Category Archives: “Swamis” the novel

“SWAMIS” Chapter One, Part One

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, surf novels

CHAPTER ONE- FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1969

            There was something almost comforting about the darkness, about not having a horizon to worry about. An oversized flashlight in my hand, the words on the pages of the palm-sized notepad, open and pushed up against the steering wheel; this was all I could really see. Notes, in cop shorthand, detective code. Still, I could hear the steady sound of waves, the rhythm occasionally changed with what had to be an outside set. I had felt, when I pulled into the lot and got out of the car, the push of night wind hit me, pass me, and get lost, dispersed in the vastness beyond the bluff. Offshore. Perfect.  

I was in the driver’s seat of my car, mine, the hand-me-down Ford Falcon station wagon, new in 1964. The Falcon was parked in the optimum location in the Swamis parking lot, dead center, front row, facing the bluff. When it got light enough, I would be able to watch the waves wrap around the point. There would be a moment where I would know I would be dropping down the stairs and paddling out. If Swamis was at all decent, it would get crowded.

            It was not nearly light enough. I closed the notepad, thumb holding my place, and tried to repeat what I had transposed from a days’ worth of my father’s notes. I opened the pad, reread the third of any pages that had real action, real adventure. A break-in, chase, and arrest. Vista, October 1967. I recited the words. I checked again, for accuracy. Close. Or closer.

I shined the flashlight on the seat beside me. A black metal file box with other note pads and a spare t shirt, for later, three scuffed and dirtied, formerly dirty-orange Pee-Chee binders, three college-ruled notebooks inside each one. I put the notepad into the pocket of the top binder, middle of three. I pulled out the bottom Pee-Chee, opened it, took out the middle notebook. Wire bound, with serrations, tear out pages. Not that I would. I pulled a ballpoint pen from the wire, left a space between the previous day’s notes, wrote, “Free. These are days where freedom and peace and war and revolution are often used in the same sentence.”

            I repeated my words. “’Love.’ I should add ‘love,’” I told myself. “People say it, don’t mean it.” I didn’t. I added, “School day. Work day. Not for me. Free! And… it sounds like Swamis is actually breaking. Got my spot. Optimum location. No one else here. Yet.”

            Putting the pen back into the binding, adding the notebook to the stack of Pee-Chee binders and notebooks, a waxed cardboard quart of chocolate milk trapped behind them, I reached into the small wooden box of eight track tapes on the driveline hump, fingered my way to the third one down, flipped it to the proper direction, and inserted it in the dash-mounted player.

            Legal. At least this one looked legal. The player would work without the car running because the guy I bought it from, Mark, friend of a friend, hooked it up the way my father’s Sheriff’s Office radio had been wired.

Mark claimed if this tape deck was stolen, he hadn’t stolen it. My surf friends Gary and Roger, and several of their friends, claimed he did, and I should have known. “Just don’t let the cops fuck with this one,” Gary said. “Get some better tapes,” Roger added.  

I pushed in “Aerial Ballet.”

I was listening, and then I wasn’t. Asleep, perhaps. I didn’t hear the two vehicles pull in, one on either side, didn’t hear the doors close, wasn’t aware two people had met at the front of the Falcon.

Wham!

The flashlight was up, instantly stuck between the spokes of the steering wheel and pointed at the man leaning toward me, straight across the hood, the flat palm of his right hand raised and ready for another slap.  The light hit the curve of the fogged-up windshield, bounced back. I turned the flashlight off. I still hadn’t recognized the man.

“It’s still fuckin’ dark, man,” he said. I recognized the voice. Sid. I would have, should have recognized the sound of his van, seven out of eight pistons firing. I must have been asleep.

“Yeah. Dark.” I didn’t recognize that voice. “Okay, Sidney; five waves and I have to go.”

“No, man, I’m doing the delivery. It’s still my job. And… I have some… green stamps I need to… redeem.”

“No. Not today. Man. Five waves and…” I waited for a completion of the sentence. “And, you know what, you aren’t going.”

“No? Just you? Fuck it, then, man; five for you means ten for me.”

Wham! Flat palm on the hood. A different hand. Passenger side. “Break of dawn, DeFreines.” There was humming. Military cadence. “Jody’s got Sid’s surfboard, got his Daddy’s Falcon, too; no sense feelin’ lonely, no sense feelin’ blue.” The cadence continued the with a lighter tapping on the hood. One finger, maybe two.

I filled in the rest in my mind. Silently. “Sound off, one, two; sound off, three four…” I stopped myself. “Jody,” I thought, “He called me Jody.”

“Jody.” A face was at my side window, close to the glass. I was startled into an uncontrollable upper body twitch. Still, I didn’t turn to look until the man was a darker shadow in the dark. “Redemption day, Jody, and… and you’re going with me.” He hit the window with a flat palm. The shadow receded.

Junipero Serra Hayes. Jumper.

I didn’t get out of the car until two metal doors slammed on the vehicle to my right, until Sid’s vague shadow passed. Other cars, headlights on, were coming into the lot from 101.

It was a pickup truck to the left of the Falcon; step-side, late fifties, brownish red and rusty red. Farm truck. I brought up a mental image of where I had seen this truck. Grandview Street, off 101, right hand side. Farmhouse, barn, greenhouses, a little shop with “Flowers by Hayes” over the sliding glass door. Jumper. Junipero Hayes.  

Everyone knew Jumper was back in the North County. No one had seen him in the water.

