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High testosterzone

Remember what they used to say about the sexy magazines? Men actually bought them for the articles? In the case of the mags below, that may be true. May.

Let’s face it: Men’s mags are all about the ladies. When GQ isn’t discussing fashion or football, it’s showcasing women who are way out of its readers’ leagues. Cover girl Beyoncé, the millennium’s “hottest” woman, is just that — in her own league — and she lets GQ and everyone know it. As the interviewer wrote in borrowing a line from his subject, “You ain’t ready for this jelly.” Beyoncé also comes across as a complete narcissist, judging by her project to capture every waking moment of her life with a private film crew in tow. The exhaustive documenting should be great for posterior … um, sorry, posterity.

Do you believe it is cool that Francis Ford Coppola’s son, Roman, has cast longtime friend Charlie Sheen as the romantic lead in new movie “CQ?” If so, Details also believes you might be interested in learning how to lift weights in your pool, purchasing a $910 baseball jersey or reading a pseudo-scientific piece about panic attacks. Details is just trying too hard to be hip. We have a tip for the mag: there’s nothing trendy about skimping on feature stories as it does in this issue. The only story that has any substance is a profile of a convicted fraudster who loves filing lawsuits to make a mockery of our legal system.

Maxim has an irritating habit of presenting the majority of its “articles” in Q&A fashion. What’s the point when the questions are inane and all readers really want to do is gawk at the scantily clad, nubile flesh that populates the men’s mag. Maxim devotes far too much glossy real estate to a feature on “Pawn Stars” semi-celebs Corey and Rick Harrison and not enough on “America’s sexiest girl next door” Dessie Mitcheson. Elsewhere, the mag, which features “30 Rock” actress Katrina Bowden on its cover, is filled with silly stuff like how to build a “Cincinnati fire kite” or “turn your copy of Maxim into body armor. “ It’s no wonder the mag cut its circulation to 10 issues a year and has lost 500,000 in circulation.

Megan Fox, whom Esquire has anointed the latest bombshell, speaks in tongues. Yes, Fox is a freak who is into religion and doesn’t like stardom one little bit, and she sure doesn’t want to be a sex symbol. That’s why she’s on the cover of a national men’s magazine. Unfortunately Esquire doesn’t seem to get the joke. Still, the magazine wants to do Serious Journalism, so it offers a 7,000-word snore on something we really should care about: the US Post Office. Bottom line: It’s important and it’s been screwed by Congress.

New York blares on its cover that “High School Is a Sadistic Institution,” as if this were some kind of shocking revelation. Elsewhere, we learn that when Bret Easton Ellis recently tweeted this garbled phrase during the wee hours, “Come over at do bring coke now,” he was, in fact, semi-conscious and in search of something other than a sugary carbonated beverage. We must say we were taken aback to learn that New York art gallery impresario Larry Gagosian early in his career did a stint as Michael Ovitz’s secretary, then followed that up selling posters on a sidewalk in LA. Sounds like Gagosian may be heading back to his humble roots, as he’s getting sued while losing big cash generators like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.

So you don’t collect art? How about dinosaur bones? This was a big business for Eric Prokopi, a guy in Florida, the New Yorker reports, until he had a run-in with the Mongolian government over his attempt to auction off the skeleton of a T. bataar, “a carnivorous, bipedal dinosaur similar to T. rex,” which was dug up from the Gobi Desert and procured by Prokopi in a process that remains obscure. Now he’s facing jail time, hopefully not in Venezuela, where wardens at overcrowded prisons have ceded control to armed gangs, according to an article by Jon Lee Anderson. This is the result of chaos under the regime of Hugo Chavez.

All of this may make our domestic battle over guns seem tame, but Time nevertheless delivers a well-timed special report on the controversy. Among the more interesting stats: the National Rifle Association has added 250,000 members since the Sandy Hook shootings. Meanwhile, however, 55 percent of Americans support stricter gun control laws, and 56 percent think it’s too easy to buy guns. While universal background checks are a possibility, bans on assault weapons and high-capacity clips are unlikely. Indeed, we agree with President Obama’s assessment of the outlook for gun control: “The only way we can change is if the American people demand it.” And what voters will demand remains a big question mark.