Badvertising: Make the Evening News Tonight!

This posting in Craigslist is as simple as it gets. If you answer this ad: you will die. This isn't about a bad boss. This is about a bad serial killer.

Words to watch out for in any advertisement: "seeking young attractive," "open minded," and "send a photo." When you hear any of these phrases, know that you are just an e-mail click away from rubbing the lotion on its skin.

Meet The New Crosswalk...Same As The Old Crosswalk

So according to the East Hampton Patch, a new local venture by the way, (welcome to the show, and prepare to be mocked), the village of East Hampton is proposing to install new lighted crosswalks at certain points along Main Street. The goal is to increase safety for pedestrians who can't decide if they want to celebrity-gawk along the west side of the road, or drink their $30 latte at a park bench on the east side.

According to Amy Tangel's article, the system will run off the old street light system, a system by which the pedestrians step out into the crosswalk without warning and assume their sense of entitlement will be enough to cause motorists to hit their brakes before Coco, the lapdog in a pink Gucci sweater, winds up under the wheel base.

(Photo Courtesy: East Hampton Patch. Meaning, we copy/pasted off their site.)

Breaking News: Bored People Hate Everything

Especially art. Especially when it's not tucked away out of sight. This bit of local color made its way to the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Apparently some blue-hairs from Sag Harbor are screaming "code violation" over a 16-foot sculpture by the late Larry Rivers. The sculpture is a pair of long, white, shapely woman's legs with garters at the thigh. Which begs the question: who's Larry Rivers?

I guess we're a bunch of troglodytes here at Hamptonyte, because we didn't know he's sort of a big deal. He moved out to the Hamptons with the rest of the crew: DeKooning, Pollack, et al. And now he's dead. Which, in the art world, means he's finally starting to make money.

In either event, the 16-foot legs, which are nothing more than a naked pair of out-of-scale mannequin legs, is perched up alongside the "temporary home" (whatever that means) of two art dealers: Janet Lehr and (the very pretentiously one-named) Vered. Together, they run the Vered Gallery out of an old Baptist church in the village.

So the neighbors are predictably pissed. We say predictably because, after all, this is a nation that doesn't know how to handle a woman and her naughty bits. What if school children see it? Or the elderly? Now they're trying to sweep the leg, by claiming it violates some building code about structures maintaining a certain height. Basically they're trying to nail Al Capone for tax evasion. It's sort of like when Mayor Giuliani lost all his hair because an artist painted the virgin Mary with elephant dung. He couldn't execute the artist, so he went after the funding at the Brooklyn Museum.

Hey, credit the WSJ for finally putting to bed the proper spelling of "whack" in "whack job!" As in:
"I heard this guy is a whack job," says Charles McCarron, who owns the house next door to the one with the big legs outside. "This is not Greenwich Village."

Actually, Greenwich Village is no longer Greenwich Village, probably because of douchebags like McCarron. So in short: villagers in Sag Harbor are outraged by a sculpture created by a well-known artist, but they aren't outraged that there's someone living in their village who only goes by the name Vered?

Anatomy of a Phony

If this isn't already a saying, I'm officially entering it into the lexicon: "Hollywood is where you go to become famous. The Hamptons is where you go to pretend you already are."

One doesn't need to spend an incredible amount of time in the Hamptons to realize that everybody out here seems to spend half their life creating their own legends, and the other half convincing others it's true. Here's a test. Drive out to East Hampton. Throw a stick. Whomever it hits, approach. Ask them who they are or what they do. Gauranteed they will tell you they're an "artist" or a "writer" or a "something to the stars." Just check out this article in Hamptons.com, the essentially useless online publication that still tries to pretend real hard that the Hamptons are still teeming with self-importance after Labor Day.

This item takes the cake, though. Meet Hy Abady. Yeah we're not sure how to pronounce that either. Although according to him, we should already know who he is. A former NYC ad man from the 60s and 70s who bounced around from agency to agency, he finally amassed enough upper-middle class wealth to purchase a home on Further Lane in East Hampton, back when houses on Further Lane were called "duck blinds." Once he got there, he went right to the task of pretending he was more important to the world than he was. Crashing parties, oozing his way into peoples' confidences, and in some cases, sleazily eavesdropping from the cozy cushion of a bar stool, he started submitting a column for the East Hampton Star every week. Now he's taken those articles, threw in a few more that never made it to print, and has put together a slim volume of his work he's calling "Are You Gonna Eat That?: How I Scored Billy Joel's Pizza Crust." (It's called something else, but this title is a little more apt.)

The "book" is published by Antinuous Press, and if you've never heard of this imprint, it's because you're straight. The house publishes "art books" and the like, which amount to a catalogue of nothing more than male gay erotica. Just peep the home page's photo montage. With your hands over your eyes. Squinting through your fingers.

Props have to go out to the East Hampton Star reviewer of this nonsense for keeping a straight face and managing to insert a little objective integrity in the review. But the fact that he even got a review for this gives our friend one more card in the house of cards people of his ilk build for themselves in the Hamptons. A perfectly phony life. A life made possible because he met the right people, schmoozed at the right parties, and exagerrated his own importance whenever those people he schmoozed gave him a platform to do so.

Too harsh? Ask yourself: if I wrote this book of gossip about the town I lived in and pitched it to a publishing house, but didn't know anybody who worked there, would it get published? If I didn't contribute to the East Hampton Star would it have gotten reviewed there? If I found a small, obscure publishing house to actually take my book, would I be modest about it? Or would I pretend it was the headlining title at Simon & Schuster?

