Rolling Stone USA - 05 2019 PDF

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MAY 2019
ISSUE 1327
Willie
Nelson
na
‘Marijua
Saved
My Life’
Weed
THE
ISSUE
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wearing his black leather Boston purchased in 2017.
Self–portrait in London, 2019.
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48 ISSUE 1327
THE
‘ALL THE NEWS
THAT FITS’
WEED
ISSUE
F E AT U R I N G
Willie Nelson’s
High Life
Sixty-five years after he smoked
his first joint, he’s a walking
testament to the power of weed.
It may even have saved his life.
By Patrick Doyle
PLUS
MedMen’s quest to become the
Apple Store of pot; the case for
nationwide legalization; sex
while stoned; and much more.
66
Corey Feldman’s
Dark Hollywood
The former child actor has been
trying to expose Hollywood’s
“I envy writers
biggest secrets. Why isn’t
anybody listening?
that can just
By Erik Hedegaard finish a song
and put it out.
70 I’m like, ‘How
do you sleep?’ ’’
John Lewis Carly Rae Jepsen
Looks Ahead on the anxiety-ridden process
The Georgia congressman on behind her new album
Trump, the Democratic Party,
and why we can’t lose hope.
By Jamil Smith 74
76
The Fight of
Their Lives
A new generation of climate
activists are fed up with inaction.
By Tessa Stuart
PHOTOGRAPH BY Amy Harrity

Contents
26
Elton John,
circa 1975
The Mix 38 ‘Deadwood’

Rides Again
The legendary HBO series
89 Tuca
& Bertie
17 The Black Keys finally gets an ending.
Get Back to Basics BY ALAN SEPINWALL
How Patrick Carney and Q&A

Dan Auerbach reunited in
the studio after five years. 40 Billy Joel
BY BRIAN HIATT On writing music he
26 Elton’s Magical
Mystery Movie
28 won’t record, and why he’ll
never do a farewell tour.
BY ANDY GREENE
Rocketman is anything
but a standard biopic.
BY ANDY GREENE 34
THE BREAKDOWN
More Money, National Reviews TV
88 ‘Catch-22’ Wins
SPOTLIGHT
No Problems
A look inside the booming
Affairs Music
Half the Battle
Hulu’s adaptation of
28 Lizzo Conquers concert business.
81 A Vampire’s Joseph Heller’s classic
Her Fears BY AMY X. WANG 45 Jerry Nadler’s Moment in novel is a devastating
After a string of catchy, Moment the Sun portrait of war, but the
uplifting hits, the rapper-
36 Brandi Carlile’s Can the chairman of biting humor is missing.
Righteous Fight Ezra Koenig explores love
singer is finally learning the House Judiciary BY ALAN SEPINWALL
and crisis on a modern
to love herself. How the singer-songwriter Committee find a way to
California-pop masterpiece.
is helping children from protect the rule of law in
BY BRITTANY SPANOS
war zones. the age of Donald Trump?
BY DAVID FRICKE Movies
Plus: Khalid, Megan Thee 90 Revenge of the
30 Secrets of the BY JONATHAN BERNSTEIN BY ANDY KROLL
Superheroes
Stallion, the National Femi-Nerds CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TERRY O’NEILL/ICONIC IMAGES/
In her debut as a director,

With Avengers: Endgame ALBUM GUIDE Olivia Wilde gooses the
GETTY IMAGES; NETFLIX; MARVEL; ERIK TANNER
on the way, we look back at

the greatest moments from
86 Joni Mitchell raunchy high school
Ranking the pop-soul comedy with grrrl-power
11 years of Marvel movies.
genius’s albums — from fireworks in Booksmart.
BY BRIAN HIATT
acoustic folk to complex BY PETER TRAVERS
jazz pop and beyond. Plus: Emma Thompson and

BY WILL HERMES Mindy Kaling in Late Night
Departments
Letter From the Editor 10
Correspondence 12
Playlist
Random Notes
The Last Word
20
42
98
30 On the Cover
Willie Nelson photographed in Spicewood, Texas,
on March 15th, 2019, by James Minchin III.
6 | Rolling Stone | May 2019

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In this bathroom, Los Lobos

recorded “Mas y Mas,” an
electrifying mix of guitars,
horns and sink.
In 1996, the legendary East LA band Los Lobos used this
bathroom at the Sound Factory studio in Hollywood to record
the baritone saxophone for their mambo rock jam “Mas y Mas.”
With lyrics in English and Spanish, the song blended guitar and
sax riffs with Latin percussion to create a bold, multicultural
expression of American music that mixed well in the human ear.
This is B Studios, the untold story of the famous music

recorded in bathrooms.
©2019 S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

Editor’s Letter
“You see something, you have to say something. You have to
do something. I tell young people all the time, ‘Be bold. Be brave.
Be courageous. Go for it.’ ” —JOH N L E W I S, Congressman
High Times at
‘Rolling Stone’ INSIDE THE STORY
Nadler
in April
NEAR THE BACK of ROLLING STONE’s fifth issue, in Febru-

ary 1968, next to a news story about the critical response A Sit-down With
to the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour film (“Chaotic, ap- GOT A HOT Jerry Nadler
palling, naive, tasteless nonsense”), readers turned to a NEWS TIP?
Shadowing the congressman who
ROLLING STONE house ad featuring a full-page photo of a WE WANT
TO HEAR IT.
has the power to impeach Trump
roach clip and a promise that all new subscribers would
Email us, Rep. Jerry Nadler is chairman of the powerful
get one in the mail for free. (For the unfamiliar, roach clips confidentially, House Judiciary Committee, which means
allowed you to smoke the remains of a joint without burn- at Tips@ that if Congress takes action against Donald
RollingStone
ing your fingers.) “Act now,” read the ad, “before this offer Trump, Nadler will be the lawmaker to make
.com
is made illegal.” it happen. ROLLING STONE Washington, D.C.,
bureau chief Andy Kroll spent a day on Capitol
This was the height of the psychedelic era, a movement Hill shadowing Nadler, who was in the midst
that could never have happened without marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs. of trying to pry an unredacted Mueller report
“In the Sixties, we were looking for something,” Jerry Garcia recalled years later. from Attorney General William Barr. “Whether
it’s the Mueller report, the fight over Trump’s
“Drugs were the tool for helping to look.” border wall, or impeachment, Nadler is at the
ROLLING STONE embraced this attitude, one of many things that separated us center of the action,” Kroll says. “I wanted to
from the straight press. Some of the magazine’s top writers, most famously Hunt- get inside the head of the man whose job is to
protect our democracy from a president who
er S. Thompson, wrote openly about smoking pot (not to mention ingesting myr- believes he’s above the law.”
iad other drugs), and many others, from Bob Marley to Justin Timberlake, have
smoked during interviews, sometimes sharing with their inquisitors. (Getting too
high has long been one of the hazards of being a ROLLING STONE reporter: Once,
interviewing reggae legend Joe Higgs, I got so stoned on secondhand smoke that
I had to walk to a diner afterward to sit out the buzz before driving home.)
UPDATE
In the Eighties, when Ronald Reagan declared a War on Drugs, ROLLING STONE
declared a war on the War on Drugs. Jann Wenner laid out the case in a 1990 edi-
Thunberg Nominated
torial, “The War on Drugs: Our Next Vietnam,” and over the next decades of trag-
ically misguided policy, the U.S. has wasted trillions of dollars on futilely trying
for Nobel Peace Prize
to police drugs abroad and filling prisons at home with nonviolent drug offend- as a major contribution
to peace,” says Freddy
ers (close to 500,000 today), a majority of them poor and black. Andre Ovestegard,
In our first Cannabis issue, we take a deep look at the fast-evolving laws and one of the lawmakers
culture of cannabis. Pot is now fully legal in 10 states, and as Tim Dickinson inves- who nominated her. If
she wins, she would
tigates in “The Cannabis Revolution Comes to Capitol Hill,” we are inching clos- become the youngest
er to federal legalization, a possibility we strongly endorse. On the cover is Willie recipient ever. Thun-
FROM TOP: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; ANNA TÄRNHUVUD

Nelson, the greatest living country singer and also possibly the greatest living ston- berg first gained atten-
tion when she stopped
er. Senior music editor Patrick Doyle, who has covered Nelson extensively, focus- attending school
es on his life in weed, from when he discovered it in the 1950s to running his own to raise awareness
IN MARCH, ‘ROLLING about climate change.
line, Willie’s Reserve, where he’s the CTO (chief tasting officer).
Stone’ featured the Recently, she led the
“Willie’s 86, playing 100 shows a year, and the night I visited he stayed up 16-year-old Swedish first international #Fri-
until 5 a.m. writing a new song,” says Doyle. “His wife told me, ‘Willie still gives climate activist Greta daysforFuture, which
Thunberg in our reached more than 100
a shit.’ And at least some of that dedication has to do with what he’s smoking.”
“Women Shaping the countries. The Nobel
Future” issue. Since Peace Prize won’t be
then, three members awarded until October,
of the Socialist Left but she continues to
Party of Norway have strike every Friday. She
nominated Thunberg tweeted, “We proved
for the Nobel Peace that it does matter
Prize. “Greta Thunberg
JA S ON F I N E has launched a mass
what you do, and no
one is too small to
EDITOR movement which I see make a difference.”

Correspondence + L OV E L E T T E R S & A DV IC E
“After the
‘Rolling Stone’
interview with
Sophie Turner Out-of-Control
and Maisie Military Spending
Williams, it is Matt Taibbi’s article begs a question:
What is the purpose of the DOD?
safe to say that I [“The Pentagon’s Bottomless Money Pit,”
RS 1326]. National defense or world
think they truly domination? The fact that we have some
800 bases around the world answers
are soulmates. this question. The consequences of this
are endless war and bankruptcy.
I need a —Gary Leiser, Sisters, Oregon
friendship like
that in my life.”
—Brie, via the internet
Stark Sisters All Grown Up

To celebrate Game of Thrones’ final season, stars takes at their cover shoot, the Stark sisters also sat @sammm
Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner graced our down to participate in ROLLING STONE’s video series curry: Rolling
April cover. The onscreen sisters and real-life best The First Time. They talked about getting matching Stone’s
friends discussed their unbreakable bond, coming tattoos, Turner’s fiance Joe Jonas, and picking each GOT cover
of age on set (which included uncomfortable
bras for Williams and a crush on Justin Bieber for
other’s noses. “Welcome to our friendship. Thank
you @RollingStone for capturing this,” wrote Turner
is making
my heart
Lil Peep’s Last Days
Turner), how they are “a nightmare to work with,” when she tweeted the video. Viewers could not skip a beat. It’s sad to know that his friends could
and how their decade-long series run came to an resist their chemistry. Jennifer responded to Turner, J’adore female have literally saved his life but didn’t
emotional end [“Growing Up Game of Thrones,” RS tweeting, “You can actually feel the love between friendship. [“The Torment and Tragedy of Lil Peep,”
1326]. When Williams posted their cover on Insta- you and @Maisie_Williams. It’s lovely to see.” Also, can I dye RS 1326]. He was such a sweet soul who
gram, she joked, “get u someone who holds you Another viewer, Jasmine, wrote, “You two could my hair pink deserved better.
like dis,” scoring more than 1.2 million likes on the make a frozen heart melt. Also hilarious as hell. I like Maisie? —John, via the internet
photo. Fans were so excited to see “Mophie,” their about peed my pants.” Though Game of Thrones is
playful couple name, on the cover that between coming to an end, several viewers, like Noel, had Someone needs to set these kids straight
the two of their accounts, their cover image was a few suggestions about how to keep their sister- and stop placating them. As a mom of
liked more than 2 million times. “Mophie is so real,” hood alive: “These two need their own talk show or a 22-year-old who listens to this music,
tweeted one reader named Angela. In between podcast. Their chemistry is absolutely incredible.” I ask how many will die before they get
that you can’t live a life filled with drugs.
It will get you.
—Dawn Karam, via the internet
The industry bears responsibility. I hope

ADVICE
this story will teach people to not normal- TAYLOR JEWELL/INVISION/AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
ize drugs. Because at this rate all these
Our New Columnist: The Croz rappers are going to die the same way.
—Stevie Robins, via the internet
David Crosby has seen it all. The Byrds/CSNY singer — who is writing some
of the best music of his career at age 77 — has survived drug and alcohol
addiction, a liver transplant, the sudden death of his girlfriend in a car crash,
and eight months in a Texas prison, and come out of it stronger than ever.
That’s why he’s the perfect choice to become ROLLING STONE’s newest advice
columnist for a monthly column we’re calling Ask Croz. Having trouble in CONTACT US
your love life? Struggling to keep your drinking habit under control? Want to Letters to ROLLING STONE, 1290 Avenue of
know how to make it in the music industry? Ask Croz! You can email him at the Americas, New York, NY 10104-0298.
askcroz@rollingstone.com or simply tweet it out with the hashtag #AskCroz. Letters become the property of ROLLING
STONE and may be edited for publication.
Email: letters@rollingstone.com
Subscriber Services: Call 800-283-1549.

MEANINGFUL JEWELRY, LEATHER GOODS

& ACCESSORIES FOR MEN WHO ROCK.
STEPHENDAVIDLEONARD.COM
Opening Act
Kacey
and the
Queens
IN ADDITION TO BEING A
breakout country star
and winner of this year’s
Album of the Year Gram-
my, Kacey Musgraves
is also a massive fan of
RuPaul’s Drag Race All
Stars. “It’s a world where
anything is possible,”
she says of the show. At
the Ace theater in L.A.,
Musgraves invited newly
crowned winners Monét X
Change (far left) and Trin-
ity the Tuck to join her for
“High Horse.” “The crowd
lost their minds when they
came out,” she says. The
trio prepared with a glam
session backstage, where
Monét and Trinity shared
their secret to success:
“Wax before you tuck.”
ANGIE MARTOCCIO
March
PHOTOGRAPH 2018 | Rolling
BY Catherine Powell
Stone | 15
Black Keys
Get Back
to Basics
How Patrick Carney
and Dan Auerbach
reconnected in the
studio after five years
PHOTOGRAPH BY Alysse Gafkjen May 2019 | Rolling Stone | 17

The Mix
EXHIBITION
Hip-Hop
Icons in a
New Light
GREAT ADVENTURES
AS THE DIRECTOR of
Janette Beckman, who shot
publicity and market- this image of Slick Rick in
ing at PayDay Records 1989, started out in the U.K.
in the early 1990s, Vikki documenting the punk and
Tobak worked with ska scenes before coming
acts like Jay-Z and Gang to New York in 1983. She
says her British accent
Starr as they were be-
helped disarm acts like
ginning their careers. Run-DMC and Salt-N-Pepa.
“There was this inflec-
tion point where hip- WILD STYLE
hop started to realize Ricky Powell’s candid shots
its power,” Tobak says. from the 1980s and 1990s
“[Artists] realized that capture Eazy-E and others
images — what they on the streets of New York.
“A lot of my photos are just
wore, how they looked
chill moments,” Powell says
— worked together with in the book.
the music.” Her 2018
book, Contact High, doc-
uments that era through
contact sheets with
never-before-seen out-
takes from some of hip-
KING OF NEW YORK
hop’s most iconic photo
shoots. “They’re like a Barron Claiborne’s
famous portrait of the
diary,” she says of the
Notorious B.I.G., taken
images, which are also days before the rapper’s
on display through Au- death in 1997, has Biggie
gust 18th at the Annen- in a crown and a scowl;
berg Space for Photog- the images in Contact
raphy in L.A. “A lot of High show a lighter side
of his personality. “He
photographers never in-
had the crown already,”
tended for these to be Claiborne tells R OLLING
for public consump- S TONE . “I just put a
tion.” CHARLES HOLMES plastic one on his head.”
B L ACK KE YS “It’s this magic that happens with Pat “It’s this er” to the “Spirit in the Sky” fuzz of the first
and I,” says Auerbach, who started a new single, “Lo/Hi.” There are zero keyboards
magic that
O
N THE MORNING of September 5th, band, recorded a solo album and produced on the album, and Auerbach played most
Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach at least a dozen other projects during the happens of the guitar solos live; he’d simply stop
walked into Auerbach’s Nashville Keys’ lengthy break. “It was the same thing with Pat playing rhythm and kick into lead.
studio, picked up their instruments and be- that happened when we were 16 and started Auerbach credits a collaboration with the
came the Black Keys again. By season’s end, playing, and magically, it just sounds like
and I,” says late cult-favorite guitarist Glenn Schwartz
they had finished their ninth album, the music. It was really awesome, having the Auerbach. for reconnecting him with his original
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: BARRON CLAIBORNE;
self-produced “Let’s Rock” (yes, that’s real- break and then coming back and just play- “The same distorto-blues inspirations, helping feed
ly the title). As usual, they created the entire ing with Pat again. It felt great.” the new album’s retro-without-apologies
thing
JANETTE BECKMAN; RICKY POWELL
album’s worth of songs from scratch in the As for that title: Well, this album does, in sonics. There are surprises, too, like the
studio, with nothing written in advance and fact, rock, packing considerably more vis- happened combination of a goofy “Listen to the Flow-
very little discussion. It had been five years ceral punch than their last one (2014’s atmo- when we er People” psychedelic riff with raunchy
since they recorded together, but that didn’t spheric, Danger Mouse-helmed Turn Blue) groove-rock on “Breaking Down.”
seem to matter at all. “We fell right back — from the AC/DC chords of album opener were 16.” The specific inspiration for the album’s
into it, really, day one,” says Carney. “We “Shine a Little Light” to the Blue Öyster name, however, is a touch darker. Auerbach
wrote two songs the first day. We’re just Cult-meets-ZZ Top punch of “Eagle Birds” to explains that, during recording, they came
fucking around, and that’s what comes out.” the riffy power pop of “Get Yourself Togeth- across a Tennessee newspaper story about

BROOKLYN’S
FINEST
Jay-Z’s first solo
photo shoot took
place in New
York in 1995. “The
idea was to shoot
him surrounded
by symbols of
material wealth,
like the Twin
Towers and luxury
yachts,” writes
photographer
Jamil GS. “When I
asked him to pose
in front of a giant
yacht and told
him that one day
IT’S LIKE THAT ALL HAIL THE QUEEN
he would own one
Beckman shot Run-DMC in Hollis, Queens, in 1984. “It was actually her idea to do the smoking-gun himself, he smiled
“I called up a landline and it turned out to be Jam kind of pose,” writes Al Pereira, who photographed and responded,
Master Jay’s mom’s house,” she writes. “He told me Queen Latifah on the set of her “Fly Girl” video in ‘No doubt. . . .’ ”
to meet them in their neighborhood.” 1991. “She was the Queen in command.”
the state’s first electric-chair execution in very complex and freaks me out. Are the
11 years. Guards asked convicted murderer charts important? No. Is making music with
Edmund Zagorski if he had any last words. Dan important? Yes.”
“Let’s rock,” he replied. Accordingly, the What they wanted was to make an album
album cover image is an electric chair. they loved, reconnect with each other and
“Nothing makes you think more about life then go see their fans again on tour. “Four
than death,” Auerbach says, laughing. years ago, I definitely wouldn’t have been in
Both he and Carney are now married a place where I wanted to make a record,”
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: JANETTE BECKMAN;
dads in their late thirties. They’re one of the says Auerbach. “But it was less about mak-
last commercially viable rock acts birthed ing the record and more about ‘We gotta
JAMIL GS; AL PEREIRA; SACHA LECCA
in this century, and they’ve been at it long make a record, then tour for two years.’
enough that a teenage Greta Van Fleet hung I’m glad that we took the time to settle our
the Black Keys’ 2012 ROLLING STONE cover minds and get away from each other for a
as inspiration in their rehearsal space. At while. It was really helpful. It made it all
this point in the Keys’ career, they aren’t better when we got back. . . . I’m excited to
particularly focused on commercial success. play some shows. I’m excited to play for the
“We didn’t think about the context of the ROCK OF AGES Auerbach onstage with the Black Keys in 2014. “I’m fans, and I’m excited to play some of the old
state of music in 2019,” says Carney. “It’s excited to play some of the old songs again,” he says. songs again.” BRIAN HIATT
May 2019 | Rolling Stone | 19

The Mix
PLAYLIST MY
OUR FAVORITE
SONGS AND VIDEOS
RIGHT NOW
LIST
2
1
FIVE SONGS
THAT BL0W
9 ME AWAY
6
By Adam Duritz
The Counting Crows
frontman hosts the
podcast Underwater
Sunshine. Here are
five favorites he recently
played on it.
10 SUNFLOWER BEAN
”Come for Me”
They are a trio led by
Julia Cumming, who
reminds me of a lot of
Seventies punk singers.
1. Tame Impala This is a fun, sexy, tough
“Patience” little rock song.
It’s been four years since
we’ve heard from Austra- HOP ALONG
lian psych-pop wizard ”The Fox in Motion”
Kevin Parker (a.k.a. Tame 6. L7 This band reminds me of
Impala). Since then, Park- “Burn Baby” Gang of Four. It has this
er has worked with artists Nineties grunge strange indie-rock-meets-
ranging from Lady Gaga troublemakers L7 are funk happening. I can’t
to Travis Scott, and the
4. Black Keys releasing Scatter the stop singing this song.
sweet, woozy “Patience”
“Lo/Hi” Rats, their first LP since 9. Koffee
reminds us why he’s a 1999. The witch-rock
Our century’s pre-eminent “Toast” MARIA TAYLOR
master of spacey escap- scorcher “Burn Baby”
retro-rock arena kings are Just in time for summer,
ism mixed with tender proves they haven’t lost ”If Only” (feat. Conor
back with a new album Jamaican singer Koffee
ambiguity. a bit of righteous fire. Oberst)
this year. The first single is is here with what is sure
She sings a double vocal
NICKII KANE; MATT SAV; EVAN AGOSTINI/INVISION/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK; RAYMOND VAN MIL

classic Keys — sleek and to be this year’s breakout
2. Ariana Grande Rust Belt-tough, evoking
7. Derek King dancehall hit. The
melody on this that
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TODD WILLIAMSON/JANUARY IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK;

& Victoria Monét reminds me of Elliott
the Stones, the Stooges “Tetris” skittering, synth-heavy
Smith. It’s this really
“Monopoly” and even the fuzz-toned Nodding to Sisqo’s beat is totally modern, but
simple arrangement of
No one in pop is having bubblegum mysticism “Thong Song,” Bay Area when she sings “Thank
acoustic guitar, strings
more fun right now than of Norman Greenbaum’s singer King drops a buoy- God for the journey,” the
and xylophone.
Grande. Here she teams 1969 hit “Spirit in the Sky.” ant jam that enters the earnest sense of uplift
with frequent songwrit- They make it all feel new indelible lyric “Come sit brings to mind vintage
roots reggae.
PETAL
ing collaborator Monét again. that booty/Make it fit like
to break some news (“I it’s Tetris/Baby, I know you ”Better Than You”
like women and men”) 5. Faye Webster get the message” into the 10. Pip Blom The guitars are fuzzed-
and take an effervescent canon of R&B pickup lines. out and grungy, but the
“Room Temperature” “Daddy Issues”
dance-pop victory lap. singer is really melodic.
When this Atlanta indie- Named after its 22-year-
8. Laura She has a cool way of
folk artist repeats the line old frontwoman, this
3. Sky Ferreira “I should get out more” Stevenson Dutch punk band spikes
describing queer life.
“Downhill Lullaby” over the haunting pedal “Dermatillomania” For its testy guitar racket MIKAELA DAVIS
“You ripped me open, then steel of this gorgeously The title alludes to a reviews, with fresh-faced melody
you kiss me,” the goth- bleak late-night weeper, mental disorder that premieres and as much empathy as ”Get Gone”
pop diva sings on her first you feel her isolation makes you pick at your and more, anger. “Tried to find a way This song reminds me of
song since 2013; it’s a deepen by the second. own skin. But Stevenson’s go to to cope,” Blom sings to a Sixties psychedelia. It’s
bruising baroque stunner But if she keeps writing SoCal folk rock spins Rolling sad friend, delivering do- about driving after dark.
that suggests Joy Division songs this good, you hope shame into gold, like self- Stone.com/ it-yourself rock with a get- A weird, middle-of-the-
on a Sgt. Pepper kick. she stays inside forever. picking ain’t no thing. music over-yourself message. night outlaw tale.

The Greater Than Ever Corolla

With available 18-inch machined alloy wheels1 and standard
LED headlights, you’ve got style for days — or nights that
turn into early mornings. Let’s Go Places.
The Mix
ON THE ROAD Clockwise

from top left:
MC Hammer,
Pop Time Lance

Bass, Aaron
Carter, Ryan
PICKS
Machine Cabrera, Sir-

Mix-a-Lot,
A Flock
of Seagulls’
ON TOUR
This summer, fans can choose
from multi-act nostalgia tours
representing the Eighties,
Mike Score,
En Vogue NOW
Nineties and even the 2000s.
Here’s how three tours Ariana Grande
measure up. BY ANDY GREENE THROUGH
JULY 13TH
Grande’s Sweetener
LOST ’80s LIVE HAMMER’S HOUSE PARTY POP 2000 TOUR tour is the pop show
to beat in 2019, with
spectacular staging —
including not one but
Artists Some of the biggest pop This Nineties tour is all about fun- TRL superstars like Britney Spears
two large, glowing
and New Wave bands of loving hip-hop and R&B acts like and the Backstreet Boys are
orbs per arena — and
the Reagan years are here: MC HAMMER, SIR MIX-A-LOT, BIZ otherwise occupied, but you’ll get
a set list packed with
A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, MARKIE, SISQO, KID N PLAY, EN to see O-TOWN, AARON CARTER
hit after undeniable
WANG CHUNG, BOW WOW VOGUE and THE FUNKY BUNCH and RYAN CABRERA — and a special
hit (“7 Rings,” “God Is
WOW and LOVERBOY. (minus Marky Mark). appearance from LANCE BASS !
a Woman,” “No Tears
Left to Cry,” “Thank U,
Next” . . .). For Grande,
Typical Louisiana’s GOLDEN The PEARL CONCERT The three-day PICKTOWN PALOOZA it’s a well-earned
Venue NUGGET CASINO, THEATER at Las Vegas’ Palms in Pickerington, Ohio, where the victory lap. For fans,
whose other upcoming Casino, where you can chow weekend’s other attractions include it’s a chance like no
acts include Larry down on piña-colada fritters a vintage-car and motorcycle show, other to break free of
the Cable Guy and an and more at the A.Y.C.E. (All carnival rides and a performance by the everyday.
Aussie psychic duo. You Can Eat) Buffet. Eighties hair-metal act Dokken.
The Who
Target 51-year-old moms and 43-year-olds still holding on 34-year-olds who will spend the MAY 7TH-
Demo dads who can’t wait to to the dream that one day next few months telling their friends OCTOBER 23RD
sing along with Wang Mark Wahlberg will give up on his that Justin Timberlake is totally
Chung’s “Everybody Have Fun Hollywood career and reunite with going to show up and stage an Every night on their
Tonight” and reminisce about the the Funky Bunch for some “Good impromptu ’NSync reunion with his Moving On! Tour, the
Class of ‘86 senior prom. Vibrations.” old pal Lance in Pickerington. Who are bringing out
a local orchestra to
help them reimagine
songs from through-
Peak When Canadian arena rockers Screaming “My anaconda The heartwarming scene when
out their career. While
Moment Loverboy kick into their 1981 Top 40 don’t want none unless you’ve O-Town tear down ancient
they aren’t billing this
smash, “Working for the Weekend,” got buns, hon” at the top of boy-band barriers by singing
as a farewell tour,
just as everyone is still coming down your lungs along with 10,000 ’NSync’s “Bye Bye Bye”
Roger Daltrey has
from the high of “Turn Me Loose,” people who are just as with host Lance Bass
said it could indeed
fans will be in AOR heaven. drunk as you are. (this actually happens).
be their last: “I’m just
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES; ERIC CHARBONNEAU/BEI/SHUTTERSTOCK, 2;

JIM SMEAL/BEI/SHUTTERSTOCK; CROLLALANZA/SHUTTERSTOCK; FIN COSTELLO/REDFERNS; JIM BRYANT/AP
being realistic about
going through the
75th year of my life.”
Broken Social
IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; RCA RECORDS; NEW LINE CINEMA; APPLE; CLEON VAUGHN

VIRAL Scene
THROUGH JULY 30TH
HIP-HOP’S DANCING TWEEN The long-running

Toronto indie-rock
collective made
A FEW YEARS AGO, Seth Vangeldren on the wildly popular teen lip-syncing an inspiring return
was dancing the Nae Nae at home app Musical.ly (now known as TikTok) with 2017’s Hug of
in Florida with his sister and posted before moving to another viral music- Thunder, its first
a video of it to social media. The video app called Triller. In recent album in seven years.
internet responded with a flash flood months, he’s performed onstage with This spring and
of views and shares. “From that, I just Rich the Kid and Lil Durk. “It’s fun, be- summer, the group
carried on, basically,” says the 12-year- cause I get to meet rappers and hear is keeping it going
old dancer. Soon, he started getting songs before they come out,” he says. with a pair of EPs and
requests from amateur rappers who Most of the time, adds manager Tcal a string of two-night
wanted Vangeldren to dance to their Watson, it’s artists asking their labels residencies in New
songs — which he did, for $1,000 per to get Vangeldren involved in their York, Montreal, Los
clip. Then the labels came calling, promotion rather than the other way Angeles and Seattle.
offering as much as six figures for him around: “You can tell it’s genuine when Anyone who’s seen
Vangeldren to help promote their up-and-coming even an artist’s bodyguard is like, ‘I BSS in concert knows
artists. Vangeldren started out posting love your videos!’ ” AMY X. WANG the uplifting vibes are
second to none.
22 | Rolling Stone | March 2018

Austin through and through.

