Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Matt's Interview


This post is momentous because it kicks off the interview season here at Bolts of Thunder! And who better to get in his first few words that Matt, my brother. He is probably like 60% of the muscle and brain behind Bolts of Thunder, I will not lie. We say that it was a joint venture, but he owns more of the stock, if you get what I'm saying. So me and Matt have pretty much witnessed life hand in hand, in a metaphorical not literal way, so we have a million stories that we can share with each other about people starting fights with us because we scare their horses, being kidnapped by strange towel-shorted men for throwing rocks off a cliff, and about every other thing you can imagine. So if some of the questions and/or answers seem a little vague, just know that there's a good story behind it, and it will hopefully make it to see the light of day on the blog. Let's hope so... So here is Matt's interview. Enjoy!



(MrBoltsofTunder) So what's going on in your life now? Why are you not living in Provo anymore?

(Matt) I live in Omaha, Nebraska right now. I'm gonna live here until December 2015 cause I'm in graduate school. I'm going to school for occupational therapy. It's a physical rehab job, kind of like physical therapy. People who have never heard of it think I'm becoming a therapist for people who need to find jobs or something. But that's not what it is. It's really similar to physical therapy. My teachers would hate me if they heard me saying that. Ther's this competition between OT and PT. I think PT is winning. Anyway, when December 2015 comes around you can start calling me Dr. Hart.


Tell us about Don Juan and Lila.

Those are my two cats. I got Lila first cause I saw her at the petsmart and thought she was really cute. She was on loan from the humane society, which means they'd have to put her down if someone didn't get her. So I took her home. I got Don Juan a couple months later. He's crazy. He's a mix between a serval (a wild cat from Africa) and a domesticated cat. He's called a Savannah cat, and they cost thousands of dollars. But I got him from the human society too. Someone just found him walking the streets. He likes to play in water and take showers with Hannah and play in the snow. And I take him on walks everyday. He has to wear a pink harness cause it was the only cat harness I could find. He can jump higher than my head and his teeth are bigger than normal cats teeth. Savannah's are the biggest domesticated cats in the world, but I don't know how big he'll get. And he likes to rip up stuff with his big teeth, mostly cardboard and toilet paper. Anyway, my cats bring me constant entertainment. Don Juan is getting ready to attack me while I'm writing this. He's sneaking up behind me.


Do you have any good bum fight stories from Omaha? The downtown area seems like it'd be a prime place for bum fights.

I wish, but I haven't been around too many bums here. I haven't spent enough time downtown. The only altercation I've seen was in the drive through of a Burger King. It was between two different cars. Hannah got caught in the middle and became the mediator. It all worked out and they got their Whoppers in the end.


So now that you're not in Provo, you can't manage Bolts of Thunder like you once did, leaving me in charge of this operation. What do you think of Bolts of Thunder's current direction? Does it feel the same as it did before, or is it kind of like Star Trek: The Next Generation. In many ways it's superior but will never be as recognized as the original.

The Next Generation wasn't superior to the original. Lets just get that straight. Not that I care much for Star Trek anyway. And although I'm far away, my presence is still known among the bolts of thunder underground. The kids in Provo might not know it, but believe me, if I don't want you in the video, you're not gonna be in it. So as far as the videos go, I have a lot of control. And that's all I care about. Control.

Speaking of Start Trek, what's your favorite one, old or new generation? I know that Jerry would tell you that the Wrath of Khan is the better picture, but for me, I always thought the Search for Spock was better.

Um, I think I like the Search for Spock. Actually, I liked Nemesis, but apparently I'm the only person who does. Actually, Jon likes it too. I don't know why more people didn't like it. It was the only Star Trek movie that had any type of good production value. Oh, and the Undiscovered Country was pretty good. Anyway, I'm not a trekkie or something, I've just seen all the movies.


Now we enter the therapy section of the interview. It's to analyse your mental fitness to be a member of Bolts of Thunder. When I say a word or phrase, I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to mind. You can keep your answers to one word, short phrases, or however long you want:


Ice cream

ice cream man

Ice cream man

The worst two days of my life. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then just go look up the story on the original blog.


I'll f---in kick you a--, f---in skater punk mother f---er!

