Detroit

On a whim last May, I got a day off work, rented a Korean sedan and drove to Detroit by myself for 23 hours of non-stop techno. On the five-hour drive down to the Motor City (yes, I was speeding) I listened to Kompakt's Speicher series, Carl Craig, Richie Hawtin, Matthew Dear and Aphex Twin. Once in Detroit, I bought a Power Bar and a Red Bull and danced to Carl Craig, Matthew Dear, Chris Liebling, Speedy J, Bodycode, Mikkel Metal, Donnacha Costello, Josh Wink, Nitzer Ebb, John Acquaviva, and way too many more to recall. The next day I drove back to Toronto listening to Michael Mayer, Villalobos and more Carl Craig.

This year's DEMF has just been announced. Check out the lineup. It's mouthwatering.

A Guy Called Gerald

Abe Duque & Blake Baxter

Baby Ford & Zip

Booka Shade

Christian Smith

Claude VonStroke

Damian Lazarus

Gui Borrato

Guido Schneider

Jeff Mills

Loco Dice

Luciano

Marco Carola

Mathew Jonson

Michael Mayer

Mistress Barbara

Model 500 - live featuring Juan Atkins

Monolake

Moodymann

Rhythm & Sound - 6 hour dj/live with vocalist

Richie Hawtin

Steve Bug

Stacey Pullen

Vladislav Delay (aka Luomo)

I wonder how long it would take to drive from Cairo to Detroit?

In Da Nile

The Nile is nice to look at but boy is it a cesspool.

Case in point: I took some photos of a dead donkey floating in the Nile today. Apparently, it's been floating there for five days and the local authorities, despite repeated complaints from the neighborhood, have yet to remove the rotting, corpulent hunk of meat from the river. It's unclear whether or not the donkey collapsed into the river after drinking Nile water.

However, authorities aren't ruling out foul play.

The Heart's Filthy Lesson

Since my late teens, the cool thing to do was to diss Valentines Day as a Hallmark (ugh!) of corporate opportunism.

In fact, most of my Valentines Days have been horrid: the best being 2001, when I spent the entire day composing an ear-scorching techno tune called Rushin' DF.

Since then, every day has been worse, culminating in a debacle last year that was embarrassing and pointless. Part of the reason for these disastrous days was a defeatist mindset.

This year, I'm taking a different tune. Fuck it. I'm sick of the post-modern, anti-establishment, nihilist, "buy nothing day" rhetoric that's dominated my mind set for the past decade. Time for a fresh start.

In Egypt, everybody celebrates Valentines Day, regardless of whether you've got a special friend or not.

Even single men cherish it.

A co-worker (we'll call him Mahmoud) just told me that one of his male cousins once gave him a red rose and a card with teddybears and hearts on it, simply as an expression of friendship.

So, give a friend a hug. Have a pint of pink beer. Do something. But don't pout.

(Not) Elegantly Wasted

The above photo above, snapped in November during a drunken night drive to the concrete and burnt rubbish suburb of Giza, stands in stark contrast to the facts, which are outlined in a new report published yesterday and illustrated in this helpful graph.