It's so easy to get bored

Feels like a heavy weight is on my back. That's cause big water bottles were buy one, get one almost free. Timing is everything. I bought too early. I tried to catch a falling knife. I carried the consequences on my back for most of the night. Both of them.

I'm tooting my own horn, but I'd like to lead off with the fact that it's well into Wednesday and the time I was asleep was sometime Sunday. I only mention this as the excuse for failing to hit 60**s. It was never gonna happen, but there was a moment where it might have gotten close, but the momentum of the night crashed like a wave against the beach, and having failed, rolled back into the depths of the night.

I met IS at the secret bridge, where I scoffed down the boiled fish hotdogs offered by 7 (this is important later), where he foolishly smashed his back against the ledge in the first few tries. The ledge didn't break, and neither did he, so I guess it was a tie. Dogs barked at us and pigeon shit was everywhere because for some reason, people here enjoy feeding flying rats. We cancelled teh night and set up shop on the godfather stoop and ran through a couple of cans and then he felt like ********, which he did first try. Nothing else was happening, except it was blustery, and the street lights lit up the green leaves, which are all around in the north part of town.

We went by the spot in all the videos, then across teh street to the weird weird alien made pyramids. Only by reading Redemption Space or Lovecraft can the foreign skater truly touch on the bizzarre geometry that is this spot. Each tier is less than a curb, and none are rounded corners, but math builds upon math that builds upon math until you have to ***** six short levels to get to the top and ***** it and then come back down (as IS did). He also got a crystal clear *******, and I petered out a *******. I hadnt skated there in years, maybe even three. Great spot. Pink banks to the sides. Come to Taiwan. It's lovely here.

Up the street is Jiantan station banks. They're a large family of double dark banks; lower level short, upper level tall and steep. In between is usually a 4-10 ft flat, but it varies. At this point, the session took off. I had expceted only the kind of bouyancy that keeps a water bottle floating when its 45% full of water, but IS burst through the surface of the night with a series of tricks on the effectively manny pads: a brilliant example of skating a spot in a new way, even if it means standing three lanes out into traffic to get the run started.

At this point, my gut worm started squirming from the cheap fish hotdogs. A word of warning to the casual skate traveler here: it looks cooked, and it smells mostly edible, but if you chose to eat 7-11's boiled meat balls of death, do it nearby a convenient toilet and buy a package of toilet paper before hand, because it won't be provided in the stall. I did all of this, and it came out swimmingly. At this piont, I'll refer to my notes:

At least I remembered the terlet paper.
Pushing home.
Whole city smells like Piss City.
bombed a hill with a beer, across some cracks.
through the old hood
Cruised by an american on a ubike blaring david allen coe. i aint sure who was more surprised, him or me. if that aint country, i dont know what is. hair lip the pope
lil hubba
********** first try. dive dive dive dive dive with me.

meshuggah rhythm in the tiles
across this glorious city
to linsen bei
                                                           (land of milk and honey)
Up a rare footbridge, only crossed the sewer here a couple of times before.
whores drinks food traffic neon signs
Across the open sewer spine
lil narrow hillbomb down the other side. had to wait for traffic for a while, as its only one lane.
intense rotting trash smell from the trash trucks, dingling a song at me
neon signs down to the horizen like the end of 2001
misfits
miss you john keller
dr octagon streets are wet af

29 yellow black tax stack in front of the seven by the ktv. Puke on the curb. Puke on the tiles. Puke everywhere. I park. Sneezing on the curb at length. After 45 mintues of straight pushing, gotta take a break.

cops flish flashing lights all around.

I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.
The stench of air pollution rolls in, like Savannah. The weather channel said it would come today.Leaves are still dancing but my throat is already sore.

Joy division at the sotp light. wandering through wide sidewalks, rough square tiles low, smooth tiles set high, but of course, allthe pimps and whores and kongs and belles are up there on the high route. so its like surfing a very shallow break that clackalacks at the bottom and had the scum of Taipei on top.
No I never met anyone, quite like you before.

Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,Ohitsthelasttime,

House of circles

almost home

My Life is a Country Song

The sky has been blue. The air has been crisp and clean. I met a russian in the elevator. My dog ran off and my woman threw me out. I ran out of money and my truck broke down. There's tears in my beer and the bank's coming for the farm. The children are going to sleep hungry, all six of em, Jethro, Maxwella, Luanne, Llewellyn, Ethel, Opal, and Margarita. I'd go get drunk at the honkey tonk, but the tractor's broke down too and I'm out of money for gas.

I went to the bridge cause skating is free. CL and JP were there, and a bunch of other dudes I don't know that well, but they were friendly enough. One of those guys, I'll call him Stripey, learned *****s on the rail, then was about to get some *****s, but the lights went out. I'm not usually jealous of other people's progress. It's fun to see anyone get it done, regardless of respective ability. Anyway, this kid can learn a trick in a night, and then make it 75% of the time. Him and his homies had some upstepped flatground game too.

I tried to ***** the lil pad with JP and I got my other basics, including the ton on *****-**s and *******s. I went home just before lights out because sometimes you just cain't handle the dark.

lil one finna show you the way now

nobody gonna hold your hand, no
nobody gonna lead you the way, no

Withering Heights

Skating in a skate park is like dancing without music. It looks like skating, especially on video, and you do all the same motions and get sweaty, and it might even help you get very good at skating, but skating is skatepark is skating with all the soul bleached out of it. Skating in a DIY park is some weird middle ground of this, or at least, that's how most people feel about the bridge. I got there mid afternoon and met a sardine, but only only one other skater was there. It was overcast, then drizzly, then rainy, then heavy rain.

The gloam descended preternaturally by 04:00 and The Bridge was almost too dark to skate. What pop I had withered with the light. The environmentally acquired depression got more severe. Me and the other dude could barely skate faster than a walking speed, eyes down on our griptape, bumping into walls and barely sliding tricks. The roar of taipei traffic on either side mixed with the stench of car exhaust, and bizarrely, someone's extremely burned coffee, made it like skating next to a malevolent water fall with a toxic, smelly sock stuffed in your mouth.

I broke 102 in 28, which was the first time I've hit the ton. I petered around until the lights came on, like halogen artificial suns in an O'Neil cylinder. The rush hour honking started, and the air stayed foul. By 17:30, the lights were up to full illumination, and jpook arrived, followed by mw and a stready stream of others. I hit a few little *****s on teh pyramid, which is new for me, and a ** ***** in teh back with the minnows, and a ** **** on the box. The session got better and better as I got more and more tired. MW and I beered up and went to the family noodle place, then checked out the spy shit on the roof of the hotel next to my house.

We'll have problems yeah, then we'll have bigger ones

When it rains, it pours. The memories of this one are going to be kind of hazy because my computer wouldn't boot for several days. JA has been missing in action for more than a year. We met up at the yellow curb at yuanshan to find that a countless multitude of rollerbladers were milling all over. A drumming crew were there, but instead of skating the curb, we went ot the ampitheater. Soon, IS arrived, but the energy was almost below zero. At first, I thought it had been my unique interpretation, but everyone was complaining about it. Things got a little better when ng showed up, although she slammed on the approach. Exhausted from the pebbledash surface, we eventually made our way back ot the bridge spot vacated by the rollerbladers. Instead, a little crew of skaters were there. We started off a little frosty, because of my mood probably, but conversations grew as we waited in line at either end of the spot. They said they'll be skating there more often.

wet cold cold wet (pure evening)

Having finished the workweek, until saturday morning, and suffering lots of rain, I went to the bridge midafternoon because I thought that I could at least avoid rush hour. I couldn't. Two dozen skaters were there already, I could make a list of silly names I have for them but it's easier to just say they were there and went on a charge, pillaging the bridge until the entire village was left with burning thatch roofs. It rained the whole time. It got cold so I told awco that I had ot go home for a change of clothes (winter arrived in about 45 minutes). A japanese guy whose particular talent is **** ****ing was there, and he kept doing them with this little bounce in the middle, like ***** off the actual wall. He complained later that he can't ********, but fuck, anyone would be proud to skate with that kind of style. You got it or you don't. He does. It ain't what tricks you do, it's how you skate your city.