Crazy hick in St. George

Daniel R Shaw

enigma

Towel shorts

"you got mush for brains?!" it's a long story

Never Nude in France

Oh man, I totally forgot about that story. That was disgusting. A gay guy with little tiny cutoff jean shorts putting his crotch in our faces.

Havasupi

best place ever. broken bones. a lifetime of good stories for when we want to sit around and make fun of a certain pathetic southern california boy

Murder

bolts of thunder history

Skyfall

daniel craigs tight pants


Now let's get to some Bolts of Thunder talk. What would you like to see in the next video?

I don't know. Just cool tricks from lots of people. People that I don't normally see. And I want it to be filmed decent. Not that my part will be. That's all the expectations I have I guess. That's kind of sad that I'm not achieving for a little more. I just want to see lots of people in it and I want them to get really good footage for it.


Whose parts/footage are you excited to see?

I'm excited to see everyone's stuff. I hear Zak is getting good stuff. And I hear that kid Kenzo is really good, so he better not let me down. Apparently Alex Washington wants to have a part. That would be cool. I hear that Nick got some footage. That's always a pleasure. It's been a long time since we've been graced with some aggressive Nick footy. I'm sure his stuff will be epic. Those are the parts that I'm most excited to see cause we haven't had those in the other videos.


What are some of your favorite tricks from the past 3 videos?

You mean tricks that I've done? I've only done about three tricks. And I only like two of them. I like my hippie jump over the guard rail into the grass hill and I love my butt board riding that I did down that little euro gap. That was awesome. Tricks that other people did, I loved Dave's ollie at the U, his front board at the police station, and Nick's roof drop. I like a lot of other tricks, but those were the first three that came to mind. Good times.


What are some of your favorite tricks that you like the way there were filmed? This can be for any video we've worked on, not just Bolts of Thunder.

I have no idea. That's tough. Nothing really sticks out. I liked how I filmed Jon do a taildrop into a bank in bolts of thunder gone wild. At the end of Jon's part in the first video I like how I filmed his boardslide attempt on the double kink rail, although it didn't end up going where I wanted it to. But if he had rode away it would have looked good. I kind of like how I filmed AJ do a fakie manual fakie 360 flip out at Lions Park. Not that it was filmed amazing or anything, but the angle worked good and that's a hard spot to film at cause you have the table in front of you so I had to stand up real tall and hold the camera high and try to film over the tables. I've never seen anyone else film like that there, so I like it. Usually everyone films from the same angles there, so I liked that I did something different.


Back to Star Trek, if Bolts of Thunder was in space on the USS Enterprise, who would play each character from the movie? Let's do first generation here. So who'd be Spock, the Chinese guy, the black lady, etc?

Obviously that kid Kenzo would be the asian guy. Dan would be Spock cause they are both very fascinating and smart. Well, smart is in the eye of the beholder, or something. Anyway, Jon can be captain kirk and I will be the black lady cause no one in our video is black, no one in Utah is black, but there are a lot of black people in Omaha. And I have a black guy living with me, so I'm like half black now or something. Nick can be the doctor cause Nick's really smart and he's in a Phd program. I don't know, Dave can be the Chekov for no obvious reason, and Brian can be Scottie cause he's an engineer and Scottie probably has some engineering skills.


What mission would we be on? Why are we in space?

Probably looking for skate spots. Stupid answer.


That's all I've got for now, so do you have any last words you'd like to say?

I just remembered that I'm going to a Fleetwood Mac concert in April. I'm pretty excited for that. I can't think of much else to say. Oh, I want to see AJ do a fakie front crook fakie 360 flip out, and I want him to do a fakie flip crooked grind fakie flip out. He's gonna say he can't do it, but I know he can, he just needs a push. So here's your push. That's it. See everyone at the video premiere.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Inspiring Dave


