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In This Issue

• A Sneak Peek at Barnard’s New Vag
• Teacher's Pet Joins Elite Rank of CC Assignments
• Take a Ride on a Fiction Plane with Rachel Katz
• The Letters to the Feditor Strike Back
• What What (In The Butt): A Debate For The Ages
• Celebrity Beer Pong New To Network TV
• The Room-mate Chronicles
• C.J. Parker vs. Wolverine: Dispatches from the White House Correspondents Dinner 2008
• Columbia and the Perception of Self: A List of Stuff
• If I Were Graduating, I Would Be Thanking the Following People Whom I've Never Met
• Graduate Reflects: “Da faaaackkk???”
• A Message from the Next Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit
• Don’t Forget to Bring a Towel, Experts Warn
• Therapist’s ADD Cured By Hourly Wage
• A Red Letter Day For the Green-Thumbed
• A Public Service Announcement from the Ad Council
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 23.7

By the time we finally arrived at The Chance, the hole-in-the-wall venue in Poughkeepsie that The Bravery chose to host their gig, Fiction Plane had gone out for pizza. Fiction Plane is a band comprised of front-man/bass player Joe Sumner, guitarist Seton Daunt, and Pete Wilhoit on drums. Most recently they concluded a tour with Joe's dad, Sting, and his band, The Police. They are currently touring with The Bravery around the United States. A band called The Distraction was sound checking and Mark Dyde, Fiction Planes' new manager, recommended that we find the nearest exit and a fire extinguisher. He also offered us ear plugs. Multiple times. Needless to say, once Fiction Plane got back, we got the hell out of The Chance and conducted the interview in their van.

The Fed: Well, thanks for taking time for us.

Joe Sumner: Well, thanks for making it up here to Poughkeepsie. Thank you and sorry.

The Fed: Just a note: this is for the "alternative" paper at Columbia University, so some of the questions may seem a little off topic and kind of strange...

JS: A bit alternative?

The Fed: Yeah, just a bit.

JS: Alright, go. Shoot.

The Fed: How did you come up with the idea for a band?

JS: It was like, I basically got into Nirvana, and I was like, "I'm playing in a band now." That's it. And it didn't-well, actually, the very first band I was in had a cassette cover, and album artwork and six members and didn't play a song. We were just like, "We are in a band. That's as far as it's going."

The Fed: Six band members?

JS: Six, but two of them couldn't play any instrument.

The Fed: Tambourine? Triangle?

JS: Yeah, there was a little Japanese kid in school and he was just really good at drawing the artwork so he was in the band.

The Fed: So, I guess childhood-wise we are obligated to ask about your dad-

S: He is responsible for my childhood. Along with my mum.

The Fed: So back then, different band, different name?

JS: Yeah, we've had many different bands and names.

The Fed: So with this name, your Wikipedia entry mentions an anagram for "Infant Police..."

Seton Daunt: Yeah, that's bullshit.

The Fed: We thought so. Also "Lap Infection."

Pete Wilhoit: Well, it is an anagram, but we didn't come up with it.

JS: Also, "Life on Catnip."

SD: Our first band was called Santa'a Boyfriend, before Fiction Plane. That was a long time ago.

The Fed: What's your favorite article of clothing?

JS: My favorite piece of clothing right now is my jacket. Because it's really nice and soft and if somebody comes up next to me they start stroking it. So I get free massages from strangers.

PW: My underwear.

The Fed: Any specific pair?

PW: Nah.

SD: I have this suit.

The Fed: What color?

SD: It's weird. It's gray, it's like gray pinstripe but the pinstripes are pink and blue. But it's very subtle.

JS: Sounds subtle.

The Fed: So what do you guys do in your spare time? When you're not touring.

PW: There seems to be little of that. It's nice to do normal things.

SD: That's the thing I miss most, is doing normal stuff with friends.

The Fed: Do you consider what you're doing now abnormal?

