How I destroyed the new economy
An amusing, well-written Salon article by independently-published writer, John F. X. Sundman, who happened to work on the CMGI CEO's mansion on Martha's Vineyard.
Dot-com visionary David Wetherell could do no wrong -- until he started building a mansion on an ancient Indian burial ground.
It was Jan. 20, 1999, my third day on the job as a common laborer on the four-bedroom, 7,000-square-foot vacation home that Internet billionaire David Wetherell -- whose CMGI stock had recently split and was trading at $163 a share -- was building on Squibnocket Point, formerly the most beautiful spot on Martha's Vineyard. In helping build this house I knew that I was participating in a desecration. But I needed the work, and this low-paying job was ideal in some ways. It paid cash, it was interesting work, the setting was spectacular, and I didn't need a car to get to the job -- my boss, Lou, lived next door, and I rode the 18 miles to work sitting on a pile of power cords in the back of his panel van. Also, the job provided lots of exercise and allowed me to work irregular hours; that is, whenever I felt like taking a day off to work on my manuscript, a novel about nanomachines and Iraqi biological weapons that I believed both Hollywood and New York to be interested in, I did. On those days somebody else, one of the Brazilians, vacuumed the table saw and carried the trash barrels to the dumpster....
"It's a fucking abomination," Sandy said one day as I signed for a package of saw blades. "I hate this place. It used to be so magical, and now it's just another Vegas whorehouse." In fact I got the sense that most of us felt at least a little slimy about our work there, even those who had bought stock in CMGI.
...The night watchman's name was Chip, a Wampanoag from Aquinnah, hired by the tribe to protect the dig. We talked about what may or may not have been there, under the earth, where we built that house. He didn't know much more than I did, but had heard some rumors. Like me, he had no opinions about ghosts or jinxes. But he told me something interesting: He said that the old ones, the Tribal Elders, had prophesied that the family "would not have one day of happiness in this house." Chip and I felt sorry for them.