Back in Taipei a few days ago and it is hot. We got back on Tuesday the 6th, Have spent a lot of time detailing the heat so will not go into a diatribe about it other than to say that it is so oppressively hot that mind body and soul cannot function properly. Oh yeah, I forgot about heat rash, which I have been battling since our return. Pits, not down below thankfully. Heat rash is typically caused by the areas of the body not drying out, which is easy enough to do 'round here. Using baby powder to help dry out the area only results in making little knishes in my t-shirts, but calamine lotion has been effective in reducing itching and you'll be glad to know that it now seems under control.
We had an old friend and workmate of Betty come to town for a couple nights and had a day to show her the sights. My one day tour is pretty set, but along with us this day were two local colleagues of Betty and they had some input into the day.
I did get my way in the AM and took the 4 ladies out to the Cihu Mausoleum to see the Chiang Kia Shek statues. They were all still there, but the sad thing was that the building where Chiang's body is housed is closed cause someone came and threw paint at it on the last anniversary of the 228 Incident. It is a pretty site and took the obligatory photos with my personal favorite statue. Could not decide which picture I wanted to share, so will share two.
Normally, after Cihu I'd head to the Palace Hotel for dim sum before shrimping, but the locals insisted on having lunch at Din Tai Fung. Whatevs...it's good but between you and me, not great. They have a few outlets in town so told the ladies to pick the one closest to the next stop. They said maybe we should pick a different one as there is no parking at the closest one. Of course my reply was to not worry about it.
We get there and as it's Saturday, the mall and surrounding area is jammed as expected and the sign for the underground parking says full. Undeterred, I pull in and the dude directs us to a small space behind the mall near the garbage cans that has 4 spots and is 10 steps to the employee entrance and about 50 steps to the restaurant. Boasting about my parking prowess and it being a super power is a common theme, but this ability is really uncanny. I learned this summer that there is not one but two Patron Saints of parking...Doris Day and Kojak as in all movies/shows they're in, whenever they pull up to their destination, there is a giant spot waiting for them. Urban dictionary confirms.
After throwing down, the local girls really want to take our guest to the nearby relationship temple where you can light some incense to enhance your chances of finding a mate or improving the status with your current squeeze. It's down an alley so I stay by the car. They all come back, looking sexier somehow, and we head out to our next stop. We go towards this street that is small with one way traffic each way. There is a line of cars going the opposite direction waiting for the light and when it turns green and we start to go, a dipshit at the back of the oncoming line comes into the opposite direction lane...the one we are about to enter...to get in front of all the other cars in his lane. I pull up and stop as he then barges back into his own lane and look over and his window is down. Dude (of course) is driving a poorly souped up Toyota something or other and looks like a complete asswipe, which he absolutely is of course. So many things could go awry speeding down the wrong way of a street that could kill someone that is not expecting such a maneuver, but the hubris of these...I hesitate to call them people...animals that they are better than others hits me on such a visceral level that I need to lash out. With four ladies in the car I don't, but I turn to them and say that if they weren't in the car, I woulda hocked a giant loogie right in that guys face. Picture four mouths hanging open in disbelief. I explain that this is as an egregious an affront to societal norms as one can do and that it must be addressed. Granted, sharing my DNA with this fella is disgusting, but what were my options. I coulda rammed him but that woulda inconvenienced me/injured the girls. If I coulda flung poo at him like the Timmy Ho lady (now with audio), that woulda been sweet. Doing nothing was the only option here, but doing nothing in the face of a transgression like this is not acceptable. I'm not a hero but I kinda am.
So to recap, things in Taipei are still the same.
Had an all-time good time this summer. When I was talking to folks the past couple of months and describing my current position in life, the word I used was 'charmed'.
I mentally broke up the summer trip into 5 parts. Part 1 was the 10 day music roadtrip with Yo La Tengo but am gonna skip that for now as I may go back and add to my Yo La Tengo posting from May. Part 2 was a two week east coast swing that began in Atlanta and ended in Virginia.
As a reminder, I had the month of June to myself as both Betty and Babydoll were working in Taipei. Knew I wanted to visit the Boy at UVA and wanted to see some part of the country that I hadn't before. An old buddy of mine moved to Atlanta a few years ago and as I had never been, thought it would be a good place to start.
