Curb Your Enthusiasm II

I can't remember if I've used that title before, so I'm making it number II, just in case. I super didn't feel like skating but IS, sanchongc, and lilg were gonna hit up the 圓山 amphitheater, so I dragged my ass up there with the nose of my deck completely delammed so that it looks like a prehistoric salamander on wheels. Fuck it, it's still ridable. The weather is absolutely perfect these days. No pollution, low temps but not cold, steady breeze. The session was well underway by the time I rolled up. The spot has a low curb around the base, in about a 300 degree range of the circle. You can surf down from the top and hit it without pushing (this is the best way, and you can do it from both directions) or you can push uphill and hit it, which gentlemen like myself don't do. But I got tired of climbing stairs and just copied what everyone else was already doing. I'm tooting my own horn, but I got a ** *****, which I've been trying at that spot for half a decade, and I don't know why, but somehow I could just do it tonight. The curb fairie must have visited me last night. sanchongc got the first ******* of his life, which was cause for celebration, and then he and lilg went home. IS and I proceeded to bomb the hill back home, hit the bumpy rails but landed nothing (IS rounded the 90 dgree corner but couldn't pop out of it, it was fucking sick) and although I shouldn't have, because my budget for the month is fucked since I bought a ton of camping equipment, we stooped up at the green two stair curb  with some beers. We were finished skating, but we talked about skating too much and then found ourselves skating again. I went through my normal tricks for the spot, and he brought a new one to the table: *** ***** *****. I was impressed. It's not a trick you see in these parts very often, and he performs it with authority. He didn't roll away, but it's in the fucking mail. We beered up and went to the Schelling Point (it's not an actual Schelling Point, it's just the mutually closest place for both of us to have Go Ji Bwei before we went home. We chatted about skate parts and british skate videos and women and so on, until he decided to be responsible and go home. Since Lunar New Year is coming, I don't have to do shit, until the afternoon. This could end up being either a very good, or a very sad holiday for me. Maybe both.

A Cloying Story

I was walking home from work on a cold day. I was carrying a box full of jars of honey. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of bees had worked to gather pollen and eat it and digest it and make it into honey and then I took it. I left what I thought would be enough for them to collectively survive the lean months.
The box was getting heavier, as I carried it, or maybe its weight was making me tired. In my heart, I knew I couldn't keep carrying it indefinitely.

I dropped it sooner than I had expected. At least some of the jars crunched with a sticky sort of cracking mix of the sound of breaking glass and spilling honey. It's the kind of sound that isn't made by either breaking glass, or spilling honey, alone; especially not inside a box.
It wasn't my fault, at least not entirely. I didnt' have the strength to carrying it all the way, that's true enough, but also, I stumbled on an unseen obstacle underfoot, which ironically had been blocked from my line of sight by the box itself.
As I tripped forward, the weight shifted in an unexpected way, and I tried to grab the box where it was weak and the brown corrugation ripped. Not much, not far, not long, but the short gash was enough to ensure that the circumstances, taken together, meant that the whole was out of my control.

It struck the ground, with a sound I've never heard before, and I stared at it, unbelieving.
Then I picked it up, without opening it. At times like these, it's best to get to safety, and then reevaluate to see what, if any, contents can be salvaged.

Maybe all the jars inside had already been smashed. That's what I would have preferred, all things considered. Even then, I would rather have not imagined a single jar of honey that could have been recovered, by better judgement.

I picked up the box again, and I carried it. Sticky golden honey leaked out of the corners of the box. It climbed down my hands and forearms, to my elbows, where it gathered with each successive step. Some weird effect of the honey's viscosity, complemented with the friction of my hand against the cardboard, made it feel like the honey was itself a living, wigglging thing.

As I trudged on towards home, more and more honey oozed out, making me sticky, dribbling to my elbows and my shirt and eventually, my pants and socks. I felt heavier than ever.

By the time I made it to my front door, there wasn't any question of taking the final steps home in such a condition.

I set the box down with a grunch. It was worse than I had realized.
Glass shard, ever so sharp and fine, had worked their way through the cardboard of the bottom of the box, and crisscrossed my palms, as I carried it. Blood was mixing with honey, all over me.
Worse, the honey had at some point become infested with the larvae of some unnamed parasite of bees, that I had to assume had doomed the entire brood. Thin, wheedeling maggots were writhing through the lot of it, seething in the honey and blood that covered me, in some places, as thick as the honey itself.

Earth People, New York to California

The day started cold, overcast, dreary. Painters came to work on the mural on my balcony, but instead of making me happy, they just talked a lot and annoyed me.

I bailed on most of my work today and walked back from my responsibilities with earpods in and hoody pulled up. I went by food street to get a banh mih, and somehow, ng recognized me and stopped me to chat. Hope we can skate soon.

