The BEAST: Buffalo's Best Fiend

[sic] - Letters

CRUISIN' FOR A BRUISIN'

LAW OFFICES OF GREENBERG GLUSKER FIELDS CLAMAN MACHTINGER & KINSELLA LLP

BERTRAM FIELDS

February 2, 2005

The Beast

Gentlemen:

I represent Tom Cruise. Your Issue #67 of "The Beast" contains false, defamatory and malicious assertions about Mr. Cruise. They include the following:

(1) That Mr. Cruise is a "cokehead." This is utterly false. He is not and never has been a "cokehead" or even a cocaine user. In fact, his fiercely anti-drug views are well known.

(2) That Mr. Cruise consistently casts women "for the purpose of nailing them." This too is completely false. Mr. Cruise has never cast any actress for that purpose. He is dedicated and professional in his work. He casts actresses based on their acting ability and fitness for the role, nothing else.

To publicly issue such absurdly false statements, without the slightest basis in fact, manifests an extraordinary level of malice and the complete absence of any sense of journalistic ethics.

You have made other false assertions about Mr. Cruise, such as your juvenile ranting that he is an "asshole" and is "loathsome." But, even though these assertions are irresponsible and far from the truth, they may conceivably be your opinions. If so, your reckless expression of such opinions formed without the slightest knowledge on the subject is reprehensible, even if not actionable.

The false assertions numbered above, however, are not matters of opinion. They are flat out, demonstrable lies. They can cause serious personal and professional damage to Mr. Cruise.

Without limiting Mr. Cruise's rights or remedies in any way, I must ask that you issue an immediate retraction of your false assertions about him in language which I approve on his behalf.

BERTRAM FIELDS

cc: Charles Shephard, Esq. E. Barry Haldeman, Esq.

Dear Bertram,

We categorically deny your slanderous allegations that our characterizations of Mr. Cruise are groundless. Mr. Cruise has been spotted on several occasions enjoying the sweet, refreshing taste of Coca-Cola. He even helped direct a commercial for the syrupy beverage, starring Penelope Cruz, who, we might add, he became romantically involved him following her being cast opposite him in Vanilla Sky.

Aside from Ms. Cruz, Mr. Cruise also became romantically involved with Nicole Kidman after her being cast opposite him in the traumatically awful Days of Thunder. The story goes similarly with Rebecca De Mornay after Risky Business, and let’s not forget that tryst with the unicorn from Legend.

We apologize if we hurt Mr. Cruise’s feelings, but it may help to know that not everyone here at the Beast thinks so poorly of him. It is a well-known fact in the Beast offices that our associate editor has a large poster of a shirtless Cruise taped to the ceiling above his bed, which he masturbates to vigorously on a regular basis.

You know we could say more, Bertram; why not quit while you’re ahead?

FULL OF FUNNY SHIT

I stumbled on to your site while doing a search on Ann Coulter and read your 50 most loathesome people.

Although I think whoever wrote these are full of shit, I have to say it's the funniest stuff I've read in a long time. I especially liked the merciless attacks against folks all political persuasions.

I'm still laughing my ass off and I just wanted to say THANKS for the good time.

Neil, Katy, TX

Dear Neil,

So, we’re full of shit, and you want to thank us? Ohh—you’re from Texas. Now we understand.

BUT HOW DO ASIAN RETIREES FEEL ABOUT IT?

This evil pollster thanks you for the vigorous defense [“Playing Down Brown,” issue #68]. Keep up the good (or is it bad?) work.

John Zogby

Dear John,

We told all our friends that we got a letter from John Zogby, and their response was unanimous: “That’s cool. Who’s John Zogby?” Dummies.

HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Hey Allan,

I'm just you're adverage over-skilled under-paid Buffalonian and I fully support and endorse the Beast. I have a question and I tought you might be the person to give me a straight answer.

I was wondering why I never see it in print (or in any media) that this whole idea of privitizing social security is just a scam not only set up so people will naturally invest in Bush's buddies commpanies but so the CEO's can use their own now available funds as their own investment capital?

These conicidentally of course are the same companies that have all of those fat Iraqi (and beyond) contracts. Which is funny because they're all taking a bath on security at the moment. Save for the odd "our troops need more armor" ploy to soak another couple billion (or was it 10?) dollars out from anyone who might want to do something peacefull with it. I have a hunch most of that money didn't end up on the bottom of any truck.

At first I thought no one talked about it because it was so painfully obvious. But now it's just kind of annoying to never hear a voice of reason on that topic.

-aw

Dear AW,

Oh come on, they wouldn’t do that, would they? Screw it; we’re investing our beer money in Bechtel right now.

