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Sunday, August 07, 2005

meeting a Jew while buying milk

I met Adi, a teacher friend I used to know in Nagano, near Ogikubo station at 8 and we went to his house. After we agreed on a percentage, I gave him the disc and he downloaded the file I'd been working on for him. To celebrate, he took me to the outdoor yakitori stand in front of the station, and we had beers and lots of chicken with onions, mushrooms, even duck. I took a cab towards home, but had to go to the store for milk. The cabbie didn't know the place and I walked a bit. When I was looking for milk (I always look for Nagano milk but this time, late Sunday at 11pm, most of the stuff was gone), some guy came up from behind me and asked me in English why I was scrutinizing the milk so much. I told him what I knew, and he was interested in me- why I was in Japan, and why I knew about Nagano. He'd come to the store for a lightbulb. We exchanged cards and I realized he was Jewish, South African, and he said he had a business in Detroit. He bought a warehouse years ago full of 60's Motown soul-funk fashion (brands like Prince Mauricio and Pierre Foshey), new, and has been wholesaling the stuff ever since, making crazy profits here in Japan for instance. I told him about myself and he was pretty amazed to have met a Jewish guy from Detroit here at the store. We walked out and he invited me to his place for a drink.
Diamond is his name. He seems about 40, like a hippie but not dirty, and talking so fast and fragmented that I think he was either on speed or bipolar or something. Turns out he comes from a Hasidic family and was in the diamond business until he got fed up, says he lives in Cape Town, London, Tokyo and Detroit. Tomorrow he's going to Bangkok to have a cavity filled, and to relax, not sure when he'll be back. His house was a turn-of-the-century old-style place, all wood and tatami, and decorated with Nepalese hangings, drums, random artifacts, and boxes of funk clothes. He gave me a banana shake and started to roll a cigarette. The process was finished in a flash, all done while giving me a monologue, calling one of his girlfriends, changing the channel, etc. We chatted for a bit about who knows what, but was totally entertaining and he promised to get me in touch with Benjy when he gets back, who knows everyone in town. LD took me home in his van as he went out to visit one of his girls, both of us not knowing how to get anywhere.

1 Comments:

At 7:08 PM, Blogger Jonathan said...

I am in awe, that is the craziest story. Lauren is equally enthralled. You go girl!

 

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