Sans Papers: The April 30 Recap

By which we parse that parrot cage lining people call "Dan's Papers" for all its subtext and stupidity. Mostly stupidity.

Sometimes Dan Rattiner gives us the sads. Last week we learned that NBC is launching a new sitcom about a millionairre screw-up who can't run a newspaper. Dan frowned, and the idea-monster that has latched onto his frontal lobe sunk its little barbs deeper into the soft tissue.

'Why can't I be that millionairre screw up?' the monster made Dan wonder aloud, moving his bearded lips involuntarily to the words. Then it growled, and the vibrations gave Dan an idea. I will be the subject of a sitcom after all! I can use my newspaper to invent one!

And so this week's splash was born.

The show is called Rupert's Rag, starring Paris Hilton, Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Johnson, Rupert Murdoch, and Dan Rattiner's sad ideas. As for The Worst Editor Ever, himself? He'll be making cameo appearances.

We don't know what's worse, the show idea, or the fact that it took us to "Paris Hilton" before we realized this entire "article" was a product of Dan's lonely imagination. So we're going with the show idea. Somehow he tied in Rupert Murdoch's evil plan to sink The New York Times, and its relevance to the "sitcom." It's the equivalent of the little boy who's not allowed to play baseball with the bigger kids in the neighborhood, so he just invents his own game? And it has announcers? And the crowd is cheering his name, and erupts when he wins it for his team. For his town. For his country. For God? God pats him on the back. "Such an important person," God says. "Everyone should want to know you."

Rattiner giggled to himself, but stopped abruptly. The monster was munching. Gnom, gnom, gnom...

...Fresh from the smart of NBC's diss, The Worst Editor Ever decided he needed a healthy dose of self absorption. So he set up a "Google Alert" of his name. This means every time the interwebs mentions Dan Rattiner, he'll know about it. Oops. Does this mean we have to start being nice? Or does it mean that more energy should be exerted on his neer-do-well son, David Lion.

Let's go with option B, because Dan barged into Lion's room earlier this week while he was trying to rack up more tickets for playing "Whack-A-Poor." His wait staff had their heads poked out of holes Lion had drilled in his desk and he was holding a big mallet. Esterina sat to the side watching and he made her root for him.

"Son," The Worst Editor Ever barked. "There's a film being shot in somebody's mansion in East Hampton. Go cover it."

"But dad."

"Go, I said! Alan Cumming is going to be there."

"Alan Cumming," Lion shouted, dropping the mallet and rising to his feet.

"Go cover what they're shooting, and what it's about, and don't do anything stupid."

But David did do something stupid. He accidentally wrote an article entitled "Half of a Film Shot in East Hampton Oceanfront Mansion." And it was accidentally published in the April 30 issue of Dan's Papers.

It was a real house, and a real movie, and had real poors, too, working on the set, and he felt like he was on an episode of HBO's Entourage. And he wondered who he would be, if Entourage was a real show. Turtle? No. Vince? Yes!

Gnom, gnom, gnom... Anyway, with a little luck and good timing, maybe the film will make it to the Hamptons Film Festival, which, to the uninitiated, is a small notch above having your own YouTube channel.

Meanwhile, back at the Blue Amityville Horror House on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton, Stacy Dermont read another book, and this time it was real brainy, hard-hitting non-fiction. A history of Westhampton Beach, a story told in actual words, about the resiliency and determination of hrwlong an, numsisreallysleepshishhhhhhhh.

Ohmygod, did I just fall asleep?

So, through this whole piece, which covers historic buildings and landmarks, no mention of Marakesh? It was right in the village, Marakesh. It was a Roman Coliseum for black people, Marakesh. People like Shane Daniels. I think the game was: run with a white girl through a gauntlet of billy clubs, and if you live, you get to go home. Nothing?

Back from the film set in East Hampton, David Lion got busy on his other duties, writing "This Week In Private Arrests."

Street racers, car keyers, vandals, thieves, they're all somewhere rattling around in the belly of the Hamptons criminal justice system. They're calling out, 'Hello, Hello!' But only their lonely echoes call back. Through the concrete walls they hear fellow inmates crying out from pain of torture and their stomachs groan in fear, knowing they'll be next. Who are these sad people? We don't know. Dan's never says. It protects their identity. Thank God we have private arrests in the United States of America.

But Lion stumbled upon a realization. And in no way was it a cliche'. "In the end, it all comes back to human nature, and when it rains it pours," he actually wrote in his "Twentysomething" column. A column in which you can see the world functioning around him in its every day normalcy while he scrambles to play catchup. "It seems like women aren't even on planet Earth. It's like I'm some kind of weirdo who, for some odd reason, can't get a girl."

But those are not the most egregious of sentiments bestowed upon us. This was: "There's no such thing as bad artists. If you put something out there, that's enough," said this week's "cover" artist Gia Schifano, in all seriousness. We're just glad she's a principal's secretary at a middle school. That kind of sunny optimism is needed there. Elsewhere, like being featured in a newspaper, it's poo.

And speaking of poo, this week's South O' the Highway was back to its usual fecal levels, with gossip bits about celebrities that have tertiary involvement with the east end. More Gwyneth Paltrow, Dan, more Gwyneth Paltrow, I don't think we know she has a house she never visits in Amagansett yet.

So Dan approached David Lion, sneaking up behind him at his desk. He furrowed his brow when he saw David photoshopping his head onto Vincent Chase's body on the DVD cover of last season's Entourage. The idea-monster was suckling sweetly, and became startled when The Worst Editor Ever banged his hand on the desk. He needed David to start thinking about little kids again, and do a wrap-up of all the summer camps opening in the Hamptons.

You see, summer waits for no one, and that kilo of blow isn't just going to snort itself. The kids need to be out of the house and out of their parents' lives. So hop to it, David, and try not to do anything stupid.

But David did do something stupid. He turned a summer camp guide into three pages of free advertising for every ranch that has pretty horses the kids can go pet. As well as neat places for them to drown. But presto bingo the job was done, and he could go over the pages of "Through The Lens," with his quaky fingertips, giggling over the photo of Alan Cumming, and shaking his head in star-awe at the photo of Kelsey Grammer, who was woken up out of bed to take a picture with two of the Stygian Witches. He could imagine a continual life of going from one event to the next, rolling up in his yellow Hummer with Turtle, and E, and Johnny Drama, just the four of them, spit balling. Owning this town. Owning Kelsey Grammer and the Longacre Theatre. And maybe he'd be whimsical like David Gamble in the photo page, with two honeys like bookends to his hipster scarf, oh yes, it would be so glorious. But first he'd need to be rid of The Worst Editor Ever's oppressive glare. First he'd need to sever ties with all these journalismy strings tying him down. But how? How would he do it. And what about Esterina?

Gnom, gnom, gnom...