Posted 9:16 PM by Gene

Always remember, gentlemen: Our audience's collective IQ wouldn't equal the last zero of my net worth!!!!!

-- William Randolph Hearst

Well, He never said that, but the way His heirs run His empire The Man Who Killed McKinley (all right, He didn't, but someone had a way with His words) might well have. Thus did His Empire's Houston Chronicle site run a home-page ad for the Maxim Hot 100, as did many other minimally-brained sites. Certainly it's the motto of Maxim's supposed editor Jackass Joe Levy, not that his employer's doing that well -- and not that his rag has any editing. In this annual advertorial the girls run in roughly five categories: 1. Girls who look like pr0n "stars" (a plurality*), 2. Girls who star in overrated TV series, 3. Girls who star in outstanding B-pictures (like, oh, Date Movie [IMDb.com reader rating 2.6]), 4. Girls we're tired of hearing about (you know their names), and 5. Girls who sole talent is standing three hours before a camera and sulking. A few surprising names were missing (for reasons other than beauty, no doubt), and a certain crying-jag of a no-talent isn't in here because she appeals to -- GAYS, and even the most efficient of press agents would be stumped to call her "beautiful". Of course these girls do nothing for us, and most of them won't last long enough in the business to do much for anyone else either. This listicle proves our...maxim that today's hot show-biz women are no different than any of half-a-million women you could pick from the street, and just like the names from Bill Buckley's Boston phone directory you'd do better.

Which is why we post that picture of Betty Grable, despite the egregious watermark. She was a woman, not a heavily made-up airhead.

Extra-Special Hearst Recommendation: When clicking through the pictures you find they're not tagged individually in History, which means to look for one photo you have to start from the beginning (i.e., Number 100). Someone at Maxim deserves an executive job at The High-Tech Squeeze Box!

Hey Joe? You game?

There was also a plug in SFGate.com. SYNERGY!

P. S. at 11:15 p. m. More proof no amount of idiot publicity, no amount of hard-selling, can make up for the real thing, in actors or actresses.

(Originally posted 3:07 p. m. There is NO WAY we let ANYTHING take precedence over THAT Helen-of-Troy face.)

*P. P. S. on 5/8/2011 at 9:05 p. m. This originally read "(the bulk)". On second look the problem isn't so much the girls but their poses; such is to be expected of minimally edited fan mags and photographers who couldn't stage a photo shoot if Edith Head were in the room with them. Posing sexy is not the same as allure. All these girls can pose sexy.