I Write All Right
The only thing I like better than being outside doing outside stuff is writing about outside and outside stuff, especially if I am allowed to be humorous in the process. Thankfully my friends at Tripleblaze don’t mind me cracking a few jokes in my product reviews.
Check out my review of this great pack by Osprey!
I wrote this short story to be entered into the Creative Loafing fiction contest. It did not win or garner any recognition at all.
I read a lot of short stories and I often don’t understand why the ones that get published and awarded do so. They often seem like long poems to me with no discernable thread. They seem like dreams. Snapshots of interesting shit, to be sure, but, hey, what was this all about?
Point is, reading this will probably kill you, so don’t download it by clicking here: The Meaning of Life
My friends at Scoutmob were once again kind enough to ask me to write a few words for them. This time I was asked to form a short paragraph on what I would do with my last $20 in Atlanta.
Check out my entry on their site!
I have been working hard on my standup game lately, and also pitching Creative Loafing frantically to let me write for them again. I got lucky and these two initiatives converged!
Check out my article on standup here.
Dear Experience Hendrix, LLC, Janie Hendrix, et. al.,
I implore you, owners of the Jimi Hendrix estate and guardians of his legacy, please let Jimi die. Please stop releasing compilations, previously unreleased tracks, all of it. Just stop it.
PHOTO: A. Vente
You lost Jimi in 1970. I know that must be hard. I know it breaks your heart because I also have lost people I loved. I remember them and celebrate their lives as you must Jimi’s.
But his catalog was a love letter to all of us — for all of us — and you are chipping away at it with each new release.
Jimi released just three studio albums during his life; three rockets to Venus so amazing, so complex, so subtle. You have released over fifty studio albums and compilations since that time. Fifty! Five Zero! Please stop it!
I say this now as you are releasing People, Hell and Angels. I have listened to “Somewhere,” the first single. Naturally, it is amazing, because it’s Jimi on guitar and Stephen Stills, of all people, on bass. But these tracks are unreleased because they aren’t finished.
How long are we meant to go on hearing “previously unreleased” tracks? Until we’re just listening to Jimi tune his guitars? Do you have any recordings of him walking through a studio? I don’t want to hear them. Keep them to yourself.
Granted: raw, unpolished Jimi Hendrix is still light years better than the polished releases of a myriad of other folks, but that doesn’t mean it should be released. It shouldn’t. You should stop putting out Jimi’s music.
Now, you may say “But people love Jimi and they are hungry for more.” Of course they are hungry for more. I am hungry for more pie, but eating more will do nothing except mark me as a glutton.
Jimi was the greatest who ever lived. But giving people more doesn’t make him any greater. He is already the pinnacle. Releasing more music just earns you money and makes his colors fade.
Please stop it. Let Jimi go. Seal up the “vault” and stop releasing tracks and let us enjoy Jimi’s work the way he released it.
Sincerely, beseechingly,
James C. Hodgson, Jr
Guitar player and Jimi Hendrix Fan
Hi. I'm Jim. I'm a writer. These are my opinions.
My lawyer said that a disclaimer would be good, but he didn't include any jokes to go with it. Damned if I can think of any either.
