for 16 June 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Happy birthday, I think.

You used to make me laugh,
Polly, but you just depress
me now. Could you try to be
nasty without being bitter
and pathetic and pitiful?

(And they didn't have Clamato
when you were a kid.)

I really do hope you've found
a little solace in your
life. If you really are as
sad and bitter as your
pseudonym ... wow.

Say, I know a guy ... named
Ray On. (No relation to Ny
Lon.) Interested?

Einstein X. Mystery
<einstein@scn.org>

How do you know when I was a
kid? You must be clairvoyant
as well as being a genius.

Bitter, nasty, pathetic,
pitiful — yes, yes, a
thousand times, yes, baby!
But who said anything
about sad?

Given the regularity with
which unhappy dimwits like
yourself begrudge us happy
geniuses our exceptional
talents, it's no small wonder
that we happy geniuses end up
bitter and nasty. The mistake
your rather limited mind made
was in assuming bitterness
equals sadness.

Cheerfully bitter for a
significant but unspecified
number of years,

Polly

I'm an insane, smelly drunk
with many failed
relationships to my credit
currently healing my way
through eight years and
US$50,000 worth of Gestalt
therapy, and I still have the
same asshole parents (now
dead) and abusive friends
(not enough dead) I always
did. The only difference is
now I hate myself even more
than I've always hated them.
I guess that's progress. I wish

I'd known about Clamato
juice some 30 years ago.

Shit.

Regards,

Robert Rocheleau
<robert.rocheleau@sagemaker.com>

Well, you'd have to hate
yourself in order to prefer
hanging out with people you
hate. You all have more in
common that way.

It sounds to me like you
alternately adore and loathe
yourself and your friends, or
you wouldn't be so cheerful
about the situation.

The jury's still out on
Therapy's Practical Benefits,
but keep drinking regardless.

Polly

Dear Whatever-your-real-name-is,

Cynics are not as bad as you
make them out to be. I can't
think of a better way to be
than cynical. I doubt you
really understand the pain
and confusion it takes to
become cynical. First of all,
hating everyone is just for
beginners. You first want to
bring them into your trust.
Show them that you care about
them and want the best for
them. After you do something
nice for them and they do not
recognize you, then give 'em
both barrels. Show love but
put hate in your heart. Keep
them at arm's length until
they beg for more, then stomp
them with, "I'm not good
enough for you because the
whole fucking world sucks" or
some personal favorites: "My
childhood sucked so now my
life with you will suffer"
and "I can't love you until I
forgive my dead parents."

So you see, W-y-r-n-i, it's
not about tomato juice, it's
about too much masturbation
and not enough tongue time in
high school.

Nate
<ns@mcmann-tate.com>

PS Gay men are cool; they're
just a pain in the ass.

PPS You never told me how big
your tits are, damn it.

Did you know your name rhymes
with "grate"?

Polly

Polly,

Holy crap, I can't believe
somebody besides me has
been subjected to the torment
of the Tomato Fizz. Of
course, where I come from, it
was called the Tomato Fun. I
am sitting in the corner of
my office cubicle,
overwhelmed with twitchy
emotion at the memories
you've brought flooding back
for me.

And thank you for all these
years of Filler. I can't get
enough of it. What do you
want for your birthday?

Ray Fawkes
<ghosty_o@hotmail.com>

Your head on a platter.

No, wait. Money. Send me some
goddamn money.

Twitchy woman,

Polly

Subject: Your chocolate
plagiarized my peanut butter

On Saturday I made the
"Escape from Bitch Mountain"
joke for the first time, to
much response. So I tried to
use it several times this
week among people who hadn't
heard it the first time. It
really hurts my feelings that
you used it in Wednesday's
Filler, because that means
any future time I want to use
my own joke people will think
I copied you, and that makes
me sad. In the future, can
you please make jokes that I
haven't already made? I don't
have that many jokes, OK?

Your loyal reader,

Don
<dsmith@mail.qrc.com>

Dude. Stop stealing my
jokes, dude.

Polly

Dear Polly,

"Distorted Presumptions" was
brilliant. I've often
wondered why people so
frequently misjudge me,
thinking I'm a snarky, bitter
bastard, when in reality I'm
just a helpful little ray of
sunshine desperate to please.
(Even now, you're probably
reading this and thinking,
"This sarcastic little shit
must really have it in for
me." But I don't! I love you,
man!) Now I know it's their
own stupid preconceptions
that prevent others from
seeing the real me, the
sweet, well-intentioned me.
Screw them.

With Filler, you have your
finger directly on the pulse
of something or other. Your
formidable intellect pierces
through the murky swamps of
the modern mind-set like a
high-speed, data-transmission
line installed for some
reason in backwoods
Louisiana.

I was noticing that the
number of glowing,
praise-filled messages
to you that appear in Fish
increases whenever Filler
focuses on your bitterness,
cynicism, and
disillusionment. I'm
wondering if this might be a
form of operant conditioning
that encourages you to focus
on bitterness, cynicism, and
disillusionment even more.
It's as if each time you
receive a we-love-you-Polly
message, a bell rings and a
toaster pastry pops up.

