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.