SUNDAY JOINT, 4-7-2024: AND A TURTLE SHALL LEAD THEM

Hey All,

Linda Davoli was the stealth surfer in our recent Boyer-Oberg Sunday Joint, and that tracks with the MO of her entire seven-year pro career, during which time you could find reputable surf-world figures who thought Davoli was not among the world's best female surfers but the best, full stop. Scroll to the last wave on this clip. Hang Ten Pro, 1977, First Point Malibu. My take is that Margo and Lynne both could have placed ahead of Linda that afternoon, contests being contests and all, but neither was going to out-surf her. Speed, power, flow, accent on the flow, and Linda hits that inside section noseride like Santana launching the infinite F# straight to Heaven midway through Europa.

Three years later, while in Bali, Davoli signed onto a week-long Java trip and became the first woman to surf Grajagan. Here's how that particular venture began, and I'm not claiming fast decisions are always the best decisions, but there is much to be said for being nimble:

One day I was surfing at Uluwatu and Ricky Rasmussen shows up, which was kind of a surprise. [Note: Davoli was from New Jersey, Rasmussen was from New York.] I said to Ricky, “What are you doing here?” And he explained they were doing a segment for American Sportsman, and were going to Java. Then he said he could maybe get me onto the crew, and that’s happened. It was like, “We’re going to Java in two hours, if you want to come, be ready.” I was there in an hour! As it turned out, I got a main part in the thing. It was me, Ricky, and Greg Harrison, an American actor. Everything turned out really good. Especially for me! At the time I didn’t have any money and they fixed me up with a couple thousand dollars and a plane ticket.

I finally got my hands on the American Sportsman Java episode. It's a copy of a copy of a copy, so the film quality is junk and some bits are missing altogether. I've been wanting to see this thing forever (I missed out when it aired on ABC in 1981), and after all that time it is—interesting, I guess, but not riveting. The big hook for ABC was celeb-surfer Gregory Harrison, newly famous for his role as the hunky free-spirited young surgeon Dr. George Alonzo "Gonzo" Gates in the hit CBS medical drama Trapper John, MD. Harrison was not only flying out himself, with board, to the Javanese jungle, but narrating the episode. G-land vet Rick Rasmussen was onboard as tour guide. Harrison is wide-eyed at the Grajagan setup, as is every first-time visitor. He's an intermediate-level surfer, but game, and handles himself well. Rasmussen gets some deep ones—he is a no-fear no-frills Jackie Dunn-level rider of tubes. Davoli kicks the thing off, early in the program, telling her pals on day one that the surf is "ten-feet and happening!" as she runs off to paddle out solo, but doesn't get much screen time after that. (In Drew Kampion's fanboy tie-in feature for Surfing magazine, Linda is overlooked entirely, not even a passing mention—because acknowledging her, I'm guessing, would cut against the idea that G-land is "a man's world," as Drew puts it, never mind that photographer Shirley Rogers had made an extended visit just a year earlier.

I wonder if playing grasshopper to Rick Rasmussen in American Sportsman has something to do with the way Gregory Harrison sinks his big white teeth into his next surfing role, as Chandler, the terse and well-bearded shaper-sensei, in Universal Pictures' 1987 coming-of-age flop North Shore. Quick but related sidebar: I have spent a lot of time, too much time probably, cat-clawing the hide off of Big Wednesday. It occurs to me that I've done so because the movie could have been a contender. There are moments throughout that hint at where Big Wednesday might have gone had John Milius not been so diligent about stepping on his own nostalgia-engorged member. 

North Shore is not even worth disliking. The movie aims low, goes exactly where you think it is going, and apart from a few gems of pidgin-poetry from Turtle (John Philbin) and a nice turn by Gerry Lopez as Vince, the stone-faced North Shore capo, it might be described as a "silly story, with no particular ambitions" (LA Times) or a "violation of human nature" (Buffalo News), depending on mood. North Shore is color-saturated as only the 1980s can be—yet is holistically, almost aggressively bland. It's too easy to pick on, so let's not, except I need to show you guys what Chandler does in the shaping room. This won't make sense to anyone who grew up with shaping machines, and it doesn't make sense to those of us who grew up in the 100%-by-hand days of yore either, because this man doesn't just eyeball the rail line while shaping, he becomes one with the blank, raw-dogs it, mask-free, takes the foam in through the eye duct and hair follicles. "I only make boards one way," Chandler says, manifesting the kind of confidence I feel only after hitting "send" on the Joint. "The right way." 

I'm being too hard on North Shore. Judge a thing, whatever the thing is—album, book, surf movie—by what it sets out to do. Big Wednesday wanted to be a statement film. Hard fail. North Shore is a just a YA film, an After School Special more or less, and if it has no ambition it also has no pretense, and the surfing bits are great, plus we all love Turtle. One thumb up. 

It's a four-decade, triple-cushion bank shot to get from North Shore to present day, but here goes. Rick Kane wins the Arizona Classic to get things started, in a scene filmed at the Oasis Water Park in Palm Springs. Two years later, 16-year-old Kelly Slater wins the Free Style Pro-Am at the Wild Rivers Waterpark in Irvine (see below), gets a long-germinating bug up his ass about wavepools, then jump to Lemoore, and now here we are with Kelly glad-handing the sheikhs at the new Slater Wavepool Company venture in Abu Dhabi. All fun and games, in other words, till you're in bed with full-spectrum human rights violators looking to buy another professional sport.

Swinging back to North Shore, surely I'm not the first person to notice that Lopez, as Vince, arrives at the big tiki-torch-lit Halloween party looking like the slimmed down Second Coming of Charles Bronson, nails with his greased-back hair and cold steel eyes, holding a can of—Miller Lite? What? I can't say I've never ever had a Miller Lite, but I've for sure never drank one by choice. My understanding (confirmed by this article) is that Miller Lite is not so much the worst beer on the market, just the most boring, and it seems as obvious as Rick Kane's essential haole-ness, that Vince, who could have you kneecapped by raising an eyebrow, would drink something with more personality—Primo or Perrier or buttermilk, take your pick, anything but Miller Lite, the CPA of beers. Whoever put that thing in Lopez' hand is the Rick Kane of prop masters.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

Matt

PS: Those Miller Lite TV ads Corky Carroll did in the 1980s have not aged well.

PPS: The Boog Powell ad, on the other hand, still tastes great!

[Photo grid, clockwise from top left: Christopher Norris and Gregory Harrison in Trapper John MD; Ricky Rasmussen at Grajagan, 1980, by Dan Merkel; Carlos Santana plays Woodstock; Gregory Harrison and Matt Adler in North Shore; Miller Lite at your company 4th of July beach party; John Philbin in North Shore. Rasmussen, Gregory Harrison, Linda Davoli and camera crew, Gradagan, 1980, photo Merkel. Davoli at G-land. Robbie Page, Laird Hamilton, and Gregory Harrison in North Shore. Harrison, as Chandler, in the shaping room. Rick Kane wins the Arizona Classic. Kelly Slater at Wild Rivers Waterpark, 1988. Slater, Abi Dubai, 2023. Gerry Lopez as Vince, with Miller Lite.]