I have a question of cosmic proportions that has troubled my mind now for quite some time. One of those questions that reach deep into the core of one's being and shapes the very essence of existence.

It's occupied my conscious thought now for quite some time, and eats away at what would normally be my most creative efforts, leaving me both troubled and weary from the eternal struggle.

Perhaps one of you out there can help me answer this question – but that's like hoping for an answer to the unanswerable.

Just where in the hell do they keep these Girls Gone Wild?

I do have a clue, for what it's worth, but even that does not answer the question. I figured you could find them by following Snoop Dog, but who could stand following HIM around?

Oh, where are those halcyon days when all I had to ponder were questions like:

Can they really put hair in a can?

How many times am I going to WANT to cut a hammer with a ginsu knife?

When was the last time I asked myself -- ``They can put a man on the moon, why can't they put a fishing pole in my glove compartment?'

A vacuum cleaner AND a set of hair clippers – how can the Nobel committee overlook something this fantastic?

If a kid can grow a beanstalk to the sky with just a handful of beans, why can't my ex-wife grow boobs with a pill?

Wouldn't my life be happier and easier if I could suck the air out of my jar of marshmallows?

Where would all those songs I've tried to get out of my head for decades be without Ronco?

Isn't it great that Jennilee Harrison can go buy foreclosure property after getting screwed on Three's Company?

and most all: Hey, I can make a fortune by placing little classified ads in every newspaper in the English-speaking world? What a country!

So, if you have an answer to my most troubling question, please pass it along to me. I mean, I really am staying up nights trying to find the answer.

Then again, if I wasn't staying up nights I wouldn't be asking the question.

More soon

I just finished reading Tom Shales new book about Saturday Night Live -- Live From New York. It was very interesting -- a behind-the-scenes look at what went on at Studio 8H before the light went on at 11:30.

First, I like Tom Shales and his take on television. As tv critics go, he's one of the best. I actually saw his desk at the Washington Post when I was visiting D.C. years and years ago. There were a few desks I wanted to see, actually (the tour was after most people went home). I was working with a group of young, minority journalism students from colleges across the country during the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, and the tour was part of the conference for the kids. This was before Ben Bradlee retired and we had a chance to meet him, along with about 100 Pulitzer Prize winners.

I remember when NBC's Saturday Night debuted (Howard Cosell had Saturday Night Live locked up for his show on ABC).

What I remember most about SNL was how it demonstrated to me how much different my sense of humor was from that of my parents.

I was a senior in high school when it debuted, and I remember having friends over to watch it -- with my aprents sitting around watching, too, of course.

Of course, my parents had no idea what was funny about George Carlin, the first host. And Richard Pryor left them in a stupor. A humorless stupor, for that matter.

But I think the defining moment came during one of SNL's earliest commercial parodies -- for Col. Lingus, the chicken that takes a lickin'.

It was so out of left field, so bawdy and unexpected, that my friends and I laughed until we had tears in our eyes. Then we realized my parents just didn't get it. They had no clue what we were laughing about. Now, some of it is simply the fact that my sense of humor had to have been adopted. It never could have come from these two people genetically. Still, it pointed out vividly that this was a new generation -- for those of us at the tail end of the Baby Boomer Generation.

I don't think you could define this generation without references to John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd or Gilda Radner. Chevy Chase doing pratfalls as Gerald Ford were a defining moment -- even if Chevy Chase, the person, is a flaming asshole. John Belushi doing Samurai whatever, was seminal. And his side-by-side impression of Joe Cocker, with Joe Cocker, was transcendental. Same with his Duelling Brandos with Peter Boyle and Ackroyd's dead-on Tom Snyder. And Gilda was in a class all by herself (My favorite was Emily Latella and her commentary about excessive violins on television).

There were times when SNL sucked. But as many times as it sucked, it soared to new heights and broke new ground. Thankfully, it's going to be around forever. Even though Gilda and Belushi are gone. And even though Chevy Chase is STILL an asshole. The genius of a generation was captured once a week. At 11:30. Live, from New York.

More soon.

Hooooooo boy. I never thought it would come to this.

