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| Wee Man |
The Lounge Feature |
Jason 'Wee Man' Acuna Interview
Eighteen beers and nine coffees with Jason Acuna. Words by Eric Kirkwood.
As I peer across the table at yet another sea of empty beer cans, chips and salsa and at the now familiar grins of Jason ‘Wee Man’ Acuna and his longtime friend Heavy Metal Chuck, it occurs to me that we don’t yet have a poignant closer to the interview. This is our second meal at Jason’s favorite haunt, the El Gringo.
JA: I know that we’ll at least have one more Tecate … and that means in the two days of doing this interview we drank a whole case … hey, are we good?
LL: Well, you may want to think about something to sum up the interview for a sort of closing statement …
Originally this interview was to be a typical Q and A via email. However, while hashing out the details and different possibilities with Jason’s manager, I mentioned coming down to LA and doing ‘a real interview’ … and so it began.
My drive down from Oakland to LA three days earlier involved a twilight breakdown resulting in the late-night replacement of my alternator. A misunderstanding with our So-Cal camera connection left us documenting the first half of the interview with a digital point and shoot. Despite the initial setbacks, we are now two days deep into a face-to-face interview. In that time we have skated three different street spots and two skateparks. We have eaten five meals, one of which (my introduction to the El Gringo) started as a late lunch, developed into dinner and drinks and eventually concluded with the closing of said taqueria for the night. Collectively, we have had 18 beers and nine cups of coffee, and we’ve fired handguns … In Jason’s own words: ‘I can’t sit neutral. I am always doing something’.
A proud lifetime resident of Los Angeles, Jason Acuna was technically born in Pisa Italy in May of 1973. His father, an LA native, joined the army and was stationed in Germany at a hospital where he met Jason’s mother. The two moved to Italy for a short time, where Jason was born, before moving back to LA They split up when Jason was only a few months old. ‘I grew up just by myself with mum, just me and mum.’
A self-proclaimed ‘busy body’ his childhood had some obvious foreshadowing to his current career-
JA: I was in the hospital a lot; I was just too much of a daredevil. One time I was checking something out at a grocery store and I fell out of the shopping cart and had to get stitches. That day my Mum had just bought a brand new white sweater. I was bleeding all over it. Also, on my first trip to San Francisco, at a (family) friends’ house, we were jumping off the dresser (and) bouncing on the bed, I slipped off the dresser and cracked my head again … back for more stitches.
There are many more stunt-oriented stories with similar outcomes.
Another vivid memory of his formative years (prior to skateboarding) is of a pet cockatiel.
JA: My mum was into birds when I was a little kid and at one time we got a baby cockatiel. It didn’t even have feathers yet and since I was home during the day, I always had to hand feed it with a syringe.
LL: So you bonded?
JA: We way bonded. Anytime after that when the bird heard my voice, she thought I was her mate dude, and she would go into these mating calls and she’d lay eggs … all the time. Every time she heard my voice, it was crazy.
LL: What was her name?
JA: Punky.
There are a couple of things about Jason that make the previous anecdote all the more entertaining. First off, He has a very distinctive voice. It’s the strong even-toned voice of a movie narrator or the main character in an animated film. Secondly, the guy is simply likeable, he is easy going, sincere and just plain happy … a suitable mate for any bird.
With regards to school, Jason is pretty straightforward about being a ‘flake-off’. In order to graduate with his class, the addition of night classes were mandatory in his senior year and although he attended junior college for a while, it was soon evident to him that a ‘world education’ was more his calling.
JA: I remember a couple of teachers that I liked. One math teacher I had freshman year was cool and my senior year social studies and history teachers were awesome. Otherwise school was kind of a blur to me, a place I went to in the early part of the day before I went skating.
Jason discovered skateboarding at twelve years old and soon after was shredding his first board, a Powell Peralta Rodney Mullen freestyle deck. Twenty years later, skateboarding is still a part of every day and he credits it as the true source of his success. He currently has a Pro model out by Two Felons Skateboards.
EK: Is Two Felons a new company?
JA: Fairly new, it’s been around for almost a year. Good Wood does our wood, they let us do whatever we want graphic and shape wise. I put out a limited addition board for Christmas. Only 100 were produced to make it worth something for people. Also, we added a ‘Golden Ticket’ for a chance to win a day with me. This lady just went for it and bought twenty boards and ended up winning. It was fun. We do shit like that … all we care about is the ‘f’ word … FU … N.
From the first time he rolled down the street, skateboarding has been the cornerstone of Jason’s unorthodox lifestyle and career including his introduction to the working world.
