Chapter 18

I listened to Scred Connexion while doing the three S in the morning. Or rather the first two, I don’t really shave these days, and sport a bushy patchy brown beard. Scred Connexion is a cult French hip-hop collective from Barbès, a rough neighborhood in Paris, I knew a few of their classic tracks but their album Du Mal À Se Confier left me a bit cold.

Some cuntnugget parked his car right in front of the underground parking exit. I had to get off my bicycle and move it over the curb, so to send a message or at least get a bit of revenge, I took a garbage can and placed it so it blocks the door on the driver’s side. In the apartment complex where I used to live in another city, there would constantly be wastes of DNA parking their shitmobiles on the bicycle path, and I would surround their cars with as many little public bikes I could find. I’d be tempted to vandalize them, but would dig deep and find restraint.

Despite that minor obstacle and my sleep deprivation, I got to work with some pep in my step, as I’m on semi-vacation as of now. The students are gone, and now all I have to do is a bit of admin shit as well as grading the final exam papers. Not a minor task mind you, with over 300 papers, but I have a whole week to do it and it will take nowhere near that amount of time so I can pace myself and take internet breaks (while still trying to be somewhat productive overall). I finished listening to the Cyberpunk 2077 metal radio station compilation on YouTube, with some seriousy underground black, death and d-beat tracks. I don’t have a console of this generation, only an old beat-up PS3, but if I had one, Cyberpunk 2077 would be one of the games I’d be interested in, a sandbox open game set in a dystopian near future.

The Metal Minded podcast started at 9 AM Beijing time, and I listened to it live on YouTube. They were talking to the drummer and vocalist of melodic deathcore band Killborn. Just as my lunch break was starting, the podcast was over and I joined them on Zoom for an after-party. I sat in an empty unheated classroom and bantered with the guys for about half an hour, then I went home, made a baloney and cheese sandwich in a baguette, and watched a video about Conor McGregor’s preparation for his fight next week. McGregor might be a despicable bellend (I despise British slang words normally but bellend and wanker are fantastic) but it’s undeniable that he’s a fascinating fighter.

I went back to school and resumed my grading. I listened to an album by Swedish black metal band Malakhim, that was quite enjoyable but not super memorable. Then I put on a news show by 7 Jours Sur Terre, a Quebec YouTube channel that does pretty deep political analysis on international issues. They used to do it in a podcast format, two guys talking in a room, but now due to the strenghtened anti-covid measures in place, they can’t. So their main guy, Benjamin Tremblay, was doing a solo show with a much higher production value in terms of scripting and graphics, that looked like a “normal” news show but much more compelling, more exhaustive, and less of an insult to the viewers’ intelligence.

He talked about Julian Assange, the Iran nuclear program, and the main story was about 3D printing. I was a bit confused at first, I thought this was just a niche hobby for a few nerds with little relevance to world affairs, but apparently it will be a revolutionary technology that will completely switch the paradigm of manufacturing from factories to households, from a global trade network to localized production, and thus make the US military control of the seas as well as the Chinese “One Belt, One Road” initiative nearly obsolete, among other drastic changes. Interesting take, though I’m still wondering, well, who’s going to produce those high-tech 3D printers? Yeah they can be used in remote areas or oil rigs or even potentially on the moon, but someone needs to make them first, which will be a centralized affair jealously and ruthlessly fought for. At least that’s what I was thinking listening to Benjamin’s analysis, but what do I know, I’m dumber than an old wool sock and all that technology confuses and scares me.

Towards the end of the segment, my coworkers in the adjacent cubicles started talking, and Chinese people only have two volumes for conversation: loud, and fucking loud. Even with my headphones on, I could barely hear the final editorial. I knew better than asking them to quiet down, which has about a 5% chance of succeeding and is more likely to be perceived as some kind of insult, mature and adept at conflict resolution as they are. So I smiled and stoically endured the cackling for a few minutes before switching to music. I remembered why I stopped listening to podcasts or comedy shows while at the gym or on train rides, the low volume and frequent pausing didn’t make it appropriate to drown the unending cacophony around me in the same way that music, especially extreme metal, can do.

