I’ve been busy drawing. I have several reasons for doing so. New designs for t shirts, some work for the PORT TOWNSEND PUBLIC LIBRARY’s upcoming SUMMER READ, and, just because I enjoy it.
SO, LET’S SEE HOW MY LATEST scans look on the screen:
THERE ARE MORE, but should save some copyrighted original stuff for next time. WEDNESDAY… MORE! (sorry about the explanation point; not that a show of enthusiasm isn’t appropriate. MEANWHILE, thanks, as always, for checking out realsurfers. See you out on Surf Route 101.
IF I HAVE TO BLAME something for the prolific-ness, it’s the recent far-eeez-ing weather. AND I have been sa-soww-ly getting cal-lose-er finishing my novel, “Swamis.”
Because it’s been preternaturally cold (I looked it up; it could mean ‘extraordinarily’ f’ing cold, as in, yeah, it’s been this cold before… in, like, Canada, Siberia, anywhere east of the Cascade mountains, just not lately), I have had some time, afraid, perhaps, to risk the icy roads (“I’ve heard of Quilcene,” the Facebook site our daughter, Dru, started, and Trish helps monitor; had reports of multiple cars in the ditch… and, perhaps, you remember I totaled a car against a tree in black ice two years ago, and, since, have become, I admit, less willing to assert my mastery over slippery roadways), and, anyway, someone has to run around and make sure no more pipes freeze up; BECAUSE OF ALL THAT, and the fact that folks don’t really think about house painting when it’s like this…
…I have had some time to work on my ART, on my NOVEL, on REALSURFERS.NET, what others always refer to as a BLOG. “I call it a WEBSITE.” “Yeah, you would.” “Yeah, and I do, and what I want to present to the tens of people who see it, is CONTENT.” “Oh. Sure. Content. What do you have?”
I HAD PLANNED to post images of recent illustrations, but, even after Dru switched the images of drawings from PDF to JPEG, they came out looking as if someone had placed a piece of frosted glass over them. SO, nope, I’ll get the originals back and rescanned. AND, though I wrote two pieces I might have used in today’s posting, AND wrote them in Microsoft Word rather than, kinda like LIVE, on the Word Press site, I, in the extended darkness of mid-winter night, under a thick pile of sheets and blankets, the heater set at “Roast,” decided they just weren’t good enough to share with you. WHY? CONTENT.
A drawing I didn’t think good enough to use on a t shirt, but, now that I see it after some time has passed; hmmm… maybe put a border on parts, and… yeah, that might be better.
WE, as consumers of ENTERTAINMENT, are constantly looking for BETTER CONTENT. If a TV channel doesn’t provide it… NOPE. We can scroll through the available options on ROKU, Prime, Netflix, whatever you or I have. NOPE; though I spent too many of my cabin fever hours watching one of those binge-worthy (the producers hoped) series(es?), the ending so rediculus (shit- Word has spell-fix, Word Press doesn’t), that I wanted my time back. I could have been doing something useful, like CONTENT.
YouTube; yeah, I’m a bit of an addict; surfing (I am caught up on Nathan Florence exploits, now fast forward paddling out sequences), politics (some I have watched LIVE, like Hunter showing up for sham committee and MTG acting… trashy, and when NSNBC stopped showing it, I, YES, watched some more on, yes, C-SPAN), some historical stuff that looks interesting (Bigfoot- not historical); OH, and I just discovered that, on my tablet (never on the laptop, but some surf stuff has been moved to the BIG TV), if I watch one of those quickies, I can scroll down and watch another, and then… another..
AND eventually, bored or fed up (which typically suggests some sort of anger), or SATIATED (seems more positive), or just OUT OF TIME, we… quit.
NOW, I do PROMISE new illustrations, several I’m really pleased with, and properly scanned, will be posted on WEDNESDAY. Meanwhile, the polishing of my manuscript continues. And, NOTE; I didn’t stop posting excerpts because they weren’t good enough, it was because the content is still changing. Of all the things I am involved in, in all aspects of life (other than surfing, where, still enjoying the hell out of it, I may have peaked a while back), what I’m striving for is to be… BETTER.
