Season Ripe With Skunkings

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Uncategorized

We’re into Fall, Autumn, and West Coast surfers expect… yeah, waves, northwest swells. It’s a little different on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It always is. Planning a trip out here based on forecasts showing the numbers that should mean waves will find their way to some beach that might still be accessible might just get you skunked.

It’s frustrating for me; and I have to guess, the farther one goes with visions of lined-up peelers floating in one’s head, the more irritating and frustrating it must be discovering beautiful conditions, everything perfect except the lack of waves.

Hang around, just in case? Talk with the other skunkees about times when the same numbers, swell size and period and direction and tide and wind and all, meant, like, waves? Paddle out and hope a big boat goes by, maybe score a weak dribbler or two?

But, now, Westport, pretty much always, has waves. Here’s the Westport advantage for a ripper from, say, Fremont. No ferry waits (or expenses), no getting stuck on the Hood Canal Bridge, no traffic detours (that I know of); and waves, with plenty of like-minded folks to hang out with. Sounds fun.

Quite recently I was working with Reggie down Surf Route 101, and the numbers (see above) started looking good, tantalizingly, must-be-going-off kind of good. We fast-tracked the work, and, a couple of hours later, there we were (Reggie, froth almost visible when we split up, didn’t meet me there, he beat me there), perfect conditions and no waves.

Oh, there were rumors. There are always rumors.

And we were not alone. Concrete Pete was talking to some kid with New Mexico plates and a tiny short board on his pickup. Nam had been there since noon. No waves. Omar cruised in with multiple boards to not ride; not on this day.

Concrete Pete starts talking about how some kook was talking, at some earlier time, about how “there’s this one guy, kinda, uh, chunky; and he rides a stand up, only…” “Yeah.” “And there’s this other guy; even bigger; no paddle.” “Yeah.” “And then there’s a guy who uses a broken paddle.” At this point Pete points to his rig, containing, I guessed, a broken paddle. “Wait; you mean… you?” “Yeah; and the kook says these surfers are legends, and…”

At this moment another vehicle pulls in. “Raja,” I say. “Now, here’s a legend. Raja, the guy who stuck my paddle in the pilings at an unnamed spot (the one with pilings).” “Yeah,” Reggie says, “heard about that.”

Raja had already ventured much farther out the peninsula in search of waves, and, since he couldn’t surf the next day, he was fairly certain that was when waves would show up.

Then Omar pulls in; multiple boards on his vehicle. Then Sean and Cathy (and, possibly, their son, somewhere between 8 and 12 years old, who is becoming quite the little ripper). “Hey,” Reggie says, “there might be waves back at… (different spot, no pilings) You going?”

No.

I was still hoping the waves would show up before dark, hoping enough that I started putting on my wetsuit, very slowly, believing that, if I gave up and went home, it would turn on before I got to Port Angeles. Worse than a skunking is a near-miss skunking you get to hear about later. “Dude, you would have loved it.”

About this time Sean and Cathy drove by, stopped.

Somewhere in here a car load of four or five young surf enthusiasts showed up; quite excited to be somewhere where waves allegedly broke; running around the beach, taking videos of each other. Tugboat Bill parked his truck at about the same time. I pointed to the stoked surf buddies, said, “Yeah, Bill; it’s like, this one time, me and Phil and Bucky and Ray showed up at San Onofre. It wasn’t anything special, but then these Orange County guys show up, and they’re all, ‘Cowabunga,’ and ‘whoa,’ and, and it’s like they’re extras in a ‘Gidget’ movie; big arm movements and all, and…”

“You going out?” “Yeah, Bill; figure I might practice standing up on my SUP; see how that goes.” “Three to the beach is a session.” “Right.” “Yeah, three standups.” “Okay; we’ll see.”

This was when Longshoreman Jeff Vaughn showed up, parked his Mad Max van next to my work van. Jeff was recently in a motorcycle accident (he was on the motorcycle), and was still recovering. I have witnessed him hang out at length, waiting, sometimes scoring. “Everything’s here except the waves.” Tugboat Bill and I both agreed.