Banciao District is a district and the seat of New Taipei, Taiwan. It has the third highest-population density in Taiwan. It was formerly the 22nd-densest city in the world, with over 24,000 people per km2 (thanks Wikipedia. but you missed out on the good the plazas are in banciao).

Earth People, I was born on Jupiter.
I arrived at the best ledge in the world, and was greeted like I deserved it. There were dancing ayis, and one of the two other dude's broke his board in the first five minutes, across the back truck. He reluctantly went home, and left me with TaiwanesePhenomenon (TP is less flattering), and we skated flatground for an hour while Disco John Denver repeated again and again for the gyrating aunties. I will never understand Taiwan. hakab (** **** on the tall ledge to *-* on the bottom ledge) and TP and a friendlykid about ten others came. The weather was absolutely perfect. Stocking cap and hoody if youre sitting, tshirt if youre skating. zw swung by to show off his newly purchased ozzy ozbourne and bb king records, and then skoto showed up, followed by IS. Tp got the smoothest, perfect ** ****s maybe because I mentioned to him earlier that his footage was getting famous in Taipei. At least, bridge trolls were asking me if know who he is. Sawty is gonna be somebody if he keeps getting better that this rate. Where I'm from, he aint old enough to drive a buick.

The whole crew is really the friendliest. Their ledge game is collectively the smoothest. But then, they do have the smoothest ledge in the world to skate on.

IS and I popped some Tigers. While waiting my turn, I tried to do a habitual impossible while standing sort of bored thing, and themother fucker got stuck in the tiles and rocketed into my kneecap. This called for more Tigers. As we got ready to packup, stog showed up with a mixed crew. I hadn't seen him since the glory days. They made me feel like a celebrity, and gave me lots of stickers. they filmed me trying to ****** while carrying beers back, but I didn't make it. I think that made them happier htough.  stog even filmed me in the back of the plaza. It's rare that I let another man film me like that. I couldn't help it, he gets the most seductive angles. I'm glad we got it done in due time though. IS and I barely squeeked onto the last train for nangang. At main, I went for a cruise and a street whiz.

God bless Taipei skaters, every last one.

Get That Trash Outta Here (Dickmove night)

Tonight was our year end party at work, and it was baller. We finished up at 22:00 on the 17th floor, and I went to meet some friends in the streets. My new colleague was surprised when I described my plans for the rest of my night.

I met RMJ and IS at Taipei Station's banks. In between, I ran into a couple of legends, skating flatground on rickety tiles outside of a yaki, because they 'needed a break from eating and drinking beer'. We got kicked out of main by the homeless mafia, and then proceeded to many lil spots in the area. RMJ hit a tall boy's ** ***** and it zipped, and his skateboard hit the foot of a glue sniffer in a wheelchair. It was fucked up, but actually, the bottom of the wheelchair seemed to protect the swollen rotting foot.

We roosted at a special seven where there is a rather unique microspot. It's a curb to mellowest bank, so mellow that it's a bank in any normal sense of the worse, but you lose speed going up and gain speed going down it, so it's a bank. There is also a stone "curb", big enough to grind, but so small that your wheels are only mm off the aspahult. The piece de resistance (sorry FA and amis, ximen was too far away tonight) of the spot is pretty hard to describe. It's a 90 degree, smash in grind, to the right. It starts high and finishes low, and it's tight and tricky, and there's no way to ride it out, unless you get to the end of the whole thing. Mostly, we never made it because by the time we go there, we were too drunk. Tonight, Rmj made it.

Stooping, we discussed the finer points of mothra and saw some hoes run their pattern and some amg's run theirs. Then we discussed the trash truck that they had seen in ximen; a monster, piled high with as much shit as could fit on it. I saw the photos. It was amazing. Then an old woman rode by us on her scooter, with a cardboard box tied up to the back of her scooter. it was loud.

Then IS and I had a couple of last rounds on the roof, and we swapped stories of teenage vandalism and we threw pistachios down onto the street below. I just looked at it, and little white dots are everywhere. I'm not a model to which anyone should aspire.

This was a fun night.

All Signs Point to Skate Night

A new client asked what I'm doing tonight, and instead of saying, "sitting at home feeling sorry for myself," I said, "skateboarding." And she was like, "in the streets? Really? So cool." I said yup. SHe asked if we are the people who film the skate videos. I said yep. I was impressed by her knowledge. She complemented my work and I was fucking happy. 

But I had lied; I went to the bridge instead. It was wet, so I walked over. It was nearly empty when I got there, but by lights out, it was roaring like a bonfire. It would be a lot shorter to list who wasn't there than who was. I don't really need to do either. If you missed it, it's gone with the wind, like sand paintings. 

The session itself was like a freeform jazz festival, where anyone can get onstage and play, but some people are clearly more talented than others. Skating is about participating. There are no spectators. I'm glad I participated. The bridge is the best place in the world. 

It was windy, and the skate home was dry. 

