Friday, April 10

We were booked for a late-afternoon flight to Tokyo for our series of shows at this year’s Yokohama Jug Band Festival. The last time we did this was 11 years ago, in 2015; I made a video about it here.

I was working in the morning, so I took all my stuff, including my trumpet, my big purple backpack and two large orange washtubs, to the office in the morning after an ill-advised late-night packing spree that had me leaving the Water Curtain Cave with too many clothes and too little sleep.

After a lunch at a nearby cafe, I took the MRT to Songshan Airport, hauling the tubs, which was awkward at best. People kept staring and muttering things like, “Is he, like, just always ready to take a bath or something?” I wanted to point at them and say “Of course! And where are all your tubs, then?”

Slim showed up as I sat in the airport lounge area next to a self-playing piano that could have used lessons, and we boxed the tubs at a nearby packing place. David, Robyn, Cristina, Zach, Scarlett, and Tim arrived, and I went to get some travel insurance while they greeted each other and caught up. Scarlett, now almost five, is still beholden to her middle name, playing on the railing which was thankfully protected by glass (though I wonder if she knew that).

Immigration was smooth, and soon we had boarded a China Airlines Airbus that was so old it used USB-A and didn’t even have Bluetooth (shudder). We were all sitting together, so we didn’t have window seats, which were instead wasted on people who don’t appreciate glittering views of nighttime Tokyo. But it was lovely, so lovely, to be flying again, traveling again for real after so many years. I’ve been so full of constant, grinding anxiety lately that I really needed a trip, to Japan, Tokyo no less. And with friends, too, though unfortunately Chenbl couldn’t make it this time.

Despite warnings of turbulence from the cockpit, the flight was smooth; even the typically meh China Airlines cuisine failed to dampen my spirits. Tokyo Haneda airport, despite being the city airport as opposed to Narita, was still impressive and full of tourists, which I’d heard about but hadn’t experienced on this kind of scale before; line after line, kiosk after kiosk, snaking across football field-sized processing areas. We made it through with patience on everyone’s part, and nobody even batted an eye at my passport.

It was too late to take the train out to Yokohama, so we’d hired a large van. The driver, who we’d assumed was Japanese, communicated with gestures until we realized he was actually from Northeastern China, whereupon we had a lively conversation. Well, the others did, particularly David, who dusted off his “mainland” accent. I was just gazing out the back window at all the cage-less, non-grated building windows.

It was quite late by the time we arrived at our hotel, once again the Plumm, where we stayed 11 years ago when we played at this festival in 2015. We’d shared rooms that time, but now we had our own rooms, for which I was quite grateful. It was so very satisfying to be staying in a tiny Japanese hotel room once again, with its clean, standard plastic bathroom and fresh white towels, just like those delightful old days of yore when I used to take such trips more often.

But we had several shows and activities lined up for the next day, so while the others chatted outside, I took a hot shower and went to bed.

Saturday, April 11

Sleep was hard to come by, possibly because of the travel vibe I’d been soaking in. I laid awake until 3am; I might as well have gone out and chatted with Slim, Zach and Conor and gotten the same amount of sleep. Instead, I got up around 9am and went down for the hotel breakfast, which, while not free, was convenient and quite tasty. I had Eggs Benedict, eating with Cristina and Scarlett, who wouldn’t eat much of her kid’s meal except the rice.

The weather outside was brilliant, clear and crisp. I walked over to the Mint auditorium at 11am for the opening conference. Mooney, the organizer, was on stage with another of his band members dressed up in a parody of the current Japanese prime minister. Together they named all of the 60-odd jug bands in attendance, including some commentary and jokes that I did not understand. After I nabbed a couple of Festival shirts that had our name on them, David, Andrew and I went to the mall below the massive Yokohama Station, where I got a bento to enjoy as I sat by a canal.

Then it was back to the hotel to charge my batteries as well as those of my devices, and then out around 3, walking over to the space under the bridge where they’d held one of the events last time, flanked by a curious little old building with four tiny units. I always wonder who lives there and what it’s like inside. Nothing was happening there now, but it was cool to be standing in that space again, watching the trains and people pass by.

A few jug bands were setting up by the river to jam. I walked back over towards the afternoon venue, passing another one located in what looked like a parking garage, then over to the one that had been over the river before, but was now in a little square by a department store. As I approached between the buildings the sound was horribly screechy, but when I got to the square it was ok again. My old friend Louis, who was just in Taipei last week, showed up to listen to our show.

After the show I walked around the area some more, pausing on the blue bridge from the venue building over the river between it and the station, enjoying the cool vibe of Yokohama on jug band festival weekend. Louis happened by, and we walked around through the crowds of festive holiday-makers looking for something to eat while Louis talked about how strange he found Yokohama compared with Tokyo. I said it kind of felt like Keelung, or rather, Yokohama is to Tokyo as Keelung is to Taipei…both history-laded seaports close to the capital with dodgy histories and an intermix of cultures. We had fish and chips at an underground British pub called the Tavern. It was good; I always enjoy my conversations with Louis.

But I had to go back to the hotel to get my jacket as the day was cooling, and I’d likely need it after the evening show. The venue, Thumbs Up, was absolutely packed. I sat for a while outside in the hall as people came and went after the show, wondering if anything else was going to happen, but it had been a long day so I went back to the hotel to sleep.

Sunday, April 12

Breakfast at the Plumm again, this time by myself, reading a book and gazing at people walking by in the brilliant sun outside. It was a bright day, but windier and cooler than the day before. I’d planned to walk over to a bakery by the fisheries area that Andrew had suggested, but I only got a block before realizing I should probably be wearing a jacket, so I went back.

Walked to the gargantuan Yokohama Station, and noticed a tiny, crooked alley lined with old traditional bars and shops amid the modernity surrounding it, a tiny Golden Gai or Piss Alley in Shinjuku, but it was silent in the morning hours. Perhaps someday I’ll see what it’s like at night.

Looking for a way across the mass of tracks and river bridges, I went up the escalators to the platform that overlooks it all, Facetiming with Chenbl to show him. The way across, of course, was a tunnel underneath. Then Google Maps led me through some really quite boring corporate areas full of gleaming featureless buildings; the only people I saw were a bunch of white kids playing on an old well or something, and a solitary salaryman coming out to a loading dock to grab a smoke.

Soon enough, however, things got interesting as I approached the older neighborhoods surrounding the harbor and canals. Also mostly deserted, but very pleasant. I found the Ainomi Bakery that Andrew suggested, and bought a cinnamon bun, feeling slightly guilty that I wasn’t buying more as the woman who ran it didn’t seem to be exactly swimming in business. The cinnamon roll was good, though, and I ate it sitting in a small park overlooking a large harborside construction park as a young woman walked her dog nearby. As I walked back through the neighborhood, admiring all the clever ways Japanese buildings occupy small spaces, I held back as the dog-walking woman was taking the same route, and I didn’t want to seem creepy.

