WORD ON THE STRAIT. More on all of this on Sunday, including a list of scheduled, distinguished speakers, artists’ work on display, short documentary, and more.
Classic stylist Archie Endo is back from Thailand. Temporarily. I am hoping to do a surf trip with him before he goes back.
Stephen R. Davis conquers another peak.
SAD NEWS via CHIMACUM TIMACUM (Tim Pauley) on the passing of EDINSON SERNA:
“There will be a celebration of life for Edinson Serna this Sunday at Myrtle Edwards Park at 4pm. We will be meeting by the PI building by the sculpture garden on the water.
Many of us knew Eddie fron surfing in the Pacific Northwest. He was always a vvery likable guy, super stoked, positive, and excited to be in the water surrounded by people. Hope to see everyone this Sunday. RIP”
NOT-SECRET-ENOUGH stuff. Professional videographer ANNIE FERGERSON (left) will be, if not premiering a short documentary on a notorious wave hog at the upcoming CULTURE EVENT, at least showing outtakes or a gag reel. NOTE; The goonball with the cap ON TOP OF the hoodie put this off fro a while, then, in true self-centered, sociopathic fashion, agreed to be filmed (with certain restrictions as to the angle from the beach, no gratuitous nudity, etc.). “Yeah, I figured, at my age, I would love to see a slow motion video of me, you know, like, cruising, and, uh, yeah… what?” WHAT?
DETAILS ON all of this and more on SUNDAY, you know, like, maybe don’t look for it before, like 10am, Pacific Daylight Savings Time. There will also be updates on ORIGINAL ERWIN T SHIRTS and, now that my daughter, Dru, fixed the slowdown on microsoft word, the novel, “SWAMIS.”
MEANWHILE, keep working on your surf stories. We’ll talk soon.
…It isn’t as if Keith doesn’t steal (as in a wave or two) or borrow a few things from me (though borrowing doesn’t fit as well with the surf metaphor) a few things from me, including the graphic below, but it was just so easy to copy and paste the announcement for the FOURTH OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT from Librarian Keith’s (as opposed to Cougar Keith or any other Keith) Port Townsend Public Library newsletter… and just… repost it.
Because excuses are always necessary when taking things without permission (such as, “Oh, you actually wanted that wave?”) I would say the goal here is to further spread the news.
Join us at the library, WEDNESDAY, JULY 17th, 6 to 8 pm, for an evening of surfing stories and surf art. Writers and story-tellers include, Greg Tindell, Drew Kampion, Tim Nolan, Dana Terill and Erwin Dence. A crew of local surf artists may be present to show their work.
Greg Tindall Although Greg Tindall has written for the UK-based Surfer’s Path, the US-centric Surfer’s Journal and Australia’s equivalent, White Horses, and while he has covered surf contests for Surfline and hurricane-surf seasons for ESPN, his true passion is telling stories in-person. From the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, as a Florida Voice, to the Surfing Heritage And Cultural Center (SHACC) in San Clemente, from the Tuckerton Seaport in New Jersey to the Libby Little Theatre in Montana, Greg now has the privilege of telling some good ones to his friend and mentor, Drew Kampion.
Drew Kampion is a former editor of SURFER (1968-72), SURFING (1973-82), WIND SURF (1982-89), and WIND TRACKS (1996-99) magazines. He was Editorial Director for the Patagonia clothing company (1990-91) and Associate Editor for NEW AGE JOURNAL (1992). He founded, published, and edited the ISLAND INDEPENDENT (1993-96), an award-winning “bioregional magazine in newsprint,” serving the “maritime rainshadow” islands of Washington State. For his work with the INDEPENDENT, he received first prize for editing a periodical with a circulation under 50,000. Until recently, Drew was the American Editor of THE SURFER’S PATH, world’s first “green” surf magazine. His episodic parody, THE TEACHINGS OF DON REDONDO: A SURFER’S WAY OF KNOWLEDGE (as illustrated by artist Tom Threinen) was a regular feature of the magazine.
