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June 17th, 2006
March 15th, 2006
03:06 am - Who's Your Evil Lord?
I used to wonder about this guy. I'd watch him wheel an old woman around in chair. I watch him dash out for cigarettes at four in the morning, braving gale force winds. I thought about him smoking his cigarettes down to the filter, sitting in a rocking chair fashioned out of lacquered bamboo. The woman in her chair, a few feet away from him. They'd be looking at a Taiwanese variety show on an old television set. Every forty minutes or so, some gag would hit them in the same way, at the same time, and they'd chuckle together.
I had the feeling that there was a MORE to this guy's life, and for some reason I wanted to see it.
I'd heard it before actually seeing it.
This guy puts on a suit, picks up this two-stringed banjo-like instrument, and sets to walking our neighborhood when the sun goes down. He chain smokes, and usually smells like the hard shit.
Sometimes, he's just too crocked to get it rolling. He's camera-shy, too. In this picture, he's playing the same riff, over and over, punctuating with a howl. There's a Taiwanese bridge, in there. I'd heard him "on," before. . . The trick is to keep him from knowing you're there.
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February 28th, 2006
02:54 am - A Few Blocks Away From Minchuan
Past the little park, past the shopping complex, and down a lane chock-full of cheap eats, there's another park. One of those carefully manicured, grassless setups you're not allowed to bring a pet into, so common around here in Taipei. At night, the park is trimmed in tiny, blue lights.
After the rains, just before ten in the p.m., is when I like it best.
I don't get to walk by it as much as I'd like. It is a little out of the way, and the dog is not yet too keen on traversing the lanes leading in to it. When I do pass by, it's usually occupied by old folks. . . old ladies mostly. Two of then will sit on a little bench, beneath a crooked tree. One talks excitedly and the other laughs and then says something terse and then it's the other's turn to laugh and then the cycle will repeat itself. . . and their later days pass by, slow and cheerful.
When I was photographing these lights, I went past a schoolkid with his girlfriend. By the looks of it, he was dropping her off at her parents' place. They were standing close to the front gate, pressed up against each other, tight, so that each had a good feel-on of the other's goods.
And he was whispering something into her forehead, to which she gave a single syllable in reply.
They were in their school uniforms, and the air around them was warm and prickly.
I wanted to hear more of her voice, but kept on walking so as not to throw the boy's game.
I looked the park over from a couple of angles. Had they been in there? Had both of them cased the grounds for the most out of the way groping nest? What did her face look like in all that blue light?
I took my shots and walked home, my cheeks flushed.
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February 26th, 2006
02:02 am - Zhongshan Middle School North Wall, Sidewalk Side
When I was fifteen, fourteen maybe, I rented this game called Fantasm Soldier Valis. It was the first in a series of of side-scrolling adventure games. The series' story was conveyed through these cut-scenes that would pop up between levels. It managed to snag a very devoted following.
The plot concerned a young girl named Yuko Ahso, who is able to travel between our world and some great beyond. Read as a psychological profile of a bored Japanese schoolgirl, the series could very well be the equivalent of The Tale of Genji for the Sega Genesis. The starting point of any such investigation would be that Yuko prefers risking her life for the survival of another world rather than face the day-to-day existence of a Japanese schoolgirl, what with all its showers, locker-room lesbianism, consensual molestation with the faculty, and showers.
( Great stuff. )
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01:15 am - Zhongshan Middle School MRT Station
This is what it looks like from the street, late at night. . .
. . . And higher up.
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November 3rd, 2005
03:28 am - From "Lying Joe" Ma's Heart, Right to Your iPod.
Taipei's Rapid Transit Cooperation has just lobbed a giant lump of cash into that swirling, zero-sum vortex known as PR. As if the citizens of Taipei needed more incentive to ride the MRT, The TRTC is going balls-out in a incomprehensible move to promote it.
Check out this crappy song they put together. (The song itself is there, but it takes a little while to download.) It's got singing children, druggy synth-lines, and a moving guitar solo that could bring Huey Lewis to his knees, weeping openly and professing his hatred for his father.
The variety of Chinese used is a bit poetic. With the help of my dictionary, and my limited knowledge of Chinese, I've attempted to translate it, here. (I'm sorry that I couldn't give it some kind of rhyme scheme.)
( The Taipei Metropolitan Rapid Transit Song )
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October 25th, 2005
02:42 am - Up Evil and Fuck Off
We live right next door to a barbershop. The landlord was quick to point out that it was a barbershop for the elderly, although my money's on them saying "yes" when I finally get around to cutting my hair again. He pointed this out because he didn't want us to think that we were living next to some kind of slickfist, jerk-off joint. We lived next to one of those, on Nanjing.
Like the old neighbors,( they keep odd hours, these new neighbors. )
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October 19th, 2005
03:54 am - Roadwork *Really* Sucks When You Don't Have A Car
We live right by Min(2)Quan(3) East Road. Just before it hits Dun(1)Hua(4). At that intersection, you've got the domestic airport and a park. The planes are pretty small, and most planes don't make a whole lot of noise until after they've leveled off and really start picking up speed. The park is really nice, but I probably don't go there as often as I should.
