I was out at a not very famous wave on the
North Shore earlier today. To get there you walk past Sunset, around the top of the point and along the beach past the Roxy house, then you’ll find it.
The Mad Scientist took me there, and it was just us, 10 Hawaiian kids and the biggest, baddest, meanest longboarder you have ever seen. His back was about 4 feet wide, covered in coarse black hair and Hawaiian flag tattoos, and rippled with muscle. Because Greg Noll took the title of Da Bull, we’ll call this guy Da Rhino.
He sat out back all surf, moustache twitching, shouting at the pack of kids to take off. At first I thought he was shouting to all kids, but then I realised that he was just shouting for his slightly feminine, pale 15-year old son who could barely surf. This was not a very functional relationship.
Picture this: the kid sits wide, outside surfers like Jihad Kodre, Leandro Eastos, Antonio and The Mad Scientist. As soon as a wave came, Da Rhino would start glaring at all assembled like we were painted red, and screaming GO GO GO, PADDLE NOW!!! to his kid.
The kid, clearly intimidated, paddles half heartedly and then misses the wave.
Dad catches the next wave, and the WQS surfers then froth all over the next 10 waves, until dad returns. And so it would go.
Eventually the kid gets a little embarrassed and goes in and sits on the beach.
This freaks Da Rhino out, and he starts screaming at full volume to his son from the back, “Wha’da matta? You broke yo leash? You no need da leash!” Then he would turn to the pack and say, “He mightta broken his leash, bu’ he no need dat shit out heea bro”
After a while on the beach enduring his dad’s screams, the kid skulked back out to the reef. Da Rhino immediately paddled over to him and asks, “You OK? You broke yo leash? You inja’ed?”
“I’m good, thank you dad,” the kid responded in perfectly non-pigeon Obama English, “I just banged my knee a bit, and I wanted to go in and watch Andy Irons surfing Pipe.”
“Wha?” Da Rhino responded, “Da pro’s day ain’t here yet, day be somewhe else still.”
“Really dad, don’t you read the magazines? The pro’s are all here, and I want to meet Andy.”
And just like that, the kid had made Da Rhino look as redundant and old fashioned as a Brontosaurus wandering through a shopping mall. The massive, burly manifestation of Hawaiian heritage was reduced to a relic of a recent past swept aside by magazines and DVD’s and the Volcom House and energy drinks and pro surfing and all that our sport has become.
Then the next wave came through, and Da Rhino dropped in on Antonio.
Order was restored for the time being.
