Who'll Stop the Rain?

June and July in Taiwan is the rainy season. It rains continuously every day for weeks on end. Sometimes it lets up for a bit but then it comes crashing down again. The hardest rain I've ever seen. The picture above is a major street in Taichung. The brown part in the upper half of the photo is basically a river of mud flowing down the road. It gets very depressing and frustrating.

Anytime I go out on my scooter I get drenched and come home soaked. My wet clothes are hanging all over the house. On the way to school today, a road was unexpectedly washed out and we had to take another route, which in turn made us late. During the drive, I deejayed from the iPod, all songs about rain (Who'll Stop the Rain by CCR, Rain Down On Me by Blue Rodeo, November Rain by Guns 'n Roses and Dry the Rain by the Beta Band. That was as far as I got but I feel a good compilation CD coming on. Jimi, are you reading this?) And of course, events get cancelled. This Friday I had a gig in Kaoshung with Newt and the Slacks then the following day, the other band I'm in, Militant Hippi, were playing at a Peace Festival up north in a place called Longtan. One was cancelled and one was postponed. So I'm sitting here right now on a Friday night in front of my computer. I don't even want to leave the house.

If all this rain has done anything, it's made me start thinking about summer. I can't wait to be home and have been trying to make some plans. Evolve looks great and so does the Shoreline Festival. I'll be home on July 12 or 13 or something - just in time for the Wilco show at the Playhouse. Then I'll be going to Newfoundland with my family for a few days. Newfoundland is the only province I've never been too and I'm very excited.

For the first ten days of July we will be in B.C. Our tentative plan is this: July 1st in Vancouver, July 2nd and 3rd in Saltspring Island, July 4th, 5th, 6th in Victoria, July 7th, 8th and 9th in Kelowna and then July 10th, 11th and 12th back in Vancouver. I hope you guys are around. I'll email you soon and maybe we can start planning some stuff.

Looking forward to seeing everyone,
Geoff

P.S. Si, I hope you don't mind me using your song title method for my subject.