Love comforteth like sunshine after rain

You can't blame Ophelia for being upset after Hamlet breaks her heart and her father is murdered. But unlike the tragic Shakespearean character, who went away quietly, her hurricane namesake tore up the East Coast last week, threatening to dampen the festivities in a hamlet off the Long Island Sound. Jenn and Steve had been concerned that Ophelia would rain down on the secluded cove where they were holding their wedding Saturday, but like most divas, she had to make a grand entrance.



Drama had to make an appearance. After all, Jenn and Steve are actors by profession, and a lack of drama would have been disappointing. The resplendent sunshine beaming down approvingly on the shimmering blue carpet of water turned out to be the hero of the day. And when the sun had made its triumphant exit stage left and the ovations died down, the finale was one of the most Wagnerian thunderstorms I've ever seen played out in the theater of nature.



Jenn and Steve's wedding was informal, nontraditional. Jenn had been down the aisle once before; been there, done that. Jenn and her acting family have long been familiar in the Connecticut River Valley; Steve grew up on the New York side of the Long Island Sound. They rented a house midway, in a small borough (population 54) called Fenwick, situated on the Connecticut bank of the Sound. Fenwick is links, regatta, Mayflower Compact. Fenwick is where Katharine Hepburn lived out her final days among the calla lilies and the loons. According to the 2000 Census, the racial makeup of Fenwick is 100 percent white.

It must have been interesting, to say the least, for the local residents to see a fabulousness of gays, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Jews partying on their neighbor's lawn all weekend.



The house we stayed in is a modest cottage--modest, that is, by Fenwick standards; it has only five bedrooms. The myriad front windows face a dynamic horizon. The front lawn stretches on about 100 feet to a concrete path that runs along the water's edge. To the left in the distance is Lynde Point, a 65-foot-tall working granite lighthouse that guides seacraft along the Connecticut River into the Long Island Sound. It's on the other side of Jay Gatsby's world. The light on the horizon reminds me of a Turner landscape.



No lighting crew could have duplicated the sun's intensity as Jenn and Steve exchanged vows on the sand and the rocks under a chuppah held by their family members. Their friend Jeff officiated, and Steve's brother, also named Jeff, and Jenn's brother Owen read inspirational readings. The congregation of friends and family along the beach reminded me of a baptism.



Weeks ago I volunteered to play DJ, something I've never done in public before. I have a massive music collection in every format except 8-track tape. In high school I had a friend named Willie who went on to become a DJ on Z-100 in the early 1990s. He would request from radio stations tapes that they weren't using anymore--station IDs, commercials, music transitions--and create his own mix tapes that sounded like a bona fide radio station. I looked up to Willie, since I too wanted to be DJ. While most other kids were getting stoned and listening to Pink Floyd and The Who, I grooved to hot stations like WABC, WPIX, 99-X, WKTU, and my favorite, soul station WWRL, 1600 on the AM dial. Every week I'd go the Jamaican head shop/record store on Newkirk Avenue in Flatbush and buy the latest 45s--Brass Construction, Double Exposure, Candi Staton, Roy Ayers Ubiquity were just a few of my favorites. I loved R&B and disco before it degenerated into the Village People and the Bee Gees. I’d sit in my room playing songs on my turntable, spending countless hours figuring out which songs blended well into others. It was not as easy as it seemed. There are rhythm, tempo, arrangement, mood, and lyrics to consider. You have to be able to think on your feet and gauge the mood of the crowd.

So, being asked to DJ Steve and Jenn's wedding was, in effect, a leap of faith and a big deal for me. All I had were my iBook and an Altec Lansing boombox. Technology has come a long way since vinyl, but turntabling is where the real skill lies. I was eager to show what I'd practiced all these years. It could so easily go all wrong.

Jenn and I had sat down the weekend before the wedding with our iBooks to figure out the playlists. "How about this?" She double-clicked Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On."

Seconds later, my iBook played the same song.

"Aha! Bet you don't have this," she said, launching Stacy Lattislaw's "Let Me Be Your Angel."

It was our own version of "Duelling Banjos."

She stumped me a few times, but not many. One thing we agreed to outlaw was wedding stinkers "Celebration," "YMCA," and the insufferable Chicken Dance.

By Saturday morning, Ophelia had run out of steam, bypassing us and gently rocking Cape Cod before petering out. In her wake, the sun smoothed a magnificent gold picnic blanket over the water, and barely a cloud could be seen for miles around.



All of us who stayed at the house contributed our own talents to the wedding. David chose the wines. Jeff performed the wedding ceremony. Andie decorated. Michael played soprano sax during the reception. Luis planned the reception. Ken cleaned the bathrooms. Oliver and Stella, Jenn and Steve's pugs, dressed up for the occasion.



