19 Stories into 1

the backhoe crouches triumphant on the rubble
aroused, slack jawed, asleep
the scent of consumation wafts across the alley, spoilt and mildewy
towering blocks on every side

a Foreigner broke my elevator

the title will be important later.

no one was sure if the bridge was skateable or not after the storm, so we launched an expedition to checked it out. It was. In fact, it was too skateable, and there was a huge crowd, so we went to a temporary spot next door. In quick succession, happym and momoney got some footage, and then happym had to be responsible, leaving rmj, myself, and momoney to hit up mainstation. An unexpected consequence of the typhoon is that all the mainstation bums have left, and the banks and ledges were skateable. We meandered through the area into ximen and leaving the homies, I skated back from a couple of stations away. The new stoop at the war hero park has been wrecked, trees are down and the roof is off.

I spent the next hour rolling on the floor because of the most incredibly painful hiccups of my life. I have never been in such a situation before. Nevermind walking or skating, I couldn't even crawl. Each hiccup elicited moans of pain, like getting punched in the stomach. It went on forever, but by the time I got home, only about an extra hour had passed. It was an incredibly horrible experience. Had I been swimming, I have no doubt I would have drowned. It was a complete and total loss of torso control. I hope I never have that again.

When I got home, the lift was out. I thought it must have been because of the typhoon, but lzyk told me it's because a foreigner on the 5th floor got really drunk and overflowed his apartment with water. Since we were all partying during the typhoon, I guess it's a consequence of the typhoon. I had to walk up to his floor, and then I walked up three more, because I forgot I live on the 7nth floor now, and not hte 8th. The hiccups came back just now. This feels like a serious medical condition

situation report (updated)

We woke up and a monster was outside. Typhoons make a wide spectrum of vocalizations, from an almost subsonic thumping boom, up through the spectrum or regular washing whooshing wind roars, to whistles and tweets. It's like alien speech. Our apartment is at a 90 degree corner, so the wind effect was magnified. The storm is still slamming out window, but I'm not so worried anymore. It was a full 12 hours of slamming though, and we can expect another six, as it dies down. The house back home took more damage; the garage door to the courtyard is metal rolling sheet that got completely ripped off.

Everyone knows that only fools go outside during typhoons. Debris is everywhere in the streets, mostly bright green tree limbs with leaves all of them, but also some trash, carboard, flotsam and jetsam, and most concerningly, corrugated metal sheets that are capable of severing a city bus in two, nevermind the human body.

Typhoon Sitrep

It's coming. Cabin fever drove me outside. Surprisingly, it wasn't raining, or even particularly windy, but we're still about 10 hours from peak typhoon. I haven't skated for a while because of lower back injury, but tonight probably would have been a good night. I moseyed down to the bridge, and not only was it dry, but patches of the street were too. Tonight would have been a good night to skate. The city is a ghost town. It's creepy that it's so empty and it was only midnight. I've only seen it this empty a few times before. Most nights never reach this light traffic levels. Another creepy part is the air. It feels charged, like when a tornado is coming. I got a pack of tb's and I'm going up to roof to drink them, until the typhoon drives me away.

New Favorite Drink

This isn't a comprehensive history, but for a while, I prefered IPAs. Then it was scotch. then it was armangnac. then it was sake. then shoju. then homebrewed cider. then homebrewed melalomel. next it was tb, then busch, then tb, then busch then tb, depending on what was on sale. then it was sherry.

the newest, latest best alcohol consumption method of all time is gueuze. it smells like burning tires (presumably not ever bottle though) and tastes like something between beer, cider and champagne. we got some from carrefour on latest grocery trip. lzyk turned up her nose, just because it smells like putrid rubber. she is missing out. we also stocked up on other essential typhoon supplies. the government says we'll have windy conditions from monday night to wednesday afternoon. that is the longest period i will have been through. i hope our window aka glass handgrenade holds up.

Slam of the Semester

A new bar opened across the street from the bridge, and lzyk convinced me to go try it out before the skate session. It was good, but at western prices. I ordered fried shrimp, thinking of prawns, but instead it was the miniature, whole, super salty shrimp you can find at nightmarkets. They are briny and delicious but always make me have a diahrrea typhoon. I finally made it to the bridge just before lights out, and a rain storm. The weather has been blessedly cool because of the typhoons and it was almost chilly when I got back a little damp from the first toilet run of the night.

The dudes skating on this particular night were some of Taiwan's best. I usually don't feel like such a minnow anymore, but there some great white sort of tricks going down in rapid succession on the box, so I left that feeding frenzy to the ferocious predators at the top of the food chain. Their reckless savagery made me want to skate faster, so I tried to warm up on some mostly dry flat ground, skating just a little faster than I normally would. It went well, and soon I was skating a lot faster than normal. Predictably, my arrogance caught up with me. It wasn't that slam of the year, that was the neck injury out past the orange line when I didn't see an inch deep crack while cruising, but it was the hardest slam I've taken since then. I caught the board with my front foot, but something went wrong with the back and I found myself perfectly suppine, at about waist height. I thought fuck, I really, really don't feel like hitting my fucking head tonight. Actually, that's not true. I just thought, fuck. I didn't hit my head though. I landed hard where my ass connects to my back, and spent a moment just laying there. I kept skating for a few minutes, just to get back on the horse so to speak, but it had taken the vinegar out of me. A few days later, I still have weird tingles down both legs.

the funniest thing that's happened to me in taiwan

cant decide on where to begin. the begining would be a stupid place. I skated home after the session, against the current, which is to say, in the opposite direction as normal, since i moved. if anything, it's better in this direction. but that is boring to say.

equally boring is that 10 years ago, i got my first hosptal job, and my mother bought me two button down shirts for it. thanks mom. i still have one. well, i had it until tonight. it was so dry rotten that it started to tear to shreds down the seams. i helped it along by tearing new holes all over. by the time i was cruising home, i was wearing a button down cape with weird flowing ribbons behind it.

i went to bridge and met another new german, whom i shall refer to as zegerman. he showed up cigarette in mouth and beer in hand, so i think we will get along. bastian came too, and they seemed to get along, but you never can tell with their folk. my front baseplate broke and i slammed on my elbow because the hanger popped completely out. fuck you, bindy's. never gonna spend that much money on trucks agian.  i left to meet liln at the plaza, but hundreds of pokemons were pokeling all over the ledges, and it was completely impossible to skate. so instead we went to the northern passage, and met  up with a shipai homey, who i ll call icynecklace. we went out by the river, and liln tore it apart. icynecklace and i have some spots in common, so we're planning ot meet up this weekend when lzyk is partying down south. we went til late, and bombed the hill back to the mrt station. i got off at the old station, and had a couple of tbs on the stoop, just because. then i tore my shirt some more. and then i skated home as fast as i can, to the new home, with what was left of my shirt billowing behind me.

there are these metal grates in taipei that you find at the entrances of buildings that use carts a lot. they give the carts good grip, and help them go up the stairs. ;late at night, they make an unholy noise if you carve up them while cruising the sidwalk. it's as loud as a tank fight. a pokemon player (ok probably not, but i'm seraching for moral justificatoin) was U biking in front of me when I hit the metal grate. he swivveled his head like he had been stung by a hornet, saw me pushing fast with a tb in hand and flailing dress shirt in tatters, and he stood up and took off like he was in tour de france.

there is a kind of looking that people do where at foreigners on skateboards, late at night. it's interested, but not nonchalant. my costume tonight, and my speed, got a whole other reaction. people were diving out of hte way, from 100 m ahead of me. dear foreigner who comes to taipei a year from now, I am the reason everyone hates you. sorry.

i had the brilliant idea to go in 7 with my shirt in this condition. the clerk deadpanned the entire transaction, like nearly shirtless foreigners come in all the time. maybe they do.

i was so amused that i did it again. same reaction. went home. gonna use the shreds as layers to glue one to my abibas to cover the holes.

truncated tour of taipei

the options this morning where 1) moving shit from the old house to the new house, while arguing 2) skate. I opted for the middle choice, which was wake up at 7 am, watch the lord's team narrowly defeat some midwestern shit team, get coffee and breakfast, try to wake up lzyk, play video games, try to wake up lzyk again to convince her to go with me to get breakfast, play more video games, announce loudly that I will be leavign shortly to go get breakfast (my lunch), and have her come downstairs to inform me that she is coming, but it will take her 40 - 60 min to get ready to go outside. She wasn't optimistic. It took more than 60 min. We had an excellent noodle lamb. Then I went to the bridge. I forgot my phone.

it was crowded. very crowded. children were noodling around on wiggle boards, getting in the way of everything, and i was fantasyzing about smashing into them with my leading elbow, and then beating their worthless parents with my skateboard. it remained a fantasy, but lots of homies showed up. The new japanese visitor did too, and he ended up making the day for me. I don't have to skill or patience to describe what he did today, but I will do my pathetic best.

