East Coast journal ’19
The mood wasn’t quite as ebullient as usual when we met up at our usual spot at Taipei Main Station before heading to Taitung. For one thing, it was too hot to sit outside as we usually do; we instead huddled around one of the entrance hall pillars. All of the convenience stores were boarded up for some reason. It felt like moving day, even more so because of all the travelers with luggage passing through. But mainly it was because we all recalled the last time we’d gone to Taitung.
We made the train easily, though Conor was late and Thumper had to ride a lightning cab down the mountain to make it in time. I’d gotten some lunch at Mosburger and waited until the train emerged from the tunnel to reveal the somewhat distressed landscape of northeast Xinbei to partake of my meal, listening to Thumper describe his life as a hardcore bicycle enthusiast.
Our destination this time wasn’t Taitung but Yuli, where we were picked up by a couple of vehicles driven by organizers to take us to Chenggong where the show was. The guards at the venue originally insisted on guiding us to the parking lot before the sight of the huge orange tub confirmed that we were indeed one of the bands playing on the large grassy slope between the mountains and the sea. I originally thought that we should be playing facing the sea, as that would be the logical fengshui, but as dusk fell and the mountains glowed with clouds, their arrangement began to make sense. As we sat on the marble benches looking out at the sea waiting for our soundcheck, one of the staff tried to shoo us away until we told them we were playing. After such a long hiatus, perhaps we no longer look like a band. It’s been months, after all.
The show went without a hitch, though none of us could see the audience, me especially as I was wearing my usual sunglasses in the glare of the stage lights. We could hear them, though, and what we heard was encouraging. We told them they could dance, but when people tried to dance, the show videographers told them not to block their shots. Oh, well.
The moon rose up through layers of clouds out to sea behind the stage during the next band’s show, which was magical; the audience took out their mobile phones with lights on the screens, today’s version of lighters, I suppose, looking like artificial life had sprung up on the meadow. I wandered around, not really connected with anyone or anything. I tried to sit on the grass and watch the moon, but one of the staff told me it wasn’t allowed. So I went up to the sea waste recycling museum and took in the exhibits. Old flip-flops, nets, PET bottles made into art. And air conditioning.
After the last band, a heavy metal group, it was time to go to our hotel outside of Taitung, though Thumper and Conor decided to go stay with their Swiss friend Urs. Slim, Cristina and I hopped in our ride, which was a tricked-out Japanese car on low-profile wheels, dual sunroofs, an LED light system and a dope sound system whose sub-woofer rattled nearby windows. It was driven by a lithe, tattooed young man who disdained shirts. As we drove along the coastal highway, he mixed and matched and DJ’d, showering our ears with various hip-hop classics. He also took requests, and at various points we were singing along to Snoop Dogg, MC Hammer and even Green Day, rolling down the windows and sinking down in our seats as we proceeded to wake up everyone in the vicinity. When we stopped at a 7-eleven, David, who took another car, stuck his head out the window to stare at us. His ride was quiet and contemplative.
The hotel was out of the city, quiet at that hour. Slim played the piano in the lobby. “It wants to be played quietly,” he said, and then played it so loudly that the lone clerk told him to cut it out. David went to bed, while Cristina, Slim and I were joined by one of the organizers in lounge chairs on the front patio, where we chatted a little. I wasn’t drinking; I’d learned my lesson on the last trip. I was exhausted, though, and soon went up to sleep.
The next day, after the much-appreciated hotel breakfast, we piled in the van that the organizers had hired to take us back to Taipei. This was because they’d failed to procure train tickets back, which meant a long, long ride back up the coast. But first we drove up to Dulan, where David, Conor and Cristina wanted to go swimming. Thumper was out somewhere river tracing with Urs, and Slim settled down on the curb outside our friend Red Eye’s coconut hat stand/LP music factory. I’d been hankering for some coffee, so I walked through the town, eventually ending up at the same place I’d had coffee the last time we were in Dulan. I always like walking through that town.
The last time we were in Dulan, we’d been joined by my old newspaper comrade-in-arms Brian Kennedy. He’d been in fine form then, but not long after he was felled by a stroke and passed away. So a shadow lay over this trip. Even the table by the road where Brian, David and I had sat up talking and drinking had been cleared away, as if they knew what it meant to us and removed it to spare us that particular twist of recollection. But I also think this trip was a kind of way of dealing with the last one, perhaps even a private tribute of sorts. I’d like to think so, anyway.
We managed to set off north early in the afternoon. We wanted to break the long trip up, making plans to have a nice seafood dinner in Ilan, but I had my doubts and filled up on fish and chips before we left. Chenbl had been warning of thunderstorms and landslides on that treacherous route that has claimed many lives over the decades. A safer, smoother bypass route has been hamstrung by politics for years. But the trains and planes were booked, and no one wanted to drive to Kaohsiung to take the bullet train north, so the east coast road it was.
It wasn’t an unpleasant trip. With Thumper staying on in Taitung, it was just the five of us in the large, brand-new VW van. The driver, Mr. Wu, hailed from Ilan and obviously knew his business. We played songs on the portable speaker I’d brought. David and I talked about art, and the similarities between communicating with music and photography, the creative process, etc.
We stopped along the beach in front of the Hualian Air Force base. It was starting to rain. By the time night fell, we were threading the tall cliffs, the downpour lashing the top of the van, and quick glimpses of tiny fishing harbors far below us were the only indication of our height. Chenbl called periodically whenever there was a signal, wondering where we were. I watched the lights outside the rain-streaked window, and put on some old Japanese tunes. Somehow rainy nights call for old Japanese music.
Dinner in Ilan was not to be; the restaurant was closed by the time we made it that far up the coast, so we had some quick snacks at a roadside 7-Eleven before heading to the Xuesui Tunnel and Big Bad Taipei.
Mr. Wu dropped us off at TaiPower Building, and such was the mental space of that journey that I completely forgot my speaker as we piled into a cab that took us back to our respective abodes.
