In the Days of my Youth, I was Told what it Means to be a Man

I don't have a good plan for describing this experience. I might just delete the whole thing.

I woke up with babe I'm gonna leave you in my head. I worked, and then sort of got messages about a skate sesssion in banciao, so since lzyk was sick, I kind of might of left her there at home with meds and water and went skating (she was alseep when  i left, I'm not  a total peice of shit). I saw some middle schoolers with a shared skateboard on the train.

THe seassion was croweded. Maximum capacity. I can tell form my typing that I might have drank too many beers toinght. also,

The banciao crew werent warm at first, but as the night wore on, we ended up huddled around some beers on our skateboards as chairs.

I tried to learn some hakka, but failed. I cant rmeember a word of it.

I slammed on a wet leaf.

The spot was crowded for a hwiel.

i took a taxi back, who didn't rip me off, but who refused to speak to me, althought he made a phone call to someone to tlel them that a foreigner was making him drive to sonjiang nanjing. taipei is super foreigner from a taxi after -2:00.

This skateboard still didnt break, but it's like skating on a limp buiscuit.

I threw up a little bit in the corner of the plaza, at least once, maybe more. I'm not totally sure.

It was cool and breezy. I still *****d up the curb after i got out of the taxi, adn of this, I am proud.

I treasure these friends. I wish zw could have been there. and jk.

Rillis

The three stair park isn't a meet up spot. Tonight, it was full of crinkly yellow leaves, like autumn in America. I went there to skate curbs and get sweaty and burn maybe as many calories as I would drink in beer. Nerdily, I started a list of tricks I could do on my phone, but a few tricks in, I heard the unmistakable sound of a skateboard rolling up across the tiles behind me. It was a couple of japanese dudes, one of who skates, and one of whom rides ***. They stooped on the stairs and made lots of noise as I did some shitty curb tricks. OR insisted that I take a tipple of his whiskey bottle. Then he started troglodyting into a steep and narrow brick uh, entrance to the park. It's knee high, and just wide enough for an 8.5 to roll down, and it's steeper than 45 degrees. OR was trying ot do it drunk, while holding his whiskey bottle. This ended predictably. He caught the trucks on the edges of the bricks about ten times, then he fucking got on straight, and slammed into the bottom, smashing the whiskey bottle everywhere. Then he did it again, and slammed into the broken glass, and came up mostly uncut. Then he made it. His next idea was even crazier, troglodyting across the broken glass from up high, into the narrow narrow steep steep brick bank. He probably would have made it, but unfortunately, there is a brick ceiling above it, and he busted his head on the brick corner of the roof. It bled, but they breed them tough in Osaka, so we went north as a trio.

The next one as the pink volcano. It's a rough tile spot, so rough that I had always thought it was pretty much impossible to skate, beyond the basics. It's got a steep transition up, about knee high, then a curb sized void, then a circular top that's about 3m across. It takes way more speed than you expect, because you lose so much on the rough tiles. OR was at it again, and quickly *******d it. Then we drank some beer on the stairs, while they greeted the pedestrians in a boisterous and friendly manner. Then OR decided to try harder, and lept up from ground level to a nipple high mrt roof, which is curved, so he ran up it, to **-****, and back down into the street. Unfortunately, the light had changed, and traffic was now streaking by like debris in the asteroid belt. He was lucky, and no taxi killed him.

Onwards to the temple. I think they hadn't seen it before, at least this spot. I tried a lot to get a slow and shitty ** ****, with lots of wax. They started calling me Mr. Wax.

Every try, they shouted for me to make it, until it happened.

Things Can Change Quickly

It was very dusty. Everyone was dusty. The American stood near the rubble that had been a large building with lots of bright neon signs on the street side. There was debris in the road. Obviously, there had been a miscalculation. With its empty space missing, the building's many stories had been reduced to less than three. To be fair, there was a lot of debris in the road as well. Just less than you might expect.  He stood there for a long time, at a respectful distance.

