Once I Cold-Applied at Rolling Stone Magazine
Once I cold-applied at Rolling Stone magazine. I sent a cover letter and, I assume, a resumé, which at the time was not exactly extensive.
This was in the era before the internet arrived, so we didn’t have incredible job opportunities in package management coming straight to our inboxes. I didn’t know if Rolling Stone had any openings, but I figured if anybody I knew had a shot, it was me.
At any rate, I forgot about the application, until a few weeks later when someone from Rolling Stone actually followed up and called me.
“Is this Paul Pearson?” the woman on the other end asked.
“Yes.”
“This is (name forgotten) from Rolling Stone magazine. You sent a letter to us.”
“Oh, hi! Thanks for calling back.”
“Sure, sure, no problem. I just wanted to let you know we don’t have any openings at this time.”
“I understand. Well, I appreciate your letting me know.”
“No problem. I have a question, though -- I just wanted to know something.”
“Sure.”
“Did you hear that we had openings?”
“Excuse me?”
“I was just wondering if you’d heard we had openings. If someone was going around telling people we have openings.”
“Oh. No, I hadn’t heard that. Nobody told me. It was a cold inquiry.”
“I see.”
“I mean, I kind of assumed Rolling Stone is always on the lookout for new talent.”
“I see.”
“Young talent. Precocious types.”
“Right.”
“Prodigies of language and music with their supple fingers on the pulse of exciting new artists.”
“I see.”
“Polymaths. Wunderkinds. Les enfants terrible, if you will.”
“I hear you.”
“Divining rods of stocky character and pluck through whom all the luminescence of contemporary music courses, turning their bones and muscle mass into boundless creativity and critical deconstruction. Nexuses that serve as the link between Rolling Stone’s rebellious, established tradition and the next generation of musical thought and criticism.”
“Yes. Like I said, we have no openings at the present time.”
“I’m a hard worker, you know.”
“I have no doubt.”
“I have absorbed an incredible amount of arcana and information about the history and cultural presence of 20th century popular music. It breathes within me like fire. I’m not so much a working writer as I am a manifestation. I am the summary, I am a pictograph, I am the assemblage of the musical narrative of the last 100 years in biped form, I am a living archive.”
“Yes.”
“So, I mean, I think that’d be a cool thing to have around your offices.”
“I agree. As I’m sure you’re aware, we are the literary gatekeepers of popular music, and have been for nearly a quarter century.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“However, we already have quite a few writers who fit the description you’ve just given yourself.”
“I’m sure you have a great many.”
“We do. But you see, they are wizened spirits. They have years of hands-on experience navigating the volatile crosswinds and tempestuous progress of this lunatic, vacillant, hither-and-yon, gleaming airship we call rock and roll.”
“I see.”
“These are not just day-to-day writers. They are positively mythological. There is a casual gravitas that informs their complexion, as they lilt about in their buskins. They illuminate and disorientate at the same time, like a violent, incoming spiral.”
“I see.”
“These Olympians do not just write. They reassemble whole civilizations, they manufacture entirely new philosophies. They create the headwinds; they do not merely hang onto them like ship prisoners do to sails in a monsoon. They are meteorology. Not mere students, or even teachers, but the very subject itself.”
“I see.”
“I mean we’re talking about some real heavyweights.”
“I see.”
“Titans. Superhumans.”
“I see.”
“If any of them have the letter ‘U’ in their names we often replace it with a ‘V,’ like on old Roman buildings.”
“I see.”
“Those are the kind of giants we are talking about here.”
“I understand. You’re right. I’m probably not right for this job.”
“There is no job.”
“I mean, not right for Rolling Stone. Not yet.”
“Well, you probably won’t be, to be honest. I can hear the wounded adolescent in your voice. That’s just not going to fly here.”
“I appreciate your feedback.”
“But listen… I hear there’s a bunch of openings at Spin magazine.”
“You… you do?”
“Oh, yeah! There’s a whole bunch of openings over at Spin. Like, upwards of a thousand.”
“No kidding!”
“Yes! How about you give ‘em a call?”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. Don’t even bother to send them a letter. Just call the receptionist and she’ll match you up with one of their career consultants. Hell, they might just assign you a Thompson Twins interview just for calling!”
“Oh, wow! I think I’ll hang up and do that right now!”
“All right! Good luck to you and your future endeavors. We appreciate your interest in our periodical.”
“Thank you! I feel encouraged!”
“Then our job is fulfilled. Our real job, that is: To lift the spirit of humankind.”
“Goodbye!”
(Note: This story is true, until the part after the caller asks me if I’d heard there were job openings at Rolling Stone.)
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