When I jump start my tablet each morning, after I check the buoys closest to places I might want to surf, the ones that actually give data on wave height and/or direction (and often it is a choice), and check to see how many people checked out realsurfers, and from where, and before I risk another disappointment by checking my bank balance, I go to MSN (Microsoft News) to get a quick peek at what’s going on (Trump gagging or being gagged, floods and famine and war, MTG and AOC), adding a click on ‘money’ to check crude oil prices so I can be hopeful (on not) on what gas is going to cost tomorrow (if the price per barrel is going up), or next week if it, you know, going down.
MAYBE, one time I clicked on something from Fux News. Mistake. “Stay in the bubble!” The bubble. SO, now I get some craaazy stuff from other OUTLETS (suddenly mind-wandered to Outlet Malls, stuff that wouldn’t sell at full price or to discerning shoppers), pushing theories like, I don’t know, I check the headline and hit the ‘right’ arrow. YES, sometimes I get an ad for adult diapers or ‘guaranteed cutthroat, budget defense attorneys, BUT, what is most annoying is I keep getting stuff from “The INERTIA.”
I BELIEVE, and maybe I’m becoming a conspiracy theory person (not a robot, quit asking), but it might just be ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is focusing in on me. PRETTY SCARY!
SURE, I’m cool with YouTube offering the latest from NATHAN FLORENCE, or JOHN FLORENCE, or MASON HO, any ongoing contest on the WSL, tonight’s monologue by STEPHEN COLBERT, last night’s highlights from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and I’ll totally waste time on the quickies that, for me, custom, includes quick clips of CLINT EASTWOOD and RACHEL MADDOW, and I’ve pretty much burned through timelapse videos of this or that amazing artists, and sixty years or so worth of BOB DYLAN outtakes and bootlegs and stories about Bob from people who brushed against him at Disneyland once.
AND, YouTube wise, AI may be giving up on offering me quick vids of amazing female athletes warming up, adjusting their outfits… HEY, one time taking the bait and… It seems like it takes a couple of weeks of hitting on titles like “Life affirming Bible quotes,” and “The joy of fully clothed yoga” to get AI recalibrated.
BACK TO “The Inertia.” Yes, I often do check out the articles. “The link between surfing and music.” Sure. Ego and surfing.” Okay. It’s kind of like, sometimes, if you don’t hit on it while it’s offered on MSN, you can’t find it again. And it might have been, you know, good. So far, what I have read was most likely meant for a general, non-surfing audience or, at best someone other than you, me… real surfers. Fine. When the thing comes up that says, ‘continue,’ I might not.
IN SEARCHING for the Inertia, my computer warned me it was an unsafe connection.. WHEW! I tried again. Same thing. Third time, I got… this:
It’s from an article published several years back on dangerous women surfers (I accidentally typed ‘wurfers’ in the headline, decided to leave it. The article was written by CHAS SMITH.
IT SEEMS LIKE, if I want to keep up with surfing and surf journalisma and surf criticism, I cannot get away from Chas. Yes, I have tried to get through the hour-plus podcasts, and failed. MAYBE if I listened to them while I was working… maybe; but I have watched the shorter, edited versions. “Pros in the wild” will get me watching, extended chats on how to be a better person… no.
So, brevity. Now that most of us know how to self-checkout, and all of us have ADHD… I’ll try it.
THIS is a silkscreen I did in the 1980s. I’m not apologizing for it being, perhaps, sexist or something bad by today’s standards. It doesn’t go so much with a poem I’ve been working on, but nothing I found in a search did either. I COULD, of course, draw something that does connect better, but… I haven’t.
I AM ALWAYS working on something, art-wise, story-wise, song-wise, otherwise. I have been working recently on a song that starts out, “It was a private conversation, Words I was not yet meant to hear, She had been to long at the station, Couldn’t have known that I was near…”
WHAT I DO is keep working on these songs, and everything I do until it’s… better. SURF-WRITING-WISE, I am always trying to push some comparison between the best moments and music, even dance. Not all dancing is graceful, Stephanie Gilmore style pretty. AND she also incorporates solidly radical, powerful moves into her repertoire. Similarly, there is something esthetically pleasing about a vicious power hack.
MUSIC-WISE, please try to convince me that you don’t have some tune or beat going through your head when you’re paddling for and surfing a wave. If you don’t, well…
Too much explaining.
A Private Conversation
I was coming up the stairway, two bags of groceries pressed against my chest, She was dancing on the landing, third floor, Sun from the distant windows lit her hair on fire, Her shadow moving with her on the sidewall.
Six stairs below her, I leaned against the inside rail.
She was moving to music, music I could not hear.
Her movements made the music real. Slink and slide and step and stop, Step and stop, slink and slide, one arm always at her side, The other, gliding, raised then lowered, Free, and spelling or signing or reflecting, Words or images or memories or dreams, Real to her.
Real to her, private.
Sunset music, light, a tinkling rhythm beat under the woodwinds, Only fleeting hints of nightfall.
I should not have been a witness, Seeing her, dancing, silent, hair on fire, In some soft and private conversation with some distant, absent, loved one.
Loved one, someone else dancing with her on the landing, Sharing her space.
The background, The air and the light and the wallpaper and the paint were as alive as she was, Slinking and sliding and stepping and slowing, Listening, perhaps, briefly, The dance resumed as response.
Her other arm became the free one, Sending the code, The secret, private messages in our most ancient language.
I should not have been there.
I couldn’t face facing her, Couldn’t imagine her trying to explain, Not to some neighbor, some stranger three doors down.
Setting my bags on the third step from the landing, Sitting two stairs below that, Alone in the dark, with vague shadows of someone dancing, Projected on the stairwell wall.
I envied her for dancing, dancing alone in the hallway, Music swirling in her head.
