September 15th, 2017

"Should I bring along a jacket?"  Those are words that have never been spoken, or even thought of in the time we've been here.  All my pants are sweatpants.  Was walking past the Mormons today and they swore at me.  I tried to find good "it's so hot" jokes on-line and there just aren't any, probably cause it is simply not funny.   I apologize for the regular bitching about the heat, but by getting it out is my way of therapy.

Accidentally scrolled down on the weather app this morning and noticed an  allergy alert feature I hadn't seen before.

Get the dust, but dander?  They have a picture of a dog and cat, but have seen the locals loose grip on hygiene and suspect it is human generated.  May have to reconsider the use of the face mask.

Now that I've ying-ed a bit, obviously time for some yang.  Taiwan isn't such a bad place.  A couple of polls on quality of life for expats came out recently and Taiwan made #4 on the recent Huffington Post survey and # 1 on the Internations poll.   A personal example of what makes TW cool occurred this week.   A band I like but hadn't seen (DIIV) was in town playing on a random Wednesday night in a small club.  Tickets were reasonable (NT$1200 or about US$36), which is quite good since the logistics of a foreign act getting here are tricky and the cost has to justify the effort.  Was able to take the ridiculously clean and efficient subway for a dollar each way, grab a nibble at the neighborhood night market, which was efficient but not ridiculously clean, for 80 cents, and enjoyed a cheapo beer purchased at the 7-11 next door to the venue on the street out front with other concert revelers (they treat you like an adult with alcohol as long as you behave).  The show was on time and taking public transport home, was tucked in by 11:15.  Would be nice if we had more/better acts coming through town, but the grass is always greener, no?  Other than the heat in summer, would say that the lack of quality touring acts is my biggest beef with living in this neck of the woods.

I like DIIV's music, but found them kinda boring live.  Solid and tight, flashes of the Cure with more chime in the guitar.  While I find their sound interesting, felt repetitive after a few songs in and think they'd be fine in a 45-minute set festival setting.

In retrospect, think I liked the opening band better.  Didn't catch their name and they sang in Mandarin, but kinda surf punky with some feedback and a wild female singer with adorable dimples.  That checked a bunch of my boxes.

And if you are wondering what a Taipei rock crowd looks like.

I have candid snaps again.  They were able to fix the camera on my phone for the reasonable price of US$35.  Doubt AT&T woulda been able to match that price.  This Saturday is the 16th Annual Daniel Pearl World Music Day in Taipei.  Can't beat free admission, the Aussie Pie shop is having a booth and the weather doesn't look awful so perhaps will take along the good camera.  In more concert news, Babydoll is going to see Arianna Grande next Tuesday, and hope to have some music updates next time.

Baseball came back to TienMu last night.  They didn't have games there for a season and a half as they were said to be remodeling it in anticipation of having the Universiade baseball there.  Was hard to see any real improvements...they power washed it and repaired some typhoon damage, but it had the same crappy grass and antiquated scoreboard, which even had less information (like stats/pitch velocity) than before.  The only real  upgrade that I noticed was that they now have modern speakers in all corners.  A feature of baseball in Asia is the constant singing by the teams supporters and in the past, the fans would have a band that would play the songs and typically a dude on a microphone to call out the songs and played over an army surplus speaker.  Imagine a rusty megaphone extolling the virtues of Dear Leader.  It was quaint and if you went down the line far enough, you could escape the worst of the din.

With the new audio system, they not only amplified the band to uncomfortable levels, but have added pre-recorded songs.  Each player has one so it was like a bad mix tape on repeat.  The players songs aren't just walk up music, but blares during his entire at bat.  One of them sounded like the tunes a video slot machine plays to entice you to come put your money in the Ellen/Deal Or No Deal machine.  Another was a literal ripoff of Cotton Eye Joe.

You thought that song was annoying in English.