So, somewhere waves were breaking. Canada, maybe. Raja and Bill and I and two guys trying to learn went out. Beautiful conditions. I did catch three, standing up, practiced my paddling. Bill had already caught his three before I left; one in front of me. “Payback,” he’d, no doubt, say. “Got wet,” I might have said, as others have, about the session; as if that’s even enough. No real surfer has ever caught too many waves.

Hate getting skunked? Westport. If someone asks me why I’m surfing small and weak waves, my answer is always that I’m practicing. “For Westport; next time I go down there.”

“So, um, Concrete Pete says this kook says, you’re, like, a legend, and… wait; is that a wave?

Boatyard Mike Surf Vessels

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, Uncategorized

There’s nothing in this post about voting out our esteemed president. Some hope, yeah; but nothing negative about the… dude.

EDIT- I woke up realizing I couldn’t let that go. I have been wondering about who, with so much truth available on what an immoral sack of deceit and seemingly bottomless self-centered meanness our power craving fuckwad of a president is, could continue to salivate each time he slurs out some new slurry of lies and just plain shit.

Make no mistake, like the people he has scammed in the past, you, if you are not someone filling your pockets in this new age cleptocracy, you are someone your leader, no doubt, considers a sucker and a loser. How much you have to lose is easily accessible. Oh, you might have to look somewhere other than Fux News.

Vote!

My first SUP was, I thought, twelve feet long. As I have with every board I’ve ridden more than a few times, I thrashed the shit out of it; rode it over a few too many rocks, rode it onto a few rocky beaches. Surfing; that’s what boards are for.

By the time I got a newer board, that one was sooo heavy, soooo dinged up. I stuck up against a tree, hoping it would get lighter. Didn’t really work. Since I didn’t think I’d ever ride the thing again, I decided to strip it down and make a shorter, more responsive, lighter one.

My current board, a Hobie, is ten foot, six inches long, has carried me through thousands of waves, over many rocks, and is appropriately thrashed, poorly patched (drips, not sanded out), and, since I seem to be knee-boarding more and standing less, it seems proper that I go for a smaller board.

Yeah, but I still want it floaty enough to use a paddle. This is where the twelve foot comes in. After looking at the dead SUP and imagining how I’d cut some off the front, some off the tail, do a minimum of trimming, and, yeah…

No. The board was eleven feet, and, with a little cut off the front and back, with a skil saw, I suddenly had a really rough seven foot six blank. OOPS. I did, after stripping off the glass, throw it in the water to see if it would float me. Maybe, hopefully, not really sure. I’m also not really sure if, even if the blank did, if it as a further shaped and properly glassed board would.

So, after purchasing a couple of tools, including a plane for the stringer, and spending way too much time trying to get, like, one rail that matched the other side, I had roughly shaped a fat, downrail, pocket-rocking, fish-tailed, wailing vessel.

Yeah, well, that’s when I got ahold of Mike Norman, formerly nicknamed Mike-eee, not because there’s an E in Norman or anything, but to differentiate him from Mike Squintz. Well, Squintz has gone back to Florida, and, anyway, most surfers in the area called him Smoker Mike. Well, when he actually gives up smoking… Mike does work at the Port Townsend boatyard; not sure where, specifically, and he has been building a few surfboards lately, and, anyway…

Anyway, even though I heard Mike would have been farther ahead if I hadn’t tried to be all Skip Frye/Mike Hynson on the blank, I have made a deal with Mike; he finishes the shaping, figures out the fin setup, does the glassing. I might sneak in and do some graphics; oh, and some money will change hands, AND I will give Mike the 5’9″ Bic fish I got cheap and used from Al Perlee down at the Surf Shop in Westport, tried to ride. Once. Mike has kids who can use it. Even though I rode six foot boards for years (years ago now) a 5’9″ looks like a toy to me now.

Oh, yeah; and I was a bit lighter, also. Oh, yeah; and I said I would do a logo for Mike’s boards. Here it is:

I do need to make it a bit, um, simpler. Yeah, working on it.

