Bathroom Monologue: How John Screws Himself Over From Ever Getting Published in * NAME OF MAGAZINE WITHHELD BY REQUEST *

First we tear off the extraneous folds of the unraveling cover, because it’s fucking annoying to have it drape down to the floor every time I accidentally open this thing. Next we scorn the airbrushed anorexic actresses and models that lie across the page in fashion that should cost $39.95, but probably runs nearer to the operating budget of a small island nation. During the unfortunate task of actually opening this mammoth stack of advertisements we skip the first ten or twenty pages, knowing they’ll all be trying to sell us something rather than point us to an article, and sadly shake our heads when we realize “ten or twenty” wasn’t hyperbole, but underestimation. When we can’t find the index, we’ll just flip through and hope to spy a couple of white pages with columns of words. Skimming the pages is perilous for while it will allow you to avoid being affected by most of the vapid, over-art-designed bullshit that makes up the majority of this “magazine,” you may miss one of the rare pages that actually features the work of a writer, or even less often, the work of a journalist or author. Look here – an eight-page article on the next Star Wars videogame, which will apparently open up a new universe in “gaming.” A couple of pages in and this eight-page article is broken up by another ad featuring some repugnantly “beautiful” woman in mood lighting that we can’t stand to look at long enough to find out what fragrance she’s hocking. We wonder if even television, that wasteland of integrity, would break up a news story or a skit on Saturday Night Live to bring you a word from their sponsors. We wonder if this is a news magazine or an overindulgent catalog. Then, nearing the end of our primary function here in the bathroom, we wonder if glossy paper wipes well.