📷 Photo by Mike Heikkila
Many people first caught onto Johnny Cumaoglu’s skating through his friend Tristan Mershon’s Fool’s Gold video, a pandemic-era New York project released in early 2021 that had everyone from Blue Park to T.F. asking, “Where the hell are those spots?” (Bonus points if you, of course, were tapped in to the vibrant world of 2010’s New Jersey videos though.) A bit has changed since then: Johnny has a spot on the WKND roster, a recurring role in Jeff Cecere’s 2022-2024 three-peat, and he is no longer a DC Lynx absolutist.
But some things are the same. He is still filming with Tristan on a VX, and has the closing part in his Singer Tower video (his first full-length in 4+ years, hardcopies are for sale!), which we are proud to present to you today.
As a bonus, Johnny’s buddy Larry Lanza interviewed him about his journey to the NAC, Josh Wilson’s spiritual guidance, and filming for Singer Tower.
📝 Interview by Larry Lanza
First off, congratulations. The video was sick. Your part was awesome. Solid premiere.
Thanks, brother. The premiere was super fun. Having trouble remembering some bits of it. That venue was a curveball.
That felt like a haunted church, dungeon style.
Dude, it’s crazy. There was that little classroom shit in the back, and I swear I’ve seen it on my Instagram explore page. Like, three separate music videos all shot there. And it was just déjà vu.
You’re a Jersey guy, right?
I’m from Wayne, New Jersey. It’s super North Jersey, 30 minutes from Midtown by bus. Growing up, I was always arguing with my mom, trying to get a ride to the mall, just to take a bus into the city.
You were close to Drop-In, right?
Drop-In is a legendary indoor skatepark. I started skating really young, so I started going there when I was 10 years old. It’s crazy to have made all these relationships that I still have to this day from a place like that. Richie [Dick Rizzo] was always going there. Josh [Wilson] was one of my “skate counselors.” I was going to summer camp there, just getting dropped off from nine to five by my mom. It stinks that there aren’t a lot of places like that anymore. Without a place like that, I don’t know what I would have ended up doing.
What was it like being one of the younger kids in a crew of older skaters? You were in Steve Mastorelli‘s videos, and you seemed like the youngest guy in the videos.
I feel like you have to love your O.Gs. I still love Steve to this day, and try to skate with him as much as I can. People like Steve, my homie Tommy Koehne — they were the first people to point a real camera at me skating. And they took me under their wing, drove me around to spots, and showed me what skating can be.
📷 Photo by Alex Reyes
How did you meet Tristan, and when did you start filming with him?
I met Tristan through my roommate and friends of friends. Right before COVID, I moved into the crib I’m still at now, and Tristan and a bunch of friends moved across the street from us. We started skating together and then three months later, COVID happened. No one had jobs. Everyone was on unemployment. We were just skating every single day.
Having a homie and a filmer right across the street seems like an ideal situation.
Straight up, some shit I always dreamed of as a kid. I didn’t really have anyone to skate with in the town where I grew up, so I was always having to get a ride somewhere. But then, fast forward to COVID, I just walk outside, knock on my homie’s door, and we’re on the train to the city.
Do you have any good Tristan stories?
Yeah. I mean, Tristan’s apartment, which was across the street from me, burned down.
Get this, four or five days before, I rolled the fuck out of my ankle, and that day I was like, “Alright, I got to go to the hospital or urgent care.” I’m sitting in the emergency room getting my X-ray, and Nate [Grzechowiak] is blowing up my phone. He was like, “Dude, our apartment is on fire. Can you let us into yours?” I was like: “I’m at the hospital.”
When I came home from the hospital, I just saw Tristan, Nate, their cat, and everything was just in our crib. Some insane-o shit. So much of their shit got broken, burned, or ruined. It was crazy.
We have so many videos of the crib when they let us back in there. There’s a video of Tristan smashing a VX into the demolished, burnt wall. It was insane. It was only that bad because the firefighters put the fire out through their crib. The firefighters broke in the windows Spider-Man style. It looked like a fucking wrestling house.
📷 Photo by Jeff Cecere
It was their neighbor’s apartment that caught fire, right?
Bro, it was three houses down. That was probably like at least three years ago now.
What’s it like to go out and film with Tristan?
The best part about skating with Tristan is that we do whatever we want. There are a lot of people you skate with that go out with a plan, tricks, spots and stuff — and you definitely need that sometimes, don’t get me wrong. But when you’re filming VX, and especially filming with Tristan, I just love skating around the city. We’ll just find something where we have been down the same street a million times, and be like, “Why don’t we skate this?” We’ll end up having a full day on something that we never even thought was a spot. Being on foot with a camera and no real plan — things work out, oddly enough, way more than they probably should.
Also, those car days are a game changer, too: going to middle-of-nowhere Queens that a train can’t get you to, or finding some cutty stuff on Google Maps on Long Island. You never really know.
Filming for this video spans over four and a half years, right?
Yes, sir. Something like that.
Being that you’re someone who puts out a lot of footage – Jeff Cecere’s videos, WKND stuff, Bronze shit – how was it holding on to footage for this long and working on a project that spanned over this time?
