oftentimes i’m asked about what i do and don’t like about touring.

the do’s are simple:
playing music every night
and
travelling with friends

and of the many things that i don’t like about touring(being away from home for months on end, having to put friendships and relationships on hold as a result of never being home, etc), the #1 thing that i absolutely loathe about touring is jet-lag and insomnia(well, 2 things. but 2 loathsomely related things).

when i’m home and in 1 time zone for an extended period of time i sleep just fine.

but put me on the road and throw me in/over 11 time zones in a short period of time and my sleep switch gets thrown to ‘off’.

i’m not an envious person.

but i do have deep and pernicious envy for people who can sleep easily regardless of where/when they might find themselves trying to sleep.

do you sleep on the red-eye?

do you arrive in japan and instantly adapt to being 11 time zones away from home?

after 1 day in australia are you well-rested?

is waking up at 9 a.m in france easy for you, even if you were in los angeles 2 days prior?

well, then i envy you.

deeply and profoundly and perniciously do i envy you.

at some point i will change my approach to touring.

when managers and record companies say, ‘can you go from l.a to london to nyc to japan to germany to australia?’

i will say ‘no, i’m sorry, but i cannot.’

ok, i shouldn’t complain.

i’m venting.

as my uncle would say, ‘you’re a rock-star travelling around the world playing concerts to loads of people and you’re complaining??’

but sleep…

sweet, beautiful sleep.

an entity with which i have far too sporadic a relationship.

and touring, with tour buses and time zone changes and early morning interview requests and etc, is anaethma to sleep.

someday i’ll sleep well.

maybe not until december when the tour is over.

but someday.

i’ll find myself in the same time-zone for more than a few days at a stretch, and i will sleep.

and if you, no matter who you might be, try to interrupt me when i’m finally re-acquainted with sleep i will kill you with my teeth.

thanks,
moby

hi.
in london.
well, a part of me is in london.
from a circadian perspective i’m guessing that another part of me is in anchorage, alaska. i like travel. i like touring. i like playing music on stage and meeting people and living in a bus. but the changing of time-zones (especially the japan-nyc-uk style change) just does my head in.some people were blessed with a flexible bodyclock.
i was not, which is a substantial liability for a touring musician.
so i’ll have a week of insomnia in the uk. and then things will be normal. right? please? pretty please?

oh i should stop whining. i’m just being a big whiny baby. ok, no more circadian whining from me.i do think that in the interest of accomodating people such as myself (frequent travellers with inflexible bodyclocks) the civilized world shouldrearrange itself into one or two time zones. so we should find the part of the world with the most amount of land in one or two time zones and then we should all move there. north or south, northern or southern hemisphere, it would be your choice.cos when you live in nyc you invariably travel outside of your time zone seeing as very few international destinations are actually inside thenyc time zone.
as opposed to someone from australia who could fly to japan and still relatively be in the same time zone. or someone from stockholm who could fly tosicily (or even south africa) and still relatively be in the same time zone. so let’s all move to the same time zone. think of the benefits!
well, think of the benefits for me!
ok, time to go watch some 5 a.m mtv. or maybe i’ll go for a walk.
boy oh boy, how many times (100’s) have i walked around london at 5 in the morning. i’m not whining, i’m just marvelling at the fact that when i was growing up i never thought that i would ever leave the eastern seaboard of the united states.when i was growing up in darien a trip to new haven (45 minutes away) was kind of a big deal.
so here i sit thinking about how many hundreds of times i’ve walked around london at 5 in the morning. it’s just strange for me, that’s all. cos i always envisioned a life for myself wherein i would be envious of people who travelled all the time.
ok, goodnight.
anchorage.
moby

ok, it happened…
after months and months of sleeping through the days i’ve decided to turn my schedule around (please excuse me if this is dull, i find that writing about my sleeping habits is endlessly fascinating…).
now i’m re-learning how to wake up in the morning.
i feel like a little baby monkey learning how to stumble.
wow, in some ways it’s nice to be this tired.
i decided to change my sleep schedule cos the sun as it comes in through my skylights is too pretty to miss. ok, goodnight. moby