1995. After no one would invest in Tito’s idea, he put it all on credit cards
and built his own distillery in this shack on twelve Austin acres.
We’re still in the same spot today.
Rooted in Texas for over twenty years.
®
America’s Original Craft Vodka
The Mix
BREAKOUT
The Shape-Shifting Zazie Beetz

Just like her character turns. Her performance, ino in Deadpool 2. This year,
Beetz’s Next
a career as a graphic artist.
on ‘Atlanta,’ the infused with intelligence and she’s flexed her muscles in She studied theater at New
Big-Screen Roles
vulnerability, has earned her Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix York’s famed LaGuardia High
actress refuses to
an Emmy nomination — even sports drama, High Flying School but shifted gears at
be pinned down though the role was initially Bird, and the psychological Against All Enemies Skidmore College, majoring
By BRITTANY designed to be more limited. horror flick Wounds. She has In theaters this year in French. (Beetz is also flu-
SPANOS This Sixties-set thriller
Beetz has pushed behind the five more films set for 2019, ent in German.) Let’s just say
traces the FBI’s
scenes to shape Van’s story- including Todd Phillips’ Joker investigation of actress
she likes to keep her options
‘ I
HAIR BY LACY REDWAY AT THE WALL GROUP. MAKEUP
STILL FEEL YOUNG and lines and expand her world adaptation, starring Joaquin Jean Seberg. open. “I’m always question-
small in a big, big world,” beyond her life with Earn. Phoenix, in October. ing what I want,” she says.
BY TYRON MACHHAUSEN AT THE WALL GROUP.
says Zazie Beetz. “My “I don’t just want to be It’s hard to believe Beetz Lucy in the Sky In the meantime, she’s living
In theaters this fall
inner self sometimes feels in the girlfriend,” Beetz says. graduated from college just out as many lives as possible
She joins Natalie
danger of being exposed.” “I feel very driven to making six years ago, not totally sure Portman in this film onscreen. “I don’t want to
Exposure is certainly a risk if decisions that allow people what path to pursue. Born about an astronaut. just be pretty,” Beetz says. “I
your career moves as quickly to see me beyond one type.” in her father’s home country want to be ugly, and I want
as Beetz’s has. As Van, the To that end, Beetz has lined of Germany but raised in Joker to be bad, and I want to be
In theaters October 4th
on-off girlfriend of Donald up a roster of roles that Upper Manhattan, Beetz good, and I want to be sexy,
Beetz’s character is said
Glover’s Earn on Atlanta, showcase her range. She was a creative child who to be a love interest to and I want to be asexual. I
Beetz, 27, is a grounding kicked ass on the big screen enjoyed painting and visual Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker want to be able to transform
presence in a sea of surreal last year as superhero Dom- arts so much she considered in the DC origin story. as I transform in my life.”
24 | Rolling Stone | May 2019 PHOTOGRAPH BY Natalia Mantini

The Mix
FILM
Inside Elton John’s PICKS
Magical Mystery Movie NEW

REISSUES
His new big-screen
Pete Seeger
musical, ‘Rocketman,’ THE SMITHSONIAN
is anything but a FOLKWAYS
standard biopic COLLECTION
By ANDY GREENE Six discs may seem

overwhelming, but
W
HEN DIRECTOR the vastness of
Dexter Fletcher Seeger’s repertoire —
signed on to protest numbers, kids’
songs, folk ballads,
make a movie about Elton
Dylan covers, talking
John, he knew that a tra- blues, sea chanteys —
ditional docudrama — like demands the in-depth
Bohemian Rhapsody, say, treatment. His unvar-
or Walk the Line — simply nished solo takes of
wouldn’t fly. “Elton is all “Turn Turn Turn,” “If
I Had a Hammer” and
about fantasy and imagina-
more make you feel
tion and magic,” Fletcher as if you’re hearing
says. “We wanted to use his them anew.
songs to elevate this to be
more than just a biopic.”
The result is Rocketman, Stereolab
in theaters May 31st, which MARS AUDIAC
QUINTET
presents Elton’s life as an
elaborate musical with
Nineties indie innova-
fantastic elements, STILL tions. “Elton and Bernie are tors Stereolab proved
like the carnival crowd STANDING brothers and they love each high-end art pop
that does a choreo- Above: other,” says Egerton. “This could be as fun and
graphed dance to “Sat- Egerton was a great opportunity to catchy as Seventies
as Elton put their relationship front AM bubblegum —
urday Night’s Alright
at Dodger even when they were
for Fighting.” And and center.”
Stadium singing about Marxist
unlike in Bohemian in L.A., Long before either of them economic theory.
Rhapsody, where Rami 1975. met Elton, the actor and the This fantastic 1994 LP
Malek lip-synced to Left: director were fans. Egerton is the gem of a new
recordings by Freddie Egerton, auditioned for drama school seven-album reissue
John at 17 by singing “Your Song”; series, full of candy-
Mercury or an imper-
and Furnish coated krautrock
sonator, Rocketman Fletcher did the same when
(from left) droning and chill
star Taron Egerton on the set he tried out for a role in The space-age baubles.
does all of his own Rocky Horror Picture Show
singing. “Musicals are in Elton’s story — from his care about is capturing the in his mid-twenties. During
all about expressing yourself pre-fame days in the band moment cinematically and production, they both grew New Order
through song,” the actor says. Bluesology to his first en- musically.” close to Elton, who produced MOVEMENT
“If you don’t sing them your- counter with lyricist Bernie The heart of the movie is Rocketman with his husband
New Order’s first
self, then you aren’t really Taupin in 1967, the writing Elton’s relationships with and manager, David Furnish.
record was never sup-
expressing anything.” of their breakthrough “Your Taupin and former manager/ “He doesn’t disappoint,” says posed to be theirs,
The movie begins with Song” and John’s battles with lover John Reid. (Reid, who Egerton. “They say don’t but after Ian Curtis’
Elton John entering rehab substance abuse at the peak also managed Queen from meet your heroes, but that suicide, the surviving
in the early Nineties to kick of his fame — the filmmakers 1975 to 1978, is a pivotal isn’t true for Elton John.” members of Joy Divi-
an addiction to drugs and weren’t afraid to take some character in Bohemian Egerton knows some fans sion were forced to
reinvent themselves.
alcohol that nearly took his liberties with the truth when Rhapsody as well, played by might be taken aback by
DAVID APPLEBY/PARAMOUNT PICTURES, 2
This deluxe reissue

life. “He’s our narrator, and it aided the storytelling. a different actor.) In scenes scenes like the one where documents their
he’s telling the story as he re- When Elton makes his U.S. previewed for the press, Elton literally floats above his unlikely but brilliant
calls it,” says Fletcher. “He’s debut, at L.A.’s Troubadour Taupin is seen challenging piano as he sings “Crocodile pivot toward synth-
dealing with his demons and in 1970, for example, he per- John to let go of the trappings Rock,” but he hopes they’ll pop, with extras that
trying to see the light again forms “Crocodile Rock” even of fame and focus on the understand. “The film asks include previously
unissued demos,
through the darkness. That though he wouldn’t write music. During a verbal spat you to take an imaginative
a photo book and
lends itself to imagination.” the song for another two in a restaurant, Taupin belts leap, as you would if you packaging by Factory
So even though the movie years. “I was aware of that,” out “Goodbye Yellow Brick went to the theatre,” he says. Records co-founder
hits on many familiar beats says Fletcher. “But what I Road” to vent his frustra- “It’s not a Wikipedia entry.” Peter Saville.

The Mix
SPOTLIGHT
Lizzo Conquers Her Fears

After a string of catchy, groups and rap duos,” she says. “But says. “But going on that journey of
uplifting hits, the rapper-singer I never believed in myself as a solo being vulnerable with someone who
had to learn to love herself artist. I didn’t think anyone wanted to I didn’t know, and then learning how
look at me or hear what I had to say.” to be vulnerable with people that I do
A
LITTLE OVER a year ago, Lizzo That’s changed in the past three know, gave me the courage to be vul-
had an epiphany at the office years, as Lizzo has won fans with a nerable as a vocalist.” She mentions
of her label, Atlantic Records. string of supercatchy, genre-swerving the new LP’s title track, where she
“I was looking at Aretha Franklin on pop singles. She can serve up sings like the words are being ripped
the walls,” says the singer-rapper- Instagram-caption-worthy self-love from the bottom of her lungs: “I was
flutist, 31, who released her first (“Good as Hell”) as easily as she so afraid of sounding like that for so
major-label album, Cuz I Love You, in does fast-rapping twerk anthems long. It’s a raw part of me that I didn’t
April. “I [thought about] I Never Loved (“Fitness,” “Tempo”). She’s also allow myself to celebrate.”
a Man the Way I Love You. That’s what shown a savvy mastery of meme This spring, Lizzo is back on the
I want this to be — the album that culture: In October, a fan-made video road for her biggest shows yet. And
defines my career. People are gonna of her playing flute and hitting the for the first time, she says, she
be like, ‘That shit was just the begin- popular shoot dance at one of her feels like her studio music can live
ning, and from then on it was forever shows became internet gold. New up to the life-affirming energy she
lit, and she won every award.’ ” fans flocked to her social media for delivers in front of an audience.
It took time for Lizzo, born Melissa more flute-and-shoot content, along “Last summer was transformative for
Jefferson, to let herself dream this big. with clips of Lizzo twerking in a me,” she says. “The girl that you see
When she began performing, first in Sailor Moon costume or saying “Bye, onstage is now also coming alive in
her hometown of Houston and then bitch!” while being driven away on the songs.” BRITTANY SPANOS
in Minneapolis, she’d enlist collabora- a cart. “Social media is a fantasy,”
tors to take the spotlight off herself. “I she says. “ I do it the way that I do
believed in myself in rock bands, R&B because it makes me laugh.”
She credits her decision to start
going to therapy last summer with
having a much bigger impact on
her life. “That was really scary,” she
“I didn’t think anyone

wanted to look at me or
hear what I had to say.”
BY ALEXX MAYO AT THEONLY.AGENCY.

HAIR BY SHELBY SWAIN. MAKEUP
STYLING BY MARKO MONROE.
28 | PHOTOGRAPH BY Erik Tanner

Lizzo in
L.A.,
March
The Mix
Guardians
Assemble
GUARDIANS OF
THE GALAXY 2014
“I look around at us and I see

losers,” Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord
says, trying to get a ragtag,
nihilistic group of interstellar
ruffians to commit to a risky act
of heroism. They have a chance,
he tells them, to “give a shit.” It’s
a pure character moment, simul-
taneously moving and amusing,
with no standout visual effects
— except for the fact that two of
the characters, feisty, rodent-ish
Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and
ambulatory tree Groot (Vin
Diesel), are entirely digital cre-
ations. “They’ve come to life by
that point,” says Marvel Studios
president Kevin Feige, a key cre-
ative force behind the studio’s
entire output. “So
you don’t even
consider
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
them visual
effects.”
Secrets of the Superheroes:

Guardians
was Mar-
vel’s bold-
est bet.
Marvel’s Greatest Moments

“Everybody
told us it was GUARDIANS OF
too weird,” writ- THE GALAXY
er-director James
Gunn told ROLLING STONE ,
“and that because they were
With ‘Avengers: post-credit thing. A lot of things
had to happen before The
his brother Joe — they aimed
to make a more grounded
unknown characters, the movie
Endgame’ out on Avengers actually happened — Captain America’s Marvel movie, with a Seventies-
was going to be Marvel’s first
all of the movies had to work. Elevator Escape political-thriller feel, though per-
bomb.” (It wasn’t.) An early draft
May 3rd, we look So it was really more wishful haps not that grounded, as the
of this scene prompted Marvel
CAPTAIN AMERICA: to push Gunn to get weirder.
back at highlights thinking — a fun little question
mark at the end of the movie.”
THE WINTER SOLDIER 2014
fighting-a-plane bit suggests.
“This is where Captain America,
“We gave James the note, ‘Wait
from 11 years of Nobody puts Captain America the dutiful soldier, the guy who
a minute, we need more scenes
like this,’ ” says Feige, “ ‘more
Marvel movies in a corner. In the space of five
thrilling minutes, Chris Evans’
was born to serve, realizes he
is being betrayed by those who
of your purely character-based
fun. Basically, we need more
Cap beats up 10 would-be he’s serving.” They constructed
By BRIAN HIATT Hulk Smashes Loki assailants in an elevator cage the sequence by blocking it
James Gunn.’ ”
THE AVENGERS 2012
“The Hulk is just a big id,”

Enter Nick Fury Avengers director Joss Whedon Airport Battle
IRON MAN 2008 told ROLLING STONE — and no-
where was the green guy’s rage CAPTAIN AMERICA:
It used to be safe to leave the CIVIL WAR 2016
more satisfyingly unleashed
movie theater once credits
than in his assault on the villain- A “splash page,” in comic-book
rolled. Then came this adden-
ous deity Loki (Tom Hiddleston). parlance, is dominated by a
dum to Iron Man, which, in 32
Hulk silences a supercilious single image rather than a grid
seconds, altered the course
monologue by slamming Loki of panels — usually an action
of 21st-century pop culture,
with cartoonish speed into a scene worthy of the scale. The
introducing Samuel L. Jackson
concrete floor five times in Russos consider this battle —
as secret agent Nick Fury, along
a row, before grunting, “Puny which pits no fewer than 12
with the idea of the “Avenger
god.” It was a welcome touch superheroes against each other
initiative” and, most important,
of Looney Tunes absurdity that CAPTAIN AMERICA: — their splash page, which
the previously undreamt-of
hinted at the outright comedy THE WINTER SOLDIER makes even more sense when
prospect of a massively cross-
in later films (Guardians Ant-Man inverts his powers,
over-y (and lucrative)
of the Galaxy, match (despite getting man- out with their stunt team, then growing so large that he barely
cinematic universe.
Thor: Ragnarok), acled to a wall at one point), going back to screenwriters fits onscreen. The movie has
At the time, though,
and the most smashes through a window to Christopher Markus and Ste- so many characters that the
director Jon
shattering escape S.H.I.E.L.D.’s head- phen McFeely to embed char- Russos joked that their only pos-
Favreau didn’t take
series of blows quarters, falls 30 floors or so, acter beats within key moments sible model was 1963’s all-star
the scene all that
Hiddleston commandeers a motorcycle and in the action — a method that caper It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad
seriously. “We
would endure single-handedly takes down a served them throughout the World, though Infinity War and
FROM TOP: © MARVEL, 4
thought it would
until his fighter plane with a shield and film. Hence, the highly quotable its sequel would be even more
be really good fan
break-up with his bare hands. All that, and line where Captain America de- packed. “The second we started
service,” he says.
a certain pop genuine dramatic stakes, too: livers a warning to the menacing circling Civil War, that airport
“Just a fun little
goddess “The whole universe turns on elevator crew that surrounds scene was part of the concept,”
four years its head in that scene,” says him: “Before we start, does says Anthony Russo. “It was
IRON MAN later. Anthony Russo, co-director with anyone want to get out?” the most complicated action
30
sequence we’d ever attempted.”

Besides who-goes-where logis-
tics, the scene’s other big trick
was slipping in an extraordinary
number of digital characters —
unbeknownst to most viewers,
Spider-Man, giant Ant-Man and
Black Panther are all CGI, along
with Iron Man, War Machine
and Vision. “That’s one of the
most challenging things,” says
Anthony, “making CG characters
feel part of scenes.”
Doctor Strange
Gets Psychedelic
DOCTOR STRANGE 2016
Thanks to the brain-bending

rush of Steve Ditko’s interdi-
mensional art — trippy stuff for
a strait-laced Ayn Rand acolyte
— Doctor Strange was always
the counterculture’s favored
superhero: a famous 1965 San
Francisco concert with the Jef-
ferson Airplane was dubbed “A
Tribute to Dr. Strange.” Appro-
priately enough, the sequence
where the Ancient One (Tilda THOR: RAGNAROK
Swinton) shows a skeptical Dr.
Stephen Strange (Benedict even his wall-crawling seemed a tribute to the cosmic visions
Cumberbatch) the nature of the wondrous again. Taking Spidey of Jack Kirby spiced with
universe, shoving his soul out on a field trip was key. “We absurdity, plus some Zeppelin
of his body and into a freaky wanted him on a landmark we on the soundtrack. This fight,
cosmic journey, was known in- hadn’t seen before,” says Feige. kicked off with Thor’s (Chris
ternally as the “magical mystery “The other fun thing was a sense Hemsworth) “He’s a friend from
tour.” But another inspiration for of vertigo. [Producer] Amy Pas- work” line, was a high point.
director Scott Derrickson, Feige cal was obsessed with getting
“Is This
Your King?”
BLACK PANTHER 2018
Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther BLACK PANTHER

achieved two milestones: It
was a worldwide smash with a little girl run so fast she falls
a nearly all-black cast, and down? . . . In that one moment,
it scored an Oscar nomina-
Captain Marvel every little girl flies.” From there,
tion for Best Picture. Much Gets Up writers-directors Anna Boden
of the movie’s awards-ready CAPTAIN MARVEL 2019 and Ryan Fleck built an affect-
sophistication stemmed from ing sequence where a cornered
its villain, Killmonger (Michael B. It started with a line from Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) re-
Jordan), one of the most com- comic-book writer Kelly Sue calls all the times she fell down
plex characters the universe DeConnick: “Have you ever seen in her life on Earth — and then
had ever produced — he has remembers that every single
a legitimate claim to Wakan- time, she got up again. (Alas,
DOCTOR STRANGE da’s throne, and there’s ample despite the movie’s Nineties
reason to sympathize with his setting, Chumbawamba’s “Tub-
reveals, was the pink-elephant that across, so we don’t take it dreams of revenge on behalf of thumping” does not begin to
hallucination in 1941’s Dumbo. for granted that Spider-Man is his oppressed people. Coogler play.) With that realization, and
extremely high up. Wouldn’t it had the villain in mind from the embrace of emotions she’d
be fun to put him on an icon not the beginning. ”Thematically, been told to suppress, she gains
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: © MARVEL; MATT KENNEDY/© MARVEL
surrounded by other buildings, it was about exploring what it her full powers for the first time,
STUDIOS; CHUCK ZLOTNICK/© MARVEL STUDIOS; © MARVEL
Spidey Climbs where he can’t just swing away? meant to be an African-Amer- beginning to glow from head to
the Washington He’s stuck — if he falls, there’s ican, feeling estranged from toe. “It’s not about
not much to swing onto.”
Monument Africa,” says producer Nate CAPTAIN MARVEL never failing,” says
Moore. In this battle scene, Boden. “We’re
SPIDER-MAN: Killmonger defeats Black built to fail, as humans, and
HOMECOMING 2017
Panther (Chadwick Bose- pushing past that is what
There was definitely nothing Thor vs. Hulk man) so soundly that some gives us strength. She finds
new about a Spider-Man movie producers wondered if they strength within herself,
THOR: RAGNAROK 2017
by 2017, but the sprightly Home- were emasculating their and in embracing all the
coming managed to feel fresh — After two rather dull Thor hero. “There was many qualities that she’s been
in this vertiginous rescue scene, movies, Marvel set the brilliantly conversations about that,” told made her less-than. I
quirky Taika Waititi loose on the says Moore. “But Ryan was feel like that is something
character — and let him bring adamant, and he was certainly women can
For more on Marvel movies, in the Hulk as a co-star. The correct. You had to feel relate to. I can certainly
go to RollingStone.com/movies. New Zealand director created Killmonger’s threat.” relate to it.”
Rolling Stone | 31
THE
The Mix
BREAKDOWN
More Money,
No Problems Legend
THE MUSIC INDUSTRY gasped at how much money U2’s 360° Tour brought in #2 #3 #4
a decade ago — but that had nothing on the millions made by Taylor Swift’s Rank #1 #5
Reputation tour last year. As artists race to keep up revenues in the stream-
ing era, tours have gotten flashier by the year. Gross revenues and ticket- Gross
(in Millions)
price data on the top North American tours from 2008 to 2018, as tracked
by concert firm Pollstar, show a clear trend: up, up and away. AMY X. WANG
Average Ticket Price
Top-Grossing $105.3M Ye a r
North American
Tours, 3M
77.
$2
2008–2018 $1
23
M Total Gross
of Top Five Tours
$153.88
$172.
13
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7.1
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Beyoncé Eagles
$169.4M
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Kevin
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Highest
The Rolling Stones
2013
$57.1M $277.3M $12 $57.38

Lowest Highest 7.2M
M
Bon Jovi Taylor Swift $112.7 Lowest
Dave Matthews Band
2011 2018 2010
34 | Rolling Stone | May 2019 INFOGRAPHIC BY Valerio Pellegrini

PEOPLE SAY
WEALTH IS ABOUT
WHAT YOU HAVE.
BUT WHAT IF
IT’S ABOUT
SOMETHING ELSE?
WHAT IF IT’S ABOUT

WHO YOU ARE AND
WHAT YOU GIVE?
The Mix
ACTIVISM
Brandi Carlile’s Fight

for Peace and Love
How the acclaimed
singer-songwriter
and her wife put
ideals into action
By JONATHAN
BERNSTEIN
B
RANDI CARLILE remem-
bers feeling a new kind
of anxiety when she be-
came a mother in 2014. “I was
wondering how it was fair that
our children were born into
relative safety just because of
geography,” says the acclaimed
singer-songwriter. When she
expressed these concerns
to her wife, Catherine Shep-
herd, who coordinated Paul
McCartney’s charity work for
10 years, Shepherd told her,
“If you want to feel better, you
really need to focus this into
something productive.”
Not long after that conversa- Shepherd (left)
tion, Carlile launched an ambi- and Carlile
tious campaign to use her fame at home in
for good. In 2017, she oversaw Washington state
the release of Cover Stories, a
star-studded rerecording of her body who was 65. It was an encouraged the singer’s fans to
2007 LP The Story, with artists interesting way to fall in love.” volunteer at her shows, so they
from Adele to Pearl Jam; all Early on in their correspon- “feel like they could contribute
proceeds went to War Child UK, dence, Carlile shared with just as much through rolling
a nonprofit that provides aid Shepherd her misgivings about up their sleeves and doing the
to children affected by armed the ways she felt American work,” says Shepherd, “as they
conflict. Since the album’s charity was a “pastime of the would if they donated money.”
release, Carlile’s Looking Out rich.” “I had hesitation about Carlile continues to prioritize
Foundation has raised more branding my activism with War Child, but she’s always
than $800,000 for the group. my notoriety in the music seeking new organizations to
“They don’t parachute a bunch business,” she says. “I don’t partner with, new injustices to
of white people in to solve the like the perception of the great fight. “I would be lying if I said
world’s problems,” Shepherd American dollar becoming that I could focus on one cause
says of War Child. “They work the be-all and end-all of how for the rest of my life,” she says.
with people on the ground.” to help humanity — because “An artist does their best work
The couple, who married it’s not. In fact, it may be what in big bursts of light: We make
in 2012, met when Shepherd initially hurt it.” a record, we tour, and then we
reached out about donating Today, Carlile balances her try to make another record.
some McCartney memorabilia idealism with Shepherd’s When I’m most honest with my-
to a Carlile initiative called pragmatic approach. She has self, activism is the same way.”
Fight the Fear, which provided mixed feelings about auction- For all her work in this field,
self-defense and empowerment ing off her own memorabilia Carlile adds, she still feels like
training for women at risk for and VIP access for charity, she’s in the early stages of
violence and abuse. “We met but ultimately, she says, “My becoming an artist-activist. “It’s
through our activism and inter- principles aren’t as important not a fine line between enter-
est in charity,” says Carlile, 37. as educating children who are taining and inciting empathy in
“We communicated for about going to spend their lives in people — it’s a leap,” she says.
a year, and the entire time I a refugee camp.” In the past, “And it’s one that I’m right in
thought I was talking to some- Carlile and Shepherd have the middle of.”
36 | PHOTOGRAPH BY Annie Marie Musselman

The Mix
B

ILLY JOEL hasn’t make a lot of money if you do
released an album of more shows now.”
new pop songs since Rock-star biopics are big
1993, but that hasn’t stopped right now. Can you imagine
him from selling out Madison a Billy Joel movie?
Square Garden every month I don’t have enough objec-
for the past five years and tivity to do that. I was gonna
packing baseball stadiums write an autobiography at
across the country each sum- one time — and I did. There
mer. “I’ve gone onstage and wasn’t enough sex, drugs and
said, ‘I don’t have anything rock & roll in it for the pub-
new for you, so we’re just lisher, so I gave the advance
going to play the old shit,’ ” money back. I said, “Fuck it,
Joel says on the phone from that’s me.” I don’t know if I’m
his house in Palm Beach, interesting enough to make a
Florida. “And the audience movie out of. I lived my life. I
goes, ‘Yeah!’ I’ll be sitting don’t want to be redundant.
in the stadium looking out You and Donald Trump
at 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 are about the same age,
people, thinking, ‘What the both born in outer-borough
hell are they all doing here? New York. Does that give
Why now?’ I guess, in a way, you any insight into him?
I’m an anachronism. There No. I see him as being from
aren’t that many of me left. an entirely different planet. I
There’s a rarity to it, which know he was born in Queens,
gives it value.” but he was born with a silver
spoon in his mouth. His
Are you looking forward father was rich and gave him
to playing the Garden on a lot of money. I don’t know
your 70th birthday in May? how much empathy he actu-
I got mixed feelings about it. ally has for people who don’t
On the one hand, I’m happy live that kind of life.
to be alive. On the other In 2017, you wore a
hand, I don’t know how yellow star onstage after
much of a party I deserve Trump talked about the
just for making it to 70. I “very fine people” who
mean, it’s a work night — you marched in Charlottesville.
can’t have birthday cake, you What made you do that?
can’t do any of that stuff. I was pissed off. It’s bullshit.
Still, 70 is a milestone. There’s no fine Nazis. My
father’s generation fought a
Q&A
This is a Peter Pan kinda job.
You start out, and you’re war to put an end to Nazism.
young, and you’re rockin’ When they see these guys
and rollin’, and that’s what with the swastika armband,
you do all your life. You I’m amazed they don’t run
become a little myopic about
how old you actually are. I
see pictures of myself at the
Garden recently, and I go,
Billy Joel out on the street and smash
them over the head with a
baseball bat.
Are you tired of being
“That don’t look right.” I On turning 70, writing music he won’t record, Donald asked whether you’re going
got old, I lost my hair. I was Trump, and why he’ll never do a farewell tour to make new music again?
never a matinee idol to begin It’s a fair question. I still write
with, and there I am onstage By ANDY GREENE music, I just don’t record it,
still doing the same job I was and they’re not in song form.
doing when I was 16. for you now than it was in but you almost never play ing.” The only relief you get is I have a lot of music that no
So many of your peers the old days? “Captain Jack.” How come? when the chorus kicks in. one’s ever heard and no one
dye their hair and do any- The difference now is that He didn’t age well. Captain Can you see yourself may ever hear. It’s the cre-
thing they can to look people think I’m my kid’s Jack’s been demoted to ever doing a farewell tour? ative process that’s important
young. Have you ever been grandfather. I take her to Private Jack. In the verses, No. I think the way it’ll to me, not the charts.
tempted to do the same? school and one of the other there’s only two chords, happen is there’ll be a night Are you willing to make a
For me to try and look parents will go, “Oh, your and it goes on and on, and where I feel like I can’t do it Shermanesque statement
like a movie star would be granddaughter’s so cute.” I it’s kind of a dreary song if well anymore — I can’t hit the that you’ll never release an
ridiculous. I’ve always been just say, “OK, thank you.” It’s you think of the lyrics. The notes, I don’t have the phys- album of new material?
a schlubby-looking guy, and I not that different. I still love kid is sitting home jerkin’ ical stamina, I’m not into it. I’m never going to say
ain’t about to change. Plastic being a dad. I didn’t know off. His father’s dead in the And that night, I’ll know it’s never. I may come up with
surgery, wigs, I don’t know. It that I would be a father again swimming pool. He lives this time to stop. I might even an idea that could become
has nothing to do with music. at this age, but I’m glad I am. dull suburban existence until decide right then and there a song. I may write a movie
JESSE DITTMAR
Your two youngest They keep you young. he gets high. One of the last this is my last show. Although soundtrack. I may write a
daughters are three and You’ve played dozens of times I was singing the song, my agent will come up to me symphony. I don’t know.
one. Is fatherhood different shows in the past five years, I said, “This is really depress- afterward: “Oh, no! We can Anything’s possible.

The Mix
BEHIND THE SCENES
‘Deadwood’ Rides Again

Legendary HBO series,
canceled suddenly
in 2006, finally gets
a proper ending
By ALAN SEPINWALL
M
URDER IS AFOOT on the
muddy thoroughfare of
Deadwood. But first, po-
etry. It’s a crisp Novem-
ber day at Melody Ranch, the vener-
able Santa Clarita, California, studio
that’s been home to everything from
Gene Autry Westerns to Westworld.
The picaresque main street has been
DEADWOOD: THE MOVIE

Premieres May 31st on HBO
dressed to recapture the look it had for

three years in the mid-2000s, when it
was home to one of the greatest TV
dramas ever made: HBO’s Deadwood, a
gorgeously profane meditation on the
American experiment and the painful
business of bringing law to a lawless
place. Canceled abruptly, it seemed
destined to be remembered as the me-
dium’s great unfinished masterpiece.
Instead, the network has reconstitut- Above: ened.” Midway through, he pauses to
ed the Deadwood community for a sur- Olyphant (left) swig the remains of actor Sean Bridg-
prise coda: a movie set a decade after and Hawkes. ers’ morning coffee, then concludes
“I don’t know
the events of the series. with thoughts on the psychological
why these
The order of business for the day: a fuckers blew
game between Bullock and Hearst that
showdown between hot-tempered law- up this show plays out in the scene’s closing mo-
man Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) 12 years ago,” ments. After an appreciative silence,
and industrial kingpin and U.S. Sen. says Olyphant Milch cracks in his nasal Buffalo ac-
George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), of HBO brass. cent, “Thank you for your tolerance.”
Left: In a daily
witnessed by the town’s gold-heart- Milch once delivered speeches like
ritual, creator
ed crime boss and saloonkeeper, Al Milch reads
this extemporaneously, dazzling his
Swearengen (Ian McShane). It is, as prepared actors as much with the quickness of
Al’s longtime henchman Dan Dority remarks to the his wit as its eloquence. But in a plot
(W. Earl Brown) once put it, fixin’ for cast on set. twist sadly worthy of the tragic charac-
a bloody outcome. The assembled ac- ters he’s written over the past four dec-
tors are absorbing a gun-safety lecture ades, Milch has been diagnosed with
when a golf cart pulls up bearing David Alzheimer’s. He can still write his un-
Milch, the man who made all this pos- rection to all within earshot and rewrit- In what’s become a daily ritual, mistakably ornate dialogue — has, in
sible, then and now. ing scenes mere hours or even minutes Milch emerges from the cart and pro- fact, done minor rewrites throughout
The Yale English-literature profes- before they were shot. “I’ve met a few duces a typed soliloquy explaining the the shoot — but everything else he does
sor turned Emmy-winning TV writer people with a level of intellect that key themes of the scene they’re about is slower and more erratic. As Brown
(Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue) has a list Dave possesses,” says Brown. “Cou- to shoot. The cast and crew gather in puts it, “The depth of David’s mind
of former vices — everything from her- pled with that, he has this innate emo- a dutiful circle around him. In unique- and spirit is still there. The accelera-
oin to horse betting — and colorful per- tional understanding to see you at your ly Milch-ian style, he cites Machiavel- tion’s gone, but the rest of it’s there.”
sonality traits longer than this filthy core, to know who you are, and he rec- li, the Bible and the old question of Milch suggests of the process, “Cer-
main street. He’s 74 now, thinner, gray- ognizes all the cracks, and he wants to whose ox is gored. “Swearengen,” he tain complications were present
WARRICK PAGE, 2
er and moving more tentatively than fix them. And coupled with that is that suggests, “confronts the tragic paradox throughout, and compounded as time
he did during the series’ original run. self-destructive streak that was a mile — which every human being confronts progressed. I’m thankful to report my
Back then, he was a ball of energy in a wide in his life. So I’ve never met an- as time goes on — which is the diminu- writing process has remained largely
black T-shirt offering complicated di- other person exactly like him.” tion of strength just as insight is height- as it was. . . . Each day is as it comes. We

endeavor to meet life on life’s terms — Others are stories of Milch inventing ly having my head above water, and With the script done in advance,
not impose our ambitions on it, to be something incredible out of nothing at I recall regretting every single choice filming of the movie is far more order-
useful within the present moment.” all, often at the last possible minute. made and begging David to let me ly than the series ever was. For some,
This answer came via email, an ar- Olyphant recalls Milch accidentally walk him back and change it” — and this is a bug, not a feature. “I feel a lit-
rangement Milch insisted upon for walking into a wall and joking, “God- thus actually felt perverse relief at the tle ripped off,” admits Olyphant. “Be-
this story to ensure that he addressed damn if I couldn’t become addicted to cancellation. “I might have done a cause one of the great appeals of work-
each question only when his faculties that.” By the next day, Milch had writ- small victory dance when he told me ing with David is the chaos. If they
were sharp. But Milch talks the way ten a scene where a character banged the show was over,” he confesses. “But were going to get this thing going, they
he writes — due to a chronic back con- his head against a wall. Late in the first I at the same time have never been a should’ve done it sooner.”
dition, he’s long dictated his scripts season, Deadwood producer Gregg part of anything quite this special.” The film’s primary theme is the pas-
while lying on the floor — so both his Fienberg lamented the absence of Rev- Shortly after the cancellation, HBO sage of time, which feels especially res-
mouth and his assistant’s keyboard erend Smith, a kind preacher played had promised a reunion, but the chal- onant for the actors, given how long it
produce the same complicated syntax by Ray McKinnon. Within hours, Mc- lenge of finding a window where ev- took to happen and how many people
you might expect to hear from Dead- Kinnon was summoned to set to film eryone — or even just Olyphant and have been lost (co-star Powers Boothe
wood’s Al Swearengen. Each of Milch’s a newly penned scene where the cler- McShane — was available felt insur- died in 2017) or diminished along
characters carries a piece of him, but gyman confessed to Bullock and Sol mountable. (Even now, when Milch’s the way. “We’re now tasked with hav-
Swearengen — consumed by demons Starr ( John Hawkes) that he was suf- assistant reads him my question about ing to be our own [Milches],” says
yet capable of unfathomable gener- fering hallucinations, the result of when he knew for sure the movie Paula Malcomson, who plays for-
osity; vulgar and erudite within two what turned out to be a fatal brain would happen, he laughs and asks, “Is mer prostitute Trixie. “To take all the
breaths of one another — comes clos- tumor. It brought the assembled crew it? Going to happen unquestionably?”) things that he taught us and put them
est to bearing the totality of the man. to tears. “It was so powerful and so In the summer of 2016, Milch, produc- into play.”
“I kiss David Milch in the morn- meaningful,” says Fienberg. “That er Carolyn Strauss and new HBO boss The reunion still feels so improbable
ing, I kiss him when he leaves,” says was Deadwood.” Casey Bloys began seriously discussing that, in a showbiz rarity, actors keep
THE MAD GENIUS OF SHOWRUNNER DAVID MILCH The ‘Deadwood’ creator is behind some of TV’s
biggest hits — and even a few offbeat misses
HILL STREET BLUES NYPD BLUE JOHN FROM CINCINNATI LUCK

