Also, I can’t resist PSA’s, especially when they’re from Canada.

Something wild went down at a convenience store near People’s Square yesterday. At least once a week, I stroll this street’s mix of showy chinese restaurants for government officials and business people, street hawkers (lots of stuffed animals), and massage parlors. Literally everyone smokes on this street, all the time. I go for the RMB30($4.50)/70 minute massages. Unlike any other massage parlor I’ve visited, body massages take place in an open room of eight beds where everyone can chat/annoy others with their barking cellphone conversations. The staff, who wear matching pink Brickbear t-shirts, all come from Jiangxi province, as does the owner.

On my way to my second massage of the weekend, I stopped in a All Days (convienence store) for a water, and in bursts a far-past-prime woman in her fourties donning a drab masseuses’ uniform and a reasonably attractive girl, maybe 19, in suggestive casual attire despite the cold and far too much make up. In a hurry, they asked to examine three or four bottles of lotion, bickering about the price (the most expensive was RMB7/$1.03) before becoming clearly fed up and storming out. Through the automatic door I heard “Ni Ganma!?” (What are you doing!?) and I turned to see the young girl yanking the older one to stop her from digging through a garbage can. Then they walked into a massage parlor that appeared to offer a higher degree of privacy.

d00d, hip hop was so much better back in the day…

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Showbiz and A.G. – Fat Pockets

Showbiz and A.G. – Soul Clap

How much can I sell these for in Michigan? $200? $400? Probably more if I say I got them from Japan, not China. I’ll probably just loiter outside the Urban Outfitters in East Lansing and slang these like Clipse slang white.

Sorry for the lack of posts these past few days. Been too caught up in money making scams like this.

Can’t do 5am nights twice in a row, so tonight I just ate jiaozi and drank sweet plum wine at my boss’s house, then broke down and bought a space-heater/radiator shopping at Lotus (no longer shopping at Carrefour, as I’ve decided to boycott all things french, sans the deli across the street). Must eat goat cheese…

Too bad this space heater sucks and it’s impossible to return anything in China.

Sorry to bitch about weather again, but to all the Shanghainese who complain about Shanghai’s “special” cold weather that’s fictionally particular to this city, try a) not building apartments out of concrete and dust, b) insulating them, c) using double pane windows.

Going back to Michigan for a few weeks in a month. Ummmm, Jennifer Granholm, what’s up with the Robocop project? Michigan’s pretty much falling apart, it seems about time to send a potentially unpredictably robot in to clean up the streets a bit. Just don’t send this model.

I’m willing to pour all of my dirty RMB into that. If not I’m just gonna buy nine houses for $48 altogether and ride that out until I can get a one way ticket to Crete.

I downloaded seven of Pitchfork’s “best of 2008″ albums, but haven’t found anything really worth posting yet. Still sifting through. Until then, it’s my all time favorite Italo-disco track.

Mr. Flagio – Take A Chance

Fuck air conditioners in China. Instead of blowing nice, warm air into my room to combat the frigid cold that plagues the city this time of year, mine blows hot dust, fungi, and other construction materials into my room. So now I’m mad sick, in an antibiotic haze. I went to the Taiwanese hospital yesterday, and accidentally went to the local Chinese hospital first. “First we take your temperature,” says the woman at the desk as she pulls a thermometer from a bucket of murky black water. “Is this the Taiwanese hospital?” I ask wearily. “Oh no, that’s next door.”

Side note: Fuck all the Canadians who walk around smugly, saying “it’s not that cold.” I’m from close to Lake Michigan, where it gets well below zero with snow so deep that only an antler and liters of blood tell us what just caused our insurance premium to skyrocket. Shanghai gets cold, and combined with terrible insulation/no central heating, it can get miserable.

Luckily there’s something happy to write about – Youzi! (Pomelo)

My new favorite fruit. Sour with lots of citrus and sometimes as big as soccer ball, it’s like a better grapefruit. The first time I bought this from the fruit dealer down the street, the dude asked me to translate a sketchy text message that said

“I’ve just transferred 1000 Kyat from bank of Myanmar.”

Here’s the inside of a Youzi I cut open with a Rambo knife.

And here’s a electrofunk injection from 1982.

Tyrone Brunson – The Smurf

For some reason, an editor at City Weekend felt the need to make several retarded edits on some promotional material for tonight’s show, including referring to the genre Italo-disco as “‘Italo’ disco.” They also changed the word “crunkness” to “crunchiness.” Perhaps they didn’t know that we’re living in a post-urban dictionary world. Anyway, I stumbled upon the Internet equivalent of a bum in the alley selling old records for crack money, except it’s the Internet so they’re completely free! Peep this Italo classic.

Mr. Master – Dog In The Night

Also, I can’t play this tonight, but it’s priceless

It’s Wednesday, which means the love explosion goes down tomorrow. Mad, mad thanks to Nan Nan for helping me navigate Taobao (the Chinese eBay, ish) and get a Maya 44 sound card shipped overnight from Jiangsu province. Unlike the real eBay, where some dude might just promise to send something then take the cash and spend it feeding his twelve kids Chef Boyardee for a few weeks, Taobao holds the buyer’s money in escrow until the correct goods arrive.

Excellent Chromeo remix by one of my favorites at the moment, LA Riots

Chromeo – Bonafide Lovin’ (LA Riots Remix)

Also, for those wondering what the fuck Baile Funk is:

Sinden + Count Of Monte Cristal Featuring MC Thiaguinho – Tamborzuda (Sin Rave Mix)

Just stumbled upon an absolute goldmine of italo-disco while reading about the French collective Valerie. Side note, the more I listen to “Tour De France,” I’ve realized that so much modern hip hop, dance, etc. comes from that single track. I’ve also heard it sampled about twenty times in the last week.

Heatwolves! and Mau Mau party on Thursday at windows UNDERGROUND on Nanjing Xi Lu. Expect to hear a lot of excessively-danceable tracks, old and new (think Archie Bell, Fake Blood, ESG, Soul Sonic Force, LA Riots, and other non sequiturs). Also, Yao Ming, Jack London, and Nikolai Gogol are stopping by. I told Yao to hide some 40′s of Steel Reserve in his coat when he comes so Mau Mau and I can get extra crunk when we destroy our equipment and buy more to stimulate the global economy.

There’s so much lamb near the club too. So if you don’t like the music we play (fucking unlikely), you can go nibble on kabobs until your stomach lining crumbles.

I got another great answer to a homework question in my English class today. We’re studying how to give and request advice now, and for homework I asked everyone to write two questions to an imaginary advice column. Today in class my students switched questions and wrote responses, here’s my favorite:

Dear ESL Class,

“I can’t sleep well at night, because my neighbor’s dogs are too loud. They always bark when they hear any sound. I told to my neighbor many times but it doesn’t work. I want to move to another house. However, it cost me too much money. So how should I do?”

(Response)

“everyday you can’t sleep well? You hear the dogs sound and call police and complain of a pain. another way is if you visited neighbor’s house you hit the dog and write paper and attach on the elevator”

I then asked this Korean student “what would you write on the sign?” and he responed “I write ‘beware, next time I beat dog, very strong’”

Fuck this bike. It looks sweet, but actually it’s made of recycled Power Rangers action figures and dust. This shit sat in my apartment for three months with a nail through the rear tire. Now it’s probably in some stolen bike warehouse in Pudong. I finally went to get a new one, and the trenchcoat-clad repair dude who hangs out on my corner with his wagon full of bicycle organs told me:

“This bike is no good. You don’t need a lock. If a thief comes, he’s not interested in this bike.”

Damn, I owe that guy RMB10 for the lock I did buy.

Chinese people don’t like speaking frankly. So either this guy just doesn’t give a fuck, or the bike really was awful.

I found out a mile later, when the chain exploded while turning a corner. Already late for dinner I desperately sought a solution. First, I just started asking people in quasi-hardware stores if they could fix bikes. No, no. Then, I asked people at fruit stands “where’s the bike repair store?”

A lot of people complain about the Chinese concern with losing face, and how, if someone asks them directions to an unknown place, they’d rather make something up rather than admit ignorance. It doesn’t  happen to me that often, but on this night I got the infamous “qian mian (straight ahead) from four different people, who all denied the existence of the place “straight ahead” the previous person mentioned.

Eventually I just ditched the bike and grabbed a new one from everyone’s favorite Dali Lama-backing BLOODY FRENCH! hypermarket, Carrefour, after dinner.

