HIATUS IN HYANNIS

THIS BLOG IS IN HIATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

UNIFORMLY untrustworthy

Necktie, and a crisp white shirt, the uniform for the folks on Wall Street as they manipulate stock prices and make money when the market goes up and the market goes down. Or course there is no ONE market, what I refer to is the broad market indicators like the DOW, S and P 500, Russell, Wilshire, you know the rest.

Here are the young whippersnappers who trade and analyze and report...moving the market this way and that. The faces are of different colors but more or less the pastel shirt and tightly cinched up tie are ubiquitous. I think there is something seriously wrong when men congregate in rooms, behind closed doors, moving money in and out of stocks and bonds and have to wear a tie while doing it. Maybe this constricts the blood flow to their heads. Why can't they dress like the folks at Microsoft where pajamas and Ed Hardy T-shirts are common? Maybe the portfolio guys' thoughts would be more imaginative if their carotid arteries could supply their brains with more oxygen.

ACK (almost) of the day

Someday, I hope to see an Alaska license plate with the word ACKLASKA on it. ACKlabama can't be far behind.

Illumination

Popular themes in painting include a dirt road in Sconset and lighthouses like this one. This is actually on Brant Point a couple of blocks away from where the Kitty and I live. We live in one of the nicest quietest neighborhoods yet only a few minute walk into downtown. Other than the happy patois of the Jamaicans who walk down our street in the early morning on their way to work at the nearby White Elephant, we seldom hear anything except the Boat whistle at 6:30 a.m. long after I awake and that the Kitty can't hear because she sleeps with earplugs (Sorry about the snoring. Nobody's perfect.) At 8:00 a.m. the cannon goes off at the Nantucket Yacht Club. That doesn't wake her either.

On special boat race days, throngs of people walk down to this lighthouse and watch the boats as they round Brant Point. The intimate restaurant in the White Elephant is named The Brant Point Grille. The folks that own the White Elephant also own the Wauwinnet where the Kitty and I had lunch yesterday. Sure, the hamburger was $20, but it was huge and yummy and served in a beautiful setting. By the way, yesterday the weather, which is so important for humans feeling good, was "perfect." 70 degrees, no humidity, 5 mph wind, and not a cloud in the sky. Locals don't eat at either place because they are offended by the hubris of one man coming in and buying up so much real estate and operating these two high-end establishments. I wrote about this in "town-gown" a few posts back. Locals must have gotten their price for the real estate when they sold to this interloper because as far as I know, he bought it all with his own money.

Personally, I believe that it is nice to have the juxtaposition of the old unmaintained historical places and the new and spiffy White Elephant and Toppers at Wauwinnet. Nothing is homogeneous about Nantucket except that every building has to be, by law, covered in cedar shakes which age to a gray color. Hence, Nantucket is called "The Gray Lady" or it could have been named that for the fog. Cisco Brewery also makes a beer called Gray Lady but I doubt the island was named after the beer.

Land Cruiser

Another vintage vehicle seen on Nantucket. there are quite a few Oldies on island. (Locals never say on THE island it is dead giveaway that you are not from heah.) This is one of the earliest of the SUV type vehicles. It is a vintage land cruiser from back when they did not cost $60,000. This even predates those that you see whenever you watch world news and the UN rolls into town in a caravan of white Land Cruisers. Note the sea foam green color. Just as in fashion, colors come in and out of favor. Back in the mid seventies, I had a polyester leisure suit in this exact color.

PANCHO?

Nantucket, the Island, has a central town, also called Nantucket. At the western end of the island a village called Madaket is made up of a few homes, a general store, a restaurant called Madaket Millie's, and a large marina.

The Eastern end has a place called Siasconset, which is known as "Sconset" to the locals. Is is a picturesque place with a general store, some homes, a couple of nice restaurants, and a lighthouse called Sankaty. There is also a nearby golf course. If I were a golfer, I would not be able to play the course because it is a private hoity-toity deal.

All around the island there are even smaller regions that have special names like Polpis. Monomoy, Dionis, Tom Nevers, Surfside and...like the owner of this Jeep says...CISCO. Most people who get vanity plates here put ACK somehow into their selection. Sconset is popular. Cisco is a one horse town whose claim to fame is the Cisco Brewery where you can get a pint of draught beer for 6 dollars and sit outside at one of their picnic tables and listen to a band play. On weekends and holidays, you can't get near the place. Other named places include Squam and Quaise which sounds like health problems, and Wauwinet which is named after indians that were driven off the island at the time whaling became a big cash business. They may come back one day and set up a casino. That would be poetic justice. Maybe it could be in Cisco at the brewery.

