Bolts of Thunder is an underground movement of skaters, posers, and wannabees that have come together to make skate videos, wreak havoc on the man and the war machine, and contribute nothing to the general populous of the world. But we have fun doing it.
Now it's time to introduce the future of Bolts of Thunder. Actually, I say that half-heartedly, I don't know that Bolts of Thunder has much of a future. But if we have a fighting chance, it's with the younger generation. So I really don't have much time today to write a lot, but what I'm going to do is I'll spend a couple days on this section because there are so many people in it. I'll just talk about the first couple people in it for now. Tyler Braithewaite is the one that started it all. He started stalking me on the blog, sending me harassing comments and pictures of himself... Ok, he never sent pictures of himself, but given time, ample resources, and a motivation, he's fully capable of it. He's the reason we met Wizard, Zak, Parker, Finn, and Matt Davis, who make up the bulk of this section. Thanks Tyler! He's 17, his pants don't quite reach his shoes, and when they do, he rolls them up, he is mellow, and I enjoy skating with him. He's a nice kid, and you can actually talk to him. When he's not on twitter. He has a wide range of tricks, as I'm sure you can tell from his part. He told me he mostly likes skating tranny, but then I saw him doing switch bigspin heelflips. He filmed quite a bit of tricks with us, but we put in about half of them in the part. The other tricks didn't seem to fit, so we didn't use them. But they're all in the bonus section of the dvd for those of you who have a copy... For those of you who don't, I have the copies made if you want one.
That drop in he does at the end of his section is straight up nuts. I've seen that thing for years and always thought it would be really cool if someone did it. Nick even threatened to do it a while back, but they were hollow threats... So then Tyler told me he wanted to do it, so we pushed the issue and forced him to do it, even when he didn't want to. He took a couple good slams on it, then he rolled away to the parking lot, hit a huge crack, and fell off his board. I thought it counted, but he wanted to do it again. So he did it twice. Here's the sequence for you all to see...
Next in line is Brian Barlow. He's actually my brother-in-law, and he hadn't stepped foot on a skateboard in years before we filmed his launch tricks. I actually skated with him and his dad this last weekend, and his dad did an acid drop off a table! No joke. He, too, hasn't stepped foot on a board since before they were shaped like giant goldfish crackers, so I was amazed to see him hop right up on that thing and hop right off, riding away into the sunset... He never came home that night either... Anyway, Brian Barlow has been a staunch defender of Bolts of Thunder since the day he heard of it, and we're honored to have him on board.
Brandon Miller is a long time homie of mine. He's Dan's cousin which automatically means he's awesome. He was one of the first followers of the blog, I believe the second (Dave McDonald was the first. I researched it), and he's been contributing to Bolts of Thunder ever since. I was way excited to get footage of him for the video, even if it's a couple tricks. He's in law school, so he's super busy, but he's keeping it real. Brandon is actually living the Bolts of Thunder dream: refusing to grow up. Bolts of Thunder has a Neverland ranch where you can go and never grow up again. Brandon spent two years there a while back (he told his family he was on a mission to Portugal), and he has refused to grow up since. Brandon is rad, and I'm happy to have him in the video, on the blog, and as a friend.
Before I get started on today's post, let's give a warm welcome to Bolts of Thunder's newest follower, Skoolerpooler! Welcome to the blog, find solace in its contents... Ok, being brothers with Matt and Brian Hart, I might have a somewhat biased opinion of them and their part. But I will venture out on a limb and say that this is the most innovative, revolutionary, skately technical part that has and ever will exist, period. Am I too bold in saying this? Am I being extremely biased in putting this in print on the blog? Am I being completely irrational? Am I offending our readers? Yes. Yes, I am. But that's ok. that's what we do. Ok, so maybe this part isn't the most revolutionary, innovative and all that part that ever existed. Nonetheless, it is a fun part to watch, and it puts a smile on my face every time I see it. More people have told me that they liked this part and the song more than any other part; this part has gotten the most compliments so far. That's quite an accomplishment in my book, and I'm proud of Matt and Brian for putting all they had into it.
First off, what were expecting from a part with Matt and Brian Hart? Those of you who know them should have been expecting something along the lines of flashing dance photos, risque one-piece thongs on grown men, grass rides on epicly long and steep hills, creepy glaring shots, and slappy grinds on curbs. This part brings you all that and more. Those of you who don't know them were unexpectedly surprised by their part and either laughed or swore in your wrath that you would never watch it again. Those are the two generally accepted responses for this part.