People, normal people, with grim faces, were starting to scramble up the broken boulders of concrete, through the dust and twisted and mangled rebar, in case there had been any survivors. He swatted a mosquito off his face. Most dangerous animal in the world, he thought.

"Go zai na li?" someone shouted.

"May yo, may yo dow da."

Everyone ignored him.

A lot of thought had gone into that building. A lot of thought and a lot of work. The scale of the city was hard for him to grasp in terms of human effort. People had lived in there, worked there, and slept there. It would have taken several hundred pounds of fertilizer to have had the same effect on that building.

No one bothered to take charge anymore. Their reaction was like ants on a kicked-over hill. It looked like Godzilla had attacked.

A man in dark blue flip flops spit bright red bin lang into the thick white dust. The dust contracted around it into a thin beady line. A helicopter thumped overhead. The American felt far from home.

Things can change quickly in this part of the world.

Taipei isn't crowded at 04:00, even on saturday night

I missed the outgoing crew session because I was lazy and had already "skated." Instead, my roommate and I got in a tiffle, so I went for a cruise, starting after the traffic had already died down. My goal from the outset was the bronze curbs at the arena. I wanted to do a sort of see-how-many-variations-I-could-do on-them. the answer was 23(20). I got a working phone, so I took notes on a little solo session that turned out to be pretty satisfying.

From my house, I went north, picked up an energy drink (asahi) and took a right. From there, it was a straight shot. Halfway through the beer, I got the first cruising spot. It's a series of yellow metal grates that are backed up onto the entrances of buisinesses. They aren't exactly banks, but you can do tricks into them, with a satisfyingly loud metal noise, or a start with the noise, and kick off the side. They also have black marble off each end, so it's possible to very noisily bank to curb them for slappies. Security doesn't love this, but I only skate through here once a month or so, maybe twice a month max, so they aren't usually inclined to get off their swivel chairs for the first five or ten minutes. This would be a theme of the night.

Anyway, the line was flatground to yellow metal mini banks to flatground to iron angleiron, which is backside for me, and short, with a marble pillar in the way at the end, then into the road and I kept missing ********s there, and making a cracking loud underflipped skateboard sound. This drew out the lazy guard, eventually, whose very slowly rising gate meant I got another try, which I made inspite of him jibbering at me and shaking his cigarette, I cruised around the corner and he came after on foot, half heartedly. I went around the block and came back and got my wax and was on my way. From there, the sidewalk goes to square tiles (worse tiles in Taipei), so you have to go up a couple of steps onto grey rectangle tiles. There is a bit of pink marble curbs there, but I skipped them because of the human terrain.

On arrival at the bronze curbs, I decided to get a couple of beers. On the way, I ***** a manhole and got a yeehaw from some drunk pedestrians. An old lady had a cart of hotdogs, plugged into the wall. I almost didnt see her cord, but I got over it without getting caught up on it.

The bronze curbs were worth the trip. They are inset in the wall of a building, with bricks at borth ends. The surface is smooth and good, but there are very real consequences, if for some reason, you fall into the endcaps. Most of the session was here. I've lost a lot, but I skated this better than ever before, across a wide variety of tricks, including my new ones from teh three stair park. Well, some of them.

On the way back, I crossed the street and got a two up, manny pad, four down, crosswalk, to two up sspot. Going the other way, there's a cracked but decent pink marble ledge, with another inset pillar at the end. I had already had some practice, so I went at it. I got a couple and went on, as the security gate started to rise. I cant believe this deck is still going. It's a limp noodle.

At the home seven, the War Criminal was wandering outside, so I bought him a beer. We talked about hinsomnia, as best as I can in mandarin, and then I went on home. It was breezy, but hte mosquitos are really coming out in force.