I went by my saltwater chicken guy's stall on Food Street. We chatted and he hooked up with loads of extra shit, like pig's face and chicken's ass. I stopped by my local 7 to stock up on asahi and a weird hobo on a bike kept saying hello to me. I tried to turn my back to him, but it was a guy from Overlord. The End. 

i met an ice monkey

my last student cancelled so I bought a bunch of asahis and got up on the roof. I drank those asahis, and then I went to throw them out, illegally, in the street trashcans. As the light waited to change, a fruity and bizarre local jogger pranced across the crosswalk, and I did a taiwtf double take. Another laowai did the same, and we made eyecontact. I took out my ear parasites and was like, whats up bro. bro was like, I just arrived in Taiwan, from the errport, and Im staying on linsen bei. I was like, word, lets walk up there and eat some pig parts and shit. homeboy was like, right. we did. it was fun as fuck. he thinks I speak mandarin because I could order food and shoo away the pimps. at least ive improved.

Where has all the time gone?

This one is gonna be a cluster of a post. It's hard to say exactly what happened here. It was a Tuesday, and I worked three jobs, starting at a horribly early hour. IS and I met up at middle mountain for some skating. We cruised around the blocks in lost circles like a flock of geese trying to take off, only without the honking but with a few tricks here and there. It was still too early to avoid the hordes of pedestrians. That was my excuse for skating so slowly, but in my heart, I know I should have charged through them, scattering them with an elbow, like bowling pins, smashing and grinding and flipping and slappying and destroying like skateboarding should be done. But we didn't.

Instead, having done the take off goose circling, we ended up heading out east. At some point, at cruising altitude, I insisted to go in a grab a beer and a microwaved 7 curry burrito (shits on point this year) and we sort of stooped up in the seven and drank a round or two. We cruised on, but the hardcore part of the session was hazy, by this point. It's not a good thing, or a bad thing. On this night, it was a good thing though, because we cruised back to the three stair park, which I haven't skated for nine weeks, to the day.

Suddenly, a session was happening, on a cool and breezy Taipei night. It doesn't get better than that. The spot is tight, in more than one sense. Previously, I thought that anything more than one at a time was a little too many, but after tonight, I have to admit that two, with music, skating in the same chirality, makes for a much better session. Especially with IS, who makes little 'woop' and 'arp' and 'reet' sounds if you miss a trick, but makes louder sounds and happier sounds if you land something, no matter what, and then you find yourself doing the same, and somehow the energy of the session is built up by this until you're trying tricks faster than you ever would have, because each time just a layer of energy building up for the next.

We eventually left and circled like landing migratory water fowl; very slowly, without intent. Astonishingly, we ended up at a seven and had a few more beers. Then I blasted home. There's a lot more to be said about the delicate details of skating across an empty Taibei late at night, but I have to work early so you'll have to imagine what it's like to click and clack across the endless tiles, ride up and down the kickers, slappy the stuff in between, and wonder where all the time has gone.

An Evening of Swagger and Flatground

One of my jobs is north of the city in a little valley called Sky Mother. For the first time, I brought my skateboard up there and cruised the 20 minutes downhill back to the train, following the path of a little river. The red line took me to the orange line and the orange line took me to Three Weight, where there is an awesome little shop called Swag. It was a 30 min cruise from the station where I got off by accident, so I was late, so their crew had already left, but I caught up with them at the river park. They skate Friday nights under the swag bridge, especially when it's drizzly. They've got ramps and rails, so I hear, but tonight was flatground only. No problem, the surface is great (and dry) so I tore into 100s on everytrick. I got the ton on ********, ** and ** ***s, ***** *****, ***********, ** *** (** and ** also), ***** **s and ** ******s (taking time off made me learn how to feel that trick so much better. Now it's actually popped and controlled. I have no idea what I'm doing differently). They swag crew were cheerful and friendly, but I was sullen and didn't really talk to anyone. Sorry everybody, didn't mean to be a dick, I just had a bad day. 

I cruised down the river after 90 min or so, and saw the old spots. They're better in the day, except for the massive wallride, which I didn't have the legs for anyway. My mood got a lot better when I crossed Taipei bridge back into civilization. I used to cross it all the time when I lived in that neck of the woods, and now it's got a wider sidewalk, but still has the little metal plates to ollie on the way. you don't have to actually ollie, but doing it put me in a much improved mood. I went to the warf and then across the city to home, doing little ******s and powerslides and generally terrorizing pedestrians who weren't paying attention. It's actually a public service. Keep your heads on a swivel, morons. My coworker is in ICU because a taxi creamed him in a crosswalk. Taipei isn't dangerous for robbery, but vehicular homicide is a violent crime, and there's tons of that here. Work is cancelled Saturday, so I have a two day weekend. Maybe I can take a little trip.

it's not your problem

The best county album
Nothing Is Ok
everybody fields

Tears slide down my jinro as it heats up
Tears slide down my face

I'll call it wasted time