I’ve been busy drawing. I have several reasons for doing so. New designs for t shirts, some work for the PORT TOWNSEND PUBLIC LIBRARY’s upcoming SUMMER READ, and, just because I enjoy it.
SO, LET’S SEE HOW MY LATEST scans look on the screen:
THERE ARE MORE, but should save some copyrighted original stuff for next time. WEDNESDAY… MORE! (sorry about the explanation point; not that a show of enthusiasm isn’t appropriate. MEANWHILE, thanks, as always, for checking out realsurfers. See you out on Surf Route 101.
IF I HAVE TO BLAME something for the prolific-ness, it’s the recent far-eeez-ing weather. AND I have been sa-soww-ly getting cal-lose-er finishing my novel, “Swamis.”
Leaving the studio space Stephen R. Davis’s friend Cosmo is letting him use, squeezed tightly into my stealth surf rig, my pristine Hobie on the racks, I gave Steve what I believe I have him convinced is the official surfer greeting, a sort of ALOHA (like ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’) for haoles (and I’m only saying haoles as counterpoint to the aloha spirit thing I’m not certain is as widespread as presented in ads targeting tourists, some of whom are haoles) who aren’t into the now-and-possibly- increasingly common practice of hugging people we don’t know well (or don’t actually know at all).
I think I picked up the connection back when, 15 1/2-years-old, proud possessor of a learner’s permit, I was driving with my mother in the family 9 passenger station wagon (this was way pre-Sprinter), our collection of surf-riding equipment on the racks, I noticed Phil Harper’s sister Trish (not my Trish- didn’t surf, didk date one of my first surf heroes, Fallbrook local Bucky Davis) coming toward us. I may have been ready to wave, possibly even with my hand out the window, when she flipped me the bird. SINGLE EAGLE. Now, Trish may not have noticed my Mom… or, more exciting in a rebellious kind of way, may not have cared. In order to not completely freak out about the situation, I tried to convince myself that my mother didn’t know what the gesture meant. I mean… my Mom?
INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, the double eagle is pretty much the way I greeted Steve when he surprised me by paddling out unannounced (he was supposed to be in Hawaii) on a day when the waves were… I’ll say challenging, in a good way. As I recall, he said something like, “Happy to see you, also,” possibly in a sarcastic way. REGGIE was a bit more… I’m going to say unappreciative when I gave him the double fisted hello on several occasions. I can’t say for certain if he’s convinced yet that I meant something positive, like “Glad to see you, can’t wait to compete for waves with you… brother.” Oh, also something I can’t get going on, even though I have three brothers.
WHAT IS INTERESTING HERE is that Steve sent the photo to our mutual friend, ARCHIE ENDO. When I say friend, though Archie and I, and Archie and Steve and I went on many an exciting surf adventure, I haven’t kept in touch the way I should since he went to Thailand for work a few years ago, had a stroke, is still recovering, and is still there. Trish (my Trish) has been communicating through the Facebook, and Steve does that and the Instagram; BUT Archie sent Trish and Steve a lovely note that included the photo, and Trish sent it to my phone.
Knowing Archie does read this blog, I tried to save his post and put it on here but the transfer didn’t work. Here is what he wrote:
“Hoping you guys are doing OK in the cold weather. I hoped I cold come home this winter but I couldn’t (partner’s family’s health). So much for the El Nino ‘warmer’ winter, though. In my dreams the other day; I saw you guys at Swami’s parking lot.. Young Erwin was giving me… fingers! Nice photo.”
Bad friend (and young Erwin) aside, I named the narrator of my novel Atsushi, Joseph DeFreines’ middle name, Archie’s actual first name. I do miss going surfing with him. He’d play cassettes of surf music from Japan(and many other places) if he was driving, I’d play harmonica, and, if I was driving, he would never complain about having to go to Costco on the way home. Trish really likes Archie, possibly because his calmness is so radically different than my… I want to say higher energy-ness, and my saying I was going with Archie was quite persuasive. STILL, Archie is radical in his own way, always stylish, always in control.
We are bonded, I believe, through our mutual love for surfing. As are all real surfers, something I had intended to write about as of Tuesday morning.
Atsushi ‘Archie’ Endo styling.
I MUST ADD that I call a zone inside the big rocks at a spot known for closeouts ARCHIE’S REEF. He knew how to navigate through the sections and find a clean face. I can easily remember walking along the trail, and, visible through and just above the line of trees and shrubs and blackberry bushes, Archie was streaking past.
WEIRDLY CONNECTED story-
We have a cabinet in the breakfast nook where the cat, Angelina’s, food is kept. Also inside are these postcard sized postcards, I guess, that Dru gathered back when we would frequent the ROSE THEATRE in Port Townsend. When I opened it this morning, this photo, found somewhere else and put in the cabinet, already mildewed, fell out. I made the mistake of trying to clean it with something a bit too strong. Wiped out the lower portion. This was (maybe you’ll notice the painting on the back seat side window) my stealth surf rig circa 1970. That’s Trisha’s VW coming up the road. My replacement for the Morris Minor I loved was this Hillman Husky.
I told BUDDY ROLLINS, my boss at Buddy’s Sign Service in Oceanside, that I wanted to get a VW, and we were doing some signs for the local dealer, and he could possibly… you know, do a deal. Since Buddy, real name Lacy, hence a nickname was necessary, learned how to letter signs in a Florida prison, I thought he could, you know, do a deal. He did, but not for a VW. “Kid’ll love this way more than a bug. It has so much more power and…” That was the guy at the dealership. Not sure where he learned his tactics. “Has to buy it today, though.”
I didn’t love the car, I did love the power. I’m not sure how long I had it, but I blew the engine heading to Palomar Junior College, passing another guy from Fallbrook who was driving a, yes, VW. I think he flipped me off when he re-passed me, the Hillman coasting to the side of the road.
SIDENOTE- I did love, for the most part, as a 17-20 year-old, working at Buddy’s, two blocks from Oceanside pier, in a converted newspaper building where I could work on my own art projects, and though the varied nub/apprentice/shop manager experience did greatly assist in my getting a job as a journeyman painter at barely twenty, I didn’t totally love Buddy. Didn’t hate him. AND I do have a character in “Swamis” named Buddy Rollins, a bowling alley owner and ‘pro.’ Maybe it’s the swagger Buddy had that made him seem the model for the fictional version.
AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED, I did want to write about bonding in surfing. I will. But, since I am thinking about it, perhaps, in life, we are bonded with those we don’t love as well as those we do.
I don’t want to wear you out. THANKS for reading. I do have some recent illustrations. Next time. Meanwhile, double eagles to you in only the most gracious, way. Beware, however, of the single eagle with a half twist; that one is serious.
A few years ago I wrote a series of stories and, yes, poems that I put together in a collection I titled, “Mistaken for Angels.” Yes, I got a copyright. Vanity. Ego. Just in case. As with everything I have written, my plan for a novel or interconnected stories lost some of the connective-ness, random ideas popping in to complicate matters.
The underlying premise was that the story is more important than the telling, the style and the proper adjectives and structure less memorable than the absolute desire each of us has to tell our story.
It’s not my story; it’s fiction; and my remembering this story caused me to search through multiple thumb drives. The current portion of ancient struggles caused me to remember that I had written it; not about a particular place or time, but of many places and many times.
Tragedy begets tragedy.
I was raised to be a pacifist; yet, turning the channel, turning away, I do nothing. Nothing except, perhaps, to try to calm if not control my own confusion, my own outrage, my own anger.
OH, since the location could be anywhere, on this (new) illustration (sketch if you must), I put in some waves in the background, making, possibly, A GOOD HOUSE that much better.
A Good House
We had a good house. This, you see, was the problem. It was, also, too close to the border. Some, those who think themselves brave, who think others will follow them, they call the disputed land on which the good house sits the ‘frontier.’ I call it ‘bloodlands.’ There has always been trouble. Wars go this way, then back; like waves on a lake.
My Father, he went to war- one of the wars- he pushed forward very bravely (so we were told), but came back very broken. The next wave took him for good.
Wave. Yes. Like a wave. We all knew he was already drowned. He was waiting for the next wave to wash his body away from… This is difficult to explain. “No faith left” he would say, staring toward the horizon.