This picture is already at the bottom of the blog, and it's a permanent picture that will always be there. But I wanted to put it up again. I think of it as a source of inspiration whenever I'm in the middle of trying a trick that I don't want to do. I should do it anyway. Dave was not one to try and trick and give up. I can think of 4 tricks that I've ever seen him try and not land. One of them was the kinked rail that he almost killed himself on and had to stop when he couldn't breathe or move his legs anymore. One of them was a 5-0 on the hospital hubba, and he kept trying even after hitting his head a couple good times on it. He only stopped when the security guard threatened legal action on us. The third trick was a 360 flip over a gap, and he tried that until he couldn't walk anymore and the sun was completely down. The fourth is when he tried to ollie this gap, ended up losing his mind because this family sat down to eat yogurt in part of his runway, and he ended up smashing his board on a wall, and breaking it over his head. It was classic Dave. But other than that, I've seen Dave nearly kill himself on a number of other tricks and keep trying them regardless until he landed them. This gap up above gave him some of the worst heel bruises I've ever witnessed, and he kept trying it until he rode away. So there are a lot of times when I'm in the middle of a trick, and I'd just rather give up, but I remember that Dave wouldn't have it, and I try to keep going for it. And thus, this picture stands as a source of true Bolts of Thunder inspiration.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Tribute to Dave








Now that I can put up a lot of pictures again, I'm taking full advantage of it. This park (I'm not going to tell you what city it's in, I'm going to make you guess) is amazing, and it's covered and lit up at night, which worked perfectly for us because it rained the entire day. The only condition is skating it is you have to wear a helmet, and they supply them for you if you don't bring your own. And the only condition in wearing their helmets is knowing that dozens, maybe hundreds of other people have soaked its inner linings with their sweat, dandruff, dirt, head lice, or whatever else you can imagine on dirty skaters' heads. But don't worry, by the time I took off the helmet, I had once again soaked its inner linings with my own sweat, and it was happily mixing with future generations of Parisian skaters, which tasty combo was dripping down my face. After a couple hours of skating.

I'm not sure why I'm ranting about the sweat in the helmets. This skate session was one of the funnest I've had, and it was way fun skating with Dave. This wallride is in tribute to him.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Friendly muscles





This is the kind of hard work and dedication that Bolts of Thunder is demonstrating these days. This spot required 3 separate days of shoveling, sweeping, and pouring salt to make it skateable for an epic session a couple weeks back. Thanks Zak, Coleman, Kenso, and AJ for your muscles, they're making the word a more skateable place. But my muscles didn't do much. They just let the other muscles get strong.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Bzakside flip



The beauty of the bzakside flip. Yeah, that's right, little play on words. It's a good thing that Zak's name rhymes with back and that I'm so cleaver because then I can make all kinds of fun little play on words: the bzak tail, bzak smith, bzakside flip. Virtually anything that has the word "back" in it, which life half of all grind tricks do. It's a good thing, too, because I sure keep myself entertained with these play on words.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Forgotten stories



This spot is the ultimate tail drop challenge spot. I haven't had that much fun taildropping in years. It reminds me of our days back in St George. Nick Graff taught me the ins out outs of taildropping, and its finer beauties and subtleties. More than anything, he taught me never to disrespect or disregard a taildrop... One old memory just led to another which led to several more, and I'm now thinking about that time that me and Matt Pace went through this phase where we wanted to sleep in parks. Not with a tent or sleeping bag or anything, but bum style. I'm not sure why. I can tell you that there's nothing more rewarding in life than getting a full nights sleep in your own comfortable bed, and I think I knew that at the time, but for some reason for like six months we wanted to be bums and sleep anywhere we could find, as long as it was outside. Our first attempt was to sleep at Vernon Worthin park on Flood St in St. George in this giant pile of wood chips. We staked out the spot in the day, then ninjaed our way there at night. I burrowed out a nice little hole for myself in the chips, but then too many people were walking by and staring at us, so we felt a little uncomfortable. And I think Matt understood the importance of a good night's sleep a lot better than I did at the time, so he didn't want to be bothered with people staring at him while he slept in a pile of wood chips. Oh yeah, Joey, Injun Jo was in on it, too. He came on every one of our bum excursions through town. And this first one Bobby, James, and a couple other homies were there too. Bobby provided us all with a denim jacket that we thought would be plenty to keep us warm. So then we made our way from park to park, trying to find a good spot, until finally we just ended up at the skate park at like 2 in the morning. We figured it was St George in the summer, so we wouldn't need blankets to keep us warm. We were wrong in the assumption. I've never been more uncomfortable as I cuddled up with the big hubba that had retained some heat from the day. It sucked.

