Kale's Navy

Sea Girt, New Jersey

Kale always ordered a hamburger. I never saw him drink a beer anywhere. In all the years I worked with him, he only failed to show up once. I worked with him in Newark, I worked with him in Trenton, Plainfield, Princeton, and many other locations.

Kale did the video; I did the stills. Kale did all the editing; I just turned the images over to him. He set up his cameras and let them run. Which means he had to edit me out of everything, every time.

I would put up a picture of him, but he had almost all of them. I got a call from a mutual friend yesterday telling me Paul Kale had passed away. Kale loved stories. Kale loved performing. But his job was listening, documenting, and trying to get things done the way he wanted them, which was no more often than the rest of us.

Paul Kale never gave up. He backburnered countless projects and kept taking on new ones. He was always working on half a dozen things at once. Now he is gone.

Paul Kale liked to think of himself as bothersome. Politicians yessed him to death, but as he told it, almost never got back to him. Still, he never kept asking or trying to make headway when there was none coming. I seldom said no to him. He had some ideas that were amazing, but sadly, the best of them got no traction, at least in my opinion.

Kale loved his challenge coins. He gave me this one. He was always putting one of these in some VIP’s hand when we were shooting something. In a room where they might not know anyone, Kale would know them. He spent a lot of time with those clips and stills after every event. They might not have gotten back to him, but Kale would never forget them because he had it all on film, often with him in the frame, I imagine. Kale’s cameras were always recording.

Main Gate, Sea Girt.