Memory Lane
2:00 a.m. Time to get up. I stagger into the kitchen to make coffee and glance over at the stack of mail. My new issue of Rolling Stone! Special Collectors’ Edition, it says. Our 1000th issue. The cover is a lenticular montage of famous people, like a 3D Sgt. Pepper.
A thousand issues. I started reading Rolling Stone back in the early 70s, when it was still on newsprint. I remember the hours I spent in my bedroom of our little house in Sacramento, poring over each issue. George Harrison and the Concert for Bangladesh. The Airplane. The Stones. Neil Young. Nixon.
I peer at the 3D cover, turning it slightly the way I always do with holograms, trying to see inside the depth. There’s Bob up front, his music the soundtrack of my earliest memories. Blowin’ in the Wind, Maggie’s Farm, My Back Pages. (Oh, but I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.) There’s Janis, whom I never liked, and Chuck Berry and Jimi and Madonna. Madonna? There’s Mick looking like a spastic chicken who really, really needs to pee and might not make it to the next rest stop. And John Lennon! My first love, after Ilya Kuryakin in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
(A memory flashes into mind: the Russian Tea Room in the late 80s, Julian Lennon hitting on me, Yoko draped like a queen in white furs, Sean cute in black leather and chains, David Geffen looking like a bobble-head. I had a regrettably inconvenient husband in tow, so the roll in the hay with Julian remains one of the great what-ifs. Hey Jude, indeed.)
I’m still peering at the cover in the half-light of the kitchen, and only now realize that my beloved Hunter S. Thompson is perched above the composite crowd, a winged guardian demon replete with horns. And his counterpart is Kurt Cobain in the guise of angel. At least I think that’s Kurt Cobain, but honestly he was past my day. By the time Nirvana peaked I was no longer paying much attention to popular music. I don’t even remember when Cobain died.
But Hunter Thompson! Ah, Dr. Gonzo. When I learned of his suicide I cried out in shock, and not many things make Dr. Socks cry out in shock. I owe the good doctor at least partially for my roaring addictions to heroin, booze, and the kind of rhetoric that crashes through the door, smashes all the lamps, and then pisses itself in the corner. Thompson was a broken-hearted cynic, and so am I. The smack helps.
Johnny Depp’s on the cover too, and I reveal to you all now that the real source of my affection for Depp is his affection for Thompson. Johnny Depp is a startlingly beautiful human — his face is so interesting to me that I based a character in my book on him — but that’s not why I like the guy. I like him because he was a close friend and devoted adopted son to Hunter Thompson, whom he played to perfection in Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Rent it. Fucking masterpiece.
By the time my family left California in the 70s I had a stack of Rolling Stones several feet tall, which I refused to part with. They may still be in a box somewhere for all I know, disintegrating into yellowed flakes of newsprint.
Sometime in the late 80s, I think, Rolling Stone became more of a general show business magazine than a music magazine, and I stopped reading it. This was ironic, in retrospect, since I was myself by that time in show business. But I preferred to read the trade rags for movie news, and the world of popular music was less and less interesting to me. Rolling Stone seemed tame, airbrushed, corporate. No more gonzo.
I’ve only recently begun subscribing again. Just in time for this trip down memory lane, it seems.
I thumb through the pages. The first thing I notice is the ads: there’s a little more equal-opportunity sexual objectification these days. Lots of pretty boys with well-packed jeans. I look to see what products these ads are flogging: men’s body spray, hair care, clothes. Interesting. So ads for men now use men’s bodies the way ads for women use women’s bodies? But not entirely: there’s one for vodka that is basically just a picture of a scantily clad woman looking at a seated man (we only see his knees) with a “fuck me while I mix your martini” expression. Perhaps only men buy vodka.
And here’s a two-page picture of Kate Moss, naked, selling a camera. This is how reclusive I became in the 90s: I only recently figured out who Kate Moss is. For a long time I thought perhaps she was that woman who designs handbags. (No, that’s Kate Spade. Little known fact: 80% of British women are named Kate.)
Sammy Hagar! Jesus Christ, he weighs 300 pounds. I was never into cock rock and don’t give a damn about Hagar, but the boy did not used to be this fat.
Here’s an update on Dylan. “He can do anything he wants as long as its legal,” says his record company’s exec. Indeed, if anyone’s earned the right to do just about anything he fucking wants, it’s the Bob. Even appear in a Victoria’s Secret commercial, which, like Hunter Thompson’s suicide, was one of the few things to make Dr. Socks cry out in shock. What was Bob doing behind that pillar? No, Bob, no! Run away, Victoria’s Secret model!
And here’s a little blurb on Michael Stipe — hey, did he ever come out? I honestly don’t know. Heard he was gay back in the day, when I had friends who had friends, but then I became a recluse and lost touch with the news.
