Austin Fanzine Project

5. Iron and Wine (Sub Pop cd, 2002): in which some bearded Miami dude from South Carolina named Sam Beam channels the deceptively gentle psyche-folk (& blues, tho' there aren't any real rags or hollers) muse in a manner so damn beautiful. I now have the perfect record to play after Tommy Flanders' The Moonstone (Verne Forecast lp, 1969). 6. Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys (Bear Family 10 cd set, 1995): yeah, two handfuls might be a little much but really, only a just little. When I get heartsick for barbecue, soil, sky, long horizons and Shiner, this is the sorta shit I listen to. Thought of the night: Don't trust a Texan who doesn't love at least some Willie Nelson. Button of the day: Kiss Me, I'm Ernest Tubb! 7. Syd Barrett Wouldn't You Miss Me? (Harvest cd, 2001): did I really need to buy this (an estimable anthology drawn from three records I already own in multiple versions), just for the previously unreleased, "Bob Dylan's Blues"? Apparently so. 8. Tuli Kuperferg: various readings.

Interview with a Newspaper Man

Following a GW #4 contributor's gory evisceration of local writer Michael Corcoran (which was a personally motivated attack and does not represent the opinion of GW's editorial staff), Corcoran gave GW #5 a rave review in the Austin-American Statesman's XL Ent. He got some of his facts wrong (I — LaSuprema — am no stripper. That is Susan's occupation) but here we print pure truth. Susan originally conducted this interview for the Daily Texan in November 1997 but it never ran. Here it is, folks, uncut.

MC: I was a military kid, so I moved all over, but my father retired in Honolulu, so I lived in Hawaii from 1970 to 1984. '84's when I moved to Austin. It was April 1, 1984. Then I moved away in '88 and moved to San Francisco for about six months. I worked for the East Bay Express up there. Then I moved to Chicago in late '88 and lived there until 1992, then I took a job with the Dallas Morning News. So I've pretty much lived all over. But I guess Hawaii would be the place I'd call home.

GW: When did you start writing?

I was going through some stuff to get ready for this — I was gonna show you a few things, but I actually found the very first thing I ever wrote, when I was 7 years old.

[Tape problems ensue]

It's real embarrassing when people come into the room when you're transcribing, because you hear your voice and your questions.

I use headphones.

I always sound like an idiot during interviews. When I worked at the Chicago Sun-Times, I had one assignment with Roger Ebert, there was that movie Boyz in the Hood, and he was interviewing John Singleton and I was interviewing Ice Cube, it was one of those junket things. He was off there interviewing Singleton, and he wasn't even taking notes. And

Naked Chicks: who gives a damn?

Last November, some kid from the Daily Texan took a bunch of pictures of me for a project he was working on. He wanted to document a day in the life of a stripper. When he showed up at my house that Saturday, I was fixing migas and he said, "Oh, wow, you're cooking. I should get some shots of that." Then he took pictures of me putting my pants on one leg at a time, too.

Well, a few months after that, a young features writer called to tell me she was writing an article about students who stripped and wanted to interview me. Leah, the writer, used to work as a door girl at a titty bar in Austin, so I figured she wouldn't write anything too off base. I talked to her, and a week later, the article was published.

So, the story is published in which I and my friend Shea are quoted talking about the many positive aspects of dancing. I said that I always wanted to be a stripper, ever since I was a little girl, and Shea said that dancing was a great way to study human nature. And basically, we both said we liked our jobs and wanted to keep them as long as possible. The Texan utilized a ton of those photos that had been taken of me — so there I was, everywhere I went on campus that day, splashed all over the damn front and back of the paper. It was kind of cool, but I'll tell you this: it didn't even help me get laid!

The best part about this was the ensuing shitstorm of letters to the editor which came in the following week. I'd like to reproduce those letters here, since this is my fucking forum and I can respond. I never cease to be amazed at how uptight and condescending folks can be about my profession, and in kind, I never cease to be glad that most of the folks I know personally are enlightened enough not to have some of these reactions to my work. Some people, though . . . Here's a few of my favorite letters to the editor that ran about the "Student Body" story.