Interactive

I want to be a magazine reader. I want a go-to magazine for trains and planes. Here are my criteria:

1. It has to be non-sports related. I subscribe to Sports Illustrated, but it doesn’t leave the house. It stays home with me, to be read while I’m eating or in my “office.” Sports Illustrated is enough sports for me. I don’t need to buy anything else.
2. I don’t like political journals. The liberal ones advocate American capitulation to damned near everything, and I’m not into that shit. By the same token, I don’t enjoy reading hawkish conservative bullshit written by people who’ve never even been in the same room as a loaded gun.
3. I’m pretty good at getting drunk and laid on my own. I’ve also dated a few strippers, know several hundred good off-color jokes, and like my softcore porn airbrush-free.
4. I don’t want to buy something with George Clooney on the cover. I’m sure acting is difficult, and I’m sure he does it better than I ever could. I also know that I couldn’t give two shits about either his style or his opinion. The same goes for anyone else who plays make-believe for a living.
5. I don’t want to read about shit I can’t afford. This can be fun once in a while, but I don’t need two-hundred pages of truffles and condoms with embedded GPS receivers.
6. No fitness/bodybuilding/weightlifting/health/golf stuff. I already know how to “blast my triceps,” thank you.
7. Writing, please. I need articles. About interesting shit. By people who are “cool” enough to avoid trying too hard to sound “cool.”
8. I love Wired. But I’m not enough of a geek to appreciate at least seventy-five percent of most issues I’ve read.
9. There’s enough free porn online. Self-explanatory.

People who read blogs are smart. Many of you also know my tastes fairly well by now. I know this from some of the book recommendations you’ve given me in the past. I’m soliciting suggestions here because I’m legitimately baffled every time I’m at a newsstand. I don’t like anything, and I want that to change. I want something I can like enough to purchase on a consistent basis.

Tell me what I should do.