Shit’s happening. Parades and demonstrations, legislators and their spouses shot in Wisconsin, soldiers in the streets, tension levels spiking… Oh, yeah, and the contest is on at Trestles, tomorrow is fathers’ day, and I am trying to decide between panic and that pathetically sad rationalization that, some…
…some crazed asshole assassinating democrats is better, somehow, than the targets being people on the maga side of normal. What would the reaction be to that? Guaranteed screaming of, “See? See what we say about those radicals on the left?”
Is political murder in any way just? Of course not. Are there people happy to push the fear level up among those who worry about grifts and the blatant abuse of power, about the push and the slide toward control by fear? Sure.
Demonstrations are theater. Murder is murder.
Because I thought my biggest self debate today would be between whether I should watch surfing or go to Port Townsend to work and, perhaps, participate in the demonstration by, mostly, older Americans. I do, also, have work in town. So…
I turned off the WSL. I will let you know how it goes.
Also… Does the murderer believe he might just get a pardon?
BUT FIRST- Reggie’s dog, Django (“The ‘J’ is silent”), and sometimes lunatic-al Reggie jumping off a forty foot cliff into freezing water at (I’m not sure this is even legal) some place called, if I remember correctly, the Devil’s Punch Bowl. Definitely not Hawaii.
SPIEL- I was born in Surf City, North Carolina. In a car. Delivered with the help of my father. I am happy to continue the possible or partial truth, or legend, that there was a hurricane and/or we were passing the beach. My parents did, oddly enough, have a waterfront house that, family lore has, they purchased for, like, a thousand dollars in the late forties, and sold it for the same amount in 1954 or so. It was, soon thereafter (again, lore) washed away in another hurricane.
I know we went to the beach often. Another North Carolina story is of me, maximum three years old, toddling down and having to be rescued by an Aunt from the shorebreak. I will get to mat surfing in a bit…
BUT FIRST… I was half under my Volvo at a beach parking lot (no surf), pulling a branch that had been stuck and was causing me stress/worry almost equal to that of my concern about an oil leak (possibly/hopefully from the valve cover gasket rather than anything worse, when a car pulls up. It’s the legendary TIM NOLAN, his wife (who I have met several times, but may not have been properly/formally introduced), and this tallish guy. It turns out it’s EMERSON SWANK, someone who Tim met while on a boat/surf trip in Alaska. And, it turns out, Emerson is from North Carolina. “Oh. I was born there… Surf City.” “That’s where Emerson’s from,” Mrs. Nolan says.
So, because I always forget I have two cell phones, each with a camera, I asked Tim to take a few shots of Emerson Swank, possible nickname ‘Extra Swank.’ Because the first two are East Coast, my best guess is Tim asked Extra Swank to send him a couple. AND I might not have made a big deal of the coincidence if I hadn’t told TRISH. She was amazed. Then again, Trish makes a deal out of the fact that, our fathers both in the Marine Corps, she was conceived in North Carolina, born in San Diego, lived on base at Camp Pendleton in the officer’s housing while my family was in the enlisted section (yeah, okay), and that we met, as fate would have it, in Fallbrook. Fate, coincidence. Yeah. Okay. The bottom photo is of Emerson on the Olympic Peninsula coast.
SURF MATS- I’m doing some work for surfer JOEL CARBON, originally from Long Island, New York. Reggie was working with me the other day when Joel showed up. He and Reggie did some surf bro talk about a session they had recently both been a part of. Shortly thereafter, Joel, with me unwilling to trade out for an inflatable SUP, suggested that I should consider, at my advanced age, switching to a surf mat. NOW, I know Joel realizes I loved surf matting, and continued doing it, with Trish, for a while after I started riding boards (1965). Still, not interested. Yet.
GEORGE GREENOUGH, hailed as surfing’s only genius (disregarding/disrespecting Tom Morey, possibly LibTech dude, Mike Olson, others you can add), who, famously, shot the inside the tube footage for “The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun” from a mat. Way before GoPro.
Joel on a mat on a tiny wave. I believe this is some secret Long Island spot. ALSO, something to add to my “Surf Injury” file. Here’s one of several Mat Mad texts from Joel:
“This thing is mind blowing! Just as XZanadu Rocket Fish open up my surfing 15 years ago to riding everything, the mat is opening up my perspective on wave riding in new waves. The speed and feel of being in (as opposed to on) the wave is really cool. It’s like bodysurfing on a thin layer of air… and the view riding low on the wave in the barrel is unreal, leaves me smiling every time. Yew!”
