Year of writing 243. Burning man.

9/1/12

My friend Jon and I had a lapse in judgement in agreeing to DJ a burning man party for people who hadn't gone to burning man.  The tipoff should have been the guy who runs the space, which is the real reason we were doing it in the first place, so we could have run our own party using his space - hence we worked for free.  At any rate, this dude has no idea what he's doing in terms of running a party for profit, aka a club. 

The night was supposed to start at 8 with a live band.  We were there earlier to set up a sound system that we had to borrow for the place, because dude has none.  When 8 rolled around, there was no band at all.  Instead, we waited until 8:30, then put on an itunes playlist, which was fine, since NOBODY was in the building at this point.  At about 8:50, an older man about 55 or 60, came in, donned rollerskates, and began cruising around the concrete floor of the place.  He was the only one there.  Ten minutes into his routine, homeboy falls, breaks his wrist, and turns white as a sheet.  I put him on the couch, get some ice, and tell him to chill til he can get picked up.  Then, he needs water, goes to the bar, and passes the fuck out.  I have to carry him back to the couch and call 911.  Nobody else is there yet. 

At 9:30 or so, Daniel Ashe, a local celebrity who used to play bass in Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, started his DJ set.  He loves him some smoke machine, let me tell you what.  His set was so ridiculous I won't even go into it.  I just have a problem with DJs who don't care enough to beatmatch or blend songs.  Just get Pandora. 

Then our host, who has never actually been a dj, wanted to spin.  I will leave it to your imagination, as long as you imagine something horrible.

Our set was supposed to be super facemelting electronica to pacify the burners who were there.  They were into it for about 45 minutes. Then everything started to suck.  The owner kicked his own bartender out, then complained because nobody was serving.  People stopped dancing until we played 90's hits, and the bottom line is, we will never do crap like this again.  For free too.  Jesus.