Moby rocks.

In my continuing series (ie. two) of posts celebrating interesting people who I enjoy listening to, I present to you: Moby!

I've known he was a neat guy for a while -- after all, his music is interesting, making me both sad and happy at the same time. His online journal is a marvel of openness considering the scrutiny stars are placed under these days, and his writings during and just after Sept 11 (written from his New York loft) are very moving. Not to mention, he's a vegan (a practice which I'm fascinated by, if not interested in adopting), he owns a very cute little vegan tea&sandwich shop called teany, and he's the only person I know who managed to deal rationally and calmly with being threatened by Eminem.

But the "interesting and good person" seal was officially placed on him in perpetuity when I caught some of the "MTV Cribs" episode which showed Moby's house in New York. In case you're not familiar with the show, "Cribs" basically gives a voyeuristic look into the homes of stars, allowing us peons to marvel at their marble jacuzzis, seven Lexus SUV's, and 40-room mansions. It's a sickening exercise in excess which I nevertheless watch occasionally for the fascinating overindulgence of it all.

Enter Moby. He quietly, calmly, and entirely without hubris shows the cameras around his New York loft which consisted of a room entirely taken up by a king size bed, a living room with precisely four pieces of furniture (a couch, a chair, and two tables), a guest bedroom up a loft ladder with skylights, a normal bathtub with skylights, a soundproof music room and a not very impressive-looking wooden rooftop area with a lovely view of some dilapadated apartments. Moby's prize possessions were a Swedish fridge that is, supposedly, the most energy efficient fridge in the world, a push organ so he could play music even if the power went out, and a personalized picture of Homer drawn by Matt Groening on what looks like a bar napkin.

Certainly, the apartment was decorated nicely, and the music room had a lot of equipment in it, but a few keyboards and a white-and-black paint job are not my idea of luxuries. And I like that. I like that Moby manages to stay a good person despite all the money and the fame and the so on. It's nice to know there's someone out there who doesn't want the mansion or the cars or the ostentatious displays of wealth. Just give him some orange juice, a guitar and a nice skylight, and he's happy.