John Reeves: Not the New H-Street Interview

Photo by Daniel Harold Sturt

It’s not uncommon for people to be nostalgic about the faded memories of their youths. For skateboarders from the early 1990s, this is especially true. At that time skating served as a membership card to a secret society. The sport was in a strange and wonderful place; the balloon of its 80s popularity had burst, street skating was in its infancy, and the community was the smallest it had been since skating's inception. It was suddenly as if no one, anywhere, skateboarded. It wasn’t on television, skaters were still called “fags” by their classmates, and “professional skaters” were barely surviving. Street League’s millionaire owner, Rob Dyrdek, was receiving $3 royalty checks, and the face of our world, Tony Hawk, had to sell his Toyota Corolla just to start his fledgling brand, Birdhouse.

It was a glorious time to be a skater. Because skating was not even a blip on the cultural radar, graphic artists were able to appropriate intellectual properties, music was used and abused in videos without a care of rights or licensing, photographers were experimenting with their craft, and skate filmmakers realized they were better than the corny swipes and silly transitions of 80s videos. The final nail in the 80s coffin was the release of the revolutionary skate flick Hokus Pokus, starring Matt Hensley, Danny Way, Mike Carroll, and a slew of others.

Recently Transworld unearthed the lost Venture video from 1991 and it got me feeling all sorts of misty-eyed. I locked myself in my office and began to flip through old Thrashers and Poweredges from that era, and in the boxes I came across a misplaced book of art and poetry from a few years ago by former H-Street amateur skater John "The Man" Reeves. I decided to pick up the phone and call the number he’d written in the book and ask John to take a walk down memory lane with me to discuss the making of Hokus Pokus, the infamous H-Street house, and wrestling the Gonz.

VICE: Back in the H-Street videos they introduced you as John "The Man" Reeves, and you’ve used that, or "JTMR," as your handle ever since. I've always wondered where that nickname came from. Is it self-proclaimed?
It's most definitely not self-proclaimed—let's get that part straight! It stems from the mid-80s and my first sponsor, Primo Desiderio, who gave me his pro model Vision boards, Vision clothes, and Tracker trucks. We did demos at Southern California elementary schools. He also did a thing called Team Primo that sometimes featured two of the top Vision factory-sponsored am riders of the time, Matt Hensley and Danny Way. Anyhow, he made flyers for the demos that said: “Featuring John "The Man" Reeves!” Which is pretty weird considering I was only like 13 years old. I guess Primo called me "The Man" because he is kind of a small, short dude and I was a bit bigger than him and skated bigger too, like a man.

At first I felt weird about it, like people would think that I took the nickname really seriously, but anyone who knows me knows that I don't. I used to feel kinda lame and ashamed when people would say, "Hey! There's John The Man Reeves." But as I've gotten older I've learned to embrace it. Now I just see the nickname as a thing to set me apart from the seemingly endless ocean of talented skateboarders.

It’s safe to say that, along with Blind’s Video Days and World Industries's Rubbish Heap, Hokus Pokus helped defined a generation of skaters. What was it like to be a part of Hokus Pokus?
I have some really fond memories of filming Hokus Pokus with Mike "Mack Dawg" McEntire and "M.T." Mike Ternasky. Mack Dawg shot the 35mm film and M.T. shot the video. We mostly just filmed around our local spots in San Diego, but one of the highlights was when M.T. took us up to LA, on my first-ever film trip. It was me, Donger, Matt Hensley, Steve Ortega, and Sal Barbier, and we met up with Josh Swindell, Trent Gaines, and their crew. I'll never forget that trip—I did a melon grab over four trash cans lined up and that clip made it into the opening montage of the video.

I think a lot of firsts went down while filming for the H-street videos, and some of the dudes who made up the tricks aren't getting credit for doing them first. For example, in Hokus Pokus I do a lean to tail bluntslide on a handrail at a school we used to session called Montgomery, frontside late shove-it, and a kickflip backside tailslide at this other underground spot that we called "tweakers." I had never seen anybody do those tricks before. When I did the late shove-it I was just trying to do a frontside pop shove-it like I had seen the Gonz do in a Vision ad, but instead I ollied first, then I turned the board.