If you answered no to most of those questions, you're not doing it right, according to the culture of the Hamptons, because Abady is just one of a whole score of folks out there who have drafted up this fake playbook. And by playbook we mean plop yourself down at the bar at the Maidstone Arms, obsessively scan the crowd for celebrities and then eavesdrop on their private conversations so you can write an article about it as though you know them personally.

Particularly galling is the fact that Abady's celebrity-addled brain distinguishes people in categories like "famous" "faux-famous," and "nobodies," considering the smoke and mirrors people like him create to rise themselves above the dreaded "nobody" category. He's perfectly alright with "faux-famous." This is why writing...name-dropping celebrity writing in particular...is often so poorly done. The writer is too soft-headed to realize that all people are interesting.

So look through the Matrix. What you'll see is a guy who worked for an ad agency and made enough money to buy himself geographic proximity to celebrities. The ad agency was run by another guy with connections in the local newspapers of the Hamptons. Because of this, the first guy, for years, uses his proximity to celebrities to publish his dim-witted celebrity musings in the East Hampton Star. Then he takes these musings and, through his gay contacts, places them with an obscure gay erotica publishing house. The book then gets reviewed by the very newspaper that published his column, which he didn't earn in the first place. Call it "incestuous legitimacy." In fact, that's a new Hamptonyte category from now on.

The Weakonomy: Everyone's Too Poor to Bang

It's exactly like rap group Three 6 Mafia said it was: "It's Hard Out Here for a Person who brokers business transactions for services rendered between an experienced woman and a lonely man.

Wow, the economy sucks so bad that nobody wants to get sucked so bad? According to this article in Business Insider, who took its cue from the Daily News, the swinger "industry" (industry? Really?) is taking a beating in this economic climate, as attendance is way down and membership to exclusive swinger clubs is getting a little too prohibitive.

Especially in East Hampton, where, according to the article, swinger clubs are still charging about $300 for you to get your freak on with a whole crew of sweaty people. Memberships further west including New York City cost about $150.

Damn zone pricing. Still. We can't just skip the cable bill? Or cut up a credit card?

Badvertising: The Job Search

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Badvertising: Hamptonyte's Guide to Nightmare Jobs

A new feature here on Hamptonyte will highlight job openings whose language in the advertisement should send up a red flag to anyone who might still have the luxury of picking and choosing what they wish to do for a living (if such people still exist.) From Craigslist, to MediaBistro, to CareerBuilders, we'll decode the language so you don't have to.

First up: This ad, which posted on Craigslist on October 27 for a "PR (public relations) Intern." What got our attention first? The word "whining." Kids...whenever a potential boss says he/she doesn't want "whining," RUN. Run far away. Because whining probably means you can't tell him about any obstacle that prevented you from performing your job. This could mean anything from a broken-down subway car, to accidental amputation. Ie: "stop whining about your arm getting chopped off, you totally have another one. Get back to work!"

"We would prefer to have someone from the Brooklyn area (Williamsburg/Greenpoint) as we don't want to have to deal with anyone whining about the incredible journey it was for them to travel from Manhattan to Brooklyn, late arrivals, etc. If you can handle the commute and don't think you need a passport to get here feel free to apply."

As if this isn't douchey enough, peep the other warnings to steer clear from this agency:

"This is not a job for someone who is going into PR for the parties, free gifts, chance to be on a reality show or to gawk at celebrities. If you're capable and a good representative of our team we'll bring you along to events, tapings etc. but don't expect it solely because you work with the agency."

Here's why you need to ignore this post. PR jobs are almost ALWAYS centered on parties, free gifts, and the chance to gawk at celebrities...it's what CREATED the industry in the first place. Any PR agency that pretends to divorce itself from that culture is LYING. They want to gawk at celebrities just as much as you do; they just don't have enough passes to get you into the joint. Next please.

Why We Hate (cough,cough Love) The French

Because they spend two days in a "luxury" rental house in the Hamptons and then dash out of there before paying.

According to Reuters, Real Estate Pimps Kandinksy Escape LLC is suing a senior executive at Lazard Ltd. for allegedly pulling a two-day dine & dash on the house they rented out to him.

French citizen, Matthieu Pigasse (pronounced "Pig-Ass," we're pretty unsure) is accused of leaving the Southampton premises (without paying a deposit or security) only two days into a three-week agreement to rent the place . The way it went down is, apparently, Pimp Kandinsky pimped out the property to lesser pimps Prudential Douglas Elliman, who then turned the keys over to Pigasse without asking for a dime. Sure, they figured he was good for it; he's Lazard's Vice Chairman for Europe for God's sake.

But such is the state of the way we live now: even the rich have to crash on couches and keep moving to the next opportunity.

Apparently Pigasse left the house because he claimed the house didn't look like it did in the pictures. Duh! Of course it didn't, they're real estate pictures! My house looked like a doll house with a football field in the back yard until I pulled up to it and thought I'd reached the set of the Addams Family.

The People We Listen To: Patrick McLaughlin

This week in toolbaggery (or should we say last week?) we listen to trendsetting, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hamptons guru Patrick McLaughlin as he posts, not one, but two blog entries warning the rest of us (who are not as fabulous as him) what we better not wear for Halloween.

