Journal Archive - November, 2008

happy thanksgiving again.
i just went to see 'let the right one in'.
not to indulge in hyperbole, but it is probably the best movie of the year.
i loved it.
a caveat if you're thinking of going to see it: it's a bit bloody, just in case you're squeamish.
but it's almost perfect.
there's a scene at the end in a pool that is arguably one of the best things
i've ever seen in a movie.
i'm not sure who made 'let the right one in', but to whoever made it: thank you.
the world is awash in vampire movies and tv shows, some good and some bad.
'let the right one in' is holding up the 'good/great' end of the good-bad vampire spectrum.
what a perfect movie.
i clapped at the end.
well, to be fair i was the only person in the theater who was clapping, so maybe other people weren't
as enthralled as i was.
and then on the way out i saw john noble(who plays walter bishop on 'fringe')and said 'that was the feel good movie of the year'.
he laughed.
he's great.
moby

happy thanksgiving! i know, outside of the u.s thanksgiving doesn't mean that much, but here in the u.s and a it's a big deal, somewhere between veterans day and christmas.

earlier today pres elect obama and his family went to a homeless shelter in chicago to help out in feeding the needy. he then made an unplanned stop at a local elementary school and spoke to the kids.

one of the things that i truly like about pres elect obama is that he's more connected to normal life than he is to the life of a career politician. gw bush came from a background of great wealth and privilege and grew up with his dad as the head of the cia and then as v.p. that's not a criticism, just a statement of fact. obama grew up the only child of a single mom, and until recently was used to walking to his local barber to get his hair cut. you can tell that he still hasn't made peace with the fact that he can't just go to the local deli and buy a sandwich and then stop at the bike shop to get his tires filled.

personally i think that this is good and healthy and will serve him and us well. many politicians have been in office so long that they don't really remember what it was like to be a regular citizen. up until a couple of years ago obama was just a fairly regular joe, and i think that this will really help him when he's sworn in and becomes president. but i'm rambling. happy thanksgiving everyone, i hope that you spend the day with people you genuinely like and who genuinely like you. here's a picture of the obama's at the homeless shelter handing out food.

moby

ok, this is bella.

you'll notice a few things about bella. let's start with the obvious, like, that she's a dog. an english bulldog, to be specific. she's 4 months old. she has a hapsburg-romanov style underbite. she has a constantly protruding tongue. she can do long division in her head. she has figured pi out to the 37th place. and she's currently negotiating a cease fire between the tamil rebels and the sri lankan government. and she can fly.

i guess some of these things are kind of surprising, what with her being a 4 month old bulldog. normally bulldog puppies don't have the ability to fly without some sort of apparatus (like, say, a cape). but bella is special. she's also currently writing her memoirs (working title, '4 months old, sure, but i've lived.'). oh, she also has a pink fleece hoodie that keeps her from getting too cold. this comes in handy as it's currently cold in nyc. that's because it's almost winter. so bella is prepared. semper fi. which doesn't mean 'always prepared', but somehow it seems apt, especially as bella is also a u.s marine. i believe she might also be on obama's short list for 'housing and urban development secretary'. but some other qualified people are also on said short list, so we'll see how that plays out.

ok, that's all.

moby

i'm sorry to have to post this, as it's genuinely disturbing, especially around the 2:00 mark.
to think that she was almost president of the united states...
moby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-kjM1asH-8

p.s-not to indulge in hyperbole, but here's the Factor 1 list of criteria
for determining psychopathic tendencies in an individual, according to the DSM.
read through the list and see how many you think apply to sarah palin.

Factor1:

1. Glibness / superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning / manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Shallow
7. Callous / lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

rarely do i get to sit down and talk about records with people, but i was able to sit down and talk about records with todd from resident advisor.here's the transcript/link, if you want to take a look.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature-read.aspx?id=989

moby

ok, some more in the world of politics.

1-ted stevens, antiquated criminal senator from alaska, was finally defeated.
he was narrowly defeated in alaska. which kind of begs the question: who votes
for a convicted felon for senate?

