Eric's Magazine Rack

Once in a while, I write entries that are little more than annotated lists. This is one of them. Tonight I am going to talk about the magazines to which I have a subscription. Hey, it's better than that "woe is me" crap I wrote yesterday, eh?

So let's start with the one I have had the longest...

MAD. My favorite magazine. Of. All. Time. Such that I have the logo tattooed on my leg. One of these days I will get someone to take a picture of it and I'll post it here. I have been reading MAD since I was about seven. After reading a copy that belonged to my cousin John (who was about twelve at the time), I bought a copy only to have it confiscated by my father. I read it stealthily for the next nine years (usually at High's Convenience Store, which was the only place I knew that carried it) until I was sixteen. I was working for McDonald's and had a little bit of disposable income, so after having the courage to buy an issue (for $1.50 Cheap!), I handed my father a duplication of the subscription coupon and thirty dollars for a three-year subscription, and asked him if he would write a check and send it in for me. He did, and my first issue that arrived was the April 1989 issue, which I received in February. I have been a subscriber ever since, and I have saved every single issue (which now cost $4.99 Cheap!). The older ones are in crappy condition, but I am still keeping them; I have five chances for one of the kids in my life to take an interest in MAD and he or she will get the entire collection. My subscription is up for renewal in March of 2010. That will mark twenty-one years as a subscriber.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Love the magazine. Hate dealing with the subscription department. I started buying this magazine in 1995 when I worked for Things Remembered, as something to read on the bus (I didn't drive until 1997). I realized how stupidly expensive this was getting, so I subscribed. I hate the subscription department because they advertise "three monthly payments" and they send multiple bills that don't reflect previous payments, usually the first three by the first month. So this past renewal found me renewing for three years and paying the whole thing off at once. This will happen again when it is time for renewal, in May of 2010. I usually read it at work, or else I will go to a restaurant or a fast-food place on a day off and have an Afternoon Civility. This happens when it gets to be around 4:30 on a weekday and I want to be somewhere other than the house when Julie gets home.

OUT. For Christmas of 2005, Cleo and Julie gave me a subscription to "Out." It is very hit-or-miss; sometimes the articles fascinate me, but there are times that they are boring. I read it at work if there are no photos that could be construed as offensive. But I feel as if I can read it at work with impunity: I was in our executive offices when the mail was being sorted and I discovered that our public relations department has a subscription. Adding to this is that the name on the label is the name of the PR manager who left in 1999. So they obviously have had this subscription for a very long time. It is up for renewal in December of 2009. And now Beth has a subscription as well.

THE ADVOCATE. This was from the Tweedles as well, for Christmas in 2006. I used to read this magazine at the Borders until I started attracting the wrong kind of people (like Creepy Married Guy). Now I have a subscription that I also read at work or for an Afternoon Civility. I just renewed for three more years, through January of 2011.

MEN and UNZIPPED. These are skin magazines that I subscribed to in 2006. I chalk it up to temporary insanity. I got the subscription to "Men" when Cathleen was dying (and was clearly not thinking things through), and I got "Unzipped" shortly afterward. Like a fool, I subscribed to both for two years, and I now just put them on a shelf. Pictures of naked men are pretty much timeless (and repetitive), so any time I need whacking material, I can always grab a magazine. As a result, I will not be renewing either one of them. I can think of better ways to spend that kind of money ($115 for both for the two years).

And here are some magazines I used to subscribe to, but no longer do: Life, Cracked, Money, Fortune, Harper's (although I might go for that one again someday), Reader's Digest, Us (back when it was a semi-decent bi-weekly entertainment magazine and not a crappy photo tabloid), Utne Reader, The Nation (briefly), and a few kiddie magazines from when I was much younger. This is not a complete list, but you get the idea.

And my fingers are getting sore, so it is time to say buenas noches.