My Mother, she had faith, and, with it, that certainty… I have heard it called fatalism. Ah, fancy term, that. It’s that knowledge that the darkness comes to each of us, to all of us. Fate and faith, they are, I think, related. “To have faith,” my Mother told us, my Sister and me, after our Brothers went, or were taken, made to fight, “you must have faith.”
This means, I think, that you must believe that having the faith sometimes works. Sometimes what we have the faith in, that things will be all right, can happen. I don’t know if I do believe this. My Mother did. Truly.
The snipers had done damage to the troops from our country. That is why they, our Soldiers, took to the houses. “Like a jar of water,” one of them told my Grandfather, who was weak and old, and had survived, he said, by never flying anyone’s flag, never taking a side. The Soldier held my Grandfather’s head against the rocks of the fireplace. He tapped it with a branch meant for the fire. He, the Soldier, explained this thing to my Mother, who, because she refused to cower as her Mother was, obviously was in charge.
He threw his hands apart to describe how a sniper’s bullet reacted with a soldier’s skull. “pheuuuuuuuh!” Then he laughed and let my Grandfather go.
“Okay,” he said, “your land; you don’t care what country it’s in. Fine.”
There was blood on this Soldier’s uniform. It (blood) dries almost black on the green. He smelled of gunpowder and body odor and death. They all carried sometimes multiple guns, and each had what you might call a machete. They called them something that would be more like ‘sword,’ and attributed a certain righteousness to its use. The Soldiers burned the blood from the blades in our fire, ate our food, complained about my Sister’s crying, and waited.
Soldiers, I now know, spend much time waiting. This is where their brains tell them many stories of why they should be afraid. They tell each other that they are not afraid, should not be afraid, they are and must be men. Yet, I could see these Soldiers had fear. Fear, someone else’s, looks like anger. I could feel my own fear. Like the Soldiers, I would hide it. I made my fear look like calmness. I could see everyone’s fear. Except my mother’s. She had the faith. I wanted to have the faith. I was ashamed to have, instead, the fear.
Fear is like a prayer, I think; or, maybe like a heavy, dark blanket, wrapped like a cloak, ready to be cast off, cast off quickly, when it is bravery that is needed.
Bravery, I’m afraid, is the ability to disregard what is known to be right. Bravery is a vicious thing. I no longer wish to be brave.
For some, it is better to be dead than brave.
Sorry. I must laugh a bit. The brave and cowardly are often thrown into the same grave.
“This is a very nice house,” another of the Soldiers said. He stood close to the window, lit a cigarette. “I think,” he said, “after the war, when we are free, I will take this house.” It was then the sniper’s bullet hit his neck. Both sides at once, it seemed. He was still smiling his dirty smile when his head snapped back. He rocked only a bit, and fell, crumpled, beside me where I sat. The cigarette was still in his mouth.
The first Soldier, and the others, ran outside, then away, leaving the dead one, blood splattered on our walls, making pools on our floor. We could hear guns going off, closer, then farther away. We thought, we hoped we were safe.
Briefly, we were.
These were the, it gets confusing; you might call them counter-insurgents. At dawn the insurgents came closer. Same smell, same uniforms (I thought at the time), different caps. They laughed when they saw how poor we were at trying to drag the body out. They kicked at it, shot it several more times, took things from it, threw it onto a truck with other bodies, some not in uniforms.
You can tell when the soul is gone, when a person becomes a body. Less. Almost nothing.
I don’t know where a soul goes. Somewhere better. I have seen those whose souls are gone, their bodies still…walking, eyes too wide open, too squinted down.
We would have been all right if the war had not slowed, the fighting ‘bogged-down’ in the hills; if the troops of our country had not fought so fiercely; if we had not had such a good house.
We had new guests not of our country. They thought themselves of a better country; bigger, older. This was not actually true, the bigger part, except for this short while. How small and pitiful our country must be, they said, to be so easily conquered.
I have no patience to explain why things went wrong. My Sister cried too much. It became night. Perhaps it was the darkness, the length of the nights. One of the soldiers said his grandfather might have worked on the masonry on our house, back when our country was still grand.
