for 20 March 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

One of the great things about being a black male is being able to change your hair. If you look at all the various options out there it's obvious. Prince. Sisquo. Al Sharpton. Sam Jackson of course. I don't really think it's indicative of something greater. if you take that logic than every time Bill Shatner hits the Men's Boutique for a new toupee he's making some great statement. Don't get me wrong, Kirk's wigs are the bizzomb. when I go bald I'm hitting that brother up for some advice. I thought Mr. Jackson's cut in Unbreakable was great. He looked insane. That's the next one I'm going to rock.

Francisco Velasquez
<ciscov@avaya.com>

You are so right, Francisco. Thank your lucky stars that you'll never know the pain of being a white guy whose only two hair options are to cut it right to the skull like Sergeant Carter or let it grow out and look like Jackson Brown.

I thought I was the only one who liked SLJ's 'do in Unbreakable. Hell, I thought I was the only one who liked Unbreakable.

Vache

VF —

You forget that the defining hairstyle of the '90s was the Rachel, as seen on the head of Pitt's Wife in "Friends." And the Rene Russo had its day as well. (But I guess for men's hair you're right. Wait! What about the Caesar?)

An excellent essay on the important subject of artificiality in this age of the phony Real.

Stanley Belt
<stanleybelt@yahoo.com>

I knew something had escaped my notice with this piece. There it was, barely visible, just outside my field of vision like some pouf of bulbous but comely tresses... The Rachel! The signature style of the nineties! Of course! The missing clue that explains everything and nothing!

Keeping it unreal, I remain,

Vache

Ummm... not to spoil your lead or anything... but there was a piece in last month's Vibe on Samuel L. Jackson & his hairdresser and how the two have worked to create different looks for each of Jackson's films.

Just thought you should know.

- a suck reader
<tpryor@cdnow.com>

So I hear. Also Entertainment Weekly now has a mini-history of Jacksonian coifs. Still, these are specialty outlets. When Peter Jennings leads with this story, that's when I'll be satisfied that America is learning the truth.

Vache

Thank you for your column today on the New Beatlemania. I've been thinking much the same since the whole 1 phenomenon began, but hadn't quite the gumption to write a suck quality article about it and then to send it unsolicited.

It is frightening to realize that the Boomers have apropriated Youthfull Rebelion. Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll are the language of the establishment now. Whichever way we turn, to neo-flapperism, or facist puritanism, we've yet to rebel on terms our parents won't aprove of.

Can we even kill the amiable beast that gave us life? Perhaps, but only literally. The sole trend that has diferentiated this generation from those past, that has had any power to shock, have been the school-shootings and 12 year-old murderers that play so luridly on the television.

It is hatefull to think that these children are our only rebels. Violence though is the only facet of popular discourse that has yet to be entirely domesticated. In the imagined future of televised deathmatches and hardcore sex that everyone will simultaneously be forbidden and compulsory, will children be driven to kill their fathers and marry their mothers in order to live their own lives?

Coridally,

James Mitchell
<james_R_mitchell@yahoo.com>

James,

Thanks for that chilling look into America's nightmarish future. Is it too late for The Children, our nation's future? We say, hell no! Let's reclaim our country from the forces of nihilism and give our kids a brighter tomorrow of fucking their mothers and killing their fathers!

Sucksters

Dammit! That stupid Beatles album is still topping the charts. Why doesn't anyone listen to The Clash, man? I mean, why do all these people like a band I hate and care so little about a band I adore so? It's all the fault of the Boomers! Those horrible, horrible people. The Boomers are to blame for it all. How dare they be older than me? How dare they be proud of themselves and feel that their life experience has been meaningful? I swear, it's the Boomers' fault the new economy isn't taking off the way it should be. I mean, who was supplying all that VC dough anyway? It sure wasn't us do-no-wrong Xers. I mean, where would we get that kind of money? It's their fault I can't find a real job, too. Anyway, if the kids should be listening to anything, they should be listening to a bunch of guys from England who came out in the 70s, appropriated black music, and used the same chord progressions over and over...I mean, gee, The Clash put out a bunch of records too, and if it wasn't for The Clash, we wouldn't have Green Day, dude! I mean, can you imagine a world without Green Day? But in the interest of brevity, and the fact that I have no compelling argument to support my nonexistent thesis, old people suck!

Rockin' the casbah,

Alexia C. Henke
<alexia_henke@exchangeny.deutschinc.com>

Alexia,

Like, ouch!

Sucksters

"...an attempt by aging boomers to colonize the youth of their children, to make all who come after them replicate the boomers' own sensibilities, tastes, and experiences "