The Encore Performance of the Dowager Queen of Desolation Sound

When Vasiliev DeFrenz, a seminal influence on the local art scene, first batched up one of his "industrial art" pieces I was a teenager industriously working on perfecting the mechanics of a whole arsenal of bad habits. F'rinstance, I had taken up smoking filterless "Export A" cigarettes, learned how to roll a joint and was an apprentice acid dropper. My grandfather had provided me with the Panhead and I was generally a terror to no one in particular and a hazzard mostly to myself. The man I credit with my early career as a miscreant was the aforementioned Vaz DeFrenz ("seminal influence"...get it?), a charlatan of the first order and an instructor par excellence in the fine arts of dissolute inclinations and pastimes.

In the late sixties it was possible to get a Local Initiative Grant for any ol'hairball scheme and Vaz's proposal looked good on paper. Rolly paper, no doubt. He wanted to rescue an abandoned fishboat and restore it as an art piece, namely splash a coat of paint on it, drop it in the drink and hope it floated long enough for everybody on board to get thoroughly stoned. A noble enterprise in the opinion of the under-employed and heartily endorsed by the local council who were a bunch of comedians themselves. So, all righty then, grant given, boat located and hauled out and patched for painting. The usual rainbow- gaudy splash and dash paint job and sploosh back in the chuck. Well, some saboteur with a talent for the comedic had chipped out the seal around the propeller shaft and it took about five minutes for the boat to sink, right in front of the village council and the local M.L.A. It was seriously among the most pant-wettingly funny incidents that I have ever witnessed. Vaz beat it out of Dodge after draining the grant fundage into his pocket and I never saw him again.

The boat was eventually refloated but it was washed up in a storm and settled on the rocks across the bay and you can see it as the sun goes down, resplendent in it's glorious hues.

Before it was rescued and temporarily revived it had worked as the "Dowager Princess" in Desolation Sound. __________________
Ron Morrison