Back in Kalamazoo, about to head to Detroit, so it’s… another short post. I highly recommend Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train, which runs from Los Angeles all the way to Chicago. Met a few characters, including a pair of Chinese sisters, likely in their 50’s, who gave me home-cooked baozi (bread filled with meat, veg, sweet pastes, etc.) and tea eggs for breakfast while advertising their niece, a 20-year old Beijing University student, as a potential wife. “Because…we really like Americans” said one, as she wrote down my email address. Once, I had to translate for one of the sister’s husbands, a taciturn painter from Tianjin clad in the typical drab, thick grey blazer, when he tried to smoke at a refueling stop.

There was also J, a paranoid schizophrenic military deserter from Missouri who, like me, spent his birthday on the train. He celebrated by eating cigarettes, as Amtrak only provides a few meager smoke breaks, usually around 5:00 in the morning for two minutes before the staff starts shouting “we gonna leave you, why you tryin’ to be the last one on the train?!”.

“You sure you don’t want one man? It’s just like chew” says J, tobacco leaping out of his mouth, talking up a big nicotine buzz. “Even when I chew, I swallow it, because the nicotine gets into the stomach and spreads throughout the body.” He got really flighty right after taking his meds for about forty-five minutes until crashing hard like a dog after a walk in the summer.

The airport story comes soon. Until then, as promised to a friend of mine, a Chicago House mix from 1985. I originally pulled this off one of my favorite blogs, Beat Electric from SF. The first listen didn’t sell me on this, but I came around to love it and conclude that maybe Chicago House is more than wack diva vocals and annoying synths, but only when mixed properly like this.

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Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk - WBMX Chicago - Jack Party Vol.1 (1985)

Oh, this tree suddenly fell over in my friend’s lawn on a quiet Sunday morning.

Two announcements even more relevant in the post-facebook era. One, we’re playing tonight at Not Me (Dongping Lu near Hengshan Lu). With almost zero promotion for this, I’m curious to see who reads this blog and who caught the Shanghai Daily article which introduced us as “local DJ duo Baijiu Robot.”

Second, I’m going back to America for a month and moving out of this giant apartment that I’m somehow living in for free. That means house party, and if you read this blog feel free to roll though. Just don’t steal anything or my droogs and I will crack your listo real horrorshow.

555 Nanchang Lu - Starting around 7:30. Expect some dance party ish and potentially some singing (my roommate/other people who use this apartment as an office invited a lot of their Chinese friends).

You may contact Baijiu Robot at 15900510538.

The party requires a password, and that password is “cornbread.”

Just bring something if you do drop by. Bourbon, Japanese desserts, and dark beer would do wonders.

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve moved to a new apartment. Right by the Shanxi Nan Lu metro stop/giant and insomniac construction site, with this forty-something woman named Yoyo, who runs “Star Base Artistic Yoyo,” a crackpot talent agency. Also, a peculiar amount of white cats, one of whom crept into our living room yesterday, reconned the area while ignoring me, defecated, then casually walked out. Yoyo cleaned this up, muttering “zang si le…” (dirty to death/filthy).

And with a new apartment comes the third round of my second favorite game in Asia (nothing beats “dodge the eye-level umbrellas in dense pedestrian areas”) - decipher the Chinese characters on the washing machine.

This one looks straight out of a safety video called “Electricity - It’s Not A Game,” or “Power - A Deadly Friend.”

Great set last night at the opening night at Not Me. Never seen so many people dancing at 9:30 before.

Three tracks today, two of that Brazilian booty bass I love and an older indie rock cut.

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Daniel Haaksman - Pobum Coco

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Blood Shake - Mexico Caliente

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The Unicorns - Tuff Ghost