The mid-sixties Chevy van on my right, Sid’s, was a light gray. Factory color. It was jacked-up in the back, with overwide tires, accommodated by Sid having cut the wheel wells and glassed-on the red-primed, flared fenders. No windows. Surfboards Hawaii decal on the driver’s door. Sid. Team rider. Another asshole in the water. Of course, they were friends, Sid and Jumper. Locals. 

            I opened both driver side doors, tossed a damp beach towel over the back door, used the cover to strip out of my Levis jeans and into my driest trunks. I stuck my towel onto the roof, pulled my wallet out of the jeans, set it on the towel. I grabbed a pack of Marlboros and a Zippo lighter off the dashboard, placed them into the inside pocket of my windbreaker. I folded my boxers in with the Levis, set them on the floor in front of the driver’s seat. I set my shoes, socks already inside them, on top of my Levis. I pulled my latest board, formerly Sid’s board, out of the back of the Falcon, set it on the roof racks. I opened, locked, and closed all the doors, circled the Falcon again, making sure all the doors were locked. I wrapped my keys and wallet into the towel, clutched it to my chest with my left hand, slid the board off the racks with my right hand, stepped away and pivoted it, wax side out, into position under my arm.

            I took three breaths and walked toward the stairs.

            …

It was still dark enough that the water, other than a silver-green line at the horizon, was more black-and-white than any sort of discernible color. Carrying the surfboard that had, indeed, once belonged to Sid, I took two steps at a time down the top flight of the wooden stair system at Swamis. I stopped on the platform where the stairs made a ninety degree turn and dropped, parallel to the beach, the rest of the way down.

The platform was approximately six feet by eight feet and offered a perfect view of the lineup and the point. Because it was at a particularly steep portion of the bluff, probably sixty feet or more above the beach, galvanized chain link fencing, eight feet high, the metal posts attached to the wooden posts and railings, had been added to two sides of the landing.

The ocean, forty minutes before dawn, was horizontal streaks of grays. Still, Swamis was, obviously, lined up. Someone was getting a ride. New streaks, breaking the plane. Another surfer was on the next wave. My guess was that Jumper Hayes, on a longer board, drawing traditional lines, had been on the first wave. This was Sid. I knew Sid’s style: More turns, more aggressive turns. I could hear hoots between the only two surfers in the water, locals. Not would not have been acceptable behavior for Kooks and non-locals. Rules. Code. Etiquette. Rather rigid, strict; constantly broken, only occasionally enforced; as with all codes.

…

Running my hand along the horizontal railing on the downhill side of the platform, I felt the letters carved into the wood gone smooth with time and thousands of hands. I knew the words. “Old men stop here.” It was true. Not that a seventeen-year-old paid any attention to surfers over twenty-five, and definitely not to surfers over thirty. Old men.

There was movement on the upper stairs. Vibration, just short of rocking. Two more surfers were coming down. Both were laughing, bouncing, hurrying. I pushed closer to the corner, let them pass. I didn’t look at them, they didn’t acknowledge me.  

Taking two stairs at a time, I almost caught up with those two surfers at the bottom deck. They were on the beach and running for the water as I got to the lower platform, running like extras in a “Beach Blanket” movie. Kook move. The foundations for the supports of the six step stairway were showing, the winter waves and tides having pushed the sand south. Summer swells would return it. I leapt off the bottom step. Silent hoot.

I stuck my towel in the tangle of roots and dead lower branches of some scrub, six feet or so above the beach and fifteen feet beyond the lifeguard tower. I took off my windbreaker and t shirt, draping the red jacket over the rest of my stuff. There was, I still believed, a code that kept surfers from stealing from other surfers. Still, I wanted my valuables somewhere it was obvious they were there on purpose, somewhere I could possibly see them.

            In what had become my pre-surf ritual, I pulled a pack of Marlboros, box, not soft pack, from the windbreaker. I took out the Zippo lighter. Chrome. Freshly filled, new flint. Big flame. I lit up, clicked the lid shut. I ran two fingers over the lighter’s raised logo. “San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.” Gold on chrome.

            I inhaled, popped the lid open by hitting a corner on my other hand, and looked at the flame. Smaller. In the brightness I saw, or imagined I saw, red lights, spinning, flashing in three second intervals, coming closer. I blinked, looked to my right. I saw a painted image of Jesus, the red lights distorting his calm countenance. I followed his arm to his fingers, pointing forward, into the lights, into the sun. Blinding. I turned through the brightness and to my left, the vehicle that was the source of the lights. A reflection-distorted image of my father was in the windshield, then the open window. He was very close, passing very slowly. I couldn’t quite focus on his expression. He turned his head away. Forward.

            The flashing lights moved past me leaving only the brighter light. I blinked. I popped the lid on my father’s lighter shut. “Ten seconds,” I said. “Maybe eight. Concentrate. Can’t do this.”   

My stuff was re-wrapped and re-positioned, my cigarette was still in my mouth, and I was into the ragged line left by the high tide when a surfer on a long board took off from the outside peak. Jumper Hayes. A bit slow on the takeoff and popup, jerky on the bottom turn, he cruised through the first wall and into the slow section. With a series of subtle stalls, he lined up the inside section, and, rather stiffly, shuffled toward the nose. He hung five, pearling and spinning into a Hawaiian pullout. His board skittered in a ways before it was released by the soup and popped up. It must have been Jumper’s fifth wave. He flipped his board over, skeg up. Pulling his board up by a rail, he trudged alongside it through the rocks and eel grass toward the beach, stepping carefully, ready for the holes in the rock ledges.