NBC, 1981-87 ABC, 1993-2005 HBO, 2007 HBO, 2011-12
Milch joined the landmark drama midway In this precursor to The Sopranos, Milch Airing right after the Sopranos finale This passion project about horse racing
through its run, bringing a rawer feel. crafted a deeply flawed hero in cop Andy — and on the heels of the beloved but saw Milch butt heads with director Mi-
Dennis Franz’s Norm Buntz was an early Sipowicz (Franz, right) and brought more canceled Deadwood — this inscrutable chael Mann, who banned him from set.
prototype for Deadwood’s Swearengen. explicit language and sexuality to TV. metaphysical surfing drama was doomed. It was axed after horses died in filming.
McShane. “Because, after all, I’m real- Milch’s impulsive nature may have the idea of turning the fantasy back wandering by on their days off just to
ly playing David.” played a role in the original series’ into reality. To keep the film on sched- spend more time with one another —
premature end. Debate remains over ule, Bloys insisted on a finished script and with Milch. “I can’t talk to you
W
HEN THE CAST and crew exactly why HBO pulled the plug — with room for only minimal chang- without crying, David,” Malcomson
FROM LEFT: MTM ENTERPRISES/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK; STEVEN BOCHCO PRODS./KOBAL/
first reunited at Melody including budget overruns result- es once production began. The one confesses. “You’re where we measure
Ranch, they began swap- ing from Milch’s improvisational ap- Milch completed was poignant and everything else in our careers and our
ping countless stranger-than-fiction proach — but a crucial detail all agree profound. lives.” McShane, eager to keep spirits
tales of their eccentric, brilliant boss. on was that while Milch was negotiat- “I began to sob about page four,” light, leans over from a balcony where
Some have bizarre casting stories. Ac- ing to keep the series alive for a fourth says Hawkes. “And what I realized he’s been observing this scene to quip,
SHUTTERSTOCK; JOHN P. JOHNSON/HBO; GUSMANO CESARETTI/HBO
tress-comedian Geri Jewell was waiting season, Olyphant was in the process was, as much as I really care for the “Speak for your fuckin’ self!” Every-
at a pharmacy for Botox, which alle- of buying a house. Milch, anxious to actors on this show as human beings, one laughs, but then Malcomson con-
viates chronic neck pain from her ce- hear this news from Olyphant, sug- I may care for the characters they play tinues: “Nothing else measures up. Ev-
rebral palsy. A customer in line with gested the show had been canceled. even more, because what brought erything is fucked.”
Jewell recognized her and offered on Olyphant in turn called his represen- me to tears was just, suddenly, there Some actors express hope that the
the spot to write her a part in his next tatives, more calls were made, and, as was Calamity Jane, Charlie Utter, Al movie might be a new beginning, rath-
project. “I said, ‘This is a pharmacy, he puts it now, “It was a bit of a grass Swearengen and Seth Bullock alive — er than an ending, though Bloys calls
right?’ ” she recalls. He was, of course, fire that became difficult for the two on the page, moving about and speak- it “unlikely,” given how difficult it was
Milch. “He wrote his phone number sides to then walk it back. In fact, the ing. I never thought I would ever see to move heaven and Earth for this one.
on a prescription pad for antidepres- show was not over at all, but by the that again, so it was as though there What does Milch think about the idea
sants!” She would play Swearengen’s time that spread around, no one want- was some sort of heaven that you’d that his greatest work might continue
disabled cleaning lady, Jewel, for the ed to back down from it. So it just be- died and gone to that you got to see on past this movie? “Speculations in
run of the show and is making a hercu- came fact.” your relatives or something. It was the re: Deadwood,” he replies, “if you’re
lean effort to participate in the movie Olyphant had frequently found Bull- people you loved from the past, and inclined, you can put them beside the
after recent major surgery. ock difficult to play — “I recall bare- here they were.” speculations in dreams.”

HEY, LORETTA
Jack White teamed up
with Margo Price for his
2004 Loretta Lynn duet
“Portland, Oregon” at
Lynn’s 87th-birthday
celebration in Nashville.
Robyn’s
Garden
Party THREE’S COMPANY
Brandi Carlile, Keith Urban
and Tanya Tucker hung
in Nashville. Carlile is co-
For two decades, Robyn
producing Tucker’s first album
has built a cult following since 2002: “The return of
for her emotionally Tanya Tucker will be a cultural
cathartic club stompers. event!” she says.
For her first-ever U.S.
arena show, at Madison WHOLE
Square Garden, she put LOTTA LOVE
on an epic dance party. Sheryl Crow
The highlight? 2010’s and Robert
“Dancing on My Own,” Plant sang
“Black Dog”
when she took a long
and more at a
moment to soak in the New York
crowd’s cheers. She benefit for
kicks off an extended God’s Love We
U.S. arena run in July. Deliver, which
brings meals to
the sick. Plant
said it was “a
real gas” to
share the stage
with Crow, who
is preparing an
JOHN AND JONI’S album of
EXCELLENT ADVENTURE collaborations
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SACHA LECCA; JOHN SHEARER/GETTY
IMAGES, 2; JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES; DANIEL PRAKOPCYK
John Mayer was working with friends
on new songs in Hollywood Keith Richards,
when Joni Mitchell Gary Clark Jr.,
stopped by, returning to Stevie Nicks
the former A&M studio and St.
where she made classics Vincent. “Who
including 1971’s Blue would have
and 1976’s Hejira. “Her thought . . . a
presence only made young girl from
me want to try harder to a tiny town in
find those big, deep, Missouri would
beautiful songs like she wind up
always has,” Mayer said. working with
Mitchell recently turned these people
75 with a huge birthday and having
concert that included relationships
Norah Jones, Rufus with them?”
Wainwright and more. Crow said.

THE HALL OF FAME BOWS DOWN TO QUEEN STEVIE

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame welcomed a wonderfully eclectic crew in
Brooklyn: Stevie Nicks, the Cure, Janet Jackson, Def Leppard, Roxy Music, RANDOM QUOTE
the Zombies and Radiohead. The best parts? Harry Styles called Nicks a
“magical gypsy godmother that occupies the in-between.” Jackson (above,
with Janelle Monáe) spoke about stepping out of her family’s shadow.
Backstage, the Cure’s Robert Smith (left) admitted even he was touched. “My “On
reservations, such as they were, were pretty immaterial, it turns out,” he said.
Halloween,
one in seven
RED HOT
PYRAMID SCHEME people dress
The Red Hot Chili
Peppers played in front as Stevie Nicks.
of Egypt’s Great
Pyramids for more than She is both
10,000 fans. The Chilis
had a blast “levitating in an adjective
GETTY IMAGES; DAVID MUSHEGAIN; FLEA/INSTAGRAM; KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES; DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS/
the deep dusty desert!”

said Flea (below with and a verb.
Chad Smith). Frontman
Anthony Kiedis took a
To quote my
camel ride with his son,
Everly Bear.
father, ‘That
was very
Stevie Nicks,’
and to quote
my mother,
‘I Stevie
Nicks’d that
shit so hard.’ ”
—Harry Styles

Welcome to
the New Normal
Witness history now at

.com
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older. CA License A10-17-0000039-TEMP. Not available for sale except where permitted by applicable law.
Jerry
Nadler’s
Moment
The House Judiciary chair is going
hard after Trump — and the release
of the full Mueller report
By ANDY KROLL
ILLUSTRATION BY Victor Juhasz

J
ERRY NADLER, CHAIRMAN of the Seeing Barr cover for the president has only tion involving Trump’s conduct — reveals clear
House Judiciary Committee, is deepened Nadler’s resolve that he and his com- evidence of impeachable offenses, it will be
about to do something wholly out mittee must get their hands on the full Muel- Nadler and his Judiciary Committee that intro-
of character: pay the Trump ad- ler report — without redactions — and share as duce articles of impeachment.
ministration a compliment, sort much of it with the public as they can. (At press Nadler likes to say he got into politics to “be
of. It’s a late morning at the end of time, Barr had promised a redacted version a part of something big.” He got his wish, and
March, and Nadler is sipping Diet Coke from a by mid-April.) “The whole point of the special now finds himself in the middle of countervail-
paper cup in his spacious office in Washington, counsel is to take this away from politics so that ing forces. To his right is a Republican Party
D.C., slouched so deeply into his chair that he
seems to be submerging into the books and ma-
the public can depend on an independent as-
sessment,” Nadler says. “And what did we get?
READERS’ that is subservient to Trump and will do any-
thing it can to shield him from scrutiny. To his
nila folders stacked atop his desk.
“It’s a very intelligent press strategy,” he
A political guy doing the president’s job.”
Since retaking the majority, House Demo-
POLL left, a liberal base that believes Trump should
have been impeached already. Earlier this year,
says, jabbing a finger onto his desk, where a crats have opened numerous fronts in their California billionaire Tom Steyer held a town
pocket-size copy of the Constitution peeks out campaign to hold Trump accountable. The Do you hall in Nadler’s district — which covers a large
of his business-card holder. He’s talking about Ways and Means Committee has formally re- think the swath of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn —
Attorney General William Barr’s March 24th quested six years’ worth of Trump’s tax re- Electoral and spent $200,000 on ads meant to urge Nad-
letter outlining the “principal conclusions” of turns; Deutsche Bank, the president’s lender College ler’s constituents to put pressure on him to im-
special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of choice, is cooperating with an inquiry by should be peach Trump. There’s been talk of a primary
into Russian interference in the 2016 election. the Financial Services Committee; the Intelli- abolished? challenging Nadler, who turns 72 in June, as
Barr’s letter claimed that not only did Mueller gence Committee has reopened its investigation he seeks a 15th full term in Congress next year.
85%
find no evidence of conspiracy by the Trump into Russian interference in the election; and Nadler won’t rule out impeaching Trump,
campaign, but in Barr’s view, Trump also did the Oversight Committee is probing the White but says it remains a far-off possibility. He’s yet
not obstruct justice — in part because there was House’s security-clearance process and wheth- to see compelling enough evidence, and he wit-
Yes
no underlying crime to cover up. er Trump scuttled the FBI’s plan to move out of nessed firsthand the Clinton impeachment de-
FROM LEFT: AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; TOM TONTHAT/U.S. NAVY;

“What that letter is is a press release,” Nad- its headquarters across the street from his D.C. bacle. “Impeachment cannot be seen to be par-
ler tells me in his thick Brooklyn accent. “It’s hotel (ostensibly to prevent a rival hotel from
15% tisan,” he says. “You don’t want to tear your
AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK, 2; KEVIN LIM/”THE STRAITS TIMES”/SPH/EPA-EFE/REX/

the only thing out there for a few days or weeks taking the space). country apart. You don’t want half the country
or whatever, and the president can claim vindi- As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, No to be saying for the next 30 years, ‘We won the
cation, when the report may be very different, Nadler has a front-row seat to what he describes election, you stole it.’ ” But if anyone is suited
for all we know.” as the “borderline criminal and certainly anti- Go to Rolling for the role of guiding Democrats through this
Nadler, who stands five feet four and prefers democratic” actions of the president. More Stone.com moment, it’s Nadler. He can quote by memory
SHUTTERSTOCK; MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

sweater vests and impossibly high-waisted trou- than that, he is the lawmaker with the most for next from the Federalist Papers or the Constitutional
sers, could reasonably pass for a judge or a law power to check Trump’s lawlessness. The Ju- issue’s poll. Convention. And he’s no stranger to Trump and
professor, and the ease with which he disman- diciary Committee’s mandate, Nadler says, is his tactics; they clashed repeatedly during Nad-
tles Barr’s no-obstruction argument suggests he safeguarding the norms and laws of this coun- ler’s four decades in New York politics, and he
missed his true calling in the courtroom. “For try; his portfolio of issues includes immigra- was an early recipient of one of Trump’s belit-
example — and just to be very obvious about tion, civil rights, criminal justice and much tling nicknames: “Fat Jerry.”
it — I am suspected of committing the crime more. His committee also oversees the Justice Nadler brushes off Trump’s insults. “Our job
of bank robbery,” he tells me. “I know I didn’t Department, which means that if the complete is to protect the rule of law, to protect the Con-
do it. But I decide, in order to avoid being con- Mueller report ever sees the light of day, it will stitution, to protect the process,” he says. “If
victed for this crime I never committed, to per- be because of Nadler. He can subpoena docu- the president wants to call me names, fine. I
jure myself in front of the grand jury, bribe wit- ments, force government officials to testify be- don’t care.” Steve Israel, the former New York
nesses, et cetera. I’ve committed crimes even fore him (Mueller and Barr, for example) and congressman, says, “Trump is a Twitter brawl-
though there’s no underlying crime.” Barr’s rea- drag the White House into court if necessary. er. Nadler is an intellectual brawler. If this is a
soning, he says, “is just wrong.” And if Mueller’s report — or some other revela- battle of wits and intellect, Jerry wins.”
TIMELINE THE LONG VIEW: TRUMP AND NORTH KOREA

FEB. 2017 MARCH APRIL AU G. O C T. JUNE 2018 JUNE
TEST CASE TENSIONS WRONG WAY THINGS ARE DIPLOMATIC SIGHS ON SECOND
North Korea tests ESCALATE Trump says he’s or- GOING WELL Trump undercuts THOUGHT
a nuclear-capable Then-Secretary of dering warships to Trump says North Tillerson’s efforts to Ten days after the
missile. Trump and State Rex Tillerson the Korean peninsu- Korea will face “fire broker a negotia- SINGAPORE FLING Singapore meeting,
Japanese Prime says military action la: “We’re sending and fury like the tion, tweeting, “He Trump becomes the first sitting president to Trump says North
Minister Shinzo against North Korea an armada.” The world has never is wasting his time meet with a North Korean leader. He woos Korea is still an “ex-
Abe discuss their is “on the table.” ships were actually seen”; Kim Jong-un trying to negotiate Kim with a video that includes stock footage traordinary threat”
response in full sailing in the oppo- threatens to unleash with Little Rocket of stallions, a sunrise and a slam dunk. After and he’s maintain-
view of diners at site direction, 3,500 “an enveloping fire” Man.” a five-hour summit, he declares North ing sanctions.
Mar-a-Lago. miles away. around Guam. Korea is no longer a nuclear threat.

I
N THE MID-1980S, Trump was working in Washington, seeing his mix of nerdiness and
on a massive new commercial and res- political savvy — the “duality of Mr. Nadler,” as
idential project along the West Side of his closest aides put it — as ideal for the role.
Manhattan. One day he summoned Nad- He did stints on all of the Judiciary subcommit-
ler — then a state assemblyman representing tees, mastering the different issues, winning
the district where Trump wanted to build — to new friends and doling out favors. “Legislating
show off plans for the development. The two is a peculiar business,” says Barney Frank, the
men were born a year apart, both in New York former Massachusetts congressman who served
City, but they couldn’t have been more differ- on Judiciary with Nadler. “You’re working with
ent. While Nadler spent his early years on a a lot of strong-willed people. It requires you to
chicken farm in New Jersey, raised in a reli- understand how to take your strong convic-
gious Jewish household, Trump lived a life of tions and get other people to be supportive of
privilege as the son of a wealthy real-estate de- them, and he’s very good at that.”
veloper. Nadler arrived at Trump Tower to find By the time he took the chairmanship in Jan-
the model of what Trump was calling Television uary, Nadler had seen enough to believe Trump
City; it was set to house NBC and other studios. poses a greater threat to the rule of law than
At the center of it was a 150-story building that, any president since the Civil War — a belief ce-
if completed, would be the tallest in America. mented when Trump fired then-AG Jeff Sessions
To Nadler, the centerpiece of Trump’s new for “disloyalty” the day after the midterms.
project looked like “a huge phallic symbol,” “The future of constitutional government is at
but he kept that to himself. He asked Trump, stake,” Nadler said during a CNN appearance.
“What’s the highest people live in New York?” “We must go a long way to make sure that the
“Sixty-eight stories, at Trump Tower, and I BY THE BOOK working on Eugene McCarthy’s presidential president is a president, not a king.”
live on the 68th floor,” he recalls Trump saying. “He’s got to be campaign. When they turned 21, Nadler says,
W
TOP: SARAH SILBIGER/”THE NEW YORK TIMES”/REDUX. BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: ANDREW HARNIK/
a smart and
AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; KCNA/AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; GENE J. PUSKAR/AP
IMAGES; ALEX EDELMAN/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; EVAN VUCCI/AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK;
“And I suppose you’ll live on the 150th floor nimble

seven of them ran for district-leader seats HEN I FIRST visit the offices of
here?” Nadler said. tactician, around Manhattan — and all seven won. “We the Judiciary Committee’s Dem-
Yes, Trump replied. “I thought, ‘OK, that’s seeing the had a healthy skepticism of all local politicians, ocratic staff in late March, the
what this is about,’ ” Nadler says today. “ ‘He work of the including the most progressive ones,” he says. pace is frenetic. Within weeks
committee on
wants to be the tallest man in the world.’ ” He came to Congress in 1992, and has carved of taking over, Democrats had interrogated
multiple
Nadler fiercely opposed Trump’s project be- levels,” says out a reputation as a liberal stalwart with votes Matthew Whitaker, the hapless acting attorney
cause it would build over an old rail terminal Judiciary against Bill Clinton’s three-strikes crime bill, the general who stepped in after Sessions. In early
KCNA; MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
he believed was vital to New York’s manufactur- member anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, the Patriot Act March, the Judiciary Committee sent out exten-
Pramila
ing sector, and he continued to fight Trump on and the Iraq War. He clashed with then-Mayor sive document requests to 81 people and orga-
Jayapal.
a host of issues over the ensuing 30 years. “Ev- ”Jerry is Rudy Giuliani over the decision to allow New nizations in Trump’s orbit, from Donald Trump
erybody who worked for him — architects, engi- pretty Yorkers to return to Lower Manhattan days Jr. to Steve Bannon to Cambridge Analytica.
neers, lawyers — they all ended up hating him,” uniquely after the September 11th attacks despite poten- The next time I see Nadler, he’s presiding
Nadler says. “You couldn’t trust him.” positioned tial health problems due to air quality. “I get over a contentious hearing about whether to
to do that.”
Trump once called Nadler “one of the most sick today when I hear Giuliani referred to as authorize a subpoena for the complete, unre-
egregious hacks in contemporary politics,” and America’s mayor,” Nadler says. “He ought to be dacted Mueller report and all supporting evi-
recently told reporters that Nadler “has been indicted for what he did.” (Giuliani says Nadler dence. Barr had suggested in yet another letter
fighting me for half of my life.” misremembers what happened and that Nad- to Congress that there would be substantial re-
Nadler first got into New York politics with a ler’s accusation “indicates how his partisan dactions in whatever version of the report he
group of friends known as “the kids” or “those emotion has run away with him.”) handed over. Now, Nadler was ratcheting up
damn kids,” depending on the speaker. They Nadler had set his sights on the Judiciary the pressure on the Justice Department by tee-
came of age protesting the Vietnam War and chairmanship almost from the day he arrived ing up subpoenas and a possible [Cont. on 94]
J U LY AU G. S E P T. JAN. 2019 FEB. MARCH MARCH
FALSE START UNDETERRED PEN PALS COUNTEROFFER BUSINESS YO-YO DIPLOMACY

Secretary of State A U.N. watchdog Trump tells a crowd Intelligence chiefs AS USUAL The U.S. Trea-
Mike Pompeo tries reports North Korea in West Virginia that tell Congress North Satellite photos sury Department
to fine-tune Trump is still developing he and Kim “fell Korea is “unlikely” NO DEAL show North Korea announces new
and Kim’s agree- nuclear weapons. in love” and the to abandon its In Hanoi, a second meeting between rebuilding long- sanctions against
ment, but Korean Trump cancels dictator wrote him nuclear program. Trump and Kim ends with no agreement for range-rocket sites. North Korea. Trump
officials deride him Pompeo’s next “beautiful letters.” Trump tweets the denuclearization. But Trump breaks with U.S. reverses them a
as “gangsterlike,” planned visit to officials are “naive” intelligence and takes Kim “at his word” that day later via Twitter.
call the trip “deeply the country. and should “go he didn’t know U.S. student Otto Warmbier
regrettable.” back to school.” was tortured in North Korean custody.

THE WEED ISSUE
THE
HIGH
LIFE
Sixty-five years after he smoked his first joint, Willie Nelson
is America’s most legendary stoner and a walking testament
to the power of weed. It may have even saved his life
B Y PAT R I C K D O Y L E
P H O T O G RA P H S BY JA M E S M I N C H I N I I I
48
Rolling Stone
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT
March 2018 | Rolling Stone | 49

THE WEED ISSUE
He pauses for a second, before telling a joke Nelson’s Farm Aid organization, supporting
he’s told a thousand times. “I don’t know family farmers. Willie’s Reserve is now avail-
anybody that’s ever died from smoking pot. able in six states, and it’s proving “fairly lu-
Had a friend of mine that said a bale fell on crative,” Nelson says. It hasn’t been easy —
him and hurt him pretty bad, though.” since the drug is still federally prohibited,
Nelson’s house is a cedar log cabin, 35 “the regulations change like chameleons,”
miles from Austin, with a sweeping pan- says Annie. “The edibles are actually hard-
oramic view of Hill Country. He picked the er [to produce legally] than the flower. You
spot in the late Seventies, laying four rocks have to have specific kitchens. You have to
where he wanted the foundation built. Down have specific licenses that take years to get.”
ILLIE NEL- a dirt road, there’s an Old West town he had Nelson’s official title is “CTO: chief tast-
son is sitting on a couch at his home, a mod- built for his 1986 film Red Headed Strang- ing officer.” The company even had business
est cabin that overlooks his 700 acres of gor- er. His golf course, Pedernales Cut ’N Putt cards made up. He explains: “If I find some-
geous Texas Hill Country, when he reaches (“No shoes, no shirt, no problem”), is near- thing that’s really good, I say, ‘This is really
into his sweatshirt and produces a small, by. Tonight Nelson will play a benefit for 300 good.’ ” Despite 65 years of pot use, Nelson is
square vaporizer, takes a hit and exhales Farm Aid donors; tomorrow, 3,000 people not a connoisseur; he shrugs when asked for
slowly. “Wanna puff?” he asks. will come here, to Nelson’s Luck Ranch, for his favorite Willie’s Reserve strains. His fa-
Nelson’s wife, Annie, setting down a cup the Luck Reunion, an annual concert held mous stash, he says — the weed that he used
of coffee on a DVD case working as a coast- during South by Southwest. A rainstorm last to keep in a Hopalong Cassidy lunchbox on
er in front of him, speaks up. “Careful with night tore up the property, and a crew has his bus — is a bunch of random kinds that
that, babe,” she says. “You have to sing been working furiously to get things ready. have been given to him by fans or thrown
tonight.” None of this seems to bother Nelson, who onto the stage. Willie’s Reserve VP Elizabeth
Nelson nods and puts it away. He turns just woke up. “Oh, it’s fun,” he says when Hogan has been trying for years to figure
86 this spring and has a history of emphy- asked if he minds all the excitement. (“Willie out what kind of weed Nelson likes. The re-
sema, so Annie, who’s been with Willie for expects everything to go OK,” says his friend sponse, Hogan says, is usually “ ‘I claim ’em
33 years, tries to get him to look out for his Steve Earle. “He’s pretty serene, so every- all’ ” or “ ‘Pot’s like sex — it’s all good, some
lungs, especially on show days. This can be body else just does better than to create is great.’ ” (“He’s kind of a sativa dude,” says
a problem. “He’s super-generous,” she says, drama around him. That organization kind Annie. “He’s already funny, so it just makes
“and if there’s somebody around, he’ll want of works that way.”) him funnier.”)
to offer it and do it with them to make them Sitting with Nelson, you get used to long Pot has been Nelson’s exclusive drug of
feel comfortable.” silences. “Oh, pickin’ a little,” he says when choice since around 1978, when he gave up
Nelson says he stays high “pretty much all
the time.” (“At least I wait 10 minutes in the
morning,” Keith Richards has said.) His rou-
tine, Annie says, is to “take a couple of hits “I’m kind of the canary in the mine, if people are
off the vape and then, an hour or two later,
he might want a piece of chocolate. That
keeps it going. So not a ton [of pot] . . . but he
wondering what happens if you smoke that shit a long
is Willie Nelson.” Annie recently bought Nel-
son an expensive version of a gravity bong — time,” Nelson says. “If I start jerking or shaking, don’t
a fixture of high school house parties, which
can shoot an entire bowl of weed into your give me no more weed. But as long as I’m all right . . . ”
lungs in one hit. “You can use ice water,
which helps cool it off,” Annie says. “And no
paper really helps.”
In addition to being the world’s most leg- asked about what he’s been up to. He also cigarettes and whiskey. He’d had pneumo-
endary country artist, Willie Nelson might just finished an album, Ride Me Back Home. nia four times, and his hangovers had got-
also be the world’s most legendary ston- The first song is about 60 horses on his ten nasty. Plus, he could be a mean drunk.
er. Before Snoop or Cheech and Chong or property, which Nelson bought at auction “I had a pack of 20 Chesterfields, and I threw
Woody Harrelson, there was Willie. He has and saved from slaughterhouses. Nelson had ’em all away and rolled up 20 fat joints, stuck
been jailed for weed, and made into a punch- showed me some of the horses when I visit- ’em in there,” he says. “I haven’t smoked a
line for weed. But look at him now: Still played five years ago. “Billy Boy is still here,” he cigarette since. I haven’t drank that much
ing 100 shows a year, still writing songs, still says. “We lost Roll Em Up Jack. Wilhelme- either, because one will make me want the
curious about the world. “I’m kind of the ca- na the mule is gone. Uh, rattlesnake got her. other — I smoke a cigarette, I wanna drink a
nary in the mine, if people are wondering Babe, you got any of that CBD coffee?” whiskey. Drink a whiskey, want a cigarette.
what happens if you smoke that shit a long Nelson is talking about Willie’s Remedy, That’s me. I can’t speak for nobody else.”
time,” he says. “You know, if I start jerking the coffee that is sold by his cannabis com- He has no doubt where he’d be without
or shaking or something, don’t give me no pany, Willie’s Reserve. The idea for a weed pot: “I wouldn’t be alive. It saved my life, re-
more weed. But as long as I’m all right . . .” business started a few years ago; Nelson had ally. I wouldn’t have lived 85 years if I’d have
Years before weed became legal, he spoke bronchitis and he couldn’t smoke, so Annie kept drinking and smoking like I was when I
about the medical benefits and economic po- started making him weed chocolates. The was 30, 40 years old. I think that weed kept
tential of weed if it were taxed and the prof- recipe took some perfecting — Nelson kept me from wanting to kill people. And proba-
its were put toward education. “It’s nice to eating too many and getting too high, so she bly kept a lot of people from wanting to kill
watch it being accepted — knowing you were had to lower the dosages to five milligrams. me, too — out there drunk, running around.”
right all the time about it: that it was not a She lent some to a friend, and big business Nelson uses the phrase “delete and
killer drug,” says Nelson. “It’s a medicine.” came knocking. They were skeptical — “We fast-forward” a lot. It’s the title of a recent
don’t want to become the Wal-Mart of can- song of his, and it means forgive, forget
Senior music editor PATRICK DOYLE wrote nabis,” says Annie, who headed the nego- and move on — a way to get through painful
the Shawn Mendes cover story in December. tiations. They wanted to keep in line with times. Weed, he says, helps him delete and
50 | ROLLING STONE
fast-forward. “You don’t dwell on shit a lot. a local musician named Fred Lockwood years,” recalls Nelson’s friend Johnny Bush.
The short-term thing they talk about is prob- invited Nelson outside to “blow tea.” Nelson Nelson at his Bush remembers a friend named Hank who
ably true, but it’s probably good for you.” was anxious about trying it — “The U.S. gov- Pedernales studio in worked as a cameraman in San Antonio. A
March. He cut nearly
What do you mean, the short-term thing? ernment . . . said I would go crazy and stick police officer found a joint in Hank’s pocket.
an entire gospel
They say people who smoke pot have a up a bank and . . . murder innocent people,” album that day. “He got 20 years,” Bush says, “and he served
short-term memory. Maybe that’s good, you he wrote in 1988’s Willie: An Autobiography. every day of it.”
know? Nelson thought it was a better idea to hold If you ask Nelson’s friends about some of
Why? on to the joint, pull over later that night the pot-smoking pioneers of country music,
Because [otherwise] you start remember- on his drive home and smoke it. But noth- one name always comes up: JR “Chat the
ing a lot of negative things that you’re not ing happened. Cat” Chatwell, a prominent Western-swing
supposed to remember. And the next thing “It took me about six months to get high,” fiddler who turned every musician he could
you know, you’re back drinking whiskey. he says. He was drinking a lot of Jack Dan- on to weed. He’d been smoking since the
So weed helps you forget about stuff you iel’s and smoking a lot of cigarettes, “so who 1920s, and even recorded a song about it,
don’t wanna think about. knows what gets you high or drunk.” But he 1941’s “Mary Jane,” with his band the Mod-
Yeah. What’s more important is, there’s kept trying, and one night he was onstage in ern Mountaineers (“Pretty little girl named
nothing I can do about what happened a Fort Worth when “I finally realized I’m get- Mary Jane’s got me under her finger/I don’t
while ago. Nothing I can do about what’s ting a little buzz off it,” he says. mind my being there ’cause that’s where I
going to happen in a minute. Right now? I Nelson suspects he’d had pot as a kid — want to linger”). Chat drove to Laredo and
can try to pretty much control everything. his cousin had shared a doctor-prescribed the border to buy his “cheese,” and even
Are there times you don’t remember stuff “asthma cigarette” when they were fish- smoked it onstage. He turned Texas band-
that you wish you had remembered because ing one day. Cannabis was sometimes avail- leader Doug Sahm on to pot and its sophis-
you were high? able at drugstores and dance halls before ticated varieties in San Antonio in the late
Oh, probably. But I forgot it. FDR essentially outlawed it in 1937; Harry 1950s. Years later, Sahm showed up at the
Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal ROLLING STONE San Francisco offices with
N
ELSON SMOKED his first joint Bureau of Narcotics, testified that cannabis a briefcase full of different strains of weed,
in 1954. He was living in Fort had spread from the Southwest U.S. to be- ROLLING STONE founder Jann S. Wenner
Worth, working as a musician come a “national menace.” With Mexico just said, an entirely new concept at the time.
and a part-time radio DJ, and across the border, it was easier to find weed Other musicians were more discreet. In
had been watching the Senate’s Joseph Mc- in Texas than anywhere else in the country. the early Sixties, Nelson toured as a bass
Carthy hearings in a bar one night when But “if you had so much as a seed, you got 20 player for Ray Price, the slick, Nudie-suit-
ROLLING STONE | 51
THE WEED ISSUE
wearing country crooner. “I went to his felt like I looked like a werewolf.” Today he “Chip Carter took me down into the bot-
hotel room one time and noticed he had a says hallucinogens are “not for me. I need tom of the White House, where the bowling
towel under the door,” Nelson says. “I said, to think. And some of those things, I can’t alley is,” Nelson says. Then they went up to
‘You motherfucker’ — so we quit hiding from think on them.” the roof and smoked a joint. Nelson remem-
each other.” He called the weed they were Nelson has been busted for pot sever- bers Carter explaining the surrounding view
smoking back then “Mexican dirt weed.” You al times, though none of the arrests led to — the Washington Monument, the string of
could get a “lid,” a tobacco can containing serious jail time. After a 2010 bust in Sierra lights on Pennsylvania Avenue. “It’s really
about an ounce, for between $10 and $20. Blanca, Texas, when Border Patrol seized six pretty nice up there,” Nelson says.
On the road, pot was a tool to counteract ounces from him, the county attorney sug-
O
other substances. Bush recalls he and Nel- gested Nelson sing “Blue Eyes Crying in the N A SATURDAY AFTERNOON in Aus-
son taking “bennies” (Benzedrine, an early Rain” at the courthouse as punishment. But tin, a couple of dozen people pack
amphetamine) to make drives sometimes Nelson’s most remarkable bust story came into the Lazy Daze coffee and
as long as 500 miles between gigs, where in 1977. He and songwriter Hank Cochran smoke shop, which today has be-
“you’d tie the trailer to the car, put four mu- come a pop-up shop selling Willie’s Reserve
sicians in there,” Bush says. “You’d be on a products. A video is shown of some of Wil-
benny high and you had no appetite. Then lie’s Reserve growers — including Tina Gor-
you smoked a little, and then all of a sud- don, a San Francisco drummer who start-
den your appetite came back and you could ed growing in California’s Emerald Triangle,
sleep. It was a cycle.” the largest cannabis-producing region in the
Nelson had his own cycle. “I used to drink U.S. “I feel like Willie Nelson and what he
a lot,” he says. “And that brings on negative stands for really resonates,” she says. “It’s
thinking. You start thinking about every- a combination of embracing the natural
thing that’s wrong and then you better drink world . . . and ‘stick it to the Man,’ and I love
another or take another shot so it gets better. that.” We also hear from Johnny Casali, who
And it don’t get better.” Nelson spent most of took over his parents’ farm, which includ-
the Sixties in Nashville, writing hits for other ed cannabis plants, then got sentenced to 10
artists, like “Crazy” and “Night Life.” But he years after a neighbor turned him in. Now
wanted to break through on his own. A de- he’s back to work, growing weed for Nelson.
spondent Nelson famously got drunk and Nelson knows he’s one of the lucky ones
laid down in the middle of the city’s main — he gets angry when he thinks about all the
strip, not caring if he got run over. Then people in prison for it. Forty percent of all
there was the time his second wife, Shirley, drug arrests are for pot, with blacks four
Above: In 1978
got a hospital bill in the mail for the birth of times more likely to get busted than whites.
with Waylon
his daughter, whom he had with his soon- Jennings, who “A lot of it is because people get in there who
to-be third wife, Connie. His sister Bob- was not a fan don’t even have the bail money to get out,”
bie attributes his dark times to drinking: of weed he says. “Let those guys out and start work-
“We don’t hold our alcohol well. I might be ing and paying taxes.”
able to drink a little wine myself, but Willie Nelson is talking in his bunkhouse, a one-
Nelson endorsed
can’t drink.” floor wood-paneled space across the drive-
Beto O’Rourke
“With him, the dark side would come during his Senate way from the house. Donald Trump is on
out,” Bush says. “His eyes are brown, and campaign in 2018: MSNBC. Nelson picks up his remote, but it’s
they’d go dark brown, you know. It wasn’t “He’s an old rock old and janky, and the button doesn’t really
a physical mean, he would just get a little & roll picker.” work. “It’s hard to turn him off,” Nelson says.
sarcastic.” This is where Nelson comes to hang out at
Nelson’s true adventures in drugs started night by himself. A round poker table sits in
when he moved to Austin in 1971. He grew had a couple of days off tour, so they head- the middle of the room. (“You don’t wanna
his hair out and started playing shows that ed to the Bahamas. The trip got off to a rocky play poker with him,” says Earle. “He’s not
united hippies and conservative cowboys. start when the airline lost their luggage, but afraid to lose, so he’s not afraid to bet, and
“When Willie Nelson moved back to Texas, they went to Cochran’s boat anyway. After it’s hard to beat a guy like that.”) Behind it,
I stopped getting my ass kicked so much,” two days, they decided to pick up their bags there’s a small portable closet stacked with
says Earle. “I had long hair and cowboy at the airport. A customs agent was waiting cowboy hats. There’s a tub full of golf balls,
boots, and people took offense to that. Wil- with Nelson’s suitcase. The agent held up a and a cupboard full of guns. Across the room
lie moves back, and all of a sudden, within bag of weed he’d found in a pair of Nelson’s from that is a shelf containing Nelson’s black
a year or two, I’m standing out in the cow jeans. He was thrown in jail. “I got deported. belts for martial arts. Nelson will sometimes
pasture listening to the same bands with They said, ‘Don’t come back.’ ” Has he? Nel- stay here until five in the morning, drink-
the same guys that used to kick my ass. My son gives a look and pauses for several sec- ing coffee, watching the news or a Western, FROM TOP: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; RICK KERN/WIREIMAGE
hobby in high school became turning cow- onds. “Fuck, no!” coming up with songs.
boys on to LSD, and they were so grateful.” Nelson’s next stop was the White House. He often has his SiriusXM station, Wil-
“I’m an experimental sort of fellow,” Nel- Before the arrest, he had been invited by lie’s Roadhouse, turned on. He hears a lot
son wrote in his 1988 autobiography. In the Jimmy Carter, for whom Nelson had per- of old friends on it: Johnny Cash, Waylon
Seventies, he experimented with hallucino- formed during his campaign. Nelson was Jennings, Ray Price. Nelson released a song
gens. “In the fairly short period of time that photographed arriving on the back lawn about those friends, “Last Man Standing,” in
I used it, acid taught me several profound wearing tennis shoes and a bandanna. “Oh, 2017. Then he immediately stopped perform-
things,” Nelson wrote. “One was that I must he laughed about it,” he says of Carter’s reac- ing it. “I don’t like going to that place men-
not take acid and try to play a show.” Two tion to his Bahamas bust. “Why not?” tally.” Mortality is his least-favorite subject.
hours before a show, he took 1,500 micro- That night, after singing in the Rose Gar- He didn’t go to the funerals of close friends
grams of LSD: “I seemed to be standing in den, Nelson went to sleep with his wife, Con- like Jennings and Roger Miller, and he makes
chocolate pudding,” he wrote. “My fingers nie, in the Lincoln Bedroom. Then one of a habit of avoiding sadness at all costs. He
began turning into claws on the guitar. I the president’s sons knocked on his door. seems to think that’s another [Cont. on 94]
52 | ROLLING STONE
INSIDE THE SEARCH Meet the