2-yesterday was joe biden's birthday, which gave rise to my favorite headline of
the year:

Obama Surprises Biden With Cupcakes

3-well, i guess that's it for the entertaining world of politics today. i mean, sure, there are lots of other things going on, from wars to cabinet appointments, but why not just enjoy 'obama surprises biden with cupcakes' for a minute? and it's nice to know that the 'cupcakes' referred to in the headline were in fact cupcakes, and not the stage name of a stripper in reno. not that i have anything against strippers in reno. and not that i have anything against strippers in reno named 'cupcakes'.

i'm just glad that we've dodged a cupcake related scandal involving a stripper in reno. i wonder if people in reno send emails that say 're: no' when they're responding in the negative. it's probably happened once or twice.

speaking of word nerds, did you see the simpsons the other night where lisa was at a crosswords competition and they had a montage of her doing crosswords to cameo's mid 80's hit 'word up'? it was, to use an overused word, genius. and they had cameo's (ha, no pun intended. wait, is that even a pun?) from 2 of the luminaries who put together the ny times crossword puzzle. word nerds across the country rejoiced.

this has been a very long '#3', especially as it was supposed to be about politics and it ended up being about strippers in reno and mid 80's r&b and animated crossword puzzle competitions.

ok, that's all for now. i hope you've enjoyed puppycam. or, rather, i hope you're enjoying puppycam. more salient and weighty journal entries to come. maybe next time i'll revisit the marvelous world of toast.

moby

ugh, sorry to write this, but here's a little bit of gross politics...
the founder of home depot, bernie marcus, said yesterday that people
'should be shot' for not supporting republicans.
maybe he's a crazy old man who's off his meds, i don't know. but i do know
that democrats and sane people probably shouldn't be buying anything at home depot until someone at home depot explains why 'shooting people who don't support republicans' is part of their corporate policy.
seems like with the economy in the toilet now might not be the best time for a company
like home depot to alienate 53% of their consumers.
moby

am i safe in assuming that everyone knows about puppycam?

http://cdn1.ustream.tv/swf/4/viewer.45.swf?cid=317016

what i love about puppycam:

1-the puppies. i love that they have 2 states of being: chewing and sleeping. sometimes they even sort of combine the two, as in when they're 1/2 asleep but still chewing on the stuffed pumpkin toy. or when one puppy is asleep but one of his brothers/sisters is chewing on his leg. i don't know what kind of puppies these are, but they're my new role models.

2-i also love that in a world of web 2.0 and flash web sites and high-tech etc this web sit is a lo-res non-moving camera mounted in the corner of a homemade puppy kennel. there's no plot, there are no graphics, there are just a bunch of yelping, chewing, sleeping little puppies.

3-back to the puppies. i love that the puppies are utterly careless. well, maybe that's not true. they seem to care a lot about chewing on things. but they don't really care if they're falling down or being fallen on, even when they're sleeping. how is it that puppies can fall so heavily and effortlessly? are their little puppy bones made out of bouncy lead?

puppycam is like a perfect little utopia(which is probably why every person i know checks it a few times a day). they eat. they sleep. they chew. they fall down. and that's about it. so for every stressed office worker or graphic designer there exists this puppy utopia, representing the life that everyone kind of wishes they had.

i have a feeling that a few million people are going to need ptsd therapy when/if some of the puppies end up being sold/adopted, or even when they grow up. dogs are great, but they're not puppies, and they do a lot less adorable stuff. for now there are the puppies. as i write this: some of the puppies are sleeping. some of the puppies are chewing on each other. and one puppy is alternating between chewing on the stuffed pumpkin toy and another puppies leg. i mean, these puppies are never going to invent a segway or write a hilarious sitcom, but they seem to be as perfectly happy as any creature could ever hope to be.

moby

recently i was in san francisco and i went to visit some friends of mine who live in a houseboat in sausalito. sausalito?

just over the golden gate bridge. we were walking around the other house boats and i saw the following:

is this the 4th little pig? the one who lives in a houseboat with an atrium?

i imagine the big, bad wolf would have to pretend to be a local bringing free-trade coffee and medicinal marijuana to get inside the 4th little pigs atrium-topped houseboat.

