Ode to Linsen Road

The bridge was a good place to start, around 10 pm. It was dry and noone else wanted to skate. Some dudes I kind of know were there, doing important things, and I warmed up. They left at lights out and lzyk let me know that she wanted to go get some food on her way home. She gets off work at midnight on the friday of new year's. TK and his crew arrived shortly after I got those instructions, so we skated pretty hard until I had to leave. I was sorry to leave them, but lzyk and I rode out to the old neighborhood on the orange line, and ate at a series of excellent and interesting street bars. On the way home, we bombed Linsen on foot, and I skated circles around here when I got bored enough, and ********* curbs and whatever, until the pimps got annoyed. Linsen never sleeps. It's like Japan's Tijuana, if Tijuana had a lot more prostitutes and a lot less other sketchy shit. Also you can gamble for sausages (beat the vendor at dice and you get five sausages for $100, lose and he keeps your $100. Who the fuck could eat five of those things??) I found an infinite set of curbs, microbanks with stone coping, metal ledges, two and three stairs, manny pads in front of whore houses, racks of slut panties for sale, other slut paraphenalia, pig heart soup vendors (there are thousands of other vendors, but I had that particular one) smashed up super cars scraping down the road with parts falling off, binlang, beer, curbs, tiny little flat bars and round rails for parking bicycles, scowling gangsters, flashing lights, more food, more beer, more curbs, more food, another beer, some curbs, another beer, some manuals, and then we were home. Linsen road is where the action is after midnight in Taipei.

nationalism is the enemy

I'm in the club, and I don't even live in japan. I got called 外人 by a strangers!

Destroy all nations.

art bed soak

Rain was threatening like foreign war planes but it never came. The new kid and I met up at the ximen plaza, but noone else showed, so we went to the wallride out by the airport. I translated a request to the security guard to borrow some planks of obvious trash wood, and he eventually ok'ed it, as long as we agreed to bring it back ot the trash pile. We stacked up some debris and put the wood on top and it was good. We even put the trash back in the trash pile. Skate ethically, you assholes.

We didn't put the debris back, because it was heavy and security didn't know we moved it there. We also got the granite benches, the ampitheatre, 圓山 bridge, and handful of street spots on the way. Then we got night market supper and went by the bridge for bridge, where I was suffering from the cold so severely that some homies gifted me some clothes. It's 12 degrees in taipei tonight.

on the way home, I went for a beer at the seven, and a lil sawty pointed at my skateboard and asked "****slide?"

Much love for taipei five oh

There isn't a good reason for this slump, but maybe I'm just getting old. I started the night at the bridge with zewei, a visiting american, and rmj. unexpected homies (CHB, K, etc etc; a long list of initials that means my friends)  were also there, which always makes for a sweeter night (they are rare street skaters, so running into them is always a happy event, evne if it's just under the bridge). I didn't accomplish anything, and ended up talking to my parents on the phone to wish them merry christmas, as I pumped bakc and forth between two banks. they didn't answer on christmas day, which is why i'm drinking and skating in taipei in my middle thirties. 

rmj and I cruised for a while in the area around the bridge. He got a long, long line on a section of tiles and marble ledges and curbs. I don't approve of filming skateboarding, but I wish I had been filming it. That was what it's all about. 

We went to the Stoop (formerely the new stoop) and beered up. A pair of cops were mad dogging us for a few minutes, and they crept up from down the way and asked if we know AD, a taiwanese pro. RMJ said no, but we've skated with him a few times. The cops were really impressed. They asked us lots of questions and eventually rode off into the night on their scooters. this is how policing work should be done. RMJ went home and I tried to keep going. There is a series of slappy marble curb/micro banks and I caught one wrong and now I have a bloody elbow to prove just how good of a night it was, even though I don't have much else to show for it. Taipei is the best city in the world.

This is why we can't have nice things

Christmas aboard is an exercise in loneliness, even if you are surrounded by loved ones and wouldn't choose to be back in the mothercountry if it came with a winner lottery ticket.

