The funniest cover picture of the year appeared on Mad magazine. It showed Michael Jackson with his arm around Alfred E. Neuman, Mad's "What, Me Worry?" boy, whose sweating, terrified face indicates that he's very worried indeed.
Spin, the rock mag, published the best anthropological article of the year: "Inside the World of a Rock Roadie" by Rodger Cambria, a former roadie for the Doobie Brothers, Elvis Costello, Celine Dion and a band called GWAR, which performs "decapitations, mutilations and bloodletting onstage." Life as a roadie entails a lot of hard work, plus "illegal narcotics and genital herpes" and the occasional opportunity for sex with the kind of groupies who are desperate enough to sleep with roadies. Cambria offers fond memories of his first groupie. Her name was Bonnie and her aging body was decorated with an eight-inch scar "probably the remnants of a drunken knife fight" and a large tattoo of Burt Reynolds.
"When she twisted her torso," Cambria recalls, "the loose skin around Burt's eye folded in such a way that he appeared to be winking."
Speaking of amour, "2: The Magazine for Couples" offered its readers advice on how to make a home porn video: "Try keeping a hand on the camcorder for zoom-enhanced body-roaming pleasure, or expand position possibilities by perching the lens atop a night table or tripod. If you opt to go hands-free, make sure the cam is aimed at some scintillating skin, not at that stank laundry pile in the corner."
In 2004, magazines published at least 4,658,943 interviews with actors. Most of these interviews revealed that the actors didn't have much to say that was particularly interesting. But I never knew why until I read an interview with actor Jack Black in Uncut, the British music mag. Black revealed the hitherto hidden secret: "Most actors," he said, "are dumb as a mud fence."
In fact, Black continued, "the dumber you are, the better an actor you are in a lot of cases." Did Black care to name any names? Yes, he did! "De Niro, OK? Zero brains. Zero brains! But he's got great instincts."
For actors, Black continued, "it's okay to be dumb as long as you know you're dumb. But if you don't know you're dumb, then you're dumb."
Dumbness is not, of course, confined to the thespian community. It's also rampant in the magazine biz. The dumbest magazine story of the year appeared in the always moronic Details: "The Nightmare of the Office Bowel Movement." The dumbest new magazine of 2004 is Cargo, a guide to shopping for men. Cargo is stupefyingly stupid but it did one thing right: It hired an associate art director with the coolest name on any magazine masthead: Tahiti Starship.
The year's dumbest move in magazines was made by Trail, a British hiking mag. Trail published a detailed route plan for a hike that, if followed correctly, would have sent hikers plummeting off the side of Britain's highest mountain. Oops!
In the world of magazines, it's never considered dumb to put a naked or near-naked person on your cover.
That's why New York magazine's special "No-Sweat Summer" issue featured a cover showing a scrawny blond woman walking naked down a deserted street.
And it's why the 10th anniversary issue of Poz, the magazine for people with HIV, featured a cover that showed 80 HIV-positive people buck naked.
And it's why PSM, a magazine for devotees of PlayStation 2, published a special swimsuit issue featuring drawings of the action heroines of PlayStation games frolicking in skimpy bikinis while holding a sword or a skull or a machine gun.
They look terrific. Maybe somebody should introduce them to the armpit with feet.
