If the “most interesting man in the world” from the Dos Equis (XX) commercials really was the most interesting man in the world, Dos Equis would be okay, but he would prefer El Indio from the Cervezeria Cuauhtemoc-Moctezuma (the same brewery that makes Dos Equis). That’s because he’s Most Original and prefers the beer that is out of the ordinary.
I was voted Most Original by my Pacoima Junior High School graduating class, but before that, I was born Most Original, or at least, in a most Unique group. My Y Chromosome DNA is the very rare Haplogroup G. Within Haplogroup G, I’m in an even rarer Subclade, G2c. G2c is a unique subclade: of all the subclades of every Haplogroup of either Y or X chromosomes, Y Chromosome G2c Subclade is the only one that has no area of concentration anywhere in the world. Furthermore, because we’re almost all Jews (and those who aren’t are descended from Jews), we are the truest “wandering Jews” in the world!
The most interesting man in the world would also be the most eclectic in his knowledge. The first time he toasted with a new acquaintance, he would tell a story that involves the national and ethnic toasts of the Jews, Armenians, Roma (Gypsies), Hungarians, Swedes, and British (and perhaps some other groups). If you want to know what the story is all about, as I recount the national and ethnic toasts of all those groups, you’ll have to buy me a drink.
The most interesting, original, unique, and eclectic person in the world would have no problem navigating the intricacies of the many diverse (and in my case, sometimes, perverse) cultures that abound in Southern California. He would eat with chopsticks in Asian restaurants and know precisely how to mix Wasabi and Soy sauce for sushi, and how to delicately place the ginger on the sushi before dipping it. In a French restaurant, he would order steak tartar with escargot in garlicked mushroom caps as an appetizer. For an after dinner drink, he prefers Calvados, and drinks it like Ravic and Joan Madou in Paris.
In the African American community he would be known as the “honky in the woodpile,” while his Chicano friends call him “el gabacho loco.” He nicknames a Korean friend Tokaebi and a Yoruba pal from Nigeria, Eshu.
He would be adopted into the family of the Rombaro (“king”) of a Roma (Gypsy) clan as a Prince of the Gypsies at the same time as he is adopted as the only white Garifuna. He is as much at ease speaking before a group of retired law enforcement officers as he is hobnobbing with former Black Panthers.
He has hiked up Mount Whitney, canoed on the Russian River, spoken Catalan in Andorra, and presented a petition to the French Minister of Health in support of the abortion pill; and while in an art museum, he compares a Hieronymus Bosch Tryptich to Dante’s Inferno, The Death of Artemio Cruz, the writings of Hannah Arendt, and the poetry of Emperor Nezahualcoyotl.
He is the most original, eclectic, unique, and interesting man in the world.
Tags: Andorra, Arch of Triumph, Armenian, Black Panthers, British, Calvados, Catalan, Cervezeria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, Dante's Inferno, Dos Equis, El Indio, escargot, Eshu, Garifuna, ginger, Gypsy, Hannah Arendt, Haplogroup G, Hungarian, Ieronymus Bosch, Jan B. Tucker, Jan Tucker, Joan Madou, Korean, Mount Whitney, Nezahualcoyotl, Nigeria, Pacoima Junior High, Paris, Ravic, Rench, Roma, Rombaro, RU 486, Russian River, soy soyce, steak tartar, subclade G2c, sushi, Swedish, The Death of Artemio Cruz, Tokaebi, wandering Jew, Wasabi