Dean called yesterday saying the publication he works for, which is tangentially related to my company, was sending Alex, a friend and co-worker of his, over that evening to interview Ang Lee, who is in town promoting Brokeback Mountain, and they needed a photographer. So I packed up my 20D and slipped a demo of my movies into my pocket, just in case, before I went in to work.

Our company’s annual new year banquet was last night, held at the “Heroes House”, aka the military hotel, over near the West Gate District. It was raining as I walked over. A cab seemed useless as traffic was gridlocked the whole way. I was able to slip my raffle slip into the box and have a bite of cold boiled chicken before I had to leave and catch a cab over to the Far Eastern Hotel on Dunhua South Road, where Lee was staying.

I met Alex, and we went up to Lee’s floor to find a barrage of security and a waiting room. We had to wait because a bunch of reporters from the United Daily had rushed in ahead of us, the bastards. It occurred to me that it must really suck to be such a famous person, and even worse for easily recognizable people like actors.

Ang Lee, when we went in to see him, seemed really tired. Out of respect for his eyes after a long day facing reporters and cameras, I didn’t use my flash; fortunately the 20D is good at taking relatively grain-free photos at high ISO speeds. I had no idea what proper form was for such a situation, so I took about a dozen shots that seemed ok on the little screen and then put the camera away to concentrate on the discussion. Lee confessed to not being a great reader, but said he was always working on scripts. He also said he never forced his characters, but rather just let them develop on their own. It was an interesting chat. Before we had to go, I told Ang that I knew his brother, Kan*. I meant to say something like, “Please say hi to him when you see him,” but for some reason instead it came out as a rather presumptuous “He says hi”, at which everyone tittered nervously while I disappeared into the plush carpet.

Well, no, actually. I think (read: hope) he knew what I was trying to say, and asked me my name, so I had a chance to give him my card and demo on mini-DVD before we left. Alex and I had tea in the bar and chatted for a while before he had to go, so I went to City Super and bought some things before heading back out into the rain and the subway home.

Most likely, as happened with my meeting with Steve Chicorel last year and Roger Corman seeing Clay Soldiers, nothing in particular will come of this, but at least I can say I met and chatted with Ang Lee, and gave him a demo, even if he never looks at it.

Concerning Brokeback Mountain itself: I thought it was a very good movie, completely in line with Ang Lee’s typical quiet, drama-in-everyday-life style. The most horrible part is reading and seeing people, mostly in the US, discuss it, both online and in person. Normal, usually intellectually capable people are reduced to nothing more than “OMG!!11Bareback Mountin!LOL111″, ignorance, insults, homophobia and hate abound, and the long, long road gay people have before us before our identity isn’t the subject of ridicule in nearly every situation (at least in the US) becomes painfully, horribly apparent. Just look at related threads on places like Metafilter and Fark. To me, reading and hearing things like that feels like the end of the movie, when someone in the film dies in a pretty awful way.

Even people I had considered good friends can’t seem to bring themselves to talk about this film without dissing gay people in the process. Try talking about one of Spike Lee’s films concerning African-American identity and see how many blatantly racist jokes you get, and how easily, if at all, such jokes are accepted by mainstream society. I wanted to ask Ang Lee about it, but we didn’t have time; he had to go see his parents before he flew back to the states. I wonder if even he knew how revealing the reaction to this movie has been in the US.

Here in Taiwan, thankfully the audience didn’t scream “Ewwwww!” and make snarky comments at the screen, as I’ve heard is common in many areas in the states.

*One thing I’d like to know is why “Ang” gets an unneccesary ‘g’ (it should be “An”), while “Kan” is one ‘g’ short (it should be “Kang”). Did Ang steal his little brother’s ‘g’ at some point? What’s up with that?

One of my photos is being used for the government’s Invest in Taiwan website banner. Also, the Taiwan Review is doing a section on my pictures in their March issue, which should be interesting. To me, anyway. Hopefully to you, too, since you’re here reading this drivel.

The weather’s been great, warm and sunny, albeit a bit smoggy over the past few days. Last week I attended my company’s year-end party, for which we were bussed down to a slightly downtrodden-looking golf center in Yangmei. The food was ok, and we got to use the sauna, which was nice. It was kind of nice to get out of town, but not really my favorite kind of trip. I don’t know most of those people as I don’t work at the company office, so it was a bit awkward. Next week we have the party of the place where I actually work, which might be more fun as I know more people there.

Speaking of parties, I attended a meeting of the Canadian Society at Bongos on Friday with Dean, if you call “sitting around with the other two non-Canucks watching people play a strange game where you try to flick bits of wood into a spinning hole” attendance. Shirzi, who has seen the light and is now ensconced in Xindian, also made an appearance. Afterwards, in a bid to find a place to go at night since the Taiwan Bear Club closed, I tried to find a another bear club off Linsen called “On/On”, but failed. Next time I’ll bring the actual address, but I suspect it’s either something else, something completely non-bear related, or it’s just gone. I walked around the block taking pictures of neat nighttime alleys. I was in the middle of a pretty narrow, very interesting alley when a window suddenly flew open, and then shut. Five minutes later a policeman on a scooter drove up, looking around. He saw me and my camera. We stared at each other for a moment, and then he flipped his siren and lights on and off quickly. I gave him a look that said, “And?” He left. It was just as well that I’d finished photographing that particular alley, though.

Having failed to find On/On, I steeled myself to go to Fresh instead. There I bumped into another indie moviemaker, from Three Dots Entertainment. We talked briefly, and I went upstairs, avoiding the dance floor, to find that the balcony was still closed. Oh, well.