We rode out to the beach in yilan on bicycles. it was worse than africa, and I've chilled on an african city beach. There was less human shit, admittedly. But i mean less feces. In Taiwan, compared to africa, there was way, way way, more piles of shit (human garbage). I have never seen anything like it. Someone tried to argue that it was washing in from other countries, but this is like arguing that Taiwan's air pollution is blowing over from china - total bullshit. There was a lot of trash whose origin I couldn't identify, but there was not a single peice that I could I idenfity that wasnt sold in Taiwan: beer, weird herbal wine bottles, tapes, fishing trash, car batteries, plastic plastic plastic plastic; there is just no way to put into words the volume of shit that the people of yilan have managed to collect on their beach.

lzyk was so upset taht she was shaking. I have never seen her react in this way. The shame that taiwanese people must feel when they visit this beach might be compared to the shame that I feel, as an american, when I visit kabul or mosul or los angeles.

shaky legs

I technically had the day off work, even though I had things I should have been doing besides skating. It was sprinkly, so I went to the bridge. Shaky leg syndrome (SLS) was my excuse for not getting much done. I'm not sure about the etiology, but not sleeping til dawn might have played a part. Also, drinking way too much coffee. Or heavy metal poisoning. Maybe it's chromium in the water. I did make the coffee with tap water.

It was cool and breezy and uncrowded. Before I got started, a dude came up to me to ask about spots. He's from nearby Prague (I can't remember the anme of the town). He seemed alright, so maybe we'll do some street skating soon.

Sometimes the SLS wears off after I warm up but if anything, it got worse this time. I skated til the shakes made it nearly impossible. I guess I'll go back to bottled water.

lost

For some reason, no one else wantedto start at midnight,so I went east alone. There were a lot of new spots, mostly small stuff, which is just what I wanted. The best find was a long curb with bronze coping. There were many more, but I don't have the stamina to describe the minutae here, because I got lost (no phone or compass, refusal to ask for directions) for nearly three hours. I kept leaving 101 and suddenly seeing it ahead of me again. It was like blair witch project. I asked a pimp and a cop and a 7 11 clerk and another pimp and at one point, i had skated from 101 to neihu, and back, without realizing it. this was key, because i kept going and went south past 101 into xinyi and so on. I found a few spots, but i ll never find them again because i didnt' have my phone. you know you're in trouble when you get another beer at the same 7 that you were at two hours ago.

i finally gave and got a taxi back. it cost me nearly 3 US dollars, but it was worth it, because i was a fucking long way from home, and the driver talked to me about all the things i'm interested in. he was surprised when i told him about the scrambling interceptors i saw in the south today. I saw four flights, three each...

Colder than a polar bears toenails

I spent two weeks thinking about and producing a document that I presented this afternoon in my least favorite city in taiwan and I bombed it. Not just the presenting, the whole thought process. Lzyk was in the audience. It's hard to get more humiliated. I would have prefered if they had been dicks about it, then I could blame for them for having been dicks. Instead, they were nice, so now I have to live with having said stupid shit to smart nice people.

I went the place where you can recover from this kind of thing, under the bridge. It was so cold that I wore a hoody all day. Some of the homies (that's presumptuous, I don't even know who they were bceause of this) had their hoods pulled tight across their faces like eskimos. They were still skating the living fcuk out of what they had in front of them. a crew of actual homies were there, braving the cold. rmj and I got bored and we went to main statoin to see the new MRT that goes to the airport. it's modern like japan from 4 years ago. It's beside two weird squat buildings that were going to be skyscrapers but legend has it the investors pulled out due to um, things you can look up elsewhere if you're interested, but I'm not interested in getting reversable kneecaps, so I'll leave it at that.

We went up through 大稻埕 and ended up on a significantly long cruise. We passed up on a lot of spots, the biggest regret now being the ebony manny pad at the labour center. I'm going to have to go back there soon; I haven't skated it in more than a year, at least. The old hood is changing. It's brighter, and there are several new sections of marble sidewalk. The scooter commuters from 三重 are still doing the thing that made me move out of that neighborhood - riding 125s with after market exhaust.

At the end of hte night, the best trick I got was a completely new one, for which I was quite proud at for a skate night after a week of no sleep and only small naps. The new MRT has a good manny pad. The city is cold and windy and perfectly empty.

