IN THE BEGINNING

Geologists estimate the earth's age to be slightly more than four Billion years, or approximately five times as long as a weekend with your in-laws. For more than half these years the earth was a hot, restless planet, busy (taking only weekends, legal holidays and the odd three-day weekend off) forming rocks, water and a highly inhospitable atmosphere. Dark, swirling clouds composed of ammonia, carbon dioxide and other poisonous chemicals hung dirtily and ominously over boiling seas, giving them the grimy look of New Jersey shoreline.

Finally, by blind chance, Nature struck upon the singular combination of events and elements which produced life. Disappointed by the results, She's been busy killing us off ever since.

Functioning life-forms soon abounded, mainly, in primeval oceans, Cleverer forms over-charged hermit-crabs for shoddy non-union shells, ganged up on single-celled organisms and developed early forms of psychiatry. The latter fad was short-lived after the first clam to be lured from 'it's shell' was quickly, though messily, devoured. Psychiatry went underground for centuries, a highly appropriate place for it.

Forced to change, life-forms developed armor for protection, appendages for movement , eyes to see, and in rare cases, a brain and a spinal cord with which to think. These complex forms which came out of the sea to populate the land surfaces were known as vertebrates. The more simple ones were

also vertebrates, but were generally called Alphas, Betas, or generically, 'Greeks'. These pathetic creatures of inferior clay led the way for the rise of what was to become the most incredible cavalcade of savage beasts which were ever to inhabit this planet - Guys at a wet T-shirt night. The first in the line of these awesome beasts was the Dinosaur.

Paleontologists have a pretty good idea of how dinosaur life went from about 280,000,000 B.C. ("Before Charly") to 225,000,000 B.C. Here, the fossil record skips (Fossil CD's had not yet been perfected) and we are left with nothing but idle gossip and speculation. Luckily, idle gossip and speculation are about all I do (Say, did you hear about Lady Di, Madonna and Michael Jackson....?).

So here goes nothing.

At great length.

Despite some theories that dinosaurs were "born in the wagon of a travelin' show/ Momma used to dance for the money they'd throw," most paleontologists agree that dinosaurs evolved from lesser life forms.

Or God created them.

One or the other.

This evolution from lesser creatures caused dinosaurs no end of social grief. Generally, therefore, when dinosaurs migrated, they shortened their names, and dropped their Polish accents like red-hot irons.

Dinosaurs ruled the pre-historic earth from 250,000,000 BC until the age of the mammals. They didn't recognize this fact and were mostly unable to take advantage of it. They didn't get the best seats at restaurants, were frequently turned away from trendy clubs (usually by men with clubs) and always paid retail: It's pathetic if you think about it - but you probably won't.

Ungainly monsters with brains the size of walnuts, dinosaurs were constantly bedeviled by the much smarter mammals. Mammals often ran extinction-insurance scams on Dinosaurs, who were far too dense to realize that extinction meant no dependents. Additionally, many a canny mammal got rich selling dinosaurs unbuildable swamp-land. Dinosaurs didn't mind much, as the whole world at that time was unbuildable swamp-land and, honestly, that's pretty much what dinosaurs preferred. It wasn't much of a life, but it was the life they had.

Until they made a tragic mistake.

Dinosaurs opted not to jump on the "evolutionary bandwagon" in 666 B.C. (Before Creationism), saying that it "made their blood run cold" (Apparently not clear that they already were cold-blooded). Many dinosaurs felt validated in this decision when they first saw pre-historic man scraping his hairy knuckles bloody on stones protruding more than 4 inches above the ground. When they saw mammals making love face-to-face, they really laughed. Finally, when the first mammal to suffer incipient male-pattern baldness formed a men’s support/bonding group, dinosaurs laughed themselves so sick that extinction almost came years too soon.

WERE DINOSAURS RIGHT? THE EVOLUTION OF THE NERD.

But the giddy years were to end as property values skyrocketed. Wilier mammals bought up the choice land and started selling alcohol and cigarettes to impressionable young dinosaurs. Coupled with the tragic spread of Acquired Immmuno-Dinosaur Syndrome (AIDS) this spelled (and won the spelling bee for it) the end of the era of the Dinosaur. Dinosaurs retired to Florida and whiled away their golden years in an orgy of finger-pointing and recrimination surprisingly reminiscent of a bad date on Love Connection.

We'll be back in two, and two...