Red alert for the Lower East Side! Vegan electronica gnome Moby just finished refurbishing the Central Park West apartment he bought two years ago. But now he's sent out an email to his friends about moving back downtown—according to our source, the Mobester is wracked by class guilt and "can't deal with living in a nicer place."
In the basement of Lower East Side dive bar Lolita last night, a capacity crowd gathered to hear Kunkel-feuding debut novelist Katherine Taylor and elven-eared omnipresence The Reverend Jen debate each other. It was a lot like debate team in high school! Actually, no, it wasn't. But you know what high school thing it was exactly like, and what certain gatherings of the poor, artsy thirtysomethings who are managing to remain Lower East Siders so often resemble? That group of goth nerd drama geeks who always ate lunch together in that one certain corner of the courtyard. You know. The heavyset girls with black lipstick and ripped fishnets who would occasionally burst into Sondheim and the pasty boys who had just recently discovered that dark sunglasses and long hair can make acne scars seem sort of mysterious and romantic? Like that, but plus 20 years. Also plus Moby.
The L.E.S. isn't cool enough for Moby anymore—he's headed uptown, to the Upper West Side. Wait, maybe the problem is that Moby isn't cool enough for the L.E.S. anymore. Or... rich enough? Or shopping-oriented enough. Or something.
Trader Monthly, our favorite magazine in the world for thick-necked cigar-smoking i-bankers and the women who unwillingly love them behind dumpsters on 27th Street, has been giving various random people $50K to invest, with the profits going to charity. The results to date prove, unsurprisingly, that Damon Dash is a lot smarter than Moby, and that Jamie-Lynn Sigler is dumb as all get-out.
Sometimes we feel bad for Moby. After all, just because someone is overly self-righteous and makes boring music doesn't mean everyone should hate on him!
Not unlike one of his songs, the saga of Moby's attempt to stay off the web goes on and on and gets increasingly more annoying:
Despite the many advantages offered by the continuing progress of science, the pressures of the modern world can drain the spirit of even the most tech-savvy web user. So we sympathize with alopecian sample-wizard Moby, who has announced to his posse that he will be foregoing the pleasures of the Internet for the rest of the year, effective immediately. After the jump we present you with the e-mail from New York's most eligible bachelor. We sincerely hope that the whole thing works out for him: nothing less than the fate of albums based on clips of old blues singers slapped atop jungle beats depends on it.
• Nikki Finke reveals the missing money quote from the War of the Worlds: Viacom Vs. Cruise edition. [Deadline Hollywood]
• William H Macy wants to can Lindsay Lohan, probably because she dated Jared Leto briefly in '05. [Celebrity Week]
• The themes are: Incest, drug addiction, and promiscuous sex. Hmmm must be a Marie Claire party. [FWD]
• This couple from the m nage a laptop story real do get around [Salon]
• Video of 6'7" Jewish Rapper with dreadlocks. Nuff said, no? [ANIMAL]
• Katrina Anniversary Concert: featuring The Roots, Moby, Rosie Perez, Julia Stules and more. [Beyond Katrina]
The time: 2 p.m.
The date: August 20.
The place: Bank Street at Greenwich Street.
Sighted: "Mike Myers on my stoop on Bank and Greenwich with a much younger hipster chick making out. He is super polite."
I had a vegan dinner with Moby the other night during that big electrical storm and he ended up holding my rather large dog in his lap half the time ...
When he's not too busy with the day-to-day grind of composing commercially successful electronica or rolling around in a giant pile of ceylon kennilworth tea leaves, Moby prefers to retreat to his mountaintop cabin in Putnam County, where he relaxes with a few close friends and enjoys the serenity of an ecstasy-fueled groovefest. Or so the above photos, taken from one NYU girl's Facebook, would seem to suggest. More support to that theory here (kind of NSFW).
Bad news for the herbal infusion-addicted denizens of the Lower East Side: This morning electronica sell-out Moby announced to his troops that today would be the last day of operations at his Teany tea house. We're not quite sure what the reasoning is behind closing up shop; it's not as if we ever saw the joint looking particularly empty. Perhaps Moby was just tired of the imminent threat of violence on Rivington Street.