“If so,” my Grandfather said, “I would have paid him well. I always paid the workers well. They ate at our table.”
The mason’s Grandson looked at our table, smiled, but not nicely. Another Soldier, suddenly angry, perhaps because of how his Grandfather was treated, because of where his Grandfather took his meals, grabbed my Grandfather and pulled him outside. My Mother knew what this meant, and begged for her Father’s life. The Soldier slapped her for begging. Because she stood at the door and screamed “Butchers, murderers,” my grandmother was also pulled into the darkness. My Sister, holding onto our mother, kept crying. My Mother did not.
This is the fatalism of which I spoke, the belief that all will be tested.
And most fail.
I also did not cry. This is the faith, faith I had because my Mother had faith. The mason’s Grandson pulled my Sister away, shoved her toward me, told me, in my own language (they are really only slightly different) to keep her quiet. He moved his face close to my Mother’s, touched her breast. He said, Whores beg. Are you, then, a whore?” This was to humiliate her further.
I have learned this from war: To kill is not enough for some. To only, to merely kill is not enough to make the anger and the fear and the hatred cease.
“If I must be,” she said.
At this he laughed. “I am also the whore,” he said.
“My Children,” my Mother said to him. It was like a question. He, and the other Soldiers, now back from outside and leaning against our walls, shrugged and laughed together. The mason’s Grandson took his pistol belt off, holding the pistol in his left hand, moving it close to my Mother’s cheek.
“God will send a miracle,” she said to me. “Turn away,” she said.
I almost cried out at this moment. My Sister did. I put my hand over her mouth and prayed that I could have a man’s strength.
Prayers. Excuse me for laughing; just a little. Prayers are not answered as we expect.
It’s rare, I have learned, that a first mortar round can hit precisely. This one did, precisely where it was intended to land, and when I asked for it. The Soldier’s Grandfather had not been a roofer. No, not at all. Ha!
Like a jar of water, burst.
I kicked at his body when it was over, when the others ran, when more mortars rained down on the houses on the frontier.
Of prayer, I should add, speaking of the partial nature of the realization of prayer; my Mother did not survive this…this…I don’t know what they call this. It’s a tide, a tide, and we are the shore. I carved our Family’s name onto the mantel, underneath, to mark a claim when I return. I took the Soldier’s machete. After I’d chopped him with it; splattered his blood with it, I burned his blood from the blade in the fire.
By the time the Peacekeepers came, the roof was already patched, by my Grandfather and me. We also buried my Mother, dragged the soldiers’ bodies away from the house. My Grandparents would not leave. This was their home. That they were not soldiers was honored. That time. My Sister became one of the many refugees. Refuge means safety, of course. I prayed she would be safe. Yes. I told myself she was safe and fed and happy. That was my hope. Perhaps it is partially true. I became, as you know, a Soldier, a brave one, they say. I am still a Soldier; I wait, but I do not fear. I no longer even hate. I know what bravery is.
Oh, I see you don’t believe there could have been two miracles, two dead Soldiers in one house. Well, perhaps I lie. The results would be the same; the dried blood as black. Prayers answered.
When I was captured that first time, taken like a fool during one of the many truces, they called me John Doe number four hundred and thirty-four. I was, I now guess, eleven years old.
SO, JACOB WHYTE is the son of a cousin of JIM HAMILTON, a very interesting individual (timber-frame house builder/ski patrol/world traveler/more) who lives off Center (Road) and close to SURF ROUTE 101 in Quilcene. Jacob also has an interesting story. He has returned to Forks, Washington after an extended stay in California, Ventura area, during which he worked doing ding repair, most notably (to name droppers) for Channel Islands Surfboards, living frugally (growing his own food, that kind of thing), always, he says, planning to move back home to Washington State’s WEST END.
Now, the PEASANT thing: Jim, in asking (more like hiring/bribing) me to do some artsy stuff for Jacob, pondered the name. “Oh,” I must have said, “Maybe it’s like, you know, peasants, serfs, vassals, that kind of thing; I mean, like an allusion to… that.” “That would be… yeah, maybe that’s it.”