“Yeah, Joel, I remember.”
It is the heart of the painting season, and I have missed several opportunities to pursue the innermost limits of pure fun… including right now. I was discussing all (actually only) things surf related with surf obsessed Olympic Peninsula ripper, Keith Darrock, while trying to put this version of my ego centric blog together. l said I don’t really want realsurfers to be documentation of the last hurrah of my surf life. “Downward spiral,” he said; “Death spiral.” “Wow. Thanks, Keith.” “Maybe you can go surfing tomorrow… or something.”
I’m scheming. Always. Thanks, as always, for checking out realsurfers.net. AND, I don’t actually care what a real surfer rides (maybe one of those hand dealies for body surfing or an Alaia(sp?) might suggest to me that you are surfing a bit too much), with the possible exception of a blow up SUP, just, if you’re surfing… enjoy it to the limit.
OH, WAIT… ONE MORE THING: I was at the gas pumps recently, bemoaning that if I had purchased some petrol a few hours earlier, I could have saved twenty-one cents a gallon. This cool young man, in cool attire, with a cool hat, gassing up his cool VW van, said, “I’ve discovered that… (cool pause) everything costs something.” WOW! Thanks.
…and sure, why not celebrate the folks who actually DO THINGS, BUILD THINGS, providing services to the folks who profit on the backs of workers. Not to be in any way political; it’s more like a cultural anthropological and historic question broken down to a harsher core: Do slaveholders support the slaves, or do the slaves support the slaveholders? Okay, change it to stockholders and CEOs, and workers.
If you are a worker, celebrate other workers… and yourself. In the midst of a hostile takeover of our fought-for, bled-for, died-for, always fragile democracy, it isn’t a bad time to take to the street in support of the former, supposedly, right wing ideals of rule of law, of due process, of independent and co-equal branches of government, of freedom of speech, of common fucking decency; not to mention, because I don’t want to go religious zealot here, but folks who boast about or even claim some loose connection to ANY religion or ideology that values treating other human beings with some amount of respect, how about a little fucking compassion?
INTERMISSION- SURF STUFF-
Olympic Peninsula ripper KEITH DARROCK is in Mexico, hoping to score at several mainland spots, and has agreed to represent.
“Waves all day right out front of where I’m staying. That’s Stinky’s, a mellow right hand reef. Pretty ideal for easy longboarding. Lots of surfers around. There are other spots nearby up the point and down that look bigger. It’s pretty chill except that I’ve already been stung by jellyfish and gotten some urchin spines in my foot. Not too stoked on that!”
STUFF I COULDN’T get right from Sunday:
A lovely spring day with no surf but lots of characters and sailboats and stuff, a cruise down Surf Route 101, a new sign on the Quilcene Historical Museum, also on 101.
INTERMISSION OVER, back to May Day:
Again, I am not a radical of any sort; and either are those on the street protesting; but there has been a shift in who believes what. Conservatives, out of fear, or hatred, or blindness, and perhaps this is what is meant by ‘staunch conservative,’ now embrace the lies, that, if you’re not someone who benefits from corporate greed, seems to not be in your best interest. That doesn’t seem really, um, uh, intelligent. AND, It is now radical to ask for the truth from those who deny it; to question the lies designed to further the interests and the accumulated wealth of… not workers, not folks who get W-2s, who pay into social security for years; nope, that money could be better served. Or, wait, is that a lie?
That’s my rant. Done. I have to go work. Because I mentioned the phrase, ‘down the road’ is a term I learned when I went to work painting Navy housing. It was late summer, 1971, families were being transferred, and painters were needed. It was a ‘temporary’ job. As the season wound down, less painters were necessary. Some were sent ‘down the road.’ It makes sense, and the fear if not acknowledgement of losing my job has always been there, and I did everything I could, learned all I could, because I wasn’t going to be selected for a layoff because I wasn’t good enough.
It’s May day, 2025, and… guess what? All work is temporary. Any worker can be replaced. But, any politician can be replaced, any CEO can be voted out, golden parachute and all. And, just because it’s so exhausting thinking about how dire our country’s position is right now, I have to mention that we are all here on a temporary basis. Again, not to go religious-ish, but when you do ‘down the road,’ where do you believe you’re going?
WORKS IN PROGRESS- Two from when I was waiting for a tire repair at Les Schwab, one from something else I’ve been working on.
