Category Archives: real surfers

“Dark Mercury Velvet” and 55 Years and Murals and…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, northwest surfing, old surfers, perfect waves, real surfers, surf culture, surf stories

…More.

Surfers don’t necessarily NEED nicknames. In order to last, there has to be a story. Some stories hold up better over time. Example:A recent incident involving a car ‘vandalized’ in a parking lot with accusations thrown around by the victim or victims of, allegedly, a banana peel on the hood (or roof, I wasn’t there) and some amount of sunscreen on a (side, I believe) window. Three surfers exiting the water and approaching the lot were challenged by the victim(s) and his or her or their friends, called in for support/backup.

Paraphrasing, the first of the three; “How could I have done it. I was in the water.” Similar answers from the other two. “It must have been the FOURTH SURFER, then.” The Fourth Surfer was gone. His compatriots refused to give him up. Authority figures showed up. THERE has been further back and forth on the incident; e mails, some conciliatory, but the question is: Will the nickname THE FOURTH SURFER nickname (and he denies perpetrating the crime) stick?

Does Rico need a better nickname than RICO SUAVAY (phonetic spelling), that, face it, isn’t all that cool, although Rico definitely dresses the part? Suave. Here is another option: I ran into Rico the other dayk, chatted a bit on the side of the road about a near-dark to dark session. Now, Rico is a writer, but I was still very impressed when he described the waves as “Dark merury velvet walls.” Edited to Mercury Velvet,” it sounds like a nickname to me. We’ll see.

BECAUSE TIME seems to move so quickly, I have been telling people for a while that, if I make it to June, I will have been a painter for 55 years. NOW, Trish disagrees, claiming I can’t claim the two years and three months I worked as a sign painter apprentice/nub at Buddy’s Sign Service in Oceanside, immediiately after graduating from high school. “But, Honey, that allowed me to get hired as a journeyman painter at twenty.” “They were desperate.”

They were. Still, I persevered and… now iit’s June, and…

This is my latest artsy/painterly project, the HISTORICAL MUSEUM in Quilcene, what has, after 45 years plus, my de facto home town. This is the third time I painted the mural. At the museum’s opening, in 1991, I went to the committee and volunteered to do a mural. “What will it look like?” “Whatever I come up with. If you don’t like it, I’ll paint over it.” In the 2000s I painted the entire building and freshened up the mural. Recently I saw there was a meeting going on, and I again offered my services.

None of the new crop of volunteers on hand knew who I was. Their plan was to get a restoration artist to match the colors and, yeah, restore the mural. “What?” That I was a cheaper alternative doesn’t really bother me, even though I put at least two days more work into it than I had planned. I haven’t put my name on it. One of the volunteers said, “It’ll probably be the last time you paint it.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

MEANWHILE, the shirts with the graphic I did are available at the Port Townsend Public Library. All you have to do is promise to read, like, so many hours.

More events are coming up in the greater Olympic Peninsula Surf Zone. The FOURTH OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE EVENT is scheduled for JULY 17. More information later. Oh, and if you can’t be nice, be real. Get some waves, dark mercury velvet or otherwise, when you can.

Sorry ’bout the Delay- Live Surf Contests are…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf art, surf culture, surf culture events, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing novels

…not exactly addictive, but, as a fan, with favorites, some winning, some not; if there’s a chance to watch… I just mighjt. NEWS for the Non-Watchers and the WSL haters, John John won the mens, moments ago and Caroline Marks… Yeah, I’m sure you know by now.

I kind of half thought it was Father’s Day today, another excuse, this one for sleeping late, not being totally concerned about work (the kind that pays selected bills), and maybe even taking a nap. It isn’t Father’s Day. While Mother’s Day (l’m choosing the singular possessive here because, while we can celebrate all mothers, it’s our own that we should be honoring) is set up during the school year, with craft assignments designed to produce refrigerator art and coffee table crafts, fathers have to wait, and wait, and get something store bought. Still, most likely refrigerator and coffee table stuff. BUT StILL…

I did do some surfing since my last posting, memorable mostly in that my psychedelic oil-filled eye didn’t present too much of a problem. Or the bright sunlight and the decent waves made me ignore it. Or I just closed the left one while screaming down the line. That’s screaming as in ‘loudly proclaiming.’

