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That was interesting. I was close to finished with a longish rant about the fragmentation of pop culture when I stopped, looked at it, and remembered something I said this weekend, talking to a friend while killing time at a TV taping. What's scary about writing sometimes, I said, is that once you put something out there, there's no turning back. You're on the record, and you have to own up to what you've written. That's why I'll read and reread what I write here, edit, reconsider, think about that before posting. I don't want to say anything that'll come back to bite me in the ass, yet I want to be fearless as well. That's a hard balance to strike.

I had this piece almost finished when I stopped to think about it, think about whether it made sense. And something told me that, no, it wasn't quite there, wasn't ready. So I decided to copy the material into a separate document, save it, and maybe sleep on it, work on it later. But I must have hit the wrong key, because my fingers slipped and...

...it was gone. Not copied, not saved. Gone.

And that's why you're reading this, and won't be reading that. God is my editor, and He didn't like the other column. I've fought editors before, but this time, I'll take it as Divine intervention and figure that it wasn't meant to be. Not this time, anyway.

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After careful consideration of the important news stories of the day, I've come to the conclusion that I don't care.

It's not that the topics themselves aren't important. They are, surely, to millions of people. I just can't get to the point where I have a fervently held opinion one way or the other about any of it. Affirmative action in school admissions? I graduated a long time ago, I have no kids, I have no horse in that race. Terrorism? I DO care about that, but I can't DO anything about it, and thinking about it only gets depressing. Recalling the governor? Won't make a whole lot of difference. Library Net filters? I use my own computer. Sports? Too early for football, too early for the pennant races in baseball, don't care about golf.

So, that leaves me in a state of ennui, I suppose. This has its advantages. It gives me time and brain power to spend on home, family, the Food Network. It's trouble, however, for someone who's paid to have opinions on everything. Oh, I do have opinions- I can scare up a comment or two about anything- but it's hard to CARE. You know what I mean?

I suppose I'll snap out of this. Something will happen in the news that will get my back up, make me angry or elated or smug or something with even a tiny drip of emotion. Until then, there has to be an "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode to watch, a "Get Fuzzy" strip to read, a solitaire game to play on the Palm Pilot. You know, the important stuff.

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After yesterday's "I Don't Care" discussion, I was hoping that my mood would change at least a little, that I'd find something worth some attention. Then it was time to write the weekly newsletter I send out on behalf of my other column, a newsletter in which I try to riff on whatever's happening in that particular week, and...

...nothing. I son't know what I would do if I was on the air right now. Take vacation, probably. That seems to be what a lot of hosts are doing- Hannity's off, Rome is off, Savage is off, even all the Salem guys like Prager are off, and whoever isn't off this week took last week off or will take next week off. No wonder- nothing is grabbing any attention right now. It's June, it's summer, it's no time to be talking about war and taxes and crime and whatever. People want to- I want to- just put our brains on "pause" and skate through the next few weeks.

I'd be fine with everyone taking a couple of weeks off at the same time. Not just taking vacation- I'm thinking that all news, all events, everything should just be put on hold. Hello, Hamas? No murder for two weeks, OK? Gephardt, Dean, Kerry, all of you guys? Take five, we'll be back to you in July. A national vacation, a worldwide break in the action, a global recharging of the batteries- it's what the world needs now.

In fact, we should all work together to make this happen. Petitions, lobbying, a worldwide movement- yes, I can see it now. Well, actually, not now. Maybe in a few weeks. I need to take a break first. Hold that thought, willya?

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Blogger was down all Wednesday- here's a column that was intended for then:

I ran into some antelope today.

At least, I THINK they were antelope (antelopes? antelopii?). About yea tall, straight horns, light brown fur with white underbelly... There were two, crossing Palos Verdes Drive South as I was running along the curb. They crossed the westbound lanes, clambered over the median strip, wandered tentatively into oncoming traffic and stopping a bewildered SUV driver in his tracks, then scampered off down the entrance road to the old Marineland site and disappeared.

