A fairly interesting weekend. On Saturday Chenbl and I went out to Banqiao to a big campaign rally for President Ma. It was held in a stadium, the stage in the center of the field, surrounded by a sea of seats. Vendors were selling various paraphernalia around the track. It began to rain almost immediately after we arrived, but that didn’t stop droves of people flowing into the stadium. I helped out on stage by wrangling some of the people dressed in those blow-up costumes of various anthropomorphized items, such as drinks, other goods, and airplanes on stage during one of the shows. I led either a 747 or some kind of dragon around by the wing lest the person inside fall down in an embarrassing manner. At least they were protected from the rain, though I wouldn’t relish having a battery hookup in there to keep the thing inflated in that kind of weather.

President Ma and his running mate Premier Wu spent a lot of time shaking hands and talking with people before they got up to the stage, where Eric Chu and other KMT officials were filling time with speeches, permeated with a lot of “Diu-m-diu! (Right?)”

“DIU!” the crowd shouted back in between mouthfuls of lunch. We took advantage of a short lull in the rain to slip away after the president’s speech, following a steady stream of people making their way through the downpour to the train station. I spent the rest of the day among hundreds of prints on my living room floor, trying to make some sense out of it before I meet with the publisher.

The sun was peeking out on Sunday morning, so I decided to go to 2/28 park for taichi practice. Most of our usual practice area was covered in water from the previous day’s rain, but I found a sufficiently large patch to practice the forms and some sword before going over to practice tuishou with some of our group, who had congregated on the pavement in front of the fountain. It was a good, refreshing practice.

After some lunch at Mos Burger, I headed over to the new Bobwundaye for Lo Sirong’s CD launch party. David and Conor played on the album, and they played several songs from the album while we munched on some delicious snacks prepared by Katrina and sipped whiskey provided by Sirong for the event. It was a beautiful afternoon outside. Most of the other Ramblers were in attendance, with the notable exception of Slim, who was indisposed, so we followed with a couple of sets of our own. Slim was notable by his absence, and I couldn’t hear the bass, so I played as well as I could by feeling the vibration in my foot on the tub. It wasn’t a bad set, but rather rough around the edges.

Afterwards David introduced me to his taichi group, which practices at Xinglong Park in Muzha on the weekends. They were very interested in the whole lineage thing, who I studied with, which always reminds me of parties at the Hamptons where people ask which family you’re from (I’m guessing, having never been to the Hamptons and all). When I mentioned Teacher X, they said, “Oh, he is the student of our master!”

“His masters are dead,” I said. Which is true, both Master Yu and Master Song died years ago. Only Little Qin, my “elder brother”, also studied with Master Yu for a short time before the latter’s passing.

They were very nice, and invited me to join them at the park some time. But one older fellow, a tall, slim man named Mr. Li, seemed eager to try me out then and there. He kept making little illustrative pushes as we talked, as if he were sounding me out, and when I put down my bass string he advanced in earnest.

Mr. Li is very good, and, both of us having more than a few drinks under our belts, things got a little, uh, animated. My response was probably ill-advised, but then again I’m not used to doing tuishou in bars. We went back and forth rapidly a few times, but Mr. Li was making annoyingly quick grabbing moves, and I ended up pulling him around me. As he stumbled, his glasses flew out of his pocket and hit the floor. I could feel everyone staring at us, and I apologized to Mr. Li as I helped him pick up his glasses, which thankfully weren’t broken.

I felt bad about it, though, and I’m sure I made a horrible impression on the group after they were so nice to me. They left (I can’t blame them), and I took a seat at the bar and had some more whiskey while chatting with David, Kat, Conor and Jay until late. Though Kat had pulled the steel door halfway down and doused the exterior lights, such is the location of the new place that groups of patrons kept pouring in every so often, all “just for one drink, we promise!” I think they’re going to do quite well.

David and I shared a cab back, a Toyota Wish with skylights, and I spent the latter half of the journey staring at the lights shining out of the windows of various expensive apartment towers living the rivers of New Taipei City.

I’d thought that the Muddy Basin Ramblers were meeting up at the Red House Theater in the West Gate District at 1:30 in the afternoon before our 2:05 show at a benefit concert for Japanese tsunami orphans, and I therefore proceeded to enjoy a leisurely morning at home, slowly getting my things together, before realizing that we’d actually arranged to meet at 12:30. One mad dash and a NT$300 taxi ride later, I was behind the theater going through a quick practice with the band, minus Conor who was already on stage with another band.

The show went well, but it was over too quickly. It seemed like we’d barely started before we were playing our last song as the hosts came up on stage. I was taking apart the washtub bass when one of the hosts, a woman, grabbed the tub and held it up for the audience to see. “This is what he’s been playing, if you didn’t notice!” she said. She then asked for a quick demonstration. Now there’s a sentence to boost my search ratings.

We were going out to celebrate David’s birthday that night, so I hung around and listened to the other bands, which included a Japanese family of ukulele players who performed some hits from Miyazaki movie themes like Spirited Away and Totoro. Adorable, if somewhat out of tune. One of the younger kids lost the beat halfway through one song, and within two measures the rest of the family switched to accommodate him. We had planned to find a spot near the Chungshan Hall for a little street performance, but Sandy and Thumper bailed early. A South American group got on stage and played such wonderful mariachi-style tunes I wanted to jump on stage and play along, but I refrained.

Eventually I tired of the booming sound, however, and walked out to the square where the old roundabout and park used to be before they made a boring intersection out of it, and stood in the same spot for about half an hour, just looking at people and things. Everyone had a camera, everyone was taking photos except me. The Golden Melody Awards, which I attended with Chalaw a few years ago (we didn’t win, but he won the next year), were taking place that evening, and one of my favorite bands as well as a friend, Matzka, was up for several awards. I knew from previous experience that he and his band were probably walking down the red carpet at the venue as I stood watching people in the square. Matzka would win the best group award that night. Not bad.

