As anyone who knows me well knows, I read a lot of books. But I also read magazines – of various types.
Cars. Since I’m into cars, I’m obviously into car magazines.
High Performance Pontiac (HPP)(subscription). By far my favorite. There is a snobbery in the Pontiac community against ’82 and later Firebirds, because they came from the factory with small block Chevy V8s, instead of the Pontiac V8s the 1955-1981 models had. HPP does not share this – they will discuss TPI (tuned-port injected) Formulas, LT1 Trans Ams, Bonneville SSEIs, or ’04-’06 GTOs, in addition to the articles on tuning the Quadrajet in your older Firebird, Trans Am or GTO. A given issue might have features on a ’66 GTO, a ’74 Trans Am, an ‘88 Formula 350, and a ’02 Trans Am all in the same month.
Another funny thing: unlike Hot Rod and Car Craft, which are based in L.A., and have a “sunny, surfer” attitude, HPP is based in the NY/NJ area, so they have this “forgettaboutit” Sopranos style – and can relate to cars rusting and snow in the winter.
GM High Tech Performance. This focuses on late model EFI (electronic fuel injection) cars – ’82- later Camaros and Firebirds, the occasional Buick Grand National, ’94-96 Impala SS, Bonneville SSEI and newer Grand Prixs, and Corvettes. Many of the articles are on tuning with laptops, replacing injectors, passing emissions, fixing trouble codes, which us late model guys have to deal with instead of pesky Holleys and Quadrajets. It seems to be written by many of the same guys who do HPP, so often times there is an overlap.
Hot Rod. This is the premier high performance magazine, and I used to subscribe, but after a point it became tiresome. Much of the features were on fancy, overdone ’69 Camaros with interior work which cost more than some entire new cars, shaved door handles, no A/C, etc. The tech articles usually featured grotesquely expensive crate engines no one short of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates or Ross Perot could afford. And with any performance upgrade, the modifications were simple and easy to install, and did exactly what the aftermarket company promised – completely at odds with the reality as us car crafters know it from real life. The magazine is essentially targeted at gearheads with unlimited budgets – or those hoping to be someday. ZZZ.
Car Craft (subscription). Car Craft used to be almost identical to Hot Rod, to the point where I couldn’t remember whether an article I’d read came from one or the other. Then some time in the late 90s, David Freiburger took over, and completely changed the slant. Instead of $15,000 crate engine reviews, it was now “how to get 400 HP from a junkyard 350” and a fantastic article on how they got a ’68 Plymouth Satellite they’d bought for $200 to drop 6 seconds in the quarter mile without spending any money at all – ok, they fudged a little, spending $10 at the hardware store for dryer duct (!!!) to make a crude, home-made cool air system. In other words, Car Craft had turned into a magazine for the REST OF US. Since then, it’s reverted back to something in between. Every now and then they’ll do a piece on third generation F-bodies (’82-92 Firebirds and Camaros), which keeps me happy. In fact, they’d feature so many Camaros that some readers accused the magazine of being “Camaro Craft”. I actually had two items published: one a tech question on carbs vs. fuel injection in a 1998 issue, and the other was a humorous “bite”: “Pontiac DID invent everything!”
News. I tend to get my news by osmosis: off the radio, TV, newspaper, the Internet, etc. passively without any conscious effort at seeking it out.
The Economist. I like this English news magazine, published weekly. I even used to subscribe to it, but I found that it was too much information; I couldn’t consistently read each issue before the next one arrived, so I’d accumulate a stack of them. Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report have a very narrow view: if the US isn’t bombing the country, it’s nonexistent as far as those three are concerned. The Economist brings us news about Brazil, Cambodia, and lots of other countries which are off the US news radar for whatever reason. The writing is very good, and even the captions for photos are clever and tongue-in-cheek. I’d classify the politics as centrist, with a very slight pro-capitalist bend.
As for Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report, I’ll buy them when they have a particular cover story I’m interested in, but that’s fairly rare. If anyone had the idea that Americans are insular and provincial, these magazines would be potent support for that view.
Music. Of course I’m heavily into music, so of course I’ll read music magazines.
Classic Rock. This is by far my favorite. It’s an English magazine. They’ve heard of bands like Hawkwind and Opeth, and aren’t afraid to cover them, though for some reason they’re fixated on Axl Rose and Guns N’Roses – to the point where someone complained it should be called “Velvet Guns Monthly”. They have a “Buyer’s Guide”, reviews of new albums and reissues, and tons of great stuff each time. It’s reached the point where every issue induces me to make 3-4 purchases, the majority of which I’m highly satisfied with. I’d subscribe, but the subscriptions are horrendously expensive: $100-124 for a year.
Kerrang! This used to be the premier heavy metal magazine, but they used all sorts of horrible typefaces and offset colors. Moreover, the writers were REALLY full of themselves. One, Mark Putterford, spent several paragraphs of a piece on Zeno Roth (Uli Roth’s brother) going on about how he had this huge responsibility, which he took extremely seriously, to be generous to new rock stars otherwise the readers would turn off on a bad review by yours truly and the poor would-be rock star would then be condemned to oblivion. On the other hand, they turned me on to Faith No More back in 1989.
I really don’t like Rolling Stone. Occasionally I’ll buy an issue if they have a cover story on AC/DC or Metallica, but my experience and impression has been that like MTV, Rolling Stone considers itself not merely a magazine about rock music but more of an overall arbiter of all things cool: what we should wear, listen to, read, watch, and even think. It doesn’t help that when it comes to bands I like the most, Rolling Stone either at best ignores them or at worst tends to bust on them. Whoever runs it really is not someone I’d hang out with.
