Am I a conservative, liberal wanna be photographer local news junkie who spends uncontrollably at B & H and falls asleep with **** for dummies on my iPad trolling iTunes for music reviews? I hope not.

I recently was given a stack of current Rolling Stone magazines. I grew up coveting these while in high school. I knew the day of the week/month that the new edition would be on the magazine rack for me to get my hands on. 3rd period study hall and 40 some minutes to absorb the latest political, rock music reviews, interviews, and news in language I understood and could relate to. I got my first "views" of the US Navy and Muammar Gaddafi from Rolling Stone and actually questioned why we'd bomb another country, tried to understood politics and learned to "question" everything. Almost got poisoned to be an anti-gun person from articles on gun control. The messages in RS for a naive 16 year old in suburban Cleveland were of great importance. I remember reading the hate for Reagan, and it made me question all this stuff to better understand and ultimately realize you have to get info from everywhere and not one source. Getting the latest copy of RS and fading off into a corner of the library during study hall to not just read them, but absorb them. It was such in your face writing and the photography was always head and shoulders above anything else. That was 1986. Now I get to read them in the dentist office or at the car dealer while getting an oil change, and of the past few days, I got 30 issues to peruse thru and I am enjoying it, nostalgia at its best. Even though I find the slant of their "points of view" very outside my current life views it's all coming full circle. I now read this and see why the other side thinks the way they do. Bitter, jaded and promoting critical thinking but squashing any thoughts that don't line up with their agenda. Whatever their rhetoric I am glad I had this rag in my life. I learned a most valuable lesson in study hall reading Rolling Stone and not doing homework, question everything...

Nowadays, Rolling Stone is like Playboy , I just look at it for the pictures....