I sold my microphones today. I’m more than a little delighted to look these young engineers in the eye. The enthusiasm and excitement is infectious and more than a little nostalgic. Palpable. I remember buying each one of these items and how excited I was. Each chosen with care and for a precise need we encountered when working in different studios around the city and across the country.

I always bought the best gear I could possibly afford.

This guy’s name was Dudley. He brought his own mic pre, his own cans and an XLR cable to test my wares. He was English. I did my level best to describe what they were best for and how best to use them. I made a lot of records with these mics. I told him how to point one on acoustic guitar and that he should be mindful that the AKGs should be equidistant from the floor when used as overheads on a drumkit. It’s a phase issue. I also sold him an ATM25. An excellent kick mic as it takes tons of signal but still has a nice cardioid proximity bump in the low end.

I’ve got the next few months of rent covered and the new gig is starting to really pay.

I may finally be making lemonade.

I’ve been reading Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s book. Far more fascinating than I imagined. By the way, my copy is autographed and inscribed. My mother is an old friend. A reputation for being somewhat recalcitrant, he is is still soft spoken and almost taciturn at times. He talks about people I know or at least know of and so it is all the more compelling for me.

Michael O’Callahan, the Governor of Nevada when I was a kid. He had a wooden leg and he’d kick your ass if you asked for it. He did that, he beat the shit out of people.

It was my first time on the front page of the Nevada Appeal, a picture with the infamous Michael O’Callahan.

Harry himself growing up in a boomtown gone bust at the southern tip of Nevada in a house with no plumbing and parents without teeth. Searchlight Nevada. This guy didn’t come from nowhere, he came from hell. Morals and ethics were gotten from the town pimp, or “whoremonger” as Harry writes. He never saw a bible until he was a Sophmore in Henderson. O’Callahan was one of his highschool teachers.

He grew up in a town damn near ghost, in one of the most inhospitable climates in North America. His nickname was ‘Pinky’.

You can’t write this shit. I can’t help but hold up where this man is and point to where he came from.

In other news, I watched Celebrity Apprentice again. I really can’t help it. Rodman is the worst kind of trainwreck. I know that guy. I mean, I know the very same guy. At the end of the day, what would you do with him? More importantly, what should I do with him? That’s how he behaves, that’s the kind of shit my friend says.

He is an unhappy man and I’m the best friend he’s ever had. I should add for context, that I’ve had it with his shit. He owes me money, it’s not a lot but I’m not swinging from the trees these days. He’s a notorious drunk. For years I’ve been escaping before he slides into the dark. I learned to do that only after getting vortexed way too many times.

For years I struggled with my loyalty to this man while he waltzed through my intestines.

We’ve literally been at war the last few months, exchanging blistering, often cruel and always searingly awful e-mails. I’ve come to loathe him. I despise big chunks of time I spent with him. Very smart women including my significant other are saying walk away. Leave it alone. They begin to understand I’m only doing it to light him up, to get him to dance furious.

Guilty. I heard that. Makes me chuckle because I’m so good at it.

Then he calls me shitfaced the other night. Tells me he’s sorry. Tells me he’ll pay me. When I ask him why he did all this he asks me if it wasn’t kinda fun. I tell him yes and tell him to call me when he’s sober.

Drinks for my friends.