Back at the main road, I ascended an overpass and passed by a young man with his mobile phone pointed at a homeless guy who was sleeping on the bridge surrounded by a bunch of bags. I wondered if he was making a documentary about the callous people who don’t help unhoused individuals and just walk by, and if I would at some point appear in said documentary, flippantly and uncaringly passing by, but it turned out that the young man had called the police, who, from what I could see from a distance, escorted said unhoused person down off the overpass.

I walked along the tracks back to Yokohama Station, and then took a subway out to the last stop, Chinatown. It was a mess, all tourists, foreigners and Japanese who wanted to partake of what Japan thinks a Chinatown should be, I guess. The reason I was there, even though I dislike the area, was to pay my respects to Matsu and Guan Gong at their respective temples. Once I’d said hello and wished for safe travels, I got some beef curry and coffee jelly at a Veloce café and then got the hell out of Chinatown, escaping over to the harbor and the lovely Hikawa Maru, an old 1930’s cruise ship permanently docked there. A newer, larger cruise ship was docked across the way, I only had eyes for the Hikawa.

The walk up the harbor and up to the baseball stadium among the cafes and trees was marvelous, it was great to be there once again, and in such nice weather. Photographers wielding long lenses were gathered together shooting tulips as baseball fans roared and shouted amid band music from the stadium. After consulting Google Maps, I decided to walk back to the hotel instead of taking the metro; Google said it would be a breeze and take less than an hour.

Well. Google apparently was not taking my slow walking speed into account when it made that estimate. It was a bit of a slog at first, but after I resigned myself to the fact that it would take me a lot longer than I’d thought, it turned out to be a lovely walk, especially when I crossed through desolate neighborhoods as sun got low and shadows got interesting. I do think that Craig Mod‘s ippon ura, or what I call “one alley in” has a somewhat different meaning in Japan, in that Japan tends to keep its main thoroughfares more main thoroughfare-y, so the different when you go one alley in is a bit starker than in Taiwan, though both can be quite rewarding. I especially admire how the trains on elevated tracks and canals all coexist with these buildings. Everything is inches away, and everything is fine.

Eventually I crossed the bridge by the old venue I mentioned earlier on my way back to the Plumm, but I had no time to rest as we were already headed out again, instruments in hand, back to the station, onto a train out to Fujisawa, a neat little station with the usual pedestrian overpass-laden square outside. Chenbl, my sister Leslie and I had actually been there before in 2020, but we’d only seen one side of the station. Night had fallen by this point, the lanterns and bar lights casting a warm tint onto the alleys and workers coming back from work to the bars. Our destination was Hang Loose Grill, a tiny establishment on the top floor of a four-story building, located at the end of a hallway lined with similarly tiny places, most of them music bars but one paralegal office, which I suppose must come in handy.

We were there at the behest of Yuichi, who often plays in Taiwan and who had carefully crafted the washtub stick we’d been using, as we couldn’t take one on the plane. The place was full of local, many older, jug band musicians, with delicious hamburgers cooked on a small but well-appointed kitchen in the corner behind the bar. After a couple of tunes, I played with Scarlett out in the hall as the jam intensified inside.

The trip back to Yokohama was quicker than the one out. It was our last night there, and I didn’t feel like going to bed right away, so I sat outside the Plumm with the others and chatted into the night, watching the people walking by on their way home and wondering what it was like to live there.

Monday, April 13

I needed to buy gifts before we returned to Taiwan, but I didn’t want to do so encumbered by my luggage, so I headed out around 9am back towards the station, where the Takashimaya Department Store was located. It didn’t open until 10, so I had a light breakfast sitting by the window at the front of a Doutor Coffee shop nearby, watching people walk by and just enjoying being in Yokohama. When the time came, I walked through the mall to the entrance to the store, where people were gathering. Two employees appeared and bowed in unison before opening the doors at 10 o’clock, to the exact second. I mistakenly went up to the 7^th floor before realizing that what I wanted was downstairs.

Fearing I would be late, I rushed back to the hotel, as we needed to catch the 11:38am train to Haneda airport. We’d given the tubs and stick to Yuichi the night before, so I was just carrying my trumpet and backpack.

The Keikyu Line was located all the way at the other end of the station, so far that I was thinking I needed a metro line just to get there, but I found it eventually. Slim had just arrived as well, and we ascended the wide stairs bearing notice that There is no Elevator So Don’t Even Think About It Even Though You’re Probably Going to the Airport and Have Baggage But You Look Like You Need Exercise So Suck It. Ahead of us an elderly woman was being helped up the stairs by a caregiver, so I’m guessing there really was no elevator anywhere, so sir no how.

David, Robyn, Kai, Andrew and Conor had gone ahead, and the Paradises apparently got on the train from a different point, so it was just Slim and I wondering if everyone would be able to get to the airport on time. The trip took longer than the promised 15 minutes, but we got there via a strangely unsettling reversal of direction halfway through. The others all had to check luggage, so I went ahead through security and to the gate, where I sat for a while when I really should have been having lunch, Chenbl noted when we Facetimed. But by then it was too late, so I was first in line to get on the plane after the Privileged Class. I didn’t have a window seat, so I watched a movie on the way back, and such was my hunger that the China Airlines meal actually tasted good.

Chenbl called just as I was walking out of immigration after we got into Songshan, and I forgot that the others had to wait for baggage. But I couldn’t go back in, so I sat outside waiting, listening to the highly suspect renditions of Phantom of the Opera on the player- and talent-free piano, until I realized that they’d probably used another exit and had all gone their separate ways.

So I gathered my things, got on the metro, and went home. It was a fabulous trip; I’m glad to have had the chance to have such an experience. I did take some video and photos, but those will have to wait until I’m done with all this master’s degree business.

And now, we continue with our regularly scheduled chaos.

Last weekend we played three shows in three regions in three days, a mini tour of our fair island.

I lugged my instruments, baritone, trumpet and stick, to work on Friday, for we were boarding a VW van down to Taichung in the early afternoon. Our usual driver, Mr. Gao, had delegated the job to the most capable Ms. Chen, who took us on a long drive involving interesting corners of Ye Olde Taipei County. The band was joined this time by an accomplished the Japanese clarinet player Teppei Kondo, who came admirably dressed for the part. I always like visiting Taichung, a reminder of the college days of my youth.

