This Blog Was Supposed to be Called "Deejayz!"

However, that name was taken, so it's now called "Try To Smile More." Lame, but it's midnight here in Berlin and I'm exhausted. I have better things to do than try to come up with a snappy name for a blog; for instance, I haven't yet had my nightly therapy session with the Fernsehturm. Anyway, I'm just using this blog to update friends and family and do some writing about my travels as a reluctant, recalcitrant and generally grumpy "DJ."

So why did this brilliant blog name come to mind? It's because people always say I need to smile more when I'm DJ'ing. I'd describe my expression while DJ'ing as residing somewhere betwixt "constipated" and "furious." This seems to disturb people (including me, since girls won't flirt with me and promoters are always slipping laxatives into my payment envelopes). To clubbers, I don't look like what they want a DJ to look like:



Even if they eventually realize that I'm not the type to jump around and make devil horns with my hands, they at least want me to stop scowling and ruining the "vibe."

Indeed, clubbers may even go so far as to agitate for facial change while I'm DJ'ing. This occurred a few nights ago in Moscow, when a dancing Muscovite actually stopped her boogie in mid-step, demanded my attention and then angrily executed a "poke-fingers-in-cheeks-and-lift" maneuver in an effort to catalyze a smile on my disgruntled visage. Always a professional, I did my best, but it felt forced. The whole episode seemed highly ironic considering Moscow is not the most smile-drenched city on my itinerary (that honor goes to Graz, Austria).

Why don't I smile while I DJ? Good question. I've thought long and hard about it (that is, as long as it took me to stop typing just now, toast the kind Fernsehturm and quaff my customary bedtime tumbler of rote bete saft) and came up with two reasons. First, I remain a mediocre DJ who has to concentrate while mixing. I tend to drool when I concentrate, not smile. Secondly, and more importantly, I don't really smile when I'm doing something I don't want to do. I mean, does anyone? I don't smile during a prostate exam, for instance. So why must club-goers demand that I smile while I suffer through a night of "spinning?" Does the urologist do the poke-fingers-in-cheeks-and-lift maneuver while I'm drooling through a prostate exam? Yes, he does, but not in the same way as the dancing Muscovite.

Perhaps I should be more understanding. After all, clubs are temples of joyful catharsis where the human spirit soars to great heights on the wings of music and dance (etc.). Maybe each time I DJ, I become the rabbi of that temple, and instead of being a fun rabbi (please note the similarity to the "fun DJ")...



...I'm more like Rabbi Dresner, the rabbi at my temple when I was a kid. He was angry and always shouting about the wrongdoing of his congregation (and was eventually voted out of the temple by said congregation). Perhaps it's possible that I'm the Rabbi Dresner of each club I play?

That's all for now. I'll do a little highlights blog of my first weekend tomorrow. It should be chock full of complaining. Thanks for reading.