Bolts of Thunder at the forefront of the revolutionary skate art scene that is just so cool

So blogger decided to change how everything looks when you log on to write a new post, throwing off my groove and getting in the way of my blog writing. I guess this doesn't affect the way our blog looks when you look at it. But I will admit, blogger's been sending me all kinds of harassing messages, trying to get me to join the bandwagon and choose a new look for the blog. But I refuse to. Bolts of Thunder resists change. At least when it comes to changing our look.

Speaking of Bolts of Thunder's look, we all know that Bolts of Thunder is known internationally for taking groundbreaking leaps and strides in paving the way for artsiness in skating. Before we came along skating was pretty much a bunch of hooligans with fisheye lenses taped onto their high 8 cameras. After our first two videos, the skate world has pretty much done a 180, not much unlike the 180 Matt did over the hip in his first part, and is now tugging on the emotional side of skateboarding. This picture up above is a demonstration of just how artsy we've become. They straight shadow lines being ripped apart by a crack in the sidewalk. It just says so much, all heights and depths ye know not. But yeah, we're pretty much at the forefront of turning skaters into a bunch of time-laps sunset birds flying cars driving filming artists, and we're quite proud of that.

So this picture was one of my pictures I took when I was adjusting the exposure on the camera. That's all. Just a mistake. When I saw it later, I realized the genius and creativity of it all.

Ok, I can't justify only putting this picture up today. You'd all have yourselves a good old fashioned lynching if that's all was on the blog for today. So I'll put up a picture of Ben grinding a rail. He seems to be a real crowd pleaser, and he'll keep your hostility at bay... Yes, that is AJ spying in the background.

Golf and what not

These are some pictures from skating in LA a couple weeks ago. It was so much fun. I skated with Dan, his brother Greg, and his cousin Brandon. Rachel was with us too. So we went to these two parks. One is in downtown LA, the other is a ways away, and it's called Stoner Park. A fitting name considering all the second hand smoking we were doing at that park. Second hand smoking like a chimney... But Stoner Park is the new generation of skate parks. It has granite ledges and awesome stuff everywhere, and it was way fun.

So golf. Rachel and I headed over to Trafalga's 18 hole miniature golf course the other night and practiced our swing. Rachel held the lead most of the game until I pulled ahead in the 13th hole. The slanted green was too much for her putter skills, and she lost the lead. So miniature golfing reminded me of the days when I used to live on a golf course in St George. For about a year me and Matt would go out on the golf course every evening and practice hitting balls. Quite naturally, we didn't pay ever, we just went out when the last golfers went through. It wasn't a problem for a while, but they started to catch on to us. This one guy chased after us one time for several holes, and he tried trapping us on the green of the 16th hole. But fortunately Matt and I did not hold sand traps in high regard, and we cut across the recently groomed sand traps, climbed a hill, and made our way home. We told Brian who was anxious to fill water balloons and give chase to the dude in the golf cart. We couldn't find him... Things calmed down for a couple weeks, but they mysteriously flared up once again the day after Matt and I spent an hour on the green of the 17th hole, the one right behind our house, throwing the divot repairer in the air and watching in stick into the green. Apparently golfers are very protective of their greens and do not appreciate hundreds of little holes all over the place, making their balls bounce around and getting in the way of their game. We had so much fun throwing the divot repairer into the grass that the next day I even brought my pocket knife with me to throw into the green. But there were people out there that night waiting for us, and we had to run off. So after that event, the people surveyed the hole where we lived pretty tightly after hours, and we didn't golf all that much. But we started skating a lot more that same summer, and we pretty much just skated from then on. Anyway, I guess that's really all I had to say about golf. At least for today.

The AJ Neuenswander Interview. And I think I spelled his name right...

AJ Newenshwander is the next evolutionary link in the Bolts of Thunder chain. You now how evolution works, right? The weaker becomes stronger, the stronger gets killed off by an even more awesome and stronger. Then monkeys start turning into men, and men come along and kill all in their path. Yeah, AJ is the man on a rampage stage of the Bolts of Thunder evolutionary chain, and he's systematically destroying everything that stands in his way. That varial heelflip over that gap up above is just a taste of the wrath AJ is about to unleash on the world in Bolts of Thunder's next video and evidence that we are no longer messing around. So AJ lives right next door to me. When I say right next door, I don't think you realize what I mean. I mean that our front doors are separated by a mere 3 feet of hall space. We live in a fourplex house, and AJ lives in the apartment that is attached to mine. We share a wall together, and I will admit that I have spent a great deal of time with my ear up against this wall, trying to steal valuable secrets from AJ that I could at a later time use against him. Possibly to make some good money. But as of yet, AJ's clean and I've got nothing. Anyway, after having officially welcomed AJ to the team, we felt it only right to interview him. So with no further delay, I present you with the AJ Newenshwamper interview. That's a hard last name to spell. If you want to look him up online, his name is spelt correctly in the title of this post...

