The following is the transcript of an interview conducted by Molly
McCommons, a 12 year old student in Athens, GA. (Molly was part of Michael's
film on teenagers talking about AIDS which aired on MTV a while back. Her
segment was edited out, though.) Molly is also the daughter of Pete
McCommons, editor of Flagpole magazine. Molly had not heard Monster before
talking to Michael.

The following article ran in three installments in Flagpole magazine. The
issues were Sept. 21, Sept. 28, and Oct. 5, 1994. Each installment also 
featured a photo taken during the interview.

Flagpole is an alternative weekly magazine published in Athens, GA.
Subscription prices are $20 for 6 months or $38 for a year. The address is
P.O. Box 1027, Athens, GA 30603. Their musical coverage is based on things
happening in Athens and around the music being made there.  They also cover
politics, art, and local affairs.

Anyone interested in advertising should contact Advertising Director Alicia
Nickles at 706-549-0301.  Classified ad rates are $3 a week, $10 a month 
mailed to the above address.

Enjoy the interview,
Flagpole Magazine, flagpol@aol.com 

-----------------------------------------

Flagpole: This interview is about your new album, but since it hasn't been
released yet, can you tell us something about it?
Michael Stipe: Well, it's a lot louder than the last three records. It's
very raw, and, uh, punk rock. It's kind of in-your-face.
Flagpole: Where did you record it?
Stipe: We started in New Orleans, then went to Atlanta, then to Miami, and
then to Los Angeles.
Flagpole: Did you have fun recording it?
Stipe: Yeah. It was a good time. A lot of things happened, kind of life
things happened, while we were making the record that made it a little more
difficult. It was a very challenging record to make.
Flagpole: Are most records fun to make?
Stipe: It's kind of hard because there's um... you know, you've written a
song, and you're inspired to put it down on tape. But putting it down on
tape is not as easy as it sounds. It's a really involved process - it
involves a lot of people and a lot of machinery, and the people and the
machinery don't always do what you want them to do. Especially if you're
experimenting, which we were doing a lot of. Some of the vocals, for
instance, that I recorded, that are on the album, I sang through a Walkman
instead of a microphone. We plugged a Walkman into the board. It really
drastically changed the way the vocal sounds. So that was an experiment
that kind ofworked . (Michael gets up and inspects the tape recorder I'm
using.) I always do this, too, in interviews, make sure the tape's running.
Is that one running? That one's running. Cool.
We tried a lot of experiments that didn't work [laughs]. A lot them made it
to the record. The last record that we made was almost all acoustic
instruments. This one has one acoustic guitar on one song, and everything
else is electric.
Flagpole: So it's a big change.
Stipe: It's a big change for us.
Flagpole: How do you write songs?
Stipe: Um, there's no real formula. The band kind of usually comes up with
the music and I usually come up with the words, but everybody contributes a
lot to each song. Sometimes a song will be, like, one person's idea, and if
it's a really fully realized idea, then everyone else will kind of take a
backseat or add little things here and there. Sometimes it takes all four
of us to make something really come together.
Flagpole: Were there any different titles you were going to use for the album
besides Monster?
Stipe: Yeah, we had a number of different titles [laughs]. Usually we put a
sheet of paper up on the wall about a month into recording, and everybody
starts writing ideas up there. It's always been a really hard thing for us
to pick titles. We just picked Monster because it was stupid, you know. I
mean, there was no real reason. The same reason we picked R.E.M. It just
kind of didn't mean anything.
Flagpole: What kind of Monster is it? Is it like Frankenstein's monster... or
Elmo from Sesame Street?
Stipe: Um, probably a combination of the two [laughs].
Flagpole: If you could trade places with anyone - living or dead, fictional or
real, who would you trade places with?
Stipe: Um... permanently or temporarily?
Flagpole: Temporarily. I guess, if you wanted to, permanently.
Stipe: (Long pause) Boy, that's a tough one. (Another pause) I don't know.
Who would you trade places with?
Flagpole: Hmm. Gosh, I never thought about that.. I wouldn't want to trade 
places with anyone permanently, I don't think. I might like to trade places 
with... uh... a really brilliant artist from the Renaissance period... I don't
know. Michelangelo? Leonardo da Vinci...
Stipe: Leonardo da Vinci. That'd be cool.
Flagpole: He did a lot of neat inventions and stuff..
Stipe: Yeah. (Pause) I can't think of anybody . I mean, there are so many
people that I would love to, like, be them for one day. Just to see what
goes through their heads.
