for 16 April 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Just when my bitterness and
cynicism starts to dull and
fade, I read something by you
and I am instantly grouchy
and cynical, a real pain in
the ass.

Russell May

I'm getting you back in touch
with your true self, Russell.
Therapy never came so cheap.

Cheap,

Polly

Appropriating Leonard Cohen
like this is in hideously
poor taste - much like the way
white people in blackface or
men in dresses are in
hideously poor taste. Albeit,
fortunately, you seem only to
have heard one song.

Demmy Rooster

You always were a stranger.

Polly

Please update The Shit. My
stupid life is just too
stupid without updated Shit.
If you'd just update the Web
site du Shit, that'd be fine,
as long as I have somewhere
to go and something to do
while I stick it to the man
40 hours a week.

We'll be at the sk8 park
eagerly awaiting your reply.

Love always,

Alex

We'll give you Shit, you
little shit. Swiss cheese is
currently very cool,
particularly on spaghetti.
Running long distances is
back in style, believe it or
not. Everyone's doing it.
Getting up early to run
distances is treès
cool. Living out Loud is out
on videotape. Everyone's
renting it, so it'll be hard
to check out. Happiness is
out on video on 27 April,
and since no one saw it in
the theater, they're all
gonna see it on video.
Everyone's disgusted yet
thrilled with Britney Spears.
Everyone's breaking up with
their long-term significant
others right now. Everyone's
eating more healthfully.
Everyone's listening to the
third song on Built to
Spill's latest, Keep It Like
a Secret, again and
again. Everyone's clinging
desperately to their sanity.
It's very now.

Oh, and no one goes to skate
parks anymore.

And everyone knows now that
love is not forever.

Love sometimes,

Sucksters

Dear Suck,

I'm sick of everything in my
life. I don't like my
friends, I don't like my
girlfriend, I don't like what
I usually eat for breakfast,
I don't like anything.

Any idea what I should do?

Signed,

Sick and tired

Dear Sick,

Break up with your girlfriend.
Start treating your friends
as well as you treated your
girlfriend and see if you
don't like them more. Get in
shape, drink more water, and
drink stronger coffee. Take
some vitamins now and then.
Go to bed earlier and get up
earlier. Start a new book.
Take a hot bath at night.
Spend less time reading the
paper and watching TV.

Do these things alone, and we
guarantee you'll feel better
almost immediately.

Or you could just buy a copy
of Cosmo and follow the
instructions therein.

Suck and Cosmo: So far, yet so
close.

Sucksters

Polly,

I'm slightly confused. Why do
I care how people do things
in California?

I'm beginning to think having
a steady job is making me
stupider. I like the money,
of course, but I'm starting
to have trouble focussing on
anything that doesn't involve
turnaround, sexual
intercourse, or sitcom
gossip. I find Lisa Kudroaux
(or however you spell it)
much more entertaining than
Roberto Benini, and that
seems a little off. But at
least no matter how stupid I
get, I can still enjoy Suck.
Maybe you or one of your
colleagues could do a little
statistical research (or make
some shit up) and write a
collumn about it; I'm sure
other people aside from
myself would benefit. Also,
you would be able to coast
for a week on the same
topic.

By the way, did you see Elton
John talking shit about
Roberto Benini on Letterman
last week? That fat fuck; I
really hate him.

Yours,
Colin, the little boy from the Big Apple
<cranky27@hotmail.com>

You have a lot of hatred. You
also have a lot of problems
with spelling.

Maybe the chart should
include statistics on what
percentage of Suck readers
1. are filled with
hatred, 2. can't spell, and
3. insist on making useless
pop-cultural references in an
effort to "speak our
language." Of course, if you
didn't care about lame pop
culture, why would you bother
reading Suck at all?

I know, you're always there
for me, Colin. And I love you
for being there for me, as
I'm never there for you.

Not yours,

Polly, the little
bitch from the Deep South

Polly,

You zigged when I thought you
would zag.

Are you a Gemini?

Chris
<Christopher.Abraham@cio.treas.gov >

Are you an Aquarius?