After the session at the wiggle board park under the bridge, I suggested we dip out and we did. We went to the old hood, and got kicked out by the grey haired mafia. no worries, any street sessoin that starts out bad will get better. It took a while though.

we went to the flight path circles and it was littered in debris from the typhoon. almost totally unskateable. but lilnara was unflapped, and we went to the redline marble benches, but they were covered in people. this is why i dont skate in teh daytime.

we went ot regency and he ********{trick redacted} the biggest **********{trick redacted} i have ever seen, over a barrier. I should mention here, and i hope i can pull this off without being condescending, that he isn't the tallest skated I have ever seen. neither am I, but i am on the taller side. he isn't. he *********[trick redacted] over a barrier so tall that I can't even begin to consider jumping over it. and he did it under pressure, with security telling him that he could try once more. it was an honor to film.

then we skated towards main, and then towards the bullring, and had steaks. the bullring was full of skaters, as it should be, but we were disasterously tired and dove for home. I'm leaving out too much, but i have to work tomorrow, and since i didnt have my phone, i couldnt possibly remember all the details.

on the way home, i drank some more tbs and tried to find a new stoop. I have ot work in the morning. im going to stop typing.

Moon Festival Double Typhoon

Actually, one missed to the south and one missed to the north. Last week, three foreign visitors came to the newly cemented bridge. I only spoke with two of them. They were both amicable, and I looked forward to skating street with them. It was impossible that night, because of the rain. The session was marked by a huge sideways gust of wind during a downpour that soaked the entire spot in seconds. This is a very rare event, usually it's just a little wet around the edges. As it was, the whole session got shut down because once that surface gets wet, it's slicker than greased shit.

The first typhoon caused some chaos in the south, and our favorite bnb got blasted. Lzyk showed me photos they sent her of what is left of their building. We'll have to go visit once they get the roof back on. Alarmingly, I found out that insurance basically doesn't exist in Taiwan, so it's all out of pocket loss for them. They are offering free rooms and surfing for anyone who wants to go help out. I might take them up on it.

The second typhoon was just heavy rain, even though the weather service says it was stronger winds. It never made landfall here though. However, because of the apocalyptic forecasts, I didn't bring my skateboard to 彰化, and I was disappointed when we had a day of perfectly cool and sunny weather. I wandered around the town that evening and marked off spots for next time on my phone. 

The good weather interval was perfectly timed for our meat party. Lzyk's parents have a miniature court yard in front of their house, and we packed it with people and grills and twenty kinds of meat and mushrooms and clams and shrimp and every other conceivable thing you can cook over a fire. One interestering cultural note about Taiwanese grilling is that light fluid hasn't been invented yet, so we use blow torches to light to charcoal. THis takes about twenty minutes. Blow torches are awesome, but have to be one of the least efficient ways to light charcoal I can think of. Fanning the coals with a peice of cardboard was actually quicker, but I was upbraided for my primitive technology and a roaring blowtorch was shoved back into my hands with many assurances it's the best way to light coals. I think it's because the grilling aspect of moon festival is a relatively new invention, inspired by a bbq sauce commercial a few years ago. Now, the grilling part is an institution. Whatever Taiwan might lack for charcoal methodology, it more than makes up for with the food itself. 

Back in Taipei, it's still drizzling. I don't want to spend the forseable future only skating under the bridge, but it's convenient for rainy days

gettin on to the last of the stoops

Started off on the blue line and got rained out. Caught a line from rmj and then a train to the bridge. It was already dry in the streets, but things were happening there so we stayed. Humid as a sweaty ass crack. I found pop I didn't know I had and got up in something I had never landed before. The break dancing crew huddled in the back, chanting cult things and getting in the way of last little flat bar. Sfj taught a sawty how to powerslide. Another homie went for the same trick all night and never made it. The cement angel came back and I personally thanked both of them, in shitty mandarin. RMJ and I cruised back to towards our hood and had a few TB's. We hit a tiny, steep hillbomb that has become a tradition for the ride home. We hit regency. I had a few extra at the stoop, after we split ways. One of these, it's going to be my last time at the stoop. The new house is at the geographic center of Taipei. Fucking perfect for skating. Time to expolre the east.

rap is scary again. $b$

Dear Cement Angel

Dear Cement Angel,
I don't know who you are, but I thank you for fixing the moon craters on the box under the bridge. It's now completely skateable again. I would have done it myself at some point in the last two years, but I was too busy thinking about doing it, and complaining about the craters, to actually do it. I did once look up the price of cement in Taiwan, and I bought a red plastic bucket, so in a way, I like to think that I helped.
Seniorec was there for hte end of an all afternoon and early night session. It rained hard. I'm out of shape from not skating enough lately. There is only solution: more frequent skating.

