Saturday was the Calla Lily Festival in Taoyuan, and the Muddy Basin Ramblers were playing. Though the event wasn’t far from the high speed rail station, we took a van from the Xindian metro station, listening to tunes on the portable speaker I’d gotten in Vancouver along the way as the driver navigated the traffic both on and off the freeway.

The event went well enough, though there was no cover on the stage; the sun was strong and poor Redman was without sunscreen for the two 45-minute sets. The audience was enthusiastic and the kids were (IMHO) properly ignoring the red cordon around the stage and dancing to the music. After we got back to Xindian everyone split except Redman, Slim and I; we headed over to the river to hang out for a bit listening to the swooning sax music and reflect on the day before heading back to our respective abodes.

On Sunday, I took my photography students on a walk around Linkou. We met at Taipei Station and basically commandeered a bus as it was the first stop and we basically filled the vehicle. The trip out was smooth and fast, up the highway through the valley lined with metal-roofed factories and now impossibly high roadways, past the metro stop to the Zhulin Mountain Buddhist Temple, the next-to-last stop. I figured the wide-open courtyard in front of the temple, with a good flow of people coming and going, would be a good place to go over the basics with our new students, this being the first outside activity of the semester. A few mechanical problems such as buttons stopping working and batteries refusing to come out of cameras had me wondering if we should have informed the temple gods what we were up to beforehand, but thankfully nothing too serious (None of my students use film cameras, alas, even though I’ve suggested that it’s a viable option, and I would welcome such experimentation).

After we were done at the temple, we walked over to the touristy old street for some lunch (beef noodles), and as we were heading out again we bumped into Bin-hou, one of our classmates from violin class. He lives in the area, but it was a neat coincidence. He’s also studying trumpet, and is currently in possession of my old Arban’s book of exercises, which happens to include traditional Chinese text for some reason. When I first bought it around 1981, I had no idea why that was the case, but now I know.

We continued walking towards the highway, and an old, half-demolished rowhouse caught my eye, so I went over to have a look. Behind it we found an old tea farmer just finishing up work in the fields. He enjoyed the attention and took us on a tour of the remaining half of his old house, which was built in the 1930’s, and then invited us to his shop for tea. As it turns out, he’s 90 years old, and apparently lives alone with only a Filipina caregiver named Annie. The teas he served got cheaper and more delicious as we went, by design I’m sure, just to prove that expensive tea isn’t necessarily better. If you’re interested in dropping by for a chat and some excellent tea, the place is called Hongyuan Tea, near the corner of Zhongzheng and Jialin Roads in Linkou. Just look for the half of a house.

As we continued to walk, the older buildings were replaced more and more by huge, modern apartment complexes and vast, empty parks; fewer and fewer people were to be found on the streets despite the pleasant weather. We ended up in front of the Mitsui Outlet Park mall, and although class had officially ended hours earlier, most of the students were still hanging out with us. The afternoon was waning, though, so we officially disbanded, and Chenbl and I went over to the outlet mall to take a look.

The mall is basically a Western mall in virtually every respect, surrounded by huge apartment blocks fronted with floor-length glass windows and nary a rack of metal bars to be seen. Occasionally we would see an ROC flag hanging from a luxury balcony. “Foreigners, most likely,” Chenbl commented.

We went into full-on Mall Mode, looking through the shops where everything seemed to be at least 60% off (of highly inflated prices, no doubt); I even bought some baggy jeans as the jeans in every other store I’ve seen are skinny and I can’t stand skinny jeans. Dinner completed the Western Mall fantasy with an actual, genuine god-damned avocado burger that made me feel both intestinally and morally compromised. Half of the mall is exposed to the open air, and the roof is covered with grass; a musical group surrounded by kids was playing the courtyard, under a roof that is apparently meant to collect rainwater. Next to the mall is an enormous parking garage, because of course there is; there are also superfluous pools and fountains. It was all quite surreal.

Night had fallen by this point. Feeling depleted, we walked out the main gate, past the entrance fountains, and along the wide avenues lined with huge, gleaming apartment blocks adorned with art-deco LED trimmings that shot up into the night towards the airliners that flew over every few minutes. “Everything is so big,” Chenbl exclaimed.

“It’s like Banqiao,” I offered, but he shook his head. Banqiao is apparently child’s play compared to Linkou on Chenbl’s scale of Surreal Western Enclavities.

Maybe it was the avocado burger, but the surreal experience of the mall and just the feeling of just not being in Taiwan for a period of time made me look forward to getting on the metro home. As we waited on the elevated platform among the gleaming buildings, though, I couldn’t help but noticed a father yelling at his son while his daughter watched. The kid was playing on the ground, and the father made a sort of twirl, lifting his foot and actually catching, seemingly by accident, the kid’s head with his foot. The boy didn’t say anything, just looking up at his father, but I thought it odd. Then, just before the train arrived, the man lifted a foot and violently stomped on the boy’s toy car, prompting an outburst from his son that the father refused to acknowledge.

As I was looking over at the scene, Chenbl warned, “Don’t stare.” It did seem that the man probably had violent tendencies. I wondered if they lived in the area. What kind of life would that be? All I know is that, if that boy survives his childhood, that man will have a very lonely old age, provided he survives that long either.

A group of loud foreigners in shorts and baseball caps who had gotten on the train with us preceded us at the terminal station in Taipei, so we took our time walking to the MRT station. I was exhausted after two consecutive days full of events; all I wanted was some time in my comfy bed before facing another week of work and classes.

