Moby – New Beginnings
T
he iconic musician Moby, is an avid photographer, animal rights activist and architecture enthusiast.
In this candid interview, he talks about his philosophy and musical process.
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Erin Castellino/ I want to talk to you first about moving from the East Coast. What brought you to LA?
Moby/ Well, I was born in New York, on 168th Street. Growing up, I thought I would spend my entire life living in New York or somewhere near New York because, in the 70s and 80s, it was the most exciting, dynamic city on the planet. Then a few things happened. One: I had this sort of LA epiphany that many New Yorkers have; you come to LA expecting it to be the land of Baywatch and plastic surgery, vapid agents, and whatnot. And instead, you find it to be this gentle and wonderful place. So, seven or eight years ago, it was New Year’s Day, and I was having brunch outside in Los Angeles. Seventy-four degrees and blue sky, and I got back on the plane and went to New York, where it was 34 degrees and sleeting. All of a sudden, synaptically, I realized that most… a lot of suffering is optional. I just thought, “Why do I live in a cold place, New York, that’s becoming increasingly gentrified; the artists, the writers, the musicians, the people who make New York interesting are all being pushed out financially. And many of them are moving to LA.” So, to make a long story longer, I decided that I wanted to live in a place that is warm in the winters and which was primarily populated by artists, writers, and musicians.
Do you think that the music scene in New York had anything to do with your staying in New York? Did it change when you moved to LA?
Growing up in New York, one of the things that kept me there was the music scene. In the 70s, that meant… Max’s, CB’s and the punk rock world, hip-hop world, house music, electronic music. Musically, in the 70s and 80s, New York was a fascinating place. In the 90s, it was the rise of a lot of interesting indie rock bands, like TV On The Radio, Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. And it piqued and held my interest. But then, to state the obvious, you need space to be engaged in many creative disciplines. Like the abstract expressionists – they had huge studios. That was when the Lower East Side… you could be an artist and have a 4000 sq. ft studio for $200 a month. However, as real estate in New York has become prohibitively expensive, musicians, artists, filmmakers, and photographers have had to go to places where they could have bigger studios or make tiny art. You think of the abstract expressionist with 10ft by 15 ft canvases, as opposed to a lot of art coming out of New York now, which is tiny and delicate in a manner like some kid makes it at his little desk in an apartment he shares with seven other people. So, musicians need space in which to make music. And many of them have had to leave New York because the recording studios and the rehearsal spaces keep shutting down. It’s almost like this weird syndrome where revenue in the music world has plummeted as real estate costs have increased. Nearly every musician I know in New York has had to move somewhere – usually Los Angeles.
Or maybe Austin?… there’s a big music scene.
Other cities’ loss through gentrification is our gain. Some people find Austin too gentrified because they have Texas Instruments and all those high-tech companies, so they’re being priced out of Austin. Every bad thing about LA is a double-edged sword. Meaning most cities have a relatively small footprint, especially more conventional cities like New York, Boston, and London (which have a big footprint but still have a very cohesive central core). LA County has this massive footprint, and it’s like a petri dish, meaning it just sprawls, which can create a lack of cohesion, but it also means there’s always going to be somewhere inexpensive for artists and musicians to have studios. Also, for example, in New York and London, a lot of cities have great public transportation. The downside of that is that gentrification happens where there is public transportation. You can only gentrify a neighborhood if people have access to public transportation. With its inadequate public transportation, LA doesn’t gentrify around subway lines. It just gentrifies you towards where you can drive. As a result, there’s so much real estate here that is still not prohibitively expensive. It’s a double-edged sword. It makes LA a vast, chaotic place, but it also means anyone can live here.
When you decided to move here, how did you choose the neighborhood you would live in?
First, I decided to leave New York – which was weird because I was born and raised there. I had my list of criteria; I thought… okay I want to live in a place that’s warm in the winter, filled with artists, and has easy access to nature. My three main criteria – and LA was the only place that satisfied all those criteria. And then I said okay, but LA’s the size of Connecticut. Where in this vast county do I want to live? And my first thought was I want to live by the beach. Oh, the Pacific Ocean… and then I learned some things about the beach. It’s cold. Why would I leave a cold place and move to the beach where I can’t actually go swimming? And I love the Pacific Ocean and all the coastal communities, though no one goes swimming. You need a full wetsuit or a day in September when the water gets above frigid. Also, the coastal communities are amazing, but they’re far away from the creative communities. I did a demographic look at LA and realized that 90% of my friends lived in Eagle Rock, Echo Park, Highland Park, and Silverlake. I wanted to be near my friends who live on the East side but also near film and music studios, so I picked this area. I guess this is Los Feliz?
