Thanks for taking my call, Russ.

I’m disappointed to learn the telephone in Mary Baker Eddy’s grave is, alas, another urban legend.

The phone business has changed in so many ways since Eddy died (?).

I wonder if she was satisfied with her long-distance carrier back in the 90s. Who’s in her calling circle these days? Does she get roll-over minutes?

(Adds a different dimension to that old “rolling over in her grave” cliche), huh?

I learned last night that a friend — not close, but one of the good ones — may have committed suicide this week. (Carbon monoxide in the garage; could have been an accident.)

I met Russ Johnson when I was dabbling in talk radio and he was a remarkable talent. He was perhaps the prototype of the difference between real conservatives and the CONs I write about. Russ had a Socratic method of generating phone calls and stirring up the pot on issues of the day.

Wing-nuts got him fired in Kansas City, Denver, Kansas City again, and Colorado Springs. He’d developed Multiple Sclerosis and was depressed by that.

I wish I had a phone to his grave. But it might be difficult to get past the call-screener.

Russ loved talk radio because Russ loved people. He loved talking with us, needling us, asking tough but funny questions, playing with us. He was always confident but never smug.

For a while Russ and I shared the same crazy ex-girlfriend.

There's probably no closer bond two heterosexual men can have than evenings over wine, weed, and swapping crazy ex-girlfriend stories.