Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part saga

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_Some Schmo
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Some Schmo »

Very cool, Shades.

Seriously - I'm happy for you.
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_Dr. Shades
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Dr. Shades »

.
The chronicles of Dr. Shades's incredible PERFUME experiences, BONUS PART:

EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT

Or, my cost / benefit analysis of this concert

Oh, I know what you're all thinking right about now: "Did Dr. Shades get his money's worth out of this concert?" or "Does Dr. Shades think this concert was a worthwhile investment of his time?" Rather than leave you in suspense, I'll go ahead and break it down:

Concert ticket total: $63.70
Plane ticket: $220.03 (round trip)
Motel room total: $125.54
Gas to & from airport: $8.42 (approximate)
Airport parking: $18.00
Food & gum: 11.38 (approximate)
Two Uber rides: $30.70

APPROXIMATE GRAND TOTAL: $477.77

COST / BENEFIT:

WELL WORTH EVERY LAST SINGLE SOLITARY PENNY!!!
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"

--Louis Midgley
_Dr. Shades
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Dr. Shades »

Perfume on my Mind wrote:Very cool, Shades.

Seriously - I'm happy for you.

Thanks, Perfume on my Mind. That means a lot, coming from you.
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"

--Louis Midgley
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Jersey Girl »

:surprised: :surprised: :surprised: :surprised: :surprised: :surprised: :surprised:
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Jersey Girl »

Dr. Shades wrote:. . . CONTINUED

If you guessed "Akaya Nishiwaki, a.k.a. 'A-chan,' Yuka Kashino, a.k.a. 'Kashiyuka,' and Ayano Omoto, a.k.a. 'Nocchi,'" then you were absolutely RIGHT! (Any other guess was wrong, I'm afraid.) Nocchi was in front, A-chan was closest to me, and Kashiyuka was on the other side of A-chan. The first and only thing that ran through my mind was a thundering, "IT'S PERFUME!!" Thank all that is holy that I didn't choke or otherwise freeze up, 'cause acting on pure instinct I simultaneously raised my hand, waved, smiled, and said the Japanese equivalent of good-bye: "Sayonara!"

Then the heretofore-unthinkable happened: A-chan and Kashiyuka both turned to me, made eye contact with me, waved to me, smiled sweetly at me, then said, "Sayonara!"


OMG!!!! I would have died on the spot!


The whole thing began and ended within approximately 1 and 1/2 seconds. But let me tell you, I sure wasn't the same after as I was before.

I was awestruck.

I was dumbfounded.

I was overwhelmed.

I was flabbergasted.

I was in a state of near-disbelief.

In fact, it was a such a perfect storm of all of those things that my brain did an emergency shut down. My physical body could only sit there in a state of stunned, utter silence.


You're still smiling, I assume! You'll be smiling forever! :cool:

Heck, I would probably start doubting the reality of the event myself without some shots. So, being as surreptitious as I possibly could, I took the following two:

Image

To the far left is Kashiyuka, with the long hair. Right next to her is their security guy. To the far right, in the gray sweater and standing adjacent to the pillar, is Nocchi. Sure, their backs are to us, but as I said in Part III, when it comes to Perfume I'll take what I can get!

I then rotated the phone a little to the left and took this one:

Image

You probably can't see her too well, since she's wearing a black poncho-type shawl of sorts, but that's A-chan at the far left, below and a little to the left of that overhead light. No, she's not wearing a tiara or anything; that's simply the light reflecting off her hair. I guess she must wear it "down" when not doing official Perfume stuff. At the far right, again, is Kashiyuka.

Yeah, I get it: Their backs are facing us, so I guess I can't prove that the three in those pictures are who I'm saying they are. But I pinkie swear to you all that I'm not lying.


Oh no! I believe you. I can see them clear as day. OMG!! Look how shiny A-chan's hair is. They have goddess hair! Well, of course they do.

Time to go back to the boarding area and wait. I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I made a point of walking past Kashiyuka just a few feet away from her, you know, just to say I did. I progressed a little farther, stopped, then took a quick peek behind me. She was staring down at her phone pretty intently, but it was very obvious that it was her. Yes, the face that had graced my computer's desktop as its background image for so long was right there, literally in the flesh.


Oh god! :eek:

Turning and pressing on, I got to the boarding area and was pleasantly surprised to see Perfume's choreographer sitting by herself. (You know a band is famous when even their choreographer gets famous.) In Japan, titles go at the end of last names, so "Mr. Smith" would be "Smith Mr." And "Sister Jones" would be "Jones Sister." Japan has an extra convention: If someone is a professor, an instructor, or a teacher, then "Teacher" replaces "Mr.," "Mrs.," etc. The Japanese word for "teacher" is "sensei," and the choreographer goes by her first name--Mikiko--so both the members of Perfume and the rest of the world know her as "Mikiko-sensei."

