Sans Papers: The May 7 Recap

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

Dan has concernz. He's worried about this new generation. He's worried they don't have the vim and vigor of the previous generations; the propensity for civil unrest. The need to defy authority. The yearning to hand over hundreds of their parents' money to local authorities and make their one phone call for bail money.

He wants this back, and he's asking you, the reader, to ready for blood. It's the most important demonstration of civil disobedience since the Alabama bus boycotts. Nothing short of our American freedoms hangs in the balance. You probably guessed it: it's a protest against strict fishing laws, which are destroying the lives of literally dozens of the east end's baymen. It's all going down in late June. Local police have already strapped on the riot gear. The baymen are calling for an army of 20 volunteers, and it'll only cost you a very pedestrian $325! That's nothing. That's a Versace handbag, people, think about it! Oh, and you'll get to be on the internet for sure, and you might even get your rebellious mug on the TV news! So it's totally worth it. Hamptonyte Blog would love nothing more than to hear from someone who goes down to this protest and captures the first footage of The Worst Editor Ever being hauled off in a paddy wagon.

This week's "Ripped From the Archives" article is actually an archaeological dig into when Dan first started printing actual horseshit as news. We wish we were kidding, but it's a continuation of a series about a woman who tries to swim from Montauk to Manhattan. This might actually be a true story. At first we weren't sure if it was a fabrication, but then we saw this actual image of the dramatic event captured by a Dan's staffer back in 1965. See that guy in the boat was tying to rescue the woman. She's desperately reaching out to grab hold of his oar, but to no avail. It's really a very sad story. She was so enthusiastic about this swim. She was just 42 years of age.

While The Worst Editor Ever tossed in his bed and rang sweat from his beard thinking about the Bonackers and those scallywags that tries to steal thee treasure, by regulatin' their pillage and not lettin' them leave off with the spoils of war, arrrgggh, David Lion was down the hall pressing his ears to make the pounding in his dreams stop as well.

"Arrrgh, those rapscallions down there in the Gulf of Mexico are destroyin' the treasures of the sea, arrrrgh," he said. "We shoulds make em' walk the plank and send em' down to the depths of Davey Jones's locker, arrrrgh."

Then he awoke with a start. His father's voice echoed in his head, but his room was empty. No massive boulders he'd planned on floating down to the Gulf to aid in stoppering that big oil-hole in the sea-floor. No Navy torpedoes armed and ready at his disposal. He pulled his damp sheets from his body and went to the typing box that glows at night to work on an article for his daddy's paper. He typed "Twentysomething..." across the top of the document. Then he highlighted it and put it in Wingdings. Haha. Funny, he giggled. Then he put it in Helvetica. Haha. That's a funny word, he said. Then he put it in bubble letters. He could always draw the little heart to dot the "i" once it's printed. What was important is that he talk about the oil spill. Nobody was talking about it, that was the problem. Only ABC, NBC, CBS, CW11, CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, News12, NY1, The New York Times, The NY Post, The Daily News, Time Magazine, Businessweek, and The Wall Street Journal were reporting on it. And Telemundo. Haha. That's a funny word, he thought.

So he needed to raise awareness, and provide perfectly sane solutions to this crisis. Solutions even he could execute on behalf of a grateful nation. "What can I do?" he wrote. How about this: 1. With his multiple boats, he would send over huge boulders and drop them over the hole in the ground. And if that didn't work, he'd 2. Send the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines (yes, he has the authority to do so) to fire torpedoes around the hole in the hopes that the explosions collapse the edges of the geyser and plugs up the flow of oil. Or, 3. Shed his feety pajamas, activate his Wonder Twin powers, and take the form of a large block of ice that will freeze the oil into coagulated lumps that can be easily fished out of the Gulf with crab nets.

When Dan awoke, he found his son passed out at the computer, his head rested on the keyboard. He looked over at the screen. It read: I would fire torpedoes at the edge of the hole and projfsdkfjskdfjlksdjvkbhjirjtgrioghidsvhjcbdlkajedrkjg'dfkjsa;ldkfh;lrkjtgfidjgvdkljdkfdfdfs, all the way across the screen. "He's gettin' so good at writing," Dan said, lifting his boy up from his chair and taking him back to his room.

He needed to get on the computer next to work on South O' the Highway. A Madonna song was playing on the radio the other day and people needed to know that. And they needed to know that Madonna has a house in Bridgehampton. Also, they needed to know that Billy Joel's daughter, a "Hamptons gal" no longer has the uglies. And that Alec Baldwin is hosting SNL, and he's from Amagansett. And people needed to know that the most famous Countess, LuAnn de Lesseps did what all countesses do, she released a disco track entitled "Money Can't Buy You Class...But It Can Buy You A Great Piece of Ass." They needed to know all of this. Because the Hamptons feels so lost not knowing where its prodigal children are at all times.

Even though many of them have returned! They returned to bear witness to Eli Wallach and Annie Jackson's dedication of the second stage at Bay Street. Sure, everybody was there. Eli, and Annie (Miss Jackson if ya nasty), and his Eli's 30 children. There was the unique, the very trendsetting, Lauren Bacall, who arrived actually holding a little dog at all times. Who would ever think to carry their dog around to Hamptons functions? She's such a firebrand. And of course there were some who escaped the glitz and glamour of Lauren Bacall and her little dog too, and went to the only slightly less sexy Longhouse Reserve Season Opening, or the Demato Gallery in Sag Harbor. And for good measure, Dan's stalker Barry Gordin went into New York City to photograph actual celebrities. Overall, it was a busy week for all those weary Hamptons partiers. So weary, in fact, they couldn't even make the trip to the Hamptons.

So weary was The Worst Editor Ever, that he couldn't be bothered with the nuances of the Tea Party movement when he wrote his column about them last week, and now suffers the consequences of the hate mail. The mail booed. It hissed. It called him biased. (Psst, hey teabaggers! He has to actually report on real news in order to show bias. Shhh) But there was praise to be had! Even if it did come from a woman who decided to include in her P.S. that she got hopped up on Ambien one night and passed out months later. Or at least that seems to be the chronology; the whole letter reads as though she'd just taken more. So there was Dan, reading his one letter of praise, and trying to black out the bad thoughts of angry tea partiers descending upon his office.

And then there was David Lion, at work on his wrap-up of all the private arrests that took place. A woman in Eastport who ran over her husband, an 18-year-old kid hauled in for possession of drug paraphernalia. Then for good measure he channelled his father's energy and drafted a fabricated report of dropped blood pressure in visitors to Shelter Island. Ahh, Shelter Island, he thought. Where raccoons get sent to heaven. Where there's such a thing as kink worms who can burrow beneath the sea bed and put a kink in the oil shaft. Where the rabbits know their place. You see, he'd struck and killed a rabbit in Montauk, and it felt like he was punting a football. The rabbit soared majestically through the air and landed unceremoniously on the side of the road somewhere. It was the second time he'd done it, and he needed to be stopped. But how could a superhero with the U.S. Navy at his command stop himself? He can't. It can't be done. He had to drive on.

The only thing he could think to do...was shoot at it with torpedoes, in the hopes that the explosions woke the rabbit up from his deathsleep. Haha. Deathsleep, he thought. That's a funny word.