12-05-2017, 01:06 AM
Okay, I think I am seeing the bottom of joy for traveling for this picture. I'm currently in Terrell, Texas. It's just after midnight as I write this so it could almost go in the 4:20 section but it will be mostly Stro movie related. I snapped awake with thoughts of how the production is going and what I have left to do filming wise. I also have been thinking it was time for a recap. Although, I still owe for the East Coast swing. It doesn't help that I can hear the trucks roaring by on Interstate 20 just outside my window. When we we checked in, HK did ask if it was quieter on the side away from the freeway. The girl at the desk said yes. HK asked for rooms on that side of the hotel. Naturally, when we got to our rooms they were were on the freeway side of the hotel.
But let us go back. On Tuesday, HK and I flew to Florida. WE had three interviews in central Florida, two on the west coast and one on the east coast. Smack dab in the middle was The Queen's parent's home. Rita and Gene Jones were gracious enough to let us stay with them as we burned up and down Highway 4 in central Florida.
I didn't really think it through, this whole staying with the Jones's. They only have one guest bed. I'm not sleeping in the full size Murphy bed with HK. This meant I was sleeping on the couch. That was the part I didn't think through. It's been a while since I slept on the couch. It turns out, I no longer like that place to sleep. It would have helped if the couch was about four or five inches longer so I didn't have to sleep with my feet hanging off the arm rest. The couch also generates really freaky dreams. In one, I had to shakes hands with George Clooney, Danny Devito and Al Pacino. I'm also sleeping in the common area, so I didn't get to go to bed until everyone went to bed.
I almost eating at an outrageous pace and my weight is ballooning which is making me sad. I see in my future a lot of self discipline and lack of food. My blood sugar numbers for the Diabetes division of the Brotherhood are on the uptick. I do not want to have to go back on the drugs, but if this keeps up I will probably have to do that.
On the plus side, I'm near one of the really nice features of being in Lakeland. I get to walk around Lake Hollingsworth every morning. It's a short drive from the Jones's place and is quite a pleasant 3 mile stroll. It's a very popular place, even at 6 in the morning. The only problem are the joggers who keep lapping me.
Another plus, was that when we got to the rental car place, they didn't have the mid level SUV in stock so they upgraded me to the full size SUV. I got to spend the week with a giant Toyota 4Runner which reminded me of my old Toyota 4Runner. The rental was sleek and black and had lots of bells and whistles. It was sweet.
Our first interview of the week was with one of the three dominant women of the Stro era, Stacey Johnson. Or more appropriately, Dr. Stacey Johnson. She's the president of Valencia college near Orlando. When I sent her my question list, she shot back that it sounded more like an interrogation from the DA than a quick chat about her coach. I sent her back a message saying that when Vinnie Bradford got the questions she told me she would have to kill me after telling me the answers to all my questions. 'Indeed' replied Dr. Johnson.
The interview went great despite the reservations of HK, who saw her in a movie by Carl Borak in which she appeared very stiff. She had great answers to a lot of our questions and some really insights into what made Michael a great coach and how he helped her to be champion.
HK continues to need to interject stories about himself which is annoying me to no end. I sigh very loudly every time he launches into one of them. I am leaning heavily to making the film of people staring into the camera while HK talks off screen about he and Stro. I think it could be 3 to 4 hours long.
After the interview, Dr. Johnson let us scan photos and gave us a tour of her new Film Building. All I can say is, I want to go to school there. They had everything you could ever want to make to a movie. I could go into excruciating detail about their great facility and how I want to live there. We also bumped into the head of the sound recording department. He offered to help us with the sound on our films, Stro and The Last Captain. I'm going to take him up on his offer. (We screened The Last Captain for Rita and Gene. The sound on it is horrible)
Did I mention eating? Too much eating? Yeah. The food is really good in Lakeland. We had a massive breakfast at Cozy Oaks before heading out to Orlando. We picked up pizzas on the way back to eat with Gene and Rita. After dinner, Rita said she wasn't eating with us anymore because she was gaining too much weight. For breakfast Saturday, we went to the Rib House and a had another massive breakfast that includes one of the best sausages on the planet. I'm beginning to be permanently full. It's not a good feeling.