The wedding reception took place in a tent set up on the front lawn. The theme was an elegant picnic. Lawn chairs encircled aqua cloth-covered tables decorated with starfish and hydrangeas. Polaroid cameras were provided for guests to take snapshots, and a basket of parasols and a basket of flip-flops were set out for those venturing down to the beach. On the front lawn were two tubs of ice-cold soft drinks, labeled "Pop" for some and "Soda" for others. There was fried chicken, deviled eggs, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, and lots of wine, fruit, and cheese.



I had my own DJ station in the tent, and I would play mood music until guests started arriving. Then Mike, a soprano sax player, would take over until the ceremony ended, and then I'd pick up again. The sound from the boombox was more than ample. I prayed that nothing would go wrong with my equipment, that I wouldn't slip and hit a wrong button and cut off a song in the middle. So, I took a deep breath just before people began arriving and played the first song, "We've Only Just Begun."



I'd spent weeks on my playlists. Music for the arrival. Music for the dinner. Music for after dinner. Music for partying. Music for relaxing.

"Can't you just let the playlist run by itself?" Jenn asked. Well, sure, you can put a car on cruise control, but if you don't turn it off eventually the car will run into a brick wall.

Later in the day Jenn asked Luis if he thought I was having a good time.

"Pig in shit," he said.

He was right. I loved it, and I didn't miss out on anything. In fact, I probably met more people than if I'd been sitting at one table. People came up and chatted, handed me drinks, food, asked about the equipment, even tried to hit on me. I had a great time.

While guests were on the dinner line, I noticed a few couples swing dancing to "This Love Of Mine," by Keely Smith. I hadn't counted on that. I quickly threw in Jo Ann Greer's "That Certain Feeling," followed by Linda Ronstadt's "Frenesi." More people started dancing. For camp value I threw in an Eydie Gorme song.

All of a sudden I saw a guy get off the dinner line and rush over to me. I thought he was going to tell me to stop playing such a cheesy song.

"Oh, my God! I LOVE you for playing my favorite singer," he said, then disappeared back on to the line. Even the gays loved it.

Blame it on the bossa nova.

After Wanda De Sah's "So Danço Samba" and Enrique Iglesias's "Ritmo Total," I switched gears to Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" in honor of the stunning day.



I had prepared a lengthy dance set that started slowly with Janet Jackson's "Nasty" (because it starts with "Gimme a beat!"), mixed into J-Lo's "Jenny From The Block" (in honor of the bride), and worked its way up the beats-per-minute spectrum.

But the festivities had gotten long, and people were not in a dancing mood. The wedding started at 3:00, and dinner was at 4:00. The dance portion had people up on the floor, but by about 6:00 people began leaving for their long drive home. Not only was the sun starting to wane, but the sky across the Sound took on a menacing look. Dancing resumed with a 70s mix of "Sir Duke," "Play That Funky Music," "Cuba," and "Funkytown."

People filtered out and the skies got dark quickly. Eleven-year-old moptop surfer dude Jake asked me to play "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones. "And can you play my dad's favorite song?" he asked.

"What's that?" I said.

"It's Raining Men." Interesting.

The wind picked up considerably. The outdoor tent was secured by flaps, and at around 7:00, the rain came down in torrents, biblical rain, accompanied by end-times thunder and lightning. The weather gods had given us their best wedding present; now it was time to show us they were back in charge.

A handful of people stayed around. The rain turned the ground to mud below our feet. My station was at the edge of the tent and quickly inched inward so I wouldn't get electrocuted. But the music never stopped. I could dance, I could jive, having the time of my life, just like a dancing queen. Then I had a thought. I searched my music library for songs containing the word "rain."

I started off with "It's Raining Men," followed by Dorothy Morrison's "Rain," The Cascades' "Rhythm of the Rain," and Eruption's "I Can't Stand The Rain." As the rain subsided and the moon appeared way, way, up high in the sky, people started moving toward the beach as King Harvest's "Dancing In The Moonlight" came on and dancing.



Everyone was mellow, the moon was high in the sky, the waves battered the shore, and I played the sublimely cheesy "You Light Up My Life." A few people grabbed candles off the table and formed a spontaneous chain that began swaying to the song. More people joined in, and we all sang the words at the top of our lungs. Inside the house, Jenn and Steve and some others slowly gathered at the window, watching us make fools of ourselves and singing to them as the song reached its hokey crescendo: "…it can't be wrong, when it feels so right, cause you, you liiiiiiiight up my-y-y-y-y, liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife."

It was like something out of a Lifetime movie. It was my favorite moment of the day.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter-—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And then one fine morning—-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

--The Great Gatsby