How does America lag so, so far behind the developing world in terms of public transportation?* Today I need to get from Birmingham, Michigan in metropolitan Detroit to East Lansing, home of Michigan State University, where I’m guest lecturing tomorrow. It’s about 80 miles (129km), or around an hour in a car with decent traffic. The only train option requires riding three hours all the way back to the west side of the state, Battle Creek, waiting for about four hours, then getting on a train back to the East side for an hour.

The public transportation in metro Detroit is definitely designed to keep black people out of the largely white suburbs.According to Google Maps’ public transportation guide, it would take me an hour and twenty minutes, including three transfers, to take the bus six miles (9.65km), as the crow flies, from the Greyhound station in Southfield to Birmingham.

It’s ridiculous that countries like China, Malaysia, and Korea have efficient mass transit lines while the American legislature just can’t get this done. Chicago - Detroit, that’s a terrible five hour drive on I-94, an absolute death-trap in the winter.

Luckily, I’m taking a Greyhound bus. For those unfamiliar with the Greyhound (not to be confused with the high-speed racing dog breed with an emaciated appearance), it’s a pretty sketchy bus that goes between cities in America. Most people in America drive so people who ride the Greyhound include migrant workers, convicted criminals who’ve lost their drivers license, folk down on their luck, and schizophrenics on their way to deliver “important messages” to “important people” on the other side of the country.

Absolute classic track up today From Holland’s Fox The Fox. Out in 1984…Italo??? Disco???? House???? Irrespective of genre, this shit kills on the late night tip, breakfast time, ML time, whenever. The 12″ version includes some essential breaks in the middle around the 4:00 mark. So, so good.

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Fox The Fox - Precious Little Diamond
*Clearly pressure from the American auto industry combined with suburbanization, the American dream of automobile ownership, and racism stopped any possibility of an efficient and comprehensive mass transit system in the post-WWII era. How was Japan able to build all those bullet trains, even with their respective auto industry? Geography…

To make up for the lack of consistent posts in the last, oh, six months, Heatwolves is keeping it mad, mad real as of late. That includes not only a track post on this Disco Monday, but in fact…an entire Heatwolves podcast.

I’m gonna do this once a week. Keeping it so fresh here right now….

I did this in one take, 70% unplanned, with my Rottweiler sat next to me, staring in the opposite direction, eating air. It’s not quite perfect but some cool mixing happened by accident so I’m posting it.

So so fresh over here in Kalamazoo.

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Heatwolves! - H1NDisco

1. Dirty Pair Opening Intro Theme (1985 Anime Series)
2. Fever Ray - Seven (The Twelves Remix)
3. Modeselektor - Silikon - Siriusmo Remix
4. Charlie -Spacer Woman (Vocal)
5. The Rapture - I Need Your Love (Ewan’s Stay In School Mix)
6. Alexander Robotnick -Obsession For The Disco Freaks - Li’ll Bo Tweak Remix
7. Kool and the Gang -Fresh (SonicC Bootleg Remix)
8. Le Tigre - Deceptacon (DFA Remix)
9. Donna Summer -I Feel Love (Glenn Underground Remix)
10. DreDay - Chat Noir
11. Stacey Q - Two of Hearts
12. Funked Up - No Ditchin (Sferro Remix)
13. Manicured Noise - Metronome (Cousin Cole Remix 5-2)
14. The Pointer Sisters - Send Him Back (Pilooski Edit)
15. Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up (DJ Ayres Baltimore Club Remix)
16. DJ Technics - Mr. Postman
17. Kraftwerk - Tour De France (12 Inch Version)

Just ate not-too-Americanized Chinese/Korean food cooked by my favorite local Asian, Uncle David*, the head chef at Chinn Chinn. Probably late seventies/early eighties but all over the kitchen, born in China but grew up in Korea, speaks both languages fluently and combines the cuisines well in an unpretentious manner. For some reason, Mattawan Michigan, this small hick town/white flight magnet next to Kalamazoo filled with bible-beaters, meth cooks, and middle-aged women who wear sweatshirts with photos of large breed dogs, unironically, has some of the best Chinese food/Asian fusion I’ve tasted in America.

Lots of Jesus freaks in the Midwest. The manager of my temporary gym, who cleans in an obsessive-compulsive manner, wearing thick yellow rubber gloves, inquired about my profession in China, then followed-up with “you involved in Christian ministry out there at all?”

“Em, no”

I hope that a society with 5,000 years of history, plush with Buddhism and Confucianism doesn’t get bit by the wacky evangelical bug, like South Korea. Would be a major bummer.

Tangentially related to the topic of the American religious/socially conservative community, I’m going to a Tea Party next week. Not high tea, but a gathering of people from the real America, not to be confused with elites from the coasts. People from “flyover country,” furious with President Obama (a Muslim born in Kenya, in some folks’ mind) and fed up with the federal government spending billions of our dollars and sinking the country further into debt.

This is all explained well and entertaingly in a recent New Yorker article. I’m looking foward to the experience. It’s like in-your-face liberals wilding out at protests, but with conservative folk.

Going ever further back tonight than yesterday’s track. Will get (slightly) more current tomorrow. No introduction needed, The Velvet Underground. I’ve always wanted to play out Sunday Morning as a last, last track on a Saturday night but I never remember.

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The Velvet Underground - Femme Fatale

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The Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning

for my friends. curious what you guys think about this in terms of track selection/pacing/etc.

note, there’s a major disaster at the end and a few volume issues throughout. this is not a finished product.

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HeatWolves HotMix_TheERRORedit

Track List

1. Nick Chacona & Anthony Mansfield - Oh
2. Madonna - Get Into The Groove
3. Michael Jackson - Rock With You (b.cause dee-lite house fix-it)
4. Alan Parsons Project - …Be Like You (The Twelves Re-Edit)
5. Cymande - Brothers on the Slide (Bonar Bradberry mix)
6. Feist - Sea Lion Woman (Sea Lion Woman (Pitto’s Bootleg)
7. Nina Simone - Take Care of Business (Pilooski Remix)
8. Electra - Carrots and Beets
9. Gary Davis -The Professor’s Here (Greg Wilson Remix)
10. Simian Mobile Disco - (Cruel Intentions (Greg Wilson Re-edit)
11. Pineapples featuring Douglas Roop - Come on Closer

Sometimes I get fed up with electronic music and need to hear something else, and that’s when I bust out the rock and roll albums…London Calling, Remain in Light, Surfer Rosa….

Or something like No Age.

Eventually I want to dance again and I play some music made with a drum machine.

But the times when four-four 808 rhythms don’t work? Dubstep. Not trying to act like this is some brand new genre or something, but I wasn’t really feeling it until I heard it in the club a few weeks ago around 2am. This track kills, but you need volume and bass otherwise it won’t make sense.

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Rusko - Cockney Thug