So the song idea for this part came rather late in the editing process, about 3 weeks before the premier of the video. We were going to use a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song for the part, and had already edited it, but Matt didn't like the feel of it. It wasn't his standard MO, and he had bigger plans. So he said he wanted to use the Tupac song, which we had thought might work for Tyson and Garrett's part, and edited Matt and Brian's part to it. The second edit was noticeably much more entertaining than the first one, so we stuck with it. Which I'm grateful for because we didn't have much time to edit. So we found a new song for Tyson and Garrett, a song that I think fits better, and things all worked out. So the Tupac song originally has some expected swearing in it, but being the strong supporter of family values that we are, and being 100% consistent in these beliefs, never shifting, changing, compromising, or faltering, we edited the swear words out. We found an instrumental version of the song and put that in every time Tupac felt the urge to let one go. So for a couple days, I intently listened to Tupac swear vengeance on other men and tell us how utterly bad-A he is as I edited out his rampart swearing. It's a really fun song to listen to and to get in my head, so I didn't mind after I edited the part having Tupac in my head the rest of the day. That's how it works editing, whatever song you edit to plays back in your head over and over and over again. I'd say that the songs that were really fun to have stuck in my head were the intro, ELO, Tupac, and Dave's song. The ones that annoyingly played back in my head and tormented me as I tried to sleep at night were the Doors song and PB&J (Weston and Sam's song). Not that I don't like the songs, but for some reason my mind would turn them into these annoying versions with these hideous British adolescent voices singing the songs over and over. It would get so bad that I would sing them when I was sleeping, and I wouldn't get a good rest. I don't know why some songs became that way while other songs were just enjoyable to sing over and over. I like all the songs in the video, but some were just more enjoyable to edit to. Can't explain it.. Anyway, apparently until the day he died, Tupac was still ballin. Interesting...
So Matt and Brian are lifer skaters. They're the ones that got me into skating when I was younger. Brian didn't skate for a long time, he wasn't the hardcore skate nerd. But every now and then we'd all be out somewhere, and Brian would skate a ramp with us. So filming Brian for this video was one of the highlights of the video for me because he's never filmed for anything before. The 50-50 on the curb at the end of his part is his first ever 50-50 on a curb. So it was way fun filming him because he was learning new tricks at the age of 30. Another fun thing about filming Brian was that he really doesn't care about it like a little skate rat would care about it. He doesn't care about how its filmed, how he looks when he does it, what clothes he's wearing, if he pushes mongo, if someone else can already do the trick, whatever. He doesn't care or even consider any of that. He just wanted to have fun, so we went out and had fun. And it was really fun filming him that way. It reminded me of being 6 years old and trying to build an airplane out of a radio flyer wagon, ply wood, and skateboards. We got Matt Steelwagon, our friend that we loved to hate, to take out a spark plug from his dad's lawn mower and try to make an engine for the wagon to fly. We just put the spark plug on the wagon and hoped it would work its magic. Because that's how airplanes fly: magic. When it came time to test out our plane, we sat up on the top of this steep road with our Kamikaze skateboard supporting one piece of plywood-wing and another skateboard supporting the plywood-wing on the other side. All of us knew in our hearts that the thing wouldn't fly and to attempt it would be death, so we told Matt Steelwagon that he had to try it. Reluctantly, Matt sat in the wagon at the top of the street as we gave him a little push. The wagon actually did get air born, but not in the fashion we had anticipated. Approaching speeds that would create a sonic boom, Matt turned the handle to sharply on the wagon, turning the wheels 90 degrees, causing the wagon to pop straight up in the air, hurdling Matt's body, the wagon, and the ply wood in different directions. The skateboards, fortunately, made it safely down the hill unharmed. As Matt lie on the street, bloodied, broken, and balling, we ran home. It was all we could do... Yeah, filming Matt and Brian bomb down hills is pretty much the closest to building our first airplane as we've come since. Good times with my brothers...
I'm super happy with the tricks Matt got for his part. I'd say they are the most creative tricks in the video. Who would have thought of filming their part on an old school board and hippy jumping barriers to grasshill-bombs? Nobody else has anything even like it. I only got the idea to do the grassriding in my part after Matt was showing me how to bomb hills. Wizard does that one grass ride at the end of his part, but it was because Matt told him about it. Nobody else thought of doing it. So pretty much all of the grass riding in the video comes from Matt's creativity. A crazy thing about that hippy jump to grass ride that Matt did over that barrier is that 6 months ago Matt was learning how to hippy jump over my flat bar. He had never done it before, so he thought he'd try to learn. He did it a few times, but he didn't do it every time we went out skating. He said he wanted some kind of hippy jump grass ride, but we didn't know on what. We almost found some good ones in Europe, but nothing panned out. So Matt went on a trip to Washington with his wife, and he called me while he was there. He told me he found a really good hippy jump grass ride, and that he was going to try it. He called me that morning, then called me in the evening to tell me he did it. I asked him what it was like and he said, "it's a freeway barrier with a big grass hill after it." I couldn't believe it; he went from doing a couple hippy jumps over my flat bar to jumping over a freeway barrier! It was pretty nuts.
Once again, I probably have a biased opinion, but I find Matt and Brian's part the most entertaining of the video. It hits that special spot that most skate videos just can't hit. It's fun, funny, and has good skating in it. I think their part does a good job of summarizing what we were aiming for in making a video in the first place: skating that makes you laugh and gets you excited to go out and skate with your homies. You might not agree, but I think their part does the best job of illustrating that.
