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Moby Champions Los Angeles As A Haven For Creatives
Moby with a Black Flag shirt. He's one of us now! (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
It seems like we always get articles from a transplanted New Yorkers who wax poetic about how wonderful Los Angeles is. Now, it's Moby's turn to step up to the plate.Moby is hailing L.A. as a bastion of creativity and relative affordability. He yearns for the old days of New York City, where it was scary and full of drugs and disease, (Our friends at Gothamist have their take on Moby's musings here) but a hotbed for creatives. Los Angeles, he says, is a crazy mash-up of neighborhoods that act like parts of a eukaryotic cell with no real nucleus. This creates a certain climate that is constantly changing and new. It's also a place where you can fail comfortably, as opposed to New York, where you're basically nothing if you don't succeed:
In New York you can be easily overwhelmed by how much success everyone else seems to be having, whereas in L.A., everybody publicly fails at some point—even the most successful people. A writer’s screenplay may be turned into a major movie, but there’s a good chance her next five screenplays won’t even get picked up. An actor may star in acclaimed films for two years, then go a decade without work. A musician who has sold well might put out a complete failure of a record—then bounce back with the next one. Experimentation and a grudging familiarity with occasional failure are part of L.A.’s ethos.
Part of that landscape of failure in L.A., Moby says, is that those who fail have a much better chance of making it again, due in part to the cost of living being so much cheaper than in New York, which is very true.
Our favorite part is when he trumps up the city's wild surroundings with a line like, "The moment you leave L.A., you're in a desert that would most likely kill you if you left your water bottle at home."
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Come on now, the Inland Empire is not THAT bad.
The piece is a little cliché, but we'll concede that he does have a point. This city has been historically good to the creative community, from early Hollywood to the burgeoning underground music scene. He clearly loves this town and it's nice to hear someone expressing love for our fair city, even if it's from his perch high above the rest of us.
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But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.
We’re asking you to stand up for independent reporting that will not be silenced. With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else. Become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission.
Thank you for your generous support and belief in the value of independent news.
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