oh, and while visiting the land of houseboats we also took a boat trip around the bay and got up close to about 50 harbor seals. or, if you're in the uk, harbour seals. the seals are painfully adorable, but best seen from a distance. see, up-close the seals are still adorable but they smell like a bag of dead lobsters that someone kept in the sun for a week. i honestly never knew that harbor seals were so unbelievably stinky. cute as a fistful of buttons, what with their little doe eyes and their cute little whiskers. but that smell...maybe it's a natural defense they've developed? i can imagine a shark in the wild pacific getting close to a harbor seal and thinking 'wow, that seal looks tasty, but it smells like a bag of dead lobsters. maybe i'll go eat a fisherman instead.'

in other news, i just watched the newest 30 rock episode. ah boy, the writing on 30 rock is so good. if tina fey were single i'd lie down in front of her apartment until she agreed to marry me just so i'd stop bothering her. maybe that's called 'stalking'. ah well, what's semantics where true love is involved? she is perfect.

moby

oh, here are some pictures from the issue project space fundraiser the other night.
it was a really interesting event.
in particular i love looking at all the different ways in which people make experimental electronic music.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2008/11/moby_tony_conra.html

and in other shameless self-promoting news, i think that 'last night: remixed' is out now on i-tunes and in stores.
have a good weekend.

moby

has anyone else noticed that obama and his family actually seem to really like and love each other? it's really heart-warming. i'm happy that obama is president-elect, but i'm also thrilled that this is our first family:

they are probably the most charming and endearing first family that the united states has ever had. and i love that last week obama took time off from his meetings to go to his daughters school for parent-teacher conferences. and i was reading in his memoirs that when he was a freshman at college in l.a in 1979 he hung out with:

"the foreign students. the chicanos. the marxist professors and the structural feminists and the punk rock performance poets. we smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. at night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, franz fanon, eurocentrism, and patriarchy. we set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake." (from 'the audacity of hope').

we have a smart and moderate president elect who's african-american and has a beautiful family and who hung out with punk rockers when he was in college? it's like waking up and finding out that every crappy top-40 station in america is now playing tv on the radio and the bad brains. moby

i've lived in the lower east side for almost 20 years now, but recently i moved to the depths of chinatown in manhattan.

i love it there, it's without question my favorite part of new york city. not necessarily the part of chinatown for tourists, but the deeper, murkier parts of chinatown where i'm invariably the only person on the street who doesn't speak mandarin or cantonese. the only downsides to living in chinatown are:

1-the smell of the garbage on sunday night, which is bad enough to make you want to stuff handgrenades in your nose and blow your face off just so you don't have to smell the putrefying bags of whatever it is they're throwing away.

2-the abundance of dead and almost dead animals in the windows of the restaurants. i do have to say that living in chinatown makes me even more solid in my veganism (i've been a vegan now for 21 years or so).

i love my neighborhood, but seeing a plate of food like:

makes it pretty easy to remain vegan. i don't even know what type of fish this is, or was. some prehistoric fish made out of moldy concrete? the missing link? the first fish to venture out of the primordial stew? some people might be concerned that i'm giving away my address by saying that i'm living in chinatown. that clearly means that you haven't spent a whole lot of time in chinatown, as it's a byzantine maze that even i get lost in.

see, this is what happens when political campaigns end, i write blogs about primordial fish and garbage bags filled with effluvia. regarding politics, though, i do find it funny that some people in the gop are still acting as if the campaign was on-going. sarah palin recently was talking about bill ayers, for instance. do you think some well-intentioned person in her family or close circle of friends could let her know that the campaign is actually over?

oh, and thanks to the people who came down to santos the other night to support the issue fundraiser.

moby

for a while now i've been involved in the issue project room.
issue is a remarkable place, providing a stage and a home for experimental music in new york.
on november 11th(this tuesday) i'll be dj'ing at a fund-raising event for issue at santos' party house.
it's hosted by tony conrad, and features a really interesting and eclectic line-up of musicians and dj's.