This is the post you've all been waiting for. Today, you get the inside scoop on David Law's part. Where do I start?... First off, I've known David for about 8 years now. I don't remember the first time I met him, but I seem to always known who he was and that he was a ripper among rippers. I met him when I moved up to Provo for the first time 8 years ago, and I was amazed at how well he skated switch. Things haven't changed since then except David's only gotten better. I said it in the SLUG interview, and I'll say it again: he can do more tricks switch than most people can do regular. He doesn't even look like he's skating switch. David Law is a regular man trapped in a goofy man's body. Or maybe he's just been playing a trick on us for all these years; he's really regular but just says he's switch. That would actually make a lot of sense and clear up some confusion.
So while we were filming for our last video, we'd film and skate with David, but we didn't get enough to really make a part. We put his footage in the bonus friends section of the video which is on youtube. Some of those tricks are in his part, like the crooked grind on that stucco ledge, and the ollie impossible and bigspin over the flat gap. I think that's it... Everything else was filmed in the past 6 months which goes to show you how amazing he can skate. The first trick he filmed for the new video was that line he does at the Eagle Mountain skatepark with a 360 over the pyramid at the end. That was the first and, to my knowledge, only frontside 360 he's ever done on a pyramid. At least that's what he told me... Actually, he did quite a few tricks in this part that he's never done before in a video, like the switch 5-0 backside 180 out, halfcab heelflip (he can do them, he just never has in a line), and switch 50-50 a handrail against a wall. I'm glad that he went all out for this part and got some really solid, new tricks.
I think David's skating goes really well with the song: smooth and faster paced. We tried to edit it that way as well, and I think it worked pretty well. The song was Matt's idea. I was at his house, and he said, "I know what song to use for David Law. That one from Pulp Fiction and that old Tom Penny TSA add." I knew what he was talking about, and there was no debating or arguing that; it was a shoe in. So we filmed with David a couple times; we filmed his first line grind on that power box and line at the skatepark, then we started editing his part. When we were filming him, we'd have the song playing in our mind and think of where he needed tricks, and tried to film accordingly. Overall, I think it worked out pretty well, and we were able to fill the song with solid skating.
Seeing David wreck is kind of weird. Not that he never falls, but I guess I think of him as this wizard on his skateboard. He lands tricks way more consistently than me, so I guess I expect him to land everything. But he took a couple good wrecks while filming. I think the worst wreck was on the Day's Market rail. He was trying to switch 50-50 pop-into the bank, slipped off the bar and landed right on his stomach on the bar. He landed on the little knob thing that holds the rail in place and tore his shirt. Fortunately, I'd say that was the worst wreck he had, and everything else was just bruises and scrapes.
I'll end by saying that this is one of my favorite parts of the video. I know we're supposed to love all parts equally, but this one holds a special place in my heart... To be honest with you, it's an honor to have David Law on the team and have a full part of him in the video. He's a super nice guy, he's fun to skate with, he's fun to hang out with, and he's a good ambassador for Bolts of Thunder. I think the song and his smooth skating make for a really good combo that's fun to watch, and the tricks he does are pretty crazy. Watch his part again and pay attention to how much of it is switch, how good he looks skating switch, and how easy he makes it look. Pretty mind blowing.
This is another quick post. I know I usually don't post on Saturdays, so getting two posts today is like some kind of megabonus for all of us. If you haven't read the blog yet today, make sure to read up on the inside scoop of Garrett and Tyson's part. So at the skatepark yesterday I ran into Coleman, a local skater. I took a picture of him heelflipping a gap a couple weeks ago, and I have yet to put the picture up. He asked me why I hadn't put it up yet, and I didn't realize he was watching and waiting for me to put it up. So I told him I'd put it up on the condition that he became an official follower of the blog. Coleman, I'm keeping my end of the deal, and here's your picture. Thanks for keeping tabs on me and making sure I get your picture up. For all you readers out there, this was a pretty mean heelflip, one to be proud of, and now you can all enjoy it:
I'd like to thank Brandon Miller, Bolts of Thunder's PI, for investigating NoPetrol and giving us all the lowdown on him. Brandon is skilled at clicking on people's pages and reading their info to find out more about them. Anyway, we all know now that NoPetrol is not a force to be reckoned with. He's not a force at all. Thanks Brandon. So today's post is about Garrett and Tyson's part. I've known both Garrett and Tyson for a long time. My first memory of Tyson goes back to a contest in a street with a bunch of boxes and flat bars in Hurricane, Utah, and Tyson was nosesliding the back of someone's truck. He was wearing glasses like the Muska, so I thought he was a gangstar Muska follower. I don't know if you can really pinpoint Tyson's style because he can fit into all. Anyway, I got to know him after that, and we've been homies ever since. I've known Garrett for about 9 years, and we've been tight since day 1. I made the Lip Trix video with Garrett and Tyson at their house, so we're all experienced in video making with each other. Therefore, it was an honor for me to warmly welcome them both into Bolts of Thunder and share another video with them.
