I finally got around to writing another Shanghai Diaries.  This time it is about our trip to Beijing.  The Internet has been acting screwy so I’m just gonna link to it over at blogcritics. I hope you like it.

We’re leaving for Bangkok in a few hours and we will be traveling in Cambodia and Thailand for about two weeks. I’m fairly certain some of the places will have Internet access, but I can’t say that I’ll be doing any writing.

Until then…

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Taken in the men’s room on Mt. Emei in Sichuan Provence.  It definitely wasn’t fresh air in there.

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I have an 180 gig external hard drive that I store files that I want to commute between my Dell laptop and my Macintosh one.  This includes, documents, software, pictures and music.  Mostly music.  Yesterday while moving both the Mac and the external to the table with my speakers on it, so that I could listen to some music, I dropped the external.

Immediately it began making a clicking noise.  However, the music still played and I thought it was ok.  I began telling the Mac to eject the external so I could turn it off when the phone rang.  In the confusion of answering, talking and trying to fix my computer I unplugged the external without ejecting it.  Now that’s happenned before with no problems and I don’t know that this caused any further damage than dropping it, but what I do know is that when I plugged it back in the Mac wouldn’t recognize the external drive.

I moved it to the Dell to try and was relieved to find the Dell did indeed recognize it and could use the files.

I moved it back to the Mac hoping against hope but got nothing.  Then, later, I tried the Dell again, but it no longer recognizes it either.  On both computers it recognizes that something has been attached to the USB, and the external makes some noise for a moment, but then nothing happens.

Luckily the day before, I had moved all of our pictures off of the external and onto the Mac hard drive.  Otherwise all of our China pictures would be lost.

Curses.

In about an hour I am officially leaving for Sichuan.  I will be gone for about one week.  I may or may not have internet access, so if I am gone for awhile. That is why.  I will give more details of the trip when I am back.

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Beijing and the Great Wall of China

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Every year me and the wife say we are going to make it to Bonnaroo, and every year we don’t go (at least a few times this owns up to being because we’re out of the blooming country, so that’s an excuse.) With what I like to call super-dooper-cool technology you can now watch the show live via the interwebs. Even all the way from China. Right now Cat Power is doing a nice set for my eyes and ears. Click here to watch it yourself.

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To celebrate a friend’s birthday we went to Karaoke last night.  It was good times and on the taxi ride back home we continued to sing songs.  At one point we landed on “Time of Your Life” by Green Day.  This made me reflect on them as a band.  On how they went from serious punk rockers to acoustic balladeers to critically acclaimed political pontificaters.  Or rather how they left their serious punk fans in favor of teeny-boppers.  At the high school where I sometimes substitute the music room has its walls plastered with posters of the kids favorite acts.  Green Day is right up their with the likes of Kelly Clarkson and High School Musical.  Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, yet it is utterly fascinating to myself.  Especially since I really liked them in my high school days.

They first hit with their album Dookie, when I was in high school. This was in the haydays of the alternative movement, and I was right in the mix with my long hair, flannel shirts and Doc Marten boots.  This song was always one of my favorites with its slacker lyrics. I especially loved the line “my mother says I should get a job/but she don’t like the one she’s got.”  I periodically had jobs in those years but usually they didn’t last long.  I preferred my freedom to having extra change in my pocket and this line always rang true.

Still does actually.  Who wants a job, when jobs are no fun?

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Railroad Earth have just put their new album, Amen Corner, up on their website for streaming. Railroad Earth are what I like to call a bluegrass-jamband. They encompass a lot of old timey music with folk and bluegrass influences into a new jam lead sound. The results are often stunning.

I’ve not given the new album much of a listen yet (just found out about the stream actually) but the first song is a keeper and, well, RRE are always worth a listen. And hey, the price is right, and you can listen from work.

This concept, streaming new albums in full, is a great one. Wilco did it too with Sky Blue Sky, and I think it is a great way to get a feel for the album before you put your hard cash down for it.

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Outside our little living compound, out on the street is an ever growing cavalcade of street food vendors, DVD merchants, and random sellers of junk.  Most recently we have received the services of a pizza man.  Normally the food sellers on the street come in small-ish sizes, selling meat-on-a-stick, quick pasta, or bread makers.  Never before have I seen an operation large enough like this pizza man.

He had a big oven, lots of flavors, and even some faux brick on the outside of his cart.  We all marveled at him these past few days and our own luck as to be having so much yummy-ness so close to home.

We also wondered how long he would last.  Turns out, not long at all.

Street vendors are technically illegal here, but mostly they are left alone.  I guess the authorities figure a man’s gotta make a buck however he can, and as long as nobody bothers anybody else it works out ok.  But this guy must have pressed his luck a little too much.

Last night I walk into Lianhua, the local market for some ice cream.  When I go in all the vendors are out, selling their wares, including pizza man.  I get my ice cream, ready my change, and stand in line.  I notice that pretty much the entire store is looking outside, and I, myself, take a gander out.

What I see is three or four uniformed police officers who have surrounded themselves about the pizza man’s little shack-on-wheels.  They are violently pushing the cart towards the street and their truck.  The cart is having other thoughts and does not go quietly.  As the men push, out drops the big gas tank to the ground. The police continue to push the cart and drag the tank.

In my head a leak occurs, sparks fly, and the whole block goes up in flames.