I took Gendoyun out for a ride on Saturday, out to Wulai and back, passing by the new community just past the water treatment plant, where I got off and walked around looking at the empty lots and newly built houses in between. Every dog in the community was barking at me at some point, and of course the police car followed me for a while until they figured I wasn’t a burglar. It seems like a nice place, but from the way they’re building, i.e., not leaving any land for yards, it won’t stay nice for long.

Saturday night was Muddy Basin Ramblers Rehearsal at the Sandcastle, which, sadly, may move to another location at some point in the near-ish future. On Sunday I met with another Flickr photography, codenamed “Dans photo”, and then I took a bicycle ride along the river. First I bought yet another bicycle seat, which of course cut off all circulation to my nether regions within a few kilometers. I have yet to find a seat that I can stay comfortable on for long distances. I need to go to a guy who has been in the business so long that he can prescribe a seat for you just by looking at your ass, like a good tailor.

The temperature dropped to 7 degrees Celsius on Friday and stayed there all Saturday amid a misty rain that defied umbrellas. I spent as much of the day as possibly at home, where my radiator provides a small measure of heat if I sit on as I would a small, off-white horse. But The Betelnut Brothers were playing at a place called Kafka’s Beach or something like that in Gongguan, and David and Conor were doing a duet performance at Alleycats later, so I wrapped myself up and headed out around 6 for hotpot with friends where I could 1) keep warm due to all the little hot pots, 2) oogle the waiter, who would’ve made a good pirate, and 3) disparage the people at the table next to us, who had brought a small dog that was clearly in no danger of being added to the hotpot.

I had to duck out early though, to catch the Betelnut Brothers, who are five aboriginal guys who send wonderful, spine-tingling harmonies booming through the speakers. Between songs they would tell horrendous jokes that the audience clearly enjoyed:

“We were at a church once and after we got finished all the old people’s hands were locked together in prayer. Guess why? Gout!” (laughter)

“An old guy died and his widow and grandson went to see the body, which was pulled out of the freezer, and of course condensation formed. The grandson asked his grandmother, ‘Why is grandfather sweating?’ and she said, ‘How should I know, he’s never died before!’” (laughter)

Sandman showed up in a spiffy NT$600 “Dead Man’s Jacket” about halfway through the show, and we got to talk with some of the brothers during the break. They knew of David and said they’d try to make the Alleycats show later. Unfortunately we had to leave before they were finished to catch a taxi to Alleycats ourselves.

David and Conor were already performing when we arrived, and the place was packed, but began to empty quickly as the night wore on. We were the last to leave, behind even Alleycat His Grand Self, but for some reason we didn’t want to go directly home, so Sandman, Conor, Cat and I began to walk. Somehow we ended up at DV8, and the next thing I knew it was 5 a.m. Cat and Conor took a cab, while Sandy and I started walking again, making all the way to Fuxing South Road before we gave up and hopped in a cab back to Bitan. I got to bed at 6:30, though the sky was still dark due to the weather.

Harry called at 9:00 a.m. Needless to say, I wasn’t in much of a mood to get up, but we’d arranged to put up the Taoist mirror at an appropriate time between 9 and 11 this morning, so I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. Harry arrived not much later, and we put up the mirror outside on my balcony wall to address the problem of the building corners facing us, a real no-no, fengshui-wise. That done, we had vegetarian lunch downstairs, went for a walk and then spent the afternoon at the Sandcastle chatting with Jojo and enjoying the kerosene heater there. It’s good to get together with friends in depressing weather like this. It’s supposed to be less cold over the next few days. At least it’s not raining at the moment. I have to do laundry.

So, 2006. I had no idea what 2005 would hold (I think I called it a “strange, rectangular year”), but I wasn’t surprised that it held a lot of filming. Buying a place was certainly a surprise and a big step, though it still doesn’t feel that way. Nothing too nasty, though, and for that I’m thankful. I’m going to try to improve on that for 2006. Resolutions never seem to last, but my goals for the year, besides the usual “get in shape/exercise/eat better” thing include finishing the movie and seeing it in theaters, rewriting my book and seeing it on Amazon.com, in English, and taking a good, long vacation to someplace like Europe or New Zealand. Ideally, this would include idealized versions of vacations like Walking the Streets of Paris Without Getting Tired, or arriving in Auckland on “Make Love To A Maori Day”, but I’ll settle for the broader achievements of just getting to these places and seeing what happens.

Harry came over to my new place to give it a once-over, check for ghosts, etc. He said it was basically alright, or would be once I stick an eight-sided Taoist Ba-gua mirror above my balcony. We’d met for dinner at the delicious Aubergine Japanese curry restaurant near the NTU campus on New Year’s Eve, and then walked over to the Gin Gin Bookstore. On the way I ran into an old classmate of mine and her boyfriend, from Spain. I realized over the course of our ensuing conversation how pitifully little Spanish I remember.

After the bookstore we walked over to Fresh, which always manages to disappoint me. It lived up to its reputation this time by having its one redeeming feature, the balcony on the fourth floor, closed due to “rain”, though it wasn’t raining. We sat just inside and shouted at each other for a while and then ran outside too late to see the fireworks at midnight. Taking the MRT home at 3am was a novel experience. I wish they’d keep it open 24 hours all the time.

On Sunday I went to a dinner party at my friend Michael’s place. Michael’s apartment is an ode to neatness, and everything was just so, including the food. It was a little maddening, watching the food just sit there while people were fussing over table dressings. On the other hand, Michael has a huge projection TV setup, and we watched “Under a Tuscan Sun”, which is one of my favorite movies, on it. Beforehand we’d watched a Taiwanese short film called “The Smiling Fish” in which a man buys a fish from the pet shop and then sets it free in the ocean. I’m afraid I ruined the dramatic climax by shouting, “Oh no, he forgot, it’s a freshwater fish! Nooooo!” as the guy upturned the fishbowl from the rowboat. Oh, well. Happy New Year.