Rad Matters hosted by Mike Ranquet

Jeff Fulton Snowboarder Zero

February 21, 2022 Mike Ranquet Episode 16
Rad Matters hosted by Mike Ranquet
Jeff Fulton Snowboarder Zero
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

RM016- Jeff Fulton Snowboarder Zero. ’Thank Jesus for Kaishu Hirano and his glorious method air. This  has been fun for me, For now, I’ll assume my old post of guardian of the gate. Because Basically Pats been asleep at the wheel for 20 years. Snowboard media Is such garbage, so starting today and every week I’ll be calling someone out  whether it’s a rider, writer or industry clown.  It’s nothing personal, I’m just looking after the betterment of snowboarding and could give a [-] about your feelings. Telos Snowboards
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Michael Ranquet:

To Rad Matters. Podcast hosted by Mike Ranquet. I got a microphone bitches Brought to you by Telos Snowboards pretty much as far as I'm concerned the best fucking snowboard in the world right now. Ya theyre fucking killer so whatever, speaking of blowin it we're going to be discussing Donna Burton blowing it Bridges blowing it and Jeff Fulton not blowing it, hes snowboarder zero. He pretty much invented this shit and people do a lot of recognize recognize your own fucking history ignorant [-] . Well enough with the niceties let's get this shit show on the road again. Here's the end needed to destroy us so yeah that was myself Jamie Lynn Johnny on dru ms just as a 20 years ago so yeah, not looking for a gig or anything . Just music I don't have to pay for Okay. Well, we'll talk soon. You got a busy day. You know, buying alcohol for kids? Yeah, that's what I do my free time and you know, it's really cute when the like the the 10 year olds come up and, and are buying for the eight year olds. You know, the eight year olds can just come on up to you know, but you know, I know when little Timmy wants a six pack of Coors I'm like he doesn't drink Coors. He's an IPA guy. And Lomo Yeah, yeah. You see a couple of drunk eight year olds on your block, you know, you know where that came from? And it's it's okay to joke. It's okay to joke about anything. But one thing I won't joke about is that God damn method air that Hirano did the other day in the Olympics know us you know if there's anything that's gonna bring bringing us all together it'd be fucking sweet method air., thank No, all kidding aside, that was a pretty much one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. When I finally like when it wasn't thrown in my face all day, like, on social media. I didn't watch it live. But when it wasn't that way, when I just had a moment alone, just to go sit down without women folk tugging at me. It was I almost fucking tried to like for real. Like, like me, I got emotional. I was like, wow, that's like the culmination of 1000s of dude's of 1000s of method errors and that's that that's the pinnacle right there Danny ways reach that pinnacle Ross powers Ingo for sure. I mean, those are the the what do you call it? The Stepping Stones he took to get to where he's at. And you can you can tell by the way he he. You can tell everything about like he either studies skating, like Japanese Sal just fucking art or he's fucking skates. Probably. Probably the ladder I would think I don't know much about the kid. And I know one of the kids in the Olympics from Japan was in the summer. I don't watch that shoe. So I don't know. But I do know a fucking gnarly, gnarly method or like when he was pumping into it like just going over that that first you know kind of like keeping the pipe that most will ride you know, just skim over to fucking when he's pumping a little three foot Ollie right over that thing. Just for speed. I met like Todd Richard said exactly what I thought was like oh my god, like all that fucking SPEED riders. I was thinking it was fucking rad. And just pop I mean that like yeah, it's not it wasn't shaky. It wasn't like a fish in fucking out of water. It wasn't it was just it was fucking perfect. Landed so God imperfect. Yeah, so there's uh, I don't know if there's a lot to be proud about or happy about with snowboarder right now but that's definitely takes the top spot or is one of few. So, what the fuck are we? Are we anywhere we? I mean, who's even listening? Why? Certainly don't there's no feedback on on anything. And I'm such a social fucking retard on social media so just gonna be a slow burn but it'll be long because yeah, I mean it's like this I'll be called crazy by a bunch of people though it's fucking Ranquet Are you serious oh fucking? Oh God, they just don't talk about me like it's kind of nuts I've witnessed it and it's really odd and none of them know shit about me why I'm so opinionated. I have no problem calling any or all of fucking Kooks out that have totally kind of like ran off of the tip jar thinking nobody fucking notice. But