“It Came From the CR Lettercol” will appear in URBMN and UR this time, since UR hasn’t had any new content since the last U.S. presidential election (I think) and because I really want to get this series over as some sort of an audience attraction.  This shall come on the heels of…well, I want UR itself to be updated more than five times a century, considering I’ve never had anyone else write for UR since before “Bush is a babykiller” chants became common.  If you like this article, read on further and don’t forget to e-mail me so that maybe I won’t feel arsed to shut the site down like I REALLY SHOULD.  Maybe I’ll actually get an e-mail from somebody!  WOW!

Anyway, you know who that guy is wearing the Pee-Wee Herman getup?  That’s Irwin Landau.  This is the guy most directly responsible for the Golden Age of Consumer Reports, the age of better ratings graphs and increased readability.  There’s no real reason why I find this picture notable.  I’m just amazed that the man who made Consumer Reports what it is today didn’t have better fashion sense than the manchild alter ego of the world’s foremost porno-theatre wanker.  Consumer Reports has more gold like this than the results of a baby’s mining expidition, as you shall soon see.

September 1987
MY FAITH IN CONSUMER REPORTS, RUINED BY A PECKER

Twenty-six years of reading the magazine and this anonymous reader (eventually the magazine printed real names, because what’s the point in being secretive on a damn letters page) writes to be anal about how great the woodpecker is.  We get it, the woodpecker’s a beautiful bird and its beak is useful for catching grubs.  Hey, let’s wax poetic about the Parliament of Trees now!

I know this is supposed to be a funny letter, but it’s only funny in the Garrison Keillor sense – meaning the letter isn’t funny at all to anyone aside from the listeners that waste moments of their time listening to that godawful NPR program.  Don’t believe me?  The letter writer is referencing Mahalia Jackson, for crying out loud.  I’m not a follower of gospel music, but apparently Mahalia Jackson is one of the greatest gospel singers in history.  The letter writer’s still making a fairly obscure reference, and writes like a prick besides.

Consumer Reports reporting does not lend itself well to poetic lectures about the prowess of the turtle or how Beta Ray Bill ended up with Storm Breaker.  Thank God it doesn’t, either, because a woodpecker is not the Wen All Saw.  Saws are supposed to be smooth, aren’t they?  You want woodpecker-like action on a circular saw?  Maybe you do, since I’m not the world’s greatest judge of taste.  Idiots.

June 1991
WHERE’S THE PRODUCER?  I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS COFFEE

Sometimes it’s good when companies write to correct oversights in Consumer Reports‘ reporting which might reflect badly on the company or companies in question.  A lot of the time, though, companies tend to write these nitpicking letters about how their products are better than Consumer Reports reported them to be, and here’s six paragraphs why.

Look, I know Fres-Co is trying to tell CR that it’s being unfair in its reportage of vacuum-sealed coffee packaging, but the letter reads like a sales pitch and the point of the letter is to prove that Fres-Co^® Brand Vacuum Seals Keep Coffee Fresher, Longer.  Thanks, Fres-Co, for overblowing a blanket statement about coffee freshness and being somewhat offended by ONE LINE IN A CONSUMER REPORTS BLURB.  It’s not as if I’m constantly referring to Traci Lords as “that bitch porno slut” (which she is, but that’s beside the point) or quashing news about the Isuzu Trooper‘s propensity to randomly catch fire when breathed on.  Fres-Co’s reacting to one line in a thousand or so.  It’s patently ridiculous.

January 1995/February 2005
THE AMAZING REPEATING MACINTOSH PEDDLERS

One of the constants of the 20th century is the superiority some Mac owners have toward their computers, and the owners tend to spout off rhetoric duly repeated from some Apple propaganda machine in the heart of Jobsville.  Note the following things said about Macs that I’ve NEVER HEARD BEFORE FROM ANY MAC USERS, EVER:

1.  Macs are more stable than PCs.
2.  Macs come with a software bundle while PC owners have to buy most of their software.
3.  Macs are more user-friendly since they don’t use DOS like PCs do.
4.  MICROSHAFT WINBLOWS IS CRAPPY RIP-OFF OF MAC OS SYSTEM
5.  Macs are more expensive because they’re better.
6.  WHY WOULD YOU BUY FROM THE PUTRID COMPETITION?  MAKE MINE MAC, TRUE BELIEVERS!

