HAPPY 97th ANNIVERSARY!

If my math is correct, today is the 97th anniversary of the theft of the Mona Lisa. It's also our last day in New York. As I'm writing this, Justine is packing.

It's been a successful trip. All the interviews went well. we've got lots of important background information for the story we're trying to tell.

I met with the people at the Sundance Channel today who were very receptive. Sundance provides finishing funds for indie films which they couldn't commit to at this point since I'm nowhere near a rough cut. But the door is open.

This moning we interviewed Professor Deborah Denno at Fordham University. She's done considerable work linking lead poisoning to crime. Since Peruggia had lead poisoning, we're trying to make that case

Yesterday we shot some b-roll of Marco Grassi at work restoring a painting. And we had a terrific lunch with a fascinating guy -- Milton Esterow, publisher of ArtNews.





I may blog once more before w're back in LA. Our next big trip is October -- Paris, Florence and back to Dumenza.

Done NYC Day 1

Great day interviewing Marco Grassi whose grandfather authenticated the ML when it was brought to Florence in 1913. We also spoke with Edmee Reit, the widow of Seymour Reit who wrote The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa. And we finished the day with Milton Esterow, publisher of ARTNEWS.



Our man in NYC Michael Notarile was our PA and navigator who got us around NYC with no hassles -- except the cost of parking which was $120 -- or $40 every time we pulled nto a garage.

NYC

OK, so we vacated for the last few days visiting friends and family in Philly and the Jersey Shore. Now we're in NYC staying at the London (formerly the Riga Royal). We have a full day of interviews tomorrow.

6 Hours in the Car to Philly

Time for R&R. After two action-packed days in Boston, we're in Philly for some downtime until we head to New York city on Monday. Here's what we did since the last blog...

Spent the morning yesterday at Boston University examining the papers of Seymour Reit who wrote "The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa." Had problems getting to BU thanks to the GPS. Aparently because of Boston's Big Dig, GPS devices don't work so well there. Obviously. The 12 minute trip from the hotel to the library took us an hour becaue of all the wrong turns I took and bad GPS advice I was given. I must have said c**ks****r 500 times.

But we did get there and spent around 4 hours. We found a number of interesting things in Seymour Reit's papers -- especially translations of documents from Italian which I definitely needed. It's funny that he also found many of the things and people that I have over the years.

In the afternoon, we drove to Gloucester -- about 40 minutes away -- to interview the grandsons of a New York Times editor who wrote an article in 1913 saying that the Mona Lisa was not stolen, it was acidentally destroyed and that the Louvre engineered the theft as a cover up.

Then last night, we went to the Red Sox game Got there a half hour late (no, I didn't drive. we took a cab). By time we got to our seats it was 10-0 in the bottom of the first. But the slugfest went on and the Sox won 19-17. Real pitcher's duel.



Today we talked to Jack Levin, a professor who's a criminologist at Northeastern University. His spciality is hate crimes and h had some really interesting things to say about how Perugia may have ben motivated to steal the ML because Italians were disliked by the French because they were taking French jobs. Sound familiar?

So here we are in Phily. I pobably won't blog fo a few days because we're not doing anything but eating cheeseteaks, visiting friends and drinking martinis. Unfortunately, the Phillies are playing in LA.

8 Hours in the Car to Boston

Left DC at 1 pm got to Boston at 9 pm. About 500 miles. Not as bad as I thought. The drive was acually less stressful than driving from my house to work in Burbank and that's only 30 miles.

Before we left, we had a terrific interview with Ed Dolnick, the author of The Rescue Artist, a book about Charley Hill - the ex-Scotland Yard undercover detective who found Edward Munch's The Scream after it was stolen. Ed told us all about the mind and psyche of the art thief. Interesting stuff.

We have tix to the Red Sox game tonight but it's raining. We have one shoot this afternoon and one tomorrow then it's off to Philly.

I'm waiting to hear from the hotel in DC where we changed rooms three times. I think I left a computer hard drive in one of them. It never ends.

About our room here... Justine checked multiple times that they'd have a room for us with our late arrival. They did. The handicapped room.

7 PM

Third time's a charm. This is our 3rd room at the hotel in DC. They felt bad about giving us a crappy room when we got here so they gave us a suite. Sweet.

We had two excellent shoots today. One with Professor Joe Campbell at American U. He had a plenty of good information about Karl Decker. The second was Rick Levin. He's an economist who has been doing research into the effects of lead poisoning --which Peruggia had.

Going to dinner tonight. Another shoot in the morning then an 8 hour drive to Boston.

Excuse me while I go watch more Olympics.

7 AM

Ready to start the day.

DC AM PM AM

We landed this morning at 6 am. Got the car and drove to DC with a GPS that gave us directions in Spanish.

Got to the hotel. They didn't have room for us. Actually, they had had a room but because we didn't come in Friday night, they gave it away. We told them we were coming in Saturday morning and to hold it for us, but they had no record of that. Typical.

After a half hour of staring at their computer screens, they found us a room with a lovely view.






Later in the afternoon, we changed rooms (lugging all the equipment without any major injurieis I'm happy to say. The view is a little better.





It's now 12:15 Sunday. We have a 10 am shoot. Got to get some sleep. The jet lag's kicking in.

OFF WE GO

OK, we're sitting in LAX at some food joint killing two hours because Virgin America doesn't have a lounge and they won't let us into the Continental Lounge which honors Virgin Atlantic passengers but not Virgin America. And I thought Richard Branson had it all covered.

My knee hurts a little but I broke down and bought new sneakers so maybe that'll help. We land in DC at 6:35 am. I'm on a panel at some political comedy conference on Saturday afternoon so I have to put on my Tonight show head writer hat and fake my way through it.

Justine got her hair cut shorter today. (see pix) I didn't notice. She pointed that out to me.

We've got a pretty action packed two-weeks coming up. Our first shoot is Sunday morning.

Hopefully the plane will take off on time and everything will go smoothly.

After I post this, we'll either go next door and get Starbucks or next door to that and get a vodka. I vote vodka. I don't have to drive the plane.

(Justine just said that the sports bar has the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. Vodka, here I come.)

The East Coast Shoot is 5 Days Away

OK, so I haven't blogged in two months. I've been busy organizing and screening the footage we shot in Italy, going through all the police documents and trying to rehabilitate my sore knee (which still hurts). We take the red-eye Friday night from LA to DC, then on to Boston, Philadelphia and New York. We have many interviews set up, details of which are in Newsletter #8 which will come out today. We'll have internet on this trip so stay tuned for blogs.