People Magazine got lots of press last week when it named Bradley Cooper as its Sexiest Man Alive. There are always those who disagree with their pick for the annual title, but this year’s choice really brought out the naysayers. The media and gay guys alike went batshit over the idea that Bradley is hotter than, well, pretty much half of Hollywood. Can’t say as I blame them. I wouldn’t kick Bradley out of bed – and if rumors are to believed, few guys have – but he certainly is nowhere close to the top of my list of fantasy dates.

But then neither is Brad Pitt and no one questioned his right to the title when he won People’s award. The difference is even if Brad isn’t what curls your toes you still have to admit he is (or was) a fine hunk of manhood. Bradley, on the other hand, is okay, but nothing to howl at the moon over. The choice the magazine makes each year is a subjective one. Matt Damon won one year, but unless you grew up in Boston and have been conditioned to find that Irish working man with the pug nose look hot, he’s not. No one complained about his win though because he’s a nice guy and everyone felt bad for him in that he is friends and hangs with Ben Affleck and George Clooney, both previous Sexiest Man Alive honorees. It’s kinda like the Oscar Mickey Rourke won. Not deserved, more of a thrown bone.

The bigger problem with this year’s crop of Sexiest Alive hunks is that out of the top 12, only one is under 30. Most hover around 40 and two even clock in at the senior citizen discount age of 50 and above. Not that old dudes can’t be sexy. But the sexiest alive? When they only have a few years left of qualifying for the alive part? Hopefully People will hire someone under the age of 75 to join their editorial staff before next year’s selection.

If you think I’m being cruel about the age thing, Alec Baldwin came in at the #11 spot on this year’s list. Alec Baldwin. Alec is like 80 or something. And sexy is not the adjective that springs to mind when you think of Alec Baldwin. Obese, gross, ugly, disgusting: yes. Sexy? Not so much. I wouldn’t fuck Alec Baldwin with Stephen Baldwin’s dick.

Some would say, who cares? It’s not like you’ll ever get to bed a celebrity. Many people roll their eyes when gay guys start talking about the latest closeted Hollywood heart throb. Their feeling is that it doesn’t matter if Bradley, for example, is gay or not. It’s not like that means you have any better chance of landing him. Spoil sports. And it turns out they just might be wrong. The celebrity you’d like to do the most isn’t necessarily beyond your reach. The famous hottie may be only 4.37 people away.

Scientists working with Facebook at the University of Milan reported on Monday that the average number of acquaintances separating any two people in the world is now but 4.74, down from the traditional 6 most people are familiar with through the six degrees of separation paradigm.

The new study calculated the average distance between any two people by computing a vast number of sample paths among Facebook users. They found that the average number of links from one arbitrarily selected person to another was 4.74. In the United States, where more than half of people over 13 are on Facebook, it was just 4.37. The original “six degrees” finding, published in 1967 by psychologist Stanley Milgram, was drawn from 296 volunteers. That study’s findings were popularized through the parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which disparate Hollywood personalities are linked to one another, the joke being that everyone in Hollywood is linkable to Kevin within six steps.

It’s nice to know that now there are only four people between you and the famous hunk you’re dying to reach out and touch. That’s a tantalizingly close, no longer unreachable goal. It’s just that with Bradley, no one really wants to bother going through those four people. People’s error in judgement is not surprising though, it’s typical of a leading industry magazine’s editorial staff getting too wrapped up in their little world and forgetting that the views of the majority are not reflected in their brand of reality. Rolling Stone Magazine just made the same mistake, though their equally erroneous call probably will not incite quite the same degree of outrage as People’s. Beauty always wins out over talent.

This week’s issue of Rolling Stone named Jimi Hendrix as the greatest guitar player in history. Not too controversial of a choice. Jimi has both talent and the tragically dead celebrity thing going for him. At first glance it would appear Rolling Stone went for the easy play, Jimi is one of the first guitarists most would think of if asked to name the greats. But a lot of that is hype. The songs he is most famous for – with the exception of his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner – demonstrate little of his true talent on guitar. Go find a bootleg copy of one of his live sessions where he plays the blues classic Red House though and you’ll see why he is deserving of the top spot.

So Jimi’s win is not the problem. The problem is the rest of the field rounding out the Top Ten. Rolling Stone went with, and I quote: “greatest guitar player in history.” But their choices belong in a list of greatest guitar players in Rock and Roll, not in all genres and all throughout the history of the world. Don’t get me wrong, list-makers Keith Richards and Pete Townsend are both extremely talented guitarists. But Keith claiming the #2 spot? I don’t think so. Even in his drug muddled mind he’s not worthy of that honor. And Pete’s inclusion is yet again a bone thrown out of sympathy. In both of their cases the honor was given more to the legend of their bands than to the guitarists themselves.

B.B. King made the list coming in at the #6 spot. Even though B.B. is so old and fat he has to be wheeled onto stage these days, his inclusion in the top ten shows the judges had some integrity in making their choices. Put B.B.’s fretwork up against the flying finger of Jimi Hendrix and it’s no contest. B.B.’s talents are more sublime. His skill is in teasing single notes and abbreviated riffs out of Lucille that carry an entire symphony. If you ever feel the need to understand the phrase ‘less is more’, go listen to what B.B. can do with a single note.

The panel of experts recruited to vote for their favorite guitar players included musicians such as Lenny Kravitz, Eddie Van Halen (who was voted No. 8), Brian May and Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys, along with a selection of Rolling Stone’s senior writers and editors. All come from a Rock background so it’s no big surprise that it was Rock icons they tend to in making their selection. B.B. was the only Bluesman to make the cut (though to be fair Jimi never got the credit he deserved for playing the blues). Fine. I get that. But Chuck Berry? And in the #7 spot ahead of Duane Allman? What were they thinking?

Conspicuously absent from a list of guitar greats that not only included Chuck Berry but Eddie Van Halen, is a guitarist who should have been in contention for the #1 spot: Stevie Ray Vaughan. How you could honor Jimi, when Stevie payed homage to Jimi with a version of his classic Little Wing that not only duplicated his mastery but bettered him is a crime. Stevie’s fingers flew so fast that Keith Richards would still be trying to fix his guitar strap by the time Stevie had segued from Pride and Joy into Texas Flood. Go listen to Tin Pan Alley and then tell me Chuck Berry was a better guitarist. I don’t think so.

People’s error was in going with a top box office draw based on a movie’s popularity rather than on hunkdom. Rolling Stone’s was in favoring historic figures of Rock over talent. The brainiacs at the University of Milan probably made an error just as grievous in using Facebook’s definition of a friend, and the assumption that actually qualifies as a relationship in claiming we are all connectable within just slightly more than 4 people now. But if that means I stand a better chance of tapping Jason Momoa’s cute little butt, sign me up as a friend.