thought you nearly lost me????

yes, i know it's been a while. since we spoke, i spent one week in the southern reigions of taiwan's countryside, teaching hambone and building a giant pink ballerina pig for a parade in the city of shin gang. our host frank "black dragon" is an aboriginal, and one coordinator of the shin gang foundation, which regularly invites artists and has grand bi-annual international events. we toured famous pottery factories there, ate some of the best food i have ever had, and drank more taiwan beer than i thought possible. the evening we arrived, we were taken to a huge banquet room and served exquisite specialties such as chicken testicles, and broiled fish. one by one, the dignitaries of the town showed up and we started drinking. when someone offers you a toast, you raise your glass with both hands, and usually "gan bay", aka, dry glass. if you do not say "gan bay", you will watch the person if they are higher status then you to see if they empty their glass or not. you follow suit. we were drinking with the town's mayor and the chairman of the shin gang foundation. i got trashed. not only do the most respectable folks drink like fishes, but there also exists a drinking club! 51 members all contributed money to have a clubhouse built, and they meet each evening. i was told if i wanted to join, i would have to drink 6-40 oz (here they are 600ml) taiwan beers. after 4, i was trashed, and went home with a taiwan-beer-headache that lasted till the following evening.
after seven days of teaching and making costumes for 14 kids between the ages of 6 and 70 years a hambone routine, making them up as clowns (not my idea!), and building our huge pig, affixing to a bicycle; our parade was rained out. so we overtook the local elementary school, paraded there, and did our hambone presentation. our students rocked! it was fun.
afterwards, i found an excellent masseuse, and then was taken by our translator assistant to her buddhist master to be read. the man was an older gentleman, blind, with no sense of propriety
afterward, i went to tainan to meet the loveliest girl in taiwan, who has since relocated to nearer enviorns! as if i wasn't lucky enough......
"ghost month" - the month when all the spirits come to inhabit the earth. you can see people setting up little altars outside of their businesses, making food and wine offerings, and burning ghost money, so that the ghosts will no have want for anything while they are here. it is a very nice, friendly and safe gesture. i was not visited this year, as i had been in years past.
i reconnected with my old friend 'morris', who used to run a bar near where i lived in shilin, taipei in the 90's. they sold the building and he had to shut his bar down. he is now selling lottery tickets and noodles with his re-united wife...it is so sweet to see them together! turns out she is an a-mei aboriginal, and invited me and juen-juen and our leader andy (who had just arrived the day prior), to a big a-mei cultural festival, very nearby to the dream community. when we got there, she 'registered' us, whereupon we were pinned with flowers, and brought to sit in the nobility seats with the chief and elders, eating beetle-nut and even invited to join in the dancing and song at one point! it was a blast. she will be helping me to find a teacher to learn some a-mei songs.
with thirty artists from 10 different countries having arrived, things are moving faster than a candian rescue team in a new-orleans hurricane (they arrived a week before the u.s. coast guard). we are meeting three to four hours per day. then drawing, planning, and building. we will have classes with around 1000 people from the community, and a nother 1,000 - 2,000 students we will teaching in the schools, to build floats, costumes and masks for this grand parade on october 15th. as many of these artists double as musicians, i have been steadily recruiting them for the tuesday night gig in the tree cafe. last week i played bass and hi-hat drums while singing and had celeste on vocals, and be ward stepped in on drums. john deveraj came up on guitar, then later 'rabbit' and so on.

will may be reporting more as life delivers it. love, where-ever you may be!

ran-ran