Yeah, it was Jumper. He was fifty feet or so up the point when a spent wave hit my shins. He pulled the board up under his right arm and stared at me. “You,” I imagined, was the word he almost whispered, I almost heard.

“You.” I looked away. The next wave came in without a rider. Sid, on the wave after that one, made three upper body movements before he hit the trough, cranked a turn that brought him to the top of the wave and five feet down the line. Unweight, half-slide, hit the middle of the wave, crouch, hand in the wave face. Stall, stall, let go and get a partial coverup. A lot of work. Sid. If Sid was showing off for Jumper, it was wasted. Jumper was still staring at me, still moving forward.

Thigh deep, I looked back as Sid, thrashing forward, caught up to Jumper in six inches of water. Sid reached for Jumper’s shoulder. I looked away. For a second. Sid must have said something. Maybe it was just, “Hey!”

I turned back. Sid was in the air, feet over his head. So quick. Down. Sid was on his back. Jumper’s board beside him. Jumper was holding Sid’s board, like a spear, at his friend’s chest. They seemed to be frozen in these positions.

It was a definite “Hey!” Sid was scrambling, crablike, up the curve of the beach. “It’s me! Jumper! Me!”

I froze, my back to the ocean. Though I could still see the two surfers, I replayed what I had just seen in my mind in a sort of double exposure. Reach. Touch. Reaction.

A wave hit me, only temporarily affecting my balance, but wiping the image away. I was back to real time. Jumper raised Sid’s board, twisted away, and threw the board toward the higher beach. The full length of the board landed on a rail, flipped onto the other rail, and landed skeg up. I replayed those movements as I watched the two surfers.

Sid was sitting just above the scalloped high tide line, the fragments of driftwood and seaweed. Jumper was crouching next to him. Jumper may have been crying. I couldn’t tell. I looked away when Jumper, and then Sid, looked in my direction. If I expected anger that I had been a witness, what I saw was more like embarrassment.

Maybe that was more imagined than real. I turned away, threw board and my body into an oncoming wave, and paddled out.

…

REMEMBER, “Swamis” is copyright protected, all rights reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.

INCIDENTALLY, I GOT THIS very interesting comment from JAMES IREDELL MOSS: “My grandma (Ida May Noonan) lived on Noonan Point till her house burned down in 1893. They did not rebuild. Eventually SRF (Self Realization Fellowship) bought the point and established the temple. Now it is called Swamis. I went to San DIeguito with Cheer Critchlow, that is what eventually led me to your site.”

Thanks, James. In researching, and, yes, I have researched, I got Swamis Point listed as NONAME POINT. That it is actually NOONAN POINT is so fantastic. It doesn’t mean I’m changing the title to “Noonan’s,” but I love inside scoop. If you were a classmate of Cheer Critchlow, you and I are contemporaries. I think I had to cut Cheer out of the main manuscript, but I did take a night SPEECH class he was also taking at Palomar. Main memory of that, other than he was way more confident at public speaking than I was: Cheer said he had tried to be a professional surfer, there just wasn’t enough money for such a career. 1969, no; nowadays he would be, as he was in the pretty insular North County surfworld, a star.

Also, the Sid name if not the character is loosely based on a Surfboards Hawaii team surfer whose last name I once knew. He was featured, hanging ten, in a small ad. I did, indeed, look at a board he had thrashed in with the other used boards. “He doesn’t really care where he surfs” was the actual comment. I didn’t buy the board. Fictional Joey does.

SO, OKAY, now that I am burning potential content, Sundays are for content, WEDNESDAYS ARE FOR “SWAMIS.”

“Swamis,” Not Processed, Processing

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel

MY NOVEL. Erwin’s Opus. It seems like I’ve been working on it forever. Writing, writing, editing, cutting, reworking. With tens of thousands of words sliced and phrasing polished, side stories removed, characters dropped, the timeline shortened, the storyline tightened, a hundred little inconsistencies fixed, I am almost, for at least the fourth time, approaching the end.

DO I have some faith that this version of the manuscript is reader friendly, like, commercial, like, perhaps, some novel you might consider for a casual read?

NO. Put it down to stubbornness, perhaps. My acceptance that I had to make changes to make “Swamis” readable is in a battle with my desire to make the fictional real.

I HAVE DECIDED TO start publishing “Swamis” in serial form on this site. BECAUSE I have committed to doing content on Sundays, I will start with the INTRODUCTION and post pages on WEDNESDAYS.

                                    “SWAMIS” INTRODUCTION

It was a conceit, I now can see, my belief that I had a gift. I could visualize, actually see, in my mind, what I had just witnessed. I could store this visualization, file it with others, bring it back into my mental vision at will. Memories. Not all memories. Important ones. Images of things I’ve seen, audio of words heard. Or overheard.

Ridiculous. We all seem to have this ability. If developed, it becomes a skill. My not realizing my own ridiculousness when I was seventeen may have been to my advantage.

Or maybe that’s just how I remember it.

My father was a detective. “What do you see?” That was always the question. Little things: A bent spoon, spilled milk, eyes that evade, words that contradict. Clues. Evidence. “What does it all mean?” The tougher question. “The greatest theory,” my father would say, “is nothing compared to the tiniest truth.”

Still, I noticed as many of the little things as I could. I tried to notice everything. Partially because I trusted my selected groups of clues, my biased interpretations, even less than I trusted the words and motives of others, I kept notes. Years and years of notes.