SO, other than all of the above (and Microsoft Word would give me a word count), no real posting today. STAY WARM, find some SURF. Oh, and, as always, thanks for checking out realsurfers..net
SO, JACOB WHYTE is the son of a cousin of JIM HAMILTON, a very interesting individual (timber-frame house builder/ski patrol/world traveler/more) who lives off Center (Road) and close to SURF ROUTE 101 in Quilcene. Jacob also has an interesting story. He has returned to Forks, Washington after an extended stay in California, Ventura area, during which he worked doing ding repair, most notably (to name droppers) for Channel Islands Surfboards, living frugally (growing his own food, that kind of thing), always, he says, planning to move back home to Washington State’s WEST END.
Now, the PEASANT thing: Jim, in asking (more like hiring/bribing) me to do some artsy stuff for Jacob, pondered the name. “Oh,” I must have said, “Maybe it’s like, you know, peasants, serfs, vassals, that kind of thing; I mean, like an allusion to… that.” “That would be… yeah, maybe that’s it.”
“It isn’t,” Jacob said when I actually got in phone contact, he at a far northwest secret surf location, me in the depths of a housing tract in East Bremerton. Didn’t matter, so much, I’d already done a drawing, black and white, printed a copy and colored it, either suitable as a flyer, or, reduced in size, a too-busy business card. “Yeah, Erwin, maybe the ‘serfboard’ thing is expecting too much of… surfers.” “Okay, how about the ‘serving the West End and the Olympic Peninsula’ part?” “Yeah. Sure.”
I ran a couple of other ideas past Jacob. Mostly about t-shirts; what would be appropriate, assuming surfers on the West End are not necessarily trying to invite more surfers over. I have ideas. LATER. It’s not like I can’t keep a secret.
IN MY CONTINUED attempts to produce a decent drawing of the fictional JULIA COLE, or, actually, a portrait of any woman, I came up with this. Attempts and failures. I should throw away the versions that got me to this one, possibly more useful to depict Julia’s mother, and stick this in some file with the other failed illustrations. BUT, wait, maybe if I just… Yeah, I have some ideas. ALWAYS. And I always want to get… better.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN- MONDAY, MARCH 31, 1969- PART FOUR
The two carpenters were carefully walking between the Karmann Ghia and the edge of the bank. Lee Anne turned toward them. “Joey, this is Monty, lead carpenter on the project.” Monty was sunburned, with a receding hairline and an almost orange Fu Manchu mustache. Early thirties.
Monty stepped in front of Lee Anne’s car, put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. Black, muscular, no older than eighteen or nineteen. “And this is…”
“Not a carpenter. Yet. Helper. Nickname… Digger.” Monty had only left room for his helper to stand on the very edge of the bank.
Lee Anne looked at Digger, shook her head, looked at Monty, and back at Digger. “No. Unacceptable. You have to… insist… on a different nickname.”
“Temporary,” Digger said. “Thought I’d be something like ‘Hammer.’ Nope. Got to earn your nickname ‘round here.” Digger slapped at a pair of gloves folded over his belt. He held out his hands, palms toward me, rubbed two fingers of his left hand across the palm of his right. He slapped his hands together. “Could’a been callin’ me ‘Blisters.’”
Lee Anne extended her right hand but didn’t accept Digger’s. “Blisters,” she said. “Not good, but… better.”
Monty gave Lee Anne a sideways nod and said, “Blisters, then.”
The younger carpenter had been rather boldly checking Lee Anne Ransom out. She looked him off with a quick widening of her eyes and a very stern expression. “Real name, please, for the record.”
Blisters backed up, put his hands out and up, his arms closer to his body. If he was impressed with Lee Anne’s response, he wasn’t apologizing. “Greg,” he said. “Or Gregory.”
“Gregory, then.” She turned back to Monty. “Or Greg?”
“Greg, then,” Monty said. He pointed to the parking lot. “We heard the cop car, didn’t see it ‘til it tried to turn in. It wasn’t the brakes. It was… the gravel. New, like b-bs; no way he wasn’t gonna slide.” He turned toward me before he added, “No way.”
…
The San Luis Rey Riverbed was probably half a mile wide. I had never seen the water more than a stream, a creek, even. The ground Monty and Gregory and Lee Anne and I were standing on was gravel and round river rock, with the usual scrub, some still green but rapidly fading grasses and weeds, and a few stunted trees. Taller trees in the center of the valley were mostly dead. Ghosts. Killed in the cycles of flood and drought. More likely flood. Drowned.
