Karl-Heinz Koala

It's been over two weeks now since I've heard from Zsolt Prieger last time. After he let me down by not writing his part to the Yippie! book we still have one unfinished business: the 'Karl-Heinz Koala' audio book. It was about a year ago that we started to collaborate on this project. The idea was that Zsolt and his band the Anima Sound System will write music to my novel. Originally we planned to release the audio book through the publishing house of Mr. Gabor Pados and Zsolt Prieger, at the end of May, 2007 but the musicians could not complete the music by that time. Zsolt kept putting me off for months, always saying that the music is almost done, they just have to put a few more touches to it. Finally he gave me two CDs last September, saying that it is the finalized product. The stuff sounded wonderful. I was sure that our joint effort would be a big hit. I started to advertise the audio book right away. By that time Zsolt and Mr. Pados broke up, Zsolt left the label. I've also heard - not from Zsolt - that he broke up his great band too. Mr. Pados refused to fulfill his promise of publishing the audio book. No problem, said Zsolt (who did not want to deal with Mr. Pados either), he knows many record companies who'd be happy to release our work. He'll find a good deal in no time, he said. Months passed by without any results. At the end of last year I accidentally read an interview Zsolt gave to some publication. He is planning to give the audio book to one of the largest commercial news portal in the country, who will make it free to download, he said in the interview. I called him up right away, saying that I don't want to give away my work for free. He told me that they wouldn't ask any money for themselves from the portal (which wanted to use the audio book for their own promotion), but they will make it sure that they pay me some. He named a miniscule amount which I certainly wouldn't accept as a fair price for all my time and energy which went into the project. I forbade him to give away the stuff. We agreed that since he couldn't find a label which would pay a fair price and release the audio book I will try to find a publisher for it myself. A few weeks later a newly formed German portal (dedicated to popularize contemporary Hungarian culture worldwide) looked me up and offered to publish the audio book in a downloadable format. It took me a while bargaining for a fair share of the profit, but by last month I succeeded in cutting a reasonable (non exclusive) deal with them. I immediatelly contacted Zsolt and told him the good news. He wasn't too happy with it. He'd rather release the audio book through a Hungarian portal, he said. The Germans kept on asking me to sign the contract. Some weeks later I called Zsolt and asked him to make up his mind fast, otherwise this good deal would fall through. I also sent him an e-mail detailing the possibilities. In his answer he said that they still want to work more on the audio book, but they don't have the time to do so. But he's found a great Hungarian portal, who'd release the product and will give us the best deal possible. He'll send me their contract proposal right away. Because he did not send it I looked up the portal on the Net and wrote to them, asking for the contract proposal. They zapped it to me within an hour. They offered a good, non exlusive deal, which made it possible to sell the stuff on other portals, like the new German one too. I wrote to Zsolt and forwarded the contract proposal to him. I proposed to give the audio book to both portals right away. He must run now, but we'll talk about the matter soon, answered Zsolt. That was on the 6th of February, over two weeks ago. I haven't heard from him since. Bored of the stupid situation I have decided to redo the audio book with some musician friends myself, so I don't have to deal with Zsolt again. By yesterday I completed the recording of the text and hope that my friends will complete the music to it in a reasonable time. I also recorded the words of an other audio book, 'Balkan Nights', and started to work on the third one, 'DJ NoMore'. I am completly fed up with timesick, unreliable people. It says a lot about this time and place that I, at the age of 62 can work ten times faster than people many decades younger than I am. Also, I am always doing my best to keep my word, making it sure that I'd not miss deadlines.