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34 seconds. That's all it took for the Hindenburg, the greatest airship in the history of Hydrogen-fueled aviation to explode into flame, sink to the ground and change the world. 34 seconds from the first fire on the tail to the epic crash-landing. What's more, it all happened next door - at the Lakehurst, New Jersey Naval Airforce Station, about 90 minutes from NYC. The good volunteers at the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society provides tours free of charge to interested citizens, only on the second Saturday of the month, only at 9:30 in the morning, and only if all attendees provide their home address and social security numbers two weeks in advance. It is an active Naval Airbase after all.
We couldn't possibly pass up such a geek-a-licious historical adventure, even if, two weekends ago, it was pissing rain like Heaven's plumbing had gone haywire. Off to Joisey! Three cars from three different parts of Brooklyn took off for Lakehurst - the Levy boys plus Alisa car; the Eggplant Xpress carrying yours truly, friends Josh & Jenene, and yours' trulys' lovely new girlfriend Emily; and the roommate car with Steve and GF Zan. After swimming our way south on the Garden State Pkway we arrived at the Airbase and on our way into disaster-history!
The Hindenburg was built between 1931 and 1936 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. 803.8 feet long and 135.1 feet wide in diameter - which is roughly the length of an 80 story building. When fully inflated, she carried approx. 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen in 16 separate cells; this allowed for easier inflation. The German government paid for the Hindenburg's construction; therefore, enormous swastikas painted onto her tail and fin. Her cabins included a piano room, a reading room, a dining room and a smoking room (which utilized pressurized gases, neutralizing the hydrogen.) Her trip to the States on May 6th, 1937 was the first of 10 scheduled trips kicking off the '37 airship season.
Our guide, a well informed volunteer and former navy man Donald Adams, led our caravan onto the wide open field where the Hindenburg went down; we approached a somber airship-shaped memorial complete with historical bronze plaque. There was also a rough hand-painted little Hindenburg on a post, flapping in the tough winds. Donald gave us hard facts - the Hindenburg hovered approx 300 feet in the air, mooring lines out and down and waiting for mooring. This was when (most reports claim) the static electricity in the atmosphere (or a lightning strike) coupled with the wet weather made a deadly combo for the airship, which was venting hydrogen in order to land. Oxygen + Hydrogen = extremely combustible; within 34 seconds, it was all over.
We also learned that the legendary Oh the Humanity! newscast with Herbert Morrison was recorded at a slightly slower speed, so in the sped-up real-time version, his naturally sonorous voice seems high-pitched & charged with extra emotion. What's more, the newsreel wasn't broadcast until the next day out of Chicago, and no-one heard it live unless they were present at the crash. Out of 36 passengers and 61 crew, 13 passengers and 22 crew members died, plus one ground crewman. Two survivors are still alive, including then-14-year-old cabin boy Werner Franz.
Following a lot of snapshots, we made our way into the hangar and airship museum. Along with scale models of the Hindenburg there were relics and pieces from the wreckage. We bought some souvenirs (Hindenburg coffee mug! Naval Air force Base jacket patch!) and made our way into the hangar, large enough to fit two Hindenburg airships side-by-side with 12 feet of clearance. This double-airship hangar is the largest in the country and one of only two in the world. Hidden within the hangar was another museum, filled with model airplanes, ships and jets as well as walls upon walls of Navy, Air force and Army patches, all of which were supremely awesome.
All of this disaster and naval history and air force patches and old men flying model airplanes made us pretty hungry, so off to a Joisey diner we went! Although most of us had our hearts set on a classic stainless steel, Formica counter, burgers / grilled cheese / meatloaf style joint, but instead we settled at a quaint, cute little cafe in downtown Lakehurst. Good food, but the attitude and atmosphere was top notch thanks to the owner, a former local Bronx boy (he and Dad Levy both attended the same high school!) After some homemade ice cream from the parlor next door, we piled back into our vehicles and called it a historical disastery day.
For those of you who haven't been up to speed with the stories and subjects of my whirlwind life, there's a whole lotta marriage going on. From the middle of September to the middle of October I have been invited to, and plan on attending, 6 weddings over 6 consecutive weekends, taking place in 4 different states - NJ, NY, CA & MA. The last wedding I attended was a long time ago, possibly 6 or 8 years back. And now we have 6 weddings in 6 weekends. When it rains, it absolutely deluges. Some of my friends have remarked that this must be a sign of growing up; some have mentioned that maybe I might hear the jangling of bells in my own immediate future (not just yet, thankyouverymuch); some have exquisitely pointed out that I should be getting very drunk and hopefully very laid over 6 separate wedding weekends; and to quote my darling brother Gideon: "Wow. 6 weddings in 6 weekends. 30's coming up soon, bitch." So what follows is a blow-by-blow wedding blitz breakdown extravaganza - complete with pictures, descriptions, social breakdowns, stories and comments of the first four weddings.
