How does America lag so, so far behind the developing world in terms of public transportation?* Today I need to get from Birmingham, Michigan in metropolitan Detroit to East Lansing, home of Michigan State University, where I’m guest lecturing tomorrow. It’s about 80 miles (129km), or around an hour in a car with decent traffic. The only train option requires riding three hours all the way back to the west side of the state, Battle Creek, waiting for about four hours, then getting on a train back to the East side for an hour.

The public transportation in metro Detroit is definitely designed to keep black people out of the largely white suburbs.According to Google Maps’ public transportation guide, it would take me an hour and twenty minutes, including three transfers, to take the bus six miles (9.65km), as the crow flies, from the Greyhound station in Southfield to Birmingham.

It’s ridiculous that countries like China, Malaysia, and Korea have efficient mass transit lines while the American legislature just can’t get this done. Chicago – Detroit, that’s a terrible five hour drive on I-94, an absolute death-trap in the winter.

Luckily, I’m taking a Greyhound bus. For those unfamiliar with the Greyhound (not to be confused with the high-speed racing dog breed with an emaciated appearance), it’s a pretty sketchy bus that goes between cities in America. Most people in America drive so people who ride the Greyhound include migrant workers, convicted criminals who’ve lost their drivers license, folk down on their luck, and schizophrenics on their way to deliver “important messages” to “important people” on the other side of the country.

Absolute classic track up today From Holland’s Fox The Fox. Out in 1984…Italo??? Disco???? House???? Irrespective of genre, this shit kills on the late night tip, breakfast time, ML time, whenever. The 12″ version includes some essential breaks in the middle around the 4:00 mark. So, so good.

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Fox The Fox – Precious Little Diamond
*Clearly pressure from the American auto industry combined with suburbanization, the American dream of automobile ownership, and racism stopped any possibility of an efficient and comprehensive mass transit system in the post-WWII era. How was Japan able to build all those bullet trains, even with their respective auto industry? Geography…

For the next few days, I’m staying in a posh, white outer layer of The D – Birmingham, one of Michigan’s last bastions of prosperity. Though I’m several miles from the actual city of Detroit, this video whisks me back to those cold, grimy street corners where I got robbed my senior year of college.

Though I won’t recap that whole robbery story, I did lose a bag of cookies, $500, a watch, a Nextel cell phone, ingredients for making soup, a series of university textbooks on international relations, chocolate chip cookies, my sweatshirt, the keys to my house in East Lansing, and some tomatoes fresh from the garden. The robbers did not want our car. They also did not want my shoes, which I had recently purchased in San Francisco and thought highly of. I felt slightly offended that after taking even the textbooks, the criminals didn’t consider my shoes fresh enough to jack. Of course, I was clearly in the wrong, wrong place.

To make up for the lack of consistent posts in the last, oh, six months, Heatwolves is keeping it mad, mad real as of late. That includes not only a track post on this Disco Monday, but in fact…an entire Heatwolves podcast.

I’m gonna do this once a week. Keeping it so fresh here right now….

I did this in one take, 70% unplanned, with my Rottweiler sat next to me, staring in the opposite direction, eating air. It’s not quite perfect but some cool mixing happened by accident so I’m posting it.

So so fresh over here in Kalamazoo.

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Heatwolves! – H1NDisco

1. Dirty Pair Opening Intro Theme (1985 Anime Series)
2. Fever Ray – Seven (The Twelves Remix)
3. Modeselektor – Silikon – Siriusmo Remix
4. Charlie -Spacer Woman (Vocal)
5. The Rapture – I Need Your Love (Ewan’s Stay In School Mix)
6. Alexander Robotnick -Obsession For The Disco Freaks – Li’ll Bo Tweak Remix
7. Kool and the Gang -Fresh (SonicC Bootleg Remix)
8. Le Tigre – Deceptacon (DFA Remix)
9. Donna Summer -I Feel Love (Glenn Underground Remix)
10. DreDay – Chat Noir
11. Stacey Q – Two of Hearts
12. Funked Up – No Ditchin (Sferro Remix)
13. Manicured Noise – Metronome (Cousin Cole Remix 5-2)
14. The Pointer Sisters – Send Him Back (Pilooski Edit)
15. Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up (DJ Ayres Baltimore Club Remix)
16. DJ Technics – Mr. Postman
17. Kraftwerk – Tour De France (12 Inch Version)