Erwin Dence is a writer and visual artist residing in Quilcene. He is well known for his regional surf-centric essays on his website realsurfers.net. Erwin is also in the final stages of the surf novel, Swami’s. His visual art is vivid, surreal and at times hypnotic. His art will be on display at the event.
“SWAMIS” WISE, because, last Sunday, my computer went from fast to ‘oh my God, what the fuck’s gone wrong’ mode last Sunday, right after I decided to pull out early, so to speak, chopping off the last fifteen-thousand words or so, but it seemed okay on Monday, I took my thumb drive to COHO PRINTING and had eight copies printed up.
IT’S A DIFFERENT THING, looking at a manuscript on paper. 104 pages on the computer, 90,000 words, printed front and back to reduce waste if not cost, is still a lot of paper. And it’s… real. Tangible. Touchable. And… shit; I want to make changes.
THE LAST things I wrote were a last chapter modified to fit better as the end of… of this; with so much more to the story; and a new epilogue because the one I had written before the last rewrite no longer fit. SO, eight copies in a box, a copy in hand, questions in my mind on who could read them, I realized the new epilogue was possibly as ill-fitting as the others. Yes, others; there are others of everything.
SO, I DECIDED TO JUST start with the first chapter; all dialogue, not too much (but enough) exposition, AND, I thought, why not share it with, you know, YOU.
BUT THEN, partway through some unavoidable rewriting, M I C R O F T started going R E A L L Y S L O W.
I get a certain sense of panic when this happens; maybe not as severe as last week’s attack, but I am still not sure what to do: New computer? No. Go to the library and use their’s? Maybe. Not today. TODAY I AM working on a poster for the upcoming event. It’s getting closer by the second!
I HOPE ALL YOU ALL had a great International Surf Day, enjoyed the recent Solstice, and… and you’re saving the date to do what surfers do: Talk Story.
OH, and there is some possibility that outtakes, at least, from a very short documentary by a professional filmer, centering on a villainous surfer who hits the sometimes waves on the Strait, just might be something else offered at the upcoming surf culture event.
OH, and surfer, ARCHIE ENDO, Crescent Cruiser, is back in the area after an extended stay in Thailand.
Surfers don’t necessarily NEED nicknames. In order to last, there has to be a story. Some stories hold up better over time. Example:A recent incident involving a car ‘vandalized’ in a parking lot with accusations thrown around by the victim or victims of, allegedly, a banana peel on the hood (or roof, I wasn’t there) and some amount of sunscreen on a (side, I believe) window. Three surfers exiting the water and approaching the lot were challenged by the victim(s) and his or her or their friends, called in for support/backup.
Paraphrasing, the first of the three; “How could I have done it. I was in the water.” Similar answers from the other two. “It must have been the FOURTH SURFER, then.” The Fourth Surfer was gone. His compatriots refused to give him up. Authority figures showed up. THERE has been further back and forth on the incident; e mails, some conciliatory, but the question is: Will the nickname THE FOURTH SURFER nickname (and he denies perpetrating the crime) stick?
Does Rico need a better nickname than RICO SUAVAY (phonetic spelling), that, face it, isn’t all that cool, although Rico definitely dresses the part? Suave. Here is another option: I ran into Rico the other dayk, chatted a bit on the side of the road about a near-dark to dark session. Now, Rico is a writer, but I was still very impressed when he described the waves as “Dark merury velvet walls.” Edited to Mercury Velvet,” it sounds like a nickname to me. We’ll see.
BECAUSE TIME seems to move so quickly, I have been telling people for a while that, if I make it to June, I will have been a painter for 55 years. NOW, Trish disagrees, claiming I can’t claim the two years and three months I worked as a sign painter apprentice/nub at Buddy’s Sign Service in Oceanside, immediiately after graduating from high school. “But, Honey, that allowed me to get hired as a journeyman painter at twenty.” “They were desperate.”
They were. Still, I persevered and… now iit’s June, and…
This is my latest artsy/painterly project, the HISTORICAL MUSEUM in Quilcene, what has, after 45 years plus, my de facto home town. This is the third time I painted the mural. At the museum’s opening, in 1991, I went to the committee and volunteered to do a mural. “What will it look like?” “Whatever I come up with. If you don’t like it, I’ll paint over it.” In the 2000s I painted the entire building and freshened up the mural. Recently I saw there was a meeting going on, and I again offered my services.
None of the new crop of volunteers on hand knew who I was. Their plan was to get a restoration artist to match the colors and, yeah, restore the mural. “What?” That I was a cheaper alternative doesn’t really bother me, even though I put at least two days more work into it than I had planned. I haven’t put my name on it. One of the volunteers said, “It’ll probably be the last time you paint it.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
MEANWHILE, the shirts with the graphic I did are available at the Port Townsend Public Library. All you have to do is promise to read, like, so many hours.
More events are coming up in the greater Olympic Peninsula Surf Zone. The FOURTH OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE EVENT is scheduled for JULY 17. More information later. Oh, and if you can’t be nice, be real. Get some waves, dark mercury velvet or otherwise, when you can.
…not exactly addictive, but, as a fan, with favorites, some winning, some not; if there’s a chance to watch… I just mighjt. NEWS for the Non-Watchers and the WSL haters, John John won the mens, moments ago and Caroline Marks… Yeah, I’m sure you know by now.
I kind of half thought it was Father’s Day today, another excuse, this one for sleeping late, not being totally concerned about work (the kind that pays selected bills), and maybe even taking a nap. It isn’t Father’s Day. While Mother’s Day (l’m choosing the singular possessive here because, while we can celebrate all mothers, it’s our own that we should be honoring) is set up during the school year, with craft assignments designed to produce refrigerator art and coffee table crafts, fathers have to wait, and wait, and get something store bought. Still, most likely refrigerator and coffee table stuff. BUT StILL…
I did do some surfing since my last posting, memorable mostly in that my psychedelic oil-filled eye didn’t present too much of a problem. Or the bright sunlight and the decent waves made me ignore it. Or I just closed the left one while screaming down the line. That’s screaming as in ‘loudly proclaiming.’
On that front, there is still some scarring in the eye and the potential that the retina could come loose, so, out of an abundance of caution, I get to go at least another three weeks with the magical liquid holding the wallpaper to the inner walls. I am learning more each time I get checked out. Not that I’ve been anxious to know some of this. And, again, I have a bit of regret for not giving a bit more sympathy for other surfers who have problems with the glare and such in the water.
In a non-similar situation, I stumbled and crashed going out on my last session, doing the dive straight in rather than the wade, AND, as is increasingly happening, I got thrashed trying to land in a not-that-vicious shorebreak, pushing my board up the beach and crawling with, of course, witnesses. IN BETWEEN, of course, I ripped.
Not just me, of course, but if it’s ever SURFERS DAY, I will use the singular possessive ‘surfer’s,’ and the surfer’s performance I am most concerned with, though I do appreciate any good-to-great ride by anyone, is mine.
Allow me a moment to look up SOCIOPATHIC NARCISSISTS’ DAY.
Artist/surfer Stephen R. Davis and I at the COLAB in Port Townsend with my panels. Photos by Joel Carben. Joel and his wife, Rachel, run the collaborative work space and have allowed me to exhibit my work there. Steve helped spread the word on social media.
Side note: I’m wearing the t-shirt I designed for the Port Townsend Public Library’s SUMMER READ.
Secret note: Partially (only partially) because non of the semi local crew would say that I’m in any way thinner than another local surfer, I’m getting more serious about dieting. Slightly more serious. I’m switching from ice cream to yogurt, mushroom burgers (with cheese and sometimes eggs) to salads; I’m avoiding chips, fries, donuts; and I’ve broken it off, hopefully for good, with Little Debbie; and I’m rethinking my longterm obsession with Hostess.
Meanwhile, there are plans and schemes for the NEXT OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT. The date is set for July 17th. Art, talking story, special guests… MORE to be reported, LATER!
Hope you’re scoring some waves on occasion. As always, if you can’t be nice, be real.
Trish wasI, as always, correct when she said I had become obsessed with these door panels I have been working on; four by-fold doors rescued/salvaged/pack-ratted from some job. My theory was, because everyone has limited wall space for art, these would serve as screens, or even, doors.
Yes, there’s an inside and an outside, and I kind of lost track of what was on one side when I was painting the other side. It wasn’t all, like, thematic. Maybe a little. Obviously I have some sort of fascination with waves. And color. I would start out, get to something that was not what I envisioned and… here’s the obsessive part; I would keep going until l was a high percentage of satisfied. The fear at some point is that I could then screw the whole thing up. A line too far. Or a color. Or… something.
I want to thank Joel and Rachel Carben, owners of the COLAB in Port Townsend, for allowing me to have my art in their space. Although I paint houses for a living, my artistic leanings have been toward drawing.
SO, I am not at all sure what to do with these panels now. Hanging out for three of the monthly Port Townsend ARTWALKS has reinforced my belief that marketing is not my strong suit. Not even close. SO, do I tell myself that the joy of art is in the process? That is true, but… but, but, but…
Captions: Stephen R. Davis approaching the wall of doors at the COLAB;Joel Carben and Steve; a framed painting that caused Steve to comment,”It’s nice that you’re finally going for fine art,”; various panels taken where they were painted (a Costco/White Trash garage). OHHH, and then there’s BIG DAVE.
I took this a week or so ago at the Home Depot in Sequim. I had already heard a rumor that Legendary Surfer BIG DAVE RING was giving up surfing due to arthritis in his knees. I did write about this. The rumor was confirmed. *Sort of. Quickly, Dave was raised in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and was part of the pack of “Pier Rats” that included standout, Joe Roper. Dave, currently 66, was fourteen when I moved to PB in late 1971. I was twenty. Not a big talker in the lineup, not a guy who hangs out and chats it up on the beach, part of the reason I found out any info at all is because we have been mistaken for each other, as in: “I read your last thing on your blog,” to Dave, or “I heard you were ripping the other day,” to me.
Most of this was back when Dave was merely rocking a big-ass mustache. We both were riding big boards (Dave a 12′ SUP as a regular surfboard), and we both caught a lot of waves, from the outside, or scrapping for insiders. Dave is a master of the late takeoff and the sideslip, and plows through sections I would dodge..
A notable quote that got back to me was, “I rolled up and the Walrus and the Beast were both out. I went somewhere else. Though I’m almost more comfortable with being referred to as ‘That asshole wavehog, kneeboards on a SUP,” and I’ve been doing my best to increase the size of my mustache, I must agree with those who say Big Dave is the Walrus. Coo coo ca choo, coo coo ca choo.
*Having already, in a pattern that seems to hold true among older surfers, moved from popping up automatically, to knee boarding the takeoff and standing up after the first section, to kneeboarding the entire wave, Dave expressed little interest in belly boarding. “No, but…” I could tell Dave was imagining the perfect pre dawn session, sneaking out, lining up a few bombers.
“It is amazng,” he said, “what I’ve gotten done because I’m not always putting stuff off to go surfing.”
I get it, Dave.
EYE and LEG UPDATE- I’m finally through with the wound care for the gouge on my right calf. Pretty impressive scar. I am going to have my eye checked out on Friday, with surgery to remove the clear oil inside it, hopefully, scheduled for… soon. It isn’t as if I can’t work, it’s just annoying. I sort of attacked a woman in a parking lot the other day because she had a bandage over one eye. “Hey, what happened to you?” Different deal. Worse than mine. Nice conversation. ANYWAY, I did tell Trish that, because of the glare in the water, I might not surf until the oil in my eye is exchanged for (I asked) saline solution, that to be replaced by the proper bodily-produced fluid.
BUT, but, but… when I check the forecast…
Moving on. Back to another of my obsessions. After I post this, my plan is to get back to “Swamis.” I had friends attempt to read earlier versions. I know where I have to make changes, and I have been working on it. That’s my process. Evidently. Obsession, distraction; what we have to do and what we want to do and what we really really want to do.
…might be the wiser choice. You’ve faced this situation: The waves are crappy; side-blown, the tide completely wrong for the spot, and bound to get wrong-er for the next two hours; and the wind’s supposed to get stronger, wronger; sideshore, onshore, with a swirling bit of actual offshore just to help convince you that it’s go out, or hang out, or go home skunked and… yeah, you’re there to surf. And, another mind-push, is that you (and by you, I mean me) missed the last window because you had some sort of responsibility you couldn’t get out of, although, to be honest, you/I could have gone later and, as it turned out, scored.
I blame you. Me. Regrets. It totally wrong that sessions, or even particular waves we miss (you and I) are often regretted more than sessions or waves in which we believe we scored are properly appreciated.
Still… Fuck! Despite it being against somebody’s rules, if you have friends who surf, and they score, or claim they scored, and you didn’t… you will hear about it. “Why weren’t you out there?” Fuck! Should’a gone.
WHEN I was learning (should say ‘first’ learning), living twenty miles from any waves, and at the mercy of anyone willing to drive (my siblings and me, friends and me, me), I would go out in anything. Like… ANY THING!
That hasn’t really changed through the years. Even when I lived five minutes or less from waves, fitting surfing into my schedule (other obligations, but, working, mostly) meant hitting it with all the other weekend warriors and after-work maniacs, so, crappy conditions; I thought of it as practice.
PRACTICE. Of all the sessions I’ve surfed on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a very high percentage fall into this category. If riding tiny waves makes one better equipped for bigger waves, choppy waves prepare one for clean ones, YEP, I’ve practiced.
STILL doing the make-my-best-assessment, move-other-schedule-issues-around, and GO!
I have a pretty good story on my latest session, and on why, even though I got a couple decent rides, I should have passed on it. It would sound kind of like whining, so… another time. I challenged tjhe conditions and… next time. NEXT time.
WAIT! I just checked my schedule AND the forecast. Busy, not so good. Please allow me to rethink my most recent session. I mean, I got a couple of decent rides, considering. Maybe… and this is what I would say to anyone I haven’t already reported the truth to… “Yeah, almost no one out! It was… GREAT!
meanwhile, in addition to more work shirked than accomplished on my novel, “Swamis,” I have some art projects I’m working on. More in my retro/psychedelic period. Photos soon.
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.
Five frothed-out surfers from the cold northwest waters crewed-up and spent two weeks in some undisclosed location in Panama. No, I don’t know where, don’t have a passport, and… so I won’t or can’t spread it around. Panama, it’s, like, tiny on the map, with a canal in the middle of it.
Though I didn’t hear anything from either Chris (Chris Eardley and Christian Coxen), or either of Keith (Keith Darrock and Cougar Keith), or from Nolan (as with Cougar, don’t actually know his last name), it did seem interesting to me that, tracking my audience (not that many, but all over the wide world), I got a couple of views from, yes, Panama.
All right, all right, here’s the Eardley report, photos by Chris Eardley:
CHRIS EARDLEY’S PANAMANIAC REPORT-
Alright, alright. Here is a report for you: We have been surfing a lot. The waves have been good, the water is warm. We surfed something like eight spots, and we’ve been doing a lot of diving and fishing, too. Cougar Keith dropped a big fish on my foot, which clamped down immediately and made me bleed for hours, keeping me out of the water for a couple of hours due to fear of sharks (we’d already encountered several while diving). I still have teeth marks on my foot.
That’s okay, though, because Cougar got the worst sunburns. On the trip (he dominated a couple of the early surf sessions, too) and had a close brush with what he believes was a small bull shark 30 feet underwater.