Wedding Number One: Jordan Hoffman & Anne Farrell, Seabright NJ, Sept. 13th
Jordan Hoffman is a former tour guide for the Levys' Unique New York, but moved on to bigger and better things (or so he claims) working for UGO entertainment as well as making films on the side. More importantly, Jordan has been loving and living with his wonderful, wondrous girlfriend / fiance / life-partner Ann Farrell for many years now, 5 out of their 7 in coupleship. The sweethearts live in Astoria, Queens, in an apartment crammed with geekitude of the highest order - graphic novels, Star Trek figurines, a million Jazz albums, '50s retro kitschware in the kitchen, and a fatso catso named Goober. Jordan and Ann are lovers of life - fun loving fun having people. I would certainly and sincerely call them jolly, as well as funny-as-all-get-out.
The wedding was held on the beach (yes, those are random bathers in the background) and in a catering hall in Seabright New Jersey, about 2 1/2 hours from the city. It was a packed car all the way down there as the entire Levy clan attended. The short, delightful festivities were held on the beach, so that as Jordan and Ann yukked their way through the vows (Kerry, the officiator: "To have and to hold for better or for worse, in richer or in poorer, til death do us part." Jordan: "Can you repeat that last part again?" Ba-dum dum bum,) there were total strangers in bathing suits and with boogie boards strolling past the event. Made for great pictures. After the vows, after the huzzahs and the hoorays, after the cheers and whoop-tahs, we all went inside to get drunk and fed and danced and romanced. On the whole, a wedding filled with laughter and joy, humor and irreverence. Also a 30's style radio mic, and a killer DJ. Good interaction between the various friends, family and associates of the Hoffman / Farrell crews. More pictures of the Hoffman/Farrell funtimez are here.
Wedding Number Three: Jonathan Tull and Nina Isaacson, Mendocino Woodlands Park, California, Sept. 20-21
This wedding was clear on the other side of the country, but Jonah and I had been planning a vacation away from the city for a while - it had been the busiest summer Ive ever had, with non-stop work weeks gunning all the way through July & August, then two back-to-back tourism conferences in September - one in San Antonio Texas, the other in downtown Brooklyn. After all that tour guiding and biz building it was time for a well deserved get-away, to visit friends in San Fransisco and chockup another wedding on the calendar. Off to California, and the Jon Tull - Nina Issacson freak flag wedding in the woods! Jon Tull was the bookkeeper for LUNY and fronted a funny kind of bipolar humor, vacillating between a laid back California stoner dude 'tude to an anal retentive number-crunching Brooklyn busybody - well suited for his bookkeeping facilities. He met his not too blushing bride here in Brooklyn and although I had never met her before the wedding itself, she and I are both babies of 1980, and grewup in relatively relational Brooklyn hoods - Flatbush and Park Slope, attending Murrow and Stuyvesant High Schools respectively. I should've known this chick, probably slept with her in another life, but our paths never crossed.
Their wedding was held in the breathtakingly beautiful redwood forest campground about 3 hours north of San Francisco, 4 1/2 if you get lost getting out of SF and again if you get lost in the campground. Which we did. And therefore missed the vows, exchanging of the rings, promises, cheers, jeers and humors. But we made it on time for the festivities, and boy howdy were there enough of those. We rolled in just after the I Dos (missed by 20 minutes! 20 effing minutes!!!) and stuck around through Monday morning. There was eating, drinking, magnificent speechifying, (no fewer than 4 peeps broke down in tears describing the love and trust of the married couple) and dancing. The food was killer - garlic sausages, grilled asparagus, freshly baked rolls with jalapeno butter. And cupcakes! We imbibed local California keg beer, top notch wine, bourbon, vodka and gin, as well as some of the more illicit California produce.
This particular wedding celebration was operating on its own kind of communal CA attitude - most of the attendees in their 20s and 30s had arrived at the camp on Wednesday, partied through the festivities on Saturday, and returned to the real world Sunday. Us lucky Levy boys got to stay til Monday AM, which meant we closed the party down, along with Nina and Jon, Jon's folks & older brother, Mom's friend and Nina' gal pal; therefore from the Sat night attendance high of 80+, the Sunday night's BBQ had just 9. It was a marvelous everybody-project, where the food, the booze, the illicits, the fun was brought for and consumed by everyone. And with too much food leftover, Jonah and I did our civic duties and brought back to our host in SF all sorts of goodies, including an uncooked pork loin, a case of beer, cheeses, juices, a tray of the aforementioned sausages, and the crowning achievement, a box of cupcakes. Further effects of the wedding in the woods can be discovered here.
