Sup guys! Hmm where do I start? So much to talk about…
This past week as some of you know, I spent working at the Anime Expo fair in Downtown LA. What an experience! Probably the best experience in a long time. I not only got to go to an event I enjoy, but I also made lots of new friends, met Japanese stars & musicians, was an MC/translator on stage in front of thousands of people, and was wined and dined every step of the way with VIP treatment including all meals paid for and a pimp hotel room! Can't wait to work again next year!
So I'm sure some of you are thinking -- Anime? Why anime? What does that have to do with Pickup? Did you pickup anime girls?? Lol.
Well, honestly my trip wasn't about picking up girls. It was all about self-development for me.
Now that doesn't mean girls weren't in my weeklong adventure. There were a ton of girls I met, and it was so easy to meet them too -- naturally. I didn't have to try to create any 'commonalities' -- we already all had something in common -- wanting to be there at AX. Every girl I talked to was really excited to be there - be it working on staff, or in anticipation of some Japanese star concert, or some anime showing -- it was very easy to just be situational and open girls left and right. Yes -- even the gorgeous ones. You could open situational, find out her anime 'schedule' for the week (e.g. what panels, concerts she was seeing) , number close and then text her to meet up later with you at the panels you both liked. To me, that's the best way to meet girls -- be somewhere you both like (like on vacation or something) and just go to all the fun activities lined up together.
However, like I said -- it was a trip for self-development. Some of you guys who know me, know that I'm really bored with my current life. It's way too fucking comfortable. My buddy Sparrow called me up earlier the week before and tried to convince me to DROP everything and just go to NYC. Throw away my job, my house, my money -- everything -- just start anew like he and my buddy Rufio have done. He felt that I could probably get back to the same position I'm at here in Riverside in NYC in less than a year. It was a very moving speech -- over the phone. As much as I want to throw everything away -- reality is a fucking giant elephant in my path. I can't escape the monthly house payment, car payment, etc -- if I threw away my job -- I'd be broke on top of that. The elephant would transform into Godzilla if my parents had to inherit any of those burdens.
Hence, I can't throw stuff away. But I am moved -- to the point I need to be putting myself out there 100%. In the past few months, I started putting myself out there -- taking on more activities -- doing stuff beyond work and sarging. I helped my friend film a movie -- his first -- watch the movie "Saranghae Nikita" on Youtube (I have a cameo). That was awesome -- I had always wanted to do something like that and was proud I jumped in and did it. The experience was incredible. After that, I got myself a camera and made a short-film of my own using my laptop and iPhone. A lot of friends have said to me to start my own business. I've taken that idea seriously and put a lot more time into my blog; researched stuff like affiliate marketing (as you can see I have ads on my site now) and put a lot of effort into writing quality material. I teach pickup too, and have demoed in field -- which helps the page views for this blog -- and so I can say that my views are going up and I have a loyal group of followers now who come back to read often. Much thanks to you guys who follow! It's a small start, but I hope to see it grow into something big someday. I also hope that my 'blogging' skills improve along with my film skills -- as I hope to turn those things into something big too. Partnering with other companies is sorta the next level for me to take my skills (the ones I already have) and make them into something more..
Working at Anime Expo was kinda like that next step of 'something more'. I love Anime. You all know I studied Japanese and one of the main reasons was to watch anime and play games that never get released in the US. I also desire to be a part of the industry -- doing anything I'm already good at -- marketing, selling, talking to people about the stuff I like. I also want more -- possibly the opportunity to translate, or work with stars, as I grow as an individual -- I want my career to allow me the room to 'move up' and do these fun things. That's why I think an industry like the Anime industry, Hollywood, or anything creative/film/design related would be perfect for me to work in.
It was pretty easy for me to get a job at AX this year. A year of practicing pickup has prepared me to deal with any kind of interview thrown my way. Let's just say I knocked their socks off. When I started my first day of work, I decided right then and there -- I wanted them to shit test me. Give me HARD stuff to do. That's how I started my 'journey'. I wasn't overly arrogant or cocky about it -- just very confident in myself. I stated over and over to my bosses -- give me any project; I'll do an awesome job with it.
