2008
Anime, Clubbing, and Bar Hopping.
Two weeks after the anime meetup, I went to the Manga meetup. Which is organized by the same guy name Sal. The Manga meetup is a smaller meetup, with only about 20 people that would show up monthly during that time. It's located at the same dinner as the anime meetup. I got there a bit late, but I enjoyed myself.
You see, these type of meetups are great for different fanboys who want to make friends who love the same things. People were talking about different mangas, and I mentioned that I owned all 6 volumes of "Akira", which might be the greatest manga of all time.
Jay showed up late, and he seemed to be annoyed. Apparently, he and Jonnelly got into an argument a couple nights before the meetup. There were on the train, when Jay drank a soda, crushed it, and threw it on the floor. And Jonnelly was so upset that Jay walked away, and they never talked again.
Now I'm against littering, but I'm not gonna get angry at somebody for throwing a soda can on the floor of a moving train. So I do feel that Jonnelly overreacted.
After Jay showed up, Jonnelly got there, and it was an awkward situation. Jay was silent, while Jonnelly was sitting on the other side of the dinner.
But that wasn't the fun part. Another member named Larry showed up, and he did not like "Evangelion." I attempted to rebuke his opinion, since I felt it was completely wrong. He didn't like the second half, because it ruined the whole experience for him. I still don't feel that he understood "Evangelion", or why it's a phenomenal achievement. And I was very aggravated my his opinion, because it felt like he was putting me down, instead of "Evangelion." Because at that time, "Evangelion" was not only apart of my life, it was my life.
So this Larry guy was going on and on about how much he disliked "Evangelion", and I think it was the first time where I actually met a "hater" of my favorite anime. He claimed that fans of "Evangelion" who call it an original piece of work, haven't read much literature. That doesn't make sense, because anime and literature are two entirely different mediums. And while nothing is truly original anymore, "Evangelion" is original and ground breaking within it's own medium. It brought bigger and bolder ideas to anime, and took it to another level.
But whatever, the Larry guy kinda gave up after awhile, since he realized that the discussion wasn't going anywhere.
After a couple hours, Jay had to leave early. Which gave me the opportunity to talk to Jonnelly about what happened between them, and he told me how upset he was about Jay tossing a soda can on the subway train.
Oh well, I thought they would be good friends, but I was wrong. I'm usually wrong about a lot of things, but I wasn't gonna let that get to me. Because for awhile, I tried to be friends with everybody. Not caring about whether they hated each other or not, I wanted a lot of friends. And for a while, I was midly successful.
In November, I had more great moments at the Anime and Manga meetups. We were all planning a club night, to celebrate the birthday of one of the members name Kevin. He was a funny guy, who went into the Navy for a couple years. We were gonna celebrate his birth on December 6th, which was the same night as the boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar Delahoya.
I'm a big fan of boxing, and I love watching Manny Pacquiao fight. So the dream match between both Manny and Delahoya was something that I had to see. And it was taking place on the same night as the party.
As December 6th was approaching, there seemed to be some drama in the group that was developing, but I didn't pay any attention until January.
On the night of December, I was both excited and nervous because I never been to a club in New York City. And I haven't danced with other people since January of 2003. I didn't really dress up, but I put on something nice to look midly attractive to get into almost any club in New York City.
First, I met up with the group on the anime meetup, and we went to eat at some Sushi restaurant on Saint Mark's street. It was a nice restaurant, but a little too small. Which can be said for most restuarants in New York.
The same members from the previous Anime/Manga meetups were there. While there would some New members like Paul Y, who wasn't a fan of "Lost." And after the we were all done with the Sushi restaurant, we went to a Hoka Bar. I didn't smoke any of the hooka, but I had a great laughing and talking with everybody. One of the girls in the meetup was laughing so hard, she barfed all over the place. I think it was the combination of alcohol and smoke that made her sick. But maybe the laughing didn't help either.
We didn't stay at the bar for too long, because we had to get to Club BLVD on time to get in line. As we were walking to the Club, Paul Y and I started talking about our favorite comic-books and movies. His favorite movie was David Lynch's "Dune", which is a terrible film.
When I expressed my opinion on how awful it is, he got pretty aggitated. He also loves Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke", which isn't one of my favorites. When I expressed the problems that I had with the comic, he didn't like that view either. His main problem was that he felt that his opinions were based on some objective facts, when in reality, all opinions are subjective. At least when it comes to art.
Then we started talking about Batman. And the discussion went into whether Batman is evil or not. I didn't feel that Batman was evil, but his actions could be viewed as evil. I felt that Batman was in a grey area, while Paul Y kept stating that Batman is evil. He said that as a fact, and even threatened to hit me if I kept on talking.
I must of really irritated him, but I think he had a problem with anger. Or at least he problems with people who disagreed with his opinions.
I finally let the conversation go, and decide to enjoy myself at Club BLVD. But I had to leave early, to get to the Jack Dempsey bar to watch the Manny Pacquiao vs. Oscar Delahoya fight. The upstairs area was packed, so I couldn't see the fight. So I had to stay down stairs and ask people about the result. And the result was that Manny TKOed Delahoya in 8 rounds.
I was overjoyed, because I'm a big fan of Manny Pacquiao. And I at that time, I was really annoyed with Delahoya for not fighting Antonio Margarito and decided to fight a smaller fighter in Manny Pacquiao. But he was surprised that he couldn't handle Manny's speed and controled aggression. So far, the night was excellent.
When I left the bar, I called a couple of the assistant organizers of the meetup named Willow and Jackie. And they told me to come down to a bar called the Leopard Lounge. And that's when the party finally got started for me.
When I arrived, I saw Jackie standing in front of the bar. And she saw me, she grabbed my hand, guided me into the bar, and just started dancing for at least half an hour. But that half hour, felt like an eternity. I was dancing with some of the girls from the meetup, and everybody from the meetup was having a fantastic time. Except for Harry, who was just sitting on the side, listening to his own music. He looked pretty bored.
But everybody else was jumping up, down, grinding, and dancing like the world was coming to an end. It was an amazing experience.
Sadly, the organizer Sal had told us we had to leave. He didn't seem to like the size of the place, and upstairs was so crowded that it was dangerous. At least that's what he told me. I wish we had stayed, but we had to leave.
So we all went to another bar, had free pizza, and talked about anime, comic-books, and other geeky stuff. I never thought that a group of geeks could party like that, but I was proven wrong, and it was one of the few times where I was happy to be wrong.