It's a pretty quiet neighborhood, all around. Our apartment doesn't face Min(2)Quan(3), but if it did, it wouldn't matter because--all around--it's a pretty quiet road, especially considering how big it is.
But Monday morning, at around six o'clock, the workers came. I don't know how long they stayed. . . I turned on the air conditioning and shut the window to mask the noise so I could get some sleep before going into work.
Last night, though, last night at about half past midnight, they came back. . . they've got a backhoe, and they use the backhoe to smash up the road. And then they scrape these huge pieces of asphalt up with it and dump them into a truck. Then they lay new asphalt, and steamroll it. They went on and on with this unholy racket until well after five in the a.m..
It was a good thing I was drunk off my ass!
They're out there, right now. The foreman, I'll give him this: He's a good yeller. He's got one of those voices that ring out like a shot and hit you square between the ears. His voice carries around our building and through the little alleys, sidestreets, lanes and parks our apartment overlooks. It goes over the drone of the machines. It even goes over the forceful poundings and hydraulic whines of the backhoe.
I've often thought it would be a good idea to allow the Taiwanese to arm themselves. I mean with projectile weapons. But, thinking back on how angry I get listening to that foreman and his crew, I realize it's not such a good idea.
Because the Taiwanese aren't such good shots.
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October 14th, 2005
September 28th, 2005
01:47 am - Surrounding Neighboorhood
 These have been too long coming. This is a shot from above Fuxin N. Road from the Zhongshan Middle School MRT stop. This road is never terribly busy, at least not by our part of town. But then again, we're not the close to it so it really doesn't matter. On the whole though, our neighboorhood is much quieter than the last. Also, the roads are wider, the buildings are shorter, and there's a huge airport nearby. So it's windier and, as a result, cooler.
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September 15th, 2005
03:32 am - Brush Dog Acerbic Cyclone Frenzy
We've moved into this new apartment in this new neighborhood and it's all very nice. It's got a lot going for it, and I hope to start forking over the details soon. One thing in particular is the nearby Swenson's. Swenson's is essentially an international chain greasy spoon. We haven't tried the coffee, yet, but the smoking section is a distinguishing touch of class. These guys, for all their faults, have gotten it right.
This evening, Cindy got the ribs. She doesn't really know how to eat them, and she's usually unable to finish her entire order of anything, anywhere. She got the idea of feeding the scraps to our dog. She told me that ribs--typically--didn't splinter like chicken bones, so it would probably be okay.
Alright, so we get home and Cindy dips into the bag and holds out one of the bones and the little bastards is all ears. He's the very model of obedience. She gives it to him and he can't even move. He's so stunned by the taste of real meat on a real bone. When he returned to his senses, he found the dimmest, most vacant room of the house and set to work devouring the thing.
When we got in close for a good look, he bunched up, as if he was ready to bolt. His eyes didn't leave us, but there was less of him there--in his eyes--than usual. I told Cindy he'd be having dreams about this bone.
Later on, he started biting me in the groin so I figured he was trying to get it across that he wanted to go out. We're hoping to train him in some subtler forms of communication.
So we go out to the big patch of grass behind our building. It's about a block away and let's say it's about a hundred square feet of real grass. This is where our dog usually prefers to defecate.
Now, a few nights ago, I met this Taiwanese guy. He is a bit older than me and has a shiba inu, himself. This one is a bit darker than Bowdu, quite a bit smaller, and female. When I first met him, we just kind of shot the shit and got the basics across.
Tonight, he actually hunched down on the grass and talked about the joy pets bring into our lives, the intelligence and cautiousness of the shiba breed, and how we know when our dogs want to take a shit.
This whole time, this little shiba bitch is dashing circles around Bowdu and he's trying to lunge at her and he's constantly getting yanked backwards by the leash. The little bitch is off her leash.
This guy is telling me about his childhood dog and how he felt so guilty for never spending any time with it when he reached a certain age. He talked about working. And his English classes. His English is very good. He's got a lot of multisyllable words up his sleeve. He likes throwing those around. He's a bit of a showoff, but he's also very sincere. He seems like the enlightened Eastern-type I'd hoped to see more of, coming to Taiwan.
We're happily shooting the shit and I finally decide that our dog isn't going to break for the homestead and I let go of his leash.
For the first time, that I know of, our dog got to play with another dog. They ran around the park, Bowdu chasing the little brown bitch. She would fake him our by breaking right, say, and then spinning left and taking off downhill on a straight shot. It took him awhile to catch on to that trick, and she ran him pretty tired before he realized he could lose less space between them by circling her on the inside of her turn.
The thing is, the first time they'd met, she stayed behind her master.
Tonight, though, she was playing with him, communing with him, being a dog with him, in a way in which he'd never before experienced. This whole playing thing was totally new to him. Just like real grass. And safe streets.
It was a good night to be a pet owner in Taipei.
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September 12th, 2005
August 31st, 2005
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rjhudson's journal
My dog is cooler than Jesus and Benji combined.
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