It was torturous and had the thought that if this is the new normal, may never come back cause it was nearly impossible to have a chat, which as I've said many times is one of the best parts of going to a baseball game for me.  Remember how when you were in your 20's that you'd have a busy wedding calendar.  Have noticed that in my 40's/50's, going to games with my peers that a lot of the conversations have become long form discussions of their marital issues or divorces.  I am not complaining cause it gives people a chance to have a meaningful way to talk it through, and that I can hopefully help lighten their spirits with my brand of observational humor, but just find it interesting how this has kinda become a thing.

We moved around a bit and found a spot that was in a somewhat quieter location and settled in for what became a decent game.  I even started coming around to all the music.  In addition to all the songs, they come with their own choreography, so the crowd, and I mean the whole efffin' stadium, are doing their worst Toni Basil impersonations.

Every at bat, all game long.  While the tunes didn't become any less annoying, the scene was infectious and found myself first tapping my toes and finally, doing the dance steps along with them, which the other supporters appreciated and we started getting high fived with every hit or third out.  And it wasn't just the dudes, but the ladies and kids were into it in a big way and could not help admire that the whole family came out to dance and sweat and laugh together.

 The dude with the white shirt was a menace though...he was blowing a whistle the entire night.  Not just a whistle, but had a lanyard that had a half dozen of them.

The lady in the blue striped shirt in front of us was a hoot.  Not a great dancer, but she was shakin' it hard of course.  She seemed interested in our crew, probably cause we were the only white folk in the entire joint, but I like to think it is cause I am such a sexy beast.   Hard to see, but on her neck was a tattoo of some meaningful saying in English.  Laughed as you see a ton of white folk in the States that have a Chinese character placed in the same spot and found it  funny how trends can be so cross cultural.  She had some basic English skills and wanted to chat...my buddy can speak Mandarin, so we debated the merits of the Chinatrust Brothers baseball team and the ear piercing volume levels.  I came around to her side eventually.

You may recall a post from March about our trip to Sri Lanka and how we went to a factory that dealt in natural herbs and tonics that they claimed could cure just about everything and that I invested in a couple.  One of them was to combat chronic arthritis in the knees, and while there was some minor relief at the time, didn't do much long term.

The other potion I bought in LK was a cure for the psoriasis I've had ever since I started growing pubes.  Not dandruff, what I had has always been this crust that develops on my scalp constantly and has prevented me from wearing ever slimming black clothes.  After I did the month long witch doctor treatment, the chemistry of my head has totally changed.  When I went back to the shampoo that helped control the crustiness, a shampoo I've been using for decades, it not only didn't work anymore, but caused my scalp to explode and peel in sheets.  Grossed out even me.  The Boy has similar body chemistry and he uses Head and Shoulders with some success, so after trying a bunch of other remedies, like applying coconut/olive/argan oil, I tried old H&S and it is working better than my old prescription shampoo ever did.  Who knows if this change was caused by the special Sri Lankan sauce, or that ones body changes with age (my mom had it bad too and hers went away as she got older), but weird.

Listened to a couple of long form interviews with Hillary Clinton as she does the book tour circuit.  I know people hate her with the fire of a thousand suns, and also know those people don't really know why other than they have bought into the decades of propaganda around her.  While it is certain that if she was elected (well she was, but still), the machine that was built on tearing her down woulda gone into hyper drive to thwart her, all I could think while listening to her speak was that we missed out on having a great President and that we should just turn the keys over to the women in general. 

I actually wrote a long screed draft on the above topic, but cut it cause it felt like too many sour grapes.  Will save the vitriol for the flag wavers next time, but before signing off, have to bow my head two times.  First to the brilliance of the people that brought us the Cassini probe that burned up in the Saturn atmosphere a couple hours ago.  Watched this documentary on the life of the mission and thought it was really well done and helps keep your faith in humanity.

And while looking for the link to the above, noticed that PBS just put up a recap mission in celebration of the end of the journey.  Will be checking it out soon.

Finally...RIP Grant Hart.  Never caught Husker Du live, but they have been in regular rotation in my life for 25-30 years.  His disc Good News For The Modern Man has several songs I simply need to hear sometimes.  Thank you for the memories you created.