Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
The Last Captain
#31
Once again, I have dragooned the Queen into playing the part of HK, also known as the question spitting monkey.

His name is Frank Iszak and his claim to fame is he is the man that committed the first airline hijacking. He and six other people took control of a plane flying in Hungary and made it fly to Germany. You can read the exciting kind of poorly told story in Iszak's book 'Free for all For Freedom', which I have read . Which was good, because the first question I was asked when I met Frank and his wife was "How far along in the book are you?" They seemed a bit surprised that I had finished it.

HK got Iszak's name through his wife, who was also one of the hijackers. We got Iszak's first wife's name from Elvira Orley, who was one of our first interviews. The first Mrs. Iszak told HK in about 5 minutes all she knew about Piller but she did say call Mr. Iszak since they played a lot of cards together.

So, I did and I set up the interview. Iszak seemed very excited about the interview, particularly since he is in the middle of development on his film about his exploits.

Which was why it was odd when I called to confirm the interview, he didn't know who I was. Granted, he is 84 and suffering from Parkinson's. But I eventually straightened everything out.

Iszak lives in Rancho Sante Fe about 100 miles of south of me towards San Diego. When you get to the Del Mar racetrack, hang a left. With my impeccable timing and planning, I once again got us to the meet at the Rhythm and Dance Yoga Studio far ahead of schedule. It gave the Queen and I time to have a cup of tea and a cookie before we started. Iszak and his wife run the Yoga studio. Yoga is how Iszak deals with his Parkinsons

Iszak wanted to ask a few questions about the project so we did that for about twenty minutes before I started setting up the equipment. The first fly in the ointment was Mrs. Iszak, Serpil, saying they had a client coming in at 10:30. Um, what? I haven't finished an interview before 11:30 yet. Well, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

The interview started with Iszak giving a recount of his early years in Hungary. It was about at hour 6 of the story, that I realized that probably wasn't the best question to start with. Then he told us a long story about the hijacking, which was interesting but again long. It is hard to sum up one of the most important days of your life.

Iszak did tells us a few good bits about Piller. He confirmed or stated that Piller was the Captain of Regent Horthy's bodyguards. Piller played poker poorly. And he dropped the bombshell that Piller was friends with Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Clark Gable, and Jimmy Durante. You can hear my very loud and disbelieving 'No' on the audio track. I tried to shake this stance of Iszak's but he held firm in his belief of Piller's Hollywood connections.

As an aside, as I go through the audio track, I noticed one distinct voice on the audio that always comes through louder and clearer than any of the other voices. He always seems to peg the top of the decibel meter no matter how far he is from the microphone. It's uncanny really.

I have my suspicions about Iszak for a couple of discrepancies, which could just be old age. One, I noticed during the interview and the other later when I was checking up on his story. When we did the pre-interview in Iszak's office, I mentioned that we had interviewed Nikolas Molnar. Iszak said he knew Molnar and wondered what Molnar was doing. I told him Molnar owned some wineries up in Napa and owned the company that grew the most Wild Rice in Hungary. During the interview proper, I had the Queen ask Iszak what he knew about Molnar. Iszak said Molnar had wineries in Napa and grew rice in Hungary.

The other one is a timeframe conundrum. While Piller was coming to the US in 1957, Iszak was still helping the OSS with tales about the Russians in Hungary. According to Iszak, he didn't meet Piller until 1959. Fine. No problem. Iszak says the last time he saw Piller was at the same time Kruschev was in San Francisco. Iszak led a demonstration in Union Square against Premier Kruschev's visit and that evening had a dinner with Piller. According to the papers, that dinner was September 20 or 21st in 1959. So, Iszak arrives in 1959 and lasts sees Piller in 1959. Which means that Iszak knew Piller for several months almost sixty years ago. It was no wonder, he didn't have any long stories about Piller.

But Iszak did cough up one tidbit that adds another tragic layer to the Piller story. Piller was diagnosed with Cancer in 1960, I believe. But as a highly paid fencing coach, he didn't have the money to go to Germany for the treatments. According to Iszak, his daughter who worked as a chorus girl at Bimbo's 365 club in San Francisco, had the money and paid for her father's treatment, which proved ultimately to be unsuccessful. Piller's daughter, after Piller's death, was tragically killed by her husband.

So, tragedy.

I think Iszak really just wanted to tell us about him. He was distressed that he couldn't offer more about Piller, but he did offer us some and did me give avenues of further investigation. And he told us how he woke up dead in the morgue.

It took us 90 minutes to drive to Iszak's place. It took us 2 and a half hours to drive back. I'm glad that is all the driving I have to do for this movie. Oh, wait.

Sunday, I promised myself I would take the day off. That didn't quite work out as I spent a lot of time ingesting video and doing research about what Iszak told us. I also started looking at Cohen's book 'By the Sword' for my upcoming interview with him.

The Queen has volunteered to help in her capacity as Lord of the Stenograph domains. One of the things that would be really good to have are transcripts of all the interviews. It would be much faster just to read the text rather than have to wade through multiple layers of video. It costs about $100 an hour for a transcription service. The Queen has come up with a way to do it for considerably less. She knows a bunch of students who are looking for audio files from which they can practice their craft. What could be better than thick accented Hungarians talking about field they nothing about it. Sounds like a win to me. TheQueen has already gotten 8 people showing interest and two people have already taken the audio files. Kneel before the Queen's power.

In the course of putting together the audio files, I came to a sad realization. Over the course of three weeks work and six interviews, I have about 7 hours of audio. In the planning stages, I was thinking I would have about 30 hours of great stories to cull from by this point. My Hard drives would be bursting with video goodness. 7 hours. That doesn't seem a lot.