Night fell over the Red House Theater as all the bars and clubs fired up and filled with bears and other demographics. We walked over to the Calcutta. Slim was sloshedly vociferous the whole way. The food wasn’t bad, better than Tandoor, I felt, though I’m not a particular connoisseur of Indian food. David and Robin told tales of their recent honeymoon in Paris, of all the wonderful sights and sounds I missed when I was there, such as Belleville and the bars where Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grapelli played. The Leica Forum is going on there at the moment, attended by many a wealthy photographer (and probably some good ones, too, he said, trying not to sound too bitter).

The others were heading to Bobwundaye after dinner for some jamming, but I had an early start coming up on Sunday, so I reluctantly declined even though I was itching to play some more.

I was awake at 7:20 a.m. the next morning, grabbing the Invincible Rabbit and heading out into the already-brilliant sunshine, across the bridge and onto the subway to Taipei Train Station, where I met up with Chenbl, Terry, Lulu, Sean, his girlfriend Lily and her cousin, who were visiting from Hong Kong. Sean just got his master’s degree from Qinghua University in Disney Studies.

We caught the train to Keelung, traveling along the various construction sites and through the industry, through the mountain range and into the port city in about 40 minutes. Chenbl just failed to catch the bus out to Peace Island, so we waited in the hot sun, shooting irritated-looking passengers. Terry had an even more formidable beast than the Rabbit, a 1Ds, while Lulu, I think, had a 50D. A new liner was docked in the harbor, the Star Aquarius, bigger and nicer than the Star Libra I took to Okinawa. I wondered where it was bound for..Singapore? Hong Kong? Across from it was the Cosco Star that we took to Xiamen a few months ago. It looked small and dirty next to the Aquarius.

We caught the next bus out to Peace Island, which is located across a short bridge up near the mouth of the river. The area by the entrance is still under construction, as it was this time last year when I last saw it. The sun was glaring off the newly laid concrete, and a guard languished deep inside the shade of his shelter at the gate of a military base. We walked out to the rocky coast, where some messy picnickers were lighting fires and consuming bottles of tea. I climbed up on the rocks to get close to the sea, delighted to hear the wonderful sound of the water sluicing through the various crevices.

We walked up the coast and inland to a small group of houses whose occupants no doubt rely on hot, sweaty tourists for their livelihood. A group of aboriginal children surrounded us, trying and failing to guess who among us was Taiwanese and who wasn’t. “You’re the only real Taiwanese here,” I told them. The kids were apparently big fans of the hit TV show Rookie’s Diary, and weren’t entirely convinced that I knew Ye Da-tong, Lai Hu, Luo Gang, and Yang Hai-sheng, and I thought it was a shame that my friend Fu Zi-cun, who played Yang Hai-sheng and who is not a bad photographer himself, didn’t come along this time. He’s busy filming a new series down south though, and couldn’t make it.

The kids were playing around on a laundry rack comprised of a bamboo stick on two poles as we talked to them, and suddenly the bamboo stick, which was obviously quite old and moldy, broke. Almost immediately an old man in a white shirt came rushing up, yelling at this travesty, and the kids scattered. The old man took off his shoe and threw it at the kids several times, cursing them. At one point he actually got his hand on one of them and raised a heavy club to hit him with, but Terry stopped him, saying, “There’s no need for that.” I wondered if we would see that old man in the Apple Daily some day.

We walked down to the nearest bus stop and, 15 sweaty minutes later, caught a bus back to the train station, where we’d arranged to meet up with the Taiwan Photo Club, or at least part of it. Craig and Selina were there, of course, as well as Josh Ellis, Gillian Benjamin and a few others. They were waiting at the Starbucks on the harbor, and we had a quick lunch at the Burger King next door, enticed by the free ice cream sundaes, before boarding another bus out to the Fairy Cave.

I don’t think I’d ever been to the Fairy Cave before. Flocks of birds swarmed around the cliff face above the cave’s entrance, which was accompanied by ever-shy monks and a great deal of religious paraphernalia as the cave contains several temples. It was cool and misty inside, and several side caves branched out from the main one. One of the side branches became quite narrow, and some people came back claiming it was impossible to get through. I tried it, and though I had to crouch over and turn sideways, both the rabbit and I managed to get through fairly unscathed, though my shoulders were scrapped and muddy. Inside was another altar enveloped in a heavy mix of mist and incense that an ancient fan in the corner failed to alleviate.

We explored the neighborhood around the cave, waking up dogs and cats and a strange kind of wasp that attacked Josh because it really didn’t want to be on Facebook. Then Chenbl led us on a long trek across the valley and up another hill to a nice view of the sea right next to a power plant. As we recovered from the climb, which included the toxic fumes of a house painted entirely in tar the owner probably won in a game of majhong and didn’t want to waste, a lone paraglider sailed over the smokestacks of the powerplant, his shadow flitting across the field overlooking the sea.

The walk back down was much easier, and we luxuriated in the air conditioning of the rickety bus back downtown. Terry, Lulu, Sean, Lily and Lily’s cousin had to leave; the rest of us crossed the bridge over the other side of the tracks. A couple of aesthetic homeless men populated the bridge, lit by the late-afternoon sun in a way that even I couldn’t resist taking a shot, though I generally don’t like to take too many such shots. Craig was taking phone pictures the whole time, unburdened by a heavy DSLR. Probably a smart move considering the heat and all the hills we were climbing that day.

We wound our way through the steep alleys and stairs, passing and occasionally photographing the local residents. One man sitting on his scooter smoking glared at me as I took his shot. “Sorry,” he said, pointing to his cigarette. I refrained from pointing out that he would look just as thuggish without the cigarette, and walked on.

