Category Archives: Tiny Annoyances

Oh, Hollywood. You come to town and throw your money around and tell us we’re wonderful — and then then the next day you’re gone and all we’re left with is a hangover. And then you never call. And if we do see you again, it’s really awkward.

No industry holds sway over the imagination like the movie business, so when The Place Beyond the Pines came to Schenectady they were treated like royalty. If a cell phone company came to town and spent two million dollars nobody would even notice — and the entire city certainly wouldn’t bend over backwards and kiss their ass.

But Hollywood is different. In David Mamet’s comedy State and Main, a small town goes nuts when the movie people show up. But it’s not just about the locals; Mamet’s movie also shows how producers use the mystique and glamour of movie making to get whatever they want.

Hey, I’m not saying that the Pines shoot wasn’t interesting — but maybe it’s time for the Capital Region (media and area film commissions, in particular) to stop screaming like teenage girls whenever somebody shows up in town with a film crew.

We need to take a lesson from New York, where they’re more like, “Oh, you’re making a movie? That’s nice… now get the #$%@ off the sidewalk, I’m walkin’ here!”

It’s possible to find a copy of Esquire magazine with the lights out, not because they print it with some sort of glow-in-the-dark ink, but because it reeks. The copy that arrived at my house last week had no less than four cologne ads inside, and my magazine smells like the proverbial French whorehouse.

I don’t wear cologne, so I’m not likely to peel these things open and give them a test run. And besides the unholy stench, there’s another problem: the pages with cologne ads are printed on heavier stock. This interferes with the tactile experience of handling a magazine and leafing through the pages — and if you ask me, magazines these days should take care not to make reading them on paper annoying.

The solution? Tear the damn things out. Now when I get the magazine the first thing I do is go through and rip out the cologne pages. Ha! Take that you advertisers! Maybe that’s not so good for helping preserve print either, but come on!

On a related note, when I was growing up we had a mailman in our neighborhood who would sit and eat his lunch in the mail truck while reading people’s magazines. That always seemed a bit weird to me; I wondered if folks would find mayonnaise stains on the pages or have crumbs fall out when they opened them. And if your mailman smells heavily of men’s cologne, that me be another dead giveaway.

I always peruse the headlines while waiting in line at the coffee shop — but with some difficulty lately because the papers are always upside down.

This is the sort of thing you take for granted and never think about: when newspapers are displayed properly, the top is toward the back of the rack so consumers can read the headlines. Obvious, right?

So, what kind of person would put them in upside down? Someone who does not value newspapers.

Wait — I’m not saying that the twenty-something young lady behind the counter is poorly informed, just that she probably gets her news online rather than from printed newspapers. To her newspapers are probably just these annoying things she has to deal with at the beginning of her shift that stain her fingers black. Whatever. Why don’t you just read the news on your phone, you old fool?

I’ve considered offering some friendly advice about displaying the papers, but all too often friendly advice ends up sounding neither friendly or like advice. Another solution would be to discreetly reposition the papers every morning when I go in. This would peg me as merely nuts instead of hostile and nuts, so maybe I’ll give that a shot.