Hamptons Hosts Ridiculous Hat Convention

We're not sure what this is but our friends at Guest of a Guest captured a photographic essay of people being huddled into a tent and apparently forced to wear ridiculous hats. Our only guess is that it's some sort of Hamptons hazing gone horribly wrong. You have:



Just keep smiling and don't turn around. Do Not Turn Around.











 

 

The hat made from leftover ribbons at the bridal shower.

Air Syria flight attendant flushed accidentally as plane passed over.

After his refusal to wear the baby blue fedora, his captors acquiesced and handed him the equally shameful peach blazer with a handkerchief sticking out of the pocket.

It's not a hat if they have to pin it to your hair. Or, as in this case, allow the bird to keep his talons so he can grip firmly down on the scalp. Her smile is one of controlled pain.

This group tried its best to camoflogue the little one as a white girl by squishing down what was left in their flower garden on top of a nest of lace. Oh, when rich people adopt.

Bride of Barney

You can actually SEE her wondering how ridiculous she looks.

This 4 Non-Blondes wardrobe sale came with a miniature-sized replica of the Mayor of New York City. She wouldn't stop bragging about how much of a steal it was.

She brought enough hat for the two of them, but he kept insisting.

Okay, that's actually Edith Beale, but so long as we're documenting batshit crazy....





 

Jill Zarin Proves Even in Reality Show Purgatory, She Can Still Be Huge Pain In The Ass

Sorry, but we thought that when Jill Zarin was banished to the Phantom Zone along with General Zod, Ursa, and Non, it would be the last we'd hear from her. She'd drift off into the galaxy entrapped in that pane of glass for the high treasonous crime of...being annoying.

We were wrong. Somehow she escaped, and caught the attention of our favorite Bubble Guppy Gina Glickman-Giordan. (And I get compliments on the hyphen)

You see, when Jill and her daughter Ally, (whom she shipped off to fat camp and documented the whole awful exchange on "Real Housewives of the Vacant and Soulless New York City") were out modestly contributing their time and money at the Super Saturday bargain sale for Ovarian Cancer Research, Jill apparently felt she hadn't adequately embarrassed her daughter enough.

While walking the press line, because, you know she doesn't show up for these things because of the press and all, she "suddenly stopped mid-sentence and shouted in her signature NY accent across the field 'Oh! Wait! Wait! Who is that cute boy? Zarin proceeded to ignore the cameras that were rolling mid-interview and shouted: 'He's cute! Wait! Wait!' As Zarin crossed the red carpet to jump over the velvet ropes she instantly got the attention of a longhaired teenage boy," Glickman gleefully reports.

Oh that crazy Jill. Always doing hilariously crazy, funny things. And yet still is so fabulously fabulous? How does she do it?

Dragging the poor boy across the red carpet like Grendel's vengeful mother, Jill introduced the kid to Ally. We wonder why Jill didn't just go all the way and tell "Zach" (of course that would be his name) that Ally is fresh off the farm from fat reality boot camp.

So yeah. Now Jill thinks she's a matchmaker, fit to give another reality star a run for her world's most shittiest person money. "See I do this! Sorry Patti Stanger," Jill reportedly said. "By "this" she means make an obnoxious spectacle of herself in front of cameras by being rude and turning an event about cancer into an event about Jill Zarin.

Take away lines from our blonde sock puppet:

Zarin proceeded to ignore the cameras that were rolling mid-interview... Really? Are you actually clueless or do you just play one on television? She did this BECAUSE of the cameras, not in spite of them.

Zarin who is a reality pro was immune to the hundreds of bystanders documenting her exchange... A reality pro? What's a reality amateur, someone who doesn't exist? And again, immune? You spelled "spurned on by" wrong, Gina.

The cameras didn't faze either one of them. It was as if they were in the process of shooting a new reality series. Not a bad idea?...Here Glickman probably gets the closest to the truth by accident than she ever will in the history of this awful, suck-up column. And for the record: YES it IS a bad idea. A very bad idea.

Oh, son of Jor-El, can you please banish her once more? It didn't take.

Occupy the Hamptons Doesn't Occupy Common Sense

That grim looking fella to the left of this photo is right. We are the 99%. Especially us here at Hamptonyte Blog. We have all the requisite 99% problems: unemployment, disenfranchisement, disgust with corruption, irritation at the continued illusion we call the American Dream. Hell, we practically started this blog along similar sentiments.

