Just-a-fucking-minute thread for this evening: So dinner is over and the dishes are done and I’m in the cathode glow watching Mutiny on the Bounty — the good one, Gable and Laughton, with family and my phone bleats. Chicago, Illinois is calling. A number I do not recognize....

...so okay, it’s someone offering supplemental life insurance or refinancing or some shit and fuck the beshitted FCC that has completely prostrated itself before every last telemarketing pimp and turned our cellphones into a huckster’s paradise. I let it ring out...

...And then it rings again, same number, which never happens if you ignore the motherfucker. So now my phone is bleating right through Gable telling the other mutineers to burn the ship right down to sticks and hull. Fuck this. I answer.

“Is this David Simon.”
“Who is this and why are you calling. It’s quarter of nine and I’m with my family.”
No pause. He goes right to this: “Well, I’m calling you because I have some questions about writing.”
Fuck me but I’d prefer you sell me hard-on meds or term life policies..

Writing? You wanna call me up on my personal phone at 8:45 pm to ask me questions about...writing? You fucking mope, do you think if I was suddenly curious about how my hot water heater worked, I’d call some poor plumber up at night in the hope of an academic discussion? WTF?

So to whichever mook is giving out my cellphone number and encouraging folks to just call me up after hours to shoot the breeze about gerunds and adverbs and dependent clauses, please do your absolute fucking best to die of boils. Ok? Thanks.