Eye-Opening Perspectives for Heroic Hearts

Eye-Opening Perspectives for Heroic Hearts

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Bill Mahr Attacks Yachters

Yachtzee Totzee Another Nazi?


10.05.2010 by Winsip Custer CPW News Service

Bill Mahr, TV comedian and political commentator attached yachters during a recent interview. "Rich people don't use tax cuts to hire people, they use them to buy themselves a bigger yacht," said Mahr. Not much trickles down Mahr claimed.

Chris Caswell differs.  The author of "Red Carpet Treatment" in Yachting Magazine (Oct, 2010) says that "Yachting is, by and large, a democratic community. It matters not whether you're a plumber or a CEO of a Fortune 100 corporation, because you're judged on your seamanship and whether you're a 'good guy'," said Caswell.

I interviewed dozens of former spouses of avid yachters to see if Caswell's statement holds up. Susan Williamson of Santa Barbara, California said "my ex-husband loved that damn boat more than he did life itself. So when he wanted my vote on a trip to Tahiti I voted no and said 'have a nice life'. Haven't heard from him in six years."

"So is the yachting life a democratic life?" I asked her.

"Why don't you ask Captains Blythe or Ahab? Have you not read The Caine Mutuny nor Mutiny on the Bounty?" she asked me. The other wives told the same story.

I flipped through the pages of the October 2010 Yachting Magazine and found an advertisement placed there by my brother-in-law with whom we had just spent the Labor Day weekend. A boat broker in San Diego, he and his nephew had gotten into it over President Obama's policies and that was when his son arrived from a football game in which he had been playing. "Damn fags lost the game for us," he said. "Which ones?" his father asked. "You know which ones," he replied. "It's not nice to call folks fags," I said to his son. "How would feel if you...." I couldn't finish the statement.

"You probably voted for Obama, too, didn't you," snapped my yachting enthusiast relative.

"Given a choice between Obama and McCain and Palin?" I rebutted.

"Get out of my house. Get out!" he shouted.

I left the house and checked into a hotel room thankful that we had not been on his yacht off Catalina Island.

Two weeks later and I'm reading Mr. Caswell's article and reflecting on my brother-in-law's ad in  the same Yaching Magazine.

"Trevor breezily told the captain that he'd been 'sold' as well," wrote Caswell, "....because the new owner didn't know how to sail. 'Who's my new boss?' he asked, and was told with a grin, 'Oh just some actor.' It wasn't until the following weekend that he found out, when Rock Hudson arrived to enjoy his new boat," wrote Caswell.

My brother-in-law wasn't old enough to be the broker. That was a good thing. Hudson wouldn't have made it home from the shake-down cruise. A member of the "by and large democratic community" would have thrown him overboard.

Mrs. Williamson summed it up. "When George sailed away from the dock in Santa Barbara I said to my friend Marge, 'yachtzee, totzee good bye sweet Nazi."

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