After that news show that ended up with an editorial praising the past achievements of Quebecers and urging us to collectively get our shit together, I felt like listening to music from my country, so I put on an album by Groovy Aardvark, a band that started in the late 80s playing crossover thrash before moving on to punk rock (in French and in English) but the album I put on, Oryctérope, was moving a little too far away in an esoteric progressive direction. So I just played a few of their singles that I like, and then stayed in that lane with a few French-language tracks from artists as varied as La Bottine Souriante, Raid, Mononc’ Serge, Taktika, France d’Amour, bobbing my head to these great catchy tracks. Then I played the album 514-50 Dans Mon Réseau by Sans Pression, the best Quebec hip-hop album ever by a mile, it’s been a while since I listened to the whole thing start to finish.

On the way home and walking the doggy, I listened to tracks by Crucified Barbara, an all-female hard rock quartet from Sweden. If you asked me to draft a top 10 of my all-time favorite musical artists, it would be a colossal task, but Crucified Barbara is one that would make it without question. I love that band with a passion. The leather jacket wearing, raven-haired lead guitarist/frontwoman Mia Coldheart crafts catchy riffs, great solos and surprisingly good lyrics too, and gives off a totally badass alpha bitch vibe, the kind who would smash you with a beer bottle if the dicking she recruited you to perform isn’t to her liking.

I went to the small grocery store and bought a whole chicken and some vegetables. As always, the other customers were fascinated by my presence and asked the shopkeeper about me. “Can he speak Chinese?!” “Yes, he can, very well!” Which is an exaggeration, but I guess I’d be speaking enough of the lingo to buy food by myself since 2009 or so.

I seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, thyme and fennel, then put it in the oven on a bed of garlic, onions and carrots. I also roasted bell peppers on the stove and mixed it with garlic, cumin, almonds, cashews, chili peppers and cherry tomatoes to make a dip. All the while I was drinking a delicious white beer from a Lithuanian brewery that somehow crossed all of Eurasia to make its way to my fridge.

Then I poured myself a large Campari n’ gin (so, a negroni without the vermouth) and watched more UFC. The main card had been great thus far, with three first-round KOs, including one by a favorite of mine named Li Jingliang, an unorthodox and batshit crazy Chinese welterweight. Next up it was two veterans, Carlos Condit and Matt Brown, who were supposed to fight years ago but it kept getting postponed. A perfect co-main event. Fun fact, both of Condit’s previous opponents (Brown and Court McGee) have died from heroin overdoses and have been revived, before dedicating themselves to sobriety and committing themselves to the sport. The fight delivered, and featured a rarely-seen vingativa takedown by Condit in the second round.

The main event pitted number 6 ranked featherweight Calvin Kattar against Max Holloway, who gained and defended the championship with his exciting and varied pressure boxing attack before losing it to Yugoslavian-Australian rugby player Alex Volkanovski. The Hawaiian Holloway put on an absolute clinic, throwing more than 600 strikes and getting a rare 50-42 on one of the scorecards, in a fight that will definitely be on the shortlist for FOTY. Now he’s in a bit of a weird situation, as he’s lost to Volk twice and a third matchup is a hard sell, his absolute dominance of everyone else notwithstanding. He’s a little bit like heavyweight Francis Ngannou in that regard, but without the cheat code like power. Either way it was a great card, and a good sign for the coming year of fights.

The girlfriend got home, and we ate roast chicken while watching The Office. The episode prominently featured Jen’s problematic relationship with Michael. I asked the girlfriend “Does it happen often, women who find a certain man stupid but are attracted to him to the detriment of their mental health?” and she gave me a look.

I rounded up the evening drinking whiskey and listening to French hip-hop. The compilation I randomly pulled up on YouTube had tracks by Manau on it, I had almost completely forgotten about them, they had one hit track narrating an ancient battle between Gaulish tribes way back when I was in high school, and the whole album was pretty great, with an interesting and unique Brittany flavor to it. I’ll listen to the album tomorrow if I remember.