Whew! Why not get a photo of her, too?

Image

After that, I reasoned that she probably wasn't as used to fending off rabid fans as the other three are, so I decided to roll the dice and thank her for all the great dance moves she's taught the girls over the years. (If you've seen any YouTube videos of Perfume depicting them at age 15 or older, well, those were Mikiko-sensei's dance moves.) I went up to her, extended my hand, shook hands with her, then thanked her in Japanese for all the great dance moves she's taught Perfume. She looked up at me and said something that I only caught the tail end of, since the boarding area was a bit loud. It was something like "_____ skillful!" I replied, "Yes, their dancing is skillful all right," but she clarified that she meant my Japanese was skillful. I said the equivalent of, "Wow, what a privilege to be praised by Mikiko-sensei!" and then continued bantering for a bit. I explained that I'd flown 945 kilometers for no other reason than to attend last night's concert, and she reacted by opening her eyes wider and dropping her jaw a little. I then explained that I owned a message board and had made Perfume it's official J-pop group. (Which message board, you may ask? This one, believe it or not.) I then described how others here were rooting for me and would be waiting for my write-up.


Oh. my god. Do you know how lucky you are that you speak Japanese? This is amazing!!!

I asked her if she goes to every Perfume performance, and she replied in the affirmative. After a very small amount of additional banter I decided to quit while I was ahead and beat a hasty retreat, saying that I needed to get going.

In the meantime, Perfume had walked behind me and hunkered down in the corner, sitting on the floor in a circle with three or so of their staff members and/or stage crew. They were playing some sort of game that I never did figure out, laughing and having a good time:

Image

Kashiyuka is behind the left leg of the security guy; you can see her long hair. A-chan is sitting directly to the right of him, while we can see Nocchi's profile to the right.


I can see them. I can see them all!

As you all know, when waiting to board a flight, you have to sit somewhere. So I thought to myself, "Why not sit near those who are, in my universe, the 1964 equivalent of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison?" So I meandered over and took a seat within the second row away, facing away from them (some members of their tour crew were in the row closest to them). I sat there for a while, quietly soaking in the unbelievable fact that the band, and all three of its members, that I love so dearly and deeply were just behind me.

Alas, prior to this Mikiko-sensei had also moved to this area and was sitting in the same row, two seats away from me, but in the seat that was facing the opposite direction. In other words, back-to-back, but two seats down. Sure enough, my flight to Salt Lake City was departing from Gate 4, while Perfume's flight to Los Angeles--their next concert was taking place there the very next evening--was departing from Gate 5. They called for First Class passengers to begin boarding the L.A. flight, then A-chan, Kashiyuka, and Nocchi stood up and got in line. In the meantime, my flight had already begun boarding, so I stood up to check on its progress. I was hoping to remain unnoticed, since I'd already said goodbye to Mikiko-sensei and didn't want to look like a hanger-on, but she saw me, turned, and smiled. I said, "Sorry you had to see me again," but she said, "No, it's okay!" I guess my Japanese had caught the attention of the tour crew members across from her, so I said "Oh, I like being the last one on the plane, because it's easier to maneuver and to get your stuff into the overhead compartment" (a true statement, by the way). They agreed with me. Mikiko-sensei asked me if I was going to L.A. too, but I had to disappointedly explain that I was going to Salt Lake City instead.


This whole experience is so crazy good!

As luck would have it, although my flight was scheduled to depart about a half hour before theirs, my flight boarded late. As I was in the back of the line for the coach passengers, all of Perfume's stage crew, supporting players, etc. had gotten into the back of their own line. Mikiko-sensei was at about the same place in her line as I was in mine, and I said, "Thank you for talking to me!" One of the aforementioned crew with whom I'd spoken in the previous paragraph told me about the upcoming Coachella performance, but I had to exasperatedly sigh and explain that I just couldn't attend. She said, "No, I mean they're live streaming it," so I responded that I'd heard that and would've course be glued to the screen when it happened. I think the rest of the crew--approximately 8 to 10 others--were bemused to encounter a clearly Caucasian guy speaking fluent Japanese, 'cause by this time I obviously had their complete attention and they were all looking at me with slight smiles on their faces. Right before we walked into our respective gates, Mikiko-sensei stopped dead in her tracks, smiled at me, nodded, and said, in English, "See. You. Again."


Omg!!
You know, one can often tell when a farewell is stated as a mere formality vs. whether it's stated sincerely, and in my heart of hearts it came across as VERY sincere. How cool was that?


