Waffle Stomping tothe Big Five-Oh

This was a shitty session. It started out quite literally that way. I went into fami to get a water and on the way out, I saw a Chinese family waffle stomping their kids' shitty diapers into the storm drain. It was a beautiful sunny day with strong post-typhoon breezes. Sometimes, this proved a little annoying, because flip trips would get blown out from under me. It didn't deter the longboarders, who spent their trying to **-***** and skate around in circles. I skated around in circles and got 97/50 with *******s. I listened to their terrible, terrible music and left after I hit my mark. The cruise home was much more pleasant. It's partly downhill, and the sun had already mostly set by then. It's about a 20 min skate, at a reasonable pace, with pretty smooth surfaces and not too thick of a crowd, on a sunday evening. I popped a nice little series of flatground on the old slick grey tiles, and a couple holding hands with each other saw it all. As I rolled by, they stared me down with hate, but then the man gave a grunting thumbs up as we pass. He never cracked a smile though. Sometimes, I misinterpret situations, but it's easier to deal with here, since I have the excuse of being a foreigner. I'm pretty sure I didn't misinterpret the people trying their best to force diapers into the sewer though. That one was pretty clear.

free bird karaoke

lzyk and i had some problems, so we went to drink them off at a new place. the owner drank round after round with us and with wet streets outside. it never rained though. we paid $600 for all you can eat. i tried to teach him how to sing freebird, in case we go to karaoke later, and he learned a few parts of the song. I tried to learn his song, but i was told that he was making it up. i wish i had made up free bird.

The Polar Bear Hunter

I met a dude at a bar recently who is a professional polar bear hunter. We met up again so that I could complain about how terrible my life in paradise is. The Polar Bear Hunter told me that he had ridden early skateboards in the 60s. He and his brother made a skateboard out of roller skates and fastened them to a plank of wood. We went to the 100ntd/ plate restaurants just south of linsen bei and I walked back home in a suit in the rain, fending off whores and pimps and taxis. I feel like I have succeeded in Taiwan.

IS meets another scootering skater

(yesterday)

omg death just offered me a ride and I respect I fully declined!
A crimson smiling betel nut chewing fanatic was riding next to me on a scooter. He kept swerving into me in the street trying to get my attention.
I finally looked over and he's motioning me to grab onto his scooter and tow me on the wet street in the pouring rain. I nodded no and cheers with my beer an sped off like a bat out of hell. Normally I welcome this type of shit but this time I got too much to live for.

I Caint Talk to My Mother So I Talk to My Diary

Early work and insomnia and rain storms meant video night. First I watched some British skating, which makes NYC spots look like california. In Taipei, we are blessed with the smoothest surfaces and most beautiful ledges of anywhere in the world. They say China has a lot as well, but I'd rather not deal with the death air, among other things. Shoddy workmanship might be something in common: in the four months since our toilet broke, only I've been able to rig it up to flush again. The workmen just spat betel in the sink and milled around scratching their useless balls. Many months later, we still have an open toilet plan. There is no wall between the toilet and the living room. If you ever wonder if or if not you should marry someone, try to imagine living in an open toilet plan living room. If you can handle that, then yes, marry her. Also, Taipei luxury apartments might be for you.

I watched some loonybin and some pyramidcountry, and eventually wandered into the old 411s, as nostalgia overtook my better judgement. It used to be a lot rawer. Also, there was more terrible music. Anyone complaining about how bad modern music is needs to fuck right back to 1996 411s. Selection bias is a real thing.

Use your mind to skate. Thanks bob. In these times of revolution, you're going to encounter a counterrevolutionary man. Garry Shandling, Garry Shandling, Garry. Vert footage is like very, very technical footage. It's hard to care, no matter how good it is. I need to get a HORTY shirt. Oh I also watched some brasilian skating. The skating is maybe the second or third best style in the world, but I hate how they try to make it look like a sport. I can't wait to see some brasilian creativity. I know someone over there is doing it. I do like how raw these 411s are. The interviews are delightfully candid, and they pretty much just talk about how it's fun. There's certainly none of this two cameras for every skater bullshit. Fuck filming. It's worse than cops. At least, done wrongly, it's worse than most cops. Overfilming never shot anybody. I need to get a 411vm shirt as well. I like the slam sections in these videos too. I feel a more intense connection to the event. Ultimately, this is why filming is masturbatory bullshit. Filming is a filter, and skateboarding is a participatory event - it shouldn't be filtered through anything. At least when it's a particularly pure video, it's less filtered than this WeAreBlood happy horseshit. If anything is a predictor of how shitty and irrelevant a skatevideo is going to be, it's the size of the budget. Small budgets don't guarantee anything good, but big budgets almost universally guartantee some kind of redbull mountaindew trash. Also, I don't like robot tricks. It's way more exciting to see the drama of someone nearly not rolling away, especially at speed, than boring bolts.