We can't be so cynical as to criticize a small group of protesters holding up signs in a community that is veritably empty during the winter months, and sure to have them lined against a wall and executed arrested during the summer. Despite the usual Hamptons media eye-rolling these protests often create, we're pretty much on their side. We sort of admire the fact that reminders of the greed and corruption that plague our Republic will not be escaped when these creeps from Wall St. head out here on Memorial Day. For that we thank this small band of flies buzzing into the luxury ointment.

But we can't get on board their recent decision to occupy HarborFrost. It just doesn't make any sense. Simply pulling into the 7-11 parking lot, where a lot of the HarborFrost attendees parked, it was visibly evident by the lack of BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis, that many of us jumping into the frigid water were in the 99% and are most likely attending to take our minds off the struggle we endure daily.

I recognize there will always be some degree of shouting at the choir, but the last thing anybody wants to see at a festival, is a group of sober-faced grouches standing there with signs, reminding us how fucked we are change needs to take place in our capitalist system.

The occupy movement needs just a tad bit of PR in this spot. They already have policed themselves when it comes to individual members' behavior. Here's another instance where they should do so. Nothing makes the average person, liberal or otherwise, more turned off to a movement than when the movement doesn't know where or when to land its blows. The perception many walked away with during HarborFrost is that a bunch of sign-wielding, friendless shut-ins, with nothing better to do on a Saturday, attempted to hijack a fun event by drawing attention to themselves. The operative word "themselves." Not the movement. Or the message. Such is the importance of PR in this circumstance. The protest had absolutely no relevance to the festival, except for the fact that hundreds would be gathered in one spot. From a PR perspective, this screams the protestors want attention, more than they want to inform the public of an injustice. Now, if the festival was paid for and sponsored by Goldman Sachs or Lehman Bros., and the soup being served was made from the ground up bones of unemployed Americans who went into default on their mortgages, that would be a different story.

I'm often reminded of a great line in Oliver Stone's Jim Morrison biopic The Doors. The entire movie script is pretty much Jim Morrison wandering around being profound and prophetic, and waxing philosophical over every little thing. But there is one instance...one little line, when Morrison has just recorded one of his uber-intellectual, drippy, philosophical poems. He stands up from his session and says: "C'mon let's get some tacos."

Note to Occupy the Hamptons: Sometimes even Jim Morrison knew when to give it a rest!

HarborFrost 2012: We did it wrong

In the spirit of reducing our snark by at least 20% I decided to participate in HarborFrost 2012, held last Saturday in Sag Harbor. For the uninitiated, Sag Harbor, though considered the "Hamptons, has managed to blend its Hamptons Bourgie-ness with its shipping and whaling roots--so much so that it's my favorite section of the east end.

Sure, I can still get a cup of coffee for under a buck, but I can also sit on a bench and check out hot rich girls that would never give me the time of day. It's a perfect storm of literary romance, hard drinking, and women that make you dream of one day hitting it big.

HarborFrost is in its second year in Sag Harbor, and actually a great idea for generating revenue and adding some color to the long, gray winter. Restaurants get a chance to test their food before the big season swings around, artists and musicians get to fine-tune their acts and showcase their work at ease, and the kids are happy to take part in anything that will distract them from killing themselves because there's nothing else to do on the east end in the winter.

There was a whole itinerary of things to do and see at HarborFrost, but naturally I missed all of them, except the afternoon highlight: The Frosty Plunge. It was on my bucket list anyway, so I figured why not: I love Sag Harbor, I'll get there early, check out the sights, grab a cup of joe, and then head down to the Long Wharf, strip off my clothes and jump into a broiling sea of ice water.

I had some company: three nephews, age 21, 19, and 10, and my niece, age 11. We got there just in the nick of time--3:30 p.m.-- sort of missed the countdown bullhorn and dove into the water, sans coffee, sans sightseeing, sans food-sampling, and sans warmth. Also sans soup, because by the time we got dressed at the dock, the complimentary soup had all been doled out to the Occupy the Hamptons people. (More on them in another blog).

Now freezing cold and shivering, we all agreed to hop back in our cars and head home. So, all told, I was at HarborFrost for roughly...mmm...25 minutes. I heard there were fireworks later that night. Would have been nice to see that. Yeah, HarborFrost 2012. We did it wrong.

Rule #122: Don't Let The Mrs. Put The 'Cock' In Cocktail

If you're serving cocktails...any kind of cocktails...at your Super Bowl party: you're doing it wrong. Wrong!