The local librarian (non-cougar Keith) has been getting after it, as you’d guess, and we learned he can, in fact, go right on a wave as well. He’s also been reorganizing the hostel bookshelves in his down time.
Christian will be lucky to get out of here without breaking any more gear, as he’s been pursuing big fish and big waves. Best margarita on the trip has gone to him as well.
Nolan’s surf style has not been lost in translation down here.
Lots of great wildlife and good food. Craziest thunder storms we have ever seen, and the camp was nearly struck one night.
We are stoked!
DAMN, realsurfers, I screwwed up on another Eardley photo, a scary looking crab; and I am unable to share a video of a very close lightning storm. Maybe it’s the trip thing, but I have stories from Mazatlan, 57 years ago, with waves and storms and crab attacks. Yeah, another time. Since a big trip for me is, maybe, La Push, I’m anxious to hear more stories.
My most recent text to Chris (and thank you, incidentally) was, “If you’re looking for adventure, it’s nice to have some adventures.”
I can’t help but say that this photo looks kind of like a rare day on the Strait. Rocks, lefts, yeah, no wetsuits.
Meanwhile, I am working on “Swamis,” just went back to set up something that’ll pay off later in the story. Hopefully. Hint: based on some east coast guy in high school calling our chicks ‘broads.’ I had to look up “Jagoff.” Yeah, research. ALSO, I survived my second eye surgery. So far, it’s kind of like having sunglasses on one eye; irritating. Trish got me an eyepatch; pretty stylish but almost equally irksome. I’m not sure how surfing affects the post-op eyeballs; I’ll find out more with my next visit to the Retina Center.
I took this photo from the internet; “Surf World” or something. Five rippers from the wave-starved Olympic Peninsula headed down there almost two weeks ago and are due back in the next couple of days. Yes, I asked for some sort of report. No, and I’m not trying to put any guilt on anyone… I’m sure there are excuses/reasons/explanations (band width, remoteness, lack of desire, too much wave action), I have not heard anything other than a second hand report from Adam Wipeout that Cougar Keith may have gotten the ride of the trip to that point (text message- I didn’t try, figuring cost of phone usage from the Central America, stuff like that), but, yeah, I TOTALLY WANT TO GET THE REPORT!
MEANWHILE, between getting filmed at a secret(ish) Strait of Juan de Fuca spot (Stephen R. Davis, also, with a surprise cameo, after whatever waves there may have been went to shit, by Jason Queen [not a nickname]) for some future artsy docu-thingy about me (despite my weak protestations by a woman who works for the Gates Foundation (more on this at a later date, but camera angles were demanded that diminished the chances of site identification, and yes, I would love to see a slow motion drone shot of me tucking my chunky body into a stretched-out wave); between this and getting a second surgery on my left eye after the first one for a detached retina failed. 10%, evidently, do; so, so lucky to be in the top percentile for something; oh, and the gash from my fall several months back is officially ‘almost’ well, though I was advised not to surf because of imagined (by the wound care nurse originally from Cuba, who thought maggots could have been an option) seal shit in the water.
“Oh, that,” I said, not having told her we saw several seals on the day of the filming, which, of course, I had not told her about.
MEANWHILE MEANWHILE, I still have my art retrospective at the COLAB in downtown Port Townsend. It will be there for one more ART WALK, the first Saturday in June, and I’m working on some more door panels. I have three bi-fold doors in progress, so six paintings. At this point I’m only willing to call three of them ‘almost’ done, so it’s kind of like three A sides, three B sides.
Not good enough. But they will be.
As I said, almost. Triple meanwhile, while I’m out of the waters for a while, five rabid rippers are set to return to a lineup near you. AS ALWAYS, if you can’t be nice, be real.
WORD ON THE STRAIT has it that BIG DAVE RING is giving up surfing. This would be a loss to whatever surfing community we believe we have.