On Friday, I head out on the road for more. I have another additional 7 interviews to film. I'm hoping the next group is more chatty. Although, our first interview has told us he knows nothing about Piller.

Oy vey.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#32
Just so you know, Greg, you are kicking butt with this journal.  Much appreciated.

Makes me wonder what's behind the scenes of documentaries that have won major awards.  Did these documentary filmmakers have to sort through lots of inconsistent or erroneous stories and "manufacture," to a certain extent, the thread of a tale?  Anyway, it's a daunting task to try to piece together a record from so long ago, requiring the memories of octogenarians and even nonagenarians.  Major kudos.
I'm nobody's pony.
Reply
#33
I spent the week worrying and buying more crap.

It's a tremendous case of CYA. Maybe I have incipient incompetence but it seems on every interview something has gone horribly wrong. During the second interview, I spent twenty minutes with what I thought was a faulty microphone cable only to find out it was because I didn't hit one of the switches on the recorder to power the cables. Twice now the video recorders have died for no apparent reason. It happened during the Iszak interview. I managed a work around using AC power instead of  batteries. When I tried to recreate the problem at home during the week, the video recorder worked fine for hours.

One of HK's digs at me is that I am constantly changing batteries. Which is true, but in my defense a camera sucks a lot of juice on those little batteries. I tried to find an AC work around for them, too,which I did find, but then I'm dealing with another set of electrical cords snaking around my feet. 

And you know what happens when a power cord gets next to a microphone cord? It creates this really lovely hum that trashes the recording. Decisions, decisions.

So, now, I make sure my camera batteries are fully hot before we start the interview. Same goes for the batteries for the Video recorders. But the camera batteries are still going to die an hour into the shoot. The big video recorder batteries I bought seemed to last a long time, except for when they didn't work at all. It's madness, I tell you.

I thought I had lost two of the camera batteries so I bought more. As soon as I hit the send button for the purchase and the overnight delivery, the missing batteries turned up. I am cornering the market on batteries.

My missing camera battery charger also turned up. This just reinforces the policy of always putting things back in the same place from where you got them from. When I opened the pouch and saw the missing charger, I immediately remembered shoving it in there in my rush to get out of the location.

My dad has been very vocal about how afraid he is about me and my dangerous trip across the country by myself with all this gear. He was so worried that he was going to volunteer to ride shotgun on the trip. Thankfully, he resisted the urge to offer. Not that I would have taken him up on the offer in a million years. That man goes to the bathroom more than I do and I go a lot. It would have taken us weeks just to get on 280. My father was also asking my sister to see if she wanted to join me.

When I first thought about this trip, I didn't give danger a second thought. I would hop in the rental van and cruise to New York. But now my Dad has got me all twitchy. I bought locks and cables at Home Depot so I could lock the bags in the back of the van. I also bought a cart so I could roll the gear to and from my hotel room every night.

I picked up my lovely Toyota Sienna Mini Van from the Double Tree in downtown Los Angeles. The Double Tree is in a great neighborhood. I made Cindi leave before too many drug abusers congregated around her car. The van is nice. The guy renting it was only twenty minutes late. He raced through the check out procedure and gave me the van with only a quarter tank of gas. When he told me this, I asked him what was I supposed to do with a quarter tank of gas if I was heading out on a big trip right away, especially in rush hour traffic? He just brushed me off.

There is also a lovely cigarette burn hole right in the center of the driver's seat. This van is ready to be sent to the big car graveyard in the sky. The car is a year old and it already has 35000 miles on it.  But it drove home okay and it has an audio jack for me to plug in my phone so I can listen to bad podcasts and Hungarian lessons.

I made the decision to leave one of the mini-van seats at home. This got me a few stares from the dogs and the Queen as I dragged the offending seat to it's new home in my office.

I have way too much gear. I have six big bags and a mountain of little pieces like tripods and a boom pole. Plus, there is clothes and food. One of the big fears is putting on a hundred pounds of weight on this trip because I don't exercise and I eat out every day. So far that is right on the money.

The first leg of the trip has taken me to lovely Tuscon. It took me about seven hours to get here, because the base speed limit in Arizona is 75. Good times, people.

I'm staying at the lovely Best Western Royal Sun Inn and Suites. It is not in a nice section of town. Or maybe my father's fears are getting to me. I walked in the 100+ heat to a restaurant and I walked by a lot of homeless people. I can't imagine living on the street, but the fact that it is hotter than the sun outside can only up the order of misery. Most of the shops I passed sold medical marijaunna or did tattooing. My kind of town, right?

I ate at Lindy's on 4th. They had one of those meal challenges were if you ate this eight pound hamburger concoction in under twenty minutes, your meal was free. In this day and age, the thought of gorging on food as sport repels me. Yet, there is TV show that celebrates it and I wouldn't be surprised if Lindy's was on one of their episodes.

And yes, I was the crazy one walking in the heat to and from the restaurant. But I knew I had made it to the South when my waitress asked me I wanted a To Go Cup of Iced Tea to take with me. Does a bear shit in the woods? Probably not in this heat. The point is the nice lady gave a free iced tea to go.

Tomorrow, I drive to Midlands. For some reason, I blame the guy doing the planning, my trip is two hours longer than today's trip. Plus, once I sweep into Texas, I set my clock forward two hours.

On a planning note, that I don't think is my fault, I've run into a conundrum regarding the HK pick up. I got it into my head it would be simpler, if I just picked up HK a couple days into the journey and made him fly home at the end of the interview portion. I'm not exactly sure why I did this arrangement. I think it does save us a few bucks. Plus, I don't think I wanted to be in the Car with HK for twenty two days. That might have put a bit too much strange on the partnership.

