beg to dicker

The Heimer clan

2010-02-18T04:12:00.000-08:00

"Last name?"

"Heimer."

"First name?"

"Weisen."

"Wait, so you're Mr. Weisen Heimer?"

"I am, as a matter of fact."

"I've heard about you. Kind of a joker, right?"

"Well, I suppose so. But at least I'm not a paranoid agoraphobic like my cousin John."

"Wait, are you talking about John Jacob Jingle--?"

"Yes. Sad case. Didn't take his mother's remarriage to Mr. Schmidt well. Hates that hyphenated last name. Thinks people are always calling him."

"Always?"

"Well, whenever he goes out."

Toyota dealer faces suddenly rocky road

2010-02-18T04:04:00.000-08:00

I’m about two-thirds of the way through “Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road from Glory to Disaster” by Paul Ingrassia of The Wall Street Journal, but I have to put it down for a while because it’s too depressing. “[A] devastating and compelling narrative of the ongoing hubris and miscalculation that felled one of our country’s corporate treasures,” wrote one reviewer. And that’s mild.

Compounding the perplexity of it all is the example set by Japanese automakers. As Detroit worked hard to snatch defeat from victory, Japan slowly and steadily created a dynasty by keeping its eye on the prize: building quality cars that people wanted.

Now it’s finally Japan’s turn in the hotseat. Toyota, which in 2007 pushed the great GM aside as the world’s biggest automaker, has suddenly been hit with a series of recalls that will cost billions to remedy. Worse than the financial cost, the company has acknowledged, is the damage to its reputation for quality.

The question, as Detroit has learned the hard way, is how a company reacts when things go wrong. Here’s what Toyota President Akio Toyoda had to say at his press conference: “We will do everything in our power to regain the confidence of our customers.”

Those are certainly the right words, but will actions speak as loudly? I asked Ted Lucki.

Lucki owns Riverhead Toyota, which since its start in 1994 has become the biggest dealership on the East End, selling some 2,000 cars a year. Frankly, I expected him to dodge the call. Lots of people in tough situations do. But Lucki called right back, and that set the tone.

How’s it going? Well, it’s kind of like an illness in the family. “I’m getting a lot of phone calls,” Lucki said. “A Polish customer dropped off a kielbasa. A priest came in to pray for me. I’m not kidding.”

That family theme kept repeating. “We like to promote from within,” Lucki said. Conversely, facing the onslaught of recalls, there have been demotions within: Two salesmen who started as mechanics have been returned to the shop. “They’re a little shocked, but they realize it makes sense,” Lucki said. “We’re a family. We do what’s got to be done when the family needs it.”

What’s got to be done now is a lot of recall work. Lucki said they’re fixing about 30 cars a day, and extending hours to make it possible. “We’re retraining, regrouping, reorganizing, restaffing,” he said. Toyota is helping by funding it all and providing the necessary parts promptly.

“The difficult part will be, from a business point of view, reinstalling confidence,” Lucki said. Realizing that nourishing positive PR would help, he’s giving owners of cars in for recall work coupons for a free lunch next door at Panera Bread. If both recalls are performed, at a total of 2.5 hours, “that’s a long time to wait,” Lucki said.

This isn’t the only speedbump ever encountered by Riverhead Toyota. “The economy affected us, no question about it,” Lucki said. “Business is way off,” down an estimated 30 percent from 2008 to 2009. On the upside there’s been more service, as more people fixed cars instead of buying new. “And the clunker thing actually helped move things along,” Lucki said. They sold about 150 cars through the federal program, and it was “manna from heaven.” Since then things have been slowly improving. “Now this,” he said.

Slow and steady is the road back, as Lucki sees it. Kind of like Toyota’s path when it was first trying to find its way into an American market completely dominated by Detroit. “Toyota’s into doing it right,” Lucki said. “They think before they act.”

He guesses that the company will pull out of this skid and find traction again before too long. “I could be wrong,” Lucki said. But it’s a pretty good bet he’s right.

***

This is my last East End column for Long Island Business News. The company has decided to head into more straight news, which I’ve been asked to help supply. Thanks for your three-plus years of readership, and as always, if you have any news tips to share, please e-mail me at jdmiller49@yahoo.com.

Long Island Business News / February 17, 2010

North Fork's LIRR riders blow the whistle

2010-02-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

Rebels are once again rattling swords and threatening secession. The East End’s awake.

This happens every so often and then dissolves in simmering resentment. Usually it foments a brief resuscitation of the Peconic County movement, which is now probably around 50 years old and getting gray around the muzzle.

Generally the spark is financial, as in too much tax going out and not enough services coming in, but once in a while there are specific flashpoints, such as the Shoreham nuclear plant. When East Enders complained that they wouldn’t be able to escape westward in the event of a meltdown, who can forget then-Suffolk Comptroller Joe Caputo replying something to the effect of, “What’s the problem? They all have boats, don’t they?”

Some feel that kind of nurturing attitude is evident in the latest flare-up. This time it’s not Suffolk but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority playing the heavy. At issue is the MTA’s plan to shut down one Long Island Rail Road train from Brooklyn to Montauk and all service to the North Fork except for summer weekends.

Adding outrage is the timing, coming on the heels of Albany’s approval of the payroll tax to help close the MTA’s monster budget gap. “It’s taxation without transportation” was the snappy battle cry issued by Southold Supervisor Scott Russell at a recent rabble rousing in Greenport. “The East End can no longer serve as a cash cow to fund a system that mainly benefits New York City,” said County Legis. Ed Romaine. If the MTA doesn’t relent, he will call for immediate secession from the MTA and creation of a Peconic transportation authority.

Also backlashing has been William Schoolman, president of Hampton Luxury Liner, who recently wrote a $7,000 check to cover his MTA tax and then filed a complaint challenging the law’s constitutionality. It’s illegal on a number of counts, he contends, but on a personal level it’s “particularly outrageous” because it forces him into the unpleasant position of subsidizing his competition, as he wrote in a recent commentary for Long Island Business News.

This is a sad turn in many ways, but especially for the North Fork, which has had a long love affair with the LIRR, dating back to that joyful July 27, 1844, when an all-day celebration marked the opening of the Main Line to Greenport. That put the North Fork on the agricultural and economic map, and forged an emotional bond that would be severely tattered by this cutback.

But you can’t run a railroad on sentiment. The MTA faces a $400 million budget gap. Deficits have been run up “across the MTA family,” authority spokesman Aaron Donovan told me the other day. Cutbacks are planned “across the region, from the East End of Long Island to Rockland County. New York City is getting the most because that’s where the most service is.”

Of the LIRR cutbacks, the greatest impact is seen in the move from four peak trains to two on the Babylon branch, according to documents supplied by Donovan. There it’s projected that 1,100 passengers would be affected daily and $1.05 million would be saved in 2011. Second greatest would be the Greenport cutback, saving $991,000 but affecting only 190 passengers on weekdays and 160 on weekends.

Parsing those numbers, is it fair to say that the North Fork is the LIRR’s least profitable run? That’s kind of beside the point, MTA and LIRR spokesmen told me. All mass transit runs at a deficit. In the case of the LIRR, fares make up only 44 percent of the cost of the service, the rest coming from government subsidies. So the question isn’t so much revenue as it is ridership, and there the North Fork isn’t big. In 2008, for instance, those 160 weekend passengers meant 960 empty seats.

But still, it’s been a longtime and dedicated ridership, and those riders and their representatives deserve a chance to weigh in on the issue. In an unfortunate example of tone deafness, the MTA scheduled no hearings on the East End, “the latest slap in a long list of slaps in the face,” groused William Lindsay, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature.

The hearing is now slated for Monday, March 8, at County Center in Riverhead.

Long Island Business News / Feb. 11, 2010

Watching rentals for signs of life

2010-02-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Are we officially into Recovery yet? The answer may come as quickly as next weekend.

That’s President’s Day weekend, which is a holy day of another sort on the East End: the traditional kickoff of the summer rental season. If you’re thirsty for economic tea leaves, you could do worse than reading these.

“President’s Day weekend is when people really start looking, but last year it didn’t really happen,” Karli Kittine of Corcoran Group Real Estate in Southampton told me this week. “It started much later.”

That’s an indicator. In the wintry grip of the financial crisis, summer people were nervous, like skittish antelopes. Not only did they come late to the watering hole, they came for briefer sips.

“It was still a decent season but [activity started] closer to Memorial Day,” Kittine said. Also, there tended to be more short-term rentals and fewer for the full season.

There’s another force at work and it has to do with plumage. “I think people don’t want to be showy” in this bleak climate, Kittine said, (noting with a laugh that, for herself, that’s not an issue). “Instead of $150,000 for the full season, they might do $50,000 for August through Labor Day. But be a little more conscious about it.”

Laura Holson mentioned that trend in her recent New York Times column.

“Now,” she wrote, “after a year of self-imposed austerity and in what is shaping up as a spectacular bonus season, the Wall Street crowd is shaking off what one luxury retailer called its ‘frugal fatigue.’ Unlike earlier spending sprees, however, the consumption will be a lot less conspicuous.”

That’s widely expected to spark a boost in sales and rentals out east, but an interesting spin might be a continued move toward the North Fork, where lots more living can be had if renters are willing to make do with a little less glam.

Back in the Hamptons, as indicators go, the high-end rental market isn’t much of a bellwether, according to Judi Desiderio, president and chief executive of Town and Country Real Estate. Speaking of the rarefied realm of oceanfront rentals, she said, “You can count them on one hand, so they’re going to go.” More telling is activity in lower price ranges “If you have a four- or five-bedroom north of the highway in the woods with a pool, unless it’s priced right and dressed beautifully, it might not get rented.”

Thus, it’s still a buyers’ market, Desiderio said, and canny renters can use that to their advantage. They know that many owners “would prefer to have a real person in [a house] than leave it vacant,” she said, “so they can negotiate a couple weeks on either side [of a short-term rental] for not much money.”

Desiderio did a study on renters and buyers a few years ago, finding that about 70 percent come from New York City and as many as 25 percent from abroad, mainly Europe. In years past that foreign infusion seemed the least predictable, but now it’s the Gotham escapees who are getting hard to prejudge, as they deal with so many influences, including, of course, post-traumatic stress from the market plunge. There are all the Wall Streeters who lost their jobs and bonuses. More subtle will be the behavior of those financiers who didn’t lose their jobs and bonuses but are wrestling with the fear of seeming ostentatious. The coming weekend “will be a good indicator of what’s going on the city,” Desiderio said.

If the recovery is, in fact, afoot, it’s likely that a lot of the rental picture will be in focus by the end of President’s Day weekend or at least the weekend after, when “close to 50 percent” of the deals traditionally have been done, according to Desiderio. Does she anticipate fireworks?

“I’ve been monotoring the market for close to 30 years,” she said. “Truth be told, a trend started in August. Momentum is building. It’s a good market, not great. Nowhere near the top or bottom.”

So we’re stuck in limbo?

“No, it’s healthy,” she said. “It’s still a buyers’ market, but we’re not seeing the market come down. A floor’s been established and it’s holding strong.”

Long Island Business News / February 4, 2010

Hamptons needs Wall St. bonuses

2010-01-28T04:18:00.000-08:00

If you’re snowed in on the East End and want to fill a few idle hours, try this: Open the Yellow Pages, call all the investment houses in the Hamptons and ask what they think about the big Wall Street bonuses.

First you’ll be struck by the many phones that simply don’t answer. Then there are the brusque deflections. “No, no, we don’t do anything like that,” said one woman at a place that begins with “Citi.”

I was thinking about the bonuses because the health of the Hamptons economy is often linked to the magnitude of the annual Wall Street baksheesh. You don’t have to look hard to find connections between the two out there in the Zeitgeist. In his Wall Street Journal column, James B. Stewart recently wrote that despite the biggest bonuses ever, some Wall Streeters are complaining that not enough will be in cash, causing a liquidity squeeze.

“I’ve been wondering just what kind of squeeze that might be,” Stewart stewed. He then went on to list a mogul’s likely expenses, including, of course, “that shingle-style mansion in East Hampton (not even on the beach) for $6.5 million.” And “two Mercedes SUVs for the Hamptons ($120,000).”

The East Hampton Star has been thinking about it too, as revealed in a recent story subheaded, “Real estate agents hope for Wall Street trickle-down.” Kate Meier’s lede summed up our ethical dilemma neatly: “Whatever the moral implications of doling out bonuses exponentially higher than most Americans’ annual income, real estate professionals agree that big payouts on Wall Street will mean good things for the market here.”

While doing my own stewing about it all, I unexpectedly hit paydirt. A Hamptons financier returned my call.
It was Marc Lowlicht, president of the wealth management division of Further Lane Asset Management. The company has offices in Manhattan, East Hampton, San Francisco and Santa Fe, but Further Lane is in East Hampton, so I think we can claim it as ours. Also, that’s where Lowlicht is based, where his home is and where his two kids are in school.

Lowlicht called the big bonus/big greed screed “a huge generalization.” There are plenty of financiers who aren’t getting these lavish bonuses, he said. Him, for instance.

Also his boss, J. Michael Araiz. “He’s a perfect example,” Lowlicht said. “He’s not taking any pay this year.” Instead, he’s using the money to pay the salaries of his 25 employees.

Furthermore, he said the bonuses are a major part of Wall Street compensation, for which people work hard and do important things. “If we raise $50 million for an alternative energy company that opens a plant in the Midwest and hires 150 new people, I think that’s value added. We’re improving the economy.”

But the AIG bonuses are “a whole different story,” he said. “I don’t think firms bailed out by the public should be in the same boat. You don’t get bonuses for bad management. I think what AIG did is disgraceful.”

As for the Hamptons and its perceived symbiosis with Wall Street greed, he said, “There will always be a love/hate relationship with the rest of the world,” but that’s not the way it feels from the inside. “Kids from families with lots of money go to school with the kids of day workers,” he said. “We’re all intermingled and we all get along.”

And at present, by the way, the Hamptons economy “is not great,” he said. “A lot of people are struggling. I know people who live like multimillionaires whose net worth is 70 grand. One of the most difficult things is to go from a certain lifestyle to a lesser one. People don’t go from driving a Lexus to a Toyota without suffering a lot.”

But as ever, the Hamptons will recover. “I think the market is stabilizing,” he said. And despite the steepness of the plunge, Lowlicht thinks the effects will linger only three to five years, instead of the usual five to seven.

“I think some policies are taking hold,” Lowlicht said.

Growth will be “muted,” but “we always find our way out. I think it’s a good dose of medicine. I think it’s put us back on the track of how to behave responsibly.”

Long Island Business News / January 27, 2010

Riverhead’s problems the stuff of myth

2010-01-20T11:14:00.000-08:00

The Greeks had their Minotaur, a bull-headed beast who dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth. Every once in a while some tender young citizens would be sent in to be eaten. That’s the way they rolled back then.

We’re much more modern. Our version of the Labyrinth is downtown Riverhead and the Minotaur is all the empty storefronts, recently estimated at a depressing 80 percent of the whole. Instead of youths, we send in supervisors to be sacrificed occasionally.

The latest to be dispatched was Phil Cardinale, who served in Riverhead’s top spot for three terms before he was vanquished by Sean Walter in the recent election. “The fall of downtown” was a key battle cry of the Walter campaign and it resonated.

Of course there were other issues at play as well, and other mythologies too. For instance, the fourth-term curse. This is a malady that’s brought down many a pol over the years, from Southampton Supervisor Skip Heaney to Southold Supervisor Jean Cochran to Congressman Michael Forbes, then of Riverhead. Also falling victim was U.S. Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, where there have been so many fourth-term Senate failures that they have a special name for it, “Karl’s Curse,” which is another story.

There are lots of reasons for the fourth-term jinx. The main one is this: The friction of the first three has usually sharpened enough knives to bring almost anybody down.

Now it’s Walter’s turn to take a stab at the bull-headed beast. He used his inaugural address to declare war.

“The complaining and crying about downtown ends today,” vowed the newly minted supervisor, as quoted by The News-Review. “We cannot and I will not accept failure as an option. We are going to dramatically change downtown for the better. Not with futuristic plans that sit on artists’ easels but with a real approach that brings businesspeople, capital sources and creativity together, and allows government to act as a facilitator, not a roadblock.”

