matt-gibson.org

Hunter S. Thompson The theatre was dark and reeked with the stench of a hundred overfed accountants gorging on chemical drenched popcorn and syrup water. I’d been assigned to review No Country for Old Men for Rolling Stone, and was already a week past deadline, but had abandoned the assignment partly because when you eat as much mescaline as I had it’s very hard to focus on a predetermined task, and also because I realized what a fleecing the operation was. ... Read More

Xpat Magazine Winter, 2008 Tonight I ran beneath a crescent moon, thick like a section of orange, the color of lightning, surrounded by inky night speckled sparsely with stars. Golden Beach is the best place to run in Tainan. It’s relatively close to town and there’s rarely anybody on it at night. I run there only at night, usually on Mondays. Ever since I started running at Golden Beach my Monday run has become something I look forward to. Golden Beach ... Read More

It had rained lightly and steadily for three days on the festival grounds, a small grassy plateau high in the mountains of Taoyuan County. The dance floor, if you could call it that, was a flat formerly grassy area blanketed in four inches of mud. We all danced in the mud and rain a frolicking mess of festival hippies. Everybody was happy despite the cold mud and rain. In fact, it seemed that the crowd was happier because ... Read More

Scratch Magazine June, 2004 Music has long been used by the poor and oppressed to lift spirits and communicate messages of social change. From the African-American slaves of the deep south singing soulful, subtly rebellious, gospel hymns, to Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine belting out “We gotta take the power back!” over grinding guitars and machine gun bass kicks, politics have always been an undercurrent in Western music. These days bands from most genres, like punk (Propaghandi, NOFX), ... Read More

Xpat Magazine March, 2008 I’m sitting here at my desk gazing out the window, trying to put to paper some kind of goodbye letter for my last issue behind the wheel of Xpat. But as I reflect on my time working on Xpat, and in Taiwan, I’m filled with a single emotion: gratitude. So, instead of saying goodbye, I’d like to thank all of the people who helped me make Xpat what it is today. I would like to thank: The ... Read More

Xpat Magazine March, 2008 US defense expenditure 2008: $643.9 billion Percent increase from 2007: 2.84 Cost of eliminating starvation and malnutrition globally: $19 billion Cost of providing education for every child on earth: $12 billion Cost of providing access to water and sanitation: $15 billion Cost of reversing the spread of AIDS and Malaria: $23 billion Total amount spent by Americans each year on cosmetics: $8 billion Total amount spent on pet food in Europe and the United States: $17 billion Total amount spent on narcotic drugs worldwide: $400 billion Taiwan’s ... Read More

Xpat Magazine September, 2007 Most recent athletic feat undertaken by Taiwanese ultramarathon champion, Kevin Lin: Running 6,920 km across six countries, and the Sahara Desert, in 111 days The average distance run per day: 62 km Total number of Taiwanese to play Major League Baseball: 4 Number of Taiwanese MLB players, present and former, of aboriginal ancestry: 2 (Chin-Feng Chen and Chin-hui Tsao) Number of the Taiwanese MLB players, present and former, from Tainan City and County: 3 Day of the year that the most collect calls ... Read More

Xpat Magazine September, 2007 I pen this letter from a remote stretch of shore on Kootenay Lake, an enormous, unmolested body of water hundreds of kilometers long, slung in a deep valley in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains. As a child I spent countless summers running barefoot through these cedar forests. Today is the first time I’ve reclined on this quiet shore in more than 1,000 days; 1,000 days since I’ve lain on this rocky beach, smelled the clean mountain air perfumed with ... Read More

Xpat Magazine June, 2007 At least once in their career, most English teachers in Taiwan stand in the unique position of naming children, or encountering a Taiwanese person, young or old, with a desire to assume an inappropriate English name. Sometimes kindie teachers, spurred by lack of sleep and unmetabolized alcohol, give kids wacky names for their own amusement, but more often Taiwanese people choose these names themselves and are unwilling to give them up despite the protest of their conscientious foreign educators ... Read More

Xpat Magazine June, 2007 “Some of these kids are really poor,” Robert told me. “Some don’t even have shoes. If you see it you might cry.” I was in the Cosby Saloon in Tainan talking to the owner, Robert Lo. He stood behind the bar with his back straight and his chin up. His black shirt was tucked tightly into his jeans beneath a prominent belt buckle. Robert is an unlikely philanthropist. During the day he rides around on a maroon Harley with skulls airbrushed ... Read More