I. Hate. Most. Things.

Back when I lived in D.C, DJing is what kept me creatively spry while simultaneously crucifying my immune system by subtracting sleep and superseding it with Sparks. It always seemed like when the stresses of climate change reporting and diving through energy legislation were about to end me, my DJ responsibilities would save the day. Thursday nights on the second floor of Rock and Roll Hotel. Friday nights on stage at The Red and the Black. And when-the-fuck-ever at DC9, Saint-Ex and Marx Cafe.

But when I moved to Brooklyn, I had to start from scratch.

Shortly after arriving here, I was DJing a bi-montly dance party in north Greenpoint at t.b.d, but I was eventually pushed out of the night due to the inability to get natural foot traffic to the bar and the desire of the (incredibly nice) owners to randomly cancel my soirees in lieu of private parties. Where it wouldn't be uncommon to get 60 people at the Hotel, I was having a difficult time finding a dozen kids to brave the G train to come dancing.

Then, I'd get the occasionally odd DJ gig. I split the decks with Jen at Lolita. I DJed out of a kitchen of an enormous apartment in the FiDi for a Barack Obama / MoveOn.org fundraiser shortly before the presidential election. My turntables were practically in the sink; my laptop covered in miscellaneous pieces of amuse bouche. Although these gigs were fun, they weren't stable, nor were they something I could truly call my own.

Last Wednesday, an unexpected bomb found its way into my mailbox via the booking agent for K&M Bar in Williamsburg, asking if I'd be able to spin on Friday. It took me all of ten minutes to say yes, and I immediately worked on asyncing (yes, that's what Traktor calls it) new material and scouring the blogs for new gems I'd missed since the last time I had played out in April.

With sweaty palms and a tremor that could be only quelled by copious amounts of Woodchuck, I wired up into the mixer at 10 p.m.

For the first couple of hours, I spent my time reacquainting myself to the software and steadying my beatmatching. I was surprised with how many of my friends came out to the bar, and I kept playing and playing and playing, plucking out gems designed to make friends of mine happy. The LK for John. Friendly Fires for Andrew. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart for Ty. The Whip for me. Phoenix for, well, everybody else in the bar with good taste.

At some point around 12:30 though, I played "Hearts on Fire" by Cut Copy, and I had cut the song to eschew the 10-second synthesizer introduction. When the vocals immediately popped in, the crowd reacted with a cult-like precision: immediate cheering, and rowdy dancing. I'm not exactly sure when the enormous throng of people showed up, but everybody in the bar seemed elated and was dancing their asses off. I was making people dance, and I didn't want it to end.

4:30 a.m. The bar was finally silenced by the brightening of the house lights. I sat at the bar with a nightcap while "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" played all the other patrons out the door and into their beds. It'd take another hour for the adrenaline to stop surging through my veins in order for me to fall asleep.

Everything was perfect. Except when I dropped the beat in the middle of "Common People," which drove a British hipster mad. "You can't do that to Pulp," he said. "Do it again."

I really hope my set at K&M will mean my eventual return to a regular DJ night. I've got a couple other dance parties in September (Glasslands on the 16th, Legion on the 24th) so we'll see what happens.

To New York, I say: come out and dance. Brooklyn needs your gyrations; it needs you to swoon to Jens Lekman and freak out to Calvin Harris (but not the new stuff - dear God, the new record is worse than Fred Thompson's run at the presidency). Between the new job and a return to the DJ booth, I'm hoping that this is my Brooklyn renaissance.