If I can’t seem to pull some vague memory out of my files… notes. 

 Memories, I have come to believe, have lives; a pulse of their own that we, as hosts, can push aside or ignore, try to forget, or try to pretend some memories were not real; we can place a memory in with enough other memories and dreams and fictions and secrets and lies that we can, briefly, convince ourselves that, at some time, in some situation, under some condition, the truth of that repressed memory will not come back to hit us, full force. If the truth of that secret, that lie, is revealed, we fear, our lives will be changed. Full force.

We cannot, continuing my overthinking, completely delete or erase even a pleasant memory, a mundane memory. All memories are somewhere.

I had an image, in some place between dream and awake-ness, of little containers, something to hold a bar of soap on a quick trip. Plastic, lid fitting over a tray. There were many of these containers, some larger than others, moving up and down vertical lines, something more like ropes, three strands, weaved. The containers were white because, supposedly, men lack enough imagination to dream in color. The ropes, I would swear, were greens and reds. The background was definitely black. 

It was a dream. I knew that. i did have enough imagination to convince myself that these containers held memories. Why not? There was movement, forces from the side, a wind, possibly, bumping one line into another, that one into the next one. Not chaotic but almost controlled movement. Almost a dance. And there was a beat. Background. The pulse thing. Almost music.

Trying to stay in the dream; trying to hold the moment; I theorized that memories are as much in our blood streams as in our brains; definitely not as cataloged and compartmentalized as we tell ourselves, and definitely not as controlled.

Perhaps, if I opened this one container…

I couldn’t. Or I woke up before I could open it. I was aware of my surroundings. Saturday, December third, two thousand and twenty-two. Briefly aware. I slipped from dream to memory.

I was paddling as hard as I could. A wave, already breaking to my left, was bearing down on me. I felt the wind push the top off the foam on the already lifting surface of the water, the remnants of the larger wave before this one coming up the face. I was aware of the heaviness and the speed of my breathing. I felt the lift and the drop and the weightlessness and the catching of my weight on my board. Instant rebalancing, pressure with my right foot on the inside rail. Swing. I turned. I had to rise, had to go faster. I did. Again, weightless, the low sun flashed off the wave face. Gold, white, too bright. The curve of the wave, yards ahead of me, was impossibly steep, the lip feathering, throwing itself forward, lace and diamonds and rainbows. I had to keep my eyes open. Had to. I was in the tube. I was elated. The very few seconds were magical and terrifying.

The knock down was not as violent as I would have thought. Had I thought. The lip hit me. There was no recovery. My board slipped and skittered and went sideways. It was six feet down to the trough, sideways to upside down to down, six feet of wave pushing me. My body was curling and straightening under the power and the weight, pushed six feet under water, to the bottom, tumbling, caught in the surge, and struggling. Uselessly. I came up fifteen feet over and twenty feet closer to shore. Another broken wave hit me before I could cough out and take in another breath.

Three rides on a day that would become legendary was enough. I stood up in the shallows, the sea grass covered rock ledges that were like ever extending fingers from the cove to the point. I would pick my way to shore, collect my board, and head for the stairs. Three rides. Two on waves other surfers had fallen on, one magic tube ride on a wave that was just mine. Magic. No shame.

No board. I looked around. There were other surfers on the beach, those who had failed and those waiting to build enough nerve to go out. The steep cliff was still in a shadow that extended halfway out to the inside peak. I looked up. There were silhouettes, trees and a line of people, spectators at the stadium. All of them seemed to be pointing out and yelling in unison. I couldn’t quite hear them. Three surfers on the beach joined in. “It’s in the rip! It’s in the rip!”

I had to swim back out. Had to.

The same rip current that had taken my board, down the beach and around the biggest of the waves, created enough of a channel that surfers whose skills did not match the conditions could get to the lineup. Fools and heroes. Just witnessing great surfers on great waves was enough for some of them. Five surfers would back off as another, thirty yards deeper, would scream toward and then under and then past them, Santana winds blowing back fifteen feet from each breaking wave. Occasionally a fool would take off in front of someone who just might make the wave. Fools and heroes and witnesses, spectators with cameras on the bluff.

 I had just reached my board. It was floating, right side up, just beyond the regular takeoff spot for the inside peak. Someone yelled, “Outside!” Everyone started paddling, desperately, toward deeper water. A young woman dropped in, two stroke takeoff, on the first wave, fifty yards out and forty yards up the point from me. She seemed to be standing, effortlessly, she and her board separately freefalling to the bottom third of the wave. She landed, toes first, and rebalanced, moving her right foot back. She cleanly and gracefully leaned into the wave, her body stretched, her left arm pointing down the line. Despite the strength of her turn, she seemed to glide up to the top third of the hollow pit. She crouched, tight, disappeared even from my view, in the glare and the gold and the diamonds and lace. She reappeared, sideslipped, put her right hand into the face of the wave, reconnected, and, with the lip of the wave throwing itself out and over her head, and with the biggest smile possible on her face, she looked directly at me and screamed, “Joe-y!”

I screamed, “Ju-lie!” Julia Truelove Cole. Swamis. Tuesday, December second, nineteen-sixty-nine. Fifty-four years ago, as I write this, and…  And Julie made the wave.

I am fully awake now. I can visualize all of this in living, vibrant, real-to-life color. It is real to me.

