Written at 8:00AM today, posted in the afternoon due to horrible internet connection on Catalina…

As I sit here in my hotel room on the last morning of a trip to Catalina (I was the MC/DJ for a corporate function here) I can’t help but think about the way people treat each other when egos get involved. No, nothing happened to me directly, it’s more about what I witnessed on this trip.

Usually, and preferably, I write about Jacob and all the things he does that make us smile (or cry). But I haven’t seen my wonderful little man in 2 days now (yes, I’m going through withdrawal) and the only thing I have to report is that Cherise told me he grabbed our wedding album, started looking through the photos of me and saying: “Dada, uh!” – she said he misses me. That, and we did FaceTime on our iPhones and for the first time, he saw me and didn’t burst into tears (in the past, whenever he would see either one of us on FaceTime – regardless of where we were – he would burst into tears as if he thought “mama/dada is stuck in the little box!”) so that’s progress!

But back to what I was saying.

I worked two events while here – the first one went off without a hitch, so we won’t go into too many details about it. Basically, I arrived on Sunday afternoon, had some time to myself, woke up early on Monday morning and got ready. It was going to be a long day! I got to the beach party at 11:00AM for an 11:45AM start, got set up and played from 11:40AM-4:10PM.

Beach party view. I can think of worse places to work…

From there, I got whisked back to the hotel (I stayed in one hotel on Sunday night, only to check out on Monday morning, walk NEXT DOOR and check in to a different hotel – don’t ask), changed into my suit and was back in the lobby ready to move to the evening event.

That’s where things went weird for a minute.

The evening was a throwback to Old Hollywood with a Speakeasy vibe to it – the music would be primarily Jazz, along with some dance performances, a band, and the main event – a musician/speaker who would perform for a total of 2 hours recounting events from his life. It was a snooze for most of the people, but that’s not the point.

As I arrived for setup, the A/V tech (the guy that was hired to provide amplified sound, microphones, video screen, and lighting) was arguing with the roadie for the musician/speaker, who was condescending to the event planner (who put the whole thing together). Everyone wanted something done differently than it was being done. It was a mess to watch.

I typically distance myself from these things and last night was no exception. It got me thinking though, and it’s something that I often think about when I see egos clashing like this: don’t you people realize that we’re on the SAME side?! We are putting on an event for people. If we work together, the show goes smoothly and EVERYBODY wins! Just be nice to each other. Be respectful. As my grandma used to say, “that’s what differentiates us from the animals!” She was referring to the ability to control our emotions. Nobody’s any better than anybody else, and apparently, sometimes we need reminders.

The world would be a much better place if we started from the perspective of respect and kindness.

And now, I must be going. I have a date with a ferry (couldn’t resist) and then with my beautiful wife and son.

I’m excited.

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Jacob’s Daddy