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

I know I’m a little late, but seriously, hottest track of the summer; possibly the year. It took me forty-five minutes to even find a working copy of this. DJ Mujava hails from an industrial town in South Africa but his song has probably seeped into every country in the globe by now. Sorry I’ve only got a 128 version, so fucking go out and buy this.

DJ Mujava – Township Funk

I love teaching this class. I assigned my students sentences for their vocabulary words and I got this as one response:

Crazy – “That boy is crazy because he piss in class room”

Not mine unfortuantly, but Rhymefest from Chicago kills it on Man In The Mirror. Similar to Wale’s excellent Mixtape About Nothing, Mark Rosnon lends his British hands to the production and weaves a unifying concept throughout. This time it’s Michael Jackson samples, both beats and interviews, cleverly blended into the tracks. Definitely peep this. And no Lil’ Wayne!!!!

Rhymefest – Man In The Mirror (zShare)

Tracklist

01 The Cipher (Rhymefest & Michael Jackson)
02 Can’t Make It (Rhymefest) (prod. Best Kept Secret)
03 “Thriller” Skit
04 Get Up (Rhymefest f. Wale)
05 Dancin’ Machine (The Jackson 5 f. Rhymefest)
06 Flip It Skit
07 Never Can Say Goodbye (Rhymefest f. Talib Kweli) (prod. Best Kept Secret)
08 Mike The Mentor (Rhymefest f. Michael Jackson)
09 No Sunshine (Rhymefest) (prod. Emile]
10 Caught Up Skit
11 Foolin’ Around (Rhymefest f. Dres) (prod. Mark Ronson)
12 Set The Mood
13 Breakadawn (Rhymefest f. Daniel Merriweather & alpha.)
14 Windbreaker Skit
15 Higher Intro
16 Higher (Rhymefest)
17 Mark vs. Mike
18 All That I’ve Got (Rhymefest f. Ghostface Killah & Mary J. Blige)
19 Maybe Tomorrow (Michael Jackson)
20 Sunshine Skit
21 Coolie High (Camp Lo f. Rhymefest)
22 Family Reunion f. Tito, Randy, Mike & Rhymefest
23 Much Love Skit
24 Man In The Mirror (Rhymefest f. Michael Jackson)

I think it’s been out for a month or so, but I just came across this new T.I. track featuring Jay-Z, Kanye, and of course…Lil’ Wayne. Also featuring the stale processing power of Auto Tune, which I’m seriously getting sick of. Vocal tweaks aside, the track still bumps, with a nice M.I.A. sample. I really hope she doesn’t become the female Lil’ Wayne; I’m already starting to have trouble taking her seriously.

T.I. feat. Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Lil’ Wayne – Swagger Like Us

For an interesting report on Auto Tune, the software T Pain loves to make obnoxious tracks with, check this podcast from The New Yorker.

People work really hard in China and sometimes they need a break.

More music. Calvin Harris sounds suspiciously like James Murphy sometimes, but this track’s bassline makes me want to get up and bust out some footwork, even during epic battles between questionable lamb and my stomach tissue.

Calvin Harris – Colours

It’s Sunday night, and I just had an altercation with the staff at this café over coffee refills. Now I’d like some pasta, but I think I caused some employees to lose face and I’m a little weary of ordering food. Speaking of food, I just stopped by one of the many convenience stores in my neighborhood where the staff refuse to smile at me. Now, I’m certainly a more adventurous eater than most, but I’ve always refused to sample the mystery-meat sticks that sit in a bath of meat nectar on every corner store counter in Shanghai. Some may contain fish. Others, perhaps different animals. Sometimes my students bring these to class in a plastic cup filled with mystery-juice. I’m shocked that their upper-middle class rearing didn’t instill a fear of scary garbage snacks. The sticks go for between thirty and sixty cents, depending on the, errrrr, animal.

_

Actually the cashier asked me basically “why the fuck are you taking pictures of the food [you crazy foreigner]?” and made me stop. Hopefully this week I’ll get some stealth footage of all the strange items that line the small store shelves, like individually wrapped duck necks and chicken feet.

As for the music, I’m feelin’ the funk lately. These two will certainly set the mood. Just get your woman a bag of duck necks, some cheap Chinese wine (baijiu), and a boombox full of this and head to the park.

The Blackbyrds – Rock Creek Park (apparently a park in DC where people have sex at night, according to this song)

Alvin Cash – Keep on Dancing

People love digging through raw meat with their bare hands in the supermarket

Every day becomes a precious day with Happy Lemon

When crack got really popular in 1980′s America, several celebrities joined the war on drugs by donning their poker faces and preaching a stern warning to the youth. Rick James never made one of these ads, probably because he loved smoking dat’ shit. I’m not condoning it, but the man behind “Super Freak” and “Glow” made some fine music that probably wouldn’t exist without those little white rocks, so I guess I’m ambivalent.

