People who know me might sayI used to be a little, well, forgetful. I like to call it “over-organized”, just too much stuff on the brain. Back in the olden days before Iphones and PDA’s, we had to rely on the good old brain and a Filofax to keep our DJ’ing schedules maintained.
Unfortunately, I didn’t own a Filofax. I always thought they were for Yuppies and I didn’t want to be branded as such. That left me relying on my brain to keep everything organized….not such a good idea.
Before I share this story, please understand I have never missed a DJ show in 14 years .
I can remember the day vividly. I was laying in bed at 10 am on a Friday morning, dreaming about being a superstar DJ and rocking the best clubs in the world when my slumber was rudely interrupted by a cell phone call.
This is how the conversation went:
Dave: “Hello” (Slurring because I had gone to bed at 9am after a long night in the studio)
Azim: “Morning, it’s Azim, promoter in Vancouver….are you ready for the big show?”
Dave: “Of course Azim, excited as always…I’ll see you tomorrow”
Azim: “Um…no, you’re supposed to be at the airport now, the show is tonight, did you forget?”
Dave: “uhhh, no of course not, I never forget a show…actually I’m sitting at the gate right now, the new issue of People Magazine had me distracted”
Azim: “umm, it sounds very quite at the airport, are you still in bed? I thought I just heard a pillow fall….?
Dave: “don’t be silly Azim, Im raring to go”
Azim: “ok, so I’ll see you at the airport in a few hours, have a safe trip”
Dave: “ok, see you soon”
*click*
Dave: “sh*t, F&*$, &#&, b*$!llocks”
Now, ordinarily this situation wouldn’t have been a problem, but, the promoter had booked my air ticket out of Orlando, and I was in Tampa. That’s a big problem.
Not good.
It was 10am and I had to catch a 1pm flight. Tampa is 1hr 30min drive to Orlando; ok, I can make this flight.
So I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, grabbed my record bag and jumped in my car. This wasn’t so bad, I can speed to Tampa, jump on the plane and everything will be fine.
As I’m driving down the highway, I’m recalling that my record bag seemed unusually light when I threw it on the back seat. Either I’m getting stronger or something is up.
I grabbed my bag from the back seat, look inside…4 records and a pair of headphones. This isn’ going well at all.
No problem, I’ll just stop at a record store and buy some vinyl, yeah!
Who was I kidding?
Then the traffic jam on I-4 hits me. For those people who live in Central Florida, you know this scenario well. I-4 is a terrible road to travel on. There is always an accident or construction.
At this point, I’m cursing at myself for not owning a Filofax and I promised myself one as soon I returned home. I didn’t care if people did call me a Yuppie, I was going to be an organized Yuppie!
While sitting in traffic for almost 40 mins, I called the airline to see what my options were for later flights but the times didn”t work for my schedule. I had to make the 1pm flight. The only saving grace was Vancouver is 5 hours behind Eastern time.
Next I called a friend and asked him to meet me on the side of I-4 so he could take my car and drop me at the airport. At least that way I didn’t have to worry about parking. Thankfully my friend was able to do this.
I eventually arrived at the airport at 12.20pm, jumped out the car, checked in and ran to the gate. As I’m running to the gate I hear my name being paged on the intercom, telling me to get on the plane or its leaving without me…great.
I HATE being the last person on the flight because you always get those filthy looks from people who think you are delaying the flight. Of course I get the obligatory middle seat next to two rather large men (one was grossly obese). For the next 2 hours my head jolted forward as I tried to fall asleep but it was no use. One of the plump non DJ’s next to me was snoring up a storm, so sleep was useless. Of course I had forgotten my cd player (don’t laugh, we didn’t have Ipods back then!) and the headphone jack in my seat was broken. No inflight music for me. I looked in seat back and what do I see? Elle magazine. Next the stewardess comes around with the drink cart…starving from not having eaten in 8 hours, i ask for peanuts. Of course there aren’t any peanuts,. Apparently they had forgotten to stock the plane wwith snacks before it departed…..This was turning out to be a fun day and we hadn’t even started yet.
Finally after two torturous hours of sitting next to Sir Snore Alot, th eplane touched down in Chicago. I can remember looking out the window thinking, hmm that looks like alot of snow. Yep, we flew into the beginning of a snowstorm….
So here I was, stuck in the beginning of a snowstorm, 4 records to play, no change of clothes (did I mention I forgot to bring anything other than my wallet?), running on 3 hours of sleep. Oh the glamorous life of a travelling DJ.
More to come on Monday!
Till next time
- Dave
