People, Aug. 7, 1972

Mick Jagger had promised to celebrate his 29th birthday—and the end of a U.S. tour that grossed the Rolling Stones $3 million—by tearing off his clothes on the stage of Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. As it turned out, that was one of the few things that didn't happen. At the Garden itself, packed with 20,000 screaming fans, the Stones presented their Pied Piper with a huge birthday cake, then cannonaded him with custard pies that splattered over the front-row customers. Then on to the birthday party at the normally staid St. Regis Roof, where Count Basie alternated with Muddy Waters to provide music, and Andy Warhol fluttered around aiming a Polaroid camera at a mob that included Dick Cavett, Lee Radziwill, Truman Capote, George Plimpton, Woody Allen and tie-dyed Zsa Zsa Gabor. Out of another giant cake popped Warhol Protege Gerry Williams outfitted in two black pasties and one black garter, her costume for an unusually explicit erotic dance. Then came more gifts for Jagger: a silver cross, a photo of a naked lady and a silver snuffbox for cocaine. Someone asked Bob Dylan whether the Stones phenomenon marked the end of rock 'n' roll or the beginning of something new. Resplendent in aviator glasses, checked shirt and a white fedora, Dylan answered with a grin: "It's the beginning of cosmic consciousness."

Terrible-tempered Chicago Cubs Manager Leo ("Nice guys finish last") Durocher, now 66, may be mellowing. At any rate, his baseball team has performed disappointingly. And when his club is losing, there seems to be only one thing for a big-league owner to do. So Cubs Owner Philip K. Wrigley followed tradition; he fired Leo and hired a new manager: Whitey Lockman. Wrigley did try to soften the blow by blaming most of the team's failures on the players. "I don't think they've been earning their pay," he said. "They don't have the spark of determination. They're prima donnas, stars, sensations. [But] it's easier to replace the manager than 25 players."

Apollo 15 Astronaut Colonel James B. Irwin announced, somewhat mysteriously, that he had had "a spiritual encounter with God on the moon." That, said Irwin, was the reason he changed his mind about profiting from the sale of stamped envelopes he and fellow astronauts Colonel David R. Scott and Lieut. Colonel Alfred M. Worden had smuggled into lunar orbit. (All three were reprimanded, and Worden and Scott are being reassigned from astronautical duty.) Irwin retires from the service this month to concentrate on High Flight, Inc., a nonprofit religious organization. "I don't think my mistake will damage my ministry," Irwin said. "It portrays me as a human, subject to human frailty."