MEN are DOGS, WOMEN are CATS

I was reminded this morning, by the Kitty, that I clearly was less than the perfect husband because our vehicle was dirty. Its a Mercedes SUV and typical of SUVs everywhere, the ass-end, also known as the hatch, gets dirty an hour after you wash it due to the drafting effect, which only men who watch NASCAR and the Tour de France understand. Also, we live in a place where our landlord put out a bird feeder which of course attracts, surprisingly, birds. So, our white car has a dirty hatch and an occasional bird deposit. On top of that our parking space is surrounded by hedges. Water falls from trees onto your car when there is heavy fog here on the island, which is all the time. Now, Nantucket apparently has a car wash somewhere and I am charged with getting the car washed. That would make, along with my son in law's car, 2 cars on Nantucket that are washed (not including the rental jeeps). The rest have, like the houses and streets, patina. Just look around.

I was further reminded of all the housework women do and how men are drones as I was walking down stairs with the garbage because today is recycling day, and to back the car out of the driveway so she wouldn't have to touch the hedge, on my way to drop her at the salon and go shopping for home necessities and some groceries, arrange to get Comcast to hook up cable so she can watch "Meet the Depressed" and FOX News. And, oh yes. find the car wash.

This "my husband is a slacker" thing is not a 21st century phenomenon. I came across a passage in the Bible that established the precedent 2000 years ago. It reads "And Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way into Bethlehem."

We are up here primarily because grandma Kitty could not have survived the summer without seeing the grand babies every day. So, being the marginal husband that I am, I signed up for a 4 month lease, had the Mercedes SUV shipped up, and traveled by air and ferry to Nantucket. Retrospectively, it is a great decision that the Kitty made. I am really enjoying this place. I was wondering what my son-in-law was thinking when he bought a house up here, but as usual, he has proven himself to be the smartest guy in the room, and I get it now. This is a special place. Now if I can only find that carwash........ I can get out of the DOG HOUSE. Woof.

go FIGure

Our good friends Ed and Shelley arrived yesterday from Sarasota. They are staying with my son-in-law and daughter over on Wisteria Lane. They made reservations at FIGS by Todd English located on 29 Fair Street. I have heard from my wife and daughter all about this English guy and I figured he lived in Nantucket and had two restaurants here. He actually has lots of restaurants all over the place and 4 named FIGS, one of which is in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

I have spent lots of hours in the mall shopping with my wife, the Kitty, and have learned the "code" of fashion. All the big clothing manufacturer's have multiple lines of clothing at different price points. Ralph Lauren (Lifshitz) has Chaps by Ralph Lauren, Ralph, Lauren by Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren presumably by himself, and of course the way overpriced Purple label etc. Todd English seems to have the same deal going and the restaurant we at in last night was actually one of those "by Todd English" deals. I'm thinking it's either not at the same price point as his other restaurants or he just attaches his name so people know it will be his recipes. I'm thinking its an Ellen Tracy II, or Mani by Georgio Armani thing.

Anyway, we sat at a long table and there was one other couple in our part of the restaurant. The wife was celebrating her "39th" birthday for the 8th time and we sang happy birthday to her as if we were in The Olive Garden. The waiter was very nice and had a theatrical voice like Kevin Kline in "The Extra Man." We ordered a bottle of wine and looked at three different menus and some additional specials were given to us verbally. It was late so most everybody ordered a salad and shared some pizzas. The focaccia bread was warm and fresh and abundant. They brought two different dipping bowls of olive oil, one plain, and the other with garlic. Very accommodating. The pizzas were very good as were the salads. it was good to be with friends again and of course its always great to be with family. Thanks, Todd, wherever you are, for figs in everything, the salad, the pizza, and the name of the restaurant.

"We live in a material world, and I am a material girl." Madonna

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK

Movie and video cameras work by displaying a series of still photos at a rate known as frames per second. So, what you are looking at is not continuous motion but rather a series of snapshots passing by your eyes at about 30 frames per second. Each one of these is a moment in time. Like a video, our entire day is made up of a series of snapshots or moments in time. How many of them do we remember on any given day? Most of us recall vividly where we were on 9/11 when the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists. How many of us remember where we were the day before and what we were doing. Maybe it is because we had nothing intense that happened or we did not single out any special moments on 9/10. How many of these "unmemorable" days are we willing to allow ourselves to have? Special days and moments are not just made for us, we can make them ourselves.

Consider that everyday something memorable happens that would make that day special, if we only pause in our minds and take a mental snapshot of that moment. There were a thousand special moments in my life today. Ask me what they were a week from now and I would be hard pressed to remember any of them. They get lost in the blur of the movie we are living. I stopped time when I saw my grand babies get on an old wooden yacht from 1925 in their little yellow life preservers, and hang dozens of bead necklaces around their necks. They put on felt pirate hats while the crew set the stage for a high seas adventure. On Tuesday, 29 June 2010, the little ones were pirates in Nantucket, on a wooden yacht, on the high seas. I took pictures with my camera but more importantly I took a snapshot with my mind.

What is life but a series of moments. Each one of them can become memorable if we capture it and not let it go by like a blur. If you sharpen your lens and decide that today and every day is filled with special moments, you may be able to pick out a few that you will remember forever. Click. Click. Click.

Let's BLOW this Joint

Cape Cod and Nantucket are windy places. Early settlers capitalized on this and built windmills. In the past several years, there has been overwhelming resistance to a wind farm called Cape Wind in the ocean near the Cape and Nantucket. I read an interesting quote that refers, possibly to the huge support that the concept of "change" received in Massachusetts in the last presidential election.

"Despite the popularity of "change" in slogans, people often fear it. Change introduces new stuff that vexes people who prefer old stuff. Change that's resisted when first proposed often doesn't look beneficial until after the fact. Change confers benefits unevenly. Nations that pioneered oceanic exploration and trade benefited sharply. People who stuck to their oxcarts were left behind literally and figuratively."

