Clinton, S.C., Friday, July 19, 2013, 10:17 a.m.
I read Rolling Stone on Thursday. It was about the same as with all the magazines I get in the mail. I skim them when I get a chance. A lot of the music is outside my realm of expertise, but I’m still a bit interested. I give some of it a listen. As a general rule, I read Rolling Stone because the writing’s good. I made a make-believe Rolling Stone writer a character in The Audacity of Dope, my novel. I started reading it in high school, mainly because of Hunter S. Thompson, whom I discovered because he wrote a cover story on Jimmy Carter when I was 18.
Here, for instance, is a photo of me that I would not particularly care to see on a magazine cover. (Alex Howard photo)
Some would say Rolling Stone isn’t what it once was. Some say that about almost everything.
I tried to withhold judgment when the controversy regarding the cover arose. The same picture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – it was what is called “a selfie,” taken from his own cell phone – had dominated the front pages of several daily newspapers. I heard “it makes him look like a rock star,” which would be true if all Rolling Stone covers were grainy, over-enlarged photos chosen because it was virtually all that was available. By that measure, Twitter is full of rock stars.
Yes, as the cover subhead notes, Dzhokhar (nicknamed “Jahar” by friends desperate for something they could pronounce) “became a monster.” He and his brother carried out the Boston Marathon bombings. It was a heinous act.
I understand why those touched by the tragedy would object to the Rolling Stone cover. For most, however, it just seems to me yet another example of how social media, the Internet and 24-hour news are turning us all into a bunch of blubbering babies who proclaim outrage at virtually everything that seems mildly uncomfortable and might presumably put our comfortable assumptions to a test.
Here’s an idea. Before passing judgment on the cover of a magazine, why not read the story accompanying it?
That’s what I did when Rolling Stone arrived in the mail. My conclusion? Jahar shouldn’t have made the cover, not because he was an unfit subject but because the story didn’t merit it.
The magazine’s editors obviously thought the story of “how a promising student was failed by his family, fell into radical Islam and became a monster” was interesting. So do I. Monsters are interesting, as witnessed by the country’s once-upon-a-time fascination with John Wilkes Booth, Billy the Kid, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Manson.
Relax. We’re fascinated by good people, too.
It’s the second time this summer, though, in which I thought a Rolling Stone cover story was a big, overhyped nothing. I think I understand how this happens. They get together, someone says, “hey, what say let’s do a story on the surviving Boston bomber, delve into his background, his friends and tell how he became transformed, radicalized and moved to despicable action?” and everyone agrees it would make a great cover story. They commit to a cover, and, then, the story is written, and it really doesn’t add a whole lot to the whole nefarious dialogue.
It’s a long story, and it’s reasonably interesting, but it doesn’t really add much other than detail to a fairly one-dimensional story we already know. In fact, we know that story from the 11 o’clock news. They interview people who knew the man who just murdered his wife and kids.
“He always seemed like a nice feller,” the next-door neighbor says. “Kind of quiet. Didn’t bother nobody. Never figured him to be no murderer.”
“You can’t never tell,” says the lady who worked with him. “When I heard what he done, I sure was shocked.”
“We talked a lot,” says the bartender, “but he didn’t say nothing about killing nobody, much less his wife and kids.”
Jahar’s friends say he was pretty cool. His teachers and coaches says he had lots of promise. It’s just standard tragedy issue in these crazed times.
The magazine also has a story “Willie Nelson Rides High,” hyped on the cover as “On the Bus with Willie Nelson.”
We also have a pretty good idea what that’s about, but it would’ve been a lot more fun than a grainy cell-phone selfie of Jahar Tsarnaev. The chief lesson I learned from the actual cover story is that I don’t have to memorize the spelling of Dzhokhar.