That easels remark was a sharp stab at Cardinale, who had such high hopes for the gaudy $500 million Apollo Real Estate Advisors downtown renaissance plan, of which not a stick got built. In a candidates’ forum in October, Walter charged, “Apollo, in my opinion, is the death knell of downtown Riverhead.” (Earlier in the campaign, citing the 2001 failure to transform the Suffolk Theatre into a performing arts center, he said, “That event precipitated the fall of downtown.”)

Whatever killed the place, he made it clear it was all Cardinale’s fault. How will Walter do it differently? How can we know that he won’t be just the latest supervisor thrown to the Minotaur?

Here’s Walter’s plan, as announced at his inauguration: “We will renew downtown the old-fashioned way, with open green spaces and by encouraging the arts, fostering the history of our downtown and creating a reason for people to come downtown.”

Well, good luck with that.

Walter isn’t going into this battle alone; he’ll be backed by an all-Republican town board. Maybe unanimity will help, but political coloration hasn’t made any difference to the Minotaur in the past. Cardinale, a Democrat, had his Apollo (speaking of Greek mythology). A decade before him came Republican Supervisor Jim Stark, under whom Route 58’s Tanger Outlets arrived. And if that mega-mall wasn’t enough, a Tanger food court was eventually (somehow) allowed, eliminating the last flimsy reason for the northern hordes to venture downtown.

In between were Independent Vinnie Villella and Republican Bob Kozakiewicz. Villella campaigned to save downtown and then, once elected, promptly closed his downtown shoe store. Another morsel for the Minotaur.

The point is that downtown Riverhead is a beast of a problem that’s proven itself impervious to everything, especially words hurled by politicians. Despite the new supervisor’s ridicule of easels, it’s going to take some solid plans launched by bold investors. Things like the 101-room Hyatt Palace hotel to be built beside Atlantis Marine World Aquarium, a brave venture now backed by a $2.4 million state grant.

Eventually something like that, along with a global economy no longer in crisis, will start the long-awaited downtown Riverhead renaissance. And whoever’s sitting in the supervisor’s chair will get credit for being the hero who slew the Minotaur.

Long Island Business News / January 20, 2010

Winterspring music warms venues

2010-01-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

Over time, the East End has done an impressive job of expanding its seasons. A brief history:

In the beginning there was summer, when Manhattan tycoons would send their families out east for the cooling breezes and waters, then would follow on the Friday afternoon train.

Eventually our wholesale farms made the transition to retail/agritainment, and presto: Fall was born. When you see our slender east-west roads packed solid all the way back to the LIE in October, you learn the hard way how huge pumpkin season has become.

And yea, there cometh Christmastide, with masses of West Enders piling into Jeeps to slouch east for a day of tree-hunting and last stops at the vineyards for fortification.

All that’s left is the current period, which could be bundled up and called winterspring because it lacks the gusto to do either well. Sometimes there’s snow but, until Riverhead Resorts builds its indoor Aspen (any day now) there’s no ski mountain. Spring is kind of like winter until the temperature suddenly spikes 40 degrees on Memorial Day and it’s “summer” again.

So the question for East End merchants has been, what to do about winterspring? Some retailers simply give up, close down and wait for the hordes to return. Some shops and restaurants stay open, earning our admiration and appreciation. But some entrepreneurial sorts have taken up the cudgel, trying to beat gold from the lead of winterspring.

One such effort is Jazz on the Vine, which is the centerpiece of Winterfest, an East End business collaboration begun five years ago. Winterfest itself “didn’t have a whole lot of success,” in the words of Pat Snyder, executive director of the East End Arts Council. “The idea was, if they did something together, we would support the joint effort, placing music [there].” Such as, “if a B&B and a vineyard got together … It was all kind of fuzzy.”

Clarity came three years ago with Jazz on the Vine, which was and is a straight infusion of free (FREE!) musical performances at East End venues, backed Suffolk County Economic Development, the Long Island Convention & Visitor Bureau, the Long Island Wine Council and the EEAC.

It was an immediate hit. Year one featured five winterspring weekends and 50 concerts at area vineyards. Last year the numbers spiked to six weekends and 66 concerts, boosted by the addition of restaurants and hotels to the venue list. Meanwhile, funding grew to some $100,000.

This year the numbers are staying flat, thanks (or rather, no thanks) to pandemic cuts in arts funding. Nevertheless, Jazz on the Vine has become a big blast of bright in the dark months out east. “Oh my gosh, it’s been enormous,” Snyder said when asked about its impact. “Before this the vineyards were totally quiet during February and March. Now they’re filled to capacity during concerts.” Venue revenue is up 200 percent, she said. She’s heard of vineyard owners out in their icy parking lots directing jazz fans to other vineyards because they were overflowing.

“The energy level is really high throughout the whole period,” Snyder said. Last year, after a performance by Bakithi Khumalo, the renowned South African bassist who’s backed everyone from Cyndi Lauper to Paul Simon, musicians from other concerts flocked to Khumalo’s side and the jamming went on deep into the wintry night.

An addition this year is support and participation by Steinway & Sons. And so, if attendees note an emphasis on piano solos, here’s why: The company is sending Steinways from its new showroom in Melville for piano-centric performances.

Snyder gave up her Christmas vacation for this, making myriad arrangements, finalizing 66 musician contracts, etc. “But it pays off in February and March,” she said. It helps that she’s a big jazz fan.

Styles range all over, from Dixieland to avant garde. And the rewards are rangy too. “Everyone benefits,” Snyder said. “Vineyards, restaurants, hotels, and musicians too.”

This year’s concerts begin with JaLaLa on Feb. 6 at Raphael in Peconic. They end with the last of the Steinway series on March 21, with Nilson Matta Brazilian Voyage Trio at the new Sparkling Pointe in Southold.

Long Island Business News / January 14, 2010

One restaurant shakes off recession

2010-01-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

It’s always interesting to watch the migration of businesses around the East End. Some switch from the North Fork to the South for various reasons. Some do the reverse. And some go biforkal.

One that made a move from South to North is The Clearing House eXchange, the big consignment shop that came up from Southampton three years ago. Co-owner Victoria Collett told me the other day that the move was based on a desire to expand, but also on the differing attitudes North and South. “There’s a perception of the Hamptons that you overpay for what you buy,” she said. “That’s not the case in our store, but there isn’t that perception on the North Fork.”

The move has been a success, according to Collett. The store’s fans have had no trouble adjusting to the new site, many regulars devotedly making the trip up from the Hamptons.

Meanwhile, Love Lane Kitchen is poised to go biforkal. In its three short years, the Mattituck restaurant has become a central part of the North Fork scene. Based on its success, it’s now adding a second location at Poxabogue Golf Course in Wainscott.

“We’ve found a niche,” owner Mike Avella told me. “High-quality casual food with good value at reasonable prices, with a focus on local produce all prepared fresh.”

Reviewers tend to apply descriptions like “cute,” “quaint,” “adorable” and “like you’ve stepped onto the set of a ’50s TV show.” But the wording gets more serious on the subject of the food, which includes all kinds of interesting creations, from a Kobe beef hot dog to duck tagine, served in a domed Moroccan cooking vessel. They even do their own coffee roasting.

There’s an easy way to tell if the Kitchen is for real: Just cook up a Great Recession and then check its receipts. “Whether we’re just hitting our stride or for whatever reason, we’re up a lot this year – 24 percent,” Avella said. Even he considers it “unexpected” in the midst of “a tough year” that’s seen other restaurants closing.

One of those getting out is Dan Murray of Danny’s Poxabogue Café, a breakfast/lunch institution at the golf course. After encountering some lease disputes with the landlords (Southampton and East Hampton towns), he’s moving on and Love Lane Kitchen is moving in. Avella’s thinking went as follows: “The opportunity came along; we’ve got a concept that’s worked – we’ll do it.”

The rent is double what he’s paying in Mattituck (“at the upper limit of what I think is reasonable”), but for that he gets a slightly bigger space (35 tables inside and about as many out) and that “terrific location” right on Montauk Highway.

He thinks the Kitchen’s niche is underserved on the South Fork, and so is hopeful for another warm response. After doing some renovations, including a new kitchen, he hopes to be cooking by April.

Avella worked as a self-described computer geek on Wall Street for nearly 20 years before moving on, going to culinary school and working in a series of restaurants all over the country. Then a friend told him that Connie’s Bake Shop & Cafe on Love Lane was closing. “It seemed like a nice fit,” Avella said. “And not a lot of money at the time.”

Three years later he’s in love with Love Lane and what it’s brought him. He tells his staff they’re not in the restaurant business but the hospitality business, and to “welcome customers like they would in their own home.” He sends staffers to conventions around the country to “bring back ideas and enthusiasm.” Said Avella, “It seems to have been successful. I’ve got such a terrific staff, and some have been here almost since we opened.”

He’s done the math and expects operating two restaurants on two forks will be double the work and maybe more, but that’s no deterrent. “I never worked this hard on Wall Street,” he said. Also, “I never expected to get rich here, and so far it’s bearing out.”

But “I love my restaurant,” he said. “I love my staff and my customers. I love getting to know my neighbors.”

Evidently the place is aptly named.

Long Island Business News / January 6, 2010

Old-world craftsman, new-world tech

2009-12-31T06:12:00.001-08:00

There was an interesting exchange on Robert Meyer’s vintage guitars Web site a while back. The headline (“Collecting Vintage Guitars is a Financially Sound Investment”) insistently summed it up. Then, as evidence, Meyer went on to spin tales of a 1959 Fender Sunburst Stratocaster ($250 new) now bringing $17,000. And Eric Clapton’s favorite Strat from the ’70s, which sold for almost a million.

“Values only continue to go up,” Meyer wrote. To which a commenter replied, “Yes, interesting, but with the credit crisis, where will the vintage market be in a year?”

Meyer published his article on Sept. 28, 2008. The next day Congress rejected the $700 billion bailout package and $1.2 trillion disappeared from the U.S. stock market. And now James R. Baker of Shoreham can tell you where the vintage guitar market is a year and a few months later.

“This year has been very hard,” he told me the other day. In fact, he said, “I’m not sure why I’ve survived all these years” while other guitar makers and restorers have gone out of business.

A big reason is that Baker learned early on the value of diversifying. Raised in Queens, he lived in Huntington in the ’70s and ’80s and worked in Manhattan for design companies, doing projects of every kind, including furniture.

At his first firm his boss drove home the eggs-in-many-baskets philosophy. “All it takes is a slowdown and you’re really in trouble,” he was catechized. “That’s why I still make furniture and do design work.”

With the ’80s recession he and his family moved to Shoreham, which he describes as “a wonderful place – so many creative people here.”

Now another recession is gnawing and Baker is again finding ways to survive. That involves a three-prong assault, with an eBay outlet for lower-end instruments, a Web site for his most avant-garde guitars and auction houses for historic pieces. It’s all backed up by his custom furniture work. Plus he’s working on a book, which, fittingly, is about managing creative work.

Other than guitars, that’s the subject Baker is hottest on: the financing struggle faced by creative people in a bottom-line world. If you have a pizza place, no problem, he fumes. But if you make rare guitars, you’re in a gray area, regardless of the fact that you’ve never missed a bill payment. “And don’t even get me started on ARC loans.”

His solution: Work even harder, leverage your house and use credit cards when necessary. “What else can you do?” he said.

Countering the economic angst is the beauty of the work, which is its own reward. Baker loves woodworking and his James R. Baker guitars, which sell in the $4,000 range, show it. He’s one of a smallish breed devoted to the survival of archtop guitars. But that’s not his only focus. “My favorite guitars are the instruments with a story,” he said. “I could give you a 15-minute history on almost every one in my collection.”

Such as his Mario Maccaferri guitar, one of the first made by plastic injection. No, it’s not a classic rosewood Martin, but it represents a watershed moment in guitar history. “He had the guts to invent the next generation,” prefiguring Ovation and the others, Baker said.

Not that he doesn’t have his own stash of magnificent old Martins and Gibsons, plus some very rare instruments, such as a 1790s Fabricatore, dating back to the guitar’s very beginnings.

What’s striking about it all is that such reverence for old-world craftsmanship can find a place in modern times. A Web site offering such gems is like a detour in a time machine.

Baker is excited about it and about reaching a new generation.

“Kids today are really amazing,” he said. “So smart, so quick to absorb new things. They don’t have the cultural boundaries my generation had.” In other words, they’re not locked into a Les Paul as the only guitar worth wanting. “They’re not attached to one look,” he said. “Their vistas are open wide.”

And so, despite the struggles and the recession, Baker is optimistic that his guitars will play on. An indicator: He’s only been marketing via the Internet a short while but already he’s sold six guitars.

Long Island Business News / December 29, 2009

Spreading some holiday deer

2009-12-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

You think your job is hard, try finding a heartwarming economic column to wrap up 2009. I asked around the East End and came up with some pretty threadbare suggestions. For instance this: “Well,” said my dentist, Dr. Al, “body shops are busy because of all the deer accidents.”

And that was the best of them.

But as East Enders know, the deer menace is considerable, growing and getting lots of press. When “Today” show host Matt Lauer collided with one in the Hamptons in March it was big news. Adding impact was the fact that Lauer was on his bike at the time.

A while back a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study estimated that 1.5 million deer crashes occur each year causing $1.1 billion in damage and 150 deaths, and the totals are rising. The study listed the top 10 crash states and New York wasn’t on the list, but if it were broken down by towns, I’ll bet the East End would be way up there.

All those collisions mean business. Are the numbers up? “Absolutely,” said Brian Klos of Ted’s Auto Body in Peconic. “Maybe 10 cars a week – twice as much as ever.”

Deer strikes account for 20 to 30 percent of business at Fireplace Auto Collision in East Hampton, reported office manager Lily Paulovic. One day last year they took in a record nine such cars in a single day, until it became ridiculous. The numbers were big last year and about the same this year. “They’re everywhere,” Paulovic said. The other day she was driving her truck, glanced over and saw a deer running alongside, like traffic.

Same thing, of course, on Shelter Island, which has evolved into virtually a moated deer community. “I’ve never seen this many,” said George Hubbard at Hubbard’s Repair Shop. “They come walking right down the street in broad daylight.”

When not cruising the streets, deer are devouring vegetation. New York state took it seriously enough to send Suffolk County almost $1 million for agricultural deer fencing this year. Last year 66 farmers won such grants, and each got some $14,000 worth of fencing, according to a story in The Suffolk Times.

“We employ fencers and give them a lot of work,” Vickie Cardaro of Buttercup Farms on Shelter Island told me. But a hungry doe is persistent, and so fencing strategy has had to become almost a military operation. These days she favors the “double-four” technique, which involves two four-foot fences four feet apart. “Deer have very poor depth perception,” she said. The double hurdle apparently is enough to discourage leaping.

As for landscaping, after 11 years in the trenches Cardaro said she’s “got it down to a science.” Her weapons: boxwood, ornamental nepeta and a few others. Eight years ago spirea used to work “but now they eat that too,” she said. “I’ve learned that deer can change diets over the years.”

How much of Cardaro’s career is tied up in deer management? “One hundred percent,” she said. “My whole life is entirely about the deer.” Every season has its challenges. “After Labor Day we have to wrap trees with PVC or chicken wire.” Otherwise, during rutting season, stags rubbing velvet off their new antlers will destroy tree bark, which can lead to infestations, etc.

Much of her fencing business goes to Kingdom Fence in Riverhead, whose co-owner Bob Keen agrees that the double-four can be effective and less visually intrusive than taller blockades. Sometimes homeowners get so frustrated they spend as much as $20,000 putting up super structures to protect their properties. “Some homes look like concentration camps,” he said.

A hint of the desperation was evident at a recent Southampton Village Board meeting. Up for discussion was Mayor Mark Epley’s proposed law to allow residents to defend their homes with bows and arrows. Village officials were hesitant out of concern that arrows might zing into innocent passers-by.

At that point in the meeting, according to the Southampton Press story, village resident Heide Loefken asked if it would be OK if she dug a hole and enticed the deer to fall into it, “like a grave.” Said Loefken, “I’ve thought about this deeply.”