His first post was a digression about a tree he couldn't stop molesting. Then he wrote this:

By the way, the costumes that you don't want to be wearing this year include... LADY GA GA, ANYBODY FROM "AVATAR", STEPHEN SLATER OF JET BLUE FAME OR A CHILEAN MINER! All of these are hackneyed and overdone. Think of something original... be more like my dog Boo. Superdog! Im so shocked she's never bitten me!

So are we. Honestly, there is nothing more obnoxious than Halloween costume-nazis who think they're so innovative, so inspired, and so cutting edge that they need to dish out warnings to the rest of us snoozos. And for the record, what could be more hackneyed and overdone than dressing up your dog? Two days later, he kept it going.

Please if I see you there... No Lady Ga-Ga or anyone from the JOISEY SHORE!

And please, Patrick, if I see you there, keep your SuperMutt away from me, because he's probably pissing on my leg and making my blue Avatar paint run!

Election FAIL: Altschuler Endorses Bishop

And runs against him. This accidentally hilarious account of the Bishop/Altschuler smackdown ran in the East Hampton Star last week.

After blowing off the Daughters of the American Revolution, or Mothers Without Jobs, or whatever that organization was that Altschuler stood up like prom night, he and incumbent Congressman Tim Bishop finally had their debate. The venue was the Southampton Community Center in Hampton Bays. Bishop had home-field advantage. Big Time. And Altschuler's attempt to condescendingly frame Bishops platform blew up in his face. Big Time.

"If you want to continue the policies of the Obama and Pelosi administration -- if you want Obamacare, cap and trade, car check and further bailouts then you should vote for Tim Bishop." The loud applause and cheers of many in the room indicated that they planned to do that.

There's a reason why, when Rudy Giuliani ran for mayor, he didn't shout:

"If you want porno shops at every corner, strippers giving lapdances in every other establishment, beers in public streets, and the ability to smoke week in a consequence-free environment, then vote for David Dinkins!"

How To Unwind From Your Sexual Harrassment Suit

Meet the woman who ruined sexual harrassment lawsuits for everybody. This is Kristy Fraser-Kirk, and everybody is mad at her because she filed suit against her employer (David Jones Ltd.) for an obscene amount of money: $37 million Australian dollars. Which in U.S. dollars is like 20 bucks.

Everyone is pissed because she settled out of court and only walked away with two things: 1. the CEO of the mega-department store chain, Mark McInnes, got shitcanned, and 2. $850,000. In reality, about $500,000 after she pays her legal and publicity team.

Apparently this was a huge case in Australia, which means nobody knows about it here in the States. Fraser-Kirk was swamped with paparazzi and media hounds at every turn (hence the publicist she just had to have). Footnote: she worked as a publicist for David Jones Ltd. So why the publicist? Sigh.

Now, according to the Business Spectator, part of her damages claim includes a trip to East Hampton "in order to escape enormous media attention." Before that trip, she also went to London for allegedly the same reason. You know what else escapes enormous media attention? Not filing a suit worth $37 million when you make less than $70,000 a year! What were you going to do with that money Kristy, build your own church?!

Also. Something tells us "enormous media attention" is precisely what she doesn't want to avoid. Really? East Hampton? Of all the places in the world to hide out, your number one choice is London and your number two choice is East Hampton in the summertime? Of course it is, what are we thinking. After all, your name is hyphenated. Grrrrrrrr. Here's a list of places to really unwind if your aim is to lay low.

1. The Outback. Not the steakhouse, the actual rugged terrain that stretches for hundreds of miles in every direction and, for the record, is right in your own back yard!

2. Tasmania. Short flight. No one goes there.

3. New Zealand. Our recommendation is to skip the High Pass and seek refuge in the great Dwarf palace of Khazad-dum.

4. If you insist on blessing us with your presence: Maza, North Dakota. Population: 5.

5. Wyoming. The least populated state in America. But probably the most conservative too, so your hyphenated name may get you shot.

6. Kolyma, Siberia. Just the word Siberia should explain it all.

7. The Himalayas. Find a sherpa. Don't let him feel you up.

Send a post card, Kristy. And bill the postage to David Jones Ltd.

How To Turn Suck-Up In A Single Blog Post

Meet Patrick McLaughlin. He's another one of these corporate tigers who got tired of the rat race and one day did something rash about it by quitting his job and retreating to his summer home in the Hamptons to live (gulp) year-round. For real. It's like converting to Hare Krishna, only instead of shedding all possessions, you shed only New York City possessions. It's like converting to Hare Krishna, only instead of denying the self, you promote yourself. It's like converting to Hare Krishna, only instead of meditation on spiritual matters, you meditate on where to make your next dinner reservations. It's like converting to Hare Krishna if there was a special temple for douchebags.

So McLaughlin is one of those guys. The guy who claims he's sick of it all and vows to live a simpler life, roaming around the quaint, lonesome towns of Sag Harbor and East Hampton and pointing at things to go see, do, eat, and hear. He's also a movie critic, apparently. He also doesn't know that October 13, 2010 doesn't fall on a Friday.

So he runs a blog called Hamptons Chatter, and it's all about him and his stupid observations. And apparently one of his observations is that he was quite frankly underwhelmed by Sex and the City 2. We're supposed to be so shocked by this reaction that we fail to notice we're talking about a man...who went into a movie theater...walked up to the glass window...and purchased a ticket to see Sex and the City (1 or 2, it doesn't matter).