On that front, there is still some scarring in the eye and the potential that the retina could come loose, so, out of an abundance of caution, I get to go at least another three weeks with the magical liquid holding the wallpaper to the inner walls. I am learning more each time I get checked out. Not that I’ve been anxious to know some of this. And, again, I have a bit of regret for not giving a bit more sympathy for other surfers who have problems with the glare and such in the water.

In a non-similar situation, I stumbled and crashed going out on my last session, doing the dive straight in rather than the wade, AND, as is increasingly happening, I got thrashed trying to land in a not-that-vicious shorebreak, pushing my board up the beach and crawling with, of course, witnesses. IN BETWEEN, of course, I ripped.

Not just me, of course, but if it’s ever SURFERS DAY, I will use the singular possessive ‘surfer’s,’ and the surfer’s performance I am most concerned with, though I do appreciate any good-to-great ride by anyone, is mine.

Allow me a moment to look up SOCIOPATHIC NARCISSISTS’ DAY.

Artist/surfer Stephen R. Davis and I at the COLAB in Port Townsend with my panels. Photos by Joel Carben. Joel and his wife, Rachel, run the collaborative work space and have allowed me to exhibit my work there. Steve helped spread the word on social media.

Side note: I’m wearing the t-shirt I designed for the Port Townsend Public Library’s SUMMER READ.

Secret note: Partially (only partially) because non of the semi local crew would say that I’m in any way thinner than another local surfer, I’m getting more serious about dieting. Slightly more serious. I’m switching from ice cream to yogurt, mushroom burgers (with cheese and sometimes eggs) to salads; I’m avoiding chips, fries, donuts; and I’ve broken it off, hopefully for good, with Little Debbie; and I’m rethinking my longterm obsession with Hostess.

Meanwhile, there are plans and schemes for the NEXT OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT. The date is set for July 17th. Art, talking story, special guests… MORE to be reported, LATER!

Hope you’re scoring some waves on occasion. As always, if you can’t be nice, be real.

Doors, Panels, Screens, Artsy Dealies, My Most Recent Obsessions, Eye, Eye, Eye, AND BIG DAVE Stuff

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, mind surfing, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf addiction, surf art, surf fiction, surf novels, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing novels, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, writings of Erwin Dence

Trish wasI, as always, correct when she said I had become obsessed with these door panels I have been working on; four by-fold doors rescued/salvaged/pack-ratted from some job. My theory was, because everyone has limited wall space for art, these would serve as screens, or even, doors.

Yes, there’s an inside and an outside, and I kind of lost track of what was on one side when I was painting the other side. It wasn’t all, like, thematic. Maybe a little. Obviously I have some sort of fascination with waves. And color. I would start out, get to something that was not what I envisioned and… here’s the obsessive part; I would keep going until l was a high percentage of satisfied. The fear at some point is that I could then screw the whole thing up. A line too far. Or a color. Or… something.

I want to thank Joel and Rachel Carben, owners of the COLAB in Port Townsend, for allowing me to have my art in their space. Although I paint houses for a living, my artistic leanings have been toward drawing.

SO, I am not at all sure what to do with these panels now. Hanging out for three of the monthly Port Townsend ARTWALKS has reinforced my belief that marketing is not my strong suit. Not even close. SO, do I tell myself that the joy of art is in the process? That is true, but… but, but, but…

Captions: Stephen R. Davis approaching the wall of doors at the COLAB;Joel Carben and Steve; a framed painting that caused Steve to comment,”It’s nice that you’re finally going for fine art,”; various panels taken where they were painted (a Costco/White Trash garage). OHHH, and then there’s BIG DAVE.

I took this a week or so ago at the Home Depot in Sequim. I had already heard a rumor that Legendary Surfer BIG DAVE RING was giving up surfing due to arthritis in his knees. I did write about this. The rumor was confirmed. *Sort of. Quickly, Dave was raised in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and was part of the pack of “Pier Rats” that included standout, Joe Roper. Dave, currently 66, was fourteen when I moved to PB in late 1971. I was twenty. Not a big talker in the lineup, not a guy who hangs out and chats it up on the beach, part of the reason I found out any info at all is because we have been mistaken for each other, as in: “I read your last thing on your blog,” to Dave, or “I heard you were ripping the other day,” to me.