“It isn’t,” Jacob said when I actually got in phone contact, he at a far northwest secret surf location, me in the depths of a housing tract in East Bremerton. Didn’t matter, so much, I’d already done a drawing, black and white, printed a copy and colored it, either suitable as a flyer, or, reduced in size, a too-busy business card. “Yeah, Erwin, maybe the ‘serfboard’ thing is expecting too much of… surfers.” “Okay, how about the ‘serving the West End and the Olympic Peninsula’ part?” “Yeah. Sure.”
I ran a couple of other ideas past Jacob. Mostly about t-shirts; what would be appropriate, assuming surfers on the West End are not necessarily trying to invite more surfers over. I have ideas. LATER. It’s not like I can’t keep a secret.
IN MY CONTINUED attempts to produce a decent drawing of the fictional JULIA COLE, or, actually, a portrait of any woman, I came up with this. Attempts and failures. I should throw away the versions that got me to this one, possibly more useful to depict Julia’s mother, and stick this in some file with the other failed illustrations. BUT, wait, maybe if I just… Yeah, I have some ideas. ALWAYS. And I always want to get… better.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN- MONDAY, MARCH 31, 1969- PART FOUR
The two carpenters were carefully walking between the Karmann Ghia and the edge of the bank. Lee Anne turned toward them. “Joey, this is Monty, lead carpenter on the project.” Monty was sunburned, with a receding hairline and an almost orange Fu Manchu mustache. Early thirties.
Monty stepped in front of Lee Anne’s car, put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. Black, muscular, no older than eighteen or nineteen. “And this is…”
“Not a carpenter. Yet. Helper. Nickname… Digger.” Monty had only left room for his helper to stand on the very edge of the bank.
Lee Anne looked at Digger, shook her head, looked at Monty, and back at Digger. “No. Unacceptable. You have to… insist… on a different nickname.”
“Temporary,” Digger said. “Thought I’d be something like ‘Hammer.’ Nope. Got to earn your nickname ‘round here.” Digger slapped at a pair of gloves folded over his belt. He held out his hands, palms toward me, rubbed two fingers of his left hand across the palm of his right. He slapped his hands together. “Could’a been callin’ me ‘Blisters.’”
Lee Anne extended her right hand but didn’t accept Digger’s. “Blisters,” she said. “Not good, but… better.”
Monty gave Lee Anne a sideways nod and said, “Blisters, then.”
The younger carpenter had been rather boldly checking Lee Anne Ransom out. She looked him off with a quick widening of her eyes and a very stern expression. “Real name, please, for the record.”
Blisters backed up, put his hands out and up, his arms closer to his body. If he was impressed with Lee Anne’s response, he wasn’t apologizing. “Greg,” he said. “Or Gregory.”
“Gregory, then.” She turned back to Monty. “Or Greg?”
“Greg, then,” Monty said. He pointed to the parking lot. “We heard the cop car, didn’t see it ‘til it tried to turn in. It wasn’t the brakes. It was… the gravel. New, like b-bs; no way he wasn’t gonna slide.” He turned toward me before he added, “No way.”
…
The San Luis Rey Riverbed was probably half a mile wide. I had never seen the water more than a stream, a creek, even. The ground Monty and Gregory and Lee Anne and I were standing on was gravel and round river rock, with the usual scrub, some still green but rapidly fading grasses and weeds, and a few stunted trees. Taller trees in the center of the valley were mostly dead. Ghosts. Killed in the cycles of flood and drought. More likely flood. Drowned.
Monty pointed to the stump in the river bottom, probably fifty feet from the base of the fill. “The concrete had been poured. The leftover rebar should’ve been fuckin’ gone.” Though no one asked, he added. “Contractors. Separate. Not our job.”
Lee Anne said, “Separate. Not your job.” She attached a telephoto lens to her camera, aimed it at the road on the east side of the valley, focused it, snapped a photo, and handed the camera to me. “So, after your dad’s accident; the traffic was rerouted… over there. Correct?”
The lens was out of focus for my eyes. I twisted the ring at the base of the lens as Lee Anne had. “Correct.” I turned the camera past the carpenters and toward the journalist. Distorted. Out of focus. I snapped a photo. “Accident.”