But now he's changed his mind. He LOVES Sex and the City 2! He HEARTS Sex and the City 2, Sex and the City 2 is one of his all-time faves. Why the sudden 180? He met Sarah Jessica Parker the other night in Manhattan, and she was nice.

That's it. The only reason. Really, Patrick? You're that much of a star-f***er that you changed your opinion of a movie, simply because you rubbed elbows with one of its stars? And you want to publish that?

What's worse is that the rest of his blog attempts to list 13 other things he's "decided to be nice" about, in honor of this past Friday the 13th, which it wasn't, and the list dishes out back-handed compliments that are nothing more than masked insults. And when a commenter called him out on the fact that he claimed it was Friday the 13th (it wasn't), he told the commenter to lighten up. Lighten up...and...what, Patrick? Say it was Friday the 13th when it wasn't? I'm sorry is knowing last Friday's date a sign of being too uptight?

Sigh.

So in a blog post about being nice, he ultimately is only nice about one thing. Sarah Jessica Parker and her destroyer-of-New York City-film franchise. And that, my friends, is how to expose yourself as a suck-up in one simple blog post.

P.S.: He also Tweets about where he's going to be every five seconds in case someone gives a crap.

Jay Flagg, Inventor of Real Estate, Can Not Be Stopped

You might slow him down. But he'll catch up. And when he does, he will drag your soul through the slime, flame, and ash of Hades. You will bargain with his red face, but his grinning maw will force you to surrender all hope.

We can now officially say "mogul." This is the mogul we blogged about back in July. Jay Flagg dared to fly too close to the sun, and the powers that be at Prudential Douglas Elliman melted his wings and he plummeted to the earth to live among us mortals. But the folks at PDE were not aware that, like Rocky Balboa, he spent his time down here lifting logs and trudging through snow, and chasing chickens. And now, like the phoenix of old, he has risen from the ashes.

According to this press release from Saunders & Associates, Flagg was discovered cowering behind their building, using the dumpster cover to shelter him from the falling rain. Founder Andrew Saunders was holding the Wall Street Journal over his head and skipping quickly to his Jag when he saw Flagg.

"Are you lost?" he asked. "Do you know where your parents are?" Flagg wiped his runny nose with a dirty sleeve and said nothing. Saunders reached out to grab Flagg's hand, but Flagg quickly bit him and slithered deeper into the recess of the alleyway.

Eventually he was lured out with some warm milk and given a desk, and a new tie, and a hot towel shave, and a Rolodex.

Now the world must prepare, for he is back! Jay Flagg is back! And ready to put his name as big as he wants on as many advertisements as he wants! But Andrew Saunders doesn't know this yet. No one does. Andrew Saunders does not realize the demon he has unleashed. The wrath he has loosed upon the four corners of the earth. He doesn't realize his own doom. The doom of his advertisements. And when the time comes, he may be powerless to do anything.

Said Jay Flagg: "I have decided to join Saunders because of their proven ability to provide superior experiences for clients and customers but most of all for how their talented marketing and technology team empowers their agents and anticipates their needs. Saunders has become 'the' luxury real estate brand and it will be refreshing to work in a company that is entirely focused on the Hamptons instead of an after-thought which is typical of the New York City centric brokerages."

Not a word about how he was shitcanned for boldfacing his name on PDE's ads. Such is the genius of this magnificent bastard!

Dan's Papers Guide to Payola

In the news gathering business, you might hear the term "separation of church and state" bandied about. Basically it's an editorial policy that prevents the advertising sales team from influencing editorial decisions up to and including which stories to run. So, for example, your newspaper is about to run a scathing story on the shady business practices of Acme Inc. But your top ad salesperson knocks on your office door and says, "listen, Acme Inc. spends $1 million dollars a year in advertising with us. If you run this story, we're gonna lose that revenue for good."

The answer is supposed to be: too bad. In fact, the separation of church and state is so important to most newspapers that if the above scenario ever did play out, that ad salesperson could very well be fired just for approaching the editor or reporter.

It also works in reverse. Newspapers aren't ethically supposed to hang editorial coverage as a carrot above the head of businesses as a way to entice them to advertise. Even the appearance of payola will often cause editors who might assign a story on, let's say, termite prevention, to run down the list of exterminators advertising with their paper and then pick a source for the story NOT on the list. Definitely NOT on the list. It's also the reason no reporter worth his/her salt would ever walk over to the advertising department for a source contact on a given subject. Even if there isn't any sort of agreement between a business and a local newspaper, the use of a business as a source when that same business advertises with the paper would give too much of the appearance of impropriety for any newspaper to take the risk.

Well...any newspaper except for Dan's Papers, apparently. In the September 24 issue of that paper Dan's ne'er-do-well son David Lion wrote a story on kitchen renovations for their House & Home Guide. The piece is nothing short of an advertorial for Smith River Kitchens in East Hampton. It's even in the headline! Getting Your Kitchen On with Smith River Kitchens. It ran on page 34.

Wethinks that odd. Very odd. Untils we turn to page 37. A full-page advertisement for Smith River Kitchens! Separation of Church and State, David. Learn it. Love it. Live it.

Former Provost Of College Has Trouble With Academic Citation

Or...Congressman Tim Bishop is a snake like every other politician trying to run for re-election.


As an alumnus of Southampton College, the degree hanging on my wall is beginning to have less and less meaning with each passing day of this political season. Have you seen this? It's a political ad approved by Tim Bishop in which he accuses his Republican opponent, Randy Altschuler of outsourcing American jobs to other countries around the world.