“Swamis” is a memoir, of sorts, memories of Joseph Atsushi DeFreines. “Swamis” is not a surf novel but a surfer’s story. “Swamis” does not fit comfortably in the detective/mystery genre. Writing and rewriting “Swamis” would have been so much easier if the narrator hadn’t been caught up in the back stories and the side stories, the tangents and the overlapping circles. After countless hours remembering and thinking and writing, editing and deleting, of trying to fit what I want to say in some format a reader would recognize, I might have to say “Swamis” is mostly a coming-of-age/romance novel set in a very specific, magical and terrifying time and place.

I apologize in advance for telling too much about minor characters, for side trips into the periphery. I refuse to apologize for the enjoyment I have had, so many years on, opening and reopening those containers. Of those I stories I have deleted: They’re somewhere, some backup file, some thumb drive. Of those I so feared opening: I have opened them now. I had to.

“Swamis” is copyrighted. All rights reserved by Erwin Dence.

Almost This and Almost That

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, northwest surfing, Original Erwin t-shirts, perfect waves, real surfers, surf art

Always trying to improve, I have decided (or am deciding) that the advice I gave lip service to years ago was, often, right. My commercial art professor treated drawings we students believed to be high art as sketches, with mistakes that could be improved with the next attempt, or the attempt after that. “Two-Coat” Charlie Barnett (I didn’t call him that until later) was right that two coats of paint is almost always the way to go. Maybe someone should have told me that nothing we write is perfect, even after multiple drafts. Art, life, surfing; ten point rides, ten point anything is rare.

STILL, we try. I tried for years as a sign painter to try to get my block letters perfect, only to be out-performed by computer technology. I try to please my customers by making their house look, well, as good as possible. Some are perfectionists. Great. Here is my line on that: Perfection is very difficult to attain, and impossible to mainain.

SO, and maybe it’s because I’m stubborn, I have put some more time into previous ‘sketches.’

SO, the first image is a possible ORIGINAL ERWIN t shirt design, totally redrawn after my first attempt. Because I draw these in reverse (white and black), I don’t really know how they will look until I go to the PRINTERY in Port Townsend. First one, guy’s arm too long, I didn’t like the lettering. This one… yeah, lettering doesn’t stand out enough. Maybe I’ll… yeah, probably a redraw coming up.

THE BOTTLE. On the top one, I colored in the white lines on the reverse image of the original white and black illustration. Second one, water-color on the original and then reversed. Third one, to show the difference; I used colored pencils on the original. I am quite excited about the process of reversing the color spectrum, but I think I went to yellow on a night sky because I figured out how to get it. Purple, darker the better.

THERE ARE, as always things I like about each of the attempts. Attempts. More to follow.

MEANWHILE, in preparation for the upcoming SURF CULURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT, I am trying to get a collection of (the best of) my years of art stuff together and scanned, the hoped-for result a sort of powerpoint thing that can be displayed on one of two screens in the PORT TOWNSEND PUBLIC LIBRARY, 6pm, Friday, June 30.

At least seven other Olympic Peninsula surfer/artists will be displaying their work. I am planning on reciting at least two surf-related poems (actually songs, but I will try not to sing them). Other stuff going on, music, food, readings, are still in the getting-there phase, all under the management of surfer/librarian Keith Darrock.

MORE NEXT SUNDAY.

Remember that I do claim all rights to my work, perfect or not. THANKS, and by all means, get some waves when you can. Perfect or not.

Flipping RoyGBiv (vibgyor) and the Poster for the THIRD OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN de FUCA and THE SALISH SEA EVENT

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, real surfers, Uncategorized

With all the time I spend at THE PRINTERY in Port Townsend, I can’t really explain why I didn’t get a scannable 8 &1/2 inch version of the white and black version of my third attempt to draw a bottle on a beach. BECAUSE of an accident in which the illustration part of the poster was reversed, color-wise, with some very interesting results, I attempted to add some color to what would otherwise be black background. Two attempts, with the colors from the first used as a sort of chart to narrow the palette for the second. Purple becomes kind of, almost yellow, green becomes one shade of blue- like that.

Live and learn, experiment, fail, try again. I am not yet satisfied with the results, with my next attempt at coming out with something, perhaps, less psychedelic, more like… I don’t know. We’ll see. I got the white and black version printed on watercolor paper (or something close) and I’m going to do a sort of wash.

Bear in mind, everything that is in color here would be black. Not horrible, but not nearly as much fun. SO:

More sparkle, less crazy… We’ll see.

KEITH DARROCK is the Librarian/ripper and the curator for the EVENT. I called him over to the Printery to check out and pay for the posters. He assigned me to getting some distributed out to the JEFFERSON COUNTY locations. “Wait a minute, Keith,” I said, “I’m, like, a volunteer, and…” Yes, I took on the task anyway. IF YOU are cruising up or down SURF ROUTE 101 between now and the 30th, check out the sign the folks (actually one folk) at the QUILCENE VILLAGE STORE (QVS to Adam Wipeout, Mary’s Village Store to longtime locals) made from a postcard of mine. It’s at 101 and Columbia. AND THEN, go inside, check out this poster at the checkout counter. YES, Quilcene is a way hipper place than when we moved here.

AND, even hipper, the CHIMACUM FARM STAND, a cooler version of the Sunny Farms in Sequim, also has a poster AS WELL AS some copies of STEPHEN R. DAVIS’S latest postcards.

Steve is one of the eight artists currently lined up for the event. And there will be, as advertised, music and some talking story. It’s coming together. MORE NEXT TIME.