Taipei is too crowded to skate in the day

Day skating in the city is hard. My neighborhood has almost 30,000 people/ sq km, and most of them were on the sidewalks today because of the good weather. I was too, but cruising speed was reduced to a crawl. If I'm complaining about having to skate slowly, then you can be guaranteed it's bad. I went on a random walk, changing directions after any block that I didn't land a new trick. This guarantees that I move a few blocks away in a straight line and then start to explore a lot of alleys that I wouldn't normally skate, but that are a blessed relief from all the foot traffic.  Eventually, this method led me up to the skateboard graveyard. I saw a corpse in the road, twisted up like how people look after they fall on Family Guy. I tried to skate the dogpiss curbs but I didn't bring any wax and noone else skates them, so they were back to their original state. I got back right at dark. I dont want to have to work tonight.

The skateboard who wouldn't die

Weirdly, it's cold again, like, under 60 in the old measurement. The air was clean and dry. I worked a 12, and was pretty convinced that I was cracking two asahis and passing out the minute I walked in the door, maybe with the company of isaac arthur. But lzyk wasn't home and I thought I could sneak in a half hour at the three stair. Maybe, I could **** ***** enough times to snap the **** and then I can finally put on a new deck. The **** has been so smashed apart by the new tricks I learned (poorly) that two layers have delammed and half of it has chipped off. I have never and will never focus a deck, because I know what it's like to not have one. But I was secretly hoping that the Black Beauty would die a natural death tonight, in a real trick. I tried a lot. It didn't work. The three stair park had alot of traffic, and the Black Bastard had some many cracks that I was confident that I could snap if I cruised around the hood and did *******s in the street. I tried. It didn't work. As usual, I landed way more than normal, about 60%, because I always skate better on soggy decks that are about to snap, maybe because that's what I grew up skating. I traced teh blocks around the house for a while, until I ran out of gas. Then I got an energy drink. Asahi is ricey and bad, but its the least bad ricey asian beer that is conveniently available and doesn't cost western prices. I knew the night was on the way out, so I went to a spot I've been eyeing on the way to work. It's a slappy curb, recently painted red by the City of Taipei for no apparent reason. Well, I mean, they should paint all nonmarble curbs red, and this one is a small cement one, so it's a perfect candidate, but they only painted a random 5m section of it. That is more than enough. It's in front of a traffic light, on a busy road, but after 23:00, it's possible to skate it by weaving between the taxis, as long as no homocidal scooters are doing the same, in the other direction. I ******d the fuck out of it, this way and that, but I wasn't getting anything consistently, because it's low and has some big ass cracks.

"Slappy, slappy"

It was like hearing my name on the streets of Taipei at night. I didn't really recognize what I was doing, because skating Taipei solo is a lot like climbing a mountain along. Ok, it's almost nothing like that, but you can disappear inside your own thoughts for several hours. Eventually, it registered. A kid I didn't recognize was saying it, and came up to shake hands and talk. It made my night.
Then I went back to the three stair, just to do more 1992 style curb tricks. Only God can judge me.

Mosquito Season

Mosquito season is in full force. It was in the upper teens tonight and I went to meet up with sukkotosan, rmj, and FeM at the bridge. I got there an hour before closing with very shaky legs. It got better after a couple of beers but not before we left the bridge. Before we left the bridge, I saw bkt and mc. A few people greeted me who I didn't really know, and I met a new american with whom I expect along to get. The lights went out and rmj and FeM and I went across teh street to a spot that we've been eying for years but never actually skated. It's a thing bank to ledge, about 3m across, and in my memory, it was unskatable due to bad tiling and cracks, but memory mislead me and rmj proved it with a **** ***** and FeM playfully got three or four little dootles.

We headed down to some banks. It's about one km away, and my shitty wheels have been worn down to early 90s size. Every crack and pebbled caused me problems, all the way. I can't wait for one of the bearings to break and I'll just throw them all out together.

