Lots of blood

Today's post features a common theme in Bolts of Thunder: Blood. It's all over the place in these pictures. So today I'm taking you back in time about 2 and a half years ago. It was November, and quite cold out, and for some reason I wanted to ollie over the rail to the parking lot. Me and Matt went there the day before with a little tub of cement and water and did what I consider to be a grade A cement job on the runway. The runway had huge holes in it, rendering the spot difficult to skate. Matt and I had never mixed cement before, at least not at a skate spot like this, so we followed the directions and used a little wooden stick to mix things around. It worked out pretty good. So we told Weston, and the next day we met up at the spot to shoot a photo of the ollie. Sam Milianta was on scene, as he usually is, providing moral support for everyone around and undoubtedly slappy grinding any obstacles in sight. Sam's a good one to have in your corner because he reminds you that skating's about having fun. Weston's a good one to have in your corner as well because he's a ripper on his board, he takes amazing pictures, and he's super cool. I just realized this is Weston's first picture.... Everyone, put your hands together for Weston Colton!!!!! I've known Weston since I was 15. The first time I saw him, he was skating by himself and crooked grinded up a ledge. My grind tricks consisted of 50-50s and 5-0s and were limited to curbs and small ledges, so I thought this was amazing. He was part of the Monroe crew, a bunch of skaters from Monroe that moved to St. George to go to college. They drove around in a black van with a huge skull painted on it. They always had boxes and rails in the van with them, so it was like a portable skatepark everywhere they went. Pretty sweet. Them being all old and stuff (18-19), and me being all young and stuff (15), I was kind of scared of them. But we ended up skating together some times, and I even filmed Weston 50-50 an 8 stair rail, then do a hardflip into the street. He didn't even know I was filming. I somehow managed to stealthily film with those huge VHS video cameras. So Weston's rad, and he's even got some tricks in our up and coming video! Sure to be good... Ok, so here we are at this spot, the 4 of us, and some kid from Salt Lake, I don't know his name. Oh yeah, Matt. Matt's a great one to have in your corner when you're skating. He is like Mickey from Rockey. He just has a way of motivating you and putting things into perspective for you when you're skating. He'll say inspiring things like, "Hey Jon, my foot hurts from filming, stick it right here!" or "Just go for it!" or "Hey dude, just go for it!" or "Quit bailing!" or "dude, you got this, just stick it!" Coming from someone else, it wouldn't mean much. Coming from Matt somehow, it pushes anyone to stick their trick. Like Matt got Sam to grind this curb thing in our last video. Sam said he really didn't want to do it, but Matt somehow convinced him it was a good idea. So he'll push you far beyond the bounds of rationality when you're skating. That was poetry, I know. And deep. Yeah, it's that deep. So here we all were at this spot, and I kept trying to ollie over this rail. I jumped down the thing probably around 50 times, stuck it quite a few times, but never rolled away. What I didn't realize before was that the landing had huge, jagged holes in the asphalt, and I kept landing in it. Each time I fell was like falling on a cheese grader, and my hands got shredded to bits. I got blood all over the place. My legs killed too. And afterward, on the drive home, my heart went into crazy spasms, it kept fluttering, for like a minute straight. But it stopped, and that's that... So I never rode away, but I'm still glad that I tried it so many times, and I like the pictures. All in all, it made for good memories and fun times with my friends and brother. I need to thank Weston for sitting on awkward positions on the ground to film, Sam for keeping the moral high and keeping up on the latest news from every skater on the globe, and Matt for all the hours spent in painful positions filming people.... So the aftermath of this was that I had these scabs on my hands that kept getting ripped off for several months afterward, and I kept getting blood all over the place. I had to wrap my hand in a shirt when I skated and played racquetball to not get blood everywhere. And I stubbed my left big toe super bad and my nail fell of twice from it-in November and in February a couple months later. The cuts were deep to my hand, but not to my soul... I've since picked up my skateboard and cut my hands, but the moral stays high.... (the ending of my "intervention" episode of me cutting up my hands)

Jon Hart has a new path in life. He has remained stubbed toe free since March 15, 2011, and has higher aspirations than he once did (guitar music and sunsets).

top 2 photos by Weston Colton  The others by Me and Matt