That’s it. Happy International Workers’ Day! If you’re not getting waves today, I’m sure you will soon. They are out there. Thanks for checking out realsurfers. The drawings are subject to copyright restrictions, all rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
It’s early painting season, and, with the economic uncertainty (or the certainty that it’s not better than last year), I’m afraid to turn down any job. Actually, I always have been, just more so. I have done a lot of proposals in the past few months that the homeowners might just decide to put off, or not do. “No, the house won’t fall down if we don’t paint it right now.” True; mostly. It makes sense to save a few bucks to cover the increased costs of, no doubt, everything.
Not that I’m in any way political, BUT I do think every receipt should have a line for the cost TRerriffs add to a purchase. If Bezos hadn’t decided to do this, and then backed down, he’d probably seem a lot… I don’t know, manly. Manliness is so important to the current regime. BUT, if a true Amazon was running Amazon… Hard to say. AND I can’t help imagining excuses for being the bullied billionaire Jeffy might have: “I care about my people.” wink/scoff/barf.
BUT here I am sort of making excuses for not having done much drawing recently, not adding the last touches on my novel, “Swamis,” the ones that wake me up at night. “Yes, yeah; maybe a little less dialogue, more description; yes, sure; I’ll get on that… zzzzzz.”
Not that I haven’t been writing. BUT, surf-wise, I should do some reporting: I’m waiting until Chris Eardley gets back from his honeymoon (congratulations to Chris and Megan) to get an update on Nam Siu’s condition. Surfers are asking me; all I know is Nam is still in the hospital. Meanwhile, rumors of waves persist, anyone who scores, as always on the Strait, tells only a few closest friends…
I hit the wrong key, can’t seem to edit on the laptop. AND I ran out of time, AND I have a client waiting. Excuses. Yeah. Tomorrow.
A shot of the Big Island heavens from Florida-grown, intermittent Port Townsend resident Mikel ‘Squintz.’ I’m using the photo from mikelcumiskey.net as a bit of a shout out to Jesus, and, not to get into any religious or political commentary, not to be any more sacrilegious than those who claim to love Jesus, but… (no, not commenting), but I’m pretty sure the surfer in this photo is about to give Jesus his own shout out.
I didn’t want to steal/borrow all of Mike’s photos, but here’s a sort of mysterious selfie.
The Hama Hama Oyster Company is the must-stop location on the Hood Canal section of ‘the 101 Loop’ around the Olympics. In this case, Jeffry Vaughn, headed down and out to do some clam digging before cruising back to the Strait, happened to run into Stephen R. Davis, no doubt headed to some secret spot down south. the ever-gregarious Adam ‘Wipeout’ James happened to be on site. If you’re a surfer, Adam might just offer you a grilled cheese sandwich or some of surfer/restauranteur “Soupy” and/or “Yodeling” Dan’s soup and/or some chowder. In this case, Steve gave Adam an original painting and Adam gave him… oysters. “Wait, you didn’t give him a Hama Hama hoody (total status symbol, as is any post cards or other art from Mr. Davis)?” “Should have.” “Yeah.” “Next time.”
NAM UPDATE- Since this message from Nam Siu’s fiancee, Jenny Lee, he has shown signs of improvement in his kidney function and mental awareness. It’s still very serious, but, if hopes and prayers work… it seems like this confusing and tragic medical event might be a chapter in a much longer story.
NEW TRICKS AND OLD SURF DOGS
It may have been commentary on my very thrashed board, or just fun, but Jeffry Vaughn is riding a log on my Volvo (itself a rebirth story thanks to ‘blue devil’ and help from Adam Wipeout). I got out of the water, saw the log, and was a bit disappointed I didn’t get to keep it.
Tugboat Bill at some random beach break, coming in after riding some prime number number of waves. 11. 13. 17. “It gets tougher after 23,” he said, “gotta go to 31.” I may have some numbers wrong. I lose track after ten or so. Incidentally, because some whippersnapper, out in the water, asked, Bill is 72, so, like a year, give or take, younger than I am.
Tim Nolan, renowned boat designer/artist/writer, was once, like, four years older than I am. Somehow he’s narrowed the gap. We’re shown here, Tim, perhaps, trying to appear to be more of a curmudgeon than he is, me trying to appear friendlier than I am; both of us modeling our modesty/changing robes. Trish just got me one. It’s big enough. Yes. I’m still working out how to do the changing thing… discreetly.
YOUNG SURF DUDES
This is, left to right, Donovan, a total ripper from San Clemente, and two Not Donovans from LA. All three attend U dub. I saved this for last, figuring many of the tens of readers might give up before they get this far.