Saturday was also the day we interviewed Al Peredo, who's name I've been spelling wrong in all my communications for the last month. Al, (Don't call me Mr. Peredo) fenced with Stro at NYU and was an assistant coach over Stro as well. I was told by Herb Cohen that Al had all the best stories. Herb Cohen lied.
Al might have had the stories at one time, but they aren't there now. As has been pointed out to me by the Yeti, fencers favorite thing to talk about is themselves. Then you couple that with an inability to stay focused on one subject and you get a lot of rambling monologues about a tenure at Baruch College and how you got that job. There weren't a lot of gems in Al's interview. But he had pictures and articles and HK scanned away. Al's wife, Eileen was bemused presence in the room and had a lot of tolerance for the chatty but unfocused Al. He misremembered a lot of time frames. Damn you old man for not having clear recollections from 60 years ago. He did have have one bad story of Stro's indiscretions from the 1977 World University games in Sofia but he wouldn't tell us. It had something to do with marijuana, was all he would cop to.
And then it was back to the Rib House for dinner. The Rib House morphs into a Thai and Sushi restaurant after breakfast, but they still included a full complement of American burgers and ribs in amongst the California Rolls and Pad Thai. It was very eclectic. It was also slow and noisy as the family of twelve at the table next to us had children running rampant through the restaurant. It was slow because our waitresses forgot to put in our food order. The thai food, though, was a fine break from the onslaught of BBQ.
Sunday our hopes of a rebound were pinned on Coach George Kolombotovich. He had told me a story about 4 joints in a trophy cup over the phone and I hoped there were more similar delightful stories in our future.
There weren't. Coach K was slightly better than Al, but not much. There were lots of stories how to ref and personal reminisces, but not a lot of great insightful Stro stories. I had to pull Coach K and HK out of the weeds on several occasions. I also had to get HK to stop leading the witness on occasions. HK tends to tell the whole story of what he wants to hear in the question, which gives our interviewee no place to go in answering. For instance, do you know the story about when Michael wouldn't cut his hair in 1967 and wasn't allowed on the Pan Am team? The answer to that question is yes. That doesn't make for a good movie.
After visiting with Coach K, HK needed to fulfill his boyhood dream of going to an actual Florida Key. We were in Sarasota for Coach K and there were a couple of Keys right nearby. What makes a Key different from and island? A Key was originally a coral reef. So, we went to Lido Key and had lunch at a snack bar right on the water. The main excitement during our meal was watching the pelicans dive into the water for fish.
For dinner, it was another big meal at Manny's, my favorite local restaurant. They serve meat in large quantities. We took Rita and Gene as well, to thank them again for letting us stay. For some reason the bar was having a problems filling drink orders so by the time our waitress got the drinks to the tables, she brought doubles for HK and Rita to make up for the delay. It is also where I saw a dog sitting with his owner at the bar. I made them let me take a picture of them.
Too much food. My stomach hurts.
Monday, we arose early for the drive back to the Orlando Airport. I was sad to see my Black Beauty of a 4Runner go. It served me well.
TSA at the airport was a nightmare. i was spoiled from my last several trips with TSA pre, but I don't think it would have helped in this case. As we walked up to TSA, there was sign that gave how long the wait was going to be. It read 22 minutes or so. But then our line stopped. The sign kept changing to read increasingly longer wait times. The problem was there was another equally long line coming from the opposite side of the terminal also feed into our TSA area. The TSA guys kept blocking one side or the other to let the opposite side get people into the x-ray machines. At one point the screening time was 40 minutes. They should have just had one line feeding in. It also didn't help that when we arrived only half of the available x-ray machines had teams to operate them. I think I lost most of my adult life in that line.
So, we flew to Texas. We had to fly to Houston first before continuing on to Dallas. I had done an upgrade for myself for the Houston-Dallas leg of the flight. I actually thought i was doing it for the Orlando-Houston leg, but no. I was in the good seat for the really short leg. It worked out that the upgrade saved my on some of the baggage fees. I'm traveling with 4 bags and 2 carryons so every bit helps.
I was not so fortunate in car rentals in Houston. This little Kia Sportage I'm now driving can't hold a candle to the Black Beauty. The Sportage barely has the room for all of our luggage.
