BOOMERANGST: Trying Not To Gather Moss

By Roy Trakin

From its very beginnings as a fold-over newspaper in San Francisco 41 years ago, started by local journalist Ralph J. Gleason and Jann Wenner with a $7,500 loan, largely from his now-estranged wife Jane’s family, Rolling Stone has become most closely associated with the Boomer lifestyle, which has included in its time both partisan political screeds and mail order advertisements for roach clips.

The publication recently marked another milestone by shrinking its long-oversized format to regular magazine dimensions, forsaking staples in favor of perfect binding, making it look like nothing so much as Esquire, GQ or any other general-interest men’s magazine. Through the years, Rolling Stone represented its publisher Citizen Wenner’s passing fancies and celebrity obsessions, just as early Playboy reflected Hugh Hefner’s interest in naked women, cool jazz, expensive stereo systems and sexual freedom.

A near half-century later, despite constant carping and critiques that he’s sold out to movie starlets or teen idols, Wenner has kept Rolling Stone relevant, with some of the best contemporary writing on popular culture, whether that be Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson or current political pundit Matt Taibbi. When you think about it, Wenner had taken youth culture and managed to squeeze over 40 years out of it, which is pretty impressive, considering history is strewn with like-minded publications that have bit the dust, from Creem and Crawdaddy (though currently revived as a web-only publication by Wolfgang’s Vault) to Spy, Tina Brown’s Talk and Radar. The only comparable youth culture media creation with as much staying power is MTV, 27 and still attracting the youth market, though not without alienating much of its older audience.

You have to hand it to Wenner. While he’s done his best to rewrite rock history in his image, what with his involvement in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and countless issues devoted to ranking the greats, Jann has the courage of his convictions. This year, he championed Barack Obama long before the groundswell, a partisanship that has always made Stone different from, say, Time or Newsweek.

And while his commitment to gonzo-style journalism has waned over the years, Wenner has constantly reinvented the magazine to keep up with the popular culture of the times, while never forgetting to link it to its illustrious past. There’s an interesting lesson in there for all of us Boomers, trying to incorporate our experience into the present-day condition. I may not always agree with Jann Wenner or his magazine, but I still respect his right to keep at it. Sure, he’s sold out, but that’s the only way to compete in corporate America, a lesson we’ve all learned only too well.