Ray Rivera

You can probably tell by the bags under my eyes, I have a hard time sleeping. Honestly, it's been a rough year. I go to counseling. I think it's more the fact that I don't take anything for granted anymore. Sometimes my son will want to do something or my wife will want to do something. I'm just so tired. Now I make the time to actually say, "Okay. You know what? Let's go ahead and go." On being a straight DJ getting into gay nightclub scene I don't know if you've ever heard of Club Firestone. It was probably one of the biggest clubs back in about the early 90s. Probably the biggest nightclub in Orlando. I started my residency there in 1999. I was doing the Latin night, which there was three rooms just like Pulse. You had salsa ring and bachata. The owner decided to put me on Saturday night, which was their gay night. That first night, I was really just nervous. Then when I got home, I told my wife how it went. She said, "See, I knew you were going to do fine." It baffled my mind that the first night that I started doing the gay night, that it was all about just dancing and having a good time. I had done straight clubs before and stuff like that. There's a lot of BS that comes with when you're doing a straight club because now guys are fighting over their girlfriends or girls are fighting over their boyfriends, but doing that, doing the Saturday night ... Wow. Everybody was dancing and having a good time. It didn't matter if I had played Beyonce or Destiny's Child back then or Jay-Z. It didn't matter. We were all having a great time. Friends schooled me on how the club is. You get a lot of stereotypes. When people go to a gay club, but for me it was like once they found out I was straight and I was married, "Oh, okay. Let me buy you a drink." They'd buy me a drink and then we'd talk. Then they'd meet my wife and then we're all talking. The next thing I know, we're all hanging out the next weekend at the club. I'd rather go to a gay club and hang out with my wife and friends than go to a straight club. ****************** Ray Rivera was the DJ playing the night of the Pulse shooting Instructions/Permissions *Interviews are edited and condensed *Tag @dearworld on any social/digital use. We are @dearworld on Instagram/Twitter and we are at *Facebook.com/dearworld *Credit Dear World/Daymon Gardner for portrait