Desperately seeking Mike Myers

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Paramount is still playing hide and seek with ``The Love Guru,’’ the new Mike Myers comedy due out June 20th, but still unseen by the press. That means Hollywood’s take on the film is largely based on its oddly unfunny trailer, a hodgpodge of low-brow gags that left many fans underwhelmed, including my Summer Movie Posse, who rate the trailers from the upcoming summer movies. They gave it a low score, with one of the boys, upon seeing the film’s star couple together, grumbling ‘Jessica Alba and Mike Myers--she can’t act, and he’s not funny.’

All I can say is that I fervently hope the new Myers vehicle is funnier than the throwaway self-interview he penned for Esquire, giving the magazine a convenient excuse to put his grinning mug on the cover of its July issue. (Men’s magazines being what they are today, the July issue showed up in my mailbox this week, but none of the stories from the issue are on the Esquire.com site yet.) If you were actually tempted to run out and buy the issue to read what the cover tag claims is ``An Intimate Memoir,’’ let me save you some money.

It’s actually anything but an intimate memoir. What would I call it?

How about a not-so-clever schtick designed to sell magazines and plug a movie that could use all the help it can get, since ‘Guru’’ finds itself opening against ‘Get Smart,’ which features a more accessible star (Steve Carrell), a brand-name title and a more familiar genre (retread spy spoof vs. goofball swami parody). The feature, titled ‘My Forty-Five Years in Forty-Five Sentences,’ offers a Myers joke per year, with extremely mixed results. But you be the judge. A few random examples:

‘1968: Helen Keller dies. I make my first ten thousand Helen Keller jokes.’

‘1979: Rhodesia changes its name to Zimbabwe. In an act of futile defiance, my brother Zimbabwe changes his name to Rhodesia.’

‘1995: I discover that steam-powered trains will soon span this great nation. I also discover that my discount encyclopedia set is woefully out-of-date.’

Let’s just hope Mike saved his A-material for the movie.