BURNING MAN

Every year during the entire week before Labor Day, tens of thousands of people gather in the dessert near Reno Nevada to partake of what can only be called a Pagan Ritual known as the Burning Man. The culmination of this week living simply and on your own resources in the middle of nowhere surrounded by 49,999 total strangers is when they set fire to the burning man...an effigy created from the ground up every year by the sponsors of the event.

This week, while at one of my favorite gathering places in Nantucket for men and women, I learned that one of the attractive young ladies had just returned from an even called Burning Man. I was torn. Do I ask her if this is an event in which Feminists instead of burning their bras, burn some man? Or is this something else? I had never heard of this event. When she explained the festivities to us, I was uncharacteristically speechless. You know how you have preconceived notions about some people? "Butter wouldn't melt in their mouth,"" She wouldn't say S if she had a mouthful. etc?" Well, that horse has left the barn. Among the drugs and nudity and burning in effigy going on, there were some really freaky things too. In the interest of my multigenerational readership I shall refrain from any mention of chickens, war paint, or psychedelic-influenced performance art. Its PAGAN origins are clear. The event corresponds to the Summer Solstice. Then again the date for Christmas was borrowed from the winter solstice by Christians. So maybe that's not a bad thing, nature-wise.

It is not about feminists, but many were there. Nor hippies though they were there too. Is is about:

• Radical inclusion - Anyone who can afford a ticket is gladly welcomed and there are no prerequisites to be part of Burning Man. All participants are expected to provide for their own basic needs and follow the minimal rules of the event.
• Gifting - Instead of cash, event participants are encouraged to rely on a gift economy, a sort of potlatch.
• Decommodification - No cash transactions are permitted between attendees.
• Radical self-reliance - Because of the event's harsh environment and remote location, participants are expected to be responsible for their own subsistence.
• Radical self-expression - Participants are encouraged to express themselves in a number of ways through various art forms and projects. The event is clothing-optional.
• Communal effort - Participants are encouraged to work with and help fellow participants.
• Civic responsibility - Participants are encouraged to assume responsibility and be part of a civil society.
• "Leave No Trace" - Participants are committed to a "leave no trace" event. Not to have a long-term impact on the environment.
• Participation - Burning Man is about participation.
• Immediacy - Participants are encouraged to become part of the event, to experience who and what is around them and to explore their inner selves and their relation to the event.

STICKER SHOCKER

FACTORY OPTIONS: Automatic transmission...check. Navigation system...check. Stickers all over the back of the car...I'll do my own customizing, thank you.

to BUY or not to BUY, that is the question

Emblazoned above the front door, is not the address, it is the year the house was built. MAny people really enjoy ownership of historic houses...the older the better. Of course some changes have been made over the years to make them habitable. Indoor plumbing, electricity, and heat that is more modern than a pot-bellied stove.

Homes such as this one can be found all over Nantucket. Most of them are covered with cedar shakes from floor level to the ridge of the roof. The Kitty and I are living in a much more modern place where it barely smells like mold and mildew except a little from the laundry room sometimes. Some of these older houses make me cough and wheeze when I walk by them.

It goes back to that old and eternal question... Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows ooutrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?

In case you wanted to know

I GOT SUMTHIN' TA SELL YA

Politicians and folks who are selling things will go on any talk show they can to get the message out. Never mind that Jay Leno called you Darth Vader for 20 years and told jokes about battery jumper cables and your heart... you've got a book to sell so "all is forgiven." You sit in the chair politely while the next guest, Carrot-Top, makes fun of you, your job, and your children. My favorite was when CT pulled out a pair of Redwing work boots with Swarovski encrusted high heels glued on the bottom and called them Dress shoes for Lesbians. Cheney's (ChEEney to his friends except his lawyer who can't pronounce the "E" because of the buckshot in his face) smile never went away. Maybe he goes to the same plastic surgeon that Nancy Pelosi goes to hence the trademark sneer.

You've got to have thick skin to be in politics. Takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin" like timex or..... Oh, I'm sorry, am I out of line here? (Jay Leno expression).