Hamptons.com posted a list of cocktail recipes (as is their wont) that hosts and hostesses can serve at their Super Bowl party this year. This is what happens when you let girls watch football. Excuse us, but Super Bowl parties are for beer and beer only. They're for complaining about how your team didn't make it, and for openly fantasizing about this year's GoDaddy.com girl, safely out of earshot of your wife. Cocktails? Do you know what cocktails at a football party means? It means your football party has gone the way of the cigar-room, the men's clubhouse, and the old-fashioned saloon. It means you have officially allowed yourself to become culturally neutered. It's bad enough your DVR is filled with episodes of "Trading Spaces" and "House Hunters."

Listen, ladies, we're not dragging a keg into your scrap-booking party, so keep your "Avion Blitz" away from our Doritos bowl.

Please, fellas. Move your mouse to the upper right hand corner of this Hamptons.com article, and click it closed. Turn in your cocktail. Not your cock.

Ted Danson. Bar Tender. Baseball Player. Marine Biologist(?)

So Oceana, the ocean conservationist group, is throwing its hat into the summer party maelstrom that is fundraising benefit galas in the Hamptons. They're trying to raise money and awareness of the dangers posed to the oceans, which incidentally make up 70% of planet earth and are loaded with autism-causing mercury, over fished dead zones, and now BP oil.

What better way to make people realize we have oceans than to throw a cocktail party in the Hamptons? And what better and more knowledgeable guest to invite to bring the press to your event than...Ted Danson?

Yeah, he's on the Oceana "board." Which is probably a really hard job and one of the reasons we haven't seen him in anything in a while. Question: is there a party going on in the Hamptons that doesn't cost at least $150? Just curious.

From Bikinis to Puppies; Now That's Evolution!

The Memorial Day Weekend Hamptons coverage is trickling in (or should was say oozing?) and we've uncovered some real gems to recap.

Starting with this kiss-ass article covering the Hamptons magazine party. It was held at the publisher's house in Southampton, where the guest of honor was Mariska Hargitay, the Law & Order SVU actress whom graced this issue's cover. (A Pez dispenser to anyone who can e-mail me and tell me if Hamptons is a real magazine, or just a glossy catalog of advertisements with a celebrity on the cover to lure the fabulosity crowd to this guy's house in the summertime.)

From there, the party moved to the Axe Lounge at Dune, where Kelly Killoren Bensimon ushered past a groupie-whore fistfight in the bushes to grace everyone with her toothy presence. Well, first she recorded this creepy-but-important-only-to-Kelly-PSA announcement in the middle of her living room about "systematic bullying." Apparently it's never okay. Neither is 4-on-1 action. That's never okay. Unless it's in the sack. Then it's never not okay. Otherwise, it's never okay. Just, generally defending oneself against attacks, or screeching "go to sleep, you're crazy..." that's never okay. If you see someone being the victim of systematic bullying? Let the bully know...that's not okay. It never is. The more you know.

Okay? Okay, so she stepped over two bitches clawing each other's eyes out to get at a Twilight actor who's probably gay to begin with, and she walked right into the Axe Lounge, and probably had a good time, because she was around a lot of people she thinks are important. Good for her. Making sure you're always at parties packed with self-important mooks? That's almost always okay.

What's not okay is this quote, after she actually became the 1-millionth famous-for-nothing nitwit to show up at a party with a dog in her arms (seriously, when is this stupid trend ever going to fade away?) From Gather.com: "This just shows how things are changing for me, I used to pose in bikinis, and now I pose with puppies." Wow. That's transformation! You know, change has a way of making us both happy and sad. It's okay, yet it's never okay.

You know what's also not okay is Kelly's Real Housewives cast mate Sonja...um...Sonja. Her. The blond chick who's new to the show. Yeah, she got arrested for DWI in Southampton, which should come as a surprise to no one. Apparently she refused to take a breathalyzer, but failed a field test, (which, if you've ever experienced a field test, you gotta be pretty blind stinking drunk to fail). Not taking the breathalyzer is usually automatic suspension of license, but she may have skirted more serious charges. She can cough up the license for a year, no biggie. We're sure some cabana slave will chauffeur her around whenever she needs to be somewhere. So...well played Sonja. Well played. Getting jail time or community service is never okay. Cooperation with authorities is never okay.

Sidebar: The egg on our face for blasting Southampton cops who arrested a crowd of people at Neptunes. Our implication was that they don't target the rich. Our apologies. You have made our day with the pinching of Red Sonja.