So our next trip, we thought we'd at least try and bring some blankets. I had scouted out this big football pad that me and Nick used to ollie onto off the roof of the shed of the football gear hide out place. They moved the giant pad onto the track and field, and it was really soft. Not to mention filthy from having hundreds of stweaty football bros running into it and having been left outside for the last 10 years. But as an avid bum sleeper, I looked past these minor details. So we crept into the track and field at night and slept on the giant pad with a couple blankets. I actually was sleeping really well and would have slept all night, but Matt woke me up at like 5 in the morning because all the lights had turned on in the field. I told him they did that every morning and not to worry (I didn't know, I was just really tired and wanted to keep sleeping), but he wouldn't have it. So we grabbed our blankets and started wandering around town in the early hours of the morning. We made our way past the field about an hour later, and it was swarming with potential cheerleaders strutting their stuff on the field. Turned out that it was tryouts for cheer squad or whatever, and had Matt not gotten us out of there, we would have woken up to a couple hundred cheerleaders wondering why we were sleeping on the field. Dodged a bullet on that one...

The last time I remember trying to sleep in town was just really pathetic. It ended it all. It was early October, and starting to get cold in St George. But we were hard core and would quit our mysterious ways. But not being able to find a good spot to sleep, we resorted to our cars. Mine was a 2 door Honda hatch back with no room to fully extend your legs anywhere in the car. Me and Joey took that one. I sat in the front seat, Joey in the passenger, and there we slept. I woke up a little while later freezing, stiff, and wondering why I wasn't at home. Then a few minutes later Matt, who had been sleeping in his car (he had an SUV with a little more room in back), came up to my car and said we had to get out of there because we were parked in an apartment complex with assigned parking, and we were in people's spots. It had never occurred to me that we might be stealing someone's spot that night, but apparently we had been. The people came up to Matt's car, looked in through the windows, and even knocked on them to try and get Matt to move his car. After playing dead until the people finally left, he woke us up, and we got out of there. As we drove out of there, cops pulled in to investigate the scene, but we had already left. Cops have nothing to do in St George, so they were happy to respond to this call. We finally gave it up after that stuck with beds. Or at least houses. Not sure why I thought of those stories, but they were good times.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Adrenalin boost



Today's post is what we call pure, unadulterated aggression, coming at you in the form of a roasted beef and indy 500. You can thank Ben for today's sudden burst of adrenalin in your system. Thanks, Ben.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Bolts of Thunder's California Chapter




Nothing makes me happier than finding unexpected gems in my inbox when I check my email. Nothing. Then today's email from long time Thunder Bolt Brandon Miller couldn't have made me any happier. Brandon and Dan together make up the California chapter of Bolts of Thunder, and they couldn't be representing any better than they always do. They've gone out on some filming missions with each other and have been filming for their part in the up and coming Bolts of Thunder video, and Brandon sent me some of the footage today. As their spot of choice, they went with one of the harsher terrains out there and skated this steep ditch, and they pulled off some impressive moves in it. I'm excited to get more from them, and even more excited to see their part in the next video. More to come...

Monday, March 11, 2013

Mystery Man (his name starts with AJ)



I purposefully blurred the individual skating in these photos to protect his identity. I don't want him, you, or anyone else to be hurt from backside noseblunts down rails, so I won't risk it by letting you know who it is. If you can even make a guess as to what I'm talking about, then you are truly inspired. But if not, then join the club. Anyway, AJ can do backside noseblunts, can you? I can't...

Friday, March 8, 2013

Nick's ninja kicks revisited


In response to two comments that Nick has made on the blog recently, Bolts of Thunder 4.0 does sound more technologically savy, and it's the GPA that Bolts of Thunder would get if it could somehow enlist itself at school. That would be an interesting concept for a sitcom, an inanimate organization getting a bachelors degree for the hay of it... I'm writing a letter to NBC tonight. And yeah, Nick, Kenso landed that noseslide. It was nuts. He didn't slide the entire rail, he popped down into the ramp, but the fact that he could get his legs to bend that much is worth celebrating.

