Max's Bar Mitzvah @ The Embassy Suites (Chicago)

My very first gig of 2007 consisted of mushroom soup, toilet paper, and inflatable monkeys. Yes, inflatable monkeys. Was this an bona fide, all-expenses paid acid trip? Sounds like it, but…no. This was a bar mitzvah. The thirteenth birthday of Max Smith was going to be celebrated in style at the splendid Embassy Suites Hotel (near Navy Pier) on the north side of Chicago. Cultural celebrations such as the one in question require a lot of positive and substantial energy, as they usually contain many mini-events packed into one five-hour evening. Honestly, your toes have to be on their toes to ensure that you are on the ball with everything. On this night, my partner Melissa and I were prepared to entertain a healthy crowd of 150 adults and children with games and music abound, and to give Max a 'mitzvah to remember.

Out of all the events of the night, the most rewarding for me was the games portion. Being an avid fan of television game shows (and their respective hosts), and wanting to host actual game shows in the future, I could not be any more elated to own this section of the evening. Max and his young friends engaged in a triad of tricky contests, which all had a payoff of the aforesaid inflatable monkeys: A musical chairs/scavenger hunt hybrid, a mummy wrap race, and a balloon-popping game. The first on the list was the most tense and most enjoyably memorable, as the objects to hunt became more obsucre and harder to find (i.e. safety pins), and the kids were highly competitive, which made this game rather compelling. The cutest thing happened in the last round: I announced that the item to find was a cell phone with a flippable cover, and this 8 or 9 year-old contestant by the name of Joanna pulled her own phone out of her pocket to the sheer delight of the crowd. Talk about living in the fast lane, eh? (Ironically, she ended up winning the game by successfully retrieving someone else's flippable mobile phone.) Throughout this game and all the rest, I handled the hosting while Melissa deejayed the background music with extremely thoughful selection and timing. I have done a lot of different hosting jobs at bridal shows, weddings and such, but never before was I this calm and mellifluous on the microphone. I simply felt great and believed that I was going to perform well in something that I enjoyed doing.

Dancing, just in case you are wondering, was an all-night event in itself. Max and several of his friends were hanging out in the ballroom during cocktails, and Melissa and I decided to rock them out with some cuts from Kelly Clarkson, the Stray Cats, and Elvis himself. When dinner arrived, some of the older folks took command of the dance floor…to songs I had piping from an iPod mix! Thank you, Steve Jobs. Of course, being a Jewish event, the Israeli folk dancing commenced with Harry Belafonte's "Hava Nagila" and extended to a fifteen-minute set of Israeli folk tunes until I switched over to the Isley Brothers' version of "Shout." From there, we did a mixture of dancing, games, and one snowball dance, per the request of our 'mitzvah man. We even partook in a fun and complimentary salsa lesson from Hannah, a friend of the Smith family. (I think that was the only thing that I was not quite good at, heh.) Looking back in my deejay career, I recall assisting on a bat mitzvah (the Jewish celebration of a girl's thirteenth birthday) last year in which the younger generation overtook the adults on the dance floor by a landslide. Max's event had nearly everyone on the dance floor in a brilliant blend of the young and the young at heart. It brings me joy when the two distinct age groups come together to the same centre, as opposed to having one group having all the fun. This was a very enjoyable crowd, to say the least.

I went into this event with a full confidence and desire to succeed. The many prayers I sent to God for this premiere gig of my '07 season were certainly heard, as I was relaxed from the beginning of the day to the very end. It is amazing how one's confidence can be contagious, and I felt as if everyone "caught" the good vibes I emitted. I was, for that one night, a game show host, a musician, a facilitator, and a couple of other hard-to-name jobs. With so many invisible hats on my head, I do have one inquiry: Where in the hell was my yarmulke?

– Brent Rolland, resident deejay

(Special thanks to the Smith family and to Amanda and everyone at the Embassy for a terrific night!)