“You still not watching TV these days?” The phone crackled to life from some street corner where he was, to some street corner where I was answering. A Boston transplant to Los Angeles whose head was healthily zapped by the change of locale, he (let’s call him Mark) would call me irregularly, always at the oddest hours. He was tall, talkative and very definitely, for L.A., edgy. He didn’t call often, but there was always ample cause to take his calls very seriously.