I saw Donovan getting in the water on my second attempt to keep both earplugs in my ears. “Hey, man, no booties,” I yelled at the young man with the almost-long board, black tape on the rails at the nose. I had gotten out because I lost one of the special, plastic, comfort ear plugs after a wipeout caused, at least partially, because some dude was right in my path. This was his second time being in the way. I will go back to the wax plugs. Not that fond of dragging my ass and my waterlogged Hobie up the beach. Less fond of a plugged up ear for three days, alcohol and antihistamine, and, “What? Sorry. What?”
I really can’t blame the guy for yelling, more like loud growling, at me; I had said, as I took off on the second wave he would block me on, “Hey, man; you’re not in the lineup, you’re in the way!”
So, I come up, almost caught the lost earplug inn the foam (almost), and the guy’s pointing and yelling. “Can’t hear you,” I try to explain, pointing to my ear. He repeats whatever he had previuously growled. “Still can’t hear you.” He shakes a fist (maybe, I might be adding this) and clearly says, “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
What I figured he thought was that he set the old guy straight sent him straight into the beach. While on the beach, I got a replacement ear plug, had a shot of coffee, and explained the story, in my outdoor voice, to several others on the beach; mostly to ‘IT’ Darren One of two women a few vehicles down, said, “You should have growled back at him.” “I think I did.” “I’ve seen you here before.” “Oh, yeah; that’s because… I’ve been here before.”
While hanging, I couldn’t help but notice that the kid without booties, and without a leash, was cranking deep bottom turns, nose riding, switching stance; generally killing it. I asked Jeff to “take a photo and find out where this guy comes from… if he ever gets out of the water.” Jeff agreed, and said, “He’s having a hell of a good time.”
I did not notice the growler in the lineup or the way when I got back in the water. I caught a few waves, dodged a few closeout roll throughs, and got caught inside a few more times than I would have liked. I also chatted with Donovan. “I’m from San Clemente,” he said. I quickly commented on the crowds, and e-bikes, and how I worked up the hill from Trestles for ten months in 1975, parked on the beach (this is in between waves). and how he shouldn’t tell any other California surfers about any, ANY waves around these parts, and how I was actually raised in Fallbrook, and…
“Fallbrook?” It turns out Donovan had relatives in Fallbrook, avocado orchard owning relatives. “Harris. Know any people named Harris?” “I left in 1971, moved to P.B., and… Oh; a set.”
My motto is, of course, “I’m here to surf,” I surfed. As much as I’ve always claimed to be a ‘soul’ surfer, content with an empty lineup, I’m so much much more competitive when others are in the water (or on the beach). So, I might have stalled a little longer on a wall, crannked it a bit harder on a turn; still, Donovan’s surfing was good enough to probably draw some attention at Trestles.
When I got out of the water after an unforced, unblocked wipeout, Donovan and two other men in their early twenties, if that old, were hanging out at a car on the far end of the lot from mine. We started chatting. “How long have you been surfing,” one of the non-Donovans, hanging over the roof, asked. “Board surfing? Since 1965. But…” The other non-Donovan, who I said could pass for a Colapinto if not a Gudauskas, asked, “Are you, like, an enforcer here?” “No. There’s no enforcer. I’m just here to… dominate.”
When I was in my teens, I paid little attention to surfers over, probably, thirty. When I was 27, part of what I told myself when I was ready to move from San Diego and, as far as I knew, give up surfing, was that it was a sport for younger people. What was interesting, and I have to say, gratifying, was that the group seemed to appreciate the place an old surf dog might have in… yeah, the lineup. Not just in the way.
NOTE- I do have some new drawings and some new poems/songs I was planning on posting. I’ll save them for next time. I do have a lot to say about the current threats to our democracy, to the rule of law, to the Constitution, and to basic human decency, and I feel a bit chickenshit for not speaking up more forcefully. I would like to confess to how saddened I am by supposed Christians hanging on so desperately and wrongly to some twisted and self-centered, hateful belief in a remodeled version of the compassionate redeemer prophesied in the Old Testament, and chronicled in the New Testament; someone else’s Jesus. There really can be nothing more self-serving than saving one’s soul. It seems hard to see how hating your neighbors, or worshipping money, or going against your own morality to follow vengeful, corrupt, morally bankrupt rulers gets one anywhere closer to that goal.