Now I wanted to put up one of my old favorite pictures of Nick. It's the first one of him from the original blog, and it's a kickflip 50-50 in its purest, most innocent form. I don't know why I like this picture so much. Maybe because it's one of the times that I filmed while Matt took pictures, which only happened a few times because Matt usually filmed and I took pictures. But whatever the reason, I felt this picture should make its way to light once more so that all the newbies can know how it's done.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Land of the rising skateboard



Bolts of Thunder would like to proudly introduce one of its newest and youngest team members, Kenso! I don't even know what his last name is. What's your last name, Kenso? Kenso rides, on average, at least 5 times faster than me, and he adheres to a strict no bailing policy, which I give his ninja heritage and kamikaze mindset credit for this kind of skating. But more than the fact that Kenso's a stylish ripper, he's also a super cool kid and a good friend to have around. The almost 10 year age difference between me and him doesn't seem to pose any kind of generation gap (which might suggest I'm really immature for my age...), so it's always a good time hanging out with him. These pictures are out of focus and over exposed because we didn't even have time to set up the camera before he pulled off this chest-high noseslide down a rail that was never meant to be skated. And trust me, there will be plenty more to come from him. So let's all put our hands together for Bolts of Thunder's newest addition, Kenso!

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Proof that we're not lazy





I'd be lying if I didn't say that things got a little crazy last weekend. You've done it plenty of times, so I don't feel I have to explain myself, or justify a little craziness in the blood. I would like to thank Dallin Skinner who was on call and on point as we flung ourselves across this thing, trying to chip up our boards and scrape our knees. But just so you know, filming for our next video project is officially in full swing, and the crew's pulling out all the stops to entertain you with feebles suspended 7 feet in the air over alligator pits and what not. It was quite a successful weekend, and we anticipate plenty more to come. And why don't we all give a reverent cheer of welcome to Bolts of Thunder new comer Colton Bragg weighing in with a hefty kickflip and pop shuvit. That's me up top, doing what I do, and that's Zak on bottom, suspending himself over hungry alligators with a front feeble and the likes.

And as a side note, we clock in with three different days and over 20 combined hours of snow shoveling, salt pouring, and water sweeping so that we could skate this gap. I'm very proud of everyone that helped, and it turned out to be well worth it. Thanks!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Bolts of Thunder 4 kick off party






So last weekend we had a crepe party at my place, Bolts of Thunder style. It was our way of kicking off the filming season and the making of our next video. We gathered round, ate crepes, and watched the relics of the past, the first three Bolts of Thunder videos. Then we got excited to go out and work on the next one, which by judging this weekend's filmed trick count, the party worked. In total there was 15 of us: Zak, Nick, Kenso, Coleman, Steve, AJ, Haylie, Chad, Derrick, Ben, Will, Gary, my mom, Rachel, and Me. And Charly the pug, can't forget her. It was super fun, so thanks everyone that came and provided good stuff for the crepes. Now let's go make another video.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Welcome to the new blog!


Welcome to the new blog! If you're familiar with the old one, this one will be a sinch to navigate. If you're not familiar with the old one, this one will still be a sinch to navigate. While for all intents and purposes, this is still the Bolts of Thunder blog (not competing with our last one, just picking up where it left off, which was somewhere in left field as I recall...), this blog is specifically meant to chronicle the epic filming and making of our next venture, Bolts of Thunder 4. Also, just to let you know, Bolts of Thunder 4 is not the official title of the video. That is undecided, but it will be the 4th video of the trilogy. That's right, a trilogy with 4 members. Try to wrap your mind around that one.

So in this, our first post, let me introduce myself. I'm Jon, and I'll be the voice in your head as you read this blog. I'm 28, I have green eyes, I like to skateboard, and I have never successfully juggled anything in my life. Actually, I will say that I love to skateboard. That's right. Love. I've been skating almost every day since I was 12 years old, and I love it now more than ever. I can't think of anything else to say, so I'm going to stop now. But here's some cool news, I got a photo in SLUG! Weston Colton took the picture and did a little write up on it, and you can see it here:

http://www.slugmag.com/articles/4251/Photo-Feature-Jon-Hart.html

But while we're here, I put the picture up at the top of this post, and here's what Weston had to say:

In rural Utah, where I grew up, winter meant a nearly three month skating hiatus. There were no parking garages or indoor ramps to skate. We would just hope the church parking lot dried up enough to pull out our flat bars and boxes, and we’d skate the snow gaps. Recently, winters seem to have gotten mellower. I don’t recall a winter this cold and snowy in at least a decade. Shoveling a spot to skate in sub-freezing weather shows dedication, and Bolts of Thunder founder Jon Hart is one of the most dedicated people I know.