DAVID LINTON
CHARLES COHEN
ALEX WATERMAN
BUBBLYFISH
TALIBAM
LUKE DUBOIS
CHIKA
CASPAR STRACKE

tickets are available here:

http://www.issueprojectroom.org/tickets.html

i hope you can come out and support issue.
thanks!
moby

p.s-oh, justy fyi, the dj set i'll be doing will be much more ambient and experimental than the normal dj sets that i do.

for the last, oh, 8 years or so i've been primarily writing about weighty issues, like politics and economics and national security.
but now that barack steve obama is president-elect and the united states has re-joined the world community i can write about decidedly light-weight stuff, like toast.
i recently discovered this website:

http://toastalicious.com

it's a celebration of all things toast. which might seem mundane, but, well, who doesn't appreciate toast?
and who doesn't appreciate that people devote time, love, and energy to making websites about their niche obsessions?
like toast.
or toasters.
to wit, there's the:

http://www.toastermuseum.com/

this is actually pretty amazing, as the collection of old toasters is comprehensive and ingenious.
we've spent the last 8 years enduring the bush administration and we've spent the last 2 years slogging through the presidential nominations and then the election.
so let's take a break and breathe deep and take a few minutes to look at pictures of toasters or perhaps learn about the etymology of 'toast'.
and in lighthearted political news it was revealed today that the obama's will be getting a non-allergenic dog from the dog pound to accompany them on their move to the white house.
i guess this was part of the deal that president elect obama made with his daughters.
that if he was elected president they'd get a puppy.
see, even though the world is still falling apart we can take a couple of minutes to think about non-allergenic puppies and the history of the toaster.
there's nothing wrong with pound puppies and websites about toast.
we've all earned a brief respite, i think.
moby

now that we have obama as president elect and now that the democrats have huge majorities in the house and senate and governorships and local legislatures, well, i guess i don't really need to write about politics so much anymore?

i mean, there are still pressing issues, and i'll write about them, but the election is done, and it ended well.

so i guess i can shut up and sing, as some people have requested. although there are some problems with 'shut up and sing'.

problem 1 is that it's kind of technically impossible to 'shut up' and 'sing' at the same time. sort of like saying 'stop and dance'. if i shut up i can't sing. and if i sing i'm not really shutting up. sort of oxymoronic.

the other problem is that i rarely sing. in fact on 'last night' i only sort of sing on 'alice' and sort of talk on 'hyenas'. but you'll see, now that my political obsession is waning a bit i'll start writing about deeply mundane things like mud covered squirrels and wallets that disinfect money and the planned obsolescence of lightbulbs.

you'll see, soon you'll be longing for the days when i wrote obsessively about politics. maybe you'll start sending me emails, 'you know, it's nice that you're so interested in coin collecting, and that it inspires you to write, but do you think that maybe you could write about politics every now and then?'

i just got back from seeing the bad brains. i love the bad brains. but boy oh boy was this an odd show. h.r was, uh, interesting. when i saw the bad brains in 1982 h.r was a frenzied lunatic, running around the stage, screaming at the top of his lungs, dreadlocks flying, doing back flips off of the drum set. and now he wears a white suit and smiles at the audience and sort of gently sing-speaks some of the song lyrics. all the while the bad brains (darryl, dr no, earl) are making this huge fantastic punk rock sound/noise. the bad brains really were the best hardcore band ever. and now they're still amazing, but the lead singer, h.r, is still sort of in the deep end. ok, i need sleep.

moby

Its 2 am in nyc and the streets are filled with people.
Everyones dancing and laughing and hugging each other.
Its like mardi gras meets new years eve meets graduation meets the moon landing.

Barack obama is president elect of the united states.
He won, and he won with a very large majority.
I'm not gloating, I'm just saying that his victory is a landslide.

To democrats: thank you. You worked incredibly hard and gave selflessly and waited in long lines to vote. Thank you.

You've given us a better future than we had yesterday.
To republicans: you fought hard but you lost. Again, I'm not gloating, but I hope that you can look at the republican party and the many years of operating from a place of stoking the fires of fear and divisiveness and figure out how to move forward as a 21st century party. Obama has pledged to work for all americans. I hope that you can put aside your cynicism and bitterness and give him the chance that he's earned. If you care about your country and your future you'll support obama as president elect and do what you can to help him pass bipartisan legislation that will help to get our country back on track.

