for 23 March 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Thanks O'Magau. You brightened what was otherwise, a rather annoying day. If one more person invites me to the Druid, O'Byrne's or Keiley's for St. Patties — I swear — I am going to go Dowdy on the lot-of-em.

Green with nausea,

Scott
<smilligan@daemarinc.com>

Sure, Milligan, it's the want of a drink that ails you.

O'Magua

Mr. Magua, Sir.

I am outraged, nay, vilified, that Suck would take the absurd and untenable position of calling the fine and noteworthy NY Times columnist, Ms. Maureen Dowd, some sort of serial killer.

What a ridiculous, unsubstantiated and irresponsible piece of dribble to print.

Why, it would almost be funny if... wait a sec.

funny.

oh.

nevermind.

Peter Warren

It is, of course, Ms. Dowd's rapier wit and sly irreverence that slays readers by the baker's dozen.

Magua

LIEUTENANT CASSIUS ROCHAMBEAU (M/3, 7 12, late-50s):

The NYPD's top criminal profiler, CASSIUS is a legend on the force, having brought in the notorious Silicon Alley Stalker, but he's burned out and ready for retirement.

There should be blotchy, shaky flashback scenes of when he cornered the Silicon Alley Stalker in the New Guggenheim only to lose him in the throng of tourists in SOHO when a bike messenger cuts off his pursuit. The killer goes on to kill 5 women working for Razorfish and haunt Lieutenant Cassius forever. Turns out to be the same killer. Happy ending and shit.

Perhaps Razorfish has done web development for U2 and made a botch of it. Or, perhaps the killer started the Decline of the Dot-conomy by taking out Razorfish to protest Bush not taking a stand against the Brits in Belfast.

Or whatever. Do we get to see O'Fergus' girlfriend naked?

Cameron Geiser
<cameron@slip.net>

Blotchy shaky footage is kind of a must in this film, as it tends to be in all such cinema. Maybe the script doctors can work in a subplot where a young cop has to go to the SA Stalker in his maximum security cage to receive perverse insights into the criminal mind. Only we'll have to hire Michael Rooker or somebody because we can't afford Anthony Hopkins.

All of which raises an important question: Why hasn't Hollywood given us an anti-gentrification serial killer?

Magua

Actually, St. Patrick was a Brit. He was born in modern-day Scotland, and lived most of his life in Britain or France.

Check it

It's also worth remembering that St. Paddy primarily saved Ireland, not from paganism, but in fact from Christianity. True, it was a heretical branch of Christianity known as Pelagianism (a horrible sect that believed that human beings were essentially good, dignified, and strong, rather than wretched, sinful, and useless per Catholic dogma). But still.

Evan Prodromou
<evan@unique.outlook.net>

The Catholic Encyclopedia can say what it wants, but during a visit to the Wax Museum of Tours, this reporter saw a display of St. Pat suiting for a crusade in the Emerald Isle — suiting up in Tours, that is, where he (the placard claimed) had spent most of his life. Wax figures = hard evidence. As the Vatican has no wax figures of its own (unless you count the Pope), I'm sticking with my story. Besides, on Saint Patrick's day everybody's French.

M. Magua

You guys,  

A week ago my friend Stephen was totally bummed out because he caught gonnorhea from some AOL chatroom trick. So I said, "You need cheering up, let's go see 'Hannibal,'" because that's the kind of friend I am.   The theater wasn't very full so I didn't feel too bad talking to Steven through the trailers, witty asides flying faster than Irene Cara's detachable hair extensions.   Comes the trailer for "What's the Worst that Could Happen?,"  which, incidentally was filmed in our fair-to-middling city of BigDig, Massachusetts.  After a couple of creamy shots of Martin Lawrence's face, I turned to Mark and said, "Did they have some Hollywood glamour photographer setting up Martin Lawrence's shots or did they use that special wrinkle removing camera they use for Morgan Fairchild and David Letterman?"  Everybody else in the trailer looked, you know, human, but Martin Lawrence looked like a living John Singer Sargeant painting.   I just accidentally revealed that Stephen's real name is Mark, didn't I?  Oh well, I'm not his std clinician, he can't sue me.  

