Sirs, I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Altered Zones magazine did this week on XXJFG. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.

Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” XXJFG yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a blog I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley. By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of XXJFG. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand.

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. Most modern music is worthless, the record industry is dying on its ass and who knows if so called artists are ever going to make a buck in the future.

And don’t get me wrong, i like music. Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.

I’m currently typing to the sounds of Higamos Hogamos and their Atomized series.I cannot advocate this for everyone, but these fuckers take on danceable outer space kosmiche has always worked for me.

I’ll include, for your perusal, my notes on their ‘secret’ guest remix of ‘My Travel /The Singularity’.

Notes :

This is Psychedelic – not in any cliched way the music that hippy Ginsberg sends me. This is no gutless flower powered idealist dope drenched brain rot, it’s nasty, like acid, and if you cannot look over the edge you’ve obviously never been there.

This is Fuel – its attitude, like your ‘jonny roten’ used to have before his mortgage and suites needed paying for.

This is no compromise – not a product of following fashion.

When your stomach is filled with bile from listening to the dirge of most ‘artists’ these days its a ray of hope that you can still find something with so little bullshit.

Higamos Hogamos – My Travel/Singularity remix

And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you. I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.) Nothing beats having good references.

Of course if you asked some of the other people I’ve worked for, you’d get a different set of answers. If you’re interested enough to answer this letter, I’ll be glad to furnish you with a list of references — including the lad I work for now.

The enclosed notes should give you a rough idea of who I am. It’s a year old, however, and I’ve changed a bit since it was written. I’ve taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the blog business, and developed a healthy contempt for music. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as muisic should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you’re trying to get XXJFG away from, then I think I’d like to work for you.

Most of my experience has been in sports writing, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews. I can work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don’t give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations. I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.

It’s a long way from here to Hove, but I think I’d enjoy the trip. If you think you can use me, drop me a line. If not, good luck anyway.

The Gun – Race With The Devil

Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson