I live in a recently renovated, but by no means posh, building in north Jing An. A twenty-minute stroll through the hood leads to the main train station, with some sharply contrasting scenery along the way.

It’s really one of my favorite parts of Shanghai. If I walk ten minutes south on my block, I’m peepin’ fine and oh-so-untouchable girls in the Marc Jacobs store, but ten minutes the other direction and the streetscape blatantly fades into “developing country.”

I use that term endearingly.

With so much urban renewal underway for the 2010 World Expo, I love wandering around places filled with what some would call blight. These dilapidated alleys have history, stronger community, and more smiles than the newer skyscrapers filled with silent elevators carrying large-breed dogs and their owners.

As Shanghai modernizes, this will disappear from the central city, as those residents move out to anonymous high-rises past the outer ring.

For now though, it makes for a perfect morning stroll.

Is there ever a bad time for Curtis Mayfield?

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Curtis Mayfield – Right On For The Darkness

Tried to send out invites last night, last minute as usual, yet no one’s received them yet.

Anyway, we’re starting around 1:30ish, whenever The Dropkicks (Shanghai punk band; their farewell show) finish, then playing until sunrise.

It’s free, and we’re going to destroy the new sound system at LoGO (13 Xingfu Lu, near Fahuazhen Lu).

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As for music today, it’s rap again. Why? In the words of my roommate, “Living in China without a car and shit is mad ill, but sometimes I really miss driving around bumping rap music with the windows down and screaming at people.”

This time it’s a track from the same city as The Wire – Baltimore.

Bump dat’ shit.

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MullyMan – I Go Harder (Than Baltimore)

It’s almost midnight, the fruit lady just tried to give me the white-boy price on some freakishly large, deliciously genetically modified lychees, and there’s about twenty-seven stylists dancing around in neon wigs at the hair salon next to my house. Lots of strange team building going on in China.

Going to bed, but two important notes. Tomorrow, two friends of mine, Ziggy (reppin’ Pakistan) and Chiara (big up Italy) happen to share tomorrow as their glorious day of birth, so we’re throwing it down accordingly at LoGO starting at ten and going until much too late.

Hope I get an excuse to play this track, but don’t know if it’s relevant here. Still, it’s that summatime bullshit fit for dancin’ on the street with a one kuai appleberry ice cream and a broken fire hydrant.

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BBU – Chi Don’t Dance

(btw, BBU stands for Bin-Laden Blowin’ Up)

Though it seldom happens these days, after nearly two years in China, my All-Clad stomach, capable of digesting the most dubious dishes (live shrimp, gelated pig’s blood, snake baijiu, ox tripe, etc), still occasionally encounters something truly fierce in the middle kingdom.

Not sure exactly what exactly caused this, likely the Lan Zhou (Muslim minority from Gansu province) noodles with potato, mushroom, and beef sauce or the pork dumplings from Si Hai LongXia (Overseas Dragon, a Taiwanese chain).

So no work today. No food either, sans bananas, apple juice, and white rice. Sometimes I weigh the long-term health consequences of living in Shanghai vs. my hedonistic/absurdly luxurious lifestyle, then conclude that by the time long-term health problems arise, the world will either be underwater or taken over by giant robots, a la Terminator Salvation.

Seriously though, I’m pretty cynical about the future, even with Obeezie in the White House.

But there’s disco, and if I do end up playing tonight, this is a taste of what I’m spinning on that tip.

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Sylvester – You Make Me Feel

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Diana Ross – Love Hangover

After leaving some scathing comments on the City Weekend blog, I’m now alerted whenever someone remarks on my most-loathed bar in Shanghai – M1NT, a den of RMB100 drinks, wack DJs, and sharks, both literal and figurative.

Direct quote from the board, which keeps getting cleansed – alert/comment #5:

“it looks like mine comment is remove. before i write ‘i heard that m1nt owe many people many money’. maybe the m1nt police makes this site take my comment down. i guess really no free opinion!”

I hope it’s not just some victim of the financial crisis trolling about and the M1NT owner actually did get caught with the alleged “40 million pounds of dirty money!”

Baijiu Robot (Mau Mau and I) this Thursday at C’s. Likely the second most out of control show ever (we don’t want to beat the time people actually got cut up with broken class and beat with chairs).

C’s Bar – 685 Dingxi Lu, near Yanan Xi Lu