A Littany of Little Spots

Since RMJ is moving to the other side of the world, we went cruising tonight. It started at linsen, but we only stuck around for a moment before we went to regent. Unfortunately, the herds of skaters have gnawed all the nurishment away from the spot, and we were kicked out in a flash, by potbellied liquor smelling binlang mouthed yokel cop. He was probably some kind of security guard, but they dont have a law about impersonating cops here, so they wear outfits almost exactly like real cops. I asked this inner city hillbilly if we can skate there, not because I thought he would say yes, but because it would fuck with him a little. He stared at me, slack jawed, with a trickle of bloodred binlang dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. He couldnt really form any words, maybe out of mental ability, and maybe out of shock that someone was speaking to him in his own language. I'll never know, because we went west after that. We skated hill and dale, marble and granite, curb and stair and rail and bench. We went as far as the warf, which was strangely empty of bums, then to a little pebble dashed wall I used to skate. It has a stone curb/ledge on the outside, with pillars in between each section. They grind now. Exhaustion got the better of me, but we still skated the long long well lit slate stair curbs by the minoflab. I couldnt even skate all the way home.

Tropical Christmas

In some countries, people sing songs about white christmas. In taiwan, we're satisfied with blue skies, and blue skies is what we got. So I skated to work. The skate back home was fun, and it put me in the mood for more skating. Lzyk and I had supper, and then  I warmed up with rmj at the 3stairpark, and then we went east. He makes up new tricks every time we skate, and this time it was all kinds of *****s and ***** variations. We skated a few little spots here and there; curbs and kickers and architechtural detritus. We got to the bronze stairs; a set of covered stairs recessed in a brick wall, with each step capped in bronze. They're short and steep and grind faster than anything I've ever grinded. They're so slick that it's actually hard to **-** it, because it shoots out from under you. I tried a few things on the stairs, but got tired before I got warmed up. rmj keep making up and landing more tricks, and we went down the road to the arena.

It's a rare downhill ledge spot, well lit, and dark stone. It's usually a bust, even with a discrete crew, but this time, although a security guard came out and watched us skate for the whole time we were there, nobody said anything. I got a couple of *********s, and rmj **********d off the end of one of the ledges. Then he found a vicious wallride spot. It's tile, has a step up to get on it, and gradually gets steeper and steeper until it's vertical. Well, not so gradually. More like, over the course of a few feet. It's got those damned square tiles for run up and landing, and a powerpole and set of mailbox drops in the way as well. Wisely, he passed, for tonight anyway. Adjacent is a black marble ledge so freshly waxed that little crumbles were still falling off of it. I don't know who we were tailing tonight, but we were right behind them. Maybe animal chin. Next door to that ledge is a beautiful mirror black stone manny pad, with a pair of grinding stairs on it.

By this point, I was getting really tired. We went back and I ****** a white sticky marble curb that I've been eyeing for a while, and that was that. Probably no more skating for a week. Working sucks. Merry Christmas from Taipei.

The Golden Age Continues

we went home for the holidays. It's in the mid 20's down here, and the air is filthy with pollution. Although there are no clouds, the sun is a blotchy dingy golden brown area in the sky, and at night, you can see a pale ghostly triangles  hanging under the street lights, like the angel of death from 10 commandements movie. Everything appears sad and darker than normal, not unlike how things look under a partial eclipse. Colors and more subdued, and everyone coughs grey phlegm out of their lungs. No one wonder people down here are protesting the coal plant.

It was so unlike the good weather in Taipei that I didn't expect any good skateboarding. Add that to breaking in a new pair of shoes, and I expected the worst. I woke up to the stench of smoke that doesn't seem to come from anywhere, like being in a smokers' house. I went up the hill to the grey curbs and was astonished that I could not only do every curb variation I could think of, but also faster long and better than ever before.

I forgot my wax, so I was playing with Fire, and eventually, I got burned. The curbs arety painted and coped with a round price of plastic, so they slide well in most places of their 100 yard length. I vaught one of the crumbled places going as I've ever tried the trick, and feel onto the rough sidewalk above. I hadn't drawn blood ina awhile, so I didn't really mind.

It's a weird intensely urban but also intensely redneckery town, and I get all kinds of weird attention here. Apparently someone's been teaching the locals to say "hey man, what's up dude?" Because atleast a dozen people said that to me as they passed, but none of them would speak to me in English or Chinese after that. A tattooed man, maybe drunk or mentally ill or both, stumbled up and smoked cigarettes and ate binlang and growled Uuuuuuu-sssssssssssss-aaaaaaaaaaaaaa" at me every time I skated past him. He was trying to be an ass, and he saw I was trying ** ***** on the curb, so he sat there to try and make a confrontation. I just went around him; after all, I've got nearly a quarter mile of curb to work with. He kept growling the name of what he assumed is my country at me, and I slammed again, exactly on the same spot. I kept going a bit more, but ran out of water and got tired of the the sensation of skating next to a large dumpster fire. This place is absolutely disgusting with air pollution.

The local crew never showed up at the meet up spot, so I bombed the hill back home. It's a 20 minute roll that can be done without touching the ground, if traffic permits. This time it mostly did, but I can't wait to get rid of these shitty soft wheels.

Superhuman Night

Very rarely, I have a day when I feel like I can do anything I want with a skateboard. At best, it's about once a year. I've never understood the cause of this phenomenon. There are no common factors that can account for it. It helps when the weather is good, and when the deck isn't too new, and when the shoes are as old as possible, but I really can't account for why I have these jumps forward sometimes.
Usually, like tonight, I just start warming up and land everything. I quickly work through every flatground trick I know. I normally try and run through each flatground trick I can reliably, land, but if it takes more than ten tries, I just give up and move on to the next one. When these special sessions happen, I never need ten tries. Sometimes, I get a completely new trick without having to really practice it. That didn't happen on the flatground this time, but it did with a grind.
I was at the three stair park. The weather was cold and clear. I was waiting on RMJ to show up, and since I had already torn through my list of flatground, I started in on every curb trick I could think of. As RMJ arrived, I was in the middle of the list. I had already done a few *********s, but I just leanred them, and they feel glorious, so I did a few more. I ended up landing something that I had only imagined doing a few minutes earlier. It was a ***** ** *** ***. I started tweaking it, so that it's a bit like a ***** ** ******. I probably landed it more times than I missed.
RMJ had brought a sort of turkish pizza, and gave me the last slice. It was delicious.

As the traffic thinned out, we headed north up 松江, slappy and sliding on the marble as we went, loudly clacking over loose tiles and between pedestrians. RMJ is an expert curb dancer, but truly comes into his own on a cruise up or down Taipei. We were both getting work done tonight as we went north, and found our way to 行天宮. There's nothing like making everything you try for a couple of km. 

At the temple, the trend continued. The sky cleared out of the little white puffy clouds that had been lit up by the street lights, and a handful of stars took their place. I got my new trick on the long stairs there, and longer, better versions of tricks I could already do on the ledge. 

The night being what it was, I went for a ***. This ledge is taller than anything I've tried to *** before. I never got it, but I got into it, which was more than I expected. It was more than just a good night. I hope I get another one in 2018. 

Winter Weather

We've had foul weather since the winter of '17/'18 started. Tonight was no exception. Even I wore a jacket. I went to the bridge for an hour to force myself to get some excercise. I fell on the first **********, but then I saw that sukkotto was there, so we skated together briefly. Some other guys I dont know where also going for it. We tried to learn *** ****** but no one got it. It was misting heavily when lights went out. At least I skated. The bridge isn't so bad when it's cold and empty.

滑板 Incursion Into 林森北

I got home exhausted, but the prospect of a largish crew skating street on a friday night was too good to pass up. I got to rplaza in about 15 minutes and there already half a dozen skaters there. And security was in the middle of kicking them out, since they had up lights. No matter, we crossed the street to the twin kinked hubbas. They're about 20 m long, with five or six kinks. Mc tried to get down to the bottom but couldnt quite make it. Then crossed another street into park proper, where the ground is smooth, the benches are tall, not long, and very slick, and the guitar player was jangling away as per usual. Most of the crew split off for food (where there is prostitution, there is also plenty of excellent street food) but I had eaten a heaping bowl of ramen earlier, and kept skating with mw. We ended up back at the plaza, because he had never seen it before. Its key feature is the jet black marble benches taht are just a little too high for comfort. It's got some little stairs around the outside, and a waist high drop, and a manny pad on top of that. I discovered that the very mellow bank on the other end of the drop can be skated into grinds on the end of the stone, so I did a couple of new things there. Security couldn't be bothered to come remove us this time. The key to skating anything you want in Taipei is no lights, and small groups. The nail that stands up and gets hammered down if it's well lit and making lots of noise with skateboards.

A Fat White Alien

It was the best kind of failure. I had high hopes, because I thought we would have quintuplet and hit up the black stone paradise that is the 101 area, but it wasn't to be.

The day began with a half hour skate to work, across mostly very smooth asphalt and through a section of the city cordoned off from scooters and taxis. The classes actually went well, and even the students who hate my guts were enthusiastic and happy to do what I told them. I cruised another half hour back to the house, grabbed a jacket, and cruised another half hour to the ice rink. At this rate, I won't be fat for long.

The ice rink used to be a legit meet up spot, because of the central location and the hockey rink sized smooth flatground spot. But then it got resurfaced. They coated it with 1/8 inch of pure teflon, and now it's basically skate stopped, because any lateral movement on landing means sliding out from under you, and hitting the back of your head. Mw and fm showed up, and we ditched the unskateable spot for greener pastures.