Maybe it comes from being exposed to another one of those Maury Show `I've got a terrible secret' episodes -- you know the ones: I-cheated-on-you-and-now-I-don't-know-if-the-baby-is-yours-or-not-but-let's-go-on-national-television-and-make-you-look-like-a-schmuck shows that are the staple of daytime television.

But the Dr. Phil Show suggests that confession is good for the soul, so I should probably get this off my chest now.

I actually like fruitcake.

God. I never thought I would reveal that. I feel like such a failure as a human being.

Before I go off and sneak myself another slice of fruitcake and an eggnog latte, let me clarify -- I'm not talking about those Christmas-in-a-Tin fruitcakes you get at the department store and send off to your those relatives you don't really like anyway. That kind of fruitcake ranks with the cockroach as things most likely to survive a nuclear holocaust. You need a jackhammer and a diamond saw to get a slice off some of those babies.

I have a theory about those fruitcakes. They fill this so-called cake with tons of dried fruit and decorate it with more dried fruit and nuts, and then they scientifically suck every ounce of moisture out of it before sending it off for an unsuspecting public to chip teeth on year after year. My hunch is that, if the Titanic had been carrying a hold full of fruitcake, all that seawater would have been sucked up and the ship would have sailed merrily on its way -- which would have kept that damned Celine Dion song from being played on the radio every five minutes for two years and saved my sanity. But we'll never know.

No, the fruitcake I like are the ones my mother makes. The fruitcake I grew up on. The fruitcake that lies at the bottom of my freezer like a time capsule, each with its year of origin marked on the aluminum foil like the born-on date that Budweiser boasts (which, come to think about it, mom should have patented -- she's been doing that longer than King of Beers). She told me her secret years ago -- not that I make fruitcake myself. She starts with an applesauce cake and adds dried fruit and nuts. And no, she doesn't get all carried away with the ornamental fruit. This fruitcake is designed to be sliced and served and not to be a decorative ornament. Maybe that's the ultimate difference.

Okay. I've now laid bare my deepest, darkest Holiday secret. I think I'll go hide for a while, maybe listen to that cd with the dogs barking Christmas carols. No, wait, that would be another confession.

More soon.

Okay. Now I'm paranoid.

I spent a Sunday taking care of little odds and ends, preparing for the Holidays. Nothing spectacular, really, but enough to make a relaxing day out of it. Except for an afternoon of dreadful television.

No, I wasn't watching the Seattle Seahawks muck up another football game. Other than checking to see who Washington State will play in the Rose Bowl, this wasn't a Sunday for sports viewing.

Nope, I decided that, since I wasn't in the mood for the Holiday food extravaganza on the Food Network, I'd watch the Discovery Channel. Bad idea.

If you want to be scared shitless without watching a lot of blood and gore, watch the Discovery Channel. And I'm not referring to Crocodile Hunter.

After first visiting Hawaii, and then living on Maui, I've become interested in volcanoes, and the Discovery Channel had an interesting show called Supervolcanoes. I figured the term had something to do with something like Monster Trucks – you know, bigger versions of the same thing.

In this case, super-sized doesn't begin to cover it. Nor does colossal.

Here's an example to show what I mean. This geologist went hiking through Yellowstone Park, looking for evidence of its volcanic history. After checking through the different geological strata, he went searching for evidence of the volcano – the caldera. The caldera is the geological remains of the volcano – think of it as the crater left behind after the eruption. The problem was, he couldn't find it. There was no caldera to find.

It wasn't until NASA did an aerial survey that they spotted the caldera. The couldn't find a caldera IN Yellowstone Park because Yellowstone Park WAS the caldera. An 80-mile wide crater.

Then they did the math, which showed that this volcano went off about every 600,000 years, and mentioned that the last eruption was, you guessed it, 600,000 years ago.

Of course, then they went to a program about tsunamis – tidal waves, and pointed out that there was a fault line on the Big Island of Hawaii, where part of the Island would eventually fall into the ocean, creating a tidal wave 1,000 feet high that would wipe out Japan and Australia, as well as the West Coast.

I gave up after that. The idea of a natural disaster of cataclysmic proportions really puts you in the Christmas Spirit.

Finally, something to make me believe there ARE bigger disasters waiting out there worse than Dubya.

More soon.