New Life by Sunday Morning

I came up with that title because right this moment I'm listening to "Sunday Morning" by Maroon 5. I'm lovin Maroon 5 - that's right - I love music that isn't techno as well folks. Remember, I DJ weddings right now, which means I don't get to play house music very often. I appreciate all music, though. I can listen to a song and find the musical talent no matter what genre. The only thing I don't get is Metal. I don't know how they all make it because they all sound exactly the same. It's true! And someone is going to comment now I know and explain to me how different dream theater is from a perfect circle. Look, I've heard them all - IN MY OPINION, they all sound the same.

With that being said, most people think all house sounds the same. To a person that doesn't listen to house very often I know where they are coming from... Because they are right - it does sound the same. Makes it easier to DJ, right? Well, DJs might tell you this, but I think it's only half true. DJing house and techno with that infectious 4/4 beat does make it pretty predictable, which makes things easier. Especially because a DJ won't have much problem rooting through their box for the next song. With Hip Hop, the DJ has to take more care in song selection, because normally all hip hop songs have a unique beat. That's the tough part of being a hip hop DJ, song selection. Mixing is easy with hip hop. Once the DJ has the right song, a simple slam or scratch and slam will do it. The better DJs will find songs with similar beat structures and beat match a little. As a Hip Hop DJ, it's not required to beat match, but if s/he can, there's a lot of added tricks they can do.

As a hip hop DJ needs to be quick and tricky, almost like a musical magician up there behind the decks. I stated earlier that a house DJ has an easier job with song selection. However, what makes house music tougher is that there aren't many slams going on in the house world. A house DJ can slam, or spinback, or beatmatch for only 4-8 beats, but the best DJs will beatmatch and mix with blends, 64 beats or more. A house and techno DJ has to be much more gentle, making small moves to get that perfect mix. The highest level of house DJ can not only beatmatch well, but can match moods and keys as well. When the entire 4 hour set sounds like one song, a house DJ has reached musical enlightenment. So in my opinion, both sides have equally hard jobs, just different skills to focus on.

Ok that was a tangent, I have a lot to get to so let me get started...

First a plug - check out my newly updated internet radio station, DancePhoenix. Take a look at my broadcast schedule for special shows and stuff, or just tune in for some great house music!

Alright now, I'm gonna start off with a funny story - I was driving around in my 2004 Honda Civic for about 3 months with no a/c. In the desert heat, I'm sure you can imagine how ridiculous that was. Well all my friends kept telling me to just get it fixed, because it's still under warranty, but I said that I thought that I had to pay for stuff anyway. Well, last week I finally broke down and called in. Turns out they do fix it for free. I'm a dork - I coulda had it done 3 months ago. Go ahead and laugh at me.

This weekend was also a big event for me - I MC'd my very first reception, and I think it went quite well! I need to work on stuff, obviously, but I don't think that the guests could tell that this was my first event. So go me! Check out SKM Entertainment here in Phoenix, AZ if you know some one or you, yourself are planning a wedding, bar or bat mitzvah, or corporate event.

Ok, here's the big stories. DJJ (that's me) is planning two very large events and I wanted to get them out there right now so people can pre-plan a little as I am. I'm not releasing dates for these events yet, but I will very soon. They are benefit events for the Leukemia-Lymphoma society, and one will be the end of September, the other around the end of October. I'll have more details on that later. The reason I'm having these events for the Leukemia-Lymphoma Society is because I am training to run the PF Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. Team in Training will be training me for this run and in turn I raise money for the LLS. It's a very rewarding thing to be a part of so I'm very excited. More details later.

For the last story for today, I'm going to talk about something very important to all of us. Friends. More importantly, I'm going to be focusing on the "best friend" category. This phrase came up a lot this past weekend, but only a couple times was it used positively.

First off, I don't have one best friend. Some people think that should not be the case, that it should be one person - like a spouse without marriage. OK, here's the first problem, if my best friend is a guy, I'm not going to marry him. Second, if I do get married, I would want the girl to be my best friend as well so, what do I do? Just bump the current best friend? No, I'm gonna have more than one. To me there's no ranking system. You don't "achieve" the rank of "best" after a number of tests or anything. It's simply natural - my best friends are the people I can hang out with and know exactly what they are thinking. This narrows down now to a very select few. In fact of all my friends, I share the minds of only 6 people. Jessica, Emily, Egle, Serena, Caitlin and Brian. All girls and my brother. Wait - is that bad? I need to get some more guy friends...

Anyway. They're my best friends because they don't have to tell me how they are or what they feel because I can tell already. I know their expressions, reactions, feelings. I know what different things mean to them and that makes it quite simple for me to be with them. That's a best friend, someone you can see inside of.

They see inside of me, too. They all know me and know better, no matter what kinda crap I say. They all know that if they had a problem, they could call me up or shoot me an email and I'd be there to help. For some, I'm not there all the time. In fact, 3 of my best friends don't even live in the same state. What reminds me of how great they are is when they call me after not talking to me for 6 months... And the conversation is still the same great feeling. It's not like they hate me for 6 months, they just have their own lives. But I get a pretty big smile on my face when they do call. Sometimes it's not for a problem - sometimes it's simply to say Hi, and that's OK too.

The 3 that live here are a different story. Brian is my brother, first off - so we're going to exclude him. He's a best friend due to sharing the same genes as myself. So let's talk about Caitlin and Serena.

