Surfer speak video

I love the way this surfer talks in this TV news interview. (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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mtellers

That made my day. I particularly enjoyed the sound effects.
trueblue2

I totally needed this too – I am a total West Coast person temporarily living in the Midwest and feeling pretty homesick (especially with this shitacular weather).
acx99

I’ve come to this thread to watch this at least a dozen times already today. I’m pitted. So pitted. Watching this is just like, WuPAH!
evolucien

Three possibilities: 1)The kid was asked by the newscaster to do an impersonation of Jeff Spicolli to explain his session 2)The kid is an inland kook 3)He is mentally disabled.

I’ve been surfing religiously for 30 yrs, and you rarely here that kind of diarrhea, especially in 80′s vernacular. Albeit, 7 out of 10 hardcore surfers have squandered their brain cells, and act like crystallized 14 yr. olds.
Anonymous

What I gotta laugh at is FOX news. They get the best clips.
chuck

Stoned.
DD4U

Totally agree dude. This video, like, made my day.
Anonymous

He talks like everyone I went to high school with. Brah.
igpajo

That’s awesome. “Wa-Bah!”
Almost as good as listening to trailer park denizens describe how the tornado sounded.
Binaryloop

If you had your closed captioning turned on it would look like this:

“Oh brah, it’s just like, dude you get the best barrels ever dude. It’s just like you pull in and you just get spit right out of ‘em. And you just drop in and just smack the lip WHABAP! Drop down and hit the san BAAAAAAAAAHHH! And then after that you just drop in and ride the barrel and get pitted! So pitted. Like that….”
themiddleroad

He was real, gotta be to pull it off so well. Otherwise he’s Oscar worthy. He’s also obviously part of the population that offsets Kasparov to make 100 the average IQ. And yes, drugs were likely involved. I just wanna take him home, like a dumb but cute puppy.

And that was a total unicorn chaser for that god awful jesus song. /gag
David Pescovitz

I grew up in Ohio, so the closest I got to this guy was the Spiccoli character in Fast Times At Ridegmont High. I like the video because the surfer is so sincere! He looks like he was having a great time!
Xenu teh WunderKat

It actually kinda reminds me of that scene in Return of the Jedi where C-3PO is telling the story to the Ewoks. Or all of the turtles from Finding Nemo.

Let’s be generous and call it idiomatic onomatopoeia.
kellythewriter

Heh, that’s hilarious. I work at a TV news station and showed this to some of my co-workers and they loved it. :P
Antinous

I had a roommate who called his own mother ‘dude’. Obviously, I live in California.
jonjonz

Next time I’m taking my self too seriously, I will just think of the obliviousness of this guy.

Funny how slang is just an excuse to listen to your voice.
jsauter

@XENU TEH WUNDERKAT:

I totally see what you mean with C-3PO.
Anonymous

I grew up in Huntington Beach (where this was shot) and I think this accurately sums up why I moved somewhere else. Brah.
UFO Lover

He’s Cute!
pizzaboxbeercan

LOL! Thats Jeff Spicoli from ‘Fast times at Ridgemont High’.
acx99

gnarley
minTphresh

gnarly!
JoshuaTerrell

He’s totally pulling the interviewer’s chain, you can see from the way he’s grinning that he’s joking.
Justin Ried

“All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine.”
SteamKev

“Yah Bra, the ocean IS my bong.”
roboton

Yah I wazlike pitted on the barrel of WHAPAW when I got into this post and like BAZZAM the video was doneitwassoawseomedude.
Enormo

#19 posted by Antinous
#34 posted by Lauren O
and everyone else who said “Trust me”…

I’ve surfed Southern California for the vast majority of my 40 years. This guy gave you and the local news exactly what you all wanted. A convenient stereotype and a sense of superiority.

The fact that you have no clue that this guy was busting on you (yes you!) and the local news is delicious. Actually a pretty astute piece of social satire if you ask me. But what do I know… I’m just another brainless surfer.

See you in the water, suckers.
Bionicrat2

When I moved to LA, surfer speak was one of a few LA “accents” I was stunned to learn actually exists off of the screen. 10 years later it still cracks my shit up to hear.
catsford

I tell you, this guy’s voice is Bill Murray doing Todd (with Lisa Gubner) on SNL.
gruben

Reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGDwScgb_Y0
jimh

Dude, where’d ya get that jacket!?

