Journal Archive - August, 2007

or maybe some politics and some non-politics.
but, politics:
could the republicans have possibly had a worse week?
to wit:
a-alberto gonzales finally quit, although senate investigators have said that he's still going to be investigated for malfeasance and ineptitude.
b-republican senator larry craig is being forced to quit the senate after it was revealed that he was arrested for propositioning an undercover police officer in a men's bathroom stall.
c-the general accounting office(gao)leaked a report stating that thus far only three of the 18 surge goals in iraq have been met, and none of these 3 are particularly major.
d-gw bush is at the pentagon today listening to military concerns that the war in iraq just isn't sustainable.

ok, bad week for republicans. schadenfreude for those of us who think that the republicans are corrupt and inept and deserve their comeuppance.

in other news:
i'm dj'ing sunday night here in nyc at motherfucker. it should be fun. if you're in nyc this weekend you should try to come by. the motherfucker parties are fairly legendary.

i think i'm dj'ing from 1-4, or thereabouts.
dj'ing is fun.
that's my platitude for the day.
oh, i guess my 2nd platitude for the day.
platitude #1 was that the republicans are corrupt and inept. or maybe that was just a good old self-evident statement.
everyone likes a good, old, self-evident statement, right?
they're kind of comforting.
as in 'nice weather today, right?'
or 'that chocolate cake sure looks good.'
nothing wrong with simple language expressing simple and self-evident thoughts.
like 'those republicans sure are corrupt and inept, right?'
happy, comforting, self-evident statements.
have a nice weekend.
maybe i'll see you sunday at motherfucker.
moby

hopefully some entertaining politics.
so many gay republicans.
which is awesome.
as the republican party is the anti-gay party.
the irony being that there aren't that many gay democrats.
and the democrats are the gay friendly party.
perhaps the republican party stands as a beacon on the hill for people who are deeply troubled by their orientation(s)?
if you are deeply drawn to prostitution perhaps you want to become a republican and rail against the evils of promiscuity and prostitution?
if you are gay perhaps you want to become a republican and rail against the evils of homosexuality?
i remember something i heard in high school:
'the louder the homophobe, the more likely they're gay'.
again, here at moby.com we love the gays.
be gay.
awesome.
but dont be a hypocrite.
if you're a senator from idaho and you love blowing strangers in public bathrooms...well, fine.
but don't pretend that you're a straight lover of 'family values'.
come on...
the closet is a lonely place.
come out and embrace the truth.
right?
there are no wrong or right sexual orientations.
there are only wrong and right hypocricies.
even if i don't spell too well.
hypocricies?
eh, don't hate me for spelling like a dimwit.
you want to make out with boys(or girls)in a public bathroom?
great.
but don't be a liar.
moby

it's just being reported that on june 11th senator larry craig(republican from idaho)was caught practicing 'lewd behavior' in a men's room in minnesota.
'lewd behavior' means gay sex.
personally i see nothing lewd about people having consensual sex, regardless of their orientation.
but what makes larry craig getting picked up by the minneapolis p.d for 'lewd behavior' particularly interesting is:
a-he's a united states senator
b-he's a republican
c-he's been a stalwart opponent of gay marriage
d-he's been outspoken in his criticism of homosexuality

how many more republican family values defenders are going to be outed as gay or cross dressers or porn addicts or patrons of prostitutes? personally i have no problem with how people choose to comport themselves
sexually, but the republicans are always falling over themselves to champion family values and condemn homosexuality and promiscuity(not forgetting that the highest divorce and abortion rates are in red, republican states). you'd think at some point the republicans might want to stop judging people for the things that they themselves are usually doing.
moby

here in the good old us and a, but attorney general gonzalez resigned today.
it's not nice to speak poorly of people, but he was an utterly inept attorney general, and he was only installed as attorney general because he was an old friend of bush's.
democrats and republicans have been calling for his resignation for months now, during which time the justice department has become borderline disfunctional.
gonzalez might be a nice man, and i wish him well in the private sector, but he was utterly worthless as attorney general and his resignation, although welcome, is
long overdue.
moby

you might remember max cleland.
he lost both of his legs and one of his arms to enemy fire in vietnam.
he is a military hero who was repeatedly decorated for bravery and service.
recently republican stalwart anne coulter called him a 'coward'.
here's the transcript of his speech taken from fox news:

former sen. max cleland, d-ga.:

my fellow americans, this is max cleland, former u.s. senator from georgia.