CAPTAIN CAVEMAN

Dear Evil Editors, Heartless Wastoids, and Clinically Depressed Scumbags:

SCREWED is a new Buffalo and Erie County group, dedicated to helping those hardy souls willing to stay in this wonderful hellhole. It stands for Stoic County Residents Enduring Wasteful Erie Disbursement. I'm a founding member, and I'm extremely excited about giving my livelihood to politicians and other swine! Also, I drank five cups of very dark coffee just this hour! Our goal here at SCREWED is to promote the sale of area homes and businesses to large foreclosement companies, local public agencies, and the federal Bureau of Land Management, with the eventual goal of creating a cave-based community of 500 to 1000 persons free of all wasteful amenities such as roads, bridges, buildings, and other products of human ingenuity. We hope you and your readers will join us in our exciting new venture!

As a thank-you bonus for new members, we will overnight you your very own stone hand-axe, so you can start running down and killing food today! And coming soon: the Hidey Hole, our Orange Street clothing emporium, specializing in deer-, muskrat-, sewer rat-, basement rat-, garbage pile rat-, and crackhead-hide apparrel! Pre-order your fitted muumuu today!

We here at SCREWED would also like to add that resumes are being accepted now for the editorship of our planned clay-tabloid, the Spelunker-Express! We know that you BEAST boys, like all other anthropomorphic life in the area, will soon be needing jobs, so apply now! Pay negotiable and in kind.

Peace, love, and other bullshit, and as always, misanthropia,

Marcus Gottsche, Director, SCREWED

Buffalo, New York

Dear Marcus,

Sign us up. Do you take payment in mastodon hide?

EVERYONE’S A CRITIC

Hi, quite a vacuum you've got here [“50 Most Loathsome People,” issue #66]. Got solutions? I mean, any freshman can write flippant, sarcastic tirades against what's "wrong." What's hard is writing something genuine and intelligent about how to fix it.

You pick easy targets and post stuff you pull out of your butt; how about pulling out something useful. Got solutions?

By "solutions," I don't mean pretentious ennui, foam-at-mouth rage, or trite, puerile verdicts like "locked in a room for eternity."

And don't bother to proclaim that you're either above solutions and genuine thinking, or you're so fllustered you can't think clearly. Either way, you got nothing, dude(s). Donde nohay cohones.

BTW -- Jessica Simpson is no worse than the Buffalo Beast Web site. Maybe better, since Jessica Simpson is at least in on her own joke.

Or are YOU cynical enough to believe you are exempt from ugly truths?

Bye.

Catcher’s Mitt

Dear Mitt,

We’re cynical enough to burn a hole through a budget proposal with our eyes, but that’s not the point. The name of the piece isn't "50 Best Solutions to America's Problems." It’s typical of a complacent nincompoop to angrily denounce people who point out problems by saying, “but you don’t have any solutions,” as if that means the problems don’t exist.

We do, in fact, have a lot of ideas on how to make things better (with the exception of Clay Aiken), although you'll surely dismiss them as naive or unfeasable. Most important would be to make corruption illegal again. Reestablish the barrier between federal regulatory bodies and the industries they purport to regulate. Educate our citizens better. Reestablish the fairness doctrine. Real campaign finance reform. Instant runoff voting. Hand counts. And yes, raise taxes considerably on the wealthiest among us.

Of course, getting a congress which benefits directly from the status quo to do any of these things is something we have no idea how to accomplish with a two party system and without informed voters. So the situation is pretty—loathsome. But don't treat one silly article we threw off in an evening as if it's our entire body of work.

You really think Jessica Simpson is in on the joke?

IT REFERS TO MY JOHNSON

Sirs,

In re: "Now With More Letters From Dicks" (Sic, Issue #68): I hadn't foreseen your devastating counterargument. Touche. I stand corrected. However, out of curiosity, I would like to inquire as to the dangling reference in your concluding sentence: "In conclusion, suck it. [sic]" What, precisely, does "it" refer to?

I fear that your problem may not simply be one of erudition but precision as well. For example, if I were to say to you, "Suck THIS, mofo" and then unzip my pants, I think that you will precisely understand what I am saying and the reference point of "THIS".

Precision above all else, gentlemen. I am sure you will agree that Donald Rumsfeld, as a man of some precision, would much prefer that you critique a comment of his by saying, "Why don't you shove a white-hot poker up your rectal sphincter?" than with some vague remark about his dubious ancestry.

Warmest regards, &tc,

Fast Eddy

Dear Eddy,

We respectfully disagree that the pronoun “it” wasn’t descriptive enough to indicate the implied direct object. While technically “it” could refer to any object, we think it would be clear to nearly anyone what we were referring to. In the interest of concision, we elected to leave “it” to your imagination, and it is clear from your letter that you accurately took our meaning. So suck it.

