North Shore, Twenty Years Later
Dec 22 2006 / North Shore, HIA Conversation with John “Turtle” Philbin, Featuring Kelly Slater.
In 1987, a movie called North Shore hit the big screen. Matt Adler plays Rick Kane, an inland surfer from Arizona who wins a wavepool event and gets a free air ticket to Hawaii, to compete in the Pipe Masters. This is Hawaii in the neon eighties. Kane gets thrown in with a group of characters that includes Turtle, a haole guy who speaks pidgin better than the Hawaiians and who takes Kane under his shell a little, advising him on how to surf Pipe, not to mess with local chicks and all the protocols of North Shore life.
North Shore has become a cult classic, and the most classic thing about the movie in the hearts of many is Turtle, who is in a class with Spicoli as a comic character, based on reality.
John Philbin is now a surf instructor who gives private lessons and sometimes works in Hollywood (www.johnphilbin.com). He trained Kate Bosworth to walk the walk and talk the surfer talk for Blue Crush, and in the winter Philbin brings his surf clients to Hawaii, and does for them what Turtle did for Rick Kane, 20 years ago.
On a Thursday in late December, the North Shore has calmed down considerably after the Triple Crown – at least on land. The surf is booming and John Philbin is having a smoothie at Devocean, across from Foodland, within sight of the surf.
Lat34: For our culturally illiterate friends, what happened here 20 years ago?
JP:Twenty years ago, in 1986, Universal Pictures hired Gerry Lopez, Laird Hamilton and the hot pros of the time: Derek Ho, Mark Occhiluppo, Robbie Page and a couple of actors, Gregory Harrison, Matt Adler and myself to be in a movie about the North Shore of Oahu. Eddie Rothman was cast as a member of this group called the Hui and Gerry Lopez claimed the lead. Gerry Lopez was is and always will be a legend in the surfing world and a hero. And they employed all the local muscle and haole guys who were the best surfers.
Lat34: You played a character called Turtle.
JP:Yes the character’s name was Turtle but he was based on Brian King, who lives here, still. They had hired Brian King and Ken Bradshaw and others to do research but when it came time to cast the movie, they cast me as Brian King, and not Brian King as Brian King. I had to audition for the roll seven times, because they didn’t think I looked like a surfer.
Lat34: But you were a surfer.
JP:Yes I was. I had been a surfer all my life and came to Hawaii as a teenager to surf Pipeline. I loved it so I wanted to do it so bad I auditioned for the movie seven times. I had done a movie for the producers before, playing a retarded….
At this point, the Champ walks up. Kelly Slater is still in Hawaii, after the Triple Crown, when most of the circus has gone back home. He sees a video camera on and hesitates, not out of shyness but out of courtesy. Kelly has very good manners. Southern manners polished by being in the spotlight for more than 20 years.
Kelly: Who’s retarded?
Kelly: I’m not interrupting?
Ben: We are discussing North Shore: The Movie, 20 years later.
Kelly looks directly at me – he has hypnotic eyes that must wreak havoc with women – and says.
Kelly: Here on the North Shore we treat our friends mo betta.
For a minute I thought I had done something wrong, and then Kelly smiles.
Kelly: A line from the movie.
John: Yeah! So you’ve seen the movie!
Kelly: Seen it? I love it!
Ben: When did you first come here?
Ben: We are discussing all that has changed in the 20 years since he made the movie.
John: Well like I was saying, now the Hawaiian Water Patrol are the guys to come to, and Velzyland is gone. All those people living at Velzyland were moved out so they could develop it.
What else? Moms and groms. It’s so civilized here now, and there is the whole corporate thing, all the money. All the sponsored houses and millionaire surfers and sponsor stickers everywhere and…
At this point, a slim, brown Pretty Young Thing approaches Kelly boldly and shyly. Kelly knows the drill by now.
PYT: Kelly? Hi, my name is E---- from the Big Island. Do you remember me?
Kelly is embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t remember but in apologizing to her, he still manages to charm the girl to her hair follicles.
PYT: Oh that’s okay, we just met briefly, But it’s nice to see you again and I wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Pipe Masters and I’m sorry Andy beat you and its nice to see you again…
The PYT gets a kiss on the cheek from Kelly and she floats away, eight or nine inches off the ground. Kelly turns back to the conversation, smiling quietly to himself, not embarrassed. Every guy on the North Shore wants to be approached excitedly by pretty girls like E----, and Kelly lives that dream.
John. Yes! Girls on the North Shore. There never used to be any girls on the North Shore. Now there are girls everywhere! In the water, out of the water! Moms and groms. Some of the girls are so sweet and nice, like Kelly’s friend there. But some of the girls in the water are so tough, so macho, you know? That is different.
Kelly: Surf trunks.
John: Surf trunks?
Kelly: Surf trunks have changed since North Shore. They are longer now and the colors aren’t as brighter.
John: Surf trunks!
Kelly: And Laird Hamilton has better Halloween costumes now.
This gets a laugh all around, remembering Laird Hamilton as Lance Burkhart in the movie North Shore, painted yellow and purple and dancing at a Halloween party. This inspires some North Shore shtick, as Kelly and John remember lines from the movie.
John: You want to buy some photos, Burkhart?
Kelly: Burkhart, you bastard!
John: A tourist, a mainlander, like you.
Turtle: It's like Barno... Barnyard... a haole to the max, a kook in and out of the water. Yeah?
John: So speaking of movies. I made a movie. A documentary about young surfers and the industry, called Chasing the Dream.
Kelly: I’ve heard about it. Heard it’s pretty good.
John: Well you should see it because the dream these kids are chasing is the dream you blazed: surf star, rich, famous.
Ben: Pretty girls practically swooning in front of you at the smoothie place…
Kelly: Yeah, well all I can say to these kids is slow down you know? These kids are 14 years old and all ready to leave school and take on the world and my advice to them is, take your time. I mean, I am 34 and I really think my best surfing is still to come.
There is a general nod of assent all around Devocean, from anyone who saw Kelly on fire at the Pipe Masters. He is as good as he has ever been physically and all that experience and water time has made him something incredible.
Kelly: I think if you really added it up and looked at the guys who timed their entry into pro surfing right, against guys who just dropped everything and went into it headfirst, you would see who burned out and who didn’t.
Ben: Taj Burrow waited. He qualified very young but knew he wasn’t ready, waited a year and now he’s going strong. And Andy almost burned out…
Kelly just smiles at this. Hard to know what he is thinking after losing Pipe to Andy, one of the more dramatic incidents in their ongoing Celebrity Deathmatch.
John: Where are you surfing today, Kelly?
Kelly: Still looking.
Ben: How long will you be in Hawaii?
Kelly: I usually stay until January, then I might be in Cali for awhile. Call Quiksilver about Chasing the Dream and I might be around to see it. You know, talking about North Shore, that was a very clever movie, where they took some guy from Arizona who could have been any kid in America. He wins a wave pool contest, comes to the North Shore, meets a beautiful girl, gets beat up by the ocean and people, but makes his dreams come true. It’s clever like that.
John: Sometimes North Shore dreams do come true, no?
Kelly just smiles to himself, and sips his Acai smoothie.
-- Ben Marcus
