Old Friend

 
Way back when I had scabby knees from skateboard incidents and popeye forearms from playing bass too much, I was in a speed metal kinda band called Toxic Noise with a guitar player named Mike. That was 18 years ago. I googled him one day a while back and got a hit on a website for a metal band that I used to listen to way back in the day, so I sent an e-mail to the webmaster and told him I wanted to make contact. A few weeks later I got an e-mail from Mike. Turns out he was playing bass all over the place for everyone. He was touring and recording with punk bands and metal bands and had worked himself successfully into the Los Angeles hardcore music scene. Then he told me that one of the bands he was playing with was playing just a few hours from where I live (millions of miles from LA), so this weekend, I went and saw him. It was cool. He turned out to be an intelligent and well-spoken man with a good heart. It could have gone either way. As a punk kid, he was pretty aggressive and opinionated, but then again... who wasn’t. The last time I saw him, we were angry kids with angry shirts and angry hair. Now we’re laid-back men with buzz cuts, kids, bigger waistlines and a lot more stories to tell.