The ad comes replete with grainy video footage of Altschuler speaking to what appears to be local businessmen about his company (Office Tiger) and its ability to save them money by shipping back-office support positions to other regions of the world, such as India, and the Philippines.


Then he pulls out a quote Altschuler gave the Financial News in 2003. "In India you get a much higher standard of person doing...work than in America," the full-screen reads. What a scumbag, right? Saying Indian workers are better than us? And now he wants us to vote for him!?


Only. The ellipsis troubled me. You know, the "dot, dot, dot" after the word "doing?" That couldn't have been a pause on Altschuler's part. And if it was, what journalist would have inserted the pause? Something was fishy. So I did about five seconds of research through my local library and I found the article in question, from the March 23, 2003 edition of Financial News.

Here's what Altschuler said in the article. "In India you get a much higher standard of person doing assistant work."
That was it. The Bishop ad cuts the qualifying term "assistant" and then adds what their Cap N' Crunch invisible ink detector apparently picked up on the page hiding "than in America."
Or, more likely, Altschuler never said "than in America." And he was talking about assistant work, not ALL work. This also followed that quote from Financial News:

"Altschuler says banking staff in Western financial centres need not be concerned about losing their jobs. Instead they should be pleased that the roles remaining in the West will be of higher calibre. He says: "People in New York and London will be working in higher-end areas. There will be more need for people with higher education-employees are going to have to get smart."

I know Tim Bishop was the provost of a failed college and all, but come on. Tim. A quotation is word-for-word. That's why it's in quotes. And next time you're going to lie to us about something your opponent didn't say: do yourself a huge favor and don't bother providing the citation.

In other news...Randy Altschuler is a huge outsourcing douche. Don't vote for him.

The Obligatory 'I'm No Snob' Snobby Hamptons Wrap-Up

Every so many weeks we get these blog posts or (gulp) New York Times Magazine pieces that attempt to wrap up the whole spirit of the Hamptons in summer. It's the usual formula, whereby a given writer somehow gets the daunting and unwanted task of "weekending" in the Hamptons like some embedded reporter in Afghanistan and has to inform us of the goings on.

It usually works (in subtext alert tonality) like this:

I'm a young, hip, good-looking, appletini drinking, social climber who was unfairly tapped by my editor, (or in the case of bloggers: I could hear the masses calling out to me) to cover the Hamptons scene after another wild summer winds down. Sigh. I so hate covering the rich. I'm so not rich, or in any way interested in the rich. I'm just a regular gal who happens to be wearing designer clothes that I dug up somewhere. I'm really just like you, and I loathe to be in the company of rich people, but since I have to cover this story, I might as well embed myself in the culture of the privileged. Now that we got that out of the way, let me count off the myriad boutiques I'm completely familiar with, and then complain how I was not treated like a wealthy person enough!

Next batter, How Very Lucky To Be A Girl, another chick blogger who goes on dates and uses words like "fabulous" while wanting us to believe she's one of us. In her treatise on how she's not a fan of the Hamptons, she proceeds to ring off every store that opened on Main Street in East Hampton, and drops more than one high-end, famous restaurant she dined at. Why? So she could tell you how lousy the service was. (Click on the hyperlink to read her entry)

That's right. How Very Lucky To Be A Girl, the down-to-earth, working class hero blogger, who hates what the wealthy have done to the quaint, sleepy towns of the east end adds her two cents to the growing pile of complaints from rich people about the poor quality of work they get out of their poors.

For some of you who may remember J-school. Here's the organizational checklist for these recurring pieces.

Insert self-conscious opening lines about the unapologetic display of Hamptons wealth?...Check

Justify your reason for being there by citing editorial assignment?...Check

Transition to the "if-you-can't-beat-em'-join-em'" tone?...Check

Depart from your original position to suddenly embrace the Hamptons and lament the trials and tribulations the wealthy must endure?...Check

Mention you'll be back next year?... Absolutely

Eat a bag-a-dicks?...Please do

Kelly Bensimon Sells Clothes For A Cause. Still Manages To Sound Like An Idiot

We know. Ripping apart this broad is low-lying fruit, and we usually try to be fair when someone repugnant does something to benefit humanity. In this case, we can't.

Real Housewives of New York City star Kelly Bensimon was out on someone's front lawn in Amagansett this past week. Eating their grass and sputtering out nouns? No. She was selling her soul, (see also: her clothes) for charity. If you happened to make it to her big fur yard sale, you too can dress like so last year.

The proceeds of cleaning out her closet to make room for this coming year's unnecessarily absorbidant shopping spree went to benefit Island Harvest, a non-profit organization that helps feed hungry Long Islanders.

Wonderful. Insightful. Caring. Philanthropic. Kelly...how does this act of generosity fit, philosphically speaking, into your world-view?

Added Bensimon: "I can't even do a yard sale without my hair being done."

Sigh. Something tells me she can quote Plato's Republic and make it sound stupid.

Real Housewife of NYC Ramona Singer Hates Africans

We just wanted to come back from our semi-vacation from this blog to put up a headline like this. Looks like Ramona Singer of the Real Housewives of New York City blew off hosting an event to raise funds for African children suffering from HIV/AIDS.

According to this article, she'd been prodding her assistant to call the party throwers and come up with all sorts of excuses not to host the thing. Our best guess is that her final excuse, the deal-sealer, was something like: "tell them I'm out of the planet. No, tell them I have bees in my closet. No, tell them my deck chairs rioted last night."