As I pointed out, I'm staying in Terrell. This kind of breaks up our trip so I don't have a super massive drive. It's still going to be ugly. The hotel we are in is a dump and the freeway noise penetrates our rooms easily.
I should get to sleep. It's 2:06 and i don't have the massive time change excuse as to why I am awake.
But let us go back. On Tuesday, HK and I flew to Florida. WE had three interviews in central Florida, two on the west coast and one on the east coast. Smack dab in the middle was The Queen's parent's home. Rita and Gene Jones were gracious enough to let us stay with them as we burned up and down Highway 4 in central Florida.
I didn't really think it through, this whole staying with the Jones's. They only have one guest bed. I'm not sleeping in the full size Murphy bed with HK. This meant I was sleeping on the couch. That was the part I didn't think through. It's been a while since I slept on the couch. It turns out, I no longer like that place to sleep. It would have helped if the couch was about four or five inches longer so I didn't have to sleep with my feet hanging off the arm rest. The couch also generates really freaky dreams. In one, I had to shakes hands with George Clooney, Danny Devito and Al Pacino. I'm also sleeping in the common area, so I didn't get to go to bed until everyone went to bed.
I almost eating at an outrageous pace and my weight is ballooning which is making me sad. I see in my future a lot of self discipline and lack of food. My blood sugar numbers for the Diabetes division of the Brotherhood are on the uptick. I do not want to have to go back on the drugs, but if this keeps up I will probably have to do that.
On the plus side, I'm near one of the really nice features of being in Lakeland. I get to walk around Lake Hollingsworth every morning. It's a short drive from the Jones's place and is quite a pleasant 3 mile stroll. It's a very popular place, even at 6 in the morning. The only problem are the joggers who keep lapping me.
Another plus, was that when we got to the rental car place, they didn't have the mid level SUV in stock so they upgraded me to the full size SUV. I got to spend the week with a giant Toyota 4Runner which reminded me of my old Toyota 4Runner. The rental was sleek and black and had lots of bells and whistles. It was sweet.
Our first interview of the week was with one of the three dominant women of the Stro era, Stacey Johnson. Or more appropriately, Dr. Stacey Johnson. She's the president of Valencia college near Orlando. When I sent her my question list, she shot back that it sounded more like an interrogation from the DA than a quick chat about her coach. I sent her back a message saying that when Vinnie Bradford got the questions she told me she would have to kill me after telling me the answers to all my questions. 'Indeed' replied Dr. Johnson.
The interview went great despite the reservations of HK, who saw her in a movie by Carl Borak in which she appeared very stiff. She had great answers to a lot of our questions and some really insights into what made Michael a great coach and how he helped her to be champion.
HK continues to need to interject stories about himself which is annoying me to no end. I sigh very loudly every time he launches into one of them. I am leaning heavily to making the film of people staring into the camera while HK talks off screen about he and Stro. I think it could be 3 to 4 hours long.
After the interview, Dr. Johnson let us scan photos and gave us a tour of her new Film Building. All I can say is, I want to go to school there. They had everything you could ever want to make to a movie. I could go into excruciating detail about their great facility and how I want to live there. We also bumped into the head of the sound recording department. He offered to help us with the sound on our films, Stro and The Last Captain. I'm going to take him up on his offer. (We screened The Last Captain for Rita and Gene. The sound on it is horrible)
Did I mention eating? Too much eating? Yeah. The food is really good in Lakeland. We had a massive breakfast at Cozy Oaks before heading out to Orlando. We picked up pizzas on the way back to eat with Gene and Rita. After dinner, Rita said she wasn't eating with us anymore because she was gaining too much weight. For breakfast Saturday, we went to the Rib House and a had another massive breakfast that includes one of the best sausages on the planet. I'm beginning to be permanently full. It's not a good feeling.
Saturday was also the day we interviewed Al Peredo, who's name I've been spelling wrong in all my communications for the last month. Al, (Don't call me Mr. Peredo) fenced with Stro at NYU and was an assistant coach over Stro as well. I was told by Herb Cohen that Al had all the best stories. Herb Cohen lied.