Our airsick bag-collecting brother at Gridskipper points us to a NY Observer story on the big acquisition of a 2000-acre plot of land in the Dominican Republic, financed by what could be the least masculine troupe of investors in history. The thin-wristed crew includes Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, DJ-ing white vegan stain Moby, mimbo socialite Alex Von Furstenberg and bird-chested money manager Boykin Curry.
Our first reaction on flipping to "Intelligencer" in this week's New York was to be a little sad that technobaldy and LES fixture Moby is leaving that neighborhood for the moneyed preserves of Central Park West. (One little fatal stabbing in front of his teashop, and there he goes from the neighborhood!) We were then stopped for a second by the odd description of his new pad, which features two terraces "with 360-degree views stretching from the George Washington Bridge to JFK," a span that strikes us as more of a 120-degree view. (Isn't the whole point of a 360-degree view that it stretches from GWB to GWB or from JFK to JFK?) But what finally, really hung us up was the byline: The item was written by on-leave New York gossipeuse Deborah Schoeneman, who is currently away from the magazine, working on her first novel, in seclusion upstate — at Moby's house.
· "I spotted Lockhart Steele dancing to 50 cent out of the top of a white stretch limo revving around lower manhattan at 4.30 this morning."
· "Meryl Streep at the Angelika, Friday for the 7:30 showing of A Mighty Wind, with husband and another couple."
· "Connie Chung, today at 4:30, at Columbus and 72nd, walking west under her very own CBS News umbrella. Why? (a) She wants to be noticed. (b) She wants to forget CNN. (c) She's wearing it *ironically*."
· "susan sarandon in the window of city bakery today @ 9:45am"
· "saturday, 19 april, 9.00pm: kim gordon and thurston moore of sonic youth plus moby at the opening of kim's new show at the participant inc. gallery, rivington and ludlow. (i'm sure there must've been some assorted strokes or the like around, too). kim looked stunning, her art looked pretty cool,
thurston looked really tall and unassuming, while moby looked kinda scruffy. afterward everyone decamped to the pink pony, where chloe sevigny happened to be languidly lounging and looking fantastic with two friends on the storefront banquette."
· From HINT Maga "smelly Moby sighting?": "Which world renowned superstar dj was literally funking up Joe's Pub last night with his crowd of friends. Many in the crowdwere hoping the "funny" smelly cigarettes they were smoking would mask theb.o., but alas.....apparently deoderant does not fit into the vegan lifestyle."
· "I just saw the ever secretive and reclusive steve guttenberg drinking Tab at lemon bar."
Moby on yesterday's gossip that he and painter Damian Loeb are no longer friends because Moby refused to lend Damian money: "damian is a successful painter and he has no need to borrow money from me...this might seem like a small and personal matter, but out of respect for damian i felt that i needed to set things straight. although he and i are no longer friends i still hold him in the highest regard and have nothing but respect for him both personally and professionally." Which, in Mobyese, means "fucking bastard. i hate him."
Damian Loeb [Moby.com]
· Design team Gaelyn & Cianfarani, who are doing a "cruelty-free" fashion show for PETA, got their start making black leather fetish outfits. [Page Six]
· Moby and painter pal Damian Loeb aren't speaking after Moby refused to lend Loeb money to fix up his Soho loft. [Page Six]
· Chelsea Clinton spotted playing pool and eating nachos with The Bachelorette reject who got busted for drugs at JFK. [Page Six]
· Yoko Ono's birthday invite reads: "Clothing optional. Chanel No. 5 optional. Bring your heart and high heels; sunglasses optional. Guests will be expected to wear the sky on their sleeves. Clouds optional." [Cindy Adams]
· Sean "P. Diddy" Combs on the significance of his military-themed clothing: "I would never use my show for a political statement about war or peace, but I'm strictly peace...[the military-looking jackets were meant to convey] "a warrior-type of vibe, telling people we need to look internally." [NY Daily News]