Now the review of past covers. 1971: James Taylor with hair, Michael Jackson with a nose. And Keith Richards — Christ, I’d almost forgotten what he looked like before the taxidermists got to him.
I’m distracted by an ad again: A sexy Asian man smoking a cigarette. When did the prohibition on showing actual humans smoking in advertisements expire? I really am out of touch. Remember when all the real people were replaced by cartoon characters? Yeah, that totally kept everybody from wanting to smoke. Good move.
Here’s the 1976 version of Paul McCartney, insipid and wearing a mullet. A mullet. The 2006 version of Paul McCartney is equally insipid, just without the mullet. Now it’s Grecian Formula for Men. Paul McCartney couldn’t be cool if he took all billion of his dollars down to the Cool outlet and bought out the fucking shop.
(Another memory: mid-70s, the agonizing monthly trips to the orthodontist for medieval wire-tightening torture. The radio station was always playing “Who’s That Knockin’ At the Door?” That was the only song: over and over again, every time I went. Who’s that knockin’ at the door? Somebody’s ringing the bell! Someday I’m going to track Paul McCartney down and blow his fucking head off.)
The Patti Smith cover! 1978. I remember being fascinated by the angularity, the masculinity of her image. It was like an affront to the bouncy blond ideal of the Madison Avenue American woman. Look at her expression: fearless, proud, direct. Years later, when I was doing a Sam Shepherd play, I would think of this photo.
Pete Townsend in red pants, mid-leap. Dear Pete. My first apartment: I painted the bookcases to the guitar licks of “Who Are You.” Ah, who the fuck are you?
My heart is like a broken cup.
The astonishing, breathtaking Leibovitz portrait of John and Yoko, taken in their Dakota apartment hours/days before he was murdered. When John was killed I was still a teenager, and I wept wildly for hours. I turn the memory over in my mind, like a relic from a lost civilization. What was that like, being so innocent and open that you could cry from the bottom of your soul for the death of a public figure? I can’t imagine it anymore. I’m old.
The Jim Morrison cover: He’s hot, he’s sexy, and he’s dead. Meryl Streep, Eddie Murphy, Prince’s underarm hair.
By the late 80s I’d stopped reading Rolling Stone regularly, and then I stopped altogether. Tom Cruise? Robin Williams? Arnold Fucking Schwarzenegger?
The pop stars of later years are meaningless to me. Eminem and Justin Timberlake look to me like the same person. Soft baby faces, features that would dissolve in a good rain. The cover of Kanye West is interesting, but I have no idea who Kanye West is. I scan the article: oh, he’s the guy who said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” on TV. Well, good for him. But who is he? What does he do?
Towards the back of the issue are updates on the greats from my youth: Neil Young, Bob Dylan (again), Paul Simon. They all look as grey and soft and indistinct as my parents. They look old.
How old do I look?
I thumb through the pages again, fascinated, too jittery to slow down and actually read any of the articles. Somewhere in these old images I will figure it out, what my youth meant and what happened to it. What happened to me. Perhaps I’ll spend the rest of the day drinking vodka martinis and listening to the Who. Remembering.
My heart is like a broken cup.
46 Responses to “Memory Lane”
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ehj2 says:
you’ve crafted a beautiful montage here.
i lift my glass in salute.
here’s to drinking in the rain. perhaps it’s not so obvious we’re weeping — in gratitude for so much wealth of spirit that accompanied our journey in this world, and in sadness for so many lost dreams.
/ehj2
May 11th, 2006 at 9:00 am EST -
Violet says:
Thank you, ehj2.
I doubt if anyone under 40 will have any idea what I’m yammering about.
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Alon Levy says:
I barely do…
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Violet says:
What year were you born? 1988?
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Infidel says:
When your book does come out will the author be Violet Socks?
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will says:
I just got it yesterday. But havent had a chance to look at it.
By the way, I loved Fear and Loathing. What a fabulous first 30 pages of a book.
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Violet says:
You mean you only liked the first 30 pages of the book? Or you think the movie was a good adaptation of just the first 30 pages?
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will says:
I mean that the first 30 pages or so was incredible. The rest of the book was very good as well, but not at the same level.
Riding in the car with the hitchhiker is laugh out loud funny.
“Did he see those bats!?!?!?”
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Steve says:
Could you give us any hints about your book?
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Steve says:
By the way, I loved “Memory Lane.” I was a Rolling Stone fanatic, lived in Berkeley next door to Ralph Gleason, one of the original founders.
What I forget is the precise year when I got disgusted with receiving what looked more like a skin magazine than anything else.
By the way, what is intersting about you liking Rolling Stone is how much, if you look at their readershiop studies of recent years, they strongly skew toward male readers.
I have always been interested in the subject of reading as deviance (god awful scoiology term), specifically who the men are who read a magazine read by 98% women, and vice versa.
