L.A. Story, Part 2: "Day -1, Day 0, and the Wonderful Registration Process"

So I had finally met Tom in person (as opposed to on MSN, where his picture looks *nothing* like him -- turns out it's Nakki, now ya tell me...). So we spent maybe two minutes talking about our respective journeys to California; and, no time wasted, he told me that plans were already underway to hit the Little Tokyo district. I had to check my schedule to see if I had any conflicts... nope, my whole week was free, so I said, 'let's go,' and so we did.

We found a couple of fellow wota just two short downtown blocks away. We hopped on a bus, and we all sat in the back like the weirdos that we are. There was *one* lady on the bus when we got on; a few stops later it was standing-room-only, including a female police officer (you certainly won't catch any cops riding the bus around here). Most people rode for only a couple of blocks -- after all, it only costs a quarter -- and by the time we reached Little Tokyo we were pretty much the only ones on the bus again. Me, Tom, and four others got out when we saw Japanese writing on storefronts, and we were quite hungry. But we hadn't yet met up with the rest of the group. After everyone showed up we could have filled a clown car.

First we had to find Matt_D and Lampshade, and as we were trying to figure out the most obvious landmark in the area ("we're by the RED thing!") I had decided that we were on First Street. Looking at a street sign would have changed my mind, but First was a pretty good choice, if you ask me. Actually, we were on Second, so *our* group walked up and down Second while Matt and Lamp patrolled along First, and we weren't where we said we'd be, but we *were* by the red thing.

Finally the matter got sorted out, I admitted that I was wrong, and we got the privilege of meeting two more wota (the Berryz Kobo shirt which Matt was wearing was a dead giveaway). But we still couldn't eat, there were *more* people to find. Then Moze arrived, and I don't think there was any confusion for that rendezvous (correct me if I'm wrong), so we finally got a chance to sit down somewhere and get some chow.

We ultimately decided that the Suehiro Cafe looked like a good place, and we were greeted with 'irrashaimase!' when we entered. We put about five tables together so we all had a setting, and we gathered round to tell H!P war stories. This was the first time in my life I'd been able to mention an H!P girl -- for instance, Matsuura Aya -- without prefacing the story with "she's a Japanese idol singer..." so we all got along quite well.

Now, appropriately enough, the restaurant serves Sapporo, so those of us who could ordered ourselves a bottle. But as much as I like H!P and a lot of other Japanese things (Aiko is a good example); okay, I'll drink Sapporo, but the English guys really think the world of it. I just don't see it. Sorry, but I won't bring myself to believe that the Japanese have a superior product in this case. In this writer's opinion, anything German or perhaps a good Czechoslovakian lager will always win if Sapporo is the competitor.

So, they tell me that Dave Foley (of Kids in the Hall and NewsRadio fame) was in the Suehiro Cafe while we dined. I didn't think I saw anyone remarkable, but I'm glad I hadn't recognized him. I might have got all starstruck and harrassed the guy instead of letting him eat a meal in peace like a normal human being.

Anyway, the waitress was practically an idol herself, being fluent in Japanese and also being very pretty. We had her take a couple of pictures of the group just before we left, and Tom has posted one, which I've stolen to present below (I'm the cute one). The other is out there somewhere. The camera is turned the wrong way -- the photgrapher is picturesque.

We stood around in Little Tokyo for a while; Matt_D rightfully accused me of turning this site into an Urbangarde fansite, and I was sort of defensive until he agreed that their record was "awesome". I described it to the group as "Perfume-meets-Cannibal Corpse"; and it was some time later (probably even after I got back to Iowa) that I realized it was Matt's own influence that had led me to purchase the Urbangarde record in the first place, and I quote: "So it's now my goal to see these guys live..." Sorry I hadn't made the connection and thought you were a hater for a minute. I just thought you'd be taller, is all... (love this post, btw...)

Then we decided to head back downtown, went to the revolving restaurant atop the Westin, and we all had too much to drink (or so it felt, revolving room and all). On the way back to the hotel I snapped a shot of the LA Times building (it just seemed like an interesting subject).

The next morning Tom and I took our sweet, hungover time and headed down to the Convention Center for the first of many visits. Pre-registration started at 3PM, and it was only around 9:30 by the time we arrived. Some of the guys had said the night before that 5AM(!) was a good time to show up, but gimme a break, I was on vacation... Here is a shot of the pandemonium which wasn't happening on Day 0, a couple of blocks away from the point of registration...

We found our way to the *actual* registration point and just sort of butted in line where Moze had been standing for a while, and if you think that's sort of rude, we only cut in front of a few people, all said, and the number of people that ended up cutting in front of us was horrific. Luckily, most of the registrants were there for socializing instead of Morning Musume tickets, so we graciously let them in line ahead of us. One guy knew everybody (more on him later).

