Above an iconic and one of a kind photo of Daphne and Amy by me. I communicated a lot with Amy, “eye to eye.” She had a lot to say. Daphne put them to words in the best selling “Saving Amy” we published after spending a week with Amy in St. Lucia.
Here below, excerpts from one of nearly a hundred radio and TV interviews I gave to promote my book “GAMECHANGER Trump Card: Turkey & Erdogan,” simultaneously published in America and Australia, released by January 2020.
- TOLERANCE
“Anything that will be built around “tolerance” will bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people. One has to tolerate the mass of humanity to lead humankind towards an end to be judged after the fact if it was good or not. Tolerance is the name of the game because it will sustain the momentum longer than any other force. So, whether the idea is a product or service or political or military objective or humanitarian or charitable deed, the level of tolerance will make it last longer, be more effective or productive or results-oriented.” Erbil Gunasti
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“I had the pleasure to interview Erbil Gunasti. Erbil has worked with eight prime ministers of Turkey, was Erdogan’s press officer for five years and is slated to work for the Trump administration as a presidential appointee. He is accepted as an insider to both presidents and first ladies, among their inner circles. Bill is the life partner of Daphne Barak, known for her rating-breaking US network TV prime time news shows. Saving Amy, her book with Amy Winehouse, formed the basis of the documentary that won an Oscar. Gunasti’s exposure to Hollywood legends, heads of state, royals, and the like is not limited to the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas, dozens of other heads of state in power, or Hollywood bigwigs. Gunasti is deeply involved in wide-ranging global stories, from Princess Diana’s death to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.” Chaya Weiner For the full interview click here.
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- IGNORANCE
CW – Thank you so much for joining us Erbil! Can you share a story about what brought you to this particular career path?
EG – I ran for mayor in Palm Springs. During the campaign, I met lots of people, as well as elected officials. Soon I noticed that not many people have any clue about the Middle East. So I thought, perhaps in California no one cares about the other side of the Atlantic. Then when I arrived in Washington DC after Donald Trump became the 45th president, I noticed the same ignorance among many people on Capitol Hill. This bothered me a lot. I thought I should write a book and explain what I know well. It worked. I ended up with a book that will be informative to many who need to know what I know.
- AMY WINEHOUSE
CW – Can you share the most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career?
EG – I visited Amy Winehouse at her hospital room in London three years before her passing. At the time, no one was able to reach her because, at first, she was there because of drug abuse. Anyway, when I met her, she was OK. We had an hour conversation. She also talked to my partner, Daphne Barak, on the phone. After this encounter, the next day Amy suddenly decided to leave the hospital to go to Saint Lucia. No one expected her to make such a radical and quick decision because most everybody was thinking she was too sick to leave the hospital.
Amy’s conversation with Daphne was instrumental in her decision. Amy wanted to see Daphne but Daphne told her that she would like to meet with her when she is out of the hospital and well. Apparently, Amy wanted to see Daphne so much that the next day she made her move. Daphne eventually met Amy in Saint Lucia four months later when she visited her there. After that visit, Daphne penned “Saving Amy.”After the book was published, Amy was quoted in People magazine: “Only Daphne Barak can explain my complicated life.”
- GENGHIS KHAN
CW – Can you share the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
EG – One of the most interesting stories in the book actually comes from another journalist in an analogy. As I was writing the history of the Turks in one of the chapters, I had to make the point of how vicious the Turkic race has been in the past and still has the same vigor today, if it is poked unnecessarily, meaning they have been warriors and they will be warriors forever.
So, I summarized the life of Genghis Khan, the most vicious Mongol warrior of all times that humankind has ever witnessed. Then there were two others equally vicious, victorious and venomous. They are Tamerlane and Atilla the Khan.
This particular foreign journalist who lived in Turkey for quite some time and wrote regularly in a column in the Wall Street Journal that he represented was putting who the Turkic people are into perspective by saying: “Although Genghis Khan, unlike Tamerlane and Atilla the Khan, is not considered in the annals of the Turkic history as Turkic Mongol, it is interesting that the mothers in Turkey today would be yelling after their siblings with their names like Chengiz, Timur, Atilla.
Simply put, I did not have to explain who the Turkic warriors of the past are or what they would be today. With this anecdote, I was able to explain easily 2000 years of the warrior Turkic race but also reinforce the significance of wars in 1915, 1922, 1953, 1975, including the current skirmishes or clean-up work in northern Syria and Iraq by the Turkish forces.