So they began giving me small jobs --> Go get water for the staff. Done. Next. Go deliver these boxes to the A/V department. Done. Go take these clients around and make sure they reach their panel on time. Done.
Every time I got a project, I'd tell them I could do it, and I could get it done in the timeframe they wanted. Then I demonstrated it. That earned the management's trust. But that itself wasn't enough -- these were all odd small jobs I was getting. My other staff members would sit around the office, do these odd jobs a couple times during the day and then otherwise take phone calls or assist people coming in looking for some exhibit hall. Some of these staff members looked really bored. I learned quickly that if I sat around bored and just did what I was told to do -- I'd be sitting there all day.
So I began socializing. A LOT. Just like in a bar or a club setting. In fact at the office, I spent a lot of time just walking around, doing the odd jobs, and meeting new people in different departments. I flirted with a lot of girls -- got to practice teasing, twisting stuff (without making it too sexual), did some role-play (I sparred with this one girl who likes Judo), and went on several instadates shopping during break together. I think I read this once by a post from Gareth Jones from CC -- the art of flirting is a MUST. If you can flirt with people, especially girls -- where you play the game of kinda teasing, kinda being niceguy, and what not -- they open up really well to you. From there, you can learn a lot about office gossip, who's who in the entire network -- especially who has the power -- and most of the time, if these big guys with powerful positions see that you have a lot of girl friends; they think you're a socially elite guy yourself and give you the time of day.
There were a lot of sets that also went sour -- I was constantly calibrating just to sharpen my flirting skill. I need it to be up, up, up! My goal is to have this shit down and flow like water. I threw out a lot of false time constraints -- especially if I noticed a set may not be warm yet -- I'd come back to it later after doing a bit of a mini open. There was one girl -- let's call her TAB (trendy asian bitch); who was like on auto-pilot -- she was a hottie and knew it. A lot of guys would talk to her, but she'd shoot them down within seconds by acting indifferent or very cold. The reason? She was probably used to getting what she wanted all her life and not having to do much work for it. Because she was pretty - she had options, and the guys who tried the hardest would get her attention. This set initially went sour to me. But a new thing I've been trying is the ability to ENDURE. It's really powerful. Like just keep letting yourself get shit tested -- and no matter what be able to smile and keep yourself in state.
I saw a bunch of guys try to talk to her -- some guys acted really nice; she'd act bored or make them do stuff for her without giving any attention back. Other guys tried to play 'cocky/funny' on her -- trying to get her to 'rise'. She seemed like the type who was way used to hearing cheesy pickup lines and cocky routines -- because she'd act indifferent and look away. She'd even walk away. It was like if you were a nice guy or a jerk -- it didn't matter -- you'd still get blown out.
So I decided to endure with her. I didn't care if she liked me or not, I just wanted my own skill at dealing with this type of girl to improve. My approach was a mix of cocky/funny and nice guy. I kept it hot and cold with her -- if she got cold, I'd hit her with hot cocky funny stuff -- or even use hot kino. When she'd jump, I'd wear a smile to let her know it was just fun. When she got too hot, I'd bring her back down to cold with just plain talking. My goal was to keep her warm all the time. I threw in a ton of false time constraints so that I wouldn't overload this set. Another guy spent too much time getting her hot and made her angry. She kept calling him a jerk. In the beginning, I too ran the risk of her walking away. I said some stuff that would have blown me out for sure -- but the thing that kept me in set with her was the fact I could endure her anger -- if she got to a hot point -- by just being calm and cool. If I had to say sorry I'd say it -- and not seem chody about it -- just cool. Eventually I reached a point, where she was comfortable to listen to whatever I said -- even if she was looking away, she was still sitting there hearing me. Every now and then she'd look at me and give a glance. Those were IOIs. Finally, she began opening up after I had spent a lot of considerable time with her -- she was used to me and even began smiling back and telling me stories whenever she felt we had something in common. It was great practice and an easy close to get her on my Facebook (I already had her number from work). She GLADLY gave it.. it was a solid close. With TABs, you mainly need to endure and you need lots of time/comfort. I walked away from that set with a lot more experience in the ability to endure shit. That would help me -- for even later …. but back to the regular story (cause I kinda diverged -- as I said before, this week wasn't about the girls necessarily).