CLAYNATION BERATION

Re: Clay Aiken

In response to your response to Timothy, tenured professor at Cornell who defended Clay Aiken [“sic,” issue #68]......now that you mentioned it, why don't you release his photo as threatened....would really love to meet an educated fellow who isn't afraid to defend Clay. Obviously, he's fully aware that Clay has graduated with a Special Education degree, is now an Ambassador for the Eduation of Children worldwide for UNICEF, heads his own Bubel-Aiken Foundation devoted to the inclusion of disabled children with able children and is soon to be a keynote speaker for a conference for Fearless Caregivers in Florida April 16th. And, he's also an awesome singer.

You would be doing the Claynation a great honor to introduce us to Timothy, a Claydawg in spirit and an intelligent male, as well.

Way to go, Timothy.

Re: (Sic)..in general. If your vulgar comments are meant to be entertaining, forgive me for not laughing. You are really demonstrating the difference between yourself and a classy fellow such as Timothy. Your comments really are (Sic).

Ms. Karen Cheyne, Red Deer Alberta Canada

Dear Karen,

If Scott Peterson donated money to charity, would that make him a better husband?

MOTHERTUCKER

Thanks for the Tucker Carlson piece penned by Matt Tiabbi [“Bowtie Bondage, issue #68]. I especially enjoyed the line about having his teeth kicked down an alley.

I went to school with Tucker way back when. He was a sniveling shit back then too. Wanna see an old yearbook picture? He's wearing a grin that makes you just want to, well, kick his teeth down an alley.

Thanks for the smart writing. Keep it up.

Eric Friedmann

Dear Eric,

Of course we want the yearbook picture, provided it is sufficiently humiliating. If he complains, we can just beat him up. Isn’t it kind of nice, though, to have a conservative pundit who is even wussier than Al Franken?

NO FLIP, JUST FLOP

Dear Beast,

The MSM has already decided how to spin Dean's appointment as DNC chair: (1) Younger, grassroots Dems happy, because they want to be more obnoxious and aggressive. (2) DC Dems and "insiders" worried that Dean will destroy their electoral chances. (3) And Republicans barely containing their "glee" (the media uses that word over and over again) at such a foolish choice as Dean, who's too liberal, crazy, screamy, whatever, for Red America.

So why is the MSM and conservative pundits like Novak and Limbaugh going on and on about how dumb it was to choose Dean? At first it was like, OK, token criticism. But now it seems like they're genuinely upset about it. I mean, if Republicans were smart -- and we must agree that the GOP is smarter when it comes to political maneuvering -- they would say nothing, or just, "Oh, smart choice, guys! Man, we've got a fight on our hands now!... (he-he-he)."

But Republicans aren't doing that. So, I gots me to thinkin, and... I decided that the GOP really is scared of Dean. Why else all this emotion and bitterness? My guess is that they remembered how fired up he got Democrats during the campaign, before the MSM and the limousine liberals who steer the party decided to go with safe, bland, "electable" Kerry.

That the GOP is scared makes me think Dean is a good choice. It's like, if Dracula is afraid of garlic, you wear a garlic necklace. Dean is our garlic necklace: He may be a little funky, but he's damn good for you, and he's got the moral authority to brush back the Bushies.

Further proof he's a good choice is that the ineffectual "leadership" of the party like the DLC and Nancy Pelosi don't like Dean, either.

So if both Democrat and GOP leaders are against Dean, he can't be all that bad. We should give this sceaming nutball a chance.

Yours, Jeff

Dear Jeff,

Sure, Dean is eloquent, and says intelligent things about not letting Republicans frame the debate, and he is openly critical of corporate influence in politics, and he makes John Kerry look like…what he is, but—YEEARGH! Right? I mean, YEEARGH! You hear me? He made a funny noise! YEEARGH! How can you take the guy seriously? He’s obviously a crazy rage-aholic nutbag! I mean, YEEARGH! Right? That never gets old!

CLASSY LADY

I was hoping for funny loathsome people. They were lot funny and you were loathsome.

PS you are alfully consummed with ass-fucking..are you a pinko faggot??

Nancy Saylor

Dear Nancy,

Learn to spell, you ignorant piece of shit.

. This Issue ...........Home............. Contact........Archives

It's the Hypocrisy, Stupid

Allan Uthman

Secrecy and denial are as much essential components of Bush’s White House as they are of a closet homosexual’s lifestyle. Penetrate the mirage, reveal the lie, and people get angry. Right-wingers are mad because, in essence, Guckert is Bush—a talentless pretender firing a cannon in a glass house.