Waiting in the stairwell, Waiting long after her door closed, Long after the light moved up the wall and softened, And darkened, I waited long until her music faded.
My steps up became drums, not heavy, Step, step, step,
If I imagined a saxophone solo, Sad squeaks and missed notes, Looking out the window at a screaming orange sunset, I couldn’t stop myself from sliding one foot across the worn oak floor, And then the other, My grocery bags shifting, side to side, In some rhythm that made some sense… to me.
THANKS FOR READING. Original material, of course, protected by copyright, all rights reserved by the author/artist, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
AS ALWAYS, IF YOU CAN’T BE NICE, BE REAL.
I FULLY expect to not tell you about a surf session in the next posting. AND, yes, I am still working on my novel, “SWAMIS.”
JOEL and RACHEL CARBEN are the proprietors of the COLAB in downtown Port Townsend. Colab as in Collaborative Work Space. Joel is one of the members (if there is such a thing) of the rabid-if-desperate and frequently-disappointed Olympic Peninsula/Strait of Juan de Fuca surf community. There is an ART WALK each month in PT (I’ve never gone on one), so, partially in the interest of promoting the COLAB enterprise (more people hanging out with laptops and connections), why not have me and two other artists show our stuff? I mean, after all, Joel does actually own the cedar art piece/surfboard shown below. Long story. I was supposed to spray paint “Locals Only” on it or something, but…
ARTISTS, huh?
As usual, I didn’t do everything right. I had a whole room to display my stuff. I didn’t put prices on things, didn’t put business cards out. And, I didn’t hang out in the room, charming the folks who came in. BUT, I now realize, the main thing I did wrong is that I didn’t take some photos of STEPHEN R. DAVIS, KEITH DARROCK, and, yeah, me, cruising around to the various galleries.
If I had you could see LIBRARIAN KEITH, as rabid a surf fanatic as I have ever run into (or been burned by), but a solid citizen, mingling with the tourists and the artists, and in the company of two, perhaps… no, I don’t know how to describe Steve and I except we’re probably not as out-there as we believe ourselves to be. I mean, I’m as CITIZEN as the next person, but Steve? ARTISTS, huh?
And we’re checking out everyone else’s art, chatting with artists, partaking in the free snacks (no wine for me, not that I’m bragging. A nice expresso would have been… appreciated).
AND IT kind of worked out. EXAMPLE- We’re at the fanciest gallery in PT (prices fancier, also- wine from bottles with, probably, recognizable names for wine aficionados- no, not Ernest & Julio), and Steve is kind of (I thought) kissing up to this artist with the tiniest possible ponytail (so high concept/fashion), and I see this kid sitting on a bench with a sweatshirt with a logo from CHRIS BAUER SURFBOARDS. “Hey, where’d you get that sweatshirt, kid?” “He’s my dad. Chris Bauer.” “Oh.” When one of the board members (because fancy galleries have boards and directors) comes over and says I’m getting a bit rowdy, I acknowledge this and ask her if he knows KEITH.
THEY chat and I go outside. Again, as with my leaving first at other venues, I sort of think, as I acknowledged, that, if I still smoked, I’d be having one at this point. OUTSIDE the gallery.
I am not a marketer. Particularly not of my stuff.
HERE’S WHERE STEPHEN R. DAVIS got it right. I was critiquing and moving, asking quick, real questions of the folks showing and explaining and (you have to guess) trying to sell their works, questions such as: “How much are the dues? How much floor time do you have to put in? Do you sell enough to make it worth it? Meanwhile, Steve, a bundle of his cards in his hand, was showing his stuff, handing out samples as business cards, making, you know, inroads into the PT art scene.
NOW WE’RE on to the post event CRITIQUE, as in, what did I do wrong? What can I do NOW? I probably should have hung around in the space at the COLAB, charminig the folks who stumbled in, maybe selling
EVEN WITH THE BARAT, would you buy art from this double-chinned fat guy in the sweatshirt for the OLYMPIC MUSIC FESTIVAL (though several people thought OMF stood for Old M F-er)?
Here’s a shot of Keith, Joel, me (hiding the double chin), and Adam “Wipeout” James.
Here’s Steve on his boat from a few years ago. AGAIN, I should have taken a few photos from the ART WALK.
BUT I did, because I was displaying some drawings I did years ago of houses in Port Townsend, get an opportunity to draw one for someone. AND I DO OWE a big thank you to JOEL and RACHEL for the opportunity. TRISH says I should give them a piece of my art. “WHY? He already has the surfboard?”
So, BIG THANK YOU! Heart emoji, hang loose emoji.
MARKETING. I’m working on it. AND I did actually have a good time, chatting it up with people I don’t know, running into some I do know (shout out to Ian), hanging with friends.
Perhaps, on Wednesday, I’ll go over how I’m getting over and/or dealing with the detached retina, the infection in my leg, both related, possibly, to a fall, and a high blood pressure situation I discovered because I just had no choice but to go to a doctor; and the double chin thing. I am totally ready to get back in the water. TAKE THIS AS A WARNING.
Good luck. And, again, if you can’t be nice, be real.
…that’s about it. Oh, yeah; HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!
I AM, AGAIN, at the end of the latest complete rewrite of “Swamis.” As in, where an author is supposed to write, in case a lack of more pages isn’t enough, “THE END.” I wrote, “NOT EVEN CLOSE TO THE END.” The current version is, after thousands of words were cut, at a little over 103,000 words. As I explained in an earlier post, I was forced to move the first chapter, which, cleverly, I thought, set in something more like the current time, answered a lot of questions I didn’t want to spell out at the end.
AFTER several attempts to write something concise AND with the all important AWESOME first line, I am pretty much just changing all the chapter numbers on my next go-through. LAST? I hope so. ONE OF THE ISSUES I wanted a new opening chapter to deal with is the writing style of the fictional narrator, JOSEPH DeFREINES, JR, aka Atsushi Defreines, aka Jody, aka Joey.