Flagpole: Like who?
Stipe: Margaret Thatcher the ex-Prime Minister of the UK. James Dean.
George Bush. P. J. Harvey. I would love to find out what motivates these
people. Patti Smith. I'd love to find out what makes them do the things
that they do. Then let you decide - maybe not.
Flagpole: What is the stupidest thing you ever did?
Stipe: The stupidest thing I've ever done... I didn't change my name when I
became a pop star. (Chuckles) I should have come up with a fake name.
Flagpole: How is C-00 doing? Are there any projects that are going on?
Stipe: Yeah. C-00 is, although it's based in Athens, it's been kind of
moved up to New York. There's an office up there now. Jim McKay, my
partner, is up there now. He's working on music videos, and a screenplay
that he wrote. That's about it.
Flagpole: Are you currently involved with any environmental causes?
Stipe: Yeah.Bunch of'em.
Flagpole: What?
Stipe: Um, NRDC, Greenpeace is an obvious one, Citizen's
Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, which was started by Lois Gibbs. There's
a woman, she was a housewife before she became an activist, she lived in
Love Canal, and was kicked out of her home when it was discovered that her
neighborhood was completely toxic, and she started this organization,
they're very, very grassroots thus far. And various local organizations and
more national ones too.
Flagpole: All right. There's a grunge movement, the media likes to call it, 
like in Seattle, with Pearl Jam and Nirvana, and do you think there's something
like that in Athens?
Stipe: Yeah, I do, well, number one, I don't think that Nirvana and Pearl
Jam and Soundgarden really sound that much alike any more than when Athens
was where the media were kind of focusing their attention, I didn't really
think that Pylon and the B-52s and R.E.M. sounded much alike. But they
talked a lot about the Athens sound. But I feel like, you know, the whole
grunge thing was a media invention. It just happened to be that there were
a lot of bands making noisy records in Seattle, and they got signed. Most
of them were really talented and really deserved the attention that they got.
Flagpole: Is there an Athens look like the Seattle grunge look, with fashions
and all? Is the fashion just all a myth?
Stipe: I think it's all a myth, yeah. Don't you?
Flagpole: Yeah. Clothes are just...
Stipe: The whole grunge thing was flannel shirts, right? I mean we're
talking about Seattle, Washington, where it's very cold a lot of the time,
and a lot of people there are blue collar workers. Flannel shirts have been
around for centuries, keeping people warm when they were in cold places.
T-shirts and shorts make a little more sense in California and Athens,
where it's much warmer.
Flagpole: Out of the more recent bands, are there any that you really like?
Stipe: Throw some names at me.
Flagpole: Oh gosh...
Stipe: I can tell you who I've been listening to a lot. Sonic Youth. I'm
wearing their T-shirt [points to t-shirt]. Hole.
Flagpole: I like Hole.
Stipe: You do? Yeah, they're great. The last Fugazzi records. A lot of
tapes that friends of mine have made for me. A lot of stuff no one's ever
heard of. I still love the Utah Saint's record. And, what else have I been
listening to... I listen to the Kristen Hirsch record a lot and a new record
by D'van Gasparan [sp?] He's an Armenian dudak player. He put out a record
some years ago called I Will Not Be Sad In This World. It's an
unbelievable, beautiful recording and he just came out a new record - dudak
is really haunting... I believe it's a pipe, with a beautiful, haunting, low
tones that have a lot of sustain. The music that he composes or that he
plays along with is, I think, from Armenian folk music. It's very
beautiful. It's very hypnotic and almost hallucinogenic. It's like really
wild music. Anybody who likes Dead Can Dance should definitely check this
guy out. What've you been listening to?
Flagpole: I've, uh, Smashing Pumpkins.
Stipe: Great record.
Flagpole: --I like their old stuff and their new stuff. And I like Nirvana a 
lot.
Stipe: Nirvana were a great band.
Flagpole: And I like Hole, I really do.
Stipe: It's a great record, isn't it?
Flagpole: And then 99 percent of all this stuff I'm subjected to, like, on MTV,
corporate stations like Bulldog, I don't like that much. But sometimes
there'll be a song on that I think is really neat even though I don't like
the rest of the stuff.
Stipe: To a lot of people R.E.M. would fit into one of those bands. How do
you reckon with that?
Flagpole: What do you mean?
Stipe: R.E.M. would be one of the bands that are 99 percent of the dreck
that you have to listen to and you have to watch on MTV.