We can all break down our surfing lives into where we first attempted to ride waves, the places we have surfed, our most memorable sessions and rides, and who we surfed with. We’ve all run into surfers we admired and surfers we hated- heroes and villains.
While new people are making the same attempts we made, surfers are lost at the other end- heroes and villains and all those who don’t fit into either category.
Tom Decker and Bucky Davis passed on recently. If you surf in Washington State, you have probably heard of Mr. Decker, an ENFORCER at Westport and elsewhere. He may have invited you to get out of the water or not even go out. You probably have not heard of Bucky.
If Bucky was my first and possibly last surf hero, I never fully bought into Tom as a bad-to-the-bone villain.
-Tom Decker- I first ran into Tom when I first ran into Northwest surf pioneer Darrell Wood when I moved from San Diego to the Olympic Peninsula in late 1978, believing I had given up surfing. In February of 1979, a portion of the Hood Canal floating bridge, the peninsula’s connection to the world, including Bremerton, where I worked, sank. A week later the state set up a horrible boat/bus network and, aboard the passenger-only boat, the first person I met was Darrell. The next weekend I was attempting to surf a point break. One of the locals I met was Tom Decker. He lived as close to the break as he could, worked at a restaurant, this allowing him maximum daytime to search for waves. Tom was respectful of Darrell and polite to me. We tried to make a deal for me to buy a wetsuit from him to replace the only one I could find, a diving suit- two-piece, crotch strap, minimal stretch, super uncool. I did ‘borrow’ the suit, didn’t end up purchasing it. No, never loan anyone a wetsuit.
I heard Tom had moved to Bellingham or somewhere, pursuing a career in filming videos or something, but when I was convinced to go out for a Ricky Young-sponsored longboard contest in Westport in the late 1980s, there was Tom Decker, in my heat. “No,” he said, after he advanced and I didn’t, “I moved here a while back.” “Oh, great.”
I heard stories from Westport surfers who ventured up to the Strait, stories of crowds and locals, including Tom Decker, rebelling against the flow of kooks and people who are, rather than committing any obvious sin, just plain in the way. This cajoling and directing (such as, “Get the fuck out of the water!”) would seem slightly more noble if enforcers were trying to impress upon other surfers that etiquette is important.
When my son Sean was going to Evergreen College in Olympia, and when I had a surf-relationship with Jeff Parrish, husband of my daughter, Dru, I made some trips to Westport. I have written about this, but my encounters with Tom Decker (I remembered him, not sure he remembered me) were, well, memorable. He was still riding a short board while I was making the older-guy switch to bigger boards. Respect for that. His ‘disagreement’ with a guy in the water, in pretty heavy conditions, started when the other surfer blew three takeoffs. Yeah, there is something irritating about this. When Tom mentioned this, the takeoff-blowing surfer snapped back. “Oh, I didn’t know I was surfing with… royalty!” And then Jeff lost control on an attempted takeoff. I caught the next wave, went in. Jeff was running out of the water. “Did I almost hit you?” “Yeah. Why?” “That guy called me a kook, and said I almost killed my friend.” “Oh?”
Tom Decker didn’t call me out. I felt kind of… good about it.
This is not to say I have not been called out for kook moves throughout my career. I have, even fairly recently, and I deserved most, but not all of the call outs. None of the people pointing out my kookish behavior would be classified as villains. I’m perfectly willing to not classify Tom Decker as one. Rest in peace.
-Bucky Davis- I know almost nothing about what Bucky Davis has done in fifty-five of the very close to sixty years since I started board surfing. Other than surfers I read about and saw photos of in magazines, Bucky was a sort of best-example-of if not surf hero. He had that aloof sort of coolness, surfed Grandview rather than Tamarack, dated Trish (not my Trish) the equally cool, even more aloof older sister (and personification off a late sixties surfer girlfriend), of Phillip Harper, my first surf friend. And Bucky was willing to take a couple of freshmen kooks with him on a couple of very memorable surf adventures (Grandview, where he pushed me off the bluff; across Camp Pendleton to San Onofre, to New Break at Sunset Cliffs).
My first attempt at a surf novel, “Inside Break,” used the interactions I had with Bucky and Trish, and what I knew of their real-life story, and in particular, my encounters with Bucky after I could drive myself, and ran into him, as the arc of my fictionalized, undoubtedly romanticized narrative; romanticized in that, in my novel, years later, Bucky and his Trish get back together.