Most of this was back when Dave was merely rocking a big-ass mustache. We both were riding big boards (Dave a 12′ SUP as a regular surfboard), and we both caught a lot of waves, from the outside, or scrapping for insiders. Dave is a master of the late takeoff and the sideslip, and plows through sections I would dodge..

A notable quote that got back to me was, “I rolled up and the Walrus and the Beast were both out. I went somewhere else. Though I’m almost more comfortable with being referred to as ‘That asshole wavehog, kneeboards on a SUP,” and I’ve been doing my best to increase the size of my mustache, I must agree with those who say Big Dave is the Walrus. Coo coo ca choo, coo coo ca choo.

*Having already, in a pattern that seems to hold true among older surfers, moved from popping up automatically, to knee boarding the takeoff and standing up after the first section, to kneeboarding the entire wave, Dave expressed little interest in belly boarding. “No, but…” I could tell Dave was imagining the perfect pre dawn session, sneaking out, lining up a few bombers.

“It is amazng,” he said, “what I’ve gotten done because I’m not always putting stuff off to go surfing.”

I get it, Dave.

EYE and LEG UPDATE- I’m finally through with the wound care for the gouge on my right calf. Pretty impressive scar. I am going to have my eye checked out on Friday, with surgery to remove the clear oil inside it, hopefully, scheduled for… soon. It isn’t as if I can’t work, it’s just annoying. I sort of attacked a woman in a parking lot the other day because she had a bandage over one eye. “Hey, what happened to you?” Different deal. Worse than mine. Nice conversation. ANYWAY, I did tell Trish that, because of the glare in the water, I might not surf until the oil in my eye is exchanged for (I asked) saline solution, that to be replaced by the proper bodily-produced fluid.

BUT, but, but… when I check the forecast…

Moving on. Back to another of my obsessions. After I post this, my plan is to get back to “Swamis.” I had friends attempt to read earlier versions. I know where I have to make changes, and I have been working on it. That’s my process. Evidently. Obsession, distraction; what we have to do and what we want to do and what we really really want to do.

Good luck with your obsessions.

Sometimes Taking the Skunking…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surfing, surfing art, surfing the strait of juan de fuca

…might be the wiser choice. You’ve faced this situation: The waves are crappy; side-blown, the tide completely wrong for the spot, and bound to get wrong-er for the next two hours; and the wind’s supposed to get stronger, wronger; sideshore, onshore, with a swirling bit of actual offshore just to help convince you that it’s go out, or hang out, or go home skunked and… yeah, you’re there to surf. And, another mind-push, is that you (and by you, I mean me) missed the last window because you had some sort of responsibility you couldn’t get out of, although, to be honest, you/I could have gone later and, as it turned out, scored.

I blame you. Me. Regrets. It totally wrong that sessions, or even particular waves we miss (you and I) are often regretted more than sessions or waves in which we believe we scored are properly appreciated.

Still… Fuck! Despite it being against somebody’s rules, if you have friends who surf, and they score, or claim they scored, and you didn’t… you will hear about it. “Why weren’t you out there?” Fuck! Should’a gone.

WHEN I was learning (should say ‘first’ learning), living twenty miles from any waves, and at the mercy of anyone willing to drive (my siblings and me, friends and me, me), I would go out in anything. Like… ANY THING!

That hasn’t really changed through the years. Even when I lived five minutes or less from waves, fitting surfing into my schedule (other obligations, but, working, mostly) meant hitting it with all the other weekend warriors and after-work maniacs, so, crappy conditions; I thought of it as practice.

PRACTICE. Of all the sessions I’ve surfed on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a very high percentage fall into this category. If riding tiny waves makes one better equipped for bigger waves, choppy waves prepare one for clean ones, YEP, I’ve practiced.

STILL doing the make-my-best-assessment, move-other-schedule-issues-around, and GO!

I have a pretty good story on my latest session, and on why, even though I got a couple decent rides, I should have passed on it. It would sound kind of like whining, so… another time. I challenged tjhe conditions and… next time. NEXT time.