Al might have had the stories at one time, but they aren't there now. As has been pointed out to me by the Yeti, fencers favorite thing to talk about is themselves. Then you couple that with an inability to stay focused on one subject and you get a lot of rambling monologues about a tenure at Baruch College and how you got that job. There weren't a lot of gems in Al's interview. But he had pictures and articles and HK scanned away. Al's wife, Eileen was bemused presence in the room and had a lot of tolerance for the chatty but unfocused Al. He misremembered a lot of time frames. Damn you old man for not having clear recollections from 60 years ago. He did have have one bad story of Stro's indiscretions from the 1977 World University games in Sofia but he wouldn't tell us. It had something to do with marijuana, was all he would cop to.
And then it was back to the Rib House for dinner. The Rib House morphs into a Thai and Sushi restaurant after breakfast, but they still included a full complement of American burgers and ribs in amongst the California Rolls and Pad Thai. It was very eclectic. It was also slow and noisy as the family of twelve at the table next to us had children running rampant through the restaurant. It was slow because our waitresses forgot to put in our food order. The thai food, though, was a fine break from the onslaught of BBQ.
Sunday our hopes of a rebound were pinned on Coach George Kolombotovich. He had told me a story about 4 joints in a trophy cup over the phone and I hoped there were more similar delightful stories in our future.
There weren't. Coach K was slightly better than Al, but not much. There were lots of stories how to ref and personal reminisces, but not a lot of great insightful Stro stories. I had to pull Coach K and HK out of the weeds on several occasions. I also had to get HK to stop leading the witness on occasions. HK tends to tell the whole story of what he wants to hear in the question, which gives our interviewee no place to go in answering. For instance, do you know the story about when Michael wouldn't cut his hair in 1967 and wasn't allowed on the Pan Am team? The answer to that question is yes. That doesn't make for a good movie.
After visiting with Coach K, HK needed to fulfill his boyhood dream of going to an actual Florida Key. We were in Sarasota for Coach K and there were a couple of Keys right nearby. What makes a Key different from and island? A Key was originally a coral reef. So, we went to Lido Key and had lunch at a snack bar right on the water. The main excitement during our meal was watching the pelicans dive into the water for fish.
For dinner, it was another big meal at Manny's, my favorite local restaurant. They serve meat in large quantities. We took Rita and Gene as well, to thank them again for letting us stay. For some reason the bar was having a problems filling drink orders so by the time our waitress got the drinks to the tables, she brought doubles for HK and Rita to make up for the delay. It is also where I saw a dog sitting with his owner at the bar. I made them let me take a picture of them.
Too much food. My stomach hurts.
Monday, we arose early for the drive back to the Orlando Airport. I was sad to see my Black Beauty of a 4Runner go. It served me well.
TSA at the airport was a nightmare. i was spoiled from my last several trips with TSA pre, but I don't think it would have helped in this case. As we walked up to TSA, there was sign that gave how long the wait was going to be. It read 22 minutes or so. But then our line stopped. The sign kept changing to read increasingly longer wait times. The problem was there was another equally long line coming from the opposite side of the terminal also feed into our TSA area. The TSA guys kept blocking one side or the other to let the opposite side get people into the x-ray machines. At one point the screening time was 40 minutes. They should have just had one line feeding in. It also didn't help that when we arrived only half of the available x-ray machines had teams to operate them. I think I lost most of my adult life in that line.
So, we flew to Texas. We had to fly to Houston first before continuing on to Dallas. I had done an upgrade for myself for the Houston-Dallas leg of the flight. I actually thought i was doing it for the Orlando-Houston leg, but no. I was in the good seat for the really short leg. It worked out that the upgrade saved my on some of the baggage fees. I'm traveling with 4 bags and 2 carryons so every bit helps.
I was not so fortunate in car rentals in Houston. This little Kia Sportage I'm now driving can't hold a candle to the Black Beauty. The Sportage barely has the room for all of our luggage.
As I pointed out, I'm staying in Terrell. This kind of breaks up our trip so I don't have a super massive drive. It's still going to be ugly. The hotel we are in is a dump and the freeway noise penetrates our rooms easily.
I should get to sleep. It's 2:06 and i don't have the massive time change excuse as to why I am awake.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm