Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Part 2 of epic saga


So today we continue on an epic journey through space and time. We enter the world of me. My world. A world of pain. At least when I'm hurting, then it's painful. But if I'm not hurting, it's quite pleasant. So this picture is two years old and this trick will not be in our video. But I had nothing else to put up, so I put up this one... So I'm going to continue to answer your questions that you asked me last week on the blog. I'm excited for today's questions because... well, no particular reason, I'm just excited for them. So let's get moving, shall we?...


  1. so, whats up with Italy?

    So Italy is this magical land where everything you eat is amazing, everything you see is historical, beautiful, and in pristine condition, and the people don't stress all that much about life. We discovered this land last year during our trip to France, and I loved it. So last year I got a scholarship to learn Italian, I learned it, and now my wife Rachel and I are going to Italy for a semester. I'm doing an internship there, and we're going to eat good food every day and travel a lot. It'll be awesome, epic, and fun all at the same time. We'll be there from September to December, and I expect that you, Dave, are going to pay us a little visit with Lauren. Skating will be had, stories will be told, tears will be shed, friendships renewed, memories forged, and food eaten. I tell you, that food is so good...
  2. what do you call that patch of hair that people grow right above their arse?
    Back Patch. I don't sport one, but I have a mean bush of neck hair that is encroaching on my upper back. It's a sign a manliness and laziness all bottled up into one ugly package.
  3. I use woman's deodorant. I guess this isn't really a question.

    Thank you, Dave, for bringing up this point. I wore woman's deodorant for over a year. Someone had given my family a couple year supply of Sure, women's deodorant, when I was 18, and we were too poor to buy anything else. So I sported it that entire time. I loved the smell of it, it kept me dry, and I think it made my hair grow longer. Keep it up Dave, it'll make your beard lush and thick.
  4. worst thing about being a white guy in Utah?

    All the racism. Actually, when I do see a black guy in Provo, I can't help but think, "he's one of maybe 20 black people in this entire city..." Then while I think that, I stare, and as I stare, I think, "don't stare or he'll think you're racist," then I awkwardly walk by trying not to make eye contact, but trying to make eye contact at the same time so he won't think I'm avoiding him because of his race, then I think, "I'm weird..." when the entire encounter is over. Always awkward. I never had this problem in California. In this skate video my friends made in California, I was the only white guy in it. It was two black brothers, three Mexicans, and me. That's the worse thing about being a white guy in Utah, no black people in our skate videos...
  5. -Where should Bolts of Thunder meet when the zombie Apocalypse happens? 

    I say we meet up in our parking lot if we can. That'd be a good place to go over supplies and duties. If provo is too chaotic for even that, or if you miss out on the band wagon, meet us up in hobble creek canyon. There are fresh water springs, deer, flat grass plots, and plenty of lumber for defenses. That's where I'd camp out. Meet me there...

    -How has it been so far having a wife that wakes up and leaves the house every day in the 5AM hour? 
    The bad: I wake up for a brief moment and sometimes struggle to fall back asleep. 
    The good: I get to finally stretch my legs/arms/body across the bed. Now that I have a queen size bed, I have less space than I did when I had a little twin mattress because Rachel has claimed most of the bed as her own. I'm too nice/weak to fight her over it, and I've given up trying. So Rachel gets most of the bed, and I get pushed up against the wall while I sleep. All you married people know exactly what I'm talking about...

    -Baths or showers?
    Mostly showers. A bath with epsom salt when I'm sore

    -Scenario: Zombie Apocalypse ...we're at base camp, and we have my iPod and your iPod, so what will we listen to until both of them die? (I think I actually know the answer to this...so we'll see if you are right)
    There will be classical music in there to keep me feeling sane and smart. When the zombies attack I will put on some Korn, GG Allen, or Lincoln Park. When we're building forts, we'll listen to 98 Degrees. When we're having counseling sessions about the fallen of our people, we'll have some Crowded House background music. That song about being my baby and going to the moon will be playing a lot. Other than that, just the usual: Blur, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Nickleback, Kick Rock, and the occasional Bruce Springstein.... If that's all we had to choose from as far as music goes, and would actually try to find a way to siphon out the batter power from the ipods and charge something more useful, like a two way radio or something. And even if I failed, I'd rather just live in silence... Did I get the answer right?