WAIT! I just checked my schedule AND the forecast. Busy, not so good. Please allow me to rethink my most recent session. I mean, I got a couple of decent rides, considering. Maybe… and this is what I would say to anyone I haven’t already reported the truth to… “Yeah, almost no one out! It was… GREAT!

meanwhile, in addition to more work shirked than accomplished on my novel, “Swamis,” I have some art projects I’m working on. More in my retro/psychedelic period. Photos soon.

AI (not Andy), Wurfers, Chas Smith, Verbosity…

Posted on by under northwest surfing, real surfers, surf addiction, surf culture, surf satire, surfing, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, writings of Erwin Dence

When I jump start my tablet each morning, after I check the buoys closest to places I might want to surf, the ones that actually give data on wave height and/or direction (and often it is a choice), and check to see how many people checked out realsurfers, and from where, and before I risk another disappointment by checking my bank balance, I go to MSN (Microsoft News) to get a quick peek at what’s going on (Trump gagging or being gagged, floods and famine and war, MTG and AOC), adding a click on ‘money’ to check crude oil prices so I can be hopeful (on not) on what gas is going to cost tomorrow (if the price per barrel is going up), or next week if it, you know, going down.

MAYBE, one time I clicked on something from Fux News. Mistake. “Stay in the bubble!” The bubble. SO, now I get some craaazy stuff from other OUTLETS (suddenly mind-wandered to Outlet Malls, stuff that wouldn’t sell at full price or to discerning shoppers), pushing theories like, I don’t know, I check the headline and hit the ‘right’ arrow. YES, sometimes I get an ad for adult diapers or ‘guaranteed cutthroat, budget defense attorneys, BUT, what is most annoying is I keep getting stuff from “The INERTIA.”

I BELIEVE, and maybe I’m becoming a conspiracy theory person (not a robot, quit asking), but it might just be ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is focusing in on me. PRETTY SCARY!

SURE, I’m cool with YouTube offering the latest from NATHAN FLORENCE, or JOHN FLORENCE, or MASON HO, any ongoing contest on the WSL, tonight’s monologue by STEPHEN COLBERT, last night’s highlights from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and I’ll totally waste time on the quickies that, for me, custom, includes quick clips of CLINT EASTWOOD and RACHEL MADDOW, and I’ve pretty much burned through timelapse videos of this or that amazing artists, and sixty years or so worth of BOB DYLAN outtakes and bootlegs and stories about Bob from people who brushed against him at Disneyland once.

AND, YouTube wise, AI may be giving up on offering me quick vids of amazing female athletes warming up, adjusting their outfits… HEY, one time taking the bait and… It seems like it takes a couple of weeks of hitting on titles like “Life affirming Bible quotes,” and “The joy of fully clothed yoga” to get AI recalibrated.

BACK TO “The Inertia.” Yes, I often do check out the articles. “The link between surfing and music.” Sure.
Ego and surfing.” Okay. It’s kind of like, sometimes, if you don’t hit on it while it’s offered on MSN, you can’t find it again. And it might have been, you know, good. So far, what I have read was most likely meant for a general, non-surfing audience or, at best someone other than you, me… real surfers. Fine. When the thing comes up that says, ‘continue,’ I might not.

IN SEARCHING for the Inertia, my computer warned me it was an unsafe connection.. WHEW! I tried again. Same thing. Third time, I got… this:

It’s from an article published several years back on dangerous women surfers (I accidentally typed ‘wurfers’ in the headline, decided to leave it. The article was written by CHAS SMITH.

IT SEEMS LIKE, if I want to keep up with surfing and surf journalisma and surf criticism, I cannot get away from Chas. Yes, I have tried to get through the hour-plus podcasts, and failed. MAYBE if I listened to them while I was working… maybe; but I have watched the shorter, edited versions. “Pros in the wild” will get me watching, extended chats on how to be a better person… no.

So, brevity. Now that most of us know how to self-checkout, and all of us have ADHD… I’ll try it.

Goodbye.

Hope you score.

More Doors AND… Panamaniacs

Posted on by under northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf art, surf culture, surfing art, surfing blogs

I took this photo from the internet; “Surf World” or something. Five rippers from the wave-starved Olympic Peninsula headed down there almost two weeks ago and are due back in the next couple of days. Yes, I asked for some sort of report. No, and I’m not trying to put any guilt on anyone… I’m sure there are excuses/reasons/explanations (band width, remoteness, lack of desire, too much wave action), I have not heard anything other than a second hand report from Adam Wipeout that Cougar Keith may have gotten the ride of the trip to that point (text message- I didn’t try, figuring cost of phone usage from the Central America, stuff like that), but, yeah, I TOTALLY WANT TO GET THE REPORT!