They skated the banks. I drank a beer because I was already too tired. The banks at 古亭 are dark marble, and about waist high. They're at the intersection of two unfortunately busy roads, and skating them draws way too much attention. They are the backside of an underground crosswalk, adn have a curved white metal roof on top, about .5 meters above the bank. I've never seen anyone skate the roof in real life, but it's been done on video. As usual, rmj got a new trick (at least as far as I can remember of what he's done there) on the banks, and FeM did a couple of things on the grinding side of the the bank that I wouldnt' have imagined trying if he hadnt done it in front of me.

Then we went ot the telecom ledges. They werent really feeling it, but I desperately wanted to get a nice long **-**. They were both trying ***** *-* but neither of them got it. At one point, FeM was charging into the trick and rmj was picked himself up and FeM let out a rebel yell of warning. I don't have the talent to describe why it was so funny.

I eventually sort of got my trick, but these ledges are very sticky and sharp on the corner. I'm going to go back when I can spend more time **-**ing them.

The homies went home, but not before rmj stooped up on a temporary stoop. We had some empty beer cans at that point, and rmj convinced me not to be a douche and throw them away in a trashcan. I tried. A long time. Eventually, I put them in the front baskets of Obikes. I skated down the road with an armload of empty beer cans, even dropping them and giong back to pick them up again. I tried. After I left them in the bike basket, I immediately found a public toilet with a trashcan.

I also found a long marble curb that we used to skate going the other way. I wanted to put my new **** tricks on it, and it worked, even though each try meant skate past the guard in his booth. I guess he was watching some really good porn, or he just liked watching me try ***** ****s on his cctv. My tail was chipping and delaminating, and it disintegrated at this spot. The black beauty has been a great deck. Maybe my favorite of all time. And it still didn't break all the way, even though I went ot hte three stair park and tried my best to kill it. All the new tricks came easily and quickly. I have never had a skateboard on which I learned I learned more tricks.

Night of the fifty seven

Today, my roommate and I went car shopping. Technically, she's more experienced in this than me, because she is. I shouldn't toot my own horn, but I am proud of my contribution. First, we went to toyota, which I'll name because htey aren't a skate company. One car sucked and two cars were indistinguishalbe from each other. They weren't bad. They were just cars. We took our paperwork and headed back, with me gritting my teeth at the idea of shitting away money, even we kind of have to now. We were getting along, so I suggested we visit honda, just to let them show us what they got. Lzyk did not like this idea, but she was weirdly noncombative, so we went. She informed me that "if they [are] cold, then we are gonna walk out." They werent. Instead of toyota's weirdly unprofessional offputtingness and army of useless employees, the honda people were sparse but polite. They insisted to take my folder of toyota material, which I flashed in their faces, and in the end, gave us a discount to meet toyota's deal on what we thought was significantly superior car. Also, toyota no longer has an f1 team. Honda might have the worst f1 programme in the history of the sport, but I give them credit for being there. And although we didn't buy anything yet, I think we'll be giving them a lot of our money too. 

To celebrate our ongoing peace treaty, my roommate and I went ot eat at a western restaurant that's adjacent to 101. But we didn't get a seat with a window, and the salad nicoise was just canned tuna, for a high price. I was getting pissed. Then, lzyk ******************************** *********************************************************************************,and I started to lose my patience. What the fuck is wrong with women? 

So the day had gone from mid to high to low, like trading in cryptocurrency. Then it came back up. I was at 1% energy, but I went to skate the three stair park, just because. I expected nothing. I tried to recreate my last session there, by trying to get as many variations as I could manage on the stone curbs. I got ten more, but it wasn't as fun. It had already been done. I did probably ten new tricks again, like last time, but I cared way less. Technical skating is like that, I guess. The value of tricks suffers from inflation. I don't actually remember anything that stood out as being awesome, except maybe the *-* *** *** and the *-* ***** ** ***, one of which I did before and one of which was new tonight. I didn't really have any struggle taht mattered. It was just building numbers, alone, in a mosquito infested park, skating curbs and drinking asahi. In other words, it was exactly what I needed to cap off a day of froth. 