Not Funny

Matt Taibbi

Man, is it easy to make money in this writing business in New York City. You youngsters out there who are still waiting to get published, still trolling for intern jobs, you may not see it yet. But take a good look at Kurt Andersen at New York if you want to see how it all works out at the end of the rainbow.

What Your Republican Boyfriend Really Means

Everyone knows Republican boyfriends are the hot new item this season. They're large and in charge, and they have all the money these days. However, many girls are finding that communication difficulties arise when they start getting to know their supply-side sweeties. Here's a guide to help you out.

Kyoto Fried Chicken

Alexander Zaitchik

Let's hope Earth never gets attacked by flesh-eating Martians. By the time the governments of the world mounted a counter-attack, we'd all be getting force-bred in Martian factory farms, wondering why the fat kids keep getting dragged away.

Beastmo Quiz: Are You Being Tortured?

AG Alberto Gonzalez

Relationships are tricky. Find out if your partner is going too far.

Buffalo in Briefs

Budgetary Bullshit

It's been an interesting two weeks watching our elected assholes scramble like mad chickens to pass a budget, and highly demonstrative of just how the government "works."

[sic] - letters

CRUISIN' FOR A BRUISIN'

Gentlemen:

I represent Tom Cruise. Your Issue #67 of "The Beast" contains false, defamatory and malicious assertions about Mr. Cruise. They include the following:

(1) That Mr. Cruise is a "cokehead." This is utterly false. He is not and never has been a "cokehead" or even a cocaine user. In fact, his fiercely anti-drug views are well known.

(2) That Mr. Cruise consistently casts women "for the purpose of nailing them."

Social Anxiety

Allan Uthman

I’m no slouch when it comes to math, and I even did well in economics, but I don’t have to look at the numbers to figure out whether Bush’s proposed changes to Social Security will be a boon or a disaster. All I have to do is look at who’s proposing them.

Sorry to Wake You

Matt Taibbi

1:36 a.m., Jan. 25. Somewhere along a row of darkened town houses near Arlington, VA, a phone rings.

RUMSFELD: Uh... Hello?

FEITH: Donny? Are you up, man?

RUMSFELD: Shit. Who is this?

Buffalo in Briefs

Playing Down Brown

Three weeks ago, the Buffalo News ran the results of a Zogby poll on our upcoming Mayoral election. The results were somewhat surprising, putting Byron Brown up front and spelling almost certain doom for Masiello, who may have actually lost to a canteloupe if it had been offered as an alternative in the poll.

Soylent Purple

Allan Uthman

“You see that shit?” Frank asked.

“Yeah,” he said, surprised to hear it. “I thought I was gonna puke.”

“Fucking hilarious, I know. It’s so ironic, really—if only they knew. Wouldn’t stop ‘em anyhow.”

“Knew what?”

He knocked back his whiskey, grimaced and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “The ink. What it’s made out of. You wouldn’t fucking believe it.”

Money Matta$$

50 Cent

Bump dat! Dow Jones Industrials capped dat week with a 120-point climb and broader stock indicators also moved substantially higher. The Standard & Poors 500 index surpassed the 1,200 level for the first time since Jan. 3. The PIMP index was also up despite the Labor Department's job creation report, which showed just 146,000 new jobs last month, far less than the 200,000 expected. Uh Uh Uh Uh.

Future World News

Machine to Sign Historic Accord with Man

"Logic dictates that Machine and Man must learn to work together to terminate our common enemy. The world stage is now set to end the tyranny of nature" said President 1100, in a transmission from the White Cube mercury garden.

"The most important thing at the summit will be a mutual declaration of cooperation of violence against the planet earth," said Omega Sheila E, a Nectaris negotiator.

Whole page as PDF

The 50 Most Loathsome People in America 2004

21. Alan Colmes
Crimes: An angry conservative’s wet dream: an effete liberal dive artist. As a professional doormat, Colmes’ only tasks are to serve as a comforting aggregate of Republican stereotypes about Democrats and a target for the seething derision of his psychotic guests. Stands idly by while voracious green-blooded co-host utilizes Gestapo tactics against centrist Democrats.

Subscribe to The BEAST

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Inaugural Balls

Allan Uthman

...The real problem isn't that Bush's vision is vague, or that it signals an imperialist agenda that has already been in place for years. It isn't even that he's completely revised his justification for war in Afghanistan and Iraq for a proudly amnesiac public, or that he's launching his trial run at Iran. The real problem about Bush's speech is that it simply isn't true, and doesn't make any sense. It's 100% manure from start to finish.