for 13 October 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
|
|
Filler Hooray, hooray! The return of the Suck dot chart. Oh where have you been, my dearest love; absent for so many years? I can only hope you are the first of many, blossoming like morning daisies in this triumphant summer day of my life. I see clearly once more, as the dots of wonder have returned focus to my once-weary eyes. Ben Mazur <bmazur@sev.org> Glad to have transformed your previously unfocused lonely life and clarified your vision. We're still unfocused and lonely. Wait — that's a chart! Unfocused and lonely: Sex in the City, drunk frat boys. Focused and lonely: Match.com.... The x-y charts make your life better in direct proportion to how much they make our lives worse. the Sucksters  Polly, Today's Filler made me have to lay my head down on my desk and bury my face in my arms to stifle my laughter. And I haven't even made it past the first paragraph yet. Just last night, I was wondering if my intensity of emotion toward things that really have no importance whatsoever in the grand scheme of things — especially in relation to my almost total inability to get worked up over actual life-altering circumstances — might be a sign that my wiring's a little faulty. It's nice to know I'm not alone. I'm going to finish reading Filler now. Thanks for the laugh. I needed it. Jean Cousins Your email made me feel truly fulfilled and touched — I cried piteously for several hours and scheduled an extra visit with my therapist this week. You are not alone! We have each other! We have a bond that can only be broken by time and distance and the fact that we've never met. Polly I like your cartoon. I think, though, that jealousy will get you nowhere and you'd change places in a second. Now I have to watch the Badgers play and drink my beer in my white T-shirt and wish I had enough money for a big screen. Toby Cook <Tobstr@webtv.net> I'm jealous of whom? I have beer and white T-shirts. I wish I had enough money for a big screen. We have so much in common, we're practically related. Polly Polly, I was flipping through back issues of Filler and want to applaud you for so vividly describing your friend Steve. I feel as if I know him ... or is it that, drawn as I am to the pathetically intellectual, I have dated those like him way too often? However, I can see that, underneath your utter contempt, you have a soft spot for him and perhaps hope for his personal development. Nah, but there may be something there worth dating. I feel as though I meet most of the criteria for dating Steve. I may not be that smart, but I am a smart-ass, and that should be enough for a loser like him anyway. I do live in Seattle, but I'm thinking of moving soon. That means, if I really don't like him, I won't have the awkwardness of bumping into him and having to pretend that I "still care for him as a friend." My interests are as eclectic as the next coffee-swilling, Gortex-swathed egoist in this town. I have lived here for a while (i.e., way too long), and know the place really well. So I can probably negotiate my way through the alleyways of Capitol Hill (where I'm guessing he lives) without getting lost. More important, I am an amusing, sarcastic, bitter professional who can make him laugh and show him a good time, even if he doesn't deserve it (and he probably doesn't). The question is, Why would I put myself out for an obvious loser like Steve? Like I said above, I am drawn to his type like a moth to a flame. (Pray for me — my mother does nightly.) There is usually a very intense physical relationship that lasts a few months, and then I get bored and it all ends very quickly and, usually, painlessly. (So, don't count on it lasting too long, Steve, cause I sure don't.) Email me if you are interested. If nothing else, this has been amusing. [Name Withheld to Protect the Lover of Obvious Losers] Thank you for your interest in dating my friend Steve. Steve is like a bug light that zaps moths like yourself until they're stunned and confused into going back for more. Your complimentary "Date My Friend Steve" custard pie is in the mail. Polly Canadian Mail: The Fun Never Ends I read Suck relatively frequently and, quite honestly, enjoy it (the shame!). Paradoxically, I also happen to be a proud Canadian. The thing is this: Canadians in general have no problem with Americans making fun of them. The Simpsons do it all the time, and I'm laughing as loud as the next guy. South Park does it with the trash- can kid and the Baldwin bombers, and again it's quite funny ... well, as funny as that genre of humor can be. Getting picked on by Americans