J.B. Gillet | Quartersnacks

68 Degrees

Daily News November 24th, 2014 · 12:25 pm · 6

The Watermelon Man. Photo via Merchants of Ill.

Johnny Wilson still trying to pretend like he uses his VX1000.

Also, some guy compiled a bunch of Cyrus Bennett’s footage from the more recent video blogs and put it over a more recent Migos song.

As far as “Summer Trip to New York” clips go, the skating in this is tops by non-pro team clip standards. These dudes somehow skate every spot in New York (e.g. when was the last time someone filmed a line at Breezy Ledges? Jeff Pang in 1997?) Obligatory Wu-Tang song included.

“The new Transworld video, Outliers, as seen through the prism of the Malcolm Gladwell book of the same name.” Frozen in Carbonite looks through some prisms.

Cario Foster on his Reason part and Danny Montoya on his incredibly ahead-of-its-time One Step Beyond part. “For the record, filming is hard.”

Lucas and J.B. in the Cliché U.K. tour clip.

Twenty seconds of “lost” Jake Johnson footage. 360 flip noseblunts, etc.

Jordan Trahan apparently kickflipped into the Washington Square Park fountain.

We can officially verify that the Plan B video exists, and that PJ Ladd does not have a part in it. The joke is dead. Except how is Hoboken going to get a premiere and New York isn’t? Was really looking forward to getting drunk in the theater for that one :(

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This is what your 2015 MTA fare hike is going to look like.

QS Holiday Gift Guide: This pixel print of skate shoes from the nineties is chill and this Hans Moleman x Muska Silhouette deck is amazing. “My name is Hans. Drinking has ruined my life. I’m 31 years old!”

Spot Updates: 1) It happened months ago, but finally just got around to updating the spot page…the ledge-to-flatbar in Battery had its runway knobbed. Some Japanese guy with quick feet will still get a trick on it by next summer. 2) The grate at Union Square that people propped up to skate over the pillar is gone. It’s a gap now. 3) The Blue Banks in Albany are being turned into an official skatepark. Even if it ends up being some pre-fab crap, at least you get to skate the banks worry-free now. Funnest spot north of Tompkins :)

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: 6′ 3 Reggie Jackson v.s. 7′ 2 Brook Lopez.

Quote of the Week: “The first thing I thought when I started watching that catcalling video was, ‘Oh no, I hope I’m not in this.'” — T-Bird

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No idea what the point of this will be, but yeah, it’s there for now.

All Hail Jean-Baptiste

Time Capsule November 18th, 2014 · 11:24 am · 3

jb french fred

Photo by French Fred via Live

Something that wasn’t shined on enough in yesterday’s post was that the Kingpin “Greatest Plazas” list also included a new “Best Of Hotel De Ville” edit from J.B. Gillet. Anyone who grew up burning holes through the Rodney v.s. Daewon videos has probably spent the past fifteen years dreaming of skating that endless two-level ledge plaza with a hip in the middle. Research reveals that it is far too run down today to resemble what it did in the nineties (more on that later), but it still has to rank as one of the coolest-looking spots ever to grow famous through skate videos.

J.B. was the original cool French skater before Lucas Puig became a fashion-foward adult. Always thought of him as a French Kalis — great style, chill switch mongo push, amazing flip tricks, all the right ledge tricks, and an ability to be associated with one particular plaza throughout the duration of his career (yeah, Kalis might be associated with two at this point.)

Any remnant of associating a sizable portion of one guy’s footage with a single spot is in Europe. Even then, a lot of the “A-list” guys just seem like they travel around a lot e.g. there’s no real “Lucas spot” to the extent that there is a “J.B. spot.” For us Americans, the “single spot part” in 2014 is a rarity and pretty much impossible unless you’re Bobby Worrest turning in the year’s best. (Sorta interesting to know if Europeans who have never visited the States / don’t routinely get chased by cops for skating a ledge *got* how wild the “Hometown Turf Killer” part was.)

“I spent about, uh, 15 million hours here.”

The above was from 2011. French Fred, via Live in 2013: “So, HDV, as the young generation calls it now, is a sad state… To a point where it just gets worst every over week. For the locals that are used to it, it’s usable, but for people visiting Lyon, it’s a great disillusion. They freak out, and find it just unskatable. From the beginning, you had those lateral grooves that are part of the design, and that already was never easy to adapt to, but add hundreds of cracks all over, and it’s a mine field! Then again, Mark Suciu came, observed, then skated, and according to Flo Mirtain, did the craziest line ever done there, so everything is still possible! For the latest Go Skateboarding Day, Jérémie Daclin put some metal angles on the ledges that were in Beirut mode, totally unusable, and that gave a little boost to the spot.”

Mark Suciu seems like a horrible barometer by which to judge the average person’s ability to skate the spot. It’s probably best to scratch skating H.D.V. off the bucket list. The Lyon scene still seems like it’s going well though, no matter how dilapidated the “dream spot” may have gotten.