To the rest of the world: thank you. Obama is first and foremost president elect of the united states, but he's also a citizen of the world, and we thank you for supporting him and for not giving up on america. We as a country seem to have regained our sanity.
We've put aside fear and cynicism and deceit and we've embraced hope and optimism and progress.
America is an amazing country, capable of amazing change.
40 years ago blacks and whites couldn't share the same drinking fountain in many parts of america.
Now we have an african-american president elect and a democratic majority in the house and senate to help get the country moving in the right direction.
We all deserve a rest now for a little bit.
I'm still in a state of happy shock. We won. We won in a landslide. We have a smart, capable, inspiring african-american president.
Thank you.
Moby

ok, it's election day and it's time for a list.

1-i'm nervous. anxious. eesh. i'm sure that xanax is being gobbled across the u.s by dem's and gop'ers alike.

2-here's my prediction in electoral college votes...

obama 314 electoral college votes
mccain 224 electoral college votes

i could be completely wrong, but that's my(hopeful, of course)prediction.
if i'm right you can please feel free to tell people that i'm a political savant, like yogi berra(minus the baseball).

3-we launched:
http://www.myspace.com/thisislastnight
non-stop disco site party time that is ostensibly up to promote 'last night: remixed' which was released
yesterday(the fact that it was released the day before the u.s elections is just a weird coincidence).
it's a really good record, and i can say that objectively as all of the remixes were done by dj's and producers
who are much cooler than i.

4-as i write this(2:30 a.m monday night/tuesday morning)i find it almost disconcerting to think of how
good an obama presidency would be for the u.s and for the world. to have a president who is young and principled
and intelligent. to have a president who is open-minded and willing to listen to ideas regardless of where they come from.
to have a president who would enjoy the support of the rest of the world.
and, to have a president who is african-american. i can't even begin to conceive of how amazing
it is that we might wake up on wednesday to have an african-american president-elect. 40 years ago blacks in many
parts of the u.s couldn't even use public drinking fountains. and now we might have an african-american president.
amazing. america's capacity to re-invent itself and to make itself anew continues to amaze me.

5-if you haven't voted, go vote. be an agent of change. help to elect barack obama and joe biden to the highest
office in the united states.

thanks,
moby

tomorrow is election day(although 27,000,000 people have already voted early, so i guess
tomorrow is actually the end of 'election week').
by this point you know where i stand. i heartily support the obama/biden ticket, and i strongly believe
that barack 'steve' obama and joe 'amtrak' biden will do a great job as president and vice-president of the united states.
we've now had 8 years of republican rule(please remember: john mccain voted with president bush over 90% of the time), and the united
states is in terrible shape. our standing internationally is in the toilet(our enthusiastic allies at this point being guam and albania).
under bush and mccain and the republicans we've seen our economy fall apart. we've spent a trillion dollars in iraq in a war that never should've started and that has mainly
served to increase iran's standing in the middle east. we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing oil
companies, even as gas and oil prices have been at all time highs and the oil companies have made record profits. we have opposed and cut funding for good science(stem cell research, climate
change research, bio-tech, alternative energy development, etc). we have illegally detained and tortured
many innocent people. we have given welfare to corporations while cutting funding to schools, the police, and fire departments.
the wealthiest 1% in america have seen their incomes soar in the last 8 years, while the middle class have actually seen their net worths
decline.
perhaps the last 8 years of republican rule are best summed up with the quote:

