 I waited anxiously for Ryan's arrival at an unusually packed museum cafe. Apparently, meeting at a museum cafe during lunch rush for an interview isn't exactly the smartest thing to do. Litters of rambunctious children filled the cafe while parents waited in a ridiculously long line to order obscenely overpriced chicken tenders and fries. I scanned over the cafe looking for someone who seemed lost and out of place. My nerves were on overdrive as if I was waiting for a blind date. Being that I had never met Ryan before and had absolutely no clue what he looked like, my situation was actually pretty close to a blind-date-encounter-crisis. I should've told him that I would be at a table reading a copy of Nikki Giovanni's Love Poems using a red rose as a bookmark and drinking a bottle of Dasani water. Unfortunately, I simply told him that I had dread locks, under the naive assumption that I would be the only dreaded girl there. As my luck would have it, there was another girl with dreads there who looked like she could've been a close relative of mine, except for the fact that she was wearing an obnoxiously orange fleece vest... not a fashion statement I would ever make.
By this time, my nerves were hyperactive, so I went outside to deeply inhale some fresh air. I quickly came to the realization that, downtown-air isn't all that fresh, so I immediately headed back inside. On my way in, I saw a handsome young man, carrying a binder and looking like he just got dropped of in the middle of the Appalachians without a compass or canteen, lost as all hell. This had to be Ryan. He was much more handsome than I had imagined. He looked fashionable--not trendy, good-looking--not pretty, urban savvy--not snobby. I introduced myself to him and invited him outside, being that I got the boot from the cafe for being a loitering-non-customer. We sat at a quiet park across the street, away from the bustle of the museum. I set my handy voice recorder down and we began. I came to learn that Ryan's talent is rooted beyond his good looks and takes the form of an amazing DJ marked with sincere love for the art. Ryan bought his first record in 1999, Notorious BIG's Juicy, and began spinning hip-hop.
This didn't come as a surprise to me, since turntablism is most commonly associated with hip-hop and is one of the four elements of hip-hop culture. Reckless Ryan's hip-hop stint was short-lived as he discovered the beauty of everything electronic. Because of the rising popularity of electronic music in the mid-to-late nineties, mostly occurring in the underground scene, Ryan had a chance to develop in an environment still untainted by the mainstream.
He stayed up and practiced mixing and scratching techniques until the wee hours of the morning, often missing his first class the next day. Learning techniques wasn't easy, but it wasn't terribly difficult either. Because Ryan was determined, motivated and most of all, patient, learning to spin records was fun and exciting. I personally always thought that spinning was easy. "All you have to do is turn the damn machine on and let the record play." WRONG. You have to know and understand the rhythm and pace of one song in order to coherently fade it into another. You have to be able to listen to two songs at the same time in order to mix them well and avoid a crowd of dancers booing because you lost the rhythm. I tried playing with my brother's turntables once and got so pissed off that I wanted to hold the record over a flaming gas stove to watch it melt slowly into tar, gaining the same pleasure that I would if I made a Barbie skewer and barbecued her in my back yard.
Luckily, Ryan had no problem in the motivation category. He found that because he loved music so much and the art of DJing itself, patience came naturally. He wanted it badly...so he tried mighty hard to become good at it. And he definitely completed his mission. Within the first year of Ryan's DJ career, he began spinning at local clubs and was soon approached by two KSJS DJs who invited him to spin on their show. From there, the rest is history. Ryan now has a radio show with partner Scott Delara (every Thursday night from 6-10pm) and they've been spinning together for KSJS since 2000. Unlike many other radio DJs, who focus mainly on the dialogue aspect of their shows, Ryan actually spins during his show, bringing literal meaning to the phrase, "Reckless Ryan on the one's and two's". During the show, Ryan does it all, spins, talks to callers, and chats with internet listeners online. And believe it or not, Ryan is also a full time student (one of the prerequisites to be a KSJS DJ). How does he do it? Well, it's a struggle, but not anything beyond his balancing abilities. During the time Ryan isn't playing a gig at a club, dominating the radio waves with his show, or putting on KSJS events, he's bound to his books, studying his ass off.
I had the opportunity to watch Ryan in action at The Backbeat in Santa Clara. The Backbeat (formerly known as Bullwinkle's) is an unusually swanky club venue, complete with sophisticated retro furniture and crazy fluorescent light creations (exponentially more interesting than your usual Budlight sign at the neighborhood dive bar). The crowd that night conveyed the happiest vibe ever which made people-watching extremely entertaining. Ryan took hold of the tables and the crowd at 1am. He looked like a hero behind the turntables, dominating his equipment, interacting with the dance kids, and letting the music take control. He used a clever mix of classic tracks and electronic beats, bringing Prince and Michael Jackson songs to a new level. The crowd loved Ryan, screaming and yelling every time he brought the beat back in after a climaxing build up and pumped his fists out at them. I watched him enjoy the crowd just as much as they enjoyed him, maintaining a healthy relationship as they fed each other love through music and dance. This is exactly what Ryan believes is most important to spinning. "You have to play music you love...if you don't like the music you're spinning, neither will the crowd. If you love the music, the crowd will see that, and maybe feel it too." His greatest joy is in connecting with the crowd and watching them have fun to the music he's spinning. The crowd inspires him, makes him want to keep doing what he's doing, and get better and better at it in the future. 
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