The testosterzone

There’s nothing wrong with men, just men’s magazines.

Month after month they pump out the same formulaic crap they’ve been chopping down trees for decades to produce. A story on a hot car, a hot movie director, an actor from an upcoming film and an edgy media personality.

It’s chyme served up with a bourbon-scented candle flickering in the background.

If one had the time and the energy to produce a parody of Es

quire’s August issue how different would it be from the 104-page issue on newsstands right now?

Writer Stephen Rodrick, in a weak feature on Bill Maher, proves he hasn’t a clue about the comedian’s MO, and the formidable actor Idris Elba is profiled in a very pedestrian work by Maximillian Potter.

We couldn’t figure out if Adam Grant’s Q&A with director Christopher Nolan was about Nolan or Grant — then we didn’t care.

And Editor Jay Fielden wonders why circulation is down and is- sues land with a 3 a.m. cat’s yawn effect on pop culture.

At GQ, the table of contents is equally mind-numbing — and the art design stupefying. The one thing that makes GQ a better read this month than its rival is that things are served up with a sense of humor. Like the item on the 10

worst parties in America. A fashion spread using young Hollywood directors is inspired and the re-telling of the Italian hotel wiped out by an avalanche classifies as a beach reach.

Zach Barron’s feature on how the next big media star may be born on the very small screen — shows watched on your smartphone — is also OKish.

A story about a luxury nudist resort, however, starts out promising but can’t close the deal.

In what may be a first, both titles have a black, British actor on the cover (Elba for Esquire and John Boyega for GQ)

In sum, both mags have to figure out who their reader is. Until then, millions of men will be living without them.