Jonathan Bennett - Teen Heartthrob Sighting on Nantucket

Smooth Operator Bennett w/Juice Guys Smoothie in Hand

Last evening on Main Street, we stumbled upon a swarm of giggling, swooning young girls and then emerged from the scrum Jonathan Bennett - better (best?) known as Aaron Samuels, Lindsay Lohan's love interest in Mean Girls (2004).

You remember the "pencil" scene, don't you?

A "Teen Choice Award" nominee, co-star of Amanda Bynes as well as Ms. Lohan and - by virtue of his turn in Mean Girls - a permanent stimulus to young girls everywhere, Johnathan was followed up and down the cobblestones by a pack of groupies.

the Rocky Road to Stardom

And OMG my intrepid twelve year old - like a moth to the flame - led the pack (though she worried she might be 'stalking').

... like father, like daughter!!  :-)

Yasher Ko'ach, Chuck Todd!

Shirat Ha'Yam congregation on Nantucket is a quirky little synagogue, tucked like a hemit crab into the historic Unitarian Church at 30 Orange Street in town, enlivened by a highly-transient summer population and - I'm told - a tiny but hardy off-season crew.  Many hoi polloi move-&-shake through in the summer months, and the sked of Friday evening services is programmed like Fred Silverman's Friday evening TV network slate, with guest speakers and stars a-plenty.

CBT - Scene of Intrigue

Shirat HaYam at Nantucket Unitarian

This past Friday was a Washington "power" theme, with guest rabbi Stuart Weinblatt of Congregation B'Nai Tzedek in Potomac MD, and NBC News Chief White House correspondent and Political Director Chuck Todd both in town.  Chuck is such a savvy prognosticator and an insightful handicapper of the political scene, so I was interested to hear what he would say.

Lo and behold, we found ourselves seated directly in front of Chuck and his lovely wife Kristian (who turns out to be a Democratic operative - Fritz Hollings, John Edwards, Gary Condit..), which means I got to give him the standard 'Well done' upon exit from the bimah following his erstaz d'var torah, and was able to chat afterward at some length.

Chuck shared a number of keen observations:

• On the election: "The race will be extremely, extremely tight .... Each week, I go back and forth believing one will win, then the other ... It's the economy versus demographics... at the moment, Obama is running a better campaign" (this last at precisely the instant Obama was telling a crowd in Roanoke "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.")
  
  
• On the simplistic campaign messaging so far, both sides: "It's small politics, and we've got big problems, and both candidates know it."
• On bias: "All corespondents are biased because of our personal histories - I grew up in Miami and I will typically be the only one in the pool bringing up Cuba, because I am so interested in it."
• On cynical character assassination: "Obama can't win on 'Are you better of than you were four years ago?' so he's trying to change the discussion to 'You'll be better off four years from now if you stick with me' by demonizing Romney."  Chuck astutely characterized Obama's current villainization of Bain as an obvious, transparent attempt to "Swift-boat" Romney.
• On the "father/son" impetus: "Every presidential candidate seems to have a drive related to his father: Obama, Clinton - they didn't have fathers. Bush, W. - his father's legacy, and George H.W.Bush's father Prescott before him.  Romney? His father's unfinished business as a candidate in 1968."

That's Sen. Kerry's (wife's) house, to left of Brant Point...

Gamely sporting the de riguer Nantucket reds yarmulke, our speaker took questions on topics like "Why do those mean Republicans keep trying to suppress and dis-enfranchise voters with Voter ID laws?" - which Chuck explained as a Republican strategy for getting out the vote.  He went on to argue that there is very little evidence of fraudulent vote-casting that would harm Republicans, although he was willing to say that Democrats will not admit that virtually all voters DO have ID, and there's no good reason a voter cannot obtain an ID in the next 4 months if s/he cares to vote on November 6.  Chuck's reasonable compromise? Grandfather the grandfathers: anyone over 65, who's been voting w/o ID for that long, gets to go on voting incognito.

"Black Hat" Todd

We talked about polling a bit, and Chuck classified only NBC and Fox as having truly first-class national polling activities - comprehensive, properly-weighted processes that involve a balanced oversight by paired Democrat and Republican polling professionals working together.

Another question pertained to viability of a third party, and Chuck laid out had a cascade of comparisons to 1992 (Perot), 1980 (Anderson) and even invoked T.R.'s Bull Moose party.

I was especially happy to hear him bring Americans Elect into the conversation - innovators who attempted this year to organize the first online Presidential nomination giving Americans a direct voice in the process.

My friend and old classmate Dan Winslow, future Attorney General of the U.S., is Chief Legal Counsel for Americans Elect.  Although unsuccessful in its maiden voyage in 2012, AE represents a robust, positive and non-partisan effort to advance and elevate American presidential politics and I wish them well.  Chuck expressed intrigue too.

All in all, a nice evening that provided equal measure of enlightenment (Mr. Todd) and atonement (Mr. Weinblatt), making for a fine start to a sunny week on-island!  Mazel Tov, Mr. Todd!

Two summers ago, Shirat Ha'Yam attendees were treated to the words of an earnest gent, recently departed of the Washington Post to toil for new Obama US representative to the United Nations Susan Rice.  This mensch assured the congregation that Obama would be "a strong ally to Israel" and "good for the Jews."  After three years of Obama's shredding of a lifetime of US-Israeli relations, this gent no longer can show his face on the island, for fear of being taken into the harbor and keelhauled - at sunset - by "Song of the Sea" congregants....

