Summer seems to have installed itself now; the mugginess along with warmer temperatures led to a summer rain yesterday that left the air fresh and clean after last week’s sandstorm. I went to sword practice on Wednesday night after a long hiatus due to my knee. I didn’t do too much, but it was good to be back into it. I also need to buy either a new bicycle seat that’s long enough, or just a new bicycle that doesn’t suck, to take more rides down along the riverside path that runs all the way through the city.

Dragonboat Festival is approaching, and every day I hear the beat of drums and the shouts of rowers as teams practice down on Bitan. This kind of noise I don’t mind at all, nor do I mind firecrackers, the occasional temple music, or even garbage trucks. The riverside Karaoke, however, has got to go. I’ve talked to them and gotten them to turn it down, but a fellow badminton player friend of mine says I should go to the EPA and submit a complaint, especially as they are profiting off of a piece of public space without paying any rent.

If you think that’s petty of me, you should have seen me on the subway the other night. Across from me was a woman clipping her fingernails. I took out my camera and started shooting pictures. She didn’t look up. She must have noticed the distance light, but she gave no sign, and kept clipping. She had earphones on, so I turned on the flash. Still nothing. So I started up a conversation with the middle-aged woman next to me about how gross the other woman was. “You just know,” I said loudly, “Many of those pieces of fingernail are flying through the air and landing on everyone here.” She agreed, saying the woman “had no sense of public decency,” and the other woman started to look a bit embarrassed. Then I lamented aloud the lack of a broom to sweep up her mess and began making sweeping motions with my foot at her feet where all the clippings had fallen.

She got off at the next stop. When it came time for the other woman to get off, she thanked me as she exited the train.

keep going
Originally uploaded by Poagao.

I thought it would be hot on Saturday, but it was cool and misty as Sandman and I set out from Bitan, loaded with our gear, to a mountain retreat near Hoho Cafe in Waishuangxi that afternoon. We got off the MRT and hailed a cab, telling the driver only to go ‘up’, as we didn’t know the address. So up we went. And up, and up. After a long drive along switchbacks, we arrived to find Thumper, Slim and Conor just arriving as well. Then David, with Robyn and his mother in tow, appeared trudging up the road on foot, for some reason.

The place we were playing, along with many other bands such as Boogie Chillin, looked like the only things it was missing were a South American drug lord and armed guards strolling alongside the pool. It was a large place with many rooms all covered by a vaulted ceiling reminiscant of those “towns” you see in Disney theme-parks, and overlooked a great view down to the city.

As soon as we set our stuff down and the others went to start drinking, etc., I ran into a guy who works at my company. He and his family were definitely not expecting the sudden influx of people, and wondered what was going on. He had no idea I was in a band.

I went around taking odd pictures while the first few acts played, helping myself to some home-made carrot cake and Sangrias. The event didn’t seem to have anything at all to do with Earth Day; it was more like a coincidental excuse to have a party. Occasionally a singer or organizer would mention The Environment, but aside from that, it was just a relaxed party atmosphere.

Dusk fell, and the city lit up in the basin below as we warmed up in a nearby shed inhabited by two dogs. Appropriately enough, the white dog was friendly and stupid, while the black dog bared its teeth, growled and huddled in the corner as we played. The old, “good dog/bad dog” trick, it would seem.

The stage was bigger than anyplace we’ve played at before. I wasn’t used to all the space, but it was nice to be able to move around without constantly bumping into each other. The sound guy kept on top of the situation, letting us use a wireless mic under the tub bass. The place was really loud due to all the hard surfaces, and I could barely hear myself on some of the songs. But all in all, it was a great show, quick and tight. Probably our best yet.

Afterwards I chatted with Robyn and Mrs. Chen, who not only had never heard her son David perform, she didn’t even know he could play a guitar! Needless to say, she seemed a bit flabbergasted. The pasta had a two-hour wait and the place had run out of beer, so David, Robyn and Mrs. Chen left early. I’d just ordered dinner, though, and I wanted to hear Boogie Chillin, ’cause they rock.

I sat out on the balcony after finishing a delicious fillet of fish and caramel tea that tasted just like one of upside-down puddings you get at 7-Eleven here. All of the other Ramblers were off somewhere, so I took some pictures of the table, admired the view, and thought to myself that things were pretty much perfect.

The police came in response to complaints about the noise, even in that remote area, and then Boogie Chillin came up. They had rocked the house for about half of their act when the electricity died, and we all sat still for a moment, confused in the darkness. Then the sax player started up on a freestyle jam. The drummer joined in, and the crowd screamed even louder. I went and got my trumpet and joined in, as the sax player couldn’t last forever on his own. Other players joined as well, and we got a smooth horn section going on. I was resting for a moment when a girl from the audience screamed “trumpet!” It was one of the few intelligable things to come from the audience that night.

