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Urban NYC Mag Interview
First off, what's your name? what do people on the mountain call you?
well my full name is Jesse Paul Cataldo, named after singer Jesse Colin Young but on the mountain and around in my town my friends call me JP
how long have you been riding for? why did you start?
i've been riding for about 8 years and I started back in 2000 on skis cause i needed something to do during the winter....I hated skiing and switched to snowboarding in 2001 and that's where the mayhem started
what's your current setup?
well right now im rocking a Lib Tech Youth In Asia 155 on the mountain with Agency bindings and when I go street slaying I take out my Burton Dominant 151 with some wacky mashup of bindings slapped on that. As for clothing I normally wear Planet Earth Matt Hammer pro pants from '03 and a Ronin ALS jacket from 03 as well....though when it's mad cold I recently picked up a Planet Earth Infantry jacket from 2007 for 180 bucks and I currently rock Van's DK4's on my feet and Spy goggles on the cabesa.
Who got you into riding?
well I started in 8th grade....my best friend at the time was a heavy snowboarder but now that I look back he wasn't really good. So i decided i'd give it a shot considering i was a little punk back then and all my other punk friends shredded too. SO i got lessons up in vermont and in one day was just a natural at it, i was able to link turns at the end of the day. So when i came home i took a 6 week lesson program from my home mountain and probably got the most insane instructor out there at the time. This guy was out of his mind and the first week he had us jibbing and freestylin over almost everything. And thats where i got my start from.
I hear you get hurt alot. Is this true or just an exageration?
depends on which story haha. I do get hurt quite a bit and normally end up in the hospital anywhere from 3-5 times a season but that depends on how bad the injury is....normally i only go to the hospital if i have an injury that requires a cast or some type of brace. But yea i do get hurt alot just as a short list of injuries i've broken my entire ribcage 3 times over, i've torn ligaments in my knee's a few times, broken wrist's, arms, etc, multiple concussions....just for shits and giggles.
Where's your favorite place to ride?
For sure mountain creek...last year they opened up all of south as an all mountain park and the jiblab has always kept it real. They just have some of the sickest snow ever i mean yea it's dirty jersey and i wouldn't eat snow there if it WAS white but god damn this is the perfect snow to hit a park up with....think bear mountain in socal and thats what we're talking about here....Mtn Creek is the Bear Mountain of the east coast.
favorite trick(s)?
well my current fav trick to pull is back 7 melons, i don't do them often cause you need the right lip that gives you enough pop to pull it cleanly. On rails my favorite trick is a frontboard pretzel out (270 wrong way)....it's actually my saftey trick, if i'm having trouble with any other trick i'll go back up and pull one of those to get myself amped up again to start hucking.
what are you working on for this season?
well last season i learned frontside 9's....so i'd like to clean those up a bit and maybe cork them out also. Frontside 10's are a definate possibility but i'm not gonna get too far ahead of myself on that. Probably take all my other tricks and just tweak them out as much as possible, hold grabs longer, tweak out grabs in midair maybe mix in some shifties or do some different grabs. I'd like to get backside 9's down and learn to grab tail and nose on some of my other spins just for style points. Probably clean up my rail tricks i'd like to smoothen up some of my spinny on's and off's...hit up some basic switch tricks instead of half cabbing or cab 270's into everything cause that's all i can do...and backside 270's on would be a plus but the one trick i really wanna get nice a clean is front 270's on 270 off but i wanna take it to the street...in the park its easy but street? thats a whole different level
what are you aspects for the future?
finish school for starters. Getting a good sponsorship with snowboarding would be nice too cause i love to travel and if i could get an am sponsorship with some company that would let me travel around would be awesome. Currently i am planning two international trips next year, first one is to israel in the summer and then to russia in the wintertime...2010 timeframe really. It'd be pretty neat to check that place out.
funnest day on the mountain?
thats tough....there've been lots of days that i just really enjoy. at my home mountain it's all about getting a line down in order to have fun....there isn't much of a park to speak of and if you can put together a real fun and technical line then you'll enjoy yourself. I would guess my funnest day out was last season....we filmed a fence bonk just pullin some switch airs, backside melons, 180's and 360 taps over this thing and i actually on my last hit got a decent concussion....basically slipped out on my heels right before the lip and hit the top of the fence on my ass, frontflipped and smacked my head on the ground....got up but it hurt like hell. So anyway after we got our last shots on that we drove over to the local hill and hit that up all night....my friend blake was back from school out in colorado and my other friend sander was home as well and they were both there ripping it up....and they kill it hardcore....and they also brought a 30 pack of beer up the hill with them. So we setup an upbox on this snow mound and were hitting that up and drinking just having a good time. Got some pretty nice shots on it and managed to get a little drunk in the process....blake was drunk out of his mind and managed to cab 270 onto this thing and 270 off, i was pullin front 270's onto it as well as half cab nosepresses up and some frontside 180's on with a 180 off type of deal and at one point frontside 180 bonked it. Sander wasn't doing too much he actually taught some other kid how to front 3 and nate was just pullin 360 taps over this thing all night long. It was fun until i started puking.
Hardest Slam?
ahahaha oh man....that too is difficult....but also a no brainer and it's actually a tie. The tie is because when I was in my second year I slipped out and hit my head on a patch of ice....so that KO'd me and i woke up like 5 minutes later in the same spot i went down on....just continued my day really. Second hardest was last season....at the home mountain, some of my buds were back from school and we were just charging the entire mountain and killing it left and right....one part of that was at the end of the trail there was a slight lip and a pole with a pad on it and another pad after that and were trying to backside double tap the pads off this sketchy, 2 inch lip. Well I already nailed it and i was just going again cause it was fun, hit the lip and was too far to the left and instead of just sticking out my tail to tap these things ended up clipping my nose and if i didn't tweak backside i would've just crashed right into the whole setup....clipped my nose, frontflipped kinda and slammed my head so hard on the snow it felt like ice. Was pretty dizzy but shook it off and just kept riding.....by far not my worst injuries but out of any slam i've taken those hurt the absolute most.
wow, it seems like you've got alot to talk about....what about the funniest thing you can remember at a slope
ahahah i know exactly what to say to that! okay. Last year me, blake, sander and a couple of older kids went up to mountain creek....mid week kinda dead so we had a good amount of the mountain to ourselves and we only rode at south. Well getting our lift tickets there is NO line at all....and we bought our tickets right at south instead of waiting in the 2 hour line at vernon. Well when we go to buy our tickets the girl rings us up as juniors instead of adults....as if we looked ANYTHING like a bunch of 17 year olds...here I was 19 years old with almost a full beard goin, blake is 20 with a full goatee cause he just forgets to shave and sander even had some gnarly facial hair goin and he's 20 also. Hilarious for us, not for creek.
I can't really think of anything more to ask about....where do you see yourself in 10 years?
still shreddin, hopefully in a house of some sort....hopefully sponsored in a way that it actually allows me to live in a somewhat decent manner....as long as im able to snowboard i'll be happy.
Any advice for the kiddies?
hah yea actually, don't get ahead of yourselves, live in the now and be patient when it comes to this shit....it ain't easy and it ain't gonna come overnight....if you wanna get good then practice your ass off when you can and you'll get good.
dude is anyone even gonna read this??
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