). Which Dunne and wife Joan Didion had previously scripted for Miss Streisand...

Keep up the good work,

Richard von Busack
<regisgoat@earthlink.net>

Was there an original novel? I thought the whole original movie was Selznick's idea. If there's a novel please let me know what it is.

Vicki

What about the most significant ASiB-oid marriage?: Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman. In that case, rather than die after becoming a semi-washed-up boozer, RR just became a dissolute lout until he got a personality transplant from a [post?-] "Donovan's Brain" Nancy, but until then it fitted the pattern admirably.

Michael Turyn
<mturyn@atg.com>

You must have missed the outtakes from the 1937 ASIB, in which Fredric March turns into a drooling old coot and gets a pin put in his broken hip. It happened after he tried to drown himself in the Pacific. Big wave. It's in the director's cut.

Vicki

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.