Flagpole: Well, I don't know. A lot of the dreck sounds a lot more generic--to
name some names, Mariah Carey...
Stipe: [laughs] Yeah...
Flagpole: And um, Bryan Adams...people who have a voice but their songs sound
like calculated pop...Spin Doctors. (We share embarrassed giggles.)
Stipe: I'm glad that you don't fit R.E.M. into that category, because I
agree with you wholeheartedly.
Flagpole: Are you involved with any bands right now?
Stipe: No. I'm friends with just about everybody that we've mentioned
[laughs], with the exception maybe of Mariah Carey. (Laughs) No, but I've
got a number of projects that are coming up that are outside R.E.M. that
I'm probably not at liberty to talk about them yet. It's some pretty
exciting stuff.
Flagpole: Is there any album you would definitely recommend to young folks 
everywhere?
Stipe: Yeah. A record that came out when I was 15 and I bought it the day
it came out which was the first Patti Smith record, called Horses, on
Arista Records, and that record to me was revolutionary. It really changed
my life. I think in a positive way...I mean, I became a pop star. I don't
know if that's...but it probably all started with that record. And that's
probably a record that's been overlooked by peoople who weren't around in
1975.
Flagpole: Well, in 1975 they didn't have as many  radios stations as they do 
now and there wasn't MTV translating all kinds of ideas to, well, anyone who
has cable. MTV isn't necessarily good, but they get their ideas across.
Stipe: Yeah, and you've also got the Box and BET, if you want to watch
other stuff.
Flagpole: And a whole slew of country music stations!
Stipe: Yeah. (Laughs.)
Flagpole: Did you have a vacation this year?
Stipe: No [laughs]. My vacation, for me, because I travel so much, is being
in Athens. I'm able to relax more when I'm here than when I'm traveling,
because that's really a very big part of my job, is traveling.
Flagpole: What's kept you in Athens? How come you've stayed instead of moving to
L.A. or something?
Stiupe: At one point I really looked around to see if there was another
place that I wanted to move and I had the opportunity because of the band
to see the whole country, the whole world, really, and I couldn't find
anywhere else that I liked better. It's not really that I'm afraid to move
somewhere else or that...it's just that Athens....I wish that everybody who
lived in Athens had the opportunity to get away from it for a while to
recognize what a unique community we have here. It's really an incredible
place.
Flagpole: How are you involved in Guaranteed Restaurant?
Stipe: I'm one of the co-owners of the restaurant. I go eat there but have
nothing to do with it outside of that.
Flagpole: What's the best thing on the menu?
Stipe: The best thing on the menu? I like juicers, so I go in and get three
different kinds of juice.
Flagpole: What's the most bizarre thing that ever happened to you?
Stipe: Um, I became famous. I'll never understand it. It's kind of
something I wanted when I was like really, really young, like almost every
kid wants to be a rock star or whatever, but I never realized that it would
actually happen, and I didn't ever really push for it to happen. I just got
in a band and it was something to do and a way to avoid having a regular
job and I was having a great time with it. I was like a really big fan of
of Jack Kerouac, the writer. His books profoundly affected me and Peter
Buck, and when we went on the road as a young band it was really like our
version of Kerouac's book On The Road. We were seeing America and getting
by, getting by by the seat of our pants, but having a great time and just
traveling around and meeting some people and having a good time.
Flagpole: Do you like to tour?
Stipe: I like performing. I have a dysfunctional ego. I think all famous
people have some kind of ego deficency problem or something - not ego
deficiency: what would it be? Some kind of chemical imbalance that causes
them to need to be in front of people performing. So...I mean, obviously,
the band hasn't toured in five years, so it's something that's not
necessary to my survival, but I do like performing, and I love travelling.
Sometimes when they're combined it's a little bit hard. But I'm really
looking forward, actually, to touring.
Flagpole: Do you know where you're going to go? What was the best place, the 
best time you ever had touring?
Stipe: Uhmm, New Zealand is really beautiful, and, uh, New Mexico. And
Minneapolis-St. Paul has always been a really fun place to play.
Flagpole: Is R.E.M. going to be on any TV shows like Saturday Night Live or 
David Letterman or the MTV Video Music Awards?
Stipe: We're going to the Video Awards just because we've been nominated I
think for six different things.
Flagpole: You've not going to play.
Stipe: We're not going to play. There are plenty of other people playing.
And I believe we're playing Saturday Night live on November 12.
Flagpole: Is Monster going to be coming out in a special booklet/package?
