Tuesday, November 29, 2016
skating with hate
I don't usually have a heart filled with hate but I did today, and that was before someone slashed our motorcycle's seat. I went to yuanshan alone and skated slappies til I wandered home.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Tiara Bong Desk
Calm sesssion at the bridge. It didn't rain, so I feel a little guilty that I spent it there, but it was quality time with friends, for a couple of hours. rmj and I stooped up and saw a crew skating north on the other side of the street, but I'm getting sick and my legs are all jiggly, so we just watched them disappear into the night. The plan was to go to the concrete park at zhongli tomorrow, but I'm guessing I won't make it.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
the wave function collapses in the cross walk
this merits a whole new paragraph. I forgot it and remembered it and thought of it again while listening to *******.
You can only say you know a trick if you can do in the cross walk, cruising. That's the be all, end all. It doesn't matter how many times it's done under the bridge or in any skatepark, if you can't do it across the cross walk, this time, in front of the taxis, you don't know the trick. Purify skateboarding.
You can only say you know a trick if you can do in the cross walk, cruising. That's the be all, end all. It doesn't matter how many times it's done under the bridge or in any skatepark, if you can't do it across the cross walk, this time, in front of the taxis, you don't know the trick. Purify skateboarding.
When can you say you can do a trick?
Two decades ago, I overheard someone ask a famous pro skater "what tricks can you do?" and he said "I don't know yet, for today." The reason it sounds like this ancient skater didn't speak english very is because I'm making up the story and I've lived here for too long. I never met any pros until I came to Tiawan. It rained tonight and I didn't leave the house until 2 am, and that was due to cabin fever. I went to the 24 hour sushi place, but I couldn't find it, adn then I went to the 24 hour night market, but I couldnt find that either, and all they have after 2 am is pork grease on rice (which i did sort of mean to be insulting when i typed it, but then also realized I want ot eat it) so instead I ate 7's microwave food (which used to be a miracle but now makes me hate myself for eating it) and walked around the streets for a few hours. The asphalt got patchy like that one super model's face, as it dried. By 2 am, it was dry enough to skate, but I flipflopped around between 7 and fami clerks, buying beer, chatting about what kind of annoying things are happening in their lives, and never, ever complaining myself.
I sat down in a park nearby the house, which isn't a stoop, but could be referred to as the cat stoop, because it's full of cats that spend their time fighting and fucking. Anyway, when I have insomnia, I walk around Taipei and think about skateboarding. I thought about this: the ability of doing a trick is a wave function. Even if you can do a trick most of the time, it doesn't mean you will do next try. There are two waves: one is the probability you will land a given trick next try, the other is variety of tricks you can land next try, which presumably has some sort of familywise error. Probably not though, I'm not actually sure what that means. Anyway, I made a check list, in case you need to know if you can ethically tell your friend that you know how to do a trick:
You landed it, but not clean No
You landed it once, clean No
You landed it today Probably no, unless it was first try
You landed it three times today Maybe, but only if you're feeling cocky
You can do it 10% of the time No
You can do it 50% of the time Depends how humiliated you can stand being on the next try
You can do it 90% of the time How cocky do you feel?
You can do it 99% of the time If you fuck up the next try, you suck at it and you definitely have no right to say you know this trick
You can do it 99.9% of the time See above
You did it 1000 times in a row I'm not sure this have ever been done. Even if it had been, it still doesn't count if you fuck up the next one. Has anyone e ver done 1000 ******** in a row? It's hard to imagine. that would mean doing one every 15 seconds for 250 minutes, without missing. I can't believe it's possible.
What we are working into (this is not a phrase we say in english) is a sort of quantum state of being able or not being able to do a trick. Before the event, you can both do it and not do it. When you try it, the wave function collapses.