This buddy, will call him Yowie, is a friend from the college days. He moved to LA in the early 90's and we were rock and roll seeing fiends. We saw all the bands at all the clubs for a 3 year stretch. He moved to Pheonix and we moved to Seattle, and he would come up for Bumbershoot each Labor Day weekend for many years. He then moved to the British Virgin Islands, got married and finally moved back last year just months before the hurricane wiped out the island he was living on. When we got together this year, we figured it had been 14 years since we saw each other but as with the best of relationships, it immediately felt as if no time had passed. For better or worse. I had remembered all the good stuff but had forgotten what a slug he is in getting out the door. "Let's leave at..." always turned into at least 20 minutes later than that as he always had something to do, forgot something, gotta get my glasses, etc.. He tried to claim that living the island life for a decade turned him into this, but it was always that way. I called bullshit and he didn't care. Bercaw.
Atlanta reminded me a lot of LA in the layout. All freeway and sprawl with little downtown life and mass transit. They do have a metro system called MARTA, but in true southern fashion was given the racist nickname Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta. We went downtown a couple times, both in the middle of the work week, and the place was a ghost town. You could see the places where they tried to generate more urban concentration with the '96 Olympics, but it didn't take. A ton of potential as there are a bunch of cool but underutilized buildings that are earmarked to turn into condos and such. And they are almost done with a public space called the Beltline that took an old rail line that rings the city and turned it into an urban trail for bikes and walkers. Condos, bars and shops are springing up all along its route.
A disproportionate amount of kids from the American School here go to Emory and always thought it was due to the similarities in the weather. Hot and humid and all. There is an area near that university called Buford Highway that had a concentration of Asian food options that was stunning in its comprehensiveness. From Szechuan to Indonesian, seemed that all the genres were accounted for and could see these Asian kids living on that stretch of road. We had Korean chicken. I've had better.
As Yowie and I are both music junkies, we grabbed a city paper to see if there were any shows to catch. I eyeball the scenes of all the places I go to for show opportunities in advance but there weren't any for us. Looking at the paper and saw something called Angelo Moore and Brand New Step. Could it be that Angelo Moore...from one of our favorites back in the day Fishbone? Indeed it was and learned he just put out an album and his touring band featured the drummer from Ween and bassist from Thievery Corporation. Even though we arrived a couple minutes late (see above) and the crowd was pitiful (more than half of the audience was comprised of the opening acts), the show was amazing.
There was a documentary on Fishbone from a couple years back that chronicled their awesomeness but also showed the hard times they had fallen on with Angelo still having that happy face, but was hiding the fact he was living with his mom and could not get any traction on his new projects. We were glad to see him in such fine form. He was always an arresting stage presence and plays a mean saxophone.
And he always had a soft spot for the theremin, which drove the other Fishbones crazy. As this was his own project, he used it a lot to mostly good effect.
As the crowd was sparse it was hard to miss these two ladies that were just amazing. Neither coulda been 5 feet tall, they had vests with all kinds of band buttons on them and they danced their brains out all night. Yowie said they are always at all the shows.
The back-up singer was great too...her name was Bridney Reese and Yowie was smitten immediately. He told me how much he loves black women and could barely contain himself with Bridney.
Got me to thinking that I must have a thing for the Asian ladies but it never crossed over to the Black ones. Listening to Yowie, who lived with them in the islands and now in predominantly black Atlanta, it occurred that you sorta end up understanding the nuances to people that you live with and appreciate them more. Of course. After three days here, I started to understand it and my appreciation for them grew. We had to talk to Bridney post show and as you can see from his facial expression, Yowie has fallen all the way for them.
We also felt the need to say 'hey' to Angelo at the merch table and he was manic as always. I bought a shirtt and his new disc but he was trying hard to upsell us into some spoken word USB thing for 40 bucks. We were equally elated to see him and sad that he is reduced to begging.
Angelo's new stuff is pretty good and if you are a fan of funky soul music, recommend you check it out. That this song isn't an anthem in California these days is a mystery.
Always try to plan these excursions around baseball and Atlanta was no exception with a trip to Sun Trust Park a must. A new stadium in its second year, and with the Braves very relevant, we caught a 1:05 start against the Mets.
