Red Sox 7, Yankees 5

Earl Weaver had a saying about momentum in baseball.

"Momentum?" he said. "You take momentum. I'll take Jim Palmer."

In the end, I was happy the Boston-New York tilt was blacked out in Houston, so we might watch the notoriously underexposed Cubs take on the Cardinals. I actually had some business to attend to early. To wit:

Over a space of time extending from a little over two years ago to a little over a year ago, I was hired to craft a narrative for a documentary having to do with a Local Figure. This, I think, is as far as I can go; my employer is fanatical about non-disclosure, and he and Local Figure have been snarling at each other since before I came on.

There is some metaphor in the military--Mutually Assured Destruction, maybe--to describe what goes on between two people who might sue each other, but don't, because both know that if A sues B, B will counter-sue A, and maybe C will sue both A and B, and nothing will be resolved except that a few lawyers will get rich. The way it sometimes works today, A and B and C will refrain from suing one another, nothing will still get done, and everyone will keep their own money. This is the state that A (my employer) exists in, not suing B (Local Figure), while C (Third party) goes as the wind.

I'm trying not to be cute here. Local Figure used to have events that attracted multiple TV stations, plus a reporter from the Houston Chronicle who served almost as his Bosworth, plus a healthy collection of acolytes. Today's event attracted a freelance video cameraman intent on selling his footage to five different TV stations, maybe 30 acolytes, and nobody from the Houston Chronicle. I did get my ear bent by one of a tribe who seems to albatross around Houston, the big talker with the universal theories of the world (Short answer: The Knights Templar own half the world, the Catholic Church owns the other half, dog is God backwards, Enoch explains everything, and the truth can be found in a story that is half Catcher in the Rye, half 2001. He asked me: what did I write?

I gave him my stock answer: "Anything." As a screenwriter, I've plunged into the life of Local Figure. I've written sports, entertainment, politics; I've been lucky to sit across a desk from David Lynch, to sit in a hotel room with Woody Harrelson, to interview Michael J. Fox, John Lithgow, Joan Collins, Rhea Pearlman, and the writing staff of the Letterman show. I've shared breakfast with Scorsese. On a lark, I called Congressman Hyde at his hotel room during the '92 convention, and ended up with a solid, ten-minute interview. I've done criticism, think pieces, fiction--everything but poetry.

"So let me call you," he said. Fine. I'll do anything if the money's green. What one needs is a shock-proof BS detector; money talks, etc.

Afterwards, my employer bought me lunch and drove me home. I slept the nap of the saved, the awoke at four--highly propitious, as the Boston-New York score was 4-4. Lay back for another snooze wake up . . . 7-4 Boston.

Ballgame, I knew.

With Dice-K going tomorrow.