To be honest, I haven't skated with Tyson in years. I wasn't around for any of his filming. Garrett filmed it all and sent it to me. Garrett was going to have a part after filming with him in Europe, so then Tyson sent me an email asking if he could have some guest tricks in the video. Forget that, we'll give you a part! So I talked to Garrett, and he said he'd send me all of Tyson's footage for the part. For Garrett, there's a lot of footage in his part that he filmed with other people in Vegas or wherever. But a good chunk of his footage, maybe even half, me or Matt filmed. Garrett is extremely good at roadtripping and visiting, so he comes up and skates here every couple months or so, and we film every time he comes. So his footage is from about 3 years of roadtripping and filming with him.
So Garrett came over to Europe with us which was a HUGE bonus to our trip. Garrett and Shereen (his wife) are among the coolest people I know, so it was rad having them with us. Garrett showed up on a Friday and immediately proceeded to attack the Paris tranny wherever we went. He got some solid footage in just a few sittings, and we knew a great part was on the way. He said he was down to have a part in the video, and he filmed for it while we were there in Europe.
It was Matt's idea for their song, which I think is a perfect fit to their part. It was getting down to the wire with editing the video, we had maybe 3 weeks left before the premier, and Matt told me he had an idea for their song. After hearing 2 seconds of it, it seemed like a really good fit, and we went to work on it. We edited the part in two or three days, and that was the end of it... Actually this time in the video process was the going insane part. School was bearing down on me, I had a wedding to plan for, and the premier was rearing its beautiful little head around the corner. We had so much to do, and I was tired already from the last couple months of working on the video 50 hours a week. By the time it came to edit their part, I think Matt and I were both on I don't care mode, and we had to try hard to not just quit on the whole thing. Considering all this, I think we did a pretty good job on focusing on their part and editing it properly. When I watch it now, it's a really fun part to watch that gets me pumped up to skate. Another thing, their song would get stuck in my head, but I always enjoyed it. There were other songs that would get stuck in my head, playing on repeat over and over, growing in annoyingness and amplitude with each round while I try to sleep. But there song would get in my head, and I was happy to sing it all day long. The violins, good singing, and fun tunes of ELO were always welcome in my head, and I enjoyed working on their part.
Tyson and Garrett are both coming up on 29 years old. They're rippers, they kill it, and they're only getting better. They've been Bolts of Thunder since before Bolts of Thunder even existed, and it was only natural to have them. They're great friends, cool people, and I wish we could skate with them more. Look out for Garrett's new video, "Oh la la," coming out soon. It's going to have super-amazing skating, good editing, and it'll blow your mind. Thanks for the footage guys, your part's rad, and it was way fun working on it! Oh yeah, and that's Shereen, Garrett's wife, bombing those stairs at the beginning. Shereen's rad, and I'm really glad she could get a cameo in the video.
This is just a quick post. I put up a really long one about Dan's part a while ago, so don't forget to read that. I just noticed that someone left a comment on Dan's part on youtube that said, "Gay." Well, mr/mrs NoPetrol, if you didn't realize it, Dan's part is supposed to make you question certain values and morals that you have. If you're able to make it out with a stronger resolve to live a morally straight life, you are the better man. But if you leave the part thinking things like "gay" or "homosexual," this is most likely an inner-reflection of how you feel about yourself. I'm sorry, but you did not fare so well in watching his part... For the rest of you, I'm sure that you realize this is all in good fun and there's nothing gay about it. Just good old fashioned fun.
Oh yeah, I'm burning copies of the DVD as we speak, so all of you that ordered one should be getting one very soon! It has like an hour of bonus stuff, so enjoy.
The only fitting way to start out our skate video, after such a bloody intro, is to the sexy skating of Dan Shaw. To start off with, Dan's part was mostly Matt's idea. Haunted by visions of skinless Dan and 80s modeling music, Matt had no problem directing this part and getting it just how it should be. When I came home from Geneva, Matt told me he knew what song Dan would have for his part. Dan hadn't even filmed a single trick for the video yet, but Matt already knew what his part would look like. He told me that it was a song that people always use for modeling (like Christian Bale used it back in the early 90s or something. That's what he told me). Matt played it for me, and I immediately knew it was destined to be Dan's song. Matt had such confidence in Dan pulling through in every way: getting good tricks, striking a pose whenever possible, skating with his shirt off in February, all of it. And that confidence paid off. We secretly planned Dan's part against his own knowing it and filmed him whenever possible striking his poses and seducing us all. Dan came through perfectly for his part, and the footage we got of him was exactly what we had planned.
