When I was offered an internship at the magazine that wrote the bible on music journalism, I couldn’t believe it. Spending the summer in New York interning at Rolling Stone turned out to be one of the coolest privileges I could possibly have been given. I thought it might be interesting to share some of my New York experiences, dig up some dirt and bring you behind the scenes of the magazine that aims to be the authority on pop culture, music and entertainment. I lived in the East Village on 14th street in the New York University apartment-style dorms. While there, I caught as many concerts and plays as I could handle, soaking up all the cultural opportunities a big city like New York can offer. The internship consisted mostly of research, fact-checking and a little bit of editing. Every morning I began my day at work by buying breakfast for managing editor Bob Love – a buttered poppyseed roll, a small freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice and a tall coffee of the day from Starbucks. I know it’s not the most glamorous task, but that wasn’t all I did. I even got to rub elbows with several celebrities. Keanu Reeves dropped in the office one day after doing an in-store appearance with his band Dogstar at the record store on the main floor of our building. You’re probably thinking I got to interview cool rock stars like The Red Hot Chili Peppers or Rage Against the Machine. Well . not quite. But I did get to run an errand for former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. Decked out in tattered jeans, a green flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off and his signature big, black top hat, Slash wandered into the office on a slow Friday just after the magazine had finished another issue. Returning from a lunch break, I walked right past him and barely noticed at first. It’s a pretty relaxed office, so seeing someone dressed in grungy clothes isn’t all too uncommon. You would think that people who work at Rolling Stone would be used to seeing celebrities and that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But as soon as word got around that Slash was hanging out with music editor Joe Levy in his office, everyone had to get up to take a “bathroom break” in order to catch a glimpse. I was sitting at a cubicle parallel to where the meeting was taking place, when Joe pulled me aside and asked me to run downstairs to the drugstore to buy some bottled water for Slash and his entourage. Who would have thought that a hard-core, rebellious rock star like Slash drinks Evian? Well, he does. The office is the envy of the magazine industry. It’s on the second floor of a skyscraper next door to Radio City Music Hall, and it has full panel windows. There are all kinds of rock and roll memorabilia lining the walls – costumes worn in photo shoots along with photos that have appeared in the magazine over the years. Rolling Stone must receive some of the strangest mail that has ever gone through the U.S. Postal Service. Among the interesting things sent to the magazine this summer are a Mr. T Chia Pet, a letter addressed to Kid Rock from a 14-year-old girl asking him to father her child, and another letter from a man in prison claiming he is visited daily and anally probed by aliens. In fact, I would say 30 percent of the letters received are from incarcerated people surprisingly enough. If you walk on 6th Ave. in front of the building you can see editor and publisher Jann Wenner sitting at his desk. Jann Wenner is an interesting character. He has an air about him that commands respect, and whenever he asks someone to do something, they have to drop everything and devote their entire attention to it. For those unfamiliar, Jann dropped out of Berkeley in the late ’60s as a hippie, to start Rolling Stone, which looked more like a newspaper when it first started. The magazine was first sold on the street corners of San Francisco and quickly spread through word of mouth beyond the hippie community. Believe it or not, the first issue to entirely sell out included a roach clip as an incentive for people to buy it. Although he is not as involved in the day-to-day operations as managing editor Bob Love, everything in the magazine must get the Jann Wenner seal of approval. Sadly, my one shot at getting a byline in the magazine didn’t get the seal. I was given a 23,000-word section of a book called “The Beatles Anthology,” set to be released this October. It is a collection of interviews with band members, telling the entire story of the Beatles. My task was to edit down the section to a 3,000-word excerpt and write an introduction to set up the scene. After spending several days I came up with a nice excerpt, and I showed it to my assigning editor, Jason Fine, who was immediately impressed. In fact, all the music editors and the managing editor really liked the result. Jann, however, has interviewed John Lennon before and is very specific about how he wants the Beatles portrayed. He shot it down. But, as the other editors told me, my hard work didn’t go unnoticed. Jason even asked to see my writing portfolio and, liking what he saw, told me to give him a call after graduation. I’m not getting my hopes up, but a job would be really cool. Even if I don’t wind up landing a job there next summer, I can still say I bought a bottle of water that touched the hands of Slash.