The novel really is about how what we idealize is great, and it’s real. There is magic. Moments of it, hours, possibly days; but there is reality; harsh, mundane, boring. The era was, as it is in “Swamis,” the supercharged mid-to-late 1960s. The reality for someone coming of age was that decisions had to be made changes had to be dealt with: College, work, family, surfing, having a relationship, and the ongoing war, more specifically the draft.
My finite number of actual encounters with Bucky were landmarks on my own journey. There were some similarities. He showed up at Swamis beachbreak in ’68 or so. Surprise. He had fun. We all did. I saw him at Grandview in ’70; I was going to Palomar Junior College and working at Buddy’s Sign Service. My mother had just died in a car accident. I knew his brother had been killed in some sort of incident. We didn’t talk about it. The last time I saw him my girlfriend and I went to Tarramar because Trish didn’t want to do the stairs at Swamis, and because the access at Grandview had been filled in. Bucky was there with a girl I knew from school in Fallbrook. She was pregnant. Bucky and I surfed.
If there is a moral to “Inside Break,” it’s possibly that, contrary to the adage, ‘never meet your idols,’ maybe knowing a little more about anyone, saint or sinner, hero or villain, allows us to know something about ourselves. We need role models, good and bad. That’s not magic; but there is magic somewhere in that knowledge.
It’s not magic if it’s real. Or… magic is real.
Thanks for checkiong out realsurfers.net. I’m pushing Dru to get to work formatting my novel, “Swamis.” I have other stuff I wanted to include today. SO, something to look forward to for next time.
All original work on realsurfers.net is protected by copyright. Thanks for respecting that. NOW, get some waves!
The paddle out in memory of definitely talented surfer and otherwise controversial figure TOM DECKER is scheduled for Saturday, March 15, 3:00 pm, at THE GROINS in Westport.
I Googled Tom’s name and came up with several pieces I have written about him; so posting this info, sent to me by Paul Anderson, might help you out. I first heard he had passed when Reggie Smart got a message from a Westport local and then asked me if I knew him.
Yes. Sort of. I had several encounters with him, the first in 1979 on the Strait. As is the way with surfers, we have friends in common. SO I called TOM BURNS, another member of the generation Tom is from; he checked it out, gave me some more info.
What is a bit coincidental is that, last night, I heard from Trish, from some internet connection she has, that my first, and probably last surf hero, BUCKY DAVIS, from back when I was a grom in Fallbrook and he was willing to take his girlfriend’s brother, PHILLIP HARPER, and I surfing if we never told any of his other friends about it. Trish is tasked with getting more info.
SO, HEROES AND VILLAINS, I’ll have something more substantial on SUNDAY. Maybe not dawn-early, but Sunday. Tom Decker is a legend. Legends have stories. Stories have something to say about attitudes and fate and karma and all kinds of stuff, but let me say, I never had a truly unpleasant encounter… rephrased… If Tom called out every other surfer in the lineup except me, and for what he considered good reasons (blown takeoffs, mostly, or kooks endangering others in the lineup), I did, and continue to call that a not-unpleasant encounter, not that I would ever be as vocal or… insistent.
I’m not giving up any spots. I think this is from San Diego.
I actually don’t have a lot of time this morning. Work, and planning for more work. The winter work famine might just be giving way to, yeah, work. the VOLVO continues to run great, knock on wood, I’m waiting to see if my daughter will kindly format my “Swamis” so I can do something with it, I’m moving ahead, slowly, on getting songs and poems and essays and artwork together for “Love Songs for Cynics,” and… surfwise; with a few notable exceptions, the surf doldrums continue.”
I’ve been doing a virtual dawn patrol lately. No, I’m always checking the buoys (taking advantage before they disappear in a whiff of doge-shit). What I don’t check is the forecast sites. Perhaps it is nice to have Surfline to blame for your latest trip by ferry, and across bridges, and through a few stoplights and past some downed trees on long and winding roads to end up with you, speeding from known spot to known spot, to be skunked. That with the added bonus of hanging out, at length, or hiking in, watching a lack of rideable waves for a number of hours, hoping, waiting, and then considering the miles and bridges and ferry wait times between there and home.
Still, I believe, anticipation doesn’t just ebb and flow; we store it up, tighten that spring, until…
Until. Hopefully, until, for you, is now. Or soon. I have my big, gnarled and thrashed board on my car, I have buoys on my phone, and… I’m ready. See you.
OH, yeah, on an I’m-not-political side note, I am not ready to go commie. Now, or ever. And… I’m not sure even red state, all-in Magamaniacs are really, really ready to go that red. Meanwhile, for book banning enthusiasts, a must-ban is “The Manchurian Candidate,” and any other book that even hints at… whatever that book hints at.