Even in the face of the environmental disaster (oil leak) in the Gulf Of Mexico, I have not heard much positive support for this huge wind generated electric power project in the Cape Cod region. Maybe we are green and all environmental as long as it is not in our backyard. Much of the resistance has come from the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag nations, I guess it's OK to blight the landscape all over america with Indian casinos but not alternative energy production. Anyway, President Obama's Interior department approved the project, so far.

THAT's LOGICAL

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world's asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.

Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical,
liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're
acceptable, respecable, presentable, a vegetable!

At night, when all the world's asleep,
the questions run so deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.

IT's THIS BIG

I love the sound of hot air exiting a gas bag in the morning. As the pundits have been saying, you can't spend that much time in the shadow of Slick Willie without getting something icky on you. Al, "my personal fortune is approaching a billion" Gore, has been in the news a lot lately. Not as much as if the organ in question had belonged to George Bush, but this story is not going away. It seems that a major cause of global warming, in addition to hot-air, might be friction. Pretty soon this kind of behavior is going to get American politicians in trouble. We're not French, you know. Over there, if some powerful figure takes a mistress, everybody knows her name and the press reports on what designer she is wearing, kind of like the red carpet at the Oscars. We love to see the powerful fall. The term is SCHADENFREUDE. The press explained that the pompous "do as I say" crowd make the best stories. Those Righteous Republicans preaching morality and such...huh.

Now we have the King of the Windbags caught with his recycled pants down. It wasn't enough that he flies everywhere in a Private Jet, or his 20,000 square foot house has the A/C running 'round the clock. No. Our liberals in the press don't care about that. But marital infidelity? Now we're on to something. Fact check his global warming claims? Not important. Where did he spend the night of October 23, and with whom?...now that's breaking news.

Argumentum ad hominem is latin for "if the guy is full of crap, his theories probably are too." I can't wait to see how the press is going to blame all this on "W." You know it is just a matter of time.

ALL FOGGED UP

People we knew were due to arrive in Nantucket this evening and others had tickets to leave to go back to their busy lives in New York. Mother nature had other plans. Fog forms when an ideal humidity, such as the 100% we have tonight, and temperature, in this case 67 degrees, get together. This thick fog kept all flights from landing and taking off. We came out of the Brotherhood of Thieves restaurant at about 9:30 and it felt like rain was falling. the sidewalks were wet and you could hear and feel the heavy drops of water. I offered to take our dinner companions back to their place since we had our car and because "it was raining." But it wasn't raining. The fog was so thick that it had condensed on the trees and dropped in large "rain" drops. Another Nantucket lesson learned along with "never take a late flight in or out if you can avoid it. It seems that fog, like a vampire, hates sunshine. So, fly at mid day.

There is no place on earth that does not have the inconveniences of weather interfering with travel. It is either a snow storm, or a hurricane, or fog. In Florida, we never plan a Caribbean cruise during the Hurricane season. Speaking of the "H" season... the predictions in recent years have been way off. We had no significant hurricanes even though they predicted many. In fact the whole weather pattern is off. We had a terribly cold winter this year and many of our plants froze to death. Totally, unexpected. The fog in Nantucket, expected and part of living here. A person just has to make adjustments. That's why they call this island the Gray Lady. Or it could be named after a local beer.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT it was safe to go back in the water

Who among us does not remember the never ending nightmare of the counting of "hanging chads" in Broward County, Florida. It is June in Nantucket and you can hardly turn on the TV without seeing a political campaign advertisement. This is like having a 12 month baseball season. Or worse yet, a 12 month soccer season. If the content of these ads is to be believed, I wouldn't vote for anyone because the other guy is always a big disappointment, voted the wrong way every time, and personally caused the oil spill in the Gulf. I am not a fan of the sturm und drang that will inevitably accompany the electoral process. But, on the other hand, think of all the "Breaking News" opportunities. It's only going to get worse as we approach Halloween.

CLARK KENT lives in 'SCONSET

Here's a business idea... a phone booth that takes quarters in Siasconset (Sconset to the locals) and a small change purse embroidered with a whale to hold a handful of quarters. Four decades ago, we lived in Jamaica, the island, and on a daily basis, the electricity went out, the phones did not work, and the grocery ran out of flour, sugar, coffee, toilet paper, whatever.

Here we are, almost half a century later, and I live on an island again. We could not land on Nantucket when we first attempted to arrive because of fog and the instrument-landing thingamajig at the airport "went down." I was shopping at the Marine Home Center last week and had to pay cash because their computers and everyone else's in that area were out of service for a while. And the phones... God bless ATT. Everyone I know has an iPhone and two days ago we were dead in the water, telephonically speaking, when we could not call one another for about 8 hours. And these are not isolated incidents... this is a REAL island with real island resignation to the fact that sometimes stuff does not work.

There is an upside to this. Let's say you want a little piece and quiet and want to be "alone" for a while. Just drive the ten minutes to Sconset. Not only is it a beautiful town, but, like at the Wauwinnet, nobody can reach you there on the cell phone. So if someone says to you "I tried to call you. " You just say " I was in Sconset." They will understand.

This whole phone thing is a mystery. There is a tower in the middle of the island big enough to be seen from space. It is almost as big as the water tower that looks like the mothership from "V" or the windmill at Bartlett's farm that the people of Nantucket are glad "broke." I don't get that, especially since recycling has been elevated to a religion here, why wouldn't they want wind power? Anyway, I am off to make a phone call...now where are those quarters?

SUNDAY SERVICE with a smile

Years ago, when I was living in Sarasota, I would regularly attend Sunday morning services at Unity Church. Though I was raised a Catholic, I became disenchanted with that church during my adolescence when no matter how many nights I prayed for "Sally" to come over and give me a big wet smooch and ask me to be her boyfriend, it never happened. The whole meat on Friday thing and the threat of going to Hell for thumbing though National Geographic to see the topless african girls, the highest form of "porn" available in those days, lead me away from Catholicism and toward...not much.