somebody noticed. You know, I was thinking the other day, it's kind of like, me, my buddies built this fucking sick race car. And, you know, different engineers if it was a fucking really slick car, and we racing it up through the, you know, late 90s into the early 2000s. And one day, it was like, we had a big 500 lap race. We're on the last lap and a pit stop. We're like, hey, let's, uh, let's let let's see bridges wants to take it for a spin for you know, the last lap. Let him takeit across the finish line. And so we tossed him the keys and he jumped in and drove off. And, you know, that's pretty much the last we've seen of him. Besides, every once in a while many circles track again on his, which is turning out to be like it fucking 20 year victory lap. You know, that car was never meant to be driven that that long or far? I mean, for starters, how are you going to the bathroom, bro? I mean, that's, that's fucking gross. But anyways. Yeah, so he's just got our car. Every time he goes by the crew here he just Yehaw! He rolls down the window and just got some shitty music crankin bunch of kids crammed in the car. Doing god knows what. But apparently he picked up this hitchhiker a couple years ago and just handed the pink slip that wasn't even his it wasn't in his name or anything. Just hand it over to the hitchhiker guy. Now he's driving around just thinking he just won all these races. And it's like, Dude, that's that's our car. You You had nothing to do with building that car. You know, we're not even saying that you can't drive it to saying, let us get it back. Take a look at it. Maybe change tires, put some gas in it and figure out how to get rid of where Pat went to the bathroom for 20 years in this fucking thing. And you know, lets other people want to drive the car. You know, that's what we tried to tell Pat. Every time he laps by we're like, Pat, come on. And it's like, he's like, No, I like playing snowboard by myself. Sorry. And he just cruises right by it's like, what the fuck that dude is such a BETA! it's not even funny. And the worse is the guy the picked up hitchhiking just handed the fucking pink slips here. And it's almost like if 70 didn't say something like now or soon, it just would have kept on going, he would just would have been looking at my racecar liquid. I did yay. And no one would have noticed and it's fucking, that's just kind of nutty. You know, I don't even want to drive the fucking car myself. I just, you know, put a lot into it. I just want to make sure it's the best we have is available drive not just the dude that happened to be there at the time. But whatever, you know, I wanted to what do you call it? Yeah, I've been thinking lately about you know, snowboarding, the roots and all this shit. And as much as Utah's the, you know, was the shit for a long time and kind of still is, in a way. It's like, you know, every couple of years that that whole thing should shift, you know, should be like, you know, all of a sudden it's like Tahoe and all these riders are coming out of there then it's kind of like to Mammoth and it goes to us, you know, every two years or so it shifts and, you know, the Utah crew just fucking kept it there. I mean, it's as if you guys have been balling up for 20 years, you know? But, you know, fair enough, I'd probably do the same thing. But back in day say 1990 That whole the whole what he called the shit the where everything was coming from what mattered what people emulated everywhere was coming out of small fucking ski area called Mount Baker. ski area in Washington. And it's where myself Craig Kelly, Dan Donnelly, Carter Turk Eric Janko and most importantly, Jeff Fulton grew up riding and I kind of grew up under there Tutelage. I witnessed the sickest fucking riding for you know, for decades and it's you know, there were other dudes doing like lines you know, like of course it says time I'm sure the hatch we're doing shit. I mean, I know Tom Burt Jim Zellers. They were they they were doing lines but it was it was the lines with a combination of a skate style kind of doing lines but you know, coming out of the bottom and doing a big fucking frontside three nose poke out of it, you know, like not just kind of like you know, bombing through and koflacks with the top buckle on buckle and, you know, kind of this mountaineer look now we were we were skaters pretty much all of us. And, and, and it showed and it's were kind of this base of, of modern freestyle is is, you know, has what do you call it? Its roots. That's where it came from. You know, you could you could you could say, without too much argument for me anyway, said, Jeff Fulton pretty much is, you know, invented snowboarding as far as modern day as far as what fucking matters. Myself, Craig, everyone, we all emulated Jeff, we followed Jeff we followed Carter we followed and they were a no they were there were no fucking slouches. Yeah, don't