“Yes! This is a trumpet!” I responded. Well, it was dark.

Pretty soon we learned that the wife of the place’s owner had been spooked by the police visit and had yanked our power. She was demanding that the show stop, even though her husband said it was ok.

So that was that. We packed up but were too high to want to go home, so we all piled into the Thumpermobile, turned the stereo to loud and sailed up into the clouds of Yangmingshan, stopping along the way just long enough to buy drinks and arouse a bit of suspicion on the part of the local police.

We ended up at Qingtiangang, in the middle of dense fog. Coffee stands glowed in the parking lot. We took our drinks and walked a ways into the mountains, which smelled of grass and wet cows. There we stood on the path and chatted, still excited about the performance. Every once in a while, even at that late hour, a group of two or three hikers would approach and pass us, and every time this happened, we would break out in song. I can only imagine what they were thinking to come across a group of foreigners, all wearing hats (except for Conor), wearing suits, holding bottles and singing blues songs in the mist. One group of young men pounced on us after we finished lighting incense for the Earth God at a nearby temple. “You are very dashing! You scared us!” they shouted drunkenly. Conor took a picture with them, and we decided we’d had enough of the misty mountainside for that night.

On the twisty, foggy road down the mountain, the Thumpermobile’s windshield was almost opaque with condensation, but when I noted this fact, everyone seemed to feel that there were worse ways to leave this world than flying over a cliff in a van with your bandmates. As David wasn’t there, however, we decided not to try it just yet, and continued back down into our muddy basin.

It was after 3 when I finally got home. An amazing, crazy, great day by any account.

In other news, it’s been four whole years since I began writing this account. Back then I was still talking about “rolls of film” and “The China Post”. Hold on, the China Post is still around. Well, anyway…four years. Wow.

It’s that time of year again, when the weather begins to get hot and muggy, and the burden of a hairstyle is just too much to bear, so I do what I do every spring: I took my clippers and gave myself a buzz.

Immediately I noticed a slight difference in the way people reacted to me on the street. Whereas before I got smiles and nods, now I get startled, almost hostile glares, the kind of look I imagine I probably give out on the street, I admit. Perhaps it’s just the weather today (there’s a sandstorm from China screwing with our already-not-so-wonderful air quality) or some other factor I’m not taking into account.

The subway home this afternoon was crowded, not as crowded as is sometimes is at rush hour, but I have my computer with me so it was a little inconvenient. An old woman was wheeled on at one point. Her wheelchair sported the word “Karma” on its purple leather straps. By the door, a little boy of about 6 or 7 kept staring suspiciously at me. He was obviously of mixed blood, most likely half black and half Chinese. The woman accompanying him looked old enough to be his grandmother; perhaps she was, or some aunt. I had my head down on my computer when I heard the kid ask “What happened to the red? Why’s it all green now?” The woman didn’t answer, so I did, explaining to him that the MRT would make the one line into two lines in the future. The kid seemed really happy that someone answered his question.

I was running late, therefore, according to Murphy’s Law, the other glove I was looking for had to hide in another dimension while I wasted time looking for it.

I was supposed to be at Dean’s at 5pm so we could shoot museum exteriors and some other stuff, but as April needed black gloves to complete her cat burglar outfit, I needed the other glove. I turned my closet upside down and finally found it, now that it had accomplished its mission of making me late.

We did some dark-room shots of Dean and Maurice, featuring some dolly shots as well as some really kick-ass blueprints Dean had obtained. The smoke from Dean’s cigarettes looked pretty good under the single light, and the reflected light from the tabletop was plenty for fill light. April and Mark, aka “Cranky Laowai” on Forumosa.com, arrived later, and we headed over to what Dean calls “the Portuguese Whorehouse”, aka the exclusive, extravagantly designed Agora Garden, the temporary residence of Steve Chicorel, the producer who met with us last year.

I put the camera and tripod in an empty fountain, hoping that they wouldn’t chose that particular moment to turn it on, while we got some climbing shots. Then we went over to a gap in the wall/hedge and got some shots* of Mark, who was playing our all-in-one security guard. Then we needed another shot with another security guard, but as we’d only brought Mark, and everyone else was already in the film, I donned the uniform and played the part while Darrell operated the camera. Thankfully nobody turned up asking questions as I disrobed in the middle of the courtyard. In any case, Dean’s been after me to do some kind of cameo the whole time, so now at least I can say I’ve done one.