New Pot
Press
FOR A BETTER HIGH
Scientists are taking the guesswork out of weed by
creating the best strains — just for you. By David Browne
I
T WAS ONCE simply understood that, if you At one time, making concentrates was dangerous.
smoked weed, there were good effects and “People essentially had a canister and a PVC pipe and
there were bad. A strain for relaxation might were blasting oil in their garage,” says Mehran Moghadd-
also lead you to gorge an entire box of cookies; am, founder of cannabis-oil company Kurvana. “There’d
a variety that helped ease social anxiety for a be explosions.” Those early days have given way to ad-
party might leave you unable to mutter a single vanced extraction machinery, breaking cannabis plants
coherent sentence. But in the dawning new age down by any number of methods. They can be disman- BROCCOLI
of designer weed, that’s no longer the case. tled by soaking in alcohol, or broken down into a liquid If High Times is the stoner
As researchers have learned, cannabis is an incredi- by way of multi-tentacled CO2 machines. Another method bible, Broccoli is that for
uses butane to extract by way of modern cannabis enthu-
heat in a vacuum. These concen- siasts. Focused on ethical
consumption, it runs sto-
trates are then made into tinctures,
ries like “The Future Looks
tablets and everything in between. So Promising for Female
And yet designer weed isn’t just Bodies and Weed.”
made in a lab; it can also be grown.
At Flowr, a cultivation company in
Canada, Deron Caplan is using a
62,000-square-foot facility to grow
weed to target ailments like insom-
nia or opioid addiction. “We have
the ability to control the breeding
process,” says Caplan. “We can
produce it the same every time.”
According to Dr. Philippe Henry of
the Canadian cannabis tech com-
pany VSSL, alleviating anxiety re-
mains one of the leading goals of
designer strains. “Sometimes peo- KITCHEN TOKE
ple have tried it and had a panic at- The first magazine to sole-
tack,” he says. “So it’s about target- ly cover edibles, Kitchen
ing those people and saying, ‘It’s Toke makes each recipe
three times in a California
OK to smoke weed.’ ”
test kitchen — like an
For entry-level users in par- infused kale salad or the
ticular, concentrates may be key. “get-going granola” from
“One day you’re going to walk into its latest issue.
a CVS and want something for
pain or a hangover, and you’ll find
Advil, Tylenol and one of our proj-
ects,” says Chris Emerson, CEO of
the San Francisco-based company
Level, which offers varying formu-
lations of THC, CBG and other can-
nabinoids as quick-dissolve pills
bly complicated plant. Of the cannabinoids — chemical and sublingual strips. “That day is coming.”
compounds that bond to special receptors in the human But beyond staving off a headache, designer weed also
body — the most well-known are THC, which gets you has more serious potential to help offset effects of Alzhei-
high, and CBD, which can relax or alleviate pain. But mer’s, diabetes or even cancer. “It’s all in its infancy, but
there are also minor ones like THCV, which can lower with research, we’ll be able to call on some of these culti-
your appetite, or CBN, which can aid in sleep. Increasing- vars and pit them against whatever symptom of disease,”
ly, cannabis producers are also focusing on terpenes, oils says Dr. Lyle Oberg, Flowr’s chief medical officer. Oberg
that not only give off that pungent aroma but can also feels weed’s anti-inflammatory aspects, especially once DOPE GIRLS
change how the cannabinoids affect you. “We separate refined, could ward off or lessen the chance of seizures This feminist zine runs
the plant and then rebuild, based on what we want it to or help with psoriasis. “A lot of this stuff has been limited stories like an ode to an
imaginary pot-loving
be,” says Ryan Littman, CEO of the cannabis extraction because there isn’t even testing methodology to do the
woman who rolls “perfect
company Herbology. “We start with one specific symp- studies we want to do,” says Moghaddam. “So definitely joints out of gold-leaf
tom — does it make you hungry or help you sleep? — and in the future, we will be a lot more specific with some of papers, even with her
build things up.” those claims — but with good science behind it.” acrylic nails.”
ROLLING STONE | 53
ILLUSTRATION BY YUTA ONODA
THE WEED ISSUE
BEYOND BLUNTS
Roll it up and smoke it if you want, but these days there’s
more exciting ways to partake. Here’s a few of our favorites
PUFFCO PEAK KURVANA ASCND

CARTRIDGES
This digital bong lets you do
“dabs,” i.e., vape concentrates California-based Kurvana’s new
at extreme temps, giving a rush line of single-strain extracts
of THC and a high like no other. re-create your favorite bud.
$379.99 F RO M $ 4 0 fo r .5 oz .
Turn On, Tune

VESSEL
This powerful battery works with In . . . Work Out?
most standard vape cartridges
and offers long life and multiple Pot has a reputation for slowing
settings for a personalized high. people down — but some athletes
$ 1 00
use it to ‘activate’ performance
A
BOUT A HALF HOUR before one
of his swims near his Bay Area
home, entrepreneur and gym
rat Jim McAlpine does something seem-
ingly counterproductive: He tosses down
a hefty dose of THC. “About 10 or 20 min-
utes in, I start to feel it, and I get a sec-
ond wind,” he says. “I don’t like to use
the word ‘high’ — I like ‘activated.’ ”
STONEDWARE McAlpine is one of many athletes
GEOPIPE who’ve learned what weed can add to
Cute enough for the workouts. Currently in its sixth year, the
coffee table, functional
420 Games, founded by McAlpine, fea-
enough for true stoners.
FROM $80 tures 4.2-mile races, arm wrestling and
jujitsu, designed to demonstrate that
weed doesn’t mean being stuck to the
WANA GUMMIES couch. (Recently sold to media company
The “Sativa Sour” is Colorado’s Civilized, the games are coming to L.A.
bestselling edible, but Wana and San Francisco this year.)
also makes indicas and hybrids.
While the effects can vary — “it makes
$24 for 20 1 0mg pieces
some people less coordinated,” McAlpine
admits — some physicians say that weed
PEAK RESCUE RUB could help with repetitive exercises like
This Oregon-made topical might running and pumping iron. “Cannabis
not get you high, but with THC raises dopamine levels in the brain,” says
and Chinese herbal extracts, it Dr. Joseph Rosado, medical director of a
can ease nearly any pain. cannabis clinic in Florida. “So you can
$30 for 1 oz .
focus on what’s going on.” DAVID BROWNE
BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: COURTESY GREEN HOP; HARLEE CASE; NWCC

TOP RIGHT: OLGA RODRIGUEZ/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK.
Welcome to GREEN
HOP
LADIES OF
PARADISE
NW
CANNABIS
Potlandia This hip-
hop-themed
A store and
creative
CLUB
Think a dive
Since Oregon went legal dispensary agency, bar, but for
in 2015, Portland’s weed was estab- Ladies of weed. This
scene has exploded — lished last Paradise has bring-your-
now, with more than 150 summer as developed a own-pot
dispensaries, it’s become a beacon of vinyl, art and social justice. reputation for experiential weed events smoking space charges a small fee for
a premiere destination Customers can peruse strains like “Illmat- with an inclusive, feminist twist — like a a membership, which makes it private,
for cannabis tourism in ic” and “Jigga,” while profits go in part sparkly hair-extensions station, or a wall therefore safe from state laws that make
the United States to help train people of color to join the of screens provoking you to consider smoking inside illegal.
marijuana industry. sexism in advertising. AMANDA CHICAGO LEWIS
54 | ROLLING STONE
SEX AND THE STONER

Lubes, chocolates and vape pens
are pairing THC with libido
enhancers to bring sexy back
A
S THE CANNABIS market ex-
plodes, so has the market
for pot products made for
those who want to both
get high and get off. This
could be especially good
for women, who on aver-
age climax during sex less often than men.
Now, some experts believe the growing
acceptance of pot could help change what
has been dubbed “the orgasm gap.” “Our en-
docannabinoid system controls moods and
cycles,” says Gabrielle Noel, a sex and can-
nabis writer. “So women in particular stand
to benefit.”
Massage oils and lubes containing THC
and CBD basically do for the clitoris what
Viagra does for penises. “It can support the
arousal process by relaxing blood vessels,”
says Kiana Reeves, director of community
education for Foria, a company that makes “I was more sensitive to every movement, Scarlet Ravin. “Being lifted in a sexual state
weed-infused sex products. “This blood flow which made the orgasm explosive.” is super-transcendent.”
can enhance sensation, natural lubrication Generally, a topical lube doesn’t get you Women who Of course, that’s the reason weed and sex
and access to orgasm.” Adds Noel, “It also high, but researchers are looking for ways are frequent have always gone together: Relaxing and let-
makes anal way easier.” to make sex more psychotropic, incorpo- marijuana users ting go can put people in the mood. “Smok-
Anna Lee, co-founder of sex-tech com- rating traditional aphrodisiacs (think Am- are 2.1 TIMES ing can get you in a more tranquil state,”
pany Lioness, tried out Foria’s weed lube azonian plants) with THC. Vape company MORE LIKELY TO says Noel. “It helps me to feel more inti-
ORGASM than
along with her company’s “smart” vibrator, Dosist’s line of experience-targeted pens mate.” Cannabis can focus awareness, in-
those who only
a toy that records biofeedback such as mus- includes “Passion” and “Arouse.” Edibles use it sometimes, crease fascination with sensual touch, and
cle contractions. She found that with the maker 1906 offers High Love chocolates. according to a give the familiar a rush of novelty.
THC-infused product, her orgasms lasted And the weed-extraction company White new study — “You can use cannabis to relax so you
three minutes — nine times longer than av- Fox just launched a line of vape pens spe- even if they didn’t can be in the moment and [get] out of your
erage when she masturbates. cifically made to turn people on. “I focused smoke before sex. head,” says Reeves. Essentially, it can accen-
“There was a deepening in sensations that on cannabis alchemy with other herbs to tuate latent desires that were already there —
made my body feel in a trance,” says Lee. enhance one’s sexual side,” says co-founder waiting to be sparked. TINA HORN
How can I avoid What’s the difference Which is better? What’s the most Wait, what are
getting paranoid when I between vaping and I think it all depends on common question you terpenes?
ASK A
smoke? smoking? the person. If you’re try- hear? Terpenes are pretty
I’d recommend a hybrid Vapes generally have ing to just smoke purely Probably which strain has much just essential oils.
BUDTENDER
that tests high in CBD. a concentration of 60 THC, then vapes are the the most THC. And this For example, there’s
In our bodies, we have to 90 percent THC, way to go. Personally, is where I take the time limonene, which will give
something called the but flower is normally I love rolling a joint. I to educate people — it’s you a refreshing feeling,
endocannabinoid around 13 to 20 percent, just think it’s part of the not always about the THC more energy. Pure THC
In legal states, system, receptors that sometimes 30 — but for lifestyle of being a stoner, content. When you go will get you stoned,
dispensary clerks connect cannabinoids to the most part you’re only you know? I love having get a drink at the bar, you but the terpene profile
have become the influence the serotonin smoking the concen- a vape around for when never ask for Everclear — influences how you feel.
de-facto experts on levels in our brain. And trates, so you can just I’m traveling and I don’t no one enjoys drinking And because every-
modern weed if our system becomes take a few hits on vape have the resources to roll Everclear — but that’s the body’s body is different,
products and how to imbalanced and we’re and you can feel stoned. a joint. But anybody who highest alcohol content. each terpene profile will
use them. We talked missing the CBD, we can Whereas with flower, you has a job where smoking What really influences influence someone’s high
with V, a budtender at experience anxiety and probably have to smoke cannabis could affect someone’s high is differently. I recommend
COOKIES MELROSE stress. By taking CBD, a little bit more, and their employment, I actually going to be [the people smell the flower
IN LOS ANGELES, we’re filling those recep- you’re also smoking the would recommend using THC content] paired with and see what [their] body
so she could tell us tors and allowing us to fats and lipids that are a vape. It’s much more the terpene profile in the reacts to. Choose based
how best to get high. balance that out. in the plant. discreet. cannabis. off that.
ROLLING STONE | 55
ILLUSTRATION BY LARS LEETARU
THE WEED ISSUE
GROW
CannaCraft uses about
140,000 pounds of
weed per year to make
the oil for its products.
THE INDUSTRIAL
WEED REVOLUTION
F
ROM VAPES TO EDIBLES TO
cannabinoid-spiked beer,
pot is now found in a va-
riety of surprising (and
often discreet) places. But
how does all that psycho-
tropic punch fit into such
perfect little packages? To find out, we vis-
ited CannaCraft — a veritable Willy Wonka
factory of marijuana delights, hidden in
DRY EXTRACT
plain sight in Santa Rosa, California — the
During the drying Dried cannabis is
folks behind some of the state’s most pop-
process, temperature placed in a machine
ular concentrate brands. They spoke to us control is crucial to that applies high
preserve delicate ter- pressure to rotate
about how they turn raw marijuana plants
penes, says CannaCraft “supercritical” fluid
into concentrated cannabis oils — and how co-founder Dennis CO2 through the plant
Hunter. Because some matter, stripping oil
they put it back together to create the
evaporate in warm from resin glands on
ideal high. By EJ Dickson rooms, “we want to the leaves and flowers.
dry it slowly and at The oil contains can-
low temperatures,” he nabinoids as well as
explains. terpenes.
56 | ROLLING STONE
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAYCE CLIFFORD
REFINE VAPE
This thick yellow goo is raw can- Vape cartridges are Canna-
nabis oil, which contains canna- Craft’s bestselling product;
binoids, terpenes and waxes. “It the company moves about
has that soft-serve ice cream look 150,000 per month. “It’s just
to it” because of plant pigments such an easy delivery method,”
and moisture, says Hunter. says Hunter.
EAT DRINK
Few terpenes are To make a nonalco-
added back to these holic THC-infused
fruity gummies, so beer, the cannabis oil
the smell and taste is emulsified, making
of cannabis are min- it water-soluble.
imal. They contain This also means the
about 10 mg of THC, high kicks in faster:
a relatively small “You’ll feel it in 10 to
dose intended to 15 minutes,” says for-
give you “a nice little mulations manager
effect,” Hunter says. Timothy Beauchamp.
DISTILL
Different vapor temperatures are

applied to the raw oil to isolate each
terpene and cannabinoid, so they can
be added into products, giving the
user varying effects. The end result is
a highly concentrated amber-colored
oil. Further refinement produces
an even higher-potency oil, which
concentrates the cannabinoids and
almost completely removes terpenes.
ROLLING STONE | 57
THE WEED ISSUE
Bierman asks who in the room is the most

Bierman
recent hire. A man raises his hand. He is
(left) and
Modlin Employee #2,209. Bierman smiles.
in Los “Can you imagine how great it would be to
Angeles be Employee #2,209 at Amazon?”
in March
I
F YOU DON’T LIVE OUT WEST, you may
not know MedMen yet, but Bierman
and his partner, Andrew Modlin, want
to change that. MedMen will soon have 37
wood-paneled Apple-like stores — down to
budtenders who can check you out with
iPhones — in five states, with prime loca-
tions near the Vegas Strip, adjacent to Bev-
erly Hills and on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Bierman often makes a comparison between
MedMen and Whole Foods, and it’s true.
MedMen offers the same kind of clean-aisled,
affluent-white-people shopping experience,
and like Whole Foods, MedMen’s products
are high-end and delicious.
They are not targeting Seth Rogen — rath-
er, the chardonnay moms who haven’t
smoked pot since the 2002 Gamma Phi Beta
formal got a little weird.
Everything is happening. Spike Jonze just
made a two-minute film for MedMen, narrat-
ing the weed journey from our Founding Fa-
thers’ hemp farms to minorities being jailed
for possession to a couple entering their
idyllic home, carrying a red MedMen bag.
MedMen is opening pot-processing plants
and farms from Nevada to Florida. There’s a
new MedMen clothing line. In 2018, the com-
pany jumped from 200 employees to 1,200.
“It was just like, ‘Hey, let’s rent out the
Marriott and have a job fair, and let’s hire
BIG WEED’S
200 people if they show up and they can fog
a mirror,’ ” recalls Bierman. “Because we’ve
got crazy needs.”
Those crazy needs were met with fresh
GROWING PAINS
capital when MedMen went public last year
on the Canadian Securities Exchange — can-
nabis firms are still prevented from trading
in the United States. There was a valuation
of MedMen at $1 billion, giving the company
MedMen wants to be the Apple Store of pot, but will scandals “unicorn” status in the venture-capital world.
and lawsuits derail the dream? By Stephen Rodrick Early this year, the company announced it
made $29.9 million in revenue in the second
A
quarter, an astounding rise from a year ago.
DAM BIERMAN IS HOSTING what he calls a family reunion for about 60 employ- That was the good news. Less great was
that MedMen still lost $65 million in the lat-
ees at MedMen, the country’s most prominent retail-weed company. The Med- est quarter. Then, in January, deposed CFO
Men CEO is the size of a baseball middle infielder, a position he used to play James Parker sued the company for wrong-
ful dismissal, alleging, among other things,
in college. He has the temperament as well: fierce eyes, buzz-cut hair and a
a company spending addiction where Med-
brash style that has been a boost and a bust for MedMen. He stands in front Men paid for chauffeured Escalades for Bier-
of a Culver City, California, conference room with a PowerPoint clicker in his man and a custom $160,000 Tesla SUV for
Modlin. Parker also claimed MedMen char-
hand and talks like the guy trying to sell you a ShamWow on late-night TV,
tered jets, built safe rooms for its founders,
but with a prosperity-gospel twist. He begins with the pain-relieving potential of marijuana. + bought a $300,000 conference table, and
“If cannabis can replace pills, then maybe I’ll get a better job,” says Bierman, clapping his hands. spent the same amount to bring Bierman’s
marriage counselor on staff as a life coach.
Bierman was a suit man just three years ago, but now he’s mirroring his clients in a purple hood- (Parker declined comment.) Shortly after
ie and sweatpants. “Or maybe there’s a city I’d rather live in. Or maybe there’s a wife or husband the company went public, both the 31-year-
I’d rather be with. I don’t know, but live your life!” + Weed is his calling. He raps about how pot old Modlin and 37-year-old Bierman took
millions in bonuses from the still-in-the-red
is therapeutic and calorie-free. He talks about how marijuana saved his marriage. He talks of a company, a legal move but one that did not
future where MedMen is doing $1 billion in business, wait, make it $1.5 billion, no, $2 billion. endear them to potential investors.
58 | ROLLING STONE
PHOTOGRAPH BY SAMUEL TROTTER
THE WEED ISSUE
Parker also accused Bierman of running a They started with a monthly budget of renowned for encouraging people to lay
bro-culture company, coming to work high $1,200 — they just spent $53 million for a around eating leftover Chipotle while watch-
and ignoring cocaine use at a company func- retail license in Florida, a whopping figure ing Saved by the Bell. Still, his audience is
tion. He alleged that management referred even more whopping since the Sunshine spellbound and breaks into applause.
to a staffer as a “pussy bitch.” Bierman re- State is at least two years away before tran- It’s time to go, but I can’t get Sergei Pol-
putedly called an L.A. councilman a midg- sitioning from a medical-marijuana state to unin out of my head. I Google him and find
et Negro. Parker claimed that Bierman in- a recreational one. While MedMen points to the New York Times headline ANTI-GAY AND
structed him to go up to a tardy co-worker’s the multibillion-dollar market in Florida for SEXIST POSTS COST SERGEI POLUNIN A ROLE
hotel room and “take his fist out of his boy- just medical use, the real money to be made IN PARIS. Turns out Polunin’s career is in the
friend’s ass and tell him to get to work.” is in recreation. MedMen’s Florida invest- toilet because of a dozen anti-gay Instagram
Bierman and Modlin strenuously contest posts. Oh, yeah, he also has a Vladimir Putin
all of the charges. Bierman calls the claims tat and has professed love for Donald Trump.
“complete garbage,” maintaining that Mod- MedMen’s Vegas Let’s recap. MedMen, reeling from claims of
grand opening,
lin is openly gay and that his wife is Latina, bigotry, is promoting a bigot dancer/author-
October 2018
so accusations of bigotry don’t make sense. itarian fanboy as its role model.
Others took the charges seriously. Med- No matter. Earlier, Bierman dismisses the
Men holds one of 10 precious medical- skeptics who have suggested MedMen con-
marijuana licenses in New York. Still, the centrate on just California and simply con-
New York Medical Cannabis Industry Asso- solidate its gains until there is profitabil-
ciation ejected the company from the orga- ity. “We’re not playing like that,” he says.
nization based on the allegations. None of it “There is no reason we cannot be the biggest
helped MedMen’s bottom line, and the stock marijuana company on the planet. With that
plummeted from $7.57 to $2.90. (It currently platform, we can actually change the world.”
hovers near $3 a share.) This was a bummer There’s two ways this can go: Bierman
for Bierman and Modlin because — in finan- and his partner, Modlin, make a billion dol-
cial parlance — they own a shit-ton of stock. lars. Or funding ends with investors frustrat-
ed that the duo have created a company that
B
ACK IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM, Bier- becomes the Pets.com of the weed business.
man suggests today’s talk has noth-
“There is no reason we cannot be
S
ing to do with all the mishigas — he MELL ALL THE PRETTY FLOWERS. Well,
just wants to reconnect with his company actually you can’t smell the flower,
that has quintupled in size over the past 14 the biggest marijuana company a.k.a. weed, because it’s behind her-
months. He’s been traveling the country to metic plastic domes on shiny wood tables in
various MedMen outposts on a self-styled the Beverly Hills-adjacent 2,500-square-foot
“Why Not?” tour.
on the planet,” says MedMen’s CEO. MedMen store. I’m getting a tour from Mod-
It’s equal parts creation story and reviv- lin, who is all rusty-haired chill, a contrast
alist tent show. Weed is now a cutthroat “We can actually change the world.” to the seriously-not-chill Bierman. “Some
capitalist endeavor, but Bierman styles it things he can look at very aggressively, I can
as one part crusade — MedMen says it do- look at very calmly,” Modlin says.
nates millions to weed-decriminalization ef- ment is so large that it’s making a big bet: He is wearing a red MedMen letter jacket,
forts — and one part transformational expe- Hold until Florida goes legal in 2021 — at the the defining item of clothing for the brand.
rience, with billboards around L.A. reading earliest — and look like geniuses, or go broke He is eager to share how the MedMen retail
WELCOME TO THE NEW NORMAL — WITNESS before then and look like non-geniuses. experience differs from the old days of 2017.
HISTORY NOW AT MEDMEN.COM. Bierman talks for more than an hour. At “You’d go into the dispensary and they
Right now, MedMen is well-positioned in one point, he flips on the screen a photo- have this big jar of weed, and they put it up
the Golden State, where it claims to control graph of a muscular male dancer. He asks if to your face and then people are coughing
seven percent of retail sales in the largest anyone knows his name. Someone suggests into it or sticking their hands in,” says Mod-
recreational-pot marketplace in the world. Robert Pattinson. Nope. Bierman gives the lin, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “So we de-
It also has a stronghold in Las Vegas, with room a “you dummies” look. signed these special pods that you could
a store strategically placed near the airport “That’s Sergei Polunin,” he says. “To me, have the flower in them, but they’re teth-
for the arriving and departing hedonist. The he’s the ‘why not?’ closest to MedMen and ered down to the table.”
rest of its bets, specifically in Florida, New the opportunities we have.” A MedMen store does have an Apple-like
York and Illinois, are educated risks that Bierman tells the story of Polunin, a quality — something MedMen has stressed
could either make or bankrupt MedMen. Ukrainian prodigy who rose to the top of in fundraising documents — with floor-to-
Bierman is a fidgety sort, and he bounces the ballet world and then quit so he could ceiling windows, and roving budtenders
around the room talking about 2009, when have a life. “He talks about never having a willing to answer all your questions. The
he and Modlin were running a marketing cheeseburger,” says Bierman, his voice going walls feature giant posters of loafer-wearing
company and were asked to do some work quiet. “He didn’t have any friends or a so- men carrying red MedMen shopping bags
for a medical-marijuana shop. At the time, cial life. This is like LeBron three years in the and living their best life. Next to the pods,
Bierman was three months in arrears on NBA saying, ‘I quit.’ ” there are screens you can click on and learn
rent. He was astounded when he learned the He pauses for a moment and continues: all about indica and sativa levels. You can
DENISE TRUSCELLO/GETTY IMAGES
elderly woman running the store was raking “This is a version of ‘why not?’ I don’t know learn about terpenes, natural chemical com-
in $300,000 a year. where I’m gonna be tomorrow. Am I gonna pounds found in cannabis that can help with
“If the crazy blue-haired lady and her wake up? You have to do what makes you anxiety, insomnia and, perhaps, insolvency.
dirty-ass dispensary can make 300 grand, happy. I don’t care what my wife or husband Not everyone is sold by the approach.
why is it that I can’t pay my rent?” Bierman has to say. I need to live my life, because to- MedMen’s fancy digs spell the death of the
tells his disciples in Culver City. morrow the whole thing might be gone.” pioneer era in California pot that raged for
A year later, Bierman and Modlin opened Seize-the-day rhetoric is an interest- the first decade of medical-marijuana le-
their first med-pot shop in Marina Del Rey. ing take for a company selling a product galization. “When California [Cont. on 94]
60 | ROLLING STONE
State governments have tried to make it

difficult for legal farms to sell on the illicit
market. As part of a compromise with the
feds, states had planned “traceability sys-
tems” to track every legal cannabis plant
from seed to sale. In practice, almost none
of these systems work. Due to insufficient
software, constant outages and a flawed
premise, traceability systems have become
a Potemkin village of the cannabis industry.
“The traceability mess is causing
small businesses to lose money,” says
Dominic Corva, executive director of the
Seattle-based Center for the Study of Can-
nabis and Social Policy. In Washington state,
he estimates, “A third of the producers are
going out of business. They’re growing a
final crop and getting out.”
Among the states that have legalized
adult-use cannabis, each has struggled to
keep track of the product in its own way. In
Colorado, up until early 2018, anyone with a
doctor’s recommendation could legally grow
An illegal dispensary in up to 99 marijuana plants — an amount that
Compton, California, is
could produce about $500,000 worth of pot
raided by the L.A. County
sheriff’s department in 2018. every year. In Oregon, a recent audit found
that the agency charged with overseeing
medical cannabis “has only four permanent
staff to inspect roughly 14,000 grow sites.”
AMERICA’S BOOM
And in California, pretty much everything
that could have gone wrong has. The Golden
State waited 22 years to begin implement-
ing a system of regulation for medical mari-
IN ILLEGAL WEED juana. In that time, the industry became ac-

customed to taking legal risks, underpaying
taxes and enjoying the benefits of a free-for-
all. Consumers now generally assume mari-
Legalization has meant nearly every part of the market is juana businesses with storefronts and adver-
thriving — including the illicit one. By Amanda Chicago Lewis tising to be legal, even if they’re not. In L.A.,
city officials have estimated illegal store-
fronts outnumber legal ones by a factor of 10.
I
T SEEMS FORMER Attorney General been skirting the law for years could barely In 2018, the Los Rocourt knows California’s illicit market is
Jeff Sessions was correct about afford the costs of becoming legal even if Angeles City driving dollars away from the legal business
one thing: Pot legalization has they wanted to. Attorney filed 170 he’s fought so hard to build, but as a long-
cases involving
provided cover for criminals, “The reality is I’ve been advocating for time marijuana activist, he sympathizes with
138 ILLEGAL
allowing illicit production to thrive. decades for exactly what’s happening right MARIJUANA
the cultivators and dispensary owners who
Experts estimate that at least 30 now,” says Guy Rocourt, chief products of- BUSINESSES. haven’t been able to make the jump because
percent of cannabis cultivated ficer at California cannabis brand Papa & Approximately 95 of profit margins and local bans.
in legal states is being “diverted” to illicit Barkley, best known for its topical salves. were shut down. “The illicit marketplace, I do want to see
markets across the country. “But is it painful? Absolutely. We are trying it die off,” Rocourt says. “But if you’re in a
The biggest problem has been the lure to support small farmers who used to make municipality that has not figured out the law
of higher wholesale prices in places where $4,000 to $5,000 a pound selling illegally or regulations or given you a clear pathway
weed is still illegal, which often discourages to New York. Now that a pound in the legal to make your business legitimate, I say keep
growers and traffickers in legal states from market is more like $1,000, how can they doing what you’re doing until the will of the
going legit. Many of the growers that have still have profitable farms?” people is heard.”
CANNABUSINESS BY THE NUMBERS

