Today, on a bus crammed with sunshine, Europeans, and irritable, overweight Americans traveling to the Golden Gate Bridge, I spoke with a mid-40’s black man, pleasantly drunk and crazy. Our abridged conversation follows.

Man: (proudly, wearing sunglasses, after six minutes of silence) “I just wanna say, I’m from the Bay Area, I love it, and welcome.”

Me: “Thanks, what do you recommend we get into?”

Man: “Well I’m going to Pier 31 to see the seals. They got all kinds of seals over there.”

Me: “Just chillin?”

Man: “Yessss….”

Me: “Sounds better than Alkatraz. I hear there’s all kinds of bird shit over that way.”

Man “Yeah they got some new birds up there, ha ha. Birds I ain’t never seen before…all kinds of birds be matin’ with each other.”

Me: “Damn. Yeah i think we’re gonna walk across the Golden Gate Bridge today.”

Man: “Yeah that’s real nice. But you make sure you keep walkin’ across there. If you pause, someone gon’ think you about to jump. All kinds of people been jumpin’ lately, so just keep walkin’.”

(At this point, my new friend told us to enjoy the Bay Area and alighted from the bus, absolutely ecstatic about the sunshine and the seals he would soon meet).

He didn’t lie about the jumping bit. While walking back from the Marin county side of the bridge, someone threw themselves into the ocean below. I didn’t see the descent, but five police cars arrived and started scouting the scene.

But on the positive tip, I got new headphones. Although I paid too much for them, The Koss Sparkplugs provide really balanced sound with a lot of bass for $20. I generally go through at least four pairs of headphones a year. Ridiculous.

I met the singer of this band at the quintessential so-cal backyard party in LA. Never got to see them play, but they’re making solid rock and roll.

Ladies and Gents - Monsters

Peep their Myspace for more.

It’s fifty degrees in San Francisco, and I’m sleeping in a mildly sketchy hostel with some Russians, Polish folk, and East Germans. Outside the front door, at least five people asked me for a cigarette within four minutes and I just rambled to them in Chinese until they moped away. By day I’m back and forth between downtown SF and Berkeley on the BART (subway) with its upholstery like the backseat of a nineteen year-old suburban pothead’s car. In general, American infrastructure lacks compared to the new ish in Asia. The endlessly expanding subway lines with the shoving grannies, absurdly vast airports, and mega-highways with thousands of taxi drivers pushing restlessly through the night on tea and cigarettes.

The Musics*

First in a two-day series of original tracks plus their best remixes, MGMT’s “Electric Feel” plus the Justice remix. By blog standards outdated, but I’m gonna call the Justice take the best dance track of the summer. Bangs in the club.

MGMT - Electric Feel

MGMT - Electric Feel (Justice Remix)

*heard in Shanghai often, e.g. “can you prepare the musics?” translation: “can you burn me a CD?”

“Put a blanket down, this grass is polluted.”

“With what?”

“Beauty.”

Conversations with random degenerates along the strip on Venice beach. California’s liberal policies certainly shape an environment filled with characters, especially down certain alleys. It’s back to San Francisco tomorrow on the Vietnam bus, plus that free cilantro-to-death baquette. Just like the Vietnamese undercut Chinese manufacturing costs in the Pacific, they’re killin’ it in the West coast bus game stateside.

Just a couple tracks to keep it lively. After repeat listens, I’m not really feeling the new Girl Talk album like I did Night Ripper, but dude still kills it occasionally, like when No Digitty comes over Flashing Lights before blending in with some Radiohead.

Girl Talk - Still Here

Also, a few electro tracks to keep the feet moving

Santogold - LES Artistes (Grahm Zilla remix)

Ladyhawke - Paris is Burning (Cut Copy remix)

“I was pimping out he-shes at the age of sixteen; you don’t know rock bottom until you’re pimping sixteen he-shes. They fucking owed me money” - Guy on the porch at a house party in LA.

Not in Shanghai anymore. Far from metro line two two, far from where drug dealers get marched through stadiums and shot in the back of the head, and far from lamb kabobs for less than a dollar on every corner.

LA - expensive and mixed. Lots of scenes: hipsters, highways, hitchhikers, backyard cookouts, ex pro-skaters, industry snobs, Blackberries, stories that could inspire a Bret Easton Ellis novel, lots of ethnicities I don’t catch in China, sneakers, dodging sharks in the pacific, etc.

The car aspect of LA begs me to hate the city. Driving everywhere, incomplete subway network, frowned-upon public transportation (planning on taking it all over in the coming week).

Dodging reverse culture-shock like whoa. Even ducked into Chinatown at Yang Chow for some xiao long bao and talked with the staff at the bootleg DVD joint for an hour. Also, I did get my friend a $7 haircut, and the Guangzhou-born stylist called him a sissy for requesting a rounded-out fade around the neck.

“Who’s Got the Cookie Jar now!?”

I stole a cookie jar at Jamba Juice after the cashier refused to guarantee the “buy a smoothie get a baked good for $1″ policy and I caused a major scene in front of fifty-some unsettled customers on Rodeo Drive. I got that double-baked chocolate.
Imagine Bali dance music mixed with Baltimore Club jams, and that’s how I’m livin’.

And I’m so, so sunburned.

It’s 7:00 p.m. in Shanghai but 4:00 a.m. here, so goodnight.