One police sees the gas tank and tries to detach it with no luck.  More dragging ensues until someone either gets it detached or puts it back on the cart.

Amongst all this gas commotion, a new van arrives and out pop six more men in full-on camo gear.  They march to the cart, and haul it off the ground and into the truck, which promptly takes off.

While all of this is happening a crowd has gathered.  We, in the store have stopped what we were doing, including the cashiers, to stare at the commotion.  People outside have stopped walking, and gathered to laugh at poor pizza man, who is now nowhere to be found.

When the truck left and I paid for my goods, I noticed that all the other vendors had also packed up and gotten the heck out of there.

Tonight, I note, they are all back.  Except for pizza man.

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I missed last week’s column due to preparing to go to Beijing, and this week is really late. In my previous post I noted why this week is screwed, and rolling with that idea, I’m gonna say very little about this week’s numbers. Here’s the stats with a few notes.

Top Five Artists Most Listened to Last Week

1. Bruce Springsteen - 32 plays

In my continuing moves to go through Springsteen’s back catalog, last week I hit upon Darkness on the Edge of Town. It didn’t hit me nearly as well as the E-Street Shuffle did, but it is darker, slower material and still deserves some more contemplative listens before I produce a review.

2. The Lemonheads - 25 plays

This one is all wife. Right before I went away for two hours of tutoring I put the Lemonheads on because I knew the wife liked them and wouldn’t mind them playing in the background while she was doing whatever she was doing. Honestly I thought she’d get through half of It’s a Shame About Ray and then turn it off for some TV or something. To my surprise she had listened to that one, plus their new one, plus some miscellany and allowed the iTunes to keep playing during my full absence. Good for her, but I can’t claim any of these plays

3. Grateful Dead - 15 plays
4. Steve Earle - 13 plays

I don’t remember what I played of the Dead. Seems like it should have been an album or something, but all I can remember is listening to some bits of a live show or two as the sequencing was out of order.

Earle got some good plays the week before as well. I just recently obtained a bunch of his music and was listening to him quite a bit.

5. Ryan Adams - 12 plays

Like the Dead I really don’t remember listening to Adams last week.

All Time Top Ten

1. Ryan Adams - 761 plays
2. Bob Dylan - 734 plays
3. Grateful Dead - 608 plays
4. Wilco - 535 plays
5. The Beatles - 477 plays
6. Norah Jones - 369 plays
7. Gillian Welch - 361 plays
8. Bruce Springsteen - 360 plays
8. Lucinda Williams - 360 plays
10. Pearl Jam - 344 plays

The Dead finally broke 600 plays and Bruce Springsteen knocked Pearl Jam to tenth place and close to being off the list all together. Our last five places are pretty much in plays with all of the musicians pretty close to one another. Should be an interesting next few weeks. Except that I haven’t listened much this week due to working, and I won’t be able to write next week due to being out of town.

Oh well.

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Here’s the deal - I’ve been very busy this week.  It is the week before finals at my wife’s school and apparently most of the teachers decided to call in the days off they have remaining which means I’ve been subbing like a mad-man.  I’m putting in full days at the school and then adding two hours of tutoring after.  This comes after a long weekend in Beijing.  This makes for a very tired me.

Tired enough to not really care about writing. As a fair warning, next week I’ll be in the Sichuan provence of China.  Sometime after that I’ll be doing my final summer traveling and then heading home at the end of July.  Even then I’ll be staying with my folks in Oklahoma which doesn’t make for good writing conditions.  This is to say that this blog is going to be even more sporadic than usual for the next two or three months.

As always I have plans and ideas of how to make it better.  As always we’ll see how well I implement them.

It is Thursday but I do have a pick of the week.  Martha Wainwright comes with a big pedigree.  She is the daughter of Loudon Wainwright III and Katie McGarrigle and the sister of Rufus Wainwright.  Not huge names, perhaps, but ones with important careers in the land of music.

She released her debut, self-titled album a few years back and it was remarkable.  It was full of pop, infectious as all get out and straight to the aorta meaningful.  Lyrically she cut out all the crap and laid it right there on the line.

I haven’t heard a lick of this new one, nor read a single review, but if it is anything like the last one, it will be a keeper.

Other releases of note this week are:

Jakob Dylan - Seeing Things

Bob’s son goes solo.  I can’t say I’m much of a fan of the Wallflowers.  I dug the singles from the first album and they put on a pretty good live show, but I didn’t really follow them.  This one is getting some good buzz about it and should be worth checking out.

Emmylou Harris - All I Intended to Be

You can’t go wrong with an Emmylou record, and like a fine wine she just gets better with age.

Alanis Morissette - Flavors of Entanglement

When she burst on the scene with Jagged Little Pill I tried to resist. “You Oughtta Know” always rubbed me wrong and “Ironic” wasn’t and I was hip enough to turn up my nose.  But then I kept catching her on the radio driving back and forth from Alabama to Oklahoma and I realized the lady knows a hook.  Still I never bought an album, but at least kept my no pointed more southwardly and dug most of the singles.

She’s fresh off another break-up which could mean another hard core harsh fest, or it could be mellow.  Who knows with that Canadian?  Anyways it is certianly worth finding out.

My Morning Jacket also has a new one out.  There a band I figure I ought to like, but have never quite figured out if I do.  The sound is interesting and the singer has one of those voices but nothing has ever really stuck.

Here’s the full list of new releases.

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