“SWAMIS” Chapter One, Part One

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

CHAPTER ONE- FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1969

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I pushed in “Aerial Ballet.”

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

Wham!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Junipero Serra Hayes. Jumper.

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

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

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

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

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

            I took three breaths and walked toward the stairs.

            …

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

“Swamis,” Not Processed, Processing

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel

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

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

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

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

                                    “SWAMIS” INTRODUCTION

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

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

Or maybe that’s just how I remember it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps, if I opened this one container…

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

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

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

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

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

I had to swim back out. Had to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Almost This and Almost That

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MORE NEXT SUNDAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

More sparkle, less crazy… We’ll see.

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

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

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

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

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

The Good Kind of Soreness and…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel

A few changes, something new, stuff like that.

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

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

So, YEAH, great session!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Water-Color Adventures

Posted on by under Erwin Dence surf illustrations, Original Erwin t-shirts, surf art, surf culture events, surf illustrations

Maybe I should just put up the images without explaining what I was going for and why I decided to do some water colors. NO, I should explain. Jealousy, competition, that sort of thing. I am very impressed by what TIM NOLAN has been doing with photos and watercolor. In particular, I was super stoked over some colors he used on a work I have not yet posted, BUT WILL. SOON.

AND, I do want to get some froth building for the upcoming THIRD OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT, Friday, June 30, Port Townsend Public Library, 6pm. The event will feature story and music and art works by local Olympic Peninsula artists.

MORE INFO TO COME.

OKAY, so I am perfectly willing to refer to these watercolors as studies or sketches. The poster… um, I’m not totally stoked on it. Even though it is a surf ‘culture’ event, when you add people to the mix, the risk is of getting cartoony, which I kind of did. SO, I’m redoing the poster. The deal with three surfers in the glare was designed to put in the middle of a poster. The darker version was a mistake by Steven at my favorite non-surf, non-work hangout, THE PRINTERY in Port Townsend. I had just gotten a reversal done for the new attempt at the poster. SO… whoa! I like it. And what I liked about the color on the original, the splotches in the breaking part of the wave, I like the colors in reverse almost equally. Happy accidents.

THE BOTTOM two drawings are… okay, studies. I am working on (Today, actually) some other possibilities for new ORIGINAL ERWIN t shirts. IF you own one now, hang onto it. I, most likely, will not print more shirts with those designs. They are authentic and ultra-exclusive and, and… yeah, if I ever hit it big…

IN other dream scenarios…

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all the mothers. I’m scrambling to get past my me-time and maybe buy something special for TRISH, the mother of our three delightful children. I mean, I do have a list: Toilet paper, paper towels, some vitamins, stuff like that. I’ll see when I get to Costco.

Oh, yeah; please respect the copyright restrictions on use of my, you know, studies and sketches, and… fuck it, why didn’t I go to the coast? The NEXT TIMES are piling up. But, yeah, next time, man…

SHAY… Painting

Posted on by under Uncategorized

WordPress makes this all way more difficult than it should be. I’ve already lost the post twice, had to sign back in both times. Each time I get a bit more frustrated. OKAY. I’m so, so, so fucking calm now. Deep breath. Probably something karmic about all this. SHAY is a yoga instructor as well as a surfer and an artist.

TRYING AGAIN, here are a few examples:

Where I went wrong was trying to move images around and trying to enlarge them. Note to me: Never hit ‘back.’

SO, pulling info she texted me: Shayann Marie Hoffer started painting early. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota and post graduate studies in painting and printmaking at University of Oregon, Eugene. She has been a yoga instructor since 2007. FIRST TIME SURFING (or at least jumping, in a thick wetsuit, Lake Superior). She learned to surf (like, I guess, surf… classes?) at Hookipa Point on Maui, back to wetsuits in the cold and fickle Pacific Northwest.

CORRECTION: No surf classes. She went out on smaller waves with kids and (other) kooks. So, okay.

Hopefully Shay will have some of her works at the upcoming THIRD OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT on Friday, June 30, 6pm, Port Townsend, Washington. Curated by surf-frothed librarian KEITH DARROCK (though I want credit for coming up with the ‘occasional’ thing), the event will feature some hanging out and some wall-hangings by LOCAL SURF ARTISTS Christian Coxen, Stephen Davis, Jesse Joshua Watson, Reggie Smart, Tim Nolan, Nam Siu, and me. Keith is promising goodies and, maybe just as counter-programming, a group playing classical music. I’m not sure all the participants are planning on speaking, but I am. I’ll be trying not to sing, but…

To see more of Shay’s art, go to https://shayannhoffer.weebly.com

Oh, yeah, and her paintings, as with all original materials on realsurfers.net are protected by copyright.