Cruising with friends down smooth, well-lit sidewalks is fun. Just saying.

Fm took us to the white banks. It's a photogenic and peculiar spot. The main banks are reasonably steep, with harsh, square tiles that chunked out my nose. They're about waist high, with silver flag poles sprouting out from the flat part on top. It had wax on top, so I reckon it's been skated by someone much better than me. Fm said **1000, who ** ****'d it.
There are also smaller banks there, but the session kind of stalled. I skated the red curbs, which were super slick, but they're in pretty heavy traffic, and soon, we were off to the next one.

At this point, the rest of hte crew failed to show up. One, due to work, and another, due to having gone to the ice rink and noone msg ing him that we left hours earlier. Sorry man.

The new spot was the highwater mark of the evening, but we had to work for it. It's a small plaza, which one of hte MIA skaters declined to come to because "it's completely shit." I don't agree. It does have some trees in the way, and the ledges are tall and they are a weird kind of rough stone that takes decades to grind in. But someone has put in the leg work, adn they grind now. Also, there is a monument to the dead of the 9/21 earthquake, at least, that's what I think it is. It's a 20x20 ft sloped squarish thing; about 8 inches at hte bottom and 4 feet at the top, super slick, and skate stopped on the bottom side. A circle fountain is in the middle, and a narrow channel runs up from it to the top, in such a manner that the technically inclined can ollie on the lower section, do a trick over the channel, and come back down on the other side. Unfortunately, I realized tonight that it's a memorial, and I don't usually skate those or religious sites, even though I'm not religious and have never seen a memorial to anyone dead that I personally knew.

Instead, FM and I skated the  rough ledges. At first, it was so crowded that we were forced to skate the taller ones, but I couldn't get on them. It was pathetic.

Then, the hipster sea parted, and I swiftly piled up our bags and jackets and shit on the lower ledge to discourage pedestrians from sitting all over them.

I still couldn't really get on the ledge, but FM was *-*ing it in short order, and ** **** ******* it at speed. Eventually, I got a ***** and a ** *****, but at less than walking speed, so I might as well have not bothered. There is also a manny pad there; one stair up, three down. Fm complemented my ** ****, and it felt good. He would know. Thanks man, made my day.

We kept going, like Napoleon's army through the Russian winter, and made it to a street market with tonkatsu. which we ate, while discussing skating things. Only two of us where left, but we stuck together until the taipei streets insisted we split up. I immediately went the wrong way. I turned around and found myself powersliding to lose speed and leaning crazily back to make it down a very rough and tumble four stair deep "ramp" that you find all around the streets here. My descent kicked up stones and they rattled against things as I passed. One of the cigarette smoking, thrasher hoody wearing, DC shoes wearing poseurs (I'm sorry to use the P-word, but there is not another way to call them) shouting in delight as it happened, and two others said "daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn" at the same time. It wasn't a trick, but I felt like an alien doing something cool on a skateboard.

I skated down the vanishing horizen sidewalks to home. It wasn't even that far. I got to the three stair park and remembered my vow to **** ***** everyday I skate. On my second try, I made the best one I've ever done. It's just a curb, but fuck, that was a very very happy thing to do. A kid with a taiwanese sword, a bit like a samurai sword, was girating and swinging and slicing the air on the other side of the park. Like skating, someone was filming it all, because if it isn't on film, it doesn't count. Right?

an advertisemtn for vans shoes

sc and i hadnt met up since at least a few months ago, and maybe longer than that. he lives near the 板橋 ledge, so we met up by there. it's a winter wonderland of flashing christmas tree lights and all sorts of amusement park nonsense right now, and the spot is pretty much unskateable due to human terrain until well after 10pm. maybe that's why it was empty when I got there. well, i mean, it was overflowing with people standing around holding clear balloons with blinking christmas tree lights on them (trend of the year) but no one was skating. and no one else did. it was just me and him the whole time. it was exhausting, never having to wait for other people to skate. it's just one long long beautiful pink marble stripper of a ledge (with higher stairs for those who pop). some might say, it's the best ledge in the world. 

we played skate and i lost. we skated the ledge until we couldn't. i kept an eye on the time to make sure i didn't miss the train, and that meant we didn't have time for beers, which sucked, because since we skated so much, we didn't really have time to catch up. i went in the station, and waited on the platform. i got bored. i read some bullshit on my phone, and somewhere around this point is where the story of the night really gets started. a man shouted at me from way down the platform. i ignored him, so we walked all the way down and unnecessarily got in my face, but i guess that's how these shouters are. turns out, he had been shouting that there wasnt another train. i thanked him for shouting, and left the station. i had been waiting for about half an hour. 

normally, this wouldn't be so terrible. I've been caught out after the trains stop running plenty of times. but 板橋 is on the blue line, across the river from home; a jewel of a skatespot in the middle of a barren wasteland called New Taipei City. 

Turns out, that's not entirely true, because I skated past at least a dozen spots on the way back, but I didn't mark them for fear of killing my battery. I know better than to trust my directional sense in taipei. i trusted google to get me to a bridge, and those assholes sent me to one without a pedestrian ladder. so i gambled on going south, because that seemed counterintuitive adn that's how the night had been going.

it worked. sort of. by this time, the city was completely empty, maybe because it was about 12 degrees. terribly cold for scooting, but perfect for pushing across the city. I cruised across the red bridge, which has these yellow and black banks all along it. Then I went down into the cesspit hood on the other side. I had enough change to get a tb, but i couldnt find a seven to save my life. the sidewalks were double parked with scooters, so i had to push down the extra rough road. it was so rough that i gave up. there was no way to take two consecutive pushes. 

eventually, the double parked scooters stopped, and i had a covered tile sidewalk to skate. my battery held out til i got to the 22/8 park, where i decided not to get gay raped, and went around. this put me in the area around the government complex. it looked like jerusalem. concertina wire was everywhere, and weird militant police trucks were cruising up down otherwise completely empty streets. neon clad officers smoked and chatted on every corner. it was eerie. I may have had a beer in hand at this point, but since the twelve lane road was completely empty, like pyongyang, i didnt think i was taking much of a risk by skating with it. 

around this point, i started to be really proud of my kenyan heritage. i just kept going, like a metronome of skating. the whole skate was more than 10 km. i started to get giddy when i passed some spots i know. i started popping ollies over this and that, up and down, across the yellow lines at the middle of the street, finished the beer and had another. i took a photo of the endless concertina wire and neon police thugs. the beer and the photos were mistakes. this is foreshadowing. 

i saw a line of neon thugs up ahead, about two blocks away, and since police routinely murder people in my home country, i thought it would be safest to take a sudden right and be on my merry way. i was being paranoid. about a block later, whistles started blowing, and yellow neon jackets poured out of the alley as i skated by. i kept skating, and didn't look back, but they were close enough that i could hear their bootheels hitting the asphalt. the whistles were very loud, and they kept blowing them.

to paraphrase churchill, there is not more exhilerating sensation than to be chased without result. i kept pretending they weren't there, adn they kept running. 

since i was back in my known world area, i ducked down one alley, and then another, and then another. i zigzagged back towards home, and once confident i had lost them, i ducked into seven and bought a beer (yes, i realized at this point taht i had probably had enough change to get most of the way home via taxi. but fuck those guys, i refuse to even offer them my change). 

in known waters, i found home easily. actually, i stopped off at the three stair park, and skated it. my legs were cramping up, but i still got a *********. My new vow is to ********* there at least once everyday. or at least the days i skate. while i was skating there, someone in a red and white robe outfit filmed me from behind a tree. it was extremely creepy, but i had my wallet and phone and keys in my pockets already. skaters wear cargo pants for a reason. i landed the trick and looked up and creepo was already vanished. 

i had put on my new shoes because of the 01% possibility of having to push home. it was worth it. i refuse to recommend a product, but if you're buying vans, dont go for the no name shit. these are cabbalerials and they were as good as any shoe i've worn. 

better with the lights off

The weather was clear all day, or at least as far as  could tell from my underground worksite.
I walked home and although my back felt fused solid, I proposed a steeplechase to 101.
Rmj wanted to warm up at the bridge, and as soon as I got there, it started raining.
It kept raining, so we just did the best we could.
It was crowded, but in a friendly, good way.
The authorities turned off the lights and locked us in, but some resourceful skaters brought their own flashlights.
We skated until about midnight.
The young guys hoped the fence to get home, but rmj found a secret exit in the back and we slunk out into the rain.
The most fun part, by far, was after lights out.
I skated the manny pad with some people I had never met.
We have a little bank that got propped up in some cinderblocks to make it atreper, and Simone fell from the top.
I'm not sure what happened , but he stayed down for awhile.
After a few cigarettes, he hobbled on home. So did I.

Filming and a new trick

Many things are wrong in my life but I learned *********s. I did my first one about twenty years ago, and then I did another first one a couple of years ago. I've done a few sporadically in the interveening years. Tonight, I did a few dozen, at the three stair, as I sipped a beer and skated a cool down session from earlier. Even if I lose them, and I suddenly am back to square one, at least I can say I knew how to ********* for a night, and my tail has the marks to prove it. 

Before my ecstatic park finale, I spent the evening filming cruising lines in the old old hood with a new friend. We share the same opinion about the subjective value of street skating, as opposed to park skating, and about various beautiful things we found in Taipei as we explored. We found some wall art of people with pushcarts and swords and monk robes and so on. 