(MrBoltsofThunder) How long have you been spying on Bolts of Thunder and who do you work for?

(AJ) Dude, Ive been spying on bolts of thunder for a while now.  Maybe like almost a year?  I work at an elementary school so I guess I work for the provo school district?  They’re totally into skating…   Actually I first heard about bolts of thunder from tyler who told me he skated with a guy who had just gotten married in the temple.  I was like no way!  So after skating with you guys once or twice I decided to take my skateboarding/spying career more seriously and move next door to you.  It’s worked out pretty well.

What do you plan on gaining personally by infiltrating our organization?

Homeeeez!!  All my friends I skated with in san diego quit skating and I quickly realized that I didn’t fit in so well with the sk8mafia crew.  Although Wes Kremer did give me a “pound it” one time and Nick Tucker told me I had a mean fakie switch crook.  Basically after years of solo sessions at the skate park im just happy to skate with other people.  It’s been really fun skating new spots and jus chillllin.

What is the scariest trick you've ever tried? 

Oh man… I dunno.  I became one of those boring ledge skaters a while back.  Basically anytime I have to do something down stairs it’s the scariest trick ive ever tried.  And skating the kink on that weird rail in south provo scares me a lot.

What is the hardest trick you've ever landed?

back 360 down 7 was my claim to fame!   And I back 180ed this 4 flat 4 at my elementary school that I looked at for years.  I actually just found this video of it!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vecZiH5JyvE&feature=player_embedded    

Yeah.. tight pants and the locusts were pretty big in 2006. 

How long have you been skating and how did you get into it?

I started skating on my 8^th birthday.  Im 22 so I guess it’s been like 14 years.  There was this kid in my neighborhood that was really good that made me wanna learn.  I got a board from target with a holographic alien on the bottom.  So naturally I tried to convince my friends for a while that it was alien workshop board.  A week after I got it, my dad accidently hosed off the all the grip tape while watering the plants.  I was pretty mad but still managed to ride it for another six months by drowning my wheels in WD 40 everyday.  I couldn’t really do anything  so I’d just stand behind the board and stomp on the tail as hard as I could and watch it fly into the air do all types of flippy things that I was sure were cool tricks.  After that I got “sixteen skateboard” (remember those??) and from then on everything was about skateboarding

What would you like to see in the next Bolts of Thunder video, from you or from anyone else?

I’m expecting Matt to use a BAD A$$ rap song. (cause he won’t let me use one)  Ben is going to 5-0 the police rail.  Jon is gonna kickflip something big.  Im gonna try to learn back 360s again.  And I hope to see all the other guys from bolts of thunder put together some rad stuff!  Filming has been so much fun.

So you served a mission which means you most likely battled with stomach problems and adjusting to local foods. Any good crapping your pants stories for us?

Haha well I served in chile so its not like super 3^rd world or anything but the food did take getting used to.  My stomach was pretty messed up for the first few weeks, but luckily the only time I did poo my pants I was inside our apartment.  Its not that cool of a story, I was just sitting on a little couch we had and all the sudden it just like came out.  Poop in the pants is the worst though, I had another companion that pooed his pants on the home one night.  By the time we got inside it was like all over the top of both his shoes.  Nice!

Tell us about getting attacked by that dog

Man, I know it makes everyone really mad, but I hate dogs.  I dunno ive just never been like a huge animal lover.  Chile, like every other South American country is full of dogs on the streets.  I made it a year and 6 months without getting bit by one.  But yeah, my comp and I were going to this kid’s house for a return appointment and right when the kid opened his gate to let us in I hear like super loud barking and then realized there’s a giant dog latched onto my leg.  I finally shook it off and my pants were all ripped and my leg was all bloody.  The kid was like “oh yeah…it does that sometimes.”  Thanks man…  We went to the hospital that night and I got some shots and stuff and everything was fine.  Except for the 8.9 earthquake that happened that night, but that’s a story for another day!

So now let's move into our scenarios. This is where our audience can really get to know you. So we have this scenario where it's the zombie apocalypse and you can choose one member of Bolts of Thunder to be with you. Who would it be and why? I know you don't know everyone on the team, but from what you've seen and heard, make your best choice. How would you guys fight off all the zombies? Do you feel temporally prepared for said zombie apocalypse?