Lee Anne took the camera and advanced the film.
…
Gregory and Monty and Lee Anne and I were standing next to the concrete box. There was a galvanized pipe in, another, perpendicular, out. Gregory, now gloved, had a shovel, upright, in his left hand. “You see, all the rebar got pushed out the way by the car… except for one piece. Jammed against the… stump.” He looked at me. “You get me?” I nodded. “They cut it. The… stump. Little later. Fire department.” I nodded. “Like a bullet, it was. Through the door and right through the guy. I seen him, right after. He was alive and all, like he was trying to pull the rebar out. No fuckin’ way.”
“My father… the guy.”
“Yeah.” The shovel handle fell against Gregory as he moved his hands into a prayer position and raised them to his eyes. “Sorry, man. No disrespect.”
Monty stepped between his helper and the stump. “We were trying to get it loose. No way. I’m smacking the stump with a framing hammer, trying to get the rebar loose. Or, even, pull it through the stump. Something.”
“Then this other cop; tall guy, he showed up, slides down the bank, lights up a cigarette. He was laughing, says, ‘Shit, Gunny, your car’s still on its wheels.’”
Monty turned to me. “Wendall. He stops laughing when he comes around, sees the rebar and the… blood. Not that much. Me and… Wendall, second later; we’re at the door. Your dad says, ‘Larry; could you tell Ruth…’ That’s all I got, ‘cause just then this Japanese lady, your mom, she shows up in…” Monty pointed to the Falcon before moving his finger toward the incline from the parking lot. “She slips as she comes off of the grade.”
“I ran over, helped her up.”
“You did, Digger; yes. Greg. Me and Wendall, Greg, too; we tried to keep her back, but she pushes between us, gets in the car on the passenger side. She seemed pretty… calm. Wendall wasn’t. Your dad says, ‘it’s fine, Larry.’ Wendall grabs the shovel.” Monty grabbed the shovel from Greg, thrusting it downward, hard, several times, into the stump until it stuck.
Monty was gasping for breath. “By this time, there’s so many cars, people, up, up on the highway. More sirens. I look in the car. The siren was off, but the light… it had popped off the roof, wire and all. It was still spinning; the engine was still… running. The, uh, your dad, he looks over at me, like maybe he knows me. He don’t.” Monty was breathing in gulps. “He looks at your mom. He says, ‘I always believed I rescued you.’ She reaches over, turns off the, the key, twists around, puts her arm, the same arm… around… him. And your mom kisses him, and she’s got blood… on her.”
Monty caught his breath. Most of it. “Then he, Wendall; he pulls me away from the window, pushes me back. He has this look in his eyes; it’s like he’s shaking his head, but he’s not. It’s just his eyes saying, you know, that it was over.”
The stump, somewhere around fourteen inches in diameter, had been cleanly cut with a chain saw. The part that had been removed was only a few feet away, visible in the heavy-bladed grass in a patch of green that surrounded the concrete box.
I looked at the slide marks and the crushed plants, the track we had come down. I imagined my mother coming down the bank, slipping, having to be helped back up. I imagined her in my father’s patrol car, reaching over, turning the key. I extended my right arm, moved it up until my hand was pointing up and at the highway. I moved my arm to the left, to where my father’s car slipped, sideways, on the new gravel. My flat hand represented the car as it slid, still sideways, to the bottom of the grade, plowing into the ancient river bottom, hitting the pile of rebar, one piece jammed into the stump, penetrating the door and my father like a bullet. I looked into the sun hanging just above the parking lot. I cupped my right hand, moved it, and then the left, above my eyes.
The shadow, the darkness, lasted but a moment. Another blinding light, and the spinning red light, and a vision of my father’s face as I passed him took over. Everything else was gone.
…
I was in shadow when the vision faded. I was on my knees. Gregory was directly in front of me. Monty was gone. I looked up toward the highway. Lee Anne Ransom, still in the light, had her camera aimed at Gregory and me. She waved. Gregory waved back as the reporter got into the Karmann Ghia and pulled away.
Gregory offered his ungloved right hand. I took it with both of mine. “Blisters,” I said as I stood up. “They turn into… callouses.”
