Zak Smith Interview!!!

Today I have the honor of presenting you with Zak Smith's interview! Zak is a ripper, no question about it. He can do pretty much every trick I can think of, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't have to learn new tricks, he just does them. Zak's also a super fun kid to hang out with when you're not skating. He also has an obsessive love for Betos Burritoes, as the pictures above and interview itself will attest to. It's funny, because when I first met Zak a couple years ago, he was telling me that he was too old to push himself on his board and he was kind of in his retirement years of skating. I had seen Zak a couple times skating, and he was amazing good, and there was this video of him on youtube that I can't find anymore where he just kills all these spots here in Provo. So when he told me he was winding down, I refused to believe him and encouraged him to keep skating. Now a couple years later, he's definitely doing some of the coolest stuff I've ever seen him do, and he's got big plans for more. His part will definitely be one of the stand out parts of Bolts of Thunder 4, and I'm excited to see what he's got in store. So with no further delay, here is the Zak Smith interview:

(MrBoltsofThunder) Seeing as this is your first interview on the blog, I feel a proper introduction is in order. Would you mind giving our readers your personal information. Name, birth date, social security number, drivers license number. You know, the usual.

(Zak) My name is Zachary Austin Smith I'm twenty two years old and I have glasses. I enjoy tap water from my faucet at home and puppies. 

What does an average day in the life of Zak Smith consist of?

Wake up early, go to work, get off around one, try really hard not to take a nap, ponder going to Beto's for a burrito, either give in and take a nap or go skateboarding with the bolts of thunder crew, try and find time to play a couple games of starcraft, then go to sleep and wake up the following morning to repeat the process all over again. 

How did you get addicted to Bolts of Thunder? What has been this addiction's effect on your life?

My friend Tyler Braithwaite introduced me to you one day when we were out skating. I started skating with all the thunder bolts regularly after that. I would say the major difference in my life post bolts of thunder inception is that I have more fun skating now. Also I have developed a serious liking for parking lots.

I have some questions about Betos, the Mexican food place. Having been wounded and received two purple hearts for eating there, I can attest to the destructive power those burritos have on human digestive tracks. What inspires you to keep eating there?

First off I would like to say that your digestive tract is weak and girlish and is thus incapable of handling such high quality Mexican food. Secondly to answer your question, The food is amazing and the large quantities that they serve their meals in is a bargain and deal that the rest of the food industry should take note of. 

How often, on a monthly basis, do you shoot yellow diarrhea out of your body after eating at Betos?

I'm a big fan of the breakfast cereal raisin bran so I think my fiber levels are abnormally high. Throwing betos under the bus here for my unusually liquidized fecal matter is pointless in this case. Blame raisin bran. 

Per every ounce of food, how many ounces of water does a Betos burrito discharge? Is this water salvageable, or must it be discarded in a bio-hazard waste bin?

Actually, a great plus side to Beto's is that about an hour after eating anything there your bowels will purge with tremendous fury. Assuming your fiber levels are sky high (as mine are) you can count on there being absolutely nothing left in your insides. If you're not careful it's actually possible to float away seeing as the majority of your body mass has gone down the toilet. No bio-hazard bag will be needed though.

That was a trick question, because we all know that Betos burrito juice has been ruled by the FDA as not fit for human consumption. I was just testing your knowledge of that. This is not a question as much as it is a statement.

I do not care for the FDA. There insidy parts are weak like yours. They're only jealous because they will never be able to enjoy the awesome flavor and quality of betos. Because of this they will stop at nothing to ruin Betos good name. 

Now we enter the psycho analyses section of the interview to see if you are truly fit for active Thunder Bolt duty. When I say a word of phrase, I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind:

Betos Burrito

Carne Asada.

A full 24 hours spent on the toilet

Bring a book.

Yellow Diarrhea

Orange juice.

Food not fit for human consumption

Meat loaf.

Zak's special place

Blankets.

Coleman

Milk.

Game of skate versus PJ Ladd

Suicide.

Game of skate versus Mike Vallely

No - Complys.

Ok, now we move on. Actually, I want to get to know you a little bit better. When did you start skating, and what got you into it?

I started skating in the fifth grade because I was a dork and wanted to be cool. There was this kid in class that always showed up to school with a skateboard and he was really cool. I awkwardly asked him to teach me how to skate one day and he took me under his wing. I would stay after school and we would use his board to ride off the loading dock by the lunchroom over and over again. My mom would get mad at me for staying so late after school. But it taught me to love skateboarding. 

