Okay… so I’m about to make the most controversial decision I’ve ever made in the history of the new Chasing Taboo. (Well, technically speaking, I’ve already made the decision I’m just gonna, ya know, announce it.)
I am pulling Chapter 5. The real Chapter 5 shall be posted on Sunday.
Why am I doing this? Well, I’ve been really freaking busy and I totally rushed that chapter. I’m more than unhappy with it, to be blunt. The fundamentals will be the same, but Seneka’s Little Mermaid "Daddy, I love him!" bit has got to go.
Why so busy? Well, first of all I went to Anime Expo from Wednesday to Monday, and fell into a full time position the moment I got off the plane. What position, you may inquire? I have to make sure my sister’s four year old daughter stays happy and doesn’t die for a few months. I watched the Tinkerbell movie four times today, and the only reason I have time to write this entry is because she passed out about halfway through The Little Mermaid.
Anime Expo was freaking amazingly motherfucking awesome. My job was to bridge the gap between the bands and the tech guys during the Battle of the Bands contest, and before I got there, I was pretty horrified. My division head had told me a while in advance that my job was to be the liason to the Japanese guest band, auncia, and I’ve never actually worked with a Japanese band before so I prepared myself for the worst. I speak no Japanese, not at all, and I had no idea how much English the band knew — and I totally knew how it was going to start out. I was going to get thrown into the shark tank and expected to know how to swim. When Carl, the head of the main events room told me, "Hey, the band is in the back and we ran over schedule because of the Moi dix Mois concert. I heard they’re mad. Could you go handle that?" Uh, yeah, imagine if that was said to you, and that’s pretty much how I felt.
But not only was the band not mad — they weren’t there at all, and when I eventually met them and their American label, we got along swimmingly. The guys were all super cool and we got the show together in a jiff! In fact, due to a scheduling conflict, we had to start our sound check an hour and a half late — but did the show start on time? Why, yes, it did, and Carl started referring to be as "wonder woman" ever since. I get things started on time. It’s my way.
But that was just the first day, my friends. Because of Battle of the Bands, I wasn’t assigned to my normal event, the Pop Shock Masquerade (the cosplay event for non-anime j-pop culture costumes), so it was put in the hands of another AX staffer, and I was only expected to be there to help MC the event. During the day I hung out with my best friend Sheila in Little Tokyo and showed up at the Cosplay office an hour before showtime. What I didn’t realize was that the staffer assigned to the event was nowhere to be found, and I ended up having that hour to pull the show together. All I had was a stack of waiver forms as another staffer (a good friend of mine of 8 years btw) had to organize audio for an event he didn’t understand. Did we pull it off? Of course we did! (I’m not going to claim to know why the original coordinator couldn’t get what we needed done, but that’s not the point, I’m not going to point fingers — the point is the show was a success!)
Does it end there? Of course not! That just wraps up Day 2! That evening, things got even more intense. Me, Patrick, and Carlo — technically, AX Idol staffers — were on our way to a party at the Marriott when we bumped into this drunk Chinese guy (I’m guessing Chinese — possibly Korean, but definitely not Japanese) who was waaaay too wasted to find his room. We walked him up there, and he was so thankful he tipped us 100 dollars. That’s right, a solid hundred dollar bill. We tried to give it back to him multiple times, but he refused. Patrick tucked it into the guy’s back pocket, but the guy chased after us and insisted we take it, locking himself out of his room in the process. We called security to have them send someone up, meanwhile a busser was walking by the drunk guy.
"Hey, I’m locked out of my room!" called Drunk Guy.
"Call security, man," said the busser under an impatient breath, and he walked right past us.
Drunk guy then announced what a "fucking asshole" that guy was, talking about how the guy worked there and should have helped him, and then he called security himself to repeat himself over and over again. "That guy was a fucking asshole, he should have helped me, he workes here. He was a fucking asshole." Then he hung up, squeezed his brow, and confided in us with how he really felt — "That guy was a fucking asshole."
We interrogated him over whether he could afford to give us this hundred dollars, during which time we acquired the following pieces of information: He was a CPA, he had lots of credit cards, he had twenty dollars cash left over in his wallet, he had a phone number for a Korean escort service, and he had spent 3000 dollars at a bar earlier that night — possibly because his wife had left him. When security came to open the door to his hotel room, there was a crib inside it.
He wouldn’t take the money no matter how hard we tried, so Patrick’s plan was to return the next morning before AX Idol and offer the money to the man while he was sober. Patrick did this, and the man didn’t recognize him, but once again insisted that we keep the money. Back stage at AX Idol we discussed it — what were we going to do with this money??
Then I had a brilliant, beyond brilliant idea.
We kept talking about what we were going to do with it as in what were we going to spend it on — but then I thought there were more things you could do with money than spend it. Why not take pictures of the money with as many people as possible? Cosplayers, celebs, guest of honor — let’s treat the money like the Travelocity gnome! So we did!
First off, here we are — Team Benjamin — rocking our special gift for our kindness to a stranger.
Here’s me, Patrick, and Benjamin — with auncia, our guest band from Japan! Tatsuki, the vocalist, is holding Benjamin. (Tatsuki kissed my hand at Battle of the Bands. *dies of the cuteness*)
Here’s Matt as Darth Maul with Benjamin. He was a contestant in AX Idol.
Us, Kyle Hebert, and Benjamin.
Here’s Benjamin receiving mechanical stimulation.
And in accordance to the wishes of Drunk Guy… here’s how we spent the money. (Say, look at that swell T-shirt!)
There are waaaay more pictures of Benjamin… but I want to save them for a video slideshow! I already miss my boys and auncia so much!
Anyway, more details and pimping.
JSHOXX brought auncia over for Anime Expo, and both they and auncia were amazing. Note: My favorite auncia songs are Koi Monogatari, maiden, and iys off their Beeauty & Slime album – JSHOXX Official Website
Were it not for Tomo Asaha of Echostream and the nice ladies of Askew Magazine, I may have peed my pants before the auncia signing. Tomo, thank you for your hotel key card! I thank by linking. – Tomo Asaha on MySpace – Askew Magazine
Okay, that’s enough of that. Time for Me to wrap up this entry. Expect a way better chapter 5 on Sunday!