“Not soon enough.”
“Gregory. How long?”
“How long you out for? Hmmm. ‘Bout a minute, I’d guess.”
I tried to remember what I had seen, or what I had imagined. Nothing. I remembered nothing. Not at that time. “Was I… shaking. I mean…”
“No, man; it was… weird; you were… it was like you was really… still. Like… church.”
“Did I… say anything?”
Gregory shook his head. I looked at him long enough that the motion turned into a nod. “You said ‘sorry’ a couple a times. Pretty much it. Hey, you good to… drive? I live in Oceanside, but I could…”
I followed Gregory to the corner between the parking lot’s fill and the established fill along the highway. Half-way up, he asked, “Who is… is there a… Julie?” My left foot slipped on the gravel. I caught my balance and continued up to the highway.
THANKS FOR READING. “Swamis” is copyrighted material, All changes are also protected. All rights are reserved for the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. THANKS for respecting that.
GOOD LUCK in finding the spot, the time, the right wave. More non-Swamis stuff on Sunday.
Autumn and the opportunity for, rather the chance of multiple swell angles, leftover summer pushes, and, of particular interest on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the possibility that some errant low might produce something. Some thing. Meanwhile, east winds work magic with what might ordinarily be closeout beachbreak. Westport, perhaps? I can’t be sure. I have heard stories.
What the shorter days do to me is, short term, while I’m busily running from here to there, catching up on leftover projects, trying to finish others, and enjoying the days that are actually perfect for exterior house painting, I’m losing out on the time I could be writing. Or drawing. And I do have projects.
Yes, I know that the shorter daytime hours will soon reduce my time outside, rain and fog and all that, and if I just realize that and concentrate on ‘making hay,’ one of my most heard comments by others who do not make metaphorical hay themselves, not that I do; if I am patient, the time to dabble and write and jump into all the deferred projects will come. This is without even mentioning all the home repair projects I have put off, some for years. That leaky spot on the roof, that… and this, and… okay, I’ll stop whining.
And, no, I’m not forgetting surf. It’s coming. But, if you look at the forecasts we all look at, studying them, searching for the right angle and tide level and wind conditions, that, it just seems tough to figure which of several options to make that one strike mission, always hoping waves might show up at a beach adjacent to a work project. Always hoping.
Now, “Swamis,” the manuscript, though I’ve fine tuned chapters ell past Chapter 12, is currently kind of caught in that space. In my endeavor to focus, novelize the overwhelming and only-partially-plot-centric little insights and stories I long to tell, I am… well, working on it. Once done, it will, or should, or must cut down the verbiage later on. I am committed to keeping the manuscript under 100,000 words. So far, after shortening the time span, successful.
I will be posting the final subchapter on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, here are a couple of sketches. Other than my decorating my Volvo and starting on several other to-be-continued projects, this is what I’ve taken the time to do.
It is probably not worth saying these are copyright protected. I will, anyway.
Good luck in finding the waves you want and the time you need. OH, Maybe I’ll post a couple of shots of my formerly stealth surf rig. Wednesday.
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.
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…
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.
We have to, occasionally, scroll. My fault. I haven’t figured out how to tighten the borders on Drucilla’s Mac.
BY WAY OF EXPLANATION:
The ORIGINAL ERWIN LOGO thing came from trying to simplify my drawing style, such as, I’m often afraid, it is. Yes, I am planning on doing some more t-shirts as soon as I pay my taxes. I tried to make both sides of the wave match, then went to THE PRINTERY in Port Townsend, had Steven do the reversal/blue thing. I was so excited that I didn’t really perfectly align the reflection part. Close.
BECAUSE the SAILBOAT RACING THE SQUALL drawing was already being copied, a version came out blue (and reversed).
THE SALISH C tugboat illustration is the subtle color version, the colors all the more subtle(ized) by the vagaries of multiple copiers and printers and computer screens. Subtle and Simple are so fucking hard (I can say fucking because, so far, no one has told me not to. Still, I’m fucking cutting back… damn it).
