NEW!Dian TiaoWu tracks released Sept 1, 2010.
10 remastered tracks and 2 new ones (David Bowie Mothership and Toybox Rebellion) from the forthcoming album Syzygy.
Started working on this month's ago and got distracted by too many other things. Recently shot some missing footage in Beijing's 798 art district with my pal Ruozheng which gave me the missing bits to finish it off. Enjoy! It's a silly one!
There's been so many great articles of late, poking a stick into the still-warm corpse of Amerikan Demokracy and how the money machine keeps faking its heart beat, distracting us from realizing that something smells funny in here. Too many articles, too little time, but I just HAD to save a few of these for posterity:
Here's my take on it... Wall Street is Dr Frankenstein and Washington is its Monster. The metaphor brings up inevitable images about angry villagers and torches, but personally I think that approach is a waste of time as it will likely result in a lot of unnecessary ideological clashes of the blue/red kind (which is all just an argument about what kind of daddy you want).
So what's to be done? Go local. Like REALLY LOCAL. Start with blocks, then neighborhoods. Because when the beast falls and the dust settles, its you and your neighbors that will be out cleaning up the mess.
For a few weeks now I've been working on an essay about the military industrial complex and about how it utterly transformed American society after WW2. Its a tough nut to crack, because one wants to provide comprehensive depth, which is often beyond anyone's scope, given the level of atrocity and insanity that exists in the world's largest war machine:
This is a mini-documentary I produced about climate change. I've been blogging about our hot globe for six years now and one recent, profound conclusion I've come to is that we need to talk about this issue using powerful, passionate, INSPIRING words. Those lead to action. I hope this does to:
Just learned today that MySpace bought out iLike which was a music sharing service that I, er, used to like.
But since Rupert Murdoch is the anti-christ (he owns MySpace along with Fox "News") I'm sure that I'd lose sleep (or my lunch) knowing that his slimy little gollum fingers were all over my music.
So sayonara iLike. So sorry you had to sell out and make yourself all icky.
I was interviewed a few weeks ago on a net radio show called "All Things Health" on the subject of one of my latest passions -- biodegradable plastics. I recently started doing sales for the Beijing-based startup BDP Green Technology which produces compostable bags that safely dissolve back into the earth. Usable for shopping, trash, packaging and a variety of other uses, this technology is completely safe for the environment!
This is one of those essays that just hits the nail on the head. Its written from an English perspective but its reasoning applies to all western democracies. Trillions are being wasted on imaginary threats while the most profoundly terrifying one is being virtually ignored:
"What does it give us? Our wars make us less safe. We would be better protected
from terrorism and global instability if the UK's armed forces stopped going
abroad to make trouble. No one in office can produce a coherent account of why
this money is needed: the ministry's budget is sustained by the greed of contractors
and nostalgia for imperium long passed. We could cut defence spending by 90%
and suffer no loss to our national security. Instead, the MoD has just dropped
its spending on climate change research."
Here's to your search for a bunker. Hope its on high enough ground. Read the essay.
Being a 24-7 computer guy I've got three backup drives with millions of files. For some reason I got to finally sorting through the gigabytes of old songs and found some old gems that are worthy of posting to the site.
There are 20+ new (old) songs now in the multi-categoried Rarities XYZ section ready for downloading. You'll just need to log-in as they're only for the hard core fanatics.
Chinese for 'electric dance' Dian TiaoWu is a new collection of original breakbeat DJ tracks that I've mixed into a full length release.
I've heard some folks say that my music tends to be a little on the dark side -- well, I think this CD will put those notions to rest, for this is about as fun and funky as I can get. There ARE some dramatic moments, but its all about getting you outta your seat and shakin yer bacon.
This one really blew my mind. Being a casual student of history I've always thought that the 20th century was the most barbaric on record. But Steven Pinker blows a hole thru that paradigm with a lot of chunky stats that you'll be chewing on for days.
An on-going, semi-written essay floating around in the circuitry of my cellphone deals with the new age philosophy about an impending "shift in consciousness" -- the notion that humanity could experience a 100th monkey shift into another realm of consciousness.
Most of the descriptions are left wanting and really never escape the new age circuit because they sound, well, new-agey. But I've been fascinated by this mime... wondering if it was just a fad that sells workshop tickets or if there's an underlying reality being described. That perhaps the rather large number of psychonauts, self-help gurus, fringe scientists, and undoubtedly brilliant futurists are really on to something.
Its profoundly obvious that the need for such a shift exists. For we're a little too paralyzed to deal with the parallel crises we're facing and like Einstein said, we can't solve a problem at the same level of consciousness at which it was created.
Along comes Jill Bolte Taylor.
I can't remember the last time I heard someone describe reality and consciousness so succinctly, gently waving back and forth between intuitive to intellectual. There's a lot to what she's saying that could be the missing key. Pure, simple recognition that all of our problems have been fostered by left brain perception.
And maybe, just maybe, if we allow ourselves to dance in the right a little bit more we can see the inherent Oneness of the universe and thereby put an end to all of the systems, habits and technologies that are tearing that Unity apart.
Since I started doing some sales work with a new biodegradable plastics company here in Beijing, my mind has been a target for all things "clean tech".
So when a friend turned me on to his brother's blog -- The Future is Being Built Now -- I felt spurned to make a post, drop a link and twinkle some neurons on the subject.
We're at a critical juncture as a species.
Climate change has already started, we're creating the planet's sixth mass extinction event, clean water is running out and of course, to make matters worse, economic chaos is spreading like a virus on a warm petri dish.
On the other hand, we're also experiencing a massive surge in clean technology that can liberate us from the earth-destroying methods of the past. Micro wind generators, electrolysis water (that will eventually eliminate all forms of toxic cleansers), paint on solar cells and of course, my current favorite, compostable plastic from starch... these are just a few of the new inventions reaching fruition right now.
Of course, we can't just kick back and wait for a new gizmo to wipe away all of the mess we've made, but its extremely exciting to be witnessing a real shift towards green technology. The future IS now and we all need to participate in advancing this civilization along to its next phase -- when the ape-man grows up and stops shitting where he eats.
Chinese for 'electric dance' Dian TiaoWu is a new collection of original breakbeat DJ tracks that I've mixed into a full length release.