Monty pointed to the stump in the river bottom, probably fifty feet from the base of the fill. “The concrete had been poured. The leftover rebar should’ve been fuckin’ gone.” Though no one asked, he added. “Contractors. Separate. Not our job.”
Lee Anne said, “Separate. Not your job.” She attached a telephoto lens to her camera, aimed it at the road on the east side of the valley, focused it, snapped a photo, and handed the camera to me. “So, after your dad’s accident; the traffic was rerouted… over there. Correct?”
The lens was out of focus for my eyes. I twisted the ring at the base of the lens as Lee Anne had. “Correct.” I turned the camera past the carpenters and toward the journalist. Distorted. Out of focus. I snapped a photo. “Accident.”
Lee Anne took the camera and advanced the film.
…
Gregory and Monty and Lee Anne and I were standing next to the concrete box. There was a galvanized pipe in, another, perpendicular, out. Gregory, now gloved, had a shovel, upright, in his left hand. “You see, all the rebar got pushed out the way by the car… except for one piece. Jammed against the… stump.” He looked at me. “You get me?” I nodded. “They cut it. The… stump. Little later. Fire department.” I nodded. “Like a bullet, it was. Through the door and right through the guy. I seen him, right after. He was alive and all, like he was trying to pull the rebar out. No fuckin’ way.”
“My father… the guy.”
“Yeah.” The shovel handle fell against Gregory as he moved his hands into a prayer position and raised them to his eyes. “Sorry, man. No disrespect.”
Monty stepped between his helper and the stump. “We were trying to get it loose. No way. I’m smacking the stump with a framing hammer, trying to get the rebar loose. Or, even, pull it through the stump. Something.”
“Then this other cop; tall guy, he showed up, slides down the bank, lights up a cigarette. He was laughing, says, ‘Shit, Gunny, your car’s still on its wheels.’”
Monty turned to me. “Wendall. He stops laughing when he comes around, sees the rebar and the… blood. Not that much. Me and… Wendall, second later; we’re at the door. Your dad says, ‘Larry; could you tell Ruth…’ That’s all I got, ‘cause just then this Japanese lady, your mom, she shows up in…” Monty pointed to the Falcon before moving his finger toward the incline from the parking lot. “She slips as she comes off of the grade.”
“I ran over, helped her up.”
“You did, Digger; yes. Greg. Me and Wendall, Greg, too; we tried to keep her back, but she pushes between us, gets in the car on the passenger side. She seemed pretty… calm. Wendall wasn’t. Your dad says, ‘it’s fine, Larry.’ Wendall grabs the shovel.” Monty grabbed the shovel from Greg, thrusting it downward, hard, several times, into the stump until it stuck.
Monty was gasping for breath. “By this time, there’s so many cars, people, up, up on the highway. More sirens. I look in the car. The siren was off, but the light… it had popped off the roof, wire and all. It was still spinning; the engine was still… running. The, uh, your dad, he looks over at me, like maybe he knows me. He don’t.” Monty was breathing in gulps. “He looks at your mom. He says, ‘I always believed I rescued you.’ She reaches over, turns off the, the key, twists around, puts her arm, the same arm… around… him. And your mom kisses him, and she’s got blood… on her.”
Monty caught his breath. Most of it. “Then he, Wendall; he pulls me away from the window, pushes me back. He has this look in his eyes; it’s like he’s shaking his head, but he’s not. It’s just his eyes saying, you know, that it was over.”
The stump, somewhere around fourteen inches in diameter, had been cleanly cut with a chain saw. The part that had been removed was only a few feet away, visible in the heavy-bladed grass in a patch of green that surrounded the concrete box.
I looked at the slide marks and the crushed plants, the track we had come down. I imagined my mother coming down the bank, slipping, having to be helped back up. I imagined her in my father’s patrol car, reaching over, turning the key. I extended my right arm, moved it up until my hand was pointing up and at the highway. I moved my arm to the left, to where my father’s car slipped, sideways, on the new gravel. My flat hand represented the car as it slid, still sideways, to the bottom of the grade, plowing into the ancient river bottom, hitting the pile of rebar, one piece jammed into the stump, penetrating the door and my father like a bullet. I looked into the sun hanging just above the parking lot. I cupped my right hand, moved it, and then the left, above my eyes.