THE YOUNG WOMAN illustration is another attempt to draw women without overdrawing. It is another possible cover or title page for “SWAMIS.” I have Dru working on adding some perfect non-hand-drawn lettering. She has, but, because I don’t know how to sign in to her acrobat account, it is unopen-able on her computer. It would be able to be opened on the laptop Trish is hanging on to, but then I would probably have to fucking (sorry) find it. AND YES, I’m so so close to finishing the final go through on the manuscript, trying so hard to keep it around 95,000 words.
FANTASY POINT. Here’s the point: Two local artists, JESSE JOSHUA WATSON (I insist on calling him Jesse Merle Watson- easier for me to remember) and STEPHEN R. DAVIS have done paintings of fantasy point breaks. I’m competitive.
I would put Jesse’s version up, but I would have to contact him and… and, anyway, no one wants anyone to believe any rendering or abstraction of lineups that don’t actually exist (yeah, maybe Indonesia or Surfer’s Journal) might be real. BUT, both Stephen and Jesse surf, so we do share similar inspirations. Maybe… okay, I’ll call someone who might have Jesse’s number. Meanwhile, google him. I DIDN”T SAY my interpretation is better. To quote another surfer/writer: “I wouldn’t say ‘better,’ I would say ‘different.’ ” I will gladly accept DIFFERENT.
PLEASE REMEMBER, all the rights to all original works on realsurfers.net are owned by someone.
This is my first time attempting to use my (suspect, quality wise) printer/scanner with my borrowed (thanks, Dru) Mac computer. I managed to get these without calling my daughter, but with some YouTube help. Please excuse the sometimes unfortunately placed bits of crap from, I don’t know, somewhere, and the wasted white space because I haven’t mastered the sizing part of all this. I could comment, at length, on each of my latest attempts at… whatever it was I am trying for. I will try not to.
Top to bottom:
“Racing the squall line.” Because I am involved, trying to assist Port Townsend librarian and fully-frothed surfer Keith Darrock in putting together an event, tentatively titled “Inspired by the Salish Sea,” I used the view from Port Townsend. I am inspired to do at least one more with the view surfers on the always languid Strait of Juan de Fuca, desperately looking to the west for any sign of an approaching swell more frequently get, an incoming squall. Worse, another shit weather front.
“The Salish Sea.” Possible title with info for the event or events on the rest of the page.
“Quilcene.” The Quilcene Village Store, quite the hip place nowadays, has several of my drawings in the sort of sitting/coffee area. They have been having a sort of contest to come up with postcards representing the area along Surf Route 101. This is my entry. When I showed it to Trish, she said, “Uh huh… it’s… okay.” This is after she poo-pooed the earlier version with a similar background (Mount Walker), but with a person in the foreground to add more, you know, like, interest. “Creepy,” she said. “Looks like a killer.” Okay, I rubbed him out. Metaphorically.
“Untitled Woman’s Face.” Trish told me I should draw some of the characters for my still-almost-finished novel, “Swamis.” I said, something she already knows, that I have trouble drawing women’s faces. I actually kind of cheated on this one. Googled “How to draw women’s faces.”Some… tracing was involved, just for stuff like, getting the eyes kind of lined up. Guaranteed, the drawing looks very little like the one I tried to copy.
“Inspired by the Salish Sea.” Definitely redrawing this one. The blank space is to allow room for the dates and times and the various speakers. “What I was going for,” every artist or writer (or surfer who just blew ten attempts at a floater) says, was a sort of Victorian, possibly Art Nouveau look. No where close. But… next time…
“Real surfers froth.” Yeah, it’s kind of like post-psychedelic graffiti, totally unreadable. A series of mistakes began when I didn’t allow enough room for the T in FROTH. I thought I kind of fixed that with the overlap. No. Then, when I took the original to the Printery to get reduced, part of the F and part of the H were cut out. Okay. So, maybe some color would help with that. Not really. Still, someday, this will be on some highest bidder’s wall, and when visitors ask about it, he or she will say, “I believe what Original Erwin was going for here was…”
Better. Always.
SWAMIS Note. Adam Wipeout and his family are down there. It is close to Legoland. I got a nice image the other day. Almost no one out, perfect conditions, and… yeah, I’m fine with it. Totally one hundred percent… fine.
Real Surfers 