the ghetto.

I live in a recently renovated, but by no means posh, building in north Jing An. A twenty-minute stroll through the hood leads to the main train station, with some sharply contrasting scenery along the way.

It’s really one of my favorite parts of Shanghai. If I walk ten minutes south on my block, I’m peepin’ fine and oh-so-untouchable girls in the Marc Jacobs store, but ten minutes the other direction and the streetscape blatantly fades into “developing country.”

I use that term endearingly.

With so much urban renewal underway for the 2010 World Expo, I love wandering around places filled with what some would call blight. These dilapidated alleys have history, stronger community, and more smiles than the newer skyscrapers filled with silent elevators carrying large-breed dogs and their owners.

As Shanghai modernizes, this will disappear from the central city, as those residents move out to anonymous high-rises past the outer ring.

For now though, it makes for a perfect morning stroll.

Is there ever a bad time for Curtis Mayfield?

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Curtis Mayfield - Right On For The Darkness

facebook doesn’t want me to have this party.

Tried to send out invites last night, last minute as usual, yet no one’s received them yet.

Anyway, we’re starting around 1:30ish, whenever The Dropkicks (Shanghai punk band; their farewell show) finish, then playing until sunrise.

It’s free, and we’re going to destroy the new sound system at LoGO (13 Xingfu Lu, near Fahuazhen Lu).

______________________________

As for music today, it’s rap again. Why? In the words of my roommate, “Living in China without a car and shit is mad ill, but sometimes I really miss driving around bumping rap music with the windows down and screaming at people.”

This time it’s a track from the same city as The Wire - Baltimore.

Bump dat’ shit.

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MullyMan - I Go Harder (Than Baltimore)

summertime boogie/pakistalian birthday

It’s almost midnight, the fruit lady just tried to give me the white-boy price on some freakishly large, deliciously genetically modified lychees, and there’s about twenty-seven stylists dancing around in neon wigs at the hair salon next to my house. Lots of strange team building going on in China.

Going to bed, but two important notes. Tomorrow, two friends of mine, Ziggy (reppin’ Pakistan) and Chiara (big up Italy) happen to share tomorrow as their glorious day of birth, so we’re throwing it down accordingly at LoGO starting at ten and going until much too late.

Hope I get an excuse to play this track, but don’t know if it’s relevant here. Still, it’s that summatime bullshit fit for dancin’ on the street with a one kuai appleberry ice cream and a broken fire hydrant.

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BBU - Chi Don’t Dance

(btw, BBU stands for Bin-Laden Blowin’ Up)

sketchy foods

Though it seldom happens these days, after nearly two years in China, my All-Clad stomach, capable of digesting the most dubious dishes (live shrimp, gelated pig’s blood, snake baijiu, ox tripe, etc), still occasionally encounters something truly fierce in the middle kingdom.

Not sure exactly what exactly caused this, likely the Lan Zhou (Muslim minority from Gansu province) noodles with potato, mushroom, and beef sauce or the pork dumplings from Si Hai LongXia (Overseas Dragon, a Taiwanese chain).

So no work today. No food either, sans bananas, apple juice, and white rice. Sometimes I weigh the long-term health consequences of living in Shanghai vs. my hedonistic/absurdly luxurious lifestyle, then conclude that by the time long-term health problems arise, the world will either be underwater or taken over by giant robots, a la Terminator Salvation.

Seriously though, I’m pretty cynical about the future, even with Obeezie in the White House.

But there’s disco, and if I do end up playing tonight, this is a taste of what I’m spinning on that tip.

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Sylvester - You Make Me Feel

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Diana Ross - Love Hangover

hot dust all around + robot party

After leaving some scathing comments on the City Weekend blog, I’m now alerted whenever someone remarks on my most-loathed bar in Shanghai - M1NT, a den of RMB100 drinks, wack DJs, and sharks, both literal and figurative.

Direct quote from the board, which keeps getting cleansed - alert/comment #5:

“it looks like mine comment is remove. before i write ‘i heard that m1nt owe many people many money’. maybe the m1nt police makes this site take my comment down. i guess really no free opinion!”

I hope it’s not just some victim of the financial crisis trolling about and the M1NT owner actually did get caught with the alleged “40 million pounds of dirty money!”

Baijiu Robot (Mau Mau and I) this Thursday at C’s. Likely the second most out of control show ever (we don’t want to beat the time people actually got cut up with broken class and beat with chairs).

C’s Bar - 685 Dingxi Lu, near Yanan Xi Lu

a hundred hits - what?