I told him I would pick him up at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport since that was on the way from Midlands to Shreveport and was the closest major airport to Shreveport or so I gathered. HK made the arrangements and gave me the time for pick-up.

Now, I was hoping that HK could just drop by the Hertz desk and add his name to contract, so I wouldn't have to go into the airport proper. No such luck. Hertz wants to see me, HK, and the contract all at the same time. I was trying to get the logic of it, but the guy at the Double Tree couldn't give me a satisfactory explanation. Something about drug deals and slipping over the border into Mexico.

I went online to find out where the closest rental counter was to the Southwest arrivals gate. Much to my surprise, I found no mention of Southwest Airlines at DFW International. Ques? I tried multiple searches and came up blank. Oh, look, it's my old friend worry come to pay a visit.

I went to the Southwest web page and determined that when SWA flies into Dallas, they end up at Love Field. That's a different airport all together. Either HK has given me the wrong airline or the wrong airport. Hopefully, my lack of knowledge will be rectified in the near future.

So, I'm staying at the Best Western, listening to the AC run and smelling things growing in the shower. But it's a nice room. The pool is right outside my door. My plan to use the treadmill was derailed by the lack of AC in the fitness room. The one jarring item in this idyllic picture is the fact that as an amenity they have left ear plugs in my room. Two sets. What are they trying to tell me? Are the walls paper thin? Is the neighborhood gunfire that loud? Although, after the last couple of weeks in Montecito Heights, I'm pretty well accustomed to loud explosions at night. I guess I will find out at as the evening progresses. 

Maybe I'll go check out the Karaoke in the hotel lounge. Maybe I'll continue to quiz myself on what I forgot to bring. Maybe I'll keep peaking out the window to check on the car.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#34
Look Lindy's on 4th was on the show Man vs Food.

Lindys on Man vs Food
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#35
With all that gear, did you pack any heat?
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
Reply
#36
That is the second time someone has mentioned carrying. Now, I have to rethink my stance on how foolish that would be.

First off, among us, who would be the last to be a gun owner?

And if I did have to defend my junk from being robbed what would be the possible outcome, besides me lying in my own red puddle?
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#37
I am rocketing through the southwest. The miles are flying by. But I wasn't going fast enough to outrun my own cleverness.

It was the first fill up of the day when I noticed the engine needs maintenance light on the dashboard information center. It replaced the constant estimate of my gas mileage which I found incredibly amusing,especially when said gas mileage clicked to 99 miles to the gallon.

So, this was worrisome, since I was in either bum fuck New Mexico or shit out of luck, Texas. Actually, it was Los Cruces when I pulled over to check. I initially thought it was a loose gas cap and I pulled into the rest stop with the giant road runner sculpture made of garbage. I tightened the gas cap and the light remained stubbornly on. 

It remained stubbornly on for the next four hundred miles or so. It was on in El Paso when the tire on the semi-truck in front of me exploded, showering my lane with a huge strip of rubber and myriad pellets. It was on in Serra Blanco were I stopped for gas. It was on in Van Horn, Texas where I stopped at Chuy's, part of the John Madden Hall of Fame, for lunch. It was on for the countless miles of featureless Texas landscape. But the speed limit was 80 so it all passed very quickly.

I resolved to find a Hertz dealer in Midlands where I was staying for the night. Fortunately there was one at the airport not too far from my Hotel for the night. I pulled into the Hertz before stopping.

I'm thinking they might go ahead and swap out my car for me. And then my cleverness kicked me in the nuts. I had removed the seat from the rental car because I wanted as much room in the car for the gear. So, my car was missing it's seat. I couldn't think of a scenario where they would take the car without it's seat. Well, I could.

And the guys at the counter at Hertz agreed with me that they couldn't take back the car. Actually one of them was looking for a way to do it, but the smart one called their manager who shot the idea down. No seat. No car return. Take your damaged car with missing seat away from us. As I was driving away, I was thinking I could probably have gotten the swap if I hadn't had mentioned the missing seat. But honesty reared it's ugly head.

I went to find a Toyota dealer to see if they could read the trouble codes for my car. But it was now 4pm on a Saturday. The mechanics at the Toyota dealership went home at 3pm. I couldn't find another mechanic open in Midlands, either.

Tomorrow, I'm putting another 450 miles on the car as I drive to Shreveport. I'm hoping that the loose fuel cap is what kicked off the sensor and it is nothing serious. Otherwise, expect an emergency call from the side of the road.

I do have plans to find the Shreveport Toyota dealership on Monday. After the Shaw interview.

See? My incompetence is always there to help.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#38
Check engine lights can take weeks to reset, from what I'm reading.  I think you have to satisfy a very complex set of driving conditions, both highway and city, and other stuff, to make it happy.  Lady Cranefly had a nightmare situation with a check engine light going into a smog check, ended up driving with an expired registration until things finally cleared up (it took many hundreds of miles).

So there is hope.  Good luck.
I'm nobody's pony.
Reply
#39
Wait? Where's the pic of this road runner sculpture?

Never mind. Saw it on sitonmyfacebook.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
Reply
#40
Sunday was pretty uneventful. Just driving through hundreds of miles of prairie, occasionally interrupted by giant towers burning off gas in giant plumes of fire.

Today, I picked up HK at Love Field, not at DFW like he originally said. Only got lost 3 times navigating the maze of highways around Fort Worth. My bladder almost burst as I raced into the Terminal Building. After a relief stop, I went to the rental counter to find HK. Except for no HK at the rental counter.

We were to meet at the rental counter because I needed to be present to sign him onto the rental agreement. I noticed a text on my phone saying he had gotten on the bus to the rental office rather than meet at the rental counter as agreed. HK explained he couldn't find it. It was one of the first things I saw as I went to the baggage carousels.

