Howard Magazine

Doug Sandler recalls feeling pretty cocky as he boarded his flight to New Orleans for an all-expense-paid weekend as entertainer at an upscale Bar Mitzvah in the nation's jazz capital.
He didn't know many disc jockeys who were flown halfway across the country to work a party. Yes, sir, he thought, he was making a beeline straight to the top.
But then something unexpected happened at the party. He couldn't engage the crowd. Kids started throwing food. THey wouldn't listen to him. It was, in a word, a disaster.
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Slate Magazine

I was getting ready for my gig as a "motivational dancer" at a bar mitzvah party when my daughter, who at age 14 has just completed her year on the bar and bat mitzvah circuit, decided to give me some advice. "Don't do this," she said, as she shook her torso in a shimmy. "And don't do this," she said, bouncing to the pony. "And whatever you do, don't do this," she said, passing her first two fingers in a V across her eyes (think John Travolta's dance scene in Pulp Fiction). Banning my entire repertoire was necessary, she explained, "because your old-people moves are going to make everyone uncomfortable." Read more...

Ellicott City Review

Doug Sandler has already acheived one of his life's main ambitions. THe father of two young adolescents, not only is he doing a job he loves, but his work is even considered cool by his kids.
"I know all the music. I'm hip to my daughter, and she's almost 14," he said. "I don't think that I'm an embarrassment to my kids, which has been my lifelong goal."
Most teenagers think that their parents are anything but cool, but Sandler does have a leg-up on other Howard County parents with teens at home. Read more...

On the Cover of the Washington Post

My family knew I was losing it when I started growing grass.
No, not the mind-altering kind. Not even the suburban homeowner kind. I was growing wheatgrass to use in centerpieces for my daughter's bat mitzvah. A bat mitzvah -- bar mitzvah for boys -- marks the entry of 13-year-olds into Jewish adulthood. It has also evolved -- mutated might be more accurate -- into the occasion for a celebratory extravaganza.
Which explains the wheatgrass: Despite my determination to resist, I found myself caught in the iron grip of bat mitzvah mania. Read more...

A One Man Show-The Jeffersonian

Like is just one party after another for Owings Mills resident Doug Sandler.
That's because Sandler provides enternainment at parties, under the name of D.J. Doug Fast Forward Entertainment-although he does more then spin disks.
Sandler performs at corporate parties, but most often kids are Sandler's audience.
He has created a three-part program "One is his version of "Let's make a deal." Another he calls"High Energy". Read more...

Big Business of B'nai Mitzvah-The Jewish Times

Driving down Crondall Lane in Owings Mills, the eye spots business park after business park dotting the suburban landscape. It's hard to imagine that inside one of these unassuming, warehouse-style buildings lies the studio of party planners Zozzie and Heidi, who estimate 75 percent of their business is planning b'nai mitzvah .
Inside the high-ceilinged, box-like structure are rows of party ideas. There are floor-to-ceiling boxes filled and labeled with such themes as sports and music. Read more...