Wedding Number Four: Bill Scanga and Sarah Frank, Aboard the Jewel, Up and Down the East & Hudson Rivers, NYC, Sept. 27th
God please, make the weddings stop. Well, maybe not until I've completed my wedding blitz. After a week-long vacation in San Francisco, I took the red-eye back to NYC, arriving 6:30am Saturday. This left enough time to get home, crash out for a few, shake myself awake, shower, shave, suit-up and head out for wedding number four, the glorious union of Bill Scanga and Sarah Frank on board a boat traversing the rivers of our city. Bill is the older brother I never had, a fellow member of the City Reliquary, an avid cyclist and the Vice President of collections at the DR, including but not limited to: pencil sharpeners, marbles, vintage bicycles, exonumia, postcards of the Williamsburg Bridge and more. Bill is also a hysterical human being with an unmatched love for life. The guy is a 12 year old trapped in the body of a 38 year old. And up until Saturday, all I knew about Sarah was that she put up with Bill's shit. But as of Saturday I learned a lot more about Sarah. That she's patient, calm, and has wonderful eyes. That she's on top of her game. That her folks are supercool. And that she's gorgeous, dressed up or down, the girl is a total babe. Bill is luckier than I ever imagined.
What more could one ask for other than a wedding aboard a boat around the East River? Maybe some clear weather, which we didn't receive. All fog and gloom. But nevertheless, the procession was awesome, parked under the Brooklyn Bridge with a very special speech delivered by the Best Man and Officiator of the ceremonies, Dave Herman, President of the Reliquary and Bill's best friend. A live soul band swung the dance floor and the bar kept the partygoers sufficiently tipsy enough, although that could have also been the boat itself. Although the food took forever to get to the buffet tables, the cupcakes as wedding cake (cupcakes are in this season) made up for the delay. As did all that booze and soulful tunes. There was an afterparty at a hip downtown dance club, but the truth is that after numerous bottles of Prosecco and gallons of sweat dumped on the dance floor, there isn't much more to tell about the afterparty, except that the only thing I brought home was my hangover. Other parties might have different stories regarding the afterparty, as well as the tequila shots that were consumed, but don't trust them. Splish Splash more pix!
4 down, 2 more to go.
The Wedding Blitz of 08 is Great!
Well, not really. What it was, was a week spent in gorgeous Virginia Beach, attending a humongous convention and learning the fine art of corporate schmoozing and all-out networking, in order to refine my skills in the perplexing but engaging world of group travel. ABA stands for American Busing Association, and it is made up of the people who get groups (students. senior citizens, adults) to travel across the country, mostly by motorcoach, and go sightseeing & travelling & spending their hard earned money. It is a multi-billion dollar business, and it encompasses thousands of people - this convention had 3200 delegates present. It happens every year in a different city, and each year grows larger and more extravagant. The convention lasts a week, and is chock full of leadership seminars, website optimization lessons, sightseeing around VA Beach, evening events with free food and open bars, broadway showtune lunches, and speeches by corporate honchos while one stares into their grilled tuna salad. The entire thing leads up to the extremely important 7 minute speed-networking sessions. But, lets start at the start.
After almost missing my plane down to Norfolk, I sat down in one of the many available seats and took out my book for the 45 minute flight, when the nice middle-aged couple next to me turned and said "Excuse me, are you Matt Levy?" to which, in my absolute incredulous disbelief, I responded "Of course I am. Do I know you?" It turns out that their 12 year old son, from Fairfield, CT, was on one of my Ellis Island Immigration Heritage Tours last June, and my grinning face made it into their 8th grade yearbook, and my tour was one of the highlights of the year, and I'm something of a minor celebrity back home. The grinning parents insisted on taking my picture via cellphone, as their son "Simply wont believe we ran into you." It was an auspicious beginning to an awesome week.