The venue for the show was a traditional Taiwanese banquet featuring dozens of large round tables, held at the Yide Mansion, the former home of a trader who worked with the Japanese rulers at the time and was subsequently hounded out of Taiwan after the Nationalists came and renamed the place very Nationally before squatting there and then letting it fall into decay until the city government renovated it in the late 2000’s (how’s that for a metaphor). Unpleasant history aside, the complex has a comfy, laid-back atmosphere, in a nice part of town surrounded by high-rises full of people with excellent hearing judging by the noise complaints that began pouring in as soon as the festivities began. The stage’s backdrop was a clear digital screen showing old photographs from back in the day, including quite a few I recognized. The show, moved up a little due to said noise complaints, went pretty well, and the audience, sated with banquet food and drink, were amenable to hearing us blather on about this and that after the show. Some of the kids in attendance were fascinated by us; many questions and photo requests were forthcoming. We also had our own table and food, which was a nice touch as many organizers tend to shove the band in a back room with cold bento boxes.

The next day we were to play at Weiwuying in Kaohsiung. Did we just go right down to Kaohsiung from Taichung since we were already almost halfway there? We did not; instead Ms. Chen drove us all the way back up to Taipei, where we all slept in our respective beds (I assume). We then got up Saturday morning to meet up again at the high speed rail station. Kaohsiung’s only an hour and half by bullet train, so it made sense as we are not a terribly rich band.

Photo by David Chen

In contrast to the cool, rainy weather up north, sunny skies and residual summer heat greeted us as we got out our taxis and schlepped our gear across the fields to our little stage. I say little because, despite it being generous in size and more than enough for our needs, it was dwarfed by the massive stages elsewhere in the area, as well as a giant inflatable pumpkin leering down at everyone. The grounds had a festive Halloween feel in the afternoon before our show; I walked around taking photos of various people picnicking and playing in the park in the slanting sunlight, and some of our Kaohsiung friends came by to say hello and see us play.

As night descended, however, throngs of people poured into the park. By the time we were done with our show, getting over to the road to find taxis became a challenge. I was hauling my gear and fell behind, though I knew where everyone was headed. When I got there, however, nobody else was around. David messaged asking where I was, as they were elsewhere, so he just told everyone to get taxis as best they could. After some confusion, we all managed to make it back to the high speed rail station in time to catch our late-night train back north.

Sunday was the Calling Music Festival, held on the flood plain that forms Sanchong’s southwest border, the very site where, over two decades ago, we filmed the car chase scene for Clay Soldiers. And look, I know that our band is called the Muddy Basin Ramblers and all, but this was, in my opinion, too much mud. It had been raining in and around Taipei for over a week, and the state of the ground was such that one really needed to pick out a path least likely to entrap one in a soil-based morass. Once again, we were on a huge stage that was the least of three massive stages. Yi-hong, our usual sound guy, was at the controls, so we managed to get through sound check despite the other sound people clearly not knowing how to mic a jug band. Some people appeared in the distance carrying what looked like a huge condom, which turned out to be a tarp to lay down in front of the stage so that our audience didn’t sink into the mud. Despite the conditions, the show went quite well. In fact all of our audiences had been great over all three shows. I’ve been singing in Taiwanese more lately, and I think I’m getting somewhat used to it, I’m still working on going from just singing to sanging, if you know what I mean.

After the show we hung around waiting for dinner in the craft & services tent, which, though tasty, had to be consumed while wearing earplugs at the volume of the other two stages was obviously designed for young people who laugh at the prospect of hearing loss. I’d thought of hanging out and chatting a bit more, but chatting was rather a chore with all the noise, so I decided in favor of returning to the relative dryness of my Water Curtain Cave. This week is mid-terms, I have homework, and I just got my thesis subject approved, so now all that remains is, well, actually doing it.

Back to work, as the people sang.

I brought my pocket trumpet and the washtub stick with me to work last Friday, as half of the Ramblers, i.e. David, Andrew and myself, were traveling alll the way down to Hengchun, a cool township at the very southern tip of Taiwan with a fascinating history and surprisingly intact Qing-era city wall and gates, to film some promo videos for the folk music festival where we’ll be playing in October. The schedule had been in flux due to an apparent line of typhoons waiting to pass through the area, but the organizers figured there’d be a small window of Not Typhoon on Saturday when we could film. I needed a break in any case, though, a change of pace and place, even if just for a short while.

After taking the metro to Taipei Main Station, I had a lovely sandwich, salad and ice coffee at one of my favorite spots, the Ueshima Cafe tucked in the space between the escalators from the platform and those leading outside. We were leaving at 1:33, so I had plenty of time to enjoy the smooth jazz, re-read some Murderbot (The Murderbot Diaries are my Sanctuary Moon), and watch the passengers walk by outside.

We had a brief moment of uncertainty on the platform when David hadn’t shown up, but it turned out that he’d gotten just gotten the car number wrong. The trip to Kaohsiung took an hour and half; the trip down to Hengchun, a fraction of the distance, would take over two hours, thanks to a long history of not extending the railway and/or highway that far south due to political chicanery and other shenanigans.

But when we arrived at the pickup area at Zuoying Station, we found it oddly deserted. On the other side by the entrance, a couple of smashed cars were being lifted up onto trucks; apparently some idiot tried to either exit the entrance at high speed or vice-versa, and the entry route had been blocked by the wreckage or the resulting collision. Fortunately they cleared it up in time for our driver, Mr. Chen, to pick us up.

Mr. Chen, it turned out, was an expert tour guide, and filled us in on all the goings-on on the Hengchun Peninsula over the past several decades. As we drove south the weather worsened, heavy rain forcing us to slow down. We stopped at a run-down rest stop, watched the roiling ocean and listened to the rocks being tossed about by the frothy brown waves. I recalled the first time I’d been down there, when I was a production assistant for a Japanese movie production filming there in the early 1990s, running around with a mohawk and tank top, climbing up the sides of abandoned freighters beached on the rocky coastline and racing old VW vans around ferrying actors and crew here and there (and probably scaring the shit out of them in the process). During a patch of bad weather we spent two days in a hostel playing mahjong. No internet, no social media. Just mahjong, punctuated by soggy bentos and snoring crew.

At Hengchun we checked into our hostel and walked over to the West Gate square where the filming was taking place in front of the Guangning Temple, among traditional banquet tables under tents to keep us mostly out of the rain. The film crew was professional and creative, but filmmaking is a long, exhaustive process, and they were trying to get the elder musicians’ stuff done first so they could go home at a decent hour. Some of the other musicians really loved trying out the washtub bass, and at one point we started up an impromptu show with the other musicians, which went on until the film crew shut us down as we were interfering with their process. As it turned out, we didn’t need most of the instruments we’d brought, but I suppose the production team wanted to have their options open.

Finally, late at night, we finished up and were treated to delicious banquet food, so much we couldn’t finish it. Rocky, a man who was playing a chef in the video, invited us to his nearby music bar for a jam, but we were knackered, wet and tired, and decided to call it a night.

I love staying in hotels, and really appreciated the nice big shower, balcony, air conditioning, and fresh towels and linens. Though I’d planned to sleep in, I woke up at 6 a.m. and was surprised to see nice weather outside, so I got dressed and went for a walk. Almost immediately it began to storm again, so I circled the block from the old street to the city government and went back to the hostel to get some more sleep. Later, I found that the others had had the same idea, with much the same results.