The entire city was soaked, and so was I after I went back for thicker clothes, so I chated with awco after I got back and drank beer and watched the rest of the session. Across the street, a whiskey sales advert was still screetching. lyzk called me up so we would go eat bbq and stare at the side of a very low meat flume and pretend like it's friday night. They played terrible asian psuedo hiphop, interspersed with a single placebo song. I cant think how the fuck they found that song or decided it fit in with the rest. Days dawning, skins crawlin.

Taiwan is a Large Small Island

I started out as a teacher here, because it's the job that all english speaking immigrants take. I still teach 5 year olds a couple of times a week because it satisfies my emotional requirement of unconditional love from my employees. These particular employees mostly make macaroni plates and color bits of paper that they glue to other bits of paper, some of which is folded, and some of which is glittered or has sequins glued on. They usually do cute things like tell me they're getting married, or gross things, like wipe their buggers on any available surface. Sometimes they unashamedly play with their genitals or dig their asshole in class. I make them disinfect their hands and teach them to say things in English, like "no, I don't want that," or "no, I won't do that," because I want to ruin their parents lives. Next week is "why?" Today, I taught a slew of them the names for celestial bodies in english. We got to Earth, and I showed them a picture, and they shouted out in unison "Taiwan!!!!" I tried to correct them, but they were really insistent. Island people are extremely insular, even the five year olds. We made little paper rockets that you can launch by blowing through a straw. It's a refreshing break from the adult world.

Wet Wet Wet

It was moist without being wet, at least when I left the house. Work and cleaning and even eating had to wait. The little flatbar and manny pad at the back of the bridge had dancers camped out all over it, but I politely encouraged them not to sit on the the rail so that I would skate it. Twice, someone came over and sat down on it anyway, and once, I accidentally elbowed someone in the back who wandered in front. There is a sort total lack of situational awareness that I've only encountered in Taiwan. They weren't actually trying to even be rude; they were so astonishingly selfish that they didn't notice another human being was doing something on a place where they'd like to sit. Good thing I never complain. I would have a lot to say about how rude Taiwanese people are.

I did at least get some ** *********s back, and then moved on to the pyramid, where I got a pathetic little *****, but progress is progress. IS and a friend showed up, then CL and SC and PJ and some other guys I know but not very well. It was cozy until it started raining, then it got cozier, because the bridge is still dusty and the moisture made the ground more than a bit slick. SC wanted to walk north after lights out, so I accompanied him past a parking garage with what smelled like a burning car in it. We hacked for about a block.

A Happy Update on the Bridge (Fifty Two Factorial)

It was like a family reunion. The first report that the bridge had unexpectedly reopened came from mw. The rumour grew. Seemingly too good to be true, I let the reports collect, from various field agents. Having finished work at a reasonable 15:00, I got off the MRT a stop early and walked by with a suit and briefcase. The gates of heaven had indeed reopened. No explanation needed. I was there within 15 minutes. The family reunion grew and grew until the bridge was so thick with skaters that it was impossible to actually skate. A new flemish guy and AC (maybe the best style I've ever seen) were there, but so were dozens of old friends. The AWCO came, with IS and gnarlyt. The prince and his friend showed up too. The session was good for me, on one hand, because I got 52! which is a very large number. I also got more of my old tricks there, but ** **** wasnt happening and my back is going to regret the slams that I put into it trying. A slew of people I didn't know were also there. And then even more people. and more people. It was like a skate moshpit.

I'm rarely mesmerized by someone else's skating. I just like to watch people I care about pushing themselves. But I didnt know AC before. He had a floaty kind of effortless style that you can fake with any kind of poses after landing the trick or whatnot. He didn't skate particularly fast, or do particularly technical tricks (although he was head and shoudlers above the skating I've seen in person here). I showed him IronMike's hometown spot, and he knew where it was, because they're from the same country.

