Eighty Four: Beers, BBQ's, and Good Friends on the mainland

Recently we took a trip to L.A. and S.D. for some surf, BBQ, and fun and that's exactly what we did. There was a mass amount of BBQ'ing that went on as well as cold beverages to keep us cool in the hot California sun. Every day it was something new and it always topped what went on the day before. By the end of the trip Parks and I were tapping out and ready to go home. It was a great trip overall but it's good to be back home after a long stay on the mainland. Enjoy the pics!

Dyson, Pastras, and J-Lee, and Markovich's masterpiece in the background!

Charlie Thomas and Nick. (Thanks for letting us use your floor!)

Charlie whipping up some vegetarian dish.

Braxton, Dyson, Rod, and Nick (hint the shaker!)

Eric from RVCA took the crew and I out to lunch over @ Wahoo's in Costa Mesa. From my understanding this is one of the original Wahoo's. It's got a different feel from all the new Wahoo joints. It's much more authentic and not so homogenized like the new setups. Anyways the food was great as well as the atmoshpere. Thanks to Eric and Pat at RVCA for lunch!

Dyson trying to backdoor the joint!

Parks, Eric, Philipp, and Dyson

The guys over at Fox Racing invited us over to their facility to check it out. It was super sick with a mini bike track, BBQ grills, a half pipe, and a showroom to host fashionshows. Being a fan of motocross racing it was awesome to see the history of Fox with photos from back in the 70's to the present. Fox is the king when it comes to moto and they're taking that same approach and applying it to the Action Sports industry. With James "Bubba" Stewart and recently retired Ricky Carmichael leading the way Fox is a force to be recogned with. Thanks to Kurt and Jimmy O for the tour and the hook ups!

Kurt and Jimmy O

On our way down to San Diego from Orange County we stopped over at Jamie Thomas's facility for the Black Box Openhouse. Jamie had a few other vendors like Brixton, Black Label, Given Skateboards(Markovich's new project), Deathwish, Transworld, Deluxe, Skate Book(Ballard and Salman Agah), and a few other vendors who decided not to do the ASR. Jamie's facility is incredible. He's got a full blown skatepark built in for crying out loud! Although it was hot as f#ck it was good to see old friends and make new ones. Ballard and Salman were giving out free Skate Books. These things make great coffee table books and have alot of interesting content inside from skateboarding to art. Brixton was looking good as usual with their ever expanding line. They're adding apparel to their already inasane hat line. Be on the lookout for Dyson's new ad with Brixton! After a few hours in the hot sun we decided to head on down to Tamarak and take advantage of Eric from RVCA's invite to use his beach house and boards. Water was warm....amazing! Thanks Eric!

Big Billy Deans the mento Hawaiian representing L&L.

Tyler Mumma representing Skate Book

After going to Black Box's openhouse and surfing Tamarak we headed over to legendary skateboarder Matt Hensley's Pub to celebrate Black Label's 20 years of skateboarding. Hensley's house band provided the music and Lucero and the Label Crew hosted all comers. It was awesome! Hensley's Pub has a great atmosphere and is very inviting. There were 3 or 4 Pool tables, with a collection of vintage skateboards, artwork, photography, a place for music, great food, drinks and friends. Matt's staff showed us much Aloha and we'll definitely be returning on our next trip and I highly suggest if you're in the Carlsbad area that you do the same.

"T" and John Lucero (check the Royal Hawaiian Pool Service tee!)

"Crooks" and Dyson

"Ohio Dan" and "Ohio Dave"

Rod and Parks (notice the bbq sauce on Parks mouth!)

Yamasat runnin the table

Pinoy in hot pursuit

Parks, Dyson, Nick, and R.P.

The aftermath!

Every day after the tradeshow Hurley and the Tin Fish across the street from the tradeshow were serving complimentary coldies. After a long day of walking and talking nothing was better than a nice cold beverage to relax with. It was also good way to get primed and get the night started traditional tradeshow style. You know us Hawaiians, never one to turn down a cold one or pupus!

"Grumpy" and the "Visayan Rat"

Parks and Robby from Hurley

Parks and Benji Weatherly

On Thursday night Converse was hosting Social Distrtion and Reverend Horton Heat at the House of Blues San Diego. It was an acoustic set which made it uniquely rad if that makes any sense. The Reverend killed it!!! Social D also killed it and we were super stoked to have had the opportunity to be invited. Thanks to Dave Huang over at Converse for the hookups!

On Friday, Santa Cruz Skateboards was celebrating their 35th birthday upstairs in the SD Convention Center. It was super rad to see the excitement surrounding the landmark event. What was even radder was seeing the crowd of all ages, a diverse demographic, and all the big name pros who were just fanning out on the whole thing. Santa Cruz had all their riders from past to present participating in the autograph session. Their was memorabilia to be bought and signed for all the fans. Jim Phillips was easily the main attraction. Having brought us the "Screaming Hand" the most notable of his endless works, we all have Jim Phillips to thank for where we are today as skateboarders and artist.

Benny Fairfax and Dyson
Lester Kasai and Nick
The Astorgas
Skip Engblom
Duane Peters
Vans Crew
Rich Novak and Jim Phillips
Nick, Nilton, and Dyson

On Saturday night Vans treated us and a few of their other accounts out to dinner at a sushi joint somewhere in downtown San Diego. The food was great, the company was awesome and talking Motorhead with Rowley and how Vans was started with Mr.Van Doren was equally rad. It was also Lou from Vans birthday! Thanks to all the crew at Vans for the hospitality.
(The 2 Geoff's, guess which one is which!)
Tom Cook and Rod
Rod, Lou, Geoff, Geoff, and Parks
Steve Van Doren and Parks
Amoeba Records Hollywood

On Saturday we bailed from San Diego at the crack of dawn to make it up to L.A. to check out the Dodgers vs. Diamond Backs game at Chavez Ravine. I've never been to Dodger Stadium and being an S.F. Giants fan I wasn't sure if I'd like it much. To my surprise I actually enjoyed the Dodger experience although I was rooting for the D Backs. Dodger Dogs were tasty, fans were awesome, got to see "Man Ram" belt a 3 run homer, and we had seats in the shade. What more could we ask for. Go Giants!

Rod and Parks (wrong hats!)

Pregame
The Parks sibblings and one Dodger Dog

On our last night in Orange County before we headed out the next day we held our ritualistic BBQ that we had every night that we stayed at Nick's. Good food, good drinks, good music, and good friends, what a life. I did manage to piss Parks off during a game of trumps. He was trying to explain how to play the game since I'm not much into cards and I was a bit out of it after a long day of driving from S.D. to L.A., a Dodger game, a trip to Amoeba Records on Hollywood and back down to the O.C. It was funny because there was no getting through to me that night and that pissed Parks off. After a scrapped game of trumps Dyson, Nick, Braxton, Sean and I got out the instruments and a full blown musical session ensued!

The "Visayan Chef" ala backyard BBQ

"I'm too sexy for this grill!" Sean Santiago and his best impression of what a GQ pose should look like!
"Backyard band"

On our last day in the O.C. we woke up early for a surf at River Jetties in Newport. It was nice and cold and all Parks and I had were a pair of boardshorts and one half mill top to share between us (check out our Water Logged for pics). There were a couple hundred guys out in full suits and we show up in boardies! Anyways it was fun. After the session we headed back to Nick's casa for some breakfast. Dyson whipped up the most amazing breakfast ever. Thanks Dice. After a good surf sesh and some breakfast it was time to head back home to the islands so Parks could check on his car! Thanks to all that made our trip a great one (Nick and Charlie, Eric Thomas, Matt Hensley and John Lucero, Dave Huang, the crew over at Volcom, RVCA, Hurley, and Vans.) Aloha!