flying to japan. hi. very tired.
flying from the east to the west (and ending up in the east) makes for a very long day. we left jfk at 11 a.m and we’ll arrive in narita (tokyo) at 3pm (14 hours later, strangely enough) and the sun won’t have gone down but it will be the next day. it’s like magic, isn’t it? it’s still the same day, but it’s the next day.
i’ve watched some trashy movies (‘spy kids’ & ‘rush hour2’…) and read some trashy magazines (all of them, actually, it’s a 14 hour flight) and begun a trashy book (the title of which i will keep to myself so as not to comprise whatever quasi-intellectual credibility i might have…suffice it to say that it involves espionage and people with names lifted from soap operas.)
and thus begins the promotional period for ’18’. for the next 4 months i guess i can look forward to strangers asking me intimate questions about my work and my stunted psyche. which is good. i think that i’m one of the few musicians in the world who actually enjoys doing interviews.
in fact i’ve never understood how musicians can complain about music journalists taking an interest in their work. when i was a little weiner in connecticut making music in my moms basement i longed for anyone to take an interest in the music that i was making. and now i get to travel around the world and talk to professional music journalists about my life and my work. how could i complain about that? i maintain that a musician who complains about the difficulties of touring and doing interviews has lost perspective. to any musician who is prone to complaining about the arduous life of the touring musician, don’t you remember what it was like to dream about travelling around the world and playing concerts and meeting fans and doing interviews and appearing on tv and hearing your songs on the radio? now that people pay attention to your music how can you complain about anything? having even one stranger say something nice about the music that you’ve made is better and more precious than sex and water-skiing combined.
so even when we musicians are exhausted and sick from excessive touring we should still wake up every morning and kiss the floor out of gratitude and thankfulness.
if i weren’t able to live as a musician i would probably be frying onions at arby’s (which as a 36 year old vegan would really suck, but would smell nice. frying onions always smell nice). so i can never complain.
and whenever a musician complains i think two things: 1-they’ve lost the plot. 2-if it’s that difficult for them they could always quit.
ok, i’ll get off my high horse now. but i do need to remind every musician in the world:
if you’re playing a concert and people are paying attention and enjoying themselves or if you’re doing an interview or making a record or writing a song or singing a nursery rhyme to a sleeping child, just count your blessings because you’re very fortunate and should be grateful that you’re able to have music in your life in such an intimate way.
at least that’s what i think. like i said, i’ll get off of my high horse now.
time to go for a walk around the plane and see if i can restore some feeling to my butt.
-moby