Anyway, the lights went out and we went to bargur king. Well, they did. I beered up. Then the visitors from china complained about how horrible china is. Then I lost my patience and pushed off into the night and was happy to see that at least IS had coem along, but it turned out a whole crew had taken the plunge. I was just the first lemming.

We went north to the pink volcano. It's a fucking hard spot to skate because the tiling. We charged up the sidewalk to it, and gt had his greatest moments that I've seen him skate, excepting maybe the gap at yuanshan. IS skated the volcano a totally different  way, and then p got all japanesey about it, until he had a lil slam. At the core, this is why I love skating street. A whole crew of people at various levels of skill but who all approach the spot in a competely different way. Some rode ubikes to the next spot because they are of weak moral fiber, but the rest of us skated. At the north end of the orange line is a sharp left hook with a flat and some grindy curbs and a manny pad. We got one beer into the spot and security came out, a first in four years of skating there.

He was an old man, probably accustomed to chasing off hobos pissing in bushes. We surrounded him, skateboards in hand. He put his hands together and laughlingly asked us to please reconsider skating the manny pad, and could we maybe think about just grinding the granite stairs instead? We appologized for teh inconvenience and headed towards home. They all ducked into the mrt and I beered up and eventually ended up home.

A Sad Update on the Bridge

The Bridge is the spiritual epicenter of street skating in Taipei. First, the city fenced it off for a year, but let us skate in it during controlled hours. Then, a month ago, they shut it down for "plumbing repairs." It was scheduled to reopen on October 1st, but now it's been delayed at least another month. Nothing seems to have happened at the site. Taking the Bridge away from us has been a bit like kicking out the homeless people from Main Station; tossing their boxes and posessions without warning adn sending them alone out into the streets. We didn't have much here, or ask for it, just a place to be.  We (not me, other, more devoted people) payed for it and built it and maintained it. OK, I bought some cement bags and tried to patch some shit, but I'm tooting my own feeble horn. Truth is, a core of devoted life long skaters built and maintained a DIY in the middle of hte city and it became a haven, a kabaa, for skating, and now I'm starting the think the city is slyly trying to take it away, delay by delay. There is no reason we couldn't have been skating there for the last month. Or any reason to fence it all off to start with. At first, we just shrugged it off, and laughed. More street sessions for us. But the truth is, Taipei skating needs the Bridge. There is are two parks here, inaccessible for most, and filled to the brim with 4 year olds on push bikes, but even if they were skate only, they'd still be terribly designed and built even worse. If the Bridge really doesnt work for the city, I hope we can all find a suitable solution somewhere else. Otherwise, skateboarding is giong to spread out across the city like a metasticizing cancer and kill the whole thing.

fiftyone and done.

Although the air is filled with burning garbage so think that the details of 101 were smudged out, the weather was otherwise pleasantly blustery and sunny. IS and I hit up the secret ledge for an afternoon session. Someone had been there lately. The heavy marble stools and tables had been moved around, and the ledge was slightly faster. He got some new ***** lines around the place (there's a rounded curb up above the main ledge) and I got some slightly faster and longer *****s than previously. The mobile chodofu vendor rode around on the other side of the levee and filled the air with even worse pollution than smog. An old man bicycled up and parked almost literally on the ledge we were acttively skating. We did our best to skate around him, and after a dozen tries, he tottered off down the road. Where else on earth will someone park in the middle of a skate session? I don't know, I haven't traveled much.

We cruised down the smooth bike path past all the graffitti to the big three. The air quality got a lot worse. Our clothes stank from the smoke. There must have been a ground fire nearby, because even with the strong breeze, we couldn't escape it. As teh day faded, I looked over just in time to see IS ***** up, and ******** down the upper part of hte spot. I tapped out at 51 of the same. It was almost cold as I skated back home across the city.