for 13 May 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Family Jewels

Nice job! You've no doubt
heard the story of the Viagra
patient who developed a
painful priapism that lasted
for hours after taking the
drug. After many failed
attempts to reach his doctor,
he returned to the pharmacy.
"Help me!" he cried.

"There's $400 in the
register," said the
pharmacist, "and there's a
safe in the back."

Best, Keith Pajkowski
<kpaj@worldnet.att.net>

Boy! I bet the doctor was
really mad when he found out
about that!

Proof that Genetic
Engineering Can Go Terribly
Wrong,

LeTeXan

Dear Tex:

There's an essay there, a
good, funny, nasty essay ...
but alas, it's not the one
you wrote. Maybe if Suck paid
more than $1.50 per
essay, you guys would have
more time to edit yourselves.
Oops; sorry. Not really as
nasty as it sounds; imagine
it said with a grin and an
offer to buy you a drink.

The agribusinesses are
screwed up; with their new
products, they're acting more
like software companies ...
ahhh, we'll fix the bug in
the next release. A bad
thing. The reduced percentage
of men, caused by chemicals
that mimic hormones, is
almost surely an artifact of
bad experimental design and
anyway, as you note,
restricted only to Canadians,
so who cares: a silly thing.
Anti-impotence drugs target a
legitimate medical problem,
one of increasing importance
if we wish an aging
population to stay healthy
and productive and alert: a
good thing. And boys really
don't have more fun, or
weren't you beaten up in the
shower in high school? An
important thing ... and one,
to be sure, in the process of
being turned into idiotic
psychobabble by a culture
educated beyond its
capabilities (a separate
essay).

I'm not sure ANYBODY could
turn this disparate mess into
a coherent rant. You get high
marks for trying. You'd have
gotten higher marks if you'd
slowed down a bit and tried
to make it more
intellectually rigorous.

Oh well. Those who can, do;
those who cannot, email
critiques.

Alan Kornheiser
<ASKORNHEISER@prodigy.net>

Well, now...

Hm.

I'm thinking.

Nope. Once the crank wears
off, I'm useless.

LeTeXan

Interesting opinions about
the disturbingly violent
tendencies of today's Power
Ranger-ing youth. Perhaps the
reason for the mother's
having less influence on the
boy's life, thereby
increasing his tendency to
act and react violently, lies
not with Viagra. (Which, by
the way, will allow many
older people who God has
naturally discouraged from
doing the nasty to acquiesce,
no matter the shrinkage.)
Perhaps the reason that boys
of the 90s are getting
less contact with their
mothers and less "sensitivity
training" or
compassion-sessions lies in
the ideas put forth by the
same people now tearing at
their hair and clothes in
angst about the whole
ridiculous situation: the
feministic philosophies of
female "empowerment."

The reason boys
don't know NOT to
rip the head off of Raggedy
Ann and use her torso as a
bazooka is because mommy is
off changing the world in the
workplace while Johnny plays
Doom 64 in day-care. How
in the world can we therefore
expect Johnny and Bobby and
Sammy NOT to kick Janey to
death while making sound
effects with their drop kicks
(as happened recently in
Canada)?

Being raised on
violence unhindered by
parental supervision or
direction creates exactly the
same little monsters
littering the demographical
field as those you have
described. So ... would that
mean that "girl power" (sorry
to quote the Spice Girls) is the
root of all familial evil?
No, but daddy coming home,
cracking a Michelob and
turning on WWF while Mommy
tells the kids to shut the
hell up so she can sell a
house certainly doesn't
create the ideal family of
the 21st century.

Old farts boning each other way
past their expiration date
has nothing to do with the
inept parental habits
cultured by the destruction
of the traditional family
life of the post-World-War-II
days. Is it going to take
another World War to bring
people back to reality?
Unless we want Johnny pumping
semen and lead into Janey
during recess, we'd better
stick to the tried-and-true
fact of the ages - men hunt
animals, women provide the
brains of the relationship
and raise more men to hunt
more animals. I'll take that
over Viagra any day.

Justin Reese
<jarfrogs@aol.com>

Hm. IMHO, you've got sorta
the right idea for completely
the wrong reason. While it's
certainly a problem that
mom's not home, I'm not sure
this has anything to do with
traditional notions of female
roles.

If you can find it, I
recommend Mike Males, "Wild
in Deceit: Why 'Teen
Violence' Is Poverty Violence
in Disguise" (EXTRA!
March/April 1996, pp. 7-9). It
coincides with the main idea
of my piece, which is that
Viagra and Jonesboro, while
sensational and even
entertaining as "news," are
not the root of the problem.

LeTeXan

From one boy who never
understood my true nature, I
thank you with throbbing palm
outstretched. My mind swells
with the erect connotations
of world domination. The
patriarchal earth-father of
the moon's golden triangle
makes my mind erect and I can
no longer stem the tide of
oozing throes of meaning from
hitting the floor as I ponder
the boyness - the wholeness -
He represents.

This must mean I am gathering
... thank you.

f.

Uh ... You don't sound that
anxious to hunt animals.

Is your mom one-a-them
feministic philosophers or
something?

LeTeXan

Come Again?

Skinner,

Rarely do I find myself
doubting the factual accuracy
of anything I read in Suck.
Today, however, you have made
up for months of
undifferentiated accuracy by
waxing ignorant on two
subjects close to my heart
(or at least my field of
study).

Your link to the supposed
telco whorehouse mentioned in
your piece took me to a
Sprint site advertising a
flat 10 cents rate on all
long distance calls, provided
you spend a minimum of US$30
per month (else a $4.95
monthly fee). This is
prostitution? I personally
don't spend nearly that much
per month (I live in Dayton,
Ohio, for chrissake; we are
not an exciting breed). But
for those who do spend a
little to reach out and touch
people, this offer would be
tempting. Maybe there are
other examples of telco
prostitution out there, but
your link certainly wasn't
one of them.

This much I was willing to
forgive. I chalked it up to
lousy link research, perhaps
a passed deadline or a vague
feeling that Suck readers
don't follow your links, what
with so many of them DOA by
9:30 in the morning (like
your link to thebook.com).

Then you repeated one of the
most common, and most
muddle-headed and
ill-conceived notions around,
the idea that car leasing is
dumb because you get no
equity. Skinner, cars are not
houses. Cars depreciate,
while houses (unless you live
in California, or 1988)
appreciate. While it is
smarter to buy than to rent a
house, you should in no way
confuse this with the
lease/buy question regarding
cars.

I direct your attention to
the April 1998 Car and
Driver magazine, which has
for years been laboring on
this point, apparently
without success. Every mile
you drive a car COSTS YOU
MONEY. There is absolutely
nothing you can do about it.
Buy the car, it costs you
money. Lease the car, it
costs you money. Pay cash, it
costs you money. Hold it
forever, or sell it in two
years, doesn't matter, it
costs you money. Whether -
after all costs (real and
opportunity costs) are
considered - leasing is
better than buying always
depends on the specific lease
deal available.

The April Car and Driver
compares one buyer who sells
his Jaguar after three years,
to one lessor who leases the
car for three years. After
figuring in residual value,
APR, and the opportunity cost
for the buyer of not having
50 grand to invest in bonds
or tech IPOs, it turns out
that the buyer is a big,
stupid asshole who could have
saved $7,000 over three years
if he had leased instead of
bought. And the lessor can
now afford that three-week
European vacation he's always
wanted.

The BMW 740iL was also
cheaper to lease, while the
Audi, Lexus, and Mercedes
were cheaper to own.

The point is that equity only
matters if your asset is
appreciating, or at least not
rapidly depreciating, as cars
do.

Tom Castle

P. S. But I liked you beating
up on the IRS. Those fuckers.

Egad, Tom!

I think the Y2K bug has
struck a pre-emptive blow.
After trying to figure out
what the hell you were
talking about, I realized
you'd read my rant of a year
ago, "Come Again."

Sadly, the passage of one
year has done little to
improve my opinion of telcos
and car leases. While your
assessment of asset
depreciation is sound, and a
car loses value from the day
it rolls off the lot, you
still have the value of
ownership - even if it
amounts to 50 bucks from the
salvage yard. Depreciated
value is still value - which
you don't have in lieu of
ownership. Typically, the
only "asset" you have after a
three-year lease is whatever
deal the dealership will
strike to insure another
grift like the first one ...
brand loyalty!