I made and killed gods today, but I didn't skate

I'll throw in a little complaining to even things out. It rained right when I got off work and my roommate came down stairs last night to criticize me because after I cleaned the floor, apparently, the broom fell over. I was pissed off ever since.

Work went well though. I think I accidentally started a new religion. I was teaching them about gods, goddesses, and myths and one student, B-Raw, turned in a piece about a new god named "the Hotdog God," who has the head of a hotdog and lives in a tree in the park and throws hotdogs at people; "sort of like Zeus, but he is homeless and throws hotdogs instead of lightning." Consequently, we all made up some new gods, like the god of the spelling quiz, the god of homework, and the god of the pencil sharpener. Unfortunately, this is apparently pretty close to home for them, so they started mock worshipping them, adn today I had to ban our classroom gods because it was getting out of hand. I secretly hope the gods survive and continue to get worshipped out of sight.

Like I said, the god of skating frowned on the night and the streets are soaked, so I went up to the temple to get some goat curry adn bbq and goat soup and salt water chicken. I bought at least six meals of shit and had to carry it back for 30 min (it's a lot closer on a skateboard). On they way back, I saw the Old Man, sitting outside and smoking under the eave. I htink he is a war criminal but we've become friends, and he gifted me a set of heineken for new years. He is at least 85 years old and todders around, risking a slam like how I do when I skate. I gave him one of the goat curries and a beer. For once in my life, I did the right thing.

The goddess of the cell phone took her slow vengence on me in the last few months. Her brother is the god of the laptop, adn in the last 8 years, he's been slowly electrocuting me through my fingertips as the battery dies. Now, I can feel an electric charge from the thing even at arm's length. I hope that isn't how you get cancer. The goddess of the cell phone is making the battery expand and now the screen is bowing out. I'm a disaster junkie, so I keep using it, even though it only works now when it's physically plugged in and it still electrocutes me though my finger tips, like the laptop. I forgot to turn off the laptop, and when I got home, it was playing ***** ******, which is objectively the best skate video of all time. I don't like it, because it's self aware, but I've been watchign it for a while, because it's so long that you really can't sit through it all in one go, and I never watch the second half.

the hard part aobut the phone is I can't contact anyone. Sorry. I guess I have to spend the money to get a new one now. For the skate of skateboarding in Taipei.

I'd like to write a paragraph about Taipei everyday, but I'm too lazy for that

I watched the sun's shadow inch up the bricks of my building's upper stories above the roofs. It's windy and cool up there, but the 36 hour spring has begun. The sky was a milky bluish color, like the eyes of a dog that is going blind. A normal person would have thought that it was a hideously polluted purple and red sunset, but I live in Taipei, so the pollution was charming. I didn't notice that I smelled like a burning plastic garbage bag until I came back inside.

edit: I got in an nonproductive argumentative situation [npas] with the roommate, and while we're still living in the same house, it's 04:00 and I'm listening to the Melvins after a heroic ml of asahis, so I guess it's not really a win or a loss yet. I bailed on meeting friends to skate so that my roommate and I could yell at each other, so actually, I think that falls firmly into the loss side of things. I hope they had fun. I tried to send them a pin of the location I was planning to go to, but my posphone dies unless it's plugged in, so I have no idea if htey got it. People like me are the reason people like them die on the slopes of k2.

list of new countries into which to move, should worse come to worse:

argentina
chile
japan
korea
drc
vanuatu
australia, especially where the bushtucker man when, but i'm afraid modern australia isn't much like the 80s, sort of like how georgia changed since the 80s. but i'm about to buy a ticket to the kimberly, just to find out.