Discussion section: when you get older, you are going to lose tricks. If you actually did 1000 ********s in a row, what is hte time delay after which point can you can no longer say you know how to do ********? Immediatley. Because the past and present and future are the same thing, we always could do, and can do, and did do a ********. But if we never could do a ********, then we always couldn't do it. WHich is the opposite of what I meant to say in all of this, which was, the only trick you can claim to be able to do is the one you land next.
I sat down in a park nearby the house, which isn't a stoop, but could be referred to as the cat stoop, because it's full of cats that spend their time fighting and fucking. Anyway, when I have insomnia, I walk around Taipei and think about skateboarding. I thought about this: the ability of doing a trick is a wave function. Even if you can do a trick most of the time, it doesn't mean you will do next try. There are two waves: one is the probability you will land a given trick next try, the other is variety of tricks you can land next try, which presumably has some sort of familywise error. Probably not though, I'm not actually sure what that means. Anyway, I made a check list, in case you need to know if you can ethically tell your friend that you know how to do a trick:
You landed it, but not clean No
You landed it once, clean No
You landed it today Probably no, unless it was first try
You landed it three times today Maybe, but only if you're feeling cocky
You can do it 10% of the time No
You can do it 50% of the time Depends how humiliated you can stand being on the next try
You can do it 90% of the time How cocky do you feel?
You can do it 99% of the time If you fuck up the next try, you suck at it and you definitely have no right to say you know this trick
You can do it 99.9% of the time See above
You did it 1000 times in a row I'm not sure this have ever been done. Even if it had been, it still doesn't count if you fuck up the next one. Has anyone e ver done 1000 ******** in a row? It's hard to imagine. that would mean doing one every 15 seconds for 250 minutes, without missing. I can't believe it's possible.
What we are working into (this is not a phrase we say in english) is a sort of quantum state of being able or not being able to do a trick. Before the event, you can both do it and not do it. When you try it, the wave function collapses.
Discussion section: when you get older, you are going to lose tricks. If you actually did 1000 ********s in a row, what is hte time delay after which point can you can no longer say you know how to do ********? Immediatley. Because the past and present and future are the same thing, we always could do, and can do, and did do a ********. But if we never could do a ********, then we always couldn't do it. WHich is the opposite of what I meant to say in all of this, which was, the only trick you can claim to be able to do is the one you land next.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
be forwarned, etoh is involved
i spent most of the night drinking tb and talking to friends adn family on the roof. THe sky is very dark and also very orange, where the clouds are. Word to the wise: don't tell your mom that if america registers muslems that you are going to register as a muslim. At laest, if you are me, don't tell my mom that: 1 you will get a very unpleasant response 2 apparently lots of people already htought of this and you wont get any points for original thinking, and apparently it's some kind of talking point. There is a reason I don't live there.
It's not them, it's me
It's rainy season.
Saturday is always kook day at the bridge, so I usually don't go. I used to go the northern bridge instead, but since I live by the bridge bridge, I walked down there this afternoon in the wet. The first thing I noticed was the quartet of women picnicing on a blanket in front of the flatbar in the back. I was already annoyed because lzyk was at an MSF event all day, and for some reason, I really didn't like that. The reason I really didn't like the picnic was that it mean I couldn't do the first trick on the flatbar that I always have to do first now or else it be a bad session. I'm aware that this all sounds vaguely mentally ill.
I was also ready to be annoyed by anyone not skating the wooden pallets I brought. The preparation paid off. A drum class set up in the back, near the flatbar, and while I thought about snarky insults to say to them in english, the tide started to turn. My grinch heart realized that this sort of annoying shit is why skating at the bridge, even on Kook Day, is still good. It's a living, breathing spot, full of kids on wiggle boards and picnic parties and live music and dozens of people standing in front of obstacles and holding their skateboards.
Someone had moved my pallets to the trash pile, so I took them to the back and stacked them in a few variations. THen I made a bank out of them, against the little shitty box. Thiswas the winner. I was the only skating them for hours, which is my last lingering complaint. I am befuddled by people who go to a spot and skate the same terrain and the same tricks, day after day, week after week. This behavior is a lot more like basketball than it is like skateboarding.
