chasing authenticty

it was well after midnight and i got the heebie jeebies and had to go skate. last time out, i killed the last board i will ever skate that someoneelse made. i put the old trucks on on the rooftop adn let it all settle for a day so that the components would get used to each other, and even though it wa s humid and wet and nasty night, i took it out for a skate. i m glad i did, but then i 've never not been glad i went to skate street in taipei after midnight, even when i woke up hungover and and aching from a slam.

i could still hear the rain dripping from the eaves of the plastic poor people's roofs next door, and i had to carry my homemade virgin deck all the way to the bridge. a trio of dudes were partying and the blonde haired one ate shit after hitting a rock on his first push after a break. I deeply appologize for laughign at you man, but that shit was too fucking funny.

I ******** a bit and triedto get used to my bootlegged homemade disasterpeice. the tail is too big and the wheelbase is longer than before, which ididnt consider would be so difficult to get used to, but it is. however, it finally feels like my legs have room to move, so i think this is going to have been a good change. also, handpainting is fucking brilliant. instead of chipping shit away like i thought on ********* and ********* (i cant honestly do *********** yet), the shellac of clearcoat is a like a shield of righetousness and none of the paint has come off in anyway shape or form. also, it's so fucking slick on the bottom that i can't do my normal tricks because they all shoot out from under me, but i m sure i can adapt.

a friendly kid came over and we skated for a long minute. i went to get us a couple of bers and saw some homies on the way out of band practice. taipei is my teenage wetdream. the new kid thought that writing 'purify' all over my skateboard is 'terrifying', which is what i was going for, but now i'm having second thoughts. i want skateboarding to be pure, and ideally, i'd love to sell some skateboards to taipei skaters, but i also don't want to get confused with any sort of trumpist white surpremacy. maybe i ll just go back to being married to skating, and not worry so much about purifying it. anyway, this kid was skating under the bridge on a riany night at 3 am and drank a beer, so I think he qualifies for the purity aspect. also, he might or might not know about some statistics. lastly, i think he knows the song 'versace'.

dear ryan gallant, you made the best skate shoes i've ever had in my life. the soles wore out at the exact moment that the uppers wore out, but that was just an pleasant coincidence. most off all, they lasted a long time and had boardfeel like nothing i've had since the offbrand nightmarket white shoes i got when i first came ot taiwan and learned how to ********. i'm sorry that i only paid $600 for your pro models, but i found them in a weird dumpy dadaocheng nightmarket stall, piled up on the floor. my only regret is that i didn't buy more pairs of them. i lvoe how they are plain and unassuming skate shoes, just one color suede and good rubber, without the dildoes and whirlygags that you find on certain other brands these days. now that every trick makes my feet bleed from top and bottom, i will have to give them a sky burial at the bridge, and i think it will be farther up than any previous pair of shoes so far (the closer to the entrance of the bridge, the higher the honor). admittedly, there is a three finger wide rip across the inside of the popping foot, which caused a significant amount of pain in the last month or so, but that's what i get from buying them from animal chin himself in a dank alley in taipei by the river. i wish i had kept a collector's pair, but my house is so small that i wouldnt have had anywhere to put them, so i haveto skate everything i have until it's destoryed.

i knew i woulnt sleep after the bridge session, and the sttreets had semi dried, so i cruised the neirhgobood and ********** and ******* some curbs and marble around teh area. when i got back to the 4way park i hada spark of engery and *********** the stage that I've been eyeing for a few months. I got it on the second try. i also found a new secret metal curb, but it's backside for me so getting it right on cruising nights is going to be a matter of remembering tiny details to give away the location, like what color tiles and what kind of cracks are around.

i love taipei.