Anyhoo, the brave, the very noble, the very AIDS-educated scientist and world policy-maker Sonja Morgan (a Real Housewives co-star) stepped up to the hosting podium. And then fell down drunk while demonstrating her identity with Africans by doing the running man. But the brass balls award must go back to Singer. After rattling off all her reasons why she couldn't be there to host the event, she found out Sonja was hosting, and called the organizers to book a ticket as a guest! Wow.

We know three things. We know Ramona Singer's condemned soul is going to be everywhere proclaiming her innocence. We know the organizers of this Colors of Hope should feel deep shame for even asking a Real Housewife to host anything. We know children in Africa are shaking their heads and burying their faces into their hands.

Badvertising

Almost as if they were striving to be the creepiest, sleaziest, most opportunistic company on the planet, Norton, the creators of the anti-virus spyware and malware programs, have actually honed in on Lindsay Lohan's legal troubles to promote their product. And somehow they got Lohan to play along! Well, not somehow, they paid her! Still...this is as sleazy an approach as you can get.

Buy our product so you can cyberstalk and rubberneck the Lindsay Lohan train wreck and still sleep the deep, quiet slumber of a person not worried about viruses. I need to go wash. Check out this press release. Not even her dad would do this. We think.

How To Survive Stony Brook Southampton's Summer Writing Conference

Today kicks off Stony Brook Southampton's annual backslapping festival: the summer writing conference, and it all starts with keynote speaker Lorrie Moore. After that, it kicks up a notch with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout and Sag Harbor native Colson Whitehead. Returning to the conference are a mix of visiting writers and Stony Brook Southampton faculty members such as Roger Rosenblatt, Kaylie Jones, Melissa Bank, Peter Hedges, Thomas Lux and former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins. The full list of faculty and workshops are dumped on a release posted here at Hamptons.com


In the interest of full disclosure (and to effectively inform this blog post) it should be noted that I am a graduate of the Stony Brook Southampton MFA program in Creative Writing and have hands-on experience dealing with some of the aforementioned named "faculty," dating back to when Frank McCourt and Peter Matthiesson were part of the program. McCourt has since died. Matthiesson is 83 and sick of talking to people. (probably.)


Here's a survival guide for all you aspiring writers and MFA candidates currently primping, tweazing, hair-gelling, and printing out fresh pages of your latest novel "just in case."


Don't:

• print out fresh pages of your latest novel/chapbook/play "just in case." There is no just in case. They don't care. Not really. Now, if you have a wine spritzer balanced on a tray, they care. Really.
• tell anyone, under any circumstances, that your book is a "slice of life."
• ask for their help with anything specific. In the 50+ years combined of experience in publishing and literati, they haven't met a single writer, agent, editor, publisher, or proofreader that they can introduce you to. This doesn't sound possible, but you might as well believe it, because if the truth is otherwise, they ain't sharing.
• tell any of the male writers that you adore his work. This is especially true if you're a doe-eyed, apple-cheeked female MFA student. They will open up the world to you, but first...a drink at the bar?
• invite any of them to an open mic or student reading. They don't care. Not really. Better you live inside the cocoon of your delusions than endure the heartbreak of the inevitable blow-off. (Note: some will do it more harshly than others. See: Rosenblatt.)
• ask long-winded and semi-autobiographical questions during the Q & A period. Not only do they not care, your fellow audience members don't care either. You can ask Whitehead how he maintained proper emotional distance while writing "Sag Harbor" without telling him your cousin's best friend's girlfriend at the time was an 8th-grade classmate of his.
• ask "what advice would you give an aspiring writer?" during a Q & A. This is a complete masturbatory allie-oop question that will only be met with witty, sarcastic, faux-existential, jerk-off answers, and will at worst provide a writer with a golden opportunity to share how their genius was discovered. (An example? Sherman Alexie answered the question by saying the only thing a writer needs is money for postage stamps.)
• tell any of them about your literary aspirations. They're going to say "that's ambitious of you," and you're going to take it for what it is: rank condescension.
• believe that by running copies for Melissa Banks, or picking up Roger Rosenblatt's laundry, or dropping off Elizabeth Strout at the airport is going to get you published. It's going to get you to a gas station to refill your tank.
• believe that shoving a manuscript in a writer's gut is going to get you published. It's going to get you kept in the dark about where the after-reading-party is going down.

Do:

• embrace your own arrogance. Of course your writing is much more revolutionary and game-changing than theirs, and you'll get your chance to prove it. Don't grovel. Don't falsely stroke their egos because you feel it's the nice thing to do.
• ask broad and abstract questions during any Q& A period. "How do you write female characters so well?" is a good one. Also, "do you write every day?" And, "describe your process. Do you hand write, and then type it out?"
• drink heavily and try to hook up with a fellow conference attendee. I'm putting out personal bonus points if you can peel Melissa Banks' panties, but that's as far as it goes with faculty-student co-mingling.
• hide your envy. There is nothing more embarrassing and eye-rolling than an MFA student popping off at a reading or after-party about how much more talented he is than X, who everyone is surrounding at the moment. For the record: "popping off" includes shaking one's head, rolling one's eyes, looking bored while clapping, leaving the room when X is about to entertain everyone with a story, or verbally shredding X's latest tome while out of earshot of X. We know where it's coming from. We all feel the sting of watching a writer that isn't you sign autographs, take pictures, and control the floor of a room. Keep it to yourself. Scream inside your car. Write it in a journal entry. It's fuel for your ambitions, not to burn off and look like a jealous fool while doing it.
• recognize your inherent right to barroom pugilism. Or, to add as a "don't": don't take shit from anyone. There's a good chance, particularly if you're a male writer, that another male writer is going to say something that is so enraging, so caustic and dismissive that you're going to feel like the unpublished writer is getting picked on by the published one. It's more a case of a published writer getting so stroked for so long, he feels he's above an ass-whooping. If this happens to you, don't hesitate. Punch him right in his fucking face.
• recognize, of course, when a writer isn't picking a fight; he's just having a little fun with you. In this instance, probably a good idea not to punch him in his face.

