File this article under "I'd be a Conservative if they were more like this". PJ O'Rourke was one of my favorite writers, back in his Rolling Stone days. With William Greider , David Sager, Anthony DeCurtis, and a pre-MTV Kurt Loder, O'Rourke helped shape my worldview. I even went to the archives for the great stuff from Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe.

Sure, that sounds kind of sad now, but what connects to a teenager more than the primal force of music? I may have bought the magazine for the review of the latest Clash album or to answer the burning debate of who was hotter - Debbie Gibson or Tiffany - but it led me to look further outside the boundaries of my life. (In the case of Thompson, WAY outside.)

Rolling Stone was a damned good magazine. Maybe it still is today. I graduated from it to Spin, then on to the Atlantic and New Yorker. Information is freer today. I can find words on the web that then only crossed my path in the pages of the Rolling Stone. It's a better world in some ways now, but I can still be nostalgic for days when things seemed simpler and Debbie Gibson still loved me.