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.
JOEL and RACHEL CARBEN are the proprietors of the COLAB in downtown Port Townsend. Colab as in Collaborative Work Space. Joel is one of the members (if there is such a thing) of the rabid-if-desperate and frequently-disappointed Olympic Peninsula/Strait of Juan de Fuca surf community. There is an ART WALK each month in PT (I’ve never gone on one), so, partially in the interest of promoting the COLAB enterprise (more people hanging out with laptops and connections), why not have me and two other artists show our stuff? I mean, after all, Joel does actually own the cedar art piece/surfboard shown below. Long story. I was supposed to spray paint “Locals Only” on it or something, but…
ARTISTS, huh?
As usual, I didn’t do everything right. I had a whole room to display my stuff. I didn’t put prices on things, didn’t put business cards out. And, I didn’t hang out in the room, charming the folks who came in. BUT, I now realize, the main thing I did wrong is that I didn’t take some photos of STEPHEN R. DAVIS, KEITH DARROCK, and, yeah, me, cruising around to the various galleries.
If I had you could see LIBRARIAN KEITH, as rabid a surf fanatic as I have ever run into (or been burned by), but a solid citizen, mingling with the tourists and the artists, and in the company of two, perhaps… no, I don’t know how to describe Steve and I except we’re probably not as out-there as we believe ourselves to be. I mean, I’m as CITIZEN as the next person, but Steve? ARTISTS, huh?
And we’re checking out everyone else’s art, chatting with artists, partaking in the free snacks (no wine for me, not that I’m bragging. A nice expresso would have been… appreciated).
AND IT kind of worked out. EXAMPLE- We’re at the fanciest gallery in PT (prices fancier, also- wine from bottles with, probably, recognizable names for wine aficionados- no, not Ernest & Julio), and Steve is kind of (I thought) kissing up to this artist with the tiniest possible ponytail (so high concept/fashion), and I see this kid sitting on a bench with a sweatshirt with a logo from CHRIS BAUER SURFBOARDS. “Hey, where’d you get that sweatshirt, kid?” “He’s my dad. Chris Bauer.” “Oh.” When one of the board members (because fancy galleries have boards and directors) comes over and says I’m getting a bit rowdy, I acknowledge this and ask her if he knows KEITH.
THEY chat and I go outside. Again, as with my leaving first at other venues, I sort of think, as I acknowledged, that, if I still smoked, I’d be having one at this point. OUTSIDE the gallery.
I am not a marketer. Particularly not of my stuff.
HERE’S WHERE STEPHEN R. DAVIS got it right. I was critiquing and moving, asking quick, real questions of the folks showing and explaining and (you have to guess) trying to sell their works, questions such as: “How much are the dues? How much floor time do you have to put in? Do you sell enough to make it worth it? Meanwhile, Steve, a bundle of his cards in his hand, was showing his stuff, handing out samples as business cards, making, you know, inroads into the PT art scene.
NOW WE’RE on to the post event CRITIQUE, as in, what did I do wrong? What can I do NOW? I probably should have hung around in the space at the COLAB, charminig the folks who stumbled in, maybe selling
EVEN WITH THE BARAT, would you buy art from this double-chinned fat guy in the sweatshirt for the OLYMPIC MUSIC FESTIVAL (though several people thought OMF stood for Old M F-er)?
Here’s a shot of Keith, Joel, me (hiding the double chin), and Adam “Wipeout” James.
Here’s Steve on his boat from a few years ago. AGAIN, I should have taken a few photos from the ART WALK.
BUT I did, because I was displaying some drawings I did years ago of houses in Port Townsend, get an opportunity to draw one for someone. AND I DO OWE a big thank you to JOEL and RACHEL for the opportunity. TRISH says I should give them a piece of my art. “WHY? He already has the surfboard?”
So, BIG THANK YOU! Heart emoji, hang loose emoji.
MARKETING. I’m working on it. AND I did actually have a good time, chatting it up with people I don’t know, running into some I do know (shout out to Ian), hanging with friends.
Perhaps, on Wednesday, I’ll go over how I’m getting over and/or dealing with the detached retina, the infection in my leg, both related, possibly, to a fall, and a high blood pressure situation I discovered because I just had no choice but to go to a doctor; and the double chin thing. I am totally ready to get back in the water. TAKE THIS AS A WARNING.