Now, if it comes down to a few pounds that makes the difference between a paddle and no paddle… again, we’ll see.

Not Just Sad; Scary… RIP RBG

Posted on September 20, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Uncategorized

Definitely not a real surfer; does have friends, reaps benefits. Obviously women sit behind him, and, judging by the expression on women’s faces, think he’s one hot dude. I think the one looking more disappointed than shocked is his wife.

See the source image — She might not have been a surfer, but she is real.

I freely admit to being a Liberal; but, because it is so blatantly obvious, I must always add that I am quite a hypocritical Liberal. I believe in the causes, mostly centered around giving help to those who need it, but do little to push or even support these causes.

In many ways I’m pretty fucking conservative. Not so much that I only briefly considered dropping the ‘fucking’ from the previous sentence; but enough that I strongly believe a person should have a set of values and principles that he or she will try, and try hard to abide by. Key to this is living up to one’s word.

That has proven difficult many times in my life and career. “You said you were going to do such and such.” “Really?” “Really.” “Yeah; well then; okay; such AND such.”

I considered throwing a ‘fuck’ into that sentence.

Okay, maybe I’m more of a Libertarian; that would take some of the hypocrisy out of my self-analysis. Sure, it’s legal and all to smoke cannabis, for example, even before surfing, even if it makes you only think you’re ripping. Feel free. It’s just, I choose not to. Okay with you?

I very recently met a new pastor of a church I was bleaching and washing in preparation for painting. I know many of the congregants, enough to know that many, as is true across all religions, consider themselves conservative. Since my belief is that there is a higher power, but it is one that we cannot even begin to define or even comprehend, one we cannot possibly bend to our will or our traditions and rules and doctrines, and that there is, as far as I can tell, no group rate to salvation/heaven/nirvana/fill in the blank; spirituality is, it would seem, quite obviously, an individual matter. Free choice.I

I feel compelled to add that it’s find with me if someone doesn’t believe in a higher power. Again, it really can’t make a difference in who or what a higher power is. Or isn’t.

The reason I mentioned meeting the new pastor, about my older son’s age, 42ish, which, I told him, “Explains the Batman shirt,” is that I also told him that “I’m a Liberal; you know; like Jesus.”

Yes, then I added the hypocritical part; that Jesus started pretty much every sentence with (and you can check this out- look for the parts in red) “You hypocrites,” and that, while Jesus really pushed two big things; loving one’s neighbor and helping the poor; I pretty much have a bad record on both counts. Yes, my current neighbors are fine, but yes, I will go way out of my way not to drive past anyone with a sign asking for help/work/money/Trump-love.

It’s probably just power politics as usual, but the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has put a spotlight on the hypocrisy of McConnell and Graham, and their inability to stand behind their word. It must be added that McConnell’s blocking of Merrick Garland was a hard core political sleeze job only possible to explain, but not justify, as ‘we got the hammer, fuck you’; that obviously, according to this line of reasoning, does explain (again, not justify) his push to push another idealogue of his preferred ideals into a lifetime position deciding cases that folks have been lusting to have go their way for many years. Lusting. Hard core lust, with politicians running on vows to stop the horror of abortion, increase the wonders of executions, make sure anyone who wants weapons of war… you know the issues. Freedom. Well, freedom for this, not that; different list.

Here’s what I’ve always wondered: Do people really want what conservatives call conservative values, to return to some imagined better, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ time (beaver- not a code word) where people knew their place (this is code- you know the people they’re talking about). Scary.

Anyway; I have told several people that the next time there’s a swell that might find its way into local waters; whatever else is happening; I’m going.

I will, come hell or high water, try to live up to that.

Reggie and the Not-So-Subtle Gun-Reveal

Posted on September 17, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Uncategorized

It’s really REGGIE’S STORY, told to me, retold a few times, and now, it’s here at realsurfers.