The whole of Keelung was laid out in the light of the approaching sunset as we reached the big KEELUNG sign, whereupon the mosquitoes decided that Chenbl was the only really delicious person on the site. Everyone except Craig and Selina climbed up to the top of the hill for an even better view. Josh and I stood atop the summit, on a circle of an old structure, noting the approaching clouds and thunder that meant it was surely raining in Taipei. The Aquarius had departed, off to wherever it was headed, a voyage of good food, swimming pools and gambling. The Cosco Star would be heading out later that evening.

Rain began to fall as we descended the hill, often going in circles as Chenbl tried to make the walk more interesting. We recrossed the bridge, noting that the homeless men had changed positions, and walked over to the Miaokou Night Market, which was mostly closed due to construction work. I didn’t see anything I liked. The harbor city was taking on its nocturnal form, its nights darker than those of other cities, its streets and alleys closer, wetter. I was game for more exploration, but I could feel the group’s gravitation towards the train station and our comfortable homes, so I went along, telling myself, another time: Keelung will still be there.

My good friends David and Robyn got married on Saturday. They’ve been together for as long as I’ve known them, but they decided to make it official with a touching ceremony held at the Taipei Artists Village, the site of many a late-night jam over the years. Jason presided over an impressive and apparently endless spread of delicious food and tents were set up, under which friends from all over the world mixed and mingled. Hakka singer Lo Sirong as well as Chalaw & Passiwali provided great tunes over the course of the afternoon, and I got on stage to play trumpet for a few songs while rings of guests joined David and Robyn in aboriginal-style dancing. The weather was brilliant, specially arrange, David told us, by Jason, who apparently has an in with the weather gods.

The highlight of the afternoon was definitely the vows the happy couple had written to each other. I always find myself abashed and slightly in awe of such genuine displays of mutual affection, especially between two of the nicest people I know. Then a woman asked everyone to hold hands in a giant circle and close their eyes while she gave her bilingual blessing.

Things were winding down by 7 p.m. Chenbl and I walked over to Q-Square to meet Steve and Masaharu, a friend from Osaka, who was in town for just one day. Something to do with frequent flyer miles, I gathered. Masaharu speaks almost no Chinese and very little English, and our Japanese is in its infant stages to say the least. After dinner we walked to New Park to meet one of Steve’s friends who is into Mongolian Throat Singing. He’s putting on a show early next month that I’m looking forward to attending.

Sunday morning was spent rather frantically trying to make the Water Curtain Cave somewhat presentable, as my friend Professor Wu from Kaohsiung was paying a visit. An art professor who is responsible for sending waves of students adding me on Flickr each time he uses my photos as teaching materials, Professor Wu had never been to Bitan before, despite a professed familiarity with Taipei.

When he arrived, he was amazed.”I had no idea all this was here!” he exclaimed when we went up to the roof to survey the area*. As the weather was fine once again, crowds of swanboats filled the lake, and tourists were crowding the bridge, stopping on the other side when confronted with the shabby illegal shacks surrounding the group of high-rises where I live. We had a nice lunch at the blue-roofed riverside cafe overlooking the river before retiring to the Cave to talk photography. I’m looking at publishing a photobook, but I need some direction on the direction, so to speak, and needed a fresh opinion. Professor Wu gave me some interesting views, and his advice made certain thorny issues quite a bit clearer.

As the afternoon progressed we walked down to the dock and took the ferry across to the unofficial temple, where I took photos of some gangsteresque fellows while pretending I was actually shooting Professor Wu. As the ferry glided across the sunlit water, I noticed, far above the people diving into the lake from the cliff, suspended walkways built into the mountainside. I’ll have to go explore those someday soon.

Professor Wu had never been to Dihua Street either, so we took the subway over and walked down the silent avenue among the old buildings in various states of repair. Chenbl had to remind him to ask the local gods before taking photos at a minor roadside temple, the kind where the ghosts of accident victims are pressed into service for various local duties.

Dinner was a lavish affair downstairs at Taobanwu…well, lavish for me anyway, in that it included little cups of vinegary drink in between the courses. Professor Wu had to get back to Kaohsiung on the bullet train, so we parted ways at the station. Hopefully he’ll be able to make it up next weekend to see some accoustic Muddy Basin Rambling at Huashan after Urban Nomad on Friday night.

*I should note that I am by no means recommending Bitan as a good place to live or that you should consider moving here. It’s colder and wetter than Taipei, the bridge swings in the wind, and the crowds of tourists on the weekends are truly wearing. Try Muzha; I hear they’ve still got a few spots left over there, with their fancy gondola and all that.

My photo exhibit at 127 Dihua Street wrapped up yesterday. Chenbl and I met some friends of ours there around noon and took them to Bolero, the original Western restaurant in Taipei, where we had some delicious steak in the place’s 60’s-era atmosphere. Seriously, if Xiao Guo hadn’t been playing with his iPhone, the illusion that it was still 1965 would have been complete.

After lunch we walked back to the gallery, where the other members of the Muddy Basin Ramblers were assembling for some practice before our 4pm show. We had an audience out back in the courtyard, so it was kind of a show in itself, though we kept stopping and correcting things, and played some songs for the first time ever. It was good to be playing again with the old crowd, though Conor’s back in Blighty at the mo. In his absence, we had a couple of musicians filling in; I taught one of them how to play the washtub bass for the horn songs.

I’d been wondering what to do with the photos after the exhibition ended, and the owner of the café behind the gallery provided me with an answer; he said he wanted to display them on the walls there. Neat.

