Just got back yesterday from a Cruise to Nowhere. It’s windy up here in my apartment, a perfect day outside, just the right temperature and refreshingly dry, but the wind resulting from opening my windows has created an even bigger mess than previously existed in here. I’ll wait until it rains to clean it up. Unfortunately, I can’t just take off on a bicycle or motorcycle to enjoy the weather, as I have to go to work. Later, though.

Yesterday I ran into Sandman just as I was returning from the cruise. He was going down to take pictures of the Dragonboat heats going on at Bitan, so I went up, put my things away, and then came back down to join him and Jojo. We also ran into some of their friends as well as Liz, a woman with whom Dean and I did a play many years ago, and her daughter.

The suspension bridge was loaded with onlookers and would sway alarmingly when the boats went underneath and everyone went from one side to the other. We got some shots from above and then proceeded down to the bank to take some more after some berk went and stole Sandman’s bright red umbrella.

For my money, the Fu-ren University Team was by far the best looking team, something which may have had something to do with their winning their heat. They were dressed in red half-shirts, their rowing arms left bare. While the other teams were composed of just regular guys, the Fu-ren team seemed to all be bodybuilders or something. We still have a few weeks until the actual Dragonboat Festival itself, so I should be able to get some more pictures in the meantime.

After going shopping at RT Mart, where Sandman went crazy and bought half the wine section (actually he didn’t, but we did run into a foreign guy who did), we retired to the Sandcastle for drinking and cat-on-lap chatting action. It was then I noticed the sound of cicadas, the first I’ve noticed this year. I heard it again this morning when I got up. It’s a wonderful sound to me, the sound of everything good I remember from childhood summers.

I turned on the radio when I woke up this morning to hear the following commercial on 99.7:

“Darn it! What is this on my TV? It’s just a large dark mass on the screen!”

“Hey, check out my new LG TV! Here…now, what do you see?”

“Wa-ow! It’s black people beating crows in the middle of the night!”

“Yes! Since LG uses ‘instalight cannon’ picture tube technology, even the blackest scenes are crisp and clear! Even black people beating crows in the middle of the night are no problem!”

I swear I’m not making this up.

At least it seems relatively sunny out today. Today after work, Dean, Maurice, April and I are all heading out to Keelung to board the Star Virgo “Cruise To Nowhere” on the Superstar Gemini (or possibly the Virgo; I’m not sure) for three days. It will be exciting and new. We’ll come aboard; they’re expecting us…but I don’t think they’ll be expecting us to be shooting part of a film. We’ll have to keep that on the DL and hope they think we’re just tourists having fun. Which we will be.

In other news, David’s got the official Muddy Basin Ramblers website up, for the most part. There’s still a few empty bits, but we’ll fill it in soon enough with more content, i.e. pictures, recording, and miscellaneous stuff. Unless, of course, we can’t get the stuff no more. I’ve adjusted all my links to the official site, but left my original page up just in case there are some remaining links out there, so I can point them to the new site.

The other night, while I was waiting around to see Star Wars, I went to the nearby Mister Donut for some treats. The short line went in the door, with exiting customers coming out the other double door. Due to the swarms of flying termites that plague us along with the plum rains every year about this time, they closed the doors.

This completely flummoxed one woman who, after her purchase, simply couldn’t find the exit. She looked at the line in, took a step towards the exit door, which was closed, and stopped, a puzzled look on her face. She then went over to the back of the store to the cordioned off bit, stopped, and looked around. She checked all the windows, running around the room bumping into corners, customers and other obstacles like some kind of crazed Roomba, before finally charging through the people waiting to be served, pushing her way through us to break out of her perceived imposed confinement and out what she saw to be the only exit. I felt like I was watching a mental experiment on the Discovery Channel or something.

Just got back from seeing the final Star Wars movie. Yes, I’m surprised I took this long to see it, too. Anyway, my thoughts (spoilers follow):

On the whole I liked it. The movie was generally as good or better than Episode II, with more action and less whining, or at least less angsty whining, from Anakin. But it also felt clumsy in parts. The writing made me groan in places, as usual. The cg environments and ship chases were awe-inspiring, and the camera seemed to know where to end up in every shot.

