Not for nothin', okay—and yes, this is my second post of the day after missing most of 2006 and 1/12th of 2005—but getting back to the brushes with greatness thing I started way back near the dawn of man, I was in the Borders Bookstore on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks last Monday night with The Teenager  in tow (she swears it was the other way around) and I spotted a celeb right there out in the wild. (That's a gorgeous 80 word sentence for all you run-on fans out there in Strunk and White Land.)

It was as if I were peering at him from fifteen feet away through the palms of a potted plant (say that five times fast) near the Literature section, for indeed . . . that's how close I was while he dallied out in the wild, fastidiously studying the shelves of the Mystery section. (51 words)

"Luka!" I thought to myself, for I was the only one within brainwave-shot. "That's the guy who plays Luka Kovac, the good looking, yet brooding Czech or Yugoslavian or Bolivian doctor on the long-running NBC series, E.R. ."

I considered going up and interrupting his momentary pursuit of Agatha Christie or Dick Francis or Earl Stanley Gardner. Then I thought better of it.

Remember way back in the beginning of this series of my brushes with those whose accomplishments are, quite naturally, greater and more attuned to the popular lexicon than my own? One of the unwritten commandments that remain unchiseled in stone to this day because they are, you know, unwritten . . . is that in Los Angeles you generally don't approach a famous person in his or her private time out in the wild because A) Down here they are everywhere and 2) It's just so uncool because (see Rule A).

So, tempted as I was, I did not go up to this relative fictional medical superstud who leaves all the nurses swooning. I am, if truth be told, waaaaay too cool for that. Besides, what am I supposed to say to him as he searches in vain for the latest Ellery Queen—"Hey Luka, I enjoy your work?"

For you see, as much as this pains me to admit, this actor has been on E.R. for 3-5 years now in a highly visible role, and I do not know his name. And I'm the guy who remembers that Fred Gwynne and Joe. E. Ross ("oooooh-oooooh") partnered together as Keystone-like cops on the early Sixties TV comedy Car 54, Where Are You?

The good news here, my friends, is that 1) only three of you know this embarrassing tidbit of moral failure on my part and B) it's likely none of you check in here anymore since my Houdini-like vanishing act of recent vintage.

And finally, there's 3) as fun as it was to spot this big-time Hollywood hunk out in the wild and gaze upon his visage from afar (or aclose, depending how you measure) his sighting does not even begin to approach the level of greatness upon which the rock of my personal Top Ten Brushes With Greatness is built. It's possible, as big a deal as this actor currently is, he might not even be able to crack my top 15. That's the kind of star power we're gearing up for after we've already chronicled my heady personal exposure to Albert Brooks, Al Jarreau, and Molly Ringwald. And were not even in the Top 5 yet.

So what I'm saying is, it's been a nice rest. We got through Christmas, we got through New Years, and we are darned near ready to take on St. Valentine and all those dead presidents. So stay tuned in the coming days for resumption of the mighty countdown on the pop culture super highway of success.

 I hope you found your mystery novel, Mr. Goran Visnjic, because A) no one can even pronounce your name and C) that's why no one remembers it.