I needed to choose one of two things to do on Sunday morning. I usually like to go down to Taipei New Park and practice taichi/tuishou with the fellas; it’s good to move around, get some exercise, sun, and chat about recent news. But I also needed to practice violin, as I’ve fallen behind after not picking it up a single time during the winter break. Originally I’d thought I could do both, and after breakfast I took out the violin and began practicing with the full intent of just doing some brushing up and then heading out to the park.

Before I knew it, it was well after noon and I was still playing. I’m slowly getting the hang of changing positions; it makes more sense to me than it did when my teacher first introduced the idea, and feels more natural. Though my neighbors no doubt disagree, I actually found practicing enjoyable. But taichi was out, so I had a tasty lunch at the Pancho Cafe downstairs and then crossed the bridge to hang with my friend Casey, who’s got his hands on an interesting apartment on the other side of the river. It’s in the back of a building on a slope, for one thing, and it’s full of junk nobody else wants. Casey hauled out a bunch of moldy old cameras for me to look at…they’re probably hopeless, but I took a couple off his hands to take to the shop so they can have a look. Casey’s also into taichi, so we pushed hands for a while and I didn’t feel as guilty about missing the park.

The day had started out sunny, but it was cloudy as I made my way back across the crowded bridge to put the cameras away before heading out again. I hate crossing the bridge in the evenings these days, as Bitan is doing its inane fountain festival thing, which is basically a few water spouts on the paddle-boat docks going off while huge speakers boom out “Time to Say Good-bye” and the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean every half hour. This somewhat-less-than-spectacular display manages to attract roughly half of Taipei to see it, and the bridge strains and bucks under their weight. To make matter worse, I forgot my phone and had to make the arduous trip twice, cursing as I did so.

The reason I was heading out to the city instead of spending a comfy evening scanning old negatives and listening to podcasts at the Water Curtain Cave was that David Chen had invited me to see the last show of the Gypsy Jazz Festival at the Eslite Spectrum theater. I took the subway to the City Hall station and got a bite of pork rice before heading up to the bookstore to read more about the background of Koudelka’s Exiles before heading to the theater to meet David and Vincent, who organized the whole thing.

The concert was amazing. It was a simple setup, with Tcha Limberger on violin and vocals, Antoine Boyer and Denis Chang on guitar, and Kumiko Imakyurei on double bass, and the resulting music was ethereal, like a dream. They played many Django Reinhardt tunes, including a version of the little-performed Pour Que Ma Vie Demeure that is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. I looked it up later but couldn’t find a version that came close to the one they played. Tcha’s violin sang and wept with him, and Antoine, who is amazingly accomplished for his age, played as if he was possessed. Virtually every song was mesmerizing, and at the end they had all of their workshop students come up and play a phrase during an extra-long version of the Tchavolo Swing. Some were better than others, but all of them were good. Vincent has done a great job organizing this thing, and I look forward to seeing where it goes in the future.

So it was a good day. I’d needed a good day.

Another crazy weekend with this year’s Tiger Mountain Ramble coinciding with cold, wet weather. I headed over to Bobwundaye on Friday night to reunite with our dear friend Steve Gardner for some serious jamming, and we made the acquaintance of another fine musician who came along for the gig: Jett Edwards, also a long-term American ex-pat in Tokyo. Jett plays a mean bass, and has seemingly endless energy in front of a crowd while being quite laid-back in person. Jett, Katrina and I were talking during a break about expats in general, and he mentioned that he’d encountered westerners in Japan who seemed to have “gone native” to the extent that they refused to speak English to him, only stammering confusedly in Japanese when he tried to talk to them. “Would these individuals happen to all be white dudes?” I asked him, and he gave me a knowing look.

“Of course,” he said, adding that in his experience, Black people don’t go native, at least not in that fashion. I was surprised to hear it; I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like that, and though I’ve gone through times when I avoided the company of westerners in general, particularly early on when I was studying Chinese, I’ve never gone to such extremes.

We played several sets, during which the thundering headache I’d had all day gradually subsided, but I felt a cold coming on, so I shared a cab with Cristina and Zach back to Xindian. I really should visit their new abode down there, it sounds very cool. Redman has apparently also secured a mountain lair…somewhere. I suppose he can’t be a very good spy if everyone knows where he lives. Oops, did I say “spy”? I meant “accountant”.

My cold was present and accounted for on Saturday, so I basically slept all day until it was time to head over to Tiger Mountain. I’d left in plenty of time to get there, but for some reason, after I exited Xiangshan Station, I could. not. find. a. cab. Several taxis drove by without stopping. One even stopped for a western couple standing not far away. I wondered if they too were heading to Tiger Mountain, and silently hoped they slipped in the mud and had costly dry-cleaning bills.

When I finally flagged down a cab, I told the driver about my difficulties. “Well, it’s no surprise,” he said, shrugging uncomfortably. “I mean, just look at you, dressed all in black, carrying a staff, standing on the corner there scowling at everyone…you looked like trouble. I wouldn’t blame anyone for electing to skip that fare for their own personal safety.” Well, at least he was honest; and I can’t find the lie.

The Tiger Mountain Ramble, which we’ve played every year since its inception, is always strange for me, centered around an abandoned temple into which some rather shifty local spirits have moved. It would be intimidating enough on its own, but fill it with hundreds of foreign devils, a technicolor stage truck, and several food stalls with rather expensive western foods, and it becomes surreal to say the least. The rain had stopped at least, though the ground will still muddy. I took some artsy mud shots with my phone. As one does.

Our show began after an excruciatingly long soundcheck. The sound people seemed to have little clue what was going on, and we eventually just said screw it, let’s start. Various instruments appeared and disappeared from the mix throughout the show, but the volume was painfully loud on stage. It’s a shame, because we all love playing gigs with our friends from Japan.