Good luck. And, again, if you can’t be nice, be real.
“SWAMIS” UPDATE- Working on it. Here is a quickie flyer for a fictional Newspaper. I can’t say that there wasn’t such a weekly paper back in the time my novel covers, 1969. My guess, yes. I do know, based on a story I heard, later, like 1971, when I went to work in the Big City, San Diego, from an older guy, that there were Free Clinics, or, at least, one. “So, I picked up this hitchhiking Hippie chick, and I’m thinking… you know, free sex and all that, and she says she’s trying to get to the free clinic.”
Also not related, directly: I noticed, on occasional trips south, in the narrow strip that is Mission Beach, a storefront law office that, real or imagined, seemed to offer free services. Hard to imagine that now. Parking, incidentally, was pretty much as bad then as it is now.
If writing, journalism or fiction, or drawing, or any form of art is someone trying to transfer imagination to paper or wood or film or any other medium, images stored and remembered are the critical ingredient.
Although I haven’t quite gotten to THE END of the fourth or fifth rewrite of “Swamis,” I do have plans, beyond it, for the main characters. The storefront law office might be part of that.
MEANWHILE, I am still recovering from cuts and an infection on my leg, the treatment keeping me out of the water for at least the rest of this week. SO, IF THERE ARE WAVES, I won’t be competing for them. GOOD LUCK.
SCREW UP of the day- I did write something, using Microsoft Word, filling in some omissions from my last posting. Halfway through this, I realized I hadn’t copied it. Not wanting to lose what I had, I… well, I’ll get back to you on what is partially “Guilty with an explanation” stuff.
In the “I’M NOT POLITICAL, BUT…” category, something about the delays in the trials of the former president, and the inability of some other citizens to see a grift when it’s reaching into their pockets, caused me to draw… this:
It’s already, liike, last week’s news. Ordinarily I claim all rights to my work, but, this time, in the spirit of freedom, free press, all that, if you want to borrow it… FEEL FREE.
…and when, perhaps, men are going to catch up or on. If ever.
When I started board surfing in 1965, almost fourteen-years-old, there were girls and women who surfed. Not that many, and those who were good at it were known by name. In San Diego’s North County, Barbie Barron from Oceanside, and Margo Godfrey were the main contenders.
It would be totally wrong if I didn’t mention that my older sister, Suellen, got me into board surfing. If Suellen had romantic notions about what surfing is, and she did, and we all do, the truth is that sometimes surfing lives up to those notions.
Trish went to Junior High with Barbie and was a member of an upstart Oceanside Girls Surfing Club before Trisha’s father got transferred to Philadelphia. I would run into Barbie frequently when I got out of High School, 1969, and did a lot of pre-work, dawn patrol surfing at the short jetty south of Oceanside harbor. Trish, who came back west in 1968 with a lot of east coast sophistication and a touch of the vibe (so alluring to a rube from Fallbrook), would ask if I actually spoke to her. No. Barbie did own the Offshore Surf Shop in Carlsbad for years. I reached out shortly after she retired. So, still no.
My only live almost interaction with Margo Godfrey was a big-but-blown out afternoon at Swamis, Scott Sutton, Jeff Officer, and I stuck with that situation because we had to wait for Scott’s father to do whatever he had to do that was more important than taking kids surfing. Margo and Cheer Critchlow were walking out, so casually, hitting the outside lineup, while we were going for the insiders.
I did write about my one interaction with the most famous woman surfer of that generation, Joyce Hoffman, from Christmas of 1970, the piece entitled “Joyce Hoffman’s Bra.” It is Google-able. I checked.
Oh, and I threw in a shot of Silvana Lima to represent women surfers who rip but don’t, perhaps, fit into the ‘image’ that sponsors are looking for. The image issue is, to a lesser extent, perhaps, also true on the men’s competitive side.
This is probably the right time to apologize for my attitude toward women. I love women, and my realization that boys and men treat women, um, rudely, and artists, trying to capture something of the beauty and wonder of women are insensitive if not clueless. So, yeah, one of those “I didn’t know, I don’t know, I’m working on it” kind of man-pologies.
Here’s how this post happened: I wanted to write about women who surf. Not finding anything I was stoked on in a quick web image search, I decided to check out my own media library. These are images that have appeared on this site. Some of the silk screen images are from the 1980s when I thought it was completely a good thing to do nudes. You know, like, tasteful.