PW: This is definitely a special job.

SD: It's an abnormal routine, but it is very much a routine. I suppose that a lot of my friends get up at 7 am to go to work at 9, come back at 5, watch some TV and then maybe go and meet a friend for a drink. I would classify that as normal, I suppose. But for us it's like, get up at whenever the latest is you can check out at whatever hotel, drive for six or seven hours, load your stuff in, sound check, try to communicate through cyber-space to your friends, your family, do a show, get drunk, go to bed at 3 in the morning and then do the same thing all over again in a completely different place with different people.

PW: Yeah, the great thing about being on tour is that every city and every gig offers the opportunity to be great.

JS: Unless it's in Toledo.

PW: It might not be great. We tried, we really tried.

JS: We went there 5 years ago, and it was just unbelievably terrible and we went back a couple of weeks ago and it was possibly even worse.

SD: There's just nothing there.

JS: Strip clubs and factories. And strip club factories.

PW: There's a minor league ball team. The Mudhens.

JS: It just gets better and better.

The Fed: So what's been your craziest hotel experience?

PW: Russia?

SD: I got locked in a room and we were going to be late for our gig. And the former bass player had to kick the door down and all hell broke loose. And there were police threatening and we had to pay a load of money. It was really, really annoyingly unfair.

PW: There was another hotel thing, but nothing very "rock and roll." JS: We tried to throw a tellie out the window, about five years ago, but the window had a grill on it and we kind of ripped it a little bit, and we thought, "Oh..."

The Fed: So was that sober or intoxicated?

PW: Intoxicated.

JS: Bored. And then we tried to throw a drawer out the window. And when that failed, in the morning I caught the bass player sort of trying to sew up the little hole and pull the curtain over it, and I thought, "That is the most anti-rock and roll experience ever."

The Fed: Next question, who were you in a past life?

PW: Ooh, that's a hard question.

The Fed: We liked it.

JS: It's a very good question. When I used to be someone else...I reckon I was a sailor. Who didn't go back home at the end of his life but I didn't really care.

PW: I was one of the TIE fighter guys for the rebels on a ship in Star Wars.

SD: I think I was the eighth saxophonist in some band.

JS: The eighth saxophonist...in an eight saxophone band...You were the sexy sixth saxophonist in Cynthia's sax orchestra.

SD: Yeah, I was the sexy sixth saxophonist in Cynthia's sax orchestra.

The Fed: So what's next?

JS: We're going on tour with 311 and Snoop for 6 weeks.

The Fed: That seems...eclectic.

JS: Should be interesting. We're doing a six-week tour all over the States, after we're done with The Bravery.

The Fed: Do you know what the name of the tour is?

SD: Suck corporate dick.

JS: Yeah, we'll see if they can give us a tour bus.

The Fed: Alright, second to last question: I don't know if you guys are aware, but Columbia invited the President of Iran to speak.

PW: Yes, and they totally fried him.

The Fed: Woohoo, President Bollinger. But, yes, so Columbia wants to know what you think.

JS: I thought it was a very good idea to allow him to go to America and to say whatever he wants to say. Because otherwise all you see is a clip of him saying something strange on CNN that may be completely edited.

PW: Yeah, I'd like to hear what he has to say, because he definitely says some crazy shit-

JS: No gays in Iran? There's a town that is named for being gay. A known area.

The Fed: "We don't have that phenomena here."

JS: Maybe he was just being sarcastic. Maybe he's just a sarcastic guy. "I want to destroy the world!" Maybe he's just being funny.

PW: But it seems like it was sort of a trap once he got in there. Like, we're going to blast you for everything. I think it's kind of unfair.

SD: But he must have kind of known that it must have been coming.

PW: Yeah, I thought Columbia should have taken the high road, and I don't think they did.

The Fed: So our last question: What is your favorite small rodent?

SD: Guinea Pig.

JS: What about to eat? I'd say squirrel.