We arrived late (see above) and was immediately annoyed. The stadium is in the 'burbs and is serviced by no public transport. Roads and garages were jammed and we ended up paying 20 bucks to park over a mile away up a huge hill surrounded by strip malls. They have constructed an area outside the stadium with bars and eateries that may one day be cool, but for now feels forced and antiseptic. We get in and want some food and there was not a single stand that didn't have huge lines. Took us two full innings in line to get our grub and it was completely unispiring (spicy cicken tenders that were neither spicy nor tender). You'd think that a weekday game against the crappy Mets would have allowed for some breathing room, and the place wasn't full, but whatever they are doing with regards to service isn't working. We do a lap to look at the place and while it is nice, it was the little things that I found frustrating. For example, they have a spot honoring Henry Aaron and his 755 home runs with an art installation of 755 bats. A decent spot for a photo op but they have a rail up right in the middle of the thing. Bizzare.
We finally get to our seats in the 6th inning (to be fair, it was a classic pitcher's duel and the game time was 2 hours and 15 minutes). Once in the seats, the park is lovely.
Good sightlines, the team is young and exciting and Freddy Freeman hit a monster homerun for us, but the experience left a lot to be desired. Walking out, I want a hat from the 70's era Braves so go by the main team store, and there is yet another huge line (estimated at 40 minutes just to get in the door). We all have our peeves, but seeing places leave money on the table with poor planning and service bugs me. Certainly not one of those stadiums to go out of your way for in my opinion.
That night we have dinner with Yowie's best friend in town who happens to be a huge baseball and Mets fan. That fan base has to be the funniest and most fatalistic in all of baseball. He was railing on the state of the game in ways that make you think he was gonna hurt himself.
So mixed feelings on Atlanta. The layout of it drags it down but can see a lot of potential and seemed similar to the LA of my youth. Even though every single person said to go see CNN and the Coca Cola Museum, we did neither as when you pressed those people as to why you need to see it, they had nothing good to say other than you can taste Coke they make for people in Madagascar. The racial dempographics of the town was what I found most intriguing. DC has a similarly high ratio of black people, but you never feel that they are a big presence in all of the city. Atlanta does. A good example is that Tyler Perry has a movie studio on 300 acres built in an old army installation that is an economic bastion. A fascinating place with a bright future.
My next stop was Nashville and planned a couple of stops on the way. The map showed Chatanooga was half way between ATL and Nashville so planned a lunch stop. Why Chatanooga? Cause it felt like a stop Bugs Bunny would make. Chatanooga, Walla Walla and Rancho Cucamonga... What does one do for a couple hours in Chatanooga? Looked up things to do in 'Noogs' and decided to make the Moon Pie General Store and Museum the destination. It was a glorified store dedicated to all things Moonpie. I got a box and a couple of t-shirts. Never a huge fan cause marshmellows...am I right? What I did discover was this thing called a Goo Goo Cluster. Really a Nashville product, they sold them at the Moon Pie store and they are right up my alley with peanuts and caramel coated in chocolate. Yum. Never heard or seen them before but am a fan for life.
Tooled around Chattanooga for an hour or two and thought the downtown core and the urban area connected by the walking bridge were cool. A bit sleepy (no one in the South seems to be in a hurry) but could see myself returning and hanging out for a couple days. The amount of candy shops there (and all over the south in general) was surprising.
Also on the way to Nashville is Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of Jack Daniels, so thought a visit to a piece of true Americana was in order. Our guide was named Jed (of course) and the tour was worth it. Learned that they 'mellow' the spirit in charcoal made from maple that they burn daily.
And that the distillery is where it is cause of a unique spring where the water is iron free due to it being filtered through limestone. Was at least 10 degrees cooler here on a hot day.
Saw the safe that Jack kicked, which broke his foot and became gangrenous and ultimately killed him.
They have concerts there on occasion and Jed thought that the .38 Special gig was exceptional (of course). End of the tour was a tasting of 5 of their varieties, only one of which appealed to me. They even had a special blend made for Frank Sinatra, who would have a bottle of it on stage with him.
Tooled around the very small town (one traffic light) of Lynchburg for a few minutes and it was basically all souvenir shops dedicated to all things Jack. This was the only place that I saw a Confederate Flag displayed proudly as one of the shops had all the gear you would expect including bumper stickers that read "If you want to kneel for the anthem, do it in front of a moving car". Really, I was expecting to see the flag on all the cars and dudes brandishing weapons, yet this was my only encounter with either.
Pulled into Nashville at dinner time and made a bee line for Hot Chicken. As this has gone on for a bit and Hot Chicken in Nashville is a life changing event, will save that for next time.
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