Franz & Kurt Wisner
Kurt (left) and Franz Wisner
Photo by Stephan Brown (www.sbp2.com)
These
two formerly estranged brothers are now closer – and more famous – than any you’ll
meet. All it took was a failed wedding, a shared honeymoon and two years of
worldwide travel to get there.
By Terence Loose
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F |
ive years ago,
brothers Franz and Kurt Wisner lived in different states, pursued different
careers and saw each other a handful of days a year, usually around the
obligatory holiday family get-togethers. It was a long-distance brotherhood,
and not a very good one at that.
Then, they went
on a honeymoon. With each other.
On the trip,
their relationship blossomed, the honeymoon extended to two years and out of it
came not only two brothers who know each other better than any couple
celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, but a memoir, Honeymoon with My
Brother, penned by Franz (out from St. Martin’s Press in February) and a movie
(now in development with Sony Pictures Entertainment).
It’s the dream
story every writer craves – write a book, watch
That’s the
surprise with these brothers. None of that seems to have an effect. Spending
time with them is an uplifting, enlightening experience. It just makes you feel
better, like a Tony Robbins motivational seminar without all the hyperbole,
hand gestures and hefty entry fee. Though their lives are now chaotic and
busier than ever, there’s no sense of rush or panic in them. Their voices have
a breezy pace and easy cadence and they go long stretches without answering
their cell phones. They smile a lot. Driving, they let everyone – and I mean
everyone – merge in front of them; on the sidewalk, they make eye contact with
every passerby, Kurt usually offering a greeting as well – Crocodile Dundee
without the accent, or the big knife.
This is not who
they were five years ago. Especially Franz.
In October of
1999, Franz, then a 33-year-old Irvine Company political lobbyist who boasted
the title of the company’s youngest VP, had his life mapped out. And all roads
led to career domination and domestication. “My goals were as buttoned down as
you could get,” he says. “I was a political animal. My job was my passion; it
consumed me. If you would have asked me where I’d be in 40 years, I’d say I
would have had a long career in politics, a wife and a couple of kids, and live
right here in Corona del Mar.”
Then his fiancée
and girlfriend of 10 years called, 10 days before their posh Sea Ranch wedding.
“She dumped him,” says Kurt. Franz nods. “No other way to put it,” says Franz.
Frantic phone
calls to florists, caterers and bands ensued in an attempt to cancel and get
refunds. Most failed. So Kurt suggested they just go through with the wedding,
without the bride. “All these people were coming, some from very far away, to
celebrate Franz’s weekend,” he says. “It just made sense.”
Franz didn’t
quite see the rationale, however. “My first reaction was ‘No way!’” he says. He
was confused, angry, sad, and having a light shone on him didn’t sound exactly
fun. In his career, where perception was reality, he was trained to avoid
letting people in, to never let people see a weakness, even a stumble.
But the more Kurt
talked about it, the more it made sense. “After all, what better time to be
with all your friends than a time of crisis and confusion?” says Franz.
The reception was
a success, Franz’s spirits were temporarily boosted and he returned to work
determined to throw himself into his job. Unfortunately, work had other ideas.
He was called to The Irvine Company’s ominous ninth floor and demoted. The move
came complete with a smaller office.
With nothing left
to lose, Franz decided to take his already-paid-for honeymoon to
The trip didn’t
exactly get off to a booming start, however. The in-flight movie was Runaway
Bride, the hotel manager was skeptical of two brothers booked into the
Honeymoon Suite and Franz refused to carry Kurt across the threshold. “That
hurt,” jokes Kurt.
Things did pick
up. And what was planned as a two-week honeymoon lasted two years and spanned
over 60 countries.
It all started
with a beer and a sunset view when Franz suggested they extend the trip. Kurt
thought he meant adding a week in
“When I said it,”
says Franz, “it was not typical to my character. I was the planner, the
buttoned-down
The next morning
came and Franz still felt the same. Now it was his turn to talk Kurt into a
crazy idea. It turns out, it wasn’t so hard; Kurt also felt an urge to change
his life. He had recently divorced and realized he was staying in
By the end of the
two-week “trial” honeymoon, they began planning the real thing. Franz would
continue on at The Irvine Company until July, when the fiscal year-end bonuses
came out – Franz was counting on at least a year’s worth of travel from it.
Meanwhile, Kurt would start uprooting. He would sell his house and move south
to
The scheme was
grand and bold, but not altogether foreign to the pair. When they were growing
up, their father, a doctor, planted the travel seed in them. He would take
sabbaticals every few years, during which the family would move to a far off
country, such as
Ironically, now
it was the brothers’ parents who most worried about their sons tossing all they
had accomplished in their careers to runaway together. But they were bolstered
by a visit to their aging step-grandmother’s rest home. “The seniors grasped
[the trip] immediately,” writes Franz in Honeymoon, “telling us again and
again, ‘I wish we had done that when we could.’”