Because of the way I put this post together, the writing is as disjointed as the images. Still:
Margo Godfrey, Santa Cruz, Oct 1969from pinteresttaken from Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of Surfing
The second from the bottom drawing was done by my youngest sister, Melissa. She died of metastatic breast cancer a few years ago. She did surf. She was so committed to producing high quality, high emotion images. I endeavor to live up to her standards, knowing I have a long way to go.
The last image is of my favorite surfer girl, Trish.
All original art works are protected by copyright, all rights reserved. Thanks for respecting that. AND… I have more to say about macho-ness and all that. Quick shout out to WARM CURRENTS. Check them out.
Now that I am committed to putting out a new round of ORIGINAL ERWIN t-shirts, I’m going through my past drawings AND doing some new ones. I scanned these two on my printer AND I have two more illustrations that I have to take to a print shop. AS ALWAYS, attempting to go simpler, I fail.
LET’S DISCUSS THE SURF SITUATION on the Olympic Peninsula and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. NOT GOOD. Now, if you’re almost anywhere SOUTH of here, you should be scoring. AND the forecast is not too… thrilling. BUT I do have my HOBIE patched up and I’ve done some work on the MANTA. I’m ready to leap into some wind chop when it… let me check the forecast. Yeah, wind chop. That’s official.
As far as “Swamis” goes, I am committed to what JUST HAS TO BE a final draft before the ridiculously scary act of trying to actually sell the novel. I moved the former first chapter to the end, and though I am dying to write about what fictionally happened to the fictional characters between 1969 and now, I’m going to NOT… not yet.
My hope is that, now that I’ve completely mind-surfed the hell out of plot and characters, I might be able to cut the length down from the current 104,000 thousand words. HERE IS the new prologue and a bit more:
“SWAMIS” A novel by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
PROLOGUE
Some events, terror and bliss, mostly, which occurred in seconds, in moments; those almost nothing in the expanse of time; expand, over time, into placemarks; a corner turned, a road taken, a life changed. Magic.
Half a century after the events, I started writing “Swamis,” as memoir. It no longer is that. This is my fourth full rewrite, with so many discarded words, deleted chapters, all in attempting to turn notes and dreams, images and remembered dialogue, into a story. I have tried to do justice to the various people, characters here, but real people with real lives, who changed mine. There are people who have come into my life, changed it in some way, and gone out. Somewhere. For the most part I do not know where they went, but I do wonder. Wonder.
The story centers on a very specific time, 1969, in a very specific place, North San Diego County. I was turning eighteen, in love, and the world I wanted swirled and revolved around surfing, and surfing revolved around Swamis.
My apologies for my writing style. Years of writing briefs, documents. Dry, perhaps, but thorough. A friend’s review of an earlier draft concluded I went for detail and clarity rather than flash and description.
“I don’t use a lot of adjectives in regular speech,” I countered.
“But this is writing,” she said, “The prologue shouldn’t be an apology.”
“Honest.”
“Sure, and it is… your own voice. Yes, it is that, and, as your mother said, ‘the mind fills in the colors.’ Different thing, I know. Photos, stories; it still applies.”
“Not arguing.”
“Not yet. But… ambiguity and bullshit aside, you don’t exactly nail down who the killer was. Or killers were. Some detective novel, Atsushi.”
“It’s in there. And… doesn’t that explain the need for detail and clarity? And, more importantly, I never said it was that… A detective novel. Trueheart.”
“There’s no such thing as a seventeen-year-old detective. Not in real life.”
“It’s in there; that quote; in the text. And… as far as real life goes…”
“From your particular viewpoint.”
“That’s all any of us have.”
“But… Joey… you called me a friend. ‘A friend’s review.’”
“Just another draft, Julie; I can… change it.”
“To what?”
“Keep reading. It’s in there.”
CHAPTER ONE- MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2023
“The allure of waves was too much, I’m told, for an almost three-year-old, running, naked into them. If I say I remember how the light shone through the shorebreak waves, the streaks of foam sucked into them; if I remember the shock of cold water and the force with which the third wave knocked me down, the pressure that held me down, my struggle for air; if I say I remember anything other than my mother clutching me out and into the glare by one arm… Well, that would be, this all happening before the accident; that would be… me… creating a story from fragments. Wouldn’t it, Doctor?”
