Old Friends. And, by the Transitive Property, Some New Ones.

Sometimes my kids think I'm kidding when I talk about my friends. "Dad, you're too old to have friends." And the truth is I don't do much socializing these days. So it was nice to catch up with Gerry and Brent this past week (uh, no, those are not the guys pictured here). Gerry was in town for a couple of days and Brent called out of the blue. It sounds like Brent is doing well: his company was sold from Apple to another multinational that has its fingers in all sorts of pies in the publishing world. Their headquarters are in the UK and it looks like they want him to move out there: it kind of sounds like his family is pretty interested in the possibility although he is still carefully weighing his options. But we'll have to encourage Brent to think about it, at least for a while. We've never been to Britain and it would give us a great pretext to visit. And if you can't manipulate your friends into doing the things you want them to do, what's the point of having friends in the first place? (wait... maybe that's the reason my kids think I don't have any friends ...)

It had been nearly a year since I had seen Gerry. He's been keeping busy as the creator and organizer of the PLUG awards (the latest award show featured Nick Cave along with up and comers like Jose Gonzalez, with Patton Oswalt hosting and folks like SNL's Fred Armisen giving out awards). It's always fascinating to catch up with Gerry. Like me, he's long since abandoned the dream of making it big as a musician, but he's really been drawn to the business side of the music industry. I can't say that I envy his hectic pace of life and constant travel, but there's something undeniably appealing about staying closer to the world of art and music than I am. Fortunately he's coming out for a few weeks this summer with Shana and the kids. The stupid dreamer part of me thinks it would be fun to get our guitars out and record something. But, realistically, it would just be nice to hang out a little. And maybe I can persuade him to hook me up with his high-flying friends, which, by the transitive property, are now my buddies as well.