SO, real surfer Reggie is at the Port Angeles Safeway. “You know,” Reggie told me, “the first word in Safeway is safe. I didn’t feel so safe.” SO, again, there’s two dudes, both with those dayglo kind of shirts meant to keep people working in the street from getting run over; and they’ve got on hats with the brims (Reggie claims this means something) “Really curved.” Okay. Now maybe he was trying to read whatever message was actually printed on their hats, and maybe he looked too long, but the dudes showed no sign of putting on their masks before entering, and “they had that look that was, like, daring someone to say something, but the one hillbilly looks at me… I’ve got my mask on… and he kinda pulls up his shirt enough, because he wants to make damn sure that I can see that he’s got a gun.”

Whoa.

“Yeah; and he makes sure I notice this; gives me this look.” Reggie adds what I would have to call an Elvis Presley snarl, though, if that’s too out-dated, imagine, maybe, Billy Idol; who, incidentally, Reggie includes in another story; some dude Reggie saw in a Seattle area Home Depot parking lot, the guy hanging out, promoting Trump, with an oversized truck flying an oversized American flag, and Billy Idol playing overloud on the guy’s radio. “Haven’t you anything better to do?” Reggie asks. “What, better than defending ‘merica?” The guy probably snarled when he was mouthing, “White Wedding.” More more more. Maybe that’s a different Idol song.

So, so, so, the snarling dude and his color-matched partner do the white guy shuffle through the Safeway doors; no masks, and the main billy grabs a cart, turns, again, to Reggie, says, “Black carts matter.”

I’m not sure if that’s a punchline or not. I found the story more unsettling than amusing. Reggie, who always claims he was raised in a tough part of Seattle, and that he’s had guns actually pointed at him on several occasions, and that he has bought and sold vans, which he restores and turns into camper-ready rigs, sort of was amused, but he said, when I offered to post the story here, and, if he wanted, change his name, that, “No, the punchline is that Reggie is actually white.”

Very white. I have described Reggie as “kind of a pretty boy with neck tattoos.” That may be insensitive. Not sure. I could change it to something with a more macho tone like, uh… well, I do have it on good authority that some of the women surfers on the Olympic Peninsula call him Reggie ‘good abs.’ Good authority as in I heard it from a woman surfer.

Anyway, surf’s still non-existent out here, the smoke’s heavy, air unbreathable, Trump supporters are prowling the parking lots and supermarkets, and, uh, let me see if I have a photo of Reggie.

Little towhead Reggie. Now imagine him thirty years older, tattooed. Yeah; pretty scary. Don’t take off in front of him.

“Swamis” Too Big

Posted on September 12, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Uncategorized

Stuck inside because the winds that blew smoke from fires in California and Oregon out to sea has shifted. The smoke has moved up and come in full strength (thickness might be a better word) with the onshore flow, that push not enough to offer any real surf. There is enough stagnant air, probably about a pack and a half a day’s worth (not sure how to quantify this for vapers, those who inhale vapors, on purpose), that makes even the non-running-type work of painting seems hazardous.

Or maybe it’s an excuse to stay inside and write.

I worked on tightening several chapters of “Swamis,” and then wrote the following. This will most likely not make it to the completed manuscript, but, partially (mostly) because feedback pushed me toward more fully covering the death of Joseph DeFreines, Senior; which I have, mostly gotten out of the way, I have been forced to consider that “Swamis” is just too fucking much for one book.

The characters have been established, the storyline set in motion. In the original, unexpurgated version, there were more references to how the events from 1969 affect the future lives of Jody and Ginny and Baadal and Jumper and Portia, and others. If I cut the story off somewhere before the mystery of who killed Chulo is resolved, possibly, that could be the second part of a trilogy, a book centering on the (fully) adult characters could provide a wraparound that would… yeah, I could do this.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing. And, not to be too political, I feel compelled to add that… okay, I have a story, true life, featuring gun-toting, non-mask-wearing non-surfers and their interaction with a heavily-tattooed surfer outside a Port Angeles Safeway. OH, and, still, no surf on the Strait, no place to surf if there were waves. Not political. Here’s the excerpt:

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE- SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2020

I am currently 198 (pages out of 291) through a full manuscript rewrite, this triggered by the feedback from bloated, confusing unexpurgated draft containing somewhere in excess of 123,000 words. With a hundred pages left to go, having deleted somewhere around 64,000 words, “Swamis,” right now, is back up to 121,725 words, and, with as much as I plan to cut out some of what remains in the story, I am increasingly aware that I can’t (partially as in, I am not willing to) eliminate enough.

