#36: BUTTONS KALUHIOKALANI

North Shore 1976. Photo: Jeff Divine

Buttons was so well loved because of his humor. Everybody liked him. He’d do things like wear a gorilla mask all around Malibu in the heat of summer. Or he’d have a large group of haole and local guys cracking up, tears in their eyes, in the parking lot at Kaiser’s because of some little thing he’d said. His humor came out as subtle things, not jokes with punch lines, it was just his style that made people laugh and it enhanced his surfing for some reason. His personality and his surfing worked together.

Buttons and Mark Liddell hung out a lot and were two of the first hot, loose Town guys to start surfing the North Shore. Like Bertlemann, they’d been influenced by the whole skate thing—as well as surfing Ala Moana, Big Rights, and Kaiser’s—so they brought a newer, faster, rubberman vibe with them to the North Shore. It was a style that would eventually return to skateboarding and influence the Dogtown guys.

At that time, though, the small group of standouts who surfed Off The Wall was just straight-lining it. A carve on the shoulder was pretty state of the art. There were no real top turns they way you see them today. But Buttons showed up and started spinning 360s, putting his board on an edge, breaking the fin free and trying airs. He’d busted the performance door down before the Aussies ever showed up. Photographically, it was a big deal. And that was it for Buttons. You’d go to Off the Wall and there he was, everyday.

It was easy to see that Buttons and Liddell were poor, probably bumming rides and sharing gas money to get there. Anything you could get for free back then was a bonus, a pair of trunks or a shirt, or whatever. But one day they showed up in a limo like they were some rich athletes. They’d surf for a while at one spot, climb back in, and get ushered to another spot. They did this all day—acting it up. The whole garment sponsorship thing didn’t exist then, so the largess of it was just a mystery. Up close, the limo reeked of weed and when they weren’t surfing, Buttons and Liddell sat in there, eating cereal and milk as if Wheaties had sponsored them with a year’s supply.

It turned out that it was just some buddy of Buttons’ who drove the limo, and had agreed to chauffer them around that day. But those kinds of nouveau riche things didn’t really matter to Buttons anyway; it was all just fun in the moment.

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