JAE C HONG/AP IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
$44 $8.5 $22 375 34 665 $43

billion in estimated billion in estimated billion forecast thousand new million U.S. adults thousand pounds million in Colorado
total marijuana sales in total marijuana sales in legal cannabis jobs expected used marijuana of legal marijuana tax revenue
the illicit U.S. in the legal U.S. marijuana sales to be created regularly, as sold in Colorado for January and
market in 2018 market in 2018 in 2022 by 2022 of 2017 in 2017 February 2019
SOURCES 2018 Annual Marijuana Business Factbook; Yahoo News/Marist Poll: Weed & The American Family; Colorado Department of Revenue
ROLLING STONE | 61
THE WEED ISSUE
“It’s not a question of if we’re going to get a

federal law,” says Sen. Ron Wyden, a Demo-
crat who represents pot-legal Oregon and is
the ranking member of the Senate Finance
Committee. “It’s a question of when.” At the
national level, Wyden says, politicians are
eager to bring order to the new marijuana
reality, as half a dozen states, from Illinois
to New Mexico, weigh legalization this year
alone. “People are seeing that we’re headed
to a crazy quilt of state laws,” he says, “and
it would really make sense to have a federal,
uniform set of rules.”
The most surprising development is that
congressional efforts seem to have backing
from Attorney General William Barr. In a pre-
vious stint leading the Justice Department
in the 1990s, Barr authored a report titled
“The Case for More Incarceration,” and he’s
made clear he opposes marijuana reform as
a personal matter. But during his nomina-
tion hearing in January, Barr vowed to end
his predecessor Jeff Sessions’ crusade against
state-legal pot, citing industry investments
that were made under assurances by the
Obama administration that pot businesses
were not a priority for federal prosecution.
Barr then threw down a challenge for Con-
gress. “The current situation is untenable
and really has to be addressed,” he said, lik-
ening state marijuana reforms to a “backdoor
nullification” of national law. (Since the early
1970s, marijuana has been classified under
the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule I
THE CANNABIS drug, on par with heroin.) “If we want states

to have their own laws,” Barr said, “then let’s
get there. And let’s get there the right way.”
REVOLUTION COMES T
HE “RIGHT WAY” is ripe for debate on
Capitol Hill, and in the 2020 race for
president.
TO THE CAPITOL
Marijuana businesses have rallied be-
hind a quick-and-dirty bill that would give
legal cover to the $10 billion industry. Sens.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cory Gard-
ner (R-Colo.), each hailing from marijuana-
Pot policy is suddenly a hot topic for federal lawmakers —
legal states, have co-sponsored the Strength-
and on the 2020 campaign trail By Tim Dickinson ening the Tenth Amendment Through En-
trusting States (STATES) Act, reintroduced
S
in April.
INCE THE DAWN OF the Drug War, federal legislators have stood by, or even ap- The STATES Act does not remove marijua-
na from the Controlled Substances Act. But
plauded, as millions of Americans have racked up convictions for marijuana of- it does exempt pot-legal states from federal
fenses — with arrests increasing in the latest FBI crime statistics, despite nearly a marijuana enforcement, if they adhere to
baseline standards. The bill also tweaks laws
dozen states having already legalized cannabis. But over the past two years,
to improve industry access to banking and to
and now accelerating with Democrats in charge of the House of Representatives, grant pot businesses federal tax deductions.
federal marijuana reform has become a hot topic on the Hill. Congress is weighing “It’s a very simple bill, and I think that is the
selling point,” says Michael Correia, direc-
measures to tax and regulate cannabis; to open the federal banking system to pot
tor of government relations for the National
businesses; to allow the industry to claim federal tax deductions; and, most powerfully, to repair Cannabis Industry Association. In March, a
the harms created by generations of prohibitionist policies. “The federal momentum around House committee voted to advance an even
narrower bill, the Secure and Fair Enforce-
marijuana reform is at the highest we’ve ever seen,” says Queen Adesuyi, who coordinates feder- ment Banking Act; it would safeguard banks
al policy for the Drug Policy Alliance. The issue has gained traction across the political spectrum, that serve state-regulated pot businesses
from right-wing Alaska Rep. Don Young to moderate Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to from charges of money-laundering.
Other reformers in Congress, however, re-
left-wing superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even former GOP House Speaker John Boeh- ject this industry-centered approach. They
ner has joined the board of a marijuana firm. “It’s an unprecedented moment,” Adesuyi says. see pot businesses building on top of the in-
62 | ROLLING STONE
ILLUSTRATION BY HEADS OF STATE
THE WEED ISSUE
equality created by the racist enforcement of cedes, “There is a generational issue. Some cause they’re “trafficking” in a federally
the Drug War. In February, Rep. Barbara Lee of the members are having a struggle. We controlled substance, these firms cannot
(D-Calif.) introduced a nonbinding resolution still have some convincing to do.” claim routine tax deductions. The next step,
called “Realizing Equitable & Sustainable In the Senate, roadblocks abound. “The S.421, systematically destigmatizes mari-
Participation in Emerging Cannabis Trades,” Senate is not where the House is,” says juana under federal law. It would prevent
or RESPECT, co-sponsored by Ocasio- Wyden. But it’s not unthinkable that a bill people in state-legal businesses from getting
Cortez, among others. Noting that “less could advance. Adesuyi of DPA insists that arrested or being hit with civil penalties;
than one percent of the cannabis industry is Booker’s bill — building off the success of empower veterans, whose health care is ad-
owned or operated by people of color,” the criminal-justice reform last Congress — hits ministered federally, to obtain medical mar-
resolution calls on lawmakers and the indus- a bipartisan “sweet spot.” Gardner says ijuana in states where it is legal; grant mari-
try to address the “most egregious effects of that the STATES Act, which has four GOP juana businesses access to banks; and create
the War on Drugs on communities of color.” co-sponsors, can pass if it reaches the Sen- a path for people with past marijuana viola-
The Marijuana Justice Act, introduced by Pot ate floor: “If it has a vote, it has over 60 tions to expunge their records — opening ac-
Lee in the House and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in Prohibition votes.” He believes Trump supports reform; cess to federal housing and student aid, and
the Senate, likewise insists that the case for by the others are skeptical. “It’s not like we have guaranteeing that marijuana isn’t a barrier
Numbers
legalization is rooted in the harms prohibi- Rand Paul as president,” Khanna says. “I for immigration and naturalization.
tion has inflicted, disproportionately, on mi- don’t think we’re ever going to get this ad- S.420 is the capstone bill. It would re-
1,394,515
nority communities. “To say that we’re just Total number of ministration on board, and that means it’s move marijuana from the DEA’s schedules.
going to legalize and move forward, without drug-possession going to have to be a new president that gets In turn, the federal government would get
addressing the damage that has been done, arrests in 2017 this done.” a cut of pot revenues, through an excise like
without addressing the injustices that have Given that trajectory, reformers are the government now imposes on alcohol.
been heaped upon people, to me is unac- 43 thrilled the Democratic field is rallying be- The bill would require all pot enterprises to
ceptable,” Booker tells ROLLING STONE. Percentage of hind the Marijuana Justice Act. Khanna, register with the Treasury Department, as
those arrests
The Marijuana Justice Act begins by re- who co-chairs Bernie Sanders’ campaign, well as offer support to states that continue
that were for
moving marijuana from the Controlled Sub- marijuana believes centering legalization in the elec- to ban marijuana and don’t want a flood of
stances Act and making it legal under federal tion will give the next Democratic president imports from neighboring legal states.
law. It adds provisions to expunge arrest rec- $3.6 BILLION “a mandate to implement change.” Booker, Wyden is optimistic that even conserva-
ords for past marijuana offenses, and offers Amount the U.S. himself a candidate, insists the moral core tives are movable on this issue. He points to
a pathway to early release for many now be- spends annually of his bill can help it transcend partisanship. a bipartisan victory in the last Congress: “It
hind bars. Most controversially, the bill cre- to enforce mari- “This is so much bigger than presidential pol- wasn’t very long ago when I introduced the
juana prohibition
ates a reinvestment fund of at least $500 mil- itics,” he says. “This has been a driving pur- first hemp bill, but we ended up in a rela-
lion a year — a form of reparations for the pose since I watched firsthand how privi- tively short period of time having a McCon-
3.73
communities hit hardest by the Drug War. Times more likely leged people could use marijuana without nell/Wyden bill,” he says. “And it is now law.”
Introduced with little fanfare last Con- for a black person fear of repercussion, and how poor kids and Hemp is no longer governed by the Con-
gress, the bill is a hot ticket today, gaining to be arrested for minority kids have no margins whatsoever.” trolled Substances Act, legalizing not only
co-sponsorship by six of the 2020 presiden- marijuana than a If the Marijuana Justice Act is a statement the industrial fiber but also the market in
tial contenders in the Senate. “Too many white person bill — designed to guide the national debate — CBD, expected to grow to $16 billion by 2025.
lives have been ruined because of the War other lawmakers are developing detailed leg- Advocates say the tipping point on federal
62
on Drugs,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) islation to disentangle marijuana from fed- pot policy can’t be reached without intense
Percentage of
tweeted in February, declaring her “proud” Americans who
eral criminal statutes. In the House, Judiciary public pressure. In a web broadcast from
support of Booker’s bill. “We must change support full mari- Committee chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) is said his Senate office, Booker, with Lee, made
the system.” juana legalization to be working on a comprehensive legaliza- a direct appeal to the nation’s pot consum-
tion package. And from his perch in the Sen- ers. “If you are digesting an edible, if you are
I
N GRIDLOCKED WASHINGTON, where ate, Wyden has introduced a series of bills smoking,” Booker said with a smile, “don’t
funding the daily operation of govern- that — in a nod to the mythical numerology think, ‘Hey, I’ve got my rights.’ No. Please be
ment is a heroic feat, near-term pros- of stoner culture — start with S.420. concerned about all the people who are suf-
pects for pot reform are uncertain. Rep. Ro Wyden’s bills offer a three-step path to fering because of this prohibition.”
Khanna (D-Calif.), a lead sponsor of the Mar- the full federal legalization, regulation and “If just the people who have used mari-
ijuana Justice Act, says he’s “optimistic” the taxation of pot. The least controversial juana in the United States of America got be-
House can pass a bill centered on legaliza- bill, S.422, would normalize pot business- hind this bill,” Booker said, teeing up Lee to
tion and record expungement. But he con- es under the IRS tax code. Currently, be- finish the sentence, “we’d win tomorrow!”
Undoing the Damage of the Drug War

As entrepreneurs cash in on cannabis, the disproportionately black and brown populations who were prosecut-
ed for the exact same behavior remain haunted by it. A criminal record, even for something as minor as weed
possession, can prevent someone from getting a job, a house, an education or a loan. So, in 2015, Oregon
made criminal-record-clearing available for weed-related crimes, and a handful of other states soon followed.
But getting a record changed involves financial and legal hurdles, creating a “second-chance gap.” Now, a new
solution is gaining traction: automated record-sealing, where an algorithm goes through a database and chang-
es all the relevant records, without people needing to hire a lawyer. It started in Pennsylvania with the Clean
Slate law, which seals most misdemeanors more than 10 years old. A similar bill has been sent to the governor
in Utah, and California has passed a bill to automate weed-crime record-clearing. “The burden is no longer on
the person who was convicted,” says Rodney Holcombe of the Drug Policy Alliance. AMANDA CHICAGO LEWIS
64 | ROLLING STONE
T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S O F W E E D
The country is moving forward with legalization at a record pace — but what full recreational use, offering all forms of THC-rich, psychoactive products to
that actually means can vary wildly from state to state. Some that are “med- anyone over 21. And then there’s Alabama. Here, a breakdown of what’s legal,
ically legal” consider limited access to CBD to be enough, while others allow what’s not, and where you should be looking next. By Elisabeth Garber-Paul
FULLY LEGAL EXPECTED TO GO FULLY LEGAL THC IS MEDICALLY LEGAL ALL THC ILLEGAL ANY WEED POSSESSION A FELONY
CALIFORNIA OREGON WYOMING ILLINOIS NEW JERSEY MASSACHUSETTS

Home to the country’s When Oregon legalized in Wyoming has some of Thanks to In March, Democratic The state, which has a
first dispensary — San 2014, it overestimated de- the most severe cannabis the Opioid lawmakers — encouraged program to ensure jobs
Francisco Cannabis mand. Though it has over laws in the U.S., with the Alternative Pilot by Gov. Phil Murphy — and tax revenues are split
Buyers Club, 600 dispensaries highest per-capita rate Program, now almost up fairly, is poised to be
opened in — more than any for marijuana arrests. And anyone in Illinois brought one of the fastest-growing
1992 — the other state — even though a medical- with an opioid a pro- markets this year. But
state is since pot can’t marijuana program is still prescription can access gressive since dispensaries began
now at the legally move a pipe dream, cannabis medical marijuana. The bill to a rolling out last November,
forefront of across state leaders see a hemp bill OAPP, which launched vote but only a few have opened —
marijuana cafes: Already lines, growers are stuck that was signed into law in January 31st, is an attempt were forced to call it off, and they’ve been plagued
in San Fran, they open with more than a million March as to cut down on the state’s in part because of a crim- by long lines and lack of
in West Hollywood this pounds of excess product a mark of overdose deaths — as of inal-record-expungement product, driving many to
summer. to sell or destroy. progress mid-April, 1,000 people program that would have the illicit market.
to come. are registered, and anoth- wiped convictions for
er 500 have applied. anyone previously caught
with up to five pounds
of weed, a step too far for
WA some legislators.
ME
MT ND
VT
MN
NH
OR NY
WI MA
ID SD CT
MI
WY
PA RI
IA NJ
NE OH DE
MD
NV IL IN
UT WV
CO VA
KS MO KY
CA
NC
WASHINGTON,
TN
D.C.
ALASKA Though D.C. voted to
OK SC legalize in 2014, the
Alaska has AZ NM
AR
city never OK’d retail
the smallest
GA sales. Instead,
annual sales of MS
AL
gray-market
any recreational
pop-ups
state — but when LA
TX add bud
on-site consumption
as “gifts”
goes into effect later
attached
this year, many are FL
to other
hoping cannabis
products, like
cafes and
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SACHA LECCA; HAPPINESS TIME/SHUTTERSTOCK; BESTV/
snacks or T-shirts.
SHUTTERSTOCK; JSTONE/SHUTTERSTOCK; HARIKARN/SHUTTERSTOCK; CHOOCHIN/
SHUTTERSTOCK; PAUL BRADY/SHUTTERSTOCK; 279PHOTO STUDIO/SHUTTERSTOCK
420-friendly
But in the nearly
hotels will turn
AK one-third of the
their pot industry
city that’s federally
around.
FLORIDA owned, restrictive
pot laws still apply.
With 190,000 medical
cardholders so far — and
its recent decision to ALABAMA
allow smokable flower — Alabama was called out by the
Florida’s medical program Southern Poverty Law Center for
is expected to grow, espe- having “draconian” laws, includ-
OKLAHOMA cially among ing giving prosecutors the option
HI
Recreational use remains the aging to charge almost anyone caught
off the table for now, but boomer popu- with weed with felony distribution.
NEW MEXICO Oklahoma is rolling out a lation. But the As of 2016, black people were
New Mexico has a booming medical market — 90 comprehensive medical biggest change almost four times more likely to be
dispensaries and counting — and the state just program — and doing it in will come if arrested for possession than white
became the 24th to decriminalize. It also had a record time. Less than a voters approve people — and in some parts of the
novel idea to establish a system of state-run year after voters approved a possible 2020 state, that factor jumped to 10.
recreational dispensaries, and although the measure in June 2018, ballot initiative
that bill stalled in the state Senate, it’s more than 650 dispensa- to fully legalize Additional reporting by
expected to be reintroduced in 2020. ries are already licensed. the plant. Jonathan Bernstein and Rick Carp
ROLLING STONE | 65
Corey Feldman
Wants to Expose
Hollywood’s
Darkest Secrets.
Why Isn’t
Anybody
Listening?
BY E R I K H E D E GAA R D
P h o t og ra p h b y Ko u r y A ng el o
66
Rolling Stone
Feldman in L.A.
“The number-one
problem in Hollywood
is pedophilia,” he says.
COREY FELDMAN
cause he’s still jealous of her boy’s success, and that
Out in the leafy suburbs

he’s using Haim’s name to scam the public out of
crowd-funded money for a movie about industry pe-
dophiles that’ll never get made.
“He’s desperately trying to destroy my son’s his-
tory, his image, his memory,” says Haim. “It’s a very
of Woodland Hills, California, deep jealousy thing, that my son always got first bill-
ing. I’m sick of him, dragging my son’s name through
the mud for nine years. I mean, how shameful. The
guy’s a liar. The guy’s sick. OK?”
in an OK house in an OK To combat Feldman, she and her supporters, and

there are quite a few of them, have formed an on-
line gang that’s come to be known as the Wolfpack.
They produce YouTube videos with titles like “You
neighborhood, the actor Lowlife Feldman You Have Gone Too Far This Time”
and send out tweets saying, “If longing to see @
Corey_Feldman get gang raped in prison is wrong,
I don’t want to be right,” and “I personally will
Corey Feldman is
never stop until CF is in prison or mental institution
at best.”
Right now, Feldman is standing in his living room,
while a bunch of recent arrivals busy themselves
wandering around, saying he soon might name the cial media, however, and, a few days later, a clarifica- unpacking cameras, monitors and light-reflecting
name of the man he says raped his like-a-brother tion from Feldman, who went on CNN to say, “I can- umbrellas. He’s 47 but doesn’t look much different
best friend and frequent co-star, the late Corey Haim, not in good conscience defend anyone who’s being than the impish, thin-lipped, wisecracking kid who
back in 1985. He’s been talking about naming this accused of such horrendous crimes. But at the same became one of the mid-1980s’ most bankable teen
name for more than seven years now. But each time, time, I’m also not here to judge him, because, again, faces, in still-beloved movies like The Goonies, Stand
Feldman has shied away at the last minute, citing he didn’t do those things to me and that was not my by Me and The Lost Boys. And when he smiles, you
lawsuit fears, further ostracism and derailment of a experience.” can still see that kid in there, somewhere, but you
career already off the tracks, and possible physical “I watched it with my wife and son,” he says also see a poster boy for the age-old perils of teen
harm to him and his family. now. “It caused me to have concerns. It’s the stan- stardom, and a story that turned tragic for his pal
He sucks on a nicotine-filled vape, exhales a dard grooming process that they describe. Every- Haim, who died in 2010, at the age of 38, from com-
plume, drops his head a little and says, “I mean, I’ve thing was similar [to what happened to me] up until plications arising from pneumonia after a lifetime
had my life threatened twice in the last six months.” the sexual part. Everything. He bought me gifts, a spent struggling against the various addictions that
His wife of two years, a tall blonde named Court- Watchman TV, a gold watch from Disneyland. So Feldman says he himself managed to kick for good
ney, nods. “People want to kill him. They don’t want was he grooming me and I just never ended up being in 1995.
what he has to say to come out.” his pick? Or was that just who he was? That’s the Walking through the foyer into a back room (vid-
“I can tell you that the number-one problem in fucking thing. We’ll never know. But I would have eo-game machine, jukebox, dartboard, vibrating easy
Hollywood was and is . . . pedophilia,” Feldman says, been exactly his type. I was cute, short and blond. chair), he’s still thinking about the Wolfpack.
as he often has. “That’s the biggest problem for chil- You know?” “They’re plotting against me,” he says. “There’s
dren in this industry. It’s the big secret.” About what allegedly happened to Corey Haim, been an assault charge pending against me, a la-
One possible, obvious reason for the keeping and though, Feldman has no doubts. “Not one,” he says bor-board charge, things that are ruining my life.
hiding of this big secret: No one really wants to hear — much to the unending dismay of Haim’s moth- They’re trying to get my kid taken away. All this is
about children and rape if it involves the nation’s er, Judy, who says her son was never raped by any- what I’m up against. These are the stakes. I am fight-
number-one source of escapist entertainment. In one and that Feldman is saying it happened only being for my life. But I’m tired of being victimized and
2013, Feldman went on The View to talk about how blackmailed. That’s why I’m fighting back.”
the pedophile numbers are larger than anybody Which is what the film crew is about. He’s pro-
knows and include a ring reaching up into the Hol- ducing a documentary titled Truth: The Rape of Two
lywood elite that’s been shielded for years by the es-
tablishment. Barbara Walters looked at him with dis-
“What am I Coreys, about the two industry men who allegedly
molested him at the age of 14 and about the A-lister
belief, hands clasped across her belly, and snarled, doing this for? and others who allegedly raped or molested his best
“You’re damaging an entire industry,” as if to say that friend. “We’ve got about seven [people] who were
Hollywood itself was more valuable than the wrecked So that everybody told firsthand that this person raped Corey,” Feldman
lives of a few youngsters.
And then there’s HBO’s Leaving Neverland, in
in Hollywood says, “and they’re all being interviewed.”
Feldman’s going to sit before the cameras, too, to
which two men allege that Michael Jackson, who was can laugh at me talk about what he claims Haim told him on the day
one of Feldman’s closest friends growing up, abused they first met, when both were 14, and Haim was try-
and go ha-ha-ha?
PREVIOUS SPREAD: GROOMING BY JENNA NICOLE
them when they were kids. Feldman has always said ing to convince Feldman, a virgin at the time, that
Jackson never touched him inappropriately, and at
times he seemed to be defending Jackson against ac-
We need to they should mess around, that “this is what all boys
do. It’s called the boys’ club, and this is totally nor-
cusers. After watching the first half of the documen-
tary, he tweeted, “This whole thing is 1 sided w no
prove that there mal” — all words that Haim said he’d once been told.
Feldman asked by whom. Haim told him, and, ac-
chance of a defense from a dead man, & no evidence is a movement cording to Feldman, went on to describe his alleged
rape in ugly, explicit detail. Says Feldman, “When
other than the word of 2 men who as adults defended
him in court.” This led to a barrage of criticism on so- to silence me.” a kid tells you something as a way to arouse you —
when he’s sitting there with a hard-on, trying to hook
Contributing editor ERIK HEDEGAARD wrote about up with a guy — you don’t immediately go, ‘Where’d
Meat Loaf in February 2018. this come from?’ It wasn’t like he just was, ‘Hey, man,

know what happened to me?’ But the line he used, self wore some kind of bizarre pitch-black monk’s what, which led to an emergency-room visit, lots of
‘I’m not gay, but I was taught this by other guys in the hood and danced this fitfully spasmodic, histrionic snickering from social media doubting Thomases
business’ — how do you question that?” thingamajiggy, complete with twerking. It went viral, who thought he’d pulled a hoax, and the addition of
According to Feldman, Haim swore him to secrecy, with an explosion of Twitter-led ridicule that was bentonite clay to some of his health shakes, to hope-
only to reconsider 23 years later and beg Feldman to so brutal Feldman felt called upon to post a video fully siphon off any new toxins in his system. The po-
tell his story should he die first. “Nobody knows what response. lice seemed to have viewed whatever happened as a
it feels like to constantly console somebody whose “We did the best that we could,” he said. “And, random road-rage incident, while Feldman continues
life has been ruined by rape,” Feldman says today, like, I’ve never had such mean things said about to maintain it was a directed attack, though even he
“unless you’ve been there, holding them when they me. . . . Public shaming should not be accepted, no acknowledged that, at worst, he ended up with “the
world’s smallest knife wound.”
Also, sometimes he’ll hide a tiny video camera
LOST BOYS somewhere on his body and record conversations
Left: Haim
with those he’s unsure of. He’s a little paranoid like
(middle) and
Feldman (right) that, perhaps not unreasonably so. As he says, “Peo-
in 1987’s The ple constantly break your trust and use it against
Lost Boys. Below: you. It’s very emotionally battering. I’m an intelligent
Jackson with person, but there’s something about me that’s very
Feldman. “Was naive. I don’t understand a lot of the world still. But I
he grooming
am trying to get better at protecting myself.”
me and I just
never ended up His cellphone beeps. He reads a text, groans,
being his pick?” shakes his head and says, “What the fuck. Shit. God-
Feldman says damn it.”
today. “We’ll As of a few days ago, he had about 10 people
never know.” willing to go before the cameras and tell what
Haim had told them about his alleged
rape. Feldman was psyched. Finally,
it wouldn’t just be him speaking out.
“Holy jackpot,” he said. “We’re fuck-
ing gold!”
But one by one they’ve been think-
ing twice. This latest backpedaler gave
cry, bringing them back to life over and over, stop- matter who you are.” as a reason receiving a death threat on
ping them from walking around with a knife.” And then he wept. Twitter. “Corey, I feel terrible that I’m
He pauses, then continues, “I didn’t ask for this. I So, clearly he may disappointing you,” she texted him.
didn’t ask to tell his story. I didn’t ask for any of it.” never be able to dis- “I’m not being a flake, I’m just simply
play the gravitas of, very frightened.”
I
F EVER THERE WAS an imperfect messenger say, Ashley Judd, Feldman rolls his eyes and snorts.
for attempting to take down pedophiles in who helped kickstart “Oh, well, then, yeah, I totally under-
Hollywood, Feldman might be it. He has an the MeToo movement. Nor does he have much in the stand backing out of your obligations. Like, what am I
untidy past that can’t help but follow him ev- way of industry clout. But he’s nothing if not dogged doing this all for if nobody is going to stand with me?
erywhere and a present that seems to do him in his pursuit of ways to get his message out, even That’s what made the Weinstein situation work. Ev-
no favors either. By the time he was 19, he’d though, so far, it’s been one disappointment after erybody stood together!”
been arrested three times for heroin. He liked coke, another. He wanted to name names in his 2013 mem- At the moment, lots of things do seem to be going
too, along with weed, mushrooms, alcohol, crack, oir, Coreyography, but the publisher, St. Martin’s sour. The Wolfpack, in particular, seems to have got-
Quaaludes and acid. Then, during his post-youth- Press, nixed the idea, for obvious legal reasons. He ten under his skin. They call him “numb nuts” and
star decline, he started settling for insta-flop movies hoped for better with Lifetime’s 2018 biopic, A Tale predict he will soon die “from suicide or drug over-
like Meatballs 4 (1992), Lipstick Camera (1994) and Cit- of Two Coreys, but again events were sanitized. Look- dose.” They talk of blitzed-out sex orgies at the Feld-
izen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000). By that time, ing for independence, he decided to crowd-fund his mansion. They are constantly churning out YouTube
he’d been clean for five years, but Hollywood had own feature film, $10 million being his goal, saying it videos and podcasts — mostly made by a self-pro-
already written him off, except when it wanted to would “literally change the entertainment system as claimed activist named Bobby Wolfe, hence the Wolf-
make him look like an idiot, as it did on the WB real- we know it,” but it was branded a scam and fell apart pack name — that make him look like a sicko at best.
ity series The Surreal Life, in 2003, and Celebrity Wife at the $273,000 mark. The main complaint: that it They come up with unsubstantiated allegations that
FROM LEFT: JANE O’NEAL/WARNER BROS./KOBAL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK;
Swap, in 2015. looked like he wanted the $10 million as a reward for almost instantly get trumpeted around the internet
“I’m never going to escape it,” he once said, mo- naming names. His response: To name names when as fact and use them to try to, for instance, get Child
rosely. the statute of limitations is long gone is to invite law- USA to drop Feldman as one of its ambassadors or
Left to his own devices, however, Feldman does suits stretching to the horizon. else they’ll call for a boycott on donations. It goes
stuff that is ill-considered at best and often just plain For all that, he’s looking pretty good these days. on and on, and Feldman sees the hand of Judy Haim
weird. Earlier this decade, he used to throw par- He usually presents himself noon-ish — since bed- guiding it all.
ties at his house (“the Feldmansion”) featuring a time is usually three-ish — clean-shaven and spruce, One day last summer, he dropped by the office of
gaggle of girls called Corey’s Angels, which regu- favoring pegged jodhpurs, clunky tennis shoes and a one of his lawyers, Perry Wander, who’s also repre-
lar Joes could attend for $250, with the hot-tub ex- baseball cap worn backward — and, if he’s going out, sented Lindsay Lohan and Warren Beatty, and start-
COURTESY OF COREY FELDMAN
perience going for $500 and the cabana for $2,500. in one of his pants pockets, a Taser, “one of the hard- ed talking about the Wolfpack.
Vice reported on two of them and made them look core ones,” he says, meaningfully. Seems you can “There’s an entire conspiracy that’s been formed
like thoroughly unappealing, sparsely attended, gris- never be too careful. Last year, despite the presence of at least 30 people who are working under the guid-
ly affairs. Then there’s his lunatic 2016 performance of a mammoth security guard named Jeff, Feldman ance of her,” Feldman said. “Look, it’s a group of peo-
of a song called “Go 4 It” on the Today show. As was allegedly attacked in his car by a hoodlum who ple put together by one person.”
usual, his all-girl backup band, the self-same Co- ripped open the door and, he says, plunged some- That’s his latest theory: Judy Haim was paid to put
rey’s Angels, sported wings and halos. Feldman him- thing like a needle into his leg, injecting Lord knows together an anti-Feldman cabal and [Cont. on 97]

