At the end of part one of my introductory post to the Steemit Community (Steemers, Steemerati, Steemfolk), I had just received the greatest news in my 23-year life: I'd been invited down to New York City to interview for an internship position at Rolling Stone magazine. Remember, I sent the letter off to RS on Halloween Night, so it probably didn't even send until the next day, and by the time it got to the magazine's offices on Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, it wasn't until early November. I distinctly remember there being a constant threat of snow that November in 2003, and what do you know? As soon as my parents and girlfriend put me on the train, the snow started falling. Having never really been to Midtown Manhattan, I assumed the train would roll into 34th Street - Penn Station, and it would be a practical and easy walk from there to 1290 Avenue of the America (a.k.a. 6th Avenue) and 51st Street. Less than 20 blocks! Easy peasy!
Of course, I hadn't really prepared myself for what would happen if, say, blizzard conditions appeared out of the blue and what that would do to my suit, tie, and dress shoes. Well, the train rolled in right on time. One thing you have to understand about New York City is that anytime there's inclement weather, taxis are impossible to hail. So when I surfaced out of the subway on 34th and 7th outside of Madison Square Garden, it was blizzard conditions and there were zero taxis. And this voice inside me kept saying, "Dude, you better not fuck this up. This is your ticket out." I found this inner strength and just started walking.
I walked and walked and walked, and the snow caked on my head and face. I was freezing cold, but I continued walking. I remember I was also wearing a primitive version of the glasses you see on my face above, so they were completely fogged up. I was a mess. I finally got to 1290 Avenue of the Americas, went through the revolving doors, and trudged up to the front desk.
"Can I help you, sir?" said the guy behind the desk.
Out of breath, freezing fucking cold, and dripping wet, I replied, "I'm here for an interview at Rolling Stone magazine."
The fellow behind the desk looked me over a bit, and then had me stand in front of a little egg on the counter, which took my picture and became my pass to get up the elevator to the offices.
When I got up there, a kind receptionist greeted me.
"Hi there! You must be Will. We've been expecting you. Amelia will be ready for you in a minute."
So I sat in the waiting area, where they had stacks of fresh copies of the latest Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, and Us Weekly (that last magazine, up until recently, was also under the Wenner Media umbrella), and flipped through them nervously. I likely had a bag with me with paper and a pen, so I could "take notes" during the interview. I had a copy of my résumé. And I was still fucking freezing and now soaked to the bone.
When my name finally got called, the receptionist led me through what can only be described as a dark, gray, cavernous field of cubicles, with little of what I had expected in front of my eyes. I do remember walking by the framed original artwork of an early Neil Young cover story, but the rest of it was just cubicle row. The receptionist deposited me at the far right wall, second row from the corner office, where publisher Jann Wenner would've been sitting (he was not there at the time).
"Hi, I'm Amelia. You must be Will."
It turned out that my interviewer was an editorial assistant for the managing editor, who at the time was this skinny, manicured-looking British guy, Ed Needham. He had apparently been poached from FHM or some other Brit "laddie magazine," and my guess is that he had been brought in to tap into that proto-bro lifestyle.
The first thing Amelia told me was: "At Rolling Stone, interns never get to write for the magazine." I made a quick mental note of that, and kept smiling and listening. Our primary job as RS interns would be clipping the morning papers -- the New York Times, New York Post, Daily News, and Los Angeles Times -- and take those actual newspaper clippings (that were physically cut out of the papers with scissors) and glue them onto white copy machine paper. Then, they would be packeted up and distributed to the appropriate editors on staff. So, for example, the gossip column stuff from the Post and Daily News got packeted and distributed to Austin Scaggs, who at the time, was I believe, an assistant editor, who sort of covered semi-controversial reporting. (He was sort of a staff Wild Card, given the fact that his father was Boz Scaggs, a friend of Jann's and a '70s rock star.)
Also, interns were tasked with doing research for upcoming features in the Rolling Stone Library, whose stacks were filled with every back issue of the magazine back to No. 1, and every rock 'n' roll book you could ever imagine wanting to read. It even had its own librarian, this really chill, nice African-American dude, whose name escapes me. Part of that "research" included transcribing interviews that RS editors conducted with rock stars. For anyone who's ever had to transcribe an hourlong interview, you'll know how much of a pain it is.
And lastly, interns were also supposed to do anything else that anyone on staff asked us to do. So, for example, if Ed Needham needed a cup of tea in the middle of the day, and he asked one of us to get him one, we had to oblige.
The entire time Amelia was speaking, I sort of zoned out into this feeling of warmth and relaxation. I was so close to my destiny I could almost feel it.
"Any questions you might have for me, Will?"
That was when I pulled out my trump card. In the week or so before I went down to NYC, I had buried myself in research of Amelia, whom I knew would be interviewing me. I landed on some really, really early, embarrassingly bad website she had put together, and brought it up.
She look gobsmacked. "How did you find that?" she said to me, sort of annoyedly.
"OK, if you never tell anybody about that website or mention it in my presence again, you can have this internship," she said to me.
I was stunned. "So I got the internship?" I said.
"Yep, you got it," said Amelia. "When can you start?"
My next post will be about what happened next ...