By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@thecitizennews.com

It is time for me to write a weekly column.

There is space that needs filling and my mind could use some emptying.

The only question is what to write about.

I could write about the Fourth of July, but that is overdone. We know America is a great nation, despite the political figures we dislike, the unfair tickets given to us by the police, ungodly traffic and other minor annoyances.

As a holiday, the Fourth is great. I think of watermelon dripping down people's chins, the smell of charcoal and cooking meat permeating the air and an all around sense of good feeling. People don't even complain about the weather on the Fourth of July, unless it rains, which won't happen. I hope.

I could also write about the All-Star Game, but somehow, somebody would turn it into a conversation about John Rocker. See, I had no intention of bringing it up and it came up. It is a curse. The All-Star Game, which will be held in Atlanta this year, is a fun event. Most of us will watch it on television and will still turn it off by the time the third rate all-stars take the field. (See, again with the Rocker stuff.)

The new Harry Potter book comes out next week and I am genuinely excited, but I'm planning on doing a story on it next week and don't want to steal my own thunder.

I could write about love, but that is a private matter and should remain that way. Too many people try to involve you in their lives, almost making you an accessory. Whether it is a talk show, an album, a tell-all book or a silly little column, people are getting their 15 minutes of fame by doing nothing more than discussing it loudly. (Things are going swimmingly for me, though.)

I could write about my past, but people do that too much too. There is too much importance placed upon the past. I agree that it influenced who you are today, but if you can't move beyond it you have nobody to blame but yourself. All that stuff that happened to you when you were six should be long gone. Just because the neighborhood kids forced you to eat worms, that doesn't excuse you from eating your spaghetti without a screaming tantrum.

The other oft-used column topic lately deals with reality-based television shows. This is not a new phenomenon. Remember “Candid Camera”? Was that show about anything besides making real people look like big idiots before millions of people?

“Survivor” - Who cares? The people aren't in any danger; it is on CBS. Now, if it was on Fox, we might have something. “Making The Band” - Chronicling the rise of another boy band? How about a show about how America survives that?

Well, this should fill some space nicely and I promise that I will have a set topic every week and not just a brainstorm of a column. Future topics will be: Country Monkeys: The New Billion Dollar Fad; The Dangers of Children's Songs; and Lesser Known Shakespearean Tragedies.

Until next week, read this column over and over and become my hypnotized legions of fans.

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