Granted, at least two of those reasons for buying a Mac are true, but the software bundle argument is dead in the days of Sourceforge and Freshmeat.  Also, Macs aren’t as flexible in terms of upgrading as PCs are.  Hell, it was Apple’s reticence in allowing clones of its Macs that almost killed the company in the mid-1990′s, yet Mac owners tout expensiveness as a VIRTUE.  You people.  It’s enough to make me go Linux to spite the lot of you.

Look, it’s not 1992.  There’s no longer a choice between just the Macs and IBM PCs anymore.  Hell, I jumped ship from Intel to AMD and I’m happy with my accursed PC clone.  I admit I was tempted by the iMac Mini, but only because it’s the only Mac that entered the market I could afford.  Hell, I’m running Windows 98 on my computer and I’m quite content with my setup.  If I ever decide to go Mac and never go back, it won’t be because of some Mac user’s snobbish fanboyism toward The Better Computer.  Take a deep breath and relax.

July 1994
MAYBE IF YOU ATE MEAT YOU’D HAVE A NATURAL LUBRICANT

It’s all well and good that this reader is a bread connoisseur, but it’s rather annoying to chide non-fans of the basic foodstuff this way, isn’t it?  One can appreciate bread and eat it the bastardized way, you know.

Seriously, I can’t stand this sort of condescending attitude from anyone.  It’s bread, not a bloody Merlot.  Sure, there are better breads than others, but this writer’s chiding Consumer Reports for not including the option of “no spreads” in AN ARTICLE ABOUT SPREADS.  What do these people expect from articles about food, anyway?  Am I supposed to share in this reader’s tastes?  Does this person know something about bread that I don’t?  Are other Consumer Reports readers heathens in the war against jam?

Sakes alive, is this what people bother to spend their time writing to Consumer Reports about?  God forbid one should write about condoms condoning sex or some similar hot-button issue, or write a helpful letter about how to depill a sweater.  No, the most important thing to write about is how to eat bread properly.  I’ll keep that in mind just like I keep in mind how a wood saw should sound like Mahalia Jackson, thanks.

June 1992
SEE, I CAUGHT YOU MAKING A GRAMMATICAL ERROR ON THE COVER, I WANT A NO-PRIZE

Haha, Consumer Reports showed you.  That’s funnier than English teachers on the Internet complaining about question marks appearing inside quotes at the end of a sentence and yet managing to spell random words wrong.

I know this is the age of Internet – some people have a perfect command of the English language yet can’t say anything more profound than the reason why they hate Oprah.  Conversely, some incredibly intelligent people write like they’re five with all the spelling mistakes and obnoxious LOLs their e-mails contain.  Still, I can’t imagine a more useless letter to Consumer Reports or any other print media than the “grammar fag” pointing out what (s)he thinks is an obvious mistake on the front cover of what (s)he’s reading.  That would actually be the last place a typo should be, as typos on the cover give the impression of terrible content inside.

This isn’t like The Charlatan advertising an interview with the “Governal General” on its front cover, which wouldn’t amount to much if not for the fact that CARLETON UNIVERSITY IS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF CANADA’S BEST JOURNALISM SCHOOLS.  This is Ellie-winning, awards-for-best-journalism-earning, sixty-nine-years-of-reputable-content-and-we’ll-take-you-to-court-if-you-rubbish-it Consumer Reports.  If an issue of Consumer Reports has a typo on the cover, at least four million readers would know.