I later found the spirituality movement, and retrospectively, found that every religion has its more metaphysical or mystical side. Jews have the Kabbalah, Catholics have Thomas Merton, and generic Christians have Wayne Dyer and other spiritual authors. Within those same religions are folks who go the "other way" towards what my old friend Peter Gomes calls Bibliolatry...or too much literalism. I have a rule regarding religion... If you have to wear a funny hat to practice your faith, you are too extreme for me. There is a broad spectrum of what that includes... a Yarmulke, covering your head like the Virgin, a dunce cap and face shield, a turban or a "rag" of any kind. All the wars on earth are fought because "my hat is better than your hat." So, I seldom wear a hat, even one that says Harley Davidson, because that puts too much faith in one type of vehicle and brands me as a member of a cult. Ditto for any Sports Team which would align me with a screaming shirtless, body painted crowd of inebriates worshiping in a stadium. Or, the home-bound faithful watching "the game" on TV waiting for a miracle, like victory over the Devil (the other team) in "the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, World Series, or "where have all the real men gone" the soccer World Cup. But I digress and "run on." You will notice that as I get more passionate about a subject, I tend to write paragraphs that are one sentence long.

It is Sunday morning and I will be going to a "service." Not the one at St. Mary's, the Catholic church, nor the one with the tall wooden steeple that reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials, but the one with the short steeple that I heard about yesterday from a new friend in Nantucket. They have a Unitarian Universalist church here too. By the way, Unitarian was the only church to recognize a Harvard Divinity School degree as the equivalent of their seminary... therefore you can become a minister right away upon graduation. Their secular humanism is a perfect complement to liberal academia. I enjoyed many lectures at the Unitarian church in Cambridge. I must say, however, that I never got the impression that the God I was taught to believe in was there, but then again, maybe that's the point. Good works and social engineering here on this planet may well be what our savior intended.

Any how, I am not starving because of having to fast since midnight to take communion like in the days of Sister Mary Knucklewacker. I do not have a tie with me here in Nantucket so wearing one of those is out of the question. I don't have to learn some obscure language to participate in the service. I will be riding my bike there but I will lock my helmet to the bike outside so folks in the church don't think I am a follower of a religion that requires that I wear a funny hat.

NANTUCKET VANITY PLATES

Making a contribution to the work of the Chamber of Commerce is the enthusiasm of the residents of Nantucket who tattoo their cars with vanity plates, These are just two of many that one sees on the island. Of course there is the ubiquitous "ACK" sticker on the bumper for those of us too cheap to pay $25 per year for a vanity plate.

HARLEY DAVIDSON tattoo

The most common words tattooed on a persons body in the united States are Harley and Davidson. It is the ultimate expression of brand loyalty, and a lifelong commitment. The difference between contribution and commitment can be explained with this simple story...A farmer decides to have ham and eggs for breakfast. The chicken makes a contribution. The pig makes a commitment.

GOTTA KEEP UP

I heard the other day that there was a movement afoot to fight off the next wave of data storage. People have just converted their "library" to BlueRay and are worried about what will replace this technology and make them have to start all over again. I am a fairly "wired" guy. I have an iPhone, a laptop, internet, a BLOG, way too many digital TV channels, wireless in my home, and I check my email every day. So, what's the problem? People, the masses, have moved on. I just became a member of FACEBOOK, but I feel like I just bought a VCR, maybe even BetaMax. Even though there are 400 million users on Facebook, I sense that I am three steps behind. Sure there's MySpace, and a few other forms of joining the cyber-crowd but if you blink there's another NEW social network, or some virtual world you can join, or 3D...WTF...? It'a full time job keeping up. I was wondering where my friends were who were not commenting on my BLOG....they were answering email notifications that one of their 346 friends had posted something on their WALL. Or, they were trying to figure out where their friends were off to....and what the next cyber-wave will be.

Holy AVATAR, Batman!

I have the movie "Avatar" sitting on our coffee table, compliments of NetFlix. It has been here almost a week and we have not watched it because our evenings are so occupied with interaction with REAL PEOPLE. Call me old fashioned, but "pressing the flesh" with friends in "this" world is more in sync with my soul than the whole concept of avatars and this movie...which we will watch eventually. After all, it's a movie first, and a symbol second. Although there are some mythological and ancient religious meanings to the word, avatar almost exclusively refers to computers, video games and the various forms of online substitutes for living a real life.

Avatars in video games are basically the players physical representation in the game world... a kind of stand in like we used to do when we played with lead toy soldiers and Barbie dolls, only more high tech. Skilled techies can choose the physical characteristics, weaponry, attitudes, and voices of the characters they craft who will "live" in the virtual world. I don't know why we find the virtual life so attractive but it may be because we have so little apparent control over real life that it is nice to remove all our flaws and limitations by creating a virtual version of ourselves that lives a whole different and controllable life in cyberspace. I have seen the avatars that have been developed by gamers and they often are more handsome and possess powers that are superhuman. The women, like in Anime', often have big boobs, wasp waists, and graceful mobility. Flaws removed, assets enhanced, powers that one would not have working for someone in a dead end job in real life...what's not to like?

This is not something new. We had Batman, and Superman, and a host of others who allowed up to have a secret life that was better than the one we had where stubbing your toe on the speed bumps of reality was commonplace. Even the Lone Ranger provided someone with whom to identify, when our life was circling the bowl and going down the porcelain convenience, which it does from time to time. And let's not forget Walter Mitty.

I was going to write about how we used to play in the back yard and participate in three varsity sports a year and how our lives "back then" were so much superior to the indoor computer-linked lives of today's kids, but then I noticed that every joint in my body aches. It could be from those three varsity sports. Maybe the only arthritis the kids of today will get is in their thumbs. And maybe, that's a good thing.

QUO VADIS?

"For what is true in the morning, shall by the evening, have become a lie." Here I am, summering on Nantucket rather than simmering in Sarasota. On life's journey, every once in a while, you have to stop, turn on your flashlight and check your bearings. Just a few short months ago, I said to the Kitty... "We're spending the summer where?" Things are changing all around me. Babies being born, friends dying, a series of body parts needing repair, the innumerable black oil spills on the pristine white beach of my life. I hold on tight to the constants, the dependable beacons, in hopes that they will guide me, but often the signs are fading from too many years in the weather. We start our lives on training wheels and end up on a walker. It is a Circle Line Tour from diapers to Depends, no teeth to false teeth, and sleeping most of the day to sleeping most of the day. We go from being dependent for our very existence on our parents to being dependent on our children.

