Journal Archive - May, 2007

you know how the religious right will every now and then say that some natural disasters(hurricanes, earthquakes, etc)happen because god is angry at secular sinners?
simple question: if this is true, then why do 90% of the tornadoes in america occur in red, republican states, and why do the majority of hurricanes that strike the u.s tend to strike red, republican states, as well?

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wtornavg.htm

http://www.e-transit.org/hurricane/map.asp

you'll notice on map 1 that the majority of the tornadoes happen in places that are predominantly republican and have a high percentage of right-wing evangelicals, and on map 2 that the majority of hurricanes come ashore in right-wing, republican states.
huh, that's interesting.
i mean, personally i tend to think that things like hurricanes and tornadoes and happen for non-anthropocentric reasons and are, actually, just examples of extreme and arbitrary weather.
but if natural disasters are, as the evangelicals maintain, a sign of god's wrath, then what does it mean that 90% of the damage done by tornadoes and hurricanes in the united states happens in right-wing, republican states that are heavily populated by evangelicals?
again, i'm of the 'weather tends to happen because of climatoligical factors' school of thought.
but the evangelicals(like pat robertson and jerry falwell((rip))have on plently of occasions tried to maintain that natural disasters are the products of god's wrath(they, for example, said that hurricane katrina hit new orleans because new orleans was hosting a gay-pride weekend...).
and, to be clear, i'm not making light of the damage done by natural disasters in the u.s. i'm just trying to point out another small logical inconsistency on the part of our evangelical pals.
-moby

as i wrote then, it's a disturbing and entertaining and then disturbing again movie.
one of the things in the movie that boggled my mind was the evangelical proposition that the earth is 6,000 years old and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.
i was left wondering: 'does anyone REALLY believe this?'
and then i read about:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/arts/24crea.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

a museum for creationists, where dioramas show that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
are these people insane or just delusional?
happy little dinosaurs being yoked to a plow by our human ancestors of 5,000 years ago?
i mean, really?
how do millions of americans hold on to an arbitrary myth(that the earth was created 6,000 years ago, in 6 days, and that humans and dinosaurs coexisted)that flies in the face of every piece of available scientific research?
what sort of mental pathology leads someone to say: 'ok, every scientist on the planet might say that the world is 5 billion years old and that it exists in a universe that is 15 billion years old and the dinosaurs walked the earth millions of years before humans were even a glint in some randy lemur's eye,
but i'm not going to believe it.'
?
again, really?
putting these nutbags in such esteemed company as the flat earth society and the geniuses of the middle ages who believed that the sun revolved around the earth.
or maybe these delusional evangelicals also believe that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around the earth, too?
i mean, if you're going to be utterly delusional why stop at one happy delusion, why not have fun with all of them?
and, going back a bit, a $27,000,000 museum for creationists?
this just boggles my mind.
let's just do a little biblical scholarship, ok?
so, jesus mentioned the earth being 6,000 years old how many times?
oh, as many times as he mentioned homosexuality.
that would be...none? no times? never not once?
let's check...yup. never.
so it's just awesome that the evangelicals are doing good christian things like building museums to bad science, etc.
i guess if a homeless person showed up at the museum they could always let him sleep under the diorama of a dinosaur pulling a plow.

moby

hi,
sorry for the confusion about the dj'ing date in madrid. i thought that it had been made clear that i was dj'ing, as i had talked about going to europe to dj and the posters apparently said: 'special dj set from moby'.
but i'm sorry if anyone thought that it was going to be a live show.
just for the record, i don't plan on playing live as me(i.e-moby)for a while.
i might be playing live with the unnamed rock band, but if you see my name on a flyer or poster between now and the end of the year it most likely means that i'll be dj'ing.
thanks
moby

i get a lot of messages asking the following:
a-'is this really moby?'
b-'is this someone else?'
c-'do you write your own blogs?'
so, to answer:

a-for what it's worth, yes it's me.
b-for what it's worth, no, this isn't someone else.
c-for what it's worth, yes, i write my own blogs.

so, again, for what it's worth, it's me, moby, the bald musician from nyc whom everyone loves to hate(even stephen king, apparently. i'm dissed in his book 'cell'. ouch.).
so if something is good about my blogs, etc, well, lucky me, i get to take the credit.
and if something is terrible about my blogs, etc, well, unlucky me, i have to take the credit.
i'm in madrid now.
hi.
-moby

p.s-you'll notice that i've finally given in and am using the word 'blog' even though i think that it's the most disgusting sounding abbreviation ever in the history of disgusting sounding abbreviations. it sounds like a word to describe the act of removing something particularly nasty from a stuck pipe. 'ach, the cow pooed in the toilet again, looks like we'll have to blog it out.'