“Memories. Dreams. We can’t know how much of life is created from… fragments. But, please, Joey; the basketball practice story; I didn’t get a chance to write it down. So, the guy…”
“Locker room. After. I’m not here because of that… offense.”
“I am aware. Just… humor me.”
“He said I had a pretty big… dick… for a Jap. I said, ‘Thank you.’ All the Varsity players came in. Most stood behind him. He said, ‘Oh, that’s right; your daddy the cop, he’s all dick.’ Big laugh.”
“Detective,” I said. “Sorry about your brother at the water fountain, but I’m on probation already… and I don’t want to cut my hand… on your front teeth.’”
“Whoa! Did that end it? Joey. Joey, are you… You’re remembering the incident.”
“I tried to walk away. He… Basketball. I never had a shot. Good passer, great hip chuck.”
“All right. So, let’s talk about the incident for which you are here.”
ALL RIGHTS to all ORIGINAL WORK by Erwin A. Dence, Jr. are reserved by the author/illustrator. THANK YOU for respecting these rights, AND, AS ALWAYS, for checking out realsurfers.net
I haven’t done any t shirts in a while. There has been a lot of interest and I have done other drawings that are not included here because… I haven’t scanned them yet. I am trying to make my illustrations simpler, but, somewhere in the process, they all go a bit psychedelic.
All the shirts I’ve done and sold or given away (Trisha’s idea, to her friends, some to clients) are gone, and, as mine are, probably wearing out. If you have one, hold on to it. It’s not just my ego saying this. Okay, mostly that, but they are all truly limited editions.
Limited by my having to put out the money all at once, the return coming in… slower.
But, I do have some limited backing, have discussed some potential local outlets, and I am ready to go!
The three toward the bottom are designs I’ve done. I will probably not do the one immediately below, and, as far as color, it’s way more expensive unless I go with a sort of modern day version of iron on, and then… I’m obviously not someone who deals in percentages and wholesale/retail, nor do I really want to be. I just want to keep drawing simple little pen and ink illustrations and… I WILL HAVE a few more examples next time. WEDNESDAY.
OH, I am going to do the one below the “Locals” one first; white on black. It seems kind of, you know, graphic and only semi-psychedelic.
All images are copyright protected and are the sole property of Erwin A. Dence, Jr. All rights reserved.
MEANWHILE, I just (as in yesterday) had a bit of a fall; ladder slipped, I started falling, grabbed onto ladder with one hand, slowing my descent, hit metal railing with my back, landed on stairway and two open paint cans, totally destroying them and cutting and bruising the shit out of the back of both legs, and spilling the two colors I’m using on a Victorian I have the least of. SO, rather like any fall you see on any skateboarding video. I ALSO destroyed my work cellphone, its screen already cracked. SO, that’s not good. Trying to figure out what to do about that. SWAP sim card with new phone like they do in every spy movie? Meanwhile, the message says I’ll get back to you and… Yeah, Ibuprofen.
These are some recent works I didn’t think I had scanned. OR I believed they were scanned as PDFs, something I couldn’t transfer. I SHOULD, perhaps keep the line drawings for some possible future edition of a realsurfers/original Erwin coloring book, particularly since I may tend to over-color drawings that were, possibly, overdrawn in the first place.
MEANWHILE, I got some bad news on an art project I have been working on; basically, that the process was not set up correctly, paperwork-wise, and when I sent a bill for services (and illustrations) rendered, there were issues.
ISSUES. I HATE ISSUES. If I say getting paid is the reward for my labors; contemplating, sketching, drawing, revising, redrawing; and is temporarily gratifying, the money just a part of a cache and mostly spoken-for dollars, having issues in collecting the reward substantially reduces the JOY.
NOT THAT I don’t enjoy the prospect and the actual work of doing an illustration for some amount of cash. I DO, even as I realize I can make substantially more money per hour scraping and priming and painting someone’s house. AND I do factor in that it is not painting season.
THIS SETBACK has given me pause to consider (not for the first time) why the hell I insist on pursuing some life outside of the scraping and priming and painting.
SO, I DID what I do; I wrote about it. Not all vitriol and grievance; rather I wrote a piece on how most folks who attempt to be artists want to please an audience.
