June 12,
2000
9:30pm
Although listening to the Southern California brand
stylings of Unwritten Law’s Pop Punk song "Cailin"
isn’t a fitting image of my recent trips to Anime
Central in Chicago, Illinois and Motor City Comicon in
Detroit, Michigan; that’s what I am listening to
right now. I just wanted to plug Unwritten Law, cause
they kick ass, go buy their albums kiddies, they’re
trendy now, they are on Interscope now. So you all can
relate to them. And while you are at it, pick up the
Atari’s Blue Skies, Broken Hearts, Next Twelve Exits
as well, they’re on Fat Wreck Chords, and they aren’t
trendy, but they fucking rock. Shoot! While I’m on
the plug bandwagon, go see My Own Discretion, a local
band here in Stafford, Virginia and they are going to
play at what we call the Sports Garbage (Sports Garden),
they aren’t half bad, for an Emo band, and the
singer always looks like he’s on the verge of
breaking into a fit of crying
Wait where was I? Oh yeah, Anime and Comic book
conventions. I guess I just had to put something else
into my little ditty for people that don’t watch
anime or read comic books (I myself don’t read comic
books either, I’ll explain why I was at a comic book
convention later). Oh by the way, Less Than Jake’s
song Black Coffee is playing right now, it’s on the
album Losing Streak, good album, check it out.
For the few of you that don’t know or care, I work
at Anime Conventions. What I do is sell merchandise for
Anime Pavilion, a store in Falls Church, Va. Well I kinda
do more than that, I’m also my bosses little gopher
who drives the van to get food for the rest of us and to
do other things, like * cough * fix his pants * cough *
long story
It was my first time attending Anime Central, earlier
that year I went to Animazement in Raleigh, North
Carolina and the two were similar in size so I kinda knew
what I was up against. Well sort of, I didn’t count
on the tons of people I’ve met on the internet being
there nor the guests actually remembering who I am and
sheesh even the customers I usually meet at cons, I mean
this is the Midwest, you know far away from the East
Coast, ah well, I suppose Anime still is an underground
thing and you always see the SAME 20 people you see at
different cons all over the states. I guess I’ll
know for sure when I go to LA for Anime Expo in a few
weeks.
For you non-anime fans still reading this: These Are Our
Favorite Quotes from 80’s Movies by the Bouncing
Souls from the Album The Good, the Bad, and the Argyle is
a great song, it’s funny and has some excerpts from
Valley Girl starring Nicolas Cage, it’s a really
funny movie, it has Nic Cage playing a teenage punk
rocker that falls in love with a California girl from the
suburbs and it’s a modern Romeo and Juliet except
that nobody dies and it’s got a neato keen Prom
Scene where a dumb 80’s band plays a song called
Johnny are you Queer? There’s not much punk in the
movie even though it’s supposed to be about a punk
rocker but the movie made that one 80’s song I melt
with you which was by um I forgot but Good Riddance
covered it, go figure, and it was on the CD Before you
were Punk a really good CD, go buy it. But if you wanna
watch a really good punk movie made in the 80’s go
watch Repo Man starring Emilio Estevez, the soundtrack
has the Circle Jerks and Black flag in it and you can
also get to hear Emilio sing TV Party Tonight
I’m not gonna bore you with what goes on in a con
because well I already wrote my English paper on what
goes on in a convention, and I’ll put that up for
reading in the future, it’s not really that good,
but it’s informative somehow I think Besides for
those of you who don’t care what happens in a
convention don’t need to read about one, and those
of you that already been to cons know what goes on in
them so it would be redundant for me to tell you what
happens.
Oh and I forgot I don’t really do much at cons
1)
I don’t watch anime there
Why the heck would I put myself in a exhibition room full
of stinky 300 pound men AND women that don’t know
how to shower and have a bad habit of hootin’ and
hollerin’ like a bunch of rednecks at their brother
and sister’s wedding when I could just get the
fansub from one of my fansubber friends and then watch it
at my own leisure on a comfortable couch with my home
theater system AIRCONDITIONED and with the people I
actually care about: My friends, well the one’s that
watch anime. Only time I actually enjoyed watching anime
at a con was when FINALLY got to see Akazukin Cha Cha at
Katsukon, it was great because the room wasn’t
packed because Cha Cha isn’t really known here in
the states. I think the only other anime I would actually
watch at a con is Kingyo Chihuuiho because the tapes I
have of it is dubbed in Mandarin Chinese and sheesh I DON’T
SPEAK CHINESE!@#!
2)
I don’t go to Cosplay
I haven’t been to a Cosplay since Anime USA October
1999. Why? Ever since I’ve been going to cons and
cosplays I’ve seen the same 20 skits by the same 20
people. It’s getting old. It’s not that I get
good seating, as a dealer you usually get near the stage
to see it. I’ll go to one though if a friend is in
it and they ask me to, but I’m just pooped out on
seeing cosplay, I think I’ll go to Anime Expo’s
Cosplay though, because I KNOW I got some friends in
there and there people are different at West Coast cons
than the East Cons ones, so it’ll be a breath of
fresh air.