Stipe: Yeah, well last time we put out we put out special packages and they
go out to people that are in the music industry and they go to record
stores and you can buy it if you want to plop down 40 bucks for it or
whatever it costs: $85 or $25 or whatever it costs. But it's a special
package; it's a limited edition. And then there's just the regular CD.
There was one around here, Monster. I'll show you what it looks like.
Flagpole: Who designs the cover and the package and everything?
Stipe: I did it with Chris Bilheimer.
Flagpole: You've got Migraine Boy.
Stipe: I lifted Migraine Boy from the Flagpole, yes. I'd like to officially
thank Flagpole for introducing me to Greg Fiering and Migraine Boy. I
haven't met Greg, but I've talked to him a lot on the phone. We were
actually in San Francisco at the same time, but I was working on another
project and we had a telephone visit for about two hours. This is an
exclusive. I don't think anybody else knows about Migraine Boy yet...[laughs]
Flagpole: What freaks you out most? What gives you problems?
Stipe: In terms of my job, or just in life?
Flagpole: Yeah.
Stipe: I think change, probably. I mean ultimately it's the scariest thing,
but it's the single thing that's always going to happen, and it's a good
thing that it happens. Change is always scary. I think I adapt pretty well
to it. By birthright all human beings adapt to a lot of change; we have to.
How about you?
Flagpole: Not being prepared for something important. Like, I had a dream last
night that I was at an oratorical contest and I hadn't written my speech...
it really scared me a lot.
Stipe: Wow.
Flagpole: How did you feel about the voting spots you did getting vetoed on 
some of the local radio stations and on cable TV?
Stipe: Now that it's said and done I was really insulted by it. I felt
like, um, wherever within Mac Coile supporters that came from I've been an
advocate for voter registration a lot long than Mac Coile had been
considering a political position in Clarke County. I'm on the Board of
Directors for Rock the Vote [Michael is the only singer on the board...] and
I spend a lot of time doing voting rights and voter's registration and I
thought it was a very biased, snakey mean thing to do and not necessary.
Flagpole: What about the Rock the Vote book? How much of that were you involved
in?
Stipe: I knew it was happening. I wasn't involved in it being written.
Flagpole: What kind of political connection is there between you and our Chief
Elected Officer, Gwen O'Looney?
Stipe: I feel like Gwen is the type of person who kinda throws a wrench
into the idea of politicians being these kind of power hungry, money
grubbing, distant people. She makes herself very accessible to everyone in
this community and she works really long hours to try to appease as many
people as she can and to find as many solutions, whether they're big or
small, as she can. And I feel like that's the type of person that I want to
represent me and to represent this town. I feel very strongly about that,
too. Obviously, I've supported her now in two campaigns.
Flagpole: The other candidates try to present themselves like they're...
Stipe: For them it's strategy, and for her it's like... I mean, I have the
privilege of knowing her, and it's like, it's not a strategy at all. That's
the way Gwen is: she's very much the type of person who can get things done
and who does not cut herself off from any section of the constituents in
order to get it done. I think she really considers and carefully weights
every option. That being said, I don't think it's a very easy job, and
there are a lot of compromises that have to be met on any issue, whether
it's sewage and water or whether it's controlled growth or whether it's
recycling campaigns for the city or social services that are provided for
people who are needy or without. I personally feel Gwen might represent
more diverse groups of people in this community than any other candidate
that I've seen run. And that to me is exciting.
Flagpole: What public figure do you think is most dangerous?
Stipe: Bob Dole would have to be right up there [laughs]. That's a really
tough one, you know. There are people that, like, Reagan to me, Ronald
Reagan was just a devouring character... But I'm not quite sure he knew
what he represented or knew what he was doing. I always felt like he was a
puppet and there were people behind him pushing him, including his wife,
who really terrifies me. I've actually stood in a room with Nancy Reagan,
and I was stunned because I always thought that given the opportunity to,
like, knock her down or throw a pineapple or just scream at her, I would do
that, and instead I just saw her as this kind of pathetic woman. She was a
very powerful but pathetic woman, but she was just another person. Within
that, had I an opportunity to shake hands with her and it didn't come up...
had it come up, I could not have done it. I could never have done it, even
being raised a polite Southern gentleman. That crosses a line that I could
not...
Flagpole: Well, how do you feel about President Clinton?
