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| post_id | thread_id | thread_title | post_number | author_username | post_date | post_date_iso | post_body |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 127733 | 4784 | Gene and Lance have begun making V-bottoms | 45 | icecreamheadache | Feb 7, 2018 | 2018-02-06T22:20:17-0500 | I like Lance. I met him a few years ago. At the fairgrounds in Ventura during one of those Scott Bass shows that by name sounded vaguely like a half-rate church that might be located in one of those industrial storage places where our favorite shapers of ill repute ply their trades. I was working for him setting up booths in exchange for a few days getting thrown into that weird 50 something "I shoulda been a surf pro" world where any sort of has-been thing you liked as a kiddo gets mentioned and homeboy would be like "you liked that? let me introduce you to the guy..." So anyway, I had my cut off camo shorts with the three row pyramid studded belt and wife pleaser (wifebeater sounds so... triggering) on like I was waiting for my cameo for an Agnostic Front video with the pockets positively full of Bubble Gum wax, Rainbow fins and a grip of other loot. We had just gotten done putting together the last of the portable shaping bays and the boys from Island Brewing in Santa Barbara had come by with a few cases of their imminently drinkable swill. The Surftech van had just showed up and rather than socking Randy French in the kisser for the shit he pulled when I was an under-aged kid working in his godforsaken cancer cluster of a sweatshop in Stevenson, Washington (why go overseas when you can prey on displaced forest workers in the Northwest who have fallen so deep into alcohol and what we used to call crank that they don't even mind if you don't give them adequate [read: any] safety equipment or take deductions out of their meager pay that aren't actually getting applied anywhere?), I manifested a positively positive mental attitude by stealing the three six packs of beer that were left on the Surftech table and fucking off out the back door to drink a couple by the train tracks with whatever weirdos walked by. So I'm out there sipping on luke warm microbrews with Three Dogs (RIP) and yes, all three of his well adjusted, intelligent and exceedingly polite mongrels when this other homeless bloke walks up. Not all staggery drunk or high tension wire tweaked or prison swagger swastika tattooed like the rest of our fair seaside burg's houseless inhabitants, but with that almost culty calmness and unblinking eyes. "Heeeeey," he says, neither lecherously nor creepily. "Heeeeey," I say back. "Want a warm one?" which did actually come out both lecherous and creepy, though it would have not been so had these beers actually been cold and offered as such. His laser look went from my eyes, to the half-drunk blonde I was pounding for a bit too long, then back to my eyes. "Nooooo. That's ok. I don't drink." And he kept staring at me. I looked over at Three Dogs who was happily guzzling the last beer in the six pack I gave him in the hope he would tell me if there was mustard on my face or whatever to explain the intense looks. Cap'n Laser eyes sat down on the bank next to me and started randomly telling us stories about surfboard riding in this way that sounded so innocent, so childlike, as to make it sound like he had just started surfing yesterday. Or was about to start and was telling us about how he imagined surfboard riding to go from watching Bruce Brown films for all 14 years of his incarceration at the Atascadero State Hospital. That homebum John who looks like an aged Johnny Depp and Denise, the TBI lady you more often than not see screaming in the middle of the road in front of Scary Vons showed up and I passed them a six pack from Surftech's stash. And the stories kept flowing, broken only by me getting up to pee in the bushes, Three Dogs standing up and pissing right in between him and Laser eyes without taking so much as a step or turning around, and the arrival of GSI's four six pack allotment of Island Brew beers. Because why? Because fuck capitalism. And double fuck surf capitalism. No session anywhere ever has been made better by one of their products or the fuckwits who buy them (excepting of course, the beautiful people from the Schengen countries who seemingly only ride popouts no matter where they are in the world) showing up. But anyway, it is now me, Laser Eyes, five homeless people and four dogs sitting around getting a proper pissfest going outside the surfboard show. Laser Eyes is still talking, but not talking at us or down to us, but like he is telling a solid chain of stories around a campfire. He is not using big words or name dropping or doing any of the things normal surfers do incessantly, but keeps us enthralled with this almost adolescent sense of joy and wonder at the same world that has resulted in the tragic cast of characters before him suffering from mental illness, criminal histories and chemical dependency (not the dogs- they were proper citizens of the world with the same sense of joy and wonder, such the life of dogs who live with the houseless). As the sun started falling, the houseless homies got up and wandered away leaving me, Laser Eyes, a few dozen empty beers and at least half a dozen puddles of human piss alone. "I better get back in there..." I said to him, pointing my chin towards the open back door. "Yeah, me too." said Laser Eyes. "I'm supposed to be shaping tomorrow." I looked at him the same way I imagine David Allen Coe looking at the ghost of Hank Williams the Senior at the end of "The Ride" and he stuck out his hand. "You don't have to call me mister, Mr, the whole world calls me Lance." So yes, no idea about nothing involving V Bottoms but I appreciate the hell out of Lance's holding court with us freaks, ******* and fuckups and will invite him to parties any day. |