VLVL(6) Ch 11 Note - Greg Noll Lab

[Peter Petto]

207.16  Greg Noll Lab - named after the famous surfer -- "Talk is bullshit.
You want to know the truth? Get a board and paddle out there, point your
board down the face of a grinder and make a commitment. That's where you
find the truth."

This note may not deserve to be as long as it is -- I just found it so
interesting I couldn't resist -- the information was nabbed from:

   http://www.cinenet.net/users/jfox/noll.html

Greg Noll began his surfing career on a 120 lb. redwood surfboard when he
was eleven. He started hanging around with the older guys of the Manhattan
Beach Surf Club, who he described as "just a bunch of loose guys [who]
lived to surf, raise hell, and score heavily with women." The club made
Noll and his friend, Bing Copeland, honorary members, since no one under
eighteen, and especially no eleven year-olds, were supposed to join. Greg
and Bing were soon being hauled up and down the coast for surfing
excursions, and into Mexico for sojourns to bars and brothels. 

After a summer of lewd times with the Club, Noll found it difficult to deal
with the childish antics of the other kids his age. Of his time spent in
the seventh grade, Noll said "All the while I'm wondering, 'Where are the
wine and women?'" 

At the age of seventeen, Noll told his parents that he wanted to finish
high school in Hawaii. He convinced them that one of his older friends
would make a suitable guardian, and moved into a quonset hut at Makaha. In
the fall, he began attending Waipahu High. Of course, whenever there was
any surf, his "guardian" provided the school with an appropriate excuse as
to why he was absent. School became a diversion for him; it was something
to do when the surf was flat. 

In the late Fifties, he opened Greg Noll Surfboards in California. Once,
one of Noll's shapers, Ricky James, cut his own thumb off with a power saw
while working in the shop. At the emergency room of a nearby hospital, Noll
talked one of the nurses into letting him have the thumb. He went back to
the shop and dropped it into a cup full of resin, which left it suspended
in a clear, hard cylinder. 

The thumb went on exhibit in the shop, and was soon became a popular
attraction. Ricky found out about it and had a huge fight with Greg over
the ownership of the thumb. The fight lasted for two years and was never
resolved. Noll still has the thumb. 

In the sixties, big-wave riders were hired to do the surfing for actors in
beach party movies being shot on the North Shore. Mickey Dora had been
signed to surf in "Ride the Wild Surf" and was a little uncomfortable with
the size that Waimea Bay had been breaking. Noll, who was not hired to surf
in the film, took the opportunity to hassle Dora, by repeatedly riding up
behind him and grabbing his butt, causing him to wipe out. 

The filmmakers found that Noll's antics were getting in the way of their
surf sequences. Noll wound up in so much of the footage, that producers
solved the problem by hiring another actor, Jim Mitchum, and give him a
pair of Noll's trademark black and white jailhouse trunks. Mitchum's
character was written into the script and Noll was given stunt pay. 

By 1971, Noll had grown disgusted with the commercialization of surfing.
After truly becoming a legend in his own time, he grew embittered and
closed up his shop, essentially walking away from the whole of surfing, and
disappeared to Alaska. He reappeared years later, and began operating a
commercial fishing boat in Northern California. He has only recently
returned to the surf scene, reissuing his old boards and starting a
clothing company. 

Greg Noll is a big wave pioneer, who is best known for conquering what is
generally accepted as being the biggest wave ever ridden (some say 50 feet
high or more) at Makaha in the winter of 1969. His aggressive surfing style
and zest for life earned him the nickname of "the bull." These and more of
his notorious exploits and anecdotes are chronicled in his biography "Da
Bull: Life Over the Edge." (North Atlantic Books)