An Interview With Jake Johnson

November 25th, 2011 | 9:30 am | Features & Interviews | 37 Comments

Photo by Emilio Cuilan

Sorry this took so long, but here’s an interview with the always talkative Jake Johnson. Some of the answers are long, and took a different turn from the questions, but you can treat it as an open-ended thing. Not having to worry about space is one of the good things about the internet. Read it in two sittings if you have to. Enjoy.

Just to backtrack a little bit…Everyone seems to move to L.A. or New York, why did you move to Pittsburgh?

After I messed my knee up, I just decided to get away for the recovery. In New York, you’re paying for your ability to move everywhere fast, and share space with tons of people. It just wasn’t worth it for me. My ex-girlfriend and my brother lived in Pittsburgh. I was seeing doctors there, I just felt comfortable moving there and hibernating. I think I work better in New York, but there’s a lot of value in having more space and you save a lot of money living out there. I don’t want to be a victim of rent forever.

You’re trying to buy a house?

Eventually, but my rent is really cheap as it is.

Is that where you’d most likely settle at?

I don’t know yet. I just signed another one-year lease there. I actually have a pretty sick skate house out there now, because I live with two young kids, Justin and Zach Funk. We have a mini ramp in our backyard, a whole house to ourselves, and central air.

You think you’re going to stay in Pittsburgh after this next lease runs out?

I do need to move back to New York, but I’m going to be traveling so much this next year. Right now, I’m paying $400 a month to have a whole house and a mini ramp.

Since you’ve been posted out there, do you want to talk about the scene they have in Pittsburgh a little bit? It seems like New York, Philly, etc. are nowhere near as rough as Pittsburgh is spot-wise. How was it adjusting out there?

It’s really small, I adjusted well. There’s One-Up Skateshop, and a crew of guys that skate for that shop. It’s like a dozen core skaters of all ages. There aren’t lot of people out there that are skating for any image, and most of the skaters out there are from very rural areas around the city. They’re just resourceful, country-type people. In New York, there’s a “scene” to everything, and you’ll bump into skaters everywhere. Being a skater puts you into a scene, like a network, night clubs, this and that. Out there, there’s nothing to skating except gnarly rugged street spots and a small skate shop. They drink just as much as people do here [in New York] or anywhere else, but there’s no scene to it. I relate to people from those sorts of areas real well.

Fall Flip Cam / iPhone Wave

November 23rd, 2011 | 9:50 am | Footage | 6 Comments

Andre Page with a highly expressive ollie at Washington Square Park. I wonder what song he had in the iPod for this one? Photo by Emilio Cuilan. Click image to enlarge.

Hopefully, you came up on a $65 Flip Cam last month, and have been stacking clips with it ever since. The following is a clip filmed with that very same device, and its slightly more ubiquitous cell phone counterpart, the iPhone. The clip features the first public documentation of Ty’s critically acclaimed “white person” Halloween costume. (“What are you supposed to be?” “White.”) Whether or not it surpasses Drake and garbage, the other two crowd favorites from Halloween 2011, is your call. Edited to one of the best posse songs in recent history. Sorry French, we didn’t have enough footage to include your verse.

Features Jake Johnson, Alexander Mosley, Lil’ Steven, Andre Page, Emilio Cuilan, Brendan, Luke Malaney, Ritch Swain, Brian Kelley, Ty Lyons, Sweet Waste, Will Carpio, Ben Nazario, Alex, Dario Phillips, Torey Goodall (yes, that footage is from before that spot was “occupied”), and Josh Velez. Filmed by Josh Velez.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We’ll be back on Friday.

(Alternate YouTube Link)

Previous Flip Cam / Velez’s Corner Clips: Summer 2011, Fall 2010, Summer 2010

The Jake Johnson Files – Part 3

November 18th, 2011 | 10:05 am | Time Capsule | 9 Comments

Ok, so, there’s no interview this week. Does the interview actually exist? Yes, it does. Will it be up next week? Probably, but you’ve heard that one before. Like last time, it was 65 degrees for half of this week, and web content creation took a backseat to enjoying what was the best weather New York will have until March 2012. Things still had to be edited, followed up on, etc., and that takes time. To quote a popular rapper that we don’t particularly even like for the second time this week, “Sorry 4 the wait.” (Don’t click that last link. That mixtape is pure garbage.)

As a consolation prize, here is a gallery of photos taken by the homie Zach Malfa-Kowalski from roughly the same time period as those two clips we posted earlier in the month, with some shots even dating back to the Chapman / Short Ends days. No, we couldn’t break into Brengar’s house or bribe him with cigarettes to release any potentially unseen footage that may be buried in a stack of dusty DV tapes from 2008. Big thanks to Zach for sharing these with us.

The Jake Johnson Files – Part 2

November 4th, 2011 | 10:25 am | Footage | 2 Comments

This clip is essentially a remastered version of our November 2007 montage (with a bit of December 2008 sprinkled in), which up until recently, was the most downloaded clip in the history of this website. That is probably because the internet did not have a lot of Jake Johnson footage at that point in time. Unfortunately, we did not begin archiving montages in full quality until like 2010, so a lot of the current uploads of old clips on YouTube and Vimeo are low quality and dark (especially the one in question.) About 75% of the people who go on Quartersnacks now, didn’t go on it in November 2007, so if you’re in the minority, pardon the uninspired-ness of the presentation, vibe, same exact song choice, etc. Once you edit someone’s skating to “Put On,” it’s hard to get more inspiration afterwards. So, it’s the clip from four years ago, but in 720p, with some bonuses attached.

All in New York, all filmed by Brengar, who probably has ten more minutes of unseen footage like this that will never witness the light of day. Maybe we could borrow his uncaptured DV tapes in exchange for eighteen cartons of duty-free cigarettes. A lot of this stuff was supposed to go towards an Autumn video in 2008. It’s about to be 2012, so you can guess how that turned out…

Interview next week. Have a good weekend.

Filed Under: Footage | Tags: ,

The Jake Johnson Files – Part 1

November 2nd, 2011 | 9:20 am | Footage | 4 Comments

So, we have an extensive interview with Jake Johnson, conducted in early-to-mid October, sitting on the back burner right now. He’s steadily been resurfacing on the radar after a leg injury, is doing switch back noseblunts and skating rocks, and had a lot of interesting things to say. However, the audio for it is about eighty minutes long. As you could imagine, that takes quite a bit of time to transcribe and edit. While we begin that process, we’re going to post some footage from the days when Jake regularly appeared in Quartersnacks clips.

The clip below was filmed by Rob Harris in 2007 and 2008. Some of it appeared here, some of it was in the Rich Mahogany video, and a few of the tricks didn’t appear anywhere. All in New York, raw, uncut, with a Mike Gigliotti cameo. There’ll probably be one more video. It’ll be longer, and actually edited. As far as the interview, expect it in the next week or so.

P.S. Who took that back tail photo? Not trying to let the photographer go uncredited, but a name didn’t come up with it. Credit goes to Mike O’Meally.

P.P.S. This is the worst shit in the history of shit.

Filed Under: Footage | Tags: ,
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