We had some breakfast at a nearby shop and then found a cool coffee house resembling a log cabin, complete with a DJ on a turntable. Talking with the other patrons and the owner, it would seem that Hengchun has seen a bit of an influx of entrepreneurs from other parts of Taiwan in the years since covid. I get it; the vibe of Hengchun, in part a result of it being so isolated and just being so far south, is more that of a small island than other parts of Taiwan, akin to the feeling of Okinawa vs. mainland Japan. I may enjoy city life, but I always enjoy visiting Hengchun, and I look forward to going back with the whole band for the festival in October, when the place will be hopping. We played there first in 2010, and again in 2022 (both Years of the Tiger as it happens), so this will be our third time. Alas, as I’ll be back at work on my master’s program then as well as teaching the community college course, the scheduling will be tight once again, and I won’t have sufficient time to properly explore the town as much as I’d like.

Mr. Chen’s son picked us up at the hostel and drove us back to Kaohsiung, where we caught an earlier train back to Taipei that allowed me to meet up with Chenbl for dinner at a place overlooking the river at Bitan, before finally making my way back to the Water Curtain Cave.

I was walking across the suspension bridge near my place last weekend when I heard someone singing English pop songs on the opposite bank. Buskers are common at Bitan, but they’re usually singing traditional Taiwanese tunes or playing Nakashi music on saxophones under the highway bridge, which amplifies the music, bouncing off the concrete pillars. Curious, I walked over the square that is usually occupied by dancing women and/or tai-chi practitioners, to find a young Taiwanese man wielding a purple digital guitar attached to a battery-powered amp, singing to a completely empty square. Occasionally people would walk by, but nobody seemed to notice him, and he would say “Thank you” to the empty square after each song.

I sat listening for a bit; he had a good voice, intonation and range, and his English pronunciation was near perfect. When he took a break, I talked with him a bit, and discovered that his name is Howard Lee, and it was his first day busking, though he’s been playing with bands for years. He seemed a little down, and I couldn’t blame him. He had rented the amp and paid to park at a nearby garage, and it seemed that he wouldn’t even break even from the little money he’d made.

“I play a little trumpet,” I said. “Would you mind if I played along for a song or two?” He said ok, so I went back and got my horn, and sat in with him for a few songs that I’d never heard before (I really should acquaint myself better with what the kids are listening to these days), but I could figure them out, and I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of playing along to new songs. A few people noticed and dropped a bit of money into the guy’s hat before his amp ran out of battery and his time slot was up. I thanked him for letting me play along, and we went our separate ways.

Yesterday a few of the Ramblers held a little farewell dinner for our departing violinist, Moses, who is going back to the States to finish his studies in the Bay area. I got to the beef noodle place early to get a good place in line, soon to be joined by Andrew, David and Moses. Our last gig, at Craft House, was the only one with both new and old members playing together; Andrew will be holding it down with us going forward. The noodles weren’t bad, though not as good as the old restaurant in the now-demolished Golden China Hotel, alas. Full of noodles and other noodle-related foodstuffs, we walked through the alleys, over have some tea in the park where I’d been so vexed by early-morning dancing women when I was living in the Sogo Locker, the last place I lived before moving down to Xindian 20-odd years ago. “Didn’t you use to live around here?” David asked at one point, which shows how long I’ve known him.

“I lived in like four places around here at various times,” I replied, which is true, and never fails to feel strange when I walk by the scenes of shit that went down decades ago. Earlier in the day I’d had lunch at Patty Addy, a smash burger joint across from where I lived in the mid 90’s (obviously it wasn’t there then; the now heavily tattooed owner was an infant at the time). The burgers were good, and I was surprised at the size and heft of the chicken strips I’d gotten as a side; they were more of a meal than the burger, especially such hot weather. I should have suggested waffles to go with them instead. The place feels like an old diner, cramped, with an open kitchen that was conspiring with the summer heat to defeat the air conditioning.

After lunch I walked over to Moom to browse some photobooks, exchanging the hot fumes from vendors’ stalls for that refreshing aroma exclusive to bookstores. I’ve been so busy with my studies that I haven’t been in a hot minute, so I was curious to see what was new. For some reason, I was just tired of looking at black-and-white photos. I was in the mood for the colors of the world I see. I respect black-and-white imagery, but it doesn’t feel like the real world to me, and that’s one of the main reasons I photograph. To each their own, of course. I’ve photographed that way in the past, and will probably still do so in the future, but I’ve always wondered how we would view such images if color had been widely accessible from the jump.

I looked through a few issues of Aperture magazine, but I’ve never really enjoyed photography magazines. I’d rather look at a body of work put together into a kind of emotional narrative than scattered bits of this and that in magazines, and the print quality also varies quite a bit. I looked at the huge tome The Pearl River, by Swiss photographer Christian Lutz, and I cannot fathom why this thing is so. damn. big. The images, which aren’t bad, are just not well served by being spread, full bleed, across gutters so that oftentimes the subjects are marred or lost in the crease.

One book I really enjoyed was Mike Brodie’s A Period of Juvenile Prosperity. Well printed, nicely ordered, with a sense of intimacy seldom felt elsewhere. Interestingly, while all the photos are horizontal, the book itself is vertical, so that there are wide swaths of empty space above and below all the photographs. This was one damn expensive book to make, it seems, but it’s worth it. He was a teenager when he made the photos; he’s 40 now. I hope he made bank from it.

It feels more meaningful to be known for a book or books than “that one image from years ago that everyone knows and is trotted out each and every time someone’s mentioned” as so often seems the case in social media these days. A recently retired columnist whose blog I’ve read for years described it as “Being on the shelf,” i.e. being listed among the people generally known for that thing. Not that I’m known for anything in particular (or at all), but in that surreality where I was known, I feel I’d rather be known for a body of work than just this thing or that. It’s a moot point in any case, as the greatest satisfaction I’ve found from doing these things comes from actually doing them more than from what happens afterward.

So I recently concluded the first year of my master’s program at Chungyuan U. I’ve learned quite a bit, and it’s been a fascinating change of pace in general, but I’m not gonna lie; it’s also been a bit of a slog, not only rushing to catch trains back and forth from Zhongli several days a week, but at the same time teaching the community college photography course as well as the university photography course, working my day job and other gigs, and also Rambler gigs, all at the same time. I really need to cut down on all of this somewhere if I’m going to keep up this pace. However, I do now have, including the required courses for the second year, more than enough credits to graduate (with, if I may say so myself, a pretty damn high GPA), so next I just need to get working on my thesis, album, and performance, all of which are going to be difficult enough without having to worry about other classes.