    -Now please tell everyone why you fell in love with me because this is what everyone wants to know. At least all your girl blog followers... (see, I responded by friday)
    Your legs. So all you girl blog followers, try to make your legs grow another foot or so and then boys will start to like you. Until then, it's going to be a rough game for you...



    1. If you had to replace your blood with either v8 juice or stupid nasty Hawaiian punch which would choose, and why?

      V8 Juice for sure. If I were to sweat one of them and had to drink it, it would be V8 splash. But I will tell you this, don't be fooled by V8 looking all healthy and what not. It still has a lot of added sugar in it. You're better off drinking water. Or gatorade or something
    2. Its probably been answered but when is the deadline for the new video? Id like to film a few things.

      We're looking at the first week of July. At least I think that's when it is. I'm not sure... But yes, you need to film some more stuff. call me Zak, let's get on it...
    3. If you could have a dinosaur for a pet which dinosaur would you choose, and why?

      Not a swimming one. I think my last interviewed exhausted that possibility. I would have one I could ride and one that wouldn't eat me. A vegetarian. And one that is house trained, nice to children, would allow people to give me money to pet it, and gets good gas mileage. If all the gas is gone in the zombie apocalypse, I would ride the dinosaur around. I don't know the name of the specific model I'm referring to, but I'm sure there's one that existed that performed these duties and more. That's the one I'd get.
    4. Would you take a bath in v8 juice and then run around town till you were all sweaty and smelly if it meant that somewhere in the world two people would put down the crackpipe and turn their drug ridden lives around?

      For sure. I'd do most anything to help anyone stop doing drugs. At least I like to think I would. To be completely honest and serious, drugs ruin more lives than just about anything in the world. Think of all the bad things that would be eliminated if nobody ever did drugs. Smoking cigarettes and drinking, which are both legal once you're old and mature and smart and know what you're doing to your body and society, also lead to a lot of problems, so I'd stay away from those at all cost. Our country and planet loses more lives and money every year because of drug use and drug related incidents than just about anything else. And guess what, kids, you're no cooler after you start doing drugs than you were before. So if you're trying to be a rebel against your parents for forcing you to go to summer camps and be a good person, why don't you try something original and fun as a form of rebellion. Getting into drugs is the oldest one in the books, it won't be fun when you're in jail, living off of welfare, or dead. So don't do drugs. Don't even get close to doing them. And that's all I have to say about that. Actually, I could go off forever on this, but I'll stop. Actually, no, I won't, I have one more thing to say. Almost all of my friends that I grew up skating with are in jail, have been in jail, are living on their parent's couch at age 30, or have died because they got into drugs. They thought it was way fun at first, but then they got addicted and had to do harder drugs and it all went down hill from there. It's sad, I just found out that this kid Logan I knew in St George died a year ago from overdosing from drugs. He was seriously the most talented skater I'd met in St George, but then he got so lazy from drugs and eventually died. It's just sad and a waste of life, so don't do it kids. You'll thank me later when you have a life...
  6. Do we get a prize for leaving interview questions?

    Yes, you get your name on the blog. If I had a friend that had a skating blog like this, I'd write comments on it all the time just to see my name in writing. That is your reward.





    Now the rest of these questions are from Matt. He emailed them to me. Thanks, Matt, appreciate it!


    1. zombie scenario questions


    If I had to choose one person from Bolts of Thunder to be with me, it would be Matt. Even if neither of us knew at all what we were doing, we'd at least have fun. Even when it sucked super bad, we'd find something to laugh about. We'd find some kind of ball or object to throw at each other and stay up all night throwing the object back and forth. I don't see things changing all that much in this scenario, we'd just be battling zombies on top of what we usually do.

