5 Disturbingly Specific Magazines

Any publisher that still continues to publish on that archaic, barbarian material known as “Paper” is no doubt suffering a mighty blow right now due to the prevalence of the internet. Why would you get up, put on pants, go to a store, and buy a collection of “paper” with some tiny, un-copy-and-paste-able text, when you can get the same thing for free on the web while you fiddle with your junk through the front flap of your boxers?

Yes, magazines are suffering right now, but there’s probably a good reason: over specification. There are far, far too many special interest magazines out there that have to fork over tons of cash just to print their overly specific information, and then sell it to a way too small audience. Profit margins are shrinking and everyone is moving to the internet, the land of banner ads with tits in them and pop up ads asking you to decide if President Obama is actually a citizen.

So, while they still exist, let us examine just 5 of some of the waaaay too specific magazines out there, starting with…

Miniature Donkey Talk

Don’t you just hate false advertising? Like when you buy a new do-dad that’s supposed to fix your broken whose-a-whats-it, only to discover that your do-dad couldn’t even fix a thing-a-ma-jig? Well, that’s what Miniature Donkey Talk magazine is like. We opened up our stale copy of MDT primed and ready to soak our brains with an endless array of incredibly useful mini donkey knowledge – proper maintenance, bathing tips, how bulbous a 10 year old child must be in order for us to legally say to him “Fuck off! Are you insane?!” as he tries to hitch a ride. We couldn’t wait to wrap our heads around all of this miniature donkey talk info.

So, imagine our dismay when we opened it up and found that while the magazine does contain plenty of information on how to care for the stable of donkeys we keep in the Funny Crave break room, the magazine also caters to the ever-so douchey regular donkey crowd. We were perturbed to say the very least. We mean, c’mon! Seriously! What the fuck Miniature Donkey Talk?! Not only do you not contain a single talking donkey (as we had originally hoped for), but we were promised a normal-donkey-free magazine. We don’t want to sound racist or nothing, but as everyone knows, miniature donkeys are the vastly superior race in the world of donkeydom.

Pretentious Jack-ass (Get it? It's a pun or something)

But, it’s probably our fault. The signs were all there. Take for example the slogan found on their subscription sign-up page: “If you don’t subscribe to Miniature Donkey Talk, then you’re not serious about donkeys!” But we are. We are very serious about donkeys. But only miniature donkeys that may or may not be able to vocalize like a human and some of the avian species. Woe is us, Miniature Donkey Talk magazine, for we leapt before we looked.

Chimney Sweep News

Yes, chimney sweeps are real, and most of them look as morose as this dude…

Yet, people tend to think they look like this dude…

In an attempt to shed some light on the less-than-jolly world of real chimney sweeps, the monthly magazine Chimney Sweep News was born.

The magazines’ pages are filled with articles like “Sweeping Barefoot,” an article all about a chimney sweep that sweeps in his bare feet. THAT’S FUCKING BONKERS! Well, to chimney sweeps, maybe. But it’s not just filled with wacky stories about wacky chimney sweeps, it’s also about wacky ways people that pose as chimney sweeps rip off customers, like this December 2007 article titled “Scam Artists Smudge Chimney Sweeps’ Reputation.” Which offers up little dirty gems of advice like:

“Whisk away any chimney sweep who uses scare tactics…”

What are some chimney sweep scare tactics? Who knows? The article doesn’t say. Perhaps they threaten to rape you if you don’t let them sweep your chimney. Who wouldn’t be scared of being raped by a dirt-faced man holding a long pole with violent looking bristles at the end of it? I’d immediately let him sweep my chimney, and that’s probably an innuendo.

If you’re a chimney sweep that is down in the dumps about the economy, then let contributor Rob Lindemann fire you up with his May-June 2009 article titled “Your Business Is Going to FAIL!” (he posted the entire article on his blog, which you can read here) :

“Apparently Walt Disney didn’t get the memo that you shouldn’t start a cartoon company during the depression. Maybe Bill Gates was too busy tooling around in his garage in 1975 to realize that oil prices were soaring and bankruptcies were at an all time high.”

Lindemann is Patton and he’s telling you to get off your ass be start sweeping, that or prepare for the much prophesied Chimney Sweep-Pool Boy wars.

A Bear’s Life

If you like your gay guys big, beefy, and hairy then A Bear’s Life is what you should be cranking it to. But, wait. What’s this? It’s not a porn mag? But where will I go to get my steaming pile of bigfoot-on-bigfoot action? Well, there’s a good chance that if you turn off the Safe Search option on Google, and then image search the word “The,” you’ll see plenty of pictures of…uh…”moist” mustaches.

What Maxim is to under-sexed, overly intoxicated frat boys; A Bear’s life is to large gay men that will wreck your face if you hurl a homosexual slur their way.