Remember, as always, to respect ownership of original material. I do reserve all rights to my stuff, BUT, when you show up for the BIG EVENT, you might have the opportunity to purchase works by a member of a pretty eclectic group of artists in a pretty wide range of styles. And I’m hoping to have some ORIGINAL ERWIN t shirts (unofficially) available.

The colors I loved in the original I also love in the reversal.

The Good Kind of Soreness and…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel

A few changes, something new, stuff like that.

Every year I try to to keep track of how many times I surf, just trying to get up to the thirty sessions I have (not arbitrarily- it’s like, I read it somewhere, though it was for skiing) set as a sort of minimum requirement for one to be self-identified as a real surfer. AND, every year I lose track. I ACTUALLY was doing pretty well until my surf rig died and the always fickle surf on the Strait became, um, even more so. Like, scarce, any window of possible opportunity incredibly small.

NOT TO WHINE (whinge in the British Isles, whimper elsewhere), but it’s been a full on month between salt water immersions. AND THEN, I went. Windblown, small, a touch crowded (not in numbers, just too many good surfers). Possibly because I was yelling and a bit too enthusiastic, I bit my tongue on the fourth wave. Apparently, because each of the rippers commented, I looked like a zombie, blood on my mustache, and spitting blood for the rest of the session. Then, attempting to get out of the water on the rocks, awkwardly, slipping between them, seaweed wrapping around my legs, I slammed my big ass board against my thumb. And, then, because I was just that tired, I dragged my big ass board back to my van, now starting consistently, after (different story) I finally faced the truth and replaced the starter. Thanks, George Takamoto.

So, YEAH, great session!

The next morning, I was sore. But it was the best kind of Sore. OH, AND, do you know what that soreness means? I need to surf MORE. MORE. And you probably do, too.

TODAY I have some new drawings, and I’ve made some changes to a couple of others. SO…

…we have a watercolor of a view from a spot near a house I was painting, waves added; a watercolor I did post, some new lines added to kind of put the subject’s face in place; a possible design for a possible t shirt (after I did a partial redraw because the surfer’s leg was too long); a definite ORIGINAL ERWIN t shirt design with the colors added (possibly by Ian for a didn’t-happen commercial-type shirt thing, maybe by me- not sure either way); and the so-far poster for the upcoming THIRD OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE… yeah, it’s on the poster. The lineup of artists is still incomplete and will be filled-in on the bottom, and, of course, I WILL LET YOU KNOW.

THANKS FOR the realsurfers CHECK, and hopefully, you’re experiencing some of that good kind of SORENESS

SIDENOTE- Surfers and non-surfers came very close to losing access to one of the few easily accessible spots on the Strait because some ASSHOLES decided to add some unwanted graffiti to the fence. If you want to record that you were there, blow it up in the water. I mean, of course, surf well.

As always, please respect copyright laws and ownership of original art and content. Thanks.

Wednesday at Swamis

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, surf art, surf fiction, surf novels, surf posters

Check out Reggie Smart Art by scrolling down. I do plan on posting new stuff on SUNDAYS, but I might just have more stuff to say than one-a-week can handle.

I continue to tighten and refine my manuscript for “SWAMIS.” Every time I am happy with one chapter, I think about how I can cut some fat from another chapter. When I say ‘think,’ I mean obsess. Most of this chopping and hacking involves covering what characters do without going too far into some background on the character.

But first, without too explanation- A few new illustrations:

WAIT! I screwed up and didn’t switch the view on several other drawings. Not being skilled enough to save this and add the corrected images. I guess I’ll have to save them for SUNDAY. SUNDAY!

MEANWHILE, here is a section that comes early in the novel, and is sort of retold a bit later. I already cut a character who was in this chapter. Sorry, man. I did a bit of a combo, taking what I thought was the best of each and making a version that is BETTER.

SO…

I tried to concentrate on the water, listening, studying where the waves peaked, where the best takeoff point might be. Instead, I visualized Sid in the water at Swamis on a sunny, glassy morning. Sitting with four other surfers, Sid was the farthest surfer over, farthest out. The apex of a loose triangle. He watched me push through a wave, kept his eyes on me as I paddled over far enough over to not be in the way if someone caught a right hander, close enough to pick up a wave someone missed or fell early on. Scraps.

Sid motioned to the surfer on his immediate right as a wave approached. The surfer paddled for and caught it. Three-wave set. Sid motioned to another surfer to go on the second, then took the third, and largest wave. I was on the shoulder, forty-five degrees to the waves, sitting back on my board, ready to go. Sid kept his eyes on me, shaking his head. He rode as close to me as he could, cranked his board around in a cutback, spraying me as he passed. I paddled on, out, toward the peak.

Another set came quickly enough that the surfer who missed the previous waves took the first one. I took the second one. Smooth takeoff, I thought, decent bottom turn. I lined up the section, pulled up high on the wave face. I did see Sid down the line. I didn’t expect him to turn, last second, and drop in. I had two choices: Run Sid over or bail.

No choice, really.

“That’s for paddling past me,” Sid said, paddling back out as I stood in chest deep water, my board, broach to the wave, popping up halfway to shore.

“I didn’t break any rules,” I said.

Sid stopped, got off his board. It was floating between us. “Yeah, Kook, you broke the locals rule.” He took in a mouth full of water, spit it across the board at me. He smiled. “Locals rule.” He nodded toward the lefts. “Okay… cowboy?”