The manuscript in which I actually got to ‘the end’ was saved, one copy printed, several copies sent out, somewhere before the pandemic, before the shutdowns and the election meddling and the rest, before the smoke from the way-worse-than-usual fires.

“Swamis,” the story, it too big. Trilogy? Maybe. I’m looking for a place to cut it off, a place to pull out. All I can give you is words, and as Ginny Cole said about a black and white photo of a sunset, a person’s mind fills in the colors.

Access Denied- Again… Thanks, A-holes

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Uncategorized

News travels quickly; bad news travels quickly-er. Early yesterday, mini cell phone networks were buzzing/ringing/chiming with news that the trail leading to and providing legal access to an only-recently-reopened (officially, after over forty years of being, officially, off limits) spot that, on the rare occasion that a swell enters the Strait of Juan de Fuca, has, yes, waves; has been officially, closed down. Yes, the trail and the parking lot, complete with two sani-cans; closed.

Thanks.

The signs posted early said, “Site closed due to misuse, trespass and parking violations. No walk-in use allowed. Violators will be ticketed and towed.”

Yep.

No, it wasn’t you. Of course not. You didn’t camp in the parking area, or, if it was full (and, granted, the inadequately-sized lot was sometimes, on rumor and speculation, full before dawn), park on the street or blocking someone’s driveway; you didn’t go off the trail despite signs; you didn’t vandalize the outbuildings nearby, you didn’t bring dogs despite the signs; you didn’t build a fire or leave trash or crap in the weeds or in the driftwood. It wasn’t you.

You would certainly agree that whoever did ruin a doubtlessly good thing, not designed solely or even primarily for surfers, is, doubtlessly, an asshole. Or several assholes.

Speaking of which, the stated reason the access was denied around 1980 was that people had disrespected the area. Shit. Yep. On the beach.

It wasn’t me. I first surfed the beach in 1979, shortly after moving to the northwest. You had to drive perilously close to the front door of a person who was, one, almost always there, and two, not obviously fond of surfers. Still, early Port Angeles surfers had brokered a sort of truce and you could drive straight out, turn and go on a rough road over the riprap, to a spot with trees and, on rare occasion, waves.

Again, someone fucked that deal up; but, surfers being persistent, other ways in were developed; down a cliff, through a river and around a point. Eventually, a local resident offered access, less and less secret; and never popular with other locals. When he died, that access was gone.

Somewhere around noon on Thursday, heavy equipment was brought in, big blocks to keep vehicles out of the parking area. Done. Blocked. Barricaded.

Access denied.

Many fickle surf spots on the Olympic Peninsula have been shut off by private landowners controlling the access. Neah Bay is closed, as is La Push. Covid is, yes, part of it; but the folks who might otherwise be hanging out at Hobuck have been concentrating at other spots. Some of those parking areas are, despite general ignorance on the subject, on private property, kept available only through a longterm agreement.

They could be shut down. Access denied. No, it wouldn’t be your fault. You would never camp on someone else’s property without permission; leave trash, blah, blah, blee blah. Not you.

It’s Labor Day weekend; it’s going to be hot; the ferries and highways headed west are probably already getting packed. It’s currently 7:46 on Friday. Good luck.

This from a guy who surfs on his knees

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under northwest surfing, real surfers, Uncategorized

I was on my way back home, south on Surf Route 101, and, as is part of most of my surf expeditions into the cell-free zone (not free if you pay roaming/Canada fees), I had lists of things to get in the Vortex that is Sequim. So, checking out at Costco, I notice the checker, on the other side of plexiglass, has a black facemask with images and writing.

Oh. I was, of course, curious. “I, um, can’t read everything on your, uh…”

He pulled the mask taut, and, though I can now read it, he tells me what it says. “Stand for the flag, kneel for God.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s, um, a little political, isn’t it?”

