Moscow-Tokyo Nonstop: Merrill's 1996 Bonenkai in Rock-n-Roll Diner

Merrill's 1996 Bonenkai in Rock-n-Roll Diner

I stumbled into this album while cleaning my old harddisk. It's only of marginal interest for those who didn't work for Merrill's Tokyo at that time.

Bonenkai means Forget-the-year party in Japanese as oppose to Shinnenkai which is New Year party.

It's 2003 out here and most of people gone from Merrill since. People rotate in Tokyo pretty dynamically. It's slowed down a bit recently with market slump, but five years ago developers would stay in one place for 1-2 years on average and move. It's was kind of spiral not only because each time you move, you generally get better pay, but also because there are few famous financial towers in Akasaka, Nihonbashi, Ebisu parts of Tokyo and people just hop from one to another, sometimes just from floor to floor. I know guy who eventually run out of new places to go and had to join company he had already worked for in past. We are talking about financial multinationals here.

Back to the album, I think only uncle Prem is still there. I heard that my then boss Steve Sadoff also quit Merrill's after stint in New York. Richard Brezden is still in Merrills, but moved to New York, and when whoever remained in Tokyo go ski we always oversleep our breakfast. I heard that Ray is in California, but have no details.

Worst of all the Rock'n'Roll Diner which used to be one of the liveliest places in Tokyo and certainly best hamburgers in town, also went under. Well, in Tokyo the restaurant landscape never stops changing. If you come to Roppongi after 6 months and you most likely won't recognize the place.

This is 1996 and I just start playing with Photoshop and as you can see I really enjoyed it. After 7 years it's still remains my all-time favorite software.

Posted by anatol at 08:01 AM

Comments

Posted by: Anatol on April 13, 2003 11:18 PM

As I realized from dates on some of photos, the party was in mid November. Too early for the Bonenkai. Whatever...

Posted by: razz on April 30, 2003 02:23 PM

Antoli, can we have an update on the fine characters at this party? They must be all over the world, some even behind bars.

Posted by: Anatol on May 2, 2003 12:08 PM

Behind bars? You mean besides those fellows who are still in Merrills? Just kidding!

Don't know much. I heard that Andrew, Tony and Bob were in Instinet, but this is old info. I hope sometimes people stumble into this site and update us.