Category: Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editors from our crack-smoking readers

Editors:

Recently, I just been out of job for about 1 month and during this period, I tried so many interviews and without much success.

To get to the point, I hope the editor with its connections will help me find something temporarily. I willing to work or try anything and I mean “anything”. let me remind you I’m straight, ok?

I like to work with single or married lady but when their man is not around, like making breakfast for them or serve them whatever or whenever way they like it. I work cheap and I mean very cheap. I really desperate for cash. And I ready to share the commission with anybody who introduce me to this job. Available hours 06:00 hr – 12:00 hrs. Lastly try to be discreet. – Hot Rod

So how about it folks? Any of our female readers need breakfast made for them? This is a real letter we received, if you’re interested, drop us a line and we’ll pass you Hot Rod’s phone number! Really…

Letters answered by an outsourcing firm in India.

Dear Think,

What’s with these maniacs that write you guys every month? Don’t they understand that this is entertainment? Why is it whenever you do something different or call someone on their bad attitudes, you can bet on someone grabbing their box of crayolas and scribbling out some self-indulgent rant that somehow puts us all in our place. How dare we laugh at ourselves or each other… unless one of the other free magazines says it’s okay. Stay smart, – Sebastion Runza

Dear Sebastion, If you were within high-fiving distance, I’d insist you and I make up our own secret handshake. I don’t know if you’re just trying to say what we want to hear or what, but I think I speak for the entire Think Magazine staff when I say, “Exactly.” But at your question (and this is just me speculating): I think many people living in Singapore are so hyper-sensitive that they’re physically looking for something to bitch about. Fair enough, I concede, some gripes are legitimate. But many are just silly. Nevertheless, we’re out there on the streets so it’s something I’ve come to expect and, as of late, appreciate. And on behalf of the racially balanced, politically correct staff, I thank you for the letter.

Letters answered by whoever the hell checked the mail that day.

Dear FRIEND,

I’M FROM THE IVORY COAST AND HAVE LOTS OF MONEY. I HAVE LIKE 22 MILLION AND I NEED TO TRANSFER IT TO AN ACCOUNT IN SINGAPORE. SO PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER AND I’LL TRANSFER THE MONEY TO YOU AND I’LL GIVE YOU 50 THOUSAND. OKAY? – SINCERELY, IKAA LPSOOD

Dear Ikaa, this is the WORST attempt at the bank transfer scam we have ever read. Come on, you didn’t even say how you’ve escaped a horribly oppressive slave trade or how you got the money from a prince or anything. What is the world coming to if scam artists aren’t even putting in the effort? You get a D minus. But thank you for being such a huge on-line supporter of Think. Mad props to our people on the Ivory Coast!

Letters answered by the cute FedEx guy.

Dear Think,

The “Techno Music” genre, as this troll calls it [Vol.2, Issue 17], is so far beyond stupidity and redundancy it’s not even worthy of being mentioned in your rag. The names of the genre descriptions aren’t exactly too accurate, either. For instance, there’s no defining moment to give breakbeat the rap crown as it’s been used since the dawn of German tekno/elektro/electronic pioneers, Kraftwerk.

If you want to hear BREAKBEATS, then simply listen to ’70s anthem, “Trans Europe Express.” In fact, if you want to hear the roots of all these genres, like “techno”, trance, breakbeats, elektro, etc., then Kraftwerk is highly in order. Another thing – electro clash has absolutely “nothing” to do with “funk” or funky sounds. Electro in itself is a very bizarre sound. Much more bizarre than “funk,” per se.

The genres your writer names are highly out of date and highly regressive. Not in the least underground whatsoever, save for the merging trance genres.You want some decent styles of old? Here you go:

Tekkno, hardcore techno, gabba (note: not gabbER), hard-acid, acidtrance, hard trance, ambient (I have to give this respect, it’s not heard much anymore), industrial (not NIN, but Front 242, Throbbing Gristle, The Normal, Non, Can, Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire, etc), techno industrial, acid, new beat, etc.