Field Trip Day

I went to The Middle City for two reasons. First, mw invited me. Second, I misread my residency renewal notice and when I read it properly, I realized that I had already passed the deadline. For beaurocratic reasons, I have to do all that down south, because the Taipei office won't talk to me. The information for what I needed to bring on the renewal notice contradicts what's on their English language website, which also contradicts what's on the Mandarin website, which contracts what's on the forums. So, I loaded my suitcase up with every document I've ever owned, and lzyk's as well, and took the early train. This meant that I missed the Lord's Team take our Holy Revenge on the Blue Heathens, or whatever those offbrand rednecks are calling themselves.

I was about 90 minutes late to meet mw, because of train delays and scheduling errors, but when I got there, he wasn't too pissed. We chatted for a bit under clear blue skies ( ! ) at one of the best spots in the world. 

We warmed up on an uneven flatground circle just barely inside a large park. It has a red rail around it, that mw *****d, despite the awkward tile uneven tile landing. A couple of families came up, including the newest local skater, who had just received his first skateboard for his birthday the day before. His dad was Canadian, and we all chatted and skated flatground for a while. 

The park is surrounded by yellow brick sidewalks, and a round granite coping. The yellow bricks make a mellow miniramp up to the coping from the sidewalk, about waist high. From the North corner of the park, it's a slight downhill for about a minute. You still have to push, but it's not bad at all. The long wave of miniramp ebbs and flows like a friendly little breaker at the beach. Down at the bottom, the granite coping grinds, and is featured in plenty of local footage. The waxed part is slicker than metal on top, but grinds more like normal stone on the side (it's really wide, like an ten inch semi circle of stone). This can get tricky, if you transition from the side to the top. I slammed and am nursing a sore lower back. 

Crowds of people were picnicking at the park, and cheered us on. Right as we were really getting going, a half dozen locals showed up. They were Indonesians, and we had a pretty significant language barrier. I got the impression they hadn't skated the spot before, and they couldn't **** *** **** on it at first, but mw taught them how. Within a few hours, they were ********** it, which pissed me off, because I never got one, and that's what I wanted to do there. Actually, I wasn't pissed at all; it was delightful to skate with them. 

The spot has been improved by a ubike station that now prevents skateboards from shooting out into the road. Taiwanese people would cheer me and mw, but glower at the Indonesians. One concerned citizen even shouted at them, because a skateboard bumped a Ubike's tire. I've heard that Asian immigrants get treated differently from western ones, but that was the first time I've seen the difference so starkly. 

We had planned to skate other spots, but the crew and the spot were so fun that we just stayed there til we all skated back to the station through the buses and traffic. Indonesians have no fear of death by auto. 

I stayed with the inlaws and went to talk to the government the next morning. The guy at the counter insisted that my residency authorization renewal wasn't late, even though I was holding a piece of paper that said it was, sent from his office, probably by him. All the paperwork and documentation I had spent so much time collecting was ignored, and he just wanted my ID and passport and some money. Easy enough, but I wonder what it would have been like were I Indonesian...

A New Kind of "Weather"

I didn't skate tonight because of what some Taiwanese euphemistically refer to as a "weather phenomenon." The day started with a crisp blue sky. My work is in a basement, so I was a little dismissive when a friend messaged me about the weather apocalypse, but when I stepped outside, I realized what he hadn't been exaggerating. The air smelled like burning grocery bags, and a thick white fog was hanging between the street lights. When I checked the air quality, it was only 15x the safe level. I had really been expecting worse. People here love to blame China: whenever air pollution comes up, I invariably get told that it blew over from somewhere else. Almost always, this is utter bullshit. Taiwan's air pollution comes Taiwan's factories and vehicles. However, tonight was an exception. Instead of the usual point source clouds of death that hang out in factory or high population areas, tonight's pollution came in suddenly and all across the west coast. The strangest part was that by 02:35, it's all gone again. It was a tidal wave of foul poison coming from the west, and now it's already washed away and gone. Heart attacks and strokes will spike for the next 96 hours though.

second half

I went to the bridge but it gets shut down super early now. I skated and downed a beer. It was pretty fun, but I didn't know anyone there. It feels like I've been gone for a long time. There was an super cool dance crew at the entrance that weren't blocking anyone, and a super annoying one towards the back blocking part of the skate spots. Some one also blocked the route around one of hte pillars with some, uh, street art. now anyone who wants to skate the spot is forced through the traffic of other skaters to get to the starting point. I have a feeling that this particular pretend graffiti won't last very long.

like ships passing at sea

Skated to work again. It sucked. Work, that is. The cruise was fun. The cruise home was better. Someone behind me was shouting "********!!!! ********!!". I turned and it was the kofia. He was biking home with shit ton of groceries or something. I was too tired from pushing across the city to land the ********. Sorry mane.

Then I got pissed off and a landed lot of them on the rest of the way home. Now it's time to go back out and explore. I won't go east, or north, since I cruised both of those lately. Maybe I'll start at the bridge and go from there. 29 min til lights out.

antisocial skate spots

Unfit for human interaction, there is only one place to go in Taipei. That's Yuanshan. Of course, it's still overflowing with people, but they're mostly exercizing. Consequently, very little actual eye contact needs to be made.
However, when I woke up, well into the afternoon, it looked stormy and my phone said the chance of rain was 60%. Tightening the bolts down on my new setup did give me a flicker of happiness. The graphic is flat black, and the griptape is an abstract painting. I think it's the best looking set up I've ever had.
I didn't want to be anywhere at all, and Yuanshan in particular wasn't appealing, since it takes about 45 min to skate up there and I'm too poor to ride the MRT. I piddled around a bit, feeling absolutely zero motivation to do anything, but I twisted my own arm, and promised myself a cup of coffee if I just went outside.
The deck felt good from the gitgreen. It's the exact same shape and size as the last one, and when I popped a few little ******s, I was kind of surprised how much fresher it really felt. The sky looked clear to the north, so I cursed the distance but started heading that way.
The cruise north was a lot shorter than I expected, even pushing along slowly with a cup of hot coffee. It was still too hot to drink by the time I got to the main bridge. It was like a nascar race of second graders on rollerblades, circling around and around in the best skate area, which is still just flatground. I saw someone had stacked some orange cones in the pebble area nearby, so I warmed up there and ** ******d the biggest stack of trash I've ever managed. I worked through every flatground trick, except ********s for some reason, which I just couldnt get a single one of.
I had to decide if I was going home or further down the river park, because the levee keeps you from easily getting back. There are good spots out there, but it adds another half hour to the pushing. I went for it, starting at the 40 ft wooden manny pad. It has a really rough run up and landing, but that makes it so much more gratifying to skate, since most people wouldn't bother. It's the first time I've actually been able to get onto it.
Next up was the ampitheater. A man was standing at the top of it, staring at the river and the mountains. I don't think he was on drugs, but I stayed there at least 90 minutes and he never flinched. A black dog hear my wheels on the pebble dashery and decided to chase after me, closer and closer, until it nipped the back of my ankle. I tried to kick it, but it got away. I got my standard line of tricks for the spot, with the best and longest ** **** I've ever done there, and went to the wharf.
I got my best and longest **** on the secret granite bench, and was able to come out everyway I coule think of. I started to get some good marks on the bottom of my board, and it looks better than ever. Making what you skate is intensely satisfying. I recommend it.
I cruised home, first to the yellow and black slappy curbs, where I went long and smooth, and then down the sidewalks to home. On the way, a geriatric whore tried to kill me by running a redlight on her scooter with no light on, so I had no idea she was barreling up the alley until she had sliced by me, maybe two feet away.

Rmj saves the day

It was drizzling the spittle so after a full day of adult bullshit i went to a long granite curb spot under a bridge and snapped my board in about a dozen tricks. Then I carried it back home through the rain like it was a fallen soldier and set up the new one; flat black, except for the wooden grain nose, with some paint on the grip tape. it was still pouring, so i met rmj with some change in my pocket because thats all i've got til my next pay check, and he spotted me beers and we walked around the city and talked about things and it was glorious. we walked up to a spot that is long long long marble ledges with 4x4 inch silver metal coping, and a security guard came out to make sure we weren't trying to steal the metal to recycle it. we all had a laugh about that, but i wonder what the fuck he really thought we were doing; two foreigners intensely inspecting the silver angle iron in the driving rain, after midnight, in a sleepy neighborhood.

never skate a covered skatepark because its raining. its more rewarding to just walk around and look at spots and drink beers and talk. thanks for the beers man.

some skating, mostly sulking

I skated to my job and I hated my job. I skated home from my job and still didn't feel better.  Lzyk went with me to a divey korean restaurant, which wasn't bad, and then she had to do a con call to Americans, so I took a chance and went for a little skate. The stairs at the three stair park grinded nicely, but puddles were all around, and since it's a slate floor, the potential for accidents was high. I left before I paid the slam dues. Then I tried to ****** a gnarly little spot in another nearby park, and I just couldn't make my feet do it. It was sprinkly, so I skated the black and yellow rails there for a second, until it got too wet. I hate everything, but less so than before.

