Author and moviemaker Tucker Max is a pretty brilliant guy. Some time ago, Max took aim at a particular audience on the Web, and with an admirable single-mindedness, he gave them what they wanted. Stories about stupidity, sex, alcohol, more sex, poop, vomiting, liquor (see what I did there?) and did I mention the sex?

Tucker Max became hugely popular with the college crowd. Particularly college-age white boys with a yen for the things Tucker wrote about (often with a great deal of wit) -- you know, the stuff I've already listed above. (I did mention the sex, didn't I?)

I mean hell, here's how Tucker introduces himself: "My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole [...] I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead."

What's not to like about that?

And Max is laughing all the way to the bank. His book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, is a best-seller. It's been made into a movie.

That led to Tucker Max being pilloried by the likes of Gawker, one of the most popular media/gossip/celebrity blogs in existence. They got their clever little hands on a script for Max's movie (same title as his book), and, well -- they really, really hated it.

Tucker Max responded to all the crap Gawker threw at his movie in particular with a note to Radar Magazine. Max wrote, in part, "It seems like the height of comedy to me when failed writers cast aspersions on successful writing. I guess I would be pissed off too if I tried so hard for so long with nothing to show for it, and then some big, dumb 'rapey fratty' came out of nowhere to spend three years on the best seller list and got a movie made..."

Yeah. About that "rapey-fratty" bit. Folks who don't like Max or his legions of followers like to make jokes in that vein -- that his male fans are just date-rapists in waiting/training and his female fans are, perhaps, drunken sorostitutes with zero self-esteem.

Of course it's all pissing in the wind. The truth is that Max is a savvy author and businessman who developed a product -- his stories -- then found the perfect audience for that product. He can't help who ends up in the mix. It isn't his fault if guys like Frank P. Cirillo call him a "HERO."

(Yeah -- that's where this was going. If you thought the True Crime Report was heading off the rails into non-crime, well, why'd you think that?)

See, Frank P. Cirillo is the 21-year-old jut-jawed fellow on the right. On his MySpace page, Frank wrote the following in answer to the question about who he'd "like to meet": "TUCKER MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY HERO www.tuckermax.com[.]"

Awesome. Great endorsement. Tucker Max probably gets a few thousand of those a day. But police say Cirillo, a student at the University of Connecticut, took the "rapey" part of "rapey-fratty" way too far.

Cirillo was arrested on Saturday for allegedly forcing his way into a sleeping woman's apartment and raping her. It was the second sexual assault on a UConn student in the space of one week. That said, cops don't think the assaults are related.

Cirillo allegedly fled the scene on Saturday when the young woman awoke and began fighting back. Cops say they found him half-dressed and trying to hide in a nearby apartment.

According to the Hartford Courant, Cirillo has been charged "with first-degree sexual assault, home invasion, first-degree burglary, attempted first-degree burglary, third-degree criminal mischief, sixth-degree larceny and second-degree breach of peace."

He was able to make bail ($500,000 -- family must have money) and will be back in court soon for an arraignment.

While Cirillo allegedly took the "rapey" part of Tucker Max's shtick too seriously, he didn't forget about the "fratty" -- his MySpace stated that he was in the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. On his profile, Cirillo also had a link to this page:

http://community.webshots.com/user/cheechfpc

There you could find numerous photos of Cirillo in undoubtedly happier times, including a cruise he took at some point. If you're a young female at UConn Storrs or living in Woodbridge, CT, you might want to take a good look at Cirillo's photos and remember that face. You know, just for kicks.

To Tucker Max's credit, his number 1 fan turned accused home invader and rapist was apparently too timid to actually try and interact with Max or other fans of Max's work. Though "cheechfpc" -- Cirillo's Internet nom de plume -- had a profile on the TuckerMax.com message board, he'd never made a post or begun a thread there since signing up in 2005.

Of course it isn't Tucker Max's fault that Frank Cirillo (who has only been accused of these crimes, not convicted) likes Max's work. I didn't have to link the two at all, no matter what Cirillo's profile says. The fact is, if Cirillo really is a rapist, he would have tried something sooner or later even if he'd never heard of Tucker Max. Truly sexually predatory men don't even need a penis to assault someone -- there are stories of predators who were given real or chemical castration after release from prison but still used foreign objects to molest or rape their victims.

This is the part where I could probably go on about how Tucker Max's stories objectify women in a particularly bold and unapologetic way (the cover of Max's book is a great visual example of that objectification -- the chick doesn't need a face, to Tucker Max -- just as long as he's got a babe on his arm, all's good) and paint the kind of odious portrait of male behavior that would only be appealing to guys who like the idea of sex by force or coercion, but you've begun filling in those blanks already, haven't you? Oh well, if so, you can't blame me. I only wrote this blog post. It isn't my fault if in your mind my words somehow justify you thinking -- or doing -- what you would have thought or done anyway.

[Courant.com and WTNH.com.]