And yet, as our physical world changes and the sign posts zip by more quickly (my 103 year old grandmother told me that she felt as if she had a birthday every day) do we make the course corrections we need to make in how we look at life, or are they made for us? Here I am, just a bit into the Medicare demographic, back on my bicycle, spending days outdoors just like we did when I was a little kid. I grew up in New York, Westchester to be precise, Pelham Manor to be even more so, and we had our annual routine. Each summer, my family would "pack up the babies, grab the old ladies" and head out to Sag Harbor, Long Island. We had two adjacent cottages so everybody could fit and be together. Kids slept on the floor. Not 23 room cottages and bungalows like you see out in the Hamptons and on the Cape today, ours were little itsy bitsy salt boxes, but they backed up to the water. There were row boats, and fishing poles, and crab traps, and that big sand beach a short drive away. From the time I was one year old, all the cousins would vacation together. The mothers would stay the whole summer with the kids "out on the island." The fathers would come out for the weekends and go back "to the city" and back to work during the weekdays.

Her I am, with the Kitty, "out on the island" only this time with our kids, one here all summer and the other coming next week, and their spouses and kids. And the wheel of life turns. As the French say "The more things change, the more they remain the same." The adjustments will come, go with the flow, and enjoy the ride (too many cliche's in a row, I know) but life does tend to be a string of them, all the same.

MIXED EMOTIONS

A fellow once told me that an example of mixed emotions was watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Mercedes. Today, I had a different version on Nantucket. We drove to Sconset on the east end of the island to have lunch at Chanticleer, a French restaurant. You will not find a more beautiful setting for a lunch, outdoors or in. Unfortunately, as good as their ambiance is, their food is the opposite. We ordered 2 Kobe hamburgers, medium and med-well. Mine is pictured here. As you can see it is flat like a Bubba Burger you get in a package in the supermarket. One of those that gets punched out like a cookie. for $18 and a long drive you would think it would be a hand formed patty. On top of that it was so overcooked that Only Gordie Howe or Wayne Gretsky could appreciate it, and then only as a hockey puck. As for the Kobe name, maybe they were referring to Kobe Bryant.

The sweet potato fries were good and the Ice tea was yummy. There was a mac and cheese cake as a side for the egg dishes which was also very good. We had 4 glasses of ice tea, two burgers and two other breakfast dishes and our bill was just shy of $100 before tip. As far as I can tell, their major selling points are their location, the magnificence of their garden, and the roses on the roof. That alone is worth the trip to Siasconset (Sconset to the natives). Take a picture of Chanticleer and then go to the general store or the adjacent sandwich shop at the rotary and eat there. You will save about $60 and it will be better.

LOSING my RELIGION

A few of my friends, not remembering that I am basically a heathen or at most a Taoist, have asked me about religious establishments on the island. Religion can be a very serious subject or it can be a source of humor, or architecturally speaking, churches make nice photographic subjects. I will be taking lots of pictures today with my aforementioned fancy-schmancy SONY digital camera. Some of these photos will be of Churches.

Most of the ones I have seen so far are white wooden ones with tall spires, the kind you see in the background where someone is being plunged into the ducking pool in Salem. But there are brick ones too. The Unitarian Universalist Church is on the island. Their core beliefs include:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part....
• 
  
• What's not to like about that? Very much a part of the New England tradition and the founding of colleges and philosophical movements up here... not to mention freedom riding and civil disobedience. And, you know I and my good buddy, H.D. Thoreau are all over that "question authority" thing like white on rice.

I'm just WILDE about OSCAR

Oscar Wilde wrote "Life is too important to be taken seriously." Yesterday's posts were a little too serious in the tone and subject matter, so today we are going to discus that always funny subject when I was a young boy, flatulence. Just kidding. I am going to write about friends, not just the "concept," but real friends who visit and bring a bit of home with them. And other real friends who put up with my rantings and either email me that I have finally gone "off the reservation" (oh, wait, was that PC?) or become followers of this BLOG and post their opinions along with mine in cyberspace.

I may have mentioned this before, but retelling the same story is not foreign to me. Writing a "cyber-diary" like this one reminds me of the guy who goes to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem every day and places a note in a crack between the stones, as a prayer or intention. A woman has watched him do this for a month. One day she asks the man "What does it feel like to do this every day?" and he replies "It's like talking to a F'ing wall. " Well, without you out there giving me some feedback, its more like writing a note, putting it in a bottle, and throwing it in the sea. And we've all seen that movie. Sometimes Elle McPherson finds the bottle, looks you up, and becomes your live-in girlfriend, but mostly the bottles dash against the rocks and become sea glass. Cyberspace is a vast ocean.

Stan and Merry Williams are up in Nantucket and we have had the good fortune of spending time with them. We have had lunches and dinners, a bike ride, lots of coffee, and last evening Mark and Jennie took us all to their club following a visit to their house. Merry got the traditional leg hug and knee kiss from Bryn, and a tour of her Nantucket blue bedroom from Camilla.

In the not too distant future, we will be visited by Ed and Shelley, Bob and Maureen, and Mike and Grace (the notable nibbler). As wonderful as Nantucket is, the experience is multiplied many times over by these visits from our friends and loved ones. You bring a piece of home with you and you get to take back a piece of my heart. Oh no, I've seen one too many chick flicks and gone all gushy. Anyway, you know who you are out there. The ones who make me laugh and bring tears of joy to my eyes over simple stories like "the Wedding Celebration" and how you can't let important information fall into the wrong hands (inside joke).

ARE WE KIDDING???