Terminal Verbosity

One of the most joyful things a man can experience is a series of rainy days, broken by a day of clear and good weather. Naturally, anyone of hale countenance would be inclined to skate to work on such a day. I did. It was cool enough to not get sweaty on the way, and I spent the better part of a half hour on that way. I wandered through traffic, around scooters, and luckily, never under taxis. The surface went from mirror smooth to rude, and worse; a series of unsettled square tiles ran down the length of a sun lit road. Many were broken broken, necessitating hitting them at an angle by weaving to and fro across the sidewalk. Minsen hood is brimming with old rich folk, who regrettably spent their time panicking as I approached them. I am unaware of their behavior after my passage. Upon my arrival, I concealed my skateboard under the stairs, so that children might not discover it and frolic upon it without permission. Howsoever, I deeply hope that some day, it shall be discovered. Having suffered through the penance that is the earning of wages, I retrieved my skateboard from under the stairs whence it had been hidden, and the pair of us cruised down the now darkened streets through the gloaming. Little ebulient ollies carried me over curb and dale, crack and trashbag. Cheeky short manuals scraped the tail without care, across cross walks and through semi distraught pedestrians. I felt neither shame nor remorse as phone gazers jumped ever so slightly as they became aware of our transit. Our reference frames drifted apart and together, and I diverted into the bus lane and back up the curb ot the sidewalk as the rough deteriorated or ameliorated.
There is a profound satisfaction to be gained by treating your skateboard as a means of transportation. The city is transmuted into a technological anthropic anthill, teaming with species of works and soldiers and transporters and buyers and sellers and the self as a unique exister; as something that cannot be duplicated or produced in fascimile. No one reads this, but if anyone does in the distance future, I urge you to skate your city and get to know it on the most intimate and direct and abstract level. There are greater joys in life, but they are few and far between.

Started at the bridge now I'm at the bridge

I have the dreaded split schedule of teaching; wake up early, have several hours free, and work late. For the first few weeks, I've been too tired and also sick (children are biological weapons) to do anything with my free time, but today I finally made it to the bridge. It was cool and damp, and rained on my on the skate home. It had been so long that some of the graffiti have changed. It was fun though, even though I lost a few tricks. Saw some friends. Drank some water. Not much else happens at the bridge these days.

sometimes, its not about the skating.

i left going, bearing towards linsen park, to warm up on the flatground. on the way, i passed a half dozen westerners going the other way, none of whom i recognized. they weren't friendly, but one of them turned to stare at me. i presume they are getting paid. godspeed, but dont fuck up my spots.

rmj and i warmed up at the flatground + unslidable curbs, and to my delight, fm showed up too. we skated the marble benches while a taiwanese jimi hendrix wailed the most off key 90 minute guitar work i've ever heard. it was performance art.

we skated the gx1000 boulders and then the tiny linsen bank to granite curb, fully in front of a team of cops, who watched, debated, adn did nothing. then fm had to go home, and the remaining pair of us could only manage one more spot anyway. it was the z-shan tiny hubba, and we went full bore, until we went half bore. we chatted on the steps and a black dog walked by, which rmj called a 'little angel", because it looked us right into the eyes, with a happy soul. we skated a bit more,  until the conversation became more interesting than the session, so we beered up and walk/skated back home and beered up some more in teh park by my house. during the discussion, a baby huntsman  spider dashed up us; its only the second time i've seen one in taiwan. it was the size of my palm, and when i spit on it, it dashed away like it could strike people with lightening. he told me about how his neighbor knocked on his door late at night a couple of weeks ago, because a full sized hunstman was in her house, and he went in, cowboy style, poison spraying, and it reared up and shot webbing at him. it was too big to think about without going insane. its scarier than cattle mutilation. i made it home before four, but lzyk still wasnt satisfied with that.

dont film

the reason that filming is so hateful of an idea for me is that no art should be eternal, and im afraid that we might hit the singularity, and that every shitty little of bit of what we're recording is going to last forever somehow, in the subconciounce of a computer that can imagine better than we can. paint it on sand. everytime music is recorded in a studio, it loses a little bit of its soul, but everytime it's heard in a recording, music loses a lot of its soul. nothing is made valuable because it managed to last a long time.

stackin wood

little ollies, knee pain. little sweaty, little breeze. pushed up to the temple, got all my ledge tricks there and warmed up on the slightly wet flat granite. security came out to watch and did nothing except smoke a cigarette. Can't remember if i used to could ** **** on the tall side of the ledge or not. either way, i did it this time. cruised down the road to the pink dolphin bumps. It's a series of three pink tile bumps, too steep to be comfortable, too small to be useful, but a unique spot, so I pissed off the neighborhood by skating it for a minute. 

Onwards to the brownline. Down to the 4x cement "rail" spot. They're under teh bride, in the crosswalk, and you gotta wait for the light to get a try. Then you have 26 seconds. They aren't high or special or anything someone else would look twice at, but i'm in love with them. They're about five inches wide, and flat, but a very rough top. Cement spots have so much personality. you never know how it's gonna go til you try and get it going. For example, this four appear to be identical, but each one has bumps and rough spots in weird places. one is chunked out on the end. Were they stone or metal, they would still be a spot to go to, but they'd be kind of boring, since everything in taipei is stone and metal. i got into a little skirmish to get the newest one going, but it finally went.

here's a tip for rough cement ledges: on a hot day, when your gulfwax is bendable, hide a couple of coins up in there. make sure they're shallow, and on the same side. That way, you can grind down the rough spots and wax it at the same time. i got a ******** on each of the three that slide, and cruised home.  iskated the park by the backdoor, even though it was late and i got some more species of *********s on the yellow and black rails there. I earned my beer. 

well yeehaw, i met another atlien

I aint seen sss since I dont know when. it was a rainin' so we went out to dingxi, cause its dingy, and afz came too. I piled up a couple a cones and dragged out one of them benches and we skated it fer a bit. It was wet and all metal and grabby green concrete and it werent really all that fun. then them boys took me to shang grilla. its a spot that i haten found since i been here; its all green seamint pyramids, laid in at madcap angles, where none of the geometry lines up right, like an alien house in hp lovecraft. it aint well lit, and tonight it was surrounded by moats of water, which caught all of skateboards at least once each. then we walked back across the city, sorry sss, i know you didnt wanna walk that far, but it was a good conversation for a couple of hours, makin stops at the seven and the ok and so on. anyways, small world sometimes, and it was nice to shake the hand of hte man that did the assface at the bridge where i used to work. i hated taiwan back then, when i first came, and vandalism lifted my spirits. still does. thanks man. sorry you been jumped at 101. too bad the cameras were turnt off.

up against the wall, redneck mother

I threw down earlier than usual, with the tentative plan of meeting ogfm in the old hood, if it didn't rain. it rained up in his his area, out by hte ocean, and so he didn't feel like the wet cold scooter ride into the city, even if it was dry here. I can't say i blame him. But he missed out. About a dozen pushes up the road, I was in the taxi lane and weaving through parked cars. someone behind me was shouting hey hey hello hey, and I assumed it would be some asshole on a scooter that was offended the terrible pollution i was making with my skateboard. but instead, when i swiveled my head, i saw a kid a few pushes behind me on a longboard. normally, i dont have much good to say about longboards, and i guess i still don't, but i liked the guy, because he was skating in the street. so in my mind, he's sort of equally cool as someone on a real skateboard, who only skates in skateparks.
we did the fist bump thing in traffic without slowing down, and when i shouted over the roar of traffic to ask where he was heading, he said the next station east. we rounded the corner and he followed me down the still crowded sidewalks. I think he was surprised that skateboards can leap off the ground. each little thing up or down a curb made him cry out, and he started shouting 'again, again' in english when we approached a new curb. we got to a section with bright yellow metal grate ramps, which are really loud when you land on them as you blast past. because i supposed i wanted to impress him (he kept laughing with delight when I ollied up something), i kept going until my legs didn't work anymore, and rolled off a little fall, as my back truck caught on a metal grate. he stopped and got my board for me, and said "you are crazy" in english. it's the two best compliments i've had in skating, that i can do a trick that can make someone laugh, and that someone thinks i'm crazy for how i skate.
we split ways, and i wandered south, a little slower, but warmed up. i went cruising cruising cruising down to the Perfect Hip, but traffic was still too heavy to skate it. Right around the corner was an old bank spot that I've forgotten about. It's pebble dash and doesn't grind on top, but you can get up there without too much effort. The air was wet with humidity, and i thought of somewhere i wanted to go, so i went on without putting much effort into the banks. on day though, i m going to wax the spine down the end of it.
I pushed on to Daan Park, where there is a big ole roller rink that's well light for flat ground. It has been resurfaced recently, in the same pebble polished material they used at the bridge, about 40 years earlier.
It was so slick that I think they might have put some kind of plastic coating on it. It was as though it was covered in teflon. I could powerslide without actually losing any speed. well, maybe a little speed, but only as much as you would lose on a **********. It was pretty unnerving. Some other kids were there, learning how to push. Their leader was trying ********s, and after a few minutes, we made friends. My countenance shown brightly upon him, and he landed it, several times in a row. Back in my day, he would have been pinned for a future pro, to land some many perfect ones on his first day to get one. I'm so jealous of anyone who can land a trick a few times and then have it perfectly everytime. After many high fives and powerslides, I parted ways with my second new skate friends on the night. Then I went towards the goal of the night; the telecom ledges.
It's a charming spot. It has quaint red bricks, laid at 45 degrees angles to the ledges. The ledges themselves arent all that well light, especially for such a black stone. In fact, i'm not sure what species of stone this is, but it's blacker, and harder, than anything I've ever skated. It looks like black marble, but it's harder than granite. The angle on it is as sharp as steel. It's hard to get it going, even though we've hit it pretty hard. Each new time takes a pretty hefty coating of wax. Even with that, the edge is so sharp taht on a ******* grind, your front truck will have deep groove in about three tries, and the nose will be sliced on an angle like you stuck it in a salami slicer.
The next hour or so was spent running through my short list of tricks, and failing to get any decent grinds, but the angle just kept grabbing my trucks in exactly the opposite way that the surface at Daan didn't grab the wheels. I put some work into, and got the two most difficult tricks in succession after 60+ minutes of trying. It immediately started dribbling rain. My knee hurt from the big fall a few weeks ago. I still can't ollie right. I wandered north for a while, hoping for the best regarding not getting lost in the rain on a worknight. Suddenly, I was at the bridge. It had all worked out.

