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. 

Tainan Tour

I took time off to go to Tainan but a typhoon came. Instead I partied with robthefrog. Tainan seems fun. Shame about the rain.

False Start

I skated north to the MRT and rode up to the transit station. There, I ran into a kid toting his deck under his elbow. We said what's up, and turns out, he's from a city that sounds like kong hong. We rode north together for half an hour, talking about what's going on there. I don't want to get political in this blog, but goddam, I am convinced of how far the hong kong people are willing to go. It's a David and Goliath situation. Any hong kong people, skaters or otherwise, who need to sleep on my porch, well, the offer is open. Good luck.

Then I went to a party, got drunk with slots, made a new socal friend, and didn't make the session. But I discovered micheladas. Lacking proper ingredients, it's just a taipeichelada, but it's not that bad.