Another successful Memorial Day Weekend. Tune in next week when we rattle the bell jar once more and watch the pretty snowflakes trickle down all over again.

The Worst. Press Release. Ever.

There will probably be others, and perhaps we'll hold a contest, but for now...This is. The worst. Press release. Ever.
I heart PRLog. I heart them forever, for posting this release and distributing it over their wires and actually allowing people to accidentally read it. It brightens even the most cantankerous of dispositions.
In short, TSW World Entertainment Network has a CEO. Tariq Alexander. Tariq Alexander has a couple friends. Namely, Joan and George Hornig. Joan, a bored housewife who whittles away the remains of her day making jewelry and using her husband's money to foist it on people, invited Tariq Alexander to their home in the Hamptons. They also invited on recommendation, some young wannabe performers to showcase their talent. Tariq Alexander, CEO of TSW (which stands for "The System Within," a business name fraught with meaning to Tariq Alexander and only to Tariq Alexander) wrote a press release about the party. Then he solicits your business at the end of it. And that's the news.
The worst. Press release. Ever.

Dan's Papers Not Enough Punishment For East Enders

Because all the namewhoring, fameballing, and anecdotal rambling to be found within the weekly pages of San's Papers hasn't yet destroyed the earth; Dan Rattiner has written a sequel to his first unreadable collection of bleh, entitled "How I Woke Up On Third Base, But Think I Hit A Triple."

And he's going on tour! Well, he's traveling through all the fabulous Hamptons neighborhoods where's he's been the most annoying. Everyone is looking forward to his visits I'm sure. First stop? London Jewelers in East Hampton, where he'll read from his chapter "Steven Spielberg Doesn't Know Who I Am, But I Shook His Hand Once And It Was Totally Awesome." In this chapter he relates the story of all the wackiness that ensued during the filming of Jaws, and how he would have totally been in on it, but, you know. There's even a food fight! It's gonna be...hilarious.

Also, he'll be at the Sagaponack Post Office reading to a disinterested crowd of confused people with packages in their hands, who showed up thinking it was a post office. There he'll read from his chapter: "How I Tricked Kurt Vonnegut Into Thinking I'm Somebody He Should Be Friendly With." It's a great yarn. It includes a standing lunch (whatever the hell that means), and their eventual falling out over jealousy. Hamptonyte sincerely hopes the jealousy turns out to be Dan's and that he doesn't actually think Kurt Vonnegut would spend a nanosecond hand-wringing over his shortcomings in contrast to Dan Rattiner.

Anyway, the tour dates and locations (his poor, poor driver) are posted on his website, and we're sure the book promises to have more namedropping than the House Un-American Activities Committee. Enjoy! And by enjoy, I mean puke. And by puke, I mean e-mail me at news5525@gmail.com if you go to one of his readings. And may God have mercy on your souls.

How To Pick Your Next Victim

With domestic terrorism now thwarted, European air space now back up and running, the Louisianan oil spill getting cleaned up, and the economy now completely fixed, it's time to make more important moves. Like picking a caterer for your Hamptons parties!

This listing has actually been posted on two sites. It's an open house taking place tomorrow at The Hamptons Caterer's Showcase in Southampton. You'll get to sample food, drinks, photographers, decorators, and planners.

Because choosing the right team of underlings to abuse while hobnobbing with your smart set should be taken very seriously.

See And Be Scene

A list of some of the cultural happenings in and around the east end for the month of May. Seriously, if you go to any one of these events, shoot me an e-mail at news5525@gmail.com and tell us about it.



May 8, 2010; 6 p.m. Canio's Cultural Cafe: (Subtext Alert: Canio's Books, Sag Harbor) Listen to the dronings of the Reverend Donna Schaper as she discusses her new book "Sacred Chow: Some Holy Ways To Eat."



May 15, 2010; 1:30 p.m. Southampton Historical Museums Home Tour at Rogers Mansion. A three-hour tour of preserved historic homes. Champagne reception and private art exhibition at the mansion to follow. $75 in advance, $90 on day of the tour.



May 22, 2010 6 p.m. Canio's Books, Sag Harbor. Hear author and novelist Louis Begley read from "Why The Dreyfus Affair Matters," a book he seems to be getting a lot of milage out of.



May 29, 2010 5-7 p.m. Rogers Mansion, Southampton. Art opening. Paintings and photographs of the east end.