Flying with Robert Capa...

Photo: Gerda Taro

So I'm running like a fiend (hoping I wouldn't be tackled as some swarthy terrorist type fleeing the authorities) to make my connecting flight (my initial flight arrived late) in the appropriately Texas sized, Houston terminal when I spot something called a FOX News Store, and of course, I had to slow down to a jog just to steady the pulse and see if I was hallucinating the entire affair, only to speed up and then slow down yet again as I spot a larger than life statue of George Bush The First casually tossing his jacket over his shoulder mid stroll like some WWII era fashion model. In that surreal daze I still managed to jump onto one of those airport golf carts that got me to my gate just in time to close the plane door directly behind my sorry ass. It was during the four cumulative flights between NYC and SF that I was able to start and finish Blood and Champagne, the bio of Robert Capa by Alex Kershaw. One of my favorite parts in the book was when Capa jumped into a ditch during The Spanish Civil War to evade an oncoming Stuka. He then decides to introduce himself to the two other current inhabitants of said ditch:

"I am a photographer." The next man said: "I am A Basque Catholic." The third man said: "Those are two professions that are of no use at the moment."

And I still can't believe this made for Hollywood bio epic still hasn't hit the silver screen (imagine Tom Cruise with bushy brows)!