So filming for Dan's part was a little tricky. First thing you should know about Dan is he's not this skate rat that lives and breathes skating. Don't get me wrong, he loves to skate, and he does as much as possible. But he lives and breathes anything that's fun. He could have just as easily filmed some crazy snowboarding, wakeboarding, scootering, rollerblading, biking, juggling, or sowing video. Yeah, extreme sowing, he's all about it. Speaking of sowing, he made those stripper pants. Yeah, he made them. He wanted to be able to strip whenever possible, so he made put velcro in his pants. And he stripped everywhere he went for a couple weeks, boy did he ever strip... So it was hard to get him to go out and skate with us because he wanted to snowboard during the winter. Then when spring came, he packed his bags and moved back to California. So he pretty much filmed his part in 3 skate sessions over in Paris. These were long, all-day sessions where we hit up the best spots Paris had to offer. Dan loved Paris skating. I think Paris spots were designed for him. Most spots over there are the most amazing thing you've ever seen, and are completely perfect to skate as long as you don't mind weaving in and out of hundreds of people, knocking down little kids that are running on the spot, and dodging cars that are recklessly baring down on you. Dan has no problem doing any of these. The hords of people thronging each spot didn't seem to phase hin one bit, and he got his tricks no problem. Like that statue he did the rock to fakie on, the one in the slug article. You know the one I'm talking about. That thing looks like it's made for skating, and I think it is, but it's at the corner of a 5-street intersection in front of a crowded coffee shop in this business district of Paris with literally hundreds of people walking by each minute. And these aren't 5 little streets that meet up, they're scary paris motorcycle dudes going 80 BMWs hitting old women crossing the street streets. They're scary, unforgiving, ruthless. I saw the statue, rode on it once, almost got smashed by a car, cut my losses, and retired my board. But for Dan, it was different. It's like the cars and people should be afraid of him, he owns the spot, and he just ran between people and cars and skated the spot for a while. I was so afraid of him getting hit, which there were some potential close calls, but he didn't care at all. Not even when his board fell in the water. I told him maybe he should just stop because he had already landed the rock to fakie (not as good as he wanted though), but he said he was fine, rode in the street for 20 seconds to dry his wheels off, then just threw down and landed it next try. He almost got hit by a car too on his ride away. I yelled, "Car!," he saw the car, and jumped off his board a couple feet in front of it. Pretty epic for my standards, but pretty standard for Dan. Or that frontside disaster on that wave thing in Paris. We had gotten kicked out twice already, there were like 20 kids playing on it, and Dan just waited for the security guard to round the corner, threw down for another go, and landed it with people all over the place. The security guard came back a second later because he heard us, but we were sitting innocently on this ledge. He had nothing on Dan...
Dan filmed a couple other tricks with his cousin Brandon in California and sent us the footage. I can only think of 4 times that he came out and filmed with us in Provo. That means he filmed his entire part in less than 10 different skate sessions. That's the kind of skill and wizard board control Dan is capable of, and he can do it with pretty much anything he wants to. Man, don't get me started, I could dedicate an entire blog to Dan and his amazing accomplishments. I seriously want to write a book about him and all the amazing things he does, like riding his bike over a thousand miles in 12 days, sleeping under bushes in Monaco, climbing mountains in Switzerland, and hooking up with Israeli girls while in Europe, or getting chased by sea lions in San Diego. Trust me, the book would be the most interesting thing you've ever read. I'll stop there.
So Dan filmed his part in just a couple skate sessions, and did it in style, too. What I love about skating with Dan is he's never afraid to stay on his board. I was skating with him the other day on a 6-foot half pipe, and he was trying back lips across it. On one of them, he totally missed the back lip, got into some kind of off-balanced backside nosegrind to coping hang-up disaster strike, and he just muscled his way through it and rode it away. I think his trucks got caught up like 5 different times on the coping during the entire thing, but he refused to bail and just rode it out. I would have been off my board the second I saw I wasn't going to make the back lip. But that's how Dan is, he's not scared to stay on his board, even in the most dire of circumstances. Speaking of being scared, turns out that my mind doesn't react well to scary movies. I've always known that, but I thought I might be a little more brave now that I'm married. But just the contrary has proved to be true. Being with a woman has opened up a sensitive, softer side in me. A side that is afraid of the dark, spiders, and ghosts. So we watched "Insidious" (a scary movie) the other night at Matt's house, then went home. Rachel had no problem walking around in the dark, but I was checking under the bed for hands that might grab my ankles, planning my ju-jutsu combos in case an intruder came in, and staked out a nice sweaty spot in the corner of the bed against the walls. Then I had a scary dream about this ghost lady trying to get me, so that didn't help when Rachel had to get up at 5:30 in the morning to go to work. My heart started pounding the second she got out of bed in fear of that ghost woman coming after me. I got in fetal position under the covers and hoped I could just fall back asleep. When it came time for her to leave, she asked me, "do you want to pray with me?". The only words I could utter out of my trembling lips were, "I'm scared..." My friends, grown men have to do years of counseling to recover from episodes like this. I have never been brought so low in my life, never been so humbled, never been the need of so much pity... I stayed awake for the next 2 hours with all the lights on in the house, listening to classical music to get my mind off my impending death by ghost woman... Something else that's scary, school starts again next week which means the streets of Provo are flooded with thousands of college students, spreading their annoyingly enthusiastic and artificial sense of bro-ness and team spirit, horrible driving, crappy guitar and wooing skills on the lawns of their apartment complexes, and in general getting up in my grill. BYU campus is swarming with freshly weaned 18 year olds on tours of campus, learning how to navigate their way from class to class, call home when they run out of money, tie their shoes, wipe properly, and call the cops when they see skaters defiling sacred campus property. What this means for Bolts of Thunder is there is a huge influx of potential good samaritan students that will rat us out and get us arrested for skating on sidewalks. Think I'm crazy? Think I'm paranoid? You would be too if you'd seen what I seen! It happened to Dave last year, and it could happen again. It was a student that ratted us out, and they could just as easily do it again. Here's a third scary thing. I looked up on the stats for our blog, and it shows the keywords people type into google search to find our blog. One of them was, "Teacher Sam Milianta". General public, Sam is a great teacher and we hold him in the highest regards. We give you our letter of recommendation for him. Another key phrase that someone typed in to find our blog was "faces people make when poop." No joke. These are the kinds of people reading our blog. That's what scares me. What are we doing to attract recognition like this?... Man, I'm way off topic.
