THE DJ WAR

For those of you too young to remember Hitler, let me tell you ... there's some real assholes in this world.

Because I usually like to back up statements like that with examples, indulge me for a few minutes while I tell you what happened this past Saturday night.

There was this wedding reception where the bride and groom were under the impression that they just HAD to have ME DJ their reception.

Most wedding receptions I do are like that. I've managed to convince the bride and groom that I'm the best goddamned DJ in the free world and if they don't hire me then they are ignorant bags of shit.

It's called "mind control". Look it up, Snuffy.

So they've decided to have this reception at a nice restaurant on a local lake.

I get there and it's a really beautiful restaurant and would have been even more beautiful had we not been going through the worst drought in 643 years here. Underneath the docks, instead of water it was just dirt. If you wanted water, you had to walk a quarter of a mile to the lake. All we had near us was red clay.

This is not important to the overall "oomph" of the story. I'm just passing it along so you get a visual picture of the place.

Shit.

I'll do you one better.

Nice, huh?

Well, imagine it with NONE of that water there. That's how bad our drought is.

Anyway, look at the picture. Imagine me set up with my DJ booth all the way to the left of the deck.

Because that's where I was.

I get there and I begin setting up.

Now, imagine that picture again, but this time, imagine two neighboring docks just to the right of the picture. Two neighboring docks owned by two different home owners.

Got it?

Good.

Those two different home owners made Hitler look like Mother Teresa.

I get there and I'm setting up and one of the homeowners is playing some gospel music on their dock. It's not too loud but because it's so quiet on the lake, I can hear it.

The manager of the restaurant walks out, introduces herself and says "Looks like you'll have some competition tonight".

I giggle. Then I giggle a little bit more. Then I break out into a full fledged guffaw.

"I'm not worried about them," I snort. "I can get much louder than that".

So everything is set up, I change into my nifty summer Outside DJ costume and I'm ready to go.

Guests start showing up about 6:30.

I put on some light piano music turned down at a barely audible level. This is meant to be background music as people sit and talk about the wedding or the weather or their individual wife-swapping activities.

Shit if I know what the hell they're talking about ... I'm busy over here playing soft piano music, bitch. Quit asking me for pointers on successful ice-breaker topics at the table.

No sooner does the first piano chord peep out of my speakers than we're all hit with a machine gun-like assault of the most hardcore gangsta rap shit you've ever heard at deafening decibels.

"FUCK YOU MUTHFUCKA NIGGA I PUT A CAP IN YO ASS MUTHAFUCKA MUTHAFUCKA MUTHAFUCKA YO."

B-L-A-S-T-I-N-G out of this guy's speakers.

This encourages the Gospel guy next door to crank up his Gospel music.

So now ... in the space of 10 seconds we have three DJs playing three different types of music.

Me playing the soft piano music.

MC Dumbass blasting his ghetto rap.

And DJ Bible Thumper cranking out the Mahalia Jackson tunes.

Immediately the wedding guests look at me and collectively give me the "What the Fuck?!?" look.

I go for the manager.

"What's going on with your neighbors?" I asked.

She sighed.

"They do this EVERY time we have a band or DJ or musician out there on the deck," she says. "Let me call the police."

I'm all about calling the police on these redneck thugs.

"In the meantime," she says. "Just turn your music off because that's what they want."

So I turn my system off and the senior citizens and young families with children are trying to eat while Tupac is talking about how he'd like to perform anal sex on them until he rips their colons in two at ear-bleeding volumes.

I go out in the parking lot to wait for the police who show up about 20 minutes later.

By the time they got there, the bride, groom and wedding party have shown up and I really have to fulfill my duties to them rather than play vigilante.

So I get them all lined up properly, I introduce the wedding party and I notice that the rap guy has turned his music down to a more decent level.

This lasts for about 0.05 seconds.

As soon as the cops get back in their car, he cranks it up EVEN LOUDER.

This is during the couple's first dance as man and wife.

Now then ... there have been very few wedding receptions where I've wanted to beat the holy shit out of someone who wasn't even at the wedding reception.

In fact, this was probably the only one.

But it was dark and chances were likely this rap-loving psycho probably owned a gun and if I went over there to pummel him, I'd then be known in DJ circles as MC Gaping Hole In The Chest.

What I didn't know was that two attorneys from our party walked over to the guy through the red clay and explained to him that the bride and groom paid thousands of dollars for this wedding reception and if he could please have a little compassion for this situation, everyone involved would appreciate it.

He said "You tell your DJ to turn off his music and I'll turn mine off."

The fucking white trash piece of shit asshole fucker bastard fuck said that.

Basically, we were at the mercy of a ghetto-rap wielding terrorist.

And I caved to him.

My volume goes up to 20.

I had it on 2.

If you walked 10 feet away from me, you couldn't hear my music.

And still ... STILL that fucker was blasting his rap while his neighbor played gospel.

It was premeditated sabotage of two innocent people.

But ... as much as I liked the staff of the restaurant ... it's as much their fault as the rap guy.

They KNEW this guy was going to do this. They've tried to silence him in the past which made him even madder and meaner. He wasn't scared of the police and was out to prove a point. He had bought a house on the lake and he liked to enjoy serene weekends while at the lake.

I can sympathize with him there.

But for God's sakes ... he was apparently a white guy in his 40s. I felt confident that if he just sat back with a six pack of beer, he probably would have loved the music I was going to be playing.

This went on for about two hours. I let everyone eat and get a few drinks in them and let a lot of the old folks go ahead and leave.

And then ... I lost it.

A few couples came out to the dance floor to dance to "Crocodile Rock" ... not my choice ... a request. I hadn't played the song in years.

One of the ladies pointed toward the sky, giving me the signal to turn it up so they could hear it over Snoop Dogg next door.

I made the fingers in the ears signal to let her know ... I'M CRANKING IT UP.

And I took the volume to 18 out of 20.

Suddenly, it was LOUD.

If this crackhead next door wanted a DJ War, by God ... he got one.

I remember the next 30 minutes perfectly.

Crocodile Rock.

"Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones.

"You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC

"Sweet Child of Mine" by Guns 'n' Roses

"Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Then it was time for the garter and bouquet toss.

I stopped the music and that's when I noticed ... the neighbors had admitted defeat and shut their music off.

"Ummmm," I said. "Just wanted to point out that I can be loud and obnoxious too."

The crowd cheered.

CHEERED.

We had won the war.

The rest of the night, just because I wanted to, I kept the volume up loud and the guests loved every minute of it, getting drunk, sweaty and dancing their butts off.

At 10:00 or so the crowd had begun leaving and I turned the music down to about a volume level of 8.

The ones remaining still danced.

And Rap Boy seized the opportunity to start blasting his music again.

I motioned for my dance floor people to stop for a second and I addressed Rap Boy.

"You lost, pal," I said over the microphone. "We had a good time after all."

His rap got louder.

We all just laughed at him at this point as people were leaving anyway.

He kept playing his crap as I loaded my van up with equipment.

I couldn't see the guy but as I was taking my last load off the deck, I shot him a bird.

He cranked his music up to a distorted level at that point.

And I just chuckled as I left.