It’s been raining, followup to the really cold spell. As someone reminded me, “It’s still winter.” Yeah. Blessed, I guess, with too much time to think about all the projects I could be working on, I chose to, yeah, finish “SWAMIS,” the novel* I’ve been writing for, yeah again, years.
*Finished, as in, got to the part, after 94,800 or so words, where I wrote “Not even close to the end.” As in, there has to be more of the adventures of surfers/lovers/eighteen-old amateur detectives Julia Trueheart Cole and Joseph Atsushi DeFreines, AND Junipero “Jumper” De Jesus, AND what I believe to be a totally believable supporting cast of characters.
IF ‘SWAMIS’ could be, as I imagine, with hundreds of pages written and set aside, a trilogy, AND with “Swamis” being such a convenient word, the name of the famous surf spot AND a reference to those who seek the truth, “BEACONS,” another North County surf spot, could be the second book title, “GRANDVIEW” completing the series. AND, YEAH, I’m thinking about it. SOME of the work is already done, the characters are set up, and I’m pretty sure how they respond to issues coming at them in the late sixties, early seventies. No, I’m pretty sure I don’t know. WE’LL SEE.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS GUY?
One has to wonder; compensation-wise.
I’m Not THAT Political, but… DEPARTMENT-
OR THAT RELIGIOUS… BUT… Shit’s going on.
And waves continue to roll in. I had a few fights with my scanner this morning, a few more with the wordpress setup. AND I have to go. It’s clearing up and I am driving my reborn VOLVO farther than downtown. Remember that all of my original works on realsurfers.net are protected by, not only the first amendment, but by copyright. All rights reserved. Yeah, that.
…AND REGGIE and DJANGO (the ‘d’ is silent) unleashed… and more
THIS is my VOLVO just after ADAM ‘WIPEOUT’ JAMES did almost all the tricky technical stuff in my attempt to save the ‘SUPER FUN CAR’ (the previous owner had a license plate ring that reads, ‘chocolat du coeur,’ chocolate of the heart) after, probably twelve miles from home and with darkness falling fast, a broken fitting on the hose that goes through the firewall causing water to spew out, the lack of water leading to overheating. I could, of course, stopped and called for a tow. I DIDN”T. Because of a stubborn insistence on my part to make it home, and with the added belief I could because folks stopped out in the middle of nowhere to give me, like, three gallons off water, I kept going. THIS involved, watching the temp gauge, stopping short of the red zone, allowing the engine to cool down, adding water, driving, cool down, water, driving, cool down, more water, driving. The gauge was approaching the red line again when I limped down the driveway.
As seems to be my usual response when driving in dangerous and/or tense situations that are no longer shared-with-if-not-mitigated-by chain smoking, though my white knuckled grip on the steering wheel remains, I spent an almost equal amount of the time between breakdown and home (probably and hour-and-a-half) swearing and praying.
AND THEN I replaced the broken heater thermostat, myself, and then, though the FUN CAR didn’t overheat, I discovered I had a blown HEAD GASKET. My friend and mechanic, GEORGE TAKAMOTO, currently being treated for kidney failure, asked, on the phone, “Is it water in the oil or oil in the water?” “I think it’s, like, both.” “OH. Bad.”
BEFORE I called KIRKY, local tow truck driver and junk hauler, to offer him the FUN CAR, I consulted a guy who works on cars all the time, MICHAEL SPEARS. He wasn’t interested in the car, even for free, but said, given the difference between the worth of the car and the cost of a professional head gasket replacement, I might consider trying this stuff, BLUE DEVIL.
SO, and I wouldn’t have attempted this without help, Adam agreed to help. ROUND ONE seemed to do the trick; but I didn’t trust driving it, and, since I still had half a bottle of the Blue Devil, we gave it another go. AND I AM pretty convinced the car is running decently. Adam also cranked up the idle a bit because, my gorilla hands trying to wrangle hoses and stuff, I did something to the linkage. I can’t explain it, but Adam figured it out and fixed it. NOW, the van story: It’s a thirty-year-old rig and, just before George had to go into an assisted living/rehab place, he diagnosed the problem with the back door on the van not opening from the outside as a broken bulb-like dealie on the end of the linkage. “Huh?” I couldn’t fix it, or wouldn’t try, and have spent a month or so crawling through the van to open the door from the inside. Not fun.
