Inherent Vice

As I was reading Thomas Pynchon's most recent (and by far most accessible) new book Inherent Vice towards the end of the summer, this passage jumped out at me as being a fantastic representation of late '60s Los Angeles:

"Doc took the freeway out. The eastbound lanes teemed with VW buses in jittering paisleys, primer-coated street hemis, woodies of authentic Dearborn pine, TV-star-piloted Porsches, Cadillacs carrying dentists to extramarital trysts, windowless vans with lurid teen dramas in progress inside, pickups with mattresses fully of country cousins from the San Joaquin, all wheeling along together down the into these great horizonless fields of housing, under the power transmission lines, everybody’s radios lasing on the same couple of AM stations, under a sky like watered milk, and the white bombardment of a sun smogged into only a smear of probability, out in whose light you began to wonder if anything you’d call psychedelic could ever happen, or if—bummer!—all this time it had really been going on up north."

Through the Night and Wind excerpt

With only a few weeks left until the release of Through the Night and Wind, I've selected a few more excerpts to share. The following is from the eighth chapter.

We hauled ourselves up onto the swimming platform and sat there for a while, watching tiny schools of minnows and sunfish dart here and there, mostly ignoring our presence just as their brethren had at the Baths and the Caves. My dad’s chest glowed a bright crimson and looked as though he’d been out in the sun without sunscreen for days on end. I poked him with my index finger, watching as the spot flashed bright white, then slowly faded from a pinkish hue to red again.

“You okay?” I asked, laughing as I recalled the look on his face the instant before he hit the water—a mixture of subdued terror and casual indifference as he likely realized there was nothing he could’ve done about it at that point.

“Nothing a cold beer won’t cure.”

“Bad news,” I said. “We’re almost out.”

“Lucky for us we’re less than a hundred yards from a veritable cornucopia of beach bars. What do you say?”

I didn’t hesitate: “Let’s go.”

We spent the next few hours bar-hopping along the white sand beach. Some of the places were relatively upscale establishments, with air conditioning and wait staff; others were how I imagined Bomba’s would appear—rundown little shacks that appeared as if they’d blow over in a stiff breeze (or even a gentle one). We’d taken the dinghy ashore, paid our mooring fee and enjoyed bottles of Red Stripe at Rhymer’s Beach Bar, then criss-crossed the beach, stopping at The Big Banana Paradise Club and Stanley’s Welcome Bar. We sipped Bushwhackers while reclining in lounge chairs, watching a trio of surfers negotiate the rocky reef off to our right at the bay’s eastern point. Observing them paddling out, catching a swell and cutting back and forth across the waves’ faces was certainly impressive; it reminded me of the Pacific. I knew that I’d be back in Santa Barbara in two days and was eager to enjoy the familiar pleasures of home.

The more thought I gave it, the more I realized that when I thought of “home,” that same mnemonic slide carousel dropped in images of Santa Barbara, not Naperville. It showed me the sun rising over Stearns Wharf as I paddled into the brilliant yellow aurora of daybreak; it showed me cruising north on the 101 through wine country; it showed the same fiery ball sinking into the violet Pacific, leaving an impressionistic ruby sky in its wake. It didn’t show me the impeccably groomed outfield at Wrigley or a blurred visage of an El train whizzing through a blustery, inky midnight. In the past week I’d grown to accept the fact that just as my father had left Illinois behind and cast his lot here (or wherever he was destined to wind up), I was growing accustomed to the fact that after two years in California, I had begun to think of it as home—and not just home in the sense that it was some other folks’ home, a place that I was simply passing through on my way somewhere else, but my home.

Note: here's a photo of Cane Garden Bay from one of the aforementioned beach bars.

