Nantucket Week: Danny Ainge

I love to visit the island in mid June, when it's warm and sunny enough for the beach, but just ahead of the end of school, and the madness (and Main Street congestion) that it brings.  In June of 1989 I made a token 8-day appearance in my new job at The Discovery Channel, then promptly headed with my wife to the island on a Saturday, for 2 weeks.

Four days earlier the Detroit Pistons "Bad Boys" had swept the L.A. Lakers in the NBA Finals (Series MVP: "Joe Duuuuuuuu-mars!"), gaining revenge on the Lakers in a rematch of the 1988 finals.  Although my own allegiance was, and is, to the Celtics, at the time my wife was a die-hard Lakers fan - her father had worked for Jack Kent Cooke at the L.A. Forum in a senior capacity - thus the 1985 and 1987 series had made for some "tense moments"... but I digress.

Joe's Barbershop - (508) 325-4091

On-island and needing a summer haircut, I found Joanna at Joe's Barber Shop outside town on Pleasant Street, near the windmill.  After hearing what I was looking for, Joanna turned around and slapped her hand on a picture taped to the mirror - "Sure you don't want something like this? He was just in here yesterday!"  Here was Danny Ainge, who apparently got his hair cut every summer in the same chair I was now sitting in.  Now, the week before Danny (traded by Boston late in the '89 season to Sacramento) had no doubt watched the same playoffs as I had, from a similar couch position, so I grabbed his chair and gave it a spin.

"Let's go for it - give me the Danny Ainge!"  Joanna did her magic, and my hair did achieve an ersatz spiky obnoxiousness that I liked for a few days (but couldn't maintain).

I thought fondly of my tufted haircut, and the combative, scrappy Ainge, the following season when, on the Celtics' first Ainge-less appearance at the Forum, CBS Sports and Brent Musburger pointed out a courtside hand-made sign: "We STILL Hate Ainge!!!"

Nantucket Week: Anne Meara

I was stroller-ing north along Center Street one June morning in 1994, pushing my infant daughter ahead of me when a familiar face exited the Center Street Market and onto the sidewalk

I knew comedy duo Stiller & Meara from 1960's appearances on Ed Sullivan, the Smothers Brothers, etc. and for their "Blue Nun" wine commercials. Though they've became renowned also as Ben's parents, at this time he'd only begun to get visibility doing weird stuff like MTV "Rock The Vote."

Here came Anne Meara - Brooklyn bray and arms out - announcing, not asking, at top volume: "This Bay-beee! I gotta pinch this cute Bay-beeeee!" 

She leaned forward and seized my little girl's rosy cheeks and kneaded them with her thumbs 'til they both glowed.

I loved Anne Meara in The Out Of Towners (1970) and, of course, co-starring with sonny Ben-chick in Zoolander (2001).  What a bold, fantastic, old-school comic - and what a piece a woik!

Nantucket Week: David Gregory

Spotted at 8:15 this morning, David Gregory, boring his blue Jeep into a tiny spot in the Downeyflake Donut parking lot and grabbing a sackful of chocolate-topped cake donuts: the moderator of NBC's Meet The Press.

"Stretch" Gregory is an island perennial (but this was my 1st-time sighting) who was married in 2000 on the grounds of the Summer House.

Maybe he got sick and tired of eating designer bagles on the other island this week with the President!

Dave and I, we eat the same donuts.

Nantucket Week: Laura Dern

What joy, what joy: to spot Laura Dern dining at The Summer House on Tuesday evening. We had no interaction at all... but it was enough to see her gliding entry, arriving like Botticelli's Aphrodite. See Venus and die, Dayenu.

Nantucket Week: Billy Joel

Well I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have charted a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound

In the early summer of 1994, People Magazine was reporting the unthinkable: Billy Joel had chosen to end his marriage to supermodel Christie Brinkley. Seeking solace in solitude, he hie thee away'd to the pricey-est hotel on Nantucket Island. Situated out at the end of the paved road in a “haulover” area of dunes betwixt the eastern edge of the Harbor and the rolling waves on the Atlantic, sits The Wauwinet - with rooms and out-cottages going then for up to $1,195/night. Joel was as far from the madding crowd as one can get, without letting air out of the tires and forging over the dunes to Great Point.

About 3pm on a spectacular June day, I was walking onto the property at The Wauwinet, when at me came a golden SUV with New York plates, and its solitary occupant. A moment of recognition and Yes! that familiar unshaven, hangdog face above the steering wheel! He edged across the bricked speed-bump and eased forward, now about 10 feet ahead of me. Absolutely Billy Joel!

Elton John may have bested Mr. Joel as the superstar pop-pianist in the '70's (and well beyond)... but there's no question that Billy had much better luck with the ladies. What I questioned at that moment was the Piano Man's judgment. Thinking of Christie's perfect, All-American smile, and how this Long island cad had wiped it from her face, I looked up at the passenger window and mouthed the word “Whyyyyy???” He stared me down steely-eyed and drove right on.

How wrong I was. Turns out that, while Billy had been suffering in the hospital with kidneystones late that winter, his gorgeous wife had been carrying on an affair with soon-to-be third husband Richard Taubman, who'd secretly proposed to her in March.