If I hda the budget, I'd make a 30-60 min monthly vm, traveling to a different city each month. Also, I couldn't film any tricks, because I'm not good enough at skating or filming. But if it existed, it would be a fuck of a lot more interested to see than park footage or people skating the same street tricks on the same street terrain, trying to land ever closer to their bolts.

One thing 411#18 got right was bluntslides. Also, waffle house. Were I in God's Country right now, I'd be at a waffle house. Another contest would be to get 60 min of film and film whatever you can get. It's probably been done, but I don't know because I don't watch videos. I say that having watched about 8 straight hours of skate videos.

Inshallah, I can skate tomorrow night: my evening session is cancelled, so I can start at 7:00 or something.

Since skateboarding is only about the sport, I've invented a new way of scoring my skating. It has a consistency bias, but that's the point. Art isnt about consistency. One good painting, and you've done your life's work. Of course, you had to do a lot to get there, but that's not the point. The point is, I've been trying to do one more ******** everytime I skate. Next time I skate, that's going to be at 50. Originally, I thought that was going to go to 100 but it's eating up a lot of time and it's frankly pretty fucking boring. Instead, I've been counting in the Fibonacci sequence, and maybe I'll start doing that up to 100 for each trick. This isn't a reasonable way to spend my time either, but it goes like this:

try sequence           +                      total
1                            1                        1
2                            2                        3
3                           3                        6
4                             4                       10
5                           5                           15
6                           6                         21
7                             7                       28
8                            8                         36
9                            9                         45
10                          10                       55
11                           11                      66
12                           12                       78
13                           13                       91
14                           14                      a ton

so if I do the first 14, then i met the n goal. of course, I wont, so the (+) needs to reset when I miss one. ex

try sequence            +                      total
1                             1                        1
2                              2                       3
3                               3                      6
4                              4                       10
******************************      missed
5                               1                       11
6                               2                       13
7                               3                        16   etc

so fourteen in a row means I don't need to practice it, but if i can't land it consecutively at all then I ll do it 100 times.

I have to do improtant things in a few hours. I think I've obsessed about this enough for the night.

187 ona mfcp

I wasnt gonna skate but the weather was relatively cool (ie not ball sweltering hot in the first ten minutes) and IS said he could skate, and lzyk had to do some pro shit. So out I went to the three stair park. It sucked. Partially, because I didn't take my asthma meds, which are apparently a new way of life, adn partially, because I've lived without skating in a super polluted shithole for week or two. The result was that when I went to warm up and run away with some *********s and maybe slowly rollaway from whatever grinds and slides I could manage at the three stair park, I was doubled over, hacking up litres of phlegm in no time. Some kids cheered when I got some *******s and an alternative lifestyle couple cheered me a few times, which was kind of touching, since I think they can only spend their time together in the public park on national holiday, but maybe I"m projecting. I swept the tree debris out of hte way, and soon was ****** for several squares of curb, which elicited squeals from teh onlookers. WHen the breeze blew through, it was too cool, and when it didn't, it was stiffling.