Rick James – Give It To Me

Rick James – Super Freak (for my friends in Asia that don’t know bout’ this)

Rick James – 69 Times

cop dem’ designer air conditioners.

Yeah girl, you feelin’ my stark minimalism…

Apparently this chamber will help rejuvenate those who come down with a cold.

I actually really like the idea of hand-drawn furniture.

Why am I awake at 9:30 on a Sunday morning, let alone in my office, forty minutes from home? Sleep-wake cycle acclimation. I think I beat the jet lag, but waking up at 6:30 every day for work totally precludes those saturday/sunday extended slumbers. I think it’s only going to get worse. Pops told me he can’t sleep in past 4:30/5:00 a.m. these days.

So it’s time to dance, no matter where the clock’s hands point. Some art school girls from the South Bronx dropped these classics in 1981. Enjoy.

ESG – Dance

ESG – Moody (Spaced Out)

I’m not above posting trap star tracks. Props to Caleb at Jonathon Yehuda Blaze for posting this go-go laced gem that weaves some minor social commentary into Jeezy’s usual subject, that dolla dolla.

Young Jeezy – Circulate

Seems about as many remixes float around the net as blog posts. Like a pre-Subway diet Jared with ice cream, I often go on download binges, trolling the blogs, throwing anything and everything into my downloads folder. Unfortunately, much like my initial trips to Chinese grocery stores, where, like a bright-eyed child I tossed any item with jazzy packaging into my cart and into my stomach, most of these tracks leave me feeling ill. They end up rotting in my hard drive like those duck neck snacks in my old fridge.

However, once in a while, like those delicious Dannon seaweed crackers I stumbled upon, I find something great like this. From the HEALTH//DISCO remix album that dropped a few months ago, this still gets constant spins when I’m at the supermarket.

HEALTH – Perfect Skin (Curses! Remix)

HEALTH – Heaven (Narctrax Remix)

HEALTH – Triceratops (Acid Girls Remix B)

The tap water in china = unfit for consumption besides tooth brushing. that’s fine, because for minimal costs, a man comes to our apartment and replaces the five gallon water jugs whenever. just leave the empty jug plus a coupon in the hall and bam, fresh water. well today someone stole the tank, meaning i had to deal with a bemused water man in the hall, who spoke mandarin laced with a shanghainese accent so thick I strained to understand. we finally agreed that a “xiao tou,” or “small thief,” nicked the jug then settled on two extra coupons for a new jug.

I guess that’s not as bad as America, where people actually steal manhole covers for scrap metal money.

Copped the Santogold and Diplo mixtape today for the twenty minute subway commute. It’s mad decent, and features Sir Mix-A-Lot, Three 6 Mafia, and other classic ish, including a great sample from Sandinista.

Santogold and Diplo – Top Ranking: A Diplo Dub

While I’m introducing esoteric genres, I might as well drop some Italo Disco. After downloading a huge torrent file of disappointing italo disco tracks I hollered at my friend to post this classic. I originally got this a year ago before I first moved to China and seriously mourned it when the hard drive crashed. Luckily someone created zShare and it’s here for all to enjoy. I can’t imagine a better introduction to this style. Mad props to G on this.

Tracklisting:

1.     E.O.G. – Solid Liquid
2.     Patrick Cowley – Primitive World
3.     Pluton & Humanoids – World Invaders
4.     Giorgio Moroder – Chase
5.     Man Parrish – Manmade
6.     The Jonzun Crew – Space Is The Place
7.     Charlie – Spacer Woman
8.     Q (10) – The Voice Of Q
9.     Hipnosis -  Blade Runner (End Title)
10.   Message From Future – Robot Is…
11.   Alden Tyrell – Love Explosion
12.   Kraftwerk – Tour De France (Francois K Remix)
Remix – François Kevorkian
13.   Camaro’s Gang – Super Shuffle
14.   Alexander Robotnick – Problèmes D’Amour (Midnight Version)
15.   Mr. Flagio – Take A Chance
16.   Klein & M.B.O. – Dirty Talk
17.   B.W.H.  -  Livin’ Up
18.   Doctor’s Cat -  Feel The Drive (Instrumental)
19.   Sun La Shan -  Catch
20.   Electronome -  Een Drumcomputer En Een Synthesizer III
21.   Electronome – Influence
22.   A Number Of Names -  Sharevari (Vocal Version)

I-F – Mixed Up In The Hague Vol. 1 (right click save – highly recommended)