In the waiting
period, Franz did what he had always done best: plan. He researched countries,
mapped out routes, checked up on accommodations. Nothing seemed right; each new
plan seemed to kill the point of going. As Kurt, the perennial laid-back
non-worrier, said at the time, “What happened to the flexibility? You’re doing
more planning than you did for your wedding.”
Franz tried to
let go, to regain the original spirit of the trip: The plan is to have no plan,
and we’re sticking to it. In the end, Kurt’s suggestion won out: “Let’s start
north, then chase the sun.”
So, after multiple
trips to the Salvation Army, they traded in briefcases and pressed shirts for
dusty backpacks and a few pairs of jeans and shorts, business briefs for
paperback novels and flew to
Then it was off
to a dozen other Eastern European countries, with plans to head to places such
as
The trip took on
a pattern, if not a predictability. They would travel for four or five months
at a time, then return home for a week, staying in Franz’s CdM home, where they
did a lot of laundry. Soon, they found the week to be less of a refresher than
an uncomfortable stall in their further discoveries. “Once the road becomes
your norm,” says Kurt, “then coming home doesn’t feel normal. Our peace was on
the road, discovering a
Their travel
habits also evolved. In the beginning, they would plan some of the trip,
including getting reservations at certain stops and studying guidebooks. Then,
after an incident in
While in
When they got
back to their hotel room, Franz grabbed the Lonely Planet and hurled it across
the room. “Now, we do zero planning other than the flight in and out of the
country,” says Franz. The local cab driver replaced the guidebooks.
Their discoveries
encompassed more than just how to find local joints, however. They also found
the hidden alleys and forgotten places in themselves.
Kurt recalls a
time in
They also
embraced the quiet times during their travels and, according to Franz, found
themselves reprioritizing their past accomplishments as well as their future
goals. Franz remembers one such time on the roof of an
There were bad
times, of course. All-night Central American bus trips; sleeping over a sewer
on inch-thick mattresses on the way to
Kurt held about
$60,000 in stock in a faltering company. The stock began a rapid decline and
Kurt watched, powerless, from an Internet café as a huge chunk of his savings
evaporated. Franz, a diehard optimist, gave him a nonchalant pat on the back
and said, “Hey, it’s only money.” The comment didn’t go over too well and
caused one of the few rifts in their relationship during the trip. Franz went
to their room, feeling bad for his insensitivity, while Kurt did some soul
searching. “Finally, I realized that I’d trade $100,000 or more to have these
experiences and reconnect with my brother,” says Kurt. After that day, there
was very little checking of investments.
By the end of the
first year, their planned stop date, all they wanted to do was keep going.
Their relationship had become closer than they could ever imagine and “home”
felt more and more like a foreign country. Franz had a problem, however: he was
on financial fumes. So he cut the final tie he had to
The pair traveled
for another year, and then the honeymoon was over. For a very poignant and important
reason. During their travels they had kept their aging step-grandmother up to
date. Before they had left, she was one of their biggest supporters, and they
had promised to come home for her 100th birthday party. They did, and it
signaled an inexplicable closure to their travels.
Or so it seemed.
From the
beginning of their journeys, Franz had been sending lyrical emails to friends
and family from all stops. Some of those friends included magazine and
newspaper editors that Franz had formed relationships with during his time at
TIC. Coast began running the emails as a column, with photographs taken by
Kurt, under the title “Executive Abroad.” OC Metro, the Orange County Business
Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the ABC News Web Site and the San Francisco
Chronicle ran columns as well. When the Orange County Register printed a
feature story on the brothers, the phones starting ringing. An infamous
Instead, Franz
decided, on the advice of friends, to turn the emails into book form and try to
find a publisher. Meetings were held, an agent was acquired, and a book deal
was inked.
Franz spent a
year writing Honeymoon with My Brother for
The brothers are
also at work on another book, which was originally supposed to be a first
person account of the dating habits of other cultures. But a funny thing
happened on the road out of town: both brothers fell in love. So while they are still at work on the book,
which will demand much travel, it will be an observers’ account only.
Through the happy
chaos, the two are trying to reestablish a semi-domesticated life, using the perspective
of their years on the road to keep themselves grounded. Kurt has bought a house
in
But if he did
have time for one? “Forget the world travels,” says Franz. “If the honeymoon was up to me, this time I’d
check into a luxury hotel in
To pre-order the book or learn more about the brothers Wisner, visit: www.honeymoonwithmybrother.com.
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