All right, I immediately have to backtrack. I do divulge my sources; almost always. Adam Wipeout ran into Dave at Carl’s Building Supply. Or Henery’s Hardware- not important. Big Dave quitting surfing is. Important.
Big Dave is a secretive sort of person. I’m not. I’m not actually sure his last name is Ring. I may have heard his last name once, but not from him. I asked him for his phone number. Once. He said he’d give me one number each time I asked. “So, let me guess; three?”
Dave doesn’t talk much in the lineup. I do. He doesn’t often hang out on the beach, swapping stories. He is patient in the water, and is actually known for staying out for more hours than anyone. He picks out the best waves, sideslips in full control, and rather than barrel dodging sections, he drives through them. I have never seen him not in the best part of a wave, power in the pocket.
The only reason we sort of became friends (I say yes, you can ask him) is that we have some shared history. When I moved to Pacific Beach, San Diego, California in 1971, I was twenty. Dave was five or six years younger, a self-described “Pier Rat” hanging at Crystal Pier with Joe Roper and the rest of the local Gremmies. I can’t say I have a mental picture of fifteen year old Dave, but knew Joe Roper’s name because he was the best surfer in the bunch, and the most vicious. I can’t mention Joe Roper without retelling how he purposefully slammed his board into a guy in the shorebreak because (and I asked) the guy was from Clairemont. Perhaps it is not ironic that Joe’s repair facility is in… is it in Clairemont?
It wasn’t like I was in any group myself, but I was, for those couple of years, a local, for whatever that was or is worth. Still, I probably felt more connected to the pier rats than the other surfers who jockeyed for position in the crowded weekend and after work conditions. This was where I developed my Ghetto Mentality, a sort of excuse I have yet to totally disavow.
Big Dave, a few years ago, taking a rare break
Another connection I have with Dave is that we are sometimes mistaken for each other. It’s the mustache, perhaps. “People have said they really liked that thing I wrote on my blog,” Dave told me. “I just say ‘thanks.'” An argument continues as to which one of us is the Walrus, and which the Beast.
I have run into Big Dave over the years. He rescued my board in the rip once. If I paddled out and he was in the lineup he would say, “Oh, someone left the gate open.” Part way through a session, he would say, “The wave counters on the beach say you’ve caught enough.” I recently ran into him when he was with the Jefferson County road crew, setting up to close off another road. He said he’d gone to the doctor with a diagnosis of arthritis in his legs. “The doctor said it would mean a change in my… lifestyle.” “He meant… surfing?” “Maybe.” “No, man. No.”
There is some similarity in our arcs as we head past middle age. Dave has been riding a twelve foot SUP as a regular board for years. No paddle. It has been a while now that he, paddling back out, commented that I get to my feet like an old man. He was right. Still, over the past couple of years, he went from taking off, dropping in, and standing after the first section. Then, as with me, staying on his knees. He still rides a wave as well as anyone.
HERE IS WHERE surfers seem to decide to give it up: Surfing is a competitive activity, with inarguable amounts of ego unevenly divided among the worthy and everyone else. The crowd factor, a delight for the novice, so excited to be there, wears on others. It is tough to compete those on the safe side of the first section, paddling blindly, dropping in. I don’t get too many drop-in bitches (someone else’s term for male or female surfers- I only use it for dudes), but I have witnessed Big Dave, high and tight in the pocket, and someone just… drops… in.
I cannot help but remember when leashes came into use. I put off getting one, but couldn’t help but notice how the kids Dave was running with would take off in front of me, and when the wave got critical, they… just… bailed.
BIG DAVE… PLEASE, DON’T BAIL!
I might need someone to rescue my board from the rip again. OH, and I can’t imagine some almost out of control pre-dawn situation without seeing a big guy with a big board over his shoulder, coming down the trail and onto the beach, beating me out to the lineup. “Someone leave the gate open again?”
EVIDENTLY. As always, thanks for reading, and, if you can’t be nice, be real.
Real Surfers 