First we'll deal with Caitlin. You know I hated her like 4 or 5 months ago, grouped her right in with Bill and the website being trashed... And she deserved my anger, I'm not going to deny it. I was pretty fuckin' pissed at what she did. It was kind of a "straw that broke the camel's back" type thing. Now I've gotten over it for the longest time now, I mean since then I started a bunch of other stuff that I'm much more happy about. It was kinda like habit though, I just didn't talk to her any more. But I saw her Saturday night, after my event. I didn't want to go to this party, because of how far it is from my house, but it was my buddy david's house and those are always kinda fun. So I called up Serena.. I ended up going only because she said she would stay - I'll get to that in a bit. So Caitlin was there, so were a bunch of people. Something was up with me though, I felt as if I had to talk to her. Serena was giving me the cold shoulder so I didn't really pay much attention to her... But when Caitlin came back outside I decided to wrap my arms around her and give her a big hug. "What's this? A hug? From Justin??" Was pretty much the reaction, but almost as if it was habit she hugged me right back. We talked after that and caught up on things for almost a good hour.

See that's just it. Best friend are people with no matter how pissed I get, or how long I go without them, they'll still be best friends after all that. Best friends are best friends - but, it has to be both ways. Best friends are naturally made - not forced.

So lately I've been hanging out with Serena a lot. It's no big deal because we are "best friends," but I was getting a little concerned this week because it seemed that if I didn't hang out with her that she would get upset, as if I had to spend every day with her for her to be happy. She denies it, but let me give some examples. First she assumes that if I don't want to go over to her house or if I'm too busy to go out that I don't ever want to talk to her again. This is not true. It's very frustrating that she does this to me. I'm a busy person, and I have a lot on my plate - I'm sorry - I cannot see Serena, every day of my life. And she has to deal with that. So then she'll get upset with me or angry at me and snap and have a negative attitude at everything I do. She takes out all her aggression on my feelings, because it's almost like I have to feel as shitty as she does just because I didn't stay up all night on a weeknight with her. Then she'll say, "is it so bad that I want to be with you all the time?" In fact, Serena - it is. I'm glad that you like spending time with me, and I like spending time with you - but the fact of the matter is that I'm not going to be able to spend every day with you, and you should know this. So what's different between wanting to spend time with me and how you REALLY act - is that you seem to have a NEED to be with me. This is concerning. You shouldn't NEED me around, and you should NEED me to accomplish things that you want to do.

For example: This weekend. All of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday during the day you were in a shitty mood towards me, complaining that I'm not a great friend, that I'm ignoring you, and that obviously your not important to me. Let us review what I did this weekend and maybe you will re-think these statements. Thursday night I worked on my website, a much needed update to my radio station that was losing ratings. With my current placement, I have the ability to MAKE MONEY off of that radio station, and that would be very nice. Also, the website which is a window to the CAREER I would like to have, well that needs some work, too. Additionally, I had to focus on Saturday, which was my first MC event - which you knew for months. Thursday night I was also pre-planning my two major events for the LLS because they are pretty high profile. You know - or you should know - how important all these things are to me. As well as having a free home-cooked meal for once and sleep in my own bed, were all very important to me. Finally on top of all that - you don't have a phone. I couldn't even chat with you if I wanted to. But don't feel too bad, I didn't even call ANY OF MY OTHER BEST FRIENDS that day either. In fact, I didn't talk to any of my "best friends" until Saturday night. Friday was a much-needed day of relaxation. My brother called me up - and we went out with some of his friends. I would have liked to include you, but, you have no money and no gas to drive. I don't have the cash, nor the time to come get you, and even if I did - may I remind you tha you don't have a PHONE!! Again - I'm not ignoring you, you don't have a way that I can talk to you. Didn't I email you when you emailed me? Yeah but I was ignoring you.

But what set you off was Saturday. This finalized your unreasonable bad mood towards me and made my best friend duties a little challenging. First off, you knew for a month what Saturday was, and how important it was to me. I also mentioned that I was going to be very busy on Saturday, not only preparing for the event, but with Team in Training stuff as well. I was supposed to go to a kick-off meeting, but I didn't. So technically I could have taken you to where you wanted to go. But! You DON'T have a PHONE! How am I supposed to know what your plans are?! You said you wanted to go earlier in the week, but you made no time frame, and I told you I was busy, what was I supposed to do, huh? The problem is that you are being radical, way way over the top about what you need in our friendship - much more than I have to give.

Now Serena and I had a little talk about 4:30 in the morning on Sunday after the party. She started screaming about how I do this and I do that. And she thinks that it's not herself that's the problem. It was resolved in the end. But some of the things she said to me in her rage were very concerning.

She's right, we're not best friends. According to her, I've never had problems, that I don't understand or know where she's coming from. She doesn't know how much I DO understand. I'm there for her support but she needs to take care of herself first. I don't take care of people, I simply help them when they are in need. Serena needed me Saturday morning. I don't think she did.

Anyway, I don't know what to think any more. I don't hate Serena, it's not like I don't want to talk to her anymore. But damn it I do need to live my own life, with out being questioned on my every move or everything I say being disagreed on because "I just don't understand." I want my best friends to live their own lives, too - and they do - sure they miss me and I miss them, but that doesn't mean that they have to call me every day or see me every day. Serena seems to need that. I hope she'll let up a little after Sunday. I hope she understands that I am here for her when she needs me, but sometimes I won't be right in front of her face.

So that's it. I'm thinking about years from now just taking all these entries and putting them in a book. I'll never make any money off of it... But it would be fun to say that I "wrote a book..."