Drizzle

I bought a rice cooker. This, more than any other action of the last year, is the strongest indicator that I'm no longer sharing my life with anyone. I fucked up and washed my clothes right before it started drizzling, so two days later, they're still outside and still wet. 

Be there for you someday soon
Don't hold your breath I'm on the move
I know you have so much to say
To me but I'm on the move

Move-Move-Move

Oh, we'll take the time to turn it out

rained out

I skated from a work place to home. I didn't really do a session, cause I thought I'd be skating later, but instead, it rained and I went ot eat the best of food at Yellow House. I've been going there several times a week, cause you can get oyster omlette, squid, shrimp, pig liver soup for about $1 usd each. And beer. And everyone speaks Taiwanese there, unless foreigners come in. Also, it's next door.

Loose Mountain Station

word got out that a session was taking place at a new station, so I skated over. I had to stop several times on the way, to catch my breath. the permatrip has been going for about a week now. it's like being in a car with the windows downs, and hitting the just the right speed to make your head turn inside out with the whump whump whump pressure wave. Only, this one isn't from pressure, it's from an attempt to restore homeostasis. Usually, my head is spinning like a sparked bowl but sometimes I blink and it's like lifting off all over again. This is not entirely unpleasant, but sometimes I don't have the balance to skate and certainly not to ride a motorcycle. The vertigo and body load also happen when I shift my head after holding still for a few moments. I'm not really complaining, it's just a very strange experience.

rmj was on the platform when I got down there, and we went out to Loose Mountain Station. I had heard that like Borneo or the Oaxacan montane, a breathtaking variety of skatespots exist out there, some of them entirely new to science. Our small expedition team was not to be disappointed.

Like the Crystal Cave, it would be immoral and irresponsible to describe the exact location of these natural treasures, because unethical people might pillage and loot the spots, ruining them for generations to come. However, I can say that we fought through the native throngs at 饒河 to secure essential supplies for the expedition, such as  a meatball fireroasted inside a pizzadough like crust, and bottled water. We weren't sure if the water was safe to drink, so far from civilization. You can't be too careful.

The first spot was like a tiny jeweled hummingbird. Each one was a little mirrored marble bench, about two curbs high. The sidewalk there is extremely rough, and the benches were hitherto untouched. Technically still within the borders, we skulked down the border wall, looking for an unguarded post. Within a moment, rmj had found a long series of pebble dash, square pyramids, next to a pink marble ramp, about 45 degrees and knee high. I could easily ******** it, and rmj did some *****s. We didn't realize that the local tribes worship this bank, which in their religion, was the original skate bank, and when Skreet, the god of wallrides, broke off the top, the tiny pieces of pink marble exploded away, all across the world, and that is where every bank today came from. Conseqently, it is taboo to skate the original bank of banks, and a local woman stopped and glared at us for a few minutes. She called someone to tell them what we were doing, and we left before we got any blowgun darts in our backs.

We immediately had to cross a deep, rushing street, and soon found ourselves face to face with more unique and intriguing terrain. We didn't have a geologist on the team, so I'm not sure what sort of natural processes might lead to the creation of such a sight; it was a huge smooth wallride, well over 100 m in height. At about head height, it transfers to vert, but below  that point, it's maybe 70 degrees. Adjacent is an undated religious complex, now abandoned. It was clearly made to honor the slappy goddess, Almaniguanilia, because the wax was still on the corner of it. The ledge itself went from flatground and stayed level as the ground dropped away - an amazing engineering feat for such an ancient people. It could have been there for thousands of years, who knows. Maybe aliens helped them build it. It was clearly a religious complex because although it had sacrificial wax on it, it was still a virgin and bore no marks of having been skated. This is presumably because 14" from the edge is a rough vertical wall. It wouldn't defy the laws of physics to slappy it from ground to waist height, over about 10m, but with that ferocious wall right there, you may as well jump into a volcano. Some spot historians believe that it served a similar grisly purpose - human sacrifices to Almaniguanilia had to bomb the hill try to slappy to the end of it, doomed to bump either their ass or tehir face into the rough wall, unless they can slappy with perfectly straight posture. We saw no tangible evidence of this practice, and our expedition's scientific opinion is that this theory is purely speculative. 

The density of species and cultural sites in this area is one of the highest on earth. wihthin a few minutes, we had encountered a species of spot rarely seen in person. Unable to be bred in skateparks or zoos, this is a huge thick metal snake, not unlike a metal python mixed with a very large lamppost. It prefers the hidden recesses of the area, and protested with very loud clanging, unique to its species, when we skated it. It has evolved a security light that comes on whenever there is movement. Maybe this adaptation helps it feed on smaller rails. We were quickly chased away by the high priest of security, who invoked a spell of some kind about a spirit he called Sleep. He lit incense and gestured towards the sky. In his belief system, there are people who live up there, whom he believes are sleeping, and will one day wake up again. According to our interpreter, he believes that skating the metal python will angry the people sleeping above us, and they will curse us, and all sorts of bad things will happen. Although we remained skeptical about the specifics of his tribal belief system, we tried to hide our skepticism and continue to show respect. It worked, and he threw some voodoo dice on the ground and raised his hands to the sky people and mumbled an invocation.

We only rounded the corner and found a long black mirror stone sidewalk on a perfectly inclined downhill. No need to push or maneuver to slow down, for hundreds of meters, all in a perfectly straight line. On the side of the walk way were various species of marble steps, banks, curbs, ledges, and gaps. Lovely as they were, we identified them an as invasive species from Japan. Everyone knows that Japanese skaters have the quickest feet, and this spot would test even the best of them. 

We waded across a dry roadbed (in this region, cars are almost completely unknown. We could only hear crickets and the wind for most of the session). 

On the other side, we discovered a large ceremonial plaza, all stone of course, with black mirror ledges. it was very well lit, and we skated it until we were too tired to continue. I got the line of ****, ***, ** *****, ** ***, *****, that I was hoping to get on the night . Then, like Indiana jones, I came around a corner and my breath was taken away by what I saw.

It must be one of the dozen best ledges in the world. The precision of its engineering is as perfect as the monolith in 2001. Doubtlessly, it was made by the same species. It's bench high, 20m long, and curved. Currently, it's blocked by cables that are hodling up the new trees. We got a bit on it anyway, until another Security Priest came out and began to invoke a demon from the security camera; gesturing and gibbering in an unknown language, while manically gyrating and fingering the Sacred Microphone. So we agreed to leave, in the face of this hostility, and on the other side of the building, we were greeted by yet another astonishing sight. 

An enourmous white marble cloverleaf garden sat untouched, about knee high to shoulder high off the ground. it's possible to ollie up, and then pump around the curves of it. In all my experience as a skate explorer, I have never sampled anything like this species of spot. We never saw any more like, this, so we reported it as highly threatened/endangered. Contained within the same skate ecosystem, are a series of impossibly smooth ledges with slightly rounded edges. We wore ran out of supplies of energy, but apparently this site is a profane one. No security priests so much as batted an eye at us, and eventually we wandered to a family to resupply. 

Around the corner was huge shiny bendy steel sculpture, whose base is a many pad and curb. It was slicker than pig shit, even though it was virgin, and we skated it until security came out. We feigned to only be participating in a flatground ritual, mimicking some of the moves and words of the priests we had encountered already. This one took us for one of us his own, and after watching our ritual for a few moments, went back inside, apparently satisfied. 

At this time, our expedition noted something rather unusual, even eerie about this new continent, this Atlantis of skateboarding: although there is a fami mart literally every 50m, there are no other species of convenience stores whatsoever. We theorized that like early liverworts and other species identified in Upper Ordovician formations, Family Marts are probably the first species to leave the ocean of Taipei and colonize the new environment. Without competitors or predators, Family Marts were able to spread quickly and colonize all of the available area. Isolated from the rest of the world, this Family mart subspecies has evolved to be much larger and nicer inside, but with truly terrible beer selection - even worse than the common Family Mart found throughout Taipei. Further study of the region is needed to confirm these theories. 

Onwards we rolled. Pushing into completely unexplored area, we had to break out the machetes hack through the undergrowth. Leeches fixed themselves on our legs, and mosquitos and poisonous snakes attacked from every angle. It was during this ordeal that our four porters were lost to misadventure. One fell into quicksand and was sucked down before anyone could help him. Another was gobbled up by a man eating plant, shrieking hideously as it closed over him. he tried to climb out of its verdant maw, but only his hand made it. We could all hear the bones crunch as it finished its meal. A third porter got gangrene and we amputated all his limbs. Unable to provide further service, we left him at one of the family's. We lost our last porter just as he drew the hanging vines aside. He arched his back and rigidly turned, a quiver of native poison tipped arrows protruding from his chest. "Look," he gasped, tears in his eyes. "It is here. The Promised Plaza. We have finally found it." With that, the last breath of life left his body and I ********ed over it as a mark of respect. 

