TRY READING, TALKING FOR A CHANGE.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

WOODLAND HILLS - I was putting together a survival list the other night in case the big one hits, and we'll have to survive on reruns for awhile.

Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, pestilence, a Hollywood writers strike - hey, you can never be too ready for a major disaster.

At the top of the survival list was our old friend Johann Gutenberg. You remember him, don't you? European History 101?

He's the German guy who invented the printing press back in the mid- 1400s BMB - Before Milton Berle.

The Gutenberg press made it possible to mass-produce books, which people then read by candlelight to amuse themselves after dinner, instead of falling asleep in their shorts on the couch in front of a TV test pattern like their ancestors would do generations later.

CBS was still 500 years away from ``I Love Lucy'' when Gutenberg began cranking out books - thereby making it possible for the heirs of Pickwick, and later Barnes and Noble, to become filthy rich.

So I think we all owe Johannes Gutenberg a big hand for helping bail us out if the Hollywood writers walk.

Without him we wouldn't have all those books laying around the house, books we bought but never read because we've been too busy watching all those new TV shows that are knockoffs of the old shows.

So, survival tip No. 1 for when you start going through TV withdrawal is: Read a book or, if you're really hard up, watch that ``Seinfeld'' rerun again, for the 20th time.

Survival tip No. 2: Enter into conversation with members of your own family.

Remember this? We used to call it talk. It went out in the American household right about the time Lucy and Desi moved in next door to Fred and Ethel.

Families would sit around a table with real food on it and actually converse with each other about how their day went, instead of watching ``Hollywood Squares'' or ``Access Hollywood'' while ingesting Trader Joe's frozen food entrees.

Survival tip No. 3: Take a nice, long walk after dinner.

Granted, this means you actually have to get up off the recliner, put on a pair of shoes and walk past the refrigerator door without opening it, but, believe it or not, at one time in this country taking a nice walk after dinner was a popular pastime.

Humans found it a convenient way to meet other humans, like neighbors they've lived next door to for 40 years.

They'd stop each other on the street to ask how the kids were, how the car was running, how the job was going, and other related topics that required full sentences of speech instead of today's grunts and quick wave.

And while we're on communication, call your mother. She's worried about you.

Survival tip No. 4: Put on a record. Listen to some Sinatra, Darin, or Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall. Get the juices flowing. Maybe even dance a little, if your back can take it.

As far as the rest of the survival list, take your pick. Play some cards, go out to dinner, listen to the radio, pay your bills, anything to get your mind off TV.

Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, pestilence, a Hollywood writers strike - you can never be too ready for a major disaster.