‘ WE
CANNOT
LOSE BY
JA M I L S M I T H
HOPE ’
P H O T O G R A P H BY
WAY N E
L AW R E N C E
JOHN LEWIS LOOKS AHEAD
C
ONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS’ WASHINGTON, D.C., OFFICE IS Looking at this wall of history, one is reminded that Lewis represents
filled from floor to ceiling with photographs and souvenirs so much more than Georgia’s Fifth District. He has become the custodi-
from a lifetime of activism: the Freedom Rides he risked an of America’s moral character. During his 33 years in Congress, Lewis,
his life for from the age of 21; the March on Washington, 79, has not only led the charge for legislative victories like Obamacare but
where Lewis wrote a speech so fiery that Martin Luther has staged a sit-in on the House floor to draw attention to Republicans’ re-
King Jr. advised him to tone it down; the voting-rights work in Selma, Al- fusal to take up gun control. Arrested more than 40 times in the Sixties,
abama, where, as head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commit- Lewis was put in cuffs as recently as 2013 for a protest outside the Capi-
tee, Lewis was beaten by state troopers during the march to Montgomery. tol over immigration reform. He refused to attend Trump’s inauguration

JOHN LEWIS
(as he did George W. Bush’s), skipped both of Trump’s a major down payment on setting the American prepared to take action. During the civil-rights move-
State of the Union addresses, and even boycotted the house in order, on putting America on the right side ment, we would be beaten and jailed, some of us left
2017 opening of a civil-rights museum in Mississip- and not discriminating against people because of for dead. We all said, “Pace yourself, pace yourself”
pi that Trump attended. The president’s policies are their history, their background, the color of their — and I still believe that today. You take the long, hard
an insult to the people portrayed in the museum, skin or what part of the world [they come from]. We look and believe if you’re consistent and persistent,
said Lewis, who understands better than anyone the have a great, unbelievable debate about building a we can work it out, and it will work out.
stakes involved as today’s Republicans erode many wall. On many occasions I’ve said that we shouldn’t What’s the most urgent mess a new Democratic
of the same civil-rights victories that he bled to win. be building walls — we should be building bridges. administration would have to clean up?
The congressman speaks in such a distinctive and The first bill, H.R. 1, is nothing short of revolu- We need a president, a leader of the national govern-
weighty cadence that it’s almost startling to hear tionary in terms of what it could do — automat- ment, who’s not a racist. Trump is a racist. And we
him say something as mundane as “Good afternoon” ic voter registration, Election Day holiday, protec- need leaders in high places — not just in the office of
when he greets me with a firm handshake at his office tions for early voting, ending gerrymandering. Do the president, but members of Congress, governors —
door. The fight in his voice is never far from the sur- you feel like this is overdue? who understand what the struggle was all about, who
face. I ask Lewis if he still considers himself a radical. H.R. 1 is so necessary. It is a dream that is in the pro- are trying to make the dreams and the hopes and as-
“I believe that I’m a radical for fairness,” he tells me. cess of coming true. There has been a deliberate, pirations of Dr. King come alive.
“A radical for justice. A radical for the truth.” systematic effort to make it more difficult for some You’ve often talked about making “good trou-
people, especially minorities, to participate in the ble.” Who do you see making good trouble now,
e’re speaking on what would have democratic process. [In 2018], we saw it in Florida, and how are you still getting into that yourself?
W been Dr. King’s 90th birthday. What

would you have wanted to talk to
your friend about today?
we saw it in Georgia, we saw it affecting Native Amer-
icans, and we cannot have another major election in
America until we fix the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
I admire the gentleman from North Carolina, Bish-
op [William] Barber [II]. He is not just a preacher of
the Gospel, but he is a preacher of what I call “nec-
I would say, “Dr. King, we have come And under the leadership of Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, essary trouble.” My philosophy is very simple: If you
a distance, we have made some progress, but we we’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna do our very best. If see something that is not right, not fair, not just —
still have a great distance to go before we lay down not, some people gonna have hell to pay. you have a moral obligation to say something, to do
the burden of racism. There have been so many set- The FIRST STEP Act, the criminal-justice reform something. Start trouble.
backs since you left. We have someone, the head of that eased sentencing guidelines and passed late When I was growing up in rural Alabama, I would
our government, who, in the finality, is a racist. He last year — why is it a good first step, and what ask my mother and father, “Why this, why that?”
doesn’t understand the meaning of your life and the needs to be the next one? when I saw those signs that said, “White waiting, col-
significance of the civil-rights movement. But I truly On the first vote, I didn’t vote for it. And I said, “We ored waiting.” I said, “Why, why?” I saw those water
believe, somehow and some way, we will not give need to make this stronger.” And they did what they fountains. And my mother always said, “Boy, that’s
up, we will not give in. We will continue to do what could to make it stronger. There were individual Re- the way it is. Don’t get in trouble.”
we must to create what you called the Beloved Com- publicans from Georgia who joined in. And [Rep.] But the action of Rosa Parks and the leadership of
munity. We will do what we must to redeem the soul Hakeem Jeffries from New York played a major role. Dr. King inspired me to get in “good trouble.” And
of America.” It’s a necessary step, but we got to go much further. I’ve been getting in “good trouble” ever since.
I think you are uniquely qualified to tell us how [Prisons] are housing hundreds of thousands of peo- How important was the press to the civil-rights
dangerous a time this is for the country. ple, and we got to give them a chance. movement?
I hate to say it, but I think we’re in deep trouble. We Should Democrats move forward with an im- If it hadn’t been for the press, the civil-rights move-
have to find ways to get people a greater sense of peachment effort against Trump? ment, the whole struggle would have been like a bird
hope. You worry about our future, as a people and I think what we need to do as a party and as a peo- without wings. I believe that. For the press, it was
as a nation. Sometimes you’re afraid to go to sleep, ple is pace ourselves. I mean, take our time and not very dangerous, especially in the American South,
to turn off the radio or the television or to pick up a be so quick to move down that road to impeachment. to be a reporter, to be there with a pen and a pad,
book or a newspaper and read. These are times, we Bring everything to the front, and be willing and be with a camera. I saw members of the Klan and racists
heard it over and over again, they’re trying souls. turning on the media, beating people, leaving them
Do you have diversions that help keep your bloody, and then turning on us.
mind right? How do you define racism in 2019?
Here and there. But I have never been like this, even “My philosophy Racism is the deeply embedded psyche of Ameri-
ca. We cannot escape it. We cannot hide it in some
during the height of the civil-rights movement.
Really? is very simple: dark corner. Racism is one of the great sins of Ameri-
Never. During those days, there was a greater sense
of hope and optimism.
If you see ca. We grow up in a race-conscious society. Since Af-
rican-Americans came here — or were brought here
Marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge [in
Selma], you had more hope than you do now?
something — racism has been part of our government. Every so
often this deeply embedded sickness raises its ugly
Yeah, I was very hopeful when we were marching that is not right, head in different forms and fashion. We try to sweep
across that bridge. I was very, very hopeful when we
were sitting in or speaking at the March on Washing-
not fair, not it under the rug, we try to sweep it into some dark
corner. But we must continue to do what we can to
ton. But we cannot lose hope.
How do we get that hope back? Obama can’t
just — you bury it so that it never rises again. To wash it from the
shores of America.
run again [laughs]. have a moral Do you speak with President Obama often?
I just think all these young Democrats that are talking
about running — some not so young — they gotta get obligation to say I see him from time to time. I saw him doing a Stac-
ey Abrams campaign [event]. I had dinner with him
out there and push and pull and take it to [Trump]
and win. Win one for the American people, win one
something, to in Atlanta. A year ago, we spent two hours together
sitting down with a group of high school students, a
to save the country, to save our democracy. do something. group of young black men.
When you do get a moment together, what do
What should the legislative goals of this new
Congress be, especially when it comes to racial Start trouble.” you two talk about?
equality? We talk about meeting for the first time. When he
Well, this Congress — which is so diverse, [has] so was a student at Harvard, I’d been invited to speak,
many young people, so many women — should make and he remembered me from those days. We talk

TAKING THE about [when] he was elected. I remember so well.

A STAND MARCH I jumped so high I didn’t think my feet were gonna
Below: Lewis Right: Lewis touch the floor. I just kept crying and jumping, and
in Clarksdale, (blue sweater) someone asked me why I was crying so much. I said
Mississippi, with Martin
I was crying for the people that never lived to see this
1963: “I tell Luther King Jr.
young people (white hat) and day, crying for Dr. King, for President Kennedy, Pres-
all the time, ‘Be Coretta King ident Johnson, Robert Kennedy and for all of those
bold. Be brave. leading a march black people that stood in those unmovable lines and
Be courageous. to Montgomery never had an opportunity to register to vote.
Go for it.’ ” in 1965 And the day that he was inaugurated — it’s a tra-
dition here on Capitol Hill for the leadership of Con-
gress to hold a breakfast for the president, the vice
president and their families — I had a little piece of
paper in my hand, and I said, “Mr. President, will you
sign this?” And he signed it: “It’s all because of you,
John. Barack Obama.”
And when I saw him four years later, he walked
up to me and said, “It’s still because of you, John.”
He remembered from, I guess, that day, what he had
said to me.
In your time here in Washington, what have you
learned?
One thing I learned: This is a city where you can do
things and make things happen. And it’s very inspir-
ing to move around in, to be on Capitol Hill and walk
through some of the buildings where others walked.
Or walk to the Lincoln Memorial the way we did on
August 28th, 1963. To walk up the steps of the Su-
preme Court, where Thurgood Marshall walked out
on the day when his decision came down desegregat-
ing public schools.
ON THE How have you changed as a man during your
BARRICADES time here?
Left: Lewis with Well, I’ve changed. I know I’ve changed. I’ve grown
Pelosi and others
up. But I think I still have the fighting spirit. You see
after a sit-in on
the House floor something, you have to say something. You have to
in 2016, calling do something. I tell young people all the time, “Be
on Republicans bold. Be brave. Be courageous. Go for it.”
BLOODY SUNDAY to allow a vote What music do you turn to again and again?
Below: Lewis being beaten with a on a gun-control If it hadn’t been for music, I really don’t know what
billy club on the Edmund Pettus measure. “I’ve
would have happened. Sometimes we’d be fresh
Bridge in Selma, March 7th, 1965: grown up, but
“Racism is the deeply embedded I still have the from jail and you had a quarter, you go to a little juke
psyche of America. Every so often fighting spirit,” joint. They had a place outside of Tuskegee. What
this sickness raises its ugly head.” he says. was that place called? A little club, and people could
go there and get something to drink and dance. You
get beat up and you’re taken to a hospital, you get out
and you go listen to Aretha, and it was soothing. I re-
ally believe this: Music was like a bridge.
What music is lifting your spirits right now?
Well, I tell you, the other day, I was telling some of
the staff here, you remember a singer by the name
of — you’re probably too young — but you’ll probably
know who sang “Rainy Night in Georgia”?
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: STEVE SCHAPIRO/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES; AP
IMAGES; TOM WILLIAMS/”CQ ROLL CALL”/GETTY IMAGES; AP IMAGES
Oh, yeah.
“I feel like it’s raining all over the world”?
Brook Benton. Yeah, I remember that.
To me, it was very soulful. This young staffer kept
pulling up this song with Dinah Washington and
Benton singing together, “Baby You’ve Got What It
Takes.” It was so moving. It took me back to my days
in the civil-rights movement, because as a person
growing up in rural Alabama, I had very, very little
money. But sometimes, as I said, when we’d get out
of jail, someplace in the Delta, Mississippi, the blight
of Alabama or Nashville, that moving music brought
us together. And that’s why I love the song “Happy”
[by Pharrell]. I tell people all the time, “Be happy.”
Be happy. Enjoy life. Don’t be down all the time.

CLOSE-UP
How Carly Rae

Found New Love
and a New Sound
Her upcoming album is full of sparkling, openhearted dance
pop. All it took was four years, a breakup and 200 songs
By BRITTANY SPANOS
‘Y

OU HAVE TO promise you won’t and rebirth earned Jepsen an intensely big emotions and sparkling tunes that
think I’m a maniac,” Carly Rae devoted cult, inspiring memes, academ- suggest Jepsen may be the new queen of
Jepsen says, sitting in the liv- ic conferences, even an annual drag show heart-wrenching dance-floor catharsis.
ing room of her Spanish-style called Carlyfest. Lead single “Party for One” is a super-
home on L.A.’s east side. A Jepsen wasn’t planning a big rein- catchy celebration of being on your
devilish grin spreads across her face as she vention for Dedicated; the original con-
Three Carly own (and, possibly, masturbation). The
jumps off a plush blue couch and runs cept was “chill disco,” songs that could
Classics title track didn’t actually make the final
to the dining room. When she returns, be played at a laid-back house party. But poster board, but the song epitomized
she’s clutching a few large, sturdy poster making the LP was a decidedly un-chill “Call Me Maybe” the album’s strong emotions. Jepsen wrote
boards. process. As the poster boards indicate, KISS, 2012 it for her new boyfriend, a British musi-
On the largest — scrawled in different Jepsen can be obsessive. She tends to pick Sugary-sweet perfec- cian she met in Nicaragua. He had been
colors and surrounded by a bouquet of her songs apart, over and over again. “I tion: Jepsen prays to “going through some heavy shit,” she says,
Post-it notes — are the titles of nearly 200 envy writers that are like, ‘I just wrote this the pop gods for her and it’s a song about “what it was to fight
crush to turn into her
songs Jepsen wrote for Dedicated, her and put it on the album,’ ” she says. “I’m for someone.”
hotline bling.
fourth album (due May 17th). Her latest like, ‘How do you sleep at night?’ ” Jepsen’s songs have long been ob-
track list is on the smallest board. That When she started making Dedicated, “Run Away With Me” sessed with the machinations of romance,
one is a mere two dozen or so songs. she was literally all over the place: mul- EMOTION, 2015
a preoccupation that goes back to her
HAIR BY JOHNNY STUNTZ FOR CROSBY CARTER MGMT. MAKEUP BY ROB RUMSEY
Jepsen, 33, is trying to figure out the tiple trips to Sweden to work with mem- A chorus primed
childhood. Her parents, both teachers,
next move in one of modern pop’s weird- bers of Max Martin’s collective, a trip to divorced when she was young, but settled
FOR EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS. LOCATION: THE HOUSE OF PIES IN LOS ANGELES.

for endless car-ride
est careers. She went from open-mic New York to work with Jack Antonoff, and singalongs, plus a just 10 minutes from each other. Jepsen
nights in her native British Columbia to two trips to a record-label writing camp convincing getaway and her brother would switch houses
a third-place finish on Canadian Idol to a in Nicaragua. plan for her and a lover. every two days. “They had family meet-
folky debut in 2008. Two years later, she In 2017, she finally decided to take a ings once or twice a month to discuss what
swerved into dance pop and made “Call break. She booked a three-week trip to “The Sound” time bedtime was and who’s grounded,”
Me Maybe,” which spent nine weeks at Italy, but when her assistant asked if DEDICATED, 2019 she says, noting her mom was more of
Number One and is probably still stuck she wanted a second ticket for her boy- The beat bubbles be- a hippie and her dad more conserva-
in your head. But the album it appeared friend of two years, photographer David neath Jepsen’s request tive. “It sparked my fascination with the
Kalani Larkins, her immediate reaction for more than words. dynamics of love and how complicated yet
on, Kiss, fell flat, and Jepsen seemed des-
A massage for the ears,
tined to become a one-hit wonder — until was telling: “Without thinking, I was like, functioning it can be.”
a healing for the soul.
she swerved again, working with indie- ‘No, just one.’ I realized something bad Now, after a few more rounds of refining
minded producers (Blood Orange’s Dev was coming.” Jepsen and Larkins broke the poster boards, Jepsen is finally ready
Hynes, Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Bat- up, and the trip became her personal to let Dedicated out into the world. “I don’t
manglij) for 2015’s Emotion. The re- Eat, Pray, Love. In Positano, on the Amalfi know what’s gonna happen,” she says,
sult was an excellent album that gave a Coast, she and a woman she’d befriended “but it feels so fun to have worked tire-
cool Eighties-flavored sheen to her bub- had a few drinks, then set out on a moped, lessly at something that will get to exist.”
bly pop; it wasn’t a massive hit, but its the woman driving in stilettos. “I thought
straightforward songs about heartbreak I might die if she had a couple more cock-
tails,” she recalls. “Part of me [thought], ‘If
this is how I go out, awesome!’ ”
The trip had a big impact on Dedicated.
“Chill disco” gave way to a collection of
74 | Rolling Stone | May 2019 PHOTOGRAPH BY Amy Harrity

The Fight of
Their Lives
A new generation of activists are fed up with adult inaction
on climate change — and the world is starting to listen
BY T E S SA ST UA RT
X
IUHTEZCATL MARTINEZ was sitting in his living room in Boulder, Colorado, watch-
ing the environmental documentary The 11th Hour, when it hit him for the first
time. “I kind of began to grasp the idea that human beings are responsible for
creating a crisis that threatens not just nature but humanity — everything about
our civilization.” He was six years old. Martinez became one of 21 child plaintiffs
suing the U.S. government for failing to protect them from climate change. He was 15 when they brought
the suit. He turns 19 in May. It still has not seen the inside of a courtroom. ¶ As scientists make increas-
ingly dire predictions about the future habitability of the planet, climate activists are being radicalized at
younger and younger ages. Many can’t vote, but they are making their voices heard: striking from school,
filing lawsuits, staging sit-ins on Capitol Hill. On March 15th, inspired by teen Swedish activist Greta Thun-
berg, more than a million students poured into streets around the world to protest adults’ abject failure
to curb carbon emissions. ¶ “We’re panicking. We feel the fear,” says Jamie Margolin, 17, who founded the
climate movement Zero Hour. “We feel the impending societal disaster. But our leaders are acting like
total children.” The only politicians she has patience for are ones demanding system-overhauling pro-
grams like the Green New Deal, championed by millennial Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who calls the
climate fight “the civil-rights movement of our generation.” “Young people have been leading this move-
ment for a long time,” says veteran activist Bill McKibben. “The good news is, no one seems to give it up
as they age. Today’s climate strikers are tomorrow’s senators and mayors.” Margolin agrees. “I see myself
as a congresswoman or even president,” she says. “I want to be the leader that I wish I had.”

Alexandria
Villaseñor
AGE 13
HOMETOWN
New York
GROUP AFFILIATION
Earth Uprising
Alexandria
Villaseñor has
protested outside the
United Nations head-
quarters in New York
every Friday since
December. She joined
the movement after
being in Davis, Cali-
fornia, while wildfires
ravaged the state.
“People were collaps-
ing in downtown Davis
from smoke inhala-
tion,” Villaseñor says.
“I have asthma — that
was a scary situation
for me.” Unfortunately,
her protest caught
the attention of the
alt-right platform
Breitbart, where
readers left threaten-
ing comments. “It was
the first time that I felt
terrified about what
my daughter was
doing,” says her mom,
Kristin Hogue. But
Villaseñor didn’t back
down. She’s starting
a nonprofit, Earth
Uprising, to design
a school curriculum,
written by scientists,
about climate change
and organizing for
direct action. And she
still protests. “I was
very insistent with my
parents,” she says.
“They kind of had to
oblige my demands.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY
VICTORIA WILL
“ Politicians
may be
listening
to us, but
there’s a
difference
between
listening
and taking
action.”

THE FIGHT OF THEIR LIVES
Isra Hirsi
AGE 16
HOMETOWN Minneapolis
GROUP AFFILIATION
U.S. Youth Climate Strike
For Isra Hirsi, a

leader of the U.S.
climate strikes in March,
it all started when she
joined her high school’s
environmental club. Soon
she was lobbying her
city council and pushing
Minneapolis to commit to
100 percent renewable
electricity by 2030. “They
were trying to shoot for
2050, and we kept going
back and forth, because
it shouldn’t be whether
it’s politically possible,
but what is necessary,”
she says. As for any sim-
ilarities between herself
and her activist mother,
Congresswoman Ilhan
Omar? “It kind of is just a
random coincidence that
I do what I do and she
does what she does.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY
NATE RYAN
“ The
generation
that decided
not to do
anything
when they
knew it was
a problem in
the Seventies,
those are the
people who
are solely
responsible.”

Jamie Margolin
AGE 17 HOMETOWN Seattle GROUP AFFILIATION Zero Hour
”No one tells kids how to be politically involved,” says Jamie

Margolin, so she used what she knew: Instagram. A single

post musing about the possibility of holding a youth march in
Washington, D.C., resulted in Zero Hour, a network of activists she
now co-leads with three others that organized a protest on the
Washington Mall and in 25 other cities last summer. Today, Zero
Hour’s focus is on amplifying the voices of young people of color,
who she says are most directly affected by climate change. “When
I turn on CNN, if there’s someone talking climate, it’s Jay Inslee,
Al Gore, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and there’s nothing wrong
with them,” she says, “but for any issue, the people who are most
affected by it need to be the ones speaking up.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY JENNY RIFFLE
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez
AGE 19 HOMETOWN Boulder, Colorado GROUP AFFILIATION Earth Guardians
“I’ve been protesting since before I could walk,” Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

says. He gave his first public speech at six, and by 15 he was addressing
the U.N. “I was madly empowered to engage in policy in a way people wouldn’t
expect,” says Martinez, youth director of the nonprofit Earth Guardians. “That
allowed me to engage in a conversation much bigger than myself.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY TRISTAN SPINSKI
Haven Coleman
AGE 13 HOMETOWN Denver GROUP AFFILIATION U.S. Youth Climate Strike
Haven Coleman (center), a co-executive director of the U.S. Youth Climate

Strike, cut her teeth protesting the Martin Drake coal power plant in
Colorado Springs. But she credits her fifth-grade social-studies class, and a
lesson about deforestation, with opening her eyes to climate change. “I was
like, ‘OK, I gotta do something now.’ It’s affecting every person I know.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY GREG MIONSKE

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Music
A VAMPIRE’S
MOMENT IN
THE SUN
Ezra Koenig
explores love and
crisis on a modern
California-pop
masterpiece
By DAVID FR ICKE
Vampire Weekend
Father of the Bride
COLUMBIA
A
T 18 songs in under
an hour, Vampire
Weekend’s first
album in six years sounds
at first like a manic effort to
make up lost time. Sing-
er-guitarist Ezra Koenig, the
band’s composer-lyricist and
a co-producer on virtually
every track, has stuffed his
hooks and bridges with so
many change-ups in rhythm,
guitar tone and dramatic
instrumental flourish that, by
the finish, you feel like you’ve
been whipped through a
modern-pop homage to the
Beatles’ Abbey Road medley
— twice over.
Father of the Bride is
so zealously detailed and
meticulously contoured
that you easily sink into
its inventions: the whirl of
country picking, surf
ILLUSTRATION BY
Cannaday Chapman
Reviews Music
VA M P I R E W E E K E N D
guitar and classical interlude in “Harmony
KHALID’S WORRIED SPIRIT
Hall”; the loopy hip-hop of “Sunflower” with An R&B innovator wonders what it all means
its creeping-vocal riff; the Soweto-like bounce
and Auto-Tuned Beach Boys-style chorale in
on a follow-up to his great debut By JON DOL AN
“Flower Moon.” But this is ear candy loaded
K
with trouble. Frustration, helplessness and HALID ROBINSON’S house duo Disclosure, is a
romantic crisis come in grenadelike bursts, 2017 debut LP, gorgeously bloopy synth-soul
as Koenig delivers bad news like the “wicked American Teen, was strut; on “Right Back,” Khalid
snakes” in “Harmony Hall” (“Inside a place/ a coming-of-age record that extends an invitation to hang
You thought was dignified”) with disarmingly made young-dumb brokeness at the beach, over a sparkling
clean-cut vocal brio. feel like the only way to go. track that smoothly inter-
“Unbearably White” could easily be read At 19, Khalid had appeared polates Big Pun’s Nineties
as Koenig’s self-deprecating twist on Vampire on tracks by Kendrick Lamar classic “Still Not a Player.”
Weekend’s Ivy League origins and the breezy and Future, and he was tight The credits to Free Spirit
Afro-Caribbean cadence of their early rec- with Kylie Jenner. Yet he include Norse hitmakers
ords. In fact, the title comes from images of Khalid Stargate, and Portugal. The
chilly, suffocating emptiness (heavy snow, a Man producer John Hill. Yet
blank diary page awaiting confession), served
Free Spirit despite some noteworthy
with slinky guitar, fluid jazz-fusion bass and RCA cameos — John Mayer on the
fluttering orchestration. In “How Long?” 3 feathery disco tune “Outta
Koenig undercuts the comic flair — funky- My Head,” Father John Misty
Seventies guitar, foghorn synth — with snarky co-producing the maudlin
bitterness. And in his trilogy of duets with “Heaven” — the LP isn’t over-
Danielle Haim (of the Los Angeles trio Haim), ly burdened by the boldfaced
spread across the album like a serial, the two guest spots you’d expect on a
joust from breakup to happy-ever-after like an follow-up by an artist coming
indie-rock version of Johnny and June Cash. off a Top 10 debut. Instead, it
Much has changed for Vampire Weekend gets tripped up by a different
since their last album, 2013’s Modern Vam- sophomore pitfall: Now that
pires of the City. The New York-born group is he isn’t an underdog, Khalid
now a trio: Koenig, drummer Chris Tomson lapses into a little too much
and bassist Chris Baio. Multi-instrumentalist new-star introspection,
Rostam Batmanglij left in early 2016, insisting exploring an ivory-tower
he would still work with Koenig. But Batman- aloneness that can recall the
glij appears only twice on this album, as a Weeknd’s goth-‘n’-B. On “My
producer or co-writer, while Koenig — who is Bad,” he tries to stir some
now based in L.A. and lent a writer-producer drama out of missing your
hand to Beyoncé’s 2016 hit “Hold Up” — texts because he was working
broadens his reach. too late at the studio, with
Aside from the New Order-style inferno nothing to ease his angst but
“Sympathy” and the flashback to Van some limpid George Benson
Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” in “This Life,” guitar flicks. Elsewhere, why-
there is very little rock on Father of the Bride, perfectly inhabited the world suggest a stoner Sam Cooke, me reflections like “Alive”
at least of the kind that defined New York’s of an average high school Khalid further developed and “Hundred” feel like solo
turn-of-the-millennium guitar-band boom. kid as he tried to make sense his pop chops on last year’s late-night Uber rides into the
Vampire Weekend were late arrivals to that of his messy emotions over Suncity EP, nodding to reg- dark heart of the soul.
scene. But they now look like the smartest Eighties-loving R&B tracks. gaeton and Coldplay-esque The self-examining gloom
guys in the room, marshaling a sumptuous, The results reduced Drake- melody. That wide-ranging gets thicker as the record
emotionally complex music perfect in this size ambition to the relatable talent is on display all over proceeds. But Khalid remains
pop moment. “Sooner or later the story gets scale of a dude who sang his second LP. The best mo- a sympathetic guy; see “Self,”
told,” Koenig sings in “Unbearably White.” about living with his folks. ments recall American Teen’s where he shifts from bluesy
“To tell it myself would be unbearably bold.” A gifted artist with a airy feel and warm charisma. grumble to flighty falsetto as
Then he tells it to extremes. searching voice that can “Talk,” produced by U.K. he observes, “My raw emo-
tion make me less of a man?”
turning self-doubt into a cri-
tique of phony masculinity.
BREAKING That openness also comes
through on the bonus track
“Saturday Nights,” which
Megan Thee Stallion’s Heroic Sex Rap
FROM TOP: RO.LEXX; 2020 PHOTOGRAPHY
Thee appeared on Suncity; Khalid’s

Stallion voice vaults beautifully as he
WOMEN ARE REVOLUTIONIZING hip-hop these days, and along with Cardi B and Cupcakke,
one of the most charismatic new voices is Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion. The sings to a girl with a rough
24-year-old MC became a phenomenon in short order thanks to hard-hitting songs like “Big home life and a job she
Ole Freak,” from her breakthrough 2018 mixtape, Tina Snow, as well as her no-fucks-given hates. It’s a sweet song with
social media presence. Though still a student at Texas Southern University, she just released a classic message: Growing
her first full-length project, Fever, where she delivers euphorically raunchy rhymes in a flow up is hard to do. Free Spirit
that’s as sticky and shiny as lip gloss, leaving a mark on everything it touches. BRITTANY SPANOS reminds us just how weird
it can be.
82 | Rolling Stone +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor RATINGS ARE SUPERVISED BY THE EDITORS OF ROLLING STONE.
ON NEWSSTANDS NOW
Wherever Magazines Are Sold
Reviews Music
UPDATE
INDIE R&B’S
NEW BREED The National
INDIE MAXIMALISM The Brooklyn band
4
reimagines itself as a collective with multi-
Three artists push I Am Easy to Find ple women singers (including Sharon Van
Etten) on this companion to a potent Mike
the boundaries 4AD
Mills film. Sprawling, intimate, gorgeous.
of what soul music
can mean Anderson.Paak
CALIFORNIA LOVE The L.A. rapper follows
4
his streetwise 2018 LP, Oxnard, with an
Ventura album of tricked-out old-school soul.
C
HICAGO POET Jamila There’s activist struggle (“King James”),
Aftermath/12 Tone Music
Woods earned well- but the vibe is mostly chill and sexy.
deserved praise for
her deep rap-soul debut,
Heavn. Her rich new Legacy! SOUL QUEEN “I’ve got just one more
Mavis Staples
#
Legacy! plumbs cultural change to make,” the 79-year-old R&B
icon sings on a moving, ballad-heavy set
history to find the personal. We Get By produced by Ben Harper and steeped in
Song titles invoke giants Anti/Epitaph
loss and righteous political spirit.
(“Miles,” “Eartha,” “Sun Ra”);
arrangements too, and the
LP flags future legends like Mountain Goats GREAT GOATS John Darnielle tells empa-
#
thetic tales of decadent decay, mixing noir
Saba and Nitty Scott, whose
cameos are breathtaking.
In League With and fantasy in songs like “Clemency for the
Dragons Wizard King” and “Cadaver Sniffing Dog”
that are every bit as great as their titles.
Merge
Jamila
Woods
ETERNAL DUB A vapor-ific dub session
Legacy! Lee “Scratch” Perry
#
Legacy! with U.K. acolyte Adrian Sherwood.
It’s Perry’s usual mad freestyling over
4 Rainford rubber-room grooves; see the essential
On-U Sound
Ezra “Autobiography of the Upsetter.”
Collective
You Can’t
Steal My Joy POP-PUNK FUN Crisp, overwrought songs
Charly Bliss
#
#
full of gnarled Nineties guitar churn
and Eighties sheen, landing somewhere
Nick Murphy Young Enough between the Breeders and the Cars, and
Barsuk
Run Fast making heartsick angst like a party.
Sleep Naked
#
LSD SIDE TRIP Diplo, Sia and U.K. soulman
FROM LEFT: RALPH ARVESEN/SHUTTERSTOCK; SØLVE SUNDSBØ; AMY HARRIS/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK;

