dearest suck-sters:

i couldn't help but notice that you all have not made much appropriate mockery of wired or hotwired lately ... could it possibly be that the formerly free-agent sucksters are now buckling under pressure by their paycheck providers?

because i have *faith* in you, i gladly provide evidence that the organization that writes your paychecks does, in fact, suck.

(to protect the job security of the limited few at wired/hotwired with a conscience, i have changed the email address of my helpful tipper.) (and, since i have no job security already, i have left my email address relatively unchanged.)

enjoy.

-- fresh.

******

on tuesday, february 20th, i received the following email:

Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 10:55:33 -0800
To: fresh@bud.com
From: subversive@wired.com
Subject: spam with a charitable purp

>Date: 20 Feb 1996 09:47:25 -0800
>From: "Jon Slavet"
>Subject: spam with a charitable purp
>To: "Everyone at HotWired" ,
> "Everyone at Wired Magazine"
>
>Levis is having a contest - they are searching for great stories of
>internet/new-media entrepreneurs who are boostrapping to creat a great product
>(one with a soul). they want to find the best stories and are awarding grants
>to the finalists - and profiling them in ads.
>
>do any of you have a great story to pass on to me to pass on to them?

*****

because i, myself am an "internet/new-media entrepreneur" who is attempting to "boostrap[] to creat[e] a great product (one with a soul)," but also because i did not wish to share my great product (the one with a soul) with jon slavet, i sent mr. slavet a piece of correspondence:

*****

Date: 2/20/96 5:45 PM
To: Jon Slavet
From: fresh@bud.com

hey, jon@wired.com,

i received the message you forwarded to the wired people ... i was wondering if you could share with me the source of your levi's contest knowledge? i checked out their page but couldn't find it, and would love to run a couple of questions past this levis person.

i really appreciate it!

thanks,
fresh

*****

to which mr. slavet replied:

Date: 21 Feb 1996 08:13:01 -0800
From: "Jon Slavet"
Subject: Re: levi's ads

Reply to: RE>levi's ads

i'm afraid that all suggestions will have to go thru me. don't want to bombard our friends at Ketchum (their ad agency) with calls. if you have a company suggestion........please tell me about it.

best,

J

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

yeah, right i was going to run my great product (the one with a soul) past jon slavet! so, i got on the horn, and called up the nice people at Ketchum (their ad agency).

after being transferred a few times, and having conversations with the nice ketchum folk, and after ultimately having been connected with the person running the internet/bootstrapping campaign, i gained some valuable information, and whipped out the following message to my dear friend, subversive:

**********

Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 11:56:11 -0800
Subject:the skinny on the levi's campaign

i don't mean to be accusatory or anything (who, me?) but when i finally tracked down the woman in charge of running this campaign, she told me that the campaign ended a couple weeks ago, and that levi's already selected their up and coming entrepeneurs. the hard copy is due out in a few weeks.

do you think that mr. slavet is looking for opportunities outside of wired?

heh.

>>Date: 20 Feb 1996 09:47:25 -0800
>>From: "Jon Slavet"
>>Subject: spam with a charitable purp
>>To: "Everyone at HotWired" ,
>> "Everyone at Wired Magazine"
>>
>>Levis is having a contest - they are searching for great stories of
>>internet/new-media entrepreneurs who are boostrapping to creat a great product
>>(one with a soul). they want to find the best stories and are awarding grants
>>to the finalists - and profiling them in ads.
>>
>>do any of you have a great story to pass on to me to pass on to them?

*******

i see "spam" all right ... but could the charitable purpose at all be connected to jon slavet's search for a better business opportunity?

-- fresh.

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