George Lucas doesn’t seem to trust his audience very much. At the end, we had to be pounded over the head with the same shots from the old episodes, rather than something that would lead to them. The frame of the Death Star is almost completed? So it took like 20 years to finish? How much better would it have been to have Darth Vader and the Emperor standing on the deck of a star destroyer that looked like a more primitive version of the ones in the old film, with officers in a recognizable but not identical uniforms, looking on as a large, curved piece of metal, barely recognizable, is hauled past them to a field filled with similar pieces? The shot the way it is feels rushed and brushed over.

Obi-wan’s realization of Anakin’s treachery is likewise brushed over rather quickly. Would a slow dolly in be too much to ask? Or maybe just a linger on a close-up? People say Anakin’s turning to the dark side seemed rushed, but I didn’t feel that part was too bad. It could have been portrayed better, but the timing was about right; otherwise it would have turned into more whining, which I don’t need to see.

Speaking of whining I didn’t need to see, it would have been far more powerful if, upon hearing of Padme’s death, Darth Vader had just stood there, pipes crunching and falling apart around him. Then, a beat of silence, or maybe show him turning away. The “Noooo!” was too much and inappropriate. A greater effect would have been achieved, but who am I kidding? It’s Star Wars.

All in all, I was happy with the film. I would have done some things differently, but then again I’m just a punk indie filmmaker with hardly any credit, so what do I know?

Apart from what I thought of the movie, it was momentous, in that it is likely that it was the last time I will ever sit in a theater and watch a Star Wars movie for the first time. Six times I’ve done this in the nearly three decades since 1977, and this was the last. That, coupled with the end of Star Trek, makes it feel like the end of an era, though in truth perhaps that era ended a long time ago.

This last weekend was a busy one. We had to do a pick-up shot at a lab on NTU campus on Saturday (more about this stuff on the production journal), after which I had to rush home to Bitan with my camera equipment, look longingly at the newly opened swimming pool downstairs, change clothes and take my trumpet and the bass back over the bridge to the MRT station and take the train to Gongguan, where the Ramblers were set to kick off the first of several performances with Sheng Xiang and Water3 at the Riverside.

I got there first, and the place was empty except for the sound people setting up the stage. They must have just cleaned, as the air had an antisceptic odor. I put down my stuff and went back outside, though it was muggy and hot, to wait for the others, who soon arrived. They had spent the afternoon lounging around at Bongos. Sandman bought me a tasty sandwich as the Riverside has no food worth mentioning, and I was starved.

Sheng Xiang and Water3 arrived and started their soundcheck while we went upstairs to the courtyard next to the Taipower Building to warm up. A couple of kids ran around laughing and bumping into us as we played, though Sandman chased them off a few times.

We were opening for Sheng Xiang, and this was the first time since I joined the band that we’d played for such a thoroughly Taiwanese audience. They seemed to like the music, though we didn’t have a lot of time on stage. Mark, the other band’s harmonica player, jumped up and played with us on one of our songs.

Then it was Sheng Xiang’s turn. Sheng Xiang himself is a nerdy guy with a high voice, but boy, can he sing. He was accompanied by Mark, Xiao Liu (Little Six) on a beatiful black fretless bass, and Yufeng, a girl who played a whole range of traditional Chinese instruments. They played Hakka and Minnan songs, mostly with a Japanese flavor to them, in a tight, expert fashion. Conor went up and blew us away accompanying one song, and David did another. Later on we all went up and played together, though one of the songs was in E, a difficult key (f sharp) for trumpet, but I eventually started to get the hang of it.

Thumper took Slim, Sandman and I home, stopping in a park on the way to chat for a while. It was a lot of fun; I look forward to the rest of our shows with Sheng Xiang. The next one, in two weeks I think, is at Witch House on June 4th. See the schedule here under “concerts”.