A Christmas Miracle

I've been flaking on sessions pretty hard lately, that's why other people don't like me. Well, there are probably more reasons than that. In an effort to make people like me, I stopped trying to schedule sessions ahead of time, since I hadn't been showing up anyway. This one was a last minute booking, but I came home happy I made the effort.

Happym and I warmed up at the bridge and took the MRT over to 信義. We hit a strange little bank in a strange little intersection on a side road. The wasn't a proper lip, and it had wheel-eater vampire holes down the length of it, and a drain grate in the middle, but it was fun because primarily because of those challenge presented by those. And the traffic. Next we cruised to one of the greatest spots I've ever seen. It's a marble surface, jutting out into a big open intersection, with a triangular marble bank. Cars were parking on one side, and we tried pretty hard not to smash through any windows. It worked, mostly. Just kidding, we didn't smash any windows.

In the past, I've only tried 信義 a few times. Usually, I was with frownym, who has the worst luck of all time, and gets kicked out of everywhere he tries to skate. He must have a bad aura that security can sense somehow. Maybe they learn it in security training. Even without frownym's bad luck, 信義's human terrain is intense: in the day, skating is impossible due to the crowds. Even at 1 a.m. on a weeknight, there were a lot of people in the way. Even when you find a clear enough sidewalk or unpuked on ledge, security is extraordinarily professional. Usually, after the first kickout, they are sitting at the next spot too, waiting for you as you roll up. I think it's because they all work for the same contractors, so they communicate and use cctv to follow us from spot to spot. Routes never seem to matter once they raise the alarm.

At the far side of every route through the district is the holy grail of Taipei spots, BofC. In two and a half years of skating in Taipei, I have never been able to so much as roll at this spot. It's a huge marble courtyard plaza, at the edge of the city in the foothills (Taipei runs into mountains rather abruptly) and it cascades marble banks and stairs from top to bottom, like a joyful marble waterfall. Security is always running across the courtyard before we even approach the intersection, whistling and tweeting and shouting and pretending to be angry, although their lives can't be much fun, so I think they secretly enjoy our little visits.

This time, it was a ghost town. The lights were on in the guard booth at the front doors, but no one was in there. We skated for almost an hour. It was one of the most unexpected events of my skating life in Taiwan. By that point, I wasn't in much shape to skate, but even rolling around at this spot is a major accomplishment. Happym filmed a little line, and we cruised on out before our luck changed. BofC is an example of why I don't like when western crews come to town. They act like dicks and poison the well. Even that couldn't stop us this time.

I skated home, completely across the city, with a very slow rain storm right behind all the way. I would go into 7 and get a TB, come out and be in the sprinkles, then skate out from under the storm and be dry until I finished the beer and had to stop again for a new one. I made it home without major incident.

the anonymity of late arrivals

I've only skated a couple of times in this shitty month. I went to the bridge and had to wear non-skate abibas, which actually are great shoes for skating, at least for heel side flatground. I went by the okmart for a tb and a jug of water, and saw a homie on the way out. In Taiwan, noone bats an eye if you tell them you're only getting there at midnight because you just got off work. Maybe that goes for everywhere, actually, I have no idea.

I was a ghost in the darkness, as the lights had gone out, and none of hte remaining participants said hello. It was what I wanted. It reminded me of when I first found the spot. I skated low and slow, through their haze of spray paint fumes. The bridge is tattooed with a few legitimately good pieces, but mostly middle school throw ups of testicles, mark gonzalez ghosts, and 'I like hairy pussys' (sic). I'm not complaining though. It sucks when the government spends money to white wash it all and the process has to start over again.

Anyway, lzyk was typing away on some 'search at mighty mosburger, so I offered moral support and slammed more tbs until five.