MEANWHILE, between getting filmed at a secret(ish) Strait of Juan de Fuca spot (Stephen R. Davis, also, with a surprise cameo, after whatever waves there may have been went to shit, by Jason Queen [not a nickname]) for some future artsy docu-thingy about me (despite my weak protestations by a woman who works for the Gates Foundation (more on this at a later date, but camera angles were demanded that diminished the chances of site identification, and yes, I would love to see a slow motion drone shot of me tucking my chunky body into a stretched-out wave); between this and getting a second surgery on my left eye after the first one for a detached retina failed. 10%, evidently, do; so, so lucky to be in the top percentile for something; oh, and the gash from my fall several months back is officially ‘almost’ well, though I was advised not to surf because of imagined (by the wound care nurse originally from Cuba, who thought maggots could have been an option) seal shit in the water.

“Oh, that,” I said, not having told her we saw several seals on the day of the filming, which, of course, I had not told her about.

MEANWHILE MEANWHILE, I still have my art retrospective at the COLAB in downtown Port Townsend. It will be there for one more ART WALK, the first Saturday in June, and I’m working on some more door panels. I have three bi-fold doors in progress, so six paintings. At this point I’m only willing to call three of them ‘almost’ done, so it’s kind of like three A sides, three B sides.

Not good enough. But they will be.

As I said, almost. Triple meanwhile, while I’m out of the waters for a while, five rabid rippers are set to return to a lineup near you. AS ALWAYS, if you can’t be nice, be real.

No Big Dave, No…

Posted on by under aggressive surfers, hipster surfers, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf adventures, surf culture, surf stories

WORD ON THE STRAIT has it that BIG DAVE RING is giving up surfing. This would be a loss to whatever surfing community we believe we have.

All right, I immediately have to backtrack. I do divulge my sources; almost always. Adam Wipeout ran into Dave at Carl’s Building Supply. Or Henery’s Hardware- not important. Big Dave quitting surfing is. Important.

Big Dave is a secretive sort of person. I’m not. I’m not actually sure his last name is Ring. I may have heard his last name once, but not from him. I asked him for his phone number. Once. He said he’d give me one number each time I asked. “So, let me guess; three?”

Dave doesn’t talk much in the lineup. I do. He doesn’t often hang out on the beach, swapping stories. He is patient in the water, and is actually known for staying out for more hours than anyone. He picks out the best waves, sideslips in full control, and rather than barrel dodging sections, he drives through them. I have never seen him not in the best part of a wave, power in the pocket.

The only reason we sort of became friends (I say yes, you can ask him) is that we have some shared history. When I moved to Pacific Beach, San Diego, California in 1971, I was twenty. Dave was five or six years younger, a self-described “Pier Rat” hanging at Crystal Pier with Joe Roper and the rest of the local Gremmies. I can’t say I have a mental picture of fifteen year old Dave, but knew Joe Roper’s name because he was the best surfer in the bunch, and the most vicious. I can’t mention Joe Roper without retelling how he purposefully slammed his board into a guy in the shorebreak because (and I asked) the guy was from Clairemont. Perhaps it is not ironic that Joe’s repair facility is in… is it in Clairemont?

It wasn’t like I was in any group myself, but I was, for those couple of years, a local, for whatever that was or is worth. Still, I probably felt more connected to the pier rats than the other surfers who jockeyed for position in the crowded weekend and after work conditions. This was where I developed my Ghetto Mentality, a sort of excuse I have yet to totally disavow.

Big Dave, a few years ago, taking a rare break

Another connection I have with Dave is that we are sometimes mistaken for each other. It’s the mustache, perhaps. “People have said they really liked that thing I wrote on my blog,” Dave told me. “I just say ‘thanks.'” An argument continues as to which one of us is the Walrus, and which the Beast.