So, I picked up HK and we headed to Shreveport. We stopped in Tyler, Texas for lunch in homage to Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler, Texas BBQ in Los Angeles. I never even considered I would be in the actual Tyler, TX but it was all over HK"s radar. And the Bodacious BBQ was pretty good. If I wanted to I could have purchased a couple gallon jugs of their BBQ sauce. Or a quart of honey. I ended up with a hat.

I was getting a lot of messages from sister and father, worried that I was somehow in danger from the Baton Rouge shooting. If you check the map, Baton Rouge is about a 3 and a half hour drive south of Shreveport. My father continues to remain nervous about my imperiled state.

We had dinner at Brother's Seafood which was pretty good. It's claim to fame was that it is the longest continually owned african american restaurant in America. And they had good gravy.

After a quick stop at the Walmart, only super market around, HK and I called it a night. HBO continues to prove why it is such a bad channel. So does CNN.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#41
Today we interviewed USFA Fencing Historian Andy Shaw, our youngest interviewee so far. I was primed for good stories and long answers. Let it be known, that before the interview, Andy stated many times that many times he did not know much about Piller or saber fencing in general. He's a foil guy. He knows foil stuff. 

Shaw is full of opinions. And he is not afraid to share them. A good portion of the day that we didn't spend interviewing him, he regaled us with tales about the still segregated south and many of the people around here would vote for Trump. He also has dogs, which I approve of, but only one that will actually let you pet it. I don't approve of that.
The interview was good and it was bad and of course something went wrong during the course of it. We did warn Andy that we would not countenance any collapses or dying during the course of the discussion.
How was the interview good? Well, he told a really fun scandalous story about Giorgio Santelli and his wife. He's a very good talker. He brings lots of details in his stories. And he knows how to pace a story.

He was bad because he was against some of our questions or didn't want to answer them in a way that was helpful to the story. For instance, I thought it would be good to have someone describe the three weapons of fencing so someone watching the movie who had no background in fencing would have a basic grasp of the terminology. Who better to ask than Andy Shaw? Well, now I can think of a lot of people who would have been better to ask than Andy. He gave the oddest answer to that question that I have ever heard. It was almost like we were stupid to be even asking the question. He talked about blade profiles. He made a circuitous talk about which parts of the body were target. It was just strange.

The answer he gave to why was the Hungarian Team so dominant was equally odd. Again, everyone should know how dominant the Hungarian team because the Hungarian Team was dominant. Right? Don't you get it?

Finally, his answer to to why do people devote their lives to fencing was basically that they are losers and this was the only job they could get. Yet, that doesn't really help us sell the idea of how fun and exciting fencing can be.

But he did tell us the Petschauer duel story. It too was oddly told, but it might work. The Petschauer duel story is important because it talks about the invention of the stop cut in saber and the importance of that move.

During the interview, everything worked fine. There were enough pauses that I could conserve battery strength. I was using all the lights so, I think everything looked pretty good. Then inexplicably, one of the lights dies. Just fades off in the middle of a story. Great. First thought, I guess I should have brought the back-up lights after all. But I had four lights in the kit and I was usually using two with the occasional third when I lit the background.

So, I spent a few minutes scrambling to find the source of the problem. Now, these lights have two bulbs and they both went down at the same time, so I didn't think it was the bulb. I checked the fuse. It was fine. I swapped cords. No change. I swapped extension cords. Still no light. I grabbed the fourth light,relit the scene and finished the interview.


Later when I got back to the Hotel room, I took the light apart. I put the bulbs in another light. They worked fine. I put the fuse in another light. It worked fine. I swapped plugs again. It worked fine in another lamp. But everything I put into the bad lamp did not work. Something fundamental in the light refuses to do it's job.

We took Andy to lunch. The place we wanted to go to was closed on Monday's so Andy took us to one of his favorite restaurants, which was what we should have done in the first place. We should have just asked him where to go rather than choose a restaurant from the guide book. Superior was superior. Really good food. 

The entire drive to the restaurant Andy pointed out the rich and the poor neighborhoods. That was probably my fault because I asked how much were home prices in Shreveport. I think Andy might have been letting loose a bit, which I told him, because he probably doesn't get to talk to bleeding heart liberals like myself as often as he wants. We might have been getting the release valve version of the conversation.

It was hot and humid in town. The weather report keeps going on about the dangerous heat index currently covering the entire United States. I think Shreveport might be the center of the problem. 

For dinner, we went to Crawdaddy's kitchen for cajun food. HK needed to get some crawfish in him. The sign on the door to the restaurant promptly killed that desire by announcing that Crawfish were out of season. We still had a great dinner. I had a cajun roast beef po-boy. HK had some crawfish Alfredo that vanished very quickly. I didn't finish my dinner because of the massive lunch that was still filling my belly.

I contacted our next round of interviewees to tell them we were coming. I couldn't get a hold of Csaba Pallaghy because my phone wouldn't connect with his phone. I did get through to Gall once he finished screening my call. He reminded me again he never knew Piller. But I know he did escape from Hungary with Tomas Orly, so we can talk about that.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#42
What day is it? I think it is Thursday and we are bound for Pennsylvania.

It's just a lot of driving. My theory is get in the car, put your foot on the gas and get it over with it. My co-driver likes to see things. So, on Tuesday we stopped in the civil war site of Vicksburg. But to see Vicksburg, you really should do the driving tour around the site, which takes about 2 and a half hours. Well, we're not doing that. So, we pulled into the Visitor center. We looked at their exhibits. We saw their movie. We left. Good times? Not so much

Yesterday, we rolled through the traffic of Pigeon Forge. It was a three or four mile stretch of tourist traps leading up to Dollywood. HK was all for getting off the Highway and seeing the sites especially after talking to his wife who waxed rhapsodic about the beauty of Pigeon Forge. Yeah, not so much. If I was a teenager I would have killed to go on the go-cart rides, bungie jumps, and other various amusements. They had the upside down house next to half the Titanic. We were constantly being asked to come see the Hatfield and McCoy Dinner show. My favorite was the talking pig at the Comedy Barn. It was a weird nightmare stretch of road. All we eventually saw of Dollywood was their parking lot.

