Richard Roeper Reviewed

While chronicling "the decline of girlie mags" for the Atlantic, Jon Zobenica took some pokes at a Sun-Times columnist:

Take Richard Roeper (the C-list Siskel), who urges FHM readers to “Stay Single!” His sermonette to the boys’ choir, which captures perfectly the laddies’ acute fear of girlfriend, was about the closest thing to the Playboy Advisor I could find in the lad mags ***

And for comparison’s sake with the Advisor, here’s Roeper’s tongue-flaccidly-in-cheek list of the advantages of single life:

• Never having to pay alimony.
  
• Pizza for breakfast. And nobody to give you a hard time about it.
  
• You know those baseball hats, video games and autographed sports stuff guys store in the garage when they get married? I have it all on display in my guest bedroom. If I was married, that room would be a nursery.
  
• You don’t have to pretend to be interested in Desperate Housewives.
  
• Vegas. Guilt-free.
  
• Softball on Mondays, poker on Thursdays, boys’ night on Fridays, football all weekend. And never having to check with anyone to see if that’s OK.
  
• Women. Plural.

What sort of man reads FHM? Apparently the sort who fetishizes his own headgear and hasn’t charm or confidence enough to negotiate the tricky ritual of breakfast for two; the sort who gets a licentious thrill from not having to ask permission to stare at his TV all weekend.

In short, a weird little nebbish.

For the record, I've met Mr. Roeper and he's not little.

And lets have some perspective -- criticizing someone for a piece written for FHM is like critiquing the literary merit of something you read on the bathroom wall. I suspect it took Rich 15 minutes to write and that he was paid handsomely for it.

Probably more than I made last year.

Damn you Richard Roeper.