I turned on the TV this morning and the talking heads were pontificating on everything from the BET awards, to Cindi Lauper reliving her success of 20+ years ago telling us that "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," to the World Cup, a bunch of grown men kicking a ball up and down a field and getting paid millions to do it. ALMOST NOTHING about our world's most serious problem, the millions of gallons of crude oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Why the Hell is the 4th Estate (media) not covering this 100% of the time, around the clock, and beating up on the oil company and politicians until they say UNCLE? Why are the townspeople not gathered in Washington with torches and pitchforks like in an old Lon Cheney movie? Why do we care more about Jon and Kate, the freakin' Octomom, and American Idol than we do about this DISASTER? And where are all the Tree-Huggers ? With the gas mileage that their Hybrid vehicles get you would think that they would have driven to DC and camped out at 1900 Pennsylvania Avenue shouting "Where's the change you promised us?" If I were one of those spotted-owl-lovers I would really be disappointed with the choice I made in the last presidential election. The expectations of the Right have been met. They knew Obama was a socialist and are not surprised. The Left thought he would somehow rid the world of war, famine, and pestilence by his brilliance and promises but he has betrayed them with the old bait and switch.

Anyway, do you live anywhere near Florida? Are you ready to have your waterfront home worth the price of a doublewide in Little Rock? If not, why are you not on the phone all day everyday with that phony congressmen you contributed campaign money to? If you live elsewhere and you think "to Hell with the old people in Florida, it doesn't affect us"...think again. It is one more nail in the coffin of the american economy. The Undertaker is our government, and the eulogy is being given with a teleprompter. Wake up, America, you have sprung a leak, and the lifeboat is sinking.

QUOTES from BERT but not ERNIE

Here are two quotes from Bertrand Russell, philosopher.

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways."

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

The pressures that are put upon each of us from outside, and because of our enculturation, even more so from within, rule our lives like a sheep dog rules a flock of sheep. You can wander around a bit but generally you have to stay within the confines of the pasture. Yet, look at the great philosophers and giants in business and you will see that they are defined by their differences from most everyone else and rejection of the statues quo. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to "mess around" with computers, Thoreau went to live in the woods, and most celebrities whom we recognize by a single name, Madonna, Cher, Bono, did not get there by trying to fit in. I am reminded of the story of the Blue-Claw Crabs. When crabs are caught and put into a basket, on top of one another, some of them try to climb out of the basket to freedom. The other crabs grab for them and pull them back in. This is what we do to one another in society. Rather than celebrate our differences we are quick to point out and gossip about the choices of other people. The most unique among us are vilified, possibly even imprisoned and killed. Then after a little time passes, we build statues and make heroes out of them.

It is so easy to be a joiner. There are magazines everywhere that will tell you what to wear this season, how to cut your hair, what to believe (Oprah), and who to worship in Hollywood and Washington. So, if you are not one to want to "stand out" from the rest of the crowd, this is an easy task. If you specialize in easy tasks everywhere in your life you will eventually become mediocre and average, invisible , and easily forgotten.

There are those who think that they are doing their own thing when in reality they are just putting on the uniform of another tribe... the New College Goth, the X-games surfer dude, the pierced and the tattooed club, whatever. This is not marching to the beat of a different drummer or taking the road less traveled...it is just aligning ourself with another flock and a different sheep dog. You are in a group-think that approves of your choices..."Nice bone through your nose, Brenda." "Thanks, Bruce, I love the way you managed to stretch your earlobes to accept a hubcap from a Prius." I am talking about something entirely different.

Do you actually have to get Alzheimers to be excused from the "rules" of your tribe? At what age do "they" let you alone and "permit" you to not be like everyone else? We do it to our kids, our peers and it never stops. We justify it by quoting from an imaginary social book of rules. "You couldn't possibly not go to "X" because you will be expected to "Y". It takes courage to be different than the rest of your tribe members, and there will be Hell to pay from their rejection of your choices, but in the end., it's worth it. You have one life to live, this is not a dress rehearsal, yadda yadda, but most of us just pretend and learn to say "Baaaa".

Are you DONNE yet?

No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manner of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.

MAC and CHEESE, Whatever LoLa wants

One of the Jumping night spots on Nantucket is LoLa 41 on South Beach Street (the name implies LOngitude and LAtitude and 41 degrees). It has a well deserved reputation for being a place to see and be seen. It is a don't miss destination if you like the beautiful people, or are one. We had a great experience there tonight mostly because of the attentive service, the small private room we were provided, and the people we were with. Their Edamame is memorable, and the portion is huge. We had a nice bottle of Pino Noir albeit pricy at $90, a third of our final bill for the evening. I do have a weakness for pasta and the Mac and Cheese tradition is alive and well in Nantucket. My grand babies had some at lunch at the Even Keel on Main Street today but the chef there made it even more cholesterol laden by forming it into little balls, coating it in bread crumbs, and then deep fat frying it.

LoLa did not bread it or deep fat fry it, but there was no shortage of oil. This is a tasty treat but I took half of it home because my gallbladder said that I should. I will let you know how it ages in the fridge over night and emerges for breakfast. A full cereal bowl size dish of their Mac and Cheese cost $22. Kraft Easy Mac costs $3.50 at the Grand Union. But you have to take it home to cook it. And there are no beautiful people and nice music to make the event more enjoyable as there are at LoLa 41. Pay the $22 and have a nice time. They have a parking lot next door, but it's a short walk from downtown for those who prefer to work off their Mac and Cheese on the way home.

I ain't no LIBERAL weenie

All of you out there who really know me, realize that I am not a Liberal tree-hugging weenie. But there are some things in which I am more in agreement with the left than I am with the other guys on the Far Right. I am anti-war. I was watching TV this morning, a Boston station, and they announced the death of a 21 year old young man killed by a roadside bomb. I don't remember his name because he is not as famous as the man pictured to the left, Pat Tillman, another victim of the war in the Middle East. I do not speak of this hypothetically. I treated and performed amputations and major surgical reconstructions on many young soldiers at Walter Reed during another dumb and fruitless war, Vietnam. I still see their faces in my dreams 40 years later. And yet, here we are, comfortable in our beds in the good old USA watching TV while the best of the best are being killed and wounded for no good reason in some holdover from the dark ages desert. Though I don't believe that being a rock star gives you any special wisdom in world affairs, I was watching a video on YouTube of Michael Stipe of REM performing "When Day is Done" in which he spoke to the audience about our unilateral invasion (which continues) of the "sovereign nation of Iraq." Protest songs are a tradition in our country. There is way more truth in song and story than ever came out of Washington. Look back on history and ask yourself who had it right in the 60s and 70s...Joan Baez or Robert McNamara.