My ears and I all needed to rest after that, so I slipped out, luxuriating in the silence of the walk back down the mountain, though part of that silence was probably (hopefully) temporary deafness from the show.

As much as I wanted to rest on Sunday, I had to meet up with my photography students for class in the morning, followed by a trip out to Sanxia in the afternoon. We’d come up with a plan to take a bus from Ximen, and while that might have worked on paper, in practice it was rather trying. Though the light was nice, and there was a lot to shoot both on the bus and outside it along the way, the effort to remain standing on a crowded bus for over two hours as the driver stomped on his gas and brake pedals with the eagerness of a teenage Dance Dance Revolution aficionado was considerable. It was late afternoon by the time we staggered off the bus, and we headed over to the riverside for some peace. A small group of men were cooking under the bridge while another brought up some freshly caught fish for a meal.

We walked towards the main temple, which was packed with Pokemon-seeking zombies, providing a rather surreal foreground to the place, and then headed into the alleys. A few nice places have been built/renovated along the stream there, though a few pitiful remains of once-lovely structures remain. It’s a shame the owners lack the resources to fix them up; they could make a mint if they did so.

We took another bus on a thankfully much-shorter trip to the Shanjia train station, a station I recall from my army days as featuring a nice little stream running through it. The stream has largely covered by the new station, alas, but I did manage to get some photos, Nick Turpin-style, of passengers on the trains at the platform. Felt a little one-sided and fishbarrelesque.

I really would have appreciated a weekend to rest up from my weekend, but that’s just not the way things work, alas. I need to begin to work on our semester-end photobook, which means reviewing hundreds of shots from the past few months, and violin class again tonight has me thinking I probably should have practiced at some point during the week.

Saturday was spent sitting in a cafe by the window brainstorming on ideas for the upcoming semester’s photography class. Despite my best efforts, the number of students continues to grow, and it’s becoming more difficult to find ways to give each and every student the time and attention they deserve, but I think we can handle it. Chenbl is an excellent organizer, for one thing, and he also tends to remind me of things I’ve overlooked. It was a productive but somewhat frustrating day in any case.

Today, Sunday, I got up and took the MRT to the NTU Hospital Station (you know, the one in 2/28 Park that is not named 2/28 Park Station but after a hospital that is a block away thanks to the law that metro stations must if at all possible incorporate any nearby hospital in its name) to practice tai-chi. I’ve been making an effort to get back into shape, and in addition to picking up badminton again, I’ve been resuming my efforts to practice tai-chi and tuishou with Little Qin and my other old tai-chi brothers. Today I grappled with UPS Guy, whom you may recall from the days of yore in my tai-chi blog (which I will not be updating because I plan to redo the website and incorporate all my blogs into one gigantic mess for your further reading confusion). All things considered, including near 100-degree heat, I did pretty well. He still has a tendency to move too quickly and get ahead of himself, something I tried (and mostly failed) to take advantage of by taking his movement and encouraging him to go too far. After that I pushed with Little Qin, who, being somewhat less portly than he used to be, is easier to grab as he now has angles, kind of. I also enjoy talking politics with  Little Qin and getting his take on the events of the day. I still miss studying with Teacher X, though.

My friends at the indigenous protest were planning an afternoon of concerts and other activities, so I helped them set things up before hauling my instruments over to CKS Hall for a quick bite at Mos Burger. Even though I was nearly 45 minutes early, I found Thumper sitting in the sun. It was good I arrived early, my food took long enough to make me late to our 2:30 start time, but we’re nearly always late so it didn’t really matter. Sylvain was there apparently to steal all of my solos (I kid, I kid…I get paid the same no matter how many solos I have). We went through some old songs in the runup to next weekend’s Jazz Festival gig. Between songs I got Cristina to give me a few hints about my violin homework.

After practice, while the others talked about going to get pizza, I hauled my stuff back to the park, where the concert was in full swing. I walked around listening to the music and taking a few photos, feeling quietly happy and at ease as I tend to do in that crowd. I walked through the park, past the old temple that was playing recorded temple music to a swastika-adorned ghost money boat, and over to what I think of as the Protest MosBurger, as I tend to end up eating there while attending protests, before returning to the concert. They did actually serve food there, but I don’t like to take from them at all if I can help it.

The last act was an electric guitar/bongo drum  duo that rocked, but I had to leave. Work tomorrow, as well as violin class and more preparing not only for my class but the upcoming workshop and other photo events for the Dadaocheng Arts Festival. Back to it, in other words. But it was a nice Sunday away.

This weekend has gone non-stop. It started Friday night when I piled my instruments onto the 650 bus to Liuzhangli so I could make a gig with the ramblers at Bob’s. And not just the Muddy Basin Ramblers, but famed bluesman Rambling Steve Gardner as well, who flew in from Tokyo for the Tiger Mountain Ramble on Saturday. We met Steve at the Yokohama Jug Band Festival a couple of years back, and we’ve stayed in touch, always prodding him to make a trip over. The gig was a riot, and Kat served up tasty meat pies, potatoes and pizza afterwards.

After hauling my ass out of bed Saturday morning, I put on some Rambler-approved clothes and again hauled my instruments out and took the subway to Ximen, where I stashed them so that I could proceed unhindered to the Marriage Equality event on Ketagalan Blvd. Even though it was just starting, huge streams of people were joining from all directions. It was difficult to get into the crowd; I haven’t seen that many people there since the Sunflower protest, so I mostly just walked around the periphery. Suming gave a short speech and sang, and there were other performers with the MCs on the stage.