Well I know it’s probably be a hart cause you guys are seriously always talking about zombies.  I guess I’d go with matt cause he’s seen like a billion movies and im sure in some of the ones he’s seen they teach you how to defend yourself and stuff.  Plus he’s a security guard at the library so he could like get us into this underground safe room over there or something.

Now let's say that you're staking out with the entire Bolts of Thunder crew in a warehouse. You are well armed. Zombies are bearing down on you in your warehouse and trying to break in. How do you see Bolts of Thunder fighting off the zombies or making its final stand?

Man im bad at this stuff! I guess Nick could drop in off of the roof and land on a few of them cause I know he’s good at that.  We could build this super duper long hubba that they would have to climb up to get to us and then have dave do a super long 50 down it and punch each one of them on his way.  That’s all I can think of.

You don't strike me as the inherently violent type, but I still have to ask. For security purposes... Have you ever been in any fights? If so, what went down?

No way.  No fighting for me.  One time I gave my friend a soft punch in the stomach at recess and I couldn’t sleep for weeks.

Again, I know you don't know all the original Bolts of Thunder members, but we tell you a great deal about them. Let's say we had a Hunger Games scenario but Bolts of Thunder got to choose two people to be in this little camping death match. Who would you choose to go out into the wild and why? Who do you see having the greatest possibility of winning?

Probably Dave and Matt.  They grow the best beards so they look the most intimidating.  They'd win.

I'm out of questions, so do you have anything else you'd like to say to our readers?

Nope!

Radiohead Concert

As promised, I put up a couple pictures of us at Radiohead's concert in Santa Barbara. We were on Radiohead's guestlist because my sister's got all kinds of hook ups, so we got into the concert for free! This is one of those things that you always wish would happen but never really does. But then it did. When I heard a while back that we might get free tickets to the concert, I really hoped it would happen, but didn't really think it would. It's just one of those things that doesn't seem likely to pull through. It's like your rap artist cousin that always on the brink of cutting a big record deal with Dr Dre, but it never really happens. It was kind of like that.... So here are a couple pictures of us at Radiohead, which was an amazing concert and super fun to be at with all my brothers and sister. Thanks again, Gin!!! And Radiohead, thank you too because you got us in for free and played music for us...

Dave's 2nd Interview

Summer has officially started for Bolts of Thunder, and we are underway filming a new video. With a new video on the way, it's only right that we start up a new round of interviews. The interviews we did last year were some of the funniest things I've ever read and funnest posts we've put on the blog. We wanted to start things off right again this year with an interview with Dave McDonald. Dave is one of my best friends and one of the funnest people to skate or hang out with. It's always a good time, and you can count on him doing something crazy on his skateboard. So here is the low down of Dave McDonald and pretty much what you need to know about him. Make sure to click on the links on the words, he's got some funny stuff in there...

As a side note, welcome AJ as Bolts of Thunder's 42nd official follower!!!! It's good to have you officially on the team. That reminds me, Sam Milianta is still not an official follower. We need to get on that... Behold, Dave's interview:

(MrBoltsofThunder) So what's going on in your life these days? Where are you now, what are you doing? What does a normal day in the life of David McDonald consist of?

(Dave) In Paris, still. I just work. Still teaching English to spoiled, rich kids in the Parisian suburbs. Normal day sees me waking up when its still dark and commuting for an hour or so to my school. I read and listen to some music on the train; its not so bad. I also get to wear some nice thick coats, which I like to do. Everyone I work with thinks I'm a serious educator, but I'm just a joke. I can fake anything.

Besides the part-time adult nonsense, I've been skating, playing some guitar, making some videos, taking some pictures, investing, gambling, rioting, raving, posing, insulting, and apprenticing for a soap-maker. Yeah, got a lot on my plate, I guess. 

I remembered this story the other day that you told me way back when of this bully at high school. As I recall, he wanted you and your friends dead. Then your friend stood up to him and got punched in the stomach and didn't flinch until the kid left. Something to that effect. Would you mind going into detail on that story?

 So, there was this meat-head named Richard Calvin--a real wanker. He hated us because we dressed like Ed Templeton, naturally. We also had our own tight-knit crew of losers called the Weird Kids. Some jocks started calling us that, so we went with it. 