IS rode up and we hit the sidewalks. we slammed up the yellow metal loading grates, and no security came outside. we *******d and ****** the stairs and curbs, especially the flat to 2 stair metal curb, which needed wax to get going. THen we crossed teh street to see the black bank, and maybe got abducted by aliens, because for about ten minutes, we couldnt find each other, evne though we had just been cruising together on the same stretch of sidwalk. Next up was the bronze curbs, which went lovelily, and I even filmed IS in a line, which I don't normally care ot do, but this one was too pure to ignore. Next try, he made a joke about slamming and promptly slammed, with the board shooting far out into traffic. Thankfully, it was on a redlight, so no one died. We beered up and skated back to the black bank, but it was just horsing around at this point. On the back side of the staiton is a spot that I've never tried; and ***** up to 90 degree turn to ledge on the goofy side. I've been by there dozens of times, but never thought about waxing it and doing the thing. IS did, while security ominously came and went, without smoking a cigarette. As he continued to try, the popos rolled up on their scooters. Imagine the most intimidating scooter you can imagine, adn then some guys in bullet proof vests riding them, who get dismount from their steeds, hands on holsters. They were angry that I pretned I couldnt understand that they were saying I should go to a skatepark (the only skatepark within an hour is currently completley shut down, and even on regular nights, is now closed at 22:00 anyway), but IS and I played the ting boo dong card adn got away without getting tazed. THis launched us into several hours of stories about how this kind of interaction goes down in america though, and while cops who pull up on us pretending to draw their guns are a bit silly, in Taipei, they're a damn sight better than real american cops actually doinig the same with guns drawn.

I'm happy to live in a relatively free country. Taipei police, yall need to chill. we left as soon as you showed up, even though we weren't skating (anymore). what more do you want?

edit: 49

A Rovin', A Rovin', A Rovin', I'll go

If you move to the antipodes, you will leave many things behind. Some of those things will be problems. If you're lucky, as I am, you will leave problems, regrets, anxieties, misery, hopelessness, traffic, high prices, embrassament, humiliation, hatred, and love. Some of those things will inevitably be people as well. Many of those people, about you once felt hatred or fear or jealousy or envy or anger or disappointment  or frustration, will fade from your daily concienseness, like the contrail of the airplane you came on. Love doesn't fade. You will find it relatively easy to keep in touch with your closest loved ones. In the modern age, we just live in a mirror reflection of day/night time zones. Things are really no different than if you lived just out of convenient driving range. You might even see each other once or twice a year. Many, many people will be replaced by their equivalents in your new home. You may login to social media a few times year after having beers on the rooftop to find out what's happened in their lives, and get a sort of pleasure from the experience, but you aren't a child, so you don't participate in much social media and you're aware that you and those people have been slowly growing apart anyway, like leave son the same tree. After a half decade or so, you'll find you've held onto the ones you love, and mostly let go of the bad stuff. Running away mostly works. Maybe when you go back for a visit, there are some beerful tears and apologies and vows to stay closer, but they come to naught. Inevitably, there are a couple of people who defy the easy categories. Maybe a friend who fucked you out some money, but you can spend a weekend at the beach with ignoring the fact. Maybe a family member from whom you've grown apart, but still manage to make it work for the short times you're in the same room. Maybe it's someone you never skated with because you both thought you had grown out of it, but who stuck a tack through his cheek the first night you met him because "any man can do whatever the fuck he wants." In my case, you don't talk for years, because the shame of failure taints the escape from your homeland, and that is the only person who you think knows the whole story and about whose opinion of yourself you give two flying fucks. So you just avoid it. You don't call or write or talk or send a line message. You always knew no one was going to live to the end of time. When your first friend died, your dad had said, "from now on, it's either you or them." Then you get some bad news, and give the man a call. From the rooftop in the middle of the night, the signal is bad. You get some words in, but nothing consequential. At least you heard his voice.

46&2

It was caustically hot. The sun tore down out of the sky without mercy. IS and I trudged over ot the flight path circles, but they were too chunky and most of all, the heat was almost unbearable. We pushed down the path, mile upon mile of swealtering asphalt, past basketball courts and flat gaps and bigger gaps and an 8x2 court that was an ideal flatground spot. We went to the white rails, and the aztec temple banks, and went home. We founda brilliant tiled hip, but didn't skate it because it was huge and we were hot. My shadow's shedding skin. I think I'm giong to rest for the remainder of the week. My ankles are raw from trying to catch underflipped *********s.

The Ghost of Jiantan

It was typhooning ever so slightly, so I went up to the secret bridge. Dozens of people were sitting on the ledge, which was kind of wet anyway, so I dismantled my 47 on the flatground while htey ran around shouting. Later, I found out they were shouting so much because they're a deaf club. RMJ showed up and did some japanese style technical work, first ****** to ***** to ******* to ***** on the platforms, then *** to ***** *** on a short little step. Then IS and a new guy arrived almost at the same time, and the deaf crew left. The nature of the session changed dramatically as the rain started falling harder. I slide some long ** ****** but couldn't roll away from any. As a consumate professional, I always come prepared, and since there isn't a convenient 7 nearby, I brought a cooler with ice and beer. We talked for a few hours, watching the rain, and then found a man wallowing in the mud and rain, like a drunk mix of a dog rolling in filth and an upside down turtle that can't right itself. We walked him to the bridge to get out of hte rain, but he refused to sit or rest and stumbled on down the road into the night. He must have been a ghost, because there is nothing down that path for miles.