“Okay” I said, out loud. I opened my eyes. I was still on the platform. “Ten seconds,” I whispered. “Maybe twelve.”

…

OH, yeah, remember that all rights to this stuff are claimed by the artist and/or artist and are protected by copyright.

See you SUNDAY!

Reggie Smart Art

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, northwest surfing, surf art

If I had to choose just one image from those Reggie sent me, it would probably be the tattoo on, like, a live person. I’ve known Reggie a while, worked with him a lot, surfed with him many times, and he is still kind of an enigma to me. He always has a quick answer to anything rude or sarcastic I’ve ever said to him, and his self-identifying stories (and I’m not challenging them; sure, maybe he was named after a dealer on Third and Broadway [hope I got that right]) have a sort of (effective) shock value to me, someone who considers himself worldly.

Proud enough of his Irish genes to have a big “Ireland” tattoo on his body, Reggie’s forebears must have included some Leprechauns, and (yes, I looked this up) maybe a Kelpie (known for luring others into the water and the out-surfing them) or two. Reggie has this habit of showing up at my job sites and, more worthy of not here, at surf spots when I’m there. Sometimes we both actually score. I have been trying to not greet his paddling into the lineup with a “Fuck you, Reggie!” and/or a flip-off, single or double.

FRIENDLY GESTURE, I insist. BUT, Reggie has also filmed me on his phone, then, through super clever editing, made something amusing or funny for his many instagram followers. Evidently the secrecy part is crucial. He may refer to me as “Erwhistle,” something like that, but when another surfer in a parking lot referred to me by that name, I did resist sharing the FRIENDLY GESTURE with him. “Yeah; friend of Reggie’s, huh?”

SO, without further commentary, here are some selections of REGGIE SMART ART:

OKAY, so, um, not sure who this is, or what story the images selected tells, but I am pretty sure it isn’t Reggie. One of the nicknames earned through a careful diet (ask him, I’m obviously on a different regimen- vitamins and Oreos) is Reggie Good-Abs. No offense to this guy. ALSO, remember Reggie’s original art is copyright protected.

I do plan on having new posts on Sundays. I do plan on having other artists represented. TWO WEEKS AGO I did the once-only thing of texting everyone on my smart phone’s contact list with a message about TIM NOLAN’S artwork. It worked pretty well, hit-wise. LAST WEEK I featured NAM SIU. I have received a lot of text feedback. One recent one was, “DIGGING THE NEW ART.” I texted back, “What about the old (like, mine) art?” No response. YET.

NOW, I WILL ALMOST DEFINITELY add some of my art, as well as some recent outtakes from “SWAMIS” sometime this week. OKAY, Wednesday; let’s shoot for that. I am posting this one early, and remember, you can just scroll down… down, down, old art.

OH, AND if you see Reggie and can’t help but give him a FRIENDLY GESTURE, you might expect a response like, “Oh, you saw my stuff on Erwhistle’s site, huh?”

Nam Siu for You… and more

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, surf art, surf culture, surf fiction

It’s EASTER SUNDAY and I did not get up before dawn.

Maybe my one-time-only self-promoting text attack last Sunday worked a bit better than I thought. I sent word to every person on my smart phone about some artworks by TIM NOLAN, and, I think, I might have made reference to planning on posting content on Sundays. I DIDN’T MEAN, like, early.

OR maybe the unusually high number of looks is because I’m posting some art work by Olympic Peninsula STYLIST (I considered some other apt descriptors- ripper, reef diver, skatepark regular…still thinking…) NAM SIU.

SO, OKAY, I’ll just…

NAM SIU did send me three photos of him surfing. I selected this one because of the lighting. Mainly. Or the styling.

IN OTHER NEWS:

JAMES ARSULISH, a friend of mine of many years, died on GOOD FRIDAY. I feel compelled to write something about friends we see, occasionally, over many years, like surf friends. Occasionally, with large gaps in between. AND there are friends who move, or pass on. We get the news… eventually. James’ passing was closer than that. I will write about James. For now, I share grief with his family and his extended group of friends. RIP.

BECAUSE I am going to stick to the SUNDAY POSTS with an emphasis on ART and ARTISTS, my plan is to post occasional stories, essays, whatever, about other things on a random Thursday, Friday, whenever, IT’S all on one page… scroll down.

IN “SWAMIS” NEWS: I have been going through the latest edit for a while. I focused heavily on it recently, got to the end, again, and got a copy printed up on, yes, GOOD FRIDAY. 221 pages, somewhere under 97,000 words (not epic length, and down from the 120,000 plus earlier versions), double sided. It cost me (I have the receipt right here) $26.29. MY PLAN WAS, put it in a PEE-CHEE folder (sort of featured in the novel), sell some numbered (max 100), signed, limited editions for… more. A profit.

YES, I do know it’s cheesy and unprofessional and, no, but… do consider the value increase when/if the novel hits it big. MEANWHILE, I have had several people offer to buy a copy, AND I ran into a client at the grocery store whose granddaughter has written many books and might just… help. BUT TRISH is telling me to calm down, not go any crazier.

WHAT MAKES anyone crazy enough to do anything that might be considered art or literature or surfing, anything that can be judged subjectively by judges and judgers, crazier, is self doubt. I have already sort of pushed some folks into reading parts or the first two unexpurgated versions of “SWAMIS.” I won’t get a second chance at a first impression.