When you first moved here, did you move to Los Feliz or live elsewhere?
The first house was in West Hollywood, in the Bird streets. And I realized I didn’t know anyone there, and there wasn’t the community I was looking for. One of the things I love about the east side of LA is it was developed before the advent of the car, so there is still a cohesion to it that I like. When they were building East LA, I feel that they carved out Griffith Park – almost like in the era of Teddy Roosevelt – ‘nature is important for people so give the people this 4,000 or 5,000 acres of park’. And that is one thing that really made me want to be here.
Here, being the Fern Dell area?
Yeah, technically, I live in about seven different neighborhoods – East Hollywood, Los Feliz, Franklin Village, The Oaks, Fern Dell, Griffith Park, etcetera. People ask me – where do you live, and I say, “East Hollywood…I don’t know.”
Although your home is lovely, and I was lucky enough to see your other homes, it’s smaller. Is there a reason that you went from bigger to smaller?
When I first moved here, I moved to a 4-acre estate in Beechwood Canyon, and it was beautiful. It was a castle from 1927. There was a John Lautner guest house, and it was big, grand, and impressive, but then I realized, on a day-to-day basis, I only used a little of it. I’m just one person; I don’t have a family. I wouldn’t say I like having house guests, and most of the house and the other properties never got used. It seemed like such a waste – having limited resources in terms of time and attention and using them to sustain something that I didn’t use to its full capacity.
Also, I think (and this may be a little more esoteric) that question of the choices that we make, are we making them for ourselves based on actual empirical experience on what it’s like to be alive, or are we making them based on some assumption of what we should be doing. Like when someone builds a 20,000 sq.ft house, is it meeting their needs as a person? Will it inform their quotidian experience of what it’s like to be alive? Or are they rich people who think they’re supposed to have a 20,000 sq. ft house? When I moved here, Puff Daddy moved to somewhere like a $30 million estate in Bel Air, and I thought, well, he’s got this 20,000 sq. ft house, but he’s still just going to sit at the kitchen table logging into Facebook. And I think that it’s not something that we’re good at. We’re good at analyzing the things in our lives from a status perspective; we want to impress people with our choices, but that’s a tiny part of our life. Most of our life is waking up, showering, going to the bathroom, doing dishes, etc. And in those things, status doesn’t inform you. Fanciness compromises an individual’s ability to experience those things happily.
I agree with you; I see (even in my field, being an interior designer) that people are scaling down because they want to use their homes. The clients I had before, who were building these enormous homes, realized that they were paying staff to take care of a space that never got used, and if it did get used, it was for parties. They want more land and smaller houses so that they can be outside or use all their space.
That was one of the realizations that I had in my old house. It was three or four acres of my land. I had access to Griffith Park, but I owned private land, which is absurd as it’s land that is a couple billion years old – you can’t own it. Then I asked myself, “what do I value about this land?” What I value is having access to nature and being in the natural environment in the city, which then made me think – I can have my couple of acres, or I can avail myself of the 5,000 acres of Griffith Park at my front door. If nature is important, it doesn’t matter who technically owns it. I don’t care. I’d rather walk around 5,000 acres that are publicly owned…
with a bunch of people, too, seeing dogs and kids and families.
When people have excess space, it can be oddly isolating. One of the things I like about living here is that I see other people. Some friends of mine who live way up in Nichols Canyon, Mulholland, don’t encounter other people, and I think limbically, we are gregarious people, and when we don’t have human contact, we go insane. They call it Ted Kaczynski disorder, the Unabomber disorder. Neurochemically, things go awry when you don’t have human contact (even if it’s just to “say hi to your neighbor”). And this is a very neighborly neighborhood. Everyone walks their dogs; everyone goes to Trails Cafe, and everyone’s hiking.