So Dan's part pretty much illustrates who Dan is. If you know Dan, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't know Dan, watch his part, and you will know Dan. His part bleeds Bolts of Thunder all over the place, it is the embodiment of Dan's very essence, what makes him tick, and it is one of the crowning achievements of Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild. That's what I really love about his part is his personality is everywhere in it, it's not just another skate part. Dan's been in town the past couple weeks, and it's been amazing skating and hanging out with him. He's one of my best friends, the most unique people I've ever met, and over all great people of this world. He's off to dental school on Monday and a new career of shoving his hands down people's throats. Once again people, take your hat off for our boy and his part, it's one of the funnest things I've seen in a long time, and it deserves some Thunder Bolt love. Best of luck to you, Dan!!!!
Before I get into the intro, I just want to point out that the first Bolts of Thunder video is now up in its entirety on the blog. The intro to the video and my first part were taken off youtube because of music, but I was able to get them back up, and things are good now. So click on the page to the right to see the video. Enjoy!
Ok, now lets talk intro. I've been excited to talk about this intro for a long time now. We kept the intro top secret while we were making the video because I wanted to see the looks on people's faces as they watched it at the premier. Kind of like how exhibitionists flash themselves just for the sake of getting a response. It's kind of like that. I'd say that the intro fulfilled its purpose; people had some pretty funny looks on their faces. Mostly laughing, a few confused... I had the idea for this intro back when I was in Geneva on an internship. I was there for 4 months last year, and I'd get bored sometimes just hanging out by myself. So I'd listen to my ipod all the time, especially at night when I was just hanging out. So I was listening to this album from Patti Smith, and I was half asleep. When this song came on, I got this image of the Bolts of Thunder crew as skeletons chopping people's heads off of and blowing things up. Pretty messed up, eh? But it wasn't for the sake of being violent, it was showing the world how utterly hard core we are. That's all... I started laughing pretty good, half asleep, when I thought of this, and the idea saw its way to the bitter end. That's usually how I get good ideas: I'm half asleep and my mind wanders to some weird idea. You can't force it, it just has to show up all of a sudden.
I don't remember exactly when I got the idea to have a baby alien rip out of Bolts of Thunder's chest, but I think that was another half asleep idea. I had just watched Alien, and that's what caused it. I thought of a baby alien ripping out of our chest, but it couldn't end there with a dead Bolts of Thunder and an angry alien. That's when I had the idea to have Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild rip out of the baby alien. Like I said, I wanted the intro to show just how bad-A we are. Alien doesn't rip out of our chest, we rip out of his chest!
So I started drawing the intro back in January, and I worked on it for about 7 months straight. I put more time into the intro than any other part of the video. Literally hundreds of hours of drawing. I drew each frame, and I had to redo several parts because I drew them wrong. I had to draw the alien ripping out a couple times before I got it right, and that took a long time to do. So I would work on the intro when I had a good idea for it, and I did that for about 7 months straight. In drawing and editing the intro, I wanted to make it like the intro to an action movie or cartoon or something. Like the intro to X-Men, the old cartoon, something like that with a bunch of explosions, lasers, people flying through the air, beating people up, and all that good stuff. But being Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild, I had to emphasize the gone wild aspect of the video and take it too far with the violence and all that. So that's what I did. It was fun to do though, and of course, it's all in good fun. Kids, don't try to reenact what you saw in the intro. It will cause you pain, regret, and sorry, and be costly in court fees. Actually, if you're ever able to throw a haduken, like Ken or Ryu on Street Fighter 2, go for it. But don't do the other stuff.