Skate-deficiency induced insomnia

When I don't skate for long periods, I can't sleep. I had the chance to sleep at around 10pm but I didn't take it because the last time I did that, I woke up at 1 am and was wired the rest of the night. By 1130 I was bouncing off the walls. I spent most of tonight writing, but gave up after an hour that produced 100 words. That's good because the word limit for the whole is 3500 and my shitty first section is a big chunk of that, but it's bad because I have to present to the team tomorrow afternoon and I have a shitty first section that I'll be presenting without sleep. Life goes on. Humiliation is temporary.

I went for a walk because I was too exhuasted to even cruise on the sidewalks. I immediately saw an anceint man kicking feebly at trash that was blowing in the wind. Later I saw a woman pushing a pair of toddlers (at 04:00) in some kind of toddler cart, singing "old macdonald" in mandarin. Actually, I saw them twice, once on the way out, and once on my way back. The children where shrieking with joy both times. Maybe they just got back from overseas. Jet lag is a bitch. 

I went into seven to buy a beer. A man who looked like the chinese rip off of a Man In Black was there. He was all blacked out in a trenchcoat, dress shoes, sunglasses and so on, but he had a couple of tiny patches of facial hair that he seemed ot have never seen the need ot cut, which where finger long. He asked the clerk about which instant foods where good, like an alien might. From a distance, I kind of fantasized that he was a Chinese agent, but when I pulled my money out of my wallet, I dropped a $1ntd coin that rattled across the floor and he swooped down on and put it in his pocket without making eye contact. Maybe Chinese agents are really thrifty. 

It goes without saying that I wish I had been skating tonight. It's actually pretty cold. So cold that I regretted going for a walk in flip flops. It was deserted when I went outside, except for the old macdonald family and hte trasher kicker, but by five am, the city was awake; taxis blasting recklessly through intersetctions and scooters sounding like amplified chainsaws going by. 

I have this fantasy that before china attacks, theyll give us a six hour warning or whatever, for everyone to flee before they flatten taipei. It will be the best skating ever. so many off limits spots will open up because security won't be around. 

no skating

it's been almost a week. most likely will be more than a week. I wish it was because I had been more productive than I have been.

There are only two living bands on earth

dfa1979 and 血肉果汁機
.

There is much vodka involved in this judgement.


1st Amendment: Pregnant Whale Pain.
2nd Amendment: A band that I think is called  草東沒有派對

at home, raining

Still feeling the pebble slam. lzyk insisted on making drinks, first time in her life. her inexperience showed. she proudly, and soberly made something like fukushima water out of vodka and concentrated fake lemon juice. she tried it and wisely passed it to me (we had already been to all you can grill, all you hotpot, all you drink beer, for $500 each, so I was vulnerable). She made a new for herself while I recoiled from the horror, like oppenheimer's drinking buddy. The Destroyer of Worlds came up with a second concoction that I am going to call The Creeping Purple Horror, hoping that invokes Lovecraft for you. I drank both of them, but it took all night. I photographed the progress. 

I know that this is the refrain of the clinical alcoholic but I handle my shit. my shit the next morning was helping tchris move to a new house. I showed up 2 hour late, but I showed up. Although an alarming number of people are apparently reading this regularly (shout out to whoever the fucking legions of french and portuguese skaters are), I must be candid about the experience. 

Some Taiwananese people prefer to live in conditions that are as shocking the Matrix when they enter the "real world" and it's all dirty and cramped and old fucking car batteries are stored in the living room. So were absolutely literally every other kind of modern detritus you can think of, going back to the days of the cotton loom. Many, many calenders were on the walls, and a few paintings of taiwanese fruits, for which i would pay a months salary if i ever leave this place. there were some dirty dirty couches and a table in the middle, and the air smelled of auto grease and dust. They offered me tea, in mandarin, but only gave me water, which I'm assuming is some huge insult and loss of face on my part, since I accepted it, but I had a face peeling hangover thanks to lzyk's "Sour Regret" and I slammed this luke warm disappointment like it was 151,

At no point did I vomit. Not even going up the concrete stairs, none of which were the same. If all those stairs were animals, none of them were the same species. We hoisted heavy ass shit up four flours of endangered species for the better part of the day (actually, not really, it was just enough shit to get tchris's girlfriend to move into the place). 

