NEW YORK, December 8 — The New York Anime Festival was a very cool anime convention. Peter Tatara did an amazing job with putting together this convention.
I could only attend the very last hour of Saturday's show (December 8). I was stuck at work until 5:30 PM because of an insane amount of paperwork. After work, I raced over to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center with all haste. I got to the convention at roughly 6:30 PM. I got a little lost, and I had a tough time finding the registration.
After all the pain of getting my badge, I walked around the convention looking for the Otaku USA panel. I ran into Angela, Mandisa, and Dan from the local Metro-Anime club. They seemed to be shopping happily. They had the anime con game down to a science. I talked to them for a little bit.
Otaku USA panel. Left to Right: Joel White, Dave Riley, and Daryl Surat
After some searching, I found the Otaku USA panel and stayed for the very last minutes of the panel. After the panel ended, I got to meet-up with some friends. The group consisted of Dave Riley (Fast Karate for the Gentleman), Joel White (Fast Karate for the Gentleman), Daryl Surat (Anime World Order), Erin (Ninja Consultants), Patrick Macias (Otaku USA), and Matt Burnett (for tax reasons).
After the convention, the group met up with other very cool cats including Noah (Ninja Consultants), Chris Oarr (ADV Films), Zac "Answerman!" Bertschy (Anime News Network), and other members of ANN. Patrick took his leave.
Karaoke All-Stars. Left to Right: Daryl Surat, Erin, Noah, and Joel White
The rest of the group found it's way to a local karaoke bar in Koreatown, NYC. Everyone took turns rocking the mic. It was a crazy round-robin of embarrassing 80s pop hits and hard edged rock-n-roll classics. Erin rocked the Bon Jovi play list, while Chris belted out some great classic rock hits. I worked some Steppenwolf. Noah, Zac, MCBurnett, and Joel also rocked the mic pretty hard. There were awesome performances from everyone. It was a night of All Stars Karaoke players.
Our voices were fueled with a powerful mixture of Japanese snack foods and alcohol.
The Ninja Consultants: Erin and Noah. The fiercest tag team since Demolition.
However, we were all humbled by Dave Riley, the grandmaster of the mic. His Kung-fu was in top form. Pai Mei would be proud of Dave, his spiritual disciple. Dave sang everything from Back Street Boys to the JAM Project.
Masters of the Wu-tang school of karaoke.
We rock hard so you don't have to... to be continued (Part 2).
2 comments:
Oh, come on! I only sang one Bon Jovi song after most people left! I'd preferred to be remembered for my rockin' Journey rendition of "Don't Stop Believing".
Erin, you effing rocked the Bon Jovi!
I felt that I needed to inform the Korean karaoke cartel about your devastating Bon Jovi powers.
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