Night of the 47

I almost didn't skate at all, even though the day was pristine and bright and cool. The evening fell suddenly, and I had spent all day inside, so I grabbed a couple of asahis and went ot the three stair park.  The breeze tinkled the windchime and the city was already empty, even though it was only about 21:30. The wind had knocked down some little twigs. I kept hitting them and snorking to a stop. At first, everything was too hard. I played a game with myself. Everytime I got a different trick, I I took a sip of beer. They all had to be curb tricks, because I'm trying to be a good neighbor and make too much noise. Also, the cops showed up last time I skated there. There isn't really all that much else to say about the session. I could see two stars overhead. It got cold enough that the wax sounded like an empty glass bottle when it dropped on the ground. My **** looks so much like my **** now that I can't tell one from the other by the marks. This is extremely pleasing for me. Also, the mystery marks that I've been puzzling over are from *****s. I landed more new variations than I think I ever have in one night; ****** *** ***, ****** ** ***** ** ***, ***** *****, ***** *****, ***** ***** *** ***, ** **** ***** ** ***, ***** ** **** * ****, *-* *** ***, ***** ****** ** *** ***, and possibly even something that I'm forgetting. This has been a good deck. It isn't showing signs of imminent breakage, but it's got a few little cracks now, the tail is delamming, and there's very little paint left on the bottom. Even if it goes next session, it'll go down in history as one of my all time favorites.

Silver Lake Dream

I dreamed I was scuba diving in a lake. It was a big lake, and the light was fading from the depth and my breather got some kind of problem that I couldn't figure out, but I wasn't dying yet, so I thought it must intermittent and I'm entering hypoxia. I took off my mask because of the confusion and I had that blurry underwater vision, but of a light green lakewater  color because there wasn't anything in particular to see. I had that feeling I've only had on a motorcycle in waking life, which is, I'm about to die if I don't do the right thing. It's stressful. In my dream, I refilled my mask with air by holding it up and putting my face into it, and I could feel the pressure pressing into my nose and ears, and I kept thinking 'dont panic, dont panic.' I recovered and kept going deeper, with a quarter inch of water in my mask that trying ot get up my nose. At the bottom of hte lake, I shone a floodlight onto the bottom and was startled by another white and irridescent silver liquid lake, at the bottom of the lake. The surface had tiny ripples on it. There was some upright green grass with red and blue sparkling jewels in the blades of it, and some kind of large but dark coral or tree behind it. The whole thing was about ten feet across. I looked up and no light was penetrating the depth. I turned off my light and the silver lake was still lit up, like it had absorbed the light. Then I was in my childhood farmhouse but as an adult, having a conversation with my aunt, and then I was at the ToysRus ledges in Atlanta, but also as an adult. The fat security guard that Derek Bruno used to bribe to let us skate there came ot kick me out but I told him I had come all the way from Taiwan and he laughed and said I could skate it for a minute before I went back. Then I woke up at 07:00 and found out my morning work is cancelled. So I guess I'll go skate under the bridge, since it's rainign and 13 degrees.

At the bridge, I never really got warmed up. I went through the bare bones list of tricks and got a little sweaty. My legs never had the pop in them, but I did the ***** **** on the little manny pad. I forced myself to go for an hour. A dude I dont know showed up and left before me. I don't think he was feeling it either. It was pissing rain on my walk home, and a three treasure woman tried to ride her bicycle across the roaring traffic. Cars slewed widely out of the way; by exceptionally good driving, no one hit anyone, even the dumb bitch on the bicycle. She did fall over though, because the horns startled her.

He who tries will be wasted

Everything sucks but the night hinged on walking by the darts bar and hearing them shout my name and then going inside. There were the usuals, and I had a couple of bar beers and some grilled shrimp and grilled goat and grilled chicken hearts. KLA was there, and invited me to come visit in Malaysia, but I don't know when I'll get the chance. We played 501 and I lost and headed home. My roommate and I are on talking terms again, tentatively, so I left to skate the three stair park because I had about an hour of energy in me.