Taiwan Loves a Winner

Be seated. 

Men, all this stuff you hear about Taiwan not wanting to work, wanting to stay out of the office, is a lot of bullshit. Taiwanese love to work. All real Taiwanese love the drudgery and repetition of business. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league basketball players and the toughest esports players. Taiwanese love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Taiwanese work to win all the time. That's why Taiwanese have never lost a negotiation and will never lose a negotiation. The very thought of losing money is hateful to Taiwanese. Business is the most significant competition in which a man can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. 

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would be cheated in a major negotiation. Every man is tired in his first quarter without a single day off. If he says he's not, he's a goddamn liar. But the real hero is the man who works even though he's tired. Some men will get over their fatigue in a 2 Minute Pitch, some take an hour, and for some it takes days. But the real man never lets his fear of talking to people overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. 

All through your career you men have bitched about what you call 'this chicken-shit busywork.' That is all for a purpose—to ensure instant obedience to orders and to create constant obedience. This must be bred into every worker. I don't give a fuck for a man who is not always on his keyboard. But the busywork has made veterans of all you men. You are ready! A man has to be working all the time if he expects to keep on getting paid. If not, some son-of-a-bitch PM from another company will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit. There are four hundred neatly marked graves of cancelled projects in Hsinchu, all because one man went to sleep on the job—but they are other companies' projects' graves, because we caught the bastard salesreps asleep before his PM did. 

A business is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, and works as a team. This individual hero stuff is bullshit. The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Taipei Times don't know any more about real work than they do about fucking. And we have the best team—we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor bastards we're going up against. 

All the real heroes are not storybook integrated network architects. Every single man in the business plays a vital role. So don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the taste of binlang and turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch? That cowardly bastard could say to himself, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' What if every man said that? Where in the hell would we be then? No, thank God, Taiwanese don't say that. Every man does his job. Every man is important. The backfacing code men are needed to supply the backfacing code, the B2B marketing man is needed to bring up the brand awareness and clothes for us because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do. 

Each man must think not only of himself, but think of his buddy working alongside him. We don't want lazy cowards in the company. They should be fired off like flies. If not, they will go back home after work, goddamn lazy cowards, and breed more lazy cowards. The hardworking men will breed more hardworking men. Fire these the goddamn lazy cowards and we'll have a nation of hardworking men. 

One of the bravest men I saw in the ad campaign was on a telegraph pole in the midst of furious criticism while we were moving toward Tainan. I stopped and asked him what the hell he was doing up there. He answered, 'Fixing the customer service call number, sir.' 'Isn't it a little unhealthy up there right now?' I asked. 'Yes sir, but this goddamn wire has got to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those scooters strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No sir, but you sure as hell do.' Now, there was a real worker. A real man. A man who devoted all he had to his work, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his work appeared at the time. 

And you should have seen the trucks on the road to Gaoshiung. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they crawled along those son-of-a-bitch roads, never stopping, never deviating from their course with horns honking all around them. Many of the men drove over 400 consecutive hours. We got through on good old Taiwanese guts. These were not office men. But they were workers with a job to do. They were part of a team. Without them the profit would have been lost. 

Sure, we all want to go home. We want to get this work over with. But you can't make money lying down. The quickest way to get it over with is to finish the bastard spreadsheets. We want to get the hell over there and clean the goddamn thing up, and then get at those purple-pissing graphs. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we go home. The shortest way home is through Banciao and Linkou. So keep moving. And when we get to Banciao, I am personally going to call the entire company outside and burn joss money and incense in a little metal trashcan with dozens of tables filled with fruit and candy. 

When a man is sitting at his desk, if he just stays there all day, a breaktime will get him eventually. The hell with that. My men don't take breaks. Breaks only slow up a project. Keep moving. We'll make this profit, but we'll make it only by working and showing competitors that we marginally undercut their product line by cutting corners they don't even know they have.  We're not just going to undercut the bastards, we're going to rip out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of keyboards. We're going to murder those lousy competitors cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. 

