Landing a Newspaper Job the Hunter S. Thompson Way

I followed a link to the full story from Kottke, it's too good to not pass on.

Here's an excerpt from a letter written by Hunter S. Thompson, sent to the Vancouver Sun in hopes of landing a job writing for the paper:

By the time you get this letter, I'll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I'll let my offer stand. 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.

Apparently the letter's one of many reprinted in The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967.  Kind of embarassed to say I haven't read this one yet.