It was breezy and just the temperature when you're not exactly cold when sitting in the breeze while sweaty. All I had in mind was skating the **** tricks I learned this year, and heading home. American Beauty trashbags were blowing around, and someone's windchime was tinkling the whole time. I tried to make each new trick three times on the little stair, and made them all. One day, I'm giong to translate the poems etched into the stone all aorund the park, but I couldn;t even tell the subject tonight.

It was such a quiet night that I started to fret about bothering the neighbors (I didn't start til after 23:00) and the po-pos scooted up. They walked slowly all around, like they were looking for something, and I figured it was whoever was making all the noise, so I pushed on up the road to the temple. On the way are a series of one, two, and three stairs, adn plenty of stone slappy curbs and some weird kickers and so on.

I didn't intend to actually skate, but the temple brings the energy out of anyone. I didn't want to try, but *****d the manny pad in three tries, and soon had a line going of my new **** ***** tricks. A fat man got off the bus and was startled by the temple and stood in the middle of spot looking at it for about five solid minutes. I needed a rest, so I watched teh bald fat man watch the temple. I didn't think I could ***** **** on the little ledge, but I did. Then I *-*d the top one, for the first time.

It started spitting rain, and I started for home. The spitting had stopped by the time I got to my home 7, so I beered up and skated the miniature bank to marble grind and did whatever I could think of. I couldn't accept going home, so I swooped back ot the three stair park and landed the **** *****, the ***** ****, the *****, the ****** ****, the ** ***** and probably other stuff that I'm forgetting. After so many successful attempts, I think they're not really new tricks anymore. I sang every song from dirt to myself and locked into some particularly long and stable ***** ****s. It never rained.

Taipei Gets Deep, Fast

I got adopted at the darts bar by a french/belgian crew. It was fun. We spent a fortune and about 04:30, we stumbled out of another set of bars I wandered towards home with my new friend. I went into seven to get us a round and he went to the corner to piss. I came out of seven and popped a tall boy while he finished. He materialized out of a solid wall through some kind of interdimensional whore door, and shouted at me to followed him in. I did.

Inside, was something like an american strip club, but empty, with lots more flashing lights, and I reiterate, no other humans. Homebody greeted me at the door and made me put down my newly opened beer. Fine, I did. I had another in my pocket that I didn't think was important, because I just wanted to say goodbye to this new french friend and leave him to his fate, but homeboy didn't like that I was apparently trying to smuggle a beer inside. It was all a misunderstanding, but he stiffened up when I appeared to smuggle my asahi two meters past him to say goodbye to my french friend. This ended well, because I did not get my ass kicked, but it ended poorly, because homeboy made me lose face. He quietly chatted about me not needing to speak english, because he could speak english, but he couldnt. At least, he couldnt understand that I had no intention of being there at all.

I dipped out as quickly as possible with no plans to duck into random hidden doorways in Taipei in the near future.

I will go back to darts bars as a soon as possible, because I was never about to catch a beating there, and also I met an English couple who will come back in a couple of days. The man said he used to live here in the 80s, and that it had changed somewhat.

411vm update

issue 15 is the best of the series so far.

i opened the window because it's hot as fuck in here and I can't find the remote for the ac. The smell of burning plastic and pvc glue poured in and now it's hot as fuck and my appartment smells like the chemicals that are going to give me cancer.

Miasma Theory Isn't Wrong in Taipei

The Angel of Death arrived tonight. Like in the Ten Commandments, its gloomy white fingers of foggy death crept into the city as we skated. I almost flaked, because of working too much, but as usual, I'm satisfied that I didn't. After a full day, I got to the bridge for teh last hour before closing time. It was rush hour, but the crowd was people I hadn't seen in about a year. Two of the old old crew were there, and I got to see the best ********** in the buisiness. Rmj was also, there, and nfa and FeM and a few guys who knew me by name. The vibe was bad, and I'm giong to side with FeM and blame it on the air pollution. My personal scale is this: if you can see it under the street lights, it's bad. If you can see in more than a meter down towards the ground, it's real bad, and I won't skate because I dont want to die of cardiac arrest. There are only a few times I've seen it half way down to the ground from the street lights, and this was one (once, in Taichung, I saw it all the way down to the ground. Propaghandists say it isnt the scooters or powerplants or factories, but they're wrong).