The shadow, the darkness, lasted but a moment. Another blinding light, and the spinning red light, and a vision of my father’s face as I passed him took over. Everything else was gone.
…
I was in shadow when the vision faded. I was on my knees. Gregory was directly in front of me. Monty was gone. I looked up toward the highway. Lee Anne Ransom, still in the light, had her camera aimed at Gregory and me. She waved. Gregory waved back as the reporter got into the Karmann Ghia and pulled away.
Gregory offered his ungloved right hand. I took it with both of mine. “Blisters,” I said as I stood up. “They turn into… callouses.”
“Not soon enough.”
“Gregory. How long?”
“How long you out for? Hmmm. ‘Bout a minute, I’d guess.”
I tried to remember what I had seen, or what I had imagined. Nothing. I remembered nothing. Not at that time. “Was I… shaking. I mean…”
“No, man; it was… weird; you were… it was like you was really… still. Like… church.”
“Did I… say anything?”
Gregory shook his head. I looked at him long enough that the motion turned into a nod. “You said ‘sorry’ a couple a times. Pretty much it. Hey, you good to… drive? I live in Oceanside, but I could…”
I followed Gregory to the corner between the parking lot’s fill and the established fill along the highway. Half-way up, he asked, “Who is… is there a… Julie?” My left foot slipped on the gravel. I caught my balance and continued up to the highway.
THANKS FOR READING. “Swamis” is copyrighted material, All changes are also protected. All rights are reserved for the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. THANKS for respecting that.
GOOD LUCK in finding the spot, the time, the right wave. More non-Swamis stuff on Sunday.
We have to, occasionally, scroll. My fault. I haven’t figured out how to tighten the borders on Drucilla’s Mac.
BY WAY OF EXPLANATION:
The ORIGINAL ERWIN LOGO thing came from trying to simplify my drawing style, such as, I’m often afraid, it is. Yes, I am planning on doing some more t-shirts as soon as I pay my taxes. I tried to make both sides of the wave match, then went to THE PRINTERY in Port Townsend, had Steven do the reversal/blue thing. I was so excited that I didn’t really perfectly align the reflection part. Close.
BECAUSE the SAILBOAT RACING THE SQUALL drawing was already being copied, a version came out blue (and reversed).
THE SALISH C tugboat illustration is the subtle color version, the colors all the more subtle(ized) by the vagaries of multiple copiers and printers and computer screens. Subtle and Simple are so fucking hard (I can say fucking because, so far, no one has told me not to. Still, I’m fucking cutting back… damn it).
THE YOUNG WOMAN illustration is another attempt to draw women without overdrawing. It is another possible cover or title page for “SWAMIS.” I have Dru working on adding some perfect non-hand-drawn lettering. She has, but, because I don’t know how to sign in to her acrobat account, it is unopen-able on her computer. It would be able to be opened on the laptop Trish is hanging on to, but then I would probably have to fucking (sorry) find it. AND YES, I’m so so close to finishing the final go through on the manuscript, trying so hard to keep it around 95,000 words.
FANTASY POINT. Here’s the point: Two local artists, JESSE JOSHUA WATSON (I insist on calling him Jesse Merle Watson- easier for me to remember) and STEPHEN R. DAVIS have done paintings of fantasy point breaks. I’m competitive.
I would put Jesse’s version up, but I would have to contact him and… and, anyway, no one wants anyone to believe any rendering or abstraction of lineups that don’t actually exist (yeah, maybe Indonesia or Surfer’s Journal) might be real. BUT, both Stephen and Jesse surf, so we do share similar inspirations. Maybe… okay, I’ll call someone who might have Jesse’s number. Meanwhile, google him. I DIDN”T SAY my interpretation is better. To quote another surfer/writer: “I wouldn’t say ‘better,’ I would say ‘different.’ ” I will gladly accept DIFFERENT.
PLEASE REMEMBER, all the rights to all original works on realsurfers.net are owned by someone.
This is my first time attempting to use my (suspect, quality wise) printer/scanner with my borrowed (thanks, Dru) Mac computer. I managed to get these without calling my daughter, but with some YouTube help. Please excuse the sometimes unfortunately placed bits of crap from, I don’t know, somewhere, and the wasted white space because I haven’t mastered the sizing part of all this. I could comment, at length, on each of my latest attempts at… whatever it was I am trying for. I will try not to.