Some of you men are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out in the evenings. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you'll all do your duty. Working all night is a bloody business, a tiring business. The competitors are the enemy. Wade into them, spill their printer ink or they will spill yours. Shoot them emails about nothing. Rip open junkmail. When phonecalls are coming in all around you and you wipe the dirt from your face and you realize that it's not dirt, it's the ink and felt of what was once your best dry erase marker, you'll know what to do. 

I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my laptop closed while it charges.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're working constantly and we're not interested in charging anything except the enemy's antiquated mouseballs. We're going to hold him by his mouseballs and we're going to kick him in the ass; twist his mouseballs and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our plan of operation is to work and keep on working. We're going to go through the workday like shit through a tinhorn. 

There will be some complaints that we're pushing our people too hard. I don't give a damn about such complaints. I believe that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of money. The harder we push, the more money we make for the owner. The more money we make, the fewer of our men will be fired. Pushing harder means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that. My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any worker under my command being head hunted unless he is laid-off first. Even if you are laid-off, you can still work. That's not just bullshit either. I want men like the PM in Linkou who, with a three ring binder against his chest, swept aside the binder with his hand, jerked out smart from his pocket with the other and busted the hell out of the revenue with the three ring binder. Then he picked up the smartphone and he killed another salespitch. All this time the man had a spreadsheet on his laptop. That's a man for you! 

Don't forget, you don't know I'm here at all. No word of that fact is to be mentioned in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell they did with me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this office. I'm not even supposed to be in Taoyuan. Let the first bastards to find out be the accounts receivable clerks. Some day, I want them to rise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl 'Ach! It's the goddamned internal auditors and that son-of-a-bitch normalg again!' 

Then there's one thing you men will be able to say when this work is over and you get back home. Thirty years from now when you're sitting by your TV with your grandson on your knee and he asks, 'What did you do in the office?' You won't have to cough and say, 'Well, your granddaddy shoveled shit in Sanchong.' No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say 'Son, your granddaddy analyzed deep learning trends in Asia-Pacific regional marketing for Bubble Popping and Candy Crunching smartphone apps with the internal auditing department and a son-of-a-goddamned-bitch named normalg!' 

All right, you sons of bitches. You know how I feel. I'll be proud to lead you wonderful guys in conference rooms anytime, anywhere. That's all.

Guest Column: IS goes on a solo mission

normalg: did you find any spots?
IS: mmm maybe you know them sweet benches at linsen Park
      All in all good ride
      skated at jiantan station
      some sweet banks the there
normalg: yeah fun spot
              Good manny pads too
              Did security talk to you?
IS: Nope but it's best to skate when it's closed
normalg: fo sho
               can you write a session report for tonight?
               it can be as short and ridiculous as you want
               I hate working and missing sessions
IS: yeah I can if remember everything that happened haha I ran into a lot of traffic as you said so I          
     didn't get to do much just ride. I did play chicken with a kid driving a Beamer in Zhongshan haha
normalg: Yes
               That's what I want to publish
IS: I started off in Taipei arena an rode around getting into the groove bombing the slope around the
    arena. Then proceeded west an went full speed ahead. Weaving in and out of traffic. One station  
    after another on the green line I was feeling good. A mix of punk an rap in my headphones I felt the
    flow. Skating in between the sidewalk an inside corridors taking advantage of the marble floors an
    smooth little transition hubs I kept it low key due to pedestrian traffic.
    The night was cool an clear an perfect to skate before the big storm approaches an pretty much  
    floods the area.
    This weekend. Making my way up the green line i finally aporoached Zhongshan district. Known
    mostly for its hospitality towards Japanese visitors it was pack but I manage dto get my bearings in a
    small side street an Ollie over the sewer drains while dodging kids joy riding their parents fancy cars.
    Finally hitting the redline Minquan w road stationI make my way up towards my area. I skate an run
    into a dramatic scene of rushing firemen an bystanders on looking as I can tell was a fire. Mind you I
    didn't see any flames but you could feel the heat an smell the burning of plastic. Three fire engines
    took up the street causing me to walk past the scene an look on to the panic of fire fighter and
    curiousness of bystanders.
    I made my way up to yuanshan and skated the stairs [normalg] showed me one fine skate night. I got
    in a few grinds an a *-* but crashed an had to move on. I decided to skate up to my home station
    jiantan after beering up. There on the side of the stations are these sweet banks. I did a few lines but
    decided to call it a night. Skated home feeling good glad I did the run up from Taipei arena to Jiantan
    now I can rest an let the typhoon pass this weekend.
normalg: what shoudl I use as you byline?
IS: hmm you mean by name?
normalg: yeah
IS: Lol yay keep the name you've been using Is
normalg: aight

well i guess this is growing up

My friends went out to skate the city and I went to work.

HK Friends, Darts, Beer, and Dutchmen, but not in that order

Work sprang up and  I had to get shit done before I went to Laoli's place. It's the best bar in Taipei, and here's why: I haven't been there in at least a month and I got greeted like the prodigal son. Then, after a free mandarin lesson, a couple of guys from hong kong came to ask if I was french or american. I was flattered. Then, Dutchplaya showed up and pissed everyone off, because he isn't afraid to talk to other people at a bar, especially women. We shared some beers on teh walk back, adn talk about heatlhcare policy, because adults are boring as fuck.

They told me son it's time to tell the truth

The weather cleared up and my last meeting got cancelled, so I went for a lil cruise with LS. He started on the other side of the city and made his way over, documenting spots as he went. Some of them were new to me. Taipei brings a certain joy to skaters that only a new city with hundreds of skate spots can bring. We skated at the three stair park while some dancers danced in the middle. I didn't lose ********s after all. He wants to get better at *****s, so I took him across the street to a starter spot. I like his ability to adapt to street skating - the shitty tiles with deep cracks, pedestrians, scooters, cops, dirt, dogs, cracks on the landing, vampire drain holes on the landing, and general chaos of taipei in the evening pretty much mean if you can do the trick there, you can do it anywhere. He got what he wanted and we moved on. The next spot is a slappy metal ledge that gains height at the ground drops away. He tried the ***** there until he had some knee pain, so we moved again (but not before I finished my 45. Easiest 45 I've ever done). An army of cops were at the black bank, so we passed it for the noodle shop platform. It's a two up - four down manny pad, with the option of going between a pillar and traffic pole. Sort of like the Khyber Pass. Cruising spots is exhausting, and skating in a pair is too, because you never need to wait for your turn. At this point, we went back down the mountain, so to speak.

Beer, Rain, and Flatground, but not in that order

In times of driving rain, even The Bridge can get too wet to skate. This time, it didn't matter, because The Bridge is out of commission. Hopefully we'll get the spot back. Supposedly, this will happen at the end of september. 

This time, I bet the rain and wind would have made it unskateable anyway. So LS and IS and I marched in teh rain up to Yuanshan bridge instead. It's best for flatground, so that's what we did. We also drank as much beer as we could, but in the opressive humidity and astonishing heat, it's actually hard to get more than a couple down. I got 44 **s and lzyk drove us home. Also, she brought the beer, because she is a good woman. Then she waited in the car because I still had to get my *******s for the day. They don't make em better than her. 

Tequila Mockingbird

The afternoon started with a thunderstorm and a hangover. I dont know how lzyk managed to drag herself out of the house at 08:00. I dragged myself downstairs after an extra six or eight hours of sleep and felt like death. I pulled the coffee table up to the couch and watched skatevideos then I took a nap. Starting a new job is awesome. For now.

I needed 43 but my head was still splitting when I met up with longsleeves at jiantan station. I call him longsleeves because that's what he was wearing. I can't understand how anyone could wear long pants, after a few years here. It's intensely hot, and extremely humid. I'm from a hot place, but I can't stand to sit outside with long pants on. Longsleeves showed up with longsleeves on, and then skated in them. Amazing. It was 100% humidity and 100 degrees f. 

We cruised down to a new spot that IS found recently. It's under a bridge, so it's good for rainy days. It still had some puddles, but it was skatable when we got there. On the north side is a complex of a shallow bank to side curb ledge, which isn't skatable yet, and a picnic table made out of pnik marble. The other side has a long ledge of pebbledashed unskateable shit, but as WM would say, "everything is skateable." Someone genius wizard made this spot into one of the premier ones on the river park, and there are dozens of good ones here. They spackleded it with some kind of epoxy magic and it grinds smoother than rolling on top of the ledge. 

