As our economy crumbles, many of us are resisting the urge to be independent.

We're looking to family and tradition to keep us safe and grounded in turbulent times.

Commentator Scott Simpson though, isn't having any of it. He'll forever be his own man.

My brother is a shoe store DJ. My father is a shoe store DJ. My grandfather was a shoe store DJ.

The day I left the trade, some folks in my family cursed me. But now I'm having the last laugh.

Yesterday I went down to local 1215, the Union Hall where my father and brother shoot

pool and wait all day for work. That's colleague DJ Whizzy is there.

I knew there was trouble when a deed is laid off their daytime DJ, he says.

I mean sure, we knew that the double deck days at the camper store were over,

but nobody thought it would get this bad.

My brother DJ master tracks shouts from across the room.

Hey Whizzy, tell him about the MP3 players. Tell him about how store managers think they can

replace flesh and blood DJs with some garbage playlist filled with nothing but old daft punk.

My brother doesn't address me directly. He won't talk to me anymore. Not since the day I refused

to cover a gig form over at Nike Town Glendale. I couldn't do it. I'd gotten off a slow,

joyless shift at the Puma outlet. Took a look at the turntable in the back seat of my Suzuki

Samurai and realized it wasn't the life for me. Unlike the rest of my family, she stored DJing

just as in my blood. My brother was pretty mad, but when my father heard ad taken off the giant

headphones for good, his reaction was more mellow. Time was, a man couldn't buy a pair of loafers

without some sort of modern musical accompaniment, he tells me. Nowadays people don't seem to care.

They go in, come out with new sneakers, and hardly seem to miss the Diplo MIA 12-inch remix record I

would have played for them. Heck boy, you never could beat match with a lick anyhow, could you?

...