Selling skate-goods at ET Surfshop in Hermosa Beach was Jason’s first job. This eventually led to his involvement with Big Brother magazine, a wildly off colour publication under the guise of skateboarding magazine. ‘I just started hangin’ out with the guys (at Big Brother) and then got in the mag’. Sal Rocco, brother to Steve Rocco of the World Industries empire and an employee at the magazine, used to announce Jason’s arrival to the gang by stating ‘Wee Man’s here!’ The nickname stuck.
LL: Tell me about the Big Brother days. Would you consider that the start of your cross over (from skateboarding) into the entertainment realm?
JA: Totally, because Jeff Tremaine, the executive producer of Big Brother, is the director of ‘Jackass’. They’re all the same … it’s Big Brother gone mainstream. We were doing skate videos and in the middle (of them) we were doing ‘Jackass’ stuff. Skate videos sell strictly to skaters, but we started selling a lot more than other skateboarding videos and we were like ‘what’s going on?’
LL: It was going mainstream?
JA: Yep. The mainstream people were starting to … we were becoming a cult. Big Brother magazine had a cult following. They loved us just for the monkey business, so Jeff figured since Bam Margera’s guys (Camp Kill Yourself) were out there just kinda fuckin’ around too, let’s collaborate and make something together. We made our own pilot so none of us got paid. We got nothing for the very first episode of ‘Jackass’. It’s crazy now. I thought I was just gonna be a skateboard bum, couch-surfing for the rest of my life, but not caring … and I’m happy-go-lucky so who gives a shit.
Happy-go-lucky to be sure, but a couch-surfing bum he is not. To the contrary, Jason Acuna’s celebrity is obvious as we drive, skate or walk through any public place. ‘Wee Man!’ is yelled from passing cars, by groups of kids, teens and adults alike. He is asked continually and constantly for autographs and to pose with fans for their phone cameras. On our way to the firing range we stop at a café to grab another coffee and are met with the typical fanfare.
JA: So, we were just in Starbucks and met a girl from Tokyo just after you had said, ‘you’re world famous now’. It was in Tokyo that I realised how famous I had become. It was 2000, my second time in Japan. The (‘Jackass’) TV show had just come out and after two months of it being out in the States, it had just hit Japan and I went there on a skate tour. I was with these other guys who weren’t involved in Jackass. We were walking down just a normal street in Tokyo, and kids start running out of the shops yelling my name and I was like, ‘holy shit’. The snowball (effect) had just started happening in the States and I was already trippin’ and now I’m in a whole other country and it’s happening.
Over the years, Jason has come to understand his fans and the way in which they approach him, helping him to cope with his popularity.
JA: Fans are a weird concept. They sit there watching us on TV in their own comfortable environment. They’re in their boxers and they’re sitting there laughing so they feel good … and they feel like they know me. They approach me like they know me. They’re a complete stranger to me so I’m like (a little awkward) ‘yeah … what’s goin’ on?’ You can see the confusion on their face. They don’t think about (the fact) that I don’t know them.
In just two days we’ve seen a LOT of fans. Actually, we’ve seen (and done) a lot of things! Including Jason’s favorites of late – shooting guns. He’s at the firing range once or twice a week and on our recent visit he ‘bit the bullet’ and got a year membership.
JA: About a year ago, before ‘Armed and Famous’, I started getting into shooting guns. I had no knowledge of how to hold or load a gun. I just wanted to pick up a gun and shoot it. During ‘Armed and Famous’ we went through weapon training. I learned how to use a gun and get comfortable so I had even more of a hard on for it. It pretty much sealed my fate.
‘Armed and Famous’ is a reality show in which celebrities are officially trained as reserve officers for the Muncie (Indiana) Police Department. It stars Jason, along with Erik Estrada, LaToya Jackson, Jack Osbourne and Trish Stratus. They partner with an officer, and are sent out emergency calls, complaints, etc. to deal with real law enforcement situations. Jason got along with his partner so well that they are now friends and phone each other periodically to catch up. While researching Jason, I found a blog about the show. One of the bloggers had listed ‘most likely to-s’ for the cast. He picked Jason for most likely to be good at the job. His reason was that not only did Jason have a knack for it, but also looked good in the uniform.
JA: RAD! That’s awesome. I like that comment … that’s a positive comment’.
He also decided that Jason was most likely to be caught in the back of the squad car with a drunk college student.
JA: Yeah! Of course! Out of that cast I was the most likely to dot-dot-dot almost anything anyone could ever think of!
My two days with Jason Acuna have been nothing short of epic. I am tired, exhilarated, stuffed, caffeinated, tipsy and above all stoked to meet a person truly living his dream. My final question to ‘Wee Man’ …
LL: About the closing statement, any last words?
JA: Yep. This interview was fueled by Tecate.
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Tags: The Lounge, Sport
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