Thanks to socializing.. I was able to find out what opportunities were available within the organization. Anytime there seemed to be a 'problem' -- and there were a TON, I would ask people who I was already familiar with if I could help out in any way. One thing about AX, is that even though from the outside it seems so well managed and draws 10's of 1000's of people yearly; is that it's run by a bunch of kids aged 18-late 20s. Most of the managers are in their 20s, and communication between departments is not something everyone is good at. Therefore, you have a lot of 'uh-oh' moments. I was REALLY surprised. I expected AX's top level management to be more heavily involved in the decision making and organization of large scale events. A lot of the panels have TOP BRASS actors or singers from Japan coming in.. and they are televised and/or put on Youtube for the whole world to see. Yet, these panels are managed by kids -- (that too, we're all volunteers -- because AX is nonprofit), and some of these kids sleep in or don't come to work on time. WTF?
That was how I got my first big job -- someone didn't really pay attention to scheduling and was absent from a panel -- supposedly he needed to host the panel. So I volunteered to do it -- I could do it because I'm so used to being in front of people all the time, I could display that confidence. So they gave me the job. It was exhilarating. I had 15 minutes to spare and had to read a script so I could memorize the names of the actors. The program manager also debriefed me on what to tell the audience; a la whether photography was allowed or not, when to allow for questions; and at what time to end the program. The rest was up to me -- I had the freedom to be MC. Definitely as far as game -- this took my game to another level. I thought I was good, but man -- dealing with large audiences is a true next level challenge for the common PUA.
You have to be able to get the audience up in state. The fact I had star power behind me made that sorta easy for my first panel. I just read his bio and the audience cheered tremendously. I read it in small chunks so that the audience could digest what I was saying and continue cheering -- the more they cheer, the more they get excited. You can also ask questions to the audience -- like "who's excited for this?" to boost their state. That sorta stuff is fun. After I got the audience happy, I brought the actor on stage -- and of course he took the rest on very naturally. The second part of my job was to walk through the audience and allow them to ask questions. Management wanted me to control the questions to 1 question per person, while observing time. Some fans were super crazy -- one girl tried to push past me and give a teddy bear to the actor -- she wanted it signed. Signing wasn't allowed at this panel -- it was reserved for the next. But that was my first challenge -- I pulled her back and told the audience to wait till the next panel for signing. Then she tried to guilt trip the actor -- and got the audience to cheer for her signing. While I was holding the mic, my program manager was running around frantically behind cameras saying "NO! Don't do it!" I made eye contact with the actor and he seemed okay with it. So I let her through and get her signature. Then I immediately controlled the room with "All other signatures at the next panel". Everyone cheered the girl got her signature and was complaint with the rules. Throughout the panel -- I kept getting cue cards of what next to say or when to control time -- some stuff changed in the middle -- I thought I had till 12:45 to run the show, but then time was cut, because the artists wanted to do a special game with the audience. I had to be quick thinking on my feet there too in interacting with the crowd.
All in all, my first panel went off very well. The entire program team, staff and Japanese actors were pleased it was a success. The panel even got the most attendance and was the talk of the day. As a result, I got offered another panel for later in the day. Rumors also circulated I knew Japanese, because I was talking to the actors.
My next panel put me as the MC again. This time around, I decided to peacock -- I wore a PUA hat and dressed better. It definitely helped me -- people by the end of Anime Expo began asking to take pics with me -- that's how they remembered me. I got the audience very excited, brought the actors on stage and then took questions from the audience. I also demonstrated I knew Japanese by helping with translating to the official translators on staff. That was fun. After the show, my rep was pretty much established as a capable MC, and job offers kept coming. I did some amazing panels -- and got to meet really famous people -- I can't really tell you who they are on here -- cause I'm Cloud and I'm supposed to keep identities all secret so-- just ask me in person if you ever meet me or one of my wings who knows me.
