Search Results for: Rolling Stone

The Ghost in the Machine

Longreads Pick

(NSFW, not single-page) An in-depth profile of rap legend the D.O.C., who penned many of N.W.A.’s and Eazy-E’s early songs and became an on-again, off-again studio partner to Dr. Dre:

“The shine finally started to trickle down. N.W.A’s first national tour opened in Nashville in the spring of 1989, with Doc doing eight minutes a night as an opening act. The crowds dug him. No One Can Do It Better dropped that June; within three months it sold 500,000 copies. By the end of the tour he was doing 30-minute sets. Radio picked up on “It’s Funky Enough,” a Dre production with way more commercial reach than, say, ‘Fuck tha Police.’ Years later, when Rolling Stone asked Chris Rock to make a list of the greatest rap albums of all time, the comedian put No One Can Do It Better at number 11. ‘I was going to school in Brooklyn,” he wrote, “and the only time you could see rap videos was on a weekend show with Ralph McDaniels called Video Music Box. D.O.C.’s video for ‘It’s Funky Enough’ premiered, and D.O.C. had an L.A. Kings hat on. When I came to school on Monday, half the kids in Brooklyn had L.A. Kings hats on. It was official.'”

Source: Playboy
Published: Apr 1, 2013
Length: 24 minutes (6,064 words)

Longreads Member Pick: Baghdad Follies, by Janet Reitman

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This week, we’re excited to feature Janet Reitman, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and the author of Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion. “Baghdad Follies” is Reitman’s 2004 story on what it was like to be a war correspondent in Iraq. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the war, Reitman reflects on her early fears about traveling to Baghdad:

People talk a lot about what it’s like to cover a war; no one talks about what you have tell yourself in order to actually get on the plane so you can go and cover the war. ‘Baghdad Follies’ is a story about what reporters go through in covering war, and it began, in a sense, with my growing sense of panic over having signed up to cover the war. It was about an hour before I was scheduled to leave for the airport. I’d finished packing, and began to think—which right there is a killer. My thoughts went like this: I was insane. I’d covered other conflicts, but like, little ones. Africa. Haiti. This was Iraq. I’d been dying to go to Iraq. Now, I really didn’t want to go to Iraq—let alone go to Iraq to write a story about how dangerous the war had become for U.S. reporters. Which was what this story was about. 

So I called a friend who’d covered the Iraq invasion. ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to go.’

Huh?

‘I mean, no one will blame you if you back out,’ he said. ‘It’s perfectly fine if you stay home. It’s just a story.’

This of course made me feel that now I really had to go because there were also a lot of other reporters, most of who would kill for this assignment, and what was I thinking? …  ’I think I might die,’ I told him.

‘You might,’ he said. 

We debated the likelihood of getting killed or kidnapped for a bit. We decided it was 50-50 I got kidnapped, but probably only for a short while. Ultimately, we decided the best course of action was to get on the plane, fly to London, my first layover, decide if I felt good enough to keep going to Jordan, my next layover, and then, depending on how much I was freaking out, either keep on going to Baghdad, or turn back. ‘Look at it as a process,’ he said.

Two days and an untold number of tiny airplane vodka bottles later, I arrived in Baghdad and stayed a month, during which time two other colleagues, both of who had confided their own fears about doing this job, were kidnapped, and released. I told their stories in full. Then, I went home, regrouped, and returned to Iraq. Twice.

Read an excerpt here.

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Photo: Thomas Hartwell, via Wikimedia Commons

Longreads Member Exclusive: Baghdad Follies, by Janet Reitman

Longreads Pick

This week, we’re excited to feature Janet Reitman, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and the author of Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion. “Baghdad Follies” is Reitman’s 2004 story on what it was like to be a war correspondent in Iraq. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the war, Reitman reflects on her early fears about traveling to Baghdad.

Support Longreads—and get more stories like this—by becoming a member for just $3 per month.

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Jan 1, 2004
Length: 21 minutes (5,354 words)

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week—featuring Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Magazine, The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Bloomberg Businessweek, fiction from Electric Literature, plus a guest pick from Moses Hawk.

The Winners’ History of Rock and Roll, Part 3: Bon Jovi

Longreads Pick

Rethinking the legacy of one of the most ridiculed hair bands of our time:

“I have no insight into the goings-on of Jon Bon Jovi’s headspace, but I like to imagine him having a ‘Once in a Lifetime’ moment during the Springsteen duet: ‘This is not my classic-rock staple, this is not my classic-rock backing band. Well, how did I get here?’ Maybe I’m projecting: In many people’s minds (certainly many critics’ minds), perceptions of Bon Jovi will forever be fixed in the late ’80s, the band’s most commercially successful period, when Slippery When Wet and 1988’s New Jersey spun off seven top-10 singles — an unprecedented run for what’s ostensibly a hard-rock band — including four no. 1’s. ‘Blaze of Glory,’ the breakout song from Jon Bon Jovi’s ‘solo’ soundtrack for Young Guns II, also hit the top of the charts during this period.

“Susan Orlean’s1 1987 profile of Bon Jovi for Rolling Stone was typical of how the press treated the band at the time. The piece begins with an extended, oddly reverential treatise on Jon Bon’s ‘fourteen inches’ of hair: ‘Its color is somewhere between chestnut and auburn, and the frosty streaks in it give it a sizzling golden sheen,’ Orlean writes. ‘Truth is, it would be safe to say that Jon Bon Jovi has the most wonderful hair in rock & roll today.’ Orlean describes Jon Bon’s locks as an oedipal metaphor for rebellion against his dad, a hairdresser, though her poker face doesn’t quite hold. She doesn’t really take this guy seriously, and the implication is that we shouldn’t either.”

