The thrill that'll gitcha when you git your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone

STOP! Before reading this, please read Jim DeRogatis’s latest column in the Chicago Sun-Times. This is my response, in classic reader-response critical style.

Despite the fact that it brought Nirvana to the masses, allowed Michael Stipe to indulge in his artsy-fartsy fantasies, and unironically played that Buggles tune as its first video, MTV has never done anything worth a damn (well, almost -- I finally saw The Rutles: All You Need is Cash on a VH-1 spinoff network a few weeks ago; but one movie does not make up for all the craptitude that has been going on as long as I've been alive). So why should it come as any surprise that the network that almost singlehandedly destroyed the progress made in popular music in the late '80s and early '90s is teaming up with the magazine that is actively attempting to do the same have joined forces?

Yes, Jann Wenner, the managing editor and founder of Rolling Stone, is a fool, and yes, he was written perfectly in Almost Famous. But rock critic Jim DeRogatis’s experience with, to quote the irrepressible Jason Lee in that masterful film, “Rolling Stone fucking magazine” (which, by the way, is what made me a DeRo fan to begin with) sums up exactly the problem with the new reality TV program I'm from Rolling Stone. There are hundreds of thousands of kids around my brother's age, between 16 and 21, who are thinking about what they're going to do with their lives. Probably tens of thousands of those are thinking journalism, and I guarantee that there are thousands of those thinking about music criticism. What kind of message does it send when the only magazines getting hype are jokes like Rolling Stone and Spin, which, according to the Viacoms of the world, are the only things that matter?

Toss that in with Simon Cowell, the idiot judge from American Idol, who was quoted by the AP as saying that Kelly Clarkson is more talented than Bob Dylan (while I admit to a certain guilty pleasure derived from Clarkson's single "Since U Been Gone," that's one song, compared to, like, a billion from Dylan -- and that's hardly an exaggeration if one includes the Dylan covers by the Byrds alone). I mean, seriously, is this really the best our popular culture can do? Is this really the crap we need to feed our kids?

The answer, obviously, is no. My kids, when they come around (a long, LONG time in the future), are going to be brought up on a steady diet of Dylan, the Beach Boys, the Flaming Lips, and the Velvet Underground (to name just a few). But that's not true of all kids, which has become especially evident to me lately.

Let’s be realistic here. Magazines like Rolling Stone and its brethren are the enemy. Take RS’s counterpart in the general entertainment world, Entertainment Weekly. Just as Rolling Stone doesn't even come close to speaking the truth about rock criticism, neither does Entertainment Weekly speak for entertainment in general. Yet this is where many go to find entertainment criticism. Never mind that EW is atop my personal shit list for their 2004 review of the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Together We're Heavy by the Polyphonic Spree (I'm sorry, but to say it was second only to William Hung as worst record of the year is about the biggest heap of rancid monkey crap I've ever heard). The fact is, magazines like Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, as well as networks like MTV, don't cater to what's artistic; they cater to what's popular.

Now that's where these secondary musical sources fail, but what about the program itself? Well, quite frankly, it sucks, but not because it's a bad idea. I mean, like DeRogatis says, it could've been a good combination of several reality programs (even though reality programs are inherently awful, it would've at least been fit for public consumption). But let's look at just the examples my favorite rock critic cites in his article:

1) Russell diving into a dumpster, then asking Lupe Fiasco if skate rap is viable;

2) Tika asking an intern to transcribe her interviews;

3) Krishtine calling El-P "a really smart dude"

Those three examples prove that this show is not about journalism, and it's not about music -- it's about people getting on TV and doing really fucking stupid things. This is MTV trying to do a high-brow American Idol, replacing crappy singing with crappy journalism. Can you imagine what would happen if, by some strange twist of fate, Russell had been interviewing Chuck D instead of Lupe? Or if Krishtine were to try her flirty schtick on Wayne Coyne (I can almost hear Wayne saying, or at least thinking, "What the fuck kind of journalist are you?")?

What really pisses me off more than anything, though, is that these retards are posing as journalists. I tried working in journalism for awhile, and I'm sorry, but it's no fucking Real World like these morons seem to believe. I worked for a local newspaper (well, barely a newspaper, but whatever) in the 'burbs for a little under a year, trying my hand at freelancing. I remember thinking even then, you don't get to be a strong journalist or critic by winning a frickin' popularity contest; it takes hard work and skill. And after interviewing policemen about citizens' police academies, grade-school students about the D.A.R.E. program, and firemen about the tenth birthday of Spotty the Fire Dog or whatever the hell his name was, I realized that my heart wasn't in it. I mean, I love criticism and interviewing, but I simply don't have the stomach to work for five or six years reporting the last time the president of the Spotted Owl Society took a crap.

What the hell have these kids done to deserve not only jobs at Rolling Stone, but a reality series based around said jobs? Absolutely nothing. And that's the biggest travesty of it all. What kind of message is it sending to aspiring journalists? Not that hard work pays off, not that professionalism and a modicum of talent can get you places, and certainly not that journalism can be a very hard field. No, we're telling our kids that you can be a fucktard, act like an ass, cheat the system, and end up on top.

Huh. On second thought, maybe that's the right lesson for them; at the very least, it might get them elected President.