Ode to Linsen Road

The bridge was a good place to start, around 10 pm. It was dry and noone else wanted to skate. Some dudes I kind of know were there, doing important things, and I warmed up. They left at lights out and lzyk let me know that she wanted to go get some food on her way home. She gets off work at midnight on the friday of new year's. TK and his crew arrived shortly after I got those instructions, so we skated pretty hard until I had to leave. I was sorry to leave them, but lzyk and I rode out to the old neighborhood on the orange line, and ate at a series of excellent and interesting street bars. On the way home, we bombed Linsen on foot, and I skated circles around here when I got bored enough, and ********* curbs and whatever, until the pimps got annoyed. Linsen never sleeps. It's like Japan's Tijuana, if Tijuana had a lot more prostitutes and a lot less other sketchy shit. Also you can gamble for sausages (beat the vendor at dice and you get five sausages for $100, lose and he keeps your $100. Who the fuck could eat five of those things??) I found an infinite set of curbs, microbanks with stone coping, metal ledges, two and three stairs, manny pads in front of whore houses, racks of slut panties for sale, other slut paraphenalia, pig heart soup vendors (there are thousands of other vendors, but I had that particular one) smashed up super cars scraping down the road with parts falling off, binlang, beer, curbs, tiny little flat bars and round rails for parking bicycles, scowling gangsters, flashing lights, more food, more beer, more curbs, more food, another beer, some curbs, another beer, some manuals, and then we were home. Linsen road is where the action is after midnight in Taipei.

nationalism is the enemy

I'm in the club, and I don't even live in japan. I got called 外人 by a strangers!

Destroy all nations.

art bed soak

Rain was threatening like foreign war planes but it never came. The new kid and I met up at the ximen plaza, but noone else showed, so we went to the wallride out by the airport. I translated a request to the security guard to borrow some planks of obvious trash wood, and he eventually ok'ed it, as long as we agreed to bring it back ot the trash pile. We stacked up some debris and put the wood on top and it was good. We even put the trash back in the trash pile. Skate ethically, you assholes.

We didn't put the debris back, because it was heavy and security didn't know we moved it there. We also got the granite benches, the ampitheatre, 圓山 bridge, and handful of street spots on the way. Then we got night market supper and went by the bridge for bridge, where I was suffering from the cold so severely that some homies gifted me some clothes. It's 12 degrees in taipei tonight.

on the way home, I went for a beer at the seven, and a lil sawty pointed at my skateboard and asked "****slide?"

Much love for taipei five oh

There isn't a good reason for this slump, but maybe I'm just getting old. I started the night at the bridge with zewei, a visiting american, and rmj. unexpected homies (CHB, K, etc etc; a long list of initials that means my friends)  were also there, which always makes for a sweeter night (they are rare street skaters, so running into them is always a happy event, evne if it's just under the bridge). I didn't accomplish anything, and ended up talking to my parents on the phone to wish them merry christmas, as I pumped bakc and forth between two banks. they didn't answer on christmas day, which is why i'm drinking and skating in taipei in my middle thirties. 

rmj and I cruised for a while in the area around the bridge. He got a long, long line on a section of tiles and marble ledges and curbs. I don't approve of filming skateboarding, but I wish I had been filming it. That was what it's all about. 

We went to the Stoop (formerely the new stoop) and beered up. A pair of cops were mad dogging us for a few minutes, and they crept up from down the way and asked if we know AD, a taiwanese pro. RMJ said no, but we've skated with him a few times. The cops were really impressed. They asked us lots of questions and eventually rode off into the night on their scooters. this is how policing work should be done. RMJ went home and I tried to keep going. There is a series of slappy marble curb/micro banks and I caught one wrong and now I have a bloody elbow to prove just how good of a night it was, even though I don't have much else to show for it. Taipei is the best city in the world.

This is why we can't have nice things

Christmas aboard is an exercise in loneliness, even if you are surrounded by loved ones and wouldn't choose to be back in the mothercountry if it came with a winner lottery ticket.

We rode out to the beach in yilan on bicycles. it was worse than africa, and I've chilled on an african city beach. There was less human shit, admittedly. But i mean less feces. In Taiwan, compared to africa, there was way, way way, more piles of shit (human garbage). I have never seen anything like it. Someone tried to argue that it was washing in from other countries, but this is like arguing that Taiwan's air pollution is blowing over from china - total bullshit. There was a lot of trash whose origin I couldn't identify, but there was not a single peice that I could I idenfity that wasnt sold in Taiwan: beer, weird herbal wine bottles, tapes, fishing trash, car batteries, plastic plastic plastic plastic; there is just no way to put into words the volume of shit that the people of yilan have managed to collect on their beach.

lzyk was so upset taht she was shaking. I have never seen her react in this way. The shame that taiwanese people must feel when they visit this beach might be compared to the shame that I feel, as an american, when I visit kabul or mosul or los angeles.

shaky legs

I technically had the day off work, even though I had things I should have been doing besides skating. It was sprinkly, so I went to the bridge. Shaky leg syndrome (SLS) was my excuse for not getting much done. I'm not sure about the etiology, but not sleeping til dawn might have played a part. Also, drinking way too much coffee. Or heavy metal poisoning. Maybe it's chromium in the water. I did make the coffee with tap water.

It was cool and breezy and uncrowded. Before I got started, a dude came up to me to ask about spots. He's from nearby Prague (I can't remember the anme of the town). He seemed alright, so maybe we'll do some street skating soon.

Sometimes the SLS wears off after I warm up but if anything, it got worse this time. I skated til the shakes made it nearly impossible. I guess I'll go back to bottled water.

lost

For some reason, no one else wantedto start at midnight,so I went east alone. There were a lot of new spots, mostly small stuff, which is just what I wanted. The best find was a long curb with bronze coping. There were many more, but I don't have the stamina to describe the minutae here, because I got lost (no phone or compass, refusal to ask for directions) for nearly three hours. I kept leaving 101 and suddenly seeing it ahead of me again. It was like blair witch project. I asked a pimp and a cop and a 7 11 clerk and another pimp and at one point, i had skated from 101 to neihu, and back, without realizing it. this was key, because i kept going and went south past 101 into xinyi and so on. I found a few spots, but i ll never find them again because i didnt' have my phone. you know you're in trouble when you get another beer at the same 7 that you were at two hours ago.

i finally gave and got a taxi back. it cost me nearly 3 US dollars, but it was worth it, because i was a fucking long way from home, and the driver talked to me about all the things i'm interested in. he was surprised when i told him about the scrambling interceptors i saw in the south today. I saw four flights, three each...