A last word on the intro. I'll say that it came out pretty much just like I had hoped for. Those disturbing images I suffered from back in Geneva were able to crawl their creepy little way onto the silver screen, and now you get to suffer from them as well. I'm really happy with the intro, and I think it sets a perfect tone for the rest of the video. I think it also shows the world who we are and that we are not messing around any more...
Every couple millennia or so, the stars align, black holes and worm holes alike open themselves to us, the universe feels graceful, and Steven Hawking gives us his smiling seal of approval. My friends, this day is today. It's all last week since the 12th, and it's the next while to come. Yes, Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild is officially out, and we should all be in a state of celebration... I would like to give everyone involved in this project a huge round of applause. Seriously, everyone in the video, everyone that filmed, took pictures, told their friends about it, everything, you all deserve a huge round of applause. I would like to especially thank my brothers, Matt and Brian. Matt is my partner in Bolts of Thunder. Nothing goes without his seal of approval, and that approval is not easily granted. Whatever it is that we do must measure up to his standards in order for it to fly. There were a ton of times where I wanted to take the easy way out, but Matt wouldn't have it, and we stayed up longer editing, filming, and doing whatever else it is that we do. I think you should all know that most of the creative genius (or lack thereof) in the video is Matt's; I was just following orders in putting it together. For everyone involved, this is a huge accomplishment. I mean, seriously, what group of late 20s/ early 30s skaters, most of which can't do more than 10 tricks, with families, jobs, school, and all that other stuff comes out with a full-length skate video? So for everyone involved, I give you a huge round of applause, my hat goes off to you, and I thank you for making this possible... The picture above is the perfect illustration of Matt and I barking orders at the helpless person behind the lens, no doubt confusing and angering them. Sorry, that's just how we roll.
On another note, I'd like to share something that I think is cool. It's an example of how Bolts of Thunder makes the world a little smaller. It's the only example I have of this, so listen carefully, this might not happen again. So we have a new follower on the blog, Kaleo Alo. He's a friend of Brandon Miller, a fellow Thunder Bolt starring in Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild, and Brandon referred him to the blog. Turns out that Kaleo is not only a friend of Brandon's, but a friend of Nick's as well, which we found out only after Kaleo joined the blog. Crazy stuff, eh? I wonder what it'd be like to not know that Nick, your friend, was a founding member of Bolts of Thunder, and you were watching a movie trailer/skate part when all of a sudden Nick's scary faces pop up on the screen. I'd pay money for that to happen. Good money. As in more than 5 bucks. But not more than 20. I just can't afford that right now...
Ok, so starting next post, I'm going to go through each part of the video and give you the low-down on them. I'll tell you everything you want to know, some stuff you don't really care to know, and a couple things you wish I just wouldn't share on the cyberweb. But I don't care if you want it, you'll get it.
Let me say welcome to our newest follower, Joshua Storer. Welcome to the blog! This is the day you've all been waiting for: Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild is now online!!! I've made a new page under the "Merchandise" section for the video. Click on that and you'll find all of the video in its proper order. So here it is everyone, the video is finally out for all to enjoy! I'm making copies of the DVD, and I should have them all ready to go by tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. If you paid for one already, you'll get it soon. If you haven't requested one yet but want one, let me know and we'll get you one.
Now that the video is up, I want to say thanks and good job to everyone involved. It was super fun, and I'll say that we put out a really good video. We spent thousands of hours working on this, and we're happy with the results. At least I am. Anyway, now I ask all of you to share the video with everyone you know. Tell your family, friends, in-laws, bishop, probation officer, everyone... Spread the word. Thanks.
You didn't believe me, did you? You thought I wouldn't really do it. But I did! I really left for a week and didn't write on the blog at all... But now that I'm back, I've got a lot to say. So I went to California to fight off the alien invasion in LA. You know, the one from the movie "Battle Los Angeles." The aliens were scheduled to attack last weekend, so I went down there to secure our borders. Let's just say that after reading our blog and seeing our video, the aliens tucked their slimy tails between their slimy legs and hitailed it out of here. Consider our lands safe from the aliens. At least for a little season. But they will be back, and doubled in size. Anyway, I'm in the process, as we speak, of getting the video on youtube, getting all the copies of the dvd ready, and getting the video into every household possible. Yeah, Bolts of Thunder is soon to be a household name all over America, Europe, and South East Asia, to name a few places. Stay tuned over the next couple days, and we will have the entire video posted up here soon. All you who ordered a copy of the DVD, we'll get them to you soon. As the ancients foresaw, we're flooding the earth with Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild...
Welcome, Bolts of Thunder's three newest followers: James Talbot, Kaleo Alo, and Dakoda Anderson!!! I don't know who you are, I don't know how you found the blog, but I welcome you like a brother with both arms outstretched, and my lawyers number on speed dial in case you try and pull a fast one on me. Yeah, Bolts of Thunder has a lawyer now. Having a lawyer has raised our status from street gang to organized mob, and he lowers our court fees and monthly child support payments. He helps us a lot...