You may well be right that it
depends on crunching the
numbers on a case-by-case
basis. Ultimately, though, I
think whether you gain or
lose money in the transaction
is incidental; it's just
another interesting extension
of our throw-away culture:
The product itself comes and
goes, but the brand stays
constant (if the loyalty
specialists are doing their
job)....



Thanks for taking me down
memory lane,

E.L. Skinner

Filler

Subject: Actor's ministry and
Microsoft

Polly-

Was it your intention to
prove Microsoft's point, or
just a happy coincidence that
the first section of today's
filler (29 April) contained
many quotes from apparently
stupid people (Jesus was a
model...). I mean really, we
all know Jesus was a
carpenter. While there isn't
much doubt that he was a
performer of one sort or
another, the rest of the
quote (which I'm too lazy to
reprint) clearly shows some
evidence of stupidity.

Although I'm always willing
to play another round of
"Slam the Gates," isn't it
time we admit that maybe he
is right? After all, we keep
buying his inferior products
and accepting the fact that
the initial release is always
full of bugs and requires us
to buy an update or a patch
or deal with its little
problems. (My version of Word
has a bug that prevents it
from using hyphens.)
Additionally, we rush out and
buy Windows 95 (or 98) or
whatever, at midnight on
release day, standing in line
like we are waiting for
concert tickets (or like
cattle waiting for food), and
then complain about how hard
it is to use, while all the
time there is a technically
superior system slowly going
out of business (Mac). So,
while "Where do you want to
go today," and the rest of
the Microsoft propaganda
advertisements are certainly
kind of demeaning, and Bill
Gates likely does think we
are stupid, is it any wonder?

Anyway, moving back a little
to the original proposition
(that entertainers and the
hangers-on that accompany
them are stupid), if the
quotes in Filler don't offer
enough proof, we have
Politically Incorrect every
night to prove it beyond any
reasonable doubt. Anyone who
has watched this show is well
aware that in the realm of
celebrities, a voice of
reason is a real breath of
fresh air. If we are lucky,
one celeb a week (out of 20)
will exhibit even the
slightest bit of good sense.
By this I mean actual logical
or emotional appeals based on
sound reasoning in an ad-lib
format, not just agreeing
with my point of view.
However, we continue to
idolize these folks, pay them
a fortune, and validate their
brainlessness. Theoretically,
by paying them a ton of money
for looking good and being
dumb, we are giving them an
evolutionary advantage, and
are condemning our race to
end up dumb and good-looking,
easy fodder for the first
intelligent aliens to come
along. Or worse, we're
risking being replaced on the
food chain totem pole by
apes, or cats and dogs, or
worse yet, some sneaky
reptile, lying in the ooze,
slowly developing a language
and some tools and planning
to take over. Maybe they
watch TV and the second that
the last intelligent program
disappears (any day now) they
are going to spring up and
annihilate us. It's just a
theory

If you took the time to read
this entire bloated
commentary, I thank you.

Evan Noveck

"Sneaky reptile lying in the
ooze, slowly developing a
language and some tools and
planning to take over?" Are
you talking about Rush
Limbaugh?

At least the good-looking
dumb people usually realize
how dumb they are (too hot to
care?). It's the deluded,
pompous, ugly dumb people we
really need to worry about.

Pompous Polly

Subject: Green and Easy
comparo

This was the best Filler
comparison so far: "I now
know that Club Med is easier
than a Mongolian labor
prison. I better call my
travel agent."

Erich Von Hollander
<hh@xcf.berkeley.edu>

I hate to say this, but we
didn't really fact-check that
"comparo" too thoroughly.
Hopefully you haven't booked
that Club Med trip yet -
there may still be time to
commit some major crime
against man in Mongolia.

Did you know that Mongolia is
the land of yerts and
yogurts? That's what my
seventh-grade History-
of-the-non-Western-World
teacher, Mrs. Torrain, used
to say (also not verified as
fact).

At any rate, I'd take
breaking rocks and eating
yogurt in a compound in
Mongolia over drinking Mai
Tais and chatting with
salesmen in a compound in
Cancún any old day.

Polly

P. S. Your name rhymes with
"colander." Have you noticed
that?