Dear Moby, aka @thelittleidiot

UPDATE!!

I never liked your music; it always kind of got on my nerves more than anything else. That's not what's inspiring me to write to you today but I thought I should mention it, in the interest of full disclosure.

Earlier today I stumbled across a post on my friend Kelly's blog, Unplanned Trip to Holland, which quotes you in a New York Times article, as follows:

Interviewer: YOU HAVE ASPERGER’S?
Moby: No. I just like to pretend I do. It makes me sound more interesting.

I realize this article is more than a year old, so probably others have already taken you to task for this, but now it's my turn. Asperger's is a high functioning form of autism, Moby, and my son has high functioning autism. Actual autism, I mean; it's not a lie that we tell people to make him seem more interesting, he's got the real thing.

He has no friends; not even one. At school other kids make fun of him because he's different. When he is home he spends most of his time alone in his room. When you ask him a question, about 50% of the time you'll get an answer that's something like "9 car Richmond train now approaching platform 2." When he gets upset, he is unable to tell us what is wrong, because his brain isn't capable of taking the thoughts from his head and putting them into words. Most of the time we have no idea why he's crying, we just have to hold him and hope that helps.

I lie awake nights worrying about his future. I'm terrified that he might not be able to live independently as an adult. I'm terrified that he'll spend his life being unable to express himself. I'm terrified that he won't be happy.

My son is 9, Moby, he's got a lot of years ahead of him. I don't know how old you are, but I can say with complete certainty that in your wildest dreams you will never be as interesting as he is. So, you can continue on with your life, making shitty, pretentious music, telling yourself that people think you're interesting because of this lie that you tell them, but the truth is that when you say you have autism and you don't? That doesn't make you interesting. That makes you an asshole.

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