This is the words I wrote for the Next/Best column/article for Color Magazine:The only thing I knew about him was that he one of the skateboarders I enjoyed watching and had one hell of a switch flip, yet, naturally I was unsure how this meet and greet would go.
Following the hello and handshake plus a quick tour of his condo,
Danny Garcia and I sat in the dual couches wedged in the corner of his knickknacky living room. Instinctually he grabbed his guitar and just lightly strummed random chords. I small talked him about how come he had such a baby TV and his response was that he put it in here for Raymond (Molinar) who was couching it and that he doesn't watch much TV. We chatted briefly about skateboarding and girlfriends but once we started our conversation about personal tastes in music, it rapidly progressed into a high energy banter back and fourth about how songs were created, what influences the musician had for each song had and what effect it had on us. I'm no musical expert, by any means, but it was safe to say that Danny was hands down a music connoisseur. Unknowing to me, at about an hour or so, he said to me,
"Hey maybe we should shoot this photo thing." Oh yeah, thats why I'm here, I thought.
Asking me what I had planned, and me not really aware of what I was looking for in a photo, Danny sprang up and sat at this piano and just tapped away and some familiar tunes. I'm not very embarrassed at singing aloud, and apparently neither was he, because
before I knew it, we were singing in unison to quirky Beatles classic, which if you heard it, you'd sing it too. Time passed and the conversation continued from vintage instruments in his closest to his hilarious obsession with chocolate cake. Hahha, I know it sounds weird, but it felt like we had been friends for years, but it had only been a couple of hours. - Mikendo
Labels: Color Magazine, Danny Garcia, Mikendo Interviews, Next/Best
Coming out with their Next/Best issue, Color Magazine asked me to work with Brian Lotti on a Next/Best article. Meeting Brian was soo awesome, what a great guy! Just like your best friend, but you just met him! We've actually been skating a bit around my area, and I love that he just has that "lets do it" mentality! Plus watching him skate around flat.. now I know what the hype is about.
