ON THE ROAD: TO DURIAN w/ DJ SUSH

As a kid, my family and I took frequent drives from Seattle to Vancouver. Either by choice or by force, I can't recall, I religiously settled in the last row of our Sienna, enduring the sticky residue of a melting van and rotten kid in hot PNW summer with no AC. Notorious for their meticulous routines, my folks marched us on the same regime every road trip: get up ass-o'clock before dawn, coffee thru a decade old phin, bags packed and Tetris'd in the trunk the day before to get a headstart amidst the morning dew. Growing up I was one of those loner kids with a discman stuffed into the pockets of my bomber jacket, obtuse CD player bursting at the seams. It skipped when I ran for the bus. Back then Seattle didn't import durian, mangosteen, or long-ans, nor did we have the bustling Night Market that Vancouver hosted, so our primary motivation for travel was food. There were incredible shakedowns between US security and Asians at any attempt to bring "exotic fruit" across the border. Having grown up with these delicacies in abundance and being without access to them for so long in the US, my parents sought after them like Ahab in search of Moby Dick in the open sea. We smuggled them into our hotel room and spent most of our vacation afternoons grubbing on tropical fruit. Now, I instinctively drool at the trace of durian, so I guess the indoctrination worked on me. This mix is an ode to road trips, an ode to Vancouver (my first introduction to traveling), an ode to Hong Kong (a place I miss dearly) and - it's an ode to durian.