Happy birthday lzyk. enjoy the cake.

the most underrated album of my adolescence

sparkle and fade

oh wait, maybe it was

where have all the merry makers gone?

nope definitely moon and anartcica

who gives a fuck when you found about something? if it was good then, then it's still good. if it's not good now, then it was never good.

it has to be the films. I think they only made one record. no wait, it's horse force. that was as good as it gets.

EZ Breezy

Sunday nights are the new friday nights. I warmed up at the three stair, and since noone wanted to come along, I cruised east through the brisk and blustery night towards a legendary day spot. I had heard it was all marble everywhere, with manny pads and ledges and stairs and hubbas and more manny pads. I felt sluggish but slappied some thangs, and slappied some more thangs, and came up on an old spot.
It's a complex place. There's a two stair into the road, then a six stair on the other side of the road, with a two stair that gets to be the size of a six, with a lamppost inbetween, and a normal two on the other side. On that side (I know none of this makes sense without a diagram, but part of the point of this blog is never using anything but words) is a double sided low pink marble ledge, with a column at the end of it, going away from the stairs. The ground around the marble had been pocketed like surrey during the blitz, and completely unskateable. Now, it's perfect. I started off tentatively, with some ** *********s; always my lowspeed go to at a new fs ledge. That went well, so I did some more bs. Amazingly, I slide them for a decently long ways. Then I put too much wax on it. I didn't mean. I usually lightly wax things, but this just didnt need as much as I thought. Overwaxing coincided with a slowly building crowd, who saw me ***** down the stairs as slowly as I could, so that I wouldnt be going too fast for the ledge. I got into a battle on that, but after I made it, tricks came fast and thick. Next up was **-**, until I grinded the length of it to the column, then the same trick, coming out everyway I know how. Then I started trying tricks up it, which is a little uphill, but only slightly. Most onlookers had left, but then I managed a **_*****, which is maybe the first time I've done that in the street. I literally had nothing left for that spot, and continued east in an ebullient mood.
I arrived at the target spot and it was so dark that even I didn't want to skate it. Part of that is fear, after suffering through the big one (my arm still cracks and bleeds if I move it too quickly for the scabs). The other reason it's no good is 24/hr security. Maybe that's why there's no wax on all those sexy virgin granite ledges. I did one ***** just because, but it took a lot of tries, because of the dark and the pressure of the security guard looking at me, but not kickign me out. I went back towards home and ended up at the brown line double cement ledges.
It's a special skating ecosystem, very rare in these parts. It's a pair of a pair of cement flatbars, in the middle of a huge road. I've been slowly waxing them in, and htey're also not great if you don't like about 16 lanes of traffic watching you skate. They're in the middle of the crosswalk, so you have to wait for the green crossing; it's possible to get two tries in one light cycle, but you have to hustle, and you probably look goofy doing it. I don't know, because I'm proudly the only person who has ever skated it. I know, because I remember how the wax looked last time I was there. I waxed it up on the opposite side this (it's now 1/2 waxed in total) and gashed my board up trying to get it going. I did, but only for a short distance. It's a long term project. At this rate, I'll have all of them sliding in about 28 more visits.
I beered up and considered myself on the home stretch, but rounded a corner and ended up at gold's gym. It's another big marble spot, with two strangely proportioned marble ledges; on one side is a two stair high ledge, and the other side is a bottom rib high ledge. I'm not exactly short, so it takes some spring in your tail to get up there. To date, it's never been done. It's not impossible, but noone with the ability has ever found it. If they do, there's a flat stretch and then a flat rail to street right after. I fucked around on the low part for a bit, and then moseyed on back home through the streets. 10/10. would skate agian.

little one gotta heed my warning

devil is kind

Injury season continues into november

I wasn't feeling tiptop but I heard about a friendly crew in 西門 that skate street on Thursday nights, so I  swung by with MC to introduce me. I got there are little early and warmed up at the bullring. When it's not crowded, it's actually pretty fun to skate. I wrenched by still sore wrist though, falling on the first **-**, and then MC showed up we went to the nice shop. It's just about everything  I think a skateshop should be. I'm glad I finally made it over there. However, it was just the two of us, so I rode pillion on the scooter for about half an hour, out to a new spot in 三重. I've been a little skeptical of scootering around to skatespots in the past, but I have ot admit that it really opens up the city for exploration. The spot we went to is about half a mile long, with rectangular and uneven tiles. It's also very dark at night, but it makes up for that by being a series of giant wavy banks. The cement is so perfectly smooth, it could have only been poured in Taiwan. I digress, but pouring cement here is like a national artform. Taiwanese love to pour cement. Every flat surface on the island is cemented. They're really good at it. This wavy bank spot has a kind of flowing watery 風水   quality such that you can ride up with and stay up there way longer than you might expect. I write that without a hint of sarcasm. Landscaping here is taken seriously, even when it's a giant cement modern art sculpture that might was well have been designed for 70s style skateboarding. HM met up with us there, and we went exploring.
Nearby are many more spots. Next in the line down the halfmile row of spots was a series of very steep pyramids, that we just skipped over because although they aren't wallride steep, they're getting up there. Somebody needs to wax the spine and tops and get that going. After that is a complex large three stair with manny pads coming off each stair.
Lastly, we went to a cement platform, about two stairs tall, with fishes painted all over the top of it. It's pretty cute, to have that kind of art in the middle of an abandoned/pre-construction area. The stairs have metal coping, so they slappy pretty nice. HM waxed up the ledge, and I looked over just in time to see MC ollie into it and stick. Blood was everywhere before he even hit the ground. The problem is that while the top is mirror slick cement, the side is really rough, so if your truck touches it, well, you end up grinding your shin instead of your truck. Within a minute, it looked like a murder scene. He managed to get it stopped after half an hour or so, but that took the piss out of my skating for the night. I skated down to the MRT and went home.

first step towards redemption

the lord's team played the heathens from florida, and we smitted them several times in the first quarter. they ended up defiling our endzone, but only once. that's acceptable.

in spite of concussive sx, i went for a little skatey poo. it was without intent. it started cat pissing rain the moment i left, and the three stair park across the street was half wet, and half dry. it works as a stone curb spot, if you are willing to skate as slowly as possible. i warmed up.

i cruised down the overhang sidewalk to a top tier microspot, which is a nothing to two stair metal angle iron, with a column on the exit. it's backside for me, and it has never wanted to grind, despite being a metal angle iron. i had forgotten about it, but since i didn't feel up to skating real spots, i spent some time there. i ended up waxing it, and the motherfucker still wouldn't grind. but each attempt made it 10cm of it more grindable. by the end, the whole thing was grinding. there are also some loading ramps on the sidewalk there, so you can do tricks into them and do flatground, and then have a short, weird metal grind, then a cross road, then up a two stair. by the end, I have my confidence back.

sort of. i was still spooking at all kinds of cracks and nonsense. i worked pretty hard to get through the first quarter of my flat ground warm up, but the cracks continued to spook me. I never feel; i just felt like a coward. i rounded a convenient corner to go home, and came up on a new planter installation. it's all bumpily black rails, three sections of which are 10m long. the surface is the nastiest square tiles we have, and poorly laid ones, so there are tons of cracks and loose ones and ways to eat shit. the solution is to skate across them at somethign like a 45 degree angle, and then straighten out at the last minute, like a 777 coming in for a landing in a strong crosswind. i got on the bumpily micro rail. i got on it dozens of times. i never rolled away. it's a very long and flat street, so pedestrians could see me from about five minutes ahead. an old man was walking his dog up towards me, and when he finally arrived, he shouted 'awesome, awesome' in mandarin, and gave me thumbs up. he watched me keep trying it, but he gave up on me.
i left frustrated, but on the way back, i realized that i could satisfied htat i was skating shitty tile sidewalks again, without fear. it's an important step. if you cant do your flatground on a rough surface, your flatground doesnt matter.

i got back home and painted an elaborate skateboard. i sanded it on the sidewalk as people gawped at me, and then killed the next five hours working on it, before f1 starts. one hour to go. i'm happy with the deck so far.

recovering

A lot happened to today. I went back to real work for the first time since july. Then I got some bad news. Then we went to wait in line to eat ramen for about an hour. It was worth it. Then I watched an epicly laterd about the guy who made gummo, and then i tried to watch gummo.