Long Island Business News / December 22, 2009

Landmark shop needs second miracle

2009-12-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

Samuel Levine founded the Arcade Department Store in 1928. One year later the stock market crashed but the Arcade rolled on, becoming a Greenport landmark. It was located in the heart of the village in every sense of the phrase.

Sixty-nine years later it was going out of business and Greenporters were bereft. With its wooden floors and aisles of necessities and notions, it was an emotional touchstone to the good old days.

Then a mercantile miracle happened: Bob and Roseanne Paquette appeared. Not only did they buy the old place, but they vowed to keep it as it was.

Now, 13 years later, the country’s battling another financial crisis and some fear this one might finally be the Arcade’s Waterloo. The store’s been on the market for a year but there are no serious offers. “Only bottom-feeders looking for a fire sale,” Bob Paquette told me last week. “I’m not looking for that.”

In the meantime, Paquette has reefed the store’s sails to weather the storm. Among other things, that’s meant cutting the staff from 22 to eight. Painful? “It certainly is,” he said. “Hours have been cut somewhat too.” Nevertheless, he said morale remains remarkably high. “The people here know we’re doing the best we can,” he said. “I’m very lucky; I’ve got a good crew.”

While the store cuts back, of course, costs do not. Energy, taxes, insurance – “they’re all going up,” Paquette said. “I’m trying to reinvent the store to keep it together.”

That reinvention involves a plan to lease out one-third of the space to others with products to sell. Products like sporting goods, shoes, linens, jewelry, gifts and art. “People are talking to me,” he said. “I’m taking phone numbers and will determine what’s best. I don’t want a flea market feel.”

Paquette said sharing space is an old idea that’s been used successfully across the country as the big-box revolution gutted downtowns. And for the record, he said, that’s what’s happening with the Arcade.

“It’s been very difficult to keep it going,” Paquette said. “There are so many second-home owners out here now,” and they tend to gravitate to Riverhead for their serious shopping. “It was hard when it was just Tanger,” he said. “But now it’s Tanger, Sports Authority, Best Buy, Michael’s, Border’s, TGIF. People make it a destination and stay all day.”

It’s “the way America’s gone,” he said, noting the transition from downtown shopping at places like Bohack and Sears.

Add to that a Great Recession and the slide gets steep. “New York sales tax receipts are down 30 to 35 percent,” Paquette said. “That tells you what’s happening.”

It’s a grim turn for someone who has a genetic attraction to all things five-and-dime. Paquette’s father was in the business for 50 years. “Retail was in my blood,” he told The New York Times in 1996. “I was always on the floor with my dad.”

Paquette himself worked at McClellan-McCrory in Riverhead before going into radio in New York. When he left that career in 1996, it was almost kismet that he found the Arcade with a “For Sale” sign in place.

It was a fortuitous pairing for both parties, but the joy is draining away now. “It’s a dinosaur,” Paquette said, and it would take a special person to want to ride it. “We carry over 40,000 items. A lot of people are intimidated by the inventory alone.”

The last year has been funereal for Paquette. Once he lived on a boat, and now he dreams about doing that again. Then there’s this fantasy: “I’d rather be a customer at the Arcade than the owner.”

Nevertheless, he’s going to soldier on with the shared-space plan in hopes that the old variety store can ride out this latest tempest.

Thirteen years ago I wrote a column wishing that there could be some kind of business preservation program, because some shops are as important to our sense of place as are the farms and the old homes we currently strive to save. The focus of the column was the Arcade. Then, miraculously, the Paquettes arrived and did it.

Is it too much to hope for another miracle?

Long Island Business News / December 16, 2009

Paparazzi swarm out east

2009-12-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

“Fame is a disease,” said comedian Margaret Cho, and she wasn’t joking. These days it’s a pandemic that afflicts both stars and the star-struck. Take, for instance, the Tiger Woods story.

Newspapers have been feasting on it, and not because he’s got a fun name (“Cagey Tiger,” “Tiger Hides His Tale,” etc.). Also not because it’s high time golf finally generated some shock value. It’s really all about us. Celebrity sells. Sex sells. Scandal sells. So a celebrity sex scandal is catnip on steroids. If people weren’t addicted to it, tabloids wouldn’t be surviving even as legitimate newspapers are folding.

Tiger is big-time catnip, and since there’s a scandal, of course it has a Hamptons connection. His alleged/rumored/staunchly denied mistress, Rachel Uchitel, reportedly has worked as a Hamptons nightclub hostess, “policing the velvet rope,” as the lush expression goes.

The last time Woods was linked to the Hamptons was March 2008, when rumors swirled (from the New York Post) that he had bought a $65 million waterfront home in Southampton. The story was debunked but still managed to live on for a while.

Another case of celebrity psychosis recently hit the East End in the form of “The Romantics,” the “Big Chill”-ish movie being filmed in and around Southold. For those whose People magazine subscriptions have expired, its cast includes Anna Paquin, Elijah Wood, Jeremy Strong, Adam Brody, Josh Duhamel and (cymbal crash, please) Katie Holmes.

It’s the last name that brought the paparazzi out in force, lining the beach to capture the filming of a bayside wedding scene. But since the beach was too low, the canny photogs raided local hardware stores to buy ladders, The Suffolk Times reported.

So showbiz has been good for the local economy. Motels, restaurants and coffee shops have also seen upticks. But since it’s fame we’re speaking of, there must also be a dose of crazy. It was summed up in a Times editorial headlined, “Paparazzi, don’t let the door hit you in the … ,” which culminated by asserting that the photographers’ “intrusive behavior … far outweighs the little good they’ve brought to the local economy.”

The Times itself, however, did photograph Tom Cruise (Katie Holmes’ husband, for those who read books) while jogging, and asked him a question, which he ignored. “And you know what?” said the editorial, “We completely understand.”

Nonetheless, the paper did put a video of the encounter on its Web site, and even the respectful Times was chastised by a reader in an online comment for intrusive behavior. The video is no longer available.

But what’s a newspaper to do? Imagine the debate inside the newsroom. Mega-stars are walking among us. If we ignore them, aren’t we missing a story? But if we cover it, how are we different from the paparazzi?

To get an insider’s thoughts, I called a paparazzo who was here for the big event. “No, I didn’t buy a ladder,” Bobby Bank told me. “I rented a speedboat.” (Coincidentally, he’s no stranger to the North Fork. As a kid he and his father used to go fishing out of Mitchell’s Dock in Greenport.)

Google “bobby bank romantics” and you’ll see a flood of his shots from Southold. A few days after his visit he told me by phone, “I’m just coming back from shooting Barry Manilow, Lance Armstrong and Matt Damon.” Every day, he said, many constellations of stars twinkle around the tri-state area. Bank and his long lenses zoom in on as many as possible, including “The Romantics” in Southold.

The 54-year-old Bank is unapologetic about his profession, and accepts the public’s hunger for what it is. Which means he treats celebrities as a sort of cash crop to be harvested with his camera. “I know the pulse of the city very well,” he said.

I read recently that paparazzi pay has declined from the glory days when a shot of a rampaging Britney Spears brought a reported $300,000. So how much will Bank’s Southold photos yield? He said it depends on how widely they’re purchased through WireImage and Getty Images, which broker his work. But he did assert this: The real money to be would have been a certain picture shot through an unshaded window. The subject: “Katie Holmes naked.”

Long Island Business News / December 10, 2009

Put to rest the myth of the highly paid doctor

2009-12-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

In case you missed it, there’s been lots of health talk recently. Much has been about patients struggling to get care. Rarely do we hear about doctors struggling to give it.

One such doctor is Erica Jurasits.

Not long ago the owner of North Country Family Health and Medicine in Rocky Point was thinking of giving up the fight. “I keep putting money in, reinvesting in the practice, but not getting anything back out,” she told me recently. “At some point you have to say that’s enough, cut your losses and move on. Join a multispecialty practice or become a teacher at the university. A lot of physicians are retiring early and moving out of state.”

But she doesn’t want to do any of that. “I love my practice, and I love my patients,” she said. “I think I give quality care but the business end of things gets a little difficult.”

The business end includes Long Island’s notoriously high real estate prices and taxes, plus salaries for her 3.5 employees, big student loans that are “like a second mortgage, basically,” and on and on. Worst of all is the “horrendous” malpractice insurance.

In Nassau/Suffolk, which ranks sixth highest in the nation, specialists pay well over $100,000. “Even family physicians are in the $20,000 range,” Jurasits said. Match all that outlay with inadequate HMO reimbursements and the dilemma is clear. “Insurance barely covers costs. I don’t even give vaccinations for HPV or shingles anymore.”

As a result, Jurasits began taking on more and more patients and seeing up to 50 a day. “It really burnt me out,” she said. “It’s what I needed to do to keep my practice afloat, but I just knew I couldn’t give quality care.” Since then she’s added another doctor and is cutting her appointments to a maximum of 30 a day.

Problem solved? “Not yet, but we’re working on it,” she said.

Jurasits brings a broad spectrum of experience to the subject. A 1991 graduate of the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, she interned at Peninsula Medical Center in Queens and then at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. On a health policy fellowship she helped write one of the nation’s first patient protection acts.

She also has two children, one of whom was home sick the day we spoke. So you could say that Jurasits sees health issues from all sides: public, private and practitioner. “Absolutely,” she agreed with a laugh.

And not only from a U.S. viewpoint, since she also did a residency rotation in England. I asked her about the popularly held notion that doctors in countries with nationalized health care make modest livings while those in the United States all live in beachfront mansions and drive Mercedeses. Her laugh turned rueful. “That’s a definite misconception,” she said. “We live in a two-bedroom ranch house on barely a quarter-acre, and it’s not on the water. I drive a little Toyota van.”

(By the way, she doesn’t have much hope for nationalized medicine here due to restricted access. “I don’t think the American people will stand for that,” she said.)

Meanwhile, some U.S. doctors aren’t standing for the current situation. Some have started charging a flat $75 per visit. Some are offering concierge service, in which patients pay a couple thousand dollars per year just to get guaranteed access. The advantage there is the ability to see fewer patients and give them more time and attention.

Jurasits has seen figures indicating that a primary care physician’s practice needs 3,000 to 4,000 active patients to survive. But that doesn’t work for her brand of doctoring. “Osteopaths are much more geared toward prevention,” she said, daunted by the notion of giving thorough care to that many patients.

Yet another problem might be the average person’s disbelief that doctors can suffer financial distress. It’s a refutation of a deeply held American belief: that medicine is a sure-fire career path to wealth.

These days, in many cases, it’s apparently not true. And after 11 years of practicing, six of them in her own company, Dr. Jurasits herself seemed surprised to be saying, “I would have thought it would be profitable.”

Long Island Business News / December 3, 2009

Restoring the Cricket II

2009-12-10T10:50:00.001-08:00

“Jaws” swims on.

Thirty-four years after the blockbuster was released, the movie and its offshoots are still scaring the bejesus out of people and earning a lot of money doing it.

There are Jaws theme parks in Orlando, San Francisco and Japan. There’s a documentary. There are toys, posters, games, T-shirts and fan clubs. Martha’s Vineyard hosts JawsFests.

All of which screams that a monument to Montauk fishing with the Cricket II as its centerpiece simply has to happen.

To explain:

Frank Mundus was the legendary Montauk shark hunter who was the basis for the crusty, crazed Capt. Quint in the movie. Mundus died a year ago and his boat, the Cricket II, upon which the movie’s Orca was based, went to auction. It was bought for $51,750 by Jon Dodd of Rhode Island, who has begun renovation.

Meanwhile, however, efforts to keep the boat here as part of a monument to Montauk fishing were under way. At the helm was Henry Uihlein of Uihlein Marine in Montauk, where the Cricket II has been berthed.

As a result, the two men ended up at odds. That’s unfortunate because they have a lot in common. Most importantly, they both had fond connections with Mundus dating back to their childhoods. “My father had that effect on a lot of young men,” the captain’s daughter, Patty Mundus of Greenport, told me last week.

Dodd, who won the auction, was 13 when he started writing Mundus letters, offering to swab decks if he could go along on a shark-hunting expedition. “He was my Mickey Mantle,” Dodd said.

Same sort of thing for Uihlein. “As a kid I saw those sharks being pulled,” he recalled. “There was a lot of excitement. He gave me sharks’ eyes and taught me how to make marbles out of them by burying them.”

Uihlein went on to run the marina where the Cricket II was kept. “Frank trusted me with the boat,” he said. “He came to me two or three days before he died and told me to take care of it. He wanted the boat here.”

The captain’s daughter agrees. “I like the idea of the Cricket remaining in Montauk, not just as a memorial to my father,” but as part of a monument to Montauk fishing.

Uihlein said he’d succeeded in getting the county to donate a piece of land to that end, but now the campaign is scuttled. The money’s not there and “the boat is gone,” he said. “It’s no longer Frank’s boat.”

Patty Mundus agrees. “It’s very unfortunate it’s already been taken apart,” she said. “It was in sort of artifact state before. Now the whole boat’s been gutted.”

Dodd says he didn’t know about the memorial idea when he won the auction and began restoration. When he did hear, he said he would be willing to part with the Cricket II if his $71,850 investment could be reimbursed. More recently an unnamed Montauk accountant sent him an e-mail suggesting he could cover his costs by donating the boat to Montauk. That interests him.

“I’ve been reading the comments about what a shame it is, etc.” Dodd said. “I’m not extremely desirous to get rid of it, but if something special could be done …” He had planned to use the rebuilt Cricket II for family outings, but he too likes the idea of it being “the centerpiece of a monument to commemorate Montauk as the fishing capital of the world.”

As for the loss of artifact status, he said the things he’s done, such as removing the gas tank, would have to be done anyway. If there’s truly interest, however, he said it should happen quickly before major expenses are incurred.

This is too good an idea to let fizzle. Think of all the Montauk anglers who might contribute. Maybe Steven Spielberg would help too. (I called and got as far as his publicist’s secretary. No reply yet. Also no reply from East Hampton’s supervisor-elect or acting supervisor.)

But I hope we don’t let this one get away. Something’s not right about Martha’s Vineyard hosting the highly successful JawsFests. It was all based on our shark, our Mundus and our Cricket II. It ought to be our attraction too.

Long Island Business News / November 23, 2009

Greenport thumbs nose at recession

2009-12-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

1. Go to a bar and order a Fine and Dandy.

2. Watch the ultimate screwball comedy, “It Happened One Night.”

3. Read some Dorothy Parker.

Those are the top three Internet suggestions I just found for shaking off The Great Recession. The writer said they should work because they helped people shake off The Great Depression, too.

But there’s another way, which involves gestures of confidence in the future. Maybe not gestures as grand as Warren Buffett’s $34 billion bet on a railroad and, by extension, American commerce, but still acts that are so buoyantly heedless of danger that they appear somewhat zany. Sort of like creating a Nello in Greenport.

Nello is a Manhattan restaurant launched in 1992 by Nello Balan. It was followed in 2005 by Nello Summertimes in Southampton. And now, in a few months, a Nello tentatively dubbed “Seaweed” should be cooking in Greenport.

To some that seems a bit strange. Greenport isn’t a backwater but it’s not exactly Hamptonic (yet). Nello, on the other hand, is all that and then some. “The setting is beautiful, the food is very good and the prices are obscene,” said the lede of Joanne Starkey’s 2005 New York Times review of Nello Summertime, “Long Island’s most expensive restaurant.” She reported choking over the $17 price tag on a dish of mixed berries. On viewing the wine list, one in her party said a cardiologist should be on the staff. And many online commenters note that while the food tends to be excellent, Nello is really about being somebody, being glam and being seen.
So, again: Greenport?

The restaurant is actually part of a two-building project envisioned and bankrolled by Manhattan real estate player Khedouri Ezair and art gallerist Marijana Bego. Adding to the degree of difficulty is the fact that the two buildings are separated by Greenport’s Main Street.

To the east is the restaurant, in the white clapboard building that formerly housed the crêperie Ile de Beauté. To the west is a long-vacant building that’s being gutted to become a nine-room hotel, an art gallery and a Japanese-style cafe also to be run by Balan.

