for 18 June 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Are you fucking insane? The
only thing worse than a
smarty-pants social critic is
an Army boot camp washout.

Jerome O'Neil
<jeromeo@atrieva.com>

"Boot camp" is the Marines,
Jerome. In the Army it's
"basic training."

In San Francisco, "smarty-pants
social critic" is actually
"one helluva guy."

One helluva guy,

BarTel

Subject: Army boy

Hey, I've got a question: Why
the Army??

I mean, you have spent years
railing against how fucked up
the government and the
military are and how most
campaigns are poorly
thought-out fiascos. What do
you think you are going to
do? Fix the military? I'm
sure you have your reasons
for joining. Hell, I tried
the Marines right out of
high school (knowing full
well that I hated the
military). I thought it would
be a great way to get money
for college, etc. I ended up
getting kicked out/quitting
boot camp. They called it
"failure to adapt"; I called
it "doesn't listen to
idiots." The Army is probably
a lot less fucked in the
head, but you picked a weird
time to join. You might end
up holding your guts in while
watching your buddies get
blown up and shot during some
well-planned raid that's
using three-year-old maps:
"We didn't know they had
built several thousand
machine gun bunkers." Oh
well, I guess you're already
gung-ho and joined up. I hope
you keep writing. Maybe your
friends at Suck are right — you
can work in psychological warfare.

Peace, antiestablishment, and geese,

Robert Childs
<rchilds@mechanicaldata.com>

Fixing the military is easier
than you might think, Robert.
You simply fix your eyes on a
goal and then attain that
goal, no matter what the
consequences. Perhaps you've
never risen to that level of
challenge before. Pussy.

Being all that we can be and
much, much more,

Sucksters

Menace II Society

I was seven years old when the
phenomenon known as Star
Wars first appeared. Of all
the Star Wars fans I have
polled in the last year or
so, it appears the majority
of them were also kids at
that time.

I was hoping someone could
clarify something for me:
Forgive my ignorance, but
these are kids' movies, aren't
they?

Looking to Suck for
philosophical enlightenment,

I remain,

A seven-year-old Star Wars fan,

Jim Van Meggelen
<Jim@ttw.net>

You know, Jim, we'd love to
hear more about your boyish
love of Star Wars, but we're
scheduled to get bamboo
shoved under our fingernails,
so we'll have to pass.

Yr pal,

BarTel

Eye on the Ball

Subject: USA v. Canada? Chill
out!

Once again, by painting
American capital and product
(a huge portion of which is
reliant upon Canadian talent
and perspective — e.g.,
film, TV, animation, gaming,
technology) as the only
significant criteria for
cultural identity, a
big-mouthed, my-way-or-
the-highway, must-win-
all-the-games American
has grabbed the mic
and spotlight and let loose
with his old-news, heard-it-
before-and-sick-of-it opinion.

You know, the only thing we
Canadians resent is the
notion that there's no room
for or acknowledgement of
something other than big ol'
Uncle Sam. It's not that we
hate all things American; God
knows we eat it up like
everyone else. But we do have
our own tastes, and living
next to the biggest, richest
kid on the block means that
after playing with his toys
for a while, you want to go
home and play with a few of
your own.

By assuming that the issue of
cultural difference is based
on a "USA: take it or leave
it" philosophy, some pretty
black and white sides are
marked, and of course, people
get their backs up. We aren't
the same as you. We have a
different history,
government, ethnic makeup,
social values, world views,
and cultural beliefs. Just
because we want the same
things generally doesn't mean
we are the same things
specifically.

[Editor's note: Canada
exports lots of products,
like Canadian bacon and ice!
Several paragraphs detailing
Canadian strengths omitted
here.]

I believe the American empire
is the most widespread and
successful empire of any
sort that humanity has come
up with so far, and I
believe, for the time being,
that the advantages outweigh
the disadvantages (saying
that takes a lot of nationalistic
pride-swallowing, the likes
of which I've never seen any
American do). But don't
forget that no empire
is forever: Pride and
presumptuous arrogance look
pretty sad in retrospect, eh?

Raven Daly
<raven@tomorrowtoday.com>

Eh-oh, Dipsy! A major portion
of our capital and product,
however widespread, is
reliant on Canadian talent
and perspective! We're merely
pawns in their global
marketing games!

Pride and arrogance look
pretty sad in retrospect, but
you look pretty sad right
now.

Arrogant forever,

Sucksters

To Whom It May Concern:

You generally give good
Suck, and today's was no
exception. However, you made
an error. In the cheesy TV movie
about the killer bees, the VW
beetle was not parked in the
New Orleans Superdome. It was
actually in the Astrodome. So
there!

Keep up the good Suck,

Gary Shust
<shustg@oceusa.com>

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Here's
location info for the
telemovie The Savage Bees
(1976), courtesy of the
Internet Movie Database:

Filming Locations for Savage
Bees, The (1976) (TV) New
Orleans, Orleans parish,
Louisiana, USA.

They don't mention the
stadium by name because they
don't want to give away the
ending, but trust me, it's
the Saints who bring down the
bees. The bees knew better
than to mess with Texas.

Bonus points: If anybody
can identify the car involved
in the stunning climax of
this film (which I consider
an underappreciated classic,
Mr. "cheesy TV movie"), well,
I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I may not know much about
killer bees, but on the topic
of killer bee movies, my
expertise is recognized as
the gold standard on several
continents.

Yr pal,

BarTel

OK. I'm confused.

Did you actually read
Marilyn's totally delusional,
grotesquely self-promoting
piece before deciding that it
would be "cool" (or was it
"anticool" — it's so hard
to tell nowadays) to
insinuate that he might be
some untapped genius social
theorist? In the interest of
not fanning the flames of my
agitation too vigorously,
I'll only cite three of the
myriad bits of that
hypocritical, narcissistic
jizz rag that got my thong
all bunged.

1. "I choose not to jump into
the media frenzy and defend
myself." (See Rolling Stone
magazine, circulation
approximately 2 million.)

2. "I am the '90s voice of
individuality." (Comment kept
to self.)

3. "Does anyone think the
Civil War was the least bit
civil?" (Wait ... maybe he is
a genius theorist!)

And now, speaking of
hypocrisy, I must take my
leave and go write
commercials.

Tami Brown, NYC
<Tami_Brown@amsteryard.com>

Are you insinuating that
we're insinuating that Jon
Katz is an untapped genius
social theorist? That's so
anticool, Tami. Katz may well
be a genius, but he's hardly
untapped.

Yr pal,

BarTel

What a great relief Suck is
from the dull, witless
verbiage that passes for news
and entertainment. Your
writers and artists have an
edge that puts them in a
class all their own. At 38, I
feel like I've finally found
a printed forum as cynical,
intelligent, irreverent,
and fun-loving as my
preferred circle of friends,
to whom, of course, I'm
recommending Suck.

Gary Phillips
<orpheus01@sprynet.com>

Back atcha, Gary. But don't
you think it's high time for
some rag to give up on being
irreverent and instead try
the unusual selling point,
"They're really reverent!"

But that would mean finding
topics worth revering, and
really, how many articles can
you write about Sherman
Hemsley?

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