We stopped at the Jurassic Park ride so HK could take a picture. I took a picture of HK taking the picture. In the end, I would have skipped the whole endeavor and spent the time reading in my hotel room to prep for the upcoming interviews.

The last fifteen miles of our road into Troutville, VA, was slowed to a crawl by a multi car pile up. One trucker was so disgusted by the pace, he backed his truck up to the previous off ramp via the shoulder.

What should have been a six and a half hour drive turned into nine hours of driving.

We have stayed the last two nights at Quality Inns and they have been fine. The first night's hotel in Fort Payne wasn't as good as the one in Troutville. I thought I was in for a noisy night in Fort Payne, as I could hear every voice in the room next to mine. And I could hear the person above me clogging in his hobnail boots. But when it came time for bed time, all was calm. The only frightening noise was the long howl emanating from the toilet after I flushed it. It was especially eerie when I flushed it in the middle of the night. HK thinks he heard it from his room, since he was on the other side of me.

At breakfast, for free don't you know, in Fort Payne, we were joined by two shirtless and barefoot young men who looked like they just rolled in from a very hard night of drinking. They made their breakfasts and then proceeded to forget them on the counter as they went outside to the pool area for a smoke. One theory was they had been up all night and they stumbled from their room when they realize breakfast was being served.

Our Fort Payne hotel was down the street from a fast food place called Krystal. Their motto, painted on the door, was  'Get a sack full" We passed many Krystal purveyors urging us to get a sack full.

I continue to eat too much and exercise not at all. Big lunches and big dinners. More Mexican food than you can shake a stick at. The parade of BBQ was relieved somewhat in Fort Payne when we went to the Thai and Sushi restaurant, Toko. For Fort Payne Thai food, it was pretty good.

Last night, we ate at Angelle's which was back to the BBQ. Our main entertainment for the meal, since we were at the counter over the dish washing station, was watch the pretty waitress flirt non-stop to the oblivious dish washer, Ethan. Both HK and I almost went back to tell him that he needs to be more aware of the woman around him.

I did get Csaba Pallaghy on the phone to confirm our interview for Friday, which was a relief. Oddly enough, when I told him we would be staying at the Scottish Inn near his house, he mentioned that he had brokered the Real Estate deal for the place. He said we should mention his name when we check in and they would treat us right. Although how nice they could treat us at a 1950s style motor court hotel is something we'll have to see about.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#43
I think HK would have been content to not leave the freeway after our debacle to Pigeon Forge. But for some soft brain reason, I acquiesced to a stop in Hershey, PA to see the chocolate factory. Turned into a stop at the chocolate museum which immediately bored me. I've been to Ghiradelli's in San Francisco and at least there, I got a hot fudge sundae for my trouble.

Again there was a spate of traffic to contend with as we passed the amusement park. We had lunch at the Chocolate Diner on Chocolate street which was at the cross street of Cocoa st. Yes, the street lights looked like Hershey Kisses. So, we learned a lot about Hershey. The only fun fact for the day was that Reese's Chocolate got it's start in Hershey, even going so far as to buy chocolate from Hershey to make their candies.

After a few wrong turns to avoid traffic, we finally made it to the Scottish Inn in Milford. It's a little road side motor hotel that hearkens back to yesteryear. We dined at Joey's pizza in the town proper which is about 3 and a half miles up the road and I elected to walk back from dinner since I'e been gorging now for seven days straight.

I got up early on Friday and dropped my clothes off in Port Jarvis. This meant I got to cross over the state line into New York. Later when  we go to the interview, we'll cross over the state line into New Jersey. It's a crowded corner of the country. And I guess cigarettes are cheaper in New York. As soon as you cross the border there are four or five tobacco shops. As well as two fireworks stores. I should buy a bunch of fireworks so I can compete with my neighbors.

Csaba Pallaghy met us at his front door in his pajamas. Which was a good thing. The first words out of the hotel clerk's mouth when we said we were going to see Pallaghy was that she thought he was dead. This was hard on the heels of the rumors that he was deep in the throws of Alzheimers. Neither were true. He had just forgotten that we were going to be there.

HK had forgotten his scanner so he drove back to the hotel while I finished setting up. I also spent the interim priming Mr. Pallaghy with questions. He told one great story about how he started a two day strike at his plant during the uprising. Unfortunately, he never told the story again as well when the cameras were on, despite my two tries to get him to do it again.

HK eventually returned but it was a fruitless endeavor to get the scanner. Mr. Pallaghy had no pictures for us to scan.

The interview went much faster than I thought it would go. Most of his reminisces about Hungarian Fencers were to the tune of he was a good guy. No real examples. HK seemed to think the interview went well. I didn't hear it.

We took Mr. Pallaghy to lunch at an Italian place nearby. He had a meatball sub that defeated him. All during lunch I feared, he would pop up with a great story that we wouldn't get on tape. But I think we wore him out. Plus, the environment of the little pizza shop made it hard for him to hear.

I spent the afternoon recharging batteries and downloading footage onto the Hard Drive.

HK got to make the hour plus drive to Scranton to pick up his son. I did not even come close to volunteering to go with him. I went for a walk to the Delaware river which flows behind the Inn. The trail led me through a rehabilitation center for seniors and behind the local High School. It wasn't very scenic. As I stood on the banks of the river all I could think was how could Pennsylvania be so wasteful as to let all this water just flow about willy-nilly? I've lived in the drought state too long.