The community college course concluded last week, after I had some great online discussions with my friends and excellent photographers Blake Andrews and Nikita Teryoshin about my students’ work this semester. Well, besides the meeting with students to discuss their photobooks yesterday. And online meetings with other students that should happen this week. Then it will have concluded (I think).

Our latest album, Jug Band Millionaire, having been nominated and not winning a Grammy, was also nominated for a Golden Melody award, thanks to the inspiring work of our friends at Onion Design. Stuff I’ve worked on has been nominated a few times over the years, and the first time the Ramblers were nominated, for Medicine Show, I thought it would be fun to do the whole red carpet thing. And it was, but it was a little awkward as we didn’t really know anyone, the chairs were uncomfortable, and we didn’t win. So the next time we were nominated for Tiger, I thought: Meh, maybe skip it. And then we actually won. So we all went again this time, and things weren’t nearly as awkward as before, possibly because over the intervening years we’ve met and know more people in those circles, and also just one of the few perks of getting older: Just not giving a fuck.

We met up in the hot sun outside the Taipei Arena, feeling odd to be dressed up with no instruments, and then went down into the backstage area where police were leading sniffer dogs through the long crowded hallway that leads to the stage. Presenters were getting makeup done, and various groups

milling around in various regalia. The chairs in front of the stage were much more comfortable than last time, nice and padded. They put us in a luxury van to drive us around the block so we could get out and wait to walk the red carpet. As we set out, I was just about to say something snarky like, “And now cue the awkward silence as people try to figure out who the hell we are,” when actual applause and cheers came from the crowd, surprising me. In addition to my ever-present Leica, I was also modeling my equally well-worn Taiwanese Wotancraft messenger bag, not out of any sense of fashion, but rather simply a lack of space anywhere backstage to put stuff. At the interview spot I couldn’t help but take a photo of the wall of photographers opposite, many of whom made the de rigueur peace sign in response.

Inside the arena, the sound and light shows were much more intense than I recall from last time, and I had to don sunglasses and air pods to make it through the show without being overwhelmed. As it turns out, we didn’t win, but the show was fun, there was witty repartee in some of the speeches, and it was nice to see some old friends.

Our next show was last Saturday night on the tiny stage at Craft House,  a tight fit as we were joined not only by violinist Moses, who is leaving for the States soon, but also Andrew, who is our incoming saxophonist. The show was raucous as only a Ramblers-With-New-Members-Figuring-Shit-Out can be, but also a lot of fun. Amazing to think we’ve been doing this for 20-very-odd years.

So, as classes and things are wrapping up, I am, to be honest, kind of burnt out. My mind resists thinking about things I have to do next; I haven’t even looked at the photos I’ve taken since February FFS. I need a break, some time and place to rest and recharge before everything starts up again in the fall. In the past I would have loved to just take a solitary trip to Japan and just space out there for a week or so, to regain my mental footing, but circumstances are different now; I’m going to have to be creative in making this happen somehow. There’s supposed to be a ferry from Keelung to Ishigaki starting in September, but that’s not soon enough (I am still interested in that, though). I do miss riding the crazy bike along the riverside paths as I did back in the day; I need to dig it out of the depths of the garage and take it for a spin. Not immediately, as the first typhoon of the season, Danas, has us in its rear view mirror at the moment, having taken an unusual path up the Taiwan Strait, and providing us with hopefully enough water to make it though at least part of the summer without a drought. But the trails might be a bit of a mess right now and need some time to recover. I can relate.

During our photography class last Friday, Chenbl made the unusual move of slipping out of the classroom, leaving me to navigate his computer while we were looking at students’ photos. He had hinted to the students about a “special secret guest” coming to the Rambler gig I had the next day, and I’d wondered if it might possibly one of Chenbl’s mysterious alter-egos, a la Captain Chaos but Actually Fabulous, but when he came back I was surprised to see he’d brought our old friend Junku Nishimura with him. Junku was our gracious host when we visited Yamaguchi in 2017. I greeted him with a friendly WTF? and introduced him to the students, some of whom knew him from the BME workshop we’d done in Taipei several years ago.

After class we met up in Ximen and went to a stir-fry place to catch up while enjoying plates upon plates of various meats and other fried things before I had to catch the last train back to Xindian.

Saturday was the first time the Ramblers have played in a while, and to be honest things haven’t been the same since our beloved Paradises left our fair island for the dubious wilds of the Floridian panhandle. Our latest album, Jug Band Millionaire, having failed to win the Grammy it was nominated for, is now up for a Golden Melody award, and we plan to be at the ceremony. It will be my second time walking that red carpet, and should be fun.

On Saturday, however, we were playing for a graduation celebration of the Art Department of Fu Jen University. Soundcheck was supposed to be at noon, but as Ramblers will Ramble, we only got started at around 12:40, after a bit of hand-wringing by the staff. Chenbl and Junku showed up, Junku armed with (he claimed) the required traditional bottle of Shaoxing wine necessary for such events. It was a traditional show, and I sang Four Seasons of Red (四季紅) with, according to Chenbl, a bit more stridence than the song merits. “It’s like you’re worried that people won’t understand your Taiwanese pronunciation,” he told me afterward.

“But I am,” I said.

“Your pronunciation’s fine; don’t let that get in the way of actually singing the words!” Now, as Chenbl can SANG sang, this is no doubt good advice and something I need to work on.

I won’t be able to make the next show due to having class out in Zhongli that day, so I left the washtub bass stick for David, and headed out into the Plum Rain-soaked avenues with Chenbl, Junku and several students. We took the metro to the Songyan Cultural Park, where Junku bought a film cannister-adorned belt-hook, and then out to Xinzhuang, because Junku wanted to see some place with “old streets”. He was staying at that one old guest house in Wanhua because Of course he was.

It was raining even harder in Xinzhuang, but we braved the wetness and walked down the old street, lined with traditional shops, exploring alleys and temples and stopping for snacks along the way. I’d been pulling all-nighters trying to get homework done so I was rather tired, but some coffee jelly did the trick. Night fell, and the students bade us farewell, after which Chenbl followed his nose into an alley where we found an old-style restaurant, its walls yellow and cracking from decades of cooking smoke, adorned with signs forbidding the consumption of alcohol on the premises due to “that one time”. Nonplussed, Junku pulled out a green bottle of “medicinal” spirits he’d purchased. I could smell it from across the table (“Minty, not mediciny!”).

But it was getting late, I was tired, and the rain relentless. We parted ways back at Ximen Station, where Junku and I performed the traditional farewell ceremony of Photographing Each Other from Opposite Subway Trains.