    Now, in the scenario that we're all together and zombies are bearing down on us, this is how it would go down. First, we're well armed and we have a warehouse where we're staking out. We would have Nick and Ammon in a back room with dead zombie specimens so they could do brain analysis and try to come up with some cure. Or at least find out what makes them tick. It'd be good to keep Nick out of the fighting area because I could see him otherwise being a hero/martyr and taking a zombie bite for Dan when Dan would have gotten out of it anyway. I don't want to do Nick in because he's turning into a zombie, so we'll keep him busy in the back looking at zombie brains. Brian would be on weapons duty, we'd have him perched up on the roof, and he'd snipe all the zombies he could. He would have also given us basic fighting drills, so we'd feel pretty prepared for this moment... Who am I kidding? We would all be armed and just shooting like crazy. I like to think my sleeves somehow got ripped off during the battle and I'd be sporting a sleeveless camo shirt and dog tags around my neck. As long as I can go down looking like a soldier, I'd be happy. If Matt and/or Brian saw the zombies try and mess with me, the zombies better start running, because they'd just start ripping them in half with their bare hands. I see Dave with a gun and some kind of blunt object in his hands, and he'd be bashing in zombie brains. He would fall into this kind of trance where he wouldn't hear or feel anything, his eyes would be wide open and staring off as he summoned super human strength and bashed in the zombies. Dan, or course, wouldn't even realize the gravity of the situation, he would think it was kind of fun shooting zombies, like it was a video game. Except he wouldn't realize that in real life you can actually shoot the guys on your team, and at least one of us would get a bullet from Dan's gun lodged somewhere in our vital organs. We'd have to operate later after the battle, and there'd be lots of blood, morphine, and eventually a passing of life. It'd be someone that was really well prepared too, just because that's how it always happens. Ben would be in good shape for this battle from all his exercise, so he'd be good to go all day. AJ would be in shock, and we'd have to keep shaking him around to get him back in the game. But he'd pull through and shoot a zombie right before it attacked someone from behind. He'd save the day that way...


    2. what do you dislike most from the first bolts of thunder video. what do you like most? (tell the truth)

    To be completely honest, I don't dislike anything from that video. there are a few things I'd edit differently, but that's it. I still like the entire video. I like it so much because it was 100% our crew video, we didn't have any expectations to live up to or anything, there was no hype on it at all except from us, and we made it exactly how we wanted to. The one thing that comes to mind that I would edit differently would be Dave's intro. I would go with our original idea of this shot of Dave limping around all sweaty and hurt and mumbling incoherently with that blonde redhead song playing in the background. Just simple, but it'd explain a lot about Dave. 

    What I like the most about that video is just what I said earlier: it was our homie video, there was nothing we were trying to prove to anyone, we weren't trying to make a video how everyone these days makes videos, we wanted to do it exactly how we wanted to. Because we did that, we'll be able to look back on the video in years from now and not feel embarrassed for trying to make a video that just falls into the same category as every other video you see these days.

    3. dislike/like most about second video?

    Not so much dislike, but I wish the original crew was around a lot more when we were making it. Everyone had full parts which was just amazing considering Dan and Dave didn't even live in Provo and Nick was so busy with school, having a kid, and moving. But it would have been fun if everyone was here again for the entire summer like the year/years before that. 
    There are a few things that I would edit differently also. I would make a separate part for Sam and have a really epic song for him. He's an epic skater.

    I love the intro to the second video. You would too if you had drawn each frame of it. It was my little brain child, and I have deep feelings for it. I also like that we still stuck to our roots in making the video. We didn't try to be serious or anything.

    4. if you were arranged to marry someone and you made an oath that you would, but then completely fell in love with someone else, would you keep your word and marry the first? or would you follow the desires of your heart, and possibly other body organs, and marry the second?

    I'd go with my heart and associated body organs. I'm flaky like that... Here's your second soap box, kids. Don't be flaky! too many people are in this world, and it drives me nuts. Do what you say you will. but in this case, I'd fake my death, skip town, move to Italy, eat good food, and live it up with my wife. That's pretty much what I'm doing this year, except I'm not faking my death, I just flat out told you all where I'm going.

    5. 3 favorite movies from the past 3 years.

    I know Water World is more than 3 years old, but that has to be mentioned in this blog post somewhere. This is as fitting a place as any... This is a really hard one because I can't seem to remember ever having seen movies in the past 3 years... Inglorious Bastards was awesome, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sucked me into the story the second it started, and the Avengers was really fun to see a couple weeks ago. Those aren't my favorites, I don't know that I have any favorites, but I liked watching those ones. And the rated R movies I saw were edited. I don't like listening to swearing and looking at women I'm not married to's naked parts.

