Quotes from Jann S. Wenner

don't fuck it up with pompous bullshit; the demise of Rolling Stone would leave a nasty hole. Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson Woody Creek, Colorado

I WANTED TO DO whatever I could for Al Gore. Clinton was in my age cohort, but Al was my generation. Bill was an Elvis fan. Al was a student of Bob Dylan.

These were people lodged deep in my life and who would be forever. I suppose that's one of the definitions of family. With that comes unspoken, unconditional love, and the safety to be totally yourself.

HUNTER'S FIRST PIECE was "Freak Power in the Rockies: The Battle of Aspen.

Hunter was one of those "dropouts," raised in Louisville, Kentucky, who had arrived in the late sixties after writing gigs in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Big Sur, and San Francisco.

PETE TOWNSHEND WROTE a lengthy essay, "A Discourse on Mick Jagger's Fortieth Birthday," and sent us a picture of himself holding a lit candle with "Happy Birthday Mick" written across his chest.

Al and Tipper were at their front door waiting for me with a bottle of Cristal; the very day before, he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. They had been up late celebrating with Sheryl Crow and the gang. There were hugs, kisses, and high fives.

With Janis, there was a lot of hurt.

Jerry Garcia told Charlie Perry, in a piece in that issue, "Janis was a real person. She went through all the changes we did, on all the same trips. She was like the rest of us—fucked up, strung out, in weird places.

Sean and El Chapo had spent a long night over tacos and tequilas until they were suddenly awakened before sunlight and forced by approaching military to depart through the jungle. In the end, Sean hadn't gotten the interview, just the promise of one.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ'S FIRST cover shoot was Grace Slick.

BARON AND I went to the Cow Palace, south of San Francisco, to see the Who perform as part of a tour package. This one was headlined by the Association.

In the end he went on 60 Minutes—a nothingburger, but great publicity. It was soon revealed that the federal police had followed Sean and the woman he was with—a Mexican soap opera star whom El Chapo had set his eye on. They unknowingly led the federales to El Chapo.

The handbook for dropping acid then was The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, by Harvard professors Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner.

In Hartford, Connecticut, on the Working on a Dream tour, Max Weinberg's son was sitting in on drums. There's a lot of buzz about this, and Bruce thinks it would make a perfect Rolling Stone story, which it will. Clarence Clemons, Bruce's iconic sax player, is taken from his dressing room to the stage on a golf cart.

We profiled the Drug Policy Foundation, the most thoughtful advocacy group, financed by billionaire George Soros, and the Grateful Dead's foundation, among others.

The last song tonight is "Moment of Surrender," a hymn of suffering and redemption, a confession and plea, a very Bono mash-up of religion and mysticism, delivered as a hypnotic chant. I am mesmerized.

BONO AND HIS family had moved around the corner from us on Central Park West. We could wave at each other from our terraces.

I can talk a blue streak, but Bono can talk a category four storm. I don't know if we ever completely finished a topic.

The special issue was heavy reading: two men who ran for president, plus scientists, political activists, economists, historians, and futurists. I believed we also must always listen to the poets—actors, comedians, musical artists, and writers—for they are scholars of human nature and often have the gift of prophecy.

We don't need leaders who wear flag pins in their lapel, but rather men and women who have the guts to tell us the truth.

John and Yoko referred to themselves in the third person as Liz and Dick—Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton—whenever I went out with them.

we hunger for the restoration of hope and common sense and purpose.

I BOUGHT A TICKET to see the Rolling Stones on December 4, 1965, at the 2,500-seat San Jose Civic Auditorium. It was the year of "Satisfaction.