   Anyways, this Dick fellow had it in for us. He'd always bark at us and stuff. One day he said some crap to my friend Nick MacDonald (who invented the late shove-it and the triple kickflip, btw) and Nick just mocked him right back. Meat-head just let loose and nailed Nick in the gut, hard. This guy was way bigger than us. I think he was held back a couple years or somethin'. Anyways, Nick took it and just stared back at the guy. No flinch, nothing. Just absorbed a solid sucker punch. The guy just walked off. I could tell it hurt like hell, though. I'd taken a few sucker punches in my day. Its no walk in the park. 

What was your reaction to the last Bolts of Thunder video? What were your favorite parts/tricks? And more specifically, what was your first reaction to Dan, Nick, and Matt's parts? You can talk about mine if you want, but I won't ask you specifically...

I was sort of blasé, you know. There was a lot of hype leading up to it and I left the premiere (which is the only time I watched the video) feeling empty. Just underwhelmed I guess. I mean, where were the handrails? What, no flip tricks? Please. You're never gonna get picked up by anyone with all those early grabs and hippie jumps.

What would you like to see in the next Bolts of Thunder video? Any tricks that have been left undone or any spots that need to be skated? We're running out of ideas here, so any suggestions on your part would be appreciated.

Dan needs to land that backflip, am I right? Also, I need a good ol' fashioned roof drop from Nick. Matt needs to ollie something gnarly. I'm talking big boy pants. Sam needs a good manual line. Jon, you need to three flip that long flat gap that you put the fridge down. I need to see that. Ima ollie this. 

Give us your stats. How old are you, when's your birthday, how tall are you, how much do you weigh, how much can you bench press? You know, your stats.

I am 28 years old. I was born on December 4, 1983 in Thousand Oaks, CA. I am a bit under 6'0''. I weigh 165 lbs. I can bench my weight, I know. Not sure after that. I was a rookie in the '93 season. I have ollied up a five stair and down a fourteen. I have kickflipped an eleven stair. 

Any good stories from Paris or Europe in general? Had any more fights with Arabs or landlords?

Naw. Oh, wait I got one. One night a few weeks back I was frisked by some cops for trying to remove some vandals work from a building. It was midnight and I wanted to take down this mosaic from the wall that I liked. So, I was up on the roof of this Monoprix banging away at it for a bit, while my friend stood watch. Then a group of three people came up out of nowhere and asked what I was doing up there. I told them to move along as they were bringing too much attention to me. They're all, "yeah, well were cops." So, they made me jump down and searched me and stuff. They just couldn't comprehend what I was doing up there. They first thought that I was doing the graffiti, then they thought I was just weird and let me go. They just couldn't fathom that I was trying to scrape this thing off the wall just to keep it for myself. Yeah.  

I saw some bonus footage of Jean Marc in the video the other day that made me smile. Who is Jean Marc? Would you mind giving a physical description of him for our readers? When did he start skating and what kind of set up is he sporting? What's it like hanging out with him? Has he reduced his cigarette consumption at all? How does he justify smoking when he goes to such great lengths to take care of his health? I don't know why I'm asking about him, but I remembered him the other day and he made me laugh... 

Jean Marc is like one of the three Nephites. I really think he was put into my life to serve some higher purpose, and then one day will be gone. When I first met him, I thought he was some weird African immigrant-turned homeless; I quickly realized he was some weird French skater dude. I was with you when I first met him. It was like night time and he wanted to skate flat ground with us in the metro tunnels...

I'm so glad to count him amongst my friends. I just don't get him. I don't know if he is mental, or if he is fried, or what. He is always wearing a red helmet and whenever he calls me, he introduces him self as "the skater with the red helmet." Yeah. Last week we were skating and he showed my all his new pads. He has like full on football pads under his Dickies. He assures me that he needs them due to his risky maneuvers.

Hanging out with him is great. You can ask him anything in the world. He has premeditated responses to every question imaginable, but he never puts you down. I feel like I can totally be myself around him. 

Cigarettes? In full affect.  

So in France you didn't hesitate to hit that Arab kid with your board. What happened there, and what was going through your mind? 

I'm just racist, I guess. 

Foreign food has been known to upset our American stomachs at times. Or really often. Any good sharting/diarrhea stories from your stays over seas?

Nothing new. I will say this: I have yet to clog a toilet in France. Ask anyone I've ever lived with how impressive that stat is. I once pinched one off that was the size and shape of a grapefruit.

So I really liked our island scenarios from last year's interviews. We're coming up with new scenarios. Seeing as everyone on TV is getting ready for the zombie apocalypse, let's say there was one. If you could have one member of Bolts of Thunder to be with you at all times, who would it be? what would be your MO in staying alive? Would you hunt and fight zombies, would you hide out with your crew in the mountains?

Dan. Its always gonna be Dan.