It was heartening to see so much love, hope and idealism, a real contrast from the previous anti-marriage-equality protests, which were mostly driven by hate and spite as well as stacks of cash from American Christian groups. For one thing, the anti-equality protests were much smaller than reported, even though the churches bussed entire congregations up to Taipei, and populated mostly by middle-aged people; so many of them were dressed in white and wearing masks that it was alarmingly similar to a Klan rally in all but name; “Straight Power” was pretty much the theme, and people there would throw their hands up in front of their masked faces when I raised my camera to take a shot. A good 10-20% of the protesters were actual Christian clergy, priests and nuns in full garb. One tall Western priest stood by one of the “praying” priests, and I managed to not enunciate my hope that he would get deported for taking part in the protest.

But that would never have happened, as the Christians (who claim homosexuality is a “foreign influence, oblivious to the fact that Christianity is much more of a foreign influence than homosexuality ever was), carted in an Australian woman who has some kind of personal vendetta against her parents, Katy Faust, to actually address the Legislature on what she clearly knows nothing about. The appropriately named Faust has no expertise on either homosexuality or Taiwan, yet not a single lawmaker saw the obvious violations of the actual law that her visit incurred. The media hasn’t really been on board with Reality either, e.g. articles like this from Focus Taiwan, which calls the event a “concert” that only “thousands” attended, even though official estimates run from a quarter million and up, and highlights claims of “bullying” of Christians on the subject.

As I was wandering around the East Gate and up the road toward the Presidential Office, it occurred to me that these people, not just the people at the marriage-equality protest, but other similar groups like the Sunflowers, et al, are the very people who were targeted by government forces during the White Terror period. Forward-looking people, people with inspiration and ideas for the future. In the awful times after 2/28, all of us would have been on those lists.

And who would have been writing those lists? The people who showed up in white robes and masks to protest equal rights.

I would have liked to have stayed longer, but I had to go retrieve my instruments and head over to the Tiger Mountain Ramble, where we were playing in the late afternoon. The mountain road was apparently so difficult to navigate that my cabbie shushed me when I tried to tell him where the place was. “Don’t talk to me!” he said. “I’m trying to concentrate on these GPS coordinates!” He found the place despite this.

The ramble was a little behind schedule when I got there, putting my stuff away and greeting friends. The cloudy skies threatened rain, and someone had started a bonfire. Steve presented me with a lovely gift: His photobook, from his days as a photojournalist on the theme of the American South, specifically the people of Mississippi, entitled Rambling Mind. It is a beautifully printed, large-sized book, one of only a handful left from the print run. The photos inside are wonderful as well…it’s a real treat, and I’m so happy to be able to add it to my collection.

It started to rain as we climbed the metal steps of the mobile stage and began our gig. It was a raucous affair, and most everything went right. There was much dancing in spite of the rain, which got heavier as we played. Afterwards we had to slog through the mud to get back to the storeroom, and everyone was huddled around the former temple for shelter. I was tired after a day of walking around as well as the show, so I packed up and headed down the mountain on foot, pulling my cart behind me. I met one of the other bands on the way, and they said some very nice things about our show, and I returned their compliments.

This morning (Sunday) I had to head out again, this time to lead my photography students on a walk around Keelung. We met up in front of the train station at 10 a.m. to find a large gathering of Indonesians, including dancers, martial artists and singers, as well as stalls selling food and attire, and a stage. It was all very festive; I bought three nice new hats, but we couldn’t stay long; we had to catch a train to Keelung.

Of course it was raining, because Keelung. We got off at the brand-new train station, which is worlds nicer than the awful old station, which itself was…much more awful than the old Japanese station. Some people were a bit peckish, so we had some food at a breakfast shop where the owner told us how to get to the big KEELUNG sign at the top of the hill. “You go up,” he said helpfully.

So we went up, following alleys, complimenting one household in particular on their delicious-smelling curry rice and dodging the scooters that would occasionally charge up the steep slope. One of these was a Gogoro electric scooter, with no less than two people on it. Impressive.

We paused at the big KEELUNG and then proceeded up to the platform at the top of the hill, caught our breath, and then went back down again, this time taking a different, more circuitous route. Eventually we found ourselves back to the main road behind the station. We crossed over the old blue pedestrian bridge that’s been there forever, and walked towards the Miaokou market, where vendors were hauling their stalls out into the rainy streets. It’s always difficult to lead these photowalks because I remain a firm believer in the benefits of solitary ventures. “I’m just showing you this place and some of the possibilities,” I often find myself saying. “You can come back on your own sometime and really see it!” It might seem odd for me to be telling this to native Taiwanese people, but they almost always have never really been to the places I take them, or, even if they have, they never really noticed what was there. I think it works; several of them have come a really long way in their photography, which makes me happy. And after this rather fucked-up year, I appreciate such things more than ever.

Yesterday afternoon I met up with Chenbl and his fellow floutists at the Danshui MRT. We’ve done a couple of shows in the past with them on flute and me on trumpet; somehow word got out, and a retirement community out there invited us to play for their residents. One of their people met us at the station and took us up the hillside, past Tamkang University, to the hillside establishment. The lobby was a mixture of hotel and hospital, flanked by an atrium with large windows facing the ocean and the setting sun.

We got ready and warmed up in the place’s library, and I sat next to the side door of the small stage while the other groups played old Mandarin and Minnan favorites to the large group of elderly people, many in wheelchairs, caregivers feeding them small pieces of cake by hand. The retirees hummed and even sang along to the old songs; it was actually kind of touching.

Though our performance went well, musically speaking, the people handling the technical part of the event weren’t quite with the program, cutting off “Rose Rose I love You” halfway through the song. Then the MC said “And next is ‘Summertime’, a song frequently played at funerals!” Chenbl and I both stared in horror as he said this, but the MC seemed to think it was perfectly ok, so we shrugged and kept playing. Hopefully our rendition of the song managed to avoid any kind of funereal intimations.

After the show, the audience trickled out slowly, back to their games of chess and mahjong in the building’s atrium. A couple of them told me they really enjoyed the show, which was nice. We took a bus back down the hill, and a long subway ride back to the city.

We were flying to Yokohama on Friday, but not out of Taoyuan. Instead, we were departing from Songshan Airport, whose unfortunate call letters are “TSA”. I was able to catch the subway from Xindian all the way to the airport with only one transfer. I hadn’t been to the airport since it’s refurbishing, and it looks cool in a faux-retro kind of way. Either that or it’s actually the original furnishings, just taken out of the cupboard where they were tossed at the dawn of the Age of Crap and dusted off. Our baggage included two tubs and a wooden stick, all boxed and labeled “fragile”.

Another surprised lay in store for us after we cleared customs, where the lines were so short none of us even thought of using the machines that do it automatically: Instead of some dumpy old airplane, we boarded one of ANA’s new Boeing 787s. I admit I didn’t realize it was a 787 until I’d boarded, put my stuff away, settled down and realized that there was seemingly no way to pull the window shade down (the windows are darkened with a polarization thingamabob). Only then did I notice the slightly taller windows and raised wings. When I related this exciting information to Thumper, he also became very excited, going so far as to actually shrug.

The flight was smooth and quick, aided by a healthy tailwind, and we were soon descending through the clouds over Haneda Airport, Tokyo’s “local” airport, which is ever so much more impressive than any airport in Taiwan. We got off and gazed out at the 787, upon which Slim realized that he had neglected to bring his bag with him off the plane. We waited while he went back to fetch it. This would become somewhat of a theme throughout our trip.

After deciphering the plate of multicolored spaghetti that is Tokyo’s subway map, we managed to find the train to Yokohama. When we got there, instead of figuring out exactly where we should head to get to the hotel, we stood around ogling a poster for the Yokohama Jug Band Festival, where we were a featured act. We later regretted this neglect when we found it was raining outside and we had to walk a bit more in the rain than we would have if we’d just looked at a goddamn map.

But we found the hotel, the Hotel Plumm, which features daring shades of purple and green. Our room also had a lot of Shocking Pink. But it was indoors and they had hot water, so all was good.

We’d been invited to a pre-festival party a few stops down the line that evening, so we grabbed some instruments and headed out into the rain again, this time to a lovely little bar called the Blue Corn Cafe, where many talented Japanese musicians were putting on a show. We sat down and listened to some really great pieces, and met some of them as well as the organizers of the festival, including Mooney, Speedy and Tomo. Mooney is the head organizer as well as a musician, and Speedy is one of the best bassists I’ve ever seen. He lives and breathes the songs, and the double bass he plays is like part of him. Tomo hasn’t cut his hair in three years. We sat and ate burgers (though I didn’t seen any actual blue corn on the menu) and drank as we enjoyed the music. It was supremely comfortable, though Japanese people still insist on smoking in restaurants even in this day and age. At one point Mooney saw my trumpet and motioned for me to come up on stage. They were playing a version of “Everybody Loves My Baby” but it had a strange minor section I’d never heard before. “Do you know this song?” Mooney asked. I nodded noncommittally.

“I know…a version of it?” I said, but he was already going, so I did what I could. People seemed to like it, anyway. Conor gave some ripping solos, and Sandman played a bit as well. It was great fun.

The subway was shutting down at 12:30 or so, so Tomo led us back to the station so we could hop on the last train back to Yokohama Station, along with 89 businessmen, two of them in each other’s laps. We cooled down in David’s room for a bit before heading off to sleep.

Breakfast the next day was downstairs from the hotel and next door at a Dennys-esque restaurant called “Jonathan”, with booths and newspapers and decent eggs. There was a Mandatory Jug Band “meeting” at the venue at 11am, but we had no idea what it was all about, so we just grabbed our instruments and showed up, only to find that it was an actual meeting, all in Japanese, and besides being introduced, there wasn’t much for us to do. It was odd seeing so many jug bands in one place, over 60 in all, with accompanying paraphernalia such as buttons, T-shirts, posters, etc.

We had some time, so I walked around the area a bit, along the canals, across some bridges and back. Another performance space lay under a large bridge nearby. An elderly man ventured out of his tiny old building to do laundry on the porch. Trains came and went. I love trains, bridges, and walking around such places, so I was very happy with it all. I browsed cameras at the BIC camera store, where an employee took way too much time connecting power to the cameras, but at least they let you try them, unlike shops back home in Taipei. I got a good feel for cameras I’d only read about, such as the Panasonic LX100 (good features but poor handling) and the Fuji X100T (very nice, lovely optical viewfinder), and the Sony A7II (too big and heavy, I still prefer the small and light A7r).

As I was meandering down a street, wondering what I was doing for lunch, I heard someone calling my name. It was Mojo. She, Eddie and David were in line for noodles at a popular shop across the street, so I joined them. The noodles, when we were finally seated, were very good, somehow emitting a smoked, barbeque flavor, albeit a bit salty. I redecorated my necktie with soup, so it wasn’t too bad. It seemed to be a family business, and it ran like clockwork. I wouldn’t want to be a new employee there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make you sit and watch for a month before they let you into the kitchen.

Our afternoon show was approaching, so we walked back to the stage, which was on a sloping platform over a canal. We soon noticed that, despite its name, we hadn’t seen any actual jugs being played. Slim felt he might be the only actual jug player at a jug band festival, which would be strange. I also noticed that none of the washtub basses seemed to be able to hit actual notes with any kind of accuracy. A few were ok, but mostly seemed to be used as percussive instruments rather than melodic ones.

It was time to get ready, but as we pulled out our instruments in preparation, Sandman discovered that he had brought the wrong saxophone. It wasn’t a big deal as far as the afternoon show went, but he’d need to find something before the evening show. The sound on the canal stage seemed kind of tinny, and when I told them to put the microphone under the tub, they seemed shocked, as if nobody had ever thought to do that before. But they caught on, and before we knew it, we were playing, several women in geisha outfits, complete with green bottles of sake, dancing next to the stage as we played.

The sun came out in response to Mojo’s bright yellow earrings, welcome after all of the rain and gloom. We put our stuff away after the show, and I walked around some more, enjoying just being in Yokohama. The cherry trees were in blossom, lit up by streetlights as dusk fell and uniformed persons shouted at pedestrians. I ducked into a curry place for an unremarkable dinner before catching another show under the bridge.

They were having a “washtub bass summit” when I returned to the venue. About a dozen makeshift washtub bassists were there, and they were all surprised to find that I was using a chopstick to pluck the string. They all used their hands, some gloved, some bare, on metal of nylon strings. The biggest innovation I saw was one guy who had a notched stick that could be used as a washboard in an emergency.

We all went out on stage, where Tomo was sitting with a banjo. He played a simple melody, and the dozen-odd washtub basses lurched into a rumbling accompaniment. It was a mess to hear. They gave everyone a measure to play individually, but that was fairly meaningless as well. I went through the motions of strumming, devoting most of my energy to avoiding rolling-eye strain, but I guess it was cool to at least see a bunch of washtub basses in the same room.

Steve Gardner was playing before us, and he invited us on stage to play on his last song. It was fun, but the key was a bit odd. I managed somehow, and then it was our turn.

Our show was great, to put it simply. The sound, the audience (except one large woman in the front row who seemed to have fallen asleep or passed out), the energy, the lights, everything was great. The stage was in a bar called the Thumbs Up. Some more bands played after us, but we had the prime spot, and we all got up on stage for a raucous, righteous jam at the end before retiring to the table for beer and sake and plates of food. We donated the tub and stick to an earnest young Japanese washtub bass player named JJ, who seemed to be trying to emulate Johnny Depp’s character in Alice. He was very happy. Everyone was very happy. I can’t remember when I’ve had such a wonderful time. Even though I was exhausted, I took the long way back to the Plumm, not wanting the day to end. Some of the others took this feeling a bit more seriously, as they went out to another place for food and only returned to the hotel at 4 a.m.

We got up a couple of hours later, around 6, in order to make our flight back to Taipei. The day was lovely, brilliant, sunny and warm. I wished very hard that I could stay in Yokohama, visions of playing gigs, studying Japanese and living in a tiny room somewhere around there dancing in my stupid little head, but we had to go. For a moment we thought we might miss our flight when Conor thought mistakenly that he’d left his phone at the hotel, even going back to get it before realizing it was in his bag all along (I told you this kind of thing would happen again). We made the train, however, and though I was told be the rear-train conductor to stop taking pictures of her hands (I wasn’t; I was taking video of her hands), we made it to the airport in one piece.

I spent as much of my remaining Yen as I could on a sandwich, and then it was on the 787 back to Taipei. Flying into Songshan is even more surreal than flying out of it; usually with Taoyuan there is that buffer period between the Outside World and Taiwan, in the form of a dusty, creaking bus, but this sudden transition via the subway was a little unsettling. Thumper took off, as well as Mojo, at the airport. David and Conor headed off back to Muzha. Slim got off at Qizhang, and Sandman at Xindian District Office Station. Then it was just me, hauling my luggage back across the bridge to the Water Curtain Cave.

Most of my stuff is unpacked, the handful of photos and videos copied. And now this account is written. The trip is done. It will take a while to sink in, however. It was one of those trips, a trip I didn’t know how much I needed. Time may tell how much.

Yesterday was an interesting day. It was Friday, which meant office work and wrapping up various tasks before noon. There was no room for delay, because I’d been asked by my old friend Chalaw to appear on a TV program with him in the afternoon. Also, the Ramblers had a gig at Cheng-chih University that night, so I had to suit up and bring all my gear with me in the morning.

Fortunately everything went smoothly; I caught the subway over to Houshanpi Station and got in a taxi with Chenbl and Xiao Guo, who were helping me out with all my stuff in exchange for getting to watch a TV taping live. Not a great deal for them, but I appreciated their help carrying all that stuff. The guard at the TV studios could have been Chenbl’s twin brother, a fact which both of them found quite amusing.

Chalaw greeted us in the makeup room, and we chatted for a bit before going into the studio for rehearsal. Some really good backup musicians were there, so we got to perform with awesome slide guitar, drum, bass and keyboard backup. After rehearsing once or twice, we recorded a song, and then another. It was quite cold, but hopefully I wasn’t too off-key.

I’m positive that I was off-key for the interview portion of the show, though. I’m terrible at interviews, always doing and saying the wrong things and looking at the wrong people, stammering my answers out and shaking my microphone. The editors certainly have their job cut out for them, is all I can say. Still, Chalaw and the hosts were very nice and accomodating.

We had to leave a bit early, so we could get over to Cheng-chih University for our soundcheck at 4:15. The cab took us over the bridge of the Jingmei Stream, through the campus gate and up the hill to the Arts Center, where the gig was being held in honor of photographer Shen Chao-liang’s exhibition on the topic of highly decorated, mobile stages in Taiwan. The Ramblers were to play on just such a stage ourselves, something we’d been looking forward to for a long time, as it is just so our style. Shen Chao-liang greeted me as we got out of the cab. He’s only a little older than I am, and has created several wonderful photographic works. He’s one of the best Taiwanese photographers out there, and it was great to talk with him. The prints at the exhibition were large and lovely.

Mosquitos were consuming Xiao Guo’s arm, so we booked it into the building and over to the rear veranda overlooking the river and the city beyond. The truck had already been set up in front of the empty stands. Due to space restrictions, the audience was being limited to 300 people via online registration. We went through the soundcheck with the very professional sound people, whom I duly added on Facebook later.

Chenbl had flute class that night and couldn’t stay, but Xiao Guo and I feasted on boxed dinners along with the rest of the Ramblers and the Lion Dancing troupe who were going to open for us. They put on a splendid show, though afterwards I heard one of them say ruefully, “I knew I shouldn’t have eaten before the show.”

Our show was next, and it was wonderful, even though I had a headache and kept wincing. The place was packed, the stands full and the audience spilling over both sides of the stage. The crowd was very enthusiastic about all the music, and virtually exploded when we started to play our version of the old standard Wang Chun Feng. In between songs we would raffle prizes and sell our “medicine”, students lining up in front of the stage. It was great.

After the show was another show, i.e. the folding up of the huge stage into a little blue truck. Everyone watched raptly as the various parts enfolded into each other, almost seeming to swallow the man who was operating the hydraulics. At the end he got almost as much applause as we’d gotten.

Most everyone had left by the time we got back out front to catch cabs back home, but after David and some others had taken the first cab, the second cabbie demanded NT$500 just for our luggage. He knew he had us in a tough spot, but we refused to give him the satisfaction and sent him packing without any fare. Of course, this meant that we had to hitch a ride back down the mountain, where we could catch a cab, but fortunately one of the group volunteered for shuttle duty. Finding a cab wasn’t difficult out in front of the campus, though Slim decided to go his own way.

So, all in all, a great day, made better by the fact that it’s now the weekend.

We were due in Danshui at around 6 on Saturday for a dancing gig that night, so I spent the day mostly at home before gathering up my instruments and heading out to the coast, hauling my cart. It was supposed to be a “black and white” affair. I didn’t really have any white shirts, so I just wore black: My black baggy worker pants from Osaka. Black T-shirt. Black jacket. Black Indonesian felt hat. Black shoes. Black glasses. At least my socks were white.

Sandman was sitting in the square outside the station, and soon other Ramblers began to turn up. Conor was last, of course. David and Mojo had already gone ahead, so we chose a Wish for a taxi, and were rather surprised when the driver didn’t seem very interested in taking us. It was as if he had just come across the concept of driving a taxi and couldn’t quite come to grips with it. He threw our stuff into the back and took off in a jerky, indignant rush, though we hadn’t said we were in a hurry. When we got to the cruise-ship-like hotel near the wharf, he claimed he couldn’t write a receipt because he didn’t have a pen, and he couldn’t give us change because he didn’t have NT$30 on him. Neither objection was sustained.

The dance club was empty as yet, though a tall Western fellow who was obviously in charge directed us inside to the storage room. We did a sound check and had just settled down to our boxed dinners when he told us that people might see us eating there and we’d better make ourselves scarce.

It was a lindy dance convention, it turned out, and boy do those folks take it seriously. I felt as if I were privy to the inner sanctum of some secret society. Everyone was dressed to the nines, but as the club’s AC didn’t work so well, most people had downgraded to around 6 before long. I was sweating profusely in my felt cap and jacket under the stage lights within minutes of starting our first set. A few songs in, and I had to take off my jacket. Unfortunately, I needed two hands to do this, and I lost my grip on the washtub bass stick, which clattered to the floor, eliciting a comment from David, who was trying to explain the next number to the audience. I threw my jacket to the side, bent down to pick up the stick, and then proceeded to put my foot through the tub.

Well. I’ve had tubs break, crack, or whatever, before, but never have I seen a tub disintegrate with such explosive force. Perhaps it was because it was the only green tub I’d ever bought (I got it in Kaohsiung when I was playing with the Heineken Band in ’09…perhaps five years is a considerable span of time for a tub after all. In any case, splinters of green plastic flew everywhere while the CRUNCH! reverberated through the room. I looked down at the destroyed tub, wondering what the hell I was going to do now.

Fortunately, David had spotted another tub in the club’s bathroom. So, while the rest of the band played something bassless, I “appropriated” it and created a hole with a screwdriver I’d heated with a lighter. Five minutes later we had our new tub.

We played until after midnight, two sets in total. My ears were ringing as the sound, which was good enough, was also very loud, and I was glad to get outside, back to the quiet, non-screaming dancer-filled world. The bus back to Taipei Main Station left around 1:15 after backing over some barriers. Thumper, Sandman and myself were on it. I had no idea what happened to the others; I just wanted my bed. At the station we caught a taxi deeper south, as we all live in the wilds of Xindian. I fell into bed around 3.

Sunday was bright and hot when I came to. Thumper had spent much of the previous evening regaling us with tales of the open road, so I decided the haul out the Crazy Bike, which hasn’t seen the light of day in a while. Of course the tires were flat and the frame coated with dust, but after a trip to the local scooter shop it rode just fine.

I took the riverside path north, thrilled to be out on my bike again on a brilliant, albeit hot day. At some point north of the Xiulang Bridge, however, I began to detect a certain odor coming from the river. Unbidden words came to my head from PDQ Bach’s cantata Iphigenia In Brooklyn:

Recitative:

“And lo, she found herself within a market, and all around her fish were dying; and yet their stench did live on.”