Stipe: I'm a Clinton supporter. I feel like he's made a lot of mistakes; I
don't feel like he's made the best decisions on everything and he's wavered
a lot. I think a lot of the criticism is well placed towards him. But that
being said, again, the position that he's in as president is a position of
great compromise. I don't claim to have any inside line to what goes on in
Washington or politics or the Clinton administration because of my
particular position and the fact that I have access to these people, but I
have to say that the job of President is so multi-facted and so layered,
and the amount of decisions and the amount of... of unbelievable stress and
tension that's on anybody, whether it's somebody you like or dislike,
really, really is incredible. I feel like Clinton is an extreme radical,
and he's had to cmpromise a lot of his ideas because of the position that
he's in, but I do believe he's trying to bring about great change in this
country, and it's something that's not easy. You can't please everybody.
There are very, very different ideologies about how this country should be
run. In two and a half, or three or four years that's not going to
dramatically change. He's also following 12 years of the worst rule that
this country's ever seen by Reagan and Bush. Not to sound like sour grapes,
you know, because it's in the past, but a lot of the decisions that were
made during the Reagan and Bush administrations are going to affect you and
I into our old age: the buildup of defense, the slashing of social
organizations.
Flagpole: I think it's too much to ask of people to put pressure on Clinton to,
within one term, clear up everything that the Republican decades have
caused, these big problems.
Stipe: Big, big problems.
Flagpole: How do you feel about Al Gore's stand on the environment?
Stipe: How would you definite that?
Flagpole: One of their platforms was the environment... and Al Gore was like,
he's going to do this for the environment and he's going to do that. If he's
going to do something he should do it. I've heard a lot more about the
health care plan, but I've never heard any details...
Stipe: I can't claim to know the ins and outs of the health care plan.
There are what, 18,000 pages or something. Some unbelievable tome. Again,
with Al Gore... he's in a position of incredible compromise and no matter how
much they may want to do things, the way that they see they should be done
they're incredibly constricted by the system and by the positions that they
hold.
Flagpole: Well after all that... hmm... is there any theme on the new record?
Stipe: It's kind of... there are a lot of songs about sex. I wanted it to be
a really foxy kind of record.
Flagpole: Are you planning to do any videos or anything?
Stipe: Yes, we've done one video for the first single, which is called
"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" That's going to be released next week. And
we're going to New York next week to do another video. And we have plans to
do two more after that. And then probably a couple more next year.
Flagpole: If you made a movie of your life, by C-00 or anybody, who would play
you?
Stipe: Michael Jackson? (Laughs) I don't know. I wouldn't wish that on
anybody. I think I'm a pretty complex person.
Flagpole: Speaking of which, how do you feel about the media fodder that scream
at you from the headlines of the tabloids, and then O.J. Simpson's name
coming up every day. Have you been following the O.J. Simpson trial?
Stipe: I've been following it pretty much like everybody else has. It's
pretty boring at this point. It was very exciting when it first happened,
but the whole "tabloiding" of the general media is a very disturbing trend.
You know, I could sure care less what Michael Jackson does in his spare
time. Obviously, I don't want him molesting young boys or young girls or
anybody. It's just a sad state of affairs when a story like that is more
important and more influential on people's minds than things that are going
on that really affect their lives in very real ways.
If you follow it back a year and a half, we have Michael Jackson and then
Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley; we have O.J. Simpson; we have the
Menendez trial; we have Lorraine Bobbit cutting off her husband's penis; we
have Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan; we have Kurt Cobain's suicide; we
have... it's just ludicrous, and it's actually something that's addressed
on this record a lot. There are something like five songs on this record
that deal with media.
I saw Natural Born Killers a week and a half ago in Los Angeles, and I
expected that movie to lop media off at the knees and leave it bleeding on
the sidewalk. I thought it was going to absolutely condemn the place that
media has come to and the importance that it has in our lives, but it
failed to me as a film, dramatically failed as a film. It's actually not
that violent - it reads like a cartoon, for me it reads like a comedy. I
thik it utterly failed. But I went into the film with expectations; I
probably got my just desserts. I shouldn't have had any expectations and
then I might have liked it.
I saw another film called SFW which means So Fucking What which deals with
media in a similar way, and that to me is a much more realized film, and it
really, for me, comments on the trend that you're talking about where
really minute and unimportant things become huge scandals and exposes.
Flagpole: It seems like every day normal newspapers are becoming more
"tabloidized." I think the Nancy Kerrigan-Tanya Harding fiasco altered all
the media coverage it got. I don't know. The media kind of chose to make
Tanya Harding into the bad girl.
Stipe: The whore.
Flagpole: Yeah.
Stipe: And Nancy Kerrigan into...
Flagpole: Right.
