what TV WRITERS read

Most call it a summer reading. I call it a subway distraction. If I'm lost in some fiction, like the jungle steam of colonial Burma, I focus less on the real sweat percolating across my back while waiting for the number-three express. As temperatures threatened to braise the white clouds brown last week, I stopped by an air conditioned bookstore to browse for just such a distraction, but found oh, so much more.

Unwittingly, I stumbled upon a phenomenon. The anchors are authors too. Names like Brokaw, Jennings, and Dan "that dog won't hunt" Rather, are all working their way onto the shelves of your finest chain book vendors - often near the frappuccino section. You'll find Jennings' "The Century," Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation," Rather's "Gidyup Beef-Jerky."

This is significant. As any serious divinity student can attest, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a TV type to write for polite society. My third grade English teacher once warned that even a hint of TV writing would get us six-months on Rikers. No parole. So I've got to ask, given this trendy anchor writing triplet - three is a trend - can reading be far behind?

Don't laugh. Sightings already abound of pompadours and helmet hairs sniffing through places traditionally reserved for goatees. TV types are lurking in libraries, skulking through coffee shops, and storming any place rumored to sell Cliff Notes. As our century draws closed, we might be witness to a news industry upheaval, or at least live to see textbooks introduced to college communications curriculums.

Imagine web-sites jammed with TV cries.

"OK, we understand this millennial force (we understand anything labeled this way) but what do we read? Give us a list. Or at least something we can slap on a teleprompter."

Safe to say, it's not long before the TV cry will give way to the TV promo.

· Reading in America: It Schooled Your Parents - Could It Blind Your Kids?

· The Book-Bag Is Back - But Can Your Back Stand The Strain?

· As More Read, Some Forget to Breathe. Mourrirum Literati: Deadly Killer ... Or Nature's Hint There Are Too Many Damn People Anyway?

· Schooling Through Reading - OK, But Can Books Cure Flu?

But wait. What of the list itself? I must find it, I fear, lest suffer the pain of loosing the "C" list cocktail status I so ferociously claw to maintain. Driven by internal demons disguised as my natural zeal for mediocrity, and bowing to the definitively suspect nature of people who live near water, I launched a search for the most honest, insightful - that is to say driest - place on the continent.

I looked up an AP bureau in rural Indiana. Sadly for me, a freak beauty pageant blew out the electricity upon my arrival, forcing me to engage in first time, first person, news gathering.

Frightened, unprepared, and slightly appalled, I packed loads of freshly starched Banana Republic safari shirts (a helpful counter-clerk pursueds me to forgo the Australian bushman's hat) in a nap-sack loaded with Poland Spring, a Walk-Man, and Glenn Campbell's Greatest Hits.

Searching for truth, justice, and a chance grossly exaggerate my expense account, I traversed the highways and byways, like a true ramblin' man, finally settling outside the Greyhound coffee stop in Middletown USA.

Eagerly, I scanned my K-Mart approved authenticity check-list, arranged in order of importance: middle of no where - check; large white people - check; plentiful dead end jobs - check; not a drop of water to be found - check. This was it! The real America, of media dreams at least. Surely one of the friendly men in plaid duck-hunting caps, patrolling Main Street could tell me where to find the reading list, or at least point out the TV anchor's reading list, as a helpful hint. That would do.

Dingus McMulch, stood guard by a series of parking meters outside a flag shop. Upon introducing myself and inquiring about the list, his face opened with the sort of taciturn glee he clearly held in a secret place for aspiring members of the eastern media elite. After convincing him that I was not, nor did I ever plan to become Jewish, Dingus whispered that he'd come by a copy of the list. In passing, I then urgently volunteered that any fool could see how gay rights are undermining the NRA's right to choose. Dingus looked at me hard a moment. I thought he might kill me. He said he would. But my authentic shirt must have won him over, because he let me peek ... at the list that is. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

Peter Jennings:
Get It Together By 30/ Richard Tau
Ottawa's Club Scene/ N.I.T. Owl
Disco Duck: Cleveland To LA. Rick Dees' Story
Do Less Achieve More: Powers of Giving In/ Chin Chu
Women of Montreal: Middle Aged Man's How-To Guide
Speak Don't Spit/ PA Fradup

Tom Brokaw:
Gen-X Remedial Reader/ Douglas Coupland
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist/ Mark Leyner
The Lady With The Toy Dog/ Anton Checkov
Moon Tiger/ Penelope Lively
The Malaise of Modernity/ Charles Taylor
Milk Cows Right-Farm Tips Made Simple/ MG McGoyter

Dan Rather:
Naked Pictures of Famous People/ Jon Stewart
Appearing Deep: Weird Words-Strange Syntax/ Dr. Pik-Flik Islam: A Way of Life/ PK Hitti
I Am The Walrus: If Lennon Lived/ Anonymous (Joe Klein)
Peaceful Warrior's Guide/ Dan Millman
Get it Together By 30/ Richard Tau

Given my ambitious yet polite manner, Dingus offered an extra tip. "I hear that CNN morning news pair is working on an essay together: Charlemagne vs. Otto III - historic hegemonies, compare and contrast."

Thanking him, I turned to leave. That's when he nudged my ribs, urging me to check out the local library for a glimpse of former Good Morning America co-host Lisa McRee, hard at work in her new spare time, speculating on the missing sections of Beowulf. Her replacement, Diane Sawyer, he added with a twinkle, "is just a few cubicles away studying logical positivists and updating her translation of Karl Popper's seminal Logik der Forchung."

Returning with my privileged information, I dreamed of tormenting close west-side acquaintances with tid-bits from my discoveries that they could not possibly understand, knowing they would lacerate themselves until they found out. Secure finally in my grip on the "C" list, the subway seems so much cooler this week.

Yours Truly,

Xandor
Copy Boy In-Chief

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