I'm kind of jealous that tchris has  a 西洋鬼子 girlfriend, because they are paying 1/3 the price of my house, and it's 3x bigger. It's where DMX would have come from, had he been from trapei. lzyk would never set foot in there. 

I was gonna write some momre shit but on I'm still trying to finish lzyk's radioactive haulocaust drink from last night. pangalactic gargleblaster indeed. fuck this, i hoope I can skate tomorrow. 

bad night, good company

It was the kind of slam that makes me regret skateboarding at all. It was slow slam. I had just stepped on. I hit a pebble. I wasn't even going walking speed. I hadn't even pushed yet. Like sparring against someone good at martial arts, I am not destroyed, because the ground held back from what it could have done to me, but also, I am going to feel it tomorrow, because I handed mostly on my face and somewhat on my hands, and a little on my shoulder, and somehow scrapped my knee. My back is already stove up.

I wanted to skate like a local, so I rode the scooter (defnitely more terrifying than riding a litre bike in america) up to yuanshan and met rmj. before he got there, I met the aforementioned pebble. It knocked teh piss out of me. that is somethign very funny about that. A thing so small, etc
fuck


anyway rmj wasnt feeling it either, so we made the motions of skating for a bit and called it quits. the fun part was the slappy curb, which goes from zero to one stair over about 25 ft. It's super rough concrete, but we have waxed and grinded and waxed and grinded since before the days of seniorec. (dude, where are you? hope things are good). rmj did a couple of ** ****** *****s on this historic curb and we biked over to the ampitheater, which had been skated to hell since I went there last. good.

neither of us could manage to put a session together tonight. at least he didn't slap his face on the ground. my jaw hurts like a bar fight.

I rode back home and somehow he beat me to the stoop on a ubike. scooters are really the worst, least masculine way to navigate taipei. everyone needs to stop riding this motorcycles made for little girls.

Except, it was actaully really fun and now i have this fantasy of riding all the way to kenting and back, mostly at night. Don't try scooters or heroin.

Rmj and I posted up at a park nearby our houses. Every 60 seconds, a herd of scooters roared past, so loud we had to pause the conversation. but hilariously in between, someone trying to sleep got pissed that we were talking in the silent 30 seconds, and turned on their light in the window and slammed their window shut. then they proceeded to take a very aggressive shit, while sitting in the window and staring us down from two floors up.

rmj pointed out that if he had come outside and told us to fuckoff, we wouldn't have left, but this aggressive shitting strategy while staring at us, was much more successful. unable to bear his wrathful gaze, we bounced down to a zen garden to finish our post skate beer. sometimes taipei is too weird for its own good.

I heard war planes are circling overhead. I went to the roof to make some skateboards.

The sunset was like a bonfire in an icecave. 

Testament to my failure: Tiny bit of blue sky and white cirrus, low rushing clouds in the opposite direction. Steel grey blue of cloud vs invisible distant blue of sky sounds of birds and traffic. whispy grey night clouds to the east raining grey clouds in the mountains the king of buildings is hidden in the white blue grey rain clouds but only the tip. downwards, neon flashing blinking lights and people like large insects. construction cranes like giraffes. 

One moment of the evolution of the sky was so intense that I dashed downstairs to get my phone so I could take the notes, but when I got back upstairs, the sky was no longer even worth photographing and the atomic explosion in the sky I was hoping for either had happened while I was downstairs or didn't happen at all. When I got back up, I heard a crash on the street below, and listened the whooshing AC units on all the rooftops roaring like waterfalls. THere were no sirens, so I guess it turned out ok. Airliners swooped in slowly, their timing out of sync with the rest of the world, like those 90s music videos of someone singing in realtime while the rest of the world timelapses around them. 

The mountains went black and the clouds went pure white around them. The sky towards china had a red streak across it like a cut throat. The red light bled away the ebbing of day. 

Venus appeared like a welder's flash through the clouds. The city lights came on and it was like the transition of day to night in no man's sky. I wonder how many people missed the sunset. I missed the best part of it by going to get my phone. 