I finished my book on Peter Westbrook so that will generate some questions for Monday's interview. I ate at the diner next to the hotel by myself. I'll also be going there for breakfast before we head out to White Plains to visit Csaba #2, Csaba Gall. I just hope he remembers we are coming. 

The one thing Gall keeps telling me is that he never knew Piller. But he did appear on This is your life with fellow Hungarian refugee, Tom Orley.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#44
The freeway or thruway as they call it here in New York, was wide open so we flew to Csaba Gall's house in White Plains. So much so that we had to kill twenty minutes before we pulled up to his house. We spent it at Starbuck's.

Csaba Gall has been the enigma on the schedule. Originally HK had been told not to interview him because he was a crook. The previous day, Pallaghy had been dismissive of him as well, saying he was too aggressive. I didn't have much hope for this interview.

As I pulled into his driveway, Pallaghy popped out onto his porch to greet us in his stocking feet. He seemed very excited to see us and ready to talk. Since I had been the one talking to Gall on the phone, I took the lead in our initial interview. Once again, Gall declared he didn't know Piller and didn't know what he could tell us. Then he launches into a story about seeing Piller at a changing of the guard in Budapest. We had never heard this story about Piller. 

It was like we opened up a faucet with Gall. I was afraid he was going to spew out all his stories before I got the cameras rolling. He had pictures for us to see. He couldn't be nicer, a far cry from what I was led to believe about him. His girlfriend(?) was there and she too was the picture of hospitality.


Eventually, I got the cameras rolling and the rollercoaster of an interview went off. He had information on everyone we wanted to know about and a lot of the information was more than cursory. I still don't think we got a lot of information on Piller but we got a lot of information about his team. We got a great story on how Piller tricked Gurevich into losing. Gall was ready to talk all day.

And HK was ready to go right there with them. As we entered the third hour of talk, the interview veered into area that were far afield of what we needed. HK felt it was time to tell his own stories, that I heard before. I started turning off the cameras when he would launch into another pet story of his. There was a lot of talk about a Polish fencer who had been convicted of spying that went on forever. I kept wishing they would just wrap it up. But no. Although at one point, Gall did share a story and asked me to shut down the cameras.

On the whole it was a good interview. There is stuff there. But I wish it had been two hours of talking rather than three.

We checked into the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown and then went to lunch. The Marriott is the most expensive hotel we have stayed in so far and of course it is the first one to charge for Wifi. Grrrr. My wifi should be free, dammit.

We ate lunch at the El Dorado diner. From the outside, it looked like a dump, but was really nice inside. The problem came when we left. 

When I pulled in, the parking lot was packed. I had very little room in the spot I was able to squeeze into, but I was between the white lines.

On the way out of the restaurant, the driver of this electric blue camaro, that was parked next to my van, drove past us to the exit. The camaro stopped. The driver got out. He asked if we were from around here. I thought he was asking for directions. I sheepishly said no. He waved, got back into his car, and drove off.

Yeah, he wasn't asking for directions. He was checking to see if I was going to track him down. I came to the car to find a big ding in the door and paint scraped off the fender. He had hit me on his way out. As I sat in the car, I saw him speeding onto th onramp. Oh, I was mad. Since I had used my own insurance rather than the Hertz insurance, I'm on the hook for the damage.

It's at this point, HK tells me has also damaged the car. When he was picking up Ben in Scranton, he drove into something and scraped paint off the bumper on the passenger side. Oh, I'm getting a nice bill from Hertz.

We went dinner in Pleasantville, mostly for name recognition. While dining, we got to see the Pleasantville Volunteer Fire Department in action. An alarm sounded from the fire station across the street from the restaurant. We all wondered what it was. Then about ten minutes later, the volunteer fire department strolled up. They didn't seem to be in quite a hurry. After another ten minutes, the fire truck pulled out of the fire station. It must have been a false alarm since the truck returned pretty quickly. A fellow diner at the restaurant told us how bad he thought the volunteers were doing.

When I travel, I like to get up early, drive like crazy and be where I'm supposed to be. HK, not so much. Sunday was the day to drive to New York City. I didn't have any interviews scheduled so we could take our time. HK was of the opinion we should sleep in and leave at 11am. Um, what? You would rather hang out in Tarrytown rather than in one of the greatest cities in the world? Um, no. 

I agreed we would leave at 10am. HK rightfully argued that we probably couldn't check in at our hotel until the afternoon. But Marriott had sent me an app that I could use to check in early. I downloaded it and I checked in. At 7am, Sunday, I got an alert saying my room was ready. Woohoo. We left the hotel at 9ish and were at the hotel by 10.

When HK asked if his room was ready, I jokingly had told him who cares? My room was ready. When we tried to get his room at the hotel, it wasn't ready. Oops. So, we hung out in my room and formulated plans.

My plan was to leave the hotel and explore. Our Courtyard by Marriott is on 92nd Street and is only a mile from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I decided to go see that. HK had the unenviable task of trying to get Ben interested in doing something. Ben would have liked to spend the day in the hotel room with his headphones on.

I didn't care either way. I was leaving. HK got Ben to agree to go to Time Square. We walked together to the museum since it was on the way. We walked over historic streets like Park Avenue and Madison Avenue before hitting 5th avenue. We passed the museum that now holds the Klimt painting of Adelle Bloch Bauer. There was the Guggenheim. People were running a triathlon in the park. It was all very stimulating.

We parted ways at the museum. The Met has a pay what you want policy, but they would like it if you at least paid $25, which I did. The couple in the line behind me decided not to pay and walked in.