You know how many editors this magazine has?  As of September 2005, there are four people employed purely to check copy and an entire production division.  If a typo appears on the front page of Consumer Reports, it reflects on at least two divisions allowing such terrible proofreading.  That’s not to say mistakes don’t occur within the pages of this magazine, but such mistakes are usually due to poor research and not poor proofreading.  This isn’t Sterling McFadden-level “quality” we’re talking about here.  Oh, I know Sterling McFadden merged into some other company, but it didn’t kill Metal Edge and it doesn’t stop Metal Maniacs from dragging its dreary tonnage wherever it goes.  I think the Consumer Reports proofreaders know what they’re doing, otherwise they wouldn’t have jobs there.  God knows how little I want to see an idea like Consumer Sludge rear its ugly head.

I just ended the article on a reference to Metal Sludge.  Please kill me now, for I have connected consumer journalism to Dokken.  I hate myself.  C U Next Time!

This is something I’ve always wanted to do, for years in fact.  Now that I have a scanner, the floodgates might finally be open for articles so that UR can stop being so damn moribund as a site.  ”It Came From the CR Lettercol” is an article series for the URBMN subsite at this point, but might become a UR series soon – seriously, it would be nice to launch something from this subsite to the main site for once.  Comment, impart, let me know if what I’m doing is good or not.  Hey, if you’re that anonymous Aussie from eLounge who wants to comment four times about how I’m a self-pitying Cynic-loving wannabe elitist, how metal can’t be controlled and other clichés that probably predate 1990…hell, you’re not reading this blog, so why’d I bring that up?  HEIL SATAN!

Anyway, the idea for the article isn’t complicated.  It’s selections from the Letters column of Consumer Reports.  I’ve been an avid reader since the early 1990′s, and I became a subscriber in 2004 after several years away from the magazine.  I consider the mid-1980′s to early 1990′s the golden era for CR.  The current version under the aegis of Jim Guest/Margot Slade is also commendable, but the incessant renewal slips I got in the mail every six minutes damn near put me off the magazine at one point.  I hate the incredibly boring, dull writing of the 1970′s era (from what I’ve seen of it, anyway) and appreciate the continuing push towards increased readability and higher journalism standards.  Consumer Reports‘ 1996 redesign was one of the best redesigns, in my opinion, of any magazine ever (this was followed up with at least two redesigns since then, and I still find the current design a bit off-putting.)  ”Selling It” is at least as good as it ever was since its 1980′s introduction.  Yes, I am gay for this magazine.  I am amazed how consistent it has been, and I have issues dating back to 1985-86 and one from 1979, when they reviewed records, of all things.

The one ignored part about Consumer Reports, though, is its letter column.  Since the 1980′s, it has been a haven for conservatives and liberals alike to chastise the magazine for its agenda – which has always been a bit liberal, but the magazine’s been benign and level-headed about its stance.  Do I think the push into tax-deductible donations is a good idea for Consumer Reports?  No, but the magazine has always been separate from its spinoffs (many though they are), and I haven’t seen the more militant left-leaning politicos take over Consumers Union yet.  The union has the discipline of staying true to its mandate of fairness, and the letter column is a good sign of that fairness.  The ranting lunatics, the banal nit-pickers and the goofy pissers-up get their say in the lettercol, and that’s what I’m focusing on here.

August 1996
I LIKE BEER, I JUST DON’T WANT YOU TO TELL ME WHAT I MIGHT LIKE

Why people write Consumer Reports, tell the magazine it did a good job and then criticize it for that exact reason stymies the hell out of me.  Again, the Ratings are just guidelines.  Consumer Reports isn’t telling you what beer you should drink.  Criticize Anheuser-Busch for making tasteless beer, and then criticize Consumer Reports for pointing out other beers on the market?  Isn’t that what experts call “sitting on the fence?”