Sunday morning I showed up bright and early at the Sandcastle so that we could get a headstart on our trip down to Longtan for the Hoping for Hoping Peace Festival. It was hot and shiny, so we went casual. David and Robyn showed up, rousing me from Sandman’s couch where I was recovering from the night before, and we set off in Sandman’s Nissan down Ankeng Road. Everyone was in good spirits. “I just love this tunnel!” Robyn exclaimed, not something you usually hear from common commuters. It was, in fact, a beautiful drive. About an hour later we found the place with no problem thanks to excellent instructions provided by “MJB” on Forumosa. I sat in the passenger seat reading the printout while Sandy drove.

The festival was at a place called Kunlun Gardens, a camping grounds in the mountain valley situated around a kind of temple. The road up the mountain was narrow, rocky and steep, but at least we weren’t on foot.

Our destination turned out to be a big grassy area, spotted with small pine trees and abandoned playground equipment including a small helicopter that looked like it might have been flown and crashed by midgets in the 1970s. Young shirtless caucasian guys, mostly with beer guts, played frisbee, and a man dressed in a long white gown was on the stage introducing a rock group. Tents were everywhere. It felt like an attempt by young foreigners in Taiwan to rehash Woodstock, a kind of hippie central. Strange at first, but comfortable after a while.

We found the stall where Robyn set out necklaces and bracelets for sale for the Garden of Hope Foundation. Food was available from stalls nearby. The music coming from the gigantic speakers was tinny and booming at the same time. We went down the road a bit into the forest to do some practicing. Sandman said that later on there would be a lot of fireflies out.

We were on after an African drum group, Papa Alex & the Pan Afrika, which featured several African men, some shirtless and all very sweaty, dancing, playing and singing traditional tunes. Half of the crowd was dancing right in front of the stage, while the other sat a ways off in the shade of the small pine trees. Occasionally a small group of hikers would show up and realize that the quiet hamlet they were expecting was nowhere to be found.

Our show went well, if a bit rushed due to time constraints. We sat around playing with other musicians afterwards for a while as big trucks lumbered around dissembling the stage and the stalls. Alita Rickards found a baby somewhere and brought it over for drum lessons. I was kind of hoping to see some fireflies, but everyone was quite tired and wanted to get back to Bitan for some of Athula’s famous rhoti. It was good to have a couple of days out in the sun; rain is forecast for the rest of the week.

In other news, Yahoo! got back to me and let me in again, though they keep sending me emails to verify my email address while giving me codes that don’t work. Also, somehow I’ve ended up in Yahoo! Canada’s email, for some reason. Still no answer on how this keeps happening or what my password is being changed to. I suspect it will happen again, so I’ve changed all of my important email notification settings from the yahoo account. I wonder if they’re even curious about this case, if they’re not telling me something, or if the bureaucracy is simply set up to “fix and ignore” problems like this. Ernie tells me I’m the only such case they’ve come across as far as he knows. I suspect it might have something to do with having a non-.tw email address while being physically located in Taiwan. Perhaps we’ll never know.

When I turned on my computer yesterday, my usual Yahoo! page didn’t come up, telling me to login again. I did so, and it told me my password was incorrect.

Not again!

Yep, it’s true. I went through their password request form, only to be told by many different “customer care representatives” that my personal information, again, did not match their records. What I thought was a freak glitch in their system in January is obviously either a real and persisting problem in their system, or else someone, possibly within Yahoo itself, has access to my information and the authority to change it at will. I never got a satisfactory answer from them the last time this happened; they just fixed it and didn’t say how it had happened.

You’d think they’d have records that went back more than four months and could see that this is a recurring problem without me having to point it out.

They tell me that this is for my protection, because if they let just anyone email them and tell them that they’re me, someone could go in and, oh, I dunno, change my password. They may be right, but that tactic doesn’t seem to be working very well as someone’s doing exactly that anyway.

Saturday was brilliant. After doing some therapy for my knee at Chang-kung Hospital, I walked down Dunhua North Road to a coffee shop to have some lunch and do storyboarding. I love Dunhua because it’s full of trees, just like Ren-ai Road. The reason for this is supposedly that Chiang Kai-shek wanted to impress foreign dignitaries, who would arrive at Songshan Airport, drive down Dunhua and make a right onto Ren-ai to the Presidential Office. Those were basically their first impressions, so CKS wanted it to be of broad, tree-lined avenues.