Previously: The Quietly Incredible Year For Euro Skaters Over 30

The Quietly Incredible Year For Euro Skaters Over 30

Features & Interviews July 5th, 2013 · 4:48 am · 15

shape up

Aging pro skaters don’t owe anything to anyone (except maybe their sponsors), but that doesn’t stop us from constructing narratives for their decreases in visibility. Following Pretty Sweet, there was practically as much conversation about those who didn’t have enough footage and why, as there was about those who did.

Enter any message board post regarding Dill and AVE’s upcoming venture, and it’ll be dominated by speculation about how much they have in the tank. Skate nerds love being in the seventh round of a game of telephone, and using that hearsay to explain why so-and-so could only film a few 5050s and cool ollies for a part. We’re sensitive about our old favorites, mostly because we forget that skaters, like other humans, get burnt out and can’t do the same things in their thirties.

While assuaging the decline of the old guard through the skateboard-internet gossip machine, it has been easy for us, as world-revolves-around-us Americans, to forget about the Euros. Even with Lucas Puig’s American approval rating through the roof, we take for granted that there is an entire European class of older low impact legends still killing it — with little need for excuses or a fan-made script to their “soon-to-be exit.” But we also forget that Rodrigo TX is sorta the best skater alive because he’s not American, so we’re generally just assholes.

Below are the four guys who you could make the best case for as the European Mount Rushmore (oxy moron, obvs) of low impact skateboarding. They’re doing a hell of a lot better than some of the guys we’re on message boards making up stories for. American #nineties affiliations are mandatory for consideration and are most evident through the great L.A. County video.

Daylight Savings Links

Daily News March 11th, 2013 · 7:07 am · 11

redbottoms

Red Bottoms x Skateboarding: Vol. 2. You can tell Miley skates because her wheels are mad crusty yo.

A new teaser for Solo Jazz, the upcoming project from Bronze.

America could learn a lot from the Germans. They took hunks of granite from an old government building and used them to produce an amazing skate spot on an obsolete airfield. Imagine if all that City Hall granite actually went towards making a skate plaza for the city of Philadelphia? How many city plazas get torn out and reduced to scrap each year in the U.S? The “solution” is so simple, but gets turned into such a stupid mess because of zoning / permits / $$$ / insurance / red tape.

The Dimestore dudes made a parody of New York clips and it is incredible.

Manolo and Cliché teamed up for a J.B. Gillet “best of” edit. Dude has always been up there with Kalis in the “best flip tricks” category.

Shade is a 25-minute video by Jeremy Jordan (Todd Jordan’s brother), based out of New York [State]. Grown dudes don’t have to be pro to still rip.

This ongoing advocacy for the front of Union Square returning to its glory days is one of 2013’s most interesting developments.

“Now, the padless deep-pool and vert work of Ben Hatchell, Grant Taylor, Elijah Berle and Jaws may for the coming generation obviate pads and helmets altogether, because, when everybody’s good enough to do every trick, there is no point in falling and getting hurt.” Boil the Ocean dwells on the future of skateboard retail.

The NY Skateboarding crew re-designed their website.

Did @badgalriri teleport from the future to this party by any chance?

New bro cam clip from the PWBC fam.

Speaking of which, Palace eBay / bootleg watch: Might want to use spellcheck.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Is Brandon Knight okay?

Quote of the Week: “Pick up your pants, you criminal!” — A Parks Department security guard regarding the G Man’s sagging, oversized pants as he fled a prohibited skate spot.

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2 Bros. has a breakfast menu now.

Forgotten Skate Videos: L.A. County (2000)

Time Capsule September 27th, 2012 · 9:50 am · 14

During last month’s trip to Los Angeles, the few moments not spent arguing with cab drivers were used to debate topics relevant to any 60% beer / 40% skateboarding getaway. A discussion of forgotten L.A. skate videos came up (hence the LaLa Land inclusion in our Out of Office reply), causing us to remember Listen, Land Pirates, A New Horizon and L.A. County, the best of the bunch.

L.A. County was released during a transition from the classic white tee and chino schoolyard videos (see: World, Girl) to Phase One of the “everyone is good” era that began in issues of Logic, and peaked with In Bloom and Street Cinema. This shift would have been a lot smoother if The Storm never came out, and dudes didn’t spend three years thinking they had to nollie heelflip out of everything.

To the distant observer, the L.A. in this video had an actual *street* skating scene. USC was still around, they skated random shit on sidewalks (something that has been regaining popularity in recent history), and got enough time at the D.W.P. benches to make it look like a plaza spot — not a “let’s hope we get more than two minutes to skate here” Hail Mary mission. With blockbuster skate videos still around the corner, southern California-based projects had yet to resemble six-month highlight reels from the same five handrail spots.