FOREWORD: I met peerless glam-punk photographer, Mick Rock, at a downtown Manhattan studio on a rainy night in 1998. Afterwards, I gave him an herb-induced ride uptown. He was a sweet guy who made a living shooting pix of famous glam-rock and punk idols – not knowing at the time these artists would be the cultural centerpieces they became. Though he nearly died from two decades of cocaine abuse, Rock’s still with us. This article originally appeared in Smug Magazine.

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I first met Pot Culture author/ CelebStoner host Steve Bloom at, ironically enough, a 1^st anniversary party for co-author Shirley Halperin’s now-defunct indie rag, Smug (one of my early writing gigs). It was a fortuitous night down in the Bowery at CB Gallery (an extension of illustrious dive, CBGB’s), since Bloom then hooked me up with High Times, the leading counterculture marijuana publication, a freelance job I’d only dreamt of. I took Bloom out for a bowl within minutes of…

‘Gonzo’ journalist Hunter Stocton Thompson committed suicide in his Aspen, Colorado ranch home February 19, 2005. Cleverly installing himself into many semi-fictional plots adventurously undermining sociopolitical ideologues, the drug and alcohol-addled, aviator glass-wearing gun enthusiast wrote several audaciously satirical novels, such as Generation of Swine and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (the film version starred Johnny Depp). An acerbic counterculture icon whose inceptive 1959 book, The Rum Diaries, wasn’t released until his popularity peaked in the ‘70s, Thompson will…

Modern indie rock couldn’t exist in its fullest form without shy, soft-spoken San Franciscan rock aficionado Greg Shaw, a.k.a. ‘The Pope of Punk’ and ‘Father of Rock Journalism.’ In late October ’04, the venerable renegade succumbed to heart failure after beating life-threatening kidney disease during ’98.

 Shaw helped promote and expose admirable obscure artists through ‘66-launched publication Mojo-Navigator (the blueprint for Rolling Stone’s format), moving to L.A. to start up ‘70s Who Put the Bomp, which concentrated on emerging alternative…

FORWARD: In his last year prior to dying of cancer, I got to know Al Aronowitz, the respected journalist responsible for introducing the Beatles to Bob Dylan (possibly the greatest cultural meeting of white musicians in music history). He actually confided in me and felt compelled to call one afternoon to tell me he had terminal cancer. That was difficult. I felt privileged to have met his acquaintance.

But Aronowitz was a stubborn man who despised magazine editors and hated…