original text: moby.com
«A few years ago i was at a party in brooklyn and i was telling a story about new york in 1989. the empty crack vials on the subway platforms, the after hours raves in empty basements and abandoned warehouses, the sex workers stepping through blood and offal in the meat packing district, and the lofts for rent for $500 a month…
i told some more stories about when i first started making records, how i would return cans and bottles in order to get money for food, the derelict factory where i lived without a toilet or running water, and how i thought my career as a musician was over right before the album play came out.
i felt a little bit like grampa simpson, telling stories about the dysfunctional glory days of a new york before it’s descent into baffling affluence. and after i told a few stories someone said, ‘you should write a book’. and so i did.
porcelain: a memoir is about my life from 1989-1999, but it’s also about new york as it transitioned from being a broken, dirty city to the bizarre and stratospherically expensive city it’s become. porcelain: a memoir is also about the underground hip hop and house music scenes of the late 80’s, and the birth of the club kids and the rave scene.
i start the book as a sober christian in a tiny loft in an abandoned factory, and i end the book in a very different place. i tried to be as honest as i could be. in porcelain: a memoir i’m not a cool narrator or a disaffected anti-hero, i’m just a clueless and panicked human being trying to make sense of the strange worlds in which i found myself. again, i tried to be as honest i could.
i hope you like it.»