Newer stuff: Hardbeat, hard dance, elektro-wave, industrial tekkno, etc etc.

This doesn’t even encompass the industrial genres or many other electronic genres that were “not” mentioned.

It would seem to me that your *cough* reviewer(s) is a bit biased as to what they write about. So be it, but keep in mind that what is being mentioned is not what is really kicking within the scene these days. I don’t expect you to understand this, though – you’re only a cheesy ragazine. – DJ NaNa

And yet you read this “cheesy ragazine.” And it wasn’t a *cough* review. The article was a breakdown of the ever-changing genres in electronic music. Is it dated? Yep, from the moment he wrote it down. In fact, it’s more than safe to say the genres that you’re honking are SO lame by now that publishing your letter will get you booted from the “underground” so fast your xl records will spin. But that’s okay. You can hang out with us cheesy ragazine people.

Klahan Pakpao Sukhon

Letters answered by Klahan Pakpao Sukhon, our security guard.

Dear MR. think, (via email)

Just looked at your web page, its pretty cool! Would you be intrested (sic) in getting free long distance and making some money at the same time? If so email me and i will get you some information. My email is [address removed]. – Thanks keep up the good work on your web page. James.

Ack! Please tell me you didn’t compliment our webpage, just so that you could sucker us into some deal selling phone cards or something. I’d be VERY upset and VERY depressed, and kill myself or you or something. Thanks for the compliment, if it was sincere! E-mail me that information, unless it IS some crappy [phone card] deal like that.

Letters answered by an impartial moderator.

Dear Think

Regarding your Humanifesto a couple issues ago: Maybe to learn “it’s not raining” in foreign languages is not enough to understand the colour of a language. I read about German in your note. I can’t understand why you talk about declaring war… the Americans are at war… not the Germans. If you really think “it’s not raining” is all you need to know for international travels, you have never been in places tourists don’t reach out for.

But those places are the most interesting ones. You can really learn something about the local people there. And this might be the only reason for travelling – at least for the Europeans. But the Americans just travel to speak their own language or to get introduced to someone’s daughter???

During my 30-day trip around California, I thankfully met some Americans who are not as illiterate as you. They were people who knew more about Europe and Asia than rain and war. – Regards, Violet Wolfe

Thanks for the letter! The Humanifesto actually said that “it’s not raining” SOUNDS like a declaration of war in German because German is an aggressive-sounding language. But please don’t be mad and start name-calling just because after your 30-day trip around California you had to return to your Eastern European job in the bowels of a kerosene refinery. Danke!

Letters answered by outsourced Indian tele-answerers.

Dear Think Magazine

I’ve read your “Letters to the Editor” page and I’ve noticed there are no Malay letter writers. Please print my letter so I can point out to my coworkers that you do indeed print letters from Malays. – Thanks, Rafidah P.S. Love your movie reviews.

Rafidah, How do I know you’re a real Malay and not some Malay impersonator? I don’t mean to be a jerk, we’ve just been getting hundreds of letters from people claiming to be Malaysian but when we run the requisite background checks on their family trees, it turns out they’re not really Malaysians at all. But if it helps, I’m Californian and I LOVE Air Batu Campur (Malaysian Cocktail in shaved ice + Ice Cream), yummy!

Letters answered by the sexiest editor on staff.

Dear Think,

Hey, man, sick zine. How could I get my band Flesh Drillers a review or interview?

You should check us out and if you need a band for anything, let me know. We are from Johor Baruh and are an up-and-coming brutal death band and we just got signed to Death records. We’re about to put out two releases, so look out for us. – Alex (drums/vocals), Flesh Drillers

Thanks for the letter, Alex. We can probably work together. We were thinking about sponsoring a few shows at the Isetan and Flesh Drillers would no doubt be a hit with that crowd. If we can just get clearance for the pyrotechnics, we’ll be good to go.

Letters answered by Mooninites not disguised as bombs.