Stipe: Snow White - the virgin. It's such a classic...
Flagpole: And then in the Bobbit thing they made both people involved in that
into cultural icons, big stars.
Stipe: River Phoenix's death, Richard Nixon's death... You know, Tanya
Harding and Nancy Kerrigan - and the world of skating  - is a pretty small
world, and even within the Olympics it's a small world, and nobody really
gave a shit about skating until this happened, you know. It was a pretty
minor thing; it wasn't that big a deal. Actually, I knew Nancy Kerrigan
before this happened. We presented an award together in Boston for human
rights last year, and she seemed nice enough, but anyway, it's sad, because
everybody loses out. These people become celebrities for no real reason.
Not that that's a big deal, anybody can be famous.
Flagpole: If you read Newsweek they have little fun facts where I'll see Tanya
Harding show up to join a punk rock girl band or being invited to star in
some movie... Entertainment Tonight did a big segment on the movie she's
starring in. I don't think she'd be getting all this attention if she
hadn't be involved in this scandal.
Stipe: Yeah, but it's true. And what do we care? I really could care less
about either one of them. It's like a dead dog in the middle of the road,
you know. You don't want to look, but you have to look. There's this kind
of human curiosity. We're all guilty of it, whether we want to admit it or
not, and we go along with it. Or we don't we protest it or it gets to the
point where it's cartoonish and ludicrous. It's like what's next?
Flagpole: But if you make a well-thought-out public protest, you put yourself
under the scrutiny of the media you're protesting.
Stipe: You have to play the game in order to battle it. I sometimes feel...
um, I kind of work from the inside out, like a tapeworm [laughs]. Not that
I'm a revolutionary or anything like that. I'd like to think that some of
the ideas that are handed down through our music and through the stuff we
do outside of our music really make people think and make them think hard
about different things and about how they're living their own lives and
what their beliefs are and what their belief systems are and what's defined
as what's important to them and what's not: what their priorities are.
There's a certain... um... Tori Amos had a really interesting take on this...
I'm trying to think of it. There's a certain vulnerability that... for me, as a
fan of music, as a fan of film there's a certain vulnerability that I think
is evident to all of us in certain people and not evident in others.
They're willing to put themselves out on a limb to say what they want to
say or to make whatever it is that they do available for them, and I guess
I include myself in that category. And I'm proud to be there.
Flagpole: Well, what would you be doing if you weren't doing R.E.M.?
Stipe: I'd probably be a photographer for Flagpole.
Flagpole: Speaking of which, are you having a photography show?
Stipe: I don't think so. I would like to. I'm trying to put together a book
of photographs, but I think I need to work for about another year, to get
enough images that I think are really good. Photography is really my first
love. I really only became a musician because it presented itself to me and
it was something to do. I never really planned to be a musician. I feel
really, really lucky. That's why it's so hard to say 'who else in the world
would you want to be.' I'm really pretty happy with who I am. I've got a
lot of faults and there are a lot of things about me that I would love to
change, you know, like bad skin, but that's a part of me and that's
something that doesn't really matter at the end of the day and I wouldn't
be me if it wasn't for having bad skin, [laughs] whatever it is, so I'm
pretty happy. Pretty happy. I feel very, very, very lucky.
There was a photo exhibit and the money went to an AIDS organization in Los
Angeles. It was centered around blue jeans. That was the theme of the show.
So, I gave them a photograph of a friend of mine in blue jeans - it was
River Phoenix, actually. They wanted pictures of famous people in blue
jeans. The other thing was denim jackets designed by designers or famous
people and I designed one.
Flagpole: Have you seen TV Nation?
Stipe: I think TV Nation is unbelievably great! I'm going to get a TV
Nation t-shirt Michael Moore - he's a hero!
Flagpole: What types of books and magazines do you like to read?
Stipe: I read every magazine that comes out or I just buy it and look at
it. I'm a voracious magazine reader. Books that I've got on my shelf right
now that I'm in the process of reading or almost reading - I'm reading a
lot of scripts right now for movies. There's a Kennedy book, there's a book
on school systems, there's a book by Ian Banks called The Wasp Factor that
I'm re-reading that I read some years ago. I'm not a real big reader - I've
got too much going on [laughs]. How 'bout you, what are you reading?
Flagpole: Right now I'm reading Daughter of the Lance it's kind of a provincial,
coming of age of this girl... I Roald Dahl books.

Molly McCommons
Copyright 1994 Flagpole Magazine, INC.  May not be reprinted without permission