Cream was a bit the same, but I haven’t seen them around recently. I used to pick this one up at the Stars & Stripes (PX bookstore). Like Rolling Stone, they’d tend to bust on the bands I liked the most. One writer referred to “the two black-haired goons who used to flank Ozzy in Black Sabbath” [Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler] not even knowing their names. What a load of crap.
Hit Parader and Circus I was never into that much. Both seemed a bit too enthralled with mainstream metal and hair metal – as if they were written FOR and BY metal Neanderthals only mere IQ points above Beavis & Butt-head. Revolver seems like a more recent version of these. I couldn’t get into Alternative Press.
Guitar World. I used to subscribe to this. It had tablature and usually focused on metal guitarists. Most of the columns are by thrash metal guitarists – Dimebag Darrell once had a column, as did Zakk Wylde. I still buy it periodically when there’s a cover story or a song I’m interested in. Sheet music is not specifically designed for guitars and does not translate directly to guitar, you have to be able to “read it”, which is fairly esoteric and far less practical than tablature. Tablature is far more direct and straightforward: it has 6 lines, corresponding to the 6 strings, and fret positions for notes and chords.
Guitar (For the Practicing Musician). This doesn’t seem to be around anymore, but we used to buy it when it was. This was the first magazine that had tablature in it, and I still have dozens of issues. They also had a few special editions and a few acoustic editions. Its format and typeface were more conservative and less metal-oriented than Guitar World.
Guitar (just plain “Guitar”). This was the most conservative, oldest, and least interesting, mainly because it had no tablature.
Politics.
Reason. This is essentially the Libertarian opinion magazine. I never read New Republic (slightly liberal) or National Review (slightly conservative) – and because they are both “N.R.” I get them confused anyway. If I had to pick one where I find myself saying, “amen, hallelujah” (preaching to the choir) it’s this one. Peter Bagge used to do cartoons for them, too bad he’s not active anymore, now that I finally have a subscription.
While not as flippant and casual as the Economist is sometimes, it’s certainly readable without seemingly like a textbook or manual – enjoyable to read. Then again, that may be because I tend to agree with it 95% of the time.
The Nation. On the leftist side, here’s the voice of socialism. Christopher Hitchens used to write for The Nation, until the Iraq War came by and he refused to apologize for Saddam Hussein simply to oppose the war. My friend gets this as a gift subscription from an old friend of hers, whether she likes it or not, as do her daughters from the same benefactor – and none of these three ladies have any use for it. I read it occasionally to see the other side’s arguments, but it’s difficult to digest, not only because I tend to disagree with it 95% of the time, but also the writing is terribly dense and affected. Even the “social” parts (arts, books, movies, and music) are horrendously pretentious and verbose. No one who writes for The Nation seems to have a sense of humor, and they all share the annoying intellectual snobbery that socialists (including Hitchens) seem to have.
Men’s Magazines. I’m a guy, so I like to see naked women – in various different contexts. Back in the old days (which for me means, the 1970s), many of the lower end stores, like Dart Drug, used to have ALL of these out on racks in the middle of the store. Not behind the counter, not in plastic wrap or brown wrappers, nothing. Talk about a trip! Now we have to go to New Jersey, where it seems every convenience store has an astonishing selection of the nastiest, skankiest magazines you could possibly imagine ever existed. In my neck of the woods, even in liberal Maryland, this is unheard of. Anyhow.
Playboy. Supposedly the classiest, but we still get full frontal nudity. I can’t recall the last article or interview I read. The cartoons are a hoot, though. The women can be counted on to be stunning but often classy as well. I suppose you could consider it upscale, respectable porn, even if it is a bit dull sometimes. If a mainstream celebrity (e.g. Victoria Principal or Kim Kardashian) wanted to pose nude, she’d do so “tastefully” in Playboy. Each issue would have an initial pictorial (usually the celebrity one), then the famous centerfold – 80% white, 20% black or Asian – and finally a second pictorial, which was frequently one of these “Girls of the [College Division]” things. The second pictorial could be counted on for some full frontal nudity. Unfortunately there would be a “guide to sex in films” which I found less satisfying as a pictorial, per se, but sometimes informative as to certain of the more racier films – these were artsy R rated films and not run-of-the-mill porn.
There was also a so-called Playboy Advisor, to which various dolts and idiots addressed their concerns. They would alternate from sexual questions to “how do I set up my hi-fi” or “what Porsche model should I buy?” I found the former to be more pertinent, and the latter would be better served had they been addressed to the magazines which specialize in those areas, NOT Playboy.
Penthouse. Ramping up the raunch yet still pretentious in terms of “articles”. The women are somewhat hotter than Playboy and pose in far more provocative ways, definitely designed to appeal to prurient interests with a minimum pretention of class. The women look like porn stars or strippers who work on the high end – pretentious porn movies or expensive strip clubs. It’s debatable whether PH managed to reconcile the two. PH would have 4 pictorials, and one would frequently be lesbian or guy & girl sex, considerably raunchier than Playboy but still with excellent photography for some pretense of artsiness and “class”. The Forum featured various erotic stories of dubious plausibility – well written and very imaginative and entertaining, to be sure, but not representative of the social life of anyone we knew personally or even remotely.
Hustler. Ok, this magazine has no illusions of class whatsoever. The cartoons are gross. The models are attractive but skanky, and it’s hard to enjoy it without feeling nasty. The models look like low-grade porn stars. I never liked it.
Mayfair. This is more like it. The girls here are natural, busty, and almost (but not quite) “girl next door”, if by next door you mean some town in England. They struck me as “approachable” (unlike the perfect goddesses in Playboy or L.A./Las Vegas porn stars of Penthouse or Hustler) and normal, but very attractive and very friendly.