However, two homies ended up skating it with me for a while. Then I got over my sulking. In the end, skating the pallets made them fall apart anyway.
Saturday is always kook day at the bridge, so I usually don't go. I used to go the northern bridge instead, but since I live by the bridge bridge, I walked down there this afternoon in the wet. The first thing I noticed was the quartet of women picnicing on a blanket in front of the flatbar in the back. I was already annoyed because lzyk was at an MSF event all day, and for some reason, I really didn't like that. The reason I really didn't like the picnic was that it mean I couldn't do the first trick on the flatbar that I always have to do first now or else it be a bad session. I'm aware that this all sounds vaguely mentally ill.
I was also ready to be annoyed by anyone not skating the wooden pallets I brought. The preparation paid off. A drum class set up in the back, near the flatbar, and while I thought about snarky insults to say to them in english, the tide started to turn. My grinch heart realized that this sort of annoying shit is why skating at the bridge, even on Kook Day, is still good. It's a living, breathing spot, full of kids on wiggle boards and picnic parties and live music and dozens of people standing in front of obstacles and holding their skateboards.
Someone had moved my pallets to the trash pile, so I took them to the back and stacked them in a few variations. THen I made a bank out of them, against the little shitty box. Thiswas the winner. I was the only skating them for hours, which is my last lingering complaint. I am befuddled by people who go to a spot and skate the same terrain and the same tricks, day after day, week after week. This behavior is a lot more like basketball than it is like skateboarding.
However, two homies ended up skating it with me for a while. Then I got over my sulking. In the end, skating the pallets made them fall apart anyway.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
manuals are hard
Proverbially, we should judge men by their friends. I think we can also judge women by how well they spot skateable debris.
I spend the day getting blasted out of the water at sciency meetings by people communicating with me in their second language. I was told, "don't worry, there is a learning curve." Yeeeesss. Everest has a learning curve as well, but it doesnt mean everyone makes it to the top alive. Much less back to the bottom. But the situation isn't hopeless, it's just totally humiliating. I was just saying that I hate that I'm not good at thinking just as much as I hate that I'm not good at skating to lzyk on our walk home (she was at the meeting and didn't seem to struggle with concepts, even though it was in her third language. My ego can't handle this sort of onslaught for long). We had thanks giving beers at a super beer bar in a super terrible town.
Anyway, we got off the bus back in Taipei near 行天宮 and walked home. Just as I was saying something witty and awesome, she pointed out five wooden pallets on the widewalk, and said "can you skateboarding on those?" Yes, yes, you can. We discussed how to bring them to the bridge. Ingeneously, she recommended taping them together wit hthe ducktape we have under the couch. She was impressed that I thought I could move them all they way from 行天宮 on top of my skateboard, since it's a few stations down the road.
I put her to bed and skated back up the sidewalk, through the hookers and empty black mercedes and white bmws that dominate the sidwalks in the prostitution zone. I half expected the pallets to already be gone when I got there, but they werent. I taped them up (goddam, lzyk is smart) and pushed them down the side walk for a long long while, stopping to beer up when appropriate.
arriving at the bridge felt like a triumph, like having run a marathon or having clogged a toilet. I have wanted to contribute something to this spot for three years, and finally, I did. It isn't much. It's just some manual pads, or if you're creative, something else, I guess. I thought I would have no energy left to skate, but I was so afraid that someone would steal the pallets and sell them for scrap before anyone actaully skated them that I staked them up and had a go. It started at about 2 am. it was fun. It kept going. I skated it like a race track, form one end ot hte other. in the back was a hobo sleeping on bench with a blue blancket, and in the front o nthe other end was a hobo with a white(ish) blanket. neither one of them responded the the musci I was making as my wheels thumped onto the pallets. I just couldnt stop, like a maniac. A cop came by eventually, but kept walking and didnt say anything. I kept going and going. my legs cramped up and I got more beer and tried some more manuals. finally, I ate it pretty hard. I did a few more, just to show myself that I wasn't giving up, but my feet hurt so bad that continueing wasn't really a long term option. I skated home, but didnt feel like sleeping, so i kept going north and found a brilliantly beautiful metal grate bank to marble ledge, both sides. I skated it until security decided it wasn't acceptable. The annoyingness of the sound of me hitting that metal bank was 10/10, I cant believe they let me skate it so long. Then I popped a hail mary **** **** in the cross walk and drunkely caught it, in front of a hoard of late night taxis and scooters. someone honked, maybe in anger at seeing me do that. I will never know, because I blasted back home and got two more tbs, but they're in the fridge, because I don't think I can stay awake long enough to drink them.
