LET'S GO TO THE HOP AND STARE AT THE DJ

I think last week was the busiest week

I've ever had.

I deejayed five nights in a row in four different locations.

Friday night was fun because I was basically playing for a bunch of people the same age as me and they decided they wanted to play an impromptu game of "Stump The DJ".

It goes like this: They keep making request after request after request, trying to think of something that I didn't have.

I had all but one song. And that was "Run For The Hills" by Iron Maiden.

Yes. It was that kind of night.

But fun. I got to play songs that I've never played in a DJ booth before and the people were all super fun and nice.

It was nights like that which made me remember why I became a DJ in the first place 20 years ago.

Saturday night?

The complete fucking opposite.

I was supposed to be off on Saturday night and had two phone calls with people wanting me to come work.

I took the $400 gig over the $100 gig.

The $400 gig sounded simple ... an old-fashioned sock hop in a little town about 40 miles from here.

It was a fund-raiser for the Cancer Society and was taking part in a Recreation Center.

I got directions to the place and headed out.

Once I found the place, my heart sunk.

I guess the first thing that tipped me off on the way the night was going to go was the fact that there was no doorknob on the door that everyone entered through.

You had to tug a piece of rope to get in the building.

Upon entering this decrepit building, the first thing that you noticed is that it smelled like a combination of mildew and dirty sweat socks.

And there was no air conditioning. Yeah. That was painfully obvious when you walked in and were hit with a wave of stinky heat.

The people in charge were pretty mean too. I tried making jokes with them and they just stared at me.

Now.

In my dwindling infinite wisdom, I had decided that I was going to deejay this sock hop "in character".

I was going to be "Big Daddy".

I wore a black t-shirt, rolled my jeans up, wore white socks and black dress shoes and sunglasses.

Greased the hair back and had a little ducktail in the back.

And adopted a Brooklyn accent that was a cross between Sylvester Stallone, Andrew "Dice" Clay, Bowser from Sha Na Na and the Sopranos.

I was in the zone.

Trouble was ... the 20 people that showed up for this fund-raiser just weren't into a DJ that was trying to be a character.

I was set up on one side of the gymnasium and there were chairs lining the wall on the other side of the gymnasium.

The 20 people all sat in their chairs and stared at me while I acted like an idiot, trying to use as many 50's-style sayings as I could.

"52 Skiddoo" was about the only one I could think of. And I have no idea what that even means.

The only other one I could think of was ... and this was a doozy ... "If you people don't dance, I'm going to give you a knuckle sandwich."

Now then ... it's usually best for a DJ to not threaten to physically harm the guests at an event.

Especially when it's a fund-raiser attended by a bunch of beat-up Ford pick-up driving rednecks.

But I couldn't think of any other sayings.

And by God ... it made the people dance.

However, they were dumbfounded as to why I was acting like a really old Fonzie so I ended up dropping the whole facade after about an hour of chewing the gum with my mouth open wide and doing a deep, stupid laugh after everything I said.

But by then about a quarter of the people had left.

Yes ... at 9 p.m. I was playing music to 15 people.

The organizer of the event was panicking because nobody was pulling up into the parking lot, tugging on the mildewed rope and coming in to dance.

I asked her if she had promoted the event at all and she said "no".

Duh, lady.

Big assed DUH.

You kinda have to let people know when you're going to be doing something if you want them to show up.

The good news is that she works for a pretty large local corporation who invested $3,000 into the event and I was one of the few expenses that they had.

So in the end, they made $2,400.

And I ended up not having to play the 50s music that nobody wanted to hear and playing the crap that rednecks like to hear in small towns ... the Electric Slide and the Cha-Cha Slide.

Over and over again.

We wrapped it up an hour earlier than we thought we would ... 11 pm rather than midnight.

And me ... being Mr. Nice Guy ... donated half of my $400 to the Cancer Society in an effort to help them out.

It took me about half an hour to tear everything down and load it into the van, leaving me and the organizer there alone.

As we left, she shut off all the lights.

And me, being Mr. Nice Guy ... tied the rope shut for her.