World War 2 seems to have been, retrospectively, a necessary evil. Millions of people died and the world was saved from tyranny and genocide, at least for a while. Since then, we have had several wars that just don't seem to have done a damn thing except divide our country and kill our children. Back "in the day" (early 1800s) Thoreau and Emerson protested against wars that America was engaged in and suggested that we resist the folly of government. Thoreau wrote "On Civil Disobedience" and spoke of the obligation of citizens to resist stupid government tricks.

Yet, here we are, lead by first "W" and now "O" down the primrose drain to more and more war and less and less real protection for us. Our borders are a joke, we are drowning in Crude Oil, businesses are closing right and left, and people are out of work by the millions. You can "Party on, Wayne, and Jane," and put your trust (or worse still, pay no attention to) in your government and their decisions and pop open another brewski. Or you can consider looking around you and generating a little Civil Disobedience of your own. The "blindly going along" plan seems to be falling on its proverbial ass.

Readin' Writin' and 'Rithmatic 2010

Many of my friends actually read. They used to buy books, even best seller mysteries in hard cover when they first came out. They cost over $20 per book even with the 30% discount at Barnes and Noble, Borders, or Books a Million...and lets not forget about Amazon.com plus shipping. You either had to wait for the mail, or drive to the store. Today's reader has a lot of options, and they just got even cheaper, except for Mac which got more expensive. Kindle from Amazon is the gold standard. You can get a zillion free books and those other books you used to pay $20+ for at the store are available in electronic form for $9.95...mostly. You get them directly from cyberspace into your book reader. It's magic. Barnes and Noble has one called Nook, as does Borders. Borders sells theirs for about $150 which caused Kindle and Nook to lower their prices from out of the stratosphere to below $200 for their machines.

Never to be outdone in electronic gizmo development, Apple released the iPad (many jokes about feminine products notwithstanding) to huge rave reviews. Their product does everything an iPhone and most laptops do and is also a book reader. It is available in a large range from $400-$800 depending on storage, WiFi, and 3G capability. It has a color backlit screen. My friends who have both an iPad and a Kindle prefer the iPad by a large margin but if they were to be reading a book in bright light on the beach they would go for the Kindle (type). Kindle looks like a page from a book in the sun but can't be read in the dark without lighting your reading space. This is the opposite of the iPad which is hard to see in bright light yet easy in the dark.

There is a third option...all these book giants and Apple have Apps that can be downloaded to you iPhone, Blackberry, or either Windows or Mac computers. The book prices are the same. So, if you like to read there are lots of option from FREE (your existing laptop or cellphone) to $800. The pages look the same. IF you are tired of reading books...log on to islandoracle.blogspot.com. See Ya.

It REALLY does look like this

This is the view looking north on Old North Wharf. The Hydrangeas and the roses are in bloom.

PRIME Real Estate

Location, location, location...self explanatory

HOT HOT HOT

Yesterday was the hottest day since we came up here. It was almost 80 degrees and sunny all day. We had our window unit air conditioner running all night. Friends arrived yesterday to stay for a week. Their free-standing 2 bedroom home at Harborview Place is very nice. I spoke about this time-share in a previous posting.

We toured around a little and went out to dinner at a place called DeMarco's, downtown on India Street. The food was very good and we had a nice bottle of wine. It was too dark in the restaurant by the time the main course came to take a photo. I ordered a pasta Bolognese and specified the noodles that were available in another dish on the menu. They call them "badly-cut" noodles and are the same ones you get when you order Ropa Vieja (old clothes) in a Cuban restaurant. The meat was a mixture of beef, pork, and veal. You can tell if a restaurant is going to be any good by the bread they bring to the table. If it is a slice of day old wonder bread, just get up and leave immediately. Last night they brought a nice basket of freshly baked focaccia bread and a flask of extra virgin olive oil. A good sign. The Bruschetta appetizer had large slices of portobello mushrooms. The wine was an ethnically-appropriate Chianti. I enjoyed dining at DeMarco's and I appreciated the half price deal that they have going on in June. But to be perfectly truthful, the Kitty and my son in law both cook better italian food. I think they should open up a place here and call it Marco and Mama's Meatball Emporium. I mean, you have to make a good living doing this...How much does a plate of noodles cost to make? Huh?

Speaking of things that would hit a home run here in Nantucket, how about a bowling alley?Admittedly this is not my idea but rather, it is a dream of a local investor who believes that this would be a great social alternative to just standing around in some bar all night. So, what do we think? Since the best Thai food on the Island is at the ice skating rink, maybe the best Italian food could be at the bowling alley.

Taxachusetts took a little slice out of me yesterday. I paid $50 for a sticker to put on the back of my car that allows me to park for an unlimited time in any 2 hour parking zone. Not the one hour zone. There are countless Civilian officers riding around on mountain bikes in uniforms that look like UPS delivery. "It's good to be brown," They are empowered to write parking tickets among other things like directing traffic. They mark your tire with a yellow chalk and then come back and give you a $25 ticket if you have not moved your car within the one or two hour time limit. You can satisfy the moving of the car requirement by moving your vehicle no less than 50 feet from it original parking space. So, if you are going to be downtown for any length of time....walk.

Your grandmother lives here X

For those of you who are following this Blog from Nantucket. This explains Florida, where I live on the "other" island, Siesta Key.

Call me ISHMAEL or YOCKEY

When you get up in the morning to the sound of your bones creaking, the last thing you want is further reminder of your antiquity. Shirley and I did not want to be called Grandma and Grandpa after our little grand babies were born. She has had the nickname "Kitty" for a long time. Her many feline characteristics support this choice. The babettes have never had trouble pronouncing "Keetee, Keetee" and that is her official name. In my writing I refer to her as "the Kitty."

