I have had it.

I work my ass off for The Man. I live in NYC, which is possibly the most challenging place to live and to work. There are few things that give me peace of mind.

There's the Drudge Report, where I can trust that I will be able to click through immediately to all of the news media that I read several times daily. It's format is stark, yet familiar and comforting in a world where webpages are constantly reformating to the point where I no longer recognize them.

There's the NY Post, which although it removed the photo from Travis page, always gives me at least one large candid photo of a celebrity.

And then there was Rolling Stone. My happy place. The only magazine that I have consistently subscribed to since college. When Clinton campaigned in '92, I read about it in Rolling Stone. When Jerry died, I got the details in Rolling Stone. And like any relationship, there were the bad weeks, like the Britney and Jennifer Aniston covers, the Charlie's Angels girls, the Sarah Michelle Gellars and the 'N SYNC.

Those issues hurt, a bit like receiving an Indian Burn until I opened them up to find that my "Random Notes" were still there. That P.J. O'Rourke's name was still emblazoned across an in-depth article about the GOP or prescription drug abuse in suburbia. And yeah, it's been a long time since the Lester Bangs and Hunter Thompson days, but I had faith in Toure - I thought he was coming into his own. I smirked with rising stars like Rob Sheffield, who somehow let us all in the joke even though half the joke is that he likes most of the crappy pop flooding the industry right now. He *knows* that's an embarrassment and he plays it up, making snide remarks while exposing the music consumer for their guilty pleasures: Shakira, Destiny's Child and Brit.

And maybe I only loved Rolling Stone because I didn't have CREEM. Because I fill my vapid void with MTV and Spin; I blow my load with them because they are so easy, spreading themselves open to me to take fast and furiously, but when I roll over and want substance, I want Rolling Stone. I want to hear both sides of the Courtney vs. Grohl & Novoselic in 4 pages instead of a 4-second soundbite on 1515.

It was so cool to carry, with its low-maintenance stapled binding and tabloid size. No glossy pages, no annoying ads with stiff paper to f- up my read. It was what it was, a music tabloid with intellect sprinkled throughout.

And yes, Jann was a dick. Blowing through staff, like Ghengis Khan ruthlessly eliminating protesters to his empire, discarding talented writers with a penchant for writing the truth about albums that suck as he wined and dined the Corporate Rock and Rap dynasties. But he didn't directly attack me. The nuggets were there for me, behind the sensationalized T&A covers and flavors of the week. He kept the staples, allowing me to bend the covers out of sight and dine on in-depth coverage all the way to last weeks' charts from Billboard and College Stations.

But now he's done it. Jann has cast me aside, in a ditch somewhere outside of Mongolia with Bill Love and Kurt Loder, to stare dazed at the new landscape, recognizable only as the ones we used to pass without a thought. The Maxim's, the Blender's...just Stuff.

In one swift hire, he has McDonalized the last of the substantive. He has taken my peace of mind and replaced it with Fast Hack Mulch. My Random Notes will become glossy pictures with sexual-innuendo-laden pop-up text. My tabloid size read will blend into monotonious newsstand rows of same-sized books. My staples will be buried by high-end binding that doesn't give, doesn't bend, but will probably say something smug each month in small text.

I sit here and treasure what is bound to be the last of what was once a rock almanac, the pioneer of gonzo journalism, and I hear resounding in my head one famous line from 1980:

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

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