It’s more up to whoever’s making it. I’m still trying to skate, so nothing really changes from my perspective. I definitely get antsy when I’m sitting on stuff for a long time, but that’s how skating is these days. I love it when videos take a long time. I love watching a video, and you could tell how much time it took. Sometimes, it looks funny when you watch something, and you’re like, “This shit looks like he aged 10 years.” But other times you could tell this isn’t just one fall, winter, spring, summer. This is a lot of blood, sweat, tears, a lot of time.
You can tell people put effort into the tricks. Maybe they circled back to that spot a few times over a few years.
For sure. It feels so cringe to say this — but it’s kind of like writer’s block. At a certain point, I felt like I was just replacing tricks. I really don’t know what makes a part “done.” I don’t really have a good gauge on that, but I could film for something for the rest of the time.
📷 Photo by Jeff Cecere
When did you find out that Tristan was putting a deadline on the video?
The fruition of this video is a little weird. Nate and I were like filming super heavy at a certain point, and there were a bunch of ideas being thrown around about what we should do with the footage. “Should we just make a mini four-minute video of just me and him? Or do we save it?” And then, like any video, it snowballed into something bigger. By the time Tristan had the idea for another video, we were all onboard.
What would you say changed in your personal life over the time period of this video?
Shit, what’s changed? I’ve had a couple of jobs, I guess. I’m wearing Nikes now, but that’s not really a change. Still a shoe. Spots have changed, that’s for sure. There are a lot of things that we were trying to get, and a lot of things I was trying to go back to that are not there anymore, sadly. But that’s New York. I can’t blame anyone but myself. Every time a spot gets demolished I think: “What could I have done differently besides try it more?”
Was there one particular trick in this part that you were super proud of?
I will say, the NAC [tre flip crook] that I did has a good story. That day was one of the best days ever. I was trying to tre flip nose slide that thing, and I got in to crook once and did it. We were freaking out for the rest of the day. It was so funny. I’ve never fucking done a tre flip crook; I’m never going to do one again. Tristan has the full clip, and you can see I’m rolling down the hill, and I look back at him covering my mouth: “What the fuck?”
Nate did a really sick trick that day, too. He did this crazy gap 50 down a handicap ramp into a narrow hallway. Those are the days you remember.
You did a switchback tail 270 shove. Did you have Wenning in mind when you did that one?
I definitely learned that trick because of him. He’s the legend. It’s funny that was one of those clips where I was like, “Tristan, please take this trick out. I don’t want that clip in there.” And then a handful of people have brought it up to me. The three shove bounced off the ground. Everyone tells me I’m tripping.
You’ve also been on WKND for a minute. Do you have any good Grant [Yansura] stories?
I am so fortunate to know Grant and to spend time with him. I’m just happy to be a part of the conversation half the time. I was one of those kids who was watching “Weekendtage,” so it’s awesome.
Last summer, we went to the Bunt Jam. That shit was epic. That was the craziest skate experience I’ve ever had: going to Canada with a bunch of people I don’t get to see all the time, skating cities I’ve never been to, and playing basketball with pro skaters that I’ve never met before. I love playing basketball, and that’s shit that I’ll probably never get to experience again.
How did you get on WKND?
It’s basically from Grant seeing Tristan’s video Fool’s Gold. That video came out in 2021. At that time, I was skating drop-off boards for three or four years. I was just skating boards from L.E.S. and Blue Park. I wanted to try and get boards once that part came out, so I talked to a bunch of friends of mine who possibly knew anyone. I talked to NJ Skateshop, and they helped me out with who I could send footage to. I wanted to send my shit to WKND, and I had just become friends with the homie Toby [Bennett]. It was like a trifecta where I gave my stuff to the homies at NJ and was like, “Yo, can you send this to WKND?” I told Toby the same thing. I think everyone saw my Fools Gold stuff at the same time, and then the next thing I knew, Grant DM’d me. So yeah, shout out to Tristan.
📷 Photo by Jeff Cecere
Have you had to take any acting classes in case you get called up for a WKND skit?
I haven’t. Maybe I should, though. I’ve only been a part of one skit. It was for Tanner’s pro part. It was long hours, but it’s worth it, man. I remember being nervous as hell. “”What do I do with my hands?” I’m literally cheering in the skit, and in my head I’m like, “How the fuck am I supposed to cheer?” I don’t know much about cameras or anything, but that shit looked like a straight-up movie camera, bro.
What would you say your New Jersey Mount Rushmore of skating is?
That’s tough. I could say an endless number of names and definitely still forget someone.
Definitely got to put Puleo on it. Definitely putting Wenning on it. I’d put Steve Durante on it. How many people are on Mount Rushmore, four? I guess I’d put Ishod. The GOAT.
This is a random one. Every day on the bus to middle school, I passed Joe Tookmanian’s house. He’s from the town I grew up in, and back then I would watch his 5Boro parts — Join or Die is one of my favorite parts ever. I passed that dude’s house every day going to middle school; I couldn’t believe that someone whose part I watched all the time lived right there. Dude is a legend.
You might get some flack for not having Fred Gall on your Mount Rushmore.
That’s what I’m saying, bro. I mean, if there are five people on Mount Rushmore, Fred is definitely on there.
Hate to be that guy but I’m gonna be that guy
Anybody got a pin for the tre flip crook ledge? Looks super fun