Labrinth craft some charmingly half-baked
“I am not your typical girl,”
Woods sings — and she’s not
Labrinth, Sia and
Diplo Present . . . LSD
jams. It’s mostly Sia’s show, screaming “I’m
here on Venus!” over psych guitar, or mak-
3
Columbia ing like Cyndi Lauper in the dance hall.
lying. London’s Ezra Collec-
OWEN SWEENEY/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; LORNE THOMSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

tive is part of a new wave
rebooting the U.K. soul-jazz EMO-POP O.G. Her eighth album delivers
scene. They can get chill or Pink
3
her signature emotionally out-front pop,
hectic, laying into reggae, whether she’s singing “You fucked up my
garage and Afrobeat; ace
Hurts 2B Human life” over an uptempo beat or exploring
RCA
love and pain in a duet with Khalid.
accompanists, they can carry
on with or without singers.
Nick Murphy released a Sammy Hagar HARD-ROCK REDUX This supergroup (fea-
sexy, stoner cover of Black-
2
and the Circle turing Hagar, Van Halen bassist Michael
street’s “No Diggity” under Anthony and drummer Jason Bonham)
the moniker Chet Faker. Space Between bashes out so-so callbacks to the glory
BMG days of ripped jeans and muscle tees.
That he’s issued Run Fast
Sleep Naked under his real
name is also telling. His Logic FAILING LOGIC How misguided is the
singing is less processed and
!
rapper’s “soundtrack” to his novel about
mannered, the arrangements Supermarket a deadbeat supermarket clerk? Well, it
more varied, the rhythms (Soundtrack) sounds like a Weezer karaoke, and one of
the songs is called “Bohemian Trapsody.”
more expressionist; credit his Def Jam
rangy co-producer Dave Har-

rington (Darkside). Is it still CONTRIBUTORS: JONATHAN BERNSTEIN, JON DOLAN, KORY GROW, WILL HERMES, DANNY SCHWARTZ
R&B? Maybe. Does it matter?
Nope. WILL HERMES

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On March 14th and 15th, Rolling Stone was at SXSW to host Rolling
Stone Live: Austin, presented by Visit Seattle and EPIX, taking place
at Native Hostel. The first day featured Music Genesis, a celebration
of the musical legacy of Seattle, with a live performance by native
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2 The Beths kept the energy flowing with an intimate performance.
3 Charly Bliss stops to pose for a group shot.
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8 Performance by Seattle songwriter Valley Maker.
3
Reviews Music
For the Roses

Ranking the 1972
Another transitional record —
genius singer- this is Mitchell broadening her
songwriter’s Blue
palette. Jazzy wind instruments
are woven into the fabric of the
albums, from 1971 songs, not just tacked on for
codas; multitracked vocal cho-
wistful acoustic The apex of Mitchell’s
confessional writing, Blue is The Hissing of ruses grow more intricate; James
folk to complex a deceptively folky set flush Summer Lawns Burton adds swampy electric
with intoxicating melodies, guitar. As the Sixties receded,
jazz pop and dazzling (if often invisible)
1975
the songs glint with jadedness.
This avant-pop shift from Court
beyond syncopation, and lyrics of
breathtaking intimacy. “Songs
and Spark was her next master-
Few fame interrogations cut as
deep as the title track, or with
piece, though few recognized as cool an eye as “Blonde in the
BY WILL HERMES are like tattoos,” she sings on
it at the time. Shifting her
the title track. Indeed, each Bleachers.”
perspective from interior to ex-
here is indelible — none more
terior, Mitchell turned tables on
than the exquisitely sad holiday
Must- hymn “River,” and “A Case of
the male gaze and stared down
America’s heart of darkness.
Haves
You,” written with her ex Leonard
Arrangements are intricate, lay-
Cohen in mind and played with
ered and harmonically packed,
her ex James Taylor on guitar.
yet the music eddies as naturally
“My stuff is not male fantasy
as a stream. With its radical mix
at all,” she once noted. “It’s
of samples, synths and Burundi
instructed to make men a little
drumming, “The Jungle Line”
more informed.”
would echo through Eighties
pop (see Bow Wow Wow’s “I
Want Candy”). Superfan Prince
is said to have once called it Miles of Aisles
“the last album I loved all the 1974
way through.” Released in the wake of Court
and Spark’s jackpot, Mitchell’s
Ladies of the Canyon first proper live LP documents
Further
1970 her maiden voyage with a road
band: slick SoCal jazzbos the
The exact moment when
Mitchell shifts from mere folk
prodigy to something deeper
Listening L.A. Express. It’s best when they
lay back, which thankfully is
often, and she inhabits material
happens when “Morning Court and Spark she’s lived in for years — notably,
Morgantown” pivots into “For 1974 heart-wrenching takes of “Blue”
Free,” with its blue piano chords
The platonic ideal of a particular and “Last Time I Saw Richard,”
and jazzy clarinet coda. The
1970s L.A. sound: a garden of the latter with Mitchell doubling
closing trilogy made her a star:
shiny, jazzy pop planted with as a salty closing-time barmaid.
the chipper eco-nightmare “Big
strangely harmonized choral
Yellow Taxi”; the melancholy
blooms. As a pop-song writer,
celebration of “Woodstock,”
Mitchell would never be more
tribute to and eulogy for her
effective: Her bestselling record,
generation’s dreams; and “The
it sold 2 million copies in a year.
Circle Game,” her answer to
If the music is playful, even
Neil Young’s “Sugar
flashy, the lyrics are bone-deep;
Clouds
Mountain.” 1969
“Down to You” rivals her darkest
moments. On “Twisted,” in the This is where Mitchell came into
voice of an adult remembering full focus as artist, arranger,
her three-year-old self, she producer and songwriter. “Chel-
affirms, “I knew I was a genius.” sea Morning” and “I Don’t Know
If any doubts lingered, this LP Where I Stand” had already
Hejira
JACK ROBINSON/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
buried them. been covered by Fairport

Convention, and Judy 1976
Collins hit the Top Her sense of melody gets more
10 with “Both Sides diaphanous as she leans more
Now,” but Mitchell fully into jazz. Jaco Pastorius
took ownership here. arrives with his fretless bass; his
“Songs to Aging voicelike lines define “Coyote,”
Children Come” anticipated Kate an unsparing observation of
Bush’s dizzying harmonies. male mating behavior with lyrics
And “The Fiddle and the Drum,” as jaw-droppingly vivid as ever:
Mitchell easily one of the finest anti-war “He picks up my scent on his
in 1968 songs of all time, remains as fingers/While he’s watching the
timely as ever. waitresses’ legs.”
FURTHER READING
“URGE FOR GOING”

Reckless
Non-LP single, 1972
Daughter:
Originally recorded by folkie
A Portrait of
Tom Rush on his Joni-heavy 1968
Joni Mitchell album, The Circle Game. Mitchell
By David Yaffe finally released her own version
Yaffe, a musician as on the B side of “You Turn Me
Don Juan’s
well as a fine writer, got
remarkable access to
Tracks On, I’m a Radio,” a Top 40 hit
from For the Roses. One of her
the reclusive artist for Forgotten gems, B sides, best early songs, it was later
Reckless Daughter
this bio, a deep dive into rarities compiled on the Hits album.
1977
not just her life and loves
The jazz moves deepen. The (on which he dishes, “ME AND MY UNCLE” “IN FRANCE THEY KISS
16-minute “Paprika Plains” fea- respectfully) but also her
tures Pastorius and Weather Re- Canadian TV performance, ON MAIN STREET”
songwriting, notably
port bandmate Wayne Shorter. 1965
the later material. Demo, 1975 [The Seeding of
The cover image of Mitchell in For Mitchell, it’s A folk standard performed by
Summer Lawns]
blackface offended many. But it all inextricably the then-unmarried Mitchell on
This acoustic version of the
packaged a complicated indict- intertwined. the Canadian folk-revival show
Hissing of Summer Lawns gem
ment of cultural hypocrisy and Let’s Sing Out. The glee with
suggests a completely thought-
racism: See the impressionistic which she sings of icing her
out arrangement, though it’s just
“Dreamland,” featuring vocals by partner is priceless.
a guitar and Mitchell’s multi-
Chaka Khan. some songs of what would be tracked vocals, tracing the horn
he wrote specif- a long-term relationship
“SUGAR MOUNTAIN” arrangements to come.
ically for her. The gem is “The with bassist-producer Larry Bootleg radio performance,
Dry Cleaner From Des Moines,” a Klein. Playful, with her voice still 1967 “SPEECHLESS”
Going gambling tale about dumb luck
with some wild, chortling horn
in great shape, it draws inspira-
tion from both the Bible (“Love”)
Mitchell covers an early sig-
nature by Neil Young, which
From The Complete Geffen
Deeper charts by Pastorius, whose bass

line is so blindingly funky, it’s
and Elvis Presley (a giddy cover
of “[You’re So Square] Baby,
generated an answer song that
became her own early signature:
Recordings, 2003
A wordless, scat-sung instru-
become a model of form. I Don’t Care”). mental from 1989, imagined
“The Circle Game.”
as a French song in the style
of Edith Piaf. It would eventually
“CAREY”/“MR. become “Two Grey Rooms,”
TAMBOURINE MAN” a highlight of 1991’s Night
Ride Home.
From Amchitka, 2009
Recorded in 1970 at a Vancou-
ver Greenpeace benefit, with “IT’S ALL OVER NOW,
a Mitchell segue from the Blue BABY BLUE”
lover’s ode into a footloose Dylan
From The Complete Geffen
cover. When her then-boyfriend,
Recordings, 2003
Song to a Seagull James Taylor, joins in, he carries
A billowy French Impressionist
(aka Joni Mitchell) the vocal melody while Mitchell
take on a classic by her old pal
1968 Shadows and Light Both Sides Now does some harmonic somer-
Bobby, this 1991 outtake reimag-
1980 2000 saults.
This is folk music of its era, yet ines it with the boldness Dylan
outside it. The voice is ornate, A double live LP with an all-star The first of two releases pairing had been bringing to his back
“HUNTER”
moony and lovely, pulling band, featuring quicksilver jazz Mitchell’s matured, smoke-cured catalog live.
against unusual chord changes. guitarist/ECM Records windfall voice with orchestral settings. Studio outtake, 1970 [The
Produced by David Crosby with Pat Metheny. The originals are It’s a joy to hear her lay into Seeding of Summer Lawns] “ONE WEEK LAST
a light touch (if an unfortunate post-Court and Spark but for a standards like “At Last” (the song Alternatively known as “The
SUMMER”
murkiness), it’s still mainly her gossamer “Woodstock” and a Beyoncé would sing a decade Good Samaritan,” this mas-
and her guitar. The gorgeous jaunty “Free Man in Paris,” both later at President Obama’s inau- terful rush of acoustic guitar From Shine, 2007
melodies echo English folk, and reminders that “stoking the gural ball). And the set-closing and vocals, about teetering This stately piece from Mitchell’s
it resonated across the pond: star-maker machinery behind title track, which Mitchell wrote between fear and kindness, was most recent, if not final, LP, won
“I Had a King” would be one of the popular song” held less about accrued wisdom when still ostensibly recorded for Blue and a Grammy for Best Pop Instru-
multiple Joni inspirations for Led interest for Mitchell than ever. in her twenties, is a tear-jerking, later appeared on the Amchitka mental. A handsome coda for a
Zeppelin’s “Going to California.” And the Persuasions help her perfect full-circle moment. concert album. monumental oeuvre.
become Frankie Lymon on a
charming, pointed “Why Do
Fools Fall in Love.”
JIM MCCRARY/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
Check out
Mingus Rolling
1979 Stone
.com for a
Made with the iconic Charles
Mingus near the end of his life,
Wild Things Run Fast definitive
1982 Joni
this was Mitchell doubling down Mitchell
on her jazz journey, writing Mitchell enters the Eighties With James
playlist.
lyrics to the Mingus signature gamely with a set of love-fixated Taylor, 1971
“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” and songs that marks the beginning

being insane, but only if they

ask to be — an act of self-pres-
ervation that would render
them clearly sane in the eyes
of the military. In the book,
the exchange where Daneeka
lays this out for Yossarian is
as absurdly rat-a-tat as any-
thing from the Marx Brothers
or Abbott and Costello.
But Heslov casts himself as
Daneeka, and he lacks both
the verbal dexterity and the
flair for playing absurdity to
pull it off. And Abbott, who’s
good in the dramatic scenes,
often seems puzzled whenev-
er a joke is being delivered, as
uncertain of what he’s doing
there as Yossarian is.
Of the sprawling cast,
only a handful of actors
even consistently seem to
be aware that they’re in a
comedy (albeit a very dark
one). Clooney goes into full
Abbott looks for Coen-brothers-goon mode as
TV
a way out as the the martinet parade officer
skeptical soldier Scheisskopf. Kyle Chandler ef-
Yossarian.
fectively tweaks his own ram-
rod image as the sadistically
Catch-22 insecure Colonel Cathcart,
NETWORK Hulu and there’s a bounce to Dan-
AIR DATE May 17th iel David Stewart’s work as
Milo Minderbinder, the hus-
‘CATCH-22’ WINS HALF THE BATTLE

STARRING
Christopher Abbott tler who quickly figures out
George Clooney
Kyle Chandler
how to use his job as mess
Hugh Laurie officer to launch a profitable
Grant Heslov multinational syndicate. But
Hulu’s adaptation of the Joseph Heller classic is a devastating @ too many others are playing
portrait of war, but lacks the novel’s biting dark humor things straight, or simply
haven’t been given anything
to play. The great Hugh Lau-
Davies and David Michôd. ties and tragedies of even a him continually pause to ex- rie, whose gifts for comedy
Their depiction of World War “good” war, they likely would plain the joke at length, each and drama should make
II’s Mediterranean theater, have done a strong job. time beginning, “It’s a funny him a natural for a project
as seen through the eyes of But Clooney and Co. in- story.” Not with that much like this, is utterly wasted as
American bombardier John stead attempted to adapt a fa- exposition, it’s not. Major de Coverley.
Yossarian (Christopher Ab- mously funny book in which Or consider the contradic- The soundtrack is pep-
bott from Girls), is handsome Yossarian’s ordeal is not just tory military order that gives pered with uptempo big-band
and appropriately shocking. nightmare but farce. And the book and miniseries a hits including “No Love
As Yossarian risks his life on virtually all of the miniseries’ title. As base physician Doc No Nothin’,” by Rosemary
ALAN SEPINWALL one pointless bombing run attempts at comedy land with Daneeka puts it, any crew Clooney (aunt of George),
after another, the direction, all the delicacy of one of Yos- member can be grounded for and “Massachusetts,” by
the cinematography (by sarian’s aerial payloads. Anita O’Day. These are meant
J
OSEPH HELLER’S 1961 Martin Ruhe) and the digital Take, for instance, the to be ironic counterpoints to
novel Catch-22 is one effects make the flights both character of Major Major Yossarian’s grim missions,
of the greatest anti-war clear and unnerving. Each Major Major (Lewis but they often feel like an
satires ever written. With mission offers some stunning Pullman). On the inadvertent critique
their six-part Hulu miniseries new horror that will spur page, it’s slyly of the story they’re
adaptation, George Clooney Yossarian in his quest to be funny that he’s accompanying.
and Grant Heslov have nailed grounded by any means nec- promoted The songs, even
the anti-war part. The satire? essary. Memorable moments to that rank the ballads, have
Well, that’s the catch. from the novel, such as Yos- because of rhythm and
PHILIPE ANTONELLO/HULU, 2
Clooney and Heslov sarian’s midair conversation the repeating forward momen-
executive-produced this new with a wounded new addition name his tum that Catch-
version, with each directing to the crew, are a gut punch. prankster fa- 22 consistently
a pair of episodes (Ellen Had this creative team set out ther gave him. Clooney lacks. The humor
Kuras handled the other to make a straightforward Davies and inspects stumbles when it
two) from scripts by Luke drama about all the atroci- Michôd have the troops. should swing.
88 | Rolling Stone +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor

WATCH LIST UNDER THE RADAR
What to stream, what to skip this month

The Unsung
‘Patriot’
Amid the crush of Peak TV,
the Amazon spy series hasn’t
gotten much attention. But this
fresh take on the genre will
have you swearing allegiance
Patriot is a densely plotted and

utterly loopy spy series about
a U.S. attempt to manipulate
an Iranian election. Over its
two seasons, the intelligence
agent at its center, John Tavner
(Michael Dorman), has a brawl
in a stairwell while carrying an
Bertie (Ali Wong), unconscious man in a backpack,
Tuca (Tiffany Haddish) swaps amputated fingers with a
and Speckle (Steven co-worker, and writes and per-
Yeun) hit the road. forms a series of incredibly literal
folk songs about his misadven-
tures in Luxembourg, Milwaukee
FOR THE BIRDS BROKEN VOWS

and Paris. He is bedeviled by,
most shows, this would be utterly
among others, a cocaine-sniffing
scandalous. For Fleabag — the
concrete-pipe expert (Kurtwood
ribald, scathingly funny, achingly
Tuca & Bertie heartfelt story of a grief-stricken State of the Union
young woman battling her most
NETWORK Netflix NETWORK Sundance TV
self-destructive impulses — it feels
AIR DATE May 3rd exactly right. Fleabag’s reluc- AIR DATE May 6th, 10 p.m.
# tant flirtation with a handsome 4
clergyman (Sherlock’s Andrew
It does this animated buddy com- Scott) is meant not to shock but “Discussing a malfunctioning mar-
edy no initial favors to mention to illustrate the depths of her lone- riage is depressing and time-con-
that it was created by BoJack liness, while also having fun with suming,” Rosamund Pike’s Louise
Horseman producer Lisa Hanawalt. how mortifying she finds these tells her husband, Tom (Chris
Both series are set in universes feelings. The show also generates O’Dowd). This experimental series,
populated by anthropomorphized from High Fidelity’s Nick Hornby
Dorman as
animals — our heroines here are a and Stephen Frears, aims to prove
a bruising
loud and reckless toucan (Tiffany her wrong on both counts. Each
intelligence
Haddish) in the early stages of so- of its 10 episodes runs only 10
officer
briety and an anxious and sensible minutes, taking place entirely in
song thrush (Ali Wong) in the early and around the pub where the es-
stages of a committed relation- tranged spouses meet to pregame Smith), a security guard named
ship — but Tuca & Bertie aspires to their weekly marriage counseling. Jack Birdbath (Tony Fitzpatrick)
neither the anarchic laughs nor the And the installments are lightly and a trio of overconfident Euro-
Waller-
melancholy depths of BoJack. In comedic at least as often as they pean cops who call themselves
Bridge
the early going, it’s notable more are probing about all the problems “the Department of Tough Cool
for its trippy, fluid animation style — including, as Tom describes Guys.” He even has to perform
than for jokes or character arcs. big laughs by pointing out that Louise’s transgressions, a “spot an extensive monologue filled
But like BoJack’s first season, it just both she and her inappropriate of infidelity” — that brought them with indecipherable terminology
takes a little time to find its voice. crush communicate regularly with to this spot. This is Hornby in his about piping for actual piping-
Before long, it settles in as a win- omniscient figures the other can’t relationship-dramedy wheelhouse industry executives.
ning and slyly funny tale of female see: God for him, the TV audience All told, the series feels like
friendship and the challenges for her. Waller-Bridge’s gift for di- the end result of creator Steven
each half of this odd couple (plus alogue that’s as clever as it is dark Conrad soaking up a very weird
(see also her addictive writing on
PARISATAG HIZADEH/CONFESSION FILMS/SUNDANCE TV; AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
a delightful Steven Yeun as Bertie’s double marathon of Wes Ander-

dependable boyfriend, Speckle) Killing Eve Season One) remains son and Quentin Tarantino. But
face while trying to be heard in a on display, as in a speech guest as Conrad is presenting absurd
star Kristin Scott Thomas delivers
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: HBO; JESSICA FORDE/AMAZON PRIME VIDEO;
noisy, crazy world. images and plot twists you

about how “women are born with wouldn’t expect in an espionage
pain built in” while men seek out
SUPERFREAK
Pike and drama, he also winds up digging
war and other conflicts to feel it. fairly deep into what would drive
But the show’s most potent comic O’Dowd
Tavner to risk body and soul on
and dramatic moments both tend behalf of America, and into the
Fleabag to come from the knowing looks (Tom is even an unemployed rock collateral damage of our global
Fleabag throws us when the priest, journalist). Both stars are relaxed meddling. It can overindulge on
NETWORK Amazon
her sister, Claire (Sian Clifford), and likable enough to carry these the quirks, but the performances
AIR DATE May 17th her insufferable stepmother-to-be unbroken conversations, with Pike by Dorman, Smith, Terry O’Quinn
$ (Olivia Colman, hilariously awful) a particular treat stepping out of (as Tavner’s father/handler),
and everyone else aren’t looking. the more steely roles she often Michael Chernus (Tavner’s
“I want to fuck a priest,” the title Season One was so strong that plays. In a TV landscape where ep- brother) and others find startling
character of Phoebe Waller- the show demanded no follow-up, isodes and seasons can overstay depth amid the silliness. The
Bridge’s seriocomic gem confess- but Season Two is an incredibly their welcome, State of the Union two seasons also tell a complete
es early in the second season. For worthy successor. is the perfect length. A.S. story, so even as Amazon waffles
on renewal, there’s a satisfying
ending already there. A.S.

It’s graduation
day for Feldstein
(left) and Dever.
Booksmart
REVENGE OF THE FEMI-NERDS STARRING

and Amy talk frankly about
Beanie Feldstein masturbation and internet
Kaitlyn Dever porn, but their goals easily
DIRECTED BY Olivia Wilde pass the Bechdel test. Molly
In her dynamite debut as a director, Olivia Wilde gooses the 4 wants to be the youngest Su-
raunchy high school comedy with grrrl-power fireworks preme Court Justice ever. And
Amy is a social activist who
defers college to volunteer in
Crockett High, these brainiacs Botswana.
Wilde
are about to reap Ivy League All the actors get their licks
directs
glory — Molly at Yale and Amy Feldstein.
in, but Booksmart belongs to
at Columbia. So it’s a shock Feldstein and Dever, who are
to their system when the su- stars in the making. Feldstein,
perior attitude they wear like who killed it in Lady Bird with
armor is dented by the news Saoirse Ronan and on Broad-
that the school’s 24-hour way with Bette Midler in
party people are also bound Hello, Dolly, is a comet whose
PETER TRAVERS for the Ivys. And not because

their parents bought them in,
talent lights up the screen.
And Dever, who excelled with
FROM TOP: ANNAPURNA PICTURES; FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/ANNAPURNA PICTURES

though that would be sharply recurring TV spots on Justified
P
LEASE, not another topical. “You guys don’t even and Last Man Standing, does
teen coming-of-age care about school,” shrieks wonders as she moves from
movie! That was your Molly at the injustice, to humor to heartbreak and
first thought, right? Hold your which a popular girl retorts, and cram all the partying and bad, which starred Feldstein’s back again. When they do
contempt. Booksmart changes “No, we just don’t only care teen-spirit shenanigans they big brother, Jonah Hill. But finally go at each other at
the game and opens the genre about school.” can into one wild night. Wilde’s film is less obsessed the party — with everyone
up to greater possibilities. It’s a killer line in a movie Before the big event, with sex than with female capturing the moment on
Directed by the actor Olivia that’s bursting with them. the girls are detoured to a friendship in all its complex- their phones — their bond
Wilde in a smashing feature Working from a clever script rich-kids yacht shindig, an ities and contradictions. It’s is never in doubt. Together
debut, this femcentric spin by a quartet of women writ- epic fail run by Jared (Skyler not that these overachievers with Wilde, whose touch
on Freaks and Geeks is high ers, Wilde turns this rowdy Gisondo) and his wild-child don’t care about hooking up: with slapstick and nuance is
on girl power. Graduation day party into comic bliss. Have friend Gigi, played by Billie Molly futilely tries to act on equally unerring, they make
is breathing down the necks Molly and Amy wasted four Lourd, daughter of the late her crush for the studly Nick Booksmart the smart choice
of Molly (Beanie Feldstein) years with books? They don’t Carrie Fisher and an off-the- (Mason Gooding), and Amy — for anyone looking for a
and her best friend, Amy really think so. But just to be charts scene-stealer in her who’s been out for two years comedy that’s outrageously
(Kaitlyn Dever). After four sure, they decide to crash the own right. You could write off and still a virgin — decides, di- entertaining and quietly revo-
years of grinding at L.A.’s cool kids’ graduation blowout Booksmart as a female Super- sastrously, to kiss a girl. Molly lutionary at the same time.
90 | Rolling Stone | May 2019 +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor

OPPOSITES ATTRACT
I N W H AT world
Long Shot would sexy Charlize
STARRING
Theron and schlubby
Charlize Theron Seth Rogen hook up?
Seth Rogen The loaded-with-laughs
DIRECTED BY Long Shot offers a
Jonathan
Levine
surprisingly layered
and touching answer
# to that rude question.
Thompson Theron plays Charlotte
talks up a Field, the secretary of state who has her eye Swinton,
storm. on the White House. But her image consultant Swinton Byrne
(a terrific Lisa Kudrow) thinks Field is not
TALK SHOW & TELL THE WAY WE WERE

enough fun to be voter-relatable. Enter Fred
Flarsky (Rogen), a speechwriter with the com-
mon touch Field needs. She used to babysit
him 13 years ago, and he understandably
WATC H I N G Emma hasn’t gotten over his boyhood crush yet. R E M E M B E R the
Late Night Thompson and Mindy Working from a script by Dan Sterling (The The Souvenir name Honor Swinton
STARRING
Kaling mix it up in Late Interview) and Liz Hannah (The Post), director STARRING
Byrne. Her star is born
Emma Night will make you Jonathan Levine (50/50) contrives to make Tilda Swinton in The Souvenir, in
Thompson think you’ve died and this odd-coupling that horrifies the Field PR Honor which she plays Julie,
Mindy Kaling Swinton Byrne
gone to hilarity heav- team not just ingratiating but inevitable. The a film student in 1980s
DIRECTED BY DIRECTED BY
en. In Kaling’s woke result is a gleefully foul funfest that walks a London who’s being
Nisha Ganatra Joanna Hogg
script, the veteran minefield of sexist traps it can’t always dodge. set up to learn a lot of
4 British actress plays That the rom and the com both land is a $ things the hard way.
She’s the boss:
Katherine Newbury, tribute to Theron and Rogen, a sparking pair The young actor is the
Theron and
a late-night talk-show host who takes a drastic Rogen make of live wires who turn an impossible relation- daughter of Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, who
step to stop her slide in the ratings. She hires a real odd ship — she’s the class to his crass, the hot to plays Julie’s mother in a supporting role to
Molly Patel (Kaling playing a shrewd variation couple. his not — into a winning proposition. P.T. which she brings major dimensions.
on her TV persona), the first female to pene- Directed by the brilliant Joanna Hogg, this
trate Katherine’s writing staff of white dudes. delicate, dazzling memoir traces her own
Out of that simple, sometimes simplistic superhero origin story. Swinton Byrne, in a
premise, Thompson, Kaling and up-for-any- breakout debut performance, plays Julie with
thing director Nisha Ganatra spin comic gold. a striking blend of naiveté and passion. She
The longtime lack of a female host on late feels her privilege is ill-suited to the work-
night speaks to the story’s relevance, but the ing-class film she is making as her student
film goes further by showing how Kather- project. Julie’s inferiority intensifies when she
ine has spent years in the trenches without meets Anthony (the excellent Tom Burke), an
helping other women rise in the ranks. Kaling, older lover who judges her harshly, though he
who struggled to build her own sitcom (The hides dangerous secrets of his own. Hogg, let-
Mindy Project), knows about career obsta- ting the action play out in long takes until we
cles to women and people of color. The almost breathe with Julie, reveals a profound
actor-writer is too savvy for tirades. But with intimacy in love and art that can wound as
the glorious Thompson tossing Kaling’s verbal well as heal. The effect is shattering. Word is
grenades like a virtuoso, this workplace satire there’s a sequel to The Souvenir already in the
is just the pertinent fun we need. P.T. works. It can’t come soon enough. P.T.
RECONSIDERED The Howling

1981
AVAILABLE ON
Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: ‘The Howling’ Prime Video

FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: EMILY ARAGONES;
and iTunes
I T’S A G R A D E-A B movie, a touchstone of Eighties horror flicks and a tongue-
MOVIESTORE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK, 2
in-cheek satire of New Age gurus and neurotic yuppies: Joe Dante’s The Howling still
NICOLA DOVE; HECTOR ALVAREZ;
feels like the last word on satirical Eighties werewolf movies. And thanks to John
Sayles’ script, it doubles nicely as commentary about conformity and fearing your neighbors; it
just takes one smooth-talking shyster to get a bunch of “normal” people to unleash their inner
Elisabeth beasts without shame or guilt. Assaulted while doing a to-catch-a-predator story, Dee Wallace’s
Brooks grins.
traumatized TV reporter could not be more of a MeToo heroine. Until, of course, she decides
Inset: John
Carradine.
to prove that people can be “kind and peaceful” or “cruel and violent,” and turns into a growl-
ing, fangs-bearing monster during a broadcast. She’d fit right in on Fox News. DAVID FEAR

Books
A QUIET WORK OF STAGGERING HEARTBREAK
After the death of his two-year-old daughter, music critic Jayson
Greene turned his grief into a life-affirming memoir By ROB SHEFFIELD
‘O

NCE MORE WE SAW Once More We Saw Stars
Stars” is a quietly gets brutally intimate about
heartbreaking memoir
from Jayson Greene, a contrib-
the details of grief and loss,
with two shattered people
Managing
uting writer at Pitchfork. It’s his improvising their own healing Nirvana’s
first book — but the last he ever rituals. Their grief warps
would have wanted to write. He everything about their lives, Drama
and his wife, Stacy, lost their right down to the way they
two-year-old daughter, Greta, in a read the strangers around ON MARCH 25TH, 1994 — just
horrifying accident — the girl was them. “A young-looking 11 days before Kurt Cobain
sitting with her grandmother on couple take their seats behind committed suicide — Danny
a park bench in New York when a us,” he writes. “Something in Goldberg flew to Seattle in
piece of brick fell from the eighth their demeanor suggests to a desperate attempt to save
story of a nearby building and me we have something awful his life. “I felt impotent,” he
hit her. The book begins with in common. They are hag- recalled of the intervention.
their shock: the hospital rooms, gard, drawn, depleted-look- “Just a few months earlier, he
the funeral, the realization that ing, despite being fiercely fit. had told a journalist I was like a
everything has changed. As he I study them more closely for
writes, they’re figuring out “how signs of ‘dead child.’ ” They Serving the Servant
to breathe on this new planet.” try group therapy and yoga Danny Goldberg
It would be totally understand- retreats. They decide to get ECCO
able to fear this story might be Once More

