for 19 March 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Subject: I'm not original,
but I'm more unoriginal than
those fucking losers.

After being engaged in two
full weeks of temp office
work, I have thoroughly
familiarized myself with the
contents of Redmeat.com and
Suck and have
searched about every Web site
around featuring Japanese toy
robots. I figure as I get
more daring and feel the
ground below me isn't less
stable than my ex-girlfriends,
I'll take to downloading
naughty pictures into all my
bosses' sales account files.
Tip the hat to all the
provocative snideness at the
work site. I'm thoroughly
impressed and ashamed, and I am
left to content myself with
being "like
sort of a wanderer" at my
current place of employment.
Remember these tips for your
next new-guy-in-the-office
experience: 1. stare, look
through people, never blink
or look away 2. never speak
unless spoken to 3. walk
around with a snide,
shit-eating grin or a totally
blank look 4. smile and stare
directly into the eyes of
every female in the office,
sit back and deconstruct
who's got boyfriends and who
doesn't care, take no further
action on this front, leave
them wondering 5. swagger
around everyone two strata or
higher above you (a senior VP
opened the door for me
Wednesday; I swaggered past
him, mumbling "thanks"; he
said, "good morning Jeff"; I
responded - deep-fry this in
sarcasm - "yeah") 6. finish all
work as quickly as possible
and immediately upon
completion, unabashedly fuck
off - Net surf, do crosswords,
whatever - flaunt that you've got
nothing to do.

For some unknown reason,
after I followed this plan,
these shitbag employers seem
to want me to stick around
for the long haul. What the
fuck?

Oh, by the way, I installed
new homepages on the
computers I work on:
Suck.com or HotBot or
the Subgenius page. Thank me
for the hits later.

Jeff
<Jethsc@aol.com>

You're so original. You're
such a rebel.

Scribbling a reminder to thank
you in our day planners,
Sucksters

Dear Sucksters:
On the
Amend1-L list, we've been
discussing Smith and what
would be an appropriate
response to his/her/its
antispam spam. But no one
suggested calling the cops.

Spam is bad, evil, naughty,
rude, a breach of netiquette,
whatever. It isn't against
the law, not in Indiana. Do
you have any evidence or even
reasonable suspicion that
Smith isn't sending out the
antispam manual to those who
send US$15? That people
aren't getting their
anarchist cookbooks? If so,
that's a different matter. It
seems instead that you are calling
the cops because you didn't
like what Smith said or at
least how Smith said it. "No
law shall be passed,
restraining the free
interchange of thought and
opinion" - Indiana Bill of
Rights, Section 9. It frankly
surprises me that Suck would
call in the gendarmes on
somebody whose crime consists
of distributing anarchist
literature. I would have
expected you to be on the
other side of that one. I
happen to represent an
anarchist in Evansville who
is being hassled over some
signs that he has put up
without political disclaimers
that the local county
officials say are required.
It's Majors v. Abell.
freedomlaw.com/T&S/AnonPol/
Anonymous.html and the leaf
list at www.onelist.com have
more info. If Smith isn't
free to say what he has to
say, how safe is Suck?

Cordially,

Robbin Stewart
<gt_bear@hotmail.com>

Your question might have been
more readily answered if you
had called Evansville
directory assistance. You
would have found that there
is no K. C. Smith listed at
that address or, in fact,
anywhere in Evansville or
anywhere in the 812 area
code. Wherever your money
goes, I'd seriously doubt
you're going to get anything
in exchange. And I'm not
willing to put up my own
money to find out. The
operation has all the
earmarks of a scam, albeit
a funny one. This is why the
case, as I noted, is being
handled by the Fraud and
Bunco unit, and not the
Exercise of Free Speech
unit. It's one of countless
frauds, no doubt, but I
figured it might be fun to
pick one out and follow it
up.

Suck remains free and clear
because we're not ripping
anybody off, although I hear
our fulfillment department
isn't doing so well on timely
delivery of Suck T-shirts.

Yr pal,

Bartel

Are you guys insane?! Little
Veronica and the Star Wars
guy - fine. I sent them my
goddamn letters of support, I
can tell you now. But this
little brat is just a greedy
gold digger. He puts to shame
any legitimate causes in the
domain name battle. This kid
knew exactly what he was
doing when he registered
www.imac.com. He was trying
to scam Apple. And good for
him if he pulled it off -
we're all a bunch of cowboys.
But there's no way he should
get any support on the "poor
little kid" front when it
backfires. If he gave it a
shot, fine, good for him, but
his insistence is just
embarrassing. And so is your
support.

Bronwyn Howard
SPIKE
<bronwyn@spike.com.au>

"We're all a bunch of
cowboys"?