A lot of people came for the last day. I have to say that the whole experience has been extremely gratifying, especially being able to observe people’s reactions to and discussion of the photos, rather than just reading the occasional “Nice capture!” on Flickr. The large prints really let the details of the photos come across, and the combination of being able to see such details at the same time as the entire composition impressed me with its impact relative to viewing on a computer monitor. A professor from the Arts University in Guandu even asked me last night if I would like to give a photography lecture for the students there, and some publishers have talked to me about books.

But even when nobody was there, say on cold, rainy weekdays, I found it immensely comforting to just sit in the gallery on my lunch break and listen to the music and sounds of the surroundings. It’s just a great space in a fascinating old area, and we also hope to practice and play there more in the future.

We decided to move out to the street front for our 4pm show, and the response was tremendous. We attracted a large crowd immediately, and there were literally people dancing in the street. We invited the dancers to dance in front of us to avoid an accident. Our CDs sold out halfway through the show. It was truly a rip-roaring good time, something I really needed to help knock me out of the cold rift in which I was stuck.

We ended up at Yipin on Minsheng West Road for a dinner of beef rolls and yummy fried rice, and then it was back to 127 for a party in the upstairs gallery to celebrate the success of the exhibit. All of the artists involved were there, and we gave each other gifts and talked about the experiences. David, Slim and some of the other musicians started playing some tunes, and I joined in on bass while the other listened and talked.

I was loath to leave as things wound down that evening. I waved goodbye to David, Slim and the others as they hauled their instruments up Dihua Street towards the subway, and the others were busy pulling things down. I took a last stroll around the downstairs galleries, sitting in the giant onion for a spell. I was exhausted but happy. It’s been a great experience with a great group of people, and I hope we can do more together in the future.

Yesterday was the grand opening of my first formal photography exhibition at an art gallery on Dihua Street, a traditional area of old Taipei lined with fascinating restored buildings from back in the days when goods came down the river to unload there. The gallery is next door to some of the only original three-story buildings on the street, so my guess is that was the center of things during the area’s heydays almost a hundred years ago.

Chenbl and I had spent hours hanging the photos and putting up lights, etc. the night before, so I was fairly exhausted by the time I hauled all my instruments onto the MRT and off again at the new Daqiaotou Station, which is nearest to Dihua Street. Lots of people were already there, including several artists hastily working on last-minute adjustments to their exhibits downstairs. My show is on the second floor, and I found Chenbl sitting on one of the stools, traditional Taiwanese music playing on a small MP3 player. The effect was very nice.

I’d forgotten that the stick I used to play washtub bass was still at Bobwundaye’s, so David Chen and I walked over to a shop on the next street over, and found a shovel handle that the owner was happy to drill a hole in. NT$80. Behold, the wonderfully cheap accessibility to washtub bass materials. Make your own! Back at the gallery, we set up in the courtyard out back. Several of my friends from Taipei’s bear community showed up in support, which was nice to see, and some folks from Forumosa, flickr and Facebook came as well. It was all very gratifying.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers were in our element playing unplugged in the courtyard, free to move around and interact with the crowd. It was a lot of fun, though I’m a bit rusty after not playing for so long (I missed the Blues Bash due to a scheduling mixup that was entirely my fault…I was in Hong Kong at the time).

People seemed to enjoy the photos; more importantly, I was pleased to see people, strangers I didn’t know, pointing and discussing various elements of the photos. It will be up for a month, so if you have time, go take a look. The gallery closes at 5 p.m. however.

There was a meeting of the gallery folk, who were discussing a project for Treasure Hill, some kind of lighting thing, so I missed dinner with the rest of the band, unfortunately. I tried to hang around and talk to people. Many were surprised that so many of the shots were taken with compact cameras; the GF1 is well-represented, and some were even taken with the tiny LX3.

I shared a cab with David and Robyn. Back in Bitan again. What a day. Thanks to everyone who came.

I’m just finishing up the last edit of the English-language version of my book detailing my time in the army, so I thought it would be appropriate to go down to the place where I spent the majority of my military career, Da Ping Ding in Miaoli, to take a look around. Chenbl and I set out on a 9 a.m. train; the once-mighty Ziqiang Express seemed old-fashioned and lackadaisical in comparison with the ultra-modern bullet train system, but the bullet train does not stop in Miaoli. A typhoon was on its way, but I was banking that Saturday would be tolerable, weather-wise.

We got off at the station, which seems to be at the edge of town, far off from the little downtown area. Miaoli is comprised basically of two parallel streets. Back in the day, the Miaoli buses heading up the mountain towards Sanyi left frequently, but now only the Hsinchu buses seem to leave with any regularity. We got on one and creaked across town; it was just the two of us until we stopped at the bus station in the real downtown to pick up passengers.

Up the mountain, to Shangnanshi. The base, though long abandoned, was still standing and covered with dense foliage. The last time I was up there civilian guards had been posted at the gates, with motion sensors set up inside, so after getting off the bus we headed for the East Base’s back gate, where I knew of a few places one could sneak in. The holes in the perimeter were still there, but the areas just inside were so overgrown that we had to hack our way through some pretty thick trees and vines to get to the main base road.

Once inside, I was momentarily disoriented at the sight of the shell of a building, all the windows gone and the ceiling tiles hanging down. Then I realized that it was the old Guard Company mess hall, and that I’d even had my picture taken standing in front of it. Just behind it was the cliff from which I’d enjoyed the view over the valley below when I got a break from washing dishes after meals.

I was wary of guards and stray dogs, often stopping to shush Chenbl’s usual incessant commentary; he was convinced nobody was around, but I wasn’t so sure. We walked past familiar buildings and signs to the Guard Company barracks, the quads in between buildings covered in dense, jungle-like overgrowth, the windows gone and the rooms empty. I found the place I’d lived in so long ago and sat on the spot where my old bunk was, remembering what it was like to sleep there, with only ceiling fans to keep cool in the summer heat. We’d spent the onslaught of Typhoon Herb there, and back then I wondered what the base would look like after it had been abandoned. Now I know.