Extremely cool! So entirely cool!
Back in Utah, driving back home, I was still in a state of shocked euphoria. After having been personally acknowledged so kindly by Kashiyuka and A-chan*, well, my fan-hood increased by three or four times. I was no longer satisfied with just making periodic announcements of their goings-on here on MormonDiscussions.com; I wanted to print up business cards with their logo on the front and links to some of their YouTube videos on the back, handing them to everyone I passed. I wanted to create a web-comic starring them as models and performers by day and crime-fighting superheroines by night. Gadianton can tell you whether I have the illustrative skills to make that last part happen.


I've seen your illustrations. I'll vouch for you! **applause**

You know, I wonder if the members of Perfume themselves realize that they have so much power that a brief, one-and-one-half second acknowledgement by them can elevate a person's day to ONE OF THE SINGLE BEST DAYS OF THAT PERSON'S ENTIRE LIFE. As you may have gathered by this thread, that's exactly what happened to me.


I'm so-so happy to read all of this! I love hearing about the "highs" in someone's life! I sincerely loved reading all of this and your excitement pings out of the posts like lightning bolts! So happy for you!

*(If you're wondering, Nocchi was far enough forward that I didn't see her reaction, if any. I've since learned that she's the most introverted of the trio and therefore the least likely to interact with fans, so she may not have had a reaction at all. But that's okay--like I said, when it comes to Perfume, I'll take what I can get--and BOY did I get a lot!)


She's an introvert? No wonder I like her best. She was sending me introvert vibes the whole time. We have secret radar. ;-)

Again, I'm so very happy you got to see your favorite band on the planet! Just think about it. You went with a ticket to get in to see a concert just hoping you'd get near the front and you ended up with--more than you could have EVER expected!!!

That is just outstanding!!
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
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_Jersey Girl
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Jersey Girl »

Here's the only thing I can compare it to: Jersey Girl, picture yourself in an airport, sitting there minding your own business, when all of a sudden Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood walk by RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU about four feet away. You smile, wave, and say goodbye, then Mick Jagger and Keith Richards turn to you, make eye contact with you, smile at you, wave at you, and say, "Goodbye!"


Oh no. You have got that slightly wrong. If Jagger, Richards and Wood (poor Charlie no one ever thinks of him) walked past me, I would be up and moving in their direction in less than a second. I'd walk right up behind them and say...

"Keith".

And Keith would turn around and look at me sideways with those pirate eyes and sly smile and he'd say. "Hey Baby". :cool:

And I would drop sincerely dead on the spot with a smile plastered across my newly deceased face.

Unless of course, I survived the experience, in which case I would have a little chat and thank them for the utter coolness they've bestowed on the world.

And then. I'd die.

Happy.
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
_Jersey Girl
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Jersey Girl »

Dr. Shades wrote:Oh, I know what you're all thinking right about now: "Did Dr. Shades get his money's worth out of this concert?" or "Does Dr. Shades think this concert was a worthwhile investment of his time?"


Nope! You can't put a price tag on a transcendent experience! I have a Ticketmaster bill to prove it.


Rather than leave you in suspense, I'll go ahead and break it down:


Okay, if you must.

Concert ticket total: $63.70
Plane ticket: $220.03 (round trip)
Motel room total: $125.54
Gas to & from airport: $8.42 (approximate)
Airport parking: $18.00
Food & gum: 11.38 (approximate)
Two Uber rides: $30.70

APPROXIMATE GRAND TOTAL: $477.77

COST / BENEFIT:

WELL WORTH EVERY LAST SINGLE SOLITARY PENNY!!!


You bet your ass it was!!!
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
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_Dr. Shades
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Dr. Shades »

Perfume on my Mind wrote:Wait a second. Are you saying you saw the holy trinity?

That's exactly what I'm saying.
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"

--Louis Midgley
_moksha
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _moksha »

Dr. Shades wrote:
subgenius wrote:humanity=black hair male asians?

You can't see any of the females or the non-Asians?

About seven deep on the right-hand side I see a shiny light colored head. I suspect it is Dr. Peterson writing a Sic et Non column on his iPhone.

I am glad you had what Jersey Girl described as a "transcendent experience(s). If you wish to change the board title to Perfume Discussions we would all understand.
Last edited by Jersey Girl on Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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_Some Schmo
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Re: Dr. Shades's INCREDIBLE Perfume experiences, a 4-part sa

Post by _Some Schmo »

Dr. Shades wrote:
Perfume on my Mind wrote:Wait a second. Are you saying you saw the holy trinity?

That's exactly what I'm saying.

That tee was sitting well above the turf. Glad you took advantage.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
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