Like all great museums, the Met has entirely too much stuff. I opted to stick with the impressionists and the swords. Even that was too much. I did see Van Gogh's iconic self portrait in a straw hat. I saw a painting by neighbor separated by decades Jackson Pollack. I also saw more works by Rodin. There was just room after room of great paintings. I could probably have just spent an entire day in one of those galleries.

I was fading so I grabbed lunch in the basement cafeteria. I then ventured into the arms and armory wing. Again too much good stuff. I concentrated on swords and armor, although there collection of guns and rifles was pretty impressive. And if that wasn't enough, they had a bonus gallery of the weapons of islam, classic not modern. No one wants to see suicide vests.

I decided to walk around the reservoir in the park before I headed back to the hotel. It was all quite civilized. I passed plenty of people lost in the world of Pokemon Go. But it was a lovely walk in the 95 degree temperatures.

For dinner, we opted for something besides Italian food and went to a Chines restaurant. Ben decided it was okay to help himself to the mushu pork pancakes without eating any of the actual dish. But that was easily remedied.

Today, Peter Westbrook, a man who really doesn't know Piller. Westbrook didn't start fencing until after Piller was already dead. But he does know a compatriot of Piller, Csaba Elthes and hopefully he might have one or two nuggets to share.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply
#45
Here's my problem. And it is my problem. There is plenty of time in the world. But over the course of my life I have learned to do this thing where when I say let's leave at 6am, that is generally the time I like to leave. For some reason it is not that hard to do. When you say you are going to leave at 6 and the you don't leave at 6, it makes me cranky. Yes, it's a problem and something I have to work on accepting. Or not.

Until I learn that special zen composure, I might have to punch HK jr. Every day I am told, it will be another ten minutes until we leave since HK jr is still in shower. And it is never ten minutes. You would think maybe they would start their morning ablutions a bit earlier so they could hit the getaway mark.

So, we were late leaving the hotel for breakfast. Then the wait staff where we had breakfast seemed to have just started their new jobs this morning. Best of all it was really expensive. So, I'm in a rush to get changed into my interview clothes.

Being in New York, I have the added convenience of going down the block to grab the car at a parking garage. I dump half the gear with HK while I carry the two bags of equipment down the block to the garage and wait while they get the battered Sienna. Earlier, when I had awoken, I noticed plenty of street parking near the hotel. I thought it would be easy to grab a spot to load up the car. 

Guess what is right next to our hotel and actually takes up the first five floors of the hotel? A school. By the time I was on the street with the bags, the street was full of busses dropping off kids. I texted HK to meet me around the corner so I wouldn't have to fight with the buses. Our hotel is on a one way street, like much of New York. I would have had to fight through the buses to get out again.

It was an easy slog uptown to Harlem to Peter Westbrook's brownstone. The only weird thing was the cars parked in the middle of the road. I didn't know what the hell was going on when I came across it. I originally just thought the line of cars in the middle of the street were waiting for a light. But the cars driving in front of me pulled to the right next into the empty lane by the curb and drove around them. When in New York, do like the New Yorkers, so I followed the moving cars. Which is when I realized the cars weren't stopped for the light but parked. The car at the end of the line even had his emergency blinkers on to warn you he was parked.

As I wove through the streets, I saw more and more lines of cars filling the center lane of the street and leaving the right lane open. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. When I finally pulled up to 123rd st where Peter lives, it was the same condition.

On this trip we've been unlucky and lucky. When I copied down Peter's number, I must have copied down the wrong one because when I called to confirm our appointment, I got some school instead of him. And it wasn't Peter's school. But I had sent him a letter, an actual USPS letter, confirming the date. And I sent him another email when I couldn't get him on the phone.

As we looked for a place to park, HK spies Peter walking down the street away from his house. HK rolls down the window and calls out to him. Westbrook comes to the car and says he had just called us. He saw the phone number in my email and had called to tell me it was the wrong one. He also mentioned he had forgotten about the interview until just this morning. I figure if we hadn't spotted him, he would still be walking.

Peter explained to us the cars were parked in the middle for street cleaning. We could park in the middle but in about thirty minutes all the cars would shift. All the cars in the middle would move to the right. The cars on the left would move to the middle. What a lovely dance to do every week.

Peter and his wife live in a lovely house. They have a lot of stairs. When Peter saw how much gear we had, he figured we should film downstairs rather than up in his office. Too bad his office was the only room in the house with air conditioning. The fact I was going to shut off all the fans and close all the doors for noise abatement, didn't go ever well either.

After I shooed Peter and HK from the living room so I could work without kicking them every two seconds, I began the sweating in earnest.

I'm beginning to realize that HK loves to tell his stories. He would talk about his Fencing Archive, his books, and his movie all day unless I stopped him. Some days I feel that hanging out with these great fencers is the bonus for him rather than making the actual film.

The interview went really well except for one minor hiccup. Peter is used to speaking and knows how to impart a message. Since our messages was the greatness of Piller, he constantly circled back to that message in his stories. His major story was Csaba Elthes, his Hungarian coach. But Piller was Elthes coach. So Peter, could talk about Elthes greatness as a reflection of Piller's greatness. It was very effective. I only wish that Piller had been Peter's coach because then we would have a ton of stories about Piller. Alas.

Occasionally, I would stop the cameras so we could do a sweat mop and turn the fans on. We broke once so HK could participate in the car move dance. I also had to stop occasionally so Peter could speak off the record. This involved a lot of swearing about his coach and what a bastard he was. I got him to retell one of those profanity laden stories a little less blue for the cameras.

