"Stalking" Shimon Adaf

Back in the early days of my PR career, I had a reputation at DKC. After a particularly challenging experience (invite Ed Burns to a client event) Jeorjie dubbed me “Stalker PI”. Not that I was actually successful in getting Ed’s publicist to actually acquiesce to the invitation, but the fact that I managed to track her down, send over the proper request, and then get HER as opposed to HER assistant to decline on his behalf, was pretty incredible. Well, the nickname stuck and my reputation grew, and pretty soon I was the first person people (and when I say people, I mean the folks in my group and Jeorjie) turned to when we had to invite certain celebrities to events. Mind you, this was in the days before Google and WhoRepresents existed. When the only other way to get a celebs contact information was to call the Screen Actors Guild, and they would only give you 5 names at a time. I was adept at sleuthing, and the skills acquired in those early years have really come in handy.

Fast forward eight years and the information you can find online is pretty amazing. As mentioned in last night's post about the 200 coolest people of Tel Aviv, my goal is to meet at least one of them. I had selected Shimon Adaf and this morning, I went to work on making that happen.

Here's what I found on the internet about Mr. Adaf:
Shimon Adaf was born in Sderot, Israel, in 1972 to parents of Moroccan origin. He began publishing poetry during his military service. Later, he moved to Tel Aviv and joined a rock band as songwriter and acoustic guitar player. Adaf was also a founding member of the literary group ev, whose aim was to find a new poetic interface between classical and modern Hebrew. In 1996, his band released its first album; the same year, he received the Ministry of Education Award for his first book of poetry. From 1996 to 2000, he studied at Tel Aviv University, simultaneously writing articles on literature, film and rock music for leading newspapers as well as continuing his musical activities. He has also worked as a literary editor at Keter Publishing House. Adaf has published two books of poetry and two novels.

Books Published in Hebrew
Icarus` Monologue (poetry), Gvanim, 1997 [Ha`monolog shel Icarus]
What Which I Thought Shadow Is the Real Body (poetry), Keter, 2002 [Ma she`hashavti tzel hu ha`guf ha`amiti]
One Mile and Two Days Before Sunset, (thriller), Keter, 2004 [Kilometer Ve-Yomaim Lifnei Ha-Shkia]
A Mere Mortal (novel), Ahuzat Bait, 2006 [Ha-Lev Ha-Kavur]

Publising House:
Keter Publishing

This information was taken from the The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature.

So now the background scouting is done, all I need to do is contact the RIGHT people and I bet I have a coffee meeting by the end of the week.

OK, off to the gym to meet with Yehuda for my first training session.