6pm and dark. Now it's time to head up to 圓山 for some skating.

flakers gonna flake

sorry mominey et al. i said i would go to南港 but then i bailed, because i am lacking in moral fibre. instead i finished the work that allows me to pretend I am an adult, chucked a beer in the freezer, studied mandarin while it chilled, and then drank its nasty ass while (there is no beer more vile than 9% taiwanese beer. it doenst help that the tall boy of 9% costs $1USD. This was a mistake that I will not repeat.) i went to the bridge, because it's what i do. Sukoto showed up, and a decently deep crew of other homi es. One group is some young uns I've ran into late night on the side walks. They are the future of skating in Taiwan. If  I had a company, I would sponsor them boys. 
It was a social night. InjuredJ was there, untable to skate because of his knee. I kept trying to find out how he did it, but he wouldnt tell me. instead, i drank beer and we discussed soty. This is how you know someone is true; he can't walk, but he managed to get to the bridge to watch the rest of us skate. 
Speck is a dude I met a long long time ago, and have seen many times since, but I'm not talented at remembering people, so it serves to tell how nice he is that he wasn't offended that only just now sort of recorgnized him. writiting about these experiences makes me realize how social the skating experience is. most of what made tonight good was the human element. i cruized around for a bit and got some more beer, but what the part that is going to flash before my eyes is the half understood japanese conversatino between speck and sukoto right before i cruised home. 

the manny pads i pushed from the temple were pilled up in the back. i pulled them out and skated them. it's an old man trick, but ******s are becoming the most fun of all for me.

An old and familiar bridge

Work, such as it was, ended about 19 00. I ate peanut noodles at the street restaurant outside of my front door. I went to the bridge to meet up with rmj, but i got there early. A congregation of about 100 EDM fans were wiggling in the back, at one point to a song whose only lyrics were "E, E, EDM, EDM, EDM." It had a somewhat repetitive beat.
Like a chess game, I countered by buying a couple of TBs from teh hilife, and playing fleshjuicer as loud as my phone could play, until it ran out of batteries. Around this time, one homie after another showed up, until the whole place was swarming with them. It was too crowded, but somethign about he cold weather made us skate better, and at leastthree of of us did some new things. I always repeat taht skateboarding isnt about the tricks. But sometimes, it just is. landing a new trick is a spiritual experience. rmj got one that i have never seen done on the box at the bridge, and if it hasnt been done there, then well, actually, it's probably been done a lot somewhere else too, but fuck those people, our spot is exceptional.
one of my favorite people in taiwan showed up, to grieve by skating under teh bridge. it's douchy to say I understand, because I don't, but when I am faced with death in the family while I'm in Taiwan, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to end up at the bridge too.
It's tempting to make a lazy list of people who were skating there, and tricks that were done, but that just isn't what skating is about. It's about the emotion of it all, it's an impressionistic activity. This night was an angry oil painting. Thanks, all of you.

A New and Strange Bridge

I warmed up at the bridge. The night shift crew was there, along with 500 other people blocknig the way and sitting on the ledges because of some musical event. I went ot meet Sukoto at a new bridge in 永和 . When I got there, it turned out to be a crew we used to skate with ages ago, but their home bridge got destroyed by endless renovations of Taipei's parks. The old spot had some leaks, but it was 10 lanes of bridge, and even if there wasn't much to skate there, it was 300 m long and the lights stayed on all night.  THeir new spot is cozy. It's about the size of swollen basketball court. The surface is green and sticky. We skated four orange cones all evening, until the MRT closed, and I had to dash back. I miss seeing those guys, and I missed skating with Sukoto most of all. We played two enourmous games of skate, and the humid, cold breeze was constant for the whole session. I am totally exhuast, and thoroughly enjoyed by reward beer for *****ing over the highest thing I've *****ed since the late 1990s. Back to real life in about seven hours.

New Asphalt Season

It was already almost lights out, but I couldn't stand being cooped up on a dry night, so I decided to head to the bridge despite the flu. Many homies were there but the session really wasnt what i was looking for, so after a few hours of warm up, i felt ready to strike out on my own. dont laugh, at my age, i really cant do much without three hour sof warm up, but I get tired after 4 hours of skating. it kind of limits what i can acomplish.

i wandered back home and went east into the great unexplored wilderness of taipei. the night started out wet, which is why i went to the bridge for a gym session, but soon the streets dried and like a hobo hearing the whistle of a passing freight, i just couldnt stay around with all those bridge folk, no matter how much i love them.

