Sunday, January 09, 2005
WFMU staff holiday party
Excellent WFMU staff holiday party last night, packed once it got cranked up around ten. Lots of good homemade food this year. The food table was so spare last year that on way to catch train yesterday I stopped & bought three boxes of frozen mini pizza bagels, fortunately they were not needed. Many WFMUers myself included pretend not to like junky food - nibbling on vegetarian salad & spinach dip until the cookies & donuts arrive. Half the people at the party are friends of younger DJs, urban transplants. I have no idea who most of them are but they all exude a sense of vital cultural purpose & relevancy one takes for granted until the sad day around age 40 somebody calls one's art "mature."
I discovered a WFMU staffer I've always liked is at least ten years older than I'd thought, although I immediately realized that I looked at her for years (a pleasure) when I should also have been listening more closely.
The station's new assistant manager was pointed out to me as if I ought to meet her right then & there, I said there was no reason right now for her to know who I am, so why give her an unnecessary name & face to memorize. There's a few DJs on the staff whose names I can't put together with faces, but from their names I could tell you generally what kinds of music they favor. Which is probably how they'd rather be known.
If you follow me around at a WFMU party it's easy to tell who I especially like & feel comfortable with - those people get hugs, a pat on the shoulder if they aren't hug types (I'm not an easy hugger, either), & I'll lurk around their chat circle for a few minutes - & then when I'm ready to stay in one place for awhile it's almost invariably with the same three or four DJs, usually located in different sections of a loud, crowded event spread out over two floors, four rooms, a long hallway, a stairwell & an outside deck - who become sort of "safety zones" for me - significantly, all are there with significant others I also know & like.
The music at a WFMU party resembles a typical college houseparty. The DJs, who are scheduled in 1/2 hour shifts, all guys but one, & Studio B - a long room about 5 feet wide usually used for engineering live bands, becomes a guy kind of place to hang out, like around the CD player in a living room while all the actual partying is happening in the kitchen or on the front porch. I have never DJ'd at a WFMU party, although I should have back in the late 80s & earlu 90s when my taste in 70s funk was still slightly ahead of the WFMU curve & appreciated by few. But law & order - a signup list - had not yet been established & you had to bully for possession of the turntables. The music is always excellent of course but almost too hip during some of the 30 minute spins unless a dinosaur gets in the DJ seat (as a few did last night). It was background music & mostly unobtrusive at that, which means it was done well. There were a few dancers someone oddly described as "ringers" - I didn't see them so I assume they were only guests who knew how to dance. Very few WFMU DJs dance. It can be a control thing, a rhythmic deficiency, or just fear of embarassment.
Left about 1:30 am, offered a ride home to Elizabeth by Glen Jones (he could have partied another two hours) & his lovely friend who lives nearby. But first we went to the White Rose diner in Roselle, just blocks from where I grew up (& perhaps also patronized long ago by WFMU legend Vin Scelsa). Glen played George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today" three times on the juke.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I discovered a WFMU staffer I've always liked is at least ten years older than I'd thought, although I immediately realized that I looked at her for years (a pleasure) when I should also have been listening more closely.
The station's new assistant manager was pointed out to me as if I ought to meet her right then & there, I said there was no reason right now for her to know who I am, so why give her an unnecessary name & face to memorize. There's a few DJs on the staff whose names I can't put together with faces, but from their names I could tell you generally what kinds of music they favor. Which is probably how they'd rather be known.
If you follow me around at a WFMU party it's easy to tell who I especially like & feel comfortable with - those people get hugs, a pat on the shoulder if they aren't hug types (I'm not an easy hugger, either), & I'll lurk around their chat circle for a few minutes - & then when I'm ready to stay in one place for awhile it's almost invariably with the same three or four DJs, usually located in different sections of a loud, crowded event spread out over two floors, four rooms, a long hallway, a stairwell & an outside deck - who become sort of "safety zones" for me - significantly, all are there with significant others I also know & like.
The music at a WFMU party resembles a typical college houseparty. The DJs, who are scheduled in 1/2 hour shifts, all guys but one, & Studio B - a long room about 5 feet wide usually used for engineering live bands, becomes a guy kind of place to hang out, like around the CD player in a living room while all the actual partying is happening in the kitchen or on the front porch. I have never DJ'd at a WFMU party, although I should have back in the late 80s & earlu 90s when my taste in 70s funk was still slightly ahead of the WFMU curve & appreciated by few. But law & order - a signup list - had not yet been established & you had to bully for possession of the turntables. The music is always excellent of course but almost too hip during some of the 30 minute spins unless a dinosaur gets in the DJ seat (as a few did last night). It was background music & mostly unobtrusive at that, which means it was done well. There were a few dancers someone oddly described as "ringers" - I didn't see them so I assume they were only guests who knew how to dance. Very few WFMU DJs dance. It can be a control thing, a rhythmic deficiency, or just fear of embarassment.
Left about 1:30 am, offered a ride home to Elizabeth by Glen Jones (he could have partied another two hours) & his lovely friend who lives nearby. But first we went to the White Rose diner in Roselle, just blocks from where I grew up (& perhaps also patronized long ago by WFMU legend Vin Scelsa). Glen played George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today" three times on the juke.
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