Bad Religion Sanity

Ok, this really needs to be the last entry regarding the early nineties. Here is a part from the Life video with John The Man Reeves (JTMR) and Kien Lieu (Donger). This part was the best for me. Not only were these guys on top of their game back in the early nineties (not that they aren’t now), I just thought they were two of the the coolest people you could ever hope to meet. Back then, they were pro, in the spotlight, and all over the place. Where I lived in Mira Mesa, they were living legends. Reeves could do anything and everything on a skateboard when most of us were just trying to stay on.

Me on the other hand, I was just a little kid (I met them when I was around 13-14) trying to tag along with the wealth of pro skaters that were around San Diego. John and Donger were always good to me and in some cases had more faith in my than I did myself. Donger eventually got me some care packages from Life and to me that was the biggest compliment anyone could have given me. A formal sponsership never came out of it but I’ll never forget that he was pushing for me. Donger’s style was the best. Like Christian Hosoi on street, only all his own. And the guy could literally ollie over anything. Amazing. No one has ever done a better looking frontside 360 ollie than Donger. No one will.

I always admired John’s style because he was pure fury. What he lacked in flip tricks, he made up with sheer power. The guy went big and you couldn’t help notice him. I would say that influenced my style quite a bit. I couldn’t flip my board worth a damn, but I could 180 a gap that you’d be afraid to walk down. Plus, John was one of the funniest people you could ever meet. The shit that came out of his mouth was so random. But he always hit the nail right on the head. Both of these guys were smart as hell, too. Very smart.

By the way, Dan Stuart filmed most of this video. In terms of video, he was my idol, hands down. He was by far the best skateboarding filmer I’ve seen to date. I ripped him off as much as I could. But, he scared the shit out of me as a little kid because he was the most aggressive and crazy guy you could expect to meet. A very intimidating figure, especially to a 14 year old. Despite his eccentricities, in my opinion, he made the modern day skateboard video what it is today. As much as I was freaked out by him, I still owe him some props. Not only did he help me out when I filmed some footage for the Plan B video, Second Hand Smoke, he took my photo and got me a ridiculously insane full page color shot in Transworld. As a 14 year old, it doesn’t get much better than that. So he’s another guy I really looked up to, even if he did always wear those tight shorts.

The combination of these guys is what makes this video so cool to me.

Anyway, here’s my small tribute to these two guys that influence me a lot and that I looked up to. Make that three guys.