Fear and Loathing in Taipei

I had exchanged contact with a young homie a while back, whose style I liked (but most of all who I liked because he was just friendly to me). He invited me to go skate with his crew in the street and I was very excited. Later, there was some halloween cultural miscommunication, which consisted of me arriving dressed in my best impression of hunter thompson that I could manage, and everyone else looking normal. I you want to get some intense looks on the MRT, try wearing short shorts (pink) and a tucked in nightmarket shirt (blue paisley). Having a shaved bald head and a skateboard probably didnt hurt, but I hid it behind a green adn white hat from a company here that sells powdered milk. milk face, get it?

mominey arrived, a little worse for the wear, and we set off to skate some ferocious street spots. I skint my knee at the first one, which is a series of cascading marble stairs with big gaps inbetween each little tile. I pride myself on skating poorly lit spots no one else will touch, but these kids beat me at my own game. One of them slammed much worse than me off the stairs, it was a real face slapper. Then we cruised up and across the river to other yuanshan spot and played some skate and skated some skating. rmj arrived and those most beautiful brilliant kids had to go home and do things like get ready for school, but mominey and rmj and I went on to jiantan, which used to be a top notch skating hotbed, but in recently has been ruined by the westerners coming through and acting like assholes and now I cant even skate the manny pads. fuck every team that ever came to taiwan and poisoned our wells. 

other than meeting new people who actually skate in the streets, the highlight of hte night was cruising the streets at the point of exhaustion with rmj, as he managed 10 tricks to every one i tried, and was probably batting at .750. we had a stoop beer and i went home. i bought three more, and the f1 race is starting soon in 45 minutes, but i m so tired i think i might not make it that long.

here's something probably noone ever said

• “The third president, Thomas Jefferson, had a vision of America. He believed that this whole new country, this giant unformed continent offered a chance to start again. The premise was very simple. That human beings acting in a sense of enlightened self interest are smart enough to do the right thing and know the truth. America could have been a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race. Instead, we just moved in here and destroyed the place from coast to coast like killer snails. Everybody wants power over a country that’s had it’s day. I think we’re finished.”

in a way, it's reassuring that if this is a real quote, it's an old one. also, in a way, it's not reassuring , for the same reasons.

this is going to be my last night of the year skating in shorts. It helps that mominey thinks they were from the gay pride parade, but also it was actually cold tonight. I hope the weather doesn't change until march.