On-Island w/ Peter Barnes, the Nantucket Cat

 Arrival 5:00pm today!

With a three year old in tow, my wife and I were strolling out of Black Eyed Susan's on Nantucket's crooked little India Street after a fantastic stack of pancakes (batter made with a special ingredient - Orange Juice), when we spotted a small commotion next door in the children's clothing/toy store.

Turned out to be a book signing, and the kiddie-lit author was (then-)CNBC financial news correspondent Peter Barnes.

Nantucket Islander Peter Barnes

Got to shake hands and speak with him a bit, and we yakked about Washington DC where we then lived, and where he served then as host for the CNBC financial/political analysis show "Capitol Gains."  Today, Pete's the senior Washington correspondent for Fox Business News.  A class act, and a Nantucket fanatic.

Like An Ac-Ro-Bat

There is now an entire genre of formula-driven book titles for kids, with endearing characters (bears, dogs, etc.) set in resort locations.  For instance one can find Barnaby Bear in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Central Park, and probably by now in Aspen and Carmel.  Well, in June, 1997 the formula wasn't yet old and it was a refreshing novelty to find a book set on Nantucket.  Nat quickly became a family favorite.

We enjoyed this book dozens, perhaps a hundred or more times.   And we still recite the sing-song rhymes about Nat and his pal, Captain Pat, whenever prompted.

Drinking with Mad Scientist Dean Kamen

Dean & his Segway

May, 2007 (Chicago):  NCIIA, a great organization that encourages technology entrepreneurship by preparing engineering concepts incubated on the campuses to launch, was at the Chicago Art Museum to participate in presentation of the Lemelson-MIT "EurekaFest" Awards to technology innovators.  I was part of the scene and our patron, the Lemelson Foundation, had invited an impressive guest-list.  Included was the great but enigmatic Dean Kamen - originator of the FIRST competition (similar to NCIIA's work, but targeted at high school age science whiz-kids) and inventor of numerous products including the Segway.

Father Jack had a bent for the dramatic

I was cutting through the crowd with a glass of fine red wine when I spotted the diminutive Kamen, clad in trademark denim work shirt and pants.  Strode right up and introduced myself - he certainly knew of NCIIA and I also had a personal card to play: My mother-in-law and her late husband had owned a vacation home on the perimeter of StoneBridge Golf & Country Club in  Boca in the 1980's-90's.  Their next door neighbors and friends were Dean's parents, Jack and Evelyn.

Jack had been an illustrator for Weird Science,  Tales from the Crypt, and MAD Magazine in the 1960's.

Well, Dean and I shot the breeze for a bit; he had mixed memories of Boca Raton and obviously preferred the inventor's bench and the life of the mind to life on the golf course.  Dean was a bit of a nebbish - but he's the awesome nebbish who invented the Segway!  He seemed interested in my tales of Discovery Channel's groundbreaking Australian co-pro "Beyond 2000" and two years later he would combine with Discovery's Planet Green network to create the series "Dean of Invention."

Valpo "Reverser"

We saw the awards given out, and the wine bottles cleared away.  Next morning, early, I drove into Indiana to pay a visit to the Valparaiso U. engineering department and survey their Tech. Entrepreneurship program.

Toward the end of the tour, Dr. Doug Tougaw stunned me with a visit to the lab where his senior class quirky cap-stoners had reverse-engineered a Segway to build a clone from scratch, "for less than $1,800!"  Doug had his guys fire that thang up and give it a go.

Total boldness: the vehicle wheeled and dealed.

Innovation Run Wild

I marveled, and later that evening wrote to my new friend Dean, alerting him to the work of these enterprising engineers.

I imagined he might take an interest in the program, or at least offer a word of encouragement.  However, he never acknowledged my note, nor our conversation.  Oh well.

... The great screenplay "The A-Rabs Are Coming! The A-Rabs Are Coming!"  includes a magnificent scene with a pair of octogenarian blue-bloods cutting figure eights in the driveway to their Nantucket manse on a pair of birthday Segways.  Thank you, Dean Kamen!  Thank you.

Nantucket Week: Sen. John Kerry (D) MA.

Nantucket Week cut a bit short: this will be the final missive as ACK braces for Hurricane Earl

A window table for the Senator's party

The finest restaurant on Nantucket is The Galley, hands down.  Amazing food, perfect ambiance, tremendous staff, and the only Nantucket setting whence you can watch the sun set into the ocean while you sip champagne.  The Silva family has refined this masterpiece every year for decades and it is absolutely #1.

During one July evening in the run-up to the 2008 elections, as my party was tucking into dessert, in came John (President) Kerry, (First Lady) Theresa Heinz Kerry, and John's daughter Alexandra.  We exchanged brief pleasantries as he worked the room, my father (not a Kerry fan) nonetheless warming to him and commending him on his commitment as Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship.  We Massachusetts citizens ("voters") were honored to be in his company and delighted when he took the table behind ours, with the beach view.

On this particular night Theresa ordered the swordfish; The Senator had the duck.

After a day of wind-surfing, Senator John Kerry (D), MA is wont to drop by The Galley for delicious fare, and a highball or two with with the high-rolling island plumbers and electricians. 

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...