Ground:

“Dying, and yet in death alive.”

I continued riding, not daring to stop and eat the snack I’d brought, which was, unfortunately, a tuna rice triangle. At one point I spotted a crane and several city workers working to relieve a canal of what seemed like several thousand dead fish. Occasionally they scooped out a bird as well, one of which was actually still alive. I sidled up to some of the workers and said in a conversational tone, “So…lot of dead fish ya got there.”

“Ya think?”

“Any idea what killed them?” The worker grimaced.

“Weather…could be a reason,” he started.

“Not the only reason!” Another worker called over.

“Chemicals? Factory waste water?” I suggested.

“Can’t help it,” he told me, followed by the usual excuses about making money and this is Taiwan and that’s just the way things are, etc. It was depressing.

When I walked over to the city officials standing a ways off making notes, I asked the same question. “It’s the weather. Recent temperature fluctuations have taken all the oxygen out of the river water,” a woman with a badge told me.

“So, no possibility of chemicals in the water?” I said, eyeing the green sludge six feet away. She shook head.

“Definitely not. We tested.”

So that was that. I continued north, not letting the stench interfere with my happiness at just being on my bike on the riverside again. The paths had developed considerably since my last ride. I could now cross the intersection of the three rivers on a path hung precariously below the traffic bridge. The wind, thanks to an approaching typhoon, nearly blew me off at several points, but it was fun, and I snapped panoramas of the view. Small water buses plied the waters, which is a new and welcome sight. Taipei needs to engage its rivers more, in my opinion.

On the other wide was Sanchong, and instead of traveling up the Erchong Flood plain, I proceeded up the Danshui River on paths I’d never ridden before. It was fascinating. There is a lot of new development there, rows of huge luxury apartments with floor-length windows just waiting to be stacked with boxes and laundry. The new airport MRT line will go through there if it ever gets finished.

The sun was getting low in the sky, so I turned around near a small earth god temple from which issued the sounds of karaoke, and headed back to a water bus port I’d passed on the way there. The water buses, though very limited in scope, are a lot of fun and dirt cheap: NT$15 a trip, including bicycle, and you can use your Easycard. I only wish they had a wharf in Xindian. Fish were jumping out of the river as we headed south again. Was the water in that bad a shape? I wondered. At least it didn’t smell so much now. I Lined Chenbl and showed him the scenery from the boat. Line does not yet feature smells, but I’m sure they’re working on it.

I got off at the Huajiang Wharf and pedaled south, eyeing the flashes of a storm boiling up over the mountains beyond Xindian as I rode. Sure enough, drizzle began to splatter me as I crossed under the Xiulang Bridge. I sped up, as I hadn’t brought rain gear and my only defense against getting soaked was ineffectual cursing. The rain actually felt good after being in the hot sun all day, however. Night had fallen by the time I got back to the Water Curtain Cave, where I partook of a cold shower and a veggie dinner from the shop downstairs.

All in all, a good weekend. Tiring, but good.

My weekend was spent turning the Water Curtain Cave upside-down in search of the warranty for my washing machine, which refused to surrender my clothes the last time I washed anything. I suspect it also hid the warranty, as I can almost hear it chuckling out there on the balcony. However, though there is as yet no sign of that particular document, I did managed to go through a bunch of other stuff, and threw out three large garbage bags of various things I didn’t need. This is one of the perils of buying a place and living in it for a long time without moving; stuff builds up, and without moving there’s no reason to get rid of it. But I need to. I’d also like to get rid of a bunch of clothes and books. My DVD collection will go when I can put them all on a thumb drive, which, according to Moore’s Law, will be possible around *looks at watch* Thursday.  My old PC needs to be donated for parts, and even my “new” iMac is getting a bit long in the tooth at the ripe old age of five. It still works, but very slowly, and my view is mostly occupied by the swirling rainbow.

Being back at my old office is still rather surreal. People, staff members who remember me from Back in The Day hail me in the hallways, which is awkward as I’m terrible with names. And faces. And, well, people. Which is unfortunate because I’m working with people; my boss is only a couple of cubicles away, so I’m really going to have to cut down on the LARPing. Instead of the old clunky PC I used for roughly a decade, I’m now using an old clunky laptop with a yellow screen. I tell myself that this will help my eyesight, but my eyes are having none of it. Luckily my cubicle wall only covers half the window next to me, so I can see a bit of sky outside through the blinds.

In other news, the Xingtian Temple, one of Taipei’s most venerated temples, is going green; no more incense, no more tables full of awful junk food meant as offerings. And right in the middle of Ghost Month, too! Personally I think ghost money burning is far worse a problem than incense, but it’s a step in the right direction. Hopefully the trend will catch on.

Theoretically I should be planning my trip to Tokyo next week. Chenbl has been urging me to have a detail plan, hour-by-hour, with subway charges and meals all planned out. He says this because that is the only way he ever travels, and is horrified when he hears that I basically just show up in whatever city and wing it. This time, I’d like to meet some old friends, and possibly with some publishers, but other than that, I don’t really know.

I’m not really sure where I’m going lately, with photography, writing, filmmaking, etc. Mostly because I can finish projects but am allergic to self promotion, so things are done and then just…lie there. But when I look back at my earlier entries, I feel like I’ve really slacked off lately. It would be easy to blame certain other parties for this, but I really should take the responsibility myself, and try to live in a way that is at least worth blogging (and that’s a low bar if I ever saw one), and making my own mistakes, because embarrassing failures are much more interesting to read about than surrogate success.