Origins: Codename Hugo

Every comic book hero has an origin. Spiderman gets bitten by a radio-active spider. Cosmic rays infuse the Fantastic Four. Bruce Banner is famously belted by gamma rays. Codename Hugo, that is to say my blog, also has an origin story.

For much of last summer and fall I was in pre-production, production, and post production on a short science fiction film entitled SEED. (More about that in the future.) Films need scores, and the very talented Peter Scherer signed on to write music for us in the middle of a life-changing move to Zurich from New York City. In order to pay him, we needed to send him a wire transfer which my new business banking account promised would be as easy as hitting a few keys.

So I dutifully hit the keys, and expected the wire to go through right away. Three days later, I was still waiting and I called up my bank's customer service to determine why the wire had not gone through and after much apologizing on their part, and much holding on my part, I was told that my wire was on hold because of an investigation by the Department of Homeland security. I was a smidge flabbergasted and asked what reason was given for the investigation. I was told that apparently certain words associated with wire transfers send up red flags and one of them was 'Hugo.' I had written 'From Hugo' in the memo section of my wire, and apparently that was enough to trigger an investigation.

Later that day I spoke with my bank manager who tried to explain to me why my name would send up a red flag. "We don't know what Hugo means in the rest of the world," he said. Yes, I thought to myself, we don't know what Hugo means to the rest of the world. My bank manager also advised me to never write anything in the memo section of a wire transfer form because you never know what will send up a red flag. I now pass along this advice to you.

I wound up cancelling my wire, and resending (this time with a blank memo section), and voila, minutes later my composer had his deposit.

So because we don't know what 'Hugo' means to the rest of the world, I have chosen to remedy the situation by writing a blog.

Welcome to Codename Hugo.