When I was being confirmed (Catholic Bar Mitzvah) at 13 years old, I chose my own confirmation name, Rocky. When I reached the front of the line, the nun, Sister Mary Knucklewhacker, was standing next to the Bishop who would anoint and bless me (a lot of good that did ). She asked me my name choice. I told her "Rocky." She said rather loudly "That's not a biblical name. You have to pick a biblical name, or the name of a Saint." The bishop overheard her starting to get hot under the habit and intervened. "Sister, there is a Saint Rocco." So that is my confirmation name. When the Famiglets started to speak, Kitty was Keetee but Rocky became Yockey, or Yaki, or Yacqui, anyway, phonetically it was Yockey. Why do kids have so much trouble with "R?" It did not seem to matter that Rocky was my real nickname...everybody repeated their version until it was cemented into the zeitgeist of our family. To perpetuate this pronunciation error and to subtly register approval of "Yockey" over the alternative "Rocky" I have received inscribed books and a hat with YOCKEY embroidered on it.

Being the Googler that I am, I "had to" look up all the various forms of Yockey on the internet. They range from a philosopher, to a nuclear physicist, to a conservative lesbian blogger. Yacqui is a tribe of indians. Yaki is a semitic nickname for Jacob. Rocky, on the other hand is a strong American nickname usually found in the pugilistic profession. Rocky Marciano, Rocky Graziano, and of course one of my heroes, Rocky Balboa. I don't think Sly's movies would have been nearly as successful if his character's names were Yockey Balboa, or Yambo.

LINK of the DAY

http://www.aconservativelesbian.com/

THAT's WHAT BOOKS ARE FOR

A famous Hollywood producer once said "The most important thing in this town is SINCERITY. Once you can fake that, you've got it made." Well, there sure is a lot of faking going on in the movie industry and it is not working with me. I tried to watch several films last night at the North Beach Theatre (our apartment for those who are new to this site) and pulled the plug on each one of these turkeys within the first half hour. Are we as a people so dumb and easily lead that we buy any and every piece of crap they turn out just because some BIG name star needs a paycheck? I know that America has been undergoing a dumbing down process over the years, but even chewers of lead paint can't find much to watch that does not in the process make you even dumber.

In one movie, which shall remain nameless, it begins with a convicted serial killer, who looks like Hanibal Lechter and who shouldn't be guarded by any less than the entire State Militia, being transported by a single police officer in a sedan in the middle of a rainy night... the roads become impassible and they have to stop at a motel and CLICK.. are you F'ing kidding me? In the next one, a guy gets the ability to Jump from place to place at will... and everything he has in his hands, like money from a bank heist for example, passes through walls with him....CLICK. The other night, we watched one where a family got a box delivered to their home and pushed a button and got a million dollars and some stranger died as a result... Oh, puleeeze.

Now I am not trying to eliminate the genre of exceptional powers and superheroes all together...amazingly, we accepted through Superman 1,2,3,4, etc. that Superman could disguise himself as Clark Kent by donning a pair of glasses and acting nerdy...but there was a quality to most of these movies that was lacking in the films I tried to watch last night. And that quality is, they didn't suck. They did not start out with some goofy premise like those horror movies where some coed comes home and finds a dark house and the front door is open and she goes in and.....reee, reee.

And we can't wait to celebrate these people in Film Festivals, like the one going on now in Nantucket, or that unabashed self-promotional black-slap marathon, the Academy Awards... "I would like to thank Sol Shapiro and the entire team at Phonymax for allowing me to make this film..." Jay Leno once said "Politics is show business for ugly people." We as Americans are starting to hold our politicians feet to the fire and are on the verge of throwing the bums out. We should do the same thing with Film makers. When you go out to rent a film and you pop the DVD into your home player and it is AWFUL, take it back to the video rental store and ask for your money back. You usually get it. When you go to the movies in a theater and you are a 1/2 hour into the movie and it is Crapola, leave and ask for your money back. Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson are going to be OK, don't worry. And as for all these actors we never heard of, most of them I hope we never see again. Don't give up your day job, Homer. Consider picking up a book and reading instead of sitting numbly as your intelligence is drained from your body by some film-merde, Get entertained elsewhere. That's what books are for.

PHOTOGRAPHY QUESTIONS

Several of the followers of this BLOG have asked WHAT KIND OF CAMERA I HAVE BEEN USING TO CAPTURE THE PHOTOS I PUT ON MY BLOG? Some of them come from my new SONY digital camera but most of them are taken with my iPHONE 3GS because I have it with me all the time. It is better to get a photo even if it is lower resolution than to miss it because I left my bigger camera in the car or at a home.

FLOWERY HOUSES

Everywhere on Nantucket flowers are in bloom. Roses have been trained to grow up onto the sides and roofs of houses and are not only beautiful but make the air smell delicious. Hydrangeas grow along the lower areas of the garden and many other varieties including iris, daisy, and honeysuckle compete for the attention of bees.

MURRAY gets back its MOJO

We love to shop in Murray's Toggery but I had sworn off their beverage store on Main Street because their price on Kendall Jackson chardonnay was way too high and the checkout person when I was last there was more interested in talking to her boyfriend than waiting on customers. I was thirsty today while walking on Main Street just after the Art Fair and went in to buy a bottle of water and while I was there I checked their stock. There on the shelf was our beloved KJ chardonnay at $16 a bottle (it was $25 on a previous trip.)

All is forgiven and I will patronize their store again now that they repriced their wine. By the way, their counterman today, from Jamaica, was very nice and helpful. The whole experience was far improved.

NANTUCKET Bake Shop wheh dem mek PATTIE

Yes, it looks like I made some typos in the title of this post but it was my attempt to set the mood for a review of today's visit to the Nantucket Bake Shop, which by all evidence is transplanted in its entirety from Jamaica. Miss Kitty and I went today because we heard that the shop had won an award and a monetary prize and was being graced by a visit from The Pillsbury Doughboy. We were the only people there who were not from Jamaica...oops, I mean I was the only person there not from Jamaica. Anyway we reunited with Leoni who works at the counter and bought a Jamaican spicy beef pattie, Mon, it good, nuh ras. We were told that if we want a really special treat, we need to come back on Monday when they have Coconut bread.

