When I woke up, it was too late to withdraw the column. . . . : The Best of

It is the custom for those of us in newspapering to officially recognize the start of a new year by categorizing to some extent certain events of the past year.

You will notice, for instance, front page attention given to The Most Important News Stories of 1986, embracing everything from world calamity to cute puppies, but that ain’t all.

The soft side of newspapering also contributes to the spate of instant nostalgia with the Best Movies of 1986, the Best Television Shows of 1986, the Best Books of 1986 and the Best Tuna Casserole Recipes of 1986.

In some journals there is also the Best Bad News of 1986, a catch-all category that celebrates sudden death and plummeting careers, a cheerful combination that enjoys increased popularity, especially among the weekly news magazines.

My job as a suburban columnist pales in comparison to those who sit in judgment on news and tuna, and it would be arrogant and presumptuous of me to tag along at the end of a parade of international significance with an essay on the Best Chicken Column of 1986.

But presumption and arrogance are necessities of nature if one is either going to be a columnist or a prostitute, both of which require an inordinate degree of self-confidence to assume in the first place that what we do is necessary and desirable.

I therefore, with appropriate immodesty, present My Best Column Topics of 1986. Boogie along as best you can.

The Most Dastardly Attack of 1986. A column about peppy, upbeat Arnnie Stevens of Encino, who composed a song celebrating Los Angeles.

A happy man who served me Diet Root Beer and told me 40 times how terrific it was for me to be there, Arnnie wrote, “This is the city, the city of bright lights, exciting L.A. by day and by night. . . .”

I wrote: “It isn’t often that someone like Arnnie comes along, served up with an apple in his mouth at a satirist’s table. . . .”

As Arnnie sang “I Love L.A.,” the whole room seemed to perk like a Mickey Mouse cartoon, and I was so overcome by a surge of human decency that I blacked out.

It was during this brief glucose coma that I wrote a column attacking sweetness, ambition, L.A., Diet Root Beer and anyone foolish enough to find me terrific 40 times.

When I woke up, it was too late to withdraw the column and no one in Encino will ever speak to me again. I have mixed feelings.

The Best Distorted Science Column of 1986. It was 3 o’clock in the morning and my wife and I were on a hilltop trying to see Halley’s comet when a filthy hippie appeared on the scene carrying a dirty can of Budweiser.

He informed me that you could spot the comet by making a fist over a beer can while holding the can toward the horizon, a trick he had learned from his filthy father.

In fact, he informed me, his filthy father once theorized that there might be two Halley’s comets, a conclusion no doubt reached over a couple of filthy Buds on a hilltop littered with wrecked cars and melon rinds.

My wife scoffed at the man. I didn’t. He was, you see, 6 feet 2 and not in bad shape for someone raised on beer and garbage. I, on the other hand, am small and, well, delicate.

I used to hear my mother whisper to friends in a tone of dismay, “He has fragile bones and throws up easily.”

So naturally I adopted the Two Comets Over a Beer Can Theory, and, while that may seem a sellout to you, I view it as a necessary compromise for a man who throws up easily.

The Best Sex Topics of 1986. A tie between Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s efforts to close Elysium Fields, the Topanga nudist camp, and the day I discovered that man, by current feminist standards, has become little more than a convenient container for sperm.

Antonovich busied himself at least part of the year by attempting to cover naked genitalia in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The effort, though less than successful, enhanced his position as God’s best friend in Southern California.

“Show me a hillside full of naked liberals,” I wrote, “and I’ll show you a conservative’s highway to heaven.”

The highway to heaven, alas, proved a rocky road for Mike in two instances. He lost both the Fig Leaf Fight and a campaign for the U. S. Senate.

Co-winner in the Bad Taste category was the Sperm Container column.

I was in a Tarzana obstetrician’s office and overhead three pregnant women discussing how they had searched for the right genetic sperm-carrier before allowing themselves to become impregnated.

Sperm-carrier?

I suddenly realized that they had reduced all of manhood to nothing more essential than a handy container, shifting the perspective of sexual encounter from male conquest to catalytic convenience.

I could have lived with that, I guess, but then another of the women said wistfully, “When you stop to think about it, men actually have very little purpose in life except as sperm carriers.”

I try not to think about it.