This past weekend I went to a concert. One of those outdoor ones in Brooklyn that are more about the clothes and the playing dodgeball in cutoffs than the music. Apart from the heat and the usual existential dread, I found this day to be the worst day of my life. To date I have never felt as awful and punished and futile and lame as I did that day, including the time I got a root canal and the novocaine didn’t work. This was the worst day of my existence thanks to one man: The Fucking DJ.

I understand mashups used to be fun. Everyone loved them because it was easy listening. You recognized all the songs, and OMG they were combined with other songs!!111!! I’m not going to lie, my mind was truly blown the first time I heard Mr. Dibbs spin “War Pigs” and “Master of Puppets” into a hip hop set … That was 8 years ago.

Now you hear Girl Talk in grocery stores, or you will soon. That guy is talented and he did some fun shit, but his last record should have been the last mashup ever recorded. Ever. Leave it to Williamsburg to not know when something’s done, because this DJ acted like he invented the fuckin’ concept, and what’s more, that people actually wanted to hear it.

He must have heard a Girl Talk album and thought “IMA DO THAT” except he fucked it up. He did nothing but take great songs and put them to “classics” like “The Safety Dance” and “Free Your Mind”. It was fucking awful, and it ruined an entire day. Beer tasted terrible, my clothes felt like poison, and I wanted to cry. I think I broke down momentarily in the port-o-potty, where I thought I was safe…but because of the architecture of the buildings around the park, it sounded like the shitty DJ was always right next to me saying, “Check it out brah, im going to mix Weezer with Journey, its going to Epic brah! Epic! …you have any blow?”, even in the port o potty. I wanted death, but death did not come. I have no mouth, and I must scream.

Just as I was about to throw in the towel, Prince Paul took the stage.

As Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” rang out, the sun finally gave up and started packing it in for the night. I felt like I had been handed a new soul. All that time wading through putrid shit in the hot sun, and I was rewarded at the end by a cool breeze and one of the greatest songs ever made. I felt new, alive. I was Andy DuFrane after he made it out of Shawshank. I danced like an asshole, and the hits kept comin…Black Sheep, M.O.P’s “Ante Up”, Dead Prez’ “Hip Hop”, Wu Tang Clan’s “Ain’t Nothin Ta Fuck With”…all the hip hop classics you could ever think of, and they didn’t need to be set to La Bouche or whatever to be palatable. I felt new.

As my emotional pendulum swung from one extreme to the other, I was able (for once) to pick up a theme in my life…at least at the moment. I’m switching. Everything is changing for me. 90% of my life will be different by September 1st.

We got a new place. Its not in Queens. Its in Brooklyn, and not even in a nice area, at all. But it’s HUGE, and amazing. I am excited for it, but if there existed a polar opposite to my ridiculously safe and clean neighborhood in Queens, its the neighborhood we’re moving to. Bed-Stuy. Biggie’s neighborhood. It’s not the ‘hood of yore, shots don’t ring out as much, but its still rough. I know we’ll be OK, but it’s going to be a change. A big change, from one extreme to the other.

Before that though, its a new job. I’m leaving my first job out of college at the company I’ve worked at for 3 years. I got an offer from some friends at another huge record company to come and do similar stuff to what I’ve been doing for the last 18 months. The only differences are important ones – more responsibility, more creativity, more room to grow, and a little bit more money.

I’ve gotten comfortable where I am. Too comfortable. An overdose on comfort is stagnation. And more than once I’ve found myself idle, uninspired and unmotivated at my current job. Same subway stop, same stairs, same shitty delis for lunch. Same dude at the reception desk, same posters on the walls. It stopped doing anything for me, which is why I started to keep my eyes open to new possibilities. I wanted a change, and I set myself up to get one. It took a little while, but my Way Out came to me through some prior connections, and I grabbed on.

So I’m jumping to another major label. One more of the “Big Four”…somehow. And yeah, HOW THE FUCK DO I STILL HAVE A JOB? In times like this when no one has a job, in a business where layoffs are common, I’ve managed to stay alive. I’m not bragging I’m just stunned. My good fortune is not lost on me. I am god damn lucky.

So my fucked up journey here has come to an end. From a perpetually hungover receptionist, to a bored as hell assistant in Advertising (how i didn’t get fired for incompetence is beyond me), to an intrigued assistant in “Interactive Marketing”, to the esoteric plateau of “Content Manager”, its been a bizarre ride. If 20 year-old-Chuck Palahniuk-reading Me could see Me now, he’d slap the shit out of me, call me a sell-out, and then ask me to hook him up with concert tickets and free CDs.

So its on to another adventure I guess. Maybe I’m puffing this up and it won’t be that different, but I think there will be some distinct “rug flying out from underneath me” moments in the very near future. It got hot and the music sucked, then Jackson Five came on. I hope this next step is as profound and renewing as that was.

See you on the way back.