It made me want to write a portrait of Green Drew. He was pretty excited about Gummo, when it came out. We tried to watch it together back then. He also insisted I listen to modest mouse and sigur ros, which I liked a lot better. He gave me some vivid memories. We listened to aegyptus byrun and moon and antartica, blazing in this black 89 camry, in his front yard, on a spring day, surrounded by blue sky and flitting clouds and budding trees and shrubs. He also made me watch his own movies. The two that I remember were a ceiling fan with a loose light bulb, and a scene of two lovers yelling at each other from either side of a train track as a freight train approached and passed loudly inbetween, then more arguing, then anotehr train and so on for several trains, until eventually one train passed and the girl wasnt there anymore. drew convinced me to learn to play tool songs, off of aenima, and although our band never took off, we did release some white mice in a restaurant and play a set of pretty avant guarde post country tunes about skoal and shitting on your shoes. our lives followed a bizarrely gummo sort of trailer park parallel for a few years, and i ran into his exgirlfriend in the middle of middle georgia, and she pissed on the ground within five minutes of makign my aquintance. i've lost touch with drew, but the things he thought were good 20 years ago are still good. i dont know what he made of himself, but i hope we can skate again one day. 

my neck is sore like a car wreck. i have a hand sized bruise on my leg from landing on my phone. my left arm is scraped free of skin, and is becoming a scab, and my eyebrow is sore. my nose is missing some skin, and the whole row of my lip is sliced from my teeth. i feel like i've earned the right to say i've been skating street 

The Big One

I went out to Neihu Sports Park with a buddy, and we found a about a dozen guys skating it. I'm not a big fan of parks, but I was happy to meet some new people and skate terrain I'm not accustomed to. The most popular part is a deformed miniramp. There's also and 8ft section, and a bmx/rollerblade style section on the other side. At least, I've never seen anyone skating the steep 20 stair hand rail with six feet of run up. I'm not saying it hasn't been done though. I mostly practiced ** ****s and rolled away from a few. Then I spoke with a filmer who grew up on the west coast, and the lights went out. We all kept talking, and eventually started to skate back to the MRT station. It's usually a 20 minute skate, but we went a slightly different way. We were debating about crossing over the busy eight lane road so we could cross the levee to the river park, but just kept going down the sidewalk. I was leading, and came to a place where you have to pop down a curb and then back up. I was lazy and tired, and pushed switched after that. The sidewalk is narrow and cement tiles, but the bumps aren't too bad, and I got back up to speed and then the Big One happened. I went from casually rolling to everything going black with just enough time to realize I was going to hit my head. Then my face bounced off the tiles. Crumpled like a car crash victim, I was pretty sure, as the world came back to me, that I had broken my nose and lost a few teeth. I kept saying holy fuck, for a while, and I remember fm leaning over to check on me and saying, "dude, you hit a pipe in the sidewalk." I could taste some blood, and was surprised that my nose was pretty much normal, minus some skin. My mouth was swelling, and I kept wiping my tongue over my teeth, thinking I was so fucked up that I couldn't tell any where missing. But no, they were fine. I eventually got up, and yes, I had hit a two inch tall, one inch wide vertical plastic pipe, sticking out of hte sidewalk. Skating is fickle. You can go a long time without consequential slams, and then smash your brains out because of a fucking camoflauged pipe in the sidewalk. I talked to fm for a minute (I think he was concerned about concussion; he said he thought it knocked me) and then he got me and uber and took me back to the station. I'm not really in the mood to write all this, but lzyk says I have to write something that makes sense or she's taking me to the hospital to get checked for concussion.

components of an ideal solo mission

while it was raining, i went spot spotting and found a cement wall under the brown line. I didn't get a chance to get back there til tonight. It was much chunkier than I remembered, and I spent about the time it took to sip down two beers to wax it all. I wasn't sure it would even ***********.

Before that project, I cruised the streets for half an hour and worked my way through flatground and crowds. Then it started spitting rain, so i went to the dog piss curbs because i was about five minutes away. There was a newly poured micro spot on the way; it was a marble step up with a miniature bank going from from even to vertical, over about 20 feet. The dog piss curbs reeked worse tahn ever, but I got a ** ****** and a ** ******. I left happy and went out to work on the waxing project, which I didn't really expect ot skate. After the process, and dozens of light cycles, with taxi drivers staring me down (they get a reward for turning in people doing weird things) and even some po-po's (i stopped the waxing and grinding in while they stared at me), I gave it a shot and bailed. I don't mean the idiotic new meaning of the word, which is in reality a fall or slam, but actually bailing out of the trick as you roll up to it, like a fighter pilot bailing out of a plane. Children, listen: bail doesn't mean fall. It means when you roll up and abandon the attempt. I bailed a few times, because of hte intensity of trying a spot that I know is going to stick in front of seven lanes of heavy traffic, one attempt per green light. After half a dozen bails, I got on it, and it stuck. Then it slid a bit. Then it stuck. Then it stuck. Then it stuck. Then I waxed the shit out of everything and made it.

the best feeling in skating for me is finding a new spot in a weird place, preferably something no one would dare skate even after I got it ready, working to make it skateable, then skating it. I am tooting my own horn, but that is exactly what I did tonight. I fucking love taipei.

Skate or don't

thanks jenkem, yall always steer me right. the weather was absolutely immaculate today and tonight, and i had planned on skating, but it turned out, i had better things to do. i went ot the taipei art show with lzyk and we held hands, and saw lots of good art things, and JF. But the most meaningful art of the day is this:

http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html

be forewarned, this game is an existential crisis. It's like hearing death metal for the first time.

I'm glad I didn't skate on a perfect day, after waiting for weeks to have a perfect day.

I've done some new decks lately, but hte next one is going to be a UPO.

Nothing to cry about

The sky is still crying, so I went by the bridge. The worst part was that I had absolutely nothing to complain about. Friends were there and I met a new friend too. It spat rain, but there wasn't much wind, so it stayed dry under there. New tricks happened for a few people, and it wasn't crowded. I didn't quite wear myself out, so after some food, I'm going back.

the only way to never hate the bridge is to never skate there, and if you choose that, i can respect it

unlike last time, I didn't faceplant into the tiles on teh way to the bridge because i forgot about a vicious lurking crack. I got out of class at noon. I never knew that my teachers were zoned out just as much as I was until I started teaching. Actually, I usually love this class; teaching upper level adults is awesome. It's like being paid to be worshipped by people who are afraid to not laugh at your shitty jokes. I'm a scam artist, in the bad way. One day, I'll be skating in hell for it, where the surface is always rough and someone sneaks in and waxes the rails behind your back. Which brings me to why I'm whinging about the bridge again. On the love-hate spectrum, my pendulum has swung towards disgust and rage. This time, my adolescent temper tantrum was because I didn't get hired to a job that I'm not qualified for, but I read the email just before class and was busy feeling sorry for myself while I tried to teach. Anyway, I soldiered through it and was warmed up at the bridge by 13:00. Then a sawty came up and waxed the ever loving shit out of every single metal surface he could find. He was pushing down with both hands on the wax, crumbling it into the rails so thick that there were pink crumbly chunks left over, like sandwhich crumbs in a fat guy's beard after he takes a big bite. Then he methodically waxed things that he never even ended up skating. A real man would tell him, hey dude, don't do that, you're going to murder someone, but I just quite skating it all and focusing on *** ******* ** over a little thing, but it was the world record for me. Because I didnt' get the job, I was in a bad mood, and I put a hex on that maniac waxer. It's one thing for some kid to wax everything without knowing, but this dude was old enough, and good enough to know that it was a dickmove.

My hex worked and he zipped out and busted himself on the flatrail. I felt sorry for blowing out the candles on my cake and wishing for that exact outcome, because noone deserves that, but at least it wasn't an innocent bystander. To my astonishment, he hobbled over to his bag, took out the wax, and reapplied it to the rail for something like a solid 60 seconds. Apparently, you gotta really press hard to get that wax down into the micro chasms of the metal.

In the end, I can only blame myself for being in a shitty mood. I didn't get the job because I didn't deserve it, and I didn't take it well, so I was already pissed, then I didn't stop taht kid from continuing to wax everything in sight. I can't honestly complain about anything. Good thing I never do. It's one of my best qualities, after humility.

Rave

I heard about an awesome rave at this place called a skatepark. It has a lot of graffitti, so it's a really good place for 123 people to dance and wiggle to bland 90s techno. They even have these excellent metal bars you can sit on if you feel tired. Some are round, and some are square, but none of those are as good as the benches someone made and put in the middle of the park. You can sit on those too, if you feel like. The skaters certainly don't mind when dozens of people walk through the middle of them. After all, it's not like they're doing something important, like basketball. I would never walk through someone's basketball game and then sit down directly under the basket. If I did, that would make me an asshole, ha! ha! Some of the skaters pretended to look really angry when I sat on their weird rail and walked in front of them when they were playing skateboard. But I could tell they were kidding by the way they shouted curse words, ha! ha! Their culture is so hard to understand, but maybe if I sit on those benches some more, they can teach me something

i honestly cant wait for it to stop raining

some people, apparently lots of them, watch videos about people traveling and eating food. sometimes, its about making food, but usually, just eating it. it doesnt appear to be great food, for hte most part, but it needs to be interesting in some way. on my internet cruise through shitty youtube videos around the world, i've come to realize that for skating, it's all i'm really asking from a video. jsut interesting. mostly spots, a little bit music, a little the sense that city is different from this one, very very little to do with the tricks. i love looking up russian cities i've never been to, because goddam they've got some plazas. i love looking up atlanta and athens and chattanooga and macon and charleston and savannah and detroit because something weird inside is proud and happy that 20 years from now, someone is going to be kickflipping the stairs at a spot that I skated 20 years ago. ive even watched a shit ton of videos of people skating in parks, because apparently, that's all you can do in some places. im a little bit thrilled to see the name of a friend of a friend who is making videos for ************, which is a magazine about skateboarding. i watched a rad rat talk about fake spots, which didn't piss me off until I drank some beer and saw headcleaner. it's a psychedelic future.

a little whinging for posterity

I normally don't subscribe to the watching of skate videos. The tsunami of mediocrity on social media is even worse. But tonight it's 3 am, and I'm grateful to every last one of those goofy bastards filming themselves or their crew skating flat ground or skateparks. That's because it's been raining for a fucking week here, and really truly raining hard as nails, not some halfassed drizzle. I walked around for a few hours the other night to try and find a place dry enough to skate, but everything in this city is soaked, even the dog piss curbs and the bridge and nangang. I didn't go to Yuanshan because in my heart, I have to believe it was still dry, and I didn't want to be disappointed. Also, I was tired of walking around the city in the driving rain. At least rmj came along and we talked and had some beers. Good thing I never complain. when I leave Taipei, maybe I'll read this and realize it wasnt always night after night of the best street skating on earth. sometimes, it was drinking beer and hanging out with friends all night in the rain and eating bbq in whoreville at 02:00. Who am I kidding, I'm never leaving this glorious place.