Through the Night and Wind excerpt

With only a few weeks left until the release of Through the Night and Wind, I've selected a few more excerpts to share. The following is from the fourth chapter; it picks up right where the previous chapter 4 excerpt leaves off:

I’d been so immersed in observation that I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I stepped onto the sandy beach and my stomach growled angrily. Ken emerged from the ocean a few minutes later, and I could tell by his expression that he was feeling similar pangs. We slipped off our flippers and re-moved our sandals from a mesh bag that he’d been wearing as a backpack. The walk up to the restaurant was strewn with pointy rocks (a lesson he’d learned the hard way on his last trip) and shoes were quite a blessing. I stuffed our snorkeling gear back into the pack and shouldered it for our hike to the summit. The sun beat down on our bare backs, but even the mid-90s heat felt nourishing and merited on my shoulders.

For all the ocean’s beauty and splendor, however, I still couldn’t avoid the tangy grit of the salty water. Our snorkeling equipment was far from the top of the line, and multiples times I’d needed to re-adjust my mouthpiece, inadvertently sucking in huge mouthfuls of ocean water. Fortunately my mask was adequately airtight and I’d avoided eyefuls of saltwater, but my mouth was still awash in a briny bath that I couldn’t escape. It was like being ten years old again, except at 26 I wouldn’t have the same excuse for crying and pouting that I did back then. I bore my salty cross stoically as we marched up the hill, thinking about something—cold beer, soda, anything—to get the taste out of my mouth.

That something came in the form of a great feast at Top of the Baths, the restaurant perched quite literally at its namesake. Its patio, complete with freshwater swimming pool, offers 360-degree views of the surrounding islands, which, in the crystal clear noonday sun, were nothing short of breathtaking, as beautiful a view above sea level as we’d just seen below. Even though we’d only left the ocean 15 minutes earlier, after we placed our order my father and I slid into the pool, where our waitress brought us ice cold concoctions called Bushwhackers, local libations consisting of Amaretto, Bailey’s, Kahlua, vodka, rum, Coco Lopez, and freshly grated nutmeg (thankfully, they held the kitchen sink). The drink was noticeably stronger than the Cooper’s Dreams yesterday, and my dad laughed as I winced my way through the first sip. While it wasn’t a drink I’d order on a regular basis, it did a hell of a job of getting the taste of saltwater out of my mouth; I only wondered if I’d be conscious enough to swim back to the boat after I finished it.

Lunch consisted of crab fritters (rolled balls of crabmeat and breadcrumbs, fried golden brown), hamburgers adorned with juicy slices of fresh pine-apple, and gazpacho (which truly hit the spot on such a scorching day). Exiting the pool as our food arrived, we sat in the shade under a large awning, grateful for even a brief respite from the sun. We’d both earned some color in the past few days, but thanks to Ken’s constant badgering to wear more sunscreen (which, in turn, came directly from my mother—whenever he ordered me to reapply it to my nose, I could hear her tone echoing in his voice), we’d avoided any burns. Instead my pasty, chalky skin was slowly growing to match my father’s bronzed tone. I hadn’t shaved since leaving Santa Barbara, and after a few days, the scruff accumulating on my face and neck was also growing to match his. I ran my hand over my patchy beard, wondering how Bridget would react to it. She was easygoing by nature (which was quite possibly her most attractive feature) and would most likely rib me good-naturedly—calling me the Mitchum Man or Grizzly Adams—but take it all in stride, much like the aquatic world I’d just swum through had for eons.

We bandied about more names for the boat as we lunched, re-hashing Pelican and El Draco and adding new ones to the list, like Cooper’s Dream and Angelfish. A long series of sports-themed names bubbled to the surface: Ryno, a reference to former Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg, one of my childhood heroes, 23 as a nod to the ubiquitous number of Michael Jordan, and Sweetness for Bears legend Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs in NFL history. None really fit, however, and we decided to go back to the proverbial drawing board and wait for something to jump out at us, confident that when the perfect name reared its head, we’d both know it.

Note: here's a photo of the view from Top of the Baths for reference.

The Dogs of Winter

I finished reading Kem Nunn's The Dogs of Winter a few weeks ago and was struck by the beauty of this particular passage.