Today, it’s back to the pleasantly forested campus of Chungyuan amid the last of the rainy season, before Dragonboat Festival and the arrival of spectacular summer heat. Classes are ramping up as we approach the end of my second semester; my digital music production class is even requiring me to reacquaint myself with my old nemesis, the bass clef (odd thing for a bass player to say, I know, but in my defense, I never use sheet music for Rambler bass lines). Also, my video production class is delving into the uncanny valleys of AI, and my other classes have so much homework that I’m no longer able to audit the second-year classes I’d been enjoying up to now. Last weekend my recording class took a field trip out to Yuchen Studio, where we recorded Millionaire; it was good to see Andy and learn a bit more about the place’s functions and history. Apart from the photography class, however, my own photos have just been piling up on my hard drive for the last few months, and will likely continue to do so until the end of the semester.

But, you know…so far so good, actually. It’s fun being a student again, interacting with interesting new people, including both my professors and follow students, and I have yet to tire of taking the train to and from Zhongli, though regretfully I have not yet been able to explore that fascinating mess of a municipality as much as I’d like to. Perhaps I’ll have more time during this summer break, though I really need to figure out what I’m going to do for my master’s thesis projects. You’d think I’d have plenty of time to plan that during the hours I spend on the train; in all honesty, I just like to sit and look out the window while munching on a hurriedly-purchased station bento lunch and sipping enough coffee to get me through my afternoon classes. It’s become a kind of necessary meditation amid all of the hustle and bustle of my life these days.

To wit: One day on the train, the rhythm of the sunlight, bouncing as it was off the passengers lost in their dopamine delivery devices, gathered up the previously distinct concepts of imagery and music in my mind, coalescing them into the idea that time is a far more profound aspect of our reality than we recognize. That is to say, photography and music are really both just variants in the expression of time, and the effect they both have on our consciousness and subconscious takes us to very similar places. Perhaps that might explain why music and photography coexist in the lives of so many artists.

Making that into a thesis, though…might need a few more trips.

“Let’s take a drive around the north coast,” Chenbl texted on Sunday morning.

“Ok,” I texted back, still in bed. I’d spent the previous night at the predictably stressful and disappointing Tiger Mountain Ramble, (the ninth one I think? I’ve lost count). Don’t get me wrong, the other Ramblers seem to really enjoy it, as does the crowd in general, but the creepy abandoned temple and relentless expat vibe never fails to put me on edge. I usually arrive late, spend my time there trying to disappear, and leave as soon as I can. Oh, and not get electrocuted on stage.

So I was in the mood to get out of town. I reserved a Toyota sedan from i-rent on my phone, retrieved it from a nearby parking lot, and picked up Chenbl and his parents before driving north. Chenbl’s navigation efforts somehow resulted in us going the opposite direction than we had intended, but this actually later turned out to be a good idea. We drove out of the city and up to the coast, the brilliant blue skies becoming abruptly cloudy after we passed Danshui, and on to the late Lee Teng-hui’s hometown of Sanzhi for a lunch of some of the most delicious noodles I have ever had, at the Yue Lai Ting, a traditional restaurant with photos of various famous people on the walls. The lunch crowd, including the birthday party of an elderly woman who was feeding cake to one of her grandchildren, was just finishing up, so the staff were quite happy to chat with Chenbl’s parents about all sorts of things, including engineering projects and Hakka accents.

We paid our respects at the golden-faced Matsu temple nearby and then explored an open-air clothes-washing canal and veggie garden that featured not only two working water wheels but an enthusiastic older man who was eager to explain the history of the area. By this time I was sensing a theme of the people in Sanzhi being rather talkative, and when I commented on it, Chenbl’s mother joked, “Well, of course they’re chatty; what else are they going to do around here?”

I think it’s nice; I should go back and make a more thorough exploration of Sanzhi. But we had to be getting on, and the sun had come out again in time for us to enjoy the beach a ways up the coast at the Shihmen Arch Bridge. I chatted with some of the Indonesian fishermen on a boat docked at the harbor as elderly black dogs sniffed at us with greying muzzles. Children splashed each other out in the tide pools while tourists took pictures of the green algae on the rocks.

We realized how fortuitous our previous navigation error was as we continued to drive east, the setting sun blasting the drivers coming the opposite direction but lighting the views along the coast in a surreal fashion due to the ocean haze, the amber light illuminating the cliffs and islets in the distance with a glow like something out of a Miyazaki film. The sun had set by the time we reached Keelung, and finding a parking spot in that amazingly mismanaged traffic was a feat we thought nigh impossible until we somehow managed to dip into an underground parking lot without having to line up. “The car ahead was a VIP,” Chenbl’s father surmised. “That’s how we got in. We got lucky.”

It being a weekend, the night market was thronged with crowds. Back-alley sesame dumplings were enough to satisfy Chenbl’s parents, but we also got some tasty sandwiches before getting back on the road and returning to Taipei, Chenbl’s father telling us tales of the construction of the tunnel making highway travel to the port city possible back in the early 70’s. Sinotech, the company where both Chenbl and his father have made their engineering careers, has done (and is still doing) some truly amazing projects that have benefitted Taiwan in many ways.

Thankfully traffic on the way back wasn’t too heavy, as I don’t really enjoy driving at night. I’d reserved the car until 8:30; we got it back just in time. The i-rent system is actually a nifty idea for those of us who don’t really need a car most of the time.

The next day after work I went to the Xinyi Eslite Bookstore, which is set to close for good on Christmas Eve. I had been rather ambivalent about it after the legendary Dunnan Eslite was torn down years ago; I had spent many a late night there all through the 90’s and aughts wandering the creaky wooden stacks to the sound of soothing cello music, looking at photography books, graphic novels, sci-fi, Chinese sword dramas, you name it, so it was a bit distressing to see it demolished. And now, because we’re just getting dumber as a society, the Xinyi 24-hour bookstore is going away as well, to be replaced by yet another vapid mall full of empty shops populated only by fashion items that cost more than most people’s yearly salary. Wandering around perusing the actual paper books, I felt an even greater sense of impending loss; there’s just nothing to compare with an actual, physical bookshop. It’s more than the books themselves; it’s a whole vibe, an atmosphere of people all engaged in the act of wanting to know more, among the dedicated works of people who want others to know more. I can’t help but wonder if anyone will even be able to calculate what we’re losing. Then again, when was the last time I purchased a physical book? Don’t I read books mostly on my aging Kindle Voyage, or, god help me, on my phone? So perhaps I am just as much at fault for this distressing trend as anyone else.

On my way home I found the usually empty Bitan suspension bridge swarming with reporters, police and security personnel. A bearded Western dude with a tricked-out camera glared at me as I passed, as if I wasn’t supposed to be there. “What’s going on?” I asked one of the security dudes, who sported a tactical vest with a badge and an automatic pistol on his hip.

“Nothing, just our routine inspection route,” he lied. I pointed at the gaggle of reporters.

“Why all the press then?”

“It’s Bitan,” he continued with what I wondered was a badly rehearsed prevarication. “There’s always people around taking photos.”

