cultural acid reflux, from shanghai and other places.
Excellent essay analyzing gangsta rap in the era of crack and it’s more commercial form in the era of post-industrial unemployment by Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. Also, if you don’t know the track the author claims ushered in the era of gangsterism, peep it here.
Schoolly D - P.S.K. (What Does It Mean?)
The odor of alcohol bumped into me as soon as I entered my grade twelve classroom yesterday, ready to see who knew the extent of the economic crisis on the weekly current events quiz. “Strange” I thought. “It really smells like…partytime in here.” I glanced around the room and noticed one student clutching the wall, hunched over the trash can. Dry heaving.
Me: “I don’t understand….are you drunk right now?”
Student: “A litttttttle bit. It’s cool”
Me: “No, definitely not cool (still shocked and trying not to laugh). It’s 2:00 p.m., why are you drinking?”
Student: “Well…I wanted to talk, wanted to talk to this girl..so I had to, like, get my confidence up.”
Me: “Well, did it work?”
Student: “No.”
Some more rambling transpired, then I had to take the student to the office. I’m not that lax teacher who just lets kids get crunk in class. The office sent him back to me fifteen minutes later, breaking the test’s silence with “Mr. Ian…that wasn’t cool…” then stumbled to his desk and passed out.
Apparently the student also puked out the window of our classroom (on the third floor) and onto the playground where little kids run around constantly.
One of the best mixes I’ve heard in some time. This ain’t some Hype Machine, Abletoned Cut Copy remix of a remix electro, this that real deal. If you want to [begin to] understand the relationship between Kraftwerk, the Soul Sonic Force, and what’s going on now, peep this.
DJ Ayres - 10 Deep Mix Vol. 5 Electrofied (remember, right-click save as. big file)
A week or so ago, I caught one of the best shows I’ve ever seen - Daedelus at The Shelter. Dude rolls with some wild equipment that looks like a Japanese electric-light version of chess, which you can buy here for a lot of money. Completely unlike a typical laptop DJ setup. He also danced and sweated through his whole set in full Victorian garb. Unfortunately, my camera died as I tried to take the first picture of the night, so I can only offer some tracks and this video of a live performance in Japan. Check this interview also, fascinating character.
Daedelus - At My Heels
Daedelus - Fair Weather Friends
Short post tonight, as it’s midnight and classes resume tomorrow…I think we’ll watch the vice presidential debates in my international relations class. I wandered around my neighborhood quite a bit this week, and it seems that Jing An district will look like downtown Hong Kong Island in a few years. Massive redevelopment everywhere, BMW promotions outside the temple, and lots of shopping bags with expensive names, but I can still find three kuai muslim bread and two-for-five lamb kabobs.
Observation of the week - Lemme Ride
As part of a new segment on the site, I’ll bring you a curious fact about life in Shanghai. This week’s concerns the baffling rejection of something that grown American men will literally revert to playground shit-talking and potentially physical violence about - riding in the [shotgun] front passenger seat. Chinese people just don’t dig it. Apparently the plush reclining leather of a Buick, Mercedes, or Audi pales in comparision to the backseat. I can’t figure it out. Maybe rolling in the back gives a face boost? I asked a cab driver, who guessed that Chinese consider the back safer. Odd, because none of the backseats in Chinese cabs have seatbelts. I may try to hitchhike the next time I spot an empty bucket in a A6.
Chinese readers, any ideas on this one?
I’m sick of Sarah Palin’s “main street” babble. Time for bed.
Oh, I also came home really late last night and I spotted two women driving motorbikes with whole pigs, bellies sliced wide open, strapped on the back.
These songs made for a nice walk around town the other night. The whole Hayzee album is available on one of the big blogs, though I can’t remember which. Google dat’.
Hayzee - Press Start
James Resse & The Progressions - Jody’s Freeze
“Did you stop blogging?”
“No, I’ve just been lunchin’. Eatin oreos.”
Long blogging hiatus. Aside from registering to vote (five minutes), chasing roaches in the kitchen (painstaking hours and a broken toaster), and trying to buy fireworks (unfruitful), I’ve got no excuses. It’s now the Chinese National Holiday, celebrating the communist victory of 1949, which for me means…
+ No work for seven days
- Super expensive flights and overbooked trains preclude traveling. None of my neighbors seem to have work either and they threw a 9am karaoke party today starting with “Come on Ilene” in Chinese
+ Lots of fireworks
- Fireworks start around 8am, and no one wants to sell any to a foreigner. Maybe there’s some unspoken rule about not selling fireworks to us. I’ve asked taxi drivers, dvd vendors, random people on the subway… no luck
- Subways jammed with “first trip on a subway, ever” people carrying large boxes
+ Some girl came up to me on the street and handed me some mint chocolate chip ice cream.