My fawning was on overdrive with Peter. He told me to call him Peter. Otherwise, it would have been Mr. Westbrook all day. It made such a big impact on me when I was fencing to finally see an American win an Olympic fencing medal. So, I sucked up like crazy. I hope it didn't offend him too much. But since he is such a great guy, he treated me graciously all day.

So, good luck in finding Peter walking down the street. Bad luck? Not one, but two jack hammers commenced to work outside across the street from Peter's house. One was Con-Ed digging a hole in the side walk. The other was a guy removing the concrete from the stairs leading to a house. The noise pounding from the street reached us on and off for about an hour.

I had this crazy idea that since I did all the set up and break down while HK chatted and HK jr played with his phone on the porch, that those two should carry all the stuff to the car while I took photographs of Peter's medal case in his office. They kind of agreed. 

They went slow enough that by the time I descended from the office (Where I walked in on Mrs. Westbrook working. Ooopsy. Where did she come from?) they had only managed to get the gear from the living room to the top of the steps, a distance of about five feet. I also heard the distinctive sound of one of my lenses hitting the ground. Someone didn't check the zippers to see if the panels were closed before moving that particular bag. Thankfully, I didn't walk out to a small but expensive pile of metal and shattered glass. Thankfully, lenses are tough.

I helped load the car rather than just stand there and talk with Peter. I decided if I was going to take pictures of anybody on this tour it would be with Peter.

We ate lunch at the Triple Decker Diner, which was far superior to our breakfast choice and looked like our breakfast spot for Tuesday.

I was pretty much done with HK and HK jr for the day, but we made tentative plans to get together for dinner. I spent an hour recharging batteries and ingesting footage from my hard drives. 

Earlier in the day, I had gotten an email from the devil/pusher. You probably know it better by the name B&H Photo. They are a huge camera and video store on 9th Ave. They are something of a legend in the photography business. If you are serious photographer and come to New York, you make a pilgrimage to B&H.

Well, I got an email from them saying they were having a 24 hour sale on a very nice LED light of which I already have 2 and a third wouldn't hurt. Best of all this light was half off. Bastards. I especially need it since one of my CFL lights decided not to work anymore. I feared looking stupid with only one light. The point is, the die was cast and there was nothing I could do about it. Except for the just not buying the light part.

I decided I would walk over, since I am now behind in my exercise and over in my calorie intake. It was about 4 miles from the Marriot on 92nd to B&H on 34th and 9th. I got to walk through the park. I saw the famous Bridge and fountain. I swear walking through New York is like walking through a Studio back lot. It's like every corner has been in a movie.

I photographed the NYAC, where Westbrook fenced and Csaba Elthes taught. I tried to talk my way in but the guard gave me that 'Are you really that stupid' look? Well, yes. 

The rain started on the way to Times Square. Lightning crackled across the sky. The storm was so close there was little pause between the flashes and the booms. I huddled for a bit in a doorway before deciding it wasn't raining that hard and I could make it to Times Square.

I walked on in the downpour which ended by the time I got to the mass of humanity in Times Square. I was kind of thrilled to see the Naked Cowboy, now, no longer naked due to ordinances. I took his picture before continuing my walk.

B&H was everything I imagined and more. The first stop through the door was the professional video department. They had every camera I had read about it, but none of the local camera stores in Los Angeles carried. I played with all of them. Everywhere you looked in the store, I saw gear I desperately needed to have in my kit. I realized quickly, it would be best if I got the light and got out of there. Which I did.

When I was checking out,the nice Jewish man, (The store does close for the Sabbath),  asked if I wanted a plastic bag for my light. I laughingly said I should just take it out of the box, since the light was already in it's own bag. He gave me a bemused look and said maybe the B&H shopping bag will help keep your light from getting wet?

I followed his glance to look out the window. It was ominously black outside despite the fact it was still two hours from sunset. I took the bag.

When I left the store, rain was sheeting down. No one was on the sidewalk. All the customers were huddled in the small alcoves along the building. I tried to make a run for it, but I only made it around the corner before the rain made me seek shelter.

I stood there for about five minutes watching the lightning bolts. Since it didn't look like it was subsiding, I decided it was time to head out. Since my camera backpack had a rain cover, I knew the gear would stay dry.

In about ten steps, I was soaked to the skin. It was like I stood in the shower with it on full. I stopped again in the next block to rethink my strategy. I checked my phone while water dripped off my ball cap on the phone screen. According to my friends at Google Maps, the nearest Subway stop wasn't too far away. Just a couple of laps in the pool. I manned up and went for it, thankful for every awning I could walk under.

Since, I just was on the London Tube, I figured the New York Subway would be no problem. It is amazing how often I figure wrong. There were no big indicators on the map on which train was which. Even the routes had multiple numbers attached to them. I finally decided I needed to find a train that took me towards the Bronx. The ticket process was also problematic. I opted for a single use fare and hoped no one would arrest me for having the wrong ticket.

I guessed which train to take and the guess worked out. There was a lovely sign on the side of the subway car wall that lit up to show you which stops were coming up. After about five minutes of staring, I figured the train was headed in the direction I needed to go.

I had been texting with HK about meeting for dinner. It looked like we were on for 6:30 at the Delizzia Italian restaurant. I picked up the pace since I wanted to be on time. But then, after I got off the train, I received a note that HK jr was sick and they weren't coming. Fine.

The rain still fell as I climbed the stairs out of the subway but not as hard as it was downtown. I don't think I could have gotten any wetter so I just walked the seven blocks to the restaurant with the carefully wrapped light in it's B&H bag in my hand. I opted to get my order from the restaurant to go.

As I sat in my chair in the hotel, after finally getting into dry clothes, I spied a final message from HK asking if I still wanted to go for dinner since HK jr was now well enough to eat.

Tomorrow, we meet with author Richard Cohen. I hope for good stories.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)