Anyhow, out of respect for the Vice President who told all in his tell-all book about who did what to whom and when and got us embroiled in a no win war or two, I will merely say that "Politics makes strange bedfellows." Some of the strangest were Anthony "look at my" Wiener, Eliot "bareback" Spitzer, and the guy who tap danced his way from a stall in a mens room to a one way ticket out of Congress. I am sure we will find out lots more about future presidential candidates, except the incumbent who is "transparent." Perhaps we will find out that Sarah Palin used to be a pole-dancer in a bar in Anchorage under the name of Bar-a-cutie, or Rick Perry was really Rico Perrico, a hit man for the Texas mob. The season is just beginning. Whatever happens, when they write their books, they will do whatever it takes to sit next to Jay Leno on late night TV.

THE POLYANNA POST

NANTUCKET is a place where there is a lot going on. The social calendar is very full. Like any town where there is society, folks like to attend and then see photographs of themselves in the back of a magazine or online. You know the photos I am talking about...anything but candid, one or two couples standing looking at the camera...smiling...and holding a glass of Chardonnay.

If you spend a lot of time on Nantucket and like to attend any and everything social, you should consider checking our "Mahon About Town." It is an online newsletter that covers every event on island, dispassionately, and has the photos to prove it. The man behind the camera is ubiquitous. The extent of coverage is amazing. What I find is missing, and this is why he gets invited to everything while the Oracle has to buy a ticket, is any critique of the event. You will not read that the "fresh" shrimp were still frozen inside and crunched when you bit them. You will not read that Mrs. Gotrocks was, to put it in nautical terms "three sheet to the wind" and was "cougaring" the 25 year old bartender, Raul. Nowhere will you see anything about the charity that the event is purported to help never getting dime because all the money was spent on Chardonnay and Shrimp (note the alliteration despite the two words beginning with different letters) Mahon's theme song should be Home Home on the Range. (Where never is heard, a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.) Nothing seems out of place, even Mrs. Gotrocks hair.

You will NOT get that from the Islandoracle. First of all, I know what it is like to buy a ticket and decide if I got my money's worth. Like at the Comedy Festival where a certain comedian might not have induced any significant laughter because the format was boring. You might know if you read the oracle that when the event comes next year, elect to spend the 300 dollars at a Nantucket gas station filling up your SUV or at a local restaurant for dinner for two. If a whale breaches and swallows a tourist I will show you that picture, not the one of him (the tourist not the whale) sipping Chardonnay on the lawn at the Great Harbor Yacht Club an hour before. Booooorrrrrring. Fleas and lice, potholes and wrinkles in the fabric of the island, that's what you will find here. Dreamland will be mostly amazing and a fantastic addition to the year round resident. Parking will SUCK for the rest of eternity. Park now becasue there will be no spaces in June. Prescriptions drug prices are outasight in our local pharmacies unless you are a Massachusetts resident on Romneycare. The pothole at the corner of Fair and Main is not quaint and rustic. It can swallow a Mini Cooper. $20 is too much to pay for a hamburger and it can be done in many eating establishments on island.

To quote Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men..."You want the truth? You can't handle the truth." However, if you can, check out Islandoracle.blogspot.com. You want to see yourself in nantucket red pants and a blazer standing next to Mrs. Gotrocks and her "perfect" hair at the Whaling Museum...click on Mahon.

LABOR DAY FINALE

LABOR DAY, the traditional end of the season in Nantucket. The tourists stop coming in droves as school starts up north right after this coming weekend. People have to go back to their regular lives. Some of my homeys are college professors who will be going back to their classrooms.

The Kitty and the Oracle are staying around for a while. September is still hotter than Hell in Sarasota. The temperatures up here have been in the 70s during the day and the 60s at night. Many of my friends will still be here because they have work that allows them to be ANYWHERE on the planet in contact through the internet, or phone. They choose to be here until the weather turns... sometime in October. Some live here all year and do not seem to mind.

We came up here in May. It was a little early for the Kitty who found it damp and cold. Perhaps next year we will come up later. Yes. there will be a Next year in Nantucket. Things will change a little. The Dreamland Theater will open and parking will be worse. More walking and biking for me is NO hardship. The Film Festival, The Wine Festival, The Comedy Festival and the latest...the Nantucket Project will be back. We will likely participate in every one of them like we did this year. In the meantime, we will continue to walk and ride and go to the beach and just wander through this island. If I were home in September, I would leave my house, get in my car in the garage, drive out with the air conditioning at full last, drive to the mall or wherever. Jump out of the car into the air conditioned building. I would spend a total of 30 minutes a day in the sun and fresh air. The heat and humidity are just intolerable in Florida in September. The next month, the shoe will be on the other foot as Nantucket begins to get the chilling effects of North-Eastern winds and we will be grateful for living once again in the Florida weather. This "follow the weather"plan has worked out for us so far. I am not designed for oppressive heat or bitter cold.