at least if someone steals those pallets, i have skated them every living shit out of them. I hope everybody else gets a try. Thanks lzyk. you are a good woman.
I spend the day getting blasted out of the water at sciency meetings by people communicating with me in their second language. I was told, "don't worry, there is a learning curve." Yeeeesss. Everest has a learning curve as well, but it doesnt mean everyone makes it to the top alive. Much less back to the bottom. But the situation isn't hopeless, it's just totally humiliating. I was just saying that I hate that I'm not good at thinking just as much as I hate that I'm not good at skating to lzyk on our walk home (she was at the meeting and didn't seem to struggle with concepts, even though it was in her third language. My ego can't handle this sort of onslaught for long). We had thanks giving beers at a super beer bar in a super terrible town.
Anyway, we got off the bus back in Taipei near 行天宮 and walked home. Just as I was saying something witty and awesome, she pointed out five wooden pallets on the widewalk, and said "can you skateboarding on those?" Yes, yes, you can. We discussed how to bring them to the bridge. Ingeneously, she recommended taping them together wit hthe ducktape we have under the couch. She was impressed that I thought I could move them all they way from 行天宮 on top of my skateboard, since it's a few stations down the road.
I put her to bed and skated back up the sidewalk, through the hookers and empty black mercedes and white bmws that dominate the sidwalks in the prostitution zone. I half expected the pallets to already be gone when I got there, but they werent. I taped them up (goddam, lzyk is smart) and pushed them down the side walk for a long long while, stopping to beer up when appropriate.
arriving at the bridge felt like a triumph, like having run a marathon or having clogged a toilet. I have wanted to contribute something to this spot for three years, and finally, I did. It isn't much. It's just some manual pads, or if you're creative, something else, I guess. I thought I would have no energy left to skate, but I was so afraid that someone would steal the pallets and sell them for scrap before anyone actaully skated them that I staked them up and had a go. It started at about 2 am. it was fun. It kept going. I skated it like a race track, form one end ot hte other. in the back was a hobo sleeping on bench with a blue blancket, and in the front o nthe other end was a hobo with a white(ish) blanket. neither one of them responded the the musci I was making as my wheels thumped onto the pallets. I just couldnt stop, like a maniac. A cop came by eventually, but kept walking and didnt say anything. I kept going and going. my legs cramped up and I got more beer and tried some more manuals. finally, I ate it pretty hard. I did a few more, just to show myself that I wasn't giving up, but my feet hurt so bad that continueing wasn't really a long term option. I skated home, but didnt feel like sleeping, so i kept going north and found a brilliantly beautiful metal grate bank to marble ledge, both sides. I skated it until security decided it wasn't acceptable. The annoyingness of the sound of me hitting that metal bank was 10/10, I cant believe they let me skate it so long. Then I popped a hail mary **** **** in the cross walk and drunkely caught it, in front of a hoard of late night taxis and scooters. someone honked, maybe in anger at seeing me do that. I will never know, because I blasted back home and got two more tbs, but they're in the fridge, because I don't think I can stay awake long enough to drink them.
at least if someone steals those pallets, i have skated them every living shit out of them. I hope everybody else gets a try. Thanks lzyk. you are a good woman.
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