I went to many strange and new 7-11's, and skated across many various tiles, some patterns familiar, some bizarre and creepy. At no point did I slam, so it wasn't a totally fulfilling night, but getting lost in Taipei made up for it. At one point, I was out near the arena, and grinded a ledge as I cruised by. this was a mistake, bceause the best I can figure, someone with a security television saw it, and after that, i was hounded by security. they were parked on the spots before i even arrived. fuck all yall well poisoners.

Instead of hitting the good spots, i surfed the sidwalks. if anything, it was better than the alternative.
I constantly found my path blocked by construction, and I constantly found the roads smooth like black glass. This is because it's New Asphalt Season. It's the glorious time of year when annual budgets are up and every single part of taiwanese society has to spend whatever money remains in their departments' budgets, no matter how stupid or how wasteful. blessedly, the roadworks department spends their remaining budget by repaving the same shit they repaved a year ago. there is so much left over money that the entire city is repaved and born anew liked a bitumen pheonix.

I skated to her eand to there. I bought beers from some of my favorite 7-11 clerks. I got almost too drunk to skate, but after years of practice, I'm pretty good at judging that very fine line, and I made it home unscathed, but this narrative is probably suffering for it.

I don't like to plug, but there is a song called "baking holiday." it's worth checking out.

Not skating with flu in my soul

Sukotosan came back, but we haven't skated yet because of life. I got moderately sick with asian flu, which is always worse than regular flu. It has a weird effect on me; I have alternating hypersomnia (this probably isnt a real word) and insomnia. So last night, even thought I had body ache like I was hit by a bus, I couldn't sleep til 08 00. Lzyk woke me up at 9, when she left, and i thought about what to do next. I didn't techincally have to do anyhting until noon, and three more hours of sleeping would proportionally increase my sleeping by several fold. However, my internet telephone is completely dead, and I odn't have an alarm clock. i do have a very adorable circular hedgehog kitchen timer that my sister sent lzyk. Ingeniously, I realized i could set it twice for 60 min and get ot work on time. the first time it went off, I woke up. there was some unexplained female screaming going on, but i soon passed about again and slept from about 11 to 12 32. I know it was 12 32 because this was 2 minutes after I should have left. the hedgehog alarm had betrayed me but since I live in asia, anything this cute can't be at fault, so i threw on my stratosphere skateboards shirt, since it was relatively clean and was laying on the ground by the sofa, and ran downstairs, ran to the mrt, ran through the station, and ran to work. working when sick is both miserable and completely irresonsible, since it gets everyone else sick too, but sometimes you have ot just do what it takes to fit in. after work, i went home and was greeted by the same screaming that was going on when i woke up. that is fucked. taiwan has a problem with kidnapping for scams and prostitution, so that came ot mind, but most of all, i wondering, how the fuck could someone scream at the top of their lungs for 8 hours straight? maybe they stopped and only restarted when I came home? it kept going and going, screaming and screaming, so i tried to talk to my security guard, but i think i said something like "I hear a woman constantly playing with her shoes", so they were nonplussed.
lzyk wanted to go on a date, so went to the best yakitori in taipei. then we walked back home across the city, which meant through linsen, which is the best place, late on firday nights. the local industry is selling vaginas, and for about 8x10 blocks, that seems ot be all they do. even the street vendors are selling thongs to the prostitutes. it's hard to not be a little judgemental when you see what 90% of the slut clothes are: school girl uniforms. I can understand that there is some fucked up subsect of dudes who are into whatebver they are into; internet bear witness, but goddam. chill on that underage thing, your perverts.
anyway, when i paid for yakitori, lzyk gave me some cash in case i didnt have enough. i did, but i put it in my wallet. she mentioned it, but for me, this sort of meant "we have left over money, so let's buy some beer and drink it on the way home.' so i did. so she mentioned it. so i offered it back, innocently enough. however, handing her wads of cash at 7 at 2 am on a friday night is apparently insulting, and she stomped off home, and i couldnt get her to hold my hand for almost all the way. i might have mentioned something like "if you dont want to get paid then it's not my problem', in front of lots of people. now that i think about it, it might be more insulting than i had intended.