I hate reality television but I love a trainwreck. Donald Trump is a douchebag. He doesn’t even drink. I’m a little intrigued by Dice Clay, Rodman and Tom Green. I couldn’t possibly care any less about Joan Rivers or the other women.

Joan does look like a particularly bad movie vampire/transexual. A caricature inspired by less than elegant impressionism. I look at her and wish my penis was detachable. The bitch is scary ugly.

I hate it already. It’s insipid. I made it to the first commercial break. Thus far the only redeeming aspect of the entire egregiously contrived clusterfuck is that it will benefit various charities.

An adversarial demarcation is drawn between chicks and dudes. I’m confident it would have been more compelling to mix gender. I’ve made it to the second commercial break. The teams have been charged with the task of making and selling cupcakes. How inspired.

The drama ensues. It’s riveting. I wonder what I may be missing on another channel. I think about my toenails and how they’re getting a little long.

The tension and suspense is so thick I begin to wonder if the sushi joint across the street is still open. If not, the little Mexican place probably is. Can’t get a beer at the Mexican place though. Then I understand I’m not hungry.

I decide to smoke a bowl. I learn Dice is a blowhard and Rodman is a moron. Enlightenment.

I think about calling my mom but I just talked to her yesterday.

Chicks win, dudes lose. Dice gets fired. I will admit the end sucked me in a little. Now I feel dirty.

My mom and I are pretty close. I admire her. Both my parents have a work ethic I’ve rarely ever even glimpsed in another adult. Both in their seventies, open minded, generous and compassionate. It’s not like I grew up Brady but I consider myself pretty lucky. Good people, excellent parents full of love.

So I turned 44 a few weeks ago. Over Christmas when the prodigal son was home, the subject of my birthday did surface. My mother comes from a family of eleven siblings. My father from four but he left home when he was twelve. Birthdays were never a big deal in my family. Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter were Mardi Gras by contrast.

Sometimes I wake up on my birthday and don’t realize what day it is until half way through. I usually get a card from my folks with a few passages underlined, a sincere handwritten note from my mother reaffirming my parent’s love and a check enough for a decent bottle of hooch. When I was a kid I got a good book or two, H. G. Wells or Jack London and a cake. My sister calls early and leaves a voice-mail singing an off key happy birthday.

Anyway, like I said, it came up over the holidays. I told my mother, in all seriousness, what I wanted for my birthday, was an autographed copy of Harry Reid’s book “The Good Fight”. My mother and Harry are old friends. She worked for him back in the day when he was an Assemblyman in the Nevada State Legislature. He went on to be Lieutenant Governor of Nevada under Governor Mike O’Callaghan. O’Callaghan’s daughter babysat my sister and I for a time. He, the Governor, actually had a wooden leg.

She smiled and said she’d see what she could do. I knew she had taken me seriously.

Harry’s was the very first political campaign I worked in when he ran for United States Senator of Nevada.

He lost to Paul Laxalt by barely six hundred votes.

Harry Reid is now the Senate Majority Leader. One of the most powerful men in Washington. Laxalt, a Reagan crony, took the dirt nap some time ago. Harry’s from a little town called Searchlight. He used to box. He’s a Mormon.

My mother has since retired from politics but she still dabbles. The Nevada State Legislature still has bi-annual sessions. Mom took a job this year at the front desk for the Assembly side. She loves it. She is seventy three years old, she knows these people and she is so happy to be involved. She works hard and is beyond dedicated.

She’s been the administrative assistant to the Governor and headed up the economic development commission. She took me to DC when I was a freshman in highschool while she worked on a Bureau of Land Management issue of particular concern to western states; the ‘Sagebrush Rebellion’.

I had access to Nevada’s legislature as a boy. I was allowed to sit in the gallery when the Senate and Assembly were in session. All manner of bills and legislation were available to me. I had run of the library.

I eventually worked as a bill clerk before I left home to study.

I can’t get over how tickled my mom was when she told me about it all.

Harry was scheduled to speak a week or two ago. My mother sent a brief note through proper channels saying that we’d always been supportive (not entirely true), that I’d worked for him when I was eight years old and that I’d asked for an autographed copy of his book for my birthday.

On the day he was to deliver his address, a Sargeant at Arms mentioned to my mom that someone had been by her office asking for her. My mother is a busy woman even if she’s not. It fascinates me that she never stops. When she does, she wraps a sheet around her forearm and pulls it over her head like a bat. Three to five hours later, she’s done.

A little while later an aide of Harry’s appeared to tell her that the Senator would like to see her. She was escorted into a private room and they talked about personal matters for fifteen or twenty minutes. Just the two of them. Uninterrupted. They caught up. No politics, somewhat to my dismay, but he already had a copy of his book with an inscription and an autograph for me.

He called for a photographer.

Later, as he entered the legislative chamber, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries much like the President did last week, he bent and kissed my mother on the cheek on live television. When she told me the story she was just a schoolgirl.

Such is the magic of my mother. A sample of the blessing I enjoy from wonderful parents. To have played a part, to have been any kind of impetus at all in that day makes my heart sing.

Life is good.

Drinks for my friends.

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