So last Thursday, my homegirl Christina Campa invited me and anybody else to go on an 8 and a half mile bike ride from Granada Hills High School to Cangoa Park where an outdoor art festival was taking place. When I got to the meetup spot, its turns out that it was gonna be me, her, and my other homegirl Cecilia Navarette who would pedal all the way to the West Valley. Keep in mind this was when the sun was setting when we departured, and that was good for us cause it cools down during the summer nights in the San Fernando Valley. The 8.83 mile, 49:25 bike route went like this:
-From Granada Hills High School to West of Devonshire to Reseda Blvd
-South on Reseda Blvd all the way to Saticoy Street
-West on Saticoy Street to Canoga Ave
-South on Canoga Ave to Sherman Way
-West of Sherman way to Owensmouth Ave, which is the end of our destination
I never knew that they held an Artwalk here in the Valley, especially the WEST side of the San Fernando Valley that not everybody frequents. I know that they hold one in Downtown Los Angeles every month, but this one here in Canoga Park wasn't as extravagant as the one in LA, yet there were a lot of people. After we locked our bikes, we bumped into my other homies Bryan Kim and Vanessa Salazar there. So we all just looked around and observed the different art pieces that the artists were vending on display. Many of them were terrific, especially this one chick who made a awesome caricature drawing of Vanessa's face.
After that we went to this bar across Topanga Canyon Boulevard that I've never been to called Casey's Tavern just to chill and rest for a bit. Unlike all the other bars that I've been to, this one was VERY low key. In other words, many of the people there consisted of Baby Boomers of those who were born when Hawaii joined the union and when John F. Kennedy got assassinated in 1963. The five of us were like the youngest in that bar, and the best part about the bar, they have a live band consisting of very talented Senior Citizens. I'm not gonna lie, they were fucking entertaining and kept the mood of the bar very smooth with their tunes. They should've performed at the Artwalk just down the street and escaped with some serious tips. Later on Christina, Cecilia and I rode back to Granada Hills, only this time we took a different, longer route, which went like this:
-From Topanga and Sherman Way east to Canoga Avenue
-North on Canoga Avenue to Roscoe Boulevard, riding just parallel to the soon to be expanded Orange Line train tracks
-East on Roscoe Boulevard to De Soto Avenue
-North of De Soto Avenue to Lassen Street
-East on Lassen Street to Lindley Avenue
We then walked up Lindley to chill out at the Del Taco next to Granada Hills High School, and it was past midnight when we got there. A few minutes after we ate some of their food, we then took off to our homes. For me I had to ride an extra two and a half miles to my place.
On Friday, I was pretty much editing photos and working on my uncle's Flickr for the majority of the day. Then my little sister called me and told me that her job, which is 24 hour Fitness, is having a pre-opening party at their new facility in Burbank cause their grand opening is the next day. I was supposed to be at this highly anticipated, hyped up house party that Nicole Stetter was hosting at her place later that night, but I told my sister that we can stay at the gym until they finish the party. We got the 24 Hour Fitness by parking on the roof of the building, right next to a basketball court. Yes, a rooftop basketball court surrounded by parked cars. That's gangster.
We got inside and the place isn't as condensed as I thought it would be. The treadmills and stairmasters are on the same floor as the weights and Cardio workout sets. Other than that the place looks pretty nice. There were a lot of people there and many of my sister's co-workers were around my age. The last time I worked out at an actual gym was two years ago on Memorial Day 2009, when my moms, sisters and I spent the day at the Port Hueneme Naval Base in Oxnard on that weekend. They had a small gym there and I spent the entire night there working my ass off. I also used to be obsessed with body dynamics back in high school. I was in the weight lifting program there and reading Muscle and Fitness magazine in between classes everyday.
While everyone else there was winning prizes and participating in activities provided by the 24 hour Fitness staff, I was hitting up the treadmills losing some mad calories. Now this treadmill that I was using is no way like the other treadmills that I've used in the past. This one lets you manually raise the incline of the machine as if you were running up a steep hill and it has a television monitor which has cable TV provided among other easy to use features. I forgot how many miles I ran, but I did lose close to 300 calories in a 30 minute run. When I finish, my shirt was filled with a lot of sweat obviously. Then I rested for a bit and decided to try out some of the weights there for a bit until they had to close the facility for the grand opening the next morning, in which I didn't have time to use the showers there.
My sister then dropped me off at my pops house, and I then rushed to the showers to get ready for Nicole's house party not too far away. I walked over there which was bonus for me in terms of losing some calories. When I got to her street, I saw a grip of cars parked along the sidewalk like as if I was going to Rose Parade in Pasadena or a high school graduation. I check my Facebook to read that my homeboy Ramone Magana was there and said that there was a shitload of people and girls in bikinis there, so I took his word for it. When I got to her place, there was a gang of dudes lounging in front of her place and some other people were going back to their cars and I thought shit, maybe Ramone wasn't kidding at all. Normally I would ring her doorbell, but judging from the loudness of the noise while walking close to her place, I decided to go to the back only to see A MAJOR SHITLOAD OF TWENTY-SOMETHING HIPSTERS, PUNKS, GROUPIES, ATTRACTIVE FEMALES IN BIKINIS, PISS-HAMMERED DRUNKS AND A FUCKING GRIP OF PEOPLE THAT I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE ALL CRAMPED IN NICOLE STETTER'S BACKYARD! DAMN!
Now understand this. I've been to Nicole's place many times for the past eleven months that I've known her, and it'll be exactly a full year next month going back to her twins second birthday party that I covered last summer. She threw several parties and kickbacks and performances , but ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE LIKE WHAT I WAS SEEING THAT NIGHT! Shit, I couldn't even fucking move around her backyard with all these people. About five minutes after I got in. I found the bottom of my jeans and my Andre Agassi Nikes all drenched with water after some fool jumped into Nicole's swimming pool causing a tidal wave-like splash all over the place. The night got better when I was hitting on this girl from the OC and ran into some OGs that I haven't seen in years. We spent the rest of night just catching up on each other's lives and talking about all the crazy shit that we used to do back in Junior High School and filmmaking class at Kennedy High. I think the reason why the capacity was intense cause the band Santoros was doing a rare performance here in the Valley, hence Nicole's backyard, and their fanbase is insane. This was bigger than their shows in the Five Star bar and The Airliner in Los Angeles that I've seen them perform at, but major props to them for driving out here and giving another entertaining performance as always. And also very special shout to all the other bands and people that made it out here to the Valley to show support for the 818.
I somehow managed to wake up early on Saturday to go all the way down to Westchester (Happy Early Birthday Stephen) to meet up with my uncle cause we had a wedding to cover. On the way over there, I found that Amy Winehouse had passed away in the UK at 27. That kinda got me stunned for a bit after I read that. Its crazy cause four years ago, she was doing well with her Back to Black record which took home EVERY Grammy award a year later, and she wasn't present at the ceremony to present them that night. Then after that, a bunch of drugs and other media bullshit overshadowed her singing career. I'm not really into her, though I've heard her songs a little bit at stores and a piece of it at this years MTV Movie Awards during the breaks. Crazy shit.
Anyway, my uncle told me to meet him at the Holiday Inn next to LAX Airport. I went to the one on La Cienega and Century, but didn't see him. I called him and then he told me that I was supposed to be at the one on Airport and Manchester. Damn, such a mistake. So I bought a Turkey Sandwich and some Orange Juice from the AM/PM close by and consumed them inside the lobby of the Holiday Inn as I waited for my uncle to give me a lift. I was gonna go to that two story McDonalds right behind the AM/PM, but the drive thru line was fucking longer than the In-N-Out drive thru on a Friday Night, or Thursday Night for the purposes of this blog. 10 minutes later, my uncle showed up and we headed to the other Holiday Inn, where we were gonna take photos of the bride that was getting wedded.
After getting some shots of the bride and the bridal party, we then shook off to the Church where the ceremony was gonna be held at. The Church is the one on La Tijera Blvd next to the 405 freeway off and on ramp, and its Catholic. The wedding ceremony too about an hour to cover. Not a lot of people showed up to the church to witness the wedding. When it was over, we took a few portraits in front of the church and at this nice-ass park all the way in San Pedro, where you can view the Long Beach Harbor from there. After the photo session there of the bride and the groom, we then drove to this hall near Gardena where the reception took place. It went on forever since the newlyweds are Nigerian like myself and later on, ALOT more people showed up, many of those who didn't attend the actual wedding. I must've took 2,000 photos there, with 1,500 just of the bride and her family friends. Seven hours later, we left the reception and my uncle took me back to my place at around 3AM.
Then on Sunday morning, I woke up and spent most of the morning talking to my pops who just got back from his trip to Nigeria last Friday. After he told me about his trip, I went back to my place in Sylmar and just chilled and rested there for the entire day. Didn't do shit or any editing. Pretty much took a day off. Then on Monday and Tuesday I went out and bought T-shirts from Diamond Supply Co. in Fairfax and Primitive in Ventura Boulevard, tried out the Habit in Encino for the first time which was very fucking delicious. Speaking of great stuff to consume, I had some bomb-ass Quesadillas at Grand Lux Cafe next to the Beverly Center while running into a old paparazzi buddy in there that I used to work with three years ago.
We talked about Nikon cameras and all the wild times that we used to do chasing famous people and shit everyday. He told me that the value of getting a photo of Kim Kardashian has dropped and its no way worth the way it was a year before I started doing this business, right after the sex tape leaked. And he even brought up the fact that his sisters and the rest of the family, aside from Bruce Jenner who was washed up from his Olympic yeas in the 70's. were complete absolute nobodies in 2006-2007, and now one of the sisters is married to a NBA Champion and the other has a kid. I remember when they used to be working at the DASH store in Calabasas everyday, and now they're hardly there.
When he was telling me all this, it just made me realize how far I gotten to over the years. It felt like last month when we were doing this, but this was three years ago. I was still living at my pop's house with all my posters in my room, I was barely 21 yet, and I owned a Macbook, a black one. Now none of that is existent now. On top of that, alot of females and hot girls that I knew and met years ago from my high school years are now becoming wives, spouses, moms and future moms. Hell, there are some dudes that I knew and used to fuck around and cause trouble with that are also fathers as well. A compete 180 degree turn. To me, I don't even see a problem with it at all. I can' t do anything else but to give them my absolute support and respect, and to wish them successful, healthy endeavors in the future.
Well, that was lengthy as always. Now I'm gonna stop here and get ready for another booked up weekend. Going to a sold out performance to watch a very popular singer that I've met earlier this year, which I didn't have to pay for again. Then San Diego, a birthday party to cover in the Antelope Valley and some other photoshoots with sexy women and hundreds of dollars to blow. Later.
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