For today's pictures, I felt it appropriate to put up some good ones of Dave. Weston took these pictures. I will start off by saying that Dave never landed these tricks, but he gave them more than the old college try. He gave them his heart and soul and slammed really good on both of them. I didn't realize how nuts the 5-0 was on the hubba until I tried it myself a couple weeks ago. My one and only try resulted in me landing straight on my but and having this mega charlie horse in my left buttocks cheek for the past 3 weeks. Dave tried this ledge at least 20 times, slammed on a lot of those, but only quit when a security guard was threatening jail time. The kinked rail, Dave tried this on two occasions, got arrested on one, and nearly killed himself twice on it. But he kept trying, and will probably try it again next chance he gets. Our hat goes off to you Dave, and all Thunder Bolts out there. People, get excited, the video's going to be on youtube and DVD this week!
Premier's tonight!!!! For those of you traveling on the freeway, be careful of traffic and leave a couple minutes early. Be at Center street and Freedom (200 W) at 7:30 for the barbecue, bring food for others, and the video's at 8. I'm sorry to inform you that we won't have copies of the dvd available for you at the premier... I tried my best, I took the dvd in this morning to get copies made, and when I came to pick them up, the guy said, "Oh man, I forgot!" No joke, that's how it went down. I'm a little bummed, but at least we have the master copy. I'll see you tonight!
On another note, I'm getting married tomorrow! It's a video premier after-party of sorts. You're all invited. But that after-after-party, you're not invited. Sorry. This being the case, I'm going to be out of town next week and probably won't write on the blog. But Matt is going to take over the blog and keep you all entertained next week, so keep up your daily reading. See you when I get back...
Those are pictures of Zak skating. He's in the video. And he's a Thunder Bolt.
That's right people, the premier is tomorrow. We've literally spent hundreds of hours in the last couple of weeks filming, editing, stressing, and overall video stuff. I still don't know if we'll have DVDs available at the premier. If not, we'll make a list of everyone that wants one from the premier and get them out to you. I guess that's it. Enjoy this picture of Dave lying on the ground in pain and think of what will be at the premier tomorrow...
1) The barbecue will start at 7:30. The video will start at 8:00. That's the plan, and we'll do our best to stick with it. Sorry if it has to change, but plan on that for now.
2) The premier will be above Provo Art and Frame on the south-west corner of Center Street and Freedom (200 W). If you at least go to that corner, there will be people barbecuing on the street to show you exactly where it is. And we'll put up signs.
3) We're barbecuing, but we don't have enough money to provide all the food. I'm going to assign specific things to people, but if you don't get a specific assignment from me, just bring some kind of food that others will want to eat at a barbecue.
4) We're planning on having DVDs available at the premier. We're going to charge $1 for a DVD, just to cover our costs in buying them. Yes, $1. You're thinking to yourself, "just give me a free copy, I'm in the video..." Can't do it. Won't do it. They're a dollar each.
5) You can invite friends, just ask them to bring some kind of food for people to eat as well.
With just days left to the premier of "Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild," I thought I'd prime you all with nothing less than a huge air by our very own Dan Shaw. Dan keeps affirming his superheroness with mega airs, death-defying spur-of-the-moment marathon running, and sea lion fighting. Yeah, Dan just barely had an encounter with a sea lion where he got on the rock with the alpha male and started barking at it. Just to see what would happen. The sea lion charged him, but Dan was quick on his feet and got away. Then our friend Jed thought he'd try his luck barking at sea lions, so he gave it a shot. The sea lion charged Jed, latched onto his leg with his jaws, and commenced to gnaw on his ankle. Jed, who has dodged a number of bullets in his day, did not even have the same luck as Dan... Yeah, Dan's a superhero, whether he likes it or not. So get ready, everyone, to see Dan Shaw and a host of other rippers in our video, coming out Friday!!! A correction to yesterday's instructions, the barbecue will start at 7:30 while the video will start at 8:00. So be there on time... Now here are the premier details and instructions:
1) The barbecue will start at 7:30. The video will start at 8:00. That's the plan, and we'll do our best to stick with it. Sorry if it has to change, but plan on that for now.
2) The premier will be above Provo Art and Frame on the south-west corner of Center Street and Freedom (200 W). If you at least go to that corner, there will be people barbecuing on the street to show you exactly where it is. And we'll put up signs.
3) We're barbecuing, but we don't have enough money to provide all the food. I'm going to assign specific things to people, but if you don't get a specific assignment from me, just bring some kind of food that others will want to eat at a barbecue.
4) We're planning on having DVDs available at the premier. We're going to charge $1 for a DVD, just to cover our costs in buying them. Yes, $1. You're thinking to yourself, "just give me a free copy, I'm in the video..." Can't do it. Won't do it. They're a dollar each.
5) You can invite friends, just ask them to bring some kind of food for people to eat as well.
