By Sean Corbett

The lie goes like this: a Rolling Stone intern works really hard, all day, and all the interns are in it for the learning experience, not the name.

The truth goes something a little more like this: we didn’t do a whole hell of a lot. But at least we’re wiser now. What we picked up from this experience is that the old idea of music journalism is dead and that magazines like Rolling Stone (today, not 30 years ago) are slowly killing us.

Land the internship and your mom will be excited forever, but it’s not like the VH1 reality show you didn’t watch, “I’m From Rolling Stone,” and it’s not like “Almost Famous.” We didn’t travel the globe arm-wrestling Ozzy or rollin’ with Snoop Dogg. We didn’t go on tour with The Police and we didn’t help Kevin Barnes put on makeup at Coachella. We didn’t get free tickets to anything and we didn’t get paid. I stapled, hole-punched, sorted mail, transcribed interviews, organized editors’ offices and took long lunches.

As soon as you step out of the elevator you’re immersed in the world of entertainment pop culture every second of every day. Before you can even swipe into the office, there are dozens of giant Rolling Stone covers lining the walls. Robin Williams, Jim Carey, Trent Reznor, they all say good morning. To your right are Jack and Meg, to your left are the Chili Peppers, socks and all. Oh hello, Jerry Seinfeld, how are you today? And as you make your way down the football field-length office for the first of maybe 40 times in any given day, original paintings of Axel Rose, David Bowie and some Ralph Steadman renditions of Richard Nixon welcome you.

The office décor was completely impressive beyond belief. It wasn’t like we were working in a mansion or on a movie set, but everything was perfect. It had to be, or owner and publisher Jann Wenner would fire someone. I once had to start cleaning an editor’s office on a Wednesday, so that it could be clean for Jann’s walkthrough on the following Monday. This particular editor had worked there for quite some time, but was still worried about getting fired on a whim because of a messy desk.

There were places we weren’t allowed to eat, drink coffee or even open mail; like at the $10,000 table that sat on the $7,000 woven rug. That table was for televised interviews only. The ceilings were high, most walls were curved, and the black and white bathrooms (which often served as second offices) were immaculate. On any given day, the conference rooms could be set up for an iMac conference, an invitation-only celebrity luncheon or a VH1 “I love the ‘90s” interview with music industry guru Executive Editor Joe Levy. I was told on my first day that editors’ office walls were re-built at one point with glass in order to discourage secretive cocaine use in the 70s. But people love to spread rumors.

They didn’t pay much attention to us, but I’d still stay late some days. I loved being there. I was luckier than most to experience such a strange and surreal environment during college. It’s the same sprawling office that Hunter S. Thompson, John Lennon and John Belushi probably…indulged in…from time to time, and I made the coffee there for a few months. As an intern at any organization, it’s an inglorious fact that part of your job is to sit around and wait for a chance to prove yourself. It’s the intern dilemma: don’t get in their way, but make an impression. You meet as many people as possible, learn to work well with them, and force them to remember you. The key is to think of yourself as a caddy for the writers and editors. You carry their bags, wipe their balls, add up the yardage and sometimes give unheard suggestions. For this caddying job you don’t get paid, but you do get to read an original ‘67 1st issue in the office library if you want to. You’re not the golf pro. They are. And somehow, you still become a better golfer through all this.

My iPod, which was later stolen (along with every other thing I idiotically brought into NYC that day), had every Zeppelin, White Stripes and Bob Marley song. I had duplicates of the Beatles B-sides. I have a Gonzo sticker on my car. I get a kick out of Andy Warhol and I want to be Annie Liebowitz.

I worked with the best magazine writers, the hippest pop-culture hounds and I helped, a little, to produce the most recognizable magazine in the world. I have no idea what this is going to mean in five years and I know even less about how I ended up in such a fresh, clean Midtown 6th Avenue office. And while I suppose I did actually end up there, really ending up there would be like wishing to live forever. Once you see that world first-hand, you realize it may not be what you want.

Why do I feel like Anne Hathaway?

For every part of me that wants a job there, there’s an equal part of me that doesn’t.

Bring me back to the farmlands of suburban West Boylston, MA!

No, I love it. This is where I’ve always wanted to be.

Right?

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I found myself walking down 6th Avenue one bright, shining Tuesday afternoon in May with a taped-up envelope, just a little bigger than magazine-size. Thinking back to conversations I overheard in the office that day, I was almost surely holding some cover shoot prints of then-future Rolling Stone cover girl, Amy Winehouse. It seemed I was on my first meaningful errand as a Rolling Stone intern. On my last day.

I could have opened it, sold it, showed some people. I could have delivered it to Mojo, Spin, Paste. I could have started a riot, held it for ransom. You know, leave with a bang. Amy Winehouse would never be on the cover of Rolling Stone, and it would have been all because of me.

But no, they had me good.

A magazine cover.

This is the kind of thing they want you to think is important.

But if I’m right about what I was carrying, then I was carrying a future piece of history. In my hands was a serious chunk of money-making pop culture. While there are millions of magazines in the world of entertainment, and Rolling Stone is only one of them, it’s a perfectly-branded piece of glossy gold.

I could feel the lingering affects of Annie Liebowitz seeping out of it, the kind of affects the magazine relies on these days, and I think I started to strut.

A strutting intern in un-washed jeans, torn sneakers and no iPod. How sad. Or how truly wonderful.