The Club.

Once, I responded to an advertisement in the newspaper: it was offering free psychoanalysis to individuals willing to work with a trainee psychoanalyst (who would, of course, be working under the supervision of a experienced practitioner). I went to the local university that was hosting it. I then spoke with the trainee therapist for about two hours straight. At some point point he seemed confounded by what I was saying, so he called in his supervisor. That man then conversed with me for three hours.

At the end of this time, I finally asked him what he thought of me, and why the previous therapist needed to hand me off to him. The wizened doctor looked at me from behind a beard and thick-rimmed glasses, then said that I was an anomaly — that I was the kind of patient you only hear whispered about. I asked why. He looked at his notes, then looked back up at me, then said something I’ll never forget:

“Son: at a subconscious level, you wish to go to the club. You want to listen to loud music and dance and have a good time.”

I nodded, then he continued:

“But at a higher level, your rational brain — it also wishes to go to the club.”

He paused, and looked into space, before finally remarking:

“Each and every level of your mind is in perfect lockstep. Each clamors for the same thing: clubbing. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

He paused again.

“I can’t keep you here any longer, son. It would be unfair — you might be the only man who fully knows himself…. but you can’t be at peace here. This… This office?”, he said, stopping briefly, before saying, “It is far removed from the club.”

He stood up, opened the door to his office, and gestured for me to leave. As I did, a single tear rolled down his cheek. He bade me the best, then told me to enjoy the club.

The whole experience was a waste of time. I already knew what he told me.

My devotion to the club is legendary. Many have called my dedication to clubbing “Abrahamic” in nature. And I agree with that: when I am in the club, the DJ is my pope. I visit the club five times a day. And I consider the bottle girls to be bearers of the Ark of My Covenant: sparklers attached to Champagne bottles.

None of this is a joke. I mean every word: for example, in the process of visiting the club five times a day, I often have to visit at off-hours, like lunch or breakfast time. I did this at one club in Brooklyn so frequently that the bouncers thought I was the owner of the business. Eventually, they gave me my own key to the building under the assumption that I only asked the security team for admittance to the building because I had lost my previous key.

At one club I frequented five times a day in Rio de Janiero, the bouncers were so convinced that I owned the place that they started giving me a portion of the money they collected at the door. They did so without me asking for it. I used the money to pay rent, quit my job, and focus on clubbing full-time.

And again: the DJ is my pope. When he says “put your hands up”, mine go up. When he asks who is single, I go nuts, as I am single. And I shall remain that way: I have taken a vow of celibacy. I do not need physical companionship as I am married to the Club. I consider myself to be the member of a monastic order and my monastery is the table I am dancing on top of each night.

My devotion to clubbing has attracted multitudes of people to me; I have many admirers and no enemies.

I also have patrons: multiple governments have contracted with me to teach their citizens — or citizens of other counties who they believe to be in need — how to club.

On December 26th, 1992, the State Department put me on a plane to Moscow, where I was given one mission: teach the Russians how to dance. As the Soviet Union dissolved around me, I used only the sheer force of my will to convince a cafe owner to throw out the tables that used to inhabit his restaurant and replace them with nothing but a single DJ booth. He spoke no English; I was forced to communicate with him solely through dance.

That night, I walked into Red Square, mingled among the crowds, and danced. Though I did not speak Russian, the newly liberated citizenry understood what my moves meant. They followed me to the cafe, had which became the Russian Federation’s first nightclub earlier that day. I then deputized the Cafe owner to be the DJ on an emergency basis. At this point, I handed him the portable turntables I had been carrying with me in a suitcase.

He spun for fourteen straight hours before the sheer force of the cafe’s sound-system drew in so much electricity that it caused a city-wide blackout.

The Iraqi government sent me to Mosul after they re-took it from ISIS in 2017. I hosted a rave in the ruins of Nineveh, which sits across from the city proper. The city is now known as the nightlife capital of the Levant. They say that only 300 people were at my rave, but each became a DJ afterwards.

I also celebrate the High Holidays of Clubbing. Each year, I make a pilgrimage to the most sacred sites of clubbing: the club in Amsterdam where Tiesto played his first set, the converted freight warehouse in Detroit where the first techno-beat was played, and the abandoned subway station in Bucharest where Avicii is said to have bought bottle service for 10,000 people using only ten American dollars.

Some years I also go to Berghain: last time I visited, the legendary doorman Sven Marquardt saw me in line, directed everyone else to leave, and had drinks with me alone in the club as Armin Van Buren spun beats for us.

Now, I enjoyed this for a moment. But then I stood up and told Sven the truth — that while I appreciated this tribute, the club is not meant to hogged. It is meant to be shared. I walked to the front door, swung it open, and let the crowd pour in. At first there was panic in Sven’s eyes — then I watched them grow wide and I saw him smile for the first time in the seventeen years that I had known him for. He finally understood what it meant to club.

I share these stories with you to remind you of one thing — no matter who you are, or where you are, or what you believe you are, there is something you must know: it is time to go. Time to go to the club.