Ambitious? That it is, said Greenport Village Administrator Dave Abatelli. “The hotel they’re virtually rebuilding stick by stick.” Over the two-year planning process, parking issues nearly derailed the whole thing, but now all is go. “They could make it by Memorial Day,” Abatelli ventured.

Ezair went one better. “I assume April or so,” he said.

Ezair is Nello’s landlord in Manhattan, Southampton and now in Greenport. And like the other two locations, Greenport will also host a gallery headed up by Bego. In fact, Ezair credits Bego as the catalyst behind the Greenport venture. She’s excited about it? “Very much so,” he said. “Basically it was her idea. She saw the buildings sitting there empty and said, why not do something?”

It’s all part of a new orientation for the couple.

“I’m a city kid,” Ezair said, having grown up in Queens. And so, he didn’t really know much about the North Fork even after they opened the Southampton location and established a residence there. Now, smitten by the North, the couple has bought the 90-acre former Whitmore Tree Farm in Orient and set up a beachhead there too. “It’s a beautiful place,” Ezair said.
But still hangs the question of restaurant impresario Nello Balan, who’s comfortable offering pasta at $100 a plate, fitting in on the less glitzy North Fork stage. “I don’t think he’ll do what he does in New York and Southampton,” Ezair guessed. “I think he’ll tone it down a little bit.”

On the other hand, noting the rise of upmarket restaurants like Greenport’s Frisky Oyster and Southold’s North Fork Table & Inn, he thinks the North Fork and especially Greenport are becoming serious destinations.

The project’s architect, Peter Wilson of Bridgehampton, agrees. “I think Greenport could eclipse Sag Harbor,” he told me. But still, is it ready for Nello, who is perhaps New York’s most eccentric restaurateur and describes himself as a descendant of Vlad the Impaler?

“Being totally outrageous is part of the cachet,” Wilson said.

Maybe, gulp, we could use a helping of that.

Long Island Business News / November 17, 2009

The Hamptons are feeling empty

2009-12-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

Economically, I’m beginning to get a sense of what it must have felt like for the original East Enders who worked hard and saved up big piles of wampum only to see everything change when those tall masts appeared on the horizon.

Now, it seems, everything is changing just about as fast. Venerable stores like the Hamptons’ Long Island Sound are perishing at the hand of the Internet revolution. Death by download. Newspapers, of all bedrock institutions, are locked in the same desperate digital struggle. Restaurants have been ravished by the recession, with 43 percent of diners recently telling Zagat that they’re eating out less, 36 percent saying they’re ordering cheaper and 22 percent saying they’re skipping appetizers and/or dessert. On the other hand, Scotts Miracle-Gro has announced record sales for 2009, so maybe people are creating their own salads again.

Now yet another trend is causing concern out east: nomad merchants.
“We’re kind of following our customers,” Stephanie Goureau recently told The East Hampton Star. “As we close East Hampton we’re opening up Palm Beach.”

Goureau was speaking of her family’s women’s fashion store, Courage. b, which opened on East Hampton’s Main Street in June and has now closed to concentrate on more populous locations. Back in June she told The Star, “We’re not sure what’s going to happen. Right now it’s sort of up in the air, but we’d love to see what the results are and create some sort of permanent presence there.”

Or maybe not.

The Star included Courage. b in a story about the pop-up shop phenomenon – stores that pop up for the season and then vanish as the crowds do. Already gone along with Courage. b are Intermix, Hermes and Jill Stuart, and some others, like Brooks Brothers and Gucci, were expected to “follow suit in the pop-up, pop-down phenomenon.”

Nomadic life apparently makes sense for some merchants in the recession era, when landlords are hungry for tenants, even fleeting ones. But it represents a fundamental shift in our traditional understanding of a shop if, instead of a steady presence in our midst, it’s only as solid as a piece of paper, and a short-term one at that.

Then there’s the impact of all those empty storefronts on year-round residents. “It concerns me, honestly,” Judi Desiderio of Town and Country Real Estate told The Star. “Last winter was eye-popping, with the amount of vacancies we had, then the seasonal leases kind of stuck their finger in the dam.” The reporter, Kate Maier, possibly tipped her feelings about the phenomenon by writing that those stores popped up “like weeds” this spring.

It’s also a paradigm shift that some corporate stores, although seen as having less emotional attachment to village life, might be the ones that stick around.
Marina Van, director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, told The East Hampton Press that the big-name shops can be good for the village because they have the backing to survive the dark months. “So when people staying at the hotels call the chamber to ask which stores are open, I have something to tell them,” she said. Among them, Tommy Hilfiger, which debuted this spring, J. Crew and the Hamptons’ five Ralph Lauren shops are expected to keep the lights on this winter.

It’s not enough, some feel. “I don’t know what the answer is,” former village merchant Ronald Eisenberg told The Press. “But I can tell you that business is declining so badly in East Hampton because landlords are dealing with pop-up stores like Hermes and Michael Kors.” He feels that the annual pop-up immigration inflates rents across the board, aggravating the situation.
On yet another hand, it’s fundamental capitalism that opportunities must be pounced upon. “I can’t say that we planned on going from one store to five in the last six months,” Goureau told The Star back in June, but those recessionary rents virtually compelled them.

What’s the long-term impact? While the ground’s still shifting in the midst of all this economic evolution it’s hard to say. But for East Enders it definitely feels like something important is being lost when shops simply pack up and leave town to follow the caribou consumers.

Long Island Business News / November 11, 2009

November: The Horror

2009-11-09T04:22:00.001-08:00

Dave’s nights are haunted, knowing that the evil ones are busy plotting out there in the dark. He listens at the doors, at the windows, and can’t hear much of anything, but he knows they’re out there. Massing.

It’s November. Hell yes they’re out there, the creeps.

Dave lives in the woods. Not the woods woods, but the Long Island exurban version – three-quarters of an acre and a terrible lot of trees. Every November they return, wave after wave, parachuting in and lying there all innocent like, the way they do. Then they start sneaking in.

There’s one now. He hadn’t even been outside yet this morning, so it’s no good pretending that the leaf had accidentally gotten snagged on his pants cuff or something. No, he’d specifically swept the entryway last night. Or maybe it was the day before. Who knows anymore, he’s so groggy from lack of sleep. He strolls casually around behind it then pounces, grabs the hideous thing by its stem, opens the door just five inches, hurls it out and slams the door fast, before the others can attack.

Two days ago Dave walked out like the guy in the movie about the birds, stepping gingerly through them all. He opened the car door and there, above the hinge, in the little space no bigger than his hand, for god’s sake, was a sleeper cell. Six or eight leaves just crammed in there, probably hoping to hitch a ride to one of their secret meetings. He cleaned them out but good. Then, yesterday morning, he opened the car door again and there was another gang of them wedged in there. “Don’t you guys get it?” he screamed. “I’m on to your tricks!” His neighbor, Mrs. Rappaport, shot him a worried look, dropped her rake and scurried inside.

Dave considers trying to slow his breathing. That’s what his therapist advised. “This November, Dave, why not try meditating?” he said. “Close your eyes and think peaceful thoughts.”

Dave said he would but he knew he wouldn’t because as soon as he closes his eyes they start trying to work their way into the house again. He’d found one in his jacket pocket that very morning. In his jacket pocket. The fiend.

“Dave, they’re leaves,” the therapist said. “They’re dead.”

Undead, Dave thought.

“They’re not out to get you.”

Then why do they keep coming, Dave wanted to ask. He gets them all raked up and things are okay for a while and then they come for him again. He was about to say that but then he looked down and saw one clinging to his therapist’s sock. Oh god, he thought. It heard everything. Or maybe ... maybe they’re working together. Mind control. The creeps never stop. Dave hadn’t been back to the therapist since then.

Dave goes into the kitchen to make a soothing cup of tea. He’s about to put the kettle under the faucet when he sees it – a leaf floating in the little space between the storm window and the inside window. There was no leaf there last night. It’s fluttering – taunting him. No, wait – it’s stuck! Somehow it had breached the outer window and was on its way in but had gotten caught on a spider web. “Ha!” Dave howls. “Got you, you bastard!” Dave never kills spiders for this purpose; they’re a key part of his border guard. In fact, when he finds one in the garage, he transplants it to the windows.

Dave opens the kitchen window and carefully clasps the leaf with a pair of salad tongs, trying to damage the web as little as possible. He carries it toward the front door to throw it out but stops dead. Blood drains from his face. Impossible. There. Right there. Another leaf on the floor. He’d just cleared that sector, for god’s sake. Dave takes off his slipper and begins pounding the leaf but it’s fairly fresh and keeps springing back instead of crumbling. Dave gives it grudging respect; this zombie can take a lick.

That’s how Dave’s wife finds him when she comes down the stairs: on his knees, one hand slamming a leaf on the floor with a slipper, the other hand clutching a leaf with a pair of salad tongs.

“Hi honey,” she says, stopping and pirouetting so he can check her for stowaways. They’d been through many Novembers together.

Kapell's up-tempo idea to foil foreclosure

2009-08-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

My old songwriting buddy W.T. Davidson has a great heartbreak song that contains the hook, “Two people who need each other / are sittin’ alone tonight.”

He might be surprised to find that his lyric crystallizes a possible solution to the housing-mortgage crisis that’s hobbling our economy.

The idea is basically a way around the stark negativity of foreclosure. As it stands, millions of Americans, unable to afford their mortgages, are being forced out of their homes, which then creates two problems: homeless former occupants and unoccupied houses generating no income. In other words, people and homes who need each other are sittin’ all alone tonight.

Into this dilemma recently stepped David Kapell of Greenport, the village’s former mayor and, by the way, a musician himself, having learned bass from Sly Stone. Kapell is known around the North Fork as a problem solver who’s not afraid of bold moves, such as disbanding his village’s police force and court. Moves like that created major stirs in Greenport but ended up slashing the tax rate 60 percent, making possible the creation of Mitchell Park, with its carousel, etc., another controversial matter but one that even detractors agree was an economic catapult.

A while ago Kapell, a realtor by trade, came up with a way to do something about the dysfunction of foreclosure. “The theory is this,” he said by phone. “There’s a large percentage of people in foreclosure or at risk who arguably could never afford the houses they’re in. What do you do with them? If you put them out on the street they just have to look for someplace to rent while their house ends up blighting the neighborhood. Why not turn them into tenants?” Tenants in their own homes, that is.

In addition to sparing the owners the misery of eviction, it would also keep at least some money coming to the lender. A third big benefit would be the creation, through rent levels, of a way of evaluating properties.

That conversion of unpaid mortgages to paid rent, Kapell said, “would have a profound effect [by establishing] values of the so-called toxic debt underlying these properties,” the lack of which continues to hobble the economy.

Kapell has always been comfortable on the wonk side of politics. He started his government career as Greenport’s community development director and became locally famous for success in grant writing. In 2003, while still serving as mayor, he completed a one-year master’s program in public administration at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Among those he contacted about the “foreclosure-leaseback solution,” as it’s being called, was Noam Chomsky, under whom he took a course at MIT in 2003 and with whom he’s kept in touch.

Word also reached Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington, who, it turned out, had been working on the same idea. They exchanged e-mails, Baker’s ending with the remark, “We’ll see if this goes anywhere.”

The anywhere they’re hoping for is a new federal policy, and in fact there’s a chance. “U.S. government officials are weighing a plan that would let borrowers who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments avoid eviction by renting their homes instead,” began a recent Reuters story.

“The idea is so simple, I was afraid it wasn’t real,” Kapell told me the other day. “But I’ve learned that many times the most complicated problems have very simple answers.”

Baker offered a similar thought in the Reuters story. “It is a very simple, clean way to help these people,” he said. The story noted that he had discussed the idea with White House officials.

Reached in Washington, Baker said his idea and Kapell’s are aligned, and he harbors some hope that the Obama administration might put a version into play. Like Kapell, he thinks a major selling point is the valuation via rentals component.

“It’s why I was able to recognize the housing bubble,” Baker said. While house prices were soaring in the buildup to the smackdown, rents were not. If lenders had based their thinking on the reality of the rental market vs. the cotton candy of puffed-up purchase prices, “this wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

Jeff Miller / Long Island Business News / July 31, 2009

Pizza-maker joins convoy of mobile merchants

2009-07-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

Property taxes are high. Rents are brutal. In cold months shopkeepers have to pay both when many of their customers are away or snowed in. Grr.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your company could shed all that brick and mortar and simply roll free to where the business is?

Some people are doing just that.

Trucks and vans are bringing beauty parlors to your parlor. Pet groomers make the rounds with spas on wheels. Massage went mobile years ago. Auto detailers are also, fittingly, on the road.

In the Hamptons, Dr. Seth Gordon realized a while back that lots of East End vacationers didn’t have local care for their kids. “In the summer you get an influx of 200,000 kids out here, and the pediatric centers don’t have the capacity to handle them,” said the part-time East Hampton resident in a New York Times story.

“Seeing a niche,” he created a practice that has no office. Instead, he supplies something your elders might remember: house calls. His only trappings: a cell phone, a medical bag and his car. Starting small, “soon he was inundated with calls for his services,” said the Times story, and his fame and portability went viral.

What’s next? Pizza, of course.

But not just any pizza. Gourmet, wood-oven pizza baked fresh at your backyard party on the back of a fire-engine red 1943 International Harvester truck. It’s the creation of 26-year-old Matthew Michel of Greenport, and the name of his new business tells it all: “Rolling in Dough.”

Michel came to the North Fork from West Haven, Conn., and went into partnership with Barbara Michelson, then of Cutchogue, a well-known caterer and Cordon Bleu chef. “She’s brilliant,” he said. “I learned a lot from her.” Their two-year collaboration ended recently when she moved to New Hampshire.

Looking for his next venture, Michel remembered seeing a catering truck in New Haven, Conn., and, with the help of its owner, went to work on his own version. The 1943 farm truck, found on the Internet, came from Maryland. A $10,000 pizza oven was shipped from Florence, Italy. Wheeler’s Garage in Southold got the motor cranking and Ted’s Auto Body in Peconic applied the flaming paint. Michel built tables. An awning, refrigeration and a freezer were added, along with a cappuccino machine and gelato trays, and already the oven on wheels is firing up people’s imaginations.

“I’ve got 10 parties booked,” Michel said last week. And that was before the photo spread came out in Vogue. That’s right, Vogue, whose editor, Anna Wintour, saw the truck at a function, “fell in love with it and wanted to do a spread,” Michel said.

With such boosts, the young entrepreneur hopes that someday his business really will be rolling in dough. “If I had 100 parties per summer, I’d really be doing well,” he mused.

But first he had to take the leap, and it was a big one, an investment of more than $100,000 on a style of catering new to the East End. Was it scary? “Very much so,” he said. “But I’d rather do something than nothing. You’ve got to take a little risk.”

Some advisers were leery of the idea. “They thought people wouldn’t catch onto the idea of just pizza,” Michel recalled. “I disagreed.” He’d seen a similar venture succeed in Connecticut. “It works,” he said. “It’s definitely gimmicky, but it’s fun and people like to have it at a party.”

What would Michelson, his Cordon Bleu mentor, think of it all? “I think she’d be very proud of me,” he said.

A big plus for him was the minus factor – no property taxes or rent. His only overhead is gas, maintenance and permits, plus a marginal outlay for small amounts of time in earthbound kitchens doing prep work. “I skip a lot of expenses,” Michel confirmed. Finding help hasn’t been too hard, since he was able to call on friends and friends of friends who like the quirky, outdoorsy spin on the catering business.

And when the weather turns bleak and customers go south, he might migrate with them. He’s also weighing the idea of trying a season at a ski resort. When your catering hall has wheels, why not?

Jeff Miller / Long Island Business News / July 24, 2009

Forget the black buffaloes; there are signs of life in the bays

2009-07-21T08:59:00.001-07:00

Pardon my paranoia, but it seems that signs and omens are everywhere abounding these days. I know people always say things like that, especially when the sky simply won’t quit raining, but it’s getting a bit overt of late.

Consider the bison. Among many Native American tribes, the birth of a white buffalo is considered an omen of peace and good fortune ahead. So what are we to make of the recent birth of not one but two extremely rare black buffaloes at North Quarter Farm in Riverhead? Will the crops fail? Is recession bound for depression? Could the Shinnecock Indian casino create a quagmire of urban blight and pestilence?

