Return of Wizbang

After that Lord of the Rings scenario, Wizard went out and got himself an Elvish ring that gives him great power and makes him invisible. No joke, he really has the ring of power on his hand now. As Gollum, he's hiding in his cave, loving his ring as it spoils his mind and his appetite. But last weekend, Wizard decided to take off the ring of power, and I saw him skating. It's been a while since I skated with Wizard, but it was good old times as usual. So I went looking for some pictures of Wizard that you haven't seen yet, and I found some of him skating over this gap. I believe these pictures are Nick's handy work, as I was filming. Which reminds me, we haven't heard from Nick in a while. Nick, how are you doing? What's going on? I need to find some pictures of you now and put them up... Anyway, Wizard did a hardflip over that gap, and we have video and photo proof of it.

Injun Jo

This is Joey Harding. He's Navajo, and as such, nature has endowed him with  amazing capabilities that it hasn't given the rest of us. I've been good friends with Joey for a long, about 12 years or so. The first time I skated with Joey, me and Nick Graff saw him standing on a skateboard and staring at us as we rode down the street, so we stopped and talked with him. We invited him to skate with us. He was on a kmart board with japanamation dudes drawn on the bottom, so I didn't think he knew how to skate. But then he started ollieing all these drops where we were skating which really surprised me. But then, in the middle of our skate session, he asked what time it was, then got up in a hurry and took off. "Sorry guys, gotta go, I'm late for Dragon Ball Z!" That was my introduction to Joey, and I've loved the guy ever since.

Actually, funny cop story just came to my mind. Two of them. Both of them were with Joey. First off, you have to know that the St. George cops have some kind of personal vendetta against skaters, and they will pull their gun on you at the slightest hint of non-cooperation on your part. They're hard core and unashamed of it. So I have a million and a half cop runnins in St George in the 6 years that I lived there. I have 1 that I can remember in Provo in the 4+ years I've lived here. There's just a quick comparison to let you know what we were up against. So The first story, this cop rounded us all up and was super pissed that we were destroying St. George's beloved parking lots and sidewalks, as skateboards are known to just wreak havoc on pavement. Those silicon wheels will do a number on a parking lot where as a 2 ton truck pulling a trailer and dripping oil all over the place couldn't possibly do damage to asphalt. So the cop saw us skating somewhere and sat us all do. He was lecturing us pretty good about how much trouble we were potentially in depending on how nice he was feeling that day. Joey sat quietly the entire time and didn't seem to really care what the cop was saying. The cop, noticing Joey's indifference towards him, thought he'd take control of the situation and said, "hey, China boy, what's your name?" Joey answered in a very monotone, dry, emotionless manner, "I'm not Chinese." We all laughed at that, and the cop stood there feeling stupid on his bad judgment call. "Ok, what's your soash (short for social security number. the cop had asked all of us for our "soash" so he thought Joey would play ball. He underestimated Joey)?" Without changing his tone, Joey answered, "What's a soash?" Somehow, in his emotionless, dry response, Joey defeated that cop. We all laughed really hard, and the cop stared at the ground for a second. You could see the frustration and feelings of self-doubt on his face. He didn't take anyone else' info after that, and he just let us go another day, with our wax to destroy curbs and our broken arms to sue business owners. It was pretty awesome.

Ok, like 4 more cop stories with Joey just popped up into my mind, but I don't have enough time to tell them all right now. I'll stop there. But I will say just a couple words to remind myself of what they are so I can tell them another time. "Joey, run!" and a simple shake of the head. Welcome to the blog, Joey!

How long has this been going on?

This comes as quite a big surprise to me, but turns out Dave has his own blog. Yeah. I never even knew about it. Just found out yesterday. How long has this been going on, Dave? Anything else you'd like to tell me? So this picture comes from his blog. Dave took this picture over a year ago, it was an epic day trip up to Salt Lake. It's the day that Dave learned he can back lip rails and Nick proved to the world he's a man by boardsliding his first handrail. I didn't do anything worth noting. Matt was on camera duty and just looking scary as usual. He attracts some shady people sometimes when we're out skating because they think they see a kindred spirit in Matt. They don't realize that he brushes his teeth, cleans his dishes obsessively, and enjoys being clean. It's the beard, it's very deceitful. Remove the beard, and you'd see a big softy. Now that I look at it closely, Matt almost looks like G G Allen in that picture. I think if you got rid of the beard and kept the mustache, he might be able to pull it off. So never mind, get rid of Matt's beard and you'd see a G G Allen woman/people hater pretender... We met up with Sam at the South Jordan park for what was supposed to be a Zero demo, but we'd seen enough radical skating that day and we left. I don't know how it is, but Sam is always there. I was looking through old pictures a couple days ago, and in looking at them, I saw that Sam was there for like half of the tricks. He's always there...