Godspeed, you young and hopeful scribes! E-mail us at news5525@gmail.com with any updates or embedded reports from the conference.

What's One More Hamptons Rubbernecker?

International man of intrigue, blogger extraordinnaire, world traveling business mogul, fashion authoritarian, Egyptian influencer, and creator of all things, Francesco has surprisingly never been to the Hamptons. He plans to rectify this grave injustice this coming weekend. From his blog "Men's Fashion by (of course) Francesco," he cops to never visiting the east end...:

"But now, there is a reason to go: the Simon Spurr Fall 2010 Men’s Preview and In-Store Trunk Show, hosted by designer Simon Spurr at Blue & Cream, 60 On The Circle, East Hampton, New York. The event will take place on Saturday, July 17th, 6-8PM with complimentary cocktails by Svedka."

Go there, if for no other reason than to see Francesco in the flesh. His life "can best be characterized by an intricate mosaic of various languages, cultures, educational backgrounds, and work experiences of nearly 25 years."

He sounds really interesting, and I'm sure he'd love to share his story with you. And by share, we mean tell you all about his blog. Click on his name above to read more about this fascinating Hamptons rubbernecker. Then yawn. And punch a puppy.

Relief On The Way For Golddiggers

Here's a stock tip. Invest in Swiss banks. They're about to get a ton of phone calls, thanks to a measure sponsored by Sag Harbor's Albany representative Fred Thiele that will turn New York into a "no-fault" divorce state. (See: the bitch gets half?)

It used to be (and for the moment still is) that if a couple got divorced, they had to duke it out in court and find out which one was at fault for the breakup. Understanding that marriages fail for multiple nuanced reasons and more often than not, both parties contributed to the breakdown, there are still factors that New York State considers when awarding divorces and divorce settlements, such as adultery, or abandonment. This bill would negate those factors and split everything down the middle.

Thiele says he wants the measure passed because it complicates couples who have agreed to an amicable divorce. Hey Fred. There's no such thing! Even divorces that settle out of court are negotiations that neither party is all that satisfied with because they'd rather their spouse died in a fiery car crash.

Just look at Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook. That poor bastard tried to have his day in court after Brinkley went on a multiple-day-testimony bus throwing tirade, crying and pointing out all of Mr. Cook's little perversions. But suddenly when it became his turn to talk, a miraculous out-of-court settlement popped up demanding Cook's silence from here on forward. Funny how that worked. This bill would rob us of that bit of made-for-TV-drama. And it will let cheatin' hearts off the hook and well supplied in their ex's money.

You can practically hear the stampede of high heels running to the nearest voting booth. So, yeah. IPO. Drop a dime into every off-shore bank you can research.

Meet The Guy You Never Want To Be

So Vanity Fair has this F-Marry-Kill sort of Q & A going with "party planner to the stars" Colin Cowie. Who? Exactly. Which begs the follow-up question, can some bold, brave party planner out there step up and call themselves "party planners to the average people?" Because it sure seems like every party planner bills themselves as a planner to the stars. They can't all be planners to the stars can they? I mean, at that point, couldn't gas stations just say they're "unleaded suppliers to the stars?"

Anyhoo, the Q & A. Yikes. This guy is as metro-sexual as they come. Not only does he list designer sun-screen and an extra large towel as "essential" items to bring to the beach, he even calls out the brand of towel one should bring. Hermes.

Want highlights? He was actually asked what his "after-sun ritual was," and he actually had one. Curious? "Tons of any moisturizer, but I like Origins Ginger Souffle Whipped Body Cream."

He also has to wear Oliver Peoples sunglasses and wears a Brazilian cut bathing suit, so avoid Main Beach in East Hampton until he dies. Just being helpful.

Summer cocktail? "Cucumber Chill. A Vodka martini with muddled cucumber, lime, simple syrup, and elderflower."

Just cry mercy and I'll stop.

Favorite stationary? (yes, they truly asked him this, and, again, he truly had an answer.) "For the handwritten note, Ellen Weldon's over-scaled cards on thick paper stock with fabulous envelope liners."

Who inspires him? Nelson Mandela. Which makes sense. They have a lot in common. Cowie drives a black Mercedes CLK convertible, and Nelson Mandela...is black, so there.

Favorite Hamptons attire? "One loud element, like a fun printed trouser and a cotton t-shirt from Thom Sweeney."

OK, I hear you all climbing out onto your ledges, so I'll just throw in the kicker.

Song of the summer: "Too soon to tell. I'll know once I have been to St. Tropez, Capri, Sardinia, and Mykonos by mid-August.

Why don't you just ask Nelson Mandela, Colin? Yuck. Kids: dream of bigger things to become.