AS DO I. Though I do want to please myself, with varying degrees of success, AND I have, indeed, accused other writer’s works (well, one writer, I confess) as being masturbatory; everything I write or draw or paint (including houses) is meant to be seen by, and, bottom line, to please the client and potential clients. I must add to this that a job isn’t finished until it is. I throw away so many more drawings than I display, I edit the shit out of things I write, and I go around and around any painting project doing what I call the “Tighten up.”
I realize that sounds, even as I write it, kind of queazy-ness inducing if not outright creepy. This isn’t me VIRTUE-SIGNALLING. No, I would love to be anything close to successful at writing and/or drawing, two things that have been part of my life, on and off, mostly off, almost all my life.
SO, I wrote the not-quite screed, but deciding to listen to Trish, I will wait and see what happens with the project with the issues. Meanwhile, I have other exciting projects/prospects on the ‘possibly fantastic,’ probably not’ scale. I should mention that I am really bad at waiting. If you’ve seen me in the water, you might agree.
BUT NOW, since I’m all calm and resolved, I’ll hit “Save” for the whole thing, stash it away for future check out if not use. Then, I will highlight this part and put it on my (yeah I’m resigned to calling my ‘site’ this) blog.
As my projects get sorted out, I’ll, of course, write about it… here.
AS ALWAYS, thanks for checking this out, and for respecting the copyright ISSUES with any original stuff. Whether I make any money or not from my work, I do reserve all rights to it.
AS FAR AS WAVES on or around the Strait of Juan de Fuca, your guess is as good as mine.
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.”
While simplifying my manuscript for “Swamis” has actually become more complicated, I have also spent some time complicating illustrations; adding more color than necessary, going full psychedelic. Maybe that’s all right and even acceptable; the story does take place in Southern California, 1969.
You’re most likely too young to have any memories, or, if you were there, it may be more flashback than memory. A former cliché that may, through disuse, may have reached the statute of limitations on repeating is this: “If you can remember anything about the 60s, you really weren’t there.”
Okay, I googled it. The quote has been attributed to: Paul Kantner, Robin Williams, Paul Krassner, Pete Townshend, Grace Slick, Timothy Leary, and others. If you know who all of those people are… whoa! Look at you!
So, here are my latest workings:
overdone positive, line bending negative.
ANYWAY, I’m still getting my stuff together for the ZOOM event with the Port Townsend Library, Thursday, August 20, 7pm. There’s supposed to be a slide show of some of my stuff so people who tune in don’t have to look at me. Here’s a link: https://ptpubliclibrary.org/library/page/art-and-writing-erwin-dence OKAY, so how do I make that all blue so you don’t have to type it all out.
Oh, some of these and others are available at Tyler Meeks’ DISCO BAY OUTDOOR EXCHANGE. Stop in when you’re cruising out to the Peninsula, Thur-Sunday, 10am to 6pm.
I’ve sent out copies of the unexpurgated version of “Swamis” to several people. This waiting for a response, as noted in an earlier post, tends to push one further into the area of neurosis previously only visited for, say, a long weekend. That was before the omni-demic pushed the boundaries of crazzzzzinesssss to the place where we are now.
So, if I’m a bit more crazed, maybe, statistically, I’m pretty much where I was. If some of us could just go surfing, then, maybe, perhaps, then… we…
Anyway, I have gotten some feedback; and it’s mostly that I need to make “Swamis” less confusing, less prone to jumping forward and backward in time and place, fewer peripheral scenes; more reader friendly. I already knew I would have to drop some of the side stories. The thing is, I have enough of those to write another book. Maybe I will.
“Side-slipping.”
Meanwhile, I am trying to get some more drawings together, hopefully enough to put in with each chapter. Since I need to break the manuscript into more chapters, I evidently need more illustrations. I do have Stephen R. Davis working on a few; and we have discussed the look I’m going for. Black and white, kind of moody… I’m hoping he can do some real portraits of fictional people.
I’ve also discussed formatting and such things with my daughter, Dru, pressing her into service to help put together a slide show of my illustrations (not just surf stuff) that can be shown to folks who are willing to listen to a reading from “Swamis” without having to also look at me reading it. This is for a presentation with the Port Townsend Library, set up by surf rebel librarian Keith Darrock. Not set up yet; we’re working on it.
I’ll let you know, but, meanwhile, out here in crazy land, I am putting a lot of thought into the screenplay version. Too much for a movie. Prime Netflix stuff. It just takes more work. Evidently.
Real Surfers 