Spike
<Spike519@mediaone.net>

We're sorry that "Stephen" had to suffer, but it's worth it to hear support for our theory that there is a terrible Martin-related sham being perpetrated. It's going to be hard convincing people that there's a digitally remastered Martin haunting our screens, but if enough of us make enough noise, well, it'll be almost as good as the "no rain" chant at Woodstock '69.

Sucksters

Dear Sucksters:  

Although some works and some doesn't, like anything else, the point of direct mail is that you can measure it perfectly. The traditional rap on advertising is that "50% of your advertising is wasted; I just don't know which 50%." For direct mail, you can measure effectiveness down to the tenth of a percentage point.   (That, incidentally, is why direct mail is not as evil as spam. You know the price of every piece you send out---it can vary between about 50 cents to several dollars---so you work hard ensuring that there is at least an OK chance that the people getting it are interested. You work very hard, using smart people, to clean your lists.]  

The promise of Internet advertising was that it would be just like direct mail, only better. You'd customize your advertising so that only those who really really cared about your product would be advertised, and thus the cost/sale of advertising would plummet. Unfortunately, nobody ever figured out how to do this, and the price per incorrect ad stayed negligible, which is how we got where we are today.  

So, if you get a frybread t-shirt, send one along in my size. I like fry bread. It's especially good early in the morning in Santa Fe, walking to Indian Mark-Up (oops, Indian Market), with money in your jeans and a song in your heart. Although not quite as good as sleeping late and having breakfast at Pasqual's. Let's face it---native American cuisine is yet another oxymoron.  

Alan Kornheiser
<akornhis@optonline.net>

The reason direct mail continues to grow is because, no matter how low the response rate is across the industry, the process works. And as you note, when done intelligently, it works really well. For the same reason, banner ads will be back eventually. Whether they'll be back in time to head off the grisly end of Suck is another story.

There were actually some intelligent points made about clickthrough on Plastic's Salon-payment discussion — the most important being that banner ads haven't blossomed because they've eschewed branding in favor of currying clickthrough. We could expand on that to say that if you think of banners the same way you think of an eighth-page ad in a magazine, you're actually getting a value-add from that half-percentage-point of readers who actually click through.

Sucksters

The click-through rate on banner ads is 0.5 per cent? Thank God. Now I don't feel quite as guilty about using WebWasher to block them.

Michael K.
<michael.k@iname.com>

But when everything that you read on the web doesn't exist anymore you'll feel worse than guilty. You'll feel bored.

Sucksters

I was just reading your comments on Martin Lawrence ["it's painfully clear that the Martin visage has been gone over by Pixar, ILM, Digital Domain, or possibly all three."].

Along the same line...I was wondering if you guys might like to comment on the horrifying TV commercials that have Martha Stewart setting tables and such while surrounded by various family members. The fact that her holiday commercials showed her so smooth and line-free that her 14 yr old niece looked older than her (skin-wise, mind you), made me lose my appetite a few times. It's like something out of a night mare. And I just KNOW you guys could do justice to the subject.

Airbrushing away any signs of reality: It's a good thing.

Lynette Estes
<LEstes@nefn.com>

But we always sort of figured Martha Stewart was a digital creation to begin with...

Sucksters

I've also been inundated by the charitable direct mail deluge;  it was after I donated some money to Habitat for Humanity (probably feeling guilt after lusting in my heart after a woman) that they started sending me monthly, then nearly bi-weekly exhortations and pleas for money.  Between them and the rest of the charitable world, I shall never have to order return address labels again.

Though I have to admit, I was puzzled by one thing...

...why not have the last sentence link to wherever one WOULD buy a banner ad on Suck?  The clickthrough rate for your in-essay links has got to be higher than that for a banner ad...

Steve Saus
<uriel1998@yahoo.com>

Actually clickthrough on Suck's ads was always said to be a bit higher than the industry average, but you're probably right.

Funny you should allude to President Carter. Suck just got hit up by The Carter Center's agricultural program, which aims to stamp out hunger in Africa. At the end of the pitch, the one-term Prez points out that he happens to be a farmer "as were all the Carters going back at least 350 years." Unfortunately, June Carter Cash doesn't seem to be in on this offer.

If you want a real nightmare charity, look no further than United Farm Workers, to which Suck has contributed several times, and which employs the most relentless cold-callers in America. Once they spot you as a soft touch you'll never get rid of them. We'll get behind this state holiday for Cesar Chavez when UFW gives us a break, and not a minute sooner.

Sucksters