With love,

Brandon Burt
<Brandon.Burt@m.cc.utah.edu>

That's why my bitterness
makes me so happy — I get
toaster pastries galore every
time I'm bitter.

Be careful trying to
replicate this process at
home, kids. Those toaster
pastries are highly
flammable. I know at least a
half-dozen toaster pastry
devotees who've nearly burnt
their houses to the ground
heating toaster pastries and
watching Peanuts specials at
the same time. The fucking
dipshits!

Ooo, there's another pastry!
Gotta run!

Polly

Subject: Chin music

Has anyone else noticed that
Colon's drawings of Polly
seem to show her with an
ever-enlarging double chin?
Is this some sort of nasty,
sub-rosa message to her that
it's time to switch to diet
Clamato?

Ralph Ward
<2206@nethawk.com>

Why don't you mind your own
fucking business, you little —

Ooo, there's another toaster
pastry! Gotta go!

Polly

Hi Ambrose,

I believe that you are
mistaken to use Second
Lieutenant McCallister's
letter as an indicator of the
gap between military and
civilian cultures. First of
all, he is a second
lieutenant — only a
management trainee. As such,
his opinions are hardly
representative of Army
culture. Second, if you would
check the September issue of
Soldiers, you would find four
letters from senior officers
and sergeants attacking
Second Lieutenant
McCallister's letter. (There
were also two letters
criticizing the use of the
word "coward" in the Doss
article.)

It has been years since I
last read Soldiers magazine.
It hasn't changed much. It is
basically a People magazine
for Army personnel with lots
of glossy photos and puff
pieces. The real cultural
clue to be found in its
Letters column is the
never-ending stream of
letters complaining of some
minor uniform infraction (as
shown in a photo) or some
minor technical mistake in
one of the articles. That
tells you a lot about the
mind-set of the peacetime
Army.

So while I agree with the
conclusions of your piece, I
think you picked some pretty
lousy illustrations. Or is
that just another example of
the "civilian-military divide"?

(Just to let you know where
I'm coming from, I graduated
from West Point, did the
whole Airborne
Ranger/infantry thing while
on active duty (six years)
and then spent five years in
the National Guard. So that
gives you an idea of my
biases. Really, the guys in
the military aren't so bad.)

Adios,

Paco
<ffrazier99@gsm.uci.edu>

Good point. Unfortunately,
the author isn't here to
defend himself, having gone
off to fight America's
enemies. So you win this
round, Mr. Airborne Ranger,
but the battle's not over!

BarTel

Ke aloha no from Maui!

Well, the subtext I get from
your piece is that civilian
opinion is completely
controlling the use of
military force — and the
military isn't welcoming
that. So I'm not horribly
worried about a coup
tomorrow. Besides, the Army
got rid of all its white
horses back when Reagan was
in the cavalry.

I can't work up much sympathy
for poor General Clark,
either. From 1920 to 1941,
every military study, Army or
Navy, concluded that the
Philippines could not be
defended against Japan. (See
"War Plan Orange"; I've
forgotten the author just
now.) There was one
exception: MacArthur.

He told the civilians he had
a better way — sort of
like Nixon's secret plan —
and got the job. More than
250,000 Filipinos paid
with their lives for that
decision. If Clark thinks the
job cannot be done, he
should resign.

Admiral J. O. Richardson did
that in 1940 when Roosevelt,
to send a message, ordered
him to keep the Pacific Fleet
forward-based in Hawaii
instead of safe in
California.

Husband Kimmel, who the
Senate is trying to
exonerate, thought he knew
better than Richardson. He
was wrong. Two thousand men
paid with their lives in one
morning.

In fact, you could make a
case that Japan could not
have gone to war with the
United States, even if it had
wanted to, if the fleet
hadn't been within reach.
Then it would have attacked
the USSR, when it was
fighting Hitler. Would that
have been better? Probably
not.

Harry Eagar
<heagar@aloha.net>

MacArthur was a compulsive
optimist, a trait that worked
for both good and ill. But at
several crucial points, it
worked for good. In the
Pacific he turned what was
supposed to be a holding
operation into an all-out
assault and rolled up the
Japanese on land, sea, and
air, using a fraction of the
resources that were allotted
to Europe. Later, he invaded
Inchon in what may have been
the most insane and
ill-advised operation in
modern martial history. And
he won that one, too. Here's
one bonus question that bears
directly on Ambrose Beers'
article: MacArthur also led
the last mounted charge in
the history of the US Army —
where did that take
place, and against whom?

BarTel

It might interest you to know
that in Starship Troopers,
the humans first tried
opening with a land invasion
and it didn't work. Then they
did the bombing thing and
followed it up with a land
invasion that didn't work
either. Then two of the
characters had sex while
Viper from Top Gun looked on
bemusedly. I can't remember
what happened at the end, but
Doogie Howser was involved.

Best,

David Marino-Nachison
<DavidM@fool.com>

Dummy! Clancy Brown captures
the Brain Bug, and you're
left confident that Doogie
Howser will figure out how to
win with his psychic
abilities. Join up now!

Yr pal,

BarTel

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