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...