Rolling Stone

MTV's lauding Rolling Stone magazine is a little bit like the rustlers inviting the hangman to dinner. No love's ever been lost between rock's premiere magazine and the genre's first TV network."

On Raw, you may have noticed commercials for a Rolling Stones concert, "One More Shot," which will air on pay-per-view live on Dec. 15 at 9 p.m. The concert takes place at the Prudential Center in New Jersey. WWE has now anounced that a one-hour pre-show has been added and will air on E! channel. E! will give fans behind-the-scenes access and exclusive interviews with rock 'n' roll icons Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood.  With Terrence Jenkins anchoring the pre-show, Ross Mathews backstage and Alicia Quarles capturing all the arrival excitement, E!

Dear me. It's Demi again, posing naked on the cover of a magazine. This time, the star of "Disclosure" has dissed clothes for the Feb. 9 Rolling Stone. It's a bit of a cliche by now, isn't it? Twice already, the aging 1980s-styled Brat Packer has won eyes and ayes and oys for streaking across Vanity Fair's front window. Anyhow, the dull Q&A has the actress responding to writer Mim Udovitch's stale comments on Paula Jones and Anita Hill, as well as this question: "Who has the superior butt, David Letterman or Michael Douglas?"

On weekday mornings, I'll post the most controversial, shocking and (of course) ridiculous stories for your reading pleasure. That way, when you walk into work, you'll be the master of witty conversation. National • Shocking: Rolling Stone publishes "Kill Team" photos from Afghanistan . (Rolling Stone) Warning: These are truly horrifying. Do not look if you are disturbed easily.  • Just following orders: Vice President Joe Biden's s taffers apologize for confining reporter to closet during fundraiser.

Here's a new form of TV programming for you: the docu-entertainment special.That's what Fox is calling its "Rolling Stone '93: The Year in Review," which airs at 9 tonight on WBFF (Channel 45).Actually, only the label is new. The format is basically the same one folks like Barbara Walters have been using forever. With apologies to the Fox executives who get paid for coming up with terms like "docu-entertainment special," what we really have here are celebrity interviews.But while the format isn't new, the celebrities for the most part are hot, hot, hot. And they generally have interesting things to say -- even though their segments are more like expanded sound bites than full-blown interviews.

LET'S TAKE the P.J. O'Rourke sarcasm test."Saddam Hussein -- he's worse than a Hitler, worse than a Stalin, worse than waking up wearing a wedding ring next to a Roseanne Barr who's grown a mustache . . . He's got chemical weapons filled with . . . with . . . chemicals. Maybe he's got the Bomb. And missiles that can reach Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Spokane . . . Bury all the Hummel figurines in the yard. We're all going to die. Details at eleven."That's quintessential O'Rourke captured in the Oct. 18 issue of Rolling Stone ($2.50)

If Stanley McChrystal has any kind of mordant humor, surely the song playing in his head these days is that old tune by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, the one about "the thrill that'll get-cha when you get your pict-cha on the cover of the Rolling Stone." That's actually Lady Gaga on the current cover, nearly naked but for an undergarment that gives "bullet bra" a whole new meaning. But somehow McChrystal has managed to upstage her even though he only makes an oblique appearance in the vicinity of her left knee, in a teaser headline, " Obama's General: Why he's losing the war."

New York To begin at the end, here's what Jann Wenner wants on his tombstone: "He was a great father, and he did great magazines."The man who is father to three sons and founder of one of the great original magazines of our time, Rolling Stone, says he could live with that epitaph. So to speak."You know, when you ask somebody what they want on their tombstone, you're asking them, 'What are you fundamentally proudest of in your life? What is the thing that matters to you most?' " says Mr. Wenner, forcing each word through thin plumes of cigarette smoke.

NEW YORK -- The wait for a new novel from Tom Wolfe willhave lasted 10 years -- until next November -- when his publisher brings out the writer's first hardcover fiction since the popular "Bonfire of the Vanities."Meanwhile, Wolfe is offering an appetizer in the pages of Rolling Stone, where "Bonfire" first appeared as a 27-part "serial novel," and his book publisher has offered a few other details of the much-anticipated work."Ambush at Fort Bragg," a tale of sensationalistic TV reporting that debuts in the Dec. 12 issue of Rolling Stone, was spun off by Wolfe from his novel-in-progress.

Sometimes when I'm lovingly caressing my remote control, safe in the privacy of my own home, I trip over those gruesome surgeries on the Learning Channel. In a flash, without warning or choice, I find myself crawling through the bloody viscera of an unfortunate stranger, his or her swollen tissues and palpitating organs oozing around me as if I were one of those shrunken scientists in the movie "Fantastic Voyage."Once, although it may have been some brilliant dream, I swear I even glimpsed a brain, a naked brain, a gray knot of tightly coiled tubes pulsing within an open canyon of skull.

As a veteran, I disagree with the letter "McChrystal's naïveté, Obama's thin skin." While President Obama has shown his thin skin on many occasions and has been unremarkably political when responding to detractors, in this case he got it right. The military survives on chain of command. It serves no purpose for military commanders to publicly badmouth their civilian leaders, and in fact it serves to only create unrest within the rest of the military. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were who they are long before the Rolling Stone interview took place, and they were duly elected by Americans to lead our military efforts abroad.

Flying at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic is about as detached from earthly concerns as one can get. Seat bound and strapped in found me staring at Lady Gaga's two gun M16 brazier photo on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, reminding me that the world below is full of strangeness and requires a reality disconnect from time to time. Michael Hastings' article in Rolling Stone, "The Runaway General", also requires the previous description pulsating off the front cover. The article, and General Stanley McChrystal's outing by President Obama, is history.

If Stanley McChrystal has any kind of mordant humor, surely the song playing in his head these days is that old tune by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, the one about "the thrill that'll get-cha when you get your pict-cha on the cover of the Rolling Stone." That's actually Lady Gaga on the current cover, nearly naked but for an undergarment that gives "bullet bra" a whole new meaning. But somehow McChrystal has managed to upstage her even though he only makes an oblique appearance in the vicinity of her left knee, in a teaser headline, " Obama's General: Why he's losing the war."

The resurrection of Hillary Clinton as a potential president may now be taking place. Hard to believe, but a Rasmussen poll released Tuesday showed the former first lady, U.S. senator and now secretary of state is viewed as more qualified to be president than the current occupant of the White House, who came from nowhere to beat her out for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Both she and President Obama are thought to be more qualified for the job than three Republicans who have expressed interest in it. Ms. Clinton, according to this poll, is thought to be qualified by 57 percent of the voter respondents, while 34 percent say she is not. As for the president, 51 percent think him qualified for the job he has held for the last year and a half, while 44 percent disagree.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal put President Obama in a terrible bind. Forgive the insubordinate remarks the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan made in an article in Rolling Stone, and President Obama destroys the chain of command that puts civilians in charge of our military, condones disrespect and poor discipline in the ranks and looks like a wimp besides. Fire him, and the president risks disrupting an increasingly deadly military offensive at what may be the most critical point in what is now America's longest war. The president will no doubt get criticism from the supposed friends of the military that his decision to replace the general puts the troops at greater risk over what amounted to a series of ill-advised jokes among General McChrystal and his staff.

The attorneys general of Maryland and seven other states filed lawsuits yesterday against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the nation's second-largest cigarette maker, accusing it of violating its vow not to entice children to smoke by using cartoons in its marketing campaigns. The states' top law enforcement officials focused their ire on a lighthearted, nine-page illustrated advertisement for Camel cigarettes in the November issue of Rolling Stone magazine that they said was designed with children and adolescents in mind.