"At close quarters, it was an unnerving spectacle, and yet a thing to behold, full of terror and fluid beauty. The amount of water involved was such that it was like watching a piece of the earth become liquid, as if in some cataclysm, or at the hour of creation. The wave rose first with great mass, like a hill, but this hill was made of liquid, in constant flux, and even as you watched it, it would change its form, turning itself to a long dark wall as the face went vertical and then beyond vertical as the crest began to feather finally to pitch forward, to strike the water far our in front of the face—thus creating the vaunted green room of surfing myth—the place to be if you were to be there at all, on a board, at the eye of the storm, encompassed by the sound and the fury, bone dry in a place where no one had ever been, or would be again, because when the wave was gone the place was gone too and would exist only in memory, or perhaps, if the right person was there, in the right place, with the right equipment, it would exist on film—a little piece of eternity to hang on the wall."

Through the Night and Wind Excerpt (Chapter 10)

The following is an excerpt from the tenth and final chapter of my forthcoming novel, Through the Night and Wind (available this fall).

We breakfasted on bagels with cream cheese, apple slices
and mango jam. I then crammed my belongings into my great green backpack, caring little for my usual fold-and-roll routine; instead I stuffed and squeezed my dirty clothes in haphazardly with the worry-about-it-later mentality that often accompanies the end of a vacation. As I forced my gear into the bag, I realized that I’d seriously overpacked—in the week I’d been living on my dad’s boat, I’d worn a bathing suit almost all day every day (I brought two and alternated between them), and with the exception of the few times we’d gotten moderately dressed up to go ashore, I’d either gone shirtless or cycled through the few clean ones that floated near the top of my bag. I set out a fresh pair of underwear, cargo shorts and a Hanes pocket t-shirt, then figured I’d better bathe properly before I spent the next day crammed into the closest of quarters on three flights.

After packing, I ascended the stairs to the cockpit as the sun began its long, slow trudge over the verdant chains of islands and into the cloudless blue sky, before it scorched darkened locals and Coppertone-drenched tourists alike with its golden rays, before the light southeasterly breeze breathed life into starched white canvas sails, carrying long, slender boats across the glistening royal ocean and me, aloft in a shiny metal tube, into the nebulous heavens and north before sprinting across the amber waves of grain and purple mountains’ majesties, bound for another ocean, another body of salt water in which I could dip my toes and feel infinite.

Note: Through the Night and Wind will be available via Infinity Publishing's website as well as my own in October; it will show up at Barnes & Noble and Borders by the end of 2009.

Through the Night and Wind excerpt (Chapter 9)

The following is an excerpt from the ninth chapter of my forthcoming novel, Through the Night and Wind (available this fall).

Our driver pulled the cab to the side of the road and we dismounted, leaving the air conditioning behind and stepping back in to the mid-June Tortola humidity. Ken paid the fare, then ushered me toward the most dilapidated, neglected building I’d ever seen. Bomba’s truly was a shack—there’s no other way to describe it. Imagine if someone had collected every piece of scrap plywood and every tin roof from every condemned building and assembled (I use this term very, very loosely) it on the most picturesque white sand postcard beach with absolutely no regard for aesthetics, security or safety. Above the makeshift shanty myriad flags flapped lazily—the red-and-white divers’ flag; a green Heineken promo; the skull-and-crossbones Jolly Roger; the blue British Virgin Islands flag featuring the Union Jack in one corner and a central image of St. Ursula (the patron saint of the BVI, clad in white and flanked by a dozen golden oil lamps).

Across the dirt road stood a younger- and more sturdy-looking row of booths referred to as the vendors’ pavilion, where my father informed me we’d need to purchase tickets ($1 for 1 ticket) that we’d use as currency while at the Full Moon Party. Sidled up alongside the ticket booth were t-shirt and beer stations, all manned by friendly locals decked out in their finest carnival attire. All around us people were singing, dancing, drinking, smoking, carousing, flirting, swearing, puking, buying, selling, kissing, pissing, stripping, shouting in a dozen different languages all at once… and every few feet hand-lettered signs announced in bold, black letters: NO VIDEO. Apparently what happens at Bomba’s stays at Bomba’s.