In the winter 2007 issue, A Bear’s Life ran an article titled “Gaming 101: Get your game on!” which is a bit of a shopping guide for the gaming bear. The article’s opening paragraph alone is rife with comedic potential, but one sentence in particular sticks out the most:

“So while we wait for the inevitable scientific study examining the correlation between homosexuality and a predilection for killing time playing Warcraft, the issue of why so many bears dig video games remains unexamined.”

This sentence proves two things: 1) if that “inevitable” scientific study ever happens, there will be a dramatic decrease in WoW usage as legions of homophobic teens and pre-teens drop their subscriptions and start calling people “Fags” on some other MMO, and 2) apparently, the bear is such a rare creature that their living habits are nigh-impossible to study. Why a bear would like the video games the same way a straight person would is evidently something that science has either yet to explain, or just doesn’t care.

Now on Everquest

If you want to subscribe to A Bear’s Life, all you have to do is sign up here, or you can just get a copy of Maxim or Stuff and replace all of its pictures with pictures of shirtless linebackers.

Portable Restroom Operator Magazine

Porta Potties are universally known as one of the last places on every human’s “Where I’ll drop a shit” list. It’s probably just ahead of a dysentery filled hole in India, and about 30 places below your pants. Yet, even with the world wide disgust of these poop closets, there is a magazine dedicated to them and the people that install them.

The magazine is filled to the lid with riveting pictures of Porta Potties just, kinda, you know, standing there; presumably being filled with human shit at the very moment of the shutter snap.

Pictured: Repercussions of a Breakfast Burrito

But other than pictures, the magazine actually does a pretty good job of giving a voice to those that are literally having shit dumped on to them day in and day out. It gives these workers that we as a society would instantly cast off and degrade a human side as each issue is loaded with article after article of interviews and features about the good’ol American hardworking spirit. In that sense, it’s really quiet an intriguing read, Portable Restroom Operator Magazine is.

Sadly, that all goes down the toilet (GET IT?!) when you realize that all of this heartwarming-y, feel-goodiness is like a wonderful house built on a foundation of liquid feces that is slowly creeping in through the cracks.

Take this article as an example. On the surface, it’s a good read about a small company that produces well-crafted and original products for their customers. But when you dig a little deeper, you snap out of your Pleasantville trance and it all suddenly becomes abundantly clear that the subject of the article is actually the fleet of rolling shit wagons that this company produces. Is it still a good read? Sure, but it’s tainted by poop.

Another oddity found in PRO its uncanny ability to shoe horn the business of portable poop dynamics in to articles that have nothing to do with poop. In a January 2009 issue, the magazine profiled country band Montgomery Gentry for an upcoming show. The following is the actual quote from the actual article:

“One of Nashville’s top duos over the past decade, Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry pride themselves on producing song after song recognizing the blue collar work ethic and small-town values that give flight to the American Dream … be it selling millions of CDs and touring the country playing music or running a successful business in the liquid waste industry.”

Musical equivalent of liquid shit

And, finally, we will leave you with a completely out of context quote from the within the pages of PRO:

“It was terrible before we handled our own waste”

Girl Watcher

Do you ever watch Mad Men and think “Why can’t I be a smooth pimp like Don Draper?” Well, the reason you can’t be like Don is because times were different then. If you did half the shit Don does you would’ve woken up with your lobbed of penis lying at the foot of your bed long ago.

As time passes, certain aspects of life slowly become out of date, out of style, or just plain out of your fucking mind if you try to do them today. Evidently, in the 50s, randomly stalking women with a camera was considered a real hobby, and staring at them from afar with a clandestine chubby being rocked in your pants was considered classy and swanky.

To Hell with every porn magazine you’ve ever seen, Girl Watcher is the most perverted magazine ever made. Sure, there may be a magazine out there with centerfolds of girls having sex with engine blocs or, perhaps, fertilizing a strawberry patch with her bowels, but none of them will contain such disturbing passages as this:

“While scouting for springbok in the Zoogo regions, I chanced upon a gaggle of teen-age pygmies tattering at a water hole. The native chieftain, noting my interest, later gave me a pair of 19 inch girls as a gift. Is it cricket for a Girl Watcher to own one? Will I lose my amateur standing, if I hold specimens in captivity?”

WHAT IN THE LIVING GANGFUCK IS HAPPENING IN THAT PASSAGE?! 19-inch girls? You mean babies?! HE GAVE YOU GODDAMN BABIES?!  Is staring at pygmy girls like a carnival game? You stare long enough and you win a prize? YOU WIN HUMAN BABIES?!

Ahhh-grra! Gross. Anyway, back to some other stuff…

“One trouble with seeking a youngish type is that the wrens, chicks, and pigeons, soon take on a sameness which falls in to one category – Jail Quail.”

Aw, c’mon, man! We just talked about this! That’s gross, stop it!

“A yummy nicknack attracts your attention in a restaurant, you haul her off home for a trial run as one of your collector’s pieces.”

Wait, like…like a murderer?

“When your current crop gets a little shelfworn, you turn them out and go collecting all over again. Soon you find the collecting is better than the having. Then you find the stalking is better than the collecting.”

What th—

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!