No, the OTHER "Lean on Me"

I can't believe it's taken me so long to write about this incident. I think that I needed to forget about it for a week so that I didn't weep openly at work.
We've got a slight DJ-situation. I found his ad on CL and was impressed by his low price (just a side job for him, more of a hobby). We hired the person after a medium-length phone conversation and lots of emails, but we hadn't actually met him. Until last week. Let's just say that this meeting convinced us that he's a few Bradys short of a bunch.

Bryan and I actually made an entire play list and gave it to DJ, a list that the DJ said would play for almost 5 hours, the length of our reception. This sounded good - we picked music we like and he's going to play it. What could go wrong?

When we sit down with him, he explains in a VERY thick NY accent that he has all of the songs on our list and that he uses Limewire and it's "pretty good." I saw Bryan's face fall - he is NOT a fan of a heavy NY accent, OR this music sharing site, because people are less than accurate. For example, if you do a search for the song "Let's Stay Together", a kickin' song by Al Green, you might get the song listed by the artist Teddy Pendergrass or Marvin Gaye. You might get the title 05 Lets Stay together, referring to track 5 of an album and illustrating very poor grammar skills. Bryan doesn't use Limewire - it's not very reliable and it messes up the order in his iPod. I am more forgiving - I am not that particular because my music sits on my computer and I know which song is which regardless of which title or artist has been assigned to a song. So, I was willing to give the DJ the benefit of the doubt.

I wanted an old, hard-to-find song for my father/daughter dance. He found it. Good. Bryan joked that it was probably pretty hard to find his mother/son song from that little-known "White Album". Blank stare from DJ. I laugh nervously. DJ gives a half smile. Not good.

We mention DO NOT PLAY list. DJ has it and promises to keep it in front of him the entire night. Good. DJ then mentions a song that is really popular at all the high school functions he's done lately (red flag?) the "Boot Scootin' something or other". I blanche. I'm pretty sure I don't want a song with "Boot" or "Scootin" in the title played at our wedding. He proceeds to play the song - a line dance, despite large letters on our DNP list that say NO LINE DANCES. Bryan mentions having heard the song at Y*****s Stadium. DJ looks excited, "are you a Y*****s fan?" Bryan grimaces and says that he is the absolute opposite of a fan. DJ looks confused, I try to dilute the situation by saying that we're a Red Sox family and that the "Boot" song should definitely be left off the playlist. Not so good, but no harm done.

Next, we mention that we don't want to play our entire first dance song, just the first 3 minutes. DJ looks at me quizzically and says, "that's okay, the song is only 2 minutes and 40 seconds." Huh? It's a 7 minute song. Not good.

Our first song is a beautiful, slow ballad by Terry Callier. The title of the song happens to be "Lean on Me". Well, Limewire says that the Bill Withers version was sung by Terry Callier, so when DJ started playing the song for us, instead of our beautiful ballad, we got the techno version of the Withers song. Bryan is shaking his head. I'm wondering how this all went so wrong.

We say that we will be burning a CD with the correct song on it and dropping it off ASAP.

The final item is the announcing of the bridal party as they are introduced into the reception. DJ looks a little uncomfortable but takes the list. I have written exactly what needs to be read. Bryan explains that 2 mentions of L1nd@ Jeffr*y is not a typo, there really are 2 of them. DJ nods then starts to read it as if there were only 1 LJ. "So, they're both walking her in?" Yes, both my dad and my mom's boyfriend are walking my mom in. And LJ2 is going to hang out at the bar.

We once again explain that there really are 2 people being introduced with the same name and that they are, indeed, separate and distinct women. A 15 watt bulb finally goes off over DJs head. Got it. Good-ish. He proceeds to pronounce Bryan's parents' names with his loveliest NY accent, Mahry and Gahry O'Kawnah. Bryan looks as if the air has been forcibly sucked from his lungs. We move toward the door.

Bryan holds in the tears until we get to the car. I can only laugh hysterically (not that I thought it was hysterically funny, but that I was actually on the verge of hysteria). Music is one of the most important things to us and we had carefully and lovingly selected a playlist to entertain, delight and rock out. I reassure Bryan that we will give him all of the songs that matter on a CD and that we will get another friend to announce the wedding party at the reception. He understands DO NOT PLAY and keeps high schoolers happy on a regular basis. It will all work out.

Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for.