“A little, maybe, but that’s what I believe.”

“Sure.” Pause while I sign the check. “Um, uh, what about if someone’s, say, on his knees, but he’s doing this?” I make the sign of the cross, punctuated, as I often do, with a throwing out of the right hand as a sort of shout out to God. I know what it means; an acknowledgement that I have serious faults. I kind of figure God also gets it. God, after all.

“Oh,” the checker said. That’s it. He’d already told the girl who asked if I wanted any boxes that he was going on break in eight minutes. My receipt was on the cart and I was shuffling toward the exit.

It took a while before I thought, if he was, and I’m pretty sure he was, referring to football players kneeling during the national anthem, a gesture referencing the social injustice that can be denied but not, evidently, corrected; I could have mentioned that I have observed, when a football player is seriously injured, injured enough that the game has to be stopped, other players, from both teams, gather around the medical team and the injured player, and take a knee.

Are they insulting the flag?

How would I know? I was busy thinking about how many waves I caught, how many hodads and kooks and rippers were around, what other spots might have been breaking; almost forgetting that, though I’m certainly not above praying for surf on the way out, I am a bit lax in thanking God for a beautiful day and a few fun rides. Yeah, that’s from me, kneeboarding; not out of any disrespect.

Surf(ers)(ing) Ain’t Political R It?

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under real surfers, Uncategorized

I always believed surfers are either apolitical or apathetic, too busy to check out much beyond weather and surf forecasts, maybe follow a few YouTube channels; AND, if a surfer/rebel/individualist were to be political, I assumed he or she would be liberal.

HA!

OF COURSE, until I had cash stolen from my vehicle (twice) while I surfed, I believed real surfers had a sort of honor code that meant surfers don’t steal from other surfers. OKAY, so it was, like, $66.00 or so, pretty much take home pay from my $1.65/hr wage back in 1969; and I did write off the first theft (shame on him) as having been done by, obviously, a non-surfer. HA! Shame on me.

ANYWAY, the elections are coming up and my postings might just get a touch political. I hope you’re not touchy.

SO, SCANNING the internet a bit past the surf forecasts, I discovered the CHUMPS4TRUMP site, with it’s motto: “Last time was for four years, this time it’s for life,” and it’s slogan, “If you voted for Trump, you’re already a member.” Anyway, there’s some advice for Trump-agators (apparently some illusion to draining some metaphorical swamp and filling it with those willing to pay more for a position- bids accepted) who might also claim to surf (sometimes, once in Hawaii, back in the day, once a year at private beaches in third world countries- or Malibu) or consider themselves actual surfers (as in, own a Wavestorm and a fake boogie board).

Here it is: Please stay out of the water between now and November 4th, election day; The Donald has decreed that “a lot of folks say salt water might be polluted; that’s what they say, so, be safe; don’t get a cold; don’t go in. Hang in the parking area; that’s almost like surfing; a lot of people say.”

BUT, gators (special shout out to agi-gators and protest infil-gators), when you do vote, Wednesday, November 4, you must remember to, one, do it in person, and two, don’t look like a snowflake in a designer mask. If the deep state or other local overlords force you to wear a mask, chumps4trump, incorporated. LLC, recommends BURLAP; available in a variety of shades of red; and, yes, made in America by the same folks who bring you the My Pillow. Oh, so wonderfully fluffy and white.

ALL RIGHT, since any true Trump-ladite would have given up reading by now, the truth is I made up a lot of this stuff. So, I lied. It used to be a bad thing.

So, here’s the truth: Trump doesn’t give a fuck if you get sick. The actual election day is Tuesday, November 3, and, because the Trump Person who donated enough to get the opportunity to weaken his competitor has done his damnedest to screw up and slow down the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, when you get your ballot, send it in immediately or bring it to a secure ballot dropoff spot. Hopefully, enough people will be monitoring these sites to make sure our votes don’t get, um, uh, lost.