The Guard Company faced the East Base’s parade grounds, which is now waist-high in weeds. We walked over to the Division HQ building that spooked me out on several occasions when I had to stand guard there at night and listen to the ghosts. Chenbl, ever sensitive to such things, said he felt dizzy and insisted on apologizing to any spirits who might be offended at our presence.

After making a round of the entire East Base, I began to suspect that there was actually nobody around. We passed female officers’ quarters, something that I’d never encountered when I was there. Back at the Guard Company, I kept noticing places where various things had happened; I felt like I was in a time travel novel, visiting ancient ruins where I once lived.

We snuck out a hold near the side gate where I’d waited in line so many time to get in and out of the base, and then across the road to the West Base, where we fought through another mass of brambles and thorns to the main armory. Some dogs noticed us and began barking, and though nobody appeared, I walked quickly ahead to the rear part of the base where the Regiment HQ was located. A seemingly flightless white pigeon strutted up and down the leaf-covered road as black clouds began to cover the sky. The silence and emptiness were eerie. Vines and bushes had invaded some of the buildings. Even the motion sensors were gone, though the plastic shells of some could still be seen here and there.

I showed Chenbl the RHQ barracks and the base karaoke that I’d managed. The floor I’d spent so much time mopping was covered with dirt, as is the spider-infested bar where I’d picked laserdiscs of songs for various officers to sing. Rain began to pelt down, and we took refuge in the RHQ rec room while we got our umbrellas out, and then followed the base ring road to the main gate, which felt a little strange in that we usually ran around it going the other way. When I turned around, it seemed much more familiar. There used to be an old guy manning the main gate, but I figured it wouldn’t matter by that time if we got thrown out.

Nobody was there. Chenbl took my picture in front of the rapid response unit barracks as well as at the main gate guard post where I’d stood guard. The old Chiang Kai-shek statue is still there, with the old green man waving his hat and smiling at the empty, unmanned gate in front of the overgrown parade grounds. After I got my fill of pictures and just standing around lost in various reveries, we walked out the gate and down the road to catch the bus to Tongluo, where we had some unimpressive Hakka noodles for lunch. Chenbl asked an old woman if there was anything interesting around, but after I took her picture, she yelled, “I give you directions and then you take unflattering pictures of me? How dare you?” But we were already walking away, past thick green rice fields waving in the wind like a big bedspread. We stopped to walk with a woman hurriedly harvesting a small garden before the storm hit, and then visited an old hospital from the Japanese area, a two-story wooden building with blue trimming. The original doctor’s son lives there now, by himself, and he came out to tell us a bit around the place.

We took the electric train back to Miaoli Station. By that time it was around 5:30 p.m. which was normally about the time I would get there when I had leave and wanted to go up to Taipei, so I experienced a little willing cognitive dissonance, imagining that it was still 1996 and I’d just come down from the base, ready for a weekend on the town. Then I pulled out my iPhone and ruined the atmosphere.

We got back to Taipei around 8 p.m. and proceeded to the Taipei Artists Village, where Thumper was holding his 20th arriversary, i.e. 20 years since he came to Taiwan. We were the first to show up; Jason was setting up the barbeque, and I fashioned a string for the washtub bass from one of the bar decorations. Other people began showing up, and as usual, the more people inhabit a room, the less I feel like talking. I walked between people, taking pictures and munching on the excellent food (except for the undercooked potatoes), until my upstairs neighbor Brent started the evening’s musical entertainment. The bass lasted about two songs before the string broke, but I wasn’t in much of a mood for the bass anyway and declined David’s offer of fiber-optic wire as a replacement (it was too slippery and cut my hand when I tried to tie it). The pocket trumpet called to me, however, although not many of the songs really suited it, though Conor rope me into a 12-bar blues set.

By around 2 or 3 a.m. many people had already gone; only a few of us were left. I shuffled around the edges of the room, playing freestyle licks here and there. Rodney was doing something on the drums, and Lany was playing around with some guitar stuff. Somehow, we all just synced up and Lo! a pretty cool jam ensued. But I was tired, and when Brent said he was leaving, I took him up on his offer of a ride back through the growing storm. It would save me a trip across the galloping Bitan bridge, anyway.

We met up at the train station once again on Saturday morning, tickets in hand for a high-speed trip south to Kaohsiung. I always enjoy the bullet train. Once there we boarded a van that would take us out to Hengchun for the folk music festival where we were to play at 5 that afternoon. The driver was, uh, a bit capricious with his lane-changing, but he got us there in a reasonable amount of time.

We disembarked at the old city gate featured in the film Cape No. 7 to find a large stage erected in the middle of the square. As we approached this natural target, the guys setting it up told us, “It’s not for you. This is for the Father’s Day show.” One of them pointed at a small area by the old city wall. “Yours is over there.” It seemed that the organizers wanted approximately 27 bands to play, all at the same time, all around the city.

Shrugs all around. We’re used to it. A trip to the nearest 7-Eleven (located quickly with Google Maps) later, we were sitting under the mosquito-infested trees while a fat, bald girl in a pink jumpsuit scolded Sandy Wee for spilling his drink all over the table. Slim thought she must be some kind of all-knowing medium. Conor climbed the rocks by the park, and an old man stared at us from his electric barcalounger.

The weather was fine, interesting clouds rushing overhead thanks to a tropical depression forming out in the ocean to the west. Our stage was directly behind a row of beeping pachinko machines. Our quick soundcheck melded into the start of the show, as only one young woman was really involved in managing the show, and the crowd consisted of several people sitting on scooters by the side of the road, and the bald medium girl, now in a green jumpsuit.