3)
I don’t do other con things but I’m too lazy to
type them up.
Der her her her, go figure out what that means.
So what exactly do I do at conventions? Actually I had to
ask my friend Ballz that question, he’s been going
to conventions with me for a year now. Apparently from
him, he says all I do at cons is drink and flirt with
women. This insults me. For one, I so hate, HATE HATE
HATE HATE HATE
HATE
When people go to anime cons just to get drunk. I had a
couple of friends do that at Otakon 99, it pissed the
living shit out of me. If you want to get drunk and
loaded then DO IT AT HOME WHERE IT’S CHEAPER TO DO!!!
You got that?!? Jumpin Jesus Christ on a Pogo Stick
Of course all of you that saw me at Katsukon 99 can call
me a stinkin hypocrite. Yes, I drank there. YES, all I
DID was drink there. YES, I was drunk for three days
straight. YES, I was almost raped by Jesse (tee hee, just
kidding, but I got a scar that tells me otherwise,
despite what everyone else says). There was a reason for
this though. Katsukon 99 was the most boring Anime Con I
have even been to. That and the fact Christine called me
an asshole and tore my heart right out of it’s
ribcage and then stomped on it, shat on it, pissed on it,
put it on a grill, and then fed it to a bunch of dogs.
But I’m not here to lay blame, the alcohol didn’t
leap out of the bottle and shove it down my throat That
was Jesse’s job, BWAH HA HAHAHAHAHAHA
And as for flirting geez most of you that know me know
that if there’s one thing I CAN NOT do is flirt
properly. I’m a faulty Filipino. God forgot to put
the playa gene in me. I couldn’t flirt my way out of
a paper bag I’m so bad at it. Some people are
hopeless romantics, I’m just hopeless (Har Har Har,
a little Bouncing Souls joke for you punks that are still
with me, by the way, go buy Ten Foot Pole’s album
Unleashed it’s too good)
I think what Ballz was trying to say was that I socialize
at conventions. Sure I know what you are thinking Some of
you that never have been to a con think that con goers
are unsociable people because logic would state that a
con is nothing but a bunch of people that are unsociable
people that get together in an area and cling to the one
thing that they are all interested about, in this case
Cartoons from Japan. You would be surprised. Sure, I’ve
had my fill of people that couldn’t socialize
themselves with a bunch of lobotomy rejects. But you can
meet the most interesting people at anime cons when NOT
TALKING ABOUT ANIME.
That’s what I do at anime cons. Why? I guess I want
to get a better undstanding of my hobby. I want to know
what the people are like that watch the same things as I
do. I want to know who they are and what they do. If I
know them then it’ll help me understand how I can be
a grown up man who circle dances and moshes to music
created my men with mohawks but still can find the time
to sit down in front of the TV and watch the hijinkses (is
that even a word? O_o) of animated cartoon people from
Japan. In otherwords, why the heck would I talk about the
shows with people if I want to know THE PEOPLE themselves?
Sometimes I feel like I want to give up on that though
Cause sometimes I’ll meet a person that just CANNOT
go beyond the anime. It’s sad really Sometimes you’ll
meet that one person that actually BELIEVES he is Gokuu
instead of just dressing like him. I’m mean when he’s
out of the con, he STILL IS GOKUU. Kowai ne~~~~
But most often I’ll meet people that are just too
cool. Oh wait, before I talk about the cool people that I
met at the con (which is the main point to this whole
thing, if you can dig it) I gotta do something:
Jenna and Elaine:
See see!! Here we go, it’s
my Totoro Suit, I delivered like I promised heh heh heh.
Anyhow, where was I? Oh yeah, people. Call me a social
slut but I love to meet people. Well people that aren’t
stupid and trust me, I know LOTS of stupid people. Well
luckily at ACEN I didn’t meet too many stupid people
^_^ In fact I met some of the coolest people. One group
was #fushigiyuugi. #FY is a channel on mIRC (internet
relay chat, chatrooms!!!) that I have been going to for
the past 2 years. I started going there because my friend
Sam wanted to introduce me to a chick he was in love with,
a Filipina named Janelle. So she was the basically the
only person I knew in that channel. Well there was
Oruhachan and Tomoesan, Bludstone and a few others. But
nobody really knew who I was. I know I know, a six foot
tall Halfbreed Irish Filipino with a mohawk blends in a
crowd, how stupid of me to think otherwise =) Anyhow,
they were really cool to meet. Usually I meet one or two
people I know online at a convention. But this time there
were like thirty people. I thought it was a fun
experience and I can’t wait to see them again in LA
for Anime Expo. Okay, I’m tired, I’m bored, I’m
sick of writing. That’s all I’m gonna write
write now. If you don’t like that, TOUGH! Now go
read about Detroit and why I actually have a new found
respect for Otaku now:
Detroit: Or how comic book
conventions make anime cons look like hot shit!
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