I guess I also spent quite a bit of time this week digging through a big box of funk, soul, and old school tracks. Here’s a few of my favorites that provide a nice barrier to the empty orchestra next door.
Audio Two - I Get The Papers
Bootsy Collins - I’d Rather Be With You
just wanna say i appreciate the recent increase in readership. france, what up? south korea, holla. big up to the one soul in south africa reading this.
lately, 50% of my diet consists of ma la tang (see below). for some reason, the really strong, mouth-numbing spice ma also induces some mild hallucinatory effects; vision gets really 26/26 intense and the neon all looks like blade runner.
any scientists out there know if boiling vegetables gets rid of pesticides? speaking of food worries, I can’t even eat yogurt anymore due to the recent scare. cutting milk, and lots of other products, with melamine to increase the protein content…even those little white rabbit candies. I thought only drug dealers stepped on their products like that.
dat’ fish.
just some stuff i’m working on. the wood floors in my new apartment make it easier for me to practice.
classic scene from the film Breakin’
japan vs. korea on japanese tv
I can’t convey the humidity in Shanghai right now. It’s like the atmosphere has a blood clot.
Shanghai gyms just can’t get it right. In my old, overpriced and low-budget gym, the trainers smoked incessantly and hounded me to practice their English (the equivalent of a golden retriever humping my leg while I’m trying to work out). While I appreciate the great equipment in my current gym, I’m experiencing a different breed of problems with the staff. They suck. The woman at the desk who takes my card refuses to smile at me. I tried warmheartedly asking her if she had problems in her life, and I just got the classic Chinese poker face for a response. But more than anything, I’m pissed about this text message I received yesterday:
“Hey, Ian, How r u? We share the same Gym consultant in Limeijian, My name is Judy. We r having a volleyball game near Weininglu subway station tomorrow afternoon 13:00 - 15:00, We have a Japanese girl who is skillful to help icebreaker like me. Please let me know if I shoule expect ur coming or not. Thank you very much!”
What the fuck. I don’t have a “gym consultant” besides the irritating guy who I purchased my one-month membership from. He also texts me inappropriately, asking if I’m going to continue my membership. This means that someone at my gym thought “oh, there’s a strapping young lad, but I’m too timid to go up and talk to him, so I’ll ask the desk for his phone number.” So my gym just gives out my phone number to anyone who seeks it. While I would like to meet the skillful Japanese girl, I’m going to have a scathing talk with the desk folk, including the trollop who never smiles.
I get really excited when I hear that “beep BEEP” indicating that I’ve received a text. “Oooooo a message, who ever could it be?” I wonder. At least once a day, it’s some bullshit like this.
Going back to 1981 on the music tip today. I don’t even know where I get some of these albums, and I usually Wikpedia the artists for my rock and roll credibility lesson of the day. Apparently after a decade or so of mental illness and drug problems, the lead singer of Television Personalities may currently ghost write for The Arctic Monkeys. Though filled with British pop-culture references I don’t understand, it’s great Sunday music.
Television Personalities - Geoffrey Ingram
Television Personalities - The Glittering Prizes
Television Personalities - Parties in Chelsea
I meet my fruit guy on the block every morning, “Two banana!” he shouts with a giant grin spread across his face. He always tries to place them in a red plastic bag which I refuse every time. Occasionally during these transactions, an octogenerian piloting a 100cc motorbike with peeling paint brushes against my briefcase. I’m Walking down a narrow street, bouncing casually to whatever bleeds out of my headphones then bam. Seventeen bones in my foot, all crushed, muscles torn to bits, plus a gory compound fracture and I don’t even know which hospital to go to and whether a taxi can get me there faster than an ambulance. That’s what I fear the most. No guns in Shanghai. People don’t get shot or stabbed “up in the club.” More likely to fall into an open manhole while texting a colleague. The subway doors stay open until people shove their way in like someone handing a homeless man a box and telling him “you can have all the food in this gourmet kitchen as long as it fits in this container.” The strap on the helmet handed to me by the illegal motorcycle taxi driver clicks and we take off. Cheery Japanese rock from the 1980’s blasts in one ear while I strain to understand my chauffeur’s accent. He, like all the others, guarantees me that I can find a wife in Shanghai. “But I’m so young!” I yell over the sound of the motor, as I peer down at his broken speedometer, its needle twitching like an epileptic watching Japanese cartoons on IMAX. The people passing by in the dangerously close bus stare expressionlessly out the pane windows and I’m sure it looks like some sort of moving zoo exhibit, to both me and them.
I listened to these songs on the way to work this week.
Flying Lotus - Comet Course
Flying Lotus - Parisian Goldfish