And now, if this doesn’t all disappear into the ether…

Protecting the Occasional and Promises of More Art to Come

Posted on by under Uncategorized

The reference photo for this drawing was of MIKE PURPUS at some place I had never heard of, Waddell Creek. SORT OF interesting story- I was selling prints at the much-missed (possibly and particularly by me, since I could go surfing, pick up a few bucks on the way home) DISCO BAY OUTDOOR EXCHANGE. On one such visit, owner TYLER MEEKS said someone had been interested in the color version of the drawing, and (Tyler thought this was almost as amusing as the customer who complained about some wave hog that just might have been me while buying some of my stuff) asked him “Where is this place, SECRETO?”

ANOTHER perfect scan (above).

ANYWAY, with local ripper KEITH DARROCK on a slow trip down SURF ROUTE 101 and HIGHWAY 101 to San Francisco (without a board), checking out as much coast as possible. THE PLAN is to meet up with the mighty QUINN, part time Port Townsend-ite, sometime San Francisco area (work is the explanation) guy, and, perhaps, surf a few waves.

I’ve gotten a few updates, a few images. I COULD SHARE the shots of empty waves that, according to Keith, “WE would definitely FROTH over.” I could, but, here’s what I’m thinking: With surfers loathe to share names and locations and tide/swell/wind info with others, focusing on someone’s SECRET SPOT has got to be, like, criminal.

BUT I enjoyed them. Thanks, Keith. Good luck. Let me know.

It seems pretty obvious that, with so much coastline, there are spots that, though probably not as fickle as the Strait of Juan de Fuca, occasionally offer really fun if not outright epic waves. AND these spots have regulars, locals, surfers who guard the secret-ness of these rare gems. What works in the hard-core surfers’ favor, is the very fickleness. If you want to go hours into the wild to seek a dream spot, dream session, good luck. MEANWHILE, spots that weren’t considered great options with less surfers (“D Street” is my go to example), are, with small enough waves the general surf size most days, labeled as home breaks by… someone.

Maybe it’s you.

WHAT I wanted to post today is some artwork by OLYMPIC PENINSULA surfer, SHAYANN MARIE HOFFER. Okay, let me see if I can… no, you’ll have to wait. Shay does have a degrees in art and printmaking. Anyway… next week.

As always, remember original work on realsurfers.net is protected by Copyright, all rights reserved by Erwin Dence, Jr. Thanks.

Pencils and Workable Fixative and Unworkable Technology

Posted on by under Erwin Dence surf illustrations

I did take basic AND advanced drawing, like, um, fifty years ago, though my main medium of choice (didn’t want to say preferred medium) is pen-and-ink. I enjoyed it, but couldn’t resist going back in with the ink. I tried to go over the “Glass” drawing with darker lines. Didn’t like the results.

Figuring I’d do a quick mid-week posting (still going to have a Sunday by-high-noon post). Then… problems with the scanner, the connection, the actual scanning, the finding my ‘new post’ saved thingie. Now I’m late.

Hope you’re getting some surf. I’m in the scamming and scheming phase. See you Sunday on the web/cloud/fog.

Remember, the stuff is copyright protected, all rights reserved.

Art, WSL, Cuts, and… POWER OUtAGE!

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I tried really hard to have today’s post UP AND ONLINE by ten am. SORRY. 9:45, big power outage. I’m dealing with it. I got the boondocks-necessary generator going. Great! Hooked up the router and a few other items, went back to working on this. OOPS. Out of gas. Luckily, I didn’t put it all in my van. Back up and going. NOW, of course, the power came back on and I’m afraid to switch back over and lose whatever I haven’t already lost.

I did go on a little too much on the WSL stuff. I intended to just post some of my new illustrations.

OKAY, that:

JUST A BIT of explanation- The top part of this image is all I felt I could save from a larger drawing. The lower part was intended to be a WOLF. Maybe it’s the ears, but even I think BEAR. Oh, and maybe it’s the computer, but the colors seem to have come out way better than usual. WOLF/BEAR.