After that, life was pretty good. That girl I mentioned earlier? She definitely opened up now… she knew about what I was doing and thought it was very cool too. Another thing with TABs is that they are very much attracted to social status and stuff like 'peacocking'. I remember her telling me my clothes and hat looked very good. My bosses also were getting a lot of attention because they hired me. So I made them look good too. I still had to do some odd jobs every now and then -- like get lunch for the team from outside; or help cut out sheets of paper for questionnaires -- but I did them without griping -- so that made me look like I was still very much one of the guys without a 'big head'. I still showed I could fit in -- despite the fame -- so that made them very happy.
Outside -- my brother and my friends in real life wanted me to hang out with them at AX. Since I was really busy reading scripts and memorizing facts about artists, I really couldn't. I had too much preparation to do. The worst I could do was be unorganized like some of the other staff. For the reference though, my department was the best organized. We had some great people on staff. But from time to time, I'd take a break and just hang with my friends for an hour in the exhibit hall to shop around for anime t-shirts and stuff. Went to a few concerts also -- had front row seats -- definitely living the VIP life. My friends and brother to say the least, were quite astonished. Swirl came -- my dancer friend who can outdance anyone in SoCal. I sorta was at risk with him though, 'cause he wanted to get in free and kept pestering me to lend him a pass to get in. He got in finally on his own accounts -- but I was afraid if I helped him I'd ruin my rep. So glad things turned out alright though.
Finally, the last big challenge came to me -- the mother of all events --a Costume Show. It's basically held on one of the final nights of AX, and is a long several hour event, with live TV, on stage in front of 10s of 1000s of people. My assignment really made me nervous. I was originally hired to MC -- but last minute they needed a translator; so they put me up to translate on stage instead! The worst part was -- there wasn't any rehearsal or schedule to follow! I was given a star to work with and pretty much told to just translate on the fly for him.
This guy was really eccentric too. He was a big-shot and knew it. He had an attitude. When I talked to him, he pretended he knew English really well and didn't need translation. He had been working for several years as a judge for the show. I didn't know what to expect -- I had never been to the show myself. He told me he'd only call on me if he needed me to say something really important. Well, it turns out -- this guy wasn't that good at English -- and relied heavily on me to figure out what was going on during the show. We spent a considerable amount of time in Japanese -- and at some points -- my Japanese level was truly challenged - I'm good but not anywhere near fluent. I began feeling nervous -- like I wasn't going to do a good job with this project. He kept expecting me to do a good job too. At one point, he even 'graded' me… he said "I'd give your Japanese ability a B-". T_T It was probably true though -- some of the stuff he said went way over my head -- especially when he got very technical. That was difficult -- I realized then -- fuck -- I better really study hard and learn more vocab if I want to keep doing this. As I got nervous, I realized my conversation in Japanese started to suck too -- I began making incomplete sentences and butchering words. He looked at me as if I was retarded from time to time. I told him I was still learning which sorta made him annoyed. I got more nervous and kept thinking I was going to fuck up the show. I used a lot of state control exercises to keep myself in check -- so I would be calm and relaxed.
The show for the most part went off well -- it was actually really enjoyable. There were a lot of performers, who came up on stage dressed as their favorite characters. They then performed scenes from some anime or manga and acted it out to the audience. The judges, including my guy, were very entertained. Of course, my guy said egotistical stuff like "very good, but never will be as good as Japan". Err. After all the performances, the judges all got together in a room to decide. My guy decided to go to the bathroom instead. When he got back, he was like "Oh, I'll just pick this contestant -- they were the coolest" -- he didn't even put a lot of thought into it. We let time run out till the very last 5 minutes -- when he decided he wanted to give a speech too. It was a long one -- and I had no idea what he was saying at some points -- but I quickly wrote shit down and put something coherent together. He kept trying to change it too which was annoying. Then we were rushed on stage.