This is going to sound like a stupid question, but I'm serious. Do you have to try to learn new tricks, or can you just do a new trick when you think of it? Because every time we skate I see you do a trick that I've never seen you do or even try before, and you'll do it perfectly and in a few tries. 

Well you see Jon, when a human beings diet consists of Beto's burritos and raisin bran your skateboarding capabilities increase ten fold. I cant even ride a skateboard, What you're actually seeing when I skate is a Beto's induced state of hyper awareness. Technically no I don't have to learn tricks but its because the Beto's does the skateboarding for me. On the days were I'm obviously struggling to skate its because I'm in withdrawal. Yup. 

Besides skateboarding, what do you enjoy doing? What makes you a happy man?

I play a lot of starcraft in my free time, alien warfare intrigues me. I also love sleeping more than I should I think. I think my record for most consecutive hours of sleep is 16. That's just ridiculous! I just did a quick google search and people who sleep nine or more hours a night have significantly higher death rates than people who only sleep seven or eight hours of sleep! I'm gonna die by the time I'm thirty! I like breakfast cereals and a good old fashioned thunderstorm. My eyes are really sensitive to light so I also enjoy overcast weather with clouds erywhere. Old timey music is good too. I'm also a connoisseur of H20 and all H20 containment mechanisms. 

Let's talk Bolts of Thunder talk. If Bolts of Thunder was a video game, what kind of video game would it be? What kind of characters would each member of Bolts of Thunder be? Who would be the end boss, and how would we defeat him? 

Bolts of Thunder would be an RPG for sure. We would be a party of warriors bent on leveling up our overall skill and completing our ultimate goal of finding eternal youth and skateboarding forever. As for the characters.. the Hart brothers would be wise wizards that would instruct and aid the other players with their wisdom and experience. Steve would be the party's break dancer and would distract our foes while we engaged them in glorious combat. Ben would be the tank unit that would be able to absorb all the enemies attacks while the lesser party members would use some kind of ranged attacks from behind like sissies. Little Nick and all his comrades would be little sappers ( like in Warcraft II) and would kamikaze into the enemy's and destroy them comfortably ( you would re-spawn Nick, so it would be okay). Coleman's boundless positivity would raise the party's attack strength by a million. Kenzo would be the ninja assassin of the party and would use stealth and deception to make our enemy's befriend him and then stab them in the back when they least suspected it. AJ would confuse our enemy's with his strange last name and would make them make stupid decisions in there confusion. I would try to take a nap or something during the engagements and would be the party's source of regeneration. I don't know Nick, Dan, or Dave very well but I hear tons of crazy stories about them. So I"m going to say that they would be the legendary units of the party and the mere mention of there name would strike fear into the hearts of our enemies and lower there attack ten fold.  

What are some of your favorite moments in Bolts of Thunder history? What are some of your favorite tricks in the past couple of videos?

Hands down the grass rides in all the bolts of thunder videos are unparallelled. I want some serious grass rides to go down for the new video. We should have a day were we go out with the sole purpose of filming tons of grass ride footage. I know Matt's got some serious hammers and experience in that department so he's gonna have to send you some footage or something. Also the synchronized fire cracker butt ride from the hart brothers that was filmed in Europe somewhere was timeless and will surely be a legendary moment that will echo through Bolts of Thunder history.  

What are you excited to see in the next video? And what would you like to see more of?

I just listened to that song you wanted for Coleman's part and I'm really pumped for Coleman. I really want him to get a ton of footage. I want Kenzo to get back to 100% so he can film a ton of stuff cause i know hes got tricks for days. I guess I just want everyone to have tons of footage for the video. Overall I want everyone to get a good mix of serious tricks and weird tricks. I enjoy that in a video part.   

Do you have any big tricks you've wanted to do for a long time and are thinking of getting for the video? If you don't want to ruin your ender, then you don't have to say what it is, you can just answers "yes". 

Yes

I think I'm out of questions, so I will now give you free reign to say whatever suits you best in whatever manner you please. Thank you for your time.

Everyone should go skateboarding after reading this. Except me, as I'm writing this out I'm deathly ill and am incapable of riding a skateboard, I'm gonna play starcraft instead. Thanks Jon for taking the time to interview me, I always get a big kick out of reading these. I look forward to more interviews from more people in the future. Thanks to all the Thunder Bolts out there in the big wide world. And special thanks go out to my skateboard for hangin out with me all the time and being a good friend.