fucking kid yourself. You know, it's like you see shots in 1983 of US Open. And, you know, dudes are like, just, you know, going through the gate and just, you know, front leg locked. They got their Vendermini boots on, and you know, super high backs with fucking high ankle strap And now, that was their gig. That wasn't us at Mount Baker, we were pretty much at that time doing the same thing we do. Now. Same thing everybody does. Now. We that was it, you know, different parts of the sport came from different places, you know, the, I'd say the lifestyle came from California, the business came from from Vermont. But the actual riding really came from Mount Baker. And you know, it's arguable barely, because it's like, as far as like, what mattered then Baker had a big lot of pull there, you know, that the next set of pros, I mean, the next set of pros is like, there's a speaker dudes. And yeah, then it was like Jamie Lynn Todd Schlosser, Dave Lee. Joey McGuire, fucking just everyone Peter line that, that, that that that that just didn't fucking stop for like 10 years. So to even you know, joke that? Yeah, sure. He has some skate style stuff in California for sure kid. Well, those Absolutely. Some of them were kind of doing lines, but not, not really Kidwell and Palmer, they weren't, you know, I remember taking them through dolphis in probably 1985, when the when the baker race was down chair one who's right down, right down the top of the chute, the mellow part, so would end right at the top of the shoe, so I would take them through dolphis and I remember Delphis in particular, Terry and Palmer one fucking hike out, you know, and that tripped me out. Because, you know, I really looked up to them at the time. And that didn't change that I just was like, in my head. It wasn't like, they suck. they're just not used to steep shit. It's I guess it's intimidating. You know, we didn't know how how good the riding was up there, how steep it was compared to what other people were riding until they came there and kind of showed them and you know, that's the style that carried over going up into Alaska. That's the style that carried over going into films like roadkill and RPM and and you know, it's not as if everyone and their fucking mother wasn't emulating Craig Kelly around fucking globe. That was also his style Mount Baker. That's where we were all from. And yeah, it's it's worth pointing out with pointing out bears repeating that Jeff Fulton pretty much invented snowboarding. I mean, yeah, other females shirts at Sherman poppin. He had a fucking toy and worked out later. It was a snowboard. I don't put too much weight on that not nearly as much as I'd put on. Jeff lFulton being fucking like, you know, snowboard zero pretty much. And he's still up there ripping. You know, again, not much has changed. Those guys have been ripping for a long time and they were back then. It wasn't it wasn't a joke. We didn't ride pow. We rode fucking powder like men. And we got up at 5am we didn't give a fuck. you know? Like we that was our fucking thing. You know, by 1985 86. But tell me what to the world's, say. The halfpipe contest. To me, it was laughable because of what we were riding back at home Mount Baker. I was like, this isn't snowboarding. I mean, that's cool that everyone's excited. They think this is like an emulation of skateboarding. You know, snowboarding to me what was emulating skating, but also kind of like, on acid or times 10 You know, doing shit. You know? You're talking like at a 10 foot transition on my ramp, right. Mount Baker was like 1000 foot transitions. 500 foot transitions. It was it was gnarly. And it was steep. And it was deep. You know? Yeah, so, you know, don't kid yourself on where where the shit came from? Is it is it even worth saying like that? Well, yeah, because they kind of say all sorts of shit about I don't know. I don't agree with a lot of stuff out there. And let's just put it that way. Have I seen the the fucking Jake Burton? What do you call it? A documentary? Like, deer rider? No, I haven't. I'll give it like five years or something. Because it's like, the dude was just alive, like a fucking month ago. Seems like, you know, what were they were they setting up, you know, microphones around the office for interviews while he was still kicking it. Like, it seems really, you know, for high end production documentary to just come? Well, bam, like 18 months after dude died. Like, you know, we're not the generation that needs to you need to reiterate what Jake, meant to all of us. Because, you know, he meant that to all of us. It's been 15 years that he needed a documentary like that, to remind people because he wouldn't have really affected all of them. You know, like, it's, it's same with that fucking Craig Kelly documentary just came out too soon. It's like, give it a minute. Let things breathe. Listen perspective set