So Shoot Me
 I confess this freely: I find Maxim Magazine to be pretty damn fun to read. Whereas the humorless crabapples of the chattering class see this new, Brit-inspired style of men's book -- the so-called laddie magazine -- as the latest sign that the end of Western civilization is nigh, I just see some cheekily talented writers mining the same vein of irreverent humor that we adore in The Onion, in the late lamented Spy, and (most sorely missed) the 1970's-era National Lampoon.
Not infrequently, the target of Maxim's frat-house mockery is none other than current male befuddlement over what it means to be masculine. In other words, there's a subversive aspect to the magazine that should make it at least flippable to high-brows who wouldn't otherwise enjoy anti-PC jokery. In sum, Maxim is a humor rag, and not what the media mavens have scorned it as: a mere degenerate wannabe of the oh-so-classy "men's magazines" like GQ, Esquire, and Playboy -- royal bores all.
10:26:17 PM 
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