Dans Paper Cover

Cover by Michael Paraskevas

I was only 9 I think, my first footstep into the nude beach. When you walked west along the crashing shore, following the footsteps of all those with boards clenched under their arms, the crowds bathing suits starts lessening. My mother would bring us to the break that was than known as "Bagels" to watch over my brother and I as we bodyboarded 5 to 6 hours straight every chance we got. She sat there engulfed in a ring of nudity, eyes peeled on her two sons, afloat among 2 footers to hurricane swell. The sandbar showed up year after year among the nudies. The nudist community is forced to mix wih these sandbar chasers. Its startling when you are out among the outer-break line-up, and a fully bronzed muscle man floats by on a bodyboard wearing nothing. Two cheeks surfacing like sperm whales. One-upping us clothed ones with use of rudder.

I remember Dave Mims of Autumn Skateshop flying a kite, we must've been 16, and one such Bronzeman, as we coined the fully tanned nudies, yell over to us while stroking his hardened piece, "Don't just stare...Join the show"

And that asshole up there on the cover, I hope he never joins my show.