#16 "North Shore" - The Movie

Back in the bitchin’ 80’s, a movie of epic proportions emerged that forever captivated the hearts and minds of campy, unrealistic adoring movie lovers and one-liner quoting surfers everywhere. The movie popularly known as “North Shore” quickly became an overnight cult classic amongst the surfing masses.  Featuring some of the most preeminent chargers of its time (surf legends today), the film’s notorious bad acting and hokey premise (i.e.- guy from Arizona almost wins Pipe Masters, c’mon!) were quickly overlooked by many an admiring surfer fan base.  For what it lacked in quality and storyline, it more than made up for in laughs and memorable one-liners.  It also served no doubt to inspire many a seasoned surfer and mainland kook alike to make the annual Wintertime pilgrimage to the North Shore of Oahu, something DaHui (spotlighted in this movie) has been wrestling with (literally) ever since.  “Kooks tryin’ to drop in!”
 
The film (for those who haven’t seen it, do you even exist?) follows the epic journey of Rick Kane, a young naive surfer from Arizona and WaveTank shreddah extraordinaire, who wins a surf competition in the local wavepool (yes…that’s right – wavepool!) and pronounces to all, “I’m going to Hawaii to surf the big waves of the North Shore!”  Upon arriving in Oahu, things don’t go according to plan for young Rick.  A series of highly unrealistic events (let’s be honest, the entire movie) ensue bordering on the absurd.  Cue Rick getting kicked out of a bar and cruising with the infamous Occy, arrives at his surf idol Lance Burkhart’s beach house (played by no other than big wave hellman Laird Hamilton), ruins local Da Hui leader Vince’s wave (played by a young Gerry Lopez) and gets his stuff stolen, bumps into the infamous Turtle (purveyor of some of the movie’s best one-liners), who introduces him to Chandler (surf guru, mentor to be, & soul surfer messiah).  Segway to Rick scoring an oceanfront pad and the tutelage of the great Chandler all for the sweat equity of a newly designed surf logo and some shaper room sweeping (must be nice!).  Realizing that Rick can’t surf because he’s a quote unquote “Barney to the Max” according to Turtle, Chandler enlists Rick in his patented 12-Step Surfboard Program, whereby Rick must master the nuances of each board before moving onto the next.  Cheesy montages of Rick sharing party waves with Chandler ensue and he also gets noticed by a smarmy pro-ho surf photographer all to the tune of a cheesy 80’s soundtrack.  Amazingly enough, Rick goes from kook-a-mania to Pipeline Master’s shreddah all in the course of a few poorly edited surf action frames.  To boot, Rick scores the taboo island hottie Kiani after “he shred so hard, he broke his stick”.  She comes sauntering up to him on horseback after a bad wipeout and proceeds to rub his haole back with aloe.  “Scrub it kook! Reef Rash – scarred for life bra!”  Really, does it get any better than this?

Since its release in 1987, the buzz surrounding the movie North Shore has only grown stronger.  It has etched itself into the minds and vocabulary of surfers far and wide like an epidemic of “hang loose” proportions.   Compiling and reciting movie lines at will from the movie became an overnight phenomenon, a veritable cottage industry of who could fully incorporate the movie’s lingo into their daily conversations. It gave a surfer insta-bro status amongst his/her surfing peers and pre-qualified them as someone who was “in the know bro”.  Surfers were infatuated with watching the movie over and over again, taking special note to memorize (rewind if necessary) and later recite key lines from the movie to whoever might listen.  Similar to the notoriety of surf stoner legend Jeff Spicoli, the movie North Shore provided timeless, enduring material for the one-liner regurgitating surf connoisseur.  To commemorate the movie “North Shore” and its infamous one-liners, here is an abridged list of some of our favorites:

Chandler – “Go Ahead, Shred!”

Turtle – “Shakakaddafaddabraddah!”

Vince – “Why don’t you go back to da mainland haole?!”

Da Hui Member – ” He so haole, he don’t even know he’s haole”

Local Hawaiian Grom – “Scrub it kook!”

Alex (Occy’s mate) – “Where’d ya learn to surf, in a bathtub?”

Turtle – “So when the wave breaks here, don’t be there . . . or you’re gonna get drilled!!”

Alex (Occy’s mate) – “That’s not a wave, that’s a ripple!!”

Lance - “You’ve got a single fin mentality Chandler”

Turtle – “More like design me out of the picture, haole. Here on the North Shore we treat friends mo betta.”

Champagne Room Girl – “Buy me drink surfer boy!?”

Pipe Master’s Commentator – ” Next up we have Rick Kane from Arizona…..ARIZONA!!???”

So if you haven’t seen the movie North Shore yet or are just in need of a refresher course on classic surf movie lines to lace into your conversation at the next BBQ, try look, check it out!!  In the meantime, “stop being a Barney, Barney….you know Barno, Barnyard, Haole to the max!  A kook, in and out of the water, yeah!?!”