They compared me to a gathering of George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, and another literary luminary who I can’t remember. Those guys met to talk about baseball, and a reporter joined them once to document the unusual gathering. The reporter said the level of discussion was so deep, so broad, so comprehensive that he couldn’t even remember the first half hour, which felt like a tidal wave of information. These guys knew the subject matter so deeply that an outsider couldn’t even swim in the same waters with them.

That, I was told today, is how it felt talking to me about payphones. Alex said over and over how happy he was to meet me, talking to me like I was a real celebrity. The NYTimes and the BBC will cover the event, though reporters being present is no guarantee that they’ll publish anything. Including print and web it would be my 6th or 7th Times mention, and I don’t know how many times the BBC has rattled my cage.

A friend said to me once years ago: One more mention in the journal of record and you are guaranteed a Times obituary when you die. That was before other mentions. Who knows if the rule is true, or if I will spiritually be aware of its consummation.

Oh, I forgot to say what the hell it is I am talking about. I’m backing up a film director and a career tour guide on a one-hour tour of payphones in the area of Third Avenue and Union Square. This is meant to complement a short film that is playing at the Tribeca Film Festival. The area was chosen because the first LinkNYC device ever installed was at Third Ave and 15th Street. LinkNYC devices are replacing thousands of payphones in NYC, and have been heralded as the “payphone of the future”. That is where the tour will start. It will end at the Old Town bar, among my favorite bars in Manhattan. There is an old abandoned phone booth in the back of that place. In between, as I discovered today, is a wealth of payphone history and anecdotes. I will be the lead speaker for this. I thought it would be the others but the more I talked today the more they were like, dude, just talk. You know way more about this then you think you do.

I said earlier that I didn’t know if I had an hour of material. I of course have hours and hours and hours of stuff to say about payphones. Speed said something like “Let the effluvia flow”. I said “You sound like my therapist.” Everybody laughed.

I was not really being self-effacing. I know I can talk payphones for hours and hours. And hours. I was not so much concerned that I did not have an hour of material as much as I thought maybe the others would want to talk more. Sounds like they don’t need to. I guess that’s why I am going to be there.

Dress rehearsal is over. Some more emails and such before we meet on Saturday. Should be fun.