I'm not big on wildlife. Oh, it has its place- the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park work for me- but I prefer not to encounter wildlife in the, er, wild. Here in the coastal area of Southern California, we normally get a limited range of wildlife, namely a) skunks, b) raccoons, c) possums, d) more skunks, e) coyotes, f) the occasional fox, g) SNAKES!!!, h) peacocks, and and i) more skunks. I'll be sitting on the couch watching TV and a skunk will stroll by the window, look back at me, and casually hop away. Or I'll look out and see a pair of raccoons using our pool as a bath and drinking fountain. Or there'll be a thump-thump-thump on the roof, and I'll look in the driveway and see a peacock bouncing into the road. Note that in all of these instances, I am safely indoors, separated from the wildlife by glass, wood, and sheetrock. The antelope situation was different. As I ran towards the scene, I hesitated. What do I do? Do I run straight through? Do I turn and hightail it like I'd do if it was a rattler? Do I veer far, far across the road like I'd do for skunks? Do antelope like humans? Dunno, dunno, dunno. But they didn't see me, so nothing happened.

But it could have, and that's what's problematic for me. If I wanted wildlife encounters, I'd live in the wild. I live in the suburbs. We're supposed to be protected from such things. When I walk out my door, I want to be assured that I will not be headbutted by a crazed antelope, trampled by a bouncing peacock, sprayed by a startled skunk. Someone should do something about this. Call the Governor. Recall the Governor. It's simple: there's a place for wildlife, and it's called "Animal Planet." Or my dinner plate, with a baked potato and broccoli. I expect action on this immediately.

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There are people who can walk or drive past a bookstore without veering directly through the door and spending an hour or two inside. I am not one of those people.

I was reminded of this yesterday, at lunchtime. There's a bookstore- a small Borders branch- at the top of the hill, right near the post office, and it was at the post office when I thought, hey, let me just duck into Borders for a second, pick up a Register or maybe a magazine, then head back to the office. Naturally, 45 minutes later, I was still in the store, speedreading a magazine about summer in the mountains, brushing through "Moneyball" while deciding whether to buy it now or later, checking the New Mexico travel guides, sizing up the NFL preview issues. I really did have to get back to work, but I was finding it hard to tear myself away.

Part of it is the lure of reading, to be sure- I am virtually always reading, even when doing other things like watching TV and eating and talking on the telephone- but I can do that anywhere. It has more to do with the atmosphere, and it's not just the physical appearance of the place, because that doesn't matter- I tend to read standing up, leaning with one elbow against the stacks. While I was killing time at the store yesterday, I realized that I'd entered a silent zone, a quiet place that I don't find elsewhere. It's not actually silent, either. At the moment I was thinking this, the store PA system was playing "Dazed and Confused." It's more the silence that envelops you when you're deep in thought, tightly in the grasp of an interesting article or a good book. World War III could have been raging in the cafe behind me and I would not have paid any attention. I was in another zone, and I liked where I was.

Trying to explain my bookstore fetish is probably a losing proposition with anyone not similarly afflicted. That would include most people. It makes me feel kinda weird, an otherwise normal American guy who's more comfortable at Barnes and Noble than a strip club on a Saturday night, but that's okay, I guess. I'll leave my stool at Jumbo's Clown Room for another average American guy. You know where to find me.

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Just a word here about the Supreme Court decision on Texas' sodomy law, because I listened to something and it bothered me a little. Rush Limbaugh was going on and on about how the Court had overstepped its authority and it was an activist decision and it's not the result of the ruling, it's the dangerous way that blah blah blah.

And I listened and I thought, no, it IS the result of the ruling that's bothering you. If you're worried about judicial activism and the infringement of "states' rights," that horse left the barn a long time ago. The bottom line is simple. Conservatives want less government, want the government to keep out of people's business without a compelling reason to be there. I can think of not a single compelling reason for the state to be involved in which sexual practices consenting adults choose to practice in their own homes, not a one. There's not even an abortion-like argument (the taking of a life, the dispute over when life begins), or a drug-making argument (activity that could lead to harming others). It's people doing something that is none of the government's business. Not the federal government, not the state government, not the town government.

In a strictly procedural sense, yes, this is stretching the "right to privacy"- a right some would argue doesn't really exist in the Constitution- to cover something it hasn't covered before. And you'll hear people talk of a slippery slope- Justice Scalia, in his dissent, says that, why, according to this ruling, the government can't even regulate masturbation anymore! All I can ask is this: do you really want to live in a system that would regulate masturbation? That would even think about regulating masturbation? Sometimes, common sense has to prevail. It did here. Now, can everybody shut up and go back to arguing about tax cuts and WMDs? Thanks.

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Nothing. We inspected the shelves, carefully looked at every option, and found nothing. Nothing at all.

I'm referring, of course, to the video store. It's Friday, and we like to stock up on DVDs for our entertainment, since we are, after all, stereotypical suburbanites unwilling to venture very far for excitement. For a while, now, our trips to the Blockbuster- that's all we have, Blockbuster (albeit a Blockbuster that carries unedited, full versions and even unrated movies) and Hollywood Video- have ended with us leaving emptyhanded. Anything worth watching, we've seen. Crap not worth the time, well, there's plenty of that. Direct-to-video embarrassments starring people you assumed had left acting, or perhaps had joined Eddie Mekka and Georgia Engel on the dinner-theater circuit? Sure, unlimited supply. Good movies we haven't seen? Anything interesting? Well, no, but here's a Sylvester Stallone movie with a new title to make you think it's not the one you avoided the first time around. And here's a few Dominique Swain spectaculars. (I should note that I have met Dominique, she's very, very nice, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with her acting, but she tends to be in very, very bad movies that somehow never make it to the multiplex) Look, Rob Schneider!

This will not do.

I was only half-joking when I told Fran that if we want something good to watch, we're going to have to make it ourselves. But if we're going to get it onto Blockbuster's shelves, we'll have to disguise it to fit in. We'll call it "Mindless Unwatchable Crap." No, it should be "Mindless Unwatchable Crap II." Or "Mindless Unwatchable Crap II: Electric Boogaloo." The plot: a suburban couple goes to the video store and gets swallowed whole by a tidal wave of "Just Married" DVDs. It's a documentary.

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One question on a lazy Saturday: What the hell was Chachi all about?

No, really. We were idly flipping through the channels on the dish and "Happy Days" was on TV Land, and it was a Very Special Post-Shark-Jumping Episode in which Fonzie went in search of his biological mother and settled on a diner waitress who appeared to be roughly the same age as Henry Winkler was at the time. While pondering that disturbing circumstance, the diner door flung open and Chachi Arcola rushed in with some minor comic quip or something, and it struck me: this show was set in the late 50s and early 60s, right? Let's say they progressed to, say, 1962 by the time of this episode, and that's generous.

So, didn't anyone notice Chachi's hair?

Chachi's hair was your basic 1978 shag 'do, parted in the middle and puffed out a little with a blow dryer. And I realized that had this episode REALLY taken place in 1962- any time before 1966, I'd say, because his hair was long even by Beatles/Stones standards- and Chachi had walked into any random Milwaukee eatery, he would have had his skinny ass kicked all the way to Eau Claire and back. As I recall, long hair was considered less than masculine in those less than enlightened days of brush cuts and Butch Wax. At least, having long hair that had not been greased into a D.A. would get you a heap o' trouble, and even the D.A. had to be just right, because if you showed up at the Steak 'n' Shake with Fabian's hair, you were a Pretty Boy, and Pretty Boys were not appreciated by guys who were more than likely uncomfortable with their own sexuality, but I digress. Bottom line: "Happy Days" at some point lost all pretense of being chronologically accurate. I blame Ted McGinley. Or the shark.

Next: Anson Williams: What the hell?

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