or montpelier.
i've been here a few times and i still don't know how to spell it.
but it's nice.
last night was cannes.
tonight montpellier.
tomorrow barcelona.
then madrid.
then home.
it almost sounds like a vacation/holiday.
but no. i'm here dj'ing.
and, like the good 21st century denizen i happen to be, i'm using cd's.
and, forgive the heresy, it's great.
i'll always love vinyl, really i will.
but, as every dj apart from me learned 5 years ago, cd dj'ing is fantastic.
the good bits:

a-you can carry all of your records with you in a little cd book that weighs roughly as much as 2 vinyl records.

b-you don't have to baggage check your records, thus preventing the 'moby goes to london, records go to auckland' baggage problems that have been known to occur.

c-these cd dj players(i've been using the pioneer ones)are amazing.

as i said, i'll always love vinyl, and i'll probably dj with vinyl if i'm close enough to home to carry it in a taxi(like nublu), but i count myself as converted to the world of compact disc dj'ing.
i know, it's borderline apostasy, but true nonetheless.

and i just realized that this can't be of any interest to anyone who's reading this
who isn't a dj.
so, i'm sorry.

but i'm in the first honeymoon flush of my relationship with cd dj'ing.
i know, sounds mundane. and it probably is. but i love it.

in other news: cannes was nuts. i'd never been there during the film festival.
it's, uh, o.t.t(a contemporary acronym meaning, i believe, 'over the top'. see, that's me trying to stay contemporary. awesome, right?).

so, this morning in cannes i woke up and stumbled to the french doors of my hotel room, flung them open to look at the nice mediterranean sea and the rich people's yachts thereon, and then realized that there were about 500 tourists and photographers looking at the front of the hotel(and, by default, me)to see if they could spot any movie stars.
so for a brief second the tourists and photographers were subjected to me in my bleary eyed morning naked-ness.
i'm hoping(more for their sake than mine)that no one saw anything(not much to see, unless you like bald white guys looking like they just woke up, which i just had, actually).
it was a brief moment of unintended nudity, and i can only assume that anyone who saw me probably wondered 'huh, i wonder what that naked bald guy is doing in the movie star hotel? maybe he's norah jones' assistant, possibly from a work-release program?'
or something similar.
and now it's 6 a.m in montpellier(did i spell it right?)and i should go to sleep, for tomorrow we go to barcelona, which i love(it's a hard city not to love).
ok, goodnight.
moby

the show was great, the after-party was fun, and at 6 a.m i found myself back at the hotel getting ready to go to sleep.
the only problem was that the air conditioning wasn't working, and the hotel was really, really hot.
so i called down to the front desk and said:
'it's really hot up here, can i get a fan?'
to which the front desk clerk said:
'just a minute, let me look.'
30 seconds pass and he comes back on the phone and says:
'no, there's no one here'.
to which i reply:
'what do you mean? it's hot in my room, i just want a fan.'
and he says:
'sir, i'm looking at the lobby, there are no fans in the lobby.'
and then i realize what he's thinking, 'fan', as in 'groupie'.
so i say:
'no, no, it is hot in my room, the air-conditioning doesn't work, i need something to move the air and make it cool.'
to which he says:
'um, i don't know?'
and i say:
'a fan, like the top of a helicopter.'
and he says, excitedly:
'like a whirlybird!'
and i say, excitedly:
'yes, like the top of a whirlybird!'
and he says:
'oh, yes! i'll bring one right up.'
and i got my fan(no, not a groupie)and slept for a few hours and went to the airport.
in general, i'm amazed that anyone is ever able to learn english as a second language.
fan?
simple word, 2 completely different meanings.
and imagine learning english and trying to pronounce:
cough, through, drought, tough.
anyone who can speak english as a second language is a better man(genderless term, 'man', in this context, ok?)than i.
-moby

it's robert oppenheimer talking about the first atomic bomb test.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Movies/Movie8.shtml

i especially love when he quotes "now i am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
it's very chilling.
oh, how are you liking the free music part of moby.com?

moby

"The war is an albatross around the president's neck."

