Jackson Hole Underground

The other reason, besides getting ready for this trip to New Orleans, that posts have been sporadic of late is I’ve been reading Norman Mailer for the first time.

Trying to write after reading Mailer is like playing tennis against Ivan Lendl. Every time you compose a phrase, as if tossing the ball into the air to serve, you wind up catching it because you know it will be smashed back in your face, even if the volley is taking place within your head.

Tough Guys Don’t Dance is a twisting tale of murder, hard partying and contorted relationships set in a resort town on Cape Cod. Given the mastery of the writing, I can’t wait to read Mailer’s two Pulitzer-winning works, Armies of the Night and The Executioner’s Song.

You’ll understand if I mention the spirits roaming the French Quarter or swirling in the Mississippi this week.

As the World Series begins tonight, let’s hope the Rockies do a better job on the field than they did selling tickets for the games in Denver.

Yesterday’s Internet free-for-all was a junk show, coming on the heels of Monday’s computer crash, and it seems nobody wound up happy but the ticket brokers with software for penetrating the system.

Is there a lower caste in the sports world than scalper? A pair of field-level seats behind the Sox dugout at Coors Field is going for $6,000 on eBay today.

If a casual fan in Wyoming, 500 miles from Denver, could grow aggravated as his two browsers repeatedly got stuck, I can only imagine the frustration of the hard-core fans in Colorado (assuming any of those exist).

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