If you’ll excuse me, I see that my monthly issue of Modern Maxi-Pad has arrived.
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CR says:
Don’t you listen to them Miss Violet. Jinx- no jinx. Turn around three times, knock on wood and do the hokey pokey. Don’t give any hints about your book. It’s bad joo- joo. Only after the last page has been proof read and you’re pleased with it.
Or I can go jump in the lake. And fly a kite.
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Violet says:
Steve, tell about Ralph Gleason! Tell, tell, tell!
What I forget is the precise year when I got disgusted with receiving what looked more like a skin magazine than anything else.
Oh my fucking taco. I’ve spent the day reading the issue cover-to-cover, and RS got even worse in the 90s than I’d realized. It must have been around 1990 that I read my last issue, and at that point the magazine was indistinguishable from Premiere. But in the 90s they went even further: they had an annual “hot” issue with women in pinup poses. The cover art got more and more sexual with the women — basically every woman who posed looks like she’s doing Playboy. Male rock stars get moody black-and-white portraits and iconic photographs in the Australian desert; all the women are photographed naked or half dressed in bed, in the bath, in various fuck-me poses.
No wonder nowadays young female stars think the thing to do when they get famous is strip for Playboy. Where is the dignity of Patti Smith? The difference between now and ‘78 is breathtaking.
By the way, what is interesting about you liking Rolling Stone is how much, if you look at their readershiop studies of recent years, they strongly skew toward male readers.
No wonder, since it’s full of female pinups. I’ve been looking more carefully at the ads, and as far as I can tell ALL of them are targeted to men. Every single one.
The writing is still pretty good, though hardly gonzo.
I wish Hunter would come back to life.
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Violet says:
By the way, I’m disappointed that no one can answer my questions. Michael Stipe? Cigarette ads? Kanye West? You don’t expect me to google these things, do you?
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Violet says:
CR, you are exactly right.
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Alon Levy says:
Yeah, I was born in 1988. When were you born - in 1964?
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CR says:
Not sure about being right- maybe the jumping in the lake part. But I wouldn’t chance it. Jinx - no jinx- stick a finger in my right ear. Very superstitious person.
I don’t know who any of those people are in Rolling Stone you mentioned. I like old music- by old, I mean really old. Like from the stone age- not the rolling stone age. My favorite singer is Edith Piaf. And I think it’s really cool that you are in show business. My female freind has also been in movies for over 20 years. She makes monster/scarey movies. She’s an actress. She’s in Czech Republic now filming one. I can’t say her name because she is known.
I only once read a Rolling Stone magazine because our freind was on the cover once af ew years ago ( she played the token boobie broad in a big movie) and so I bought it. It wasn’t a flattering article. So now I have copped a ‘tude toward the magazine.
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Infidel says:
There’s a Rolling Stone for ya. Super retro-issue. Edith Piaf, Jaques Brell, and Kurt Weill, all the advertisments black and white with flapper dresses replete with sequins and feathered pill box hats. Lots of old cars, and stars dressed like gangsters(not gangsta) All the faithfull readers going “what the f..” and then comes the revival. Go into a bar and hear crooners on big bad sterling microphones like Elvis impersonators except T-bone Burnett.
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CR says:
I like it! Dat would be Da Bomb.
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Paul Tergeist says:
I must be in the wrong apartment. I have never read a Rolling Stone. I have never picked one up. I don’t recall ever SEEING one.
Heroin is bad. We ran into a house once right after a dealer gave our informant a hot shot. I got him to the ER in time for them to save him with Narcan. I saw someone get fired up Clorox instead of smack. Biker vs biker.
I have been to Neil Young’s house. He left his sunglasses in my friend’s car last year. I don’t listen to his music, but he has a nice house so someone must. I like him because he doesn’t like Bush.
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alyx says:
Well, I was born in ‘84, but vaguely recall watching my teenage cousin bawl her eyes out one afternoon in ‘94, over the death of some rock star guy called Kurt Cobain. I would become a Nirvana fan myself 2 years later as a surly 12-year-old.
Re. Johnny Depp: Damn, he’s fine. I think the Depp-fascination has cross-generational appeal, although my reasons for liking him are purely aesthetic/superficial.
“When were you born - in 1964?”
Cheeky young bugger :P
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Violet says:
CR, I’m not in show business anymore. That was several lifetimes ago.
Where are all the people my age who remember these things? I feel so lonely.
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Violet says:
Johnny Depp is my age. I should go find Johnny.
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Robert says:
Hey Violet. Thanks for the lovely rememberencies. I’m a 45 year old guy who read RS regularly from 73 to the late 80s. Largely for the same reasons you did, including quitting. Always a big Patti Smith fan. Sorry, don’t know about cigarettes or Stipe, although it never occurred to me that he wasn’t gay.
Maybe I’ll go buy one now…they do up the past nicely.