in, let you know. Just take a little bit of the emotion out of it. It's like, really, he had to fucking put out the documentary like, sticking Jake's claim of course, dude, like no, no one's gonna fucking no one today is going to speak that in 10-15 years. They certainly will. Especially if the dude's you know, kind of doing this shit right now or doing it then because they don't they don't give a shit now they're not going to give us it in 15 years and those you know, I don't know. Maybe Jake told a total gay joke one day when he was younger you think he didn't you think Jake Burton never told[-] a joke that marginalized group got the [-] the back end on. I mean, come on. You can't paint these people up like saints because they weren't Jake was a [-] dude. He's cool, dude. And that's why like, I'm not gonna watch that documentary because I actually respect the guy and I have my own. I don't need to be filled with a documentary full of basically, Craig and Terry you know, that built that fucking company? Yeah, she had a lot of vision but he You know, he had a lot of help, you know, and it all goes, you know both ways. So, but you know, do I do I respect [-] Jake fuck yeah. Have I respected Burton snowboard? Yeah, in a lot of ways I think they've kind of, you know, stepped over their bounds and a lot of things I think they fucking, you know, decimated the brick and mortar shops in the early 2000s and didn't give a fuck. And I think Donna's fucking blowing it. That's, that's all I'll say. I don't know Donna. No offense, but uh, youre fucking blowing it. Yeah, I really want to parlay out of this. How do we do that? We'll talk about BETA all day long out here, because beta dudes are running this fucking industry. And pretty much if you're not a dude, you'll definitely get fired from Burton. And that's cool, I guess. But let's see. Yeah, I did have some words with with Terje. And I recoreded it and play it here. And so with all the polarization in the world, liking everything, it's got to be black or white, and probably a lot of shit, you know, that I talk about to you know, whatever. I'm on the other side of that polarization. But anyways, the big question. It's not really, you know, Have you learned anything from this experience? Because I know you haven't. But the question I guess, would be if you had a choice to have like a, let's see. A cat. The size of an elephant or an elephant the size of a cat. Which would it be? I don't know. Hmm. Okay, just I don't know. Okay. I thought I framed that question. Pretty. Pretty, pretty good. Well, okay, so now, I'm sure you're watching. I'm sure you were watching the Olympics last week. And what do you think of that [-] knee grab? I don't like it. Yeah, that's how a lot of people feel ridiculous thing too. I can see that. And then I guess the last question is, as if anybody really needs to know but now there's some younger people on here that they might not quite be sure where you're from. So where are you from? Again? I come from Norway. Okay! Wow. Pretty lit up these days. Fan you sound sound a little a suppressor you just fucking just just popping off. I got a call from Norway. Yeah, you're, you know, he sound like kind of going feral lately, you know? But yeah, that's how it goes. Live for the canceled right. fuck, dude. Party on bro. Oh, shit. I forgot to ask him. Okay, let me text him give a shout out call or another question. Okay, let's see. See if he comes comes through in that. Oh, shit. This is a ringer. Okay, cool. And grab a dude. Okay. Yeah, you're not on there yet. I don't know what happened in the cheese was no, I've no idea. Just figured out that whatever. Yeah, yeah, can't really call your team manager anymore. Anyways, one last question What do you think of that? Dude is like see torment magazine and see for this. Yeah, looking the other way and all the dudes that just kind of sit by and watch what do you think it is? Those guys are [-]. There you have it people. Those guys are [-], says Terje. I mean, not really. Come on. Come on. But anyway, We can have fun with that one thing I have a new kind of a new section whenever need me I'm gonna just kind of call someone out this just kind of kind of like somebody I don't know maybe have higher expectations of or, you know, it's like come on bro just stop that shit. Yeah. So yeah I just think I think we needed somebody needs to say something otherwise you guys are all just gonna I don't know fucking in Boystown and that's fine. [-] was cool. But anyways, this is a seeing this generally and the little specific but more generally about people that post about how fucking grateful they're quit, stop okay, I look at this if if you're driving on the street you see a dude walking along kicking the can he just just got fired? If you pulled up to him you're like, hey, I'll give you a ride. Oh really? No not really but um Do you love your family and your friends and you know people around you and your bit? Do you love your kids? We love your dog do you love good weather? The God probably almost kick your ass just for asking because it's just such a assume people aren't just kind of grateful for stuff and in fact whenever somebody is like overly anything overly grateful I tend to think, how, he must have been you know, ungrateful for a long time that I mean to have to speak out this much about it. But either way it's fucking it's old. It's played just tired I'm just so grateful for the people around me fucking no shit no shit fucking who is and I mean come on. Everybody loves her family. You'd be fucking idiot if he didn't I mean that's like retarded shit. Come on it's just all into it to me lately when I see these posts in their daily by certain people it's I see it as a euphemism for just you know putting out a sick shot of yourself and having you know you can just yeah it could be like a sick whatever sequence of [-] Frontside seven super sick and you only have to say I can why you're putting it up there like Oh, I did this four years ago and I'm just so grateful for the friends I've had and and just fucking dripping over your gratefulness and don't really see that you're just actually showing off your fucking it's a school. I mean, fuck I show off shit, too. I get it. But it's just a kind of disingenuous at best way of showing off just fucking show off. Just be like, dude, check it out. I fucking rip but yeah, there's there's one dude in particular. I just see all the times fucking [-] there. Mellow the fuck out. Everybody knows you love your family. We love you love your family. And I mean, it's um, I don't dislike you. I'm just saying like, straight up. fucking The Grateful shit. It's overbearing. You cannot be that grateful. It's like when the dude from torment magazine was just like, last summer when you know when all the gay dudes came out, okay, I'll just say is that bad? That the fair fair use their gig. Yeah, they can kick at Yeah. Anyways. Yo, Sega when they came out he was like, Yo, we as a community we have a lot of tough conversations. In the My immediate fucking document like maybe if your fucking some big homophobe for a long time, time and sexist and just an asshole. Yeah, maybe you might have to have some tough conversations with yourself. But Washingtonians there had like 48 words. For slush, so yeah, we had a lot of it there And it's like, you know, I said, I've said for decades a Mount Baker the difference between heaven and hell is two degrees. That's it. Two degrees, two degrees. And it's the best days of your fucking life. Like, you can't believe it. You get off the mountain, you just want to fucking cry in the parking lot and just stay there. And it dry. Goes up two degrees. Let's get back to the city. Get some real food, you know. Two degrees, two degrees and yeah, everything changes. Eventually just seeing Craig's say kind of like influence, like on everyone every other pro rider with those people started to emulate was like a baker writer, basically. Let's see their fucking good. big mountains. Riders from everywhere. I mean, there's fucking I mean, you know, even say Jeremy Jones. He grew up in these coasts. He didn't grow up in gnarly terrain. Johan fuck. One of the best examples of all time, like he's, I mean, I think yeah, I think what you want about Sweden it's pretty flat up there. It's not you know, you know, it's no valleys so for Johan to like, go up to valleys and just fucking Yeah, that that was such an anomalous fucking radical situation. So just getting at that, like, you know, you don't have to be from that type of area with that terrain to excel at at some point in your life, obviously, but But you know, say that's all I knew from like 14 I just knew steep steep as shit. So even by the time I got up to Val DS Yeah, they'd always give me a hard time or something like because you know at the time I was in road killing rpm and that sort of like, super freestyle movies, but like, really, I grew up riding a baker and you know they kind of everybody forgot that until they saw me ride in Alaska you know say we might travel we might do the Craig was doing contests I maybe was hearing their Fulton was to uh he was out there judging him just whatever we are out and about but like we always came back to Baker and it was like, but like even at 89 clearly by 90 We knew it was pretty much the baddest place on earth. And you know, it just been sitting there for fucking you know, decades for centuries really? You know, people will come from all over the world to ride baker or Alpental or a lot of these places. You know, they wouldn't even have come from like all over the county to ride those ski areas before because I might have my opinions I certainly do. And I'll fucking scream when I get someone else on you know, I want to hear about them until I start talking over them