It was all supposed to be so simple.  With a solid "in" on a trip that a bunch of Canada's top skaters went on this past winter, I was going to run an article based on their overall experiences for my weekly Push.ca column.  After speaking to a select few members of the crew, I compiled a pretty sweet article outlining their trip and felt pretty good about being able to actually hand in an article on time. Here's where it gets complicated: about one week before submitting the article to Push.ca, I received the newest issue of SBC Skate (Summer '10) that just happened to have a way better story based on the exact same road trip. Of course theirs was written better and yes, I already know what you're thinking: they had pictures to back everything up. What's more is that I really enjoyed reading their article. Since I'm such a big fan of the magazine, I had to somehow re-write the story from a different angle. Instead of trying to track down the skaters and ask them different questions, I contacted Mitch Barrette and asked him for all the "bro cam" video footage from the trip so we could bring the magazine story to life on the internet. When I sat down with Rich Odam, writer and photographer for the trip, to talk about how this trip came to be I learned a little more about what happened behind the scenes of the SBC story.

So you recently did this article for SBC Skateboard called "Baconator Food Coma"...
Yup. It's funny as hell. What a sick trip.

The article kicks ass; all the photos are sick, and the writing is funny. What didn't make it into the magazine?
Ummmmmm. Oh shit, I totally forgot to talk about one thing in the article: the hot tubs sessions. Dude soup, eight guys in the hot tub drinking 40's and 6 packs getting all emotional. It was funny ‘cause after a few beers people started talking about feelings and deep life shit. Now that I think about it, shit got pretty serious.

The SBC article is essentially about Mitch eating bacon, Chad trying a Red Bull shot for the first time, and then a crack head doing a b & e on your rented pad.  What the hell happened with that guy again? Did you lock your door after that?
It was a gated community, and everyone inside the gates was pretty mellow. You would never expect that kind of crazy shit to go down. Go pick up a copy of the newest issue of SBC and get the low down!

Whose idea was it to go down there for a month and skate?
That was mine; as soon as winter is here in Canada, I'm like ‘peace'. But the difference is that we rented a five-bedroom house while we were down there.

Ballin'! You rented a house? Where was it?
The house was in Carlsbad and it was about 3g's for the whole month.  With all the people living it, rent was only like $500 a head. Our house was close to everything; all the company warehouses like DC and all the industrial skate spots that you see in the movies. Carlsbad is good because it's actually pretty central. It's a 30-minute drive to downtown San Diego and just under an hour out to LA and the OC. The spots out there are super fun.

How did you decide the crew that you wanted to go down there with? Who did you put it out to first to get things going?
First it was going to be Sean Lowe, Chad Dixon and I. We were going to try and keep it pretty mellow. Later on, I ended up talking to Mitch and he told me that he was planning a trip with a few of his friends to head out to Cali during the winter. When I realized that we were pretty much going to be in the same place, I asked him, JS Lapierre and Matt Canadian to join us.

Is Matt french?
No, he lives in Ottawa I think. I just wanted to bring a few people from the east and a few people from the west. It's easier to find a nice big place to live in versus a small place where we're all uncomfortable. As far as I'm concerned, the more people the better because the rent keeps getting cheaper. TJ Rogers was supposed to come but he ended up going to Phoenix. Anyways, I ended up driving down there and...

Wait, holy shit, you drove down there?
Yeah, straight from Vancouver. I usually drive. This trip was my second time doing it.

Damn, I thought you would have flown down.
Nah. If you're down there and the spots require driving, then at least you're taken care of ‘cause you have your own car. We were down there for a month so you might as well have a whip. And there is no way to skate down there unless you have a car.

That's the deal with skating in Cali right, all the spots are spread out everywhere?
Well yeah, there's a lot of driving. You're like "let's go to this spot," then you're thinking of what you're going to do and then plan your day around it. LA one day, SD the next, OC the next day.

What was the daily routine like? Did everybody get up at a decent hour and start skating?
No, hahah, not quite. In the beginning when everyone was healthy, yes. As soon as one person got hurt, the rest of the crew would be lagging. If people weren't up by 11am they were getting their doors knocked down. With the sunlight starting to go down at like 6-7pm we didn't have enough time to sleep in.

In the end, did you think the trip worked out well?
Yeah, I took care of everything. I rented the house and everyone paid me in advance.  At one point I had $3000 cash in my pocket while I was walking around Cali looking for a bank. Pretty sketchy.

Do you think you're ever going to do this again? 
I would be down, possibly in a new place though. Barcelona would be dope but I don't want to have to look over my shoulder and have my equipment jacked. I'm pretty eager to head out to China actually. The next big trip I have planned is for Peru but this Cali trip should happen again for sure. The spot we had rented was so sick and everyone showed up and had such a great time. We were all used to piling up on couches and floors and this place had hot tubs and pools.

Enough with the words, time to get into this video. You stoked to see the sequences come to life?
Hell yeah. Remember, I was there in person for all the action myself.

Oh yeah, that's right. Hahaha.
Roll the clip!

Check out a preview of the Summer '10 issue of SBC Skateboard Magazine here, and look for it on newsstands to get the full story.

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