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.