Parrish Art Museum Shaves The Area

As a follow-up to our recent blog post about the Parrish's plans to relocate off of Jobs Lane in Southampton Village, it looks like the museum has mowed a gigantic space in the middle of its future Water Mill site and is getting all juiced up for a July 19 groundbreaking ceremony.

According to 27East, the ceremony will be closed to the public, but the Parrish is expected to announce its timeline for the new museum space. Before you get all pissy about them, apparently the museum attempted to renovate its existing space to make more room and expand its collection and was met with all sorts of aggravation from village residents. Well played, villagers. Now the museum is going to vacate a beautiful building and leave it open for some 20-something fashion designer from Manhattan to totes take it over and make it a chic couture space.

What are we getting in return? A museum in the middle of a field that sounds, by its description, more like a duck farm stable than an art museum.

When Good Fameballing Goes Bad

A Hamptons cautionary tale has reached the pages of the NY Post. In the world of Hamptons real estate, one can only imagine the amount of fameballing and namewhoring that goes on between one agent and the next, or between an agent and the press corps, as each one battles it out to achieve the completely made-up title of "guru." Sure, if you can say you sold 50 acres to Madonna, or helped Lady Gaga pick her estate in Bridgehampton, you can achieve something of a god status among your ilk. Be invited to the hottest parties. Get photographed by that Patrick McMullan dude, arm wrapped around the slender waist of the latest starlet or reality show diva. Not to mention the commission is no kick in the jabumbas either. The motivation is intoxicating and high-end luxury service providers everywhere succumb to the need to be as large in personality as the celebrities they're trying to namewhore.

This can be dangerous. Just ask Jay Flagg. Oh, how he was seduced by the power of power. How he dared to out-personality personality. Lulled by sycophancy into the notion that he, a Prudential Douglas Elliman, Southampton broker had somehow become bigger than his office, nay, bigger than Prudential Douglas Elliman! Bigger than God! In his Faustian arrogance he took out an ad in Hamptons Magazine whereby his name was in bold red lettering, while the name of his employer/agency appeared at the bottom in smaller print! Why not? After all, he's Jay Flagg, real estate guru!

But the hand of God can be heavy, and when it falls...

According to this NY Post article, PDE Chairman Howard Lorber smote his ruins by the mountainside. Yup. Shitcanned him for this bit of hubris. Now Flagg's camp is saying this is all because of some personal beef between Flagg and Lorber, and an anonymous source seems to back that theory. Is there a lesson we can take from this?

Beware of masturbatory self-promotion in your ads. Be humble before your creator. Remember that heavy is the head that wears the crown. Oh and...don't have personal beef with your boss. It will not end well for you.

Dispatch To Self-Important Fashionistas!

As much as we are pained to admit this, we like you cocktail party fashion-monger Sex&TheCity wannabes so much more than Brooklyn hipster fauxhemians, that we're begging you, we're on our knees begging you to start the Battle of Montauk!

According to this piece from Guest of a Guest, these pretentious trust-fund Williamsburg toolbags have been invading Montauk this summer and turning it into a playground of irony and unwashed hipsterism. Not that we don't appreciate a good naked romp, (we certainly lament the recent court decision in New Jersey that cuts down on nude beaches on the shore) but c'mon. Anybody except these people. I can think of three annoying types of people right now, and they still don't add up to how much this particular subculture would ruin a perfectly good drinking and fishing town. Wanna try me?

1. Eager green-light honkers

2. Cell phone talkers while simultaneously ordering something at the counter.

3. Uhhh, what the heck, cocktail party, fashion-monger, Sex&TheCity wannabes.

We recognize that in a perfect world Jaws comes along and eats both of these summer east-end dwellers, but since that's unlikely to happen we'll take the devil you can try to upskirt with your cellphone cam, versus the devil who has a beard but still rides a bike.

Sarah Jessica Parker: dispatch your army now!

A Property Owner's Guide To Being A Prick

We're still waiting for Hamptons.com to print a typo correction for this article from a real estate advisor who actually suggests charging your neighbor a fee to cut across your property to get to the beach, or threaten litigation if he doesn't.



The article is entitled "Why Would I Give A Neighbor Permission To Walk Across My Property? They spelled "Wouldn't" wrong.

Southampton Mayor: The Parrish Is Just Not That Into You

Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley got a Dear John letter from the Parrish Museum this week in the form of a Southampton Press reporter calling him for comment on the museum's plans to leave the village very soon.

"They are?" he said. Or something like that. Apparently construction of the new Parrish Museum's digs in Water Mill is underway and moving along swimmingly, meaning the museum will be leaving its century-old home on Jobs Lane in the heart of the village as early as 2012, according to this article. The vacancy will leave a huge gap in the middle of Jobs Lane and poses a major decision for the mayor and his flying monkeys to decide who should be the next tenant. (See: please God, don't be a Starbucks.)

But the real kick in the jabumbas is that Mayor Epley kept calling and calling and stopping by, and writing, and throwing pepples at their window, and sneaking inside dressed as a potted plant, and Facebook friending them, and sending over singing messengers, and chocolates, but the Parrish was not trying to hear that. The Parrish does what the Parrish wants. Nobody puts Parrish in a corner. OMG, they went out, like...once...and he can't get over it. They've moved on, why can't he? They're seeing someone new. A Swiss architect no less!

So, yeah. That kind of sucks. If anyone has ever taken the time, the museum's