And another thing!

Met my friend Phil Gross for coffee at Peet's yesterday morning. We don't see each other too often these days, but the gaps in chronological time are never replicated in our conversations, which seem to take off from the same place we left them when last we met.

Talking with Phil is like talking with no one else. He's witty, quirky, passionate, opinionated as hell, caring, clever, and just damned fun, not to mention possessed of enormous talent. So we talked Macs, politics (how W manages every day to make our lives less plesasant, our hopes for the presidential election and whether Barack or Hillary would be better for the country and which one inspired us more), baseball (the Giants chances in '08, whether Barry Bonds is finished as a ballplayer, the merits and demerits of the DH, and whither Pedro Feliz), and basketball (the Kings; I'm not a basketball fan, but hearing Phil describe their style of play and their gelling as a team was almost like having a courtside seat). There may have been other topics glanced upon, but those were the highlights.

We occasionally disagree—I'm nearly as (he would say much more) opinionated than Phil—especially about baseball, hardly ever about politics, but it's wonderful conversation. We could have a television show; we'd call it "And Another Thing!" We'd never get sponsors, but our friends would get a laugh.

Here's Phil . . . a self-potrait: