After lazing around my room all morning yesterday …
After lazing around my room all morning yesterday playing along to jazz MP3s on my trumpet, I decided to take advantage of our current drought, aka sunny weather, by getting out of the house. In my search for another place to live, I took the MRT down to Xindian yesterday afternoon. Xindian is at the very end of the line, and the station is walking distance from the Xindian River, which curves through some mountains before running into the Danshui River. The area near the MRT stop is called Bitan, and a suspension bridge crosses the river to the other side. I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind living on the other side of the bridge, since it’s reasonably quiet and the air is fresh, but I couldn’t find any realty offices or even neighborhood bulletin boards with home-made rental ads on them. All in all, I think I would prefer Danshui to Xindian, in that Danshui has mountains and the sea, whereas Xindian just has the mountains.
I took the subway back to the city and got off in the West Gate District, where I walked around and bought things for a couple of hours. One of the things I bought was a CD of classical Chinese flute music with one of my favorite songs, the “New Song of the Herdsmen”, which is a challenging piece best played really fast. I first heard it when I was in junior high school in Maitland, Florida, when I borrowed an LP of Chinese music from the library there. The album was obviously made during the cultural revolution, since all of the songs had been renamed, and that particular one was called “Ode to My Glorious Tractor” or something like that. My parents saw the titles and went berserk, demanding to know how I could bring such communist propaganda into their house. Nothing I could say convinced them that it was just traditional Chinese music. In any case, since it is a song best played quickly, I looked for the version with the shortest time and bought it. I like the challenge of a fast, complicated piece, especially when it’s a professional musician being challenged.
I went back to the shop where I recalled seeing a Hitler-themed T-shirt to see if it was still there. It was, and I decided to buy it, not just to show you what kind of ignorant shit people come up with here, but also to keep some poor Taiwanese person from buying it and actually wearing it. It reads “EVII., Hitler 1889.4.20-1945.4.30 Worship an idol…An iconoclast…Hitler, A”. Ironically, it’s yellow. The tag says it was made in Korea by “Two Sharp one” Jeans, and includes a picture of a beetle, a graphic of a torso from Grey’s Anatomy, and a quote from “Revelation 1;8”. Bizarre stuff.
Kirk called up and said he and another friend were planning to go to the Taiwan Bear Club that evening, so I said I’d come along. In light of the average physique of the guys at the Bear Club, I promptly went to Friday’s and stuffed myself with a creamy Italian dish and a slab of Mocha Mud Pie before walking to my destination. As usual, the beefy greeter was fawning all over Kirk in an amusing fashion. Kirk was a bit concerned that people would recognize him from an online personals ad he placed a couple of weeks ago, and since the place was full of hefty guys in rugby shirts, bandanas and cargo pants, he wasn’t entirely sure of his safety if anyone he had rejected took issue with the fact. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “If things get ugly, you can count on me to call 119.”
Kirk retaliated by asking me if there was anyone in the room I fancied. Foolishly, I looked around and spotted a guy who wasn’t bad looking, but to my surprise he turned out to be the cousin of the greeter who was fawning all over Kirk, who took this opportunity for revenge, inviting the fellow over to our table and telling him that I had a crush on him. I winced as he went on and on about me, but all I could do was assure the cousin that Kirk was Full of Shit and tell him not to pay attention to anything he said. All in all it was fun, though. I like the crowd at the Bear Club much better than the people at Fresh or the Source, or even Funky. It’s just a bunch of guys who like being guys, and who also like other guys. Nary a limp wrist to be seen.
Sword practice tonight, of course, but I should get out and do something before then. For some reason, Yahoo mail isn’t working. I suppose this is part of Yahoo’s campaign to convince stupid people to switch to their “Premium” service. All it convinces me of, however, is that Yahoo sucks rhino balls.