Toppers at The Wauwinet serves a great Gin Martini in their tiny bar enclave, and whenever there I imagine the Piano Man sipping alone in the corner, perhaps with an old copy of the Sports Illustrated 1979 Swimsuit issue in his hands...

I Nearly Killed Pat Buchanan!

Sunday mornings are a great time to think about Pat Buchanan, whether you're in the first pew at St. Peter's, or in front of the pundit shows.

(Washington, DC) In 1988, I once hailed a cab to cross town between meetings and instructed the cabbie to "Step on it!" Tearing east at the busy midday along H street, we suddenly wheeled left and north, away from Lafayette Square Park, and squealed through the corner at the Hay Adams Hotel. Entering 16th street, a figure was caught squarely ahead of us in the crosswalk: Pat Buchanan - in long lightweight black raincoat, armload of dossiers pinned below his elbow. The hack hit the horn, maybe the gas too - certainly there was no sensation of braking - and the figure instantly and gracefully attained a "flying" posture: both arms forward like Superman, body parallel to the pavement.

Vacating the plane of transit, stage right, his belly was surely higher than the hood of our cab and - like Keanu Reeves dodging bullets in The Matrix - his right ankle somehow cleared our right headlight. The dossiers fanned into the air. I herky-jerked right as we sped by, to watch the body land face down at the curb facing St. John's Episcopal Church (St. Matthew the Apostle Catholic Church on Rhode Island Ave. being a brisk 4 minute walk).

4 blocks on, I - no Pat fan then - regaled colleagues with the tale of Buchanan's literal flight from certain death. But I have come to appreciate the guy more and more.

Fate was not yet ready that day for Pat Buchanan, and he's had 22 good years since then, even running for President in 1992 and 1996 - and, as you may have heard, reeling in 3,407 votes in Palm Beach County in 2000 ("a Pat Buchanon stronghold!" - Ari Fleischer). Hallelujah!

Connecting my friends Pam Meyer & Bob Feldman - and That's No Lie!

Don't ask me how, but I happen to know the two World Experts on "Lying" and I introduced them earlier this month. Now their publicists are battling it out:


Pam's book "LieSpotting" is on the current bestseller list and she's got a great item - with video clips of all your favorite liars in the act - in today's HuffPost - (note coverage of my friend Charlie Rangel among other). Bob's book "The Liar In Your Life" has been out a bit longer, and was highlighted yesterday on VSL's showcase. Different perspectives and unique 'dishonesty' expertise - Bob is a career academic who has specialized in clinical study, Pam a veteran of 25 years in the venal media business - but both cite the same data set as the foundation of their research.

Pam and I go way back - I recruited her to leave Vestron Video in 1986 and join National Geographic TV, where she did a fantastic job as a program buyer. In 1997, Pam hired me as COO of her web start-up Faith.com.

I met Bob [One of Bob's memorable premises is that two people, on meeting for the first time, will lie to each other 3 times in the first ten minutes] when my wife introduced us at the 2008 UMass Amherst Engineering School commencement ceremony, and subsequently at a few Chancellor's receptions, but mostly we run into each other mid-day at the gym.

The two have competing books in the market and I'm proud to know each one... and now I'm always extra-careful to be absolutely straight-up with Pam and with Bob. Happy to say: you'll not find me noted anecdotally in either book!

Christina Romer and the Economics of Celebrity

It's hard to predict the outcome of a situation, even when the choices seem so well-defined: 4th and goal - go for it, or take the field goal? Economy melting down - $862BB stimulus, or not?

Christina Romer and her husband Dave left their UC Berkeley Economics positions and came east when she took the role of Obama's Chief Economic Advisor in 2009. She now regrets knuckling under to make the Administration's difficult case that only by enacting the stimulus ("American Recovery and Reinvestment Act") could we cap unemployment at 8% - without the stimulus, the jobless pain could reach 9-10%. Well, the stimulus was passed - and the rate hit 10% anyway (a year and a half later, it still has not dropped below 9.5%). And she's about to return to Berkeley.

As married colleagues, Dave and Christy Romer have shared professional counsel and collaborated on writings during their careers.

Dave and I were classmates in the Amherst public school system through graduation in 1976. In addition to being the sharpest math wiz in the class, Dave was notorious for at least two monumental contributions to the life of the school: first, his grand front yard on Snell Street became the Polo Grounds of Wiffleball for a long-running gang of ruffians (mostly Amherst College brats). And second, he founded and ran Ye Olde Football Pool, and elaborate, dime-a-play weekly contest to predict the winners of all Sunday NFL games, with the winner and score of the Monday Night Game being the tie-breaker. Gambling - particularly by underage schoolkids, for $$, and on school property - being illegal, we merrye olde players used pseudonyms. Mine was 4-Pi-r-cubed (formula for area of the surface of a sphere - or was it the volume of a sphere?).

I note Dave's affectionate thank you to Christina in his fascinating paper on using NFL statistical evidence (the 4th-and-goal scenario noted above) to understand whether and how firms "maximize." If you're an economics neophyte, and a football fan, I highly recommend it.

Perhaps Obama should have listened to Joe Paterno, and David Romer, when calling the plays last year. And should have listened more to Christy Romer, and less (or not at all) to that jackass Larry Summers!