is sort of like the members of NATO being called Nazis in Yugoslavia: It's so ridiculously inane and the product of a very warped mind that it's funny. There's no way we can take the insult seriously. I remember walking down the street as a lad and having someone yell "Honkey!" out a car window at my paper-white facade. Oooh! I was DEVASTATED! Not that anyone should be emotionally upset over any racial slurs, as it's obvious that the vomit-mouth spewing is just a rather sad specimen of Darwin's laws being defied by modern medicine. But being called a honkey in a overwhelmingly white town struck me as interesting. The problem is when the "some Canadian guy gave my wife some lovin' and now my little made-in-the- USA-schlong can't please her" sort of fellow comes on, wallowing in his own crapulence (credit: M. Burns), and goes on some self-righteous tirade about those damn, pathetic Canadians. It's such a bitter act of a vulnerable person that it truly is saddening, and I'm sure these people are right there in the Springer audience ready to do the seal clap at the proper minute. Give 'em $50, and they'll go running onstage, arms a- flailing. This same observation also applies to some of the Suck alumni who have one single subject for many of their stories: Slamming Canadians. Who cares about what or why or if it is just so drawn out and forced it isn't even remotely funny. Just slam 'em and hope the hit meter spins, while they come to get a kick at yet another American defining the human experience from their never-traveled-outside- of-their-bumpkin Infamilyfornicate, Kentucky. Most of us just hit back and move on. The scene is worse than a Sally Struthers telethon (she is asking for money to feed herself, right?) or looking at a dead animal on the side of the road: Our eyes turn elsewhere. So in conclusion, the whole anti-Canadian thing is old. I work with Americans, I am friends with Americans, and none of them display the sort of gross ignorance that is doled out on Suck regularly, so I can at least feel comfortable that it's just the sad fringe element that takes humor in bashing those friends North of the border. (For those doing the math: Yes, I have 230 million American friends.) Dennis W. Forbes <dwforbes@ home.com> Well, Suck doesn't actually bash Canadians; we just provide a forum for others to debate this fascinating topic at length. That's right, Dennis. Without you, there is no road kill. Thank you for fueling the flames of a long tradition! the Sucksters Ever noticed how every time you guys take a shot at the syrup chuggers up above you get moronic responses claiming that all of us Americans only know stereotypes about Canucks and that they don't all live in igloos, don't all guzzle beer by the keg, and don't all play hockey, etc., etc. And that if we would just quit watching Springer, quit eating at Mickey D's, and stop driving our pickups with the gun racks maybe we would be more knowledgeable and enlightened about the other cultures of the world. Come to think of it, I'm not sure they would even qualify. Here's to mocking your ugly twin. Bradley Messmer <messmeb@rockvax.rockefeller.edu> Don't go thinking Canadians are uglier than Americans. Celine Dion's just one person in a country of well over 1,500 people. the Sucksters I gotta say: People tell me all the time I am really smart. It was getting so bad that I was starting to believe them. This, of course, was causing my already large ego to inflate dangerously. Thankfully, I have been reading Suck faithfully for several years now, and you folks always manage to make me feel like an ignorant, undereducated knob. I've even written a few carefully worded letters, and I usually receive a reply that puts me in my place. You have probably saved me (from what I'm not quite sure). Anyways, thanks for the verbal spankings and the often rancid cynicism! Keep it up! A friend, Jim Van Meggelen <jim@ttw.net> We could've told you that you're not smart years ago. Takes one to know one. Ignorant knobs, the Sucksters |
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
   |
||||||||||||||||||||
 |  |
|||||||||||||||||||
 |   | |||||||||||||||||||
![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
![[the fixin'
pixie... ]](/fish/staff/images/emily.gif)
![[Ian
Connelly]](/fish/staff/images/ian.gif){kind=small}
![[Copy Edit]](/fish/staff/images/copyeditors.gif){kind=small}
![[Phillip Bailey]](/fish/staff/images/phil.gif){kind=small}
![[yes, it's
a plunger. i'll l
eave the rest up to your imagination ... ]](/fish/staff/images/erin.gif){kind=small}
![[Brian
Forsyth, " we're just spanning time "]](/fish/staff/images/brian.gif)