feeling it all in nyc since 2006. for my adventures in dining, visit eat your chow.
say hi: mollymoker[at]gmail[dot]com
My favorite memory from Jazz Fest: Saturday afternoon, stretching to 90 degrees, sweat dripping out of every pore on my body. Trombone Shorty on the Gentilly Stage. “On the count of three, I want everyone to go crazy!” he yelled. No way, in this heat, is anyone going to do that, I thought to myself. One…two…three.
Everyone went crazy.
TQ: You moved to LA last year after 25 years in New York City. I am not entirely sure why, but this feels almost like a betrayal…
Moby: Perhaps it is. But if I were to be really petulant, I would say New York is the one doing the betraying. Because the New York I fell in love with doesn’t really exist anymore. When I was growing up, I fetishised New York City. It was the land of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, it was where Leonard Cohen wrote ‘Chelsea Hotel’, it was CBGBs and all the punk rock clubs. Artists and musicians lived there, and it was cheap and dangerous. And now it’s a very attractive city where hedge fund managers and wealthy Europeans spend a lot of money for food. The interesting people have been priced out to the outer reaches of Brooklyn and Queens. The same thing has happened to London as well – I find London really exciting but there’s a lot of vicious success here. Like New York, there’s a lot of incredibly successful people who feel incredibly entitled, perhaps justifiably, but I don’t want to be around viciously entitled people. I’d rather be around broken people who have a degree of humility, and just get on with their work.
…
When I was a drunk, New York was the greatest place in the world. You walk everywhere, everything is open until four in the morning, and people go to New York looking for debauchery. So you’d have all these crazy, fantastic experiences. And then I stopped drinking and realised New York still has a lot of charm, but it has become so bourgeois and affluent – and I can’t really complain because I’m sort of bourgeois and affluent myself, but I like living in a place where artists and musicians and writers can actually pay the rent. So LA, well, first of all I love not being cold in January. The smug satisfaction that comes from sitting in the sun on January 15th and checking the weather in New York and London, seeing that it’s freezing cold and pissing down with rain. That’s nice, the schadenfreude of that.
Toes in the grass, sundress on, 75 degree weather, a daiquiri by my side. And a two hour Wilco set. First day of Jazz Fest in New Orleans a success.
Last year, I made an impulse decision to go down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I arrived 40 hours after I booked my plane ticket. It was awesome.
Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez, where ever you might be.
OD’d on Mardi Gras/New Orleans coverage? Not so fast. Here are my recommendations on Fodors.com. Happy Lundi Gras!
Booked a plane ticket 40 hours before I left. Stayed in the Quarter at the Monteleone. Found my friend in the midst of Mardi Gras madness despite cell phones barely working. Ate and finally fell in love with po’boys. Drank a Mardi Gras margarita on the street. Saw my first Mardi Gras parade. Danced to the Mardi Gras Mambo. Yelled “throw me something, mister!” Caught infinite numbers of beads. Caught Saints fever. Got a go-cup. Walked all around the city. Danced with a robot on Frenchmen. Jammed to the Soul Rebels at Blue Nile. Wore gold glitter tights. Jumped a parade route fence. Drank a foot-long daiquiri at noon. Threw beads from a balcony on Bourbon Street. Saw a woman flash for beads on her family vacation. Danced on a cooler in the middle of Frenchmen. Ate Thai food with a mask on. Played the tambourine for who knows how long at an after party. Ate beignets. Bought King Cake. Ate more po’boys. Hung out at the Fly. Shopped for Mardi Gras posters. Drank a Pimm’s Cup at Napoleon House. Had a delicious dinner at Bayona. Heard live jazz at Preservation Hall. Fell deeper in love with a city I seriously hope to one day call home.
Jazz at Preservation Hall. So sad to leave this fabulous city tomorrow…at 6 am.