Top to bottom:
“Racing the squall line.” Because I am involved, trying to assist Port Townsend librarian and fully-frothed surfer Keith Darrock in putting together an event, tentatively titled “Inspired by the Salish Sea,” I used the view from Port Townsend. I am inspired to do at least one more with the view surfers on the always languid Strait of Juan de Fuca, desperately looking to the west for any sign of an approaching swell more frequently get, an incoming squall. Worse, another shit weather front.
“The Salish Sea.” Possible title with info for the event or events on the rest of the page.
“Quilcene.” The Quilcene Village Store, quite the hip place nowadays, has several of my drawings in the sort of sitting/coffee area. They have been having a sort of contest to come up with postcards representing the area along Surf Route 101. This is my entry. When I showed it to Trish, she said, “Uh huh… it’s… okay.” This is after she poo-pooed the earlier version with a similar background (Mount Walker), but with a person in the foreground to add more, you know, like, interest. “Creepy,” she said. “Looks like a killer.” Okay, I rubbed him out. Metaphorically.
“Untitled Woman’s Face.” Trish told me I should draw some of the characters for my still-almost-finished novel, “Swamis.” I said, something she already knows, that I have trouble drawing women’s faces. I actually kind of cheated on this one. Googled “How to draw women’s faces.”Some… tracing was involved, just for stuff like, getting the eyes kind of lined up. Guaranteed, the drawing looks very little like the one I tried to copy.
“Inspired by the Salish Sea.” Definitely redrawing this one. The blank space is to allow room for the dates and times and the various speakers. “What I was going for,” every artist or writer (or surfer who just blew ten attempts at a floater) says, was a sort of Victorian, possibly Art Nouveau look. No where close. But… next time…
“Real surfers froth.” Yeah, it’s kind of like post-psychedelic graffiti, totally unreadable. A series of mistakes began when I didn’t allow enough room for the T in FROTH. I thought I kind of fixed that with the overlap. No. Then, when I took the original to the Printery to get reduced, part of the F and part of the H were cut out. Okay. So, maybe some color would help with that. Not really. Still, someday, this will be on some highest bidder’s wall, and when visitors ask about it, he or she will say, “I believe what Original Erwin was going for here was…”
Better. Always.
SWAMIS Note. Adam Wipeout and his family are down there. It is close to Legoland. I got a nice image the other day. Almost no one out, perfect conditions, and… yeah, I’m fine with it. Totally one hundred percent… fine.
It’s kind of a pain to pull out my inadequate printer/scanner, and I had hoped to scan a few more illustrations. The scanner seems to have pooped out before I could. I will get back to it.
progressionI have done some stuff with this one. I can’t show it yet. Too big.Kind of quickly colored-in. So much fun. Did consider this for a t-shirt. “Original Erwin” is probably too, um, big.
Happy almost-winter from the land of almost-waves. Yeah, the color doesn’t translate perfectly, but, again, the coloring was done under a time restraint. Next time, more.
There’s nothing in this post about voting out our esteemed president. Some hope, yeah; but nothing negative about the… dude.
EDIT- I woke up realizing I couldn’t let that go. I have been wondering about who, with so much truth available on what an immoral sack of deceit and seemingly bottomless self-centered meanness our power craving fuckwad of a president is, could continue to salivate each time he slurs out some new slurry of lies and just plain shit.
Make no mistake, like the people he has scammed in the past, you, if you are not someone filling your pockets in this new age cleptocracy, you are someone your leader, no doubt, considers a sucker and a loser. How much you have to lose is easily accessible. Oh, you might have to look somewhere other than Fux News.
Vote!
Vote!
My first SUP was, I thought, twelve feet long. As I have with every board I’ve ridden more than a few times, I thrashed the shit out of it; rode it over a few too many rocks, rode it onto a few rocky beaches. Surfing; that’s what boards are for.
By the time I got a newer board, that one was sooo heavy, soooo dinged up. I stuck up against a tree, hoping it would get lighter. Didn’t really work. Since I didn’t think I’d ever ride the thing again, I decided to strip it down and make a shorter, more responsive, lighter one.
My current board, a Hobie, is ten foot, six inches long, has carried me through thousands of waves, over many rocks, and is appropriately thrashed, poorly patched (drips, not sanded out), and, since I seem to be knee-boarding more and standing less, it seems proper that I go for a smaller board.