The Promised Plaza is centered around a fountain like structure. That this was designed and built by aliens is indisputable. no humans were anywhere around, and its Lovecraftian geometry was a dead give away to the sick twisted Old Ones who are responsible for its existence. In some dark corners, the intiated claim that this plaza predates human settlement completely. If the legends are true, the plaza's designers must have been creatures with one leg shorter than the other, because the whole place is on an incline, away from the ledges. Through some kind of twisting of space time itself, the technologies that created this ledges, maybe thousands or even millions of years more advanced than our own, made them some able to gain speed as they grind. It was uncanny. I felt like I was losing my mind.

At this point, I slammed coming off the end a ledge, and it was a full body slapper, mostly owning to not having accounted for the sloping ground. I managed to turn my face as I fell and touched my jaw on the ground ever so slightly. I'm glad it wasn't my chin or teeth. I lay there stunned for a bit, and got back up and made it next try. Then I tried to **** **** and landed primo at speed, and this new skateboard, this wild, untamed, unbroken bucking bronco turned on me like a wild animal and lept at my face. I blocked its attack with my forearms, but its fresh grip tape mauled me. Now  I had ripped the crotch out of my pants, garbled both wrists, was bleeding from both knees, had twists my back ankle, and run out of batteries completely.

Just to end on a strong note, I ***** up the "fountain" and down, then we met a dog god angel at seven, whom I petted a lot as we drank and talked next to a semi-civilized tribe who drank and played majong.

We crossed out of fami only territory and found a perfect manny pad and a unique species of metal curb, apparently made out of aluminium cans, and about as thick. It bent so much that it actually started sliding.

Nanjing is arguably the best cruise in the city. It's well lit and it goes for several km. It has kickers, and stairs and ledges and curbs and banks, and the most satisfying skating happens when your pick up those objects on radar, chase them down and hit them first try as your cruise, and then keep going. and going and going. we skated all the way back home.

we stopped at a red light and piece of shit in a white german car (always the worst people in Taiwan) blasted through the middle of a red light at 180kph. He nearly hit a taxi (no great loss) but had we been crossing the intersection, it would have been certain death. fuck that dude. I hope he didn't make it home.

we made it home to Good News Stoop, and stooped up. Then I went to sleep, because my body hurt too much to type this.

Loose River South Capital Station

Our love, deep and brooding and turbulent and unpredictable as the so-called pacific, withdrew curiously out to the horizon, almost out of sight. And it stayed there for a while. Questioning this new state of affairs, we wandered the beach, looking at the recently revealed seafloor, with all the stones and old tires and flopping fish and garbage that had always been down there, as eerie sirens wailed. It stayed out for a year in fact, and when it came back, the wave was with godsized severity and old testatement inevitablitily, at first astonishing, then amazing, then awesome, and finally terrific, in the oldest senses of the words.

It came back with great speed, and smashed into the beach, towering like a building over the unfortunates who had not fled. To be swept away is as to be taken by a river; which, mighty and terrifying in flood stage, is still orders of magnitude less potent than the ocean. A man, aware of the futulity of fleeing, stood arms at his sides and watched fate as it rushed up to meet him. Others tried to flee, but they were far too late in this decision. 

The wave blasted in like a bomb, turning black as it roared across the land; crushing, obliterating, eating, devouring, destroying every thing, living or inanimate. It came with an unstoppable power that only a moving thing the size of an ocean can contain within itself, when it decides to go somewhere. It rushed in, higher and deeper, changing to a murky brown then inky black, full of flotsam and toiling with roaring splashing that drowned the cries of the miserable. It ripped further and further inland, until it met the base of the mountains where it scarcely paused and went up.

We, it, us, commingled and inseperable as gangrenous flesh from different limbs oozes together, were born along with it, and were smashed into hard realness of Taiwan. 

up it roared with a bass fury as though intelligently determined to destroy as much as possible, to wipe the slate clean, to remove all trace of what had been built by the hands of men. 

up, up the mountains came the ocean, in a great wave that for a moment appeared as though it would swallow Taiwan itself, even the mighty mountains, and continue on across the world.