"I think the American people look at Iraq and don't see success . What they see are daily car bombings and chaos."

"The Iraqi government hasn't done anything it said it would."

a prominent democrat?
a crazy lefty?
or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)?
yup.
seems like the republicans are looking at the daily and escalating violence in iraq, the war that's gone on 4 years longer than they expected, the across the board republican losses in the mid-term elections, the presidents plummeting poll numbers(26% approval rating at last check), and they're thinking that it might be time to put some distance between themselves and the administration, especially on iraq.
iraq is a civil war.
it's as simple as that.
and the american troop presence in iraq is just providing easy targets for jihadists and insurgents.
if we brought 90% of the troops home and just left 10% there to help the iraqi government battle the insurgents we'd all end up in a much better place, especially the troops.
for now it seems as if the republicans are finally realizing what the u.s public and the rest of the world have known for a long time, that the war is a disaster and that the situation in iraq really has very little chance of getting better as long as u.s troops are there en masse.
hopefully the republicans will get their act together and allow the democrats to start bringing the troops home.
gw bush is becomingly increasingly like king lear.
-moby

but funny.
sort of.
ok, not really funny.
ironic. sort of.
pres bush and co. have often talked about spreading democracy in the middle east.
so now iraq has a democratically elected parliament.
and a majority of the iraqi members of parliament have submitted a petition to end the u.s occupation of iraq.
so what's a democratizer to do?
does presidente bush respect the democratic will of the democratically elected members of the iraqi parliament and remove u.s forces from iraq?
or does senor 'el jefe' presidente bush reject the demands of the democratically elected members of the iraqi parliament and keep u.s troops in iraq?
'spreading democracy' has been the constant rallying cry of the bush regime.
so now that the iraqi's want to use their democracy to get the u.s troops to leave iraq, what does el presidente bush do?
and what happens if middle eastern democracies opt to use their democratic voice to elect islamic theocracies?
it's odd that no one in the u.s media seems to be addressing these issues, as they seem to be fairly salient, especially as we've spent a trillion dollars giving the iraqi's a democracy and whatnot.
-moby

p.s-any thoughts on new fancy updated moby.com with the free music and so on?

today(or tomorrow, because we're very organized) we're going to launch a new version of moby.com.
it's in many ways kind of similar to the old moby.com except for a few things:

1-it looks completely different. and when you look at it, don't forget to move your cursor around the home-page. things are hidden there.

2-it probably works better. rob, the web-master, has improved the basic architecture of moby.com so that it will, in general, work better. i'm technologically illiterate, so i have no idea what exactly he's done. but it's better. than it was.

3-the discography area has been updated and is now almost comprehensive.

4-and here's the biggie(well, at least i think so)...there's a new part of moby.com called 'film music'. it's essentially a function that allows independent and non-profit filmmakers to download and use my music for free. we're starting with about 60 pieces of eclectic, unreleased, film music, but over-time i'll continue to update it and add more music.
these 60 pieces of music can be downloaded and used for free by student filmmakers and indie filmmakers and, basically, anyone making a non-commercial* film, be it 2 minutes long or 400 minutes long.
if you're a filmmaker(or are in need of free music for a non-commercial film or video)you can sign up and download and use this music for free.
i have a lot of friends in the independent film world, and their biggest complaint is that it's either expensive or onerous to license music for their films.
so that's why i'm making a lot of my music available for free use for non-profit, independent films.
i hope you find it useful.

i hope you enjoy the new moby.com.
please look below for the *.
-moby

*-yup, the asterisk. the music in the film-music part of moby.com is available for free use for student films and independent films and non-profit films and shorts and etc. the music is available so long as these films are not used for commercial(i.e-making money)purposes.
if you use the music in your film and your film goes on to make money: great, and congratulations.
before your film makes money, though, you'll have to apply for a commercial license for the music. i PROMISE that the commercial licenses won't be expensive or difficult to obtain.
and any money that this music generates from commercial licenses will be given to a charity.
this year that charity will be the humane society.
ok, i hope that's clear. thanks.

