for 26 August 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Baby Grand

I peruse Suck whenever I get
bored at work (often) and
usually I find their writings
mildly amusing. But your
article today was one of the
best stories I've seen on the
stock market anywhere. I
find it humorous that
millions of "independent
investors" are haphazardly
throwing their money at the
market, be it dolls or
stocks. And who can blame
them, with all the success
their friends are having -
they must be missing out on
something because, heck,
everyone's making money but
me.

Ramblings aside, excellent
article. If (when) people
realized how true it is, Wall
Street would not be a good
place to be.

Ted Postula
<postman@magicnet.net>

The market may rise and fall,
but no place that has
hundreds of guys in smocks
standing outside to smoke
cigarettes, a pub of the
quality of Cassidy's Liquid
Assets, an American Indian
Museum, and countless titty
bars in walking distance will
ever be a truly bad place.
Wall Street rocks.

yr. pal,

la vache

my favorite was back during
the Great Tickle Me Elmo
Crisis of 1997, when Jay Leno
started showing classified
ads from random newspapers
people had taken out to
unload their Tickle Me Elmos.
The prices kept getting
higher, reaching into
thousands of dollars, when
finally Jay pulled out one
that said "Tickle Me Elmo:
$30,000. Comes with 1994
Chevrolet."

McClure
<mcclure111@earthlink.net>

You've pretty much hit on
Suck's online epitaph:

Suck Almost as hip as Jay
Leno.

the thing that scares me
about the whole Beanie Baby
trend is the idea that, at
any given time, a certain
segment of the population is
essentially lying in wait for
"the next big thing," and when
this "thing" hits all of a
sudden there are people
standing at the water cooler
telling you, "i'm only 28
years old and i already own
32 Beanie Babies!!"

there are people that i know
that all i know is how much
they like Beanie Babies -
that is the most definitive
part of their personality i
can find. the scary part is
in thinking that there is
some sort of missing piece in
someone's personality which
"gets filled" via a trend
like Beanie Babies.

back during the whole O. J.
Simpson trial i remember
reading an article in a
Durham, New Hampshire,
newspaper about a bunch of
women who decided it was
their [self-appointed]
station in life to spend
EVERY waking minute of EVERY
day trying to collect various
media artifacts related to
the trial (newspaper
clippings, videotapes of talk
shows and nightly news
updates, etc.) ... you know,
self-appointed trial media
vigilantes - just to make
sure nothing "slipped by"
without someone noticing.

and i remember thinking "What
did these people do before O.
J. came along?" and, perhaps
more importantly, "What will
they do after the trial is
over?"

same deal with Viagra,
Lewinsky, The X-Files ... the
cultural void seems to suck
these things in as fast as
they come along.

Tom Laramee
<toml@starwave.com>

You take my advice, you'll
start collecting tablets of
Viagra right now. Just leave
them in their little packets
with the labels on, and in
the post apocalyptic "Boy
and his Dog" future they'll
be worth a fortune to those
pale, flaccid subterraneans.

yr. pal,

la vache

Baby Grand

While Beanie Babies are an
interesting hobby, I prefer
to invest my time and money
into something more
substantial and rare:
collectible tectonic plates.

Chris Rahe
<chrisrahe@smcusa.com>

You know, Chris, right after
I read your reference to
tectonic plates, we had an
earthquake out here in
California. On the day my
Beanies story ran, the market
dropped 112 points. The last
time I wrote a story as la
vache, the October '97
market break ensued on the
same day!

Coincidence? I think not.

la vache

la vache,

Brilliant article on Beanie
Babies. The whole article was
constructed perfectly. Maybe
I'll use it as a college
paper this fall. Anyway keep
up the good work. And what is
your personal opinion on
these damn Beanie Babies? Let
me tell you something, my son
and I (he's one year old)
went to McDonalds about two
months ago. I had NO IDEA
that they were selling Beanie
Babies there - or Teenie
Beanie Babies to be correct.
But this shit is amazing!
People were buying Happy
Meals over and over and just
throwing away the food!

Well, I bought my son a Happy
Meal of course, not because I
gave a shit what the toy was
- I knew my son wouldn't
care. But what he got was a
little worm Beanie Baby, so I
opened it and gave it to him.
He plays with it all the time
- so it's a little ragged
now. He's chewed off the TY
label, pulled the little
worm's eye strings out,
slobbered all over it, you
name it.

So I'm at the mall the other
day and there behind glass is
the same little worm - only
for $100 ! WHAT THE HELL IS
WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE???

Thanks for your time -

Steven Masten
<phish1@earthlink.net>

Steven,

This is the third time in as
many days somebody has sent
me mail saying they want to
use one of my articles as a
"college essay." This is
almost as good as getting an
honorary degree! I guess all
those year of buying term
papers online, paying smarter
kids to take my place at
finals, and sleeping with
hairy, gross-smelling
professors finally paid off!

Everybody at Suck loves the
new Beetle, and in fact our
own E. L. Skinner has already
written a story on it. In
fact, the only controversy
we've ever found is deciding
which we love better: Herbie
the Love Bug! or Herbie Rides
Again!

yr. pal,

la vache

chere vache,

imagine my surprise when one
of my good friends (we went
to different high schools
together) was over at my
apartment and nearly lost it
when she saw Tank (second
edition, retired 1995) laying
amongst my collection of
stuffed armadillos. she
apparently had just spent
$140 on him at a flea market
the previous weekend. she
proceeded to chastise me for
removing the heart-shaped tag
from his ear, but I assured
her that I received two of
them for Christmas several
years ago and the other was
stuffed away in a box
someplace, unscathed
(although not in a protective
fiberglass Beanie Baby tube
with a plastic tag
protector).

she also took advantage of my
Nova Scotian roommate, asking
if Maple the Bear was easier
to find or less expensive in
Canada. she drew the limit on
that one at $100. maybe i'll
buy into all this Beanie Baby
craze someday. then again,
i'm the kind of guy who
waits to see a movie until
it's in the dollar theater.

- le tatou qui ecrit

What a coincidence! You're
the kind of guy who waits for
the dollar theater, and I'm
the kind of guy who licks
grimy, blackened splotches of
old gum off the sidewalk. But
when I want a dollar movie, I
go with my Nova Scotian
roommate to the Canadian
dollar cinema. Usually
they're only showing Exotica and
Canadian Bacon, but it's
almost 66 percent cheaper
than the American dollar
movie.

yr. pal,

la vache