As we played, occasional squalls of rain came and went. Our music mixed with the pachinko machines as well as the band over at the Father’s Day stage. I was feeling alright, mellow and into the groove of things. It was good to get out of Taipei, and I was with my friends, doing what I liked to do.

After six the rain picked up, the Father’s Day Orchestra threatened to overwhelm us, and David’s voice was flagging. We’d done our show, and that was it; we disbanded, and Slim and Thumper disappeared. As they do.

The capricious van driver took the rest of us to a restaurant on the outskirts of town, a regular-looking place that could have been someone’s house, including alter and living room. The food was good, though, featuring local yam leaves, vermicelli and fried rice. A couple of other foreigners joined us, including Jason Green and his wife.

I was waiting for some more delicious vermicelli when the driver got itchy and wanted to leave; he’d eaten and wanted to go. Now. So I stuffed my face with whatever was left on the table, and we proceeded on, crossing dark fields to our hotel on the coast. Or hotels, I should say; David, Robyn, Sandy, Jojo and Sandy Wee were at one place, while I was next door, and Conor and Kat were at yet another place, all located within a small community across the road from the beach.

After settling in (I had one small room, which was nice, but…small. Good enough for one though), we went down to the dark beach, where Sandy and Conor decided to go for a swim. I walked up the beach a bit, letting my eyes get used to the darkness, as the star-filled skies were clear enough to see the Milky Way. Venus, or possibly Jupiter, was brilliant, outshining all the other points of light by a good margin. It was magical.

Magic of another sort was happening up at the beach, as Kat caught Sandy and a quite-naked Conor in various compromising poses with her camera, no doubt planning an expose in the next Apple Daily.

Later on, after the others went prudently to bed, Conor, Kat and I walked down the road to Jonathan’s, where Slim was recuperating from the day. Jonathan rents the place for a pittance. We sat outside in front chatting. Well, others chatted. Slim was in full stream-of-consciousness mode. Conor told me that Thumper had missed the last train and was sleeping at the station. The news made me tired, and we walked back over the bridge making waterdrop noises to amuse the various ghosts. “I want to do something outrageous!” Kat said. But she didn’t. Or maybe she did, when nobody could see.

I was awoken the next morning by the chirping of a gecko above my bed. The air conditioning was aimed directly at my head, which didn’t make for the best of nights. The pillow was also too high, and there was hardly any water pressure in the shower. I was glad to see the gecko, though; I suspect it was on duty eating various insects all night.

Outside, the others hadn’t woken up, so I plodded up the hill looking at the rest of the little community. I came across an old lady sitting in the shade. She was old enough that she didn’t really do Mandarin, so we spoke in Minnan. She said she’d lived there all her life, before then-President Chiang Ching-kuo decided to construct the group of villas for the fishermen of the nearby village.

Eventually the cries of Sandy Wee alerted us to the fact that breakfast was imminent. A kiwi smoothie accompanied my omelet and toast; delicious. David was decompressing after a long, hard week of feature-writing, and all of us luxuriated in not having anything specific to do that day.

After breakfast we wandered down to the beach for a dip. Easy dipping was off the schedule, however; delighted surfers, mostly well-built young men, told us that, due to the tropical depression, recent rainfall and other conditions, the waves that day were spectacularly big. They all rushed out to take advantage of this bounty, while we just swam around being walloped repeatedly by enormous walls of water. They seemed to come in threes or fours and were a lot of fun, but tiring after a while. I swallowed so much salt water it made me thirsty.

I walked over to the river mouth and found the water there unpleasantly warm. Dark clouds were rolling in by that point, and we began to think about the trip back. The driver this time was far more professional and efficient, taking a series of detours that included a stop for gas and tasty sesame baozi, as we traversed gloomy fields and orchards trying to avoid the weekend crush of Kaohsiung-bound traffic. The raindrops squiggled across the windshield, pushed by the wind into movement resembling microscopic organisms.

The bullet trains were completely booked, but we got open seating tickets and, after purchasing food from various sources, we got seats on a train back for Taipei. Conor was a bright, alarming shade of flaming pink, and David complained of sunburned shoulders. The trip was a swish and a click back to Taipei, and I crossed the bridge at Bitan just before they closed it off for repairs.

For the first time in a good while, the Muddy Basin Ramblers converged once again for a show, this time down in the wilds of Taichung County, at the ruins of the Dongshan Amusement Park, which was abandoned after the huge 9/21/1999 earthquake.

Usually Conor is the last to show up, but this time I was the last to arrive at the south exit of the train station where we’d arranged to meet, thanks to just missing a subway train. David rushed off to get tickets for the band and Chenbl, who was along for the ride. We caught the 12:36 bullet train, arriving at the Wurih Station in Taichung, where we eschewed the smaller taxis in favor of larger station wagons that could carry us in the fashion to which we, and by we I mean Sandy and his bottle of whiskey, are accustomed.

The Dongshan Amusement Park reminds me not a little of the old Xingfu Fun Fair at Bitan, before they tore the remains down several years ago: Vines, dull, flaking paint barely covering rusting, skeletal rides. A sad place. I kept thinking about the last day of the park’s operation, what everyone who worked there and played there felt and did. A few young foreigners were about setting up tents, as well as Landis, the organizer, who had hauled Conor as well as our gear out there in the back of his jeep.

The “stage” turned out to be the edge of a drained pool. The local wasp community took obvious umbrage at the encroachment on their territory (as well as their name) by the newcomers, and a large spider scrambled out of the stiflingly hot green room as we put our gear down.Outside, one of the pools held a mudlike concoction that was about 30% dead leaves, 40% water and 30% hippies.