And continuing our conversation about how much space people have and whether they use it. I had a big, beautiful dining room in my old house and a big living room that never got used. The dining room, I used one or two days out of the year, and the living room, five days out of the year. So when I moved in here, I turned a dining room into a library because I’m more likely to use that, and the living room I’ve left empty because, well, we’re Angelenos, we go on yoga retreats. Normally, when you go to a retreat, they use a multi-function space for meditation, yoga, events, and what have you. And so I’ve left my living room empty as a multi-function space rather then saying: “here’s the couch; you just sit here and do specific things,” – saying it’s empty, it can be used for anything.
It goes along with that thing about the status quo, of you talking about having space that is more for a look than it is for how we live.
And then this idea of people pursuing (I’ve been guilty of this) status and wealth. Most people want everyone to know that they have status and wealth. Their home becomes an advertisement of status and wealth, which, from a practical perspective, only accomplishes a few things. One: It makes your friends who don’t have status and wealth feel bad about themselves and resent you. Two: It attracts vapid people who are attracted to status and wealth, and Three: It compromises your day-to-day living. If I go to someone’s house and they have an original Rothko, I simply say to myself: “Really, that’s the best thing you could do with $25 million; you couldn’t think of anything more interesting than a Rothko, which every other rich person has.” It’s a canvas with paint on it. It’s nice, but have you considered a poster? For $100, you can get one on eBay and spend the other $24 million on something a little more interesting.
Let’s talk about that because you have quite a few collections and some interesting art. When you’re paring down your world, your life, and your space – are there still certain things that you like to collect?
The key for me when collecting things is to have some connection to it. Friends or I make all of my art, or random stuff I find on the street. I don’t want anything expensive in my house. The moment you have something expensive, you have to worry about it.
The only expensive things I have are a few pieces of musical equipment I need for my work. Like this couch… if a dog jumped on this couch and started chewing it, it’d be annoying, but then… eh, who cares, because it’s $1000. I don’t want anything that I have to worry about. And when you have expensive art or expensive clothes or expensive anything – you are buying anxiety. Like, “Oh, I’m on vacation, and I have to worry about my million-dollar painting, or I have to worry about the silk that’s on my couch, and if a dog jumps on it, ‘my life is ruined’. Why not just relax? I was recently conversing with a friend about why people don’t try to make their lives easier when they make money. I was guilty of this as well. I started having some success, and I began to think – ‘oh I want more complicated things in my life’. And once you have complicated things, you must take care of them. Why not just get rid of stuff, have less stuff, and the only things in your life should be things you have a connection to that don’t create more anxiety?
I do think there’s a movement with that. I hope – because I think we do so many things to de-stress. Certainly, in southern California, with yoga and meditation and trying to get to a place that makes us feel as though we are without all that stuff. Maybe it will start to relate to actually having less stuff.
For example, a yoga teacher friend said that one of her biggest challenges is, and I thought this was so weird, sad, and absurd. One of her biggest challenges is getting people not to check their phones during Shivastna. She said during Shivastna you’re supposed to be calm – lying there, letting gravity hold you to the earth. She’s like – ‘everybody’s on their phones’.
We are a nation of addicts, and it’s not even an addiction that is making us happy (when people are constantly, compulsively checking their phones). At least with drugs, there are some benefits. If you are going to be an addict, shoot up or do something. At least, it’s awesome. The consequences are you get sick, and you die, but there’s at least some sort of dopamine reward.
Well, it is sad that people are just going through the motions of yoga to say they are doing yoga but still do not understand that it’s about calming down.
Unfortunately, when I first started doing yoga, I bought into the idea of competitive yoga. I’m in the class looking at other people thinking, “Oh, I’m better than that person but not as good as her,” and then at some point, I realized that is not the goal of wellness practice. It’s never supposed to be competitive. Like ‘I’m the best meditator around.’
I want to talk about architecture now. I know you have photographed and blogged about Los Angeles architecture. How did you start getting interested in architecture?
Part of it is that I grew up poor white trash, and my mom and I, for a while, lived in Connecticut in one of the wealthiest towns in the world. We were on food stamps and welfare, living in a garage apartment. So, it made me aware of my space instead of other people’s. Technically, we lived in a one-bedroom. My mom slept in the living room and I slept in the small bedroom, and sometimes I’d sleep in the living room, and my mom would sleep in the small bedroom, and my friends had 10 acre estates with tennis courts and horse paddocks. It made me very aware of spaces, how they are used, and how they are perceived. Then when I moved back to New York, I bought a loft in the late 80’s.
