Swilling from the America’s Cup
New York— Larry Ellison, the chief executive of the software giant Oracle and the world’s 11th richest man, according to Forbes magazine, is not imbued by an ounce of grace or elementary good manners. He has constructed a basketball court on board his megayacht, the latter a monstrosity which pollutes more than a battleship and serves no other purpose than as a penile extension to its owner. He’s also so cheap he shares another megayacht with David Geffen, the diminutive bald multi-billionaire who is trying to rebuild the beachfront of Malibu and turn it into a private beachcomber billionaire paradise.
Not a bad idea when you think of it, until you see what the billionaires look like. Geffen, a pro-gay polemicist, simply looks awful: short, bald, and with a professional deformation around the mouth. Ellison looks worse. Satan-like, with a goatee his own mother would puke over, he also fancies himself a sailor and is challenging for the America’s Cup. (More about that later). The next billionaire down the road in Malibu is Terry Semel, the chief executive of Yahoo, and a man I briefly met in Nick Simunek’s house in Palm Beach about five years ago. He was very short, squat and very hairy, and had trouble holding his glass because his fingers were so short and stubby. At first I mistook him for a rodent exterminator-- Palm Beach is full of rats and Terry Simunek is known for giving odd jobs to poor souls-- but then I realised who he was. Fortunately he was wearing a tee shirt so although I threw up the hors d’oeuvres, I was fine after he left.
So far so bad. Ellison, Geffen, Semel, the three mouseketeers followed by yet another beachcomber billionaire, Jeffrey Katzenberg. He is a film tycoon and close associate of Geffen’s. Believe it or not, I’ve also met him for a brief moment while he was lunching with Graydon Carter at the Four Seasons. I am a friend of Graydon’s and thought he was alone so I went over and sat down with him. On top of Katzenberg--who is so small I had failed to notice him. He didn’t complain too much; he’s probably used to it by now. Katzenberg makes the fourth billionaire mouseketeer vying to control Malibu’s beach, a beachfront, incidentally, I find rather pathetic when compared to anything in Cephalonia, but then Cephalonia is not twenty-five miles from Beverly Hills.
A restaurant owner who is moving because of the rising rents of Malibu calls the place the new Hamptons. Poor Hamptons. Once upon a time they were pristine, Waspy places lined with beautiful lawns, trimmed hedges and discreet houses. Now that Wall Street has taken over, the Wasps have moved to the wrong side of the tracks-- literally-- and the pigs have taken over. Sixty-room monstrosities are not unusual, and the famous potato fields of the Hamptons are now a distant memory. But the cemetery is still there, and the last time I looked there were no cranes about to dig it up. But back to Malibu and the America’s Cup.
Ellison got very close to winning it last time. It takes big bucks and he sure has them. The only thing I have against him-- except for his inane vulgarity—is the fact the rules have been changed. Once upon a time, when my daddy was hoping to challenge the New York Yacht Club for the cup, one could only use indigenous boats and crews. No longer. The winning Alinghi team of the last cup four years ago was mostly New Zealanders, including the skipper. The
winner, Ernesto Bertarelli is Swiss—with a very cute English wife. He won it for good old Helvetia. But did he really? I’d say New Zealand was the true winner.
The same applies to Ellison. I don’t know what crews he’s using but when he carries off the cup—which he could—he will be in the class of polo team “patrons" who hire three professional Argies to gallop up and down while he canters, and then gets to go home with the cup and tell his mistress he won it. Briggs Cunnigham, Bob Mosbacher, the great Dennis Conner, they all won the cup, being real skippers. The billionaires of today are simply along for the
ride. Mind you, without their moolah there would be no boats or challengers, but sailors they are not. In Malibu, the mayor is in a hard spot because although he wants to keep the Old World charm, it is hard to resist billionaires pounding down on you. For example: $400,000 was pledged for the local school district to construct a community centre on its site. This was pledged by the property owner who sold his stake to Ellison. But Ellison wants to build a restaurant, not a community centre. The mayor is torn between his conscience and big bucks. Not a problem as far as I’m concerned. The latter will win hands down.
One thing is for sure. I will be on board my non-polluting sailing boat this summer off Valencia rooting for Ellison’s boat to be demasted and for him to be swept overboard while reading the Wall Street Journal.
--The Spectator.
Comments
“Ill fares that land, to hastening woes a prey,
where wealth increases and the men decay.”
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The nouveau riche have never been more vulgar than at present. Nineteenth-century plutocrats were positively decorous by comparison. Even the rawest of them had the sense at least to try to improve their manners, as witnessed by the popularity of books on etiquette a century and more ago. Today’s ethos seems to be, better a slob than a snob. Hence Messrs Ellison, Geffen, et aliis.
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Your intellects may be such, you should trash the Journal and begin reading Science, published by the AAAS. http://www.sciencemag.org/ It will intimidate anyone at first, essentially being the cutting edge of any and every field, but try and read the summaries in the first half. You will definitely see the world differently.
Once upon a time, I read the Wall and the NYT, each and every day. But let’s face it, with the advent of the net, we can see these publications are written by imbeciles.
Who cares who wins the cup? To myself, someone who would live on a 2m solar catamaran before owning a house, the cup hasn’t mattered since the early 90s.
Biologically, we’re in serious trouble. I’d rather see you and your intellectual companions cleanse the Mediterranean than win the cup. Give me some Greeks smart enough to take back our governments and cleanse this world of the insanity which rules. As you said, the cup has become nothing more than a trinket for men unable to create a real civilization.
The oceans are literally dying from the collective stupidity of the human race. Once upon a time I craved knowledge. That’s why I began reading the Wall and the NYT everyday. Today I can no longer stomach Science. Ecologically the news is horrific. Enough. Let’s do something real and elect some intelligent individuals to our own and other governments.
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I’m a big fan Taki but that sitting on Katzenberg line (and i have
no idea who he is) sounds very derivative of Vidal on Truman.
Would appreciate your comments on the America’s Cup triumph
of Ben Lexcen and John Bertrand in 1983. Despite never having put
foot in a sailing boat that was a momentous, drunken day, in Aussie
sporting history (for me anyway).
On more important matters, in light of the recent University tragedy,
your views on gun control would be interesting. Surely commonsense
should prevail and suggest that without guns the average person
would find the effort to kill that many people would be beyond their
resource within a short time frame.
Kind regards, and wishing you a long life Taki.
Tony
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A great disappointment in life is finding out
that someone you’ve heartily disliked from afar
turns out, upon meeting, to not be that bad.
Having seemingly met nearily everyone, a valuable
service performed by Taki is to reassure you
that insufferable jerks like Ellison and Gefen really are
jerks like Ellison and Geffen.
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Taki says, “A restaurant owner who is moving because of the rising rents of Malibu calls the place the new Hamptons. Poor Hamptons. Once upon a time they were pristine, Waspy places lined with beautiful lawns, trimmed hedges and discreet houses. Now that Wall Street has taken over, the Wasps have moved to the wrong side of the tracks—literally—and the pigs have taken over.”
Taki, you get a D- for this essay simply because you use the lasy writer’s slopy tactic of using animal names for those you mock: your use of the insectoid label “wasp” twice and then your use of the porcine label “pigs” convict you of a
low class writing style. You may have titles or jewels like that, but you lack upper class manners when you use animal labels. Please stop.
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Mr. Sears,
The term “wasp” is an acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant” rather than an insult hinting at insectoid characteristics. I can agree with you that the use of the term “pigs” as a description of vulgar humans is excessive and unnecessary.
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Why are so many billionaries ugly AND gay...you forgot
Elton John.
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