I guess every other blog is blocked right now, so no choice but to read mine.

Originally, I planned to remove that A-Trak mix today, out of respect for dude’s hustle. But wait, fuck A-Trak…he didn’t even play last night. In fact, he didn’t even show up. He just called the venue and gave some vague excuse about not feeling well, concern about swine flu (seriously), and then declared that he planned to “stay in his hotel room with a woman.”

Everyone went to the warehouse party anyway, which felt exactly how a warehouse rave should. Dark, smokey, hot, violent bass… Definitely proper techno toward the end, which turned some people off. Most folks can’t handle dancing too far outside their musical comfort zone. Plus the heat…jesus. People really need to start hosting more daytime pool parties.

Oh wait, there’s one today, tomorrow, and Sunday. Free, with a solid DJ (Trix) spinning.

99 Nandan Dong Lu, Building 6, Apartment 602 (ten minute walk from the Xujiahui Metro)

On the roof. Planning on heading there soon. Apparently people should bring their own meat and drinks.

After big nights out, I like to sleep in places other than my house. Sometimes I head for the hard bed of a massage parlor, but today I napped in the grass at Jing An park. I woke up to some bizarre photo shoot, about ten middle-aged Shanghainese men, sticking their ostentatious and obtrusive lenses in the faces of these young girls with big eyes and robot smiles. I watched this go down for about twenty-five minutes, baffled. No change of outfits, so probably wasn’t a fashion shoot…maybe just a odd hobby of rich Chinese.

I’ve heard stranger. My friend went with a business partner to this big dinner party. Each guy got a beautiful personal servant, who, after serving steak, proceeded to give their respective man blow jobs under the table for the duration of the meal.

This song - ain’t it true?

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The Trips - Love Can’t Be Modernized

A-Trak tonight + poems for street fruit contest.

If you haven’t heard that name, or feel stuck on the fence about the 120rmb cover, peep this. His latest mix, Infinity+1, combines the best dance tracks that infected the blogs in the last year or two with some classic illness like Problèmes d’Amour.

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A-Trak - Infinity + 1

He’s definitely dope, and aside from the computer-age dance shit, I’m also expecting a healthy bit of the hip hop/crunk he usually plays.

If the bass drops half as hard as the Ratatat show last week, dude will kill it.

+ warehouse party later.

Anyone who remembers the name of this poem, leave a comment and you could win a reasonably sized bag of lychees.

pets and party locations.

Turtle friend from the exotic pet/plant market right around the corner from my house. I seriously encounter three or four pet-buying opportunities every day, some more bizarre than others. Unfortunately, animal rights remains a foreign concept to most here and it’s not uncommon to see hawkers with boxes of puppies with unnatural fur colors/pink rabbits/mini-ducks/unidentifiable species outside of the subway station or on popular shopping streets. Hopefully this dries up sometime in the next five - ten years, as the middle class becomes more aware and perhaps ethical.

Real quick post tonight, so down to business. In case you haven’t heard, the warehouse party is at…

2/f, 600 Guilin Lu
Near Qinzhou Bei Lu
(Next door to the bathhouse)

Tonight, starting at 11:00, going until…?

It’s free, with cheap drinks. Oh, and it’s put on by VOID, a crew with a first-rate track record of throwing parties. Don’t experience this through someone’s Facebook photos the next day.

Came up on a space mountain of music the other day thanks to a mainline into the infamous Sacco Vanzetti’s collection. Northern Soul = making white people dance.

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Moses Dillard - Pretty as a Picture

proper warehouse rave this thursday in shanghai.

Some friends of mine, longtime promoters in Shanghai, conceived this. And while i can’t reveal the location or their names, trust me - do not miss this.

Here’s what one of the shadowy characters had to say about this Thursday’s affair..

“”We are doing this party because we love what we do. We have been putting on events in Shanghai for a while now and bringing quality artists to the city, but this time it will be four local DJs. Three foriegn and one Chinese. One of the foreign DJs is a real connoisseur of disco and all things danceable. The other is called Santo Chino. The other two produce music and are both often seen at Hongkou Football Stadium watching Shanghai Shenhua FC. ”

Here’s the link to the facebook page - join it to receive the address on the day of the show.

I’ll be there after the A-Trak show at Dream Factory…

on the homework tip

From my esl writing class, mostly Japanese students. I assigned them to create a superhero and a villain over the weekend and got some stellar work.

A separate assignment, but I feel compelled to share this essay.




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