Tony, aka the gangster “Tang” from the last movie, had arrived by that point, so we went over to the building where he owns an apartment a few blocks away for another few shots. Dean went back to his apartment for the dolly tracks, so we got there first and did a few non-dolly shots. Then Tony showed us something pretty neat: along the long-ass hallway were framed pictures. They look like they are there for decorative effort, but they are actually little hinged doorways to access the pipes in the walls. Cool! When Dean arrived and we showed him, he got all excited as well. We just had to use it, so we wrote it in right then and there. April, being the trooper that she is, got in the little space behind the wall and popped out of the portrait at the right moment.

The whole time we were filming our shoes were making extremely loud squeaking noises every time we moved. Most of us took off our shoes to avoid making the noise, but I don’t know if the residents care; we could hear arguments and TV’s from the rooms in any case; the walls and construction of the building didn’t seem that great.

It was well past midnight by the time we finished. I’d wanted to get some more exteriors in Danshui on Sunday, but people were too tired from Saturday, so we’ll get it another time.

In other news, we seem to have found a real, live lab to use. Time is short before our window of opportunity, and we still need to see it, but it looks promising from the pictures Paul has sent. This is a very complicated scene and will take a lot of planning to get done at all, much less done right.

I ran out of hard disk space a little earlier than I expected, so I got a Seagate 400GB SATA drive. Hopefully it will tide me over until I need even more space. I’ve got one slot left on my motherboard, and I’m saving it for at least 500GB.

*Well, no, we didn’t, actually. I screwed up this shot through pure and unadulterated idiocy; hopefully I’ll get more when we go out to Danshui.

We’re trying to gear up for a scene that takes place in an elaborate laboratory, or “elaboratory”. Preferably big, with lots of fancy instruments, beakers and beeping, blinking machinery. Or maybe just big. We’ll take what we can get. Our friend Tony, who played one of our villains in the last film, has a rooftop place Dean and I are going to check out tomorrow night.

This afternoon Dean and I hooked up with James of WDEVN to look for guys to play our commando team as well as some other similar roles. We met out near the Martyr’s Shrine, where those guys meet and shoot at each other with high-powered BB guns. I met Chen Wei-ming, the author of one of my favorite ghost story collections in Chinese. He’s a big fan of these things, and it did look like they were having a good time. Dean even put on some goggles and went out on one of the rounds.

We also might be taking a little boat ride soon, on one of the cruises to nowhere Dean and I went on a few years back. It would be fun, and we can also film a scene on the ship, to make it seem like we have more of a budget than we really do. That is, if the cruise to nowhere is still running.

The weather’s playing mind tricks again. Friday was a warm summer day, but today we’re back where we started it seems, with cold and damp. My windows are opaque with condensation due to the temperature difference. I’m sure this is going to do wonders for the remnants of my cold.

The weather was still hot and muggy when I caught a ride with Sandman and Jojo down to The Living Room yesterday afternoon. We all stashed most of our hot performance clothes and took our instruments to a nearby park to practice a song or two. Or we would have, if we could have found a nearby park. The roof was occupied with construction, so we settled on a nearby alley. Periodically people would pass by and give us strange looks, but none of us, I think, are unused to strange looks. I was just hoping the building next door wasn’t a neurosurgery or something.

Later, back at Corbett’s, we got dressed up and did some jumping shots for David’s girlfriend Robyn, who’s into that sort of thing. It was fun. You’d think musicians of all people would know how to all jump at the same time. We eventually got one, though.

There weren’t many people in the audience when we opened with the St. McJug Stomp, but within about two songs, almost magically, the place was packed. Corbett kept bringing up chairs to the front, creating a rising tide of audience members so thick that there nearly wasn’t any room for the band.

After a set, Duncan, Zoe, Jez and Dana performed a couple of sets, while we watched from the Curiously un-Green Green Room, and I took shots of various instruments. I played bass for one of Jez’s songs, which was interesting. After a short break, we got back up and played some more. Sandman had to bow out early due to a headache, but the rest of us went on in our tribute to Dana, as she’s leaving our muddy island for greener shores. We played until about 3am. We played old songs, news song. We played “Song of Our Homeland”. We played St. James Infirmary and I played my fucking heart out on the solo. I was, and still am, feeling kind of loopy due to cold medicine, but I managed to not only not pass out, but did a decent job on both instruments and one vocal song without hocking out a loogie. The whole band felt really tight and polished; we were hot that night. David’s got us scheduled to do quite a few performances at various venues, including The Wall and the Blue Note, over the next month or so.

