Posts from May 2004
May 31, 2004
Mt. Chi-Hsing
After several non-weekends, we finally got some time to invite some friends over for dinner and a short hike up Mt. Chi-Hsing near our house.
Shiuan is a DJ/producer who spins the coolest NY house grooves in Taiwan. His girlfriend, Cardin, works at an ad agency. (<<)
Emily is an illustrator, and Nigel is a dancer/choreographer soon to be studying fashion design in London. (>>)
They all were part of a very cool dance, music, and art performace at the Living Room a while back.
May 27, 2004
I couldn't stop...
I was at a dinner party with a bunch of well dressed fashionable 30 somethings. A good mix of Chinese and foreigners. It was a nice place, all white, with about 20 people sitting around a big white table. The hostess had done a great job, but when one guest bit into the salad, she started be-bopping like Dizzy Gillespie, which I thought was way cool. Each dish apparently had some musical connotation. The other guests looked a little stunned. I guess they had no musical juice in their bodies, so they didn't bop. They just ate. I bit into a tangy Cuban shrimp dish, and immediately snapped to my feet like a marionette, and started shashaying around the table. I couldn't stop. A funky rhumba was creeping out of my bones. Some woman was coming from the kitchen, so I grabbed her, and started dancing with her very Desi Arnaz like, and spun and dipped and shook all the way to the kitchen, where I said, "Damn, that was some good shrimp," and gulped down two Vodka Tonics to cool the steaming latino inside. My impromptu dance partner looked a bit flustered, and the guests thought I was nuts, but the be-bopper and I had a moment of eye contact which said "I can't wait to try the next dish."
May 25, 2004
Sam the man
In one of those Samuel Beckett books I read when I was in my beret phase of life -- I think it was called "The Unnamable"-- he writes about the concentric circles of existence which make up our lives. This always stuck with me. I like the idea of life as a small solar system revolving around me. So here are some of my more important concentric circles defined:
Ecoffee - NT$35 dollar so so coffee
Dog on mountain - take that doggie out for some fresh air
Rehearsal - try to get some quality band time in with the guys
The Sopranos - got all the seasons on Chinese DVDs
Wife stuff - every solar system has astroid fields full of little things that must be done
So if my game is immediately ended by a giant boulder while driving through Toroko Gorge, my life can be defined as "That married dog walking coffee drinker who played in a band and watched pirated DVDs." That would be pretty accurate.
May 21, 2004
Wo Mayo Tai Tai Blues
Some Taipei American School teachers stopped by the Living Room last week to hear Stevie and Black Sheep perform. It turned into a nice jam afterwards, with some good playing.
Here's one for the Sino Blues Archives: Wo Mayo Tai Tai Blues (I Got No Wife Blues)
May 20, 2004
Vote for our band name!
We can decide on the music, but we can't decide on the name.
Vote now!! Help us choose a $#%&! band name!
Thanks!
May 19, 2004
Shower Curtain Quirks
Q: Why does the shower curtain blow into the bathtub, not out into the room?
This always annoyed me. Now I know.
May 14, 2004
What are they thinking?
I've seen a few things recently that makes me wonder what goes on in old people's minds.
I was double parked down on Huan He S. Rd. buying some stuff and saw this old guy who would dart out from his shop every few minutes, run into the middle of the busy street with a long pair of tongs to pick up a stray cigarette butt.
Then recently on my way home from closing the Living Room, sometime around 4:30am, right after coming out of the tunnel from Da Jir, there's a T-intersection and a long row of steel barriers connotating a dead end. An old guy was wiping them all down with a rag.
The reason I bring this up is because on the scale of things, what they are doing is absolutely and completely useless, but somehow it's important to them, otherwise they wouldn't do it. I just hope that when I'm old my interests aren't focused on cigarette butts in the middle of the street and wiping down traffic dividers.
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