I awake to the smell of roses

PUMP up the VOLUME

"Vehicle" of change. That's what a bike is. We are so used to riding in cars with the A/C on and the windows rolled up. We see our world like watching a movie through the windshield. On a bike, you are acutely aware of everything that goes on around you, 360 degrees, partially because you don't want to have some parked car open a door in front of you or a guy driving while texting behind you spoil your groove. But mostly because you are drawn into your environment. You see and smell your surroundings, you feel the actual temperature of the moment, and the noises of birds and waves are not silenced as they would be in a closed vehicle. I guess an open Jeep Wrangler would be a close second. I don't think that every place lends itself to biking. The low speed limits and the other bikes on the road do give an added level of security here on the island, but riding is still not something that allows inattention. But then again, why not pay attention all the time in life? There is never nothing going on. The three rules of ZEN are Attention, Attention, Attention. Maybe the bike is a metaphor for what the rest of our existence could be...not seeing things in neat little framed boxes separated from the world by glass, fully in touch with nature and the elements, using all of your heightened senses, and moving that machine known as our body instead of just putting our toes on the accelerator and pressing lightly. It could be that we owe it to ourselves to pedal hard and not just press lightly as we travel through life. It's worth a thought.

This Old Dog needs to go to the Pound

You would think that Robin Williams and John Travolta together in a comedy movie would be great. Throw in the lovely Kelly Preston and you would expect it would be worthwhile watching. Well, I watched it (the Kitty fell asleep during the opening credits and awoke just about the time we were finding out who the Dolly grip and the Key grip were) and it was a stinker. Sure there had to be some funny lines considering these two great comedic actors. I wonder if there is any way I can get my dollar back from the Red Box DVD vending machine? I know I will never get back the two hours I spent watching this PoS.

The STARS come out in NANTUCKET

A beautiful evening at Harborview Place. The Nantucket Film Festival is underway. The venue for this cocktail party could not have been nicer. We ate and drank on the lawn of this beautiful resort overlooking the harbor (hence the name) right in downtown Nantucket. Ben Stiller and Brian Williams were there but I found these two irresistible so I had to take their photo. The mood was very much like the festival with which I am most familiar...Sarasota's. In addition to food and wine and Stella Artois beer, I got to meet many old time residents who support the arts. Nantucket is a seasonal tourist destination (no more whaling ships come in and out of port these days) which draws visitors mostly in the months of July, August, and September. They schedule events like this one to stretch out their season into June and September, as if the fantastic cool weather this month would not be enough. There is a Wine Festival and a Comedy Festival. Spending a summer here reminds me very much of Aspen, Colorado. You can just hang out, ride a bike, take a hike, catch a fish...or you can immerse yourself in the arts. There are art classes, dance classes, music groups, and of course festivals like these. "Y'all come up, y'heah."

REACHING NEW HEIGHTS

And to think, I have to reach dishes and groceries on the top kitchen shelf for her when she cooks those delicacies I write about. Now that I know she can climb, and hold a toddler at the same time....

LINK of the DAY, maybe the YEAR

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future

KEEP THOSE BLINDERS ON or you might see something

This guy is Brian Weiss, M.D. psychiatrist and author. He has written extensively on reincarnation and regression hypnosis, regressing patients beyond their childhood into past lives. Considering his excellent medical credentials, his careful revelations to his colleagues about what he was doing, and the documentation from observers of his work...he remains a cult hero without general acceptance in "the World." Sure, his books have been best sellers but considering that he virtually proved reincarnation is likely, most westerners continue to dismiss the possibility, in any form. His fame has moved through our culture like The Adkin's diet or the Hula Hoop.

Why do I bring him up at this time? Well, it has something to do with the movie "The Box." Not that it is about Weiss's subject but more about the acceptance or non-acceptance of ideas that are not easy to grasp. As a movie The Box is not entertaining. As a thought provoking event, it deserves praise. Unfortunately, most people will not see through the movie to the provoking part. In The Box, a force behind the actions of chosen human beings seems to exist at a different level, perhaps, extraterrestrial, or non-physical at least, that is running an experiment on mankind, as if we were rats in a laboratory. The tool for this is a box with a button on it that is delivered to certain people, usually in financial dire straits, who then have to decide to unlock the box and push the button thereby getting a million tax free dollars but simultaneously killing a stranger, or... passing on the opportunity.

The existence of an unknown world beyond our usual senses is the subject of movies but seldom do we stretch ourselves to live or even contemplate a different reality. It reminds me of the Dark Ages, and similarly famous unenlightened historical periods, and the certitude that Earth was the center of the Universe and the Sun revolved around us. The acceptance that everyone belonged to the King and that the King had a divine right to do with you whatever he wished. And, any other period in the history of the world, where we thought we knew it all and that further scientific developments were heresy and deserved excommunication. We are living in one of those periods now. Humans always do. Do you believe that there is more to be seen and discovered about our world than that which is obvious to our 5 senses? Someone had to look at things a different way to invent radio, television, computer chips, electric and gas power. We had the same eyes in 1700 and yet nobody saw the potential in oil, not to mention silicon chips. We are still unable to see many things that are a reality right now but just don't register with our senses and our brains because they do not fit into our little boxes that we have constructed to hold reality. An outside force, an invisible actor, reincarnation, and so many other things remain the realm of New Age authors and occasionally Oprah, yet we live as if only things we can see and touch and that fit our preconceptions are real. Even good uplifting ideas that become cultural successes like "The Secret" come and go. Someone finds out that a guru who promoted these spiritual ideas killed some of his followers accidentally in a sweat lodge, and we jump to discredit everything based upon this argumentum ad hominem...the guy is flawed, therefore the ideas should be discarded. I Hope they don't delve too deeply into the private life of Thomas Edison or we may have to stop using lightbulbs. There are lots of examples of this. I do not mean to promote "The Secret" or any other woo-woo fads, but there is truth to many of these that transcends what we are comfortable with...and that are too powerful to dismiss.

As a doctor, I remember that at one time, my profession applied leeches, drained patients of blood, and set them out on a porch in fresh air to cure TB. We did not wash our hands between surgeries and killed thousands of people by the transfer of infection. The leaders in the field refused to listen to the new theory of bacterial contamination. We are so much smarter now and know it all. Really???