The Fish

for 27 July 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Phillip Bailey
Production Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

INDY 2000

Sucksters

Maybe I just don't fit the general
demographic profile of your
readers, but I read Suck daily and
know more than I care to recount
about auto racing (on account of my
dad raced cars for thirty years).

Anyway, I enjoyed today's piece
about the Indy 500. Wasn't that in,
uh, May?

Chris Rasmussen

Glad you enjoyed our Indy 500 piece
Chris, and no, you don't fit our
demographic, as we know for a fact
that Suck readers know nothing
about auto racing and find
calendars and their individual
"dates" too much a nuisance to take
seriously. FYI, the average Suck
reader is an Asian female aged
58-64 with two or more kids living
somewhere near Escondido. The
reader profile you fit is that of
Feed, our new strategic internet
partner, which is a 24-hour
interactive auto-racing fetish site
that "date" stamps each and every
new item they run. Given that our
demographic and their demographic
reciprocate perfectly (they are a
proven circulation death watch for
Asian females aged 58-64 with two
or more kids living near Escondido,
while we of course, OWN that bunch)
we feel our Sucking and Feeding
synergy will prove to be the
internet market dynamo that finally
helps us surpass Amazon.com in
annual net profits.

Bertolt Blecht

Dear Bertolt & Peter,

Did somebody miss a deadline? I
enjoyed it anyway. (By the way, I
work with two guys who literally
lock themselves in their homes with
a case of Jack Daniels and a bottle
of beer every Memorial Day, just to
watch this spectacle on TV.)

On another topic: Sucksters: don't
let yourselves be bought by
big(ger) corporate interests! Keep
your edge, instead.

Richard Banks
richard.banks@cpa.state.tx.us>

Deadline, dates — yawn. You'd
love Feed, pally. Look, Pete and I
are now definite racing culture
aficionados and so when Pete
suggested we lock ourselves in a
room with a case of Jack Daniels
and a bottle of beer and knock this
thing out in record time and then
get down to Escondido for a little
mai tai action, I was all for it.
But once the Suck fact checking
dept. started off with their whole
"They call it the Indy 500 because
it takes place in Indianapolis, not
Annapolis" whine of reasoning, it
took forEVER to finish. We're not
so sure about the Feed merger
anyway, since both Amy Tan and
Margaret Cho (who actually is
between the ages of 58-64) called
us "sell-outs" in the latest "Giant
Robot."

Bertolt Belcht

As the wife of a former bike racer
with a father-in-law who raced
cars, the only two sports ever
watched in OUR home are auto-racing
and the Tour de France (football -
bah! Who needs it?), and I LOVE
your INDY coverage! I definitely
think that you guys need to do the
Tour de France next year and cover
the glorious Lance Armstrong as he
whips those French bike pussies a
THIRD time!

Peter's artwork is great too! I
love Terry's stuff but it is nice
to have a "stylistic break" now and
then. Perhaps Peter and Terry could
do a "color exchange" - Terry's
pastels for Peter's primaries! Just
a thought! Hey, the feminist in me
LOVED the darling Sarah this year
just like the cancer survivor in me
ADORES Lance!

Hope to see more of your stuff! And
start angling for the free trip to
France now!

Elizabeth "I should be working"
Hinkle-Turner

Thanks for the kind words
Elizabeth. Both Pete and I saw lots
of women who feel the same way you
do about racing out at Indy. The
whole marketing strategy behind
Sarah Fisher is to bring a new
audience into the sport, and
they've already got off to a good
start.

However, the average Suck reader
that Chris and Richard were so
worried about actually hates Lance
Armstrong. In fact, according to
our recent demo test group results,
Suck won't be sending us to France
next year but the Forbidden City in
China, as apparently, the average
Suck reader has a nostalgic soft