But it didn't. Our life together stopped, black as night, full of trash and laden with human suffering of all kinds, and it lapped gently against the base of an ancient stone pillar, formerly squared at the corners but now rounded with age, bearing a carved warning, "Build nothing you love below this point, for it will inevitably be swept away." And there we were, too late to react, doomed from the start, destined for our wave to turn foul; and, after pausing at that stone marker, slowly turn and start to rush back to sea, faster and faster, back towards the west, taking with it an equal and oppositely destructive force, until cars and people and rocks and ropes and boats and buildings were piled high in the foul muck, abandoned by the foulness than ablated their meaning from the land, leaving only the hideous miasma and its own, finally revealed, black truth, that coated and blanketed everything it had uprooted, tortured, killed, and finally buried. 

Of course, there were survivors, but nothing was ever the same again, at least not within our lifetimes. 

I went to the old three stair tonight, in front of the old house. Unskated for a year, most of the marks have left the stone curbs, so I rewaxed them. A few tricks in, the tail snapped.  The tail stayed on though, open wide across the middle like the mouth of a huge stupid newt. Oh well. It guess it's a metaphor for something. I fucking hate pretentious metaphors. Time for a new skateboard.

North Door Station

The session was over and done before I got to the bridge, or even realized I was skating. But rmj and IS came anyway. We planned to met at the main banks but even though no hobos were sleeping on the banks, other hobos got angry at the noise. Outnumbered 100-1, I went down the road to a better lit section that smelled less strongly of urine, but more strongly of faeces. I tried to ***** my water bottle and got it a few times. I tried to ***** to ** *** to ** ***** to ** ***, and got the line a few times. One "new" flatground trick per session should be keep me busy for a while.

We agreed to head west, but immediately got stopped at the three stair. It's got newly waxed black stone curbs, and pink slidey stuff on top, which rmj got a ******** *** *** on (sketchy because it's actually a slight bank to ledge that hurls your skateboard into 8 lanes of traffic if it zips). That being said, IS stole the show with a ** ****, a **-**, a *-*, and his signature, a **-** ***** ***. Oh, and the cleanest, smoothest, effortlessest **** I've ever seen him do. I don't do semi-colons.

Then we went up the road to 7 and they beered up but I kept practicing the skate. Then we went to the actual north door, whose station has been in operation since 1916. I know that cause of Wikipedia, but I was actually trying to look up how old the historical site is. It's a big red box with ancient wooden doors inside. I don't know how ancient, cause I already used up all my research energy.

It's a fascinating historical site, which a couple of years ago, was updated into a topnotch skatespot. It's got smooth smooth ground, and waxed granite ledges and tall manny pads, which someone apparently thinks they can **-** from the ledge up to the pad, cause they waxed the fuck out of it. I'd like to see it done. It's also got some grass and some curbs and I got a ** **** *** ****** out, and my first **** of the year. It was exhausting. I played Deep Purple to celebrate.

I went north on the way home and intentionally got lost and cruised up and down the tiles and marble and slappy spots and in and out of traffic and eventually wandered back home.

North City Station

Met Rmj at the banks, but there was no vacancy. the hobos' lebensraum has spread out from the walls and into the plaza itself. We left the piss scented wasteland of cardboard boxes and desperate holes of people at the bottom of society, and warmed up next door, in the ledge plaza. Someone had slightly patched the shitty cement ledges, but the hive of hobos had spread out even into this area, hundreds of meters from the station. I know I sound like an asshole here, and I am. My worst nightmare is being homeless in Taipei. Taiwanese people treat the homeless as absolutely subhumans. so maybe me making fun of them is cause I've lived here too long. anyways, if you skate around north city station, the hobos are going to be a huge part of the human terrain. mostly because they piss and shit on literally everything. some ledges are unskateable because they are toilets. the piss reek is not something I could overcome on this night.

there's a weird little bank to pink marble ledge there, oozing piss and puss and mud. Upstream, it's just piss, but such a huge amount of it that you have to take a breath of fresh air before you go up there to start your line. Rmj got a few variations on it, and I mostly failed to do anything. My goal for the night was a line of *****, ***, ** *****. I did it, but further down the road.

we rolled downhill to a micropot. it's just a tiny pink marble curb, but it also has manly wall rides that require a significant ***** up onto it. RMJ got some *******s and some variations, while a hobo watched, concerned about her pile of shit that she had used to block the atm entrance. I finally got a ****, and a few vatiations out.

The last spot was also  a microspot. It's a bank to ledge, if you use the term very loosely. It's a metal curb (smaller than a normal curb) with a ten foot bank up to it, that rises about 12 inches. The whole time you skate it, it feels like a joke, and its fun as fuck. we did everything we could think of, and beered up, and beered up again and again, hitting a pink marble kicker than you can grind up the side of.