Yeah, but I still want it floaty enough to use a paddle. This is where the twelve foot comes in. After looking at the dead SUP and imagining how I’d cut some off the front, some off the tail, do a minimum of trimming, and, yeah…
No. The board was eleven feet, and, with a little cut off the front and back, with a skil saw, I suddenly had a really rough seven foot six blank. OOPS. I did, after stripping off the glass, throw it in the water to see if it would float me. Maybe, hopefully, not really sure. I’m also not really sure if, even if the blank did, if it as a further shaped and properly glassed board would.
So, after purchasing a couple of tools, including a plane for the stringer, and spending way too much time trying to get, like, one rail that matched the other side, I had roughly shaped a fat, downrail, pocket-rocking, fish-tailed, wailing vessel.
Yeah, well, that’s when I got ahold of Mike Norman, formerly nicknamed Mike-eee, not because there’s an E in Norman or anything, but to differentiate him from Mike Squintz. Well, Squintz has gone back to Florida, and, anyway, most surfers in the area called him Smoker Mike. Well, when he actually gives up smoking… Mike does work at the Port Townsend boatyard; not sure where, specifically, and he has been building a few surfboards lately, and, anyway…
Anyway, even though I heard Mike would have been farther ahead if I hadn’t tried to be all Skip Frye/Mike Hynson on the blank, I have made a deal with Mike; he finishes the shaping, figures out the fin setup, does the glassing. I might sneak in and do some graphics; oh, and some money will change hands, AND I will give Mike the 5’9″ Bic fish I got cheap and used from Al Perlee down at the Surf Shop in Westport, tried to ride. Once. Mike has kids who can use it. Even though I rode six foot boards for years (years ago now) a 5’9″ looks like a toy to me now.
Oh, yeah; and I was a bit lighter, also. Oh, yeah; and I said I would do a logo for Mike’s boards. Here it is:
I do need to make it a bit, um, simpler. Yeah, working on it.
Now, if it comes down to a few pounds that makes the difference between a paddle and no paddle… again, we’ll see.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG with something you have written, read it out loud. I figured I would start with that, only part of what happened at the “Art and Writings of Erwin Dence” Zoom event on the most recent Thursday night.
Keith Darrock, Port Townsend Librarian (he has a fancier title I can’t remember- just think librarian only more so, add in that he rips on any board in an ever-increasing quiver) and I got into the Zoom virtual space early, me on standby in my living room, he moving his laptop to an appropriate location in his home, books in the background.
Trish and our daughter, Dru, who had spent a lot of time making a slideshow from the illustrations (available for viewing on the previous post, non-slideshow) were joining-in from Dru’s place in Port Gamble.
I had spent part of the day preparing for what I hoped and imagined would happen at the Zoom event, having been way too distracted to get any significant work done the previous day because I was contacting and inviting (texting, mostly) folks I thought might be willing to participate.
WHEN I DID speak to someone, it turned into… well, I do like to talk. I should particularly mention that I spent some time on the cell phone with a local Port Townsend (professional- as in no other ‘real’ job) writer who was gracious/foolish enough to read the entire unexpergated version of “Swamis” and give me a lot of guidance. He said he’d probably be watching the last night of the Democratic National Convention, but, again, he was gracious/foolish enough to discuss what changes I had made to the manuscript since his review, and he did reveal why he had dedicated himself to writing. “I just couldn’t see myself doing anything else for a living.” “Road construction, retail sales?” “Good luck.”
BECAUSE I had never actually written a succinct description of “Swamis,” as in 25 words or less, and I wanted to sound more author-like if pressed, I endeavored to do so. Okay, it’s 376 words or so. AND, because, in my mind, the audience/Zoomers might include the folks who have attended library events in the past, I went through the manuscript and picked out three pages that I thought might appeal to that educated group of hip and literate PT word lovers. The subchapter is one of the more (I thought) semi-romantic parts of the story.
SO, 7pm Pacific Daylight Savings Time is 3pm on the Big Island of Hawaii where Stephen R. Davis, freshly freed from quarantine, is hanging out (and, yeah, I guess, working). He was one of the first to ZOOM in, from his phone, from a vehicle, riding with former PT resident, and, by all accounts, surf ripper, McKinna (probably didn’t get the name right- I’ve heard of him but may never have met him- son of a well-known surfer, actually learned to surf in Wa. state), heading out looking for surf.