On the positive portent side, hundreds of bottlenose dolphins were recently observed frolicking in the Sound. At the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, that’s being seen as a sign of hope for the health of the Sound.

Of course, doomsayers could attribute the dolphins’ return to warming waters. People are already bewailing the Sound’s infesting plague of sea squirts, bottom-clogging filter-feeders who eat their own brains. Anybody see a Wall Street augury there?

Those attuned to aquatic signs of the apocalypse might have been struck by last week’s letter to The Suffolk Times about a supposed sheepshead caught in Southold. The writer, part-time Florida resident John Glaessgen, said it was actually a black drum, a fish much more at home in warmer waters. Glaessgen finished with a fine summation: “Nature remains mysterious.”

Gene Kelly at Montauk Sport Fishing would agree. All kinds of southern swimmers, like triggerfish and red snappers, have been turning up in East End nets, but they’ve been doing so for a long time. “Guys started catching tarpon over 30 years ago,” he said. Rod-and-reel anglers reported catching cobia and even bonefish in Great South Bay five years ago, he said.

To those who say it’s all about global warming, Kelly tends to side with Glaessgen’s “mysterious nature” position. As Exhibit A he points to the 178-pound porbeagle shark caught off Montauk a few weeks ago. This is a very northern fish, ranging up into Arctic waters. “The weather’s been colder this year, but still, it’s very, very strange.” So, based on the porbeagle portent, should we be on the lookout for global cooling?

In the end, perhaps it’s best if we do as Kim Tetrault does.

Tetrault manages (take a deep breath) the Cornell Cooperative Extension Shellfish Hatchery at the Suffolk County Marine Environmental Learning Center in Southold. On the subject of sea squirts, for instance, he said, “I’ve never seen so many.” Then he adds quickly, “But if I worry about everything, I couldn’t sleep at night.”

Tetrault and others started reseeding East End bays 15 years ago. “Nothing happened,” he said last week. Clam, scallop and oyster seedlings by the millions were sowed every year, only to die. One of the richest bays in the world had become a wet desert.

To many onlookers it started to feel like a lost cause. The seeders began to seem like a mapless army slogging along to a dismal fate. Tetrault recalls banishing that thought, saying, “We’ve just got to keep with it. One year nature will play ball.”

And then, about three years ago, he was paddling around Broadwater Cove in Cutchogue. “I looked on the banks and they were covered with oyster set,” he said. “That was the first time I’d really seen a set take hold well.”
Since then they’ve spread out, to the point where the words “Peconic Bay oysters” aren’t just sadly nostalgic anymore. More good news: “Last year’s scallop crop was the best since the brown tide.” That dark date, 1985, will be forever etched in East End minds.

But this is now, and Tetrault sees a return of “good, fresh bio film,” a kind of “slimy marine coating” that suggests life. There could also be more plankton around. And maybe the bigger bivalve broodstock has finally reached a positive tipping point. “It could just be cyclical,” he said, “but it seems to have taken hold. Nature,” Tetrault concluded with some wonderment, “seems to have rebounded.”

From all this, perhaps we can distill something called the Tetrault doctrine. It is this: Damn the omens (and frustration, and logic) – full steam ahead.

Jeff Miller / Long Island Business News / July 17, 2009

East End wineries face the music

2009-07-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

You’re in the tasting room of an East End winery, sampling a corpulent, jammy cabernet. Life is good. It gets even better when the guitarists in the corner start playing your favorite song, “Unchained Melody.”

But wait. A guy at the next table is writing something in a little black book.

Uh oh. You’ve just unwittingly participated in something that could end up costing the vineyard thousands of dollars. Why? Because “Unchained Melody” isn’t unchained at all.

In fact, it’s one of some 8.5 million copyrighted songs whose use is protected by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, better known as ASCAP.

In recent weeks ASCAP has been cracking down all along the East End’s wine trail. Chris Baiz of Old Field Vineyard in Southold said it began for him with a few letters offering a license that would cover use of all ASCAP songs for the one-year fee of $446. The number, based on such factors as size of venue and number of performances per week, is at the low end; some other vineyards are being charged more than double that.

Those first messages were followed last week with a mailed package noting that Old Field’s payment had not been received. To achieve harmony, the enclosed forms should be filled out and a check sent. Otherwise, unlicensed use of copyrighted material could result in damages of $750 to $30,000 per infringed-upon song, plus attorney fees and court costs.

As of last week Baiz had not written the check for a number of reasons. One is the assumption that Old Field hosts as many as three musical acts per week. “We do zero,” Baiz said.

But other vineyards do plenty. And so, in Baiz’s role as president of the Long Island Wine Council, he was planning to consult with the council’s executive director, Steve Bate.

Bate told me it all began with the Winterfest jazz series, created to help fill East End tasting rooms during the last two off-seasons. “It’s been very successful,” he said. Enough so, apparently, to catch the attention of Wendy Campbell, ASCAP’s area licensing manager.

After hearing of her stops at regional vineyards, Bate called Campbell to seek a compromise and preserve Winterfest. Perhaps a “festival fee” could cover all vineyards at a more reasonable cost. Or maybe a governmental umbrella could be created, since the event has county and state support.

So far, no luck. Meanwhile, the crackdown has stretched to winery music of all seasons, and vintners have begun trumpeting their displeasure.

“Are they trying to put us out of business?” asked the events manager at one area vineyard. “How can they control all the music played in the world? It’s going to cost more to patrol than they can collect. It’s absurd.”

Intellectual property lawyer Betty Tufariello of Mt. Sinai, who has worked for the Wine Council before, had some thoughts on that. “ASCAP is very aggressive in promoting and protecting its members,” she said. By throwing its net hard and wide, covering even small vineyards, the company seeks to protect its turf. “It’s not so much the money,” she said. “Principally, they don’t want to open a door and create a slippery slope. If they let one vineyard do it, where do they draw the line?”

She expressed sympathy for ASCAP’s herculean task of protecting its writers, but also concern for the struggles of vineyards and musicians.

To her the key question is: Do vineyards use music in a commercial nature? In her opinion, no. “They’re not selling tickets,” Tufariello said. “They’re selling wine and using the music as background.”

Yes, but they’re using something that doesn’t belong to them, said Vincent Candilora, ASCAP’s senior vice president of licensing. That can be remedied with a license, which he considers cheap for what it affords: access to 8.5 million songs. “I never understand the type of resistance we get sometimes over what is essentially such a low-cost item,” he said. “On a day-to-day basis, it’s probably less than a dollar a day.”

That’s not quite true for vineyards, which tend to offer music twice a week or so, and only during tourist seasons. But Candilora is unmoved when people lament about the struggles of the small-business person. His response: “You want to talk small-business person? Become a songwriter.”

Jeff Miller / Long Island Business News / July 3, 2009

Building a better bass lure in Cutchogue

2009-06-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

The East End has long been a proving ground for marine innovations. I guess that would make it a proving water.

One of the most notable was the USS Holland, the Navy’s first commissioned submarine, which was tested and refined in New Suffolk in the 1890s.

More recently, Chris Pickerell of Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Southold Marine Center developed “seed buoys” to promote the return of eelgrass (and thus scallops) to the bays. And not just our bays. The innovative mesh bags have been used all over the place, from the Chesapeake to San Francisco.

Now another creation is surfacing, often bringing a striped bass with it. It’s called the Bottle Darter.

“I’ve been making lures all my life,” said Larry Welcome of Cutchogue. He was 10 and living in Long Beach when he created his first by snipping a tuft of hair from his sleeping sister’s head. “[Almost] 50 years later she hasn’t forgiven me yet,” he said. On the other hand, the lure worked “worked great.”

Welcome is 58 now, retired in 2005 after 27 years as a tech specialist for Brookhaven National Lab, helping build its superconducting accelerator. When not at work through all those years, he was usually fishing.

And designing lures. The best yet is the Bottle Darter. So good that he spent six months and $5,000 patenting it, and three years and $50,000 developing it as a commercial product.

He needed a hand to make that happen. Though he built about 5,000 of the lures in his shop out of wood over the last 15 years, it took an engineer to help him make the commercial leap. As it happened, he knew one.

After church one Sunday about 15 years ago, Welcome was talking to somebody about, you guessed it, fishing, and a young man intruded. “I heard the word and I perked right up,” said Rob Koch, now 29, of Mattituck. The two would go on to become the best of fishing buddies. Along the way, as luck and fate would have it, Koch decided to become an engineer, graduating in 2002 from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Three years ago, after catching “tons and tons of fish” with Welcome’s homemade Bottle Darters, the duo decided to take the lure to market. They formed Northbar Tackle LLC, named for the famed fishing reef off Montauk, and went to work on computer modeling, eventually leading to an injection-molded plastic product.

Three weeks ago they took the prototypes to an undisclosed Sound shore location for field tests. Fifty casts with the yellow model and nothing, so Koch switched to black and purple and something very big happened. “The first cast a fish came up and just inhaled it,” he said.

Welcome, who was fishing a bit downdrift, saw the striped bass swim by. “It looked like a submarine going past me,” he said. “I never saw a fish that big landed in the surf.”

It turned out to be a 63-pounder, a personal record for Koch and a roaring debut for the new Bottle Darter.

(What’s different about it? It combines the shape and action of two great lures, Welcome said: the Montauk Darter and the Bottle Swimmer. So instead of one lure that zig-zags and another that wiggles, you one that zigs, zags and wiggles. “It really works,” said the inventor.)

“Three years of prototyping and we finally got it right,” Koch said. They took a photo of the fish, “did a high-five and said, let’s go.” Since then, 2,500 have been turned out by their manufacturer and are now in tackle shops all over the Northeast for about $18.

What struck me about this story is the blend of belief, stubbornness and good fortune that attends the birth of so many innovations.

“When I started getting into this, I was meeting guys in tackle shops and every one of them said I wouldn’t last three years,” Welcome recalled. “It was so discouraging.” But it was also “one of things just makes you dig in and say, yeah, we’ll see.”

He conceded, however, that “99 percent of the time, guys who start building lures bail out. It’s too difficult, there’s not enough money,” etc.

Welcome and Koch appear to be among the one percenters.

TOP PHOTO: Rob Koch with the 63-pound striped bass caught on the Bottle Darter prototype.

INSET: A Bottle Darter.

Jeff Miller / Long Island Business News / June 25, 2009

Recession ends at Hamptons wine auction

2009-06-19T04:28:00.000-07:00

If, like me, you're sick of The Recession, you’re desperate enough to look anywhere for signs of The Recovery. So how about this: Somebody recently paid $11,400 for some old wine.

It happened at Christie’s Fine and Rare Wine auction in Westhampton Beach earlier this month. A case of 1989 Chateau Haut-Brion brought $11,400.

Impressive, but pale compared to the top draw, a 1982 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, which went for $20,400.

And that was for eight bottles.

Not even a case.

It was the first time Christie’s ever held a wine auction out east. “This unique auction will be held in the Hamptons at the historic Atwater Estate, built between 1900 and 1903 for coal baron William C. Atwater,” said a Christie’s promotion. Over 700 lots from around the world were offered.

“The Hamptons Sale offers several collections befitting such a regal estate,” said the announcement, “including a magnum of 1929 Moët consigned directly from the winery, large format Domaine de la Romanée-Conti [DRC], and smaller lots from boutique domaines on the Côte d’Or.”

That “extremely rare magnum” of 1929 Moet was described as “the star lot,” just released this year “to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the Academy Awards ceremony,” reported Fine Wine Journal. “The bottle’s wooden case has been autographed by Hollywood celebrities and Oscar attendees Tina Fey, Robert Downey Jr., Matthew Broderick and host Hugh Jackman.” That single bottle went for $6,000, which was donated to the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

If, as suggested above, you’re desperate for signs of The Recovery, this kind of extravagance could serve. Unemployment’s up, spending’s down, big-ticket spending’s way down, blah blah. The famed Napa Valley Vintners’ wine auction, held recently in St. Helena, pulled in about half of last year’s record amount ($5.6 million, compared to $10.3 million).

By contrast, the Atwater auction “achieved $1,199,994 and was 86 percent sold and 91 percent by value,” reported Christie’s.

“We are particularly encouraged by prices that continue to rise for the classics of the fine wine trade,” Christie’s Charles Curtis said in the announcement. “This is true of lots such as the 1982 Lafite and 1959 Margaux that led the sale, but also for wines such as the 1982 Mouton that sold near the top of the estimate, and the many lots of Burgundy from DRC that surpassed the high estimate.”

Curtis added via e-mail: “After a slight correction in prices last fall, the global wine market has been trending back upward throughout the spring auction season. At our recent Hamptons sale, we saw active participation from New York-area wine collectors, including a good number of local Hamptons residents...”

This comes in the wake of a January New York Times story, “Hard times hit auction houses,” which reported significant downsizing by both Sotheby’s and Christie’s, and consolidation of various departments to save money.

So it’s possible that I’m wearing rosé-colored glasses, but could we squint hard and see the Atwater auction as a sign of hope? I asked Kathleen Coumou, vice president of Christie’s Great Estates.

“I think so,” she said. “We handle a lot of great estates in the Northeast, and I really think we’ve seen the bottom. I think Americans are extremely optimistic, and want to see things begin to move again. We’re beginning to see things trade on the high end. We’re starting to come back.”

In addition to wine, the Atwater estate itself was offered in “an unprecedented cooperation between Christie’s Wine Department and Christie’s Great Estates,” according to the company’s Web site. Despite Coumou’s positive outlook, the property didn’t sell that day, but she didn’t expect it to find a buyer as easily as the wine did.

“It’s a glorious estate,” she said, mentioning the 10 acres, the boathouse, dock, carriage house and four subdivided acres, all on the market for $29 million.

It would have been nice if somebody had bought the place and simply moved some of the Chateau Rothschild to the wine cellar, Coumou agreed. It didn’t happen, but she’s confident a buyer will come along.

Meanwhile, the auction “was a wonderful opportunity to promote the property internationally,” she said, adding that it was also a nice day for a glass of wine in the Hamptons.

Jeff Miller / Long Island Business News / June 18, 2009

‘Free Blithering Society’ to meet

2009-04-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

A new organization recently formed here in the village, dedicated to freeing the word “blithering” from its doltish partner.

According to a Free Blithering Society press release, the members are “saddened by blithering’s long forced servitude to, you know, that other word.”

Not only is it bondage most cruel, organizers say, but it’s also illogical. “It is possible, after all, to blither and not be an idiot,” says the release. “Isaac Newton, for instance, was one of the smartest people ever and yet spent half his career trying to turn lead into gold. One never hears ‘blithering genius,’ though, does one? We thought not.”

It’s also aggressively noted that people of many stripes constantly say and do supremely stupid things but are never said to blither. “How often have Madonna and Plaxico Burress and George Bush issued idiotic remarks?” asserted the release. “And yet we never hear ‘blithering diva,’ or ‘blithering football star” or ‘blithering president.’ Well, maybe the latter.”

In a telephone interview, FBS founder Edgar Smoot was asked if a case could also be made for “blithering writer.” Smoot replied, “That would be redundant.”

There! On the ground! It's ... it's ... CABBAGE MAN!!

2009-04-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

At base, all of life on Earth is “a competition among species for the solar energy captured by green plants and stored in the form of complex carbon molecules.” So writes Michael Pollan in his excellent book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” A food chain, therefore, is “a system for passing those calories on to species that lack the plant’s unique ability to synthesize them from sunlight.”

That’s the problem in a nutshell. If people and other animals could be cross-bred with, say, cabbages, then we could synthesize our own sunlight, stop the killing and just sit around, basking in food.

Scientists, get to work on this, would you?

Breakthroughs in Domesticity

2009-04-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Do you or does somebody in your house resist having people over because “the place is a mess”? Does this cause domestic strife and make your friends think you hate them?

No more. Introducing the Pledge Party®.

Here’s how it works:

From now on, when we visit somebody’s home, the first thing we should do is clean a small part of that home. Say four square feet.

Benefits:

*Eliminates pressure on hosts.

*Puts guests at ease and lets them feel like an integral part of the party.

*Great ice-breaker. (“Hey, I think I dropped this cufflink last time I was here.”)

*Quick. It will only take each visitor roughly two minutes to do the work. Then, let the fun begin!

This is such a good and sane idea that I think we should immediately make it part of our culture. Currently the custom calls for visitors to bring a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer. Just add some Pledge or Lysol and a sponge and we’re good to go.

Listening to 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' on I-95

2009-04-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

When coincidences start coming fast, it means you’re near the hub.

An Eastern religion major once told me that, crediting me with tacitly understanding what he meant by “hub.” Something to do with truth, I guessed, nodding sagely.

I reflected on that the other day while leaving a Marriott motel in Emporia, Va., heading home to Long Island. It was 3:30 a.m. on April Fool’s Day. I’d snapped awake 15 minutes earlier because my body for some reason thinks I need to witness that time almost every morning. Sometimes I can work my way back to sleep, but that morning I figured, what the hell, get a really early start and maybe you’ll beat the D.C. rush hour.

Part of being near the hub, I was told by that long-ago Eastern religion major, is being attuned to signs and omens whirling around you. Ever since then, I sometimes find myself scrutinizing billboards and snippets of overheard conversations for messages, like a spy on a pretty humdrum mission.

That morning in Emporia my receptors were turned on, and as I walked through the lobby I received a message loud and clear. It came from Elton John, cleverly delivered through the Muzak system. “And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time,” he sang to me.

Uh oh.

Two hours later I learned that D.C.’s arteries are actually in full thrombosis by 5:30 a.m.

At that point another stray bit of Eastern wisdom drifted through my head. It was Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, whispering, “I can think, fast and wait.” It clearly being a day for such things, I decided to follow his lead. It helped that I had no choice, being stuck in a giant river of Western traffic without breakfast.

The point of all this preamble is that I was completely receptive to the book on CD that was accompanying me on the long, long drive home. It was “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” by Azar Nafisi.

Good books need friction to get traction with readers, and this one has plenty. Imagine trying to teach English literature in Tehran while Iran was going through its 1978-1981 revolution, perfecting its hatred of all things Western and therefore decadent. Imagine teaching, for instance, “The Great Gatsby” in that climate -- a perfect cultural flashpoint.

Nafisi’s memoir debuted six years ago, but still generates a lot of heat. Much comes from scholars who feel that it’s a piece of anti-Iranian, anti-Islam, pro-Western propaganda. Of course we only know what we read, but we do read a lot about torture and execution of those accused of deviating from Iran’s revolutionary lockstep. Many of them were children. Many were students. Some were Nafisi’s. That part, at least, seems beyond propaganda.

The core of the book, I felt, was the time her class conducted a mock trial. The case: Islam v. “The Great Gatsby.” To me it neatly summed up the struggle between our two cultures as follows:

Western culture contains many ills, such as avarice, adultery, murder. Those ills exist because we are free to make those choices. We are also free to critique them in our books and movies. If you want to prevent such choices, you could start a totalitarian regime that requires all to uphold an ideal. In the Iranian revolution, that meant, for instance, not allowing a wisp of hair to slip into view from beneath a burqa, because it would constitute sexual provocation. Punishment for such a transgression could be, ironically, rape, as well as torture and murder.

So it comes down a choice. People, being human, can either be free to commit their mistakes and crimes or the people who run the state can be free to commit crimes in order to prevent them. Either way, people sometimes end up hurt or dead.

Which one is preferable? That’s the friction that makes East vs. West so flammable.

By that point I’d made it through the D.C. mess and was cruising toward Baltimore. But first, breakfast. I pulled off and found a McDonald’s. You can’t get more Western than that.

Everyone in the crowded place was black except for one elderly couple just ahead of me in line. Something about them suggested bigotry to me. I don’t know what it was; some peevishness in their expressions, maybe. Anyway, halfway through my breakfast I detected a lively conversation (see signs and omens overheard, above) and looked up. It was the elderly white couple arguing with a young black man, a McDonald’s employee. But wait, it turned out to be a mock argument. It was actually good-natured ribbing. In a second all three of them were smiling and laughing.

Then the woman suddenly pointed to the young man’s chest and said, “Oh, too bad! You ripped your shirt.”

He looked down, startled and upset.

“April Fool’s!” shouted the woman.

This completely broke them up, all three of them, and everyone in the tables nearby.

It was a nice moment in America.

I decided to exact vengeance. I wrote the magic words on a small pad I had with me and approached their table on my way to the men’s room.

Striking a waiter’s pose, I leaned over and asked, “Will there be anything else?”

They looked up, confused.

“Uh, no,” said the woman. The man simply glowered.

I ripped the sheet of paper off and slapped it down on their table. “Thanks,” I said.

A full fifteen seconds later, through the bathroom door, I heard their howls of laughter.

Back in the car, Nafisi’s students were now struggling with “Pride and Prejudice,” in addition to the ayatollah’s morality squads. Needing a break from it all, I turned off the CD for a while. News came on the radio. More wrangling over the AIG bonuses. A possible “controlled bankruptcy” for General Motors. More deaths in Iraq. Lots of grist for anti-Westerners.

My mind wandered to some other recent news items in the same vein. California’s bid to bail itself out by legalizing marijuana. Suffolk County’s probable move to do the same by changing course and supporting a tribal casino. Once upon a time, officials argued against these moves on moral grounds.

I wondered what Nafisi’s conservative students would say, most notably the one who served as prosecutor in Islam v. “The Great Gatsby.” No doubt he would have righteously lambasted it as more evidence of the West’s conveniently flexible morality, especially when money is involved.

He’d be tougher to beat this time, I think. “The Great Gatsby” is starting to look pretty mild compared to The Great Recession.

Recent evidence that God might not hate us after all

2009-04-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

Red wine, chocolate and walnuts turn out to be good for us.

Eggs too.

Some fat isn’t bad.

The Internet still works.

Madoff is pronounced “made off.”

The Obamas.

Those yellow things appear to be daffodils.

More?

A Christmas Carol Ann Howell

2008-12-25T04:02:00.000-08:00

I'll be home, like, sometime,
don't wait up for me,
all my friends will be at Jen's
so that's where I will be.

Christmas Eve will find me
at the mall with Trevor.
I'll be home for Christmas,
like, sometime,
stop bugging me,
whatever.

The Ten Steps of Sudden Celebrity (as exhibited most recently in the curious cases of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber)

2008-12-19T04:18:00.000-08:00

1. Rush of excitement/media fanfare

2. Intense media scrutiny of past missteps, embarrassments

3. Public humiliation, revulsion, repudiation

4. Subject complains of media mishandling

5. Sympathetic stories appear

6. Other celebrities express support

7. Public loses interest

8. Plucky comeback

9. Back to obscurity

10. Book deal

2008-12-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

Launching Operation OYEAH

2008-11-25T16:08:00.000-08:00

PLEDGE: The following is not an economic recovery plan. I know it's rare to see anything else these days, but I promise this isn't.

Instead, it's a proposed way of supporting whatever economic strategies President-elect Obama and his team come up with. Kind of a recovery amplifier.

It goes like this:

Lots of people are handy with tools. In fact, it's almost unAmerican to admit that you couldn't, for instance, whip together a pretty decent shed in a couple of hours, given the proper materials.

So we make an offer to these millions of handy Americans. Instead of sitting around drinking beer all day Saturday, why not volunteer some time to help fix up your neighborhood? Why not bring your tools and work on improving the disintegrating houses / barns / train stations / schools / whatever in your town?

What's in it for you? For each hour you pitch in, you earn (or can gallantly decline) a certain amount of tax credit. You also get a strong jolt of that wonderfully American barn-raising spirit, with hearty overtones of accomplishment, community closeness and civic pride.

And your returns keep coming because your efforts have long-range impacts. Your neighborhood starts to look better and become more desirable, which increases the value of your home. Uninhabitable houses become habitable, creating more affordable housing, helping young families get their first shot at home ownership, and making your town more vibrant.

I know I'm still a little drunk on the good feelings uncorked by Obama's victory, but I believe that this project can work and can help bring about the closer, stronger America so many of us are hoping to see.

One more benefit: It's a chance to get involved in the process. Rather than just sit back and hope for the best from the new administration, this project will let us invest some sweat to help make it come true.

All that remains, other than putting it in action, is to give it a catchy name. I propose OYEAH, for Organize Your Efforts And Help, but I'm hopeful it will be more popularly known by its homonym: OYAA (Off Your Ass, America).

*FITNESS NOTE: In terms of exercise, an hour of shoveling is worth at least an hour in the gym, and you don't have to pay for it.

J. Mudcat Miller

What? You've missed Miller's columns in the LIBN?

2008-11-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

It has been sadly pointed out to me that many people, for one reason or another, have been hideously deprived of my columns all about the East End in Long Island Business News. Mainly, the problem is that they don't get the damn paper. I understand this. Shrinking economy, other selfish uses for the money, blah blah. So here's a solution: simply Google jdmiller49 and prepare to be bathed in a gushing torrent of milk and honey, unless that metaphor in any way disgusts you.

At the bottom, after gorging yourself on the first couple pages of columns, it will say lots of other similar pages are available with a click. FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T HESITATE. These columns purport to be about business, but really they're subtle jewels encapsulating life on our wonderful twin forks and, to extrapolate just a bit, our planet.

Good hunting.

Obama campaign's 'Operation Stargag' revealed

2008-11-13T05:16:00.000-08:00

Fascinating details keep emerging about the diligence of the Obama campaign. Here's the latest: A share of the candidate's stunning success was due to a concerted effort to muzzle celebrity endorsements.

It was called "Operation Stargag."

Sources inside the campaign indicate that the gambit was hatched in secret meetings shortly after Oprah Winfrey issued her glowing endorsement on Larry King way back in May of 2007. Almost immediately, Obama and his closest advisors agreed the Hollywood fawning might give traction to the Republicans' elitism charge and could scuttle the campaign.

"Barack's feeling was, OK, it's Oprah, that's cool," said a well-placed but unnamed source. "But let's nip it right there."

Ms. Winfrey vowed to back off, but trouble soon arose elsewhere. "It was like a goddamn Hydra," said the source, referring to the mythological beast that grew two heads for every one chopped off.

A big concern was Madonna. "She's a bomb waiting to explode," said an e-mail intercepted by another unnamed source. The reference possibly harkened to the star's 2003 "American Life" video, in which she tossed a grenade at a George W. Bush look-alike.

Stargag enforcers allegedly had the Material Girl under control, but she slipped the leash in August with her infamous equating of McCain with Hitler and Obama with Ghandi. "We were lucky," said the source. "The Olympics were on. Nobody paid much attention."

Another huge area of worry, of course, was Michael Jackson. "You know, the rock-star thing, the part-black, part-white thing," said the source. "It was scary. We were sure he was going to try to get around us with another 'We Are the World' eruption." It is testimony to the vigor of the campaign that Jackson was somehow kept under wraps.

But of course there were slips. And when they came, they came fast and furious.

"AAGGH!" blistered an e-mail from a top campaign official. "Clooney! De Niro! Abdul-Jabbar! Hulk freaking Hogan, for god's sake! Can't you stop these people?"

"We're trying!" replied a flustered Stargag lieutenant. "It's like trying to cap a firehose!"

In desperation they hatched a scheme to divert some celebrities to McCain. That tactic, code-named "Operation Starshift," was only marginally successful

"OMG, you guys HAVE GOT TO DO BETTER!" screeched yet another e-mail from a top Obama aide. "Who's McCain got? Like, Lou Ferrigno? Pat Boone? Wilfred Brimley, fer cryin' out loud?"

"Now wait a minute," came the clearly miffed reply. "We got Eastwood to go over. And Victoria Jackson. And, uh, Erik Estrada."

The reply was unprintable.

Eventually the Obama campaign began raiding its massive war chest to finance various distractions. Funds were diverted to help produce the film "Max Payne," on the proviso that a role be found for Ludacris. For a generous donation, the hurricane relief effort in Haiti agreed to take on Matt Damon.

No doubt their greatest coup came next. In return for massive appearance fees and a new Bentley, A-Rod agreed to squire Madonna around until mid-November.

The rest, as they say, is Hollywood history.

J. Mudcat Miller

New columnist debuts; evildoers tremble

2008-11-12T08:41:00.000-08:00

Let the universe take note of the debut of our new columnist, WT Davidson of Nashville, Tennessee. WT will be covering the neuroscience/funkadelia beat. His first dispatch appears below.

Innovation At Home - Branding and You

2008-11-11T14:58:00.000-08:00

Let's face it - innovation is the heart and soul of our economy, our country, and our very lives. How many times, at the bitter end of a failed relationship, have you said "Sure, we got along, but she [or perhaps he] just wasn't innovative enough." I know I have. That's why, in these tough economic times, it's so important to innovate (never say invent) new complex mechanisms for enhancing value producing monetary multipliers.

Specifically, I'm thinking about branding. Branding in new, innovative ways.

Indeed, we all love watching football with new, innovative enhancements like the Chevrolet Player of the Game, Clorox Fan of the Week, and the Toyota 43 yard line. And we all know that some people, in new and innovative ways, are being paid to tell their friends and families how much they love their new cell phone, their cell phone plan, or their hamburger. While clearly an advancement for humankind, is this truly innovative enough?

Here's my idea. Brand your own, personal possessions - even if they are previously branded (retain an attorney). It won't be easy, innovation never is. Who would care, you ask, about some random trade name assigned to the antique hutch given to me by my aunt Gwendolyn?

This is where the faint of heart often fail to see the the need for more innovation. Marketing ... you must in fact market your own personal brand to the larger, more important brands. They must believe you to have a wide range of friends, family and general social contacts. It won't be necessary to actually have them. Once you seal the deal, the beauty of market-driven brand reinforcement will become an unstoppable force for boundless innovation in your future - and you'll get paid!

Say it's Thanksgiving; when cousin Roscoe asks, "Hey, can I get you a beer?" you could just reply in the old, calcified way, "Yes, please." Or you could venture "You bet. The Citigroup Thrill of the Chill fridge has got all the perfectly frosted malt beverages we could ask for." (If you spotted an unrealized branding opportunity - you're on your way to a new, more completely branded tomorrow!)

"Can I use your bathroom?"

"Of course. Make sure to hold down the handle of the Poulaner Weedeater toilet for at least four seconds, though."

See, it's not that hard. And best of all - you're a part of the innovation economy. Remember, it's not about producing things, saving things, knowing things, or recycling things. In these difficult days, it's all about continuing to live in a monetarily enhanced environment while not using your own personal energy.

Now you and I know the media elite will scream bloody murder "It's Orwell on consumer steroids..." - you know who I mean. But aren't these the same folks who whined and moaned about the innovative war in Iraq?

In this unprecedented and challenging era, if we buckle down, if we keep our wits, if we know in our hearts that we can get paid for doing nothing, I think we just might come out all right.

WT "I'm not bitter" Davidson

Daily Beast report from Ohio

2008-11-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Dispatches From the Swing States

Ohio: Jeff Miller

Obama footsoldiers in southeastern Ohio are now battling two foes: McCain and complacency. “I sense a lot of over-confidence,” said a campaign organizer. “People feel sure he’s going to win, so they don’t have to get involved.”

That’s not acceptable to the Obama faithful, so efforts are redoubling. And yet, some campaigners are shifting their focus and their efforts from Ohio to Pennsylvania, feeling it might be more of a toss up. Nevertheless, fervor is still running high. “Someone with six kids went out with the kids and knocked on 200 doors yesterday,” said the organizer. “And an 88-year-old man knocked on 70 doors. People are working hard. Really hard.”

Another sign: Obama campaign headquarters, which seemed so roomy last week, is getting crowded. More rented tables have been set up, stacks of donated bottled water are growing tall, and volunteer numbers have jumped 50 percent from last week to this. And reinforcements are on the way. The next few days will bring a swarm of volunteer lawyers to combat election day mischief.

“Excitement is bubbling,” said the organizer. “There’s a little more stress in the air.” How do they manage to stay afloat above a rising tide of canvassers? Simple: When they return to the office, “We send them right back out.”