It sort of comes down to whether, as I’m hoping, the clues JOEY finds along the course of the novel are enough for a reader to draw conclusions. It’s not some conscious attempt at might-be-cool (or another failed attempt at it) AMBIGUITY, but Mr. DeFreines, who, after years as an attorney (alluded to but not overtly stated) writes in a very controlled way, clarity over flash. To that end, I wrote, and will not use, a line like, “I don’t use a lot of adjectives in my regular conversation, why should I do so because I’m writing rather than telling the story.”
WHAT’S CHANGED in my constantly working and editing and thinking about the story, “Swamis,” is that it has become much more a love story, Julie and Joey, tangled in the rush and roar of 1969. I have tried to convince the LOVE OF MY LIFE, TRISH, that it would make a great HALLMARK MOVIE. “Oh, with a guy being burned alive and all that?” “Yes I mean, it’s not gratuitous.”
I might be if Joseph DeFreines used more ADJECTIVES.
With apologies for going on about this, I wrote a sub-chapter, moved it to another place because I didn’t know where to fit it in. The place is now the depository of the latest rounds of cuts. AND, when I asked our daughter, DRUCILLA, to check out something on the laptop I am borrowing from her, she had to comment, out loud, “Oh, ‘Sexy scene,” to which Trish responded, “Really? I might have to read that.”
Sexy Scene for “Swamis”
“No, Julie, it was more you than me… The kissing. I was… more… controlled.”
It was late in the afternoon. There were still three surfers out. Julie and I were on the point end of the lifeguard tower. Our towels had slid into a single pile on the x shaped cross members. “No, Joey. You certainly were not.”
“I certainly tried to be… controlled.”
Julie reached into her big gray bag, unwrapped a top, basically something like a small apron. “Controlled. You… weren’t. But… enthusiastic. Yes.”
“More like surprised.”
“Are you going to… look away?”
“You look away; I’m the one who’s… topless.”
“Yes, you are.” Julie put the palm of her left hand on my chest. “You and your stick out nipples.”
“Nipples?” I crossed my arms over my chest. Julie untied the strap on her bikini top, her left hand holding her top to her chest. She widened her eyes. I turned, untangled my towel from hers, spun around and backed up a bit closer to her, holding the towel up and out in front of both of us. “In case those guys… in the water, have… really good eyesight.”
“Really good? Thanks.”
“Not a… I didn’t mean…”
Julie pressed her body against mine, slid her arms around me, her hands on my chest until she had my alleged stick out nipples between the first two fingers of each hand.
I tried not to inhale. Failed. A deep breath I was afraid to exhale.
“Don’t giggle, Joey.”
“You are.”
“You know it was my birthday…” Julie stopped giggling. “…over the weekend. I’m legal!”
“Congratulations. I’m not… legal… yet.”
“I’m willing to risk it.” Julie took a breath. “If you are.”
The towel dropped away as I spun, slowly, with control, Julie’s arms never fully pulling away, toward Julie, my arms squeezing her closer.
Closer.
I FEEL DUTY-BOUND to now mention that, whether or not I use this for the novel, it is still protected by copyright. Thanks for respecting that.
WIPEOUT UPDATE- This is the EMU Adam “Wipeout” James’s son, EMMETT caught off the Big Island. It was prepared by a chef in Seattle, presumably the woman in the photo. ALSO, and it may be because, like realsurfers.net, Adam and the HAMA HAMA OYSTER COMPANY have a world wide reach, my site got a higher than average number of hits since I posted the photos and story of the Adam’s family vacation. So, thanks.
FRANKENSUP UPDATE- Thanks to Joel Carbon for the apt description. Yes, that is my thumb. Yes, I did need a skil saw to cut the fin box out of the tail section of the first SUP I owned. And chisels, and knives. I filled in the big divot with foam from the same board, used some leftover cloth and some resin given me by Keith Darrock to cover the wound. Oh, and the sawhorses were from Mikel “Squintz” Comiskey, cutting down on possessions before he moved to the Big Island. I am also holding on to binoculars and a trophy he won at the Cape Kawanda Longboard contest a few years ago. I’m using the trophy, a beautiful turned bowl, for my keys, not that I still don’t still misplace them.
SPEAKING OF OLD DUDES WITH BAD MEMORIES, I’m thinking that will be my new excuse for bad lineup behavior when I get back to searching the Strait of Juan de Fuca for waves. “Backpaddling? Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice you.” Yeah, age, along with my wearing earplugs and my hearing being no better than marginal without them.
I DO PLAN on doing more board repair on the HOBIE. I guess I’ve had it for six or seven years, way longer than any other board I’ve ever owned (and thrashed), and ALL I WANT is another six or seven years out of it.
It’s still Winter. Get some waves when you can. And, again, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY to all the lovers out there.
INSTANT COMMENTARY from (obvious alias) Frank Lee Darling: “If your taking a swipe at Biden. He doesn’t remember all the good things he’s done. Marmalade Man can’t thinnk of any. Because bone spurs never don anything that wasn’t self serving. That’s it. Connot wait til you book comes out. Probably banned and or burnt in Fla.
I learned a few things watching a YouTube with local librarian/ripper Keith Darrock’s favorite surf magazine writer (spiffy columns with an accompanying photo of him… smoking- so rebellious) turned (with the demise of most print mags) into an (I’m not saying posing) outsider (allegedly)/critic of many-if-not-all things corporate, or cultural, or just plain obviously wacked-if-not-permanently ruined in the once pure (purer, perhaps), whole wide world of surfboarding, consistently those evil-ish ghouls and thugs who profit from it:
The massive (and easy) target of the World Surf League, and… oh, my god (not meaning, like, God God) Kelly Slater, Greatest surf Of All Time, and almost certainly the biggest beneficiary of the wave-washed money that has come from Kelly’s stellar career (K.S. wave pool in where? Dubai- wannabe sports capital).