Source: Grantland
Published: Jan 22, 2013
Length: 14 minutes (3,546 words)

Longreads Member Exclusive: Cormac McCarthy's Apocalypse

This week we’re excited to feature a Longreads Exclusive from David Kushner, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone whose work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and Wired. “Cormac McCarthy’s Apocalypse” is Kushner’s 2007 Rolling Stone profile of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Road,” “No Country for Old Men” and “All the Pretty Horses.” See an excerpt here.

p.s. You can support Longreads—and get more exclusives like this—by becoming a member.


(Illustration by Katie Kosma)

Longreads Member Exclusive: ‘Cormac McCarthy’s Apocalypse’

Longreads Pick

This week, we're excited to feature a Longreads Exclusive from David Kushner (@DavidKushner), a contributing editor to Rolling Stone whose work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and Wired. He's been featured many times on Longreads, and he's the author of Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto

“Cormac McCarthy’s Apocalypse” is Kushner's 2007 Rolling Stone profile of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Road, No Country for Old Men and All the Pretty Horses. Kushner explains how he first met the reclusive writer:

"I owe my Cormac McCarthy story to two people: Harvard physicist Lisa Randall, and my dad. My dad urged me to read Cormac's books when I began writing for my college newspaper. The sentences are amazing, he said. He was right, and I read every one of them. Years later, I was interviewing Randall for Rolling Stone when she told me that Cormac had done an edit of her most recent book on theoretical physics. Come again? I said. Cormac hangs out at the Sante Fe Institute, she explained, a science research center in the foothills of New Mexico. After meeting him there, he offered to read her book—and surprised her by sending back an edited copy of the manuscript. Hmm, I said. Can I interview him about you for the story?

"Randall laughed, and I knew why. Cormac had a reputation for being reclusive, and had only done a couple interviews over his career. It's a long shot, she said, but she'd give it a try. A few minutes later my phone rang. You're not going to believe this, she said, but he'll talk with you.”

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Dec 1, 2007
Length: 16 minutes (4,196 words)

Did the feds break up a dangerous terror plot in Cleveland—or did they manufacture a threat from a group of impressionable Occupy followers?

The crux of the Cleveland Five’s defense will likely rest on whether Azir’s aggressive role in the crime constituted entrapment – a strategy which Baxter’s defense attorney John Pyle foreshadowed at an early court appearance. ‘They couldn’t blow their noses, let alone blow up a bridge,’ he said of his clients, ‘were it not for what this provocateur did.’ Yet the government has had no problem overcoming the entrapment defense to win convictions in similar cases. The legal definition of entrapment is actually rather narrow: Even though enticing people into committing crimes might seem unjust, that doesn’t make it unlawful. Prosecutors typically argue that defendants’ histories show they were predisposed to commit the crime. And juries frightened by the magnitude of the foiled plots are inclined to bring down the hammer.

In the case of the Cleveland Five, defense attorneys have also signaled their intention to reveal Azir’s extensive criminal history, which could undermine his credibility. Azir has been causing prosecutors plenty of headaches since the arrests. After his identity was outed by the Smoking Gun, the FBI scuttled him into the ­witness-protection program, reportedly in response to a threat. But living life under federal protection hasn’t kept him out of trouble. In May, Azir – who still faces two outstanding bad-check cases he picked up during his time with Occupy – was arrested in Cuyahoga County for theft. He’s out on $5,000 bail.

“The Plot Against Occupy.” — Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone

More from Rolling Stone

A Longreads Member Exclusive: When Your Therapist Drives You Crazy

Our second Longreads members exclusive! Our latest exclusive comes from Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a writer for Rolling Stone whose work has been featured on Longreads quite a bit. She wrote our latest Longreads Member pick, “When Your Therapist Drives You Crazy,” in 2002 for Philadelphia Magazine. It’s about a woman who enters marriage counseling—but ends up consumed by something much bigger.

You can read an excerpt of our second exclusive here.

Member Exclusive: When Your Therapist Drives You Crazy

Longreads Pick

Our latest exclusive comes from Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a writer for Rolling Stone. “When Your Therapist Drives You Crazy,” first published in 2002 for Philadelphia magazine, is about a woman who enters marriage counseling—but ends up consumed by something much bigger.

“The vibe at Genesis was equally informal and New Agey, from the burbling waterfall machine to the framed inspirational poems, including one that read ‘Feel…Feel…Feel….’ Even the practice’s logo was touchy-feely: two overlapping hearts with a butterfly perched on top. Still, Mansmann didn’t seem flaky, and Carol noted with relief that the therapist and John quickly developed a good rapport. Mansmann explained that Genesis Associates—consisting of herself and another therapist, Pat Neuhausel—was a cutting-edge practice with a uniquely holistic outlook. (Both Mansmann and Neuhausel declined to be interviewed.) Its program was so effective, Mansmann added, that clients tended to show rapid improvements.

“‘How long do you think it would take us?’ Carol inquired.

“‘About thirteen months,’ Mansmann answered immediately, according to Carol.

“She was surprised at the precision of the reply. ‘Thirteen months?’

“‘That’s how long our program is,’ she says Mansmann affirmed. ‘Unless you were to come up with something else. Like, maybe, incest.'”

Published: Feb 1, 2002
Length: 26 minutes (6,550 words)