Hit & Run VII

If the mail we received begging for a Suck-style assault is any indicator, Wired's recent Scenarios ad-vehicle ranks right up there with the Zippies issue as one of the rag's most conspicuously ill-received blunders. But Christmas has come early for Coupland and Co. in the form of the November issue of Spin, whose abysmal copycat speculations on "THE FUTURE" make the Scenarios fluff seem like Revelations prophecy. Every half-baked cybercraze from the past five years is regurgitated here as a shocking new breakthrough, from cryogenics, ayahuasca, and Extropianism to digital tattoos, e-cash, and Fruitopianism. Discouragingly enough, word has it that this "Future of the Future" bandwagon has been seized by every two-bit culture rag on either coast - expect similar steaming loafs in your stocking this holiday season courtesy of Details, Esquire, et al. And Suck's prediction for "the future"? Same as always: overcast.

"Your Domain Name Registration form has been sent through the appropriate channels, or not at all. Depending on how the submissions program liked your answers to the various questions it may have just been tossed in the bit bucket. Sorry about this, but not just anyone can have a domain name anymore. We have a strenuous screening process to determine who is worthy. The InterNIC++ offers training class on how to improve your success at getting a domain name."

Sure, there's two-weeks-old News of the Weird, but the Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild delivers BONG Bull fresh off the press. Although its course content demands a refined taste, the comix section alone - which, in true reporterly fashion, doesn't show, but tells the adventures of Typo, the Wonder Pig - makes it worthy of a few cases of (in)digestion.

Here's a steel-cage match we'd love to see: in one corner, anti-Doom videogame advocate and all-around cyberfeminist eccentric Heidi Dangelmaier and in the other, credulity-bending chauvinist and (un)noted digi-swine, Ross Jeffries. Heidi's latest gift to the web is SheThing, a tie-in to the "womanhood-exalting" Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thing album, and an enjoyable exercise in egalitarian propaganda in its own right. Our favorite sequence, The Maze of Misconception, may not go down in the annals of human history as a pivotal consciousness-raiser, but it's far from lacking in humor (especially so if you answer incorrectly). On the other hand, Ross Jeffries's Secrets of Speed Seduction single-handedly legitimates almost everything Heidi and her friends say, with his crude affirmations of almost every sexist stereotype yet conceived. Here's a sample tidbit of wisdom from Jeffries's "Get-Laid" newsletter, on the topic of "magic pick-up places":

"...from 7 p.m. to around 1 a.m. the coffee places that are located near college campuses are.... JAM-PACKED WITH COLLEGE AGE SNATCH, STUDYING THEIR POLITICAL SCIENCE, ART HISTORY, ETC."

Despite his more overtly misogynistic tendencies, credit must be given to Ross for pushing the envelope of online self-misrepresentation - he's a lonely guy, and it shows. If it's the last thing we do, we're going to get these two together and see who comes out alive. (Oh Ross, you sad fuck, we hardly knew ya...)

So you think Suck is getting played by The Man with our upcoming Club Wired chat-room appearance? Or perhaps you've bought into the entertaining hypothesis that Suck is a manufactured stunt cooked up by the HotWired "brain trust". (Here's a Big Thought: if they were smart enough to pull it off, they wouldn't have had to in the first place.) We'd advise the contrarian faction to blow their conspiracy-minded intrigues right out of their cans - but, for God's sake, do it in public! Specifically, tomorrow at 12 p.m. PST. (Bring your own ammo.) Would you rather listen to the whinnies of overpaid, apotheosized futurists? We didn't think so...