I'm a bit of a music magazine junky. No secret there if you've by some odd chance seen my cramped living quarters.

But I've spent the past few weeks pouring--and repouring--through the pages of Rolling Stone 1039, which is the third of 3 commemorative 40th anniversary issues this year, and also one of the greatest volumes of anything I've ever read to do with anything. Frankly cause it has to do with everything I care about, which is more than just music and the entertainment world.

There are in depth interviews with everyone from Al Gore to Jon Stewart to Kanye West to Dave Eggers, right on down to the fella most responsible for the internet (I'm not talking about Gore). And they all discuss where we--as a people, as a country, as a world, as a community--are all going, in terms of politics, technology, music, and more. I have literally re-read some of these pages over and over again, to throrougly instill the hope beaming from between the words crammed into this massive issue. It's a very warm read that molds a wonderful sense of future and purpose out of a present that gives us little reason to. It makes optimism of pessimism. Silver out of dust. Rock out of air.

But the one quote I'd like to lift comes from the man who reached from out of a set of headphones when I was 16, grabbed me by the spine and shook my head into the colorful whir of rock and roll--Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. The quote is nothing spectacular, but it's one that reached from off a magazine page and said, "Yeah dude, I know."

"We need music, and we need it good. I took it very seriously. There's a side of me where music will always send chills up my spine, make me cry, make me want to get up and do Pete Townshend windmills. In a lot of ways, I was in a minority when I was young. There are people who go, "Oh, that's a snappy tune." I listen to it and go, "That's the greatest f cking song ever. That is the song I want played at my funeral."

Amen.