for 28 July 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Wanking Towards Bethlehem

Hi Destiny,

I appreciated your nice
article about the
masturbating Tarzan and
friends.

I suppose that's not a
completely accurate
description. While the
article was par for the
course, I particularly think
it was the best-linked
article in the past year. If
you thought of all the links
yourself, you have my awe and
reverence. Of course,
if somebody else was
on link patrol that day, then
all the awe and reverence is
for them.

Ben Mazur
<bmazur@sev.org>

Awe and reverence are
cheerfully accepted! But no
masturbating.

Pornographic detournage of
child-oriented product equals
big laffs. South Park is the
only example of someone
intentionally making money
this way. Is the article
meant only as a series of
loosely connected thoughts
orbiting around this theme,
like an episode of
Connections, starring James
Burke? I hate that show.
What's with all the new Suck
writers, anyhow? It seems
like there's a new one every
week. They tend to have
stupid names too. No offense.

Demmy Rooster
<cmaan@julian.uwo.ca>

We can't all be named
Demmy.

No, We Never Mention that
Word

Subject: No female Suck
readers??

Dear Sucklings,

I was shocked and chagrined
to read in the mail today
that you have no female
readers. Judging by the
vagina in my pants, we have a
serious problem. Perhaps a
cream or a salve will do the
trick, and I can melt back
into your demographic.

Signed,

Julie "Oh! That
Tingles!" Needler
<catgrrl@iname.com>

You have a vagina in your
pants? Get that thing out of
there! Do you know how
dangerous that can be?

That tingling isn't a good
sign either. Go straight to
your doctor and get some
antibiotics — and then
keep that thing locked up
where it belongs from now on.

Gynephobic,

Sucksters

Filler

Subject: Dibs on Calabria

Oh Polly! I had a
near-religious experience
with today's Filler. I have
heard the good news and the
scales have fallen from my
eyes. I just need to know
when — oh when, Lord
— will we bitter ones
inherit Southern Italy? I
mean, will I have to break my
lease? And will you have to
choose between Italy and the
South Pacific or will you be
allowed to divide your time?
What's a bitter slut to do?

Bitterly expectant,

Phineas X. Jones
<animus@ais.net>

I think I'll probably split
my time between the two
places. You know — a
house in the Italian
countryside, an estate in
Fiji. When I get sick of
penne and red wine, I'll go
back to breadfruit, bread
pudding, coconut
milkshakes, and green papaya
salad. Plus, you know, the
bitter people will probably
be complaining nonstop and
drinking too much, which gets
old after a while, and the
sluts will be all about
waxing versus electrolysis.

I'll have to move back and
forth a lot, but even then
we'll all have to be careful
not to get on each other's
nerves. Now and then we'll
imagine all the positive
thinkers and team players up
in Mongolia, tirelessly
collaborating to make a yurt,
and then we'll laugh heartily
and pour more wine.

Polly

You told it like it was and
people got pissed. What can I
say? Although I was raised
(barely) Jewish and not
Catholic, I still must say
that I, at least, admire you
for being rude and
insensitive enough to run a
multi-episode diatribe
against the stupidity that is
organized religion on such a
public forum as the Internet.
Man, you don't know how
surprised I was that that
many religious people read
Suck. I thought it was all
heathens like us. I'm sure
you already know that there
has always been (and probably
always will be) an ongoing
war between those programmers
who are religious and
straightedge and those who
are potheads. Although the
war is nothing new, sometimes
the minor skirmishes can be
fucking hysterical. Take for
instance a recent little
battle that took place on, I
think, Slashdot, in which
one user asked his fellow
netizens how they fill that
"God-shaped hole" in their
lives. The responses included
casual sex, wanton violence,
and, of course, "Well, I
guess my God-shaped bong will
come in handy now!" Ah, the
pious may have God, but the
damned are a whole lot more
fun.

One last thing: I'm sure the
fact hasn't escaped you that
by making fun of those who
mailed you the first time,
all you're doing is asking,
no, begging them to mail you
a second time. Sooner or
later most of us (who may or
may not have jobs in the
print business) realize that
Oscar Wilde was right —
never fight a battle of wits
with the unarmed ... they
can't lose.

Ephraim Oshinsky
<oshinsky@webspan.net>

"God-shaped hole"! Oh yes. I
think I have a steak-shaped
hole in my life ever since I
cut back on red meat.

Disarming but not unarmed,

Polly

Polly,

One of the difficult things
about being a Christian is
that you must forgive those
who have harmed or insulted
you (you know, the turn the
other cheek thing). You can't
engage in snarky, callow
sarcasm or nihilistic
rhetorical flourishes. You
just have to forgive; so I
do, and I will pray for you
in the future. I know you'll
find that condescending as
hell, but that's not how it's
meant. I know the Lord has
guided me very closely and
carefully over the course of
the last two years (and
especially the last six
months), and everything I
have I owe to him — both
the obvious good and the
not-so-obvious. Peace be with
you.