By 03:00, we had found our way to rplaza, where I tried to *******, but it eluded me. RMJ took a cab home and I blasted the sidewalk, Sapporo in hand.

When I got back, the PBH was chilling on the roof, so I had a few more and listened to music and talked about where everything went wrong in our lives.

2 days free. one day of work, then another day free. heaven is on the way.

Hairy Eggs

I finished work and made it home 8 minutes before midnight, and once I had climbed up to the roof, I realized I should change out of my astronaut suit and go buy some beers. I threw on a tshirt that may or may not have been entirely clean, and my favorite pair of taike shorts. Now this particular pair of gangster shorts are white, with black and red hibiscus large print. The shoelace belt fell out long ago, and the elastic is pretty much shot, but they still stay on. Some of the stitching is starting to come apart here and there, but they're perfect for a bluewhite sandal beer run. I got to seven and lo and behold, Sapporo was on sale. Like a greedy child gather easter eggs, I bent down and started filling my basket with the best bad beer in Taiwan.

A thing about how Taiwan has changed me: I squat a lot more than normal. So in this moment, I wasn't really bent over, I was half-squatting in the way that inflexible westerners do.

A man was looking at me in sheer horror and I could feel his nasty eyes boring into my easter basket of beer in righteous judgement of the foreign sinner who drinks too much and looks like a homeless man. He slowly looked up from the basket between my feet, and I met his eyes. He hated me so much I thought he would spit on me. Contempt curled from his lip; half full of hatred and half full of jealous fear of the hairy foreigner. Then he walked away.

I looked down to check how many beers I had managed to stack in the basket, and what had prompted his bewildered disgust was immediately clear. A pair of hairy testicles were hanging through the crotch seam of the hibiscus shorts - not showing, as through a hole - actually hanging out of the hole, like a pair of hairy eggs.

Next time I wear my favorite shorts, I'll probably wear underwear. You can't be too careful.

Circular Mountain Station

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're … ok that joke got old for me really fast. So did my plan of skating and taking notes on each of Taipei's MRT stations, in physical order.

I tried to cruise up to circular mountain station, where a number of bars and drunk people are open to the night air, and slammed a few times on the way. This is because my brain has forgotten how to process cracks. It used to be second nature, but now I have to think about each and every one, and also I haven't cruised the city in so long that many cracks are new or more severe than before. By the time I got to the bar area, I had paid my dues.

I paid respect to CfromPEI and he ***** a few times even though he was working, so it counted as part of the session. wpn and IS and pj sat outside with me while we sipped the etoh and discussed the finer points of life. rmj arrived and IS and me and him skated around the corner into a wonderland plaza that I had never seen before. It must be usually closed off to the public or something. It's a medium to large plaza with scrabbly pebbledash surfaces, and low-thigh high manny pads. For us, the keystone was a two stair up, to wooden planks, to grass gap (or one stair up to higher manny pad and then back down) to another gap and then downstairs. The boys skated it heroicly, but nothing was really perfect, although rmj got a ********* on the step and IS ****** up, to ***** to *** to semislamming into a table. For those with the very very quick feet, the tables are also skateable.

A hobo tried to steal my skatebag, but I grabbed it out of his grimey hands. I should have left it to him, because all that was inside was an empty water bottle, a rusty skatetool, and some wax. Eat that wax you hungry mother fucker.

It rained and I'm out of shape so RMJ and I beer rolled back down to my hood, admiring the spots as we went. Also, a lady yelled at him for putting a receipt in the charity box at seven. actually a lot of weird people were out tonight. It felt good to be one of them. I came home and the PBH was passed out outside. Drink some water bro.

Medium Mountain Station

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're BACK. 

and we have a very, very special guest with us tonight.

Actually, it was just me. I went out determined to just get back into *****ing on the streets and it went reasonably well. I rediscovered some kickers and cruised for a bit. I can't pretend I'm anything other than completely out of shape, having not skated much for most of a year. I found a slate smooth spot for flatground in front of the station and ventured into ** *****s, and a slate slappy curb that I got some shaky shitty ** and ** *****s on. I cruised back home down some twisty alleys with 15 stories buildings on either side, and woundup forced to roll through the dripping sludge of a late night garbage truck with lzyk's voice in my head. It's an interesting point, cause when I was skating that slappy curb, I found a certain tranquility in my own thoughts, particularly, that the mrt guard or the thugs next door were going to kick me out before I got the trick. Old anxieties crop up in the weirdest of ways.