…I was hoping to go surfing, girl, almost any waves will do. Though I’d rather have some long smooth glides, glassy faces, spinning tubes; With some outside sets and a few friends, shouting, “Hey, this one’s for you.” But the swell just won’t cooperate, despite prayers, chants, voodoo; And the next storm’s bearing down on us, Guess I’m hunkering with you… and… wait; let me check the buoys… Oh, um, hey; wait-a-minute, whoa; Baby, Honey; oh, oh, oh; You know my stuff’s all loaded up, and I’m ready to explode; It’s, uh, looking like it just could work, and, I mean; What would you have me do? You know, um, you could just go with me, and, if it’s blown-out or it’s flat… we could hunker in the parking lot and… No? Oh. Okay; thought you just might be liking that.
So… I’ll be back before you know it; with my batteries recharged, and… no; it’s, like a metaphor. Okay, bad metaphor. And now… now I’ve lost my musical thread. Yeah, sure; once I’m heading out, anticipating and hoping… no, not ‘stroking the other woman.’ Wait, I’ll check the buoys… sometimes… oh. Yeah, still looks, you know, good. No, I didn’t say ‘enticing.’ Oh. So, “Go,” you say, “Just go.”
Okay. You’re the best. And I’ll be thinking of you while I’m…I’m…
…I’m headed up the highway, blasting Dylan on the way, the storm on the horizon, but no wind out on the bay; and my other woman’s back at home, tucking in among the sheets. It’s an image so enticing, I could easily turn back, but the swell’s now rapping perfectly… and my board, after all’s, already tied down to the rack.
My only woman, Trish (work and surfing, oh, and drawing and writing, are the ‘other’ women) said the dark swoop (and I was trying to keep this simple, possibly for a t shirt design) looked like a big sea snake or something, so, now the drawing’s more complicated. Fine. Simple is too difficult.
Meanwhile, I should probably do some updating: It’s raining, TV weatherpeople hyping up the next storm. During the past few days, even the NCBC, National Data Buoy Center has had high wave warnings, hyping the storm that’s been hitting the coast with unsurfable waves, the angle just too south for the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I thought I might go today, just like I thought I might go yesterday; and just like I think (hope) I might go tomorrow. I got skunked the last two times I went (counting one trip, with five ‘step off on the beach’ rides as a non-skunk. A week ago yesterday, a Friday, I went to my Dad’s in Chinook, arriving too late to attempt another go at Seaside, and thinking it would be blown out, anyway. It wasn’t. On Saturday I got up super early in a driving rainstorm, drove to Westport for the SURFRIDER’S CLEANWATER CLASSIC. Horrible conditions. I did hang out with DARRYL WOOD, and another Port Angeles guy, JOE; and we did sell quite a few hoodies and t-shirts for the OLYMPIC PENINSULA CHAPTER of Surfrider with a design by TODD FISCHER. Oh, and I sold a few Realsurfers Coloring Books, gave one to the first surfer I met in Washington State, Darryl, and another to DARRIN, who I never seem to immediately recognize, but the surfer who gave me a ride to the beach when I was caught in a rip last winter. The contest was shortened and shut down due to the crapfest conditions, heats moved to Sunday. On Sunday, the conditions had to have been better. I was home, looking at buoys and forecasts, a bit bummed because I hadn’t even ridden a crappy wave. OH, and I did sell my commissioned work (see next blog down) to TOM BURNS, a judge at the contest, headed immediately afterword to California.
SO, TRUMP continues to grapple with having groped, we’re getting November weather in October, BOB DYLAN won a Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, and, HYDROSEXUAL STEPHEN DAVIS, who I criticized for going to La Push ahead of the storm (and he scored), is also heading for California (he’ll be working Tom Burns surfing) … we finally did get some news about ARCHIE ENDO. He’s still in Thailand, conscious, but unable to speak. He’s communicating with the aid of a board, words and phrases in Japanese. Longterm plan is to move him to Japan where his father lives. We asked his daughter, Lillian, to let him know a lot of Northwest surfers are pulling for him, and I’m waiting a chance to go surfing with him again.
SUPER UPDATE: Keith just called me to tell me I really missed it this morning. Yeah, thanks for going along with the policy of not calling anyone, the “If they don’t know, don’t tell them.”
I was thinking Honolua Bay, but probably not soon enough. Almost done, I had the thought that I should have raised the horizon to actually give the effect that this is from up on a cliff, and the waves are coming in from the bottom right. Okay, too late, but, still unable to try to verbalize and explain… working on that.
I went through a lot of drawings a while back with my sister, Melissa Lynch, the real artist, and the one I’d done of The Little Mermaid, adding some waves rather than a harbor, was criticized, and Melissa doesn’t go into detail, at least when I’m flashing drawings at her, but the mermaid’s chin was too, um, prominent. Always (now) thinking of the coloring book, I redrew it, also doing a little lightening-up.
Okay, so, so now I’m thinking, imagining what I want to see next. But, meanwhile…
Thanks, Rico.
And here’s a backstory on the drawing of the guy on the nose. I’ve drawn it several times, had it all finished, but it didn’t seem right. I went back to the drawing I took this from, realized the surfer’s left arm is supposed to be in front of his face. Oops. And now it’s a bit darker. If I could, on occasion, sort of duplicate the silky, magic-lighting look of classic John Severson photos, I would. Maybe this is as close as I’ll get (not that I won’t keep trying).
Working on it.
Real Surfers 
A great deal of what I know about surfing was learned through an amalgamation of my own trying and failing, reading, conversations with Frank at nxnw, and watching Archie. It would go like this: I would see Archie surfing, try to emulate and fail, go do a ton of research about what I saw and how it worked and how I failed, then talk to Frank about what I was reading and get some well-needed trimming and redirection from him. Eventually, it got to a point where it all started coming together, and Archie and I were surfing together quite a bit; and it was so incredibly beneficial. What a smart, stylish man…simultaneously capable of wise, incisive critiques and nearly limitless patience delivered with a special economy of language derived from being an already reserved man operating in a second language.
It’s not the coast, there isn’t going to be waves all the time. The straits are a place made for a surfer like Archie, a fickle, intricate, complex set of oceanography where the payoff is glassy, longboard gliders. I saw Archie ride 6″ waves all the way into the rivermouth crouched like a baseball catcher and, incredibly, 20 or 30 yards upstream into the river. It’s slow, foggy, winding, damp drives on mossy roads and cold water. I followed the Torino and the Ranchero rumbling along in my pickup at mellow speeds into town for dinner after cold sessions. It’s a skunker, a day wasting, soul crushing gas burner for those who cannot or will not put in the time and effort to figure it all out and arrive at just the right moment for the magic….it’s a natural club when you figure it out and start showing up to find the same people every time.
When my work and living situation changed, and I was forced to leave my surfing gear and move to make a living; Archie made a tiny, perfectly-shaped longboard out of driftwood from the strait; and he sent it with a small note saying that now I would always have a board. Having this arrive while I was driving trucks in the plains was so incredibly meaningful. It was perhaps one of the most thoughtful gestures anyone has ever made toward me…setting in stone my resolve to work through hard times and return myself to the sea.
Literally, today, I’m working through projects with my 79 Ford…which was bought because a surfer should have a stylish and functional rig, it was bought with memories of Archie’s Torino wagon rolling snow tires on cragers. Waves here are fickle and infrequent as well, not nearly as tricky to call but colder and more physically demanding. I carry a synthesis of Archie with me as I go, in my internal jury, carefully discerning what would be the most stylish, most efficient, most refined, most balanced way…regardless of my ability to achieve those levels, I carry the standard he set and it makes me a better person.