Here's one to try and for size you know as a sport snowboard easy young, such as skateboarding such as surfing Surfing has the there's a hierarchy from fucking Duque down you know it's just understood that a young age you know if your nine year old surfer if you're into surfing you know who the fuck Jerry Lopez is just by [-] quick snippet on a video either old or new. You just know that because you're you're brought up in its culture and its roots and it's important to everybody know skateboarding, you know, same thing you have really heavy roots. Now I just let's think of it like what if say Jake Phelps I love just using him as an example because he's a perfect he's what is what you should aspire to be if you are truly you know, at the helm and really want to run the sport then you got to do it like him not kinda like him. But what's inexcusable too No I mean it's just inexcusable the Great's of this sport that that pioneered shit that were like they're still writing fucking daily in a lot of cases yeah I mentioned all the fucking like you know catch and release 12 month pros that probably are eight years outside any contract and ever writing better than ever you know but you know unnoticed because their card their sponsorship card expired like seven years ago they never get one again but like the yeah I mentioned earlier like snowboarder zero like zero this fucking phone there's no two ways about it you know and he should be of high interest. Say what's that guy's like? Regis Roland in France fucking yeah these are guys that fucking really? I don't know without even knowing it themselves probably just really rose above I mean like the inspiration that like Regis Rowan and you're on film I remember seeing those early films are fucking nuts if you haven't seen your ad if you're into snowboard history and all this stuff like the guys it's at the bomb hole who openly like admited like oh yeah, we're Yeah, we're into snowboarding back to this point you know, it's like some video made like 2001 or something you know and it's not that much of a stretch to get the rest of it in of which is the most important nectar of of it all. Everything else is imitations and adding 180s That's it. And so to me, it's like in that there should be no articles there should be trip sushi. Jeff Fulton taught Craig Kelly. How to fucking snowboard. He sold Craig his first board. He his dad owned the BMX shop in. in Mount Vernon Washington wire Craig bought his bikes and they competed together in BMX racing. And then Fulton was more of a skater. That's how I know for him. He's He's fucking a linchpin in this on all of this. And you know he you know we all abided by the book of Kidwell at that point you know those mid 80s And seeing that first big twist a kid wanted you know, he took the freestyle aspect of snowboarding up notches it like just hadn't you know, that were gonna happen and fucking he did it first and fucking set the bar. I that first big twist still blows my mind that he does almost as much as McGill's not quite but fucking you know what, you know, Fulton? Maybe he didn't have that Mctwist, but he had gunning fucking painting lines for hundreds of yards straight, you know two turn bs 180 or whatever, maybe, you know. I'm just speculating me but not taking away it's amazing that that the snowboard media Pat bridges have you ever just reached out to fucking phone? You are the czar of culture. You're the man did Stan ever thought to call folden on your you know, just go up to Baker when you're up there for the lbs or whatever the [-] that was. Did you did you stop by meet Fulton? No fucking you didn't he probably you know, maybe even serve you one of those nights. But I mean, dude, you guys don't know. Shit. And the fact that I'm gonna have to pound Jeff Holden's name down your [-] throats till he's more or less. He should be heralded Really? Really? Yeah, he's what? He's, he has birthday the other day. fuck, he'll probably like fuck E 60. You know what? That's fucking sick. Dude, like, that gives us all inspiration. If you saw this motherfucker ride. You'd be like Yeah, yeah, he's like, he should be fucking, you know, protected at this point. Like, the knowledge the stories the what he's done for the sport. inadvertently and advertently I guess is you know almost unprecedented and fucking He's unknown to all of you, except maybe you know the Mount Baker crew of course, but that's embarrassing motherfuckers figure your shit out. Okay, when you start to hear that, that's pretty much signifying the end of Rad Matters again brought to you by Telos Snowboards pretty much the best fucking boards in the world which is and my unwavering wit funny as hell myself and I want to die trying to make the world a better place for for someone at some point but definitely not the the crew that snowboarding right now I tried to make the world a better place and they fucking blew it