Normally, I wouldn't skate when doing so shaves three months off my life, but the night had the makings of a good street session, so I came along. The hunch proved correct. Our foursome of westerners wandered to rmj's **** **** church spot. It's basically a 75 degree narrow marble wall. FeM prefers this type of spot, and I realized why, watching him skate it. We were throwing tricks out there as a joke and he was doing them first try. A homeboy on a Ubike came up and started filming it. I thought he was steady posin or we were going to be on the news later, but it turns out he was homie from the bridge. He borrowed a skateboard and skated the spot with us for a bit. I hope to run into some lasa boys in the streets later, they are legit.

Next we wandered around, and since my phone is broken, I don't have great notes. We tiptoed around some spots like the Slappy Street, which is six blocks of perfect yellow slappy curbs, and a belly button high bank spot. It's dimly lit weirdly shaped planters that kind of grind down on the ridges. They're asymetrical and mostly good because they're weird. Then we went to the earthquake up block. I don't skate it in the same way that vegans don't eat baby cows.

They others did, and tore it up. I did kind of sort of try to skate the ledges, which were easier to get on than the last time I was there. ts showed up out of nowhere (not having a working phone is weird) and skated like the engergizer bunny. After a few rounds of beer and discussion of all topics, I had to head home. I started out going exactly the opposite way, but my friends aren't assholes, so they set me right.
I didn't get horribly lost. I ******* some marble curbs on the way home, and decided to swing by the 3stairpark.

I had been drinking and I was very, very tired. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I am prouding of tonight. I have a trifecta of tricks that I want to be able to do on the curbs there, no matter how tired or how drunk. I got them quickly: **** *****, ***** ****, and ***** *-* *** ***. Ok, I thought, spitting out grey phlegm from the death swirling all around in the air, I'll try a ***** ****. I got it first try. I drank more beer. I kept skating around and around in the tiny park, almost too small to skate at all.  This air is death.

Living, but not much skating

Because of adult constraints, I couldnt enjoy the perfect weather we've had lately. Instead I worked. And then went ot hte yakitori with cm, because he is in that transition period of coming to Taiwan, when cute cartoon dewey eyes become stale and the air pollution and brutalist concrete buildings are still real as fuck.

The day before, I spent on the east coast, because of hte anniversary of the war crimes from ww2. It was a mostly sunny day, but waiao is currently getting wallowed by development. Nonetheless, we found some ideal skate spots; one is a slick rick wall ride with a bench on it, and it's covered: the other is a macau style bank with fishes painted on it from 25 years ago. It was raining when we got there. I hate Taiwan's bus system, but homeboy got us there safe, without any heads hitting the windows, shushed us for talking too loudly on the way, and gave us his umbrella because it was raining when we arrived. The ride home was good too. Maybe buses here aren't Satan's Armada.

I don't this ***** ****** line video in LA. It's good street skating, but it's not spectacular street skating, which is maybe what street skating should be. Except, it was filmed, which means it was eroded of all artistic merit. Don't film.

Also, go to jioashi. It's full of beer and grilled meat and hot springs and mosquitos.

Also Also, go to this yakitori that I went to tonight with cm. They have darts and cheap beer and cheap grilled meats. We talked about skateboarding. He got way better than I ever did, but the discussion over beers is the same.

On the way home, I called my grandfather. He said he had been pumping gas and a storm blew up and soaked him. It was the hardest rain since he had been in teh pacific. Being old is a lot like being young.

Tomorrow night, we're organizing and invasion force of Taipei. If all goes well, at least a couple of people will show up. If not, I'll be in the streets alone. There is nothing wrong with that either.