It’s not like I’m apologizing. I have some real concerns about businesses failing, a lack of any kind of support for small businesses and want-to-be-working folks from the Republican-controlled Senate, the members of which can’t even discuss anything Don won’t sign- and can’t believe him when he says he supports anything Fox doesn’t pre-approve. No matter how the investment class keeps playing the stock market, this shit will eventually hit the fan. BUT, MOSTLY, it is very difficult for me to believe that anyone can believe in (as in he loves America more than himself) or vote for the (I’ll leave out the adjectives- you know what he is) current President. If you made the mistake once, shame on him…

How Stephen Davis Saved the Zoom…

Posted on August 22, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, Port townsend surfing, real surfers, surf art, surf fiction, Uncategorized

…LONG DISTANCE.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG with something you have written, read it out loud. I figured I would start with that, only part of what happened at the “Art and Writings of Erwin Dence” Zoom event on the most recent Thursday night.

Keith Darrock, Port Townsend Librarian (he has a fancier title I can’t remember- just think librarian only more so, add in that he rips on any board in an ever-increasing quiver) and I got into the Zoom virtual space early, me on standby in my living room, he moving his laptop to an appropriate location in his home, books in the background.

Trish and our daughter, Dru, who had spent a lot of time making a slideshow from the illustrations (available for viewing on the previous post, non-slideshow) were joining-in from Dru’s place in Port Gamble.

I had spent part of the day preparing for what I hoped and imagined would happen at the Zoom event, having been way too distracted to get any significant work done the previous day because I was contacting and inviting (texting, mostly) folks I thought might be willing to participate.

WHEN I DID speak to someone, it turned into… well, I do like to talk. I should particularly mention that I spent some time on the cell phone with a local Port Townsend (professional- as in no other ‘real’ job) writer who was gracious/foolish enough to read the entire unexpergated version of “Swamis” and give me a lot of guidance. He said he’d probably be watching the last night of the Democratic National Convention, but, again, he was gracious/foolish enough to discuss what changes I had made to the manuscript since his review, and he did reveal why he had dedicated himself to writing. “I just couldn’t see myself doing anything else for a living.” “Road construction, retail sales?” “Good luck.”

BECAUSE I had never actually written a succinct description of “Swamis,” as in 25 words or less, and I wanted to sound more author-like if pressed, I endeavored to do so. Okay, it’s 376 words or so. AND, because, in my mind, the audience/Zoomers might include the folks who have attended library events in the past, I went through the manuscript and picked out three pages that I thought might appeal to that educated group of hip and literate PT word lovers. The subchapter is one of the more (I thought) semi-romantic parts of the story.

SO, 7pm Pacific Daylight Savings Time is 3pm on the Big Island of Hawaii where Stephen R. Davis, freshly freed from quarantine, is hanging out (and, yeah, I guess, working). He was one of the first to ZOOM in, from his phone, from a vehicle, riding with former PT resident, and, by all accounts, surf ripper, McKinna (probably didn’t get the name right- I’ve heard of him but may never have met him- son of a well-known surfer, actually learned to surf in Wa. state), heading out looking for surf.

“So crowded,” Steve said, “Lots of wahines in bikinis. Very little material. I can’t tell you how little material there is in these bikinis.”

Okay, pretty appropriate. By the time some other folks had joined, Steve and McKinna were going out at a surf spot with (we got to see this) some great looking waves. Other folks had joined in, a couple of library types, as in solid citizens, but mostly local surfers I could easily name; and, if I get them to sign some simple non-disclosure agreements, I might. Joke. Sort of. Permission.

If I had to summarize the evening, it was like what one would hear from a group of surfers in any beachside parking area, probably anywhere: Who snaked who, what happened after that one session at that one spot, where did all the hipsters and hodads come from, and what about that time when…

SOMEWHERE IN THERE, about the time when I had to cut my video because of limited bandwidth from my overstretched DSL line (not that I minded this, the slideshow was designed, mostly, so that folks didn’t have to look at me) I did read my description of “Swamis,” and, most-embarrassingly, I did read the three pages I had (erroneously) selected, trying to vary the voices for the four characters.

