D3

Last week I had a mini get away from my home of West LA. I went down to Fullerton to stay with Clint and get some hang and skate time. The trip was 4 days of shit talking. Just the way I like it. That's basically all you get when you hang out with this damn character. Kyle Walker, and Trevor Vaughan (the peeps Clint lives with) aren't in California right now so having a bed to use in the Treehouse (the name given to Kyle and Trevor's room) was the bomb! Kyle and Trevor have a bunk bed, and for some reason I think that's so awesome. I've spent nights asleep on the floor of the Treehouse, but this time around I took the bottom bunk since no one was there. The first morning when I woke up, staring at the ceiling of the bottom bunk I was greeted with this:

Unfortunately, if you wake up to this you did not have a comfortable bed to sleep in.

I'm just kidding, Trevor. I slept alright...I think! Clint and I met up with none other than Gonzo, and Myles Wright. I love skating with Myles because he will always surprise you, and he likes to talk shit back as well. Love getting him fired up. Not only that, but the fellow loves to quote the movie Friday! Any person who can drop lines from Friday in any and every situation is a great person in my book.

Myles thinking about the next mixtape he's going to download to his phone.

There's always a kick back period of time that tends to go down once you finish skating a spot. If legit tricks were made there is a celebratory vibe that you can't deny floating around in the air. If you're at a high bust spot you get in and out. When you're at chill spots you can't help but hang out for a bit and take in what just went down. We sure as hell always do this. Sometimes we stay longer than we'd like because we're always trying to get to hit up another skate spot. But either way, it's good times.

Skateboard tailgate party is what I like to call this.

My car has seen many of these things I call "skateboard tailgate parties." Almost every day that we go skate we pretty much open the back and post up at spots. Not everyone decides to skate the spots you end up going to and when a person doesn't have a trick for the spot they either kick it on the sidelines or pop up the back and post up. Enjoy skateboarding and all that it has to offer...on and off the actual board itself.

Peer pressure's a mothafucka. (Friday quote...for those who don't know)

After skating and dinner one night I started to troll Netflix to try and figure out what to watch. If you have Netflix you know that it can actually end up taking you longer to FIND / DECIDE what to watch than it takes to actually watch your flick. This night I came across Titanic 2 and it was on. I know what you're thinking...how can there be a Titanic 2? I'm about to get Yoda on that ass and say: "Don't think. Do." Watch the movie and see for yourself. Maybe James Cameron didn't sign on for this gem (I know I'm just as shocked as you are), but you're still in for a treat because Celine Dion recorded a great song for the soundtrack of this one as well. Do yourself a favor...

Brian Hanson : DSLR face off

My last day at Clint's was a rather mellow one. We kicked it at the Ambiguous office and went out to lunch with those dudes. Osiris had sent a package their way and we got a chance to peep the goods...

D3's and G-Bag? All the fixin's you need to be the coolest kid in high school 10 years ago.

In other news. Just yesterday I got myself a white iPhone 4. I kind of miss my Blackberry...not going to lie. I think I'll miss BBMing with a few people more than anything. You know who you are Miss Theresa Wayman and Mr. Barrett Sweger. Well, I'm sure I'll miss having a keyboard at certain times as well! If you have a nifty iPhone and use Instagram then lets "follow" each other @richievaldez. I don't use Twitter so I feel weird using the term "follow" but I guess that's just the term you gotta use. Hello 21st century.

BARK-BARK-BARK

I am way behind on photos and stuff...I haven't been shooting as many photos lately so I have to make up for lost time soon here because I am running low on back catalog photos. I may have to start digging in the archives for photos that I shot back when I had my Nikon DSLR :0


A while back Dylan Witkin, Eduardo Craig, Norman Woods, and myself went out to the IE and met up with Daniel Knapp.  The day started with a sesh at the Chino park. It was actually my first time going there and I had tons of fun. We all did! After that Eduardo took us to a spot that he had been to a while back and we messed around with it. Dylan and Norman got clips there, wee!

Apparently Johnny Layton got a line here that contained this ollie.

Rick James, DWit, R Kelly.

I've been making Eduardo shoot double angles for me. He's came through hard! The guy has a good eye. I just tell him where to go and he'll almost always get a legit 2nd angle. If you come skating with me and you're not skating a spot I will put your ass to work ;)

We skated about in the area for the day and had fun. Skated some super random spots, and even found an unskated gap that everyone ended up getting a trick on. Don't you love it when that happens? The day ended at a crazy gap to manny to drop that Jason Vanzant told us to check out...it was insane and no one messed with it but we had fun putting our trucks on the edge of red curbs at high speeds while at the spot.

Norman flips his lucky coin as the sunsets out in the Inland Empire.

Clint is flying in tomorrow from Oklahoma tomorrow and I'm picking his ass up from the aereoport. Looking forward to hanging with this dumb ass, as always! We're going to be handling biz in the streets for the next few days. I can't wait. My wrist feels stupid. The cast is still on. I hope it's healing properly. Today was also a fun day. I will stop these short sentences now.

This never seizes to make me laugh. Enjoy!

Arizona in March.

The last few days of March turned out to be an interesting few days. My roommate Allen, and I had spent the day of March 25th hanging out with my good friend Derek Rydquist who had just recently moved back to LA. We hung out, went to lunch, and then proceeded to get our day fade on. The day fade continued on into the night. Around midnight I had received a call from none other than Clint Walker. What I wasn't ready for was Clint to ask me to leave for Arizona with him THAT NIGHT! Derek was taking off for a tour with his band The Faceless the next morning so he was going to be spending the night. I had to ponder the idea for a bit and had I not been drunk for hours on end my decision may have been different...but I decided to go! I started parking the moment I got off the phone with Clint and was geared up for a spur of the moment road trip. And Derek got to sleep in my bed that night instead of on the couch in the living room...win/win.


Clint showed up at around 2AM, we made a quick stop by my favorite convenience store in the world, FAMIMA, for a few beverages, and then we were Arizona bound! We drove through the night straight to the Bangarang house in Phoenix. The home of Micah Hollinger and Lobster aka Jerry Smyth! By the time we had pulled into the garage it was already sunny outside. The height of the sun did little in terms of keeping us from catching that lucid rapid eye movement state that I love so much. It was the best sleep I had had in a while. Chevy said it best. "Like a rock."

Clint. Standard "wake up" procedure.

We woke up at who knows what time that same day and just kinda hung out and allowed our brains to catch up to the rest of the world. It took longer than usual. Eventually everyone at the Bang house gathered and we nerded out even longer...

All the sizes were accounted for here...uh huh huh huh.

Because this trip was over a month ago I don't really remember exactly what we did our first day there. I know that I had a great time every single day though. I think the first day we just hung out mellow style with Micah, Lobster, and Steven Schneider and skated a plaza that night. At some point we met up with Thrasher photographer Joe Hammeke and Clint's fellow Birdhouse teammate Shaun Gregoire.

Joe with this crazy iPhone contraption.

Clint and Shaun at the Cigna banks. Ryan Reyes shut this spot down.

Clint gripped a board for me and used the surroundings as tools.

Skate Birdhouse.

One thing about skateboarding that I love is the fact that you can get in a car, drive to another state and meet up with friends and just let whatever happens happen. The time we spent on our boards, as well as the time spent off them, were all enjoyable. Being in the company of friends is what really matters. Clint and I weren't really stressing over filming bangers, or trying to stack huge amounts of footy. We were there because we felt like escaping California for a bit and wanted to kick it with good folk! We kicked it, skated, watched movies, filmed, went to a contest, and I got to see one of my favorite people in the world...Ryan Reyes. I live for times like these.

This was just as fun as anything else!

You better believe he's got that duck footy.

At this point, I've realized that I'm trying extremely hard to not talk about what the trip turned into. The trip turned into a serious mission to accomplish something crazy. The mission was in fact accomplished...however I cannot divulge what it was that Micah, Clint, Steven and myself got ourselves into. Boys have to have their secrets, you know. In time you will all know, and see, what it is that I am talking about. I just had to get that off my chest because it was eating me up trying to find things to talk about the regarding the trip since the whole trip can almost NOT be talked about...anyway, here's a few more photos! 

Lobster proved the sign right. When I dip, you dip, we dip.

Clint locked his keys in the trunk this night.

No loitering.

There's a lot more photos from the trip, and stories to tell but sometimes things are better left unsaid. Knowing that Clint and I had to return to California was a little saddening. That meant coming back to reality so to speak. The world always seems a little more fun when you're not in your daily settings. Mini vacations like this are good for the mind and heart. We drove back that night. Got home super late. Woke up early early and then I went straight to my boss Ted Newsome's Warpaint music video shoot. I shot the behind the scenes / making of piece for that project and it's 95% done at this point. The label has yet to release the video I did for the band, but I have a feeling it will come out after Ted's video comes out. What Ted has shown me so far looks insane! Keep your eyes peeled!

In other news, I did an edit for my boys at Signal Snowboards. I'm by no means a fan of the band Linkin Park. No offense to them...just not into that kinda stuff. BUT, the singer of that band and Signal teamed up to raise awareness and money to help out Japan in this very tough time.

I did not shoot ANY of this...just merely did the editing for it. That is all. SUPPORT BANGARANG OR DIE! Can't stress this enough. Also, get ready for something new out of the twiztid mind of Micah Hollinger...PROJECT TURTLE!