There's a lot of pigeon shit, but the surface is pretty smooth. There is a gap under teh railing at the finish where you skateboard can splash into the river, which was dark, swirling, and rising. We saw a rat in teh water, flushed out of the sewer. 

IS splashed some tricks up on the ledge. His repetoir is growing quickly. I got my basics and longsleeves held his own with an *****. 

Soaked to the cornhole, we crossed the bridge by going up and down a series of terrible stairs. On the other side is one of the best bank spots in Tiapei. The bank is like a Nazarre wave, and pushing up to it, you can only get mabye 10% up it. IS ***'d it. The run up is vicously tiled with the bane of Taipei street skaters: square cement tiles. To his immense credit, longsleeves skated it, and then ***** a gap into the nasty tiles. Most people would turn their cowardly noses up at these tiles, but he went for it, and made it. IS fell into what I'm pretty sure is powdered human shit at the bottom of the bank, and his shirt sweat instantly mixed with it into a putrid urine and fecal matter mush. Fortunately, he always brings at least six shirts to skate in. 

We cruised the sidewalks and beered up at a spot that is a gnarly concrete wave. Longsleeves bought the beer, which cemented him as a solid bloke in my standing. next time's on me. 

Lzyk Tells me a Taipei Hemingway Story

taxi
oh yeah, so much floods recently, horrible, in china and japan.
cheating famous doctor on tv in back seat. so common. for instance:
tells about his old job at day market where dumpling person cheated with meat person, they ran away because he was from hong kong and handsome.
says cheaters can spot each other the same way gays do. you just see it in their eyes.
driver used to be a pimp at linsen bei, used to be able to spot johns out of the crowd. at first, he didnt know. then he knew. you can just see it in their eyes.
he had a bird, sells them online. never knew if customers really wanted to buy a bird or just scamming him for his real price.
thats the end of the story because the taxi ride ended. never had a chance to ask about what kind of bird it was. it was a nice clean car.

Reign In Blood

Following my photoshoot, IS and I decided to dayskate out at the river. I brought 4.5 L of water and nearly drank all of it. A Khardishev scale space station is being built there for an electronic music festival, and they piled up the scaffolding in front of the lower bench. The joke was on them though, because I can't ** **** at most than a snail's pace anyway. The tall ledge was unaffected. I dabbled with some ** ****es and fnished most of my 41*******s. The sun set in a spectacular orange underlit cloud bank. A dirty airplane flew by.The wind was blowing strongly and you see the layer of filthy air we live in back behind us, but the air at the spot was pretty clean.

We went up to the tiniest manny ever, a short curb that is a rectangle slightly longer than a boardlength and slightly wider than a boardwidth. IS skated it and then slammed as I was looking up. At first I was worried, because it looked like he came down on his arm across the edge of the cement and hit his head, then he got up without screaming and I stopped worrying. Then I started worrying again because his arm was mangled hamburger from wrist to elbow. He is lucky it's not worse, but blood was streaming down it all over everything. Dues paid.

yakyuu

I went to a baseball game in foulyuan. It was awesome. the sky was blue and concessions were cheap. the crowd danced and chanted and clapped a different song for each player and each inning. we won.

A Gentlemen's Anniversary Night Out

No one realized it until we were many beers deep, after a gruelingly humid session, but tonight marked the anniversary of RMJ's arrival to Taiwan. A quintet of us had spent the night skating, and then drinking at the old stoop, so it really couldn't have been a better party if we had tried to plan it.

If we had had a skate contest, mw would have won it. He showed up and **** ****** the tall benches at yuanshan, and then hit a *-* first try. Later, he ***** the bank to ledge and rode it out down the steps to the bottom, several times.

If we had had a flatground contest, which we did twice, it would have been a tie between fa and xvi. I'm pretty sure we would have whooped the teenager, but he declared some berricsy thing, so we allowed it and did ** ** *****ies, which is bullshit, but he was a guest, and a welcome one at that.

If we had had a trophy awarded for guts, it would hav egone to IS, because when I rolled up to the spot, he slapped his entire body down, wetly, with a wheel stuck inthe grate. Then he keep slamming and bouncing up. I lost count. He goes hard.

He also went to get beers and make sure xvi got back ok. The rest of the night was spent at the ampitheatre, then in the yuanshan fountain (security came out) then at the old old stoop (rmj got the ********, then security came out) then I cruised home.