LAST YEAR's GAS PRICES

Please look carefully at the prices on the gas pump sign. You will see that gas costs a dollar more per gallon here in Nantucket than it did last year at the same time. It was almost 5 dollars a gallon for hi-test this week. I don't exactly know who to blame for this but I am sure that he/she lives and works in Washington, D.C.

Also in the foreground of this photo is a beat up old JEEP in a lovely "primer gray" color (Nantucket's nickname is the Grey Lady). The Oracle is still on the quest for one of these. The attraction of this particular vehicle or one like it is that when you park next to almost anyone, they are the one who worries if you will "ding" their car. Buy something new and you get the same feeling you get when you have a little money. You worry about losing it. Sure, I have a nice car as my daily driver, but wouldn't it be nice to have a "beater" that looks like this but is mechanically sound to tool around in? Especially on these 20 mile per hour roads? One of these days I am going to find her.

TOWN and GOWN

Years ago, we matriculated at a summer program at Oxford University in England. Oxford, by the way, is also where they manufacture the MINI Cooper car. While we were there we were told to NOT identify ourselves as University Students when we were in certain parts of the city. The "locals" were at war with the university and were not shy about beating up the occasional student "just because" he was a student at one of the many colleges in the town. (Oxford is actually 35 separate schools.)

It is not this severe in Nantucket but there is a similar kind of Town-Gown divide...more of a multigenerational Whaler family vs the Johnny-come-lately Hedge fund billionaires who buy homes on the island for millions of dollars. East is east and never the twain shall meet. Many of the new events on the island like the Film Festival, or Wine festival, and especially the Nantucket Project coming up in about a month, are anathema to locals who want the island to stay as it is. On the other side of the coin, the "interlopers" are in many cases oblivious that there were people living here before they came and formed their "new" yacht clubs because they couldn't get into the old one, and built mega-cottages on cliffs for 50 million dollars.

There are a few times when the old and the new can get along. Historical preservation in general, the Nantucket Historical Society, and the Whaling Museum are some of these. The Comedy festival which brings in Jerry Seinfeld and the Gucci-laden hoards from New York...not so much.

KATRINA, we learned nothin' from YA

Surprise, surprise, Tropical Storm LEE poses a danger to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana because the towns and cities there are built 14 feet below sea level. In Florida, we are castigated often in the liberal press because "rich people" can buy Flood and Windstorm insurance for thousands of dollars in premiums per year and it's "not fair." (that we can buy insurance with money from our own pockets) Meanwhile FEMA and the Obama White House can't wait to start stroking checks to cover entire metro areas that are totally uninsured. Why the Hell am I buying these expensive flood and supplementary flood policies on MY house? And my house is 12 feet ABOVE sea level. I don't have to have a giant pump running night and day to keep my town from being underwater. It is OBVIOUS we did not learn ANYTHING from Hurricane Katrina. And once again, the conscientious Ant is responsible for the unprepared Grasshopper (fable). This is like having a loser in-law that can't make ends meet and relies on you, year, after year, after year.

How does Joe Sixpack do it?

Filling your SUV's gas tank in Nantucket can require a home equity loan. 25 X $4.84 is $120. Fortunately on the island a full tank can last for several weeks because the distances are so short and mostly we walk or ride bikes.

it's a JUMBLE out there

Airline reservations, among others, create a confirmation code made up of a string of letters. This is because for each letter place there are 26 opportunities to be different, as compared to 10 for numbers. That's why license plates do the same thing. All well and good when you are online and typing. call them up on the telephone and speak your confirmation code, such as "EDUTQF" and things get interesting. "is that B or E, T or P?" the airline representative asks. So you try to clear that up so you can change your ticket or whatever. You do that by using a system of words that represent each letter. If you were in the military, police, or aviation, you already know the official words. I have heard folks make up words that sound silly. For example "A" as in Ann Hathaway, B as in Barbie, etc.

In the interest of making things easier for you, this is the usual and customary list:

Alpha

Bravo

Charlie

Delta

Echo

Foxtrot

Golf

Hotel

India

Juliet

Kilo

Lima

Mike

November

Oscar

Papa

Quebec

Romeo

Sierra

Tango

Uniform

Victor

Whiskey

X-ray

Yankee

Zulu

The NANTUCKET Project

The Oracle is registered to attend this first-time event on Nantucket next month. Modeled after TED conferences and the Aspen Institute, it's inaugural theme is "Rethinking the Status Quo." Visionaries, thinkers, business leaders and innovators will give presentations to up to 350 attendees.