Uh, we get these from the network…
Antinous

He’s totally pulling the interviewer’s chain, you can see from the way he’s grinning that he’s joking.

Trust me. They really talk like that.
Cowicide

#30 POSTED BY ANONYMOUS:
> I grew up in Huntington Beach (where this was shot) and I think
> this accurately sums up why I moved somewhere else. Brah.

I sense a less than sincere brah amidst our barrels.
freeyourcrt

This guy is a bond trader at Pimco. Seriously duuude.
Cowicide

[cough]

http://www.braboysfilm.com/
clifford

While we’re on the subject of Jeff Spicoli, what’s with the bagel in his pants? Anybody?
Lauren O

He’s totally pulling the interviewer’s chain, you can see from the way he’s grinning that he’s joking.

I can see from the things you’re typing that you’ve not spent enough time in Southern California.
Cupcake Faerie

Doooo hoood,
working on Christmas Eve gets me PITTED!
Wahpah!

( well i would be working if they paid me to browse boing boing )
placidbeau

An odd emphasis on cuteness in discussion today…

Of, Merna, Setharian said: â€œThe one on the right is cute – maybe a little damaged, but cute.â€
While Dave Rattigan said of Chris Montez: â€œDangit, he’s kinda cute.â€
And UFO Lover (#8) commented of this here surfer: â€œHe’s Cute!â€

I donâ€™t disagree. While I was initially off-put by the simplicity (and I suspected, shallowness) of observations of â€œthe cute,â€ Iâ€™m now thinking itâ€™s a nice stand-in for what have become hackneyed requests for horned equine creatures. Is diction of the â€œcuteâ€ a mere meme? Self-selection of cuteness during winter doldrums? Or did I miss something?
jackm

#50, it would seem that you may be one of the last of your breed.

From my experiences living and working in Huntington Beach, (which, as a poetically ironic statement of how much they’ve changed since the happy carefree 60′s, is still in a legal fight with Australia over the title “Surfer’s Paradise”), most of the people I met who chose to stay in that town for any amount of time seemed to consciously choose one of two stereotypes to identify with:

The first would be the “Whoa, brah!” type you see in the clip.

The second would be the insular children of the last generation of spiritual surfers who got rich on OC real estate and stayed there. You might know them better from a show called “the OC”, or MTV’s reality show set a little further south.

I agree that it is unfair to limit anyone by sticking a name on them. Which made it all the more confusing to me why these people would work so hard to label themselves with these fairly limited stereotypes, and make anyone else who didn’t do the same feel unwelcome. (Not entirely unlike indy kids in the Shoreditch neighbourhood of London, incidentally).
Johnny Cat

“Hey, I know that dude!”

“Nah, those guys are fags.”

I’m learning about Cuba, and having some food.”

Hmm. It’s a wonderful thing that that actor is probably going to have a totally awesome Oscar night soon.
misterdna

1: “He’s totally pulling the interviewer’s chain, you can see from the way he’s grinning that he’s joking.”

2: “Trust me. They really talk like that.”

Everyone realizes there are stereotypes, right? And while some people fit the stereotypes (especially when being interviewed on TV), but many don’t, right? I find “they” really talk like that to be an annoying statement — I’ve surfed in California for 24 years, lived in HB for awhile, but I probably sound more like you than like this guy.
GleepGlop

This video is way old and generally the consensus of why it is hilarious is not because he is a surfer dude talking surfer lingo, but that he is clearly being interviewed on the news stoned out of his mind.
Anonymous

Why isn’t this guy a superstar?

I’ve had this video bookmarked for months and it never fails to make me smile. As a fourth generation Southern Californian it is indeed very, very real.
Jane Kansas

Old, new..I don’t care. I had a shitty mcshit day and that is pure unicorn chaser. Thanks.
Fred Rated

I love LA.

Go Lakers!
Fred Rated

I am seriously making that dude’s monologue my new ringtone.

So PITTED!
dhalgren

Totally pitted!

I never get sick of seeing this video. It’s like, Welcome to HB brah.
surfy surfy

This video was all over the surfing message boards and blogs a year ago. As I recall this guy was a skimboarder and not a surfer, and he was having some fun with the news people.
aquietrevolution

Pond Life.
Jack

That “I like turtles!” has grown up!
Jack

ARRGGH! I mean to say:
That “I like turles!” kids has grown up!