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Infidel says:
46, never got into RS, National Lampoon and HighTimes. HighTimes still cracks me up thinking about the centerfolds and the yohimbi bark adds.
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will says:
“Where are all the people my age who remember these things? I feel so lonely.”
well, I am much younger than you. I still havent read my copy yet. I got a free RS subscription about a year ago. Other than the main political article, it stinks.
But that main political article has been right on the money virtually every time.
I dont think Stipe every came out. Dylan on satilite radio seems odd, but his thing is to confound so why stop now.
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Violet says:
well, I am much younger than you.
I thought you were 37 or 38. That’s not so much younger.
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will says:
38 . And that is like, way, younger than you. Maam.
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Steve says:
I claim victory in the age sweepstakes. Who else here can claim to have lived during the presidency of Harry S Truman?
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will says:
NO FAIR EDITING!!!!
Steve: Do previous lives count?
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Violet says:
I didn’t edit it. If you type a number with a period, the software immediately converts that to a numbered list. But I fixed it for you now.
Paul said in another thread that he’s 59 or 60 (can’t remember which), but apparently he lived through the 70s as oblivious to popular culture as I am now.
I’ve been studying my new issue of Rolling Stone like an anthropologist from another planet. I know who Jessica Simpson is now!
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will says:
Rolling Stone is my weekend project. Maybe I can read it while blasting Dylan or the Dead.
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Steve says:
Steve is 54 and proud….
steve doesnt look 54
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KC says:
I, too, can claim to have been alive in the Truman administration, but only just.
So I was no teenager when John Lennon died, but I cried. I was in shock. I had no idea that my childhood memories could be desecrated in that way–it was as if someone had shot and killed Elizabeth Bennett, or Frodo. I think that was the day I became a cynical adult.
Thanks for the memories.
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Paul Tergeist says:
I am older than Steve or KC.
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Steve says:
Actually I knew that Paul. Tonight I happened to notice that a 4 year old Paul Tergeist is listed a Titanic survivor. Cool. 98 years old….
Cool.
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gordo says:
KC–
I remember seeing the crawl on the bottom of the TV set, announcing that Lennon had been killed. I remember thinking, “Who’s John Lennon?”
I had no taste in music at that age. I think my favorite bands were Kiss and Bob Segar.
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Steve says:
Gordo:
I had a similar moment to your John Lennon on TV moment. I rememeber hearing the radio announcer say that Harding had beat Cox and I had no idea who either man was or why Harding had to beat Cox.
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CR says:
I cried when Lucy Ball died. And felt very sad when we lost both Hepburns. Audrey and Katherine. And I also cried when Breshnev died and don’t even know why. I’m not a Communist or anything. Just cried soemthing aweful. Maybe I was getting ready for my period or something.
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Alon Levy says:
My parents told me that Bush was no longer President of the United States, and now it was Clinton. I asked why, and they said people didn’t vote for him; I had no idea what they meant, and the fact that Hebrew uses the same words for “vote” and “point at” didn’t help.
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Violet says:
Interesting. Because of course, 4-year-old American kids are always instructed by their parents in the results of Israeli elections.
One of the weirdest things for Americans is the continual realization that the rest of the world knows about a zillion times more about our country than we know about anybody else’s.
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Alon Levy says:
I don’t think most 4-year-old Israeli kids are instructed in the results of American elections, either… it could have just been my parents.
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gordo says:
Alon–
That may have been it. My dad did a lot of research on Latin American history, and when I’d try to discuss things like the Mexican presidential election or the impending war between El Salvador and Honduras, they’d act like I was some sort of alien.
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txfeminist says:
I relate to what you’re saying. Partly because of the kind of family I grew up in… No Nukes, Save the Whales, Solar Energy stickers on our cars, consciousness raising groups & poetry readings at our house, you name it — all this music playing all the time…. Good times, good times.
this is a really poignant post.
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will says:
I finally read my copy this weekend. I really enjoyed it. It is a shame that Rolling Stone has drifted so far from excellent editions like this one.
After playing a lot of Dylan this weekend, it seems appropriate to post the lyrics of Dylan’s unfortunately timeless song Masters of War:
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masksYou that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets flyLike Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drainYou fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mudYou’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veinsHow much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you doLet me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soulAnd I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead -
Kaitlyn says:
I got that issue when it came out, and took it with me to Lebonheur for my colonoscopy/endoscopy.
I was born in 88 as well, but I don’t remember any election until ‘96 - just that the adults were watching it and it was boring.
I have a few issues of RS from the early 80s, none that are iconic, just ones I picked up here and there at antique stores. I’m more into MAD.
Anyway, I remember waking up after the procedure and my mom and the nurse are ogling David Cassidy!
“That’s my magazine.”
“Have some ice cubes.”
Old people!
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simply wondered says:
i cried when they shot medger evers…or was that soemone else???