Chas, in the continuance of his career, appears in his videos with a bottle of spirits, glasses donned and un-donned, and, though I haven’t watched enough of them to see if he lights up, I do admit he looks pretty cool in a Don Johnson/Miami Vice/throwback way (and, if I hadn’t stated this so far- I am in no way criticizing Mr. Smith), starting his commentary with, “I hate surfing, I don’t hate you.”
Hopefully I got that right.
SO, having former TransSurf (Surfing before that, I believe) magazine editor and current WSL commentator, Chris Cote, on his Vlog, cups and saucers rather than a bottle on the table in the foreground, with the clickbait come-on headline of (I looked this up in my History), “Chris Cote on the killing of the surf industry and the joys of toxic positivity, I meant just to watch just a bit, but stayed for all 23 or so minutes of the thing.
SO, here’s what I learned: The average age of the approximately 33 million surf or surf-adjacent people in the world is, like, forty-six (or so, I didn’t rewatch), AND, the BIGGIE, surfing is NO LONGER considered COOL among the not-yet-sponsored younger set.
WHY?
CHECKING out the comments section as Chas and Chris chatted, I read about clueless and etiquette-deficient crowds at any decent break, the swelling of kooks and hodads furthered by wave pools and surf lessons and surf camps; and words on the tragic replacement of blue (or no) collar surf rebels with time-and-money rich techies and mid-level managers driving tricked-out Sprinter vans and custom racked Teslas. Yeah, that seems… correct.
Folks just want to be part of something with a perceived (or conceived- by ad agencies, mostly) coolness they are not contributing to.
I have some theories, most centered on this: IF YOU ARE NEVER going to get as many waves as your father claims to have ridden, you might never surf better than he (or your mom) does; and anyway, few of us have fathers we would be embarrassed to hang out on the beach with; if this is the truth of surfing (and that it is actually kind of… difficult; all the paddling and stuff); WHY BOTHER?
“No, you love it. You love it! Now, just get out there, you little Ripper!” Photo from, yeah, RIP CURL.
THIS ISN’T TRUE in my case; my father, a champion swimmer, was a great body surfer, even if his wearing of the traditional Speedo (I didn’t follow suit after the sixth grade) was a bit… awkward. My mother’s driving her seven children to the beach, mostly because she loved the beach, and her support of my surfing (“Tell your friends surfing, to you, is a sport; it isn’t a lifestyle” was her point when I couldn’t go with them because of religious reasons). If it was a sport, I wanted it to be a lifestyle. Still do. It still isn’t, but it is a part of my life.
AND, in furtherance of my hypothesis, my three children do not surf; the children of many of my surf friends do not surf. Granted, I live in an area late to the game, with fickle surf and cold water, and adverse winds, difficult access, lots of troublesome rocks (though not quite far away enough from large metropolitan areas- some would say); and purchasing gear for rapidly growing kids might be financially daunting. STILL, the average age of the surfers I run into is probably in keeping with Chas Smith’s assessment. YES, I do up the demographic. AND, I do see some second generation surfers. Not, statistically, that many, but some.
OKAY, this has about the word count that seemed appropriate back when I had a column (not self-promoting, as such, it’s long gone) in the Port Townsend Leader. SO, hmmm… considering doing a live thing. NO, I’m just not cool enough. PODCAST? Double hmmm.
MEANWHILE, looking for content beyond anything Nathan Florence puts out, always checking out Keith Olbermann’s short hype-ups for his podcast, though never hitting on the full length version (and never subscribing or ‘liking’ any videos), occasionally fooled into watching some wannabe Nate Florence kooking it up in some shorebreak, next time I’m clickbaited by Chas Smith, I will probably… CLICK.
I was planning of showing my latest illustrations, but I forgot to bring my dedicated thumb drive to the printer, and, when I tried to get copies, the super fancy, super expensive machine didn’t cooperate. This kind of thing can irritate the shit out of the owner/operator. YES, I did make the stupid comment that, “Yeah, that’s why I almost always brush and roll paint jobs.” “Uh huh. Three-sixty-one.” “Okay. Let me dig out some change.”
Circumstances not entirely beyond my control are causing this post to lack illustration. It might just be beyond my ability. Or it might be that the fucking scanner just doesn’t want to scan no matter how many times I check the connections, turn it off and back on… you know, try to make it work. SO, though I have two illustrations I wanted to put out there… no.
UPDATE- I took the original illustrations to COJO PRINTING in Port Townsend, had them professionally scannned. RANDY, the owner, seems hellbent on making sure the scans are… I’m not sure, but I appreciate his concern. “It can’t get better than I drew it,” I said. “Well,” he said, and continued examining the line work. SO…
POSSIBLE T SHIRT design (top), and FICTITIOUS POINT BREAK
Hope the holidays aren’t stressing you out too much, and that, perhaps, you are finding a few waves.
I am still hoping to finish the many-ist rewrite of “SWAMIS” by Christmas. Hoping. I shouldn’t promise to have something really fun and unrushed on SUNDAY, but, yeah; Sunday; something.
Erwin Dence, Jr. claims all rights to original illustrations posted on realsurfers.net
It’s our cat, ANGELINA, quite disappointed if not super pissed-off, resting on MY pillow (darker blue in real life), in the living room, because it’s the room with (some) heat, that provided by space heaters powered by a very noisy generator.
Not to argue whether or not there is a surf season on the Strait, but… Oh, first, I’m posting this a day later than the days I am trying to get folks used to, Sundays and Wednesdays, due to the power panel in my, hm, hmm, cottage, pieced together and added onto since the 1930s, kind of, um, having an issue.
AN ISSUE is my explanation for reduced power and… I AM working on it.
Not this skinny, of course, but rideable waves and no surfboard… frustrating.
Again, not discussing (potential, possible, hypothetical, possibly imagined) waves I can’t get to for a reason other than the usual, ‘got to work,’ thing. A few years ago it was the water leak between the pump house and the, you know, house I couldn’t find, even cutting holes in the floor to track it down, not finding it leading to the pump fifty feet down going out. Yes, I missed some waves I would have, according to reports that included, “You would have loved it, Dude,” and “Where were you?”
The thing is, these kind of issues, quite a ways outside of my knowledge zone, my limited areas of expertise; OR the use of professionals to solve the issue being way outside of my budget; just make me so… tired. Disappointed, pissed-off, frozen in body and mind. Rather like Angelina.
BUT, I am making some moves. It’s only been about thirty hours with no coffee and inadequate heat. I felt pretty good that I replaced the burnt-out main shutoff switch (not fun). I’ve done testing, possibly closing in on the areas of extended damage. Always tough. Electrical logic is way more involved than painting logic (paint is a liquid, gravity is involved). I have some ideas. YES, I am aware almost any problem is solvable if one throws enough money at it.
YES. This drama, something short of a tragedy, will be a story. Eventually. Not yet.
MEANWHILE, I did discover I can’t run a space heater AND a coffee maker at the same time.
NOW, I DO have some new artwork, several possible t-shirt designs, more from “Swamis” I wanted to post, AND I WILL, once I’m back to full power. So, soon. I’ve got to work.
If you do happen to get a few waves; it’s fine; I’m sure they’re the kind (rideable, possibly makable) I would love, Dude; it’s fine if you let me know. Good luck. May all your breakdowns, breakups, accidents, tragedies, meltdowns, panic attacks, mind freezes, etc., happen when the waves aren’t going off
I spent too much time trying to get the photo I took of Brian Nijo, second place winner in the 40-49 men’s division at the recent Cape Kiwanda Longboard Event, from my new phone to this site. Maybe I can figure it out and get it posted.
MEANWHILE, P.T. Librarian and world surfer Keith ran into the guy, who he only knows as “Z,” winner of the 50-59 men’s division, who Keith described as stoked that he won, AND Z had a story about crashing into his fin on a wipeout in a preliminary heat, pushing the fin through the board (with, of course, some damage to his leg), getting it (the board) patched up before the finals, and… winning. I have never, to my knowledge, run into Z, and I did ask Keith to take a photo next time he sees him, sending it to me. THEN, maybe, if it’s okay with Z, posting it here. Like, hopefully.
This is a poem I have been working on. It seems to fit the season. I do reserve, as always, the right to make changes.
OUT OF THE WIND
There’s something sublime, a soft summer breeze, But the chill gales of winter will bend you to your knees, Yes, you can resist, but you’ll never win, No matter how fierce, all storms have an end, But… I just want to get out of the wind, out of the wind, out of the wind.
While most colors fade, some colors still shine, Other colors just refuse to stay within the lines, Some colors will clash, while others will blend, Some colors take you to the clouds and back again, Still… I just want to get out of the wind… out of the wind, out of the wind.
Small change is dirty, big money’s all clean, I just need some dollars that are somewhere in between, If there’s none to save, need some cash to spend, If money’s your love, you need a new friend, And… I just want to get out of the wind… out of the wind, out of the wind.
All truth is still truth, all lies are still lies, Politicians laugh and hit you right between the eyes, The stories they spread, others will defend, The damage, they say, costs too much to mend, So… I just want to get out of the wind… out of the wind, out of the wind.
Looking for justice, it’s always on sale, You can’t change the system if you know you’re going to fail, The world isn’t fair, it never has been, The answer, my friend, is lost in the wind, Seems… I can’t seem to stay out of the wind, out of the wind, out of the wind.
Sailing for safe harbor, couldn’t outrun the squall, I’ve tried to live my life in Summer, but I’m heading for the Fall, If there’s no sanctuary, I’m happy to pretend, I’ve survived so many Winters, Winter’s coming back again,
Warm wind’s slowing, soft wind’s going, new wind’s growing, cold wind’s blowing, raining, snowing; I don’t know, I’m somewhere, hiding, somehow knowing, there’s no way to stay out of the wind, Out of the wind, out of the… wind.
…looking for clues to Chulo’s murder. He talks with witness, possible suspect Baadal Singh. Because each chapter follows a specific day, this day had to be split into three parts.
CHAPTER TWELVE- PART ONE- SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1969
I couldn’t say for certain if I had slept at all. I was outside the house at five. I had my lunch, in its pastel blue paper bag, in one hand, my dad’s big flashlight in the other. The Falcon was pointed toward the road. Getaway position. My new board was inside, my nine-six pintail on the by-this-time rusted-on factory racks. I carefully closed the driver’s side door, rolled the car down the driveway, turned the ignition key, popping the clutch, in second gear, at the county road. I turned on the headlights and retrieved a half a pack of Marlboros from under several Pee-Chee folders, those stacked on top of a four-track tape player, that set in the middle of the bench seat.
Waiting for a truck to pass before I could turn left onto Mission Road, I reached into the inside pocket of my windbreaker for matches. I had considered, briefly, pulling out ahead of the truck. I grabbed the flashlight from the dashboard, shined it on my fogged-up watch. “Should have left earlier.” I passed the truck on the last straightaway before Bonsall.
The wood-sided Mom-and-Pop store in Leucadia, perilously close to the southbound side of 101, didn’t open until six. It was parked in the pullout just past it at five-fifty-two. I reran the TV coverage from the previous nights, waited for the lights in the window to go on. Hostess donettes, frosted, a quart of chocolate milk, a tiny can of lighter fluid, and package of flints.
I pulled into the Swamis parking lot, did a soft left, and looped into a hard right. I stopped the car, shone my lights on the portion of the wall where Chulo had been killed. It looked the same as it always had. White, not even gray, not even yellowed by the headlights, low or high beams. I backed up and away, made a big lazy arc in the very middle of the empty lot, and pulled into a perfect spot, ten spaces over from the stairs. Optimum location. I leapt out, stood at the bluff. Not loud enough to suggest waves of any height. I exhaled the smoke from my third cigarette of the day. “South wind. Fuck!”
…
The Laura Nyro tape re-running the songs from side one of “Eli and the Thirteenth Confession.” It wasn’t the tape. It was the player. Side one of albums from the bargain bin, Leonard Cohen and Harry Nilsson and the Moody Blues, side one of The Doors.
I looked at my increasingly water-logged diving watch each time another car pulled in, each time car doors slammed, each time a surfer or surfers walked out onto the bluff, peered into the darkness, and decided to go elsewhere.
It was still an hour before sunrise, overcast, almost drizzly. I stuck my father’s flashlight under my left arm and walked straight across the pavement, across the grass. I followed the Self Realization Fellowship compound toward the highway, toward the forty-five-degree curve to where the compound’s original entrance had been. There were two large pillars, gold lotus topped, an arch between them, the wrought iron gates long secured with long rusted chains.
Two bushes had been replaced with full-sized plants. The soil around them, the grass next to them, were new. It would all blend in. Quickly. I touched the wall. I looked at my hand. Dry. Perfect, as if no one had been burned to death there.
Backing away from the wall. I walked across the wet grass and onto the pavement at the entrance to the Swamis parking lot. This was where the crowd had assembled, where the sawhorses and rope had been. Unlike the compound side, there were cigarette butts and candy wrappers and straws and smashed paper cups on the rough pavement, scattered and stepped on and run over.
Clues, I thought. Killers returning to the scene of the crime, blending in, hanging on the ropes. Missed clues. I pulled out the Marlboro hard pack from the inside pocket of my windbreaker, stuck the third to the last cigarette in my mouth, lit it with two matches held together. I turned on the flashlight, held each new clue close I had picked up to the beam.
Cigarette butts. Various brands. Lipstick on two of them. A partial pack of matches. “Carlsbad Liquor. Beer, Wine, and Spirits.” I opened it. “Left-handed,” I said. I pulled out several of the remaining matches. They left a red streak when I tried to light them. “Too wet.”
I put selected cigarette butts and the pack of matches into the Marlboro hard pack. I moved back and forth along the de facto line, established where dead center was. I crouched down to study the patch of debris in front of me. “Menthol.” I picked up a butt with a gray, slightly longer filter. I blinked, possibly from my own cigarette smoke in my eyes. “Different.”
There was a noise. Slight. Footsteps. Pulling my flashlight out from under my arm with my right hand, I stood up, right foot sliding back.
“Gauloises Bleaues,” a man, ten feet away, said.
I flipped the flashlight around and into my right hand. The beam hit just below his head.
“Picasso smokes these. Jim Morrison and John Lennon smoke these.” I slid my right foot up and even with my left and lowered the flashlight. The man was holding a push broom. Stiff bristles. “My uncle imports these. I smoke these.” I nodded toward the broom. “You and I spoke… before. You gave me a… sort of… newspaper.”
“I did? Okay. So, no one cleaned… here, behind the… the line.”
“So, you. You. Here. Scene of the crime, eh?”
“Me? Here? Yeah. I don’t know… why.”
The man took two steps, closer. “Joe DeFreines, Junior. You surf. You work at a grocery store, Cardiff, weekends.” I leaned back. “I look a bit different than… I did.” He nodded toward the west end of the wall. “Meditation garden.”
I flashed to that time. Four seconds, at the most. “Swami,” I said.
“No. Not nearly. Gardener. I was with a Swami.”
The gardener’s beard and hair were tucked into a dark coat. The man’s eyes were almost the only part of his face showing. He had a bandana pulled up and covering most of his face. He had on the type of felt hats older men still wore; probably brown, pulled down around his ears.
“Lost most of my eyebrows. Eyelashes just got a good curling. Singed. Still there.”
“No! Shit!” I took half a step back. “It was… you.”
“No shit.” The man extended his hands. He had a leather glove, dirtied calfskin, on his left hand. He had a white cotton glove on his right hand. His first two fingers taped together, as were the other two, and, separately, his thumb. The bandaging wrapped around the main part of his hand and was taped at his wrist. Three of his fingers showed stains that were either, I thought, something that had seeped through, ointment or blood. I was staring. “Second degree,” the gardener said, “Flash burns. Fools.”
I turned and looked toward the highway. There was a late step-side pickup in the spot closest to the telephone booth on the highway side of the original parking lot. There was a three-legged fruit picker’s ladder on the rack over the bed, gardening tools bundled upright against the cab, the handle of a lawn mower hanging over the tailgate.
“You must have gone to the… hospital, Mister… You know my name. Mister…?”
“Singh. Baadal Singh. Baa, like ‘baa, baa, black sheep,’ sing like… sing.” I nodded. Baadal Singh laughed. “No hospital. They keep… records.” This seemed amusing to Mr. Singh. “I was two full days… downtown. Not in a cell. Interview room. Just… Dickson calls you Jody.” I nodded. “Your father… sorry about him, incidentally. Wendall, he calls your father Gunny.”
“They both do. Marines. Wendall and my… dad. Not Dickson. Why would they even mention… me?”
“They didn’t. Downtown detectives. One of them said… I am under the impression he was giving Wendall some… grief. And Langdon, he said…”
“Langdon?”
“Langdon. Yes. Fuck him.”
“But, Mister Singh, you were a witness; not a… suspect.”
“Witness. Yes. Suspects have rights.” Baadal Singh looked at the little pile of cigarette butts and candy wrappers he had pushed close to my feet, then at me. I squatted to look more closely. Baadal Singh lowered the bandana that had been over his nose. “’Nice sunburn’ one of the detectives told me. ‘Hard to tell,” Dickson… said.”
Mr. Singh pushed the broom handle toward me. It leaned against my chest as I turned off the flashlight and stuck it back under my left arm. “Marines, you say?” Mr. Singh pulled the glove from his left hand with his teeth. He pulled back his coat. He reached into his coat and took a thin box of cigarettes from the coat’s breast pocket with his bandaged right hand. He laughed. The glove fell to the ground. I slid my right hand down the broom handle and picked up the glove.
Baadal Singh took a cigarette out of the pack. “Gauloisis Bleaues” he said. He showed me a book of matches from the Courthouse Bar and Grill. “Downtown. Langdon treated me to lunch on my… second day. Clientele of lawyers and bail bondsmen and cops and criminals. He told me I would, eventually, be charged with Chulo’s murder.” Though he didn’t laugh, Mr. Singh did smile. He pulled out three matches from the right-hand side with his right hand. “Right-handed,” he said, striking the three matches as one, and lighting the cigarette. “All clues that make me what Langdon called ‘completely convictable.’”
I didn’t react. I was playing back what Mr. Singh had just done.
“Joe. Chulo wasn’t a Marine, though, was he?”
I had, evidently, forgotten to inhale. My Marlboro was down to the filter. I spit it out on the clean part of the asphalt. I stomped on it. Too much information, too quickly. I was starting to hyperventilate. Baadal Singh put his left hand on my right shoulder.
“Chulo? No.”
“You’re calm. Right?” I nodded. “This is how real coppers work, Joe. Blackmail. Bluemail, maybe. Information is currency. You know that.” I coughed and took in a more normal breath. “Langdon… not really the other guys, he wants everything I know in exchange for… temporary, at least, freedom. What I know is there is too much money around. Cash. Fine for small… purchases. Someone needs to… Do you… understand? Good citizens. Businesspeople.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You’re looking, though. Langdon was right about that. You get enough clues and you… analyze, you imagine.”
“I don’t… imagine. I… memorize. I… remember.”
“Yes. Some… another day; you’ll have to tell me the difference.”
“So, Mr. Singh; you told them what you know?”
Baadal laughed. “Not even close, mate.”
…
It was closer to sunrise. I had been talking with Baadal Singh a while. “White pickup,” he said. “Farm truck. Double wheels in the back.”
“White pickup. Farm truck. Double wheels in the back. Duelies, I think they’re called. The other vehicle, black car, loud muffler. Straight pipes. Made a rumbling sort of sound.”
“Right. And?”
“And Chulo had been in the white truck with a Mexican and a tall, skinny, white guy. Chulo had already been beaten. You believe the Mexican and the skinny white guy were taking Chulo to the Jesus Saves bus, but if they had, they would have had to face… Portia. So, they knew her?”
“Drugs, Joe. You had to have known… that. Portia and Chulo? Marijuana?”
“I told you, Mr. Singh. I just… didn’t pay attention.” Baadal Singh shook his head. “You weren’t a friend… of Chulo’s?”
“Not… really.”
“So, again; why are you telling me all… any of this?”
“Because, if I… disappear, I want someone to know the truth.”
“Not me. Not a good choice.”
“You’re my only choice, though. So… remember.”
“So, the black car pulled in. Lights off. Two guys jumped out. Also a Mexican and a white guy. There was an argument. Between the two… groups.”
Baadal Singh, with me following, stopped between the phone booth and his truck. “The two white guys…” he said, “The one from the car pushes the skinny cowboy dude over here. He says, ‘We have customers lined up. They are serious. Call someone. Now! You need change, A-hole?’ Meanwhile, the Mexican guy… from the black car, he kicks Chulo a few more times, drags him across the parking lot.”
“Where were you, Mr. Singh?”
“Call me Baadal. Please.” Baadal pointed toward the concrete shower/bathroom facility. “Cowardly. Yeah.” Baadal stood by the door to the booth. “So, the… let’s call them gangsters… White gangster is outside, cowboy’s dialing. I see him… he kind of ducking, looking up…”
Baadal stepped away from the booth, looked across the street, past the railroad tracks, and up the hill. “Not sure if that is relevant.” Baadal turned toward me. “I’m just trying to understand this myself, Joe.”
“Okay, Baadal. So, whatever was said on the phone, it wasn’t what the gangsters wanted to hear. Obviously. A-hole, he’s still on the phone, right?” Baadal nodded. ”You’re still thinking it was a joke?” Baadal shook his head. “No. The white gangster goes to… your truck?”
“My truck. It was on the highway. Chulo’s gets dragged all the way to the wall. Skinny white guy… whoever was on the line must have hung up on him. He slams the phone, chases after the white gangster, meets up with him halfway across the lot. The gangster stops, sets the petrol can down, looks way over where the bus is parked. I sneak over to… here, the phone booth. Chulo, he’s… sitting, back to the wall. He sees me. He yells… something.”
“You couldn’t hear him?”
“I could. He’s saying, ‘No! Not her!’ That’s when I, I ran past the two guys and over to the grass. I yelled out that I had called the cops.”
“Had you?”
“No. That’s when the Mexican gangster poured the petrol; my petrol, on him. Chulo.”
Two vehicles pulled into the lot and passed us. I recognized both vehicles. One from Tamarack, one from Swamis. Both had surfboards on the roofs. The second car’s exhaust was louder. “Rumble,” I said.
Baadal Singh shook his head. “Louder.” We both nodded. “I fancied myself a revolutionary back in London. I didn’t run away so much as I was… banished. Sent… here.” Baadal put his right hand over the place where his inside pocket was on his coat. He looked at me for a moment before he flattened his hand as if it was a sort of pledge. I am not a killer, Joe. Remember I told you… the truth.” He smiled. “Not all of it, of course.”
“This isn’t over, is it?”
“This? No. Here is the… a secret part, Joe. I… so stupid. I walked up to Chulo, got down on my knees.” Baadal took a deep breath. “Do you want… to know?” I closed my eyes. I envisioned something I had seen in a magazine, a black and white photo of a Buddhist monk on fire. I opened my eyes. Baadal Singh was close to me. “The white gangster was talking to the cowboy. He said, ‘You know Chulo is a narc. Right?’”
“Narc. Chulo?”
“That’s how the guys from the truck responded.” Baadal Singh didn’t move his head. “At first.” He kept his eyes on me as he half-forced the calfskin glove onto his left hand. I must have looked away for a moment. I might have been elsewhere for a moment. Seconds.
Baadal Singh was somewhere else.
“Mr. Singh. Baadal; may I ask you… why were you at Swamis… that night?”
Baadal reached for his boom. He grabbed it in the middle, moved it up and down several times. “Another time, Joe. You have a lot to… memorize.” Baadal and then I turned toward the latest car pulling into the Swamis lot, Petey Blodget’s once-fancy fifties era four door Mercedes. It had a diesel engine sound and smell. There was a single pile of five boards on a rack, a browned and battered kneeboard on the top of the pile. I shifted my focus to the girl sitting in the middle of the front seat. Julia Cole. Baadal Singh looked up at the palm fronds, swaying in the trees above us. He hit my shoulder with his left hand. “Another time.”
“Wait. Baadal.”
I wanted more information, but I couldn’t help but follow the Mercedes as it pulled in, clockwise, and backed into a spot two spaces closer to us than the Falcon. Surfers bailed from three of the doors. Julia Cole was the second person out of the front door on the passenger side. The guy riding shotgun was Petey’s son. My age. Nicknamed Buzz. The four kids from the back seat ware all too young to drive themselves.
While the others rushed to the bluff, Julia Cole looked at me through the space between the stack of boards and the roof. At me. Not for very long. Petey was looking at Baadal Singh and I from the driver’s seat. He slowly opened the door, slowly pulled his feet out and onto the pavement. Julia Cole pulled her big gray bag out of the Mercedes as Petey walked toward the bathrooms.
Baadal Singh backed up a step. I took two steps toward him. ‘Gingerbread Fred. Fred Thompson, did you see him?”
“Later. Only. I was… busy.”
“But he saw… them?”
“He did.” Baadal lit up another cigarette with three matches and handed me the pack. “And they saw him.”
“Did he seem to… recognize… any of them?”
“You mean, did I?” I nodded. “No one I had seen before. But… I will never forget them.” Baadal Singh moved his face very close to mine. “Since you claim you don’t… imagine. Maybe you… guessed. I am not here… legally. More to it than that. I am, in England, legally… dead.”
There was no way to hide or disguise my confusion. “They… Langdon, he let you go.”
Baadal Singh chuckled. “Bait. Yes. It’s a game, Joey; but you were right. Langdon did ask me, as you did, why I was at Swamis… that night.” Baadal Singh shook his head as he backed away. “And… if you know more about me you’ll know more about why.” He laughed as he turned away. He turned his head slightly as he let out smoke from the Gauloisis Bleaues cigarette. “Again, Joe, it’s Langdon I lied to; not… you.”
-All rights to “Swamis” and changes to the original copyrighted manuscript are reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. Thanks for respecting this.
REMEMBER to check out realsurfers.net on Sunday for non-Swamis content.
In searching for a photo to illustrate “Groovin’ to the surf” I couldn’t find one groovier than this one. Now, maybe Mr. O’Neill once rode this board, but, no, I think it’s all kind of posed. Still…
Two things:
I do live on Surf Route 101. Vehicles do pass, north and south, depending on the swell direction. If my work takes me east, across the Hood Canal Bridge, I have frequently passed hopeful surfers headed for some dream of waves out on the Peninsula in the morning, then passed the same rigs in the evening or night. Did they score? Did I make enough money to not be jealous? Probably not. How do I feel when I’m headed home from surfing, knowing wind is on a dropping swell and I see other hopefuls headed out? Answer- Not as pleased as you might think. Maybe the waves got… better.
It is not a secret that I will occasionally break into song while painting. My friend Stephen R. Davis just sent me a link to “Groovin'” by the Young Rascals, originally released in 1967. “Groovin’, on a Sunday afternoon, wheelin’, couldn’t get away too soon…” Perhaps Steve just wanted to refresh my memory on the actual lyrics… for next time. I was 16 when the song came out, and I started to tell a story about how, because whatever car my dad had supplied me with, some beater he got on a mechanic’s lien, was broken, and because my mom, for some reason, couldn’t or wouldn’t take her seven kids to the beach, I walked and/or rode my skateboard, four or five miles, in the inland mid-summer heat, teenage angst fully in control, to Fallbrook Union High School. Kids played on the fields, typically, and skateboarding hadn’t yet been banned on the perfectly groomed sidewalks. Still, it was too hot to play baseball, there were no cute girls hanging out, and… This is probably the point the story got interrupted by some work-related problem, but, the conclusion is, some of the cooler kids in my class pulled up and, there I was, shortly thereafter, sitting in the back seat, all the windows down, cruising the well-cruised route, A&W, Foster’s Freeze, loop around down by the Little League field, all the while nodding along to the music. “This was,” I tried to tell Steve, a time in my life when, for an hour or so, I actually felt… somewhat… cool. Somewhere in there, the radio playlist got to “Groovin’.”
Quite possibly another Sunday afternoon with Trish. Yes, I do put this photo up occasionally.
Real Surfers 