THERE ARE sections of the novel with actual surfing, brilliantly described, with less dialogue from fewer voices.

THIS WAS WHEN STEPHEN R. DAVIS returned, chased, he said, out of the water by a “pack of rippers. Kids. They’re everywhere over here. So many rippers.” SO, we (and we, by this time, included, among others, Dru’s friend, professional DJ, Trenton, and Trisha’s nephew, and, I guess, my nephew-in-law, or, maybe, just nephew, Dylan, La Jolla surfer and recent graduate from UCLA Law School) were treated to another virtual tour of the Big Island, commentary by Steve, with continuing banter from what constitutes most of the unofficial PT Surf crew, special dispensation for ADAM WIPEOUT and, sort of, me, both of us from the SURF ROUTE 101 division. Unofficial.

NEXT DAY REVIEW: Fun; some good stories shared. Trish told Dru I was nothing like Joey in my novel, told me I definitely need help in writing anything even close to romantic fiction. Steve added significantly to if he did not entirely save the event. Dylan, probably used to surfing in the crowded California city surf with it’s ghetto mentality, thought it was great that surfers actually could enjoy each other’s company, even virtually. Steve and McKinna scored some empty rights at sunset, Hawaii time.

Here’s my description of “Swamis:”

Joseph DeFreines, Jr. tells stories centered around the legendary Southern California surf spot, Swamis, focusing on 1969. It’s a world of hippies and burnouts and Jesus Freaks and protesters, a time when words like love and peace and war and revolution might all be used in a single sentence.

Joseph’s father, a detective with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, has just died in, of course, mysterious circumstances; Joe has just graduated from an inland high school and moved to the coast; he’s turning eighteen and facing the draft; and he’s falling in love with a surfer girl whose father definitely has a connection with the North County’s cash crop, the area’s open secret, marijuana.

The growing and processing and selling of marijuana is progressing, getting more sophisticated, more profitable, and more dangerous. The formerly cottage industry is evolving from the homegrown, with plants hidden in the avocado orchards and kids selling dime bags. There is money to be laundered, good citizens getting involved. There is, or could be, a wholesale market.

The unofficial line with the Sheriff’s Office, in a quote from Joseph, Senior, is “The world works on an acceptable level of corruption.”

When a man is burned to death just outside of the white walls of the religious compound that gives Swamis its name, that level has been breached.

While surfing has its too-obvious allure; too much freedom in too little clothing, its aura of rebellion and undeniable coolness, it also has, at least in Joseph’s mind, a certain set of high standards, a code of conduct. He’s wrong. He’s naïve. It’s a different world, existing con-currently with the world of commuters, the world of law enforcement, the world of pot… so many concurrent realities.

The characters in “Swamis” are complex: A detective’s son with possible epilepsy and a history of violent outbursts; a wounded returning Vietnam Vet; an ex-teen runaway-turned-evangelist; a Japanese war bride; a hired thug who becomes a respected detective; a black photojournalist; an East Indian who wanted to be a revolutionary and was banished from London; Mexican middlemen under immense pressure. If Swamis are seekers more than prophets, they are all Swamis. Still, none are perfect.

Maybe Virginia Cole. To Joey.

Maybe, among the chaos, there’s the occasional perfect moment, the perfect ride on a perfect wave.

385 words.

The Big Zoom Show… it’s, like… tomorrow? What?

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, real surfers, Uncategorized

Thursday, August 20, 7pm Pacific Daylight Savings Time. So, to Zoom in, and, frankly, I’m a bit worried about this, particularly since I can’t seem to figure out how to highlight stuff so it’s easy for you, but, okay, https://zoom.us/j/91279664230

Allright. No, not really, but, when the event starts, moderator/curator/librarian/ripper Keith Darrock is planning to show some of my illustrations. This is partially so Zoomers don’t have to see my face, and it was totally my idea. Yeah, Keith agreed. It seems like the easiest way to do this was to put a bunch on my site, let Keith scroll down. As such, I have attempted to move some from a thumb drive. We’ll see how that works. Stand by.