I have run into Big Dave over the years. He rescued my board in the rip once. If I paddled out and he was in the lineup he would say, “Oh, someone left the gate open.” Part way through a session, he would say, “The wave counters on the beach say you’ve caught enough.” I recently ran into him when he was with the Jefferson County road crew, setting up to close off another road. He said he’d gone to the doctor with a diagnosis of arthritis in his legs. “The doctor said it would mean a change in my… lifestyle.” “He meant… surfing?” “Maybe.” “No, man. No.”

There is some similarity in our arcs as we head past middle age. Dave has been riding a twelve foot SUP as a regular board for years. No paddle. It has been a while now that he, paddling back out, commented that I get to my feet like an old man. He was right. Still, over the past couple of years, he went from taking off, dropping in, and standing after the first section. Then, as with me, staying on his knees. He still rides a wave as well as anyone.

HERE IS WHERE surfers seem to decide to give it up: Surfing is a competitive activity, with inarguable amounts of ego unevenly divided among the worthy and everyone else. The crowd factor, a delight for the novice, so excited to be there, wears on others. It is tough to compete those on the safe side of the first section, paddling blindly, dropping in. I don’t get too many drop-in bitches (someone else’s term for male or female surfers- I only use it for dudes), but I have witnessed Big Dave, high and tight in the pocket, and someone just… drops… in.

I cannot help but remember when leashes came into use. I put off getting one, but couldn’t help but notice how the kids Dave was running with would take off in front of me, and when the wave got critical, they… just… bailed.

BIG DAVE… PLEASE, DON’T BAIL!

I might need someone to rescue my board from the rip again. OH, and I can’t imagine some almost out of control pre-dawn situation without seeing a big guy with a big board over his shoulder, coming down the trail and onto the beach, beating me out to the lineup. “Someone leave the gate open again?”

EVIDENTLY. As always, thanks for reading, and, if you can’t be nice, be real.

“Not Without Incident” Incidents

Posted on by under northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf culture, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing, surfing the strait of juan de fuca

Let me see if I can tell this quickly. It isn’t as if I haven’t told the story to pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to for longer than the “Yes, I found what I wanted (corn dogs); thank you” at the QFC.

I roll up to an unnamed beach. It’s early, but not pre-dawn early. Waves, but small. But waves. There’s one guy in the water on a giant longboard, and he’s getting out. He comes up the beach toward his (of course) white sprinter van. The woman sitting on a beach chair in front of the van reading a book, that, judging by the gold-edged pages might be a Bible, or not, jumps up to help him up to the van, then helps him pull his wetsuit off his shoulders. Nice.

He’s a BIG guy, possibly bigger than me, so I am sorely (subtle Bible reference) tempted to yell, “Hey, get back out there! I don’t want to be the fattest guy in the water.” I don’t.

I’m trying to get into my own wetsuit (not the front zip with the patches, particularly the one on the, um, butthole-adjacent area), which, top this point, I have not donned without some assistance. I see this guy headed over to the sani-can. “Hey… a little help if you would. Old guys… you know. Now, on the velcro… Thanks. You going out?” “When the tide gets a little higher.” “Supposed to get windy.” “Yeah.”

By the time I grab my board there’s one surfer out on the lefts and two guys heading over to the rights, one of whom is doing warmup moves. The other one waves at me. “Oh, it’s Sean.” I wave back.

I paddle up to the one guy at the lefts, nod, and, polietly, say, “I’m going to back-paddle you.” He doesn’t respond. I move over about twenty yards, turn, and catch a wave. The guy is down the line and paddling for it. I don’t, like, yell. Maybe I say, “Hey” or “Whoa.” he backs off. I ride on. Paddling back, I say, “Maybe I was rude.” “That’s obvious; taking the first set wave.” I didn’t ask, “That was a set wave?” Instead I explained that, because of injury and eye surgery, I hadn’t surfed in two months.

Since we were the only ones out and there weren’t more set ‘bombs’ on the way, the guy said, “Oh. I read your blog; I thought you were all over that.” “The eye, yes; the wound… ongoing.”

So, then he’s talking about how difficult it is to predict waves on the Strait. “It’s like… magic,” he says. “Sometimes this spot breaks, sometimes another spot.” “It is magic. Sometimes everywhere is breaking, sometimes no where. Any waves are a… gift.” Bear in mind, I’m still sitting deeper than my new friend is, and, perhaps, I actually have some legitimate claim on priority. I would have caught his name if he had stayed out longer.

Meanwhile, the guy who helped me with the wetsuit, and another guy, both wearing boonie hats, with straps, and a woman, with a wetsuit hood, paddle out and are sitting in what would be the inside section of a wave if a wave actually lined up. Several do, and I’m kind of weaving between the three a couple of times, waving nicely as I do.

Another dude, average size, maybe kind of tall, out on a super long board, takes off in front of me, twice. the first time I didn’t make the first section, so… okay. The second time, I did, and I ride behind him for quite a while before he kind of looks around. “Might as well keep going,” I said. He didn’t respond.

My goal was to make sure I could still surf, and to surf. So, mission accomplished, I get out of the water, and, after drinking some coffee, head over to where Sean is parked. He’s pretty much dressed and chatting with someone who may or may not be Bricky. I do ask, politely, if I can hang out with some local hipsters for a minute. Sean says, “For a guy who’s so smooth in the water, you kind of looked like a sea monster when you got to land.” “Yeah. All I was thinking was, ‘shit, when did the beach get so steep? Where did all these rocks come from?'”

Because I had stayed up late and gotten up early, my plan was to take a nap, in my wetsuit, maybe surf again. Meanwhile other surfers entered the water, and a series of squalls brought in side chop and brief periods of heavy rain.

Because I’m trying to diet (because I was actually put on scales and my blood pressure recorded), I have been avoiding ice cream and Little Debbies, and going for high fibre foods. Because of this, there was a necessity to… anyway, I would need more help with the wetsuit if I was to go for a second session.

This time I elicited help from a woman who had just come in. “Yeah, the velcro, it’s… yeah thanks. You get some good… waves?” At this time, the wind was, I swear, offshore. “Yeah. Great! It was supposed to get windy.” “Well, it probably will. Gifts, huh?”

My goal was to get ten waves. There are four or five guys out and the wind switches back to sideshore. I blow my first takeoff, my board popping up close. “Peripheral vision,” I said. I go for a second wave. Two guys, one doing that windmill, head down, ‘I’m a kook’ paddle, take off in front of me. I ride past both of them, in the soup, the kook doing that ‘Oh my God, arms straight out, hope I don’t pearl’ thing. I keep going until the wave cleans up.

On the way back out, I notice Brett is out. I haven’t seen him in a while, so we’re chatting. Somewhere in there I mention that it was way cleaner earlier. One of the two drop-in dudes turns around and asks, “Oh, so you were out… earlier?” I asked, politely, if he was inferring (or implying, whichever is correct) that I had, perhaps, gotten my share of the waves. “You almost ran over us,” he said. “You dropped in on me, man.” “No, I was already paddling.”

That explanation has never worked for me. I have tried. I wanted to tell the dude he should go back and read the rule book. I didn’t. Meanwhile, the water starting to show whitecaps, Brett says, “I will burn you, Erwin.” I respond that I haven’t forgotten that he gave me the biggest burn of my career. He may have said, “You’re welcome.” If not, I’m sure he meant to.

I got a couple more rides (eight total, not ten), several of which went near the two guys in the boonie hats and the woman, all of whom were, one, still out, and all of whom had moved closer to the real lineup, and, I’d witnessed, were catching and riding waves. “Keep this up and you’ll be ripping,” I said before I got to shore, sea-monstering my way to my car.

NEXT TIME- Stephen R. Davis goes to the card show in San Francisco.

Surf, Music, Dance, Poetry… STUFF

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, real surfers, surf novels, writings of Erwin Dence

THIS is a silkscreen I did in the 1980s. I’m not apologizing for it being, perhaps, sexist or something bad by today’s standards. It doesn’t go so much with a poem I’ve been working on, but nothing I found in a search did either. I COULD, of course, draw something that does connect better, but… I haven’t.

I AM ALWAYS working on something, art-wise, story-wise, song-wise, otherwise. I have been working recently on a song that starts out, “It was a private conversation, Words I was not yet meant to hear, She had been to long at the station, Couldn’t have known that I was near…”

WHAT I DO is keep working on these songs, and everything I do until it’s… better. SURF-WRITING-WISE, I am always trying to push some comparison between the best moments and music, even dance. Not all dancing is graceful, Stephanie Gilmore style pretty. AND she also incorporates solidly radical, powerful moves into her repertoire. Similarly, there is something esthetically pleasing about a vicious power hack.

