Under a sunset like a fabric softner commercial, I cruised north a little haphazardly through surprisingly clear sidewalks. Sipping a warm up tb, I got to 圓山 bridge from a new direction, by cruising through the park next door. I found a pair of solid alabaster paths, like huge slopped manny pads, but they are too tall for me to get up on and too long for maybe anyone to carry enough speed to go up and over. The spot is overrun by the gratefully fading pokemon phenomemon.
A hobo had carefully folded his filthy blanket, extra clothes, and assorted cardboard and plastic bags, and stashed it all under the main bench at the bridge. I didn't have the heart to move his shit, so I just skated the bench where it was, even though it wasn't optimally placed. I really don't know who keeps moving these heavy sonsofbitches back, but we have to powerlift them as a group, and move them to make them skateable. They're like giant brown legos, made of the slickest fake plastic wood ever.
A taiwanese skater was there, and I said what's up, but he was much younger than me and didn't respond to me greeting, maybe out of fear. I tried to ** *** across the grate for warm up, and it zipped out and I smashed down hard on my left elbow. Almost a week later, I still have a long wound, where the bone of my forearm tore the skin from the pressure of the fall. It's kind of scabbing up now, but since it isn't a scrap, it's not healing normally. I thought I broke it for a second. The impact is still reverberating across my shoulders and neck.
As I was trying to shake it off, ja came up. He is a kind hearted manilla IT guy, from the true old school skating tradition. He has rails on his deck. Soon, miminey arrived and the session began in earnest. We skated the upper deck of the spot, which has a line of slappy curb, metal kicker, rough flatground, two stair, and then two stair high yellow round curb that's so round that it's hard to stay on top of, almost like a rail. Usually there are heaps of pebbles and dead pigeons on the upper deck area, but this time, it was only pigeon shit. rmj got there and we all set off joyfully down the bike path ... and immediately stopped at a granite cube. It had been waxed long ago, but to my knowledge, ja is the first person to actually land a trick on it. It's very rough stone, and consequently, very sticky. Miminey put in some hard work on a particularly good trick but before he could get it, I invited everyone to move on, which in retrospect was a dick card to pull. Sorry man, I appologize.
Karma quickly got me back though at the ampitheatre, and slipped off the bank on the bank to ledge and it bit me pretty hard on my hip. Then we went to the benches and people were pokemoning all over them. A fat got girl sat on the end of the best one for hours. miminey ******ed the stairs there, which is the first time I've seen it done.
We played the best game of skate of my life: among four people, three of them landed tricks for the first time.
The long skate home was punctuated by a trio of tiny dogs dashing towards miminey, terrifying him with their yapping (he really doesn't like dogs, any dogs). Most dogs don't react to skateboards here, but I suppose they could sense his fear. They were so small they could have all been on his skateboard at the same time.
We bombed the hill per tradition, and as luck would have it, a steep marble bank was open (it's usually behind the security gate). Too tired to skate it, we discussed the possibilities anyway (it has a set of stairs coming off the side). Suddenly, the gate started creaking down, comically slowly. We all looked from the gate to the inside at the same time, and saw a security guard furiously staring us down with his hand on the gate button. We all laughed, except the guard. Sorry, it's like the ending of a cheesy sitcom. It really was funny though.
Later, rmj and I beered up on the old stoop, and then I had another on my rooftop. I could see more stars than I've ever seen in Taipei, and for a moment, I thought one was moving, like a ufo. I got excited when I noticed another one through the clouds, moving in formation. Then it dawned on me that I could see orion, and it was moving, due to the apparent motion of the clouds. Orion isn't a ufo. First time I've seen it in years though. Light pollution is really bad here.
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