I think I have to take tomorrow off

The tropical rains came and went today, but it wasn't too humid when I finally went outside for coffee. After some studying, I went to the bridge, because the puddles weren't dry yet. The whole day shift crew were there. I won a skate game, to my surprise, and since that's the whole point of skateboarding, it was automatically a good day. It was also a good day because I did a half dozen ***** ********s. The clouds came back at sunset and it was so dark that it looked like a volcanic eruption, with one palm sized patch of bright blue sky rimmed with golden shifting clouds overhead. The cruise home was during rush hour, but I managed to not knock over any scooters or get murdered by assholes ignoring all traffic laws and common sense. Too many skate days in a row are making me feel old. Everything hurts. Tomorrow is going to be a by day.

go to tamsui, it's pleasant

lzyk and i went up to tamsui to eat and walk around. the old 20ft angle iron is still there, and some enterprising soldier has glue another shorter one to the ledge, further down.  we got back at midnight, and i flipped a coin to see if i was going to skate or not. skating lost, and i was already really tired, but within ten minutes, i was outside going for a cruise. i ******d up something i never made before, and mostly did flatground on bumpy tiles. i found a spot with some bumpily overlapping black metal planters, and half heartedly tried to skate them, but couldnt pop over the barrier on the end. another day, i ll be back. i finished up at a new marble tall- curb/low- ledge, but slapping onto it sounded like howitzer fire, so only gave it a half dozen tries, since it's a residential alley. the weather is still perfect, so i ll have to try again tomorrow. it's depressing how just a couple of days of having no unregulated air pollution makes the sky completely clear again. by the end of hte week, it'll be back to urban death cloud.

breezing the streets

The holiday isnt over, but my trip to the south is. We drove back up and I arrived right at the moment the jailor slams the gate shut at the bridge and no one is allowed to have anymore fun. RMJ met up with me at the three stair park. It was a coolish night with a strong, constant breeze. The city doesn't get better than this. It was still pretty sleepy since everyone is slowly trickling back into town, and we skated the zhongshan road loop. well, part of it, since I didnt have the legs to keep going. There is a little curb up to mellow marble bank nearby, so i skated that while we chatted and RMJ drank some beer (he had started a few hours earlier than me at the bridge). Maybe if the weather holds up, I'll try again later this week.

micro session at microspot

we went home for the longweekend and i went to the basketball court with the round curbs just now and suffered from a lack of qi, probably because of eating warm or cold foods or cold water, i havent used a period yet so i m not gonna, the session wasnt too hot and the big wheels helped a lot with the cracks, the spot used to be riddled with them and now it's like skating on smooth ground. damn, used a period by reflex

a little kid was shouting about how he wants to see the american, and so i found a little more energy and said hello and how are you?, and showed them how flip tricks and manuals work, and they kept shouting at me about skateboards and repeating anything i said ten times. tonight we are off to buy a heroic volume of all kinds of meats, seafood, and vegetables, then marinade it and then eat it tomorrow. also, there is an f1 race in japan and the lord's team is playing some heathens at midnight. life could be worse.

heavy heart makes for hard skating

After the holiday, it was a beautiful, sunny, windy, blue sky day, and although skating soaked me in sweat, when I was resting in the shade, the wind actually gave me a shiver. I only had the heart to spend an hour at the bridge, mostly tootling around at walking speed watching some masters skate, and chatting with some guys I haven't seen in around four or five months. Regarding the masters, I have to say that massive pop is more important than anything else about what makes them so good. blasting outkast doesnt hurt though.

one of the worst days of my life. the less said the better. i spent some time at the three stair park doing ********s before things went bad.

why I love taipei

Evening session at the bridge. You roll the dice there. This time, they came up double six. A slew of homies were there and greeted me with warmth. It's a been a slow and gradual homecoming. I'm sinking my teeth back into this place. The bridge mostly cleared out, with a handful of dudes drinking some end of session beers in the back, and a handful of new girl skaters in the front, by the manny pad. Me and a friend skated the manny pad til the security guard came out and informed us we have to leave, because the bridge now closes at 10:00. It was 9:30. I insisted to skate until 9:59, because I am ferocious, and got all charged up listening to okilly dokilly, but I waved good night to the guard when I left. In between, I met a brazilian kid who is here medium term, and apparently skates street. hopefully, we can have a street session soon.

I had street session on my own, but tentatively, not sure how long I could skate or where I should go. I instinctively went to towards Rplaza and beered up. It was a nice and blustery night. The plaza was full, but I cleared out the good bench by drinking a beer on it, and sweating a lot all over the marble. To my surprise, beer was the key, and I could ********* the curbs with minimal effort. As always, the permanently posted police on all sides of the plaza ignored me. I tried ** ******* on the bench, but it just wasnt happening. I sort of, kind of, did it, but there was a lot of lame wiggling to roll away. I finished a beer and decided to cruise north.

I skated a two stair with metal guards on about 3m of it, but still couldnt pull together anything I really wanted to do. whimsically, I gave up and went north to the marble hubba. I thought I could try a ** *-*, but motherfuckers parked their fuckign scooters in the way, so I tired some ******s and went to xingtian temple, fully with the intention of turning right and heading back to lzyk, who wasn't happy that I stayed out so late.

Instead, the light gave me 15 seconds to cross the street, so I did. Then, I was at the 2001 ledge (think if the monolith from 2001 space oddysey got knocked over and you could skate it). There is also a very long three stair of stone, which grinds to the naked truck. I had a hell of a time trying ot ****** up the monolith, and come off the end, and tweaked my back on some of the falls. None of them were that bad, but my frustration built up. I even threw my board, which is a great loss of face, even though no one else saw it. Notthing is more embarrassing than losing your temper.

failure is fun

Since I'm an unemployed bum, I spent my day watching russians hope freights across the US on youtube, painting skateboards on my roof while storms gushed and swooped across the taipei basin, and planning out my next session. Rumour was that some people would be skating at 石牌
 statoin later, but I was ansty so I cruised north for about an hour, to kill time. I practiced *******s on some rickety tile, because if you can't do a trick on rickety tiles, then you can't do the trick. As a reward, I got my first face full of Taipei since I got back. It wasn't really that bad, but it was a reminder of how you can knock the shit out of yourself rolling at walking pace, so, why not skate faster? Then it rained, so no one showed up and I took the train towards home. I realized it was dry out of hte window, so I got off at the old house and cruised through the still bustling city to get back home. There wasnt really much a session today, but i ended up not minding at all

deep into autumn

there are no leaves to change color, and I'm assuming that since it's the tropics, they wouldn't really do that anyway, but the temperature plummeted below 30 today, so I'm calling it the first session of autumn. The weather report said 100% chance of rain, so I went to the bridge again. It didn't rain, but that's ok, because I skated well (for me) and for almost three hours. The first few were alone, but I got some pop in my snap from finding out I have an interview at a dream job here in taipei. Skating was a celebration today, and I was in a silly mood, so I tried a **-***** to *************** on the little manny pad. Shockingly, I had it down in about 30 minutes; even getting several in a row, and about a dozen on the day. I also did an easy flip, all of once.