“We Republicans have done a miserable job of managing the affairs of government.”
-former Republican Party chairman Tom Slade

barack obama is a pragmatist, and he and joe biden will govern as democratic centrists. john mccain was once a pragmatist, but he has
become enslaved to the extreme right of the republican party. in the past john mccain opposed president bush's tax
cuts for wealthy americans. in the past john mccain opposed increased off-shore drilling. in the past john mccain even
called the leaders of the religious right 'agents of intolerance'. to quote the economist, 'what happened to the real john mccain?'
john mccain has reversed himself and contradicted himself on almost every position he used to hold. he has run a dishonest
and vicious campaign. he has campaigned on fear and divisiveness, while doing everything in his power to avoid
talking about the issues that actually matter to people. and, most disturbingly, he picked a vice-presidential running
mate who is probably the least qualified person to ever run for vice-president(when recently asked by AN EIGHT YEAR OLD what
the vice-president actually did Sarah Palin got the answer wrong...).
Barack Obama has the same or more federal experience as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton did
when they were first elected.
i urge you to vote, and i urge you to vote for barack obama and joe biden.
we need change. we need steady, responsible leadership. we need leaders who will be respected by our allies overseas. we need
leaders who understand the workings of the economy and how to fix it. we need leaders who are in touch with the needs
of the middle class. we need leaders who will reform education and health-care. we need leaders who represent people and not
oil companies.
i strongly believe that after 8 years of the arrogance and ineptitude of bush, cheney, and mccain that we desperately need barack obama to be president of the united states.
thanks,
moby

I love canada.
And if mccain wins on tuesday I think you might see a mass exodus of educated, progressive americans to canada, o canada.
Or australia. Or new zealand. Or the uk. Or france. Or scandanavia. Or germany. Or the netherlands. Or belgium. Or spain. Or japan. Or any of the other relatively sane and progressive countries on the planet.
Which begs a question for right-wing republicans: if mccain loses and you want to protest and leave america, where will you go?
Which countries on the planet are theocracies where they oppose gay rights and have the death penalty and restrict access to hollywood entertainment and let affairs of state be handled by religious leaders and restrict women's rights and access to medical procedures? Not too many countries that I can think of, certainly no western countries. So maybe, Oh, iran? Saudi arabia?
So I guess if you're a right wing zealot in the u.s and you want to leave america and live in a place with other god fearing fundamentalists you have to move to iran or saudi arabia, because I can't think of any other western country where a right wing republican would be happy, as almost every country in the western world is considerably more secular and progressive than the u.s.
I guess the world(outside of oklahoma, iran, and saudi arabia)is a fairly lonely place for right wing theocrats.
How about this: if obama wins and the democrats keep control of the house and the senate we'll give the republicans oklahoma and let them start their own country there?
A country with twice the teen pregnancy rate as the blue states, twice the high school drop out rate, and twice the abortion rate of the blue states. A country with a flag showing dinosaurs and humans co-existing. A country where harry potter books are burned to keep people warm during the cold winter nights. A country where embryos are thrown in the garbage rather than be used for new stem-cell lines.
How does that sound? We let you have the 'new republican country of oklahoma', and in turn you leave the rest of us alone?
We'll even sell you our new technologies, so long as you don't reject them as being products of the devil.
Moby

Ps-for the record, I have nothing against oklahoma. It just seems reliably republican, big, and they have a lot of extra room.

From al gore. Please volunteer in these last days if you can.
Moby

http://my.barackobama.com/page/m2/55c13935/6bb827f9/152c7a0e/118848e2/16...
In 2000, the entire election came down to a small number of votes in one county in Florida.

Four years later, we came up short by an average of nine voters per precinct in Ohio.

A small change in voter turnout would have made all the difference. Take it from me, elections matter. And this time, supporters like you can make it happen.

I know this might not be possible for everyone, but I'm asking you to consider volunteering anytime between now and Election Day -- Tuesday, November 4th.

With so much at stake this year, we can't miss any opportunity to get more voters to the polls -- and make sure their votes are counted.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/m2/55c13935/6bb827f9/152c7a0e/118848e2/16...
You have an important role to play in this election. Please sign up to volunteer.

We all watched in the last two presidential elections as the course of our nation was determined by a few thousand votes in key battleground states.

After eight years of failed policies and divisive politics, we can take back the White House and set our nation on the right path.

It's up to each of us to make sure we turn this movement for change into millions of more votes on Election Day.

Find out how you can make a difference in these last two days, and help support Barack Obama and Joe Biden:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/m2/55c13935/6bb827f9/152c7a0e/118848e2/16...
http://my.barackobama.com/november

With your help, we can make history -- and bring the change we need to our country.

Thank you,

Al Gore