Thumper raged about the sound guys, who were managing some impressively coordinated standing around as we went through a sound check that consisted mostly of ear-splitting feedback and the lead sound guy telling David how to turn the mic button on. Everything was loud and tinny except the bass, which…wasn’t.”Which way should I turn the mic, away from the speakers, I guess?” I asked one of them. “Whatever you like; it doesn’t matter,” he told me before another blast of feedback caused everyone to jump.

But there was no time for such niceties by that point; the show was beginning with a local band called “AWESOME SHIT.” It takes balls to call your band “AWESOME SHIT.” That, and maybe a burning need to compensate.

We held a little practice session of our own by the large gorilla, in front of the small carousel, and then split up to explore and get away from the incredibly loud sound of AWESOME SHIT. The park borders a small stream with a rickety suspension bridge. Partially submerged boats floated in moss-filled water, and a rusting monorail snaked though the branches above. Bats filled the skies, dodging at invisible prey, as, only a few feet above them, an apparently home-made white airplane flew, often sideways, over the park. An ROC flag was painted on its tail, and each pass was lower and slower, until it stopped. I didn’t hear a crash, so I assume whoever it was made it down in one piece.

Chenbl and I decided to get some burgers for dinner, but this turned out to be problematic: the guy working the huge grill was having a minor breakdown as orders mounted. We ended waiting for over half an hour for our burgers, which turned out to be the “nearly impossible to eat” size that is so popular these days. When I was growing up, I remember burgers being much more manageable in size.You could hold a hamburger in your hands, and bite into it without straining your jaw muscles. And it was good. Damn, but I miss Steak ‘n Shake. Later on, Thumper and Slim reported that the burger guy had just given up and stopped serving people altogether.

We were on at 7pm. The number of young westerners wandering the park increased as night fell and tents went up in various nooks and crannies. As we took the stage, the lights came up, nearly blinding us. I quickly ran back to get some sunglasses, but they only provided a small amount of protection against the brilliance projected straight into my eyes. The audience was effectively invisible; it was like playing into a closet door.

When we started up our first song, Viola Lee, I was surprised to hear that Sandy wasn’t playing his usual part. In fact, I wasn’t sure just what he was playing; he did seem to be having an inordinately good time, jumping around the stage regardless of mic positions and rubbing up against David like an attention-starved cat.

Fortunately the sound situation had improved somewhat; I could hear the bass, anyway, and there was scattered applause from the closet. I had to keep on my toes throughout the show due to various, er, whiskey-induced missing of elements, to put it technically, but things turned out alright, if a bit sloppy. Ok, things were very sloppy. But it was ok; the closet seemed happy, and we haven’t played a gig in a while.

After the show, the Ramblers scattered again. Slim disappeared into the Vagina Monologues Hut where he did some free-style scatting. Daring young foreigners pedaled along the rusty monorail above our heads, past the Pirates o’ Sodomy attraction while Sandy sat on a curb whining around hippies. Chenbl had sold only one CD due to the rampant poverty that no doubt ensued from buying too much beer.

We stayed to listen to Two Acres Plowed, which was improved immeasurably since their drum-machine days with the addition of a smokin’ hot fiddle, but we had to catch the train back up to Taipei.40 cramped, sweaty minutes later we were at the HSR station McDonalds slurping down ice cream and french fries before the smooth ride back to the Basin. I nodded off into a caramel-induced slumber on the train while Conor expounded on the meaning of economics-based employment, and before I knew it we’d arrived. Thumper, Conor, Chenbl and David bade farewell, while Sandy, Slim and I caught the subway.

“What do you do with that?” a Saudi Arabian woman asked me, pointing to the tub as we slid southwards.

“I’ll show you,” I said, setting up the bass and playing a few riffs, much to Slim’s amusement. Then I got out my trumpet, muted of course (I’m not an animal, you know) and played around to pass the time as Sandy waved to and fro to the motion of the car. Then it was the usual walk across the bridge and back to the Water Curtain Cave, where I fell asleep almost immediately.

I had to catch a bullet train down to Chiayi on Saturday afternoon for a gig with the Muddy Basin Ramblers that night. I was the first person on the platform at Taipei Main Station, even though the train was leaving in 15 minutes, leading me to wonder if I’d have to run through a wall or something to reach the real platform, but soon enough other passengers began to appear, the other Ramblers among them. Chenble, who was along for the ride, got sandwiches for the trip, which was quick and smooth as always. With the exception of Taipei, the stations are all nice, modern, gleaning examples of what I love about airports, though they are just glorified train stations. They’re simply swank where no swankiness was expected, which in my opinion is the best kind of swank.

Some people from the music festival were waiting for us at Chiayi Station, and we crammed all our stuff into a new VW van (It’s amazing that VWs still smell the same; every Volkswagen I’ve encountered since the 1970’s has had that same distinctive smell). We drove out to the coastal village of Budai, followed closely by dark clouds though the sun was still shining, and dropped our stuff off at the wharf where we were going to be playing later. After the careful consumption of some very fresh sushi, it was time to explore the surroundings, which consisted mainly of a fish market and a 7-Eleven.

Thumper and I happened upon a go-kart track and decided to give it a go. An employee dragged out what looked like a prototype for a miniature version of Mad Max for Thumper’s larger frame, while I managed to fit in one of the regular cars, and we were off. For a while we traded places, but every time Thumper pulled ahead of me I was choking on the cloud of smoke and bits of rubber his car was emitting, so I gave up all pretenses of sportsmanlike behavior and stayed ahead of him for the rest of the 10 minutes. I found that I really didn’t have to touch the brake pedal, which was wrapped about my ankle due to bad planning; all I had to do to slow down was turn the wheel enough that the front wheels began sliding.