I started thinking about it. Now I have this empty, tabular roster of space, and I can do whatever I want with it; what should I do? I started thinking of the elementary variables, like light, privacy, and function and that’s what sparked my interest in architecture because the criteria by which Architecture are evaluated is both tertiary, meaning ‘how does it look, how does it photograph’, then it is also how does it meet the needs of the people who need the space. Rarely is the criteria applied to other art because most other art is utterly elective. Architecture has this specific utility, and I love that aspect of it.
Especially now, living in southern California, the vast majority of architectural choices are arbitrary. It’s so enduring and strange that we live in the desert and we have peep roofs on our houses. The only reason a house should ever have a peep roof is to keep snow off it. That’s why peep roofs were invented – it was a cold place where it snowed, and if you had a flat roof, the roof would fall in. In Southern California, where you have Norman Castles and hacienda-style houses – all these weird, different architectural styles bafflingly coexist on the same street.
I was born and raised here, so I love architecture and its different styles. I grew up in a neighborhood with no house that was the same. Whether it was Spanish, East Coast, or French Normandy, people built the houses that they were inspired by. It’s one of the things I like about the architecture here, but it seems your interest lies within mid-century.
I like everything. I like crumbly little shacks, and I like Neutra houses. For me, Lautner was the most remarkable architect ever. John Lautner had this understanding that everything is fluid and everything, ideally, could be playful.
If you look at the best Lautner houses, his choices don’t seem to reflect formal anxiety – like sure, ‘let’s make the window at this angle, let’s curve this. You want a swimming pool in the living room, let’s have a swimming pool in there. Let’s make this wall move this way. There is a playfulness to it that seems like an extension of southern California. I also like the Schindlers, the Neutras, and the formal, almost Marcel Breuer-inspired boxes, which make a lot more sense in southern California than a Norman castle with a peep roof. And it is these arbitrary choices that have to serve a specific utility in someone’s life. LA is also the land of people building monstrosities. I read an article about the war between the mega-mansion owners and the giga-mansion owners.
I didn’t even know that was a word…
The mega-mansions are the 10,000 square feet houses. The giga-mansions are 20,000 square feet houses. The people in Bel Air, or wherever, who built their 10,000 square feet houses, are now upset that their neighbors are building 20,000 square feet houses. I thought, ‘you know what, you need a hobby. Have you considered becoming a big brother or sister or volunteering in an animal shelter – because these are not real problems?
Someone with a 10,000 square feet house arguing with a neighbor about building a 20,000 square feet house seems like clearly the apocalypse might have already happened, and God took his chosen people and we are what’s left.
You have a new album that you’re working on. How is that going? Are you touring anymore?
Well, relevant to what we’ve been discussing is the question of why we do what we do. It should be the basic question weask ourselves on a daily basis – am I doing things that are an extension of my values? Am I doing things that benefit others and me instead of doing things because we’ve already been doing them? In philosophy, it’s called the ‘is-ought fallacy’ – because something is, it ought to be – which is fallacious, but we still do that. We stay in a relationship because we are already in the relationship. We take a certain route to work because that’s the route we drive to work, even if it’s probably not the best route. Like that, I kept touring even though I hated touring. I realized in 1999 that I hated touring. It took me 10 or 12, 13 years to admit that I hate touring, finally. I love playing music but interrupting my life, going to the airport, going to some stinky hotel, (even if it is fancy, they still smell weird)… eating compromised food, not seeing my friends, not hiking. All the things that I value about my life can’t be had on tour. Finally, I said that there’s no more touring. As little touring as possible.
So not back-to-back weekends? You would do a show at some point…
The longest tour I ever did was 18 months.
Oh my god, and how many shows a week?
I think it was 5 or 6. This drives my manager a little crazy because of the way the music business is in 2015; musicians make money from touring and make no money from actually making music. I only care about making music, so I’m finishing my next album, and I don’t care if anyone buys it. I just love making them. If someone buys it, that’s fine, or if they listen to it on Spotify or Soundcloud, if they don’t listen to it, that’s fine too. My sense of self and my quality of life aren’t really that affected by the opinions of complete strangers. It used to be, but now I love being in my studio, working on music, and putting it out into the world. If someone likes it, that’s fine. This may exist within some disciplines; the criteria by which art was judged were how it lived in the world, how many units it sold, and whether it was a success on opening weekend. The more important criterion is, how did it feel when you made it?