MUSIC-WISE, please try to convince me that you don’t have some tune or beat going through your head when you’re paddling for and surfing a wave. If you don’t, well…

Too much explaining.

                        A Private Conversation

I was coming up the stairway, two bags of groceries pressed against my chest, She was dancing on the landing, third floor, Sun from the distant windows lit her hair on fire, Her shadow moving with her on the sidewall.

Six stairs below her, I leaned against the inside rail.

She was moving to music, music I could not hear.

Her movements made the music real. Slink and slide and step and stop, Step and stop, slink and slide, one arm always at her side, The other, gliding, raised then lowered, Free, and spelling or signing or reflecting, Words or images or memories or dreams,   Real to her.

Real to her, private.

Sunset music, light, a tinkling rhythm beat under the woodwinds, Only fleeting hints of nightfall.

I should not have been a witness, Seeing her, dancing, silent, hair on fire,  In some soft and private conversation with some distant, absent, loved one.

Loved one, someone else dancing with her on the landing, Sharing her space.

The background, The air and the light and the wallpaper and the paint were as alive as she was, Slinking and sliding and stepping and slowing, Listening, perhaps, briefly, The dance resumed as response.

Her other arm became the free one, Sending the code, The secret, private messages in our most ancient language.

I should not have been there.

I couldn’t face facing her, Couldn’t imagine her trying to explain, Not to some neighbor, some stranger three doors down.

Setting my bags on the third step from the landing, Sitting two stairs below that, Alone in the dark, with vague shadows of someone dancing, Projected on the stairwell wall.

I envied her for dancing, dancing alone in the hallway, Music swirling in her head.

Waiting in the stairwell,   Waiting long after her door closed, Long after the light moved up the wall and softened, And darkened, I waited long until her music faded.  

My steps up became drums, not heavy, Step, step, step,

If I imagined a saxophone solo, Sad squeaks and missed notes, Looking out the window at a screaming orange sunset, I couldn’t stop myself from sliding one foot across the worn oak floor, And then the other, My grocery bags shifting, side to side, In some rhythm that made some sense… to me.

THANKS FOR READING. Original material, of course, protected by copyright, all rights reserved by the author/artist, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.

AS ALWAYS, IF YOU CAN’T BE NICE, BE REAL.

I FULLY expect to not tell you about a surf session in the next posting. AND, yes, I am still working on my novel, “SWAMIS.”

Time Out of Water, Not out of Mind

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers

BECAUSE I fell off a ladder, because I didn’t treat a leg wound quickly or seriously in time, because I had a detached retina that necessitated an operation, I have been out of the water for well over a month. BECAUSE my being forced to go to a doctor (forced as in, I lost sight in the bottom fourth of my left eye, as in I could not operate on my swollen leg) for the first time in twelve years or so, with conditions there was no way for me to treat, I also discovered my blood pressure was high enough that there was some doubt as to whether I was a decent candidate for the eye surgery, AND, meanest thing that was done to me, I was weighed.

TWO THINGS: Adam “WIPEOUT” James, forced to help me zip up my wetsuit a while back, asked me, “Do you have to have ice cream every night?” Keith Darrock has been bugging me for a while to lose weight, claiming that if I lost 75 pounds, I could “Dominate even more. Maybe, like, pop up.”

Seventy-five pounds is not enough.

NOW, with the eye almost totally restored to its previous state, the leg wound/infection being treated with $600 a tube ointment and round-the-clock wearing of compression socks, my blood pressure being monitored daily, a shift in my eating habits (more fibre, less coffee, no Little Debbie’s, no ice cream, no chocolate- yet), and the possibility of waves, like, maybe, maybe, an hour ago, I’m still out of the water, I want to assert that I will be back, and, when I’m out, I’ll be frothed-out, and, as alway, there to surf.

Fair warning. Catch them when you can. I’m not looking for sympathy. Injuries happen. I’m not looking for excuses. I’m not quitting. And no, I don’t want to go watch others surf. Again, “I’M HERE TO SURF!”

Be real if you can’t be nice.