Now let's say that the entire Bolts of Thunder crew is staking out in some warehouse in a large, zombie infested city. We've got quite a bit of amo, food, and water, but the zombies have caught our scent and are trying to break down the doors. What would go down in this scenario? How do you see Bolts of Thunder making its final stand?

We would just sit back and practice switch flips and let Dan go Rambo on everyone. We may have to occasionally pick off a zombie here or there, but from a distance. We would last as long as Dan stayed alive. If Dan went down, I'd probably just grab a grenade and kamikaze it.

I'm out of questions for now, but is there anything else you'd like to say? Any last words for this interview?

No.

Dances with Matt

They always did say that hippy jump hill bombs were his specialty. I don't think anyone would dispute that now. So here's Matt showing you what a ninja looks like when he's about ready to jump kick you in the face! So school's out for me now, officially. And even if it wasn't, I ain't goin anymore! So that means my brain should not be as scrambled and you'll get plenty of TLC on this blog. We're talking daily.

Back to Matt and jump kicking, I just remembered this bum that threatened to kick Matt in the face at Alberto's in Salt Lake. He suspected Matt, the Mexican girl behind the counter, the manager of the restaurant, and pretty much everyone within a 10 foot radius of him of wanting to fight him. He was standing on guard as he verbally assaulted the manager for not putting any lettuce or tomatoes on his bean and cheese burrito. Dude, you have to pay extra for that... But he didn't care, and he called the manager all kinds of names. The manager just stood there afraid and took it. It was pretty sad. Let me first describe to you the bum so you'll see it's not one of those scary ones that could actually hurt you. He was about my height, so we're talking 5'10'' and he was no more than 140 pounds. Probably a lot less than that. To save you the trouble of trying to figure out if 5'10'' and 140 pounds is a dangerous combo or not, I'll just tell you it's not. Plus, the dude looked like he had two stork legs. They were pretty much just bones with skin on them, and they bent in unnatural ways at the knees. The only thing going for him was that he seemed pretty confident in threatening the manager, so the dude gave in and put lettuce and tomatoes on his burrito.

So Matt was standing behind the guy in line. The dude was facing forward but used the hair on the back of his neck to sense motion from behind and picked up Matt on his radar. Sensing an obvious sneak attack on Matt's part, the bum thought he'd preempt him with some karate chop action to the neck. We call this a king lizard punch where I come from. So the dude quickly spun around, yelled out a mandatory Bruce Lee yelp, and chopped at Matt's neck, only sparing Matt's life by stopping a couple inches from the jugular. At that point, Matt did what any person in his situation would have done. He laughed. It was funny, and we all thought the dude was just messing around because of how pathetic it was. But the Samuel L. Jackson "I'm gonna mess you up!" look in his eyes told us a different story. He was serious. Then he told Matt not to stand behind him or he'll finish the job next time. Some people might have stood down at that moment, but not Matt. In Matt's eyes, that bum was the last thing standing between him and an enchilada. Matt is living proof that Hobbes was wrong; fear is not what motivates us more. It's hunger...

So Matt just stood there in line and ignored the bum. Then a couple minutes later the bum yelled out at Matt, "You stand behind me, and I'm gonna kick you in the face!!!" That was a pretty amazing threat seeing as the guy pretty much had no legs, and it would have been pretty awesome to see him try. But nothing happened, and Matt placed his order, ate his food, and we were on our way. When we walked out, the bum was still yelling and swearing at the girl that took his order and the manager for messing up something else. I guess this story had no point, but just imagine if Matt and this dude got into a jump-kicking fight. You see how high my boy's off the ground in that picture up there? Now just imagine his limber ledge stretching up into your abdomen. Serious, Matt's the most limber of us all, hands down. Yeah, you don't want to mess with that!

Running on Empty

I put up this picture today to show you that Matt and I, for all intents and purposes, are one. While our physical beings are divided and separate, we are one in our teamwork and direction of Bolts of Thunder. In the same way that you cannot see where I begin and Matt ends, you cannot tell where Matt's ideas start and mine crop up.

Actually, this picture is really just to cover up Matt's identity. You don't even know if that's Matt behind me. How would you know? You can't even see his face, so I don't believe you when you accuse that person of being Matt because why would Matt stand in the background of my shot?

School ends for me tomorrow, and my brain is running off of fumes. And I'm not going to tell you where those fumes are coming from because you'd try to steal my fumes from me and use them for yourself when you were tired. Truth is, you can't steal these kinds of fumes I'm talking about. You either got them or you don't. And I do. But I just wanted to get something up today, no matter what that thing was that I put up...