    6. favorite trick you have ever landed

    I remember the first time I kickflipped a 6 stair, it was unreal. I had only learned to kickflip a few months earlier after not having been able to kickflip my first 2 years of skating (one year of really trying ever day). I felt like I had just gone through this initiation process and became a man skater. Now that I think of it, probably the first clean kickflip I landed on flat ground was one of the most satisfying feelings I've ever had. I remember exactly where I was: behind the foot and ankle institute on Main St in St George. Matt remembers it too. for some reason I could never land them, I'd always chip my board trying, and they'd spin half a varial flip when I'd try. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it clicked in my mind and body, and I could land them. Just like that, I felt like I figured it out, and I landed it. Matt was shocked to see me finally land it, we had a little celebration, then he told me to land another one. And I did. And another one. I landed 5 in a row right then after never having landed one. The next day I kickflipped off a curb at my church.  I think the favorite tricks I've landed are the ones I figured I would never land, but then I did. Like grinding a handrail, doing a switch frontside flip, or learning back tails. Those were all really fun to learn...

    7. do you feel sad that I used to be mean to you if you didn't try hard tricks when you were a kid?

    I honestly don't remember you being mean. You'd have to give me an example. But I can really hesitate sometimes. Sometimes I'm just feeling it and I'll go for whatever trick I'm trying. And it usually turns out way better that way. Except for sometimes I slam, then I revert back to hesitating and trying it out until I feel comfortable. So I can understand getting frustrated with me when I looked at the 9 stair at the hospital for 2 hours before even trying it. Then I landed it first try. Or things like that. But I don't remember you ever being mean. I actually like the push you give, and it encourages me to just get the trick over with. So no, I don't feel sad at all. I honestly can't think of too many differences between our skating back in the day and now.

    8. Why would I do something like that?

    You just wanted to see me land a trick. It's the same reason we still try to convince and coach people into trying crazy stuff today. We just want to see it, I guess.

    9. can you share your favorite logging story with us? 

    There are quite a few funny ones. I use to be a logger in California, for about 8 months. I was scared almost every day that I went to work because I didn't want to die. Other people had died or gotten seriously hurt in my neighborhood while logging, so it wasn't some unfounded fear. But I also really liked the job a lot. One of the funniest/scariest things that happened was when Eric Holmes, my jerk supervisor, cut a tree that fell on him and almost crushed his body in half. He was up in the tree, and he had this strap on his belt going around the tree to hold him there, and he had spikes on his boots that he stuck into the tree to stand on. So his legs and waste were firmly planted on the tree while his upper body was free to move around and get bent in half. So he screwed up really bad cutting the top part of the tree, and it fell right on top of his chest. Then his body folded backwards like a little lego guy, his back was bent 90 degrees backwards while his legs didn't move at all. Then I had to pull the tree off of him with a rope he had tied onto the tree. It was super scary when it was happening, and I couldn't get the tree to budge for a minute, it just balanced on his chest. But then it finally fell off and Eric flung around like a rag doll and gasped for air. He made this sick gasping sound, like 10 times worse than what Dave did after slamming on that double set rail. The guy lost his nerve after that and tried getting me to climb trees for him without paying me to do it. I declined. So he tried getting this other kid to climb the trees for him too, but he was too afraid to do it. The guy finally got fired, and I got to work with the boss of the company who was super cool and funny. I loved the job after that because I didn't have Eric yelling at me to work harder and faster all the time. He would tell me to run through the woods with chainsaws and axes in my hands. The guy was an idiot.  

    Another funny story was Juan, the illegal old Mexican man that worked with us. He spoke no English but would always try carrying on conversations with me. It usually turned into both of us using some type of reformed sign language to communicate. I remember the day he tried asking me if I was married or had a girl friend. I didn't understand, so he finally resorted to using his fingers and clenched fist to act out sexual intercourse. It was disturbing and funny to see what the old dude thought of sex. I always thought of that every time I saw him until the authorities caught up to him and he ran off and hid. Literally, we watched him run off and hide in the woods. I assume he escaped...

    10. it seems you've complained slightly about the fact that me and a couple other people haven't written you questions yet. However, half your interview is longer than anyone else's full interview. What makes you think you haven't had enough questions so far? Why do you feel the need to have an array of people ask you questions about your life? 

    I guess I like attention... I have a lot to say it turns out, but I need some probing sometimes to know what to talk about. Your questions, it turns out, are all the probing I need... 

    11. is there something you want to get off your chest? any personal things you need to talk about?

    Nothing too personal. Just have fun when you skate. Don't do drugs. Don't be flaky. Be nice to people. I think that's what I'd like to end with: be nice to people, be a good friend, and try to help people if you can. You'll be happy that way.
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