To The Fallen Soldiers..

So, me and my boy D-Fib dj'ed at The Vault in Redlands tonight. As a dj, you have to deal with taking requests all night. Weird requests, dumb requests, and sometimes good requests that you were about to play anyway. It's ok, it comes with the job, so I'm not mad at people that request songs. Tonight we had a guy come up to the booth with a note saying he is a US Marine and him and 8 other marines just got back from Iraq yesterday and he wanted us to play a song for the fallen soldiers back there. I told him okay, and we turned down the music and stopped the dance party so he could recognize his guys, and he actually got claps and cheers. So the party gets going again, and this guy tells me that wasn't enough. He wants more, he wants a moment of silence. Me and D-Fib were gonna switch sets anyway, so I told him okay, we'll do it then. "No, I want it right now!" he says.. A couple songs later when we switched, I called out for a moment of silence. The crowd is looking at me like I'm the biggest party killer in the world, but I'm ok with it. Plus the guy said him and his boys would at least pay us money as a tip for doing this. So after the moment of silence this guy gets on the phone real quick, hangs up, and taps me on the shoulder again, while I'm trying to mix and says "Hey, my boys didn't hear it, you gotta do it again." So finally, I'm like, alright dude, you come up and you're demanding as hell. I respect you to the fullest, don't get me wrong, but come on, respect my job as well. I did all I could for you, but I can't keep stopping my party. Imagine if Michael Jordan is about to hit a game winning shot with 3 seconds left, and he stops playing and just starts calling out for a moment of silence. I apologize to any soldiers who read this and think I'm an asshole for my opinion about this, I respect everything that our troops do. My grandfather was an Air Force officer that was shot and killed in the line of duty, so I know how it is. Plus the guy didn't pay up either, he didn't really have to, but the fact that he didn't keep his word when I kept mine really pissed me off. But it's cool. Next time I ain't stopping my music for nobody.. (p.s. Some other guy before him came up wanting me to stop the music so his boy can get on the mic and start rapping. Dude, get a show booked, I'm a party dj, not DJ Premier)

Ok, I'm done. Peace. Support Our Troops!