I purchased a replacement on Amazon for, like, $115.00. While we were waiting for the Fun Car to cool down enough to replace the engine’s main thermostat, Adam asked what else I had that needed fixing. The part, of course, did not come even close to fitting, BUT, and I give full credit to Adam’s inventiveness to living down at the HAMA HAMA, being involved in the oyster business, with all kinds of gear and gear breakdown issues, Adam figured out a way to open the door. “Does it bother you that you won’t be able to lock the door?” “Hell, no; I was ready to go full white trash and put a latch and a padlock on it.”
IF ADAM is a superstar in the seafood/oyster industries. He is or should be legendary in the surf world. Because he travels frequently to places that buy oysters and, incidentally, have waves, he is known and ACCEPTED (this is a major part of this) at a lot of local (and localized) breaks.
Adam and I had a bit of a discussion on how many legendary surfers are among our group of friends, and why this or that surfer fits into the legend category. It comes down to this: A LEGEND IS A STORY. LEGENDARY figures in any and all fields have, ONE, stories to tell, and TWO, others have stories to tell about them. SO, if you want to be a legendary surfer, SURF.
REGGIE SMART, surfer, independent contractor, tattoo artist, working on his own legend, illustrated, working downtown with his new dog (not posing), DJANGO.
PICTURE-WISE, I just deleted, by his request, a photo of surfer/journalist/poet RICO, but now, because I want to call myself a surfer/journalist/poet, I’ve decided I shouldn’t be dissuaded from capturing images of surfers or whoevers. It’s integrity. Maybe. I did allow COUGAR KEITH the opportunity to pose, he declined and ran away too quickly for me to get my phone ready.
AFTER AND BEFORE photos of this dude who bothered me a while back while I was trying to work in Uptown Port Townsend, and then, more recently, at the hardware store. He also rudely wasted some of my Daughter Dru’s time while she was working, last day before her surgery, at the OLYMPIC MUSIC FESTIVAL office. I seems he’s in this play in which he plays his father- hence, and it makes perfect sense, he in the navy getup, no beard, dyed hair. When I accused him of wasting Dru’s time, he said, “Geez; old guys talk; that’s what we do.” OKAY. I did hear that he may or may not have been the old guy who was hanging around the middle school asking kids if they wanted to be in his play… or the guy was until cops told him he had to leave. SO, he has stories; stories are told about him. Legend? Maybe. He doesn’t surf. I asked.
SURF NEWS- I surfed. Once I complete a few test runs and get the insurance, including towing, reinstated on the Fun Car, I’ll be venturing farther out, working on some new surf tales.
‘SWAMIS’ NEWS- It’s more like bidding season than painting season for the ERWIN DENCE PAINTING COMPANY, and I’m actually working on doing some advertising. YELP! This is my excuse, ten or twelve pages from wrapping up what’s listed on the thumb drive as ‘final final final Swamis.’ Maybe, since I’m working on this tonight, I can write tomorrow. Yes, after I write two more proposals.
LOVE SONG FOR CYNICS-
Right now it’s time for TRUE CONFESSIONS, time for you to just come clean; Right now it’s time for true confessions, time for you to just come clean; Now, don’t be lookin’ at me that way, you know exactly what I mean.
Today your husband came to see me, after all I’m his best friend; Today your old man came to see me, after all I’m his best friend; He said he knows that you’ve been cheatin’, and now it’s too late to pretend.
He says he’s got his pistol loaded, he says his finger’s got an itch; He says he’s got his pistol loaded, and says his finger’s got an itch; And when that other man gets cornered, he’s gonna shoot that sonofabitch.
I said, friend, you’d better calm down, it won’t be worth the price you’ll pay; I said you’d better, better, better calm down, it won’t be worth the price you’ll pay; He said, “All I ever wanted, is a woman who will stay.”
Well, I can’t preach or shout if I’m talkin’ about the way you’ve been misbehaving, Bug your man’s made a stand, and he has a new plan, for a love he feel’s worth saving; If you can’t take a chance on one sided romance, ’cause of all your indiscretions, Then it’s best that you run, ’cause your man’s got a gun, this might be your last confession.
Right now it’s time for true confessions, they say the truth will set us free; Oh, yes, it’s time for true confessions, they say the truth will set us free; It’s hard for me to talk about this, because… the other man… is me.
Thanks for checking out realsurfers. Now go find some real waves, create some real stories.
ALL original work on realsurfers.net, unless otherwise noted, is copyright protected, all rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
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