Back to Ohio for Obama

2008-11-05T04:06:00.000-08:00

"Hi. I'm a volunteer with Barack Obama's Campaign for Change here in Youngstown. I was born and raised in Ohio and I drove four states to come back this week because I believe in this cause."

That was the heart of the little speech I delivered many times during my stay in Youngstown last week. My friends and fellow East End Long Islanders Barbara and Jim have a dynamo of a daughter who took a semester off from college to help run an Obama headquarters in Youngstown. She put out a call for volunteers and we drove west. It's not easy to refuse her.

We arrived on Monday, Oct. 20, at an hour I usually think of as dinnertime. Instead, the dynamo showed us how to make "persuasion" calls, gave us some lists, sat us down at the phone bank and turned us loose. It was an instant lesson in geopolitics.

I was raised in a Republican household in Cleveland. Growing up, political identity never seemed to be a matter of choice. Everyone liked Ike and that was that. Until recently I was a "blank," a member of no party, which helped in my career as a journalist. But in this election I'm a devoted Obama supporter, which is why I got in the car heading for Youngstown.

It's quite a different city from Cleveland as I remember it. In my very first phone calls, I picked up some attitudes and even some accents that sounded southern, although we were only 30 miles below Cleveland and about 60 miles east. But there are plenty of similarities too. Most importantly, both are historically steel towns, and, with the decline of the economy and the auto industry, both are hurting.

The level of that pain registered clearly in the first phone calls. "We just can't keep going like we've been going," said one man. "Even my racist friends are coming over to Obama."

There were sentiments on the other side too. "I'm a proud Democrat but I won't vote for him," one woman told me. When I asked why, she said, "I just don't trust him."

That line, I've read, is often code for racial fear, but in some instances I think it was a genuine concern. Obama IS relatively new to the scene. I countered with the argument that he has more experience than Abe Lincoln had going in, which drew silence.

I also heard the familiar litany of Obama scares: He's a Muslim, he's a Socialist, he's not a U.S. citizen, he pals around with terrorists, his wife isn't proud of her country. I parried them with what I believe to be the truth, and as a trump card I asked if they'd seen Colin Powell's endorsement. Almost without exception, the general's glowing remarks were acknowledged to be a powerful persuader.

The next day Jim and I were sent on the road as a canvassing team. We went to a working-class neighborhood in northwest Youngstown. There were some abandoned, disintegrating homes here, but most were well kept, and many were decked out with lavish Halloween decorations. Since it was a Tuesday during working hours, lots of houses were unoccupied, but when someone did answer the door an interesting thing happened: People were friendly.

That impressed me. I don't appreciate solicitations over the phone, and I like them even less in person, but these people were generally pretty nice about it. That's the Ohio I remember.

Even those who are backing the Republican ticket weren't particularly rude about it, for the most part. The worst was the Norman Mailer look-alike who peered at me through his closed storm door with an ironic grin permanently in place. When I told him I was a volunteer with the Obama campaign he said, "You are?" When I asked if he was voting for Obama, he just grinned. When I asked if he'd made up his mind, he said, "I just told you, didn't I?" When I spun out my line about driving four states to volunteer, he said, "You oughta get in your car and drive back those four states." Then, still grinning, he closed the door.

A few houses later I had an exchange of a different kind. No one answered when I rang the bell so I prepared to knock, but the door opened just as I did and I almost rapped the occupant on the forehead.

It was a black man who was totally unruffled by his close encounter with my fist. I explained that I was canvassing for the Obama campaign and, well, suffice to say it was a nice visit. Then, when I was two houses away, I heard the man urgently calling me back. I returned, bending against the frigid afternoon wind. "Here," he said, reaching down from his porch. "You need a hat. It's cold out there."

The next day we canvassed in Lowellville, a riverside village in southeastern Youngstown. Demographic: 99 percent white and largely Italian-American. We were warned that it could be a tough day for us, but that's not what I found. Yes, some doors were closed but some were flung open enthusiastically, especially by the goateed man who trumpeted for me and all his neighbors to hear, "I'm a union man and there are five votes for Obama in this house!"

Back at headquarters, in between our forays onto the streets, fervor and camaraderie built steadily day to day. Among the crew were people of all ages and colors, locals and visitors from all over the country, all descended on this former mattress outlet to help swing the crucial Ohio vote. There was even a Legal Aid lawyer from Brooklyn who was involved in the fight against the Shoreham nuclear plant, and who in fact got arrested during a protest over it.

Even though you're never supposed to feel optimistic during a campaign, at one point toward the end of our stay I looked around the room and couldn't help taking heart. Maybe every campaign generates such moments, but I hadn't felt that kind of buoyancy since the Kennedy era. For that instant it didn't matter if our candidate won or not; just the amazing fact of this campaign was a victory in itself. Somewhere, amid all the turmoil and debate and sheer effort, the awful issue of race had simply become insignificant. Something much more important was going on, and there we all were, fighting for it.

That, I reflected, is the way life should be.

J. Mudcat Miller

Imaginary friends

2008-11-04T04:27:00.000-08:00

My mother walked into the bathroom and saw an odd sight. Her two-year-old son was lying on the floor whispering fervently into the heat vent.

"Who are you talking to?" she asked.

"The monkeys," I mumbled.

"What monkeys?"

I didn't answer.

"What monkeys?" she repeated.

"Figgy and Guffietz!" I said brusquely.

"There are monkeys named Figgy and Guffietz in there?"

I nodded, very seriously.

"What are they doing in there?" my mother asked.

But there was a note of amusement in her voice. I recognized it and was wary. Yes, they were monkeys, but there was nothing silly about them. I didn't want them to become playthings for the whole world. "They're just bein' there!" I said loudly. Actually, they did swing around on pipes occasionally, but I didn't want to let that key bit of information out.

Soon the whole family knew of the monkeys in the heat vent, and to the great credit of my mother, father and sister, they never made fun of me, and tried not to intrude when I was conferring with Figgy and Guffietz, despite the fact that there was only one bathroom on the second floor and I was frequently tying it up, deep in discussion with my imaginary friends.

There are several reasons young children create imaginary characters like my two monkeys. This book will touch on those reasons, but most of the pages will be devoted to the friends themselves -- the children and the amazing creations that spring from their fertile imaginations. For instance...

Well, Figgy and Guffietz were only my first two. Soon there was also Hank, a cowboy who lived in the downstairs coat closet. Sometimes, when all four of us humans were sitting in the living room of an evening, I would suddenly stand up, march across the room, step into the closet and close the door. My family would then hear the sounds of muffled conversation and try very hard not to laugh too loudly. Hank, by the way, always stood at attention next to the American flag that was rolled up on its flagpole and propped into a corner of the closet, awaiting the Fourth of July.

My last and, according to my family, greatest creation was Darling Beauty. She lived in the Spanish moss hanging from the trees in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was long and slender and gorgeous, and she had long, gorgeous black hair and a long red dress. Everything about her was long and gorgeous and flowing, the better to drape herself amid the graceful moss. We drove from Cleveland, Ohio, to Florida every other year or so, and, for a wonderful while, Darling Beauty would always be there waiting for me when we returned.

"Do you see her yet?" some family member would ask.

"No," I would say grumpily, always on the lookout for amusement on their parts. But finally the excitement would build too high and I would forget to be wary, and then I would yell, "There she is!"

More than a quarter of all children have imaginary friends in their lives at one time or another. If you were one of them (the children, not the imaginary friend), please consider sending me a note about the experience (jdmiller49@yahoo.com). Your story might become part of a real book someday.

J. Mudcat Miller

Way to go

2008-11-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

Wise are the
fruit flies
who choose
to die
in wine.

A Conversation With My Dog Whilst Raking

2008-11-03T02:53:00.000-08:00

“I see you’re urinating on the leaf pile again,” I said.

“Yes, I am,” said Elmo. He didn’t say the words so much as he thought them. His thoughts come directly to me and vice versa.

Now he was finished urinating and was in his proud hound stance: head and ears thrown back, nose sniffing the breeze, eyes peering deeply into the faraway.

“You do this every year,” I said.

He said nothing.

“I rake and rake, make these giant mounds of leaves, and you come along and urinate on them.”

“That is my nature,” said Elmo.

“Well, it’s getting a little annoying. Year after year.”

“The leaves returneth every year.”

“Yes, and I have to rake them up every year.”

“That is your nature.”

“It is not my nature. I hate raking.”

“Then why do you rake?”

“Because the yard would be full of leaves if I didn’t. You couldn’t even walk through it.”

“What man rakes the forest?”

“No one rakes the forest.” I knew where this was going.

“And yet, you have seen me walk there.”

I moved to a new spot and kept raking. Elmo followed.

“Autumn comes and the leaves falleth,” he said. “I walk among them. I urinate upon them. Then comes another autumn, and more leaves. Then another and another. The forest does not fill up. The Earth welcomes the leaves. That is its nature.”

“Do you have to use the biblical verbs?”

“For the purpose of this conversation, it pleaseth me.”

“Well, it annoyeth the hell out of me.” I picked up a stick and threw it onto the stick pile. He watched calmly.

“This Lord Elmo routine,” I said. “You stand around, sniff the wind, piss on the leaves, while I do all the work.” It was a losing battle, like urging him to help around the house instead of just lounging until mealtime.

He said nothing. The new leaf pile grew. Elmo walked up beside it, sniffed once and then urinated on it. He looked right at me while he did it.

“Your problem,” he said, “is you are out of harmony with the leaves.”

“Well, please help me to harmonize, o wise one.”

“First you must understand their nature. They fall and the Earth welcomes them. Then they returneth.”

I moved to a new spot and kept raking. Elmo followed.

“They will fall again next year,” he said. “And the year after that. And the year after that. And one day I too will fall, and I will become leaves. This is not sad. I have been leaves many times. The leaves are my brothers.”

I glanced at Elmo. He was peering into the distance again. I checked the view. Nothing there but wind and branches and horizon.

“One day you too will fall, man of leaves,” he said.

Stubbornness kept me raking.

J. Mudcat Miller

Game

2008-11-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

New racquet?

Yeah, I need all the help I can get.

Love 15.

*

Wow. You've been working on your backhand.

Got lucky that time.

Love 30.

*

You sure about that call?

Take it over if you want.

Never mind. Love 40.

*

Out of breath? Wanna rest?

Nah, I'm fine.

15-40.

*

How's the bankruptcy going?

It's going fine, Ralph.

30-40.

*

Heard from your wife recently?

Let's just play, okay?

Sure. Deuce.

*

Couldn't hear that, Bill.

I said, "Bloody hassle."

Oh. Sounded more like "Lucky asshole." Ad in.

*

You're playing really well, Bill.

Fuck you, Ralph.

Game.

A. Relationship, socialite, dies at home, age 14

2008-11-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

A. Relationship, a noted participant in the local club scene, died unpleasantly at its fashionable Upper East Side apartment Tuesday evening. Relationship was 14.

Relationship was born in the Senor Frog's bar in Playa del Carmen in February 1994. Its parents, Jack and Jill Partner, were vacationing separately at the time, met, shared an estimated five giant Senor Frog's margaritas and conceived A. Relationship later that night. Friends described it as a "joyful" and "slaphappy" birth, although details were hazy.

Upon returning to the city, the Partners and their infant Relationship traveled back and forth between Mrs. Partner's studio apartment in Chelsea and Mr. Partner's pigsty in Washington Heights before deciding to pool their resources and move to the trendy East 80s. This led to the usual haggle over furnishings, which was decided by having all of Mr. Partner's trappings hauled to the Brooklyn landfill except for his classic rock CD collection and a somewhat attractive Queen Anne highboy he had inherited from his mother, the late Molly Coddler of Hempstead, Long Island.

Once settled, the spunky Relationship quickly became ubiquitous in the UES social arena, seen almost nightly at Iggy's, Hooligan's, Aces and Eights and other in-spots. Photos often appeared in the tabloids, not always in the most flattering poses, such as the 2002 public urination incident and the resulting garbage pickup shot that was used by the city to advertise its Creative Sentencing campaign.

"A. Relationship can't be judged from the outside," UES celeb/sex authority Sally Jesse Raphael told Tickled Pink magazine last September. "The Relationship you see might appear to be reeling, spinning madly out of control, passing out in cabs, but inside there may be genuine caring and mutual respect." Last night she was reportedly "stunned" and "saddened" by Relationship's demise.

Insiders say the downward spiral began a few months ago, when the Partners began to grow apart. "She wanted more, more, more," said close friend Liza Minelli. "More bright lights, more fun, more everything! And more fun! He lost his job. What can you say? It wasn't easy to sustain A. Relationship in that whatever. Environment."

Mr. Partner was a broker for the hedge fund VisionAerie Technologies, recently hit with fraud and conspiracy charges by the SEC. He is as yet unindicted. Mrs. Partner is currently residing at the home of billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein.

A. Relationship is survived by the Partners and Ugh, their pet Puggle. A memorial service will be held tomorrow at Smithers Rehabilitation Center, 58th and 10th. Donations may be made to Dr. Phil McGraw's Rescue Retreat and Smile Factory.

J. Mudcat Miller

Mrs. Smoot's Shimmering Poetry Hunt

2008-10-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

Shimmering Poetry Hunt, Inc.
1 Iambic Avenue
Hope Springs, Kansas

Dear Shimmering Poetry Hunt, Inc.,

Please find enclosed my entry in your free international poetry competition. I love to write and I love my pet cat, Foofles, so I put the two together and wrote a poem about Foofles! Hope you like it!

Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet,
East Buggsa, Vermont

"My Sweet Foofles"
by Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet

Oh, how I love my Foofles,
she is so very pretty.
Also, she is very sweet, too.
In other words, she is a sweet and pretty kitty.

Oh how in sunlight doth she glisten
in her hues of black and also there's some orange.
In moonlight doth she listen --
Hark! I cometh with her dinner through the door hinge.

Thank you,
Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet

Dear Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet,

Congratulations! Your luminous poem, "My Sweet Foofles," has been selected as a First-Round Winner in our 2007 International Poetry Hunt! Our Editors were moved by the Mood and the Bold Imagery of your work, especially the Deep Love and Ardor conveyed by your Faithful Passage through the door hinge!

Your Poem, Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet, will now be entered automatically in our Second Round. The poems in that round will be the best the planet has to offer -- like yours! -- and so the Competition will be tough. Many poets like to give their creations the Best Possible Chance by having their Shimmering Creation rendered on High-Quality Vellum in Beautiful Calligraphy by a Gifted but Nearly Blind Monk on the Island of Corfu. To order, simply send a check for $29.95 in the enclosed ORDER envelope.

ALSO, as a First-Round Winner, your Lush and Verdant creation, "My Sweet Foofles," will automatically be PUBLISHED in our 2007 Shimmering Poetry Hunt Treasury. This gorgeous, leatherette-bound Volume will be available to all of our poets for $149.95 each (limit twelve per poet).

With luck, "My Sweet Foofles" could streak like a Dazzling Comet through the Azure Sky to become our Grand Prize Winner and receive a Grand Prize of $10,000! Don't delay! Send in your ACCEPTANCE form, your ORDER SHEETS and your checks or money order today! And once again, Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet, thank you deeply for making our world a more Shimmering Place by creating your magical creation!

Poetically yours,
Byron Wordsworth-Browning, editor

Dear Mr. Byron Wordsworth-Browning, editor,

Oh, how you have brightened my day! I went out to the post box by the hard road with my beloved Foofles by my side, of course, and inside the box there were the bills, of course, and the Reader's Digest and whatnot, and I almost missed it but there it was your letter on the elegant paper with the news that "My Sweet Foofles" is a first-round winner! Well, I raced back home and first thing I called my sisters, Jilly and Ruthie, to tell them the big news and weren't they thrilled (and jealous! -- yay!). They always say I have a way with words (and sometimes talk too much HA!) but they never DREAMED I'd be a winner in such a big contest! Well, take that, girls!

Please put me down for three of the 2007 Shimmering Poetry Hunt Treasury's (one for me and one each for my sisters -- just to REALLY make them jealous!). And yes, of course have my Shimmering Creation rendered on high quality velma by that monk in Corfu. Poor man. Along with my checks and all, I'll send along some carrots straight from our garden for him (I'm told their good for the eyes).

