DJ Files Part Deux

I’ve spent the entire day looking at this image….

I was the first DJ asked and the first one to say Yes. I was originally supposed to be the last one to play before the fireworks, but Leondra polled the crew and volunteers and they wanted it to start a smidge later and go longer.

Yes, I am playing at the Second Life’s 20th Birthday Crew and Volunteers Partay!

Bring a +1 they said.

Anyway, where was I?

Tuesday Midnight to 2 am, I had rawked socks and collapsed in bed until stupid phone went off at 8 am. I fiddled with things during the day, went to sets and events, explored SLB. I still don’t think I’ve done the entire thing. I collapsed again in the early afternoon, snoozing on the couch, and got woken up before 8pm because my sensor went off. I was low. I tested my sugar. Yah, I was low. I had to eat. Low, groggy, stumbling, disoriented. Classing signs of hypoglycemia.

I ate something and waited for my sugar levels to go back up.

9pm, I was at the big box, making sure my set was ready to go.

9:55, sound checked. Voice check. On the fly. Ready to rock.

9:58… the performer puts a song on before me. I ask crew what is going on. Why aren’t they pulling the plug at 10pm on the dot and switching to me?

The answer back, as I am scrambling to keep up with that song and predict when I can start playing, is that they were told not to cut the song and let the performer play on.

My block of time. My 1 hour to shine. And some other guy gets to steal 3 minutes of my time for his “last song” that should have ended before 10pm?

I spent the entire time I am performing scrambling. The carefully curated and songs perfectly chosen for my sent are thrown out the window as I pick others from the big list to play to fill in time, watch my voice overs, everything.

At 10:58:30, my instrumental is on and I say my goodbyes, but I don’t hear it. They switched to the other performer early.

I leave the stage…

I walk away…

I log out…

and I cry.

Weeks of work, ruined.

Why, oh dear sweet lindens, why?

My answer comes to me a day or so later. Yet another fill in is needed. I am quick, I am ready. I don’t feel human anymore, so I have switched to my maneki neko avatar and I get sound checked and am up and running.

I followed this performer called Ghost. I don’t remember if they were a live musician or not, but they had brought a huge crowd. That crowd made my heart sing. They loved the music I brought.

They loved the sugar powered snowcat!

Oh yes! This is me! This is when I shine!

I even had a tiny “snowcat” stuffie to give out and the stage crew were loving it. Thank you to the wonderful maker who fixed up the texture for me that I was banging my head on. I wanted to give one out every day I was performing, but just couldn’t do the thing to make it happen.

Next couple of days was more partying and more seeing exhibits at SL20B. I was even at the Whip party for their 13th anniversary. That was fun.

I am not a World Wide Whip broadcaster. I am Black Ort’s Master’s Roundtable and Ort Cloud producer. I set the playlists. I run the contest every week. But I am not a Whip broadcaster and they can not ask me to do anything for them. I am most certainly not Black Ort’s host no matter what management at the Whip wants to believe. Black Ort has the no 1 show on the Whip and it’s thanks to the work I put in last year when I nearly lost Black Ort to a “widow maker.”

There was one other time I was asked to be a backup for a live singer who couldn’t get their broadcasting running. That was a bunch of miscommunication. They had me on the same stream they wanted the singer on. 25 minutes of having my finger on the green button stressed me out to the point of wanting to never dj again because of the errors that I know I got blamed for, even if it wasn’t in my inbox. The stage screw dropped that ball.

Yes, I filed a complaint with the manager. Or rather, ranted at two of the stage crew that I knew I could trust would understand.

I had been doing “this is not the performer you’re looking for” to give others a chance in the performer’s group even before the performance rule was put in place. I had too many hours and the emotional rollercoaster was getting to me, and other performers. The new “rule” meant that you could fill in only if you didn’t have your performance and two other slots. This was supposedly to give other performers a chance since some were complaining that they were not able to get slots. I have one suggestion for those who complained: why were you not keeping track of the performer’s group? That’s where the requests were found.

I’m still waiting to find out who was no 1 performer in the terms of hours. None of the others in the running are doing the crew and volunteer party on Saturday.

Poor Shadow. She got glommed by Tanzly and Minka, two other performers, and a certain snowcat.

Saturday night, another fill in was announced. I know I was one of several that offered to do the 8 am set. It would have required me going back to sleep for a bit before the show. I was allowed to step down. The rule was the reason why. Having to get up at 6am for an 8am slot was pushing it for me.

Until Vee got in my inbox on Sunday and asked if I could perform right then. It was 5:15pm.

Black was already at the big box setting up for his show. The playlist was loaded and he was logged into SL.

I had to say no. I had told the stage crew repeatedly that the absolute last set I could do I would have to sound check by 3:30pm, Black’s show is more important than SL20B.

I spent the rest of the night in tears. I had failed my friend.

Even though I had the invite to perform for the volunteers and crew for days by then, I felt like a failure.

Highs and lows. Listening to the recordings I made, I did awesome. Vee has promised to keep me in the loop for other big shows where she’s going to crew. Shadow’s going to make sure I apply for next year. This is what I love to do.

This is where I shine!

Music is what feelings sound like!