Dear Magazine

Listen, I have a secret for you: YOU’RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR YOUR INK JET PRINTER CARTRIDGES!!! How do I know this? Because OUR PRICES ARE LOWER THAN ANYONE ELSE’S!!! Click here to find out more!! – Tom Nielsen, CEO, InkJet Solutions

Dear Tom, Tell me more! Tell me more! I can’t believe I’ve been paying too much for my ink jet cartridges! Jesus! When I get my hands on our Xerox guy I’m going to throttle that poor, almost English-speaking jerk in the name of inkjet over-payers everywhere. Thanks for the tip! His ass is grass.

Letters answered by a Gitmo detainee.

Dearest Think,

Congratulations on your majestic rise to fame! Unfortunately with every hop-skip-and-jump there is a trip-smack-and-hospital.

Hello! My name is “=” and I will be your STALKER (don’t run). You cannot stop that which has not yet commenced the process of beginning. Stalker Qualifications: I’ve read Catcher in the Rye 13 times and I’m working on my own Broadway musical adaptation simply titled Catcher! It’s all about a small town boy who goes to the big city to break into show business! Along the way he meets several friends:

Ernest: the dancing ‘F’ word, Gabriel: the cowardly pimp and Plath: the sad little synapse who just can’t jump the brain bridge. (Mike Love is set to cameo as ‘corpse.’) But enough about me and my (future TONY award winning) musical. You’re being stalked, so it’s time you acted like a victim… don’t jump and make trouble.

I will be sending you several packages in the mail over the next few months ‘ this is not a threat’ it’s a gift of passive-aggressive love ‘ I’m only doing this because I’m bored and my Claritin has yet to do ANYTHING!!!! WHERE’S THE OPEN FIELD OF GRASS AND FLOWERS AND SUNLIGHT!!!! (Maybe I should have chased it with a Paxil.) – Your Stalker, ‘=’

Great? Thanks? But I’m not sure what stalking is, exactly? Is it just sort of watching someone in a strange way? Sending packages full of insanity? I have an image of some creepy person sitting outside our office in an old rusty Ford Escort smelling his/her finger. I’m curious as to what’s next.

Letters answered by general counsel.

Dear Think Magazine

Whenever I pick up a magazine, whether it’s new to me or not, I look to see if there’s a welcome letter from the editor or publisher. If there is, I read it first because I think you can get a very good sense of the publication by what the editor chooses to do with that page. Some magazines have three pages of letters: one from the editor, publisher, CEO, or president.

That’s a bit too self-serving in my opinion. I’ve really enjoyed your editorials in the past. The one a few issues ago, about artistry being obsolete, was good. But I thought your most recent piece about the truth about reality was confused and shortsighted. [humanifesto, issue 27]. I can see that you thought you had your bases covered, but you missed one HUGE influencing factor: God. Many people still believe in him, you know. Interesting that of all the things that might be behind our reality, you omitted God. Do you think he noticed? – Jan Ong

Dear Jan, I personally believe that this reality is “God’s greatest joke ever told.” You ask if it’s a “he” but how can you even make that judgement? Do you even know why you call ‘him” god? (anyone wants to know, write me and I’ll tell). But that aside, the question is, did god create this reality, or does he himself exist within it? Hmmm…

Letters to the editors from our crack-smoking readers

Dear Jeffree,

I’m writing on behalf of the creative folks at Bates and 141 Worldwide. You see, we’re always partying it up – seeing we manage all the Heineken parties and are responsible for all of its advertising and communication collaterals. In fact, we’ve seen our ugly mugs in your magazines before. But…often times we’re told by folks from the other agencies we’re in the magazines. By the time we try to get our paws on the copies, they’re all gone. So, what we’d like to ask is this: Please add us to your distribution list! We’ll try not to look like animals! – Many thanks in advance, Karen San, Creative Group Head, 141 Worldwide

Thanks for the kind words Karen, we’d be more than pleased to give you the ‘evidence” of your nights out on the town, just remember that we have the negatives! As for being hard to get, that’s been a problem from the start, the magazines are picked up as soon as they are seen. In fact, at some locations, 100 copies an hour fly out the door! You can count on us steadily increasing our print run each month to counterbalance this fact.