Well I did now. Honored. And I have a fun story for @WilliamFriedkin, who may or may not remember it. Here goes: Way back in 1991, I had a non-fictionbook come out on the year I spent observing a shift of Baltimore's homicide unit... https://twitter.com/WilliamFriedkin/status/1343846910956691456

...and while the manuscript had been circulating unsuccessfully in Hollywood for a while, with my agents trying to interest directors in the film rights, I was nonetheless the same 30-year-old crime reporter I had been before the book saw light of day...

...to that end, I am on my usual Sunday night late rewrite shift at about 11 p.m., caught up on briefs involving two-car fatals and city shootings and done plugging high temperatures into the national weather table when the phone rings...

...Ettlin, the night editor picks it up. "Simon, for you." Who is it? I ask, wary that anyone is calling me at the metro desk this late on Sunday and asking for me by name. Ettlin inquires, looks over at me: "Some guy named Friedman."

Great. Some Pikesville dentist is calling with his idea of a story idea. I take the phone: "Simon here." Back at me: This is William Friedkin and I just read your book 'Homicide' and I had to call to tell you it was excellent..."

Well that's nice, and I didn't immediately associate the name with his work. I still thought I was talking to a local: "Well, thanks. Are you from here in Baltimore?" Pause. "Um, no, this is Bill Friedkin and I make films. I directed "The French Connection" and ...

"To Live And Die In L.A." and I have a strong interest in police work so your book really hit home for me." Longer pause, because I didn't believe it: "Nice try, Alvarez," I said, accusing him of being a pranking coworker, "but kiss my ass..."

Longest pause, then: "Ah, no, my name is Friedkin and I'm calling from Los Angeles..." Finally it dawns on me. Bill Friedkin! The director! My book! He is calling me! He has reached me at the metro desk of The Sun to tell me that Homicide is going to be a major motion picture!

And now, while Ettlin motions for me to finish a brief on a non-fatal shooting from Anne Arundel County, about which I care not at all, I am talking police work and narrative with Bill fucking Friedkin, who is going to option my first book and introduce me to Gene Hackman or...

...Willem Dafoe or whoever he's going to get to play Donald Worden and Tom Pellegrini. Here we go! I cover the phone and tell Ettlin to finish the brief for me -- shoving my notes at him -- because a life-altering moment has just found me. "It's Bill Friedkin!" Ettlin is me...

...two minutes ago, acting as if I just invoked the Pikesville dentist. "Bill Friedkin who directed 'The French Connection.' He's got my book." Ettlin looks at me from a middle-distance, as if to say, who gives a fuck when I have a three-inch whole on D3 where your shooting...

...brief needs to go. But he picks up my slack and I go back to my warming conversation with an A-list Hollywood director. How much do I ask for an option? What do I say if he asks me to write the screenplay? These are questions that can never be answered...

...because after a good, expansive twenty minutes of discussing storytelling and police work with William Friedkin, he says to me: "Anyway, it was an excellent read and I thought I would just reach out and tell you that so I'm happy I reached you at the newspaper. Bye now."

Click. And I never heard from William Friedkin again until this tweet, nearly three decades later. The man took me from 0 to 100 miles per hour and then screeching back down to 0 in a single, brief phone call. Dave Ettlin laughed his way to end of our shift.