Later that afternoon, after stopping over at Dean’s to talk about the film, I was on my way to the huge Mitsukoshi Industri0military Complex when I heard what sounded like a crowd roaring in the distance. As I walked, I realized it was the sound of tires squealing. Hyundai was holding some kind of promotion in the department store parking lot, with little four-door hatchbacks, just like the kind my friend Daniel recently bought, trying to get around a series of orange cones as fast as they could. The air was filled with the sound of hot rubber as the little underpowered cars were thrown around rather mercilessly. A big red timer showed times under a tent.

I asked a guy what was going on, and it turned out anyone could take a car out and do just about whatever you liked with it, within the confines of the parking lot. Some people drove cautiously around a bit, but you know the boy racers in the crowd were going to wring everything they could from the vehicles, which were decorated with racing checkers. Fake acceleration sounds were being broadcast over speakers, as the little Hyundai engines were obviously incapable of such sounds.

They were about to close up, so I asked if I could have a go. After a few minutes’ wait, I found myself behind the wheel of one of the little cars. It was an automatic, and it took me a second to find the parking brake to add to the spinning action. The car was really underpowered, and the steering required too many turns lock-to-lock. Initial oversteer would quickly become serious understeer, and I’m surprised nobody had run through the flimsy barrier separating the “track” from the rest of the parking lot. I wondered how many little tires they’d gone through that night.

Still, it was fun to try and make the car do doughnuts (mixed results at best). The slalom was fun. I tried to pull a Rockford and didn’t quite make it. I really don’t like front-wheel-drive. The rear end would hop violently with the parking brake on. I think if I’d had more time with the car I could have learned more about how it drove under violent maneuvers.

That night was friend Jez’s last performance in Taiwan before he leaves for the Big City. Which Big City he’s departing for I don’t know, but I’m fairly sure it’s New York or London or someplace like that. The gig was at Peshawar, and after some Japanese fare celebrating Gordon (another friend)’s birthday with Sandman, Jojo and Ray, we piled into Gordon’s huge Saab 9000 and wafted up Roosevelt.

Peshawar was packed, even more packed than usual, which is pretty damn packed. Jez and Friends put on a great show, as usual. Sandman brought his ‘bitty sax, sang along with Will, and Zoe fiddled up a storm. I also got to talk more with the stand-up bass player. The bass was incredible. I am attracted to it ’cause I’d like to learn it, but all of those strings frighten me. Also, it’s huge, expensive and unwieldy. And I can get nearly the same effect on the tub for much less in the way of transportation and chiropractor’s bills.

Sunday was amazing, weather-wise. Rumors have been spreading of rain lasting for weeks or even months on its way, so I dusted off Gendoyun and rode up into the mountains. I blew past some (obviously useless) security gates and cruised around the mountaintops looking at the huge gated communities that are spread out on the hillsides there. From a distance they look fantastic, though I wouldn’t know how to find my house when every other one looks almost exactly like it. Up close, however, they revealed themselves to be typical Taiwanese construction, i.e. solid, thick concrete, with small, heavy windows filled with boxes and other detrius. It’s amazing; someone paid top dollar, more than they would for an equivalent one downtown (I checked) for a house out in the middle of nowhere, supposedly for the environment, and they buy a Benz so they can spend all their time downtown shopping for crap they can use to fill up their windows and block the views.

Ranting aside, I really enjoyed getting back out on mountain roads on my motorcycle on a nice day. I stopped to rest at the Donghua Temple, where pidgeons strutted around the doorstep and old people sipped tea under old yellow lanterns. I chatted with one guy who was apparently supposed to be working on something. Periodically a woman would come over and nag him about it. “It’s only going to take five minutes. Relax!” he told her.

It was pretty hot; I would have found a swimming hole somewhere, but I had to meet Harry later to get some DVDs back from him. Later that night we met up with some other friends in the Xinyi District for dinner. Afterwards, when we emerged from the funhouse decor of Taipei 101’s parkade, we found ourselves in the middle of a heavy downpour. The rain had started.