Thank you so, so much, Mr. Wordsworth-Browning! I'm so excited I think I'll go into town later and have a MALT!

Poetically Yours too,
Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet

Dear Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet,

Congratulations! Your poem, "My Sweet Foofles," has been selected as a Second Round winner in our 2007 Shimmering Poetry Hunt! You're now one step closer to International Acclaim and the Grand Prize Check of $10,000!

And here's some more Exciting News! Second-round winners are eligible to have their Poems carved into ancient Lava Rocks unearthed in West Greenland specially for Shimmering Poetry Hunt! These rocks are among the oldest ever found on Earth!

Talk about Etched in Stone! You don't get more Timeless than that! Just slip a check or money order for $629.95 into the ORDER envelope and let our Artisans get to work! Congratulations again, Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet, and on to the Third Round!

Yours through the Ages,
Byron Wordsworth-Browning, editor

Dear Mr. Wordsworth-Browning, editor,

"Bliss was it that dawn to be alive." Isn't that beautiful? I clipped it out of the Reader's Digest yesterday. It's by an Englishman named William Wordsworth, who might be a relative of yours, come to think of it. Small world! Small and blissful!

And what bliss you have given me, Mr. Wordsworth-Browning! First, the way that blind monk drew "My Sweet Foofles" onto that fancy velma was beautiful! I sure hope the carrots helped!

Second, Yes! please do have "My Sweet Foofles" carved into those lava rocks up in Greenland. My star and garters, what an honor! I'm sending in my check for $629.95 along with a couple pecks of garlic from our garden. I know what hard work it is, hauling heavy stones around, and my home-grown garlic is very good for backaches. I hope it makes your poor Artisans feel better!

Yours throughout Time Eternal,
Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet

Dear Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet,
Congratulations! Your Mystical Creation, "My Sweet Foofles," is now a SEMI-FINALIST in our 2007 Shimmering Poetry Hunt! You are now just two steps away from International Acclaim and the Grand Prize Check of $10,000!

But the competition is getting fierce! We have received Thousands and Thousands of brilliant poems from all around the Globe! Many of the Semi-Finalists feel it's important to wow the judges by having the World-Famous Blue Angels sky-write every precious word of their poems across the Heavens! What an exciting opportunity! Just imagine, Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet ... there! ... up in the sky! ... "My Sweet Foofles"!

Just kiss a check or money order for $4,389.95 and deposit it lovingly into the ORDER envelope today!

Yours on high,
Byron Wordsworth-Browning, editor
P.S. to Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet: Please do not send any more vegetation to our home office. Our attorneys warn that the garlic was borderline harassment.

Dear Mr. Wordsworth-Browning, editor,

How do I love this contest? Let me count the ways! Apologies to that lovely Elizabeth Barrett Browning! (Another relative of yours? My land, what poetic forbears art thine!)

I'm just thrilled to be a semi-finalist! I never imagined that "My Sweet Foofles" would take me thus far. As for the sky-writing by the famous Blue Angels, I had quite a discussion about it with Mr. Smoot (my husband). He feels strongly that the Blue Angels fly jets and jets don't sky-write. Also, he's concerned about the money, of course. But I said don't be an old fuddy duddy, this is my big chance and I'm going to take it, even if it means emptying the cookie jar. So here's my check for $4,389.95, lovingly kissed, along with a jar of my foot poultice. I know those nice jet pilots often get swollen feet and even nasty embolisms sometimes. The poultice is made of mistletoe, nettle, rue and fenugreek. (Left out the garlic, as you requested!)

Yours on high also,
Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet
P.S. Mr. Smoot insists that I ask where my Greenland lava rock is. Is it on root, he wants to know? Thanks! Sorry!

Dear Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet,

Congratulations! Your Transplendent Creation, "My Sweet Foofles," is now a FINALIST in our 2007 Shimmering Poetry Hunt! International Acclaim and the Grand Prize Check of $10,000 are now just a gossamer breath away!

At this point in the contest, FINALISTS like you, Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet, are being offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have your Priceless Poems LAUNCHED INTO SPACE! That's right, through an exclusive arrangement with NASA, brave Astronauts of the Shuttle Atlantis will memorize YOUR WORDS and, once In Orbit, will speak them into the Cosmos! Just imagine a fine American, not unlike Tom Hanks, orating "Oh, how I love my Foofles / she is so very pretty" etc. TO THE STARS! It's a simply galactic offer -- that's what it is.

To get on board, simply write a check for $6,989.95, sprinkle it with prayers and launch it into the ORDER envelope. And let the countdown begin!

Yours in Deep Space,
Byron Wordsworth-Browning, editor
P.S. to Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet: The substance you sent with your last payment has been studied and found to be non-toxic, although highly odoriferous. As such, we will not instigate legal action at this time, although further postal assaults will be dealt with most harshly. You are hereby advised to consider this a SECOND NOTICE.

Dear Mr. Wordsworth-Browning, editor,
Oh, my gracious, I cannot believe I am actually a Finalist! I'm the talk of the town, that's for sure. Pastor Wilkins even mentioned me and "My Sweet Foofles" in his sermon on Sunday. I'm having a terrible struggle against the sin of pride, that's for sure!

The only sorrowful note is that I will not be able to send in the $6,989.95 to have a real astronaut speak my words into deep space. Mr. Smoot has finally put his foot down and will not budge. I'm so sorry because I think it is a lovely honor and I do so like that nice Tom Hanks.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, and wish me luck in the final round! I can hardly sleep!

Yours forever and ever,
Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet
P.S. Mr. Smoot is now quite peeved about the missing lava rocks. Could you please check? Thanks and sorry again!

Dear Mr. Wordsworth-Browning, editor,

I bet I know what happened. I bet the post office lost your letter. It happens sometimes. Just last month Marge Bibey's pension check didn't arrive so we brought her enough casseroles to sink a frigate!
Or maybe you forgot? People do sometimes.

Or maybe you're trying to spare me the pain of finding out that "My Sweet Foofles" didn't win. If that's the case, please don't worry yourself sick about it. Just going all the way through to being a Finalist was honor enough to last me a lifetime!

Whatever is the case, thank you again for all your lovely letters, Mr. Wordsworth-Browning. It has been a true delight corresponding with you.

Just in case it's forgetfulness, I'll enclose a tincture of motherwort from my herb garden. It's good for memory and for blood pressure too!

Shimmeringly yours,
Mrs. Rosemary Smoot, poet
P.S. Don't worry about the lava rocks either. Mr. Smoot drew "My Sweet Foofles" into a hunk of Vermont granite for me with a Magic Marker, and it's just fine.

J. Mudcat Miller

Climbing Mt. Brassiere

2008-10-30T07:43:00.001-07:00

Craigslist:
Writers wanted for women's magazine.
Please submit 100 words or less on
"The Bra" for assessment purposes only.

Climbing Mt. Brassiere
by J. Mudcat Miller

Young men are all explorers who
must bravely make their blunders
through strange, uncharted regions
to discover natural wonders.

I well recall my first foray
one night in Puerto Rico,
when all at once the path was cleared
onto the Mounds of Tricot.

The challenge of the Snaps and Cups
still lay ahead of me,
but first I simply gazed in awe
from C to shining C.

At the patent office

2008-10-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

I took my idea to the patent office today,
and waited with the others on the bench.
"Whatcha got there?" said the man next to me.
"Gadget?"

"More of a gizmo," I said. "Yours?"

"Same," he said, and we exchanged a smile.
We dabblers aren't babblers.

The wait was long and I slipped away
in a daydream. What if we were a pantheon of
Immortals bringing in our Creations? Over there,
the Titan with the eyebrows, he's got Time.
And the Gorgon by the window? She's got Gravity.

The Old Goat beside me had something strange,
made in His own beautiful image.
"What does it do?" I asked.
He smiled and shielded the box with his arms,
his wrists still wrapped in shreds of
leather restraints.

J. Mudcat Miller

"I" is reorganizing

2008-10-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Creditors, Insurers, etc.:

Please be informed that all debts, premiums, etc.
formerly and hereafter associated with the entity known as
"I" will no longer be my responsibility.
"I" is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Me, Inc.

Me, Inc. hereby exercises its right to complete irresponsibility
for any unwise, foolhardy, ridiculous, selfish, sociopathic or otherwise
imprudent venture, scheme, gambit or twaddle. At present, Me, Inc.
does not acknowledge that it has or has not strip-mined or polluted anything,
but if it has, it will not share in the cost of any cleanup or remediation,
although federal bailouts and/or tax credits will be accepted.

Furthermore, to friends, acquaintances and relatives,
"I" will no longer be responsible for polite conversation
at cocktail parties, wedding receptions, christenings,
bar or bat mitzvahs, or any other assemblies.
Lawsuits for any disruptive, depraved or otherwise
repugnant behavior may be forwarded
to our offshore attorneys.

In the event of severe devastation,
Me, Inc. will of course be free to restructure,
possibly but not necessarily under the name
"Bite Me, Inc."

Sincerely but nonbindingly,

J. Mudcat Miller

On reading John Updike

2008-10-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

(Published by N.Y. Times Jan. 6, 2008)

There aren't too many others like
our John, the writer, Up, yes, dike.
His mind, like his golf, is well above par,
and his work is, well, it's wunderbar.

But how I wish, to my chagrin,
that he could, just for once, begin
a sentence and, without a bend,
continue straight until the end.

When I read his books I find
it's like a Christmas of the mind,
and he is Santa, bringing pauses,
father of dependent clauses.

J. Mudcat Miller

Doggerel spawned by Margaret Seltzer's fictitious "gang memoir"

2008-10-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

Fractious Fiction
(somehow overlooked by N.Y. Times March 2008)

Imagination cuts both ways,
it now is plain to see,
without it, well, that's how we got
reality TV.

But with it there come other woes,
whose impacts can't be hid,
like intern sex I never had
unless, of course, I did.

And no new taxes, read my lips,
and hanging-chad confusion,
and wars begun by searching for
those weapons of delusion.

But when it creeps into our books
we find it most unnerving.
We don't want Frey to tell us lies
or Hughes exhumed by Irving.

And now it's happened once again,
another pot of troubles:
a story of the streets is just
a splash of Seltzer bubbles.

J. Mudcat Miller

Strange items from the campaign

2008-10-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Of Bill Clinton, 'pump head' syndrome and Hillary's defeat

By J. Mudcat Miller

Many people dread a visit to the dentist, but I actually look forward to mine. That's because I have the most entertaining dentist in the world. His name is Al.

Over the years Al has made more than a few transformative remarks while my mouth was too filled with hardware to do anything but gurgle appreciatively in response. Once, for instance, he observed that my teeth were a microcosm of the American socio-political scene, by which I think he meant slow, steady decay.

But he outdid himself during my last visit. As I lay there gurgling, he went off on his usual tangents, mentioning gunshot impact effects and a few other choice oddities before arriving, inevitably, at Hillary. "Inevitably" because, well, she's perfect dentist-visit fodder, but also because it was Friday, the day before she was to announce her exit from the campaign trail.

From Hillary, of course, it was only a small step to Bill, and that's when the visit got gripping.

"You know why he's been behaving like this, don't you?" Dr. Al queried.

"Gurgle."

"He's got machine head."

"Urgle?"

He went on to describe a magazine article he'd read a few years ago about side-effects of the heart-lung machine, to which patients are often attached during coronary surgery.

"It does weird things to blood cells," he said. "They get banged around in there, slamming up the machine's walls. They get hammered into strange shapes, like boxes and corkscrews and stuff."

Then, according to Al, once off the machine, those misshapen blood cells can cause mayhem in the patient's body or, more observably, the patient's brain.

"Like a series of tiny strokes," Dr. Al said. "They call it machine head. That's what happened to Bill Clinton," he maintained categorically. "That's why he's been acting so crazy."

Wow.

Sometimes, in our day-to-day lives, we hear bizarre ideas and concepts. But when Al launches one I tend to think wow because he's usually right, or at least very close to it.

So I went home vowing to check into this earth-shaking deduction. If true, it explained so much. Why one of the brightest lights in American politics had been short-circuiting so badly during primary season, snapping at reporters, sliming Obama clumsily, torpedoing his wife's campaign.

Sure enough, he was right, except for one detail.

They call it "pump head."

Some Googling took me to a 1999 treatise about Billy Cohn, who took a soup ladle and customized it by cutting holes in it, and then used it during coronary surgery to hold the heart steady and keep blood from pumping through incisions, but allowing him to suture through the holes he'd drilled in the ladle. A simple, brilliant solution, but not one that was used during Bill Clinton's 2004 quadruple coronary-bypass surgery. And so, in Dr. Al's professional opinion, the former POTUS came out with pump head, which was causing his erratic behavior.

Dr. Al maintains that he put all this together himself and I believe him. He comes up with brilliant connections all the time.

But further Googling revealed that he wasn't the only one to connect the dots. Just a few days before, Vanity Fair had published a 9,647-word opus by Todd Purdum on Bill Clinton, snappily headlined "The Comeback Id," and subheaded, "Bubba trouble."

Deep into it, after exploring some other likely causes for Clinton's erratic behavior, Purdum talks about the potential effects of the bypass surgery, quoting a prominent Johns Hopkins cardiologist who said, "It's very similar to postpartum depression." Also, "a lot of people are never really the same again." And "their mood is not right."

Further checking revealed that others had already reached this conclusion.

"One of the savviest politicians of our generation, known for his wit, charm, and calm under extreme pressure, Bill Clinton appears out of character in the speeches and interviews televised since his bypass surgery September 6, 2004," wrote Dr. John McDougall of McDougall Wellness Center in Santa Rosa, Calif., a while back.

"[A]nd his mental deterioration may be accelerating," wrote the doctor. "Remember, this is the president who withstood public impeachment before the entire world for his relationship with Monica Lewinski without once losing control. Now, he is easily angered by hecklers, and makes factual mistakes and racial slurs while aggressively defending his wife's campaign for presidency. Everyone sees his mental and emotional decline, yet to date, no medical professionals have spoken out about the cause or offered help."

McDougall then does so, diagnosing Clinton from afar with "post bypass surgery cognitive dysfunction" and writing, "One of the best-kept secrets in medicine is the brain damage caused during bypass surgery." That damage is "so common that hospital personnel refer to it as 'pump head.' "

Unlike the "Bubba trouble" subhead deployed by Vanity Fair, McDougall's column was topped with "We Need to Understand and Show Some Compassion." The doctor goes on to do that, writing, "I am saddened to see our former president suffer from public humiliation, but I am disgraced that my profession has thus far failed to come forward with a long over-due explanation and an apology to the Clintons and our nation for the harm they have done and the secrets they have kept."

Further checking revealed that even Dr. McDougall wasn't first with this revelation. Back in September 2004, shortly after Clinton's surgery, freelance writer Judy Foreman wrote in the Boston Globe, "With luck and his relative youth and health going for him, Clinton, 58, hopefully will rebound in both heart and mind from the surgery." And yet, "many people who go through the procedure -- as 305,000 Americans did in 2001 ... -- find that, at least for a few days, often for weeks and sometimes for years afterward, their brains don't work as well as they did before."

A few hours later I watched Hillary make her concession speech, giving up a history-making run for the White House. And I couldn't help wondering if she realized that her husband's bypass surgery in 2004 might have played a key role in the demise of her campaign.

I doubt if even Dr. Al knows the answer to that.

Let's bring back doggerel!

2008-10-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

Wardrobe Malfunction,
Tombstone, Ariz.,
Oct. 26, 1881

They say he drank
an awful lot
to get his courage
bolstered.

He wore his gunbelt
so damn high,
they say he died
upholstered.

J. Mudcat Miller

I tried to resist, but it turns out I'm too weak.

2008-10-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

And so, I'm doing this, apparently. If you stray here accidentally, welcome.

Despite, the title, the purpose of this place is not necessarily to quibble with everything else out there, although that is clearly needed on a daily basis. Rather the purpose is to provide a home for witty, interesting, off-center writing. Commentary on virtually anything will be welcome. The only requirement is that the writing be as engaging as possible, and brilliantly so, if possible.

Thanks, and let the eloquence flow.

J. Mudcat Miller
Oct. 28, 2008