Time-passers in line included waiting for Tom and Moze to bring me a sammich for lunch, staring at a very pretty Asian girl (who seemingly had no friends, and I don't believe it for a second), and watching the guy in front of me (the "kid who knows everybody") explain his rather mundane artwork in fits of swear words and hyperbole.

When we got there, lines A & B had mostly filled up, a few people were at the front of line C, and as the day went on, lines D - F filled completely and they eventually had to queue the remaining arrivals outside. Those of us who had been crazy enough to wait around for hours got to stay out of the sun, and if we left the building, they marked our hands with a very-hard-to-reproduce Sharpie 'X' that meant we were grandfathered-in for waiting inside.

If you didn't have an 'X' on your hand, all you had to do was complain loudly that you'd been waiting inside earlier in the day, and they'd let you in. I saw it happen a few times.

As registration time got closer, an Asian family (I assume they were Japanese, at least the little girl was speaking Japanese -- 'sugoi' is a Japanese word, right?) was watching a recent Morning Musume concert on a portable DVD player. When Moze and I began singing along, they were gracious enough to let us sit in their circle and we mimed a number of wota moves along to the show with the family. We all sang together in Japanese; I never thought I'd be hanging out with a Japanese family watching an H!P DVD in high spirits like we all were that day, but it happened, and it was very cool.

Sometime during the day we had gotten word from others about Morning Musume's arrival at LAX, and there was video of the American fans screaming and waving at them up on youTube before we even got registered. Some people had already seen the footage and described it as 'epic', and although I hadn't seen the video until just a couple of days ago, they were right. We all had a slight fit of jealousy for being stuck in the registration line whilst some of our friends had the good fortune of seeing the group in person.

That feeling wore off eventually, and general excitement for the days to come returned when the registration finally began. So when the line started to move and the kid in front of us, who knew everybody *and* had a cartload of luggage, moved, he didn't take the luggage with him. Instead, he took more than a few moments to regroup, grabbed each piece of luggage, and eventually brought it forward. The line moved again, he advanced, but again left the luggage. Moze and I decided that we were going to keep the line moving and that it was more than appropriate to step over his luggage.

But sure enough, the Japanese family behind us dutifully took it upon themselves to help the stubborn kid with his luggage; those damned Japanese and their stupid helpfulness! Moze admitted that he felt bad about stepping over it at this point and decided to help move the cartload forward. He asked the kid, 'what all did you bring?' and without missing a beat, the kid said, 'well, these are my skates, and this is my artwork, and these are my clothes, and this is my...' And he was clearly unaware that Moze was razzing him a bit for, well, moving to the Anime Expo.

I myself have no patience for this kind of thing. When a line that's been waiting six-plus hours starts to move, have a bit of consideration for your fellow queuers and get your ass a-going. He was lucky that I didn't pick all his stuff up and throw it to the far corners of the hall; although if I'd done so, I'd have expected a full-scale retaliation from an army of nerds.

Regardless, the line was finally moving, and although there was a station for each line, A - F, the organizers decided to let lines A & B begin registration whilst making the other lines wait until A & B had gone. The only problem was that line C had a number of people who were there well before we arrived, and they shouted at the crowd controllers about this for a time, to no avail. So a number of people who should have rightfully registered before us got shafted out of a position in the concert ticket line, which queued up immediately following the badge signup. It was a mess.

Despite a small computer glitch, we got signed in without too much trouble (I watched the video on how to register before I left for my trip, so it was easy). After that, it was another hour's wait until the concert tickets would be distributed. We headed straight to that line, and were about 30 or 40 people behind the leader, with Matt_D and Lampshade somehow within the top ten.

We were all a bit restless from the long day, plus it was fairly obvious that the people in the ticket line were there to score tickets to the Morning Musume concert, so we had something to talk about with everyone -- who we are, where we're from, where we'd first heard of Morning Musume and AX, etc. And it was in this line that we met Mage (his real name, not a handle, if you can believe it), from New Orleans, who had plenty of insight into Jpop, language, and music in general.

We finally got our concert tickets after the entire line had been moved from one side of the patio to the other, for two reasons: 1.) where we were queued was a fire hazard, and 2.) the AX staff had not thought to supervise the self-created queue -- good call, guys! -- because they were all apparently too busy arguing with the registrants in line C ("I don't care if you got here earlier than them, I'm only following orders!")

Moze and I had a celebratory dinner at the downtown Los Angeles IHOP (motto: We'll give you the keycode to restroom if you buy something!") and the restaurant quickly became a favorite for Mr. Moze, some several other times he went there during the week. I myself only enjoyed it that one time, but it was good, and in traditional IHOP style, very inexpensive.