this week, president bush gave a speech comparing the ongoing war in iraq to the vietnam war. he used this analogy in his latest plea to the american people for yet more time to continue his war.

i know something about the vietnam war. i know something about the price that was paid for continuing that war long after it was clear we could not succeed. i know something about years of war failing to produce a stable, secure and democratic country.

i know something about enemy attacks increasing and taking an ever higher toll on our troops. fifty-eight thousand young americans were killed in vietnam; 350,000 were wounded. i was one of them.

there are similarities between the war in iraq and the war in vietnam. one of the lessons to be learned from vietnam is that the commitment of american military strength alone cannot solve another country's political weakness. this should be a somber warning to us all to responsibly end the war in iraq and the additional loss of precious american lives.

congress has required the president to issue a report soon on the state of the war. this assessment gives him yet another opportunity to do the right thing and change course in iraq.

unfortunately, it appears he will continue to argue that, if the american people and the u.s. congress will just be patient, things will work out. he is likely to say that, given more time, victory is just around the corner. he is likely to argue that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

but like political leaders during the vietnam era, this president has a "credibility gap." the majority of americans see a profound difference between president bush's optimistic rhetoric and the grim reality which lies beneath. our history in vietnam and the facts on the ground in iraq today prove the american people are right.

how do i know? because i've seen this movie before. i know how it ends. i know that all the p.r. in the world didn't change the truth on the ground in vietnam and won't change the truth on the ground today in iraq.

what is this truth? the truth is that more than 3,700 americans have already lost their lives, more than 20,000 have been wounded, and nearly $500 billion in american taxpayer funds have been expended.

the truth is that, despite this enormous sacrifice, we find ourselves mired in a civil war with no end in sight and iraqis unable or unwilling to make the political decisions necessary to end this conflict.

and the truth is president bush's decision to go to war and stay at war has actually encouraged thousands of new recruits for al qaida in iraq and around the world, has made the middle east and other parts of the globe less safe, has alienated the muslim world and allowed al qaida — the enemy that attacked this nation six years ago — a chance to rebuild and restore its terror network.

these are the facts. but the facts will not stop the president and his fellow republicans from trying once again to sell the american people a bill of goods on the iraq war.

the failures in iraq are not the fault of our troops or their courage in battle. they have done everything asked of them and more. the conflict in iraq is an iraqi political problem, not a u.s. military problem.

we can't continue to sacrifice american lives, deplete our treasury and weaken our national security. we can't expect our soldiers to continue to risk their lives, especially when the iraqi leaders themselves show no interest in achieving a peaceful political solution.

president bush's report to congress will attempt to show that his escalation has produced improved security in certain parts of iraq. but it will ignore the stark truth in iraq: that his overall strategy to buy time for iraqis to make the needed political decisions has failed and, just like vietnam, we are enmeshed now in an open-ended war for which our troops and our country will pay the price for decades to come.

that's why we must act now. this fall, democrats in congress will continue to stand with our troops and with the american people to remember the lessons of history and end the iraq war.

it hurts me to say this, but i'm not going to be at the love parade this weekend.
we had a lot of trouble at the airport and i ended up not getting on the flight.
rats.
i was really looking forward to the love parade.
moby

me.
me.
me.
here goes.

1-i'm dj'ing this saturday at the love parade in essen. they're expecting 1,200,000 people. which is a lot of people. just fyi. if you come, wave 'hello'. i'll wave back.

2-on september 2nd i'll be dj'ing at motherfucker, here in nyc. motherfucker is going to be at eugene, and kudu are playing, as well. oh, for the record, 'motherfucker' is a recurring party that tends to be really fun and kind of debauched. again, just fyi.