The backstage folk told us to just go up and talk. So he said the whole speech he had told me -- and parts of it didn't match what I had written down; he had changed it again. FUCK. I translated but it came out kinda poor. He looked confused when the audience laughed. So he asked me why, and I told him to keep going. He said some more stuff which matched part of what I wrote down, so I just read what I had written down. Audience began to cheer -- whew! THEN -- he announced the winner of the contest. UH WTF? The people backstage pulled us back furiously and said we couldn't do that. He didn't get it and began to panic. I tried to explain to him what was going on but he wouldn't get it and I began feeling nervous again. My Japanese got weak -- and I began saying shit sentences which made no sense to him. Eventually he got what I was trying to say so I told him we should go back up the next round, after the judges all finish their 'thoughts' and say we miscommunicated about the winner. He kept disagreeing and not wanting me to do anything. I was very unsure what to do. We were fidgeting A LOT… and the audience noticed it while we were on stage. Finally, he just accepted he would let me speak first. When we went up to the podium, I tried to start off by saying we miscommunicated, but he jumped in and said "NO! What are you saying!!" The audience let out a huge laugh. I tried to stay calm and be clear -- but he jumped in again and we looked like we were fighting a bit on stage. More laughter. Then the audience began screaming "LET HIM TALK!" So I did.. and he said stuff I couldn't translate very well in that moment. It came off very weird -- and so we just ended up announcing the winner again. That led back to cheering amongst laughter. I smiled at the audience and walked off sheepishly.
My judge was madd… he wanted me to stay out of the rest of the contest, so I did. I was pretty much well -- that was a blowout lol… talk about bad set!! The stage manager came up and asked us what the hell happened. My judge couldn't explain in English, and wanted to avoid me, but I ended up still having to translate. The stage manager then surprised us both and accepted full responsibility for the mishap -- saying that there should have been a rehearsal/schedule and apologized profusely for making the judge seem foolish on stage. The manager had apparently not been given enough staff or time to do the project -- and didn't get time to communicate to my department what the details of the schedule might be. So we just had to wing it -- and usually there was more lead time; and so the manager apologized to us profusely. I sorta dodged a bullet -- but I also realized in that moment -- I better study harder from now on. Next year man -- gotta find a way from now till then to get more fluent! After the event, we all parted ways, and I didn't see the judge after. I did get a lot of comments from people leaving the theater and telling me stuff like "RELAX man it's okay! We know you were nervous up there! But you did a great job". One girl wanted to take a picture with me. Another guy took a pic with me also. I felt really embarrassed but I pretended not to care at all and rolled with the punches. ENDURE. :)
After I explained everything that happened to my department staff -- they also agreed I wasn't at fault; it was the program manager's fault for not being organized. They said not to worry and that I did a great job despite everything and were really proud. I felt good they said that; some of the guys I had made friends with offered to take me out for a drink after work. I took em up on the offer except I had to put my stuff away in my hotel room -- and I forgot I didn't have their number. So I ended up drinking with my roommate and knocking out. Btw, my roommate is also Japanese, and doesn't understand English one bit. But he sided with me and said that the judge should have made the effort to rehearse with me because he has the years of experience -- not the other way around. So -- I guess everyone was cool. Man, this is why I loved my time at AX.
Overall, I made a great first year impression with AX; and as far as putting myself 'really out there', I think I've definitely done so. My dream has always been to have an exciting life and do fun things with it. I made a ton of friends, proved myself to an international organization, helped them look good, got many opportunities to practice my social skills and improve -- as well as see my own weaknesses as a man. For that experience alone, I'm truly grateful. Even though AX is now over, I keep the memory of everything -- and moving forward, I have more skill set than before to work with for the next exciting chapter in my life. Though the elephant is still in my way, I think after this experience, I come with a way stronger frame than before and sooner or later I'm going to toss that elephant out of my way. So NYC, Tokyo here I come... my goals are very clear now -- by putting myself out there and my skill set to the test I can truly grow as not only a PUA but as a man and an individual.
To the next PUA Cloud adventure!
- Cloud
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