i know, politics = tedious.
sorry.
as an aside, tonight at studio b in bklyn was really fun.
i love playing rave records.
sad that rave died.
it was so utopian and celebratory.
ah, well.
so, politics.
why isn't there any moderation in u.s politics?
like gun control, for example.
why can't a candidate say: 'ok, nra, you want to hunt and shoot targets?
fine, why do you need cop killer bullets and automatic weapons? how about we reach a compromise where you can keep guns and we can have background checks and licensing and restrictions on gun ownership to keep people safe?'
why is/are american politics so polarized?
i personally think that a candidate who was pragmatic and sensible would clean up.
i.e-a candidate who accepted that evolutionary theory was valid and that automatic weapons and cop-killer bullets shouldn't be available to the populace and that global warming is worth investigating and so on.
we have 3 republican candidates who don't believe in evolution?
i mean, really?
OF COURSE THEY BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION.
they're just afraid of alienating the insane right wing.
so they lie.
politicians are too comfortable with compromise and deceit.
ok, that's all.
time for bed.
moby

last night was the first debate for republican presidential candidates.
it was a fairly predictably non-event, with all of them spouting platitudes and making statements that usually contradicted their actual records in office.
but the best moment was when 3 of the republican presidential candidates raised their hands to say that they don't believe in evolution.
i mean, really?
this has become a litmus test for the religious right?
even though every single legitimate scientist on the planet basically endorses evolutionary theory?
even though there's no credible scientific basis for creationism?
i saw a documentary on the evangelical movement, and it showed evangelical 'teachers' showing schoolkids a slide of a human being using a plow being pulled by a dinosaur.
that's the face of creationism and the evangelical movement in the united states.
so, essentially, mike huckabee, sam brownback, and tom tancredo basically stated last night that they believe that dinosaurs and humans benignly co-existed a few thousand years ago.
in any other country that would get you laughed off stage.
in the united states that enables you to run for president.
god help us.
moby

president bush vetoed a democratic piece of legislation that would begin to bring u.s troops home from iraq.
he vetoed this piece of legislation 4 years after standing beneath a banner that read 'mission accomplished'.
i mean, really, does anyone take him seriously any more?
even a little bit?
and today the bush administration threatened to veto legislation that would make attacking someone based on gender or sexual orientation a hate crime.
i mean, call me crazy, but i imagine that even some virulent misogynists and homophobes might believe that women and gays deserve special protection from being violently attacked because of their gender and sexual orientation.
so in a couple of days the bush administration has opposed a plan to bring the troops back home and also vowed to oppose federal legislation that would make attacking women and gays a hate crime.
wow.
what's next, bush proposed legislation that subsidises beating up kittens?
maybe some republican legislation that makes not beating up puppies a felony?
they sure know how to make friends, huh.
moby

most of my friends eat meat. that's their choice.
but i don't quite understand 2 things.

1-when people say that meat is delicious. if meat is delicious then why do people have to do so much to it, and cover it up with so much stuff in order to eat it? you know what's delicous? an orange. what do you have to do to make an orange delicious? peel it and eat it. in order to make pork delicious you have to grind it up and and process it with tons of spices and chemicals and then stuff it into a tube and cook it over an open flame and cover it with mustard and relish and ketchup. if pork(or chicken or beef)is truly delicious then why don't i see people snacking on baggies of raw pork when they're sitting in the park on a warm summers day? did you ever think that meat is made delicious by the non-meat things that often accompany it? my challenge to the 'meat is delicious' camp: go to your supermarket and buy an orange and some ground beef. put them both on your kitchen counter and eat them both raw. is the meat still delicious?

2-when 'manly' men eat meat. now, let me ask a question: how is eating a docile vegetarian animal that someone else killed and processed for you 'manly'?
cows and pigs and chickens and lambs are about the least violent creatures on the planet.
the only way a cow could ever hurt a human being would be if it accidentally slipped and fell on you. i've never understood the 'manly' steak house, or the 'manly' bar-b-que.
i would understand giving macho points to some guy who was eating a lion that he had wrestled and killed with his own hands. but, again, what is macho about eating a docile and frightened vegetarian animal that some underpaid migrant worker killed in a slaughterhouse? is the act of going to the supermarket and buying a piece of beef that's been wrapped in plastic and styrofoam somehow 'manly' or macho?

ok, that's all from me for now.
oh, and it's too bad that styrofoam is such a nasty substance, cos as a name it's pretty cool. 'styrofoam'. it makes me think of people in the 50's going to expo's and looking at 'the kitchen of tomorrow' where the robot refrigerator wore a jet pack and flew to the supermarket to buy groceries.

-moby