We Saw Stars
matching tattoos. And they become parents again. #
too bleak to face — indeed, there But through it all, they’re struggling to keep their
would be something strange about Jayson Greene spirits alive, along with their daughter’s. ‘second father’ to him. . . .
not worrying about that. Yet it’s KNOPF If only in a secondary way, it’s also a book full of Now I could barely reach him.”
an intensely moving, life-affirm- 4 music, where a seemingly trivial sound can deliver It has taken Goldberg, who
ing story about a young couple unexpected emotional kick: a Mitski show, an Elliott was Nirvana’s co-manager from
moving through the darkest depths of grief togeth- Smith song he sang to his daughter, the John Prine 1990 until Cobain’s death, 25
er, making it up as they go along. The bereft dad ballad he sings to welcome his newborn son. When years to tell his story. The result
goes back to work, trying to impress everyone with Greene hears a record by the indie duo Girlpool, is a warmly told, richly detailed
how functional he is, even though he can feel them their music “pierces the ice.” The music moments memoir that focuses solely on
shudder behind his back. He searches the city for aren’t plentiful, but the book would be unimaginable the three and a half years he
safe places to scream loud without startling innocent without them. Ultimately, Once More We Saw Stars is worked with the band. Gold-
bystanders. (Industrial docks work well, subway about finding moments like these and weaving a new berg’s firsthand accounts shed
tunnels not so much.) Yet he can’t stop asking life out of them. And in Greene’s masterful and com- light on iconic moments in
himself, “How could we have failed this little person passionate hands, it becomes a love story, in which Nirvana’s career: He was sitting
so completely?” Greta’s spirit feels almost painfully alive. in a VIP section with Cobain
at the 1992 VMAs when the
alt-rock hero nearly got into
a fistfight with Axl Rose, and
was present on the set of the
PODCAST “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
video (with his one-year-old
daughter in tow). Goldberg,
Slow-Burn Terror With Pitch-Black Intimacy who was married to Cobain
and Courtney Love’s lawyer,
Blackout Blackout is part of a new movement in podcasting that takes inspiration Rosemary Carroll, dedicates an
from mid-20th-century radio dramas. In this case, listeners may be re- entire chapter to his attempts
CREATED BY
Scott Conroy minded of Orson Welles’ paranoid classic War of the Worlds. Oscar winner
BOTTOM: ROB LATOUR/SHUTTERSTOCK
to shield the pair in the wake

Rami Malek plays a radio DJ in a tiny New Hampshire town struggling to
4 keep his community informed and his family safe during a nationwide
of an infamously unflattering
1992 Vanity Fair article. That
blackout. Employing a score, sound effects, a full cast of actors and several intersecting sto-
kind of “unbiased” devotion
rylines that involve everything from armed vigilantes to a bunch of scared teens on a camping
may not make Goldberg the
trip, the series heightens its sense of tension in the course of eight episodes, using the medi-
most reliable narrator, but he’s
Malek um’s intimacy to sink us into a pitch-black world. ELISABETH GARBER-PAUL
added a fascinating perspective
to one of rock’s most harrowing
stories. ANGIE MARTOCCIO

thirdstreetmusicschool
@third_street @3rdstreetnyc
Looming over all of this is the specter of impeach-

N AT I O N A L A F FA I R S ment. Sitting in his office one day, I ask Nadler what it MEDMEN
would take for him to consider impeachment against
[Cont. from 47] court battle. “They’re going to try Trump. He describes a three-part test. The first was [Cont. from 60] went recreational, we went over-
to hide the report as much as possible,” he tells me. that impeachable offenses — high crimes and misde- night from elusive medicine to a commodity,” says Dr.
“They’re going to claim executive privilege, and we’ll meanors — could be proved. That could include ob- Dina, a longtime advocate with more than 15 years
have to challenge all that. And we’ll win eventually. struction, he says, if that obstruction amounted to a in the L.A. medical-marijuana business who counts
We’ll get it all out.” gross misuse of presidential power that threatened Snoop Dogg as a client. (Dr. Dina is not an actual doc-
At a members-only briefing the day before, Nadler the separation of powers, the functioning of govern- tor.) While she sells some products to MedMen, she’s
had urged his fellow Democrats not to engage with ment or the liberties of an individual. The second was not a great fan, particularly its practice of parking
their Republican counterparts on the committee, that the impeachable acts were “serious.” Bill Clin- trucks with MedMen banners in front of other shops.
who would undoubtedly use any rhetorical ploy they ton’s lies under oath about a sexual affair amount- She likens her favorite pot shops to Cheers, where ev-
could to grind the proceedings to a halt or turn it into ed to perjury but did not rise to that level, he says. eryone knows your name. “To me, their approach is
a partisan circus. Right on cue, Rep. Doug Collins Richard Nixon lying on his taxes was a crime but not like Apple, kind of impersonal,” she says.
(R-Ga.) accused Nadler of hypocrisy for his late-Nineties an impeachable offense. “You’re not going to put the Modlin shrugs off the “old guard” criticism. His
defense of Bill Clinton. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), one country through impeachment even if the president’s disarmingly mellow vibe hides a sharp mind. “What’s
of Trump’s most bombastic defenders in Congress, done a number of things that are in fact impeachable interesting about me is people think I’m high, like, all
called the subpoenas “the death rattle of the Demo- offenses if they’re not that important,” he says. “You the time,” says Modlin. “It’s just the laid-back Califor-
crats’ Russia collusion lie.” But the Democrats didn’t gotta have a rule of reason; it’s gotta be real.” nia attitude.” He eyes two middle-aged, well-dressed
take the bait, and the committee voted along party And the third thing is that impeachment can’t be moms and smiles. They are the target market.
lines to approve the subpoenas. seen as purely partisan. “You shouldn’t do it,” he Some pushers of higher-scale pot products like
From there, Nadler hustled back to his office to be says, “unless you think that you have such strong what they see in the MedMen setup. “Every other
briefed about a crucial upcoming vote to renew the proof of such terrible deeds that when they’re laid retail business, you can shop at Whole Foods or the
landmark Violence Against Women Act, a law that out in public to the American people, an apprecia- deli around the corner,” says Chris Folkerts, CEO
also falls in his jurisdiction. The NRA had launched a ble fraction of the opposition voters will admit, ‘They of Grenco Science, which sells high-end vape pens.
furious last-ditch effort to defeat the bill, and Nadler had to do it.’ “You have that choice. This shouldn’t be any different.
would spend most of that afternoon and evening on “Richard Nixon, for everything you could say People going into MedMen aren’t looking for a deal.”
the House floor making sure it passed. “The Judiciary about him, was not ignorant,” Nadler continues. “He One day, MedMen hopes to cut out the middle-
Committee jurisdiction is so wide,” says Rep. Pram- knew what he was doing. With this president, how men vendors. Following in the hallowed footsteps
ila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who serves on the committee much is contempt and how much is ignorance, I of Costco’s Kirkland brand, MedMen is beginning to
and co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus. don’t know, but he is vastly ignorant. We’ve never offer its own Statemade brand that, along with other
“We’ve got criminal justice, immigration, antitrust. seen this before. My role as the chairman of the Judi- in-house brands, it hopes will eventually make up
He’s got to be a smart and nimble tactician, seeing ciary Committee is to try to ensure that when this is 50 percent of sales. Since each state’s pot business is
the work of the committee on multiple levels. Jerry all over, we have as robust a democratic system as we individually regulated, all products must be grown,
is pretty uniquely positioned to do that.” did before. Everything flows from that.” bagged and processed in-state. Often, a small mom-
and-pop company will produce a well-regarded edi-
ble that will quickly sell out but won’t be restocked
for weeks, leading to unhappy customers. A Med-
famous last verse to their duet “Pancho and Lefty.” Men-run Statemade equivalent could end that di-
WILLIE NELSON Nelson gave the band members just a few days notice lemma, and the company’s Nevada operation gives a
for today’s session. They had no idea he was going to clue to its dream of controlling the means of produc-
[Cont. from 52] reason he’s survived: “When you cut nearly an entire gospel album in one sitting. tion: MedMen grows flower in its Dutch-style green-
put a negative thought into your mind and body, it Nelson shows up a little cranky — he’d come from house, located in Mustang, just outside Reno. The
literally poisons your system.” a photo shoot, one of his least-favorite things on flower is harvested, processed and tested for quality
I ask him what he thinks his legacy is. Nelson stares the planet. When his microphone isn’t immediate- in MedMen’s in-house laboratory, and is also sent out
back intensely. He asks me to repeat the question ly ready to go, he snaps at the engineer. But soon he to be checked by a third party. Finished products are
twice more before it becomes clear he just doesn’t warms up. Nelson in the studio is completely differ- then distributed to its Las Vegas stores.
want to answer. “I hadn’t really thought about it. I ent from Nelson onstage, where he can sometimes Modlin helps me pick out a Veuve Cliquot of pre-
think there’s already [a legacy] out there that people coast. Sitting on a stool, he tears through take after rolled joints. On the way to my car, I spot the two
have made up their minds already. I think.” take, songs he learned as a kid in church and early moms. They giggle and rip into a bag of edibles.
Nelson wrote a new song last night. It’s called classics of his own, like “Family Bible.” He works
N
“God Is Love.” He speaks a verse of it, making eye hard to figure out advanced chord structures, giving OW THAT POT is being corporatized, it’s hard
contact with me the entire time: “Take these words instructions like “Let’s get that diminished in there” for Bierman to maintain his posture as weed
of wisdom with you everywhere you go/Tell all the and “Modulate up a tone.” When someone makes a rebel. (He complains that MedMen’s profits
religions in the world, and through them the truth mistake, Nelson usually blames himself. are being hurt by nonlicensed pot stores in L.A. and
shall flow/But God is love, and love is God, that’s all “Everybody unhappy?” Nelson says midway calls for a crackdown.) He talks in business-speak
you need to know.” through, getting laughs from the control room. He about sales per retail square feet, but he never loses
Nelson says he doesn’t see God as a “big guy in asks what time it is: 9 p.m. “Oh, it’s early,” he says. the chip on his shoulder. He went to high school in
the sky, making all the decisions.” “I think God is “We wouldn’t even be [onstage] yet. Let’s see what San Diego and showed a precocious entrepreneur-
love, period. There’s love in everything out there — else we can do.” ial side, hosting house parties at 14 and charging 10
trees, grass, air, water. Love is the one thing that runs “He’s not fucking around today,” says the engineer. bucks a head. He spent much of his twenties making
through every living thing. Everybody loves some- Close to midnight, Nelson comes into the control a living playing poker. He knows he can be a bit Type
thing: The grass loves the water. That’s the one thing room to hang with his son Lukas. Willie is sweaty, vi- A, but when he comes home, he takes the edge off.
that we all have in common, that we all love and like brant, and looks younger than this morning. The en- “Cannabis has helped me take it to another level,”
to be loved. That’s God.” gineer’s microphone mistake is long forgotten, and says Bierman, who has two hits when he gets home.
Nelson reaches into his pocket and takes out a gen- “It allows me to reset. I’m present, and I’m apprecia-
T
HE NEXT DAY, Nelson teaches the song to his erous wad of $20 bills, handing them over as a tip. tive of the fact that I have 30 quality minutes with my
band in his Pedernales recording studio, an After a while, Nelson gets up. “I’m gonna see if the wife.” Later, he adds more positivity: “My tokes add
unmarked building on his golf course. The little lady wants to drive me home,” he says. Some of no calories to my day.”
space has a lot of history. One day in 1982, Nelson the songs aren’t perfect. “We’re coming back in to fix The apparently munchie-free Bierman claims that
woke up Merle Haggard, who’d passed out after being ’em later.” He takes a hit from his vape pen and ex- an early payroll was met with poker winnings, and
up for five days, and brought him here to record his hales. “Not sure what year that’ll be.” he likes to talk about MedMen’s fu- [Cont. on 96]

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processed more than $145,000 in credit cards from lars to a ‘consultant’ in Canada ‘to buy up our stock
MEDMEN the Beverly Hills store that was billed to a BH Fund II when it is under attack.’ ”
Group LLC, an innocuous-sounding subsidiary that Among all the turbulence, it was perhaps not a co-
[Cont. from 94] ture in card-speak. He uses a five- received mail at MedMen’s Culver City headquarters. incidence that my interview with MedMen board di-
card-stud analogy to answer a question about why he The practice continued with recreational sales, only rector Jay Brown, the CEO of the entertainment com-
doesn’t slow MedMen’s roll rather than risk expand- stopping, by MedMen’s own admission, when the pany Roc Nation, was canceled around this time. A
ing into Florida and New York. company went public last March. week later, Bierman headed to Austin for a SXSW
“It’s process, man,” says Bierman. “I’m looking at There were some other suspect moves. Manage- panel on the future of marijuana commerce. He
the two cards I have and the three cards out there. If ment tried to keep track of inventory, but often found his appearance being picketed by marijuana
somebody was to say, ‘Great, are you gonna take the found itself off by large margins. There was an expla- activists complaining about MedMen’s lack of diver-
money from the middle and walk away?’ ” He smiles. nation: Inventory was being transferred from store sity in management positions. The other man pick-
“Nope, I’m sitting with aces in the game of a lifetime. to store and not being checked in properly, despite eted? Former Republican Speaker of the House and
I’m not slowing down.” California requiring a “seed to sale” tracking system. weed opportunist John Boehner.
“I couldn’t figure out what was happening,” says
M T
EDMEN SKEPTICS SAY Bierman is either bluff- the former executive. “Then an employee would HE MARIJUANA INDUSTRY is still learning to
ing or he’s palmed the two aces from the show up in their mom’s Volvo with boxes of product crawl, much less walk. What happens next
bottom of the deck. “The company is far in the trunk. Imagine if he was in an accident or was with MedMen is unclear. As participants in a
out ahead of their skis,” one weed venture capitalist pulled over and had to explain that to police.” (Med- business endeavor that is illegal at the nationwide
tells me, describing its chances of long-term success Men denies that it shifted inventory between stores.) level, federal bankruptcy laws do not protect Med-
as “microscopic.” Bierman’s Wild West tactics continued back at Men. That means creditors, vendors and investors
Much of the criticism revolves around moves like the office. The hiring of his therapist was supposed will have a hard time recouping any of their losses.
the 2018 opening of a MedMen store and license on to motivate senior staff to greater heights. (Think This may explain why Modlin and Bierman were
Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue for $26.5 million, not in- the corporate-therapist character in Billions, which, so enthusiastic to take their bonuses.
cluding a sizable lease and the untidy fact that New along with The West Wing, happens to be Bierman’s “Taking those bonuses isn’t illegal,” says a pot ven-
York is at least a year away from full legalization. Bi- favorite show.) But staffers found Bierman’s guy to be ture capitalist. “But it sends a message to investors
erman argues that licenses in New York are already more of a snitch than a motivator. “Adam’s shrink’s that this is a company where the men in charge may
exponentially higher than what he paid. He dismiss- job was to ensure high performance,” recalls the not have the stock as their top priority.”
es what he calls oversaturated markets like Colorado former executive. “But in reality it was to see if you In his defense, Bierman insists early investors
and Oregon, where there may be more pot empori- believed in Adam’s vision.” MedMen ran through a were paid back before he and Modlin took their bo-
ums than dollar stores. This is why MedMen is mov- small army of senior-level employees. Disgruntled nuses, and suggests he was urged to take the money
ing into Florida, with 12 stores scheduled to open staffers saw Bierman as a megalomaniac and nick- by the same people. “The investors don’t want the
by mid-2020. He insists, despite the high overhead, named the MedMen offices as the Palace of Hubris. CEO of a newly public company worried about pay-
MedMen is located right where it needs to be for na- Then there are the lawsuits. One of the most po- ing his mortgage,” Bierman says.
tional domination. Bierman thinks that prime retail tentially damaging accusations that former CFO Park- What is clear is that MedMen will have to keep rais-
spots — limited by zoning restrictions — are the “de- er makes is that Bierman mentioned to him that he ing more money or risk going bust. In March, some
fensible” part of the industry. was “falsifying his personal brokerage statement” on insiders suggested that MedMen had only enough
“The people following us are either going to have mortgage applications in the hopes of getting a loan cash reserves to last a few more months. Then, on
to buy us or open up in Arkansas,” says Bierman. for his first home. Parker’s charge was backed up by cue, MedMen announced a $100 million investment
“Now you can make money in Arkansas, but that’s not another former executive who says he heard Bier- from Gotham Green Partners, a cannabis-centered
where you build a global brand.” man discussing it. (Bierman denies any wrongdoing.) investment firm, with another potential $150 million
That kind of attitude has made Bierman few There are more legal entanglements. Former em- if MedMen hits certain marks. If Bierman and Mod-
friends in the industry. “What’s bothering people is ployees have filed a class-action suit seeking money lin keep finding angel investors, they may be OK, but
that they’re getting so much cash and not using it for for unpaid overtime. Some early investors are suing, insiders say a market correction would hit risky bets
good,” says Dr. Dina. “They’re just using it to branch alleging that Bierman and Modlin enriched them- like MedMen the hardest.
out and take over.” selves out of turn when MedMen’s valuation sky- Bierman refuses to forecast the day when MedMen
MedMen’s burn rate has been fierce because of Bi- rocketed. Critics call the much-hyped $1 billion val- will turn a profit. But he suggests that the sheer value
erman’s expansionist dreams. He and Modlin have uation more than a little suspect. All of the white of the licenses that MedMen holds in various states
quickly moved from opening the first self-branded noise is making investors nervous. Cannacord, a are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He remains
MedMen in West Hollywood, taking possession of an venture-capital firm with a MedMen stake, unload- undaunted, bullish. To him, it’s all about momentum.
indoor cultivation facility in L.A., and starting con- ed nearly $14 million in stock after the CFO lawsuit. “I no longer see this company as a company that
struction on the Nevada facility, all in the past four In February, Bierman spoke before a weed con- has a binary-state-outcome potential of failure or suc-
years. The expenditures were funded by large invest- ference in Boston and talked about how he’d never cess,” Bierman tells me. “We’re past that.”
ments from venture capitalists, starting with $60 mil- pull any shenanigans to goose MedMen’s stock price. On my last visit to MedMen’s offices, I was invit-
lion in 2016 and another $75 million in 2017. “We’ve been real and authentic,” said Bierman. ed to watch a Red Jacket ceremony, where new em-
At first, Bierman’s approach seemed prescient. “The one thing we’ve never done is manage the stock ployees were given said red jackets after completing
When pot went fully legal on January 1st, 2018, Med- price because that wouldn’t be authentic.” three days of training in all aspects of the business.
Men’s stores were some of a few outlets licensed on A few weeks later, it emerged that MedMen had A crowd of MedMen employees lined two sides of
Day One, with lines circling around the block. paid $200,000 to Winning Media, a marketing firm, the parking lots and gave the newbies high-fives as
But the company took some shortcuts. According to boost the company’s image in the weeks before a they ran through the gauntlet like USC football play-
to two former senior employees with direct knowl- quarterly earnings call through online ads and place- ers entering the L.A. Coliseum. There was much
edge of the West Hollywood store, Modlin insisted ment of positive stories on pot-related websites. Win- whooping and hollering. Everyone seemed ecstat-
that they accept credit cards to improve the custom- ning’s hire was publicly announced on January 25th; ic but probably not high. Afterward, cupcakes were
er experience, even though credit-card companies the company’s stock price rose by 20 percent from served. Somewhere, Cheech and maybe Chong wept.
forbid it due to marijuana’s federal illegality. To get January 23rd to January 30th, which may or may not Bierman wasn’t there. Still, I remembered some-
around it, MedMen billed the charges through other be a coincidence. thing he told me when I expressed some skepticism
MedMen entities. (For a time, MedMen’s website Winning’s activities were dubious enough that about his dreams of global domination.
even said it took credit cards.) “Adam just wouldn’t MedMen received an official inquiry from the OTC “This is my purpose on this planet,” Bierman said.
even talk to me about it,” says a former executive Market Group, the Canadian Securities Exchange’s “We’re going to employ tens of thousands of people.
who was at the opening. policing organization. MedMen severed all dealings We are going to change the way people look at liv-
MedMen’s credit-card policy began during the Cal- with Winning the next day. The activities dovetailed ing their life, and I’m going to build an organization
ifornia medical-marijuana phase. I obtained a billing with Parker’s accusation in his lawsuit that Bierman that’s going to outlive me.”
statement for December 2017 that shows MedMen ordered him “to wire hundreds of thousands of dol- He flashed a grin. “I’m more than good.”

troduce Haim to Brascia. (Brascia denied the allega- The idea of protecting child actors does get a lot
COREY FELDMAN tion and died in 2018.) And he didn’t do anything of lip service in Hollywood these days. Take the 2012
once he knew what happened. And he did bring coke California state law called the Child Performer Pro-
[Cont. from 69] ruin him. (“This is the most ludi- into Haim’s life, along with acid and heroin. But he tection Act. It requires publicists, managers, acting
crous thing I’ve ever heard,” says Judy Haim.) was 14 too — a peer, not a parent. coaches and head-shot photographers who work
Wander sighed and said, “No. They’re put togeth- “At the end of the day, how are these things an- with child actors to be fingerprinted and have their
er by a woman who is protecting her son’s memory.” other kid’s fault?” Feldman says now. “How is it a names entered into a searchable database, but it’s
“By saying he was never raped, which is a lie,” 14-year-old’s job to raise another 14-year-old? I was not really enforced and never has been.
Feldman said. “How does that protect his legacy, growing up myself. He was left unsupervised in a As a result, more kids are being put at risk than
anyhow? The legacy is the kid shows up on drugs all world of sleazeballs. He was an innocent child, I otherwise might be, with more victims being left to
the time. The kid got fired all the time. The kid was was an innocent child, and it was our parents’ job to deal with the repercussions. The average age of com-
seen as the train wreck of Hollywood. How does ex- protect us from the adult world.” And they didn’t, ing to grips with childhood molestation and being
plaining to people why he was that way ruin his leg- quite obviously. ready to talk about it? According to Child USA, it’s 52.
acy? It’s the exact opposite. It shows people it wasn’t Feldman grew up in Woodland Hills, a neighbor-
A
his fault. He was a victim and screwed up in the head hood in the San Fernando Valley. His father was a T HOME, his wife, Courtney, is in the kitch-
because of what happened to him. And that’s why he half-baked musician and mostly absent. According en, juicing blood oranges and preparing lunch
would wake up in the ICU.” to Coreyography, his former-Playboy-Club-Bunny for the crew and her husband, who is falling
Wander leaned forward. “I don’t think there’s a mother, Sheila, on the other hand, viewed her son deep into a moment of despair. He knows how Hol-
deeper grief than a parent losing a child, and I can as her own personal meal ticket after he was cast lywood works, especially when it comes to anything
see how a woman grieving over that loss could go in a McDonald’s ad at age three. Soon enough, ac- that might disrupt business.
overboard. Personally, I think you ought to take the cording to his memoir, he’d appeared in more than “What am I doing this for? So that everybody can
high road and say, ‘This is a mother grieving.’ ” 100 commercials and 50 TV shows, with his mother ignore me, so that everybody in Hollywood can once
Feldman’s eyes widened. “She’s trying to have my force-feeding him diet pills to keep his weight down again turn their backs on me and laugh at me and go
kid taken away! They’re making false assault charges and beating him with a fist if he messed up on set. ha-ha-ha? We need to prove that there is an orches-
against me. They’re trying to say I drugged girls and (His mother has denied it all.) trated movement to silence me.”
molested them. [ Judy Haim denies it all.] Trying to Then, starting when he was 14, came the alleged Courtney starts up a blender.
ruin my marriage. She’s trying to make Corey Feld- sexual abuse. First guy was an assistant, a small-time “Maybe Hollywood realizes that they kicked me to
man look like a liar! Like a bad guy! When actually actor named Jon Grissom, who was hired by his fa- the curb for nothing,” Feldman says. “And hopeful-
I’m a morally upstanding citizen who has never done ther and who did prison time for child molestation ly they embrace what I’m doing and say about that
anything to anyone.” in 2003. Feldman says the abuse went on for more other guy, ‘You know what? This is a big sore at the
Later, on the street, Feldman shook his head and than a year. He also claims, as he confirmed on The bottom of our leg and we need to just amputate.’ Or
said, “I don’t think Perry understands the scope of Dr. Oz Show, that the guy who ran the Soda Pop Club, they could go, ‘Well, we see all of the evidence, and,
what I’m dealing with.” Alphy Hoffman, molested him. (Grissom and Hoff- you know, screw you.’ Once this is out, I’m assuming
And sometimes it seems like Feldman doesn’t re- man could not be reached for comment.) millions of people are gonna see it. It’s gonna be ev-
ally understand the scope of what he’s dealing with “These men were circling around me,” Feldman erywhere, you know, no matter what happens.”
either. Or the degree to which he seems obsessed. Or says. “Me and my best friend were surrounded, being He looks around, like he’s waiting for someone
how odd it sounds when he talks about himself in the tossed back and forth between them without our to agree with him about this rosy scenario in which
third person. But onward he plows. knowledge, and it was just horrendous. . . . [Abuse] ultimately, probably, at least in his mind, he is re-
involves conditioning a child and grooming them and stored to some semblance of his former teen-mov-
I
N THEIR PRIME, after The Lost Boys partnered getting them ready for the days that they’re going to ie-star glory.
them up, in 1987, he and Haim became known be molested. It involves putting people in place to About six months later, Truth: The Rape of Two Co-
nationwide as the Two Coreys. They cruised in make sure a kid is surrounded by only pedophiles.” reys is almost done, with Feldman still making the
black limos together, hung out together at Alphy’s “It was the gossip back in the Eighties,” former rounds looking for a distribution deal and an infusion
Soda Pop Club (for underage industry kids), snort- Little House on the Prairie star Alison Arngrim once of cash so he and his cameras can afford to go con-
ed coke together, appeared in each other’s mov- remembered. “People said, ‘Oh, yeah, the Coreys, front Judy Haim in Canada and take on Corey Haim’s
ies, had sex with each other’s girlfriends (or at least everyone’s had them.’ People talked about it like it alleged rapist in Los Angeles, to give them a chance
Haim did), saw their movie paydays plummet out of was not a big deal. . . . I literally heard that they were to respond to the movie’s charges.
the stratosphere, sold CD collections on street cor- ‘passed around.’ The word was that they were given His initial big hope had been Netflix; he talked
ners for drugs (or at least Feldman did), and start- drugs and being used for sex. It was awful — these to people there in early December. Pass. In mid-
ed a hotline for kids, with Haim sometimes giving were kids. . . . There were all sorts of stories about ev- January, he went to Sundance and talked up Truth.
advice about drugs while bombed. A young Claire eryone . . . that these two had been sexually abused.” Again, nothing. Later that month, he spoke with Life-
Danes once dialed in. Some three decades later, however, Feldman’s time, which did the 2018 Two Coreys movie, as well
Even so, they got into spats, most often over claiming that the names he will soon reveal are or as the recent documentary Surviving R. Kelly. But no
Haim’s continued drug use once Feldman cleaned have been of Hollywood movers and shakers, A-list- deal. “The fact that they passed was shocking,” Feld-
himself up in 1995, and they didn’t see each other ers and influencers, studio heads and the like, and man says.
for months at a time. They reunited for a final time that his revelations “can literally change the enter- Meanwhile, he also says he’s getting poorer by
in 2008, for the Two Coreys reality show on Lifetime. tainment system as we know it, and I believe that I the minute. “It’s fucking scary,” he says. “But at the
Anything went except for one thing: the abuse they can also bring down potentially a pedophile ring that same time, I have faith. I have faith that I’m supposed
suffered as kids. But on the first episode of the sec- I’ve been aware of since I was a child. Right off the to complete my mission.” And what about the Wolf-
ond season, Haim let it rip about a hanger-on named bat, I can name six names, one of them who is still pack? “All they’re really doing is protecting a pedo-
Dominick Brascia. “You let me get fucked around in very powerful today. [It’s] a story that links all the phile, and once the film comes out, they’re going to
my life, man,” he hissed at Feldman. “Raped, so to way up to a studio [and] connects pedophilia to one look just as foolish as all those rabid Michael Jackson
speak, when I was about 14 and a half, and I’m saying of the major studios.” The abusers on his list, howev- fans who sit there and, you know, yell and scream
this right now, by the guy you still hang out with, and er, are small-potato has-beens and hanger-ons, and and curse at people that say he might be guilty.”
[you] tell me, I’m 14 and a half, to take responsibility. the one big guy isn’t that big anymore. He insists it’s only a matter of days until a deal gets
You know exactly what I’m talking about. What’d you This doesn’t mean that studio heavies couldn’t made. He’s been saying that for months now, how-
do, man, when you saw that going down when I was be involved in one way or another. According to ever. It could happen, of course. Feldman’s a per-
14? You knew about it. Besides being his best friend. Matthew Valentinas, an entertainment lawyer who sistent guy. He’s not going to give up. But no matter
What’d you do? Fuck-all is what you did, man. Lines co-produced the astounding and oddly ignored 2015 his intentions or his words, or if, in fact, the public
of cocaine with me. God bless you.” documentary about Hollywood pedophiles, An Open ever has a chance to see his movie, it does seem like
Feldman looked blindsided and didn’t even try to Secret, “They exist. They are there. There is no doubt a fight that, for him, may never and will never actu-
rebut Haim’s accusations. How could he? He did in- about it.” ally come to an end.

RZA
The Wu-Tang mastermind on the perils
of success and why he idolizes his mom
You’re turning 50 in July. My mother is my first hero that’s proud of me. Men need
Does that scare you, or do because of how she per- that. It’s a certain validation.
you embrace it? severed through struggle, You were found not guilty
The blessing [of aging] is hard times and heartbreaks, of attempted murder in
that I’m artistically getting and she still had love, poise, 1993. What did you learn
greater, and getting greater dignity, pride and beauty. from that experience?
opportunities on my journey. My father is also a hero, Two-second mistake. I’ve
I was writing 16 bars; now even though he left when he learned that positivity is the
I’m writing 120-page screen- was young. In his faults, he natural way for my life. If
plays. It’s the same form of remained steadfast in his con- you go back and check
viction [and] could not be de- my arrest record [before
terred from the simple truth that], it’s gonna hit the
Wu-Tang docuseries that he learned through life, floor from foolishness.
‘Of Mics and Men’ which is to keep a concept But if you check it from
premieres in May. of independence and after, you can’t even
self-reliance. His confi- get a paragraph out.
dence and his surety of The most crushing
art, but it’s the evolution of his own being is inspir- moment in that whole
it. I was [always] that guy that ing as I’m aging. thing was the eyes of
had an old soul. I’m probably Are there any disappointment that
about 200 years old. albums you’ve my mother looked at
Are you OK with produced that me with. When I won,
Wu-Tang being called a you wish you could she told me, “This is
“legacy group”? have a do-over on? your second chance.”
That’s a sign of respect. A I wouldn’t mind getting a re- You’ve been a long-
sign [that] people didn’t take on 30 percent of every- time Bible reader. Which
think hip-hop itself would be thing that I put out there. story do you connect with
here at this phase. I actually I enjoyed [Wu-Tang’s 2001 the most?
had a conversation with the album Iron Flag], but I can Job. He was rich already.
crew [in 1992] that it had the remember myself not being He had a wife, he had
potential to last for 20 years, fully committed in a thirsty children. He was true
and I said maybe then it’d way. Big studio, the liquor, in living, to his culture,
decline and something new the wine, the money, the to God, to his faith. And
would grow. People always drugs — I remember myself when things got taken away
said the Wu-Tang Clan “W” letting the time burn. That’s from him, he remained
was a bat or bird. They don’t not the same guy who didn’t righteous, and every-
remember, early on, that I wash for days making body in his family, in-
said, “No, it’s a phoenix.” [GZA’s 1995 record] cluding his children,
What’s the best advice Liquid Swords. The com- all went unrighteous.
you’ve ever gotten? mitment had left, and it Job was steadfast, yo.
The best advice I got [from didn’t come back to me If you could be
GZA] was to get knowledge of until 2011–12, when I any superhero, who
myself. Knowledge, wisdom had to do The Man With would you be?
and understanding are the the Iron Fists. But I had Other than the RZA?
riches that a man should to sober up to do that. My [Laughs] I always thought
strive for. Quincy Jones [also] mom passed away in 2000, I was the Silver Surfer —
said to ODB, “When it rains, and I had nobody I thought someone that’s created
get wet.” In this round of life, was feeling proud of me through something else and
I am looking to responsibly anymore. There was nothing [knows] how to fight that
get wet. I just let myself to prove. based on his own convic-
be encompassed by the What changed? tions. He came to have Earth
moments that I’m enjoying. I got married. Coming destroyed, but he chose to
Who are your heroes? home to someone help save it. JASON NEWMAN
98 | Rolling Stone | May 2019 ILLUSTRATION BY Mark Summers


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