Robert Anderson
<andersonr@hotmail.com>

Why has the Lord been guiding
you so closely and carefully
in these last six months? No
offense, but do you really
think that's the best use of
His time?

But thanks for praying for
me. Could you concentrate on
improving my social life ever
so slightly? I'm bored. Also,
I'd like to publish a book of
Filler in the near future,
and I'd like a really good
publisher. Maybe a good book
agent could help. Not a Good
Book agent, as in a Bible
thumper, but a book agent
who's good at his or her job.
Could you have Him look into
that for me?

While you're at it, thank God
for giving me the gift of
snarky, callow sarcasm, and
allowing me to use it
repeatedly, perhaps even
excessively.

And also with you,

Polly

If Barry McCaffrey were
actually conducting a war on
drugs, it would be a pathetic
failure. But the truth is,
there is no war on drugs. The
war is on personal freedom
and privacy. That war has
been a rousing success, with
protections against
unreasonable search and
seizure thoroughly gutted and
our First Amendment rights
now a means of
self-incrimination. The
government has no intention
of stopping the flow. If it
did, they would give everyone
who asked all the drugs they
wanted. Anyone who couldn't
say no to the really
dangerous stuff would be dead
in a week and the war would
be over. But they, like your
friendly, local right-to-life
group, are much more intent
on getting you used to the
idea that your body is the
property of the state.

Hooblemeister
<hooble@visuallink.com>

Dear Hooble,

All I can say is
Hooblemeister for Prez! I'm
confident you can beat Bob
Smith, the senatorial gasbag
from the granite state. What
is it I learned watching an
episode of All in the Family?
"The more you own, the more
you are owned." By that
logic, the more you smoke,
the more you are smoked.

Hell, I'm not going to argue
with you.

Your humble enema of the
state,

Mr. M

" ... the unwilling prisoners
of the stalag America has
shuffled toward becoming in
the War on Drugs ... "

I always think of it as gulag
America rather than stalag.
An economics professor just
voiced the obvious — that
US unemployment is by no
means as low as it's painted
because you have nearly 2
percent of your male
population in gaol, and
another 1.5 percent "looking
after" them.

And the other 96.5 percent
are paying for it —
through the nose.

Regards,

Dave Heasman

Dear Dave,

Righto, old chap. But what's
this gaol crap? Didn't we win
the war (after losing every
battle) to spell "jail" thusly?
Bloody hell, that Brit crap
just keeps on a comin'.

Jingoistically,

Mr. M

I hope you've got your stash
well hidden when they come
knocking on your door.

Stuart Gottesman
<sgottesman@about.com>

Dear Stuart,

Alas, your humble scribe is
high on life and life alone
(and whipped cream cans in
your grocer's dairy section).
So when they come for my
stash, they come pour moi.
Thankfully, my particular
high gives me the strength of
10 giant lizards and
invincibility from their puny
guns — what was that
noise?

Wanking Towards Bethlehem

Dear D.,

You may or may not be
interested to know that the
sole US comic strip available
in Iran, in the
English-language Tehran
Times, is (wait for this) ...
Nancy. When last viewed, she
and Sluggo were involved in
some version of Hercules
versus the Warrior Princess
— which characters are,
you may be very sure, totally
unknown to Iranian TV
viewers. The belief that the
United States is the Great
Satan is not as ill-founded
as some might prefer to
believe.

Alan Kornheiser

I like your analogy —
that Nancy is the great US
Satan. I guess that means
Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami is Sluggo and the
inevitable UN peace-keeping
forces are Aunt Fritzi.

Have you seen this latest Jar
Jar Binks–related piece?
It's so over-the-top I almost
suspected it was a parody of
the Falwell mind-set. But
after all, who cares? That's
entertainment!

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/
news0899/jar.html

Eric Ekvall
<corpstratcom@cantv.net>

You'd be surprised how many
people sent me that link.

The Shit

"Gary's Trajectory," A Wanderer in the Perfect City, Lawrence Weschler, Hungry Mind Press, 1998 The Parallax View, Alan J. Pakula, Paramount Pictures DVD, 1974 Rogues to Riches: The Trouble with Wall Street, Murray Teigh Bloom, Putnam,1971 Actual Air, David Berman, Open City Books, 1999 Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Peter Hall and Michael Bierut, editors, Princeton Architectural Press, 1998 Canary-wing parrots, Dolores Street, San Francisco Super Shitty to the Max, Hellacopters, Man's Ruin Records, 1998 Request magazine (any issue after June 1999) On the Road to Vietnam, Bob Hope, Cadet 4046 vinyl, 1964 The Flying Ballerina, Drums and Tuba, TEC Tones, 1998 Dino, Nick Tosches, Delta Alpha Publishing, 1999 The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1999 Big Red soda