In other news, I finally managed to rent out my parking space, thus relieving a bit of financial stress. Tomorrow it’s back to work, and another wintery pothole on the road to summer. Who knows how many false starts this spring will give us.

今天晚上大約九點左右, 我們的爵士藍調樂團, 泥土盆地漫步者, 要在小客廳 那邊表演一下. 有一陣子沒有一起練團, 但至少可以跟我們最新的團員, DANA, 告別一聲.

上個禮拜得了重感冒, 到現在還在每天四次把一大包藥物拿出來吃. 幾乎每年春天一到, 自然會如此過.

房子的停車位還沒有組出去, 希望可以趕快組調, 這樣我每個月的經濟

Fetts and Fretts
Originally uploaded by Zhara.

Just testing the Flickr “Blog This” button, with a picture from my friend Clar’s party. Man, she got some crazy friends. Reminds me of some of the parties I went to in college, though I don’t recall seeing Star Wars characters there. This was back in the skinny-tie/suspendered 80’s, though, so we only had one Fett to go around.

Clar was going to come visit me in Taiwan this spring, but I’m sorry to report she’s not going to be making it over to this side of the big water this time around, which is a shame, as I was looking forward to showing her around our beautiful island.

Tomorrow night, i.e. Saturday, at about 9pm, the Muddy Basin Ramblers are going to open for and then play with Dana Wylie at The Living Room at about 9pm, since she’s going back to the states soon. David also wants to get some jumping pictures of the band in mid-air while we’re still sober enough to jump in some coordinated fashion.

Although I had a bad cold with a fever the night before, I managed to drag myself out of bed on Tuesday morning, pack up my stuff, and catch a taxi out to National Cheng-chih University. It being tomb-sweeping day, traffic was light, and I was early, so I sat out on the front steps of the building we were going to film in, hoping that the sunlight would somehow clear out my sinuses and make the world a bit less hazy.

Dean was already there, though, so I went up to check out the conference rooms we’d signed out for the day. The janitor guy was really friendly and helpful. I explained to him, since Dean had signed out the place for a “workshop”, that we were doing a workshop in which I would explain filmmaking to a group by having them go through a couple of short shoots. Did I lie? I merely exaggerated.

Actors trickled in, gathering in one conference room and talking, making fun of each others wardrobe and props, while I set up in the next room. Darrell brought his new DVX100a so we could get two-camera setups, and Paul brought the new dolly/tripod system, which worked after a fashion, but still needs some improvements. I think we’re definitely on the right…track…ouch.

After some consternation concerning line-crossing and lighting differences, we started shooting with Brian Lynch, who plays “No. 2”, the role originally created by John Locke in the original premiere Lady X episode. Brian is a former ICRT DJ, and it was a pleasure to work with him.

Also new to the set were Peter Balfry, who was the professor in “The Big Cheese”, Jerome and Graham, former co-workers from the News, and Emily, Joshua’s girlfriend. We also got Zach, who works with me and Dean at our day job, and one of Dean’s classmates to play armed guards. They looked quite impressive in their flak jackets holding Uzis.

We got all the shots with the most people in them done first, letting actors go as we went. Finally, at around 8pm (we were supposed to be out of there by 6), we’d let everyone, including our three main actors, go. It was just Brian, Dean, Paul, Darrell and myself. I’d skipped lunch and not taken any medicine aside from some vitamin C all day; I got through on a bottle of orange juice. After a search for Brian’s lost phone (it was in his bag), Paul and Darrell left in Paul’s car, while Dean, Brian and I took a taxi to our respective destinations. Brian was in good spirits; I think he had the best time of all of us that day. He got out to go to Post Home in Shilin for dinner. I declined his invitation to join him, as all I wanted to do was go home and crash. A very, very long day it was.

I took Monday off as well as today to recover, but I’m still sick. Tomorrow we’re going to do some shots of Peter in a jet. Due to the fact that we don’t have a jet, we’re going to make do with an old ejector seat and a helmet, and let the magic of CG take care of the rest.

哇, 好久沒寫日記了. 最近很忙, 但是現在得了重感冒, 所以今天一整天在家裡休息. 明天還是要去拍片, 在政治大學那邊, 拍一天. 一想到就累垮了.

新的家還不錯. 最受不了的地方還是那些在樓下唱歌的人. 每天從早到晚一直唱, 唱到我真的想買一至BB槍給他們一個警告. 但是這種事情還是留給警察好了.

天氣慢慢變熱了, 越來越多駕駛與工人都打赤膊的作他們的事情, 日常生活裡面的風景越來越好看.