Boulder, CO – “Moby, A Commitment to Music” – November 2, 1998

It’s the first snow of the season and I’m sitting in Buchannan’s, my go-to university coffee shop. Jazz falls, in concert with snowflakes, from speakers in the ceiling.  The cymbals and high hats seem to chaperone the accumulation, keeping the ground and eager snow drifts an appropriate distance apart.

I arrived home from LA early this morning.  I stepped off the plane at DIA renewed, refreshed, and alive again because this is real.  These mountains, this nature, this musical path I’ve chosen, this is REAL.  No nonsense, no ego, no one to make me “into” someone I’m not.  I’m free to be who I am, as I am, in this moment, and this moment, and this moment, and this, without worrying who’s watching.

It’s not that I didn’t have fun in LA.  Who can complain about playing two renowned venues (Luna Park & The Mint) let alone, getting your ego stroked by record company execs who wine and dine and offer the moon and ½ a dozen stars?  But my greatest accomplishment was returning to Colorado with my integrity intact and a greater sense of clarity and confidence than I deserve about the choice I’ve made to go it alone.

Back at my little apartment, I did a phone interview, the third in the last 24 hours, while I watered my plants, unpacked my bag, and peeled furniture back from where it’d drifted across my warped floorboards since I left.

At 2:00 I took a taxi East, my back to the powdered sugar mountains, to get my band a van!  I’ve been wrestling with the decision of whether to rent or buy a van for these upcoming gigs.  The rub has been less about the purchase price (which is a whopping $24,000) and more about the commitment to life as a musician.  But last week I made my bed.  I put a down payment on a Ford Econoline E250 Cargo extended van and, with the band, named it “Moby” ‘cause It’s a white whale of a beast.  I felt grown up walking into the dealership, signing papers, and driving off the lot as a working musician.