LA IMPRINT.

(This is me on the 101 in LA. Note my speedometer.)

L.A., L.A. Big City of Dreams.
Haven't been back to LA in a long minute. The weather...just as I last left it, is still perfect.
The traffic...still sucks. On my way to the hotel, the GPS in my rental car said I was 8 mins away. But because of traffic, it took 1 hour! New Yorkers just cannot accept that level of inefficiency! Well, after settling into the hotel I grabbed a late night dinner with Tony Held, CEO of InCase and Damon Way, legendary skater and founder of DC. This is the beauty of the internet. The three of us have been communicating via email for months and months...but this is the first time we actually met in person. But once we met, we hit it off like old buds. It was very good to meet these successful figures. Two cats I can really learn a lot from.



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The next morning was the commencement of Imprint Life. As told in my previous post, a very interesting collection of artists and creatives here.

(l-r) David Choi, Happy Slip and Xin talk about YouTube as a powerful medium as these guys can definitely attest to. Rob Heppler from WeeklyDrop and Brian Lam from Gizmodo chill in the green room before we head out to speak about blog culture. Alyasha (FiberOps) and Bobby Hundreds (Hundreds) sat with me in a panel about streetwear (along with Jennifer Yu/Entertainment Marketing from New Era).


Whoa! 10000% pigeon dunk! Its awesome that people are still so intrigued by the Pigeon Dunk release...even 3 years later now.


The conference wrapped up with a one-on-one session with myself and one of my design heros, John Jay of Weiden + Kennedy. All we did was sit back and talk. But after the session, the audience and organizers loved what we did. They said they felt like a fly on the wall while we were just having a casual conversation. Haven't you ever had a dope deep conversation with someone and afterwards said, "Damn, I wish we were recording that whole thing!" Lots of time, when cameras and an audience are in front of you, it makes it difficult to be relaxed. But for some reason, we just breezed thru this totally casually and people really responded to it.

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After that, Julia Huang, CEO of interTrend, treated a bunch of us to an incredible dinner. It was at a secret restaurant that is probably not even legally allowed to operate. The front is completely covered up. The entire restaurant of 20 seats was booked privately by us. I absolutely say this without a grain of exaggeration that this was BY FAR, the best beef and steak meal I have ever had in my entire life including every country I have ever traveled to. Words that come to mind are: Cosmic. Mind boggling. Banoodles. Numbing. Ludicrous. Yeah, that good. Sorry, I can't expose the location of this place..but I wish I could. I will go back to LA often just for this place.


Daniel Wu from HK and Dan Nakamura were manning the grills. They also were part of the conference.


Sarah Honda of Smart Magazine.


Staple and the WU.


We made it thru the dinner. Ever wonder what raw cow throat tastes like? Or how about inner AND outer intestines? Trust me...its crazy...but so freaking good. (Myself, Daniel Wu, Dan Automator, and his cuz Larry..with Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot in the background...big ups to him for organizing this entire shindig.)