I loved making every record I’ve ever made, but I’ve also worried about how it will sell. What reviews it’s going to get. For me, it should be inconsequential. The most important thing is day-to-day – how do I feel about work that I’m doing and do I enjoy doing it, and do I feel like it is an extension of who I am and my worldview. And maybe, will someone enjoy it? Music is very intimate and people bring music into their homes, into their lives and they use music in ways they don’t use other art forms. You don’t play a painting at a christening. You don’t go to a baptism and play a photograph.
No; which is why art and photography are very important. Music is an intimate emotional art form put out into the world, and you have no idea how people will use it.
Are you excited about releasing it, and when might it be released?
I’m more excited about making a record than releasing it.
Is there a finalization – I finally got it all figured out, I can put it aside?
Actually hardly enough, if I’m being honest with myself. Finishing a record is the most disappointing part of making records because there is no more potential. I like the finished product but it is way more exciting when the song is half-finished, because you have no idea what’s going to happen. I almost observe the tension created by that, saying the song is half-finished. When it is done, it might be terrible, it might be mediocre and it might be great. Who knows? That is the most exciting part of making a record. Like being in my car, listening to unfinished music, just having this sense of potential and not potential like, yay it got a billion downloads. It’s more like the potential of creating something beautiful and you never know how or where that’s going to come from.
When will it be released?
September, October. I’m my record label. That’s one of the things that is very weird and solipsistic. I make the record and I’m also the boss. In LA, many creative disciplines are so big and collaborative. In order to get a movie made or TV show or whatever, you have to get outside funding and approvals from all these different people, and gather up all these people. And I’m just one person.
My friends who are screenwriters, directors. For them to make a movie or TV show, it’s years of re-drafts and funding, and they hate me because I just wake up and do whatever I want to do – which doesn’t mean I’m good at it, it just means that it’s a very different approach to pursue my art. It doesn’t cost me anything to make a record; the result is that no one else is that involved. So, if it is good, I get to take a little more credit; if it’s bad, I can’t blame anyone. If it’s bad, that’s just me.
Do you have any hobbies aside from music?
I’ve been a photographer since I was 10. My uncle had been a photographer for the New York Times and when I was 10, he started giving me his hand-me-down equipment. I worked in darkrooms, and started shooting because that’s just a way of going out into the world and looking at the world differently… like when you pass something that you’re not going to document, you can experience it but when you are documenting it, especially maybe more thoughtfully than just Instagram. I love Instagram, but when you’re thinking about how you want to document something or represent it photographically, it’s almost like a weird form of mindfulness in which you observe things more closely. So that’s a hobby – it’s also a job because I have a gallery selling the works. I’m a professional hobbyist when it comes to photography.
Do you have shows in Los Angeles or all over?
I had three shows in LA and more shows in most cities over the years.
What about the restaurant that you’re putting together?
I am putting together the restaurant in Silver Lake, an organic vegan restaurant. Part of that is a different approach to entrepreneurialism because, traditionally, people do things entrepreneurially to make money.
There’s nothing wrong with making money but I think it’s a weird goal when you can accomplish so many more things through entrepreneurialism. I want to open a restaurant that supports organic farmers, puts a nice face on veganism, and maybe advances the cause of animal rights and provides a place for the community. A place that provides healthy food that actually serves people’s nutritional needs, a space where artists, writers, and musicians can meet, hang out, or get a job. You can accomplish all these other things and hopefully at the end of the day not go broke.
How long have you been a Vegan?
27 years!
Why did you become a vegan? Was it a health issue?
It was simply that I love animals, and in good conscience, I just can’t be involved in any practice that contributes to animals’ suffering. Death is unavoidable, suffering is avoidable. If I am given a choice between one action that causes suffering and one action that doesn’t support suffering, I just think I need to choose an action that doesn’t cause suffering.
You are involved in animal rights activism?
For years now, I’ve worked with a lot of different animal rights organizations. Some local, some regional, and national. From the Humane Society to PETA to Compassion Over Killing to Mercy for Animals. One of the only good uses of fame and financial resources is helping causes you care about. If fame is just self-aggrandizing, it is an entirely offensive waste of time. If famous people in LA are just interested in self aggrandizement, they don’t benefit from it – they don’t ever seem happy. If it made famous people happy, you’d see lots of smiling actors, and you’d go to Beverly Hills, and it wouldn’t be filled with divorce lawyers, plastic surgeons, and whatever. So, I use whatever small amount of fame I have, to benefit the causes that are important to me.
We have a lot to learn from you because you’ve figured out how to create your own space and function in place on the planet, taking care of your friends, people, and animals and your health simultaneously. A lot of famous people should learn from you, for sure.
I’ll be uncomfortable if they’re even learning from me. I guess the only bit of advice I have ever given anyone was, “Take a step back and figure out if the things you are doing are working.” What are the things that contribute to a person’s life? Community works, spirituality, health, causes, diet – and we do all these things that don’t serve our needs, our interests, or the larger interest of our community. So why do we do them? Why do we dig up petrochemicals from miles under the earth when all sorts of energy comes from the sun, wind, and water. Why do we process food and remove all its nutritional value when there’s healthy food just coming out of the earth? We make these choices, so I guess it’s very hard sometimes to figure out the right way of doing things. If we take a step back, it’s pretty easy to figure out how not to do the wrong things. I’m not sure what makes for good life, but we do know what makes for bad life. Eating food that kills you, using products that make you sick, not having contact with people you care about, doing work that you hate, not being part of the community, not having access to nature. These are things that don’t work. So identify what doesn’t work, try and get rid of it and fill your life with things that do.
I hope everybody is listening to that. That’s excellent advice. Is there anything else that you want to talk about?
There’s a one thing that is very relevant and important to me – water use. It is the biggest issue facing people in Southern California. There is an instant solution to California’s water crisis. It’s the most obvious thing, and unfortunately, I don’t hear anyone talking about it, which is Agriculture. Some types of agriculture are very water-responsible, such as beans. Some other types of agriculture are egregiously water-irresponsible, like livestock, rice, and cotton. If the State stopped subsidizing water use for livestock, rice, and cotton, we would have 50% more water.
It takes 10,000 gallons of water to make one pound of beef. It takes 100 gallons of water to make one pound of beans. When the State says “Take shorter showers”, that’s a nice idea. You have to run your shower for a week to use the amount of water involved in creating one pound of beef. So I’m saying, there are types of agriculture that simply shouldn’t be in California. Livestock, cotton and rice. It uses so much water that if those three sectors of agriculture left California, we’d have 50% more water, maybe even 60%. California’s water crisis would simply end if live stock production, rice cultivation, and cotton cultivation left California. There would be so much water for all the other types of sustainable, beneficial agriculture.
So how did you figure out those three things?
Research. I had to dig deeply. In the literature, the pie charts just say 70% goes to ‘agriculture.’ It’s so easy you know, and no one is talking about it. I’m putting together a coalition of different environmental organizations and public leaders to say here’s a solution: get rid of these three things, and there will be no more water crises. Move them to other states with plenty of water, like Montana or Wyoming, and go to all those places where floods occur.
There shouldn’t be cattle and rice in a desert. That is just the stupidest thing ever. It might benefit a few cattle ranchers. Move. They’ve done it in other parts. They have done it in Australia. They moved their cattle from dry, drought-plagued deserts to places with more water.
All the municipalities say, ‘Take a 5-minute shower’. Sure, that is a good idea, but how about we first get rid of livestock, rice and cotton and then take a five minute shower.
In closing, I wanted to ask you about your name. Is that your given name, Moby?
My legal name is Richard Melville. My parents had decided before I was born that it was going to be my name if I was a boy. That wouldn’t have been my name if I were a girl. Then I was born, and maybe I was an hour old in my mom’s arms, and she looked at me and said you know Richard Melville is a big name for such a tiny baby. My dad jokingly said “let’s call him Moby” because I’m related to Herman Melville, you know Moby Dick. You know it’s funny because I’ve done interviews where I’ve explained my name to people and I said because I’m related to Herman Melville…
People are like, “who’s that?” I say okay, turn off the reality TV, and perhaps visit one of the many libraries.
Yeah, so I’m related to Herman Melville, that’s the Moby Dick author, among other books, and that’s why I’m named Moby. It’s supposed to be a joke, and now 49 years later, I still have my infant joke name.