Did you type this message on
your laptop, while you were
out ridin' the range and
ropin' dogies?

Suck stands by its contention
that there's nothing more
magical than making a child's
dream come true.

Yr tenderfoot pal,

Bartel

Dearest Sucksters:

No more mockery of Ebert,
please! He is a far better
critic than Siskel ever was
(begging pardon from Gene's
restless spirit/thumb). And
he wrote the script to Beyond
the Valley of the Dolls,
which makes him infinitely
cooler than the rest of the
indiscriminate film critic
sycophants who cream their
cords every time their names
are splayed on movie ads
(like Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone, whose weekly
proclamations of "The Best
Movie of the Year!!!" seem to
indicate that about 80
percent of all released
movies are the "best"). Take
Ebert's substantial flesh as
a physical representation of
his substantial critiques.
May Siskel rest in peace.

Chris Kim
<cmk@brandx.net>

You're right about Ebert's
qualities as a critic. But I
don't think we were mocking
him. Hell, we even noted that
he is not nearly as fat as
everybody makes him out to be
- and I haven't seen anybody
else anywhere report on
Ebert's remarkable weight
loss. You see, I don't like
to sound like some kind of
showboating braggart, but
Roger is a close, personal
friend of mine, and I just
want to make sure he doesn't
botch his choice of a
replacement. To Siskel, we
say only a fond shalom.

Yr pal,

Bartel

This is the second week in a
row you have woven the parts
of your Hit and Run article
together like some sort of
rich journalistic tapestry
instead of your previous
haphazard, quiltlike design.
Next time I think you need to
ask yourself, "Would this
section make sense in the
random Hit and Run generator?"
Then you need to ask
yourself, "Why would someone
actually use the random Hit and
Run generator?" Then I need
to avoid asking myself why I
bothered writing this.

Anyway,

Keith

Since studies show that the
random Hit and Run generator
has been used a total of 3.2
times, we're leaning toward
making the column itself more
of a seamless tissue of fun,
wrapping the reader in a
climate-controlled atmosphere
of pure browsing pleasure and
delivering him or her to the
bottom of the page with a
minimum of turbulence and a
sense of total satisfaction.
We aim to have each and every
reader head to the post-Suck
shower thinking, "These
Sucksters have serviced me
like true professionals! I'll
certainly be back for more
next week! Thank heaven I
live in an age where material
of such high caliber is
provided free of charge for
readers like me to enjoy!"

Thanking you for the
opportunity to be of service,
I am ...

Yr pal,

Bartel

Hey Guys!

It's not everyone who can
take such a hit at Rudy and
live: Those of us in NYC
during his first
administration discovered
that in addition to being a
bully and a crypto-fascist,
he's a whining symp [???] who
yells when he can't get his
way. As they were with Mayor
Koch, the police are a
squadron of goons who serve
the mayor by randomly
enforcing the Post No
Fliers laws on unwanted
political messages. That Rudy
supports them "no matter
what" should come as no
surprise. The fact that The
New Yorker special issue made
it to the stands at all
proves that Rudy hasn't yet
achieved the full pinnacle of
his power.

Now I live in San Francisco,
where the bullying,
egomaniacal Yank, Mayor Willie
Brown, doesn't support
anything except himself and
his own interests. At least
Rudy could be expected to
hold up certain political
issues - as long as they got
him votes. Out here, we don't
even have that level of
mayoral integrity.

Yours,

Bill Bailey
<bailey@usfca.edu>

No argument here on either
mayor. At least Brown
contents himself with being a
neglectful pharaoh rather
than a grandiloquent
strongman whose contributions
to his city's gorgeous mosaic
include outlawing fireworks
on Chinese New Year,
enforcing the ban on drinking at
the St. Patrick's Day parade,
publicly humiliating
inoffensive civil servants
like Ray Kelly and Ray
Cortinez, and performing in drag.
I've experienced
both, and Brown is, if not
better, at least less bad.

Yr pal,

Bartel (Dinkins voter, '93)

I think The Onion has covered
the Siskel death best with
two words: "Ebert
Victorious." It was simple, short,
sweet, and much more funny
than anything you guys came
up with. Keep trying.

Steve Anichini
<anichini@ariel.isdn.uiuc.edu>

This is your criticism: "I
saw something different from
something you did and I liked
that one better"?

As it happens, I once got an
email from another guy named
Steve, and his mail was much
better than yours. And he
didn't have a ridiculous name
like Anichini, which sounds
like a stage name Charo would
have used in a guest
appearance on The Odd
Couple. So there.

Yr pal,

Bartel