A year of editors in overdrive

Future historians of American magazines will no doubt remember 2004 as the year when an armpit with feet became a major sex symbol.

The armpit starred in a series of advertisements for Axe deodorant that appeared in Rolling Stone, Maxim, Cargo and countless other mags. The Axe armpit is not what you’d call a classic matinee idol -- he has no head, no legs, a crop of hair and two chubby feet, each with three fat toes -- but the dude proved to be a major playa.

In one ad, the armpit enjoyed a candlelight dinner with a busty brunet who slipped off her shoe and played footsie with him under the table. In another ad, the armpit perched on a fluffy white rug in front of a blazing fireplace while a leggy blond ran her fingers through his hair. In a third ad, the armpit canoodled with a wine-swilling babe on a gondola in Venice.

The armpit with feet was only one of the many goofy, bizarre or just plain strange things that made 2004 the weirdest year in magazines since ... well, at least 2003.

In 2004, the New Republic ran a cover story called “God Bless Atheism.” Rolling Stone ran an editorial that proclaimed: “Janet Jackson’s breast is the 9/11 of the new culture war.” Archaeology Odyssey published an article titled “Roman Latrines: How the Ancients Did Their Business.” And Details, the metrosexual men’s mag, revealed a hitherto undetected social trend: “Marrying a relative isn’t just for the trailer park anymore.”

Meanwhile, Robb Report -- the glossy magazine that publishes photos of ridiculously expensive luxury goods for ridiculously rich folks -- launched a Russian edition. No word yet on whether Lenin rolled over in his Moscow mausoleum.

In 2004, magazines dared to ask the kind of tough, knotty, thorny questions that have long perplexed humanity -- and sometimes they even answered them.

Discover, the science magazine, asked, “Was Your Ancestor a Sea Sponge?” (Answer: Yes.) National Geographic asked, “Was Darwin Wrong?” (Answer: No.) And the Jewish magazine Moment asked, “Can a Dog Be Jewish?” The answer to that one was unclear, but Moment did reveal this theological morsel: “A Jew may only pat a dog during the Sabbath, not stroke it, for stroking tends to pull out hairs, which is forbidden.”

Meanwhile, the Economist, the British newsmag that circulates widely in the United States, posed the question that puzzled American voters in 2004: “The incompetent or the incoherent?” The Economist urged Americans to choose the “incoherent” John Kerry over the “incompetent” George W. Bush.

Apparently Americans were not persuaded.

The CIA failed to find Osama bin Laden this year, but Maxim magazine not only located the world’s most wanted man but persuaded him to pose for a four-page photo feature called “Inside Osama’s Lair.” The terrorist mastermind was shown roasting rats over a fire in his “eat-in kitchen” and watching a big-screen plasma TV in his “entertainment center,” where, he said, “I declare jihad on boredom!”

Maxim declined to reveal Osama’s location, but one photo offered a subtle but important clue: Mt. Rushmore was clearly visible outside the terrorist’s kitchen door.

The prospect of Osama in South Dakota is frightening enough, but Discover discovered something even scarier -- millions of methane-producing microbes that could kill us all. In a story teased with the cover line “When Will the Bubble Burst?” Discover revealed that the world may not end with the proverbial bang or whimper but with a blast of flatulence from microscopic beasts that live in the muck beneath the ocean: “These tiny creatures make so much methane gas that if even a small proportion of it is released, we might be overwhelmed by tsunamis, runaway global warming and extinctions.”

Yikes! What a way to go!

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 8-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.”

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 OK 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 does have 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 had 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. Maybe somebody should introduce them to the armpit with feet.