I'm off track. Back to the point: Dave has his own blog. I like to think of it like an ally to the the Bolts of Thunder blog. Not a branch off, but a good friend. They converse with each other and call upon each other in times of need. Sort of like that. So I put up the link to his blog on the homies and vatos section, check it out if you want...

Tale of Two Matts

"Alright, let's shoot this, and I want the sound and light

guys to be on it this time. Action!"

 "No, you can't be my wing man any time, and you can get

aitch out of my video!"

This post is about the dynamic duo that has always been Matt Hart and Matt Pace. You know who they are, and you wish you had what they got. They've been killing it for years as the two Matts, and they're coming together in a never-before seen power keg, coming out sometime in the future. Try to decipher what that even means because I don't know... Up above, M Pace shows us how to bump up to back lip in the skinnier, taller regions of the world. M Hart, he's just angry. He's been regulating on ex patriots and charades that have been trying to use him for his camera skills and not for his friendship, and he just ain't down for that. Get on the program or you can't be his wing man. Nuff said!

Randy Delucchi

This is Randy Delucchi. Randy is Italian, he has a soul patch, he has the most beautiful kickflips and heelflips you've ever seen and any variation thereof, he hasn't aged in 15 years, he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, he's a great photographer and filmer, he can soul grind rails on roller blades, every muscle in his body is clearly defined by a virtually non-existent layer of skin and fat covering his body, and he's an old, good friend of mine. Randy's one of the OG skaters of St. George. We met him when I was 15, I think he was 16, and he just moved to St. George from California. He had these springs in his legs, and he could pop his kickflips a good two and a half feet high on flat ground. So on my recent scouting trip to St. George, Randy showed Bolts of Thunder that he's still loyal to the game, and the springs in his legs have never been stronger. In the photo above, Randy demonstrates the finer points of hardflipping a couple feet high on flat ground. You know, just in case you wanted text book lessons on it, that's all... We're planning on giving the fans what they want which would be a healthy serving of Delucchi in our next Bolts of Thunder project. We left Randy in charge of the St. George chapter of Bolts of Thunder, and so we'll plan on getting some good St. George homieness in our next video. Randy might even battle Dan in our next video as Bolts of Thunder's male model?... I didn't even think this was possible, but now that I think about it, Randy could be an excellent male model. He has no issues in taking off his shirt in public, he's naturally hairless, so he doesn't even have to shave his chest, and he's got that Italian suave that the rest of the world so desperately desires. But why can't Bolts of Thunder have two male models? I think we have room on the team... Welcome aboard, Randy!

Dave vs the giant volcano

These are some archive pictures from back when we were filming the first Bolts of Thunder video. Dave, after not having skated for a couple years, came straight out of the gates and gave every spot everything he had. We skated this flat gap pretty often because it was really smooth, close to our house, and we couldn't think of anywhere else to skate. So we got quite a few tricks over it in the video. So Dave had been doing 360 flips a lot lately, and he had them down pretty good. For me and Dave, 360 flips are an illusive trick that come and go. Out of nowhere, I'll be able to land them every try, over stuff, off of stuff, whatever I want. This phenomenon will last for a couple months, and during this time I wonder how I was never able to do them. But when this phase ends, I have to concentrate on them and give them everything I got to make them work. From what I understand, Dave goes through the same cycle. So this was when Dave was landing them good, and he wanted to get one over the gap. He tried it for a couple of hours, I don't know how many tries. Our batter was fully charged, and he tried it until the batter died, and it was too dark to see anything anyway. He could barely move when he was done, and he just laid in the ground and moaned for a good while. We ended the night by going to Village Inn and discussing how stressed we were to finish our little video that nobody would probably ever even see. Fun times...

Deciding time

There comes a point in every man's life when he has to decide if he's going to do it, if he's going to jump. Bolts of Thunder and Matt say jump. As long as it's skateboarding that we're talking about, and you're confident in landing your trick. If it's not skateboarding, step back from that ledge my friend, I would understand... My lawyer just told me to insert this statement and make sure there is no mistake on our stance towards mental and physical health: Bolts of Thunder advocates a long, robust, healthy, and vigorous life. We discourage all forms of life-abusing practices, and we want you to be healthy and happy. Live in a way that will give you both. That's all we have to say about that.

To add to this post, I would like to give a special shout out to Coleman. I put up that picture of him a little while ago trying to ollie over that barrier. Coleman, we need to get another picture of you to put up on the blog. I don't want to introduce you as someone that doesn't land their tricks because you're a shredder. Let's make it happen...