TASTY TIMES

If one lives long enough, everything begins to smack of deja vu , not just Watergate-Iranscam, Nicaragua-Vietnam.

There’s another Christmastime coffee-table edition of Marilyn, the “Saturday Night Live” group does a Ritz Brothers comedy, “The Front Page” is back on Broadway and the brain-dead pot-heads of the New York Times continue their drug-pushing ways, praising a book that says cocaine isn’t all that bad, and Calendar, the most godawful-ugly publication of all time, does an issue on taste (“Taste Makers,” Dec. 21).

Joe Stalin was quoted as saying, “After all, fascism is just a matter of taste.” These trivial, tedious times are surely a fascism of the frivolous, as the last days of a decadent, dying uncivilization.

If the sign says--”Due to lack of interest, tomorrow has been cancelled”--no sweat. I wasn’t going anyway, probably just a rerun of yesterday.

MARK NICHOLS

Beverly Hills