I looked down at his badge and gun. “Uh-huh. Well, good luck with all that,” I said before continuing back to the Water Curtain Cave. I suspected that it might be an executive inspection of the ongoing bridge repair work, and I didn’t want another awkward encounter with the president (though who knows,  perhaps the third time’s the charm?). But it turned out, as my journalist friend Chang Liang-i informed me, that it was actually Vice President/Presidential candidate Lai Ching-te visiting, along with his VP candidate Hsiao Bi-khim.

In other news, we recently wrapped up a semester of instructing a course on street photography at Shih Hsin University, which is known for its journalism program. The final exhibition and event was fun, with Chenbl as the MC and attended by several high-level university officials and other professors. Alas, there really wasn’t enough time to do much more than a glossed-over introduction to the art and practice of street photography this time, but it’s been hinted that we might be able to take a real crack at it at some point in the future. We’ll see.

Sunday was a good day. Saturday night the Ramblers played another Formosa Medicine Show 10-year-anniversary gig, this time at the venerable Witch House in Gongguan, the scene of many a late night/early morning jam over the past 20 years or so.  Slim was out with an injury, but we managed to throw down a bop or two despite that, buoyed by the excellent curry dinners they serve there.

So I was tired the next morning, and debated whether I should go to the park for tai-chi practice. The Sunday weather was so brilliantly blue that I felt I couldn’t not go, even though I was late due to the aforementioned gig recovery process.  Some kind of event at the outdoor stage had attracted a lot of people, but I managed to spot our group in the midst of the crowd, going through the sword form, so I took out my retractable sword and joined them. I’ve forgotten so much that I am just following along at this point, though my body does seem to know many of the next moves so there’s something left from all those years of practice. In any case it felt really good to get back into it, and of course it’s nice to be able to chat with the fellas about various things (potential running-mate variations for the upcoming presidential election was the topic of the day) afterward.

Chenbl called to tell me he’d heard that Capricorn Monkeys were predicted to be especially lucky for the next day or two, and that, should I feel like buying a lotto ticket, to be sure to buy one at a shop near a large tree. With that in mind, I set off for Longshan Temple, where I had a delicious lunch sitting outside Tokyo Bike before wandering around the area looking for lotto stores near large trees (it’s as good a reason to wander as any). As usual, the area was full of tourists, skewing towards the usual white male/Asian female pairing. I walked up to my usual herbal tea shop, got a large cup of bitter tea to drink as I sat and just watched people go by.

I didn’t feel like going home just yet, so I walked through the alleys, trying to find any I hadn’t trodden before, back up to Ximen, where a huge cosplay event was going on in the square by the Red House. Photographers were everywhere, so I gave it a wide berth before catching the subway back to the Water Curtain Cave.

It was such a nice day that I couldn’t stay home, though. I headed back out, up the river to the very nice fish ladder they’ve recently added to the Bitan Bridge catchment (or, as the local birds call it, the fresh fish market), carefully traversing the precarious rocks and protruding steel beams that make up the riverbank there to watch the sunset from the water’s edge before heading over to RT Mart to buy apples. I then picked up some salmon sushi for dinner, went back home and prepared for the penultimate session of the photography class I’m teaching as a guest lecturer at Shih Hsin University this semester.

So, nothing special, just a good day. I just wanted to note how grateful I am that they do happen.

Last Saturday night, the Muddy Basin Ramblers played our last-ever show at Bobwundaye, which is closing its doors for good at the end of the month as the entire block is going to be torn down. The Ramblers have a long history at Bob’s, as we call it. In fact I first played with them, informally before officially joining the band, at the previous iteration of Bob’s about a block away. Three of my very early photos still hang on the walls among the murals and posters from shows over the decades. I Ubered into town with Cristina and Zach to find the place already filling up; I saw some familiar faces and chatted a bit before the soundcheck. The murals along the orange walls exuded melancholia; we all knew it would be the last time we played there. A small film crew consisting of two people was going around with a Sony camera and boom mic interviewing various people about how they felt.

The show itself, a retelling in celebration of the 10-year anniversary of our second album (and first Grammy nomination), Formosa Medicine Show, started slow but quickly gained momentum as the audience dug into the vibe. And after two sets on that tiny, crowded staged, everyone jostling each other to get to our various instruments between songs, the show concluded in several raucous encores and exultant applause. I spent the time in between sets sitting on the curb outside, away from all the chatting, drinking people, just staring at the lights of the evening traffic and enjoying the cooler weather. After the show I had a few conversations, some good and some downright bizarre, before catching a cab back to the Water Curtain Cave to sleep. Hard to believe it’s been nearly 20 years of doing this kind of thing.

Sunday morning I woke up to a flurry of discord messages asking if I was down to do the VR improv comedy show I’ve been involved in for the past few months. But no, I was not down; I wanted -no, needed- to go to the park to get some tai-chi practice in. Yes, dear readers, perhaps even those who remember my Monkey Learns to Push blog of yore, I am back at it after a long, mostly Covidian-inspired hiatus filled with intermittent indoor VR-game-driven aerobic exercise and the occasion jaunt up the hill out back. To be honest, aside from the health benefits of practicing tai-chi, I missed hanging out with the fellas in our group at the park. Though Teacher X has long retired from teaching, Little Qin, who studied along with Teacher X back in the day, is still instructing. As such, Little Qin is technically my 師叔, but his style is different from that of Teacher X. In any case, just showing up is an accomplishment for me, and going through the sword form and the empty handed form felt really, really good after all this time, even though I’ve forgotten most of them. Push-hands too, with the delivery guy and a newer student who didn’t know me. It was…ok, though I am really rusty and inflexible after so long away from it. I just need to keep it up. Alas, I am unable to continue my old tradition of going to Gongguan for delicious Lebanese pitas afterwards, as my beloved Sababa closed years ago.

Speaking of returning to things: I’m also teaching photography again, this time at Shihsin University, just for this semester as a guest lecturer, although I might be open to a more permanent arrangement in the future. In any case, teaching university students is…different, I have to say. Previously when teaching at the community college, pretty much everyone in the class wanted to be there (except possibly the sullen band of Influencers who showed up that one semester fishing for Likes and Follows), but, while many of these students, all of them seniors, seem inspired by photography and work to improve their skills, a few seem to be more interested in what they see as an easy credit before graduating. Still, the ones who are interested are quick learners, picking it up faster than most of the community college students did, and that’s just using mobile phone cameras. There will be an exhibition at the end of the semester at the end of the year, and some kind of related event. It will be interesting to see where all of this goes.

So I performed on two very different stages this last weekend.