I am aware of some of my mistakes. MY HOPE IS that I have now cut out enough of the peripherals, focused enough on the plot. Meanwhile meanwhile, I am going through the paper version, marking things, cutting, changing. I am trying to write a reasonable synopsis, looking up agents I might contact… shit like that. I am not a salesman. This part sucks. TRIPLE MEANWHILE- I somehow can’t help wondering/dreaming/fantasizing what my $26.29 copy, with notes and changes, might be worth.

THANK YOU for checking out realsurfers. REMEMBER all rights to original materials are owned by the person who produced them and are protected by copyright.

OH, AND how about Sunday by… 9:45AM?

Original Erwin, Surf, Swamis, Squalls, Fantasy Surf Spot Illustrations, slightly off kilter (scanner, not the artist)

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, surf art

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.

The Blue Hole Above the Salish Sea

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, northwest surfing, old surfers, surf adventures, surf culture, surf-related short storties

I FIRST HEARD about the hole in the clouds from an ex-military, ex-commercial pilot. It was a while ago and some of his details are a little lost in the clouds of time, but he flew enough over the Puget Sound/Salish Sea/Strait of Juan de Fuca area that he took note of how, in inclement/stormy/normal-for-here weather, there seems to be a hole in the clouds. Here is where I may be romanticizing the story a bit: His wife, evidently, on a recreational flight, pointed to the hole in the clouds and said, “I want to live there.”

AND SO… they bought a place on high bank overlooking Discovery Bay, with a view toward Protection Island and the waters beyond. The wife wasn’t around when I worked for the guy. I won’t go to far into making up some story as to why she wasn’t.

 I thought I had saved an image from the Doppler radar that showed the blue hole fairly clearly. Please accept this substitute image

   THE BLUE HOLE, SPECIFICALLY

            From above, the hole in the clouds over the Salish Sea has been observed often enough to be named. The blue hole. It is not, of course, clouds being clouds, constant in size or location, but it does consistently appear, somewhere around Protection Island. The blue hole can be seen from the curving road that skirts and rises above Discovery Bay. Look to the northeast. In the distance you just might see streams of light through a tear in the patchwork quilt.

            If you are in the water or on land, a ring of ominous clouds around you, open sky above, the blue hole name also makes sense. If you see it once, you will look for it again. If you believe the phenomenon to be magical, some real-world Shangri-la… sure.

It isn’t magic, it is magical.

            Rain shadows and rain forests, flood and drought, weather anywhere is confusing and complicated. Simplified, the earth seeks balance. The changes in the atmospheric pressure, the relative weight of the air above the earth, are paralleled with the changes in temperature between land masses, land and ocean masses calls for rebalancing. The constant rebalancing brings the movement of air. Wind. Mountains to oceans, cold to hot, warm to warmer, oceans to mountains. Bigger differences, stronger winds.

 Too complicated, too confusing, there are professionals to track the changes, to tell us what to expect in weather and wind, to explain the blue hole.

            Winds. We are all victims of and beneficiaries of winds; soft or harsh, breezes or gales. Winds can dry our clothes or tear them off the line, propel a boat, or, along with wind-driven waves, sink it. It seems illogical that winds from the north, the Fraser River Valley, particularly, can bring heat, even excessive heat, in the summer, and bitter, freezing cold in the winter.

They do.         

            The blue hole is caused by updrafts; a collision of winds split from a single source, a storm front approaching landfall from somewhere in the vast Pacific; from the Aleutian Islands, from the waters off Japan, even from the waters off New Zealand. Jet streams and rivers of ocean current add to the chaos.

The surface level winds, butting against the land, take the easier routes, the water, the corridors between the Olympic and Cascade Mountains. Sea level.

            Islands and bridges, points of land and bays and inlets formed by rain and ancient ice are mere obstructions. Waves from the wind batter them and wrap around them.

            The winds on the southern route go through the Chehalis Gap, into and up the Puget Sound. Whether the winds are southwest or southeast, the net direction is north. Hitting the obstructions of Whidbey and other Islands, the winds bend to the wider and more open area to the west. The Salish Sea. East winds, net direction West.

            The winds on the northern route wrap around Cape Flattery and push down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Southwest becomes west. Again, even with winds blowing across or against the flow, the net direction is east.

            Collision. Updraft. The blue hole. Specifically. Still, it is… magical.

I wrote this piece for a still in the planning phase event or series of events in conjunction with the Port Townsend Library. I decided to post it here because it seems the “INSPIRED BY THE SALISH SEA” events or events might still be a ways off. Surfer/librarian Keith Darrock is the contact point with the Library. Since there is some time, and because I have worked with and keep working with people who have some interesting relationships with the local waters (not just surfers), I am trying to contact them and invite their participation.

My goals are a bit different than Keith’s. In addition to a live event or events, I am kind of pushing for some sort of hold-in-your-hands thing, a pamphlet, perhaps, with art and essays and poetry. It is totally unclear how the thing would be funded, but it would give some folks who don’t want to chat it up live and in person a chance to say… whatever. Several artist friends (and I) are working on Salish Sea appropriate art. If you have a short piece or art to contribute, Keith would be the guy to get a hold of. Google him, or, I guess, the PORT TOWNSEND PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Thanks, as always, for checking out realsurfers.net. Please remember that I claim all rights to my writing and… not this time, but to my illustrations as well. “Swamis” update- Working on the final go-through before whatever the next step is. Shit, I better get on it. Or maybe I’ll…

OH, WAIT… here’s a thought based on several recent surf trips/adventures: You can choose to be disappointed. Or… not.