When I first became aware of the upcoming project, my BS detector went off as I read the list of speakers. Included among real visionaries and giants in the world of science and business were some names that raise my hackles. Two of these were Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor who was arrested on his own front porch for not playing nicely with the Cambridge police officer who was investigating what looked like a break-in. (As in "don't you know who I am?") The other name is Rahm Emanuel, formerly of the White House and now Mayor of that bastion of Political honesty, Chicago. I guess there are lessons to be learned for these two men. From "Skip" Gates...the police officer has the authority and the gun, shut up and cooperate whoever you are. And from Emanuel... even if you are turned down again and again as ineligible to run for mayor of your home town, stay the course and eventually dead people will have a chance to vote for you and you will win.

Fortunately, the other presenters are of such high caliber and global significance that the "Progressive" line of BS will hopefully be drowned out. It a great cast of players including: the founder of the Cato (Libertarian) Institute, the inventor of the Segway and many other innovations, the CEO of Google, the creator of Seal Team 6, several very savvy investors, artists, film makers, architects, and authors of great renown, economists, academics, and major movers and shakers in healthcare.

I am really looking forward to this event as an opportunity to position myself and the investments I control for the upcoming decade. In other words, though I am a perpetual student of everything, my focus is on practical information for the new world that comes from those who played big roles in creating the world in which we live. If it deteriorates into Baloney about reparations and political correctness, this will become a one time event, at least for me. If it delivers what it promises, it could become a permanent institute in Nantucket that will endure. I hope that it is not "hijacked" by the LEFT and turned into an indoctrination. There are seeds of this within the speakers' roster. It is up to the founders of the event to steer the theme in the direction of leaning forward not looking back, sociologically, or politically.

Say HELLO to my Little Friend

The Kitty loves to go out to lunch. Here we are with friends at Slip 14 on the WATERFRONT in Nantucket. Good food, great friends. The fare at Slip 14, just a stone's throw away from the bottom of Main Street, is very good. Usually you have to queue up to get a table at noon. The tourist population is down because of the recent cancellations from the hurricane and there were empty tables. It should EXPLODE during the upcoming and final LABOR DAY weekend before families get back to their fall routines, and school. I will let you know.

SARASOTA Vintage Detroit IRON

ONE MORE A C K

ACK of the DAY

I wish I could buy this plate to put on the Kitty's car.

Goodnight, IRENE

The Kitty and the Oracle took a trip to Florida for two weeks. There was lots to do and we had a very successful trip. Of course Florida is known as the land of the Hurricanes, and not just the University of Miami football team. To our great surprise, the latest hurricane, Irene, missed us completely and headed up the east coast to New England. On TV, it was the only thing on almost every channel. There was good coverage but there was also the usual Jim Cantore and his clones standing out in the wind and rain in a slicker with a microphone being buffeted for no apparent reason by the weather. While they excitedly talked about devastation and tidal surges, there were always some surfers going into the water in the background or some old lady in a wheelchair rolling by. The preparedness was necessary, the news coverage was vintage "Chicken Little."

Our return trip to Nantucket was delayed a couple of days. We set our alarm for 4 am and drove to Tampa. We turned in our Chevy Malibu to HERTZ, and boarded JetBlue to Boston. From there we expected to go on another jet to Nantucket but to our surprise we were reticketed to Cape Air, known affectionately in these parts as Cape FEAR because they fly small planes that are buffeted around like Jim Cantore on a boardwalk. I said to myself "Oh man, this sucks." We had to carry the heavy roll aboards down a long flight of stairs and then limbo into what looked like Malibu Barbie's plane. Dave, our pilot sat at the controls with no copilot. There were 5 passengers including us. It took off like any small Cessna does and flew south. It was such a nice day and the visibility was amazing. We saw the Cape, all the islands and individual homes and our favorite places when we flew over Nantucket. It was a special treat and way better than the AirBus would have been. If the weather were bad, I would have said the exact opposite, I suppose. They had those little bags in the seatbacks for a reason. We are back in island and the weather is awesome...75 in the day 65 at night. A big improvement over Sarasota where it was 95 and sunny in the day, and 95 and dark at night.