Picked up at the airport by one Rick Feneis - a totally awesome 40 year old party maniac and graduated Beach Bum who lives with the love of his life Cheri, and the cutest dog in known existence, Tiki Joe. They live in this perfect re-creation of a Miami Beach Bungalow with brightly painted walls and mosaics, they also strive to spend as much time as possible on OTBs (other people's boats.) Their 3 kids (from previous marriages) are all off on their own, and Rick & Cheri are hosting a Somalian "Lost Boy" named Yakk in their pad for 6 months and have been to many of the Caribbean and Pacific Islands, including a bunch I didnt even know existed. I met them through Couchsurfing, and they are quite simply dolls and darlings. They treated me as one of their own, with my own bedroom and bath, an ample supply of beer, and they also were so kind as to drive me around to the convention on certain days when they could afford to, as well as take me out to local seafood joints where I stuffed myself stupid on steamed shrimp and snow crab, tuna tacos, and the best Oysters Rockefeller I've ever had.
Sunday was sightseeing day - I opted for a hiking & biking afternoon in which a busload of 40 were zipped out to First Landing State Park, near the site of Christopher Newport and the Virginia Company colonists when they arrived in the New World. It was nice, but probably not nearly as awesome as the offered adventure of Biking & Kayaking. It was just too cold that Sunday (60 degrees, normal for February in VA Beach.) After the hike & bike was the POLAR PLUNGE!
A Polar Plunge is where a group of people, for whatever reason, decide to charge into the Atlantic Ocean wearing whatever they may choose. The Polar Bear Club does it every January down in Coney Island, they do it for chutzpah. We did it to raise money for the American Cancer Society - and I promised everybody who donated a minimum of $25 that I would do it in my Speedo (so named Blue Lightning) and send the donators pictures. Suffice to say, it was cold. 42 degrees Fahrenheit cold. Numbing the skin and the fingers and toes cold. Especially as I was wearing nothing BUT BLUE LIGHTNING. The pictures and movie do a far better job than my chattering lips and frozen tongue could do.
Sunday night was a Superbowl party in the company of Pittsburg Steelers fans. And even though I'm a native New Yorker, I went to college in Boston and became a Red Sox fans while there, and therefore my heart was with the Pats, and it broke just as easily in those last two minutes.
Monday came along, and it was business-time. The Convention building has two floors - the ground floor is divided between the Marketplace Trading Floor and the Meeting Floor. The Trading Floor is where CVBs (Conventions and Visitors Bureaus - basically the selling team for any small town, city or state) and attractions (anything from the Colonial Williamsburg camp to Broadway Showtix to Blue Man Group to Atlantic City Casinos setup their info tables, chock full of free crap - grilled Spam, courtesy of the Minnesota Tourism Board? Have a can of Dr. Pepper, thanks to San Antonio, Texas! Free mini shredded chicken sandwiches, by way of Birmingham, Alabama. Drive a mini-racecar, paid for by Charlottesville NC, host of the 2009 ABA convention.
The Meeting Floor is the heart of the convention - where buyers (motorcoach operators and tour companies) sit behind tables and listen to sellers (sales people like myself) pitch either a city, hotel, attraction or service. The second floor is all small meeting rooms for the free conferences, like High Five Strategies for Website Optimization, and Are You a Poser or a Closer? inspirational talks (which, despite its twerpy name, was awesome and highly motivational.) I attended a fair share of these, some while hungover, over the next few days. I also found time to drive my rental car over to Colonial Williamsburg and wander their 18th century streets for a few short hours.
Along with motivational speakers there was a lot of research to do when my turn came in front of the Buyers. When one can whip out some information about their company in the middle of an interview, it makes the interviewee sound sharp, prepared, and ready for a business relationship. In order to bust out with "I see that you send approximately 50 groups to NYC a year, 65% of which are seniors and the rest are split between students and adults," well, it makes one sound like a damn good business prospect. And it worked (we hope.) During the 7 minute networking sessions (in which the sellers have to scurry between 8 different rows of Buyers sitting behind tables and leave some sort of lasting impression as these people meet thousands of sellers over 4 days, all pitching essentially the same product - either a hotel, a restaurant or an attraction - well one has to stand out somehow. Luckily for The Levys' Unique New York! we happen to have two excellent things going for us.1) People will always come to NYC. We arent some tiny little town in the middle of the Ozarks trying to sell their Appalachia Bluegrass Festival (which sounds awesome by the way). People want to come to NYC, will always come to NYC, there's no sell needed for that. And
2) We're selling ourselves, selling New York. And who is better at being Matt Levy and selling Matt Levy than Matt Levy? It's what I made my Graduate thesis out of, people! Being Matt Levy! We happen to sell a product (young, energetic, enthusiastic, entertaining and educational tour guide) that syncs well with my personality. So it just came naturally. The most important trick I had to remember was to eventually shut-up and listen to the Buyer to see what they needed, what they wanted in a tour guiding company. I walked away from my 20 + 7-minute appointments with a sense of confidence and pride that I love what I do for a living, and I'm working hard at making a living at it. And with some serious follow-thru and a continuation of all the things I've done so far, this convention should turn into a rousing success for LUNY!