3-on september 8th the little death nyc will be playing for free(everyone likes free, right?)at 2pm in tompkins sq park in the east village as part of the howl! festival. there are a lot of other bands, etc, that day in tompkins sq park. it should be fun. and for the third time, just fyi.

ok, i guess that's it.
i'm sure i could write more about me, but this will have to suffice for the time being.
thanks, and hopefully see you soon.
moby

i mean, i guess you can draw your own conclusions...
moby

associated press:

"a recent ap/ipsos poll found 78% of liberals and moderates had read at least one
book in the last year, whereas only 64% of conservatives had read
at least one book in the last year."

this isn't really political, more environmental. and frightening.
can you imagine an arctic without ice?
i mean, forgive me for asking the obvious, but where's all the water going to go?
moby

arctic ice at all-time low

john roach
for national geographic news
august 20, 2007
there is less sea ice in the arctic than ever before recorded, and the melting season isn't even over.

on sunday the sea ice extent was measured at 1.93 million square miles (5.01 million square kilometers).

"it's continuing to go down at a rapid pace," said mark serreze, a senior scientist at the national snow and ice data center in boulder, colorado.

the previous minimum record—set on september 21, 2005—was 2.05 million square miles (5.32 million square kilometers).

by the end of this summer, scientists at the center say, arctic sea ice may drop below 1.74 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers).

bruno tremblay is an assistant professor of ocean and atmospheric sciences at mcgill university in montreal, canada, who is planning a research cruise to the russian arctic in september.

in preparation for the trip, he has been observing updated maps of the sea ice extent, which show the quickly melting ice.

"i never thought it would go that low that fast," tremblay said. "there's still a month of melting in front of us, and we're already past the record of 2005."

tipping point?

sea ice—frozen, floating seawater—melts and refreezes with the seasons, but some of the ice persists year-round in the arctic.

the current rate of sea ice melt is much faster than predicted by computer models of the global climate system.

just last year the national snow and ice data center's serreze said that the arctic was "right on schedule" to be completely free of ice by 2070 at the soonest. he now thinks that day may arrive by 2030.

i just looked at my most recent blogs(ugh, gross word), and i realized that i've skewed kind of heavy on the political blogs(ugh, disgusting word)as of late.
mea culpa, sorry.
so, a list update(nicer word than blog)-

a-i, like many people, am really worried about what's going to happen when hurricane dean hits mexico. it has the potential to be disastrous.
i hope that it isn't.

b-we just began mixing my next record. here's hoping it goes well. right now the record is scheduled to be released in february of next year. and it's a dance record. well, my idea of a dance record. an eclectic dance record. kind of like being in a club in nyc in 1989...

c-it's cold and rainy in nyc and it's fantastic. a few days ago nyc was like caracas, now it's like glasgow. i love schizophrenic weather.

d-today as i was walking around the lower east side it struck me just how odd it is that gentrification has spread so far and wide in lower manhattan.
i mean, even the bowery is being gentrified. the bowery was always the street of last resort, where people went to hit rock bottom. it's where the homeless shelters were, and the lowest of the dive bars(and cbgb's...), and now there are giant fancy buildings sprouting up everywhere. it's not as if the gentrification has been a slow, steady process. it's more like spores. one day you're looking at a methadone clinic, a couple of weeks later it's a 30 story boutique hotel with calvin klein living in the penthouse. very odd.

e-i finally went to see the new bourne movie. it's really fun. and the new version of 'extreme ways' does sound pretty good at the end, if i do narcissistically say so myself...

f-i'm not sure why the new 'extreme ways' isn't available as a stand alone song on i-tunes.
i'll try to find out.

g-i think that richard kelly's 'southland tales' is finally being released this autumn. here's hoping.
it's a really odd and remarkable movie.

ok, that's my list for now.
have a good night,
moby

hi,
just a quick update on some upandcoming dj and live events.
this saturday i'll be dj'ing in essen, germany at the love parade.
then on sunday september 2nd i'll be dj'ing at motherfucker here in nyc(kudu will be performing live, as well).
and then on september 8th the little death, nyc, will be playing a free afternoon show as part of the howl! festival in tompkins sq park in nyc.
ok, i guess that's it for now.
thanks
moby

i'll get back to fun stuff soon. i promise.
but this continues to amaze me.
video footage ofcolin powell and condi rice a few months before the war stating, basically, that not only did iraq not have weapons of destruction, but that they didn't even have any viable weapons production facilities.
why didn't anyone in the u.s mainstream media ask anyone in the administration about this in the run up to the war?
you had cheney and rumsfeld and bush stating unequivocally that iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when just a few months before colin powell and condi rice said, factually, that he most clearly did not.
where was the media in the run up to the war?
the administration has a lot of blood on their hands, but the american media is just as culpable.
iraq had no wmd's. the administration knew that he had no wmd's.
it's just disgusting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0wbpkcdkkq

-moby

this is the website for a celebrity photo retouching company.
click on portfolio and pass your cursor over the photos to see before and after.
the celebs aren't quite as lovely as we'd hitherto imagined.

http://www.iwanexstudio.com/

moby

right.
so...does that mean we start bombing our...um...selves?
cos we've given:
a-190,000 ak-47's to the terrorists in iraq
b-$20,000,000,000 to the terrorists in iraq
c-about 300 years of political propaganda to the terrorists in iraq
d-our president inviting the terrorists to 'bring it on'

so, ironically, and inept-ally, we are the biggest state sponsors
of terrorism in iraq.
and the biggest targets.
which is sad and fucked up.
or, rather, tragic and fucked up.
hey, some of you voted for bush, how does it feel to have utterly unnecessary american and iraqi blood on your hands?
really.
how does it feel?
gw bush.
he's your utterly inept boy.
you voted for him.
how does it feel?
and his posse of ineptitude: cheney, wolfowitz, ashcroft, , etc.
can you look in the face of a widow/brother/sister/parent of a dead or wounded iraqii war vet
and say, 'sorry'?
you voted for him.
you fucked up.
moby

this really is the end of an era, as karl rove was pretty much the sole reason bush was installed in the white house in the first place.
i wonder what he'll go on to do?
maybe open a chain of frozen yogurt huts?
become a panelist on the view?
a weekly column for parade magazine?
the options are kind of limitless.
as he prepares to leave the white house i choose to remember him at his finest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyzre8kesuw

ah, mc rove, alas, we hardly knew ye.
-moby

i was just in washington dc for a day, and while there i was wearing my 'republicans for voldemort' t-shirt.
granted it's a fairly subtle literary reference(as the harry potter books have only sold, i believe, 300 million copies, and the movies have only been seen by a billion people or so), but i'm still surprised at how many people respond to the t-shirt as if i were really endorsing a republican candidate named voldemort.
every now and then someone will stop me and say 'your t-shirt is very funny, where'd you get it?', but more often than not i get dirty looks from democrats('boo, hiss, dirty republican') and approving looks from republicans('yahoo! another member of the cabal!').
but this isn't about politics, it's about my excellent t-shirt(and no, i don't remember where it came from. i think that someone might've given it to me in a bar?)and how surprising it is that the vast majority of americans seem to be unfamiliar with the central antagonist in the most successful book franchise of all time.
isn't that surprising?
i think it's surprising.
maybe if the t-shirt didn't look so authentic.
it looks like a regular, old campaign t-shirt, with the little patriotic star and the red and white banner.
as an aside, how did stars come to be a symbol of patriotism?
not too many countries use stars on their flags(australia? new zealand?). what were the founding fathers thinking of when they decided to include the star as the sole figurative icon on our young nations flag?
that they wanted to sow the seeds for our eventual conquest of outer space?
that they wanted to acknowledge the big eyed space-aliens/freemasons/scientologists/greys who were actually running the country from caves deep below maryland and virginia?
i have no idea.
and stars are nice. i'm glad they're on our flag, even if they dont' really make a lot of sense.
ok, back from d.c, time for lunch. and i might think twice before wearing my 'republicans for voldemort' shirt again, so as to not further confuse the people on the left and right.
sowing confusion is bad karma. or not. i have no idea.
-moby

i know, the political updates aren't too popular.
but i just read that 30% of the weapons that the u.s has given to the iraqi military and police are missing.
190,000 ak-47 automatic weapons are missing. or stolen. or generally unaccounted for.
so it turns out that the biggest supplier of weapons to al-qaeda in iraq is...us?
the american people?
the american taxpayers?
our tax dollars going to fund and arm the insurgents in iraq?
i don't know, that doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy, knowing that we are putting weapons into the hands of the people who are killing and wounding american servicemen.
we are, in fact, the #1 source of weapons for the iraqi insurgency.
and remember a few months ago when it was revealed that paul bremer had lost $5,000,000,000.00 in cash in iraq?
so, why are we still there?
because we don't have enough things to screw up at home?
cant we just once and for all fire the bush administration for gross and utter incompetence?
please?
pretty please?
moby

ok, for starters allow me to clarify(hopefully not pedantically) what 'hip hop' means.
hip hop is rap music(and culture).
in fact, 'rap music' was a term invented in the early 80's by and for white people who were confused by the term 'hip hop'.
so the two are synonymous, but 'hip hop' is to 'rap music' what eric b and rakim are to vanilla ice.
i bought my first hip hop record in 1982, 'the message' by grandmaster flash(coincidentally the same day i bought my first minor threat 7", 'in my eyes', on red vinyl).
and by the time i started dj'ing in 1984 i had a few hip hop records that i would sneak into my set, like 'the message' and 'white lines' and 'renegades of funk' and 'planet rock', etc.
as the 80's progressed i became less and less interested in new wave and punk rock and more and more interested in hip hop and dancehall and house music. it seemed as if during the 80's white music stagnated and black music was exploded, sonically and technologically and creatively.
a lot of white music in the 80's was very conservative and retro sounding(green on red, rem, the blasters, etc), whereas a lot of black music in the 80's sounded like the future(eric b and rakim, public enemy, ultramagnetic mc's, transmat, etc).
so by 1987 and 1988 i was pretty much playing hip hop and dancehall and house music exclusively(much to the chagrin of the new wave kids who wanted to hear erasure and the cure. nothing against erasure and the cure, they were nice, but they didn't excite me nearly as much as eric b and rakim and derrick may).
i used to go out to hip hop clubs(oftentimes being the only white person there)and gay house clubs (oftentimes being the only white/straight person there)whenever i could.
these clubs were amazing. and genuinely underground. there were hip hop and house music anthems that no one outside of new york had ever even heard of('the 900 number', 'break for love', 'i promise', 'who the cap fit', etc).
i also used to drop off hip hop mix demo tapes at all of the hip hop clubs and labels and radio stations(wbls, kiss, wild pitch, jive, etc). at the time it seemed completely normal to me, even if i was the only white person sitting in the lobby at wbls waiting desperately to talk to a dj or a program director to try to get them to give me a dj'ing gig.
i would spend hours and days and weeks walking around manhattan with a bag full of mix tapes and demo tapes, desperately trying to get dj jobs or a record deal.
again, at the time it seemed perfectly normal to be eating pizza that had fallen on the street and sleeping on the subway and buying clothes from homeless peopel when it started to rain, all so i could potentially get someone to listen to the music i was making or playing.
i was also at the time dj'ing in connecticut at a club called 'the cafe' and a bar called 'the beat'.
i felt like an evangelist, as if it were my holy duty to bring hip hop and house music to the new wave kids of fairfield and westchester counties.
they came for erasure, they got hip hop.
they came for rem, they got house music.
i'm surprised that:
a-i was able to keep my dj'ing jobs in connecticut for as long as i did
and
b-that i wasn't lynched by the perpetually annoyed club/bar patrons.
and here's the very, very embarassing part...not only did i feel as if it were my duty to bring hip hop and house music to the white kids of wealthy connecticut, i also felt that it was my duty to represent hip hop culture on a sartorial level.
aka-how i dressed...
yes, embarassing but true, but for a couple of years in the late 80's i tried to dress like a rapper.
but i was broke. and white. and lived in stamford, connecticut.
so i did the best that i could.
my girlfriend at the time went to columbia university and was on the columbia womens tennis team, so i borrowed her sergio tacchini warm up jacket cos i'd seen krs-one or someone from stetsasonic wearing a sergio tachhini warm up jacket and i thought it was cool(even if mine said 'columbia women's tennis team' on the back...)
my girlfriend at the time(god bless her)also bought me a $10 thick gold chain with a mercedes medallion attached to it...(again, i saw rakim wearing one and i thought it was cool).
so i would put on my columbia womens tennis team warm up jacket and my thick gold(fake)rope with the mercedes medallion and, being a skinny white kid from connecticut, do my best to look like a rapper.
for a while i actually thought of myself as being a relatively good scratch dj. i learned the tricks, and knew how to transform and scratch and cut quickly back and forth between two pieces of vinyl(the trick to that is to read the label like a clock and not actually listen in the headphones...).
then one day i heard clark kent dj and i thought to myself 'i could practice for 5 hours a day for the rest of my life and i'll never be as good as him.'
my first big break(without which i probably wouldn't be sitting here writing this)was to get a job at mars. mars was a club on the west side highway at 14th street in the meatpacking district(an aside; now the meatpacking district is like little miami, filled with uber trendy hotels and nightclubs and restaurants and shops, but back in 1988 the meatpacking district was filled with meatpacking places and tranny hookers. i have such distinct memories of walking around trying to avoid the blood and intestines on the sidewalk while also trying to avoid the tranny hookers having sex in between the dumpsters. classy. remembering the smell of the meatpacking district in the summer in the late 80's still kind of makes me sick to my stomach).
so my girlfriend at the time(again, janet, god bless her)called me up one day and said 'there's a new club opening, it's called mars and it's being run by rudolph and it's going to be huge and they're looking for dj's.'
so i raced down to mars and gave a dj demo tape(hip hop on one side, house music on the other side)to yuki watanabe, the dj booker.
new york at the time was very nepotistic, and the only way to get a dj gig in nyc in 1988 was to already be a dj and to be friends with the people who ran the nightclubs.
i was a nerd from connecticut, and i knew no one even remotely cool in nyc who could nepotistically hook me up with a dj gig.
but yuki watanabe didn't know about nepotism and he gave me a job(dj'ing in the basement of mars)because he actually liked my demo tape.
it still counts as the most exciting day of my professional life when yuki called me up and i found out that i was going to be dj'ing at mars.
mars was the ne plus ultra of clubs in 1988. it had 5 levels and the best sound systems and the best dj's and the coolest clubgoers and lines around the block of people trying to get in.
and somehow i got a job dj'ing there.
amazing.
i eventually moved from the basement to the roof, then from the roof to the 4th floor, then from the 4th floor to the 3rd floor, then from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor, and eventually ended up on the main floor(although the 2nd floor was cooler).
everyone went to mars. madonna, prince, the chili peppers, etc. and then mars became a hip hop destination, and all of the rappers started showing up. 3rd base, ultramagnetics, big daddy kane, run dmc, etc. i would keep a microphone by my mixer, and whenever a rapper showed up i'd start playing instrumentals and let the rapper freestyle. it was amazing, being a 22 year old nerd from connecticut playing hip hop instrumentals while darryl from run dmc was freestyling.
and mars was incredibly eclectic. house music and beautiful tranny's on the first floor, hip hop and rappers on the 2nd floor, reggae and african music on the 3rd floor, ecstasy dealers on the 4th floor, old soul on the roof, new wave in the basement. it really was an amazing place. and the sound system, especially on the 1st floor, still stands as the loudest, cleanest, best sound i've ever heard.
i remember walking in for the first time and hearing 'this is acid' on the 1st floor soundsystem and i thought that i had never, ever heard anything sound that good or that loud, and that i was home, if they'd have me.
mars eventually succumbed to late 80's/early 90's crack fueled violence(it wasnt uncommon, sadly, to show up for work and find out that one of the doormen had been shot the night before), and eventually shut down(along with the building and red zone and the palladium and mk and nells and etc and etc...).
maybe now i'll go into my studio and see if i can find one of my dj tapes from the late 80's...
if you want to hear public enemy and jvc force and eric b and rakim badly mixed into one another i'll make you a copy.
and no, i don't have any pictures of me wearing my columbia university womens tennis team sergio tacchini jacket with gold dookie rope...
maybe that's for the best, all things considered...
oh, i also had a pony tail.
yup.
this has been a long blog, so i'll stop for now, hopefully to be continued later.
thanks
moby