Note that around this time Consumer Reports finally put graphics in the lettercol.  Around this time the magazine also abandoned yearly sequential page numbering, which made sense when Consumer Reports was a newsletter but was just outdated by the time it became a mass-circulation magazine.  For some reason, CR continued the practice until 1995.  From 1996 on, CR has numbered the pages of its monthly issues from 1 to the “books sold by CU” page (said page being recently replaced by an ad for Consumer Reports onHealth) like normal magazines do.  It isn’t an academic journal, now!

October 1991
YOUR COLA COVER STORY IS FRIVOLOUS, NOT LIKE THE COVER STORIES ON SOAP AND CEREAL

So why do you read Consumer Reports, then, Stone Cold Buhgawd?  The magazine had been going in its populist direction since sometime in the mid-1970′s when the logo changed and the modern Ratings system finally came to prominence.  In older issues of Consumer Reports, the magazine just rated things from excellent to poor/Not Acceptable in dull text, breaking out the five Ratings dots for the auto issue and little else.  If rating cola – which is bought constantly by people and is a staple of the refrigerator – is frivolous, so is rating fast food, DVD players, chocolates, and the now-constant issues devoted to plasma TV’s and digital cameras.  Honestly, three months never go by these days without a new report on home entertainment equipment, anti-spyware programs and/or cellphones, and it’s irritating.  In this day and age, a cover story on cola would be welcome.

By the way, Consumer Reports‘ cola issue was actually well-done – it documented the history of cola advertising, repeated constantly the mantra that there isn’t much of a difference between brands of cola on the market, and…well, if you want more substantive reporting from early-1990′s CR, there’s “Is Our Fish Safe To Eat?” and the three-part “Wasted Health Care Dollars.”  Nowadays, Jim Guest’s editorials have him vamping for cameras (sometimes in goofy, hey-look-at-me-I’m-photogenic poses) and no one seems to give a rat’s ass, thank God.

June 1990
NEXT YOU’RE GOING TO TELL ME THAT THE GEO METRO DRIVES LIKE “A CAR”

The sight of Consumer Reports bouncing jokes off its readers is never a good thing – either the letter is so stupid it’s hard to ignore or some nitpicking reader wants a No-Prize from the magazine.  So there aren’t many adjectives to describe a sports car.  Note that Consumer Reports still calls the Mazda Miata STIFF AND JERKY.  Mazda Miata fans might like that in a car, but that’s all the letter-writers (yes, there’s more than this one guy picking nits) are complaining about.  Fuel economy, speed, acceleration, interior – who cares about that shit?  Hey, let’s write to Consumer Reports about how the anonymous writer is stupid for reporting on a car like the magazine reports on every car!  Brilliant!

Some people prefer stiff handling, some prefer smooth handling.  What’s the point of the letter, exactly?  That there are Miata fans out there?  That Consumer Reports should only hire people to test mass-produced sports cars if the hires are fans of mass-produced sports cars?  That people should only buy cars based on personal preference and not on whether the car is going to start running into problems in a few years’ time?  I don’t understand where this attitude comes from.  It seems like the Miata fans found something to overblow, and went to war with the intention of trying to tear Consumer Reports a journalistic warning hole.  It’s not as if the steering wheel busts or the car flips up two of its tires Suzuki Samurai style (and believe me, Suzuki was still trying to sue Consumers Union over that years after everyone forgot about this letter.)  It’s a car evaluation.  If the readers like stiff and jerky cars, they’re going to buy stiff and jerky cars.  If there are a hundred things right about a certain car, the fanboys are going to harp about the few negatives CR points out.  It inflames the arse to an intense degree.

Hopefully this article entertains at least a few people.  Any correspondence…well, you know where it goes.  I’d love for what I do to be widely read for once.  I need to sell a few T-shirts with the words “I AM A MEATL ELLITIST.”  Maybe I need to start a pointless flame war with Calamity Jon Morris or something.  Anything to become one of those “HUGE INTERNET SUPERSTARS” I’ve heard so much about.  Do they exist?