“So crowded,” Steve said, “Lots of wahines in bikinis. Very little material. I can’t tell you how little material there is in these bikinis.”
Okay, pretty appropriate. By the time some other folks had joined, Steve and McKinna were going out at a surf spot with (we got to see this) some great looking waves. Other folks had joined in, a couple of library types, as in solid citizens, but mostly local surfers I could easily name; and, if I get them to sign some simple non-disclosure agreements, I might. Joke. Sort of. Permission.
If I had to summarize the evening, it was like what one would hear from a group of surfers in any beachside parking area, probably anywhere: Who snaked who, what happened after that one session at that one spot, where did all the hipsters and hodads come from, and what about that time when…
SOMEWHERE IN THERE, about the time when I had to cut my video because of limited bandwidth from my overstretched DSL line (not that I minded this, the slideshow was designed, mostly, so that folks didn’t have to look at me) I did read my description of “Swamis,” and, most-embarrassingly, I did read the three pages I had (erroneously) selected, trying to vary the voices for the four characters.
THERE ARE sections of the novel with actual surfing, brilliantly described, with less dialogue from fewer voices.
THIS WAS WHEN STEPHEN R. DAVIS returned, chased, he said, out of the water by a “pack of rippers. Kids. They’re everywhere over here. So many rippers.” SO, we (and we, by this time, included, among others, Dru’s friend, professional DJ, Trenton, and Trisha’s nephew, and, I guess, my nephew-in-law, or, maybe, just nephew, Dylan, La Jolla surfer and recent graduate from UCLA Law School) were treated to another virtual tour of the Big Island, commentary by Steve, with continuing banter from what constitutes most of the unofficial PT Surf crew, special dispensation for ADAM WIPEOUT and, sort of, me, both of us from the SURF ROUTE 101 division. Unofficial.
NEXT DAY REVIEW: Fun; some good stories shared. Trish told Dru I was nothing like Joey in my novel, told me I definitely need help in writing anything even close to romantic fiction. Steve added significantly to if he did not entirely save the event. Dylan, probably used to surfing in the crowded California city surf with it’s ghetto mentality, thought it was great that surfers actually could enjoy each other’s company, even virtually. Steve and McKinna scored some empty rights at sunset, Hawaii time.
Here’s my description of “Swamis:”
Joseph DeFreines, Jr. tells stories centered around the legendary Southern California surf spot, Swamis, focusing on 1969. It’s a world of hippies and burnouts and Jesus Freaks and protesters, a time when words like love and peace and war and revolution might all be used in a single sentence.
Joseph’s father, a detective with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, has just died in, of course, mysterious circumstances; Joe has just graduated from an inland high school and moved to the coast; he’s turning eighteen and facing the draft; and he’s falling in love with a surfer girl whose father definitely has a connection with the North County’s cash crop, the area’s open secret, marijuana.
The growing and processing and selling of marijuana is progressing, getting more sophisticated, more profitable, and more dangerous. The formerly cottage industry is evolving from the homegrown, with plants hidden in the avocado orchards and kids selling dime bags. There is money to be laundered, good citizens getting involved. There is, or could be, a wholesale market.
The unofficial line with the Sheriff’s Office, in a quote from Joseph, Senior, is “The world works on an acceptable level of corruption.”
When a man is burned to death just outside of the white walls of the religious compound that gives Swamis its name, that level has been breached.
While surfing has its too-obvious allure; too much freedom in too little clothing, its aura of rebellion and undeniable coolness, it also has, at least in Joseph’s mind, a certain set of high standards, a code of conduct. He’s wrong. He’s naïve. It’s a different world, existing con-currently with the world of commuters, the world of law enforcement, the world of pot… so many concurrent realities.
The characters in “Swamis” are complex: A detective’s son with possible epilepsy and a history of violent outbursts; a wounded returning Vietnam Vet; an ex-teen runaway-turned-evangelist; a Japanese war bride; a hired thug who becomes a respected detective; a black photojournalist; an East Indian who wanted to be a revolutionary and was banished from London; Mexican middlemen under immense pressure. If Swamis are seekers more than prophets, they are all Swamis. Still, none are perfect.