Halfway through, a banciao homie showed up, and we complained about the heat. I beered up, despite my best intentions, but it was a good day and I'm already a belt size down on when I left america. Diet and exercize are amazing, especially when you are fat and cut out etoh. But today I cheated, and watched one of the best skaters I've seen at the bridge as he warmed up. his style is atheletic, but smooth, and pretty playfully tech.

on the skate home, the sidewalk was blocked by thousands of people waiting in line to buy moon cakes. The line was three blocks long, so I skated through the scooters and taxis. I hope we get some more days under 30 degrees soon.

slowly reintegrating

It was 36 at the bridge, but I managed to get in a couple of hours. Jf came by, and the guy with the little kid, I can't remember either one's names. The kid was buttboarding last time I saw him, and now he's pushing around. Other people have improved as well, in fact, it seems like I've been gone for more than I have been, judging from everyone's progress.
I had an ambitious plan today, to learn a flatground trick I've done a few times before, but it didn't happen. Neither did the ***** on the box, which was a 99% trick before I left. For now,  I can blame the heat and the beer gut and the unreasonably sticky wheels. I unintenionally got a lot better at ********s, so that day didnt feel like a waste. Actually, it wouldn't have anyway, because I skated. Maybe now I'll get a call back about work..... but hopefully not tomorrow, because wednesday is surf day.

hot hot fenced in session

The heat is still too much. I went to hte bridge and suffered through an hour of my favorite activity. Some skills are coming back, but pop is lagging behind. I saw some friends who remembered me, and met a kid from bristol, but he is just passing through. The session got more and more crowded, maybe because of the fence they put up to keep us out after 10pm and people tried to get a sessoin in. I was too much of a pussy so I went home and ate natto and passionfruit.

spoke too soon

I'm not sure what all those construction guys were doing at the bridge the other day when I went by, but it wasn't destroying or remodling the brdige. I went early in the afternoon to skate, and it was open for business, albeit with a green wire fence all around the outside and big signs saying that we cant' skate after 2200, because only poseurs would skate in a skatepark once taipei's traffic has died down. They've also installed a metal hubba stage, which is brilliant, since anythign that isnt metal tends to rot in a few months. There's also a new tiny manny pad, but its already getting chipped on the ends because they left it bare cement. I saw a few familiar faces adn tried to get back into actually landing tricks, which went better than expected. Although I can't ******** this weird deck very well, ********s are actually much easier, so I'm just going to be a ********er now. The geometry of the deck is shite because the hardware holes were drilled too close to the middle of the deck, so unless I can figure out a solutoin, I'm just going to go without 30% of the normal pop. Maybe not as bad, I got 58mm wheels, which glide over the tiles like a dream, but change everything about manuals in particular. Even so, I **d the manny pad and didn't suffer as much as expected. I even got 2.5 hours out of the session. Days later, my knees hurt. There is still work to be done, and shape to be gotten into. Also, it's 37 degrees, and you can feel the heat reflect up off the ground to about knee height. Winter cant come soon enough

Heat stroke puke up

Jetlag is still pretty severe, so I got to the spot early. It's the second most important spot in Taipei, at an MRT marble plaza, with a long low and goodly pink ledge. I made it about two hours before I vomited from the heat and air pollution. I'm slowly getting better at tricks again though, so I wasn't too discouraged. I'm still only at about 25% of what I could do before I left, and as mentioned above, can only skate for 120 minutes, but after that session, I'm optimistic I'll recover quickly. It sounds like there's a lot of fragmented street sessions going down tonight, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to stay awake that late. Instead, I'm gonna go see if I can get into the bridge and go for 121 minutes.

The Bridge is Dead, Long Live the Bridge!

I got back home after the best transpacific flight of my life. I slept throuhg almost the entire thingn. THanks, korean air. I woke up at 0400, because thats what jetlag does, and then I was responsible and did some chores beforeI went ot skate, like get a new bankcard, which I lost in America and caused me no end of difficulties there. All I wanted to do was skate the bridge with the my own deck, shitty, overly steep tail not withstanding.

I got there around 1400 and the whole place was fenced off. A construction crew was busy destroying the ground, apparently to make it better and completely resurface it. That's not the end of the world, but I'll be pissed if it takes a year or two, like the park in nangang did.

I rode up to yuanshan and skated the big three. Well, I skated the flatground and lower ledge, not the big three. My feet still feel like I did though, because I havent skated much in about three months, and also because I'm wearing the second to last pair of vans that  I'll ever own. They would be the last, but I brought another pair back from america. My feet feel like I spent the day jumping down 10 ft drops.

I spent the first half of the session tryign to relearn freestyle tricks, then the rest skating the ledges. I ** **d down the slanted ledge for the first time, I'm not sure why I never tried that before, but it only took a few tries, and I'm not anywhere near peak condition. I also started learning ** ***** *********s, which I sort of shittily rode away from. Most of all, I was just good to be back in Taipei, even if the air pollution smelled like burning tires and it was hot as two rats fucking in a thick wool sock.

I can't wait til the bridge is resurrected.

second day in a row

after several months, I skated two days in a row for the first time. I figured i would suck again, and i did, so i focused on ***** ** ******, which i alwasys sucked at anyway. I found a basketball court that no one would bother even skating flatground on in taiwan, since it was extremely rough grit, and full of three finger wide cracks, but i made the best of it. it was  chilly. blue sky. white clouds. going home soon. weird feeling.

Being is desire/desire is suffering

I desired to skate but my shit was all lost. Today it arrived. I'm no longer in detroit, but in a suburb called livonia. it was a beautiful blue sky day, and there was no humidity. unlike taiwan, when you skate here and get sweaty, you dry out as soon as you stop. Other than that, there are no discernable  advantages to skating in livonia. The surface is rough, cracked, uneven, and punctuated by 1-2 cm wide gaps, at 2 meter intervals. They don't have the budget for road repairs here, but if they did, they would have to keep those, because the winter cold makes the roads contract and crack. Instead of a sidewalk, you are left with a series of miniature short manny pads, because the temperature makes the dirt under each section lift and shift. It is almost impossible to push down the sidewalks at any speed. That being said, I only found one spot anyway. Livonia is a 1950s residential grid suburb, like a roman fort for general motors. On the main road, I clack clacked up to a gas station with crumbling, unskateable asphalt. I bought some water and as I left, noticed wax. The front sign of the gas station has a heavily waxed cement ledge, but only a few feet from the very busy four lane. somehow, they had grinded a long section of the unskateble asphalt. Maybe it was bicyclers, I'm not sure. If it was, they did a great job on the waxing, because I tried a ** **** on it and it was so slick that my board shot out into the road. I retrieved it, and kept going. I found nothing else, so I skated flat on the roughest ground I've skated flat on. It was the smoothest thing I found in two hours of cruising. Then I ***** a crack in the road as young people shouted at me on the way home. It's going to take me months to get back to being able to skate again.

the last time i skated was ages ago

This happened a long time ago but I haven't skated since, as I went to detroit and my bags got stuck in atlanta. I've been living without a change of clothes for a week now. Before that, I puked all over the airplane on the way up and stayed sick with a stomach bug. American food sucks. Before that, I went skating in downtown on a bluesky day. It was a difficult session. I started at a new government complex that wasn't yet opened. It had a freshly poured asphalt parking lot on a long hill. I tried doing flat ground lines, but just didn't have the magic. I grueled through it but wasn't very satisfied. Then I went nextdoor for a downward sloping cement tile manny pad, where I also refused to do anything I tried. But I tried a lot of tricks, and had fun on a beautiful day and didn't get hassled by security even though I was skating a courthouse extension building. Then I pushed home, took off my trucks, packed my decks and things into two big suitcases, and haven't seen my shit since then. Downtown detroit looks decent for skating, but definitely requires huge wheels. It really helps me appreciate how smooth every surface in Taipei is. I can't wait to go home.

Skateparks are boring but they're best when all cement

i went to a skatepark. It had the uninteresting things as every skate park on earth, but it was better than most. Primarily, this is because it has a  long metal ledge at the ideal height for lazy fat 35 year olds, and not too many cracks. I'm well out of practice from not skating for a month or two, and from the new shoes/ new complete perfect storm, but I still did more things and better things than when I skated there last year. I met some indigenous skaters and they were friendly and happy people. I like Americans much better this year than when I came here last year.

eclipse

I didn't skate for many days, because in the mythology of your people, it is an unclean activity to do when an eclipse is foretold. An eclipse was foretold, so I packed up some camping gear and went on walkabout for a couple of weeks. I saw a rattlesnake. I saw some mountains. I walked a lot, and shit in the ground. I met some hippies. I went up to a place called cheoah bald and saw the eclipse. First the light got dimmer and weird, like the onset of a psychedelic experience. Then I watched through my glasses as the black disc spread across the red circle of the sun. About five minutes before the totality, it was pretty clear something extraordinary was happening. The red sliver of sun shrank and shrank, shaped like a fingernail clipping. The glasses are so black that you can't see anything through them unless it's the sun. When the totality happened, a gasp collectively rose up from the dirty hippies on the mountainside, myself included. The astonishment I felt was like nothing I have experienced in my life. People around me wept, cursed and shouted and clapped. It is impossible to photograph what the sky looked like. In every direction, the clouds were in shadow, like a 360 degree sunset. It got cold, and the animals stopped making noise. A few stars came out. The suns corona, endlessly brilliant, divinely perfect, did something we don't have a word for in English. When I took my glasses off and looked directly into the sun, I saw this perfection of light, a ring of sun around the blackest, mist perfect circle I could ever imagine. The hue of the sky around was beyond words. Like peaking, I lost track of time, and the memory of totality seems like an eternity. In reality, it was about two minutes. The edge of the moon started bleeding red, and suddenly the sun as I know blasted back into being and we all simultaneously ducked and shielded our eyes. If you ever get to see a totality, do it. Lie, cheat , steal, kill, save up money for a trip, do whatever it takes to get there. Nothing in all my life compares to it.

Return of Old Yeller

I left my wax block at the curb, so I went back for it and rolled away with everything else I left behind last time. It's not about tricks, except when it is. It was another hot but not Taiwan hot, blue sky day with floaty white clouds. I skated the manny pad there for a while, but didn't get what I wanted. It's an american asphalt parking lot, so you can get pretty cheese grated if you have even the smallest fall. There are big cracks across the pavement and an asphalt lip on the egress that doesn't look like much, but will send you tumbling if you have any weight on the front truck when you land. I  carved down the hill towards the lake and decided I was so tired I couldn't keep going, so I went up the hill. My mother, bless her heart, was driving by and picked me up, with a twelve pack of local beer already in the car. Adulthood is better than adolescence.