I actually met a decent French person at dinner, and that’s really, really fucking rare in Shanghai. My previous roommate, who suddenly returned to France last weekend, disproved any notion of high culture stemming from that country. That bitch left cocoa puffs soaking in milk next to the heater every day, managed to burn a hole through a metal pot on the stove because she fell asleep for three hours while making tea, invited other hip French people over for parties that involved drinking my coffee and sleeping in my bed when I went to Yunnan, and refused to socialize with any of the sub-humans who didn’t originate from her land.

Here’s a remix of a band that doesn’t come from France, but I bet they’re rad enough for French to admit “a few Americans are doing some ok things.”

Remixed by the anti-hype posse DFA, not some able-tard.

MGMT – Of Moons, Birds & Monsters (HOLY GHOST! Remix)

Conversation with students today in English Class:

Student A: “Teacher you eat dog before?”

Me: “Of course. Actually you guys mentioned yesterday that you want to cook, so maybe we can make that”

All: “Ughhhhhhhhhh…..teacher no!”

Student A: “You know, if you eat dog, and, and you have a dog at home, he will get really upset.”

Me: “No, that’s clearly impossible.”

Student A: “Teacher, really!”

Student B: “Yeah! My mom, she eat some food one time, and then the people tell her ‘that is dog,’ and she say, ‘ughhhhhhhh!’ and she come home, and our dog know, and get really angry and bark at her.”

So between frantically drawing/writing in my journal on the subway while Chinese people gawk like I’m insane, dealing with and out of control high school (today, only 60% of my grade twelve students came to class, I found several others smoking after lunch, and one girl strolled in late wearing pot leaf patterned sweatpants when our school requires uniforms), and trying to find a venue for the first big Heat Wolves/DJ Mau Mau dance party next week, I’ve managed to catch up on some music. Namely the Serge Santiago and Dubstep podcasts on XLR8R, both wonderful.

Speaking of music, here’s another fat old school electro track. I’ll probably throw this in almost every set I play.

Egyptian Lover – Siberian Nights

BTW, these strange drawings of bears come from a Korean artist, Eddie Kang, who recently had a show in Shanghai. Apparently his works fetch high prices from Korean soap opera stars.

Big up to Graham, holding it down in the L and teleporting a crucial Rick James track to me for my DJ set tonight… Returning the favor with this:

Alexander Robotnick – Problèmes d’Amour (USA Version)

A favorite winter snack in Shanghai

I only posted that Prince Zimboo track yesterday, but my boy DJ Mau Mau, who recently quit his day job, already cut open the track with a corroded polar bear tooth and sunk a fat bass line into the mix.

Prince Zimboo – Say Heh (DJ Mau Mau remix)

I grew up in a small Midwest town where no one worried about the difference between “minimal electro,” “house,” and “progressive trance.” Sure, the cool kids knew Aphex Twin, but we mostly labeled anything composed of blips and beeps as “techno,” the e-tard soundtrack. Kind of like how Asia mostly gets awful, commercial hip hop like Akon and Black Eyed Peas, I was exposed to a similar breed of techno. Well, Shanghai’s a big city full of French people and others who care about more diversity in their electronic music, and I’ve come to really like some of it. DJ Sasha (maybe just Sasha), apparently “the world’s number one progressive trance” DJ will come on Saturday, so that aforementioned Europeans and wealthy Chinese can pay an absurd cover charge to [possibly] dance, drink scotch and green tea, and perhaps even toss a glow stick around.

Fuck that.

Fortunately, my friends VOID, two DJs who strive to bring quality underground electronic music to Shanghai convinced DJ Bone to fly here from Detroit and play a show the same night at The Shelter that will likely go until the sun comes up.

Here’s a taste of what’s in store. I stole these from Smart Shanghai.

DJ Bone – Formations

DJ Bone – The Move

it gets better…

Whoa, what a wild Thanksgiving in Africa. Sorry for not posting, but Zimbabwe needs to get water, food, and money that doesn’t appreciate a million percent an hour before that get that sweet Internet connection. I spent Thanksgiving day wild game hunting in Botswana with ex-KGB weaponry. Ostriches run really fast, kind of like those Final Fantasy characters, Chocobos. That night, my new friends and I roasted and ate those giant birds until we couldn’t bear anymore. Later in the evening I DJed a party for some government types in Harare, and I don’t wanna say for sure, but with such a positive vibe throughout the set, I think Mugabe and the opposition might just forget all the bullshit and get back to what’s real.  Now I’m back in Shanghai, ready to blog for you loyal readers.

I got some music in Africa too. Check out this track, it’s brilliant.

Prince Zimboo – Say Heh