Maybe Virginia Cole. To Joey.
Maybe, among the chaos, there’s the occasional perfect moment, the perfect ride on a perfect wave.
Thursday, August 20, 7pm Pacific Daylight Savings Time. So, to Zoom in, and, frankly, I’m a bit worried about this, particularly since I can’t seem to figure out how to highlight stuff so it’s easy for you, but, okay, https://zoom.us/j/91279664230
Allright. No, not really, but, when the event starts, moderator/curator/librarian/ripper Keith Darrock is planning to show some of my illustrations. This is partially so Zoomers don’t have to see my face, and it was totally my idea. Yeah, Keith agreed. It seems like the easiest way to do this was to put a bunch on my site, let Keith scroll down. As such, I have attempted to move some from a thumb drive. We’ll see how that works. Stand by.
Another failed “New Yorker” submission, this one dealing with Church Mice waiting for the “Hallelujah-ing” to start.
For those of us who never met Mr. O’Neill, but enjoyed the ever-increasing comfort and warmth as wetsuits continued to get less cumbersome and more comfortable, the image of the man is tied to the photo of the man in the eyepatch. This drawing is also derived from that image. Thanks for the warmth.
Here’s a colorized version. It all gets washed-out a bit from the scanner/computer connection
the ghost of Rincon, adapted from a Ron Stoner photo of Miki Dora, both feeling the music
This is a slightly-altered version of a drawing already posted. Trish asked me if it was a woman or a man. “She needs a little more… definition.” Okay.
This is a drawing I did for a piece on the World Mind Surfing League
sorry to interrupt my own story, but in this version I added color to the original larger drawing.
If you found or find this key, maybe you could let me know. I have a replacement key but will probably not ever have a replacement Nokumoi surf company key ring.
And here’s what went wrong. I was working on the lettering, and had it pretty much done while sort of watching another British murder series on Netflix. Just as they revealed who really done it, and just as I was about to show Trish, I realized I had spelled Swamis incorrectly. Swamies.
Great. So, white out. I’ve taken to using the tape; sort of wroks (I mean works). SO, then I make a copy with my prin ter (also sort of works- images come out a bit crooked), and go back in and fix it. WELL, not yet; I’m thinking of getting a negative image, adding a bit more white.
If the image looks familiar, it’s from a Ron Stoner photo of Billy Hamilton, 1966. Mr. Hamilton is actually in my novel, “Swamis,” and probably from the same era. After one of my most memorable Swamis sessions to that point, from the ‘old men stop here’ platform on the stairs that were there at that time, I saw him cranking the most beautiful and flowing roundhouse to off the foam to in the pocket move (move as in it was seamless) I have still ever witnessed.
OKAY, so I took out a couple of other surfers who were in the Stoner photo, didn’t do justice to Mr. Hamilton. He’s stockier in my illustration, wrong here, not leaning into the turn as much as in the original… yeah, yeah… Hey, I am giving credit to Ron Stoner. His photos were, after John Severson’s in the first issues, the very heart of “Surfer” magazine; they captured the magic and mystery of the era.
I DID do a bit of a search for the photo, not wanting to risk scanning the photo ripped from an issue of “Surfer’s Journal”; ripped out only because there was some sort of misprint ting in that issue that ended up with most of the middle of the magazine duplicated. I didn’t find the actual photo, but I did find another Stoner photo.
When I was a sophomore at Fallbrook High School, 1966/67, Donn Fransich (sp?) brought in some “Surfer” magazines for show and tell in, I think, History class. He would stick them on the tray of one of those heavy, clunky overhead projectors. The photo on the right is one that I remembered from that his presentation. Not perfect, but perfect.
I’ve always remembered the photo, always wanted to see that vantage point in person. Coming back on the bus after a wrestling match with San Dieguito High School in which I actually didn’t lose, I still swear I saw surfers above and beyond the Self Realization Fellowship compound. When I lived in Encinitas in the seventies, I would often drive down the hill; again, looking for that magical image.
That Ron Stoner disappeared mysteriously; no, that doesn’t diminish the magic, not a bit. It’s there, the magic we chase; moments and images. I have caught some moments, surfing, that I will not forget; I am still trying to scratch and erase and capture, to flow into a perfect image. Not there; might never get there.
Real Surfers 