We approached the booth and bought $20 worth of tickets, enough to get us a few beers and a plastic mug full of mushroom tea at the stroke of midnight. After procuring two cold Coronas, Ken gave me the dime tour of the rest of Bomba’s compound (meaning we took a short lap around the beachside clapboard shack); the most amazing part of the whole enterprise wasn't the fact that the building was still standing—I’d heard that every time a hurricane blows through, the locals all help Bomba track down the strewn pieces and put the thing back together—but the amount of flotsam and jetsam tacked, pinned, glued or otherwise stuck to the walls. It looked as if everyone who had ever visited had signed his or her name or left behind a photograph or some other memento of the visit. “We love Bomba” must have been scrawled a hundred times between rusty old metal beer signs and license plates, busted-up lobster traps, a discarded Coleman lantern, and even an abandoned 10-horsepower outboard motor wedged into the crotch of a tree.

Note: here's a photo of Bomba's Shack for reference.

Through the Night and Wind excerpt (Chapter 8)

The following is an excerpt from the eighth chapter of my forthcoming novel, Through the Night and Wind (available this fall).

Two pair of red-and-green buoys marked the entrance to
Cane Garden Bay, indicating safe passage between the smallish reef off DuBois Point to the north and the long, jutting reef extending out like a hitchhiker’s thumb from Windy Hill and Ballast Bay. I guided us through the short channel into what many regard as the most beautiful anchorage in the Caribbean, the “Jewel of the BVI”. It wasn’t difficult to see how it earned that distinction—a curling inlet where sparkling white sand dissolved into verdant green hills that rolled skyward toward the cobalt blue sky, dotted with cotton clouds that drifted lazily from right to left as if even Mother Nature herself had latched on to the languid island philosophy.

My father stood at the bow with the aluminum boat hook; I brought the Beneteau around the second red buoy and kept to starboard, keeping one eye on the depth gauge and one on the mostly-empty bay before me. I’d driven a few boats in my 26 years, but this was by far the biggest (and I’m guessing the most expensive), and especially after we ran aground yesterday, I was visibly nervous. I’d donned my Cubs hat to keep the sun out of my eyes and realized as I tugged nervously at the brim that I’d sweat through the cap, a combination of nervous energy and the stifling humidity. I promised myself that as soon as we were sufficiently moored I was as good as underwater again.

As I eased the 49-foot craft’s nose up to a spare ball, my father reached out and speared its mooring line, passing the bridle through the line’s eye and securing both ends to our bow cleats. His speed and efficiency were marvels to watch—in marked contrast to the way in which I consistently fumbled with the hook, line, and bridle. Although tying up to a ball was much easier on the helmsman and safer for the ocean floor (as it means fewer anchors scraping across it), I was usually the man manning the bow, and I preferred the no-nonsense approach of simply tossing the anchor overboard and letting gravity (and whomever was steering) do the work.

This time it went off without a hitch, however, and Ken gave me a merited high five as he dropped back into the cockpit. I stifled a yawn as I interlaced my fingers and extended my arms out above my head, letting go of the tension I’d built up since taking the wheel to guide us into the bay.

“We good?” I asked, rolling my head around in a big stretching circle.

“Yeah,” he nodded, looking around at the dozen or so empty mooring balls bobbing in the bay. If the Full Moon Party was all it was cracked up to be, I was certain they’d be full before too long. We’d been wise to leave Jost early; it was barely 2:00 and I surmised in another hour or so Cane Garden would be flush with tourists, cruisers and those simply there for the party.

By the time Ken turned back around, I was already out over the water in mid-dive—part celebratory gesture over my first successful Caribbean mooring, part primitive urge to escape the sweat seeping from every pore in my body. I quickly ditched my hat, sunglasses and soaked-through t-shirt haphazardly on the deck and launched myself out, up and over the aft railing, kicking both feet high above my head and straightening my torso to slice directly into the cerulean bay.

Note: here are a few photos of Cane Garden Bay for reference.