Lightning was flashing on the horizon as the time for our show approached. The organizer, a woman whose hairstyle suggested she had already encountered some form of electrical discharge, said that we’d be playing until 8:45, though I’d been promised that we’d be done at 8:30, because I had to scram by then to make my gig with Heineken in Kaohsiung later that night.

The show itself went pretty well, considering our lack of practice in recent weeks. At a couple of points some official would jump on stage in between numbers to make a speech or hold a raffle. I began to think that it was more of a raffle featuring music than a real concert. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have minded this, but time was short and I had to go. As I resisted the thought of tackling said official and thus ending their speech, David asked me if I wanted to leave early, but I said I’d stick around until we were done.

After the show, I felt a little guilty about jumping off the stage straight into the waiting car without a word to anyone else, but I had a train to catch. Luckily the driver was a local who knew the back roads well enough to get me to the station in 15 minutes instead of the 40 minutes we’d been told the trip would take, and we caught the 9:30 to Kaohsiung with enough time to spare to grab some dinner at a Mos Burger.

The Heineken gig was at Kaohsiung’s Pig & Whistle, near the harbor. I was led upstairs by Small Eyes, an intern for the group, to find the band lazing around the green room, already nicely sauced for the show if the amount of empty glasses and pitches of various liquors on the table was anything to go by. I’d changed into my green outfit on the train, so I was good to go.

Or so I thought. It turned out that some changes to the program had been made, so I got a new setlist from Small Eye. When I got on stage for my first trumpet song, I found that my mic wasn’t working. I tapped it: nothing. I tapped it again, and it fell to the floor. I picked it up and tried to reattach it, and the clip fell in two pieces. All on stage, during the piece, as Ah-ji and Ah-zheng laughed behind me. Since my part was coming up and I had no amplification over the other electric guitars, drums and keyboard in a loud bar, I forgot about the mic and just blasted it as loud as I could, marching-band stadium style. It seemed to work, but damn, it’s been a while since I’ve had to do that.

Later in the set, Noname launched into Zhang Zhenyue’s “Freedom” much earlier in the show, just after a song I played trumpet for, so I decided to play along, though I usually don’t play on that song. This also seemed to work. It was hard to say as I couldn’t really hear myself.

It was early morning before we finished, as usual. Noname had hired a bus to take us back to Taipei, but it wouldn’t be arriving until 3 a.m., meaning getting back to Taipei around 9 a.m. This prospect didn’t appeal to me very much, and I intended to attend Henry Westheim’s studio opening in Taichung the following evening, so I decided to stay in a hotel in Kaohsiung instead. Chenble had a contact at the King Town or something near the train station, so we got the last room available, a small niche with no windows just above the buffet room.

Brunch the next day was free, but it took forever as Chenble seemed to want to eat the entire thing. By the time we managed to leave the hotel, it was early afternoon and raining outside. A ride on the KRT later we were at one of the stations with waterfalls complementing the surrounding downpour. As we waited for it to stop, I took a few pictures of the place, mostly in black and white. I don’t particularly care for the colors of the Panasonic LX3, and find myself using the black & white function most of the time.

We walked over the Love River and got tickets for a river cruise just as a bus full of tourists pulled up, dozens of people pouring over into the line. Several boats motored over from underneath a nearby bridge, where they had been huddling during the rain. the sun came out in full force until brilliant blue skies, and it was a pleasant enough ride, but far too short; I don’t know why they don’t go further up the river; perhaps things don’t smell as good up there.

We walked along the river a little, but time got away from me, and before I knew it, it was time to go. I’d wanted to attend the studio opening, but by the time we returned to the hotel, gotten all my stuff, gotten back on the KRT to Zuoying, it was nearly 8 p.m. already. I was tired from the gigs and the walking, so I decided to just come straight back to Taipei instead.

I found David, Jez and Dana in the workshop on the 3rd floor of the Taipei Artists Village on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by some empty stools and a grand piano. Thumper showed up later, but Conor and Slim were out of the country, and Sandman couldn’t make it until later, so it was just us. I had no idea how a music workshop was supposed to work, and I don’t think many people there did either. So we just jammed on some tunes regardless of who was wandering by, and if anyone had any questions we would try to engage them. One family with small children enjoyed playing Thumper’s instruments for one song, and everyone seemed facinated by the washtub bass, which I’d placed on a piece of styrofoam so that it would make some sound on the carpet.

We took a break at one point, as nobody seemed to be coming in, and I started noodling around on the piano. A few minutes later I looked up to see about 30 people seated on the stools, all watching me. Oh shit, I thought; they think I’m actually doing something. I jumped up and went to get David back so we could play something that roughly corresponded to the literature about us spread out on the table by the door.

Eventually we had to stop for real, and took all of our stuff downstairs. I had a pizza at the cafe and waited for the shows to start. The first act was a percussion/digeridoo combo thing, mostly atmospheric music. Then Jez and Dana did a show. Sandman showed up, along with Jojo and Sandy Wee, and we took the stage. It was strange playing without Slim and Conor; the gaps they left were obvious, even though Jez and Dana did a great job helping fill them. It went well, but I was tired afterwards and went straight to bed after getting home afterwards.

I haven’t quite gotten back into the swing of things since I got back from Japan. I went to work this afternoon after over two weeks of time off, and had to resort to coffee to keep awake, though badminton last night perked me up somewhat. Work again tomorrow, and then four days off for the new year’s break. The days have been cloudy and full of rain, the kind of weather that makes staying inside all day an attractive prospect. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and though I’ve gotten some invitations, I’m not sure if I’ll be doing anything special. I have no clue about 2009. I knew that 2008 would see a lot of new things: The elections of Ma Ying-jeou and Barack Obama, the Olympics in Beijing, finishing (my part in) the film, two trips to Tokyo and Osaka. I won some photography contests and said goodbye to my trusty motorcycle this year. But 2009 is just a blank to me.