THIS WAS THE WORST DJ WEEKEND OF MY LIFE, although you can’t tell from the pictures.
Saturday and Sunday August 17-18th, 2019. I’ll never forget it. I still have nightmares. Saturday I DJ’d for Malcolm Miller’s meet and greet with the NBA championship trophy he won for playing for the Toronto Raptors. First of all, I arrived late, which I almost never do, and, on top of that, my DJ software wouldn’t work so after more than half an hour of no music trying to fix it, I decided to play off iTunes, which had terrible sound quality. I basically ruined the event. Letting the crowd and my clients down felt like losing my soul or the sixth circle of Hell. I still feel terrible. I apologized profusely but I had no time to dwell on it because I had to catch a flight to Seattle for a big festival performance with Royce Castro. Before I made it to the airport I scurried to Panera down the street to use their Wifi and I fixed the software issue.
When I arrived in Seattle, things went smoothly at first. I met Royce at the hotel and we rehearsed and everything went perfectly. We were optimistic about the our performance at Hemfest the next day. This festival was a big deal. It was about supporting Cannabis business and culture. There were about 100,000 people in attendance. We were set to perform at the second stage, which had hundreds of people in the crowd. The only problem is when I got on stage and turned on my laptop, its hard drive crashed. We didn’t get to perform. I can not articulate the depths of sorrow and anger me and Royce felt over this. We had flown across the country for that performance, put in hours of practice and promoted the event on social media. This was my first show with Royce and I felt I really had let him down. I went to the airport and contemplated whether or not I should even DJ at all any more.
But, I didn’t quit. Much time has passed and I have had many successful gigs since then. I have DJ’d several times at the top silent party in the city at Lucky Strike, plus Heist Lounge and MK Lounge, all top spots in DC. Plus, I got picked up by one of the best DJ companies in the DMV, Extraordinary Entertainment. My artist Born I scored 2 million plays on Spotify last year and we’re set to drop our mixtape this year. So, we might go on tour. Once this coronavirus pandemic passes, my future looks bright.
I’ve had time to think about things and I’ve learned a few lessons. One is to have a backup laptop. I don’t have one yet but I’m saving up for one. Another one is to have a small back up MP3 player to play music off of as a fail safe for performances with artists. But, the greatest lesson is not to beat myself up after a failure. Michael Jordan said he “failed over and over again and that is why he succeeds.” The most important thing is that you take the shot. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. There are so many examples of people failing on their rise to success. Imagine if I had quit DJing. I would have never experienced all the joy I’ve felt since then, exercising one of my passions. And, worse, I would be wondering “What if?” for the rest of my life. I couldn’t live with that. So, I’ll keep reaching for the stars and, if I’m lucky, I might land on the moon. And, now, I appreciate it way more when things go smoothly without technical difficulties. That terrible weekend made me stronger. Luckily, I’m still on good terms with the Miller family and Royce Castro so hopefully I can make it up to them one day. And, lastly, you can fix bad equipment but you can’t fix a bad DJ! So, I’m good!
Boss Review 