NOW, what I overwrote about the WSL:

It has become quite popular to criticize the shit out of the WORLD SURF LEAGUE, so… why shouldn’t I?

OKAY, I will.

Though I do appreciate that I can watch surf contests from all over the world on my big screen TV, and after I repeat an assertion I frequently make to doubters and haters that the difference in the wave riding skills of top-level competitive surfers and even above average non-competitors is proportionately greater than the difference between your local rippers and those who can objectively be labeled as kooks. HAVING SAID THAT, I leave a lot of room for those free surfers who are as good, and often better, as the men and women who seek fame, fortune, whatever, by subjecting themselves to the boredom and tension and the whims of judges.

OH, yeah, judging is SUBJECTIVE, subject to some person’s opinion on whether this air is more difficult than that carve, whether a floater is more functional than a kick-stall, whether making fifteen jitterbug moves is cooler than just being in the optimum position. People, even judges and even commentators and company executives could, maybe, even possibly, evenly reasonably influenced by companies that sponsor surfers as well as surf contests.

NOT THAT this happens, or that the WSL would bend a bit to keep or to even get popular surfers on the tour, or… or, or…

BUT a little behind the scenes stuff from the two seasons of that series about, you know, winning and whining and (I couldn’t remember the title and didn’t want to take the time to search further- but I did watch every episode), showed that in judging, there is a head judge who makes sure the other judges are on the same page. SO, yeah, totally subjective, semi regulated and controlled.

MAYBE.

SHIT! I didn’t want to get this involved. THE MID-SEASON CUT was completed. Twenty-two men, ten women. Elation and tears. I stayed up a little later than I would have to watch some critical rounds of the WSL contest at MARGARET RIVER, WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

YES, it was the last heat of the day, but as soon as it became apparent that SALLY FITZGIBBONS was going to lose, I turned it all off.

NOW, I do find it easier to follow women’s surfing. Not all of my surfing friends even give a shit about contests. Some do. Some have favorites. My daughter, DRU, thinks Tyler is a bad ass. She is. TRISH, based on watching, kind of over my shoulder, a contest from Huntington Beach a few years ago, became a COURTNEY CONLOGUE fan. I wasn’t, so much, but Trish keeps asking me, “How’d my girl do?”

Oh, she was underscored, just as she was in the BELL’S BEACH contest. A fierce competitor, Courtney didn’t make the cut. Sorry.

AND NOW, Sally Fitz, Sal, she’s out. Didn’t make the cut. Because Sally lost in the quarterfinals to Caroline Marks, this other woman, who, I believe, Sally defeated earlier, is in the top ten, and is still on the tour, and Sally… well, I don’t know. I turned the TV off and went to bed.

HERE is how to defeat a contestant as experienced, as capable, as skilled in SURFING TO THE CRITERIA as anyone- Sally: Give her a 3-plus on a well-surfed wave. Give Caroline a 7-plus for a similarly surfed wave (but backside). This difference in scoring puts Sally at a disadvantage. SURFING well is all about confidence. Surfing scared or angry or tentatively is not a losing strategy. Sally fell or took off on the wrong wave. Caroline got a well-deserved score. She won the heat. And she would have without any scoring help. Sally didn’t get a last second gift/miracle buzzer beater wave like CARISSA MOORE did in the heat before hers.

Sally’s out. She had a long career. She’s popular. She may or may not go on to the CHALLENGER SERIES.

I DON’T KNOW.

There is a WINNING FORMULA. With so much study done on how to win a heat (priority and time management, having that Kelly Slater turn on lock, knowing which claim to throw when), watching eight heats in a row has become… kind of… less thrilling. IF A SURFER can’t figure it out, hire a coach, do the work (always gets me, surfing as work), perfect that tail slide and that fin drift, remember to cut your competitor off from a last wave even if he or she can’t possibly get enough points to beat you (these are not your friends in the water), be ruthless… and always appear humble in the post-heat interview, always wear the hat and the sunglasses.

I watched a child/teen contest recently, from Trestles. The formula worked. Turn, turn, off the top, fin slide. If the kids didn’t have the moves down, they will. Coaches, sponsors, judges. 

ALL THIS SAID, I don’t exactly know how the WSL could do a better job. AND I do enjoy the big screen coverage. WAIT, how’s about they mix up the time-filler ad between heats? How about… I’m thinking. If I can’t sit through a bunch of heats next time, maybe I’ll just watch the shorter versions on YouTube.