Image by Daniel Harold Sturt

And in This Is Not the New H-Street Video I did frontside noseblunts first, especially the one that Daniel Harold Sturt shot where I popped in no-handed on Primo's spine ramp. Before that I always grabbed tail or frontside and yanked it back in. And as far as crooked grinds and all the noseslide variations go, the credit should go to the genius of Dan Peterka who always had such a fresh original approach to skateboarding. Hensley had most of the firsts, Brian Lotti, Colby Carter… man the list could go on and on.

What was the team's flophouse, the H-Street house, like? How crazy did it get?
H-Street was one of the first, if not the first team to have a house for their riders to live at while they were filming. I think that they got the house specifically to have accommodations while shooting Hokus Pokus. Sal Barbier had the master bedroom and Donger had his own room upstairs where one time we took acid and pretty much stayed in his room the entire trip! He had this huge Slayer cloth banner poster thing on his wall and we just fried on acid and listened to Slayer—"ON AND ON, SOUTH OF HEAVEN!"—all night and smoked so much weed. We were like the stoners on the team, which is kind of bad thinking back on it because we were only like 14 or 15 years old! I remember when Mikey Carroll and Timmy Gavin came to stay at the house they were so small that they would sleep together in one sleeping bag!

Does it trip you out to look at the legendary, enduring status of your old teammates like Danny Way and Mike Carroll? Or did you know then that they were a different breed?
Yeah, sometimes I get hella tripped out when I think of how those guys seemed to already know exactly what they wanted to do with their skateboard careers, and how they chose to get involved on the business side of things so early in the game. Back then skateboarding was more about being punk rock and not giving a fuck about your future. Plus, nobody knew that skateboarding would become so mainstream and sustainable. I'm just so proud of those guys for having the business sense to make everything that they could think of and make it so good. But I'm not surprised because Mike Ternasky instilled that shit into those guys at such a young age. He was like a father to Mike and Danny, and he made them feel that they were superior in so many ways, especially when he started Plan B.

What are you doing with yourself now?
As of now I'm skating and creating. I'm helping run Bodega skateboards with design and stuff. I have a few pro models out with them right now. I'm also helping run a skatepark and teaching kids to skate. Plus, I'm making music and working on my second book, Save Manhattan For Another Day. And I have a new project that I'm doing called "ArssiA." It's an acronym that I made up, it stands for "Artists Ride Skateboards Skateboarding Is Art." Right now it's just an Instagram page @arssia and a few t-shirts and some stickers. It's a project that I plan to work on for the rest of my life.

Bodega Skateboards recently posted a video of you play-fighting the Gonz. What was the story there?
Oh, man. The play fight/wrestling video happened so spontaneously. My girlfriend knew about some gallery art show magazine launch thing that was happening and she wanted me to go with her. Right when we got there I saw Mark, and I was so stoked that I just ran up to him and hug-tackled him! He was so cool about it and goes "we should film that!" He was like, " I'm gonna pretend to swoop on your girl and give her some flowers and then you come in and get mad and we'll start to fight." Next thing I know I get an email with the whole hilarious thing edited Benny Hill style.

I don't get to skate with him as much as I'd like, but the last time we went out he texted me, "OK, meet me at the downtown Starbucks at 11:00 and we'll go film some stuff." I got there at 11:05 and he sees me arriving through the window and runs out with an iced coffee in his hand and says, "Dude, I was just about to leave." Then he gets out his camera and starts filming. He tells me to just go and start skating! I wasn't warmed up at all so I just did some 360 powerslides and whatever. Mind you, it was like lunchtime rush hour in the financial district with people walking and cars everywhere! Anyhow, we ended up going to a couple of spots and skating for like an hour and a half, then he just goes, "OK, I got it. See ya later," and skates off! A few hours later I get an email form him with a hilarious edit of what we just filmed.

When did the writing and poetry begin?
Writing and poetry began back in high school in the late 80s and early 90s when I was the lead singer for a few bands in San Diego. I've always loved to sing. My parents sang in church when I was a kid and all my sisters sing too, so writing lyrics just came naturally. My poems and lyrics can seem very similar if you just read them, but the difference is that I actually sing the lyrics. I also have a soundcloud page where you can just listen to me read some of my poems.

Follow JTMR on Instagram and order Open Through the Mindflow here.

More stupid can be found at Chrisnieratko.com or @Nieratko