Also, er, are Aquariuses
supposed to be inquisitive?

There I go again, making a
bad guess for no good reason,
just like a typically
shameless Gemini. There I go
again, gladly engaging in
talk of astrology, just like
someone who's lived in
California a little too long.

Zag,

Polly

Polly,

I liked the quote from the
Los Angeles Times about what
was over. All this time I
felt like I was just lazy
and, thankfully, have instead
been ahead of the trend.

To be honest, every item in
the "over" quote might be
from aging Gen-Xers
threatened by the new crop of
non-Gen-X stars. Buffy we
got, but Dawson's Creek? 10
Things I Hate About You? Scream and
Scream again?

It's better that we assert our
generation's current position
as low-level columnists and
cultural gatekeepers and
claim that Hollywood gossip is
over: Who cares who
Leonardo DiCaprio slept with
after some turntablist show
at the Viper Room. But when
indie rock comes back and we
can gossip about our friends
as stars (Elliott Smith on
the Academy Awards, etc.),
then we can say the tide has
turned. Similarly, the
underlying point of saying
technology is over is saying,
"We get DVD but not MP3.
Isn't it cheaper to pay
US$15 for a CD at a store than
spend all that time you could be
preparing for work?"

What's in? Thinking about
buying a house, enrolling in
night school for that
certification program,
learning to cook, getting
married. Married is so in
this year; all my friends
(who coincidentally are
turning 30) are getting
married this year.

Don Smith
<dsmith@qrc.com>

Everyone you know may decide
to get married at once, but
that doesn't mean it's in.
Getting married as soon as
you turn 30 is sort of like
playing musical chairs. The
music's on; there are plenty
of chairs in the circle. The
music stops, you grab the
nearest chair, and then
you're stuck with it for the
rest of your life. Everyone
without a chair has to
develop the weird, selfish
affectations of the
childless. They also have to
keep a wide variety of
serving-sized frozen foods in
their freezers, and they have
to get cats with special
dietary needs.

Those with a chair become
hatefully similar to each
other because they're
committed to repeating again
and again how lucky they were
to end up with the best chair
in the circle, even though
anyone can see their chair
squeaks and wobbles awkwardly
and needs a new paint job
and gives lewd looks to the
other chairs in the circle
when no one's watching.

Thirty is a stupid age.
Everyone's playing parlor
games and choosing china when
they should be fucking shit
up while they're still young
and spry. It's all about
panic. Those who panic easily
get married first.

Hold it. Did you just refer
to me as a low-level
columnist? No wonder I
started getting so bitter.

Higher-level than thou,

Spry Polly

Subject: Booty Caller

Hey, do you have a
beeper-sized version of the
booty caller (with a vibrator
option)? I wouldn't want my
wife to know.

Thank you SO much!

Duane Bentzen
<BentzenD@CTT.com>

Getting sick of your chair,
huh, buddy? I bet it doesn't
like you too much, either.

Time to look into painless,
permanent chair-removal
options.

Hairless and chairless,

Polly

The Shit

Left for Dead in Malaysia, Neil Hamburger, Drag City, 1999 The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, Mark Dery, Grove/Atlantic, 1999 Crazy from the Heat, David Lee Roth, Hyperion, 1998 Keep It Like a Secret, Built to Spill, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1999 Abbott's Pizza Company, near the corner of Abbott-Kinney and California, Venice Beach, Los Angeles (delivery hours limited) Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd, CD remaster, EMI 1994 Motorhead, CD remasters, all Det Som Engang Var, Burzum, Misanthropy, 1998 Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, Nashville, Tennessee A History of the Modern Fact, Mary Poovey, University of Chicago Press, 1998 V., Thomas Pynchon, HarperCollins Publishers, 1999 The Coffee Mill, Emeq Refaim, Jerusalem, Israel The Salesman and Bernadette, Vic Chesnutt, Capricorn Records, 1998 Good Morning Spider, Sparklehorse, Cema/Capitol, 1999 Third Floor, Anderson Building, Los Angeles County Museum of Art