Hauling my instruments across the bridge in the wind and rain to Chez Paradise wasn’t pleasant, but we had to practice at least once before we headed down to Longtan to play a show in the large covered square in front of Longyuan Temple. Practice? you say incredulously. Yes, dear reader, although we usually wouldn’t need to go to such extremes, the Ramblers were down three players this game, as Cristina, Zach and Thumper were all off in distant lands, frolicking with familial folks and whatnot. We called upon the Auxiliary Rambler Forces, namely Sylvain and Hu Chun, who have come to our aid several times in the past, to fill in. But we needed to practice. I’d thought I was running late, but it turned out that I was the first to arrive (after David, who is house-sitting at Le Chez). Slim was under the weather and didn’t appear for another couple of hours, but he was looking sharp (if tired) when he did.

Our driver Mr. Gao, top-knot well-coifed as usual, met us in the alley; we packed into his van and headed down the jam-packed highway. Soundcheck was at 4:30, and we were met in front of the temple by Chenbl’s “Little Aunt” (his mother’s youngest sister), who is herself a famous street singer in Longtan. Her nickname is Xiao Long Nu (小龍女), known for her melodious singing voice. Everyone remarked at the family resemblance, not just in looks but in singing voice; Chenbl also loves to sing and is quite good as well…his aunt told us, “Chenbl was always singing Teresa Teng songs as a kid!” which is eminently believable. David, being the coffee aficionado that he is, had sniffed out the best coffee stand at the street market in front of the temple, so I joined him in sampling tasty some ice coffee, along with a cinnamon bun from a neighboring stall.

We went through soundcheck for all our instruments; I had clip-on mics for my trumpet and baritone, and the bass mic was booming nicely. We had to wrap up quickly as the gods, upon their palanquins and accompanied by lion dancers and various high-level officials, were returning, their imminent arrival heralded by the usual fury of fireworks. We had some time before the show, so I threw caution to the winds and left my umbrella in the temple green room, setting out for a stroll up the street and around the eponymous lake of Longtan where people were paying to take dragon boat rides across the water under the big white bridge.  I took a detour through a covered side market when it started raining again, by an old camera shop whose window contained the same camera that we had when I was growing up, an Argus Seventy-Five. It was the first camera I ever knew, and one which I was always walking around the house with, looking down through the glass viewfinder. When I got around to researching it, I found that it was actually not that great a camera, but I had fun with it before I got my own camera (a Pentax K1000) when I was 15.

Our show was supposed to start at 8:30, but the stage was full of Very Important Politicians/lion dancers, so we didn’t get on stage until a little later, and our show was cut so short I didn’t even play the baritone, and the trumpet for just one song (At least they didn’t cut our pay). Chenbl’s aunt sat in the front-row section reserved for Very Important People (“Everyone here knows me,” she said, and I believe her), making videos and taking selfies with us in the background, and the crowd seemed to really enjoy the music. And while we were still the Muddy Basin Ramblers, it was a rather different experience minus the missing members…softer, less raucous. Not worse, just different. Sylvain and Hu Chun played wonderfully, of course, but you can’t replace saxophone and violin with guitar and mandolin and expect the same sound.

Mr. Gao whisked us back to Xindian much more quickly after traffic had died down in the late evening, though it was still raining. I hauled my gear back to the Water Curtain Cave and went straight to bed. It had been quite a day.

Then I woke up on Sunday morning and wondered if the comedy show was going down.

Allow me to provide a little background: A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on one of the VR groups I belong to, inviting people to attend a VR recreation of the famous improv comedy show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” called, imaginatively and no doubt for copyright reasons, “Whose Turn Is It Anyhow?” I’ve long been a fan of the show, so last Sunday morning I showed up at the space in Meta Horizon Worlds, and while talking with the organizers, was invited on stage to participate. I demurred at first, wanting to see exactly what they were doing, and although some of the younger participants had, uh, questionable taste in their choice of jokes, it was actually an interesting experiment. So when they asked me again if I wanted to go on stage, I said ok.

And I gotta say, it was a blast. They organized mostly the same games as the show, with four players on stage, and while there were some technical issues, it went pretty well. I had to really think about what I was going to say, but also react quickly. The organizers and the audience both seemed to like what I was doing and invited me back. I said we’ll see.

So, back to Sunday morning, just out of bed after a long day in Longtan, drinking coffee to revive and recover: I thought, I need to take it easy today, but…what the hell, let’s see what they’re doing. I went back to the space, inviting my friend Sean, who also grew up in Florida, and immediately felt a little foolish when we arrived as the place was empty. “I guess they’re not doing it?” I said, disappointed, thinking, but it had been such a good idea.

Then a bunch of avatars popped in and waved to us. “You’re in the wrong instance! We’re at the new space!” Oh, ok. We ported to the new space, and it was full of people. I was curious to see if the first time had been a fluke, but no; I spent the next couple of hours on stage doing improv with the other three players, and again, it was SO much fun. We did the alphabet game, the bachelor game, and Questions Only, where I was a little too good, leaving my partner stranded on the sidelines for nearly the entire time (That was rude of me btw; I will try not to do that in the future). The organizers had wanted to do Props, but the mechanics were wonky so they held off on that one, which is a shame as that’s one of my favorite Whose Line games. One of the player’s native language wasn’t English, but despite being out of the loop regarding certain cultural references, she did a great job. The room stayed maxxed out (which isn’t saying a whole lot as the Meta Horizon rooms are only able to hold 30-something people), but someone was streaming it on Tik Tok, so there was that.  The jokes definitely got more than a little risqué, and I’m sure that the Meta staff were “observing” the space, but at no point did anyone get out of hand or disrespectful. Horizons is the best place for that kind of thing, due to the fact that the Meta avatars are better and more animated than avatars in other spaces (so far…we’ll see what happens when Apple really gets into the game; their first attempt at a headset, the Vision Pro is already amazing in so many ways, not least of all price). The way my mind works, I have been thinking of better versions of what I said on stage, which is a little concerning, but then again, probably better to be fixated on that than my usual array of anxieties.

People have told me they could never get on stage in front of people, and I get it. Slim, as animated as he usually is on the stage, is always muttering “Heebie jeebies!” before shows, even though we’ve been doing this kind of thing for literally decades. I don’t really get that nervous in either case, but it was interesting to compare the two experiences. I actually felt more exposed on the VR comedy stage than I did on the real life musical stage. Perhaps that is because I’m used to playing music on stage and more or less know what I’m doing, whereas I’d never actually done improv before this. There are also many common elements between the two, e.g. reacting to other players, coming up with new lines, responding to the audience, timing, volume, tone, etc. Both leave me feeling emotionally drained and high at the same time, weirdly.

Perhaps in the future, as more of our lives move towards online experiences, and virtual and actual worlds meld into each other with MR and AR development, the whole concept of “being on stage” will evolve into something entirely different than how we think of it now. Certainly with the disappearance of “mainstream” media as the defining factor in what and whom we chose to engage with, the way we move socially in any space is being redefined.

There is of course the potential for all of this to devolve into a massive dumpster fire, but then again it might actually bring people closer together. In any case, it should be interesting to see where all of this goes.