Along with some more boozing, schmoozing, stacking up on free stuff (Wisconsin cheese stickers anybody?) manic dancing, losing car keys, finding car keys, enjoying a day with 82 degree weather, hitting an awesome Salvation Army and buying some badass felt fedoras, and impressing the hell out of everybody with those manic dance moves, that pretty much rounded up the week in Virginia Beach. I flew home with my head high for the family biz.
34 seconds. That's all it took for the Hindenburg, the greatest airship in the history of Hydrogen-fueled aviation to explode into flame, sink to the ground and change the world. 34 seconds from the first fire on the tail to the epic crash-landing. What's more, it all happened next door - at the Lakehurst, New Jersey Naval Airforce Station, about 90 minutes from NYC. The good volunteers at the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society provides tours free of charge to interested citizens, only on the second Saturday of the month, only at 9:30 in the morning, and only if all attendees provide their home address and social security numbers two weeks in advance. It is an active Naval Airbase after all.
We couldn't possibly pass up such a geek-a-licious historical adventure, even if, two weekends ago, it was pissing rain like Heaven's plumbing had gone haywire. Off to Joisey! Three cars from three different parts of Brooklyn took off for Lakehurst - the Levy boys plus Alisa car; the Eggplant Xpress carrying yours truly, friends Josh & Jenene, and yours' trulys' lovely new girlfriend Emily; and the roommate car with Steve and GF Zan. After swimming our way south on the Garden State Pkway we arrived at the Airbase and on our way into disaster-history!
The Hindenburg was built between 1931 and 1936 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. 803.8 feet long and 135.1 feet wide in diameter - which is roughly the length of an 80 story building. When fully inflated, she carried approx. 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen in 16 separate cells; this allowed for easier inflation. The German government paid for the Hindenburg's construction; therefore, enormous swastikas painted onto her tail and fin. Her cabins included a piano room, a reading room, a dining room and a smoking room (which utilized pressurized gases, neutralizing the hydrogen.) Her trip to the States on May 6th, 1937 was the first of 10 scheduled trips kicking off the '37 airship season.
Our guide, a well informed volunteer and former navy man Donald Adams, led our caravan onto the wide open field where the Hindenburg went down; we approached a somber airship-shaped memorial complete with historical bronze plaque. There was also a rough hand-painted little Hindenburg on a post, flapping in the tough winds. Donald gave us hard facts - the Hindenburg hovered approx 300 feet in the air, mooring lines out and down and waiting for mooring. This was when (most reports claim) the static electricity in the atmosphere (or a lightning strike) coupled with the wet weather made a deadly combo for the airship, which was venting hydrogen in order to land. Oxygen + Hydrogen = extremely combustible; within 34 seconds, it was all over.
We also learned that the legendary Oh the Humanity! newscast with Herbert Morrison was recorded at a slightly slower speed, so in the sped-up real-time version, his naturally sonorous voice seems high-pitched & charged with extra emotion. What's more, the newsreel wasn't broadcast until the next day out of Chicago, and no-one heard it live unless they were present at the crash. Out of 36 passengers and 61 crew, 13 passengers and 22 crew members died, plus one ground crewman. Two survivors are still alive, including then-14-year-old cabin boy Werner Franz.
Following a lot of snapshots, we made our way into the hangar and airship museum. Along with scale models of the Hindenburg there were relics and pieces from the wreckage. We bought some souvenirs (Hindenburg coffee mug! Naval Air force Base jacket patch!) and made our way into the hangar, large enough to fit two Hindenburg airships side-by-side with 12 feet of clearance. This double-airship hangar is the largest in the country and one of only two in the world. Hidden within the hangar was another museum, filled with model airplanes, ships and jets as well as walls upon walls of Navy, Air force and Army patches, all of which were supremely awesome.
All of this disaster and naval history and air force patches and old men flying model airplanes made us pretty hungry, so off to a Joisey diner we went! Although most of us had our hearts set on a classic stainless steel, Formica counter, burgers / grilled cheese / meatloaf style joint, but instead we settled at a quaint, cute little cafe in downtown Lakehurst. Good food, but the attitude and atmosphere was top notch thanks to the owner, a former local Bronx boy (he and Dad Levy both attended the same high school!) After some homemade ice cream from the parlor next door, we piled back into our vehicles and called it a historical disastery day.
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