flying to nyc from the uk again.
flying to nyc from the uk again.
when i was growing up we were very poor, so air travel was something
that happened maybe every 5 years or so, and only then when one
of my grandparents was paying.
growing up in connecticut i remember having a relatively wealthy girlfriend when i was 19. she
flew back and forth to france and california a lot, and i remember being
sorely envious of the fact that she flew on planes at least 2 or 3 times a year, which seemed like obscene excess to me at the time.
i was picking her up at the airport one time and i was amazed
that it was 5pm and she was in new york, but that earlier in the day she'd
been in paris.
it seemed like a magic trick, and even though i understood the idea and logistics of international
jet travel i was still kind of baffled by the fact that someone could start the day
on one continent and finish the day on a completely different continent.
it almost seemed like a form of alchemy, turning humans into sub-atomic particles and shuttling them across thousands of miles during the same 12 hour period.
and now i'm a jaded world traveller.
i'm ashamed to say that(the jaded part), but it's true. and i'm not looking for sympathy or understanding, for
who in their right mind would extend sympathy to a guy who travels around the world
and gets to play music?
if i worked at arby's cleaning the grease traps i'd be looking for sympathy.
but i'm not deserving of sympathy, nor am i looking for it.
i'm just commenting on how odd it is that when i was growing up i saw international travel
and airports and hotels and airplanes and other languages and other countries as being
inherently and unspeakably glamorous.
sort of like when homer wins a trip for the family to any of the 48 states. marge doesn't
want to go, and homer says, basically, 'i want to watch the news on a different channel,
i'm tired of foot long sandwiches, i want to eat hoagies and subs and heroes. why won't
you let me live, marge?'
that's sort of how i felt when i was growing up, that channel 2 news in connecticut was mundane, but channel 6 news
in sacramento was glamorous. or to watch tv news in the uk? or france? unspeakably glamorous,
almost terrifyingly glamorous.
i remember my first trip to france(my first trip to europe). it was 1987 and my girlfriend at the time
and i were going to live in paris for the summer.
i was excited for about a year beforehand. i got a bunch of french stickers and put them on
common things around the house('fenetre', 'toillette', etc). and when we finally got to paris
i had panic attacks because everything was so different and so foreign and i had never left
the united states and i was convinced that i would be found out as a hayseed/rube/hick from the u.s and a. i remember seeing the champs-elysees the morning we arrived
and i couldn't believe how foreign and ancient and terrifying it seemed.
once the panic abated the champs-elysees no longer seemed foreign and ancient and terrifying, but
at first it was the embodiement of everything i hadn't grown up with, not to mention everything that seemed wealthier and more sophisticated and older and deeper and more interesting than anything i'd ever had access to.
the champs-elysees(and all of paris) seemed like the worlds most sophisticated club, and i was just some dirty pissant american there to sully it with my ignorant provincialism.
the irony in all of this was that i spent a lot of my childhood in manhattan in the 70's and 80's.
and manhattan in the 70's and 80's was truly dangerous and truly terrifying. but the danger
and terror of manhattan were familiar entities, whereas the newness and foreignness
of france(or the uk, or germany, my 2nd and 3rd trips out of the country)were terrifying in
their unfamiliarity.
and now i'm a jaded world traveller. maybe 'jaded' is the wrong word. i still love
certain things about travelling. i'm still in awe when i see paris in the morning, at how beautiful
it is.
i'm still amazed when i look up at edinburgh castle and arthur's seat.
i'm still amazed by gigantic mountains and thunderstorms from 35,000 feet and dinosaur sized bats in australia and the hermitage and rome and etc and etc.
travel can still stun me with it's beauty, but rarely with it's foreign-ness.
and now you're wondering, if you've read this far, what i'm leading to.
and i'm sorry to disappoint you, but i'm not leading to anything.
i'm just commenting(to myself, at this point, i'm guessing)on how strange it is to be a fairly
jaded world-traveller who once was a terrified, provincial, and poverty stricken kid from connecticut.
it's a weird dichotomy, and i still haven't made sense of it, even after 18 years of fairly constant
travel.
ok, that's it. time to go be a jaded traveller and drink o.j and read a f. paul wilson book and watch '30 rock' while flying past reykjavik.
thanks for listening.
moby
thanks for many vocabularies, the jaded traveller !
How interesting to hear that Moby's first trip abroad was to Paris, (1987 isn't so old, though) and he's kept such fresh, so called, culture shock in him no matter how modestly he'd grown up. In general culture shock offers much good to an individual imo. I appreciate the way how he had perceived air travel and his sensibility how he catches the glamour of Paris. This sensation, I share very much.
ps: Having 2 time zones within a country is absolutely glamorous too. I like his 'Flying over the date line' humm.
thanks for many vocabularies, the jaded traveller !
How interesting to hear that Moby's first trip abroad was to Paris, (1987 isn't so old, though) and he's kept such fresh, so called, culture shock in him no matter how modestly he'd grown up. In general culture shock offers much good to an individual imo. I appreciate the way how he had perceived air travel and his sensibility how he catches the glamour of Paris. This sensation, I share very much.
ps: Having 2 time zones within a country is absolutely glamorous too. I like his 'Flying over the date line' humm.
thanks for many vocabularies, the jaded traveller !
How interesting to hear that Moby's first trip abroad was to Paris, (1987 isn't so old, though) and he's kept such fresh, so called, culture shock in him no matter how modestly he'd grown up. In general culture shock offers much good to an individual imo. I appreciate the way how he had perceived air travel and his sensibility how he catches the glamour of Paris. This sensation, I share very much.
ps: Having 2 time zones within a country is absolutely glamorous too. I like his 'Flying over the date line' humm.
Re: thanks for many vocabularies, the jaded traveller !
As always, Moby is eloquent: even when in the midst of an international flight.
Having had my more-than-fair share of travel -- I'd say Moby caught this dead-on.
From my side, at least the way I see it: 'jaded' is probably the wrong word. It's not so much that you get jaded with traveling ... it's that you get tired of *how* you travel. I don't necessarily mean the joys that come with airports, security checks & whatnot ... rather, what happens when you get to where you going. Are you there to take your time, explore and absorb the culture? Or, are you taking a cab to a hotel, doing what you came to do, and then going home the next day?
There's only so much 'business travel' one has to do to realize it's anything than glamourous. Even though Moby's trips are bound to be more fun than mine (playing music, etc..), I'd still call that more 'work' than vacation travel.
My $.02.
Moby: Thanks for the great music!
:)
oh I've loved your music since I was like 13 years old :)
I guess I was quite obssessed at that age and it would've been dangerous if I had written anything to you back then x)
but now that things have tammed a bit, I can safely say I'm so glad to be here reading this wonderfully interesting posts of you :)
I like the way you write.
I like the things you say.
n' I like your music.
that simpsons reference made me smile widely
as so did the description of what the champs-elysees looked like to you the first time you were there.
:)
Flying from Spain
Next month I'll fly to a foreign country for the first time in mi life and I'm really excited. It seems so weird that I'll cath a plane in Barcelona and an hour later everyboy around me will speak only in English. It seems like magic.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Moby. You're very human.
"Donde terminan las palabras, empieza la música", R. Wagner.
From Argentina
Hi moby (sorry but my english is very bad) it´s the first once that i write.
I only want say that you are the best of the best and
I'm waiting to see you soon in argentina!!!!
Saludos a todos desde el fin del mundo y arriba MOBY!!!
FPW
Ha! what an odd coincidence, directly before navigating to your journal (which I'm reading for the first time) I'd just received a mail from F Paul Wilson, a few lines actually, after I'd sent him fan mail about how I liked his stories, especially "The Barrens".
Keep on trucking!
From Air To Land To Deep Blue Sea.
Tonight I saw the movie Sharkwater, This movie ought to be viewed by everone! There should be legislation that makes it mandatory viewing in all schools and universities worldwide. Because they will shape our future, all kindergartners through college-aged students need to be the major target audience! However, it would not hurt to target the adult audience as well. I first heard of shark finning in the abstract sense several years ago; but had no idea the scale on which it was occuring until I viewed this film. It is almost unbelievable what out of ignorance people are willing to do in the name of greed and easy money. This practice needs to be halted; and like, yesterday; especially if we want to have a tomorrow.
Not only is this moving and educational, Moby's music accentuates the beauty of our oceanic life. PLEASE see this movie you have nothing to lose and a mind full of knowledge to gain, and an affinity of love yearning deep within our souls to become one...
Bijoux.
friends from Russia
Dear Mr. Moby
On behalf of all your fans in Russia - thank you for everything you’ve done to delight the reading public! Unfortunately, not all of your fans know foreign languages, so we, Russian translators, have undertaken to translate your pieces into Russian and publish them in the Russian blogosphere in order to allow those who aren’t strong in foreign languages to read the best translations of your blog posts. We hope you won’t object, as this is a great opportunity to delight a wider audience!
Sincerely,
TransLink Agency
Translators from Russia
I love airports
The idea that everyone you see at the airport is in one place near you and soon would all be spread out a;; across the entire globe. I think that's pretty neat. Turbulence still sux tho.
www.myspace.com/kurtlockwood
List??
Dear Mo!
dearest sweetest most gorgeous, Mo!! *snugglez*
Could you by any chance list the countries you have traveled to??? and tell us what are your favorites! That would be wonderfull!
Love Vix xxxxxxx
PS
you should see some of my travel stories in my journal!!
*wink*
http://victoriab.blogware.com/blog
Hi,
I find this story sweet and funny...
shit
I always wondered how crazy it was that you could be in one place in the morning and another in the afternoon ! its so crazy ! he he ..
"...and dinosaur sized bats in australia"
I'd love to know when you are next going to be coming down this way!!!
Karma
hi moby
thanks for checking things out. hope you felt the good karma. you really seemed to understand my creative efforts. and for that alone, i thank you.
best
charlie h.
and another thing...
I've been reading all about you, because your life is fascinating and chaotic and beautiful. I've been reading your journal for a few weeks, wondering when the best opportunity to speak up would be. Sometimes I would go so far as to write out a comment, only to leave the page without letting it go through. I'm fearful.
When I'm in another world I think that you and I lead parallel lives and that one day we'll meet by chance and we'll eat lunch together and I'll be a complete fool and act like a little stupid girl but you'll think it's cute and humour me.
I'm going to stop now, before you disregard this token of thanks as something meaning harm. I don't mean harm, only that I appreciate you.
-la femme
hi moby
your welcome,
uuh!, a jaded world-traveller. i remember when you played in ¨La Hacienda¨, Manchester, 1992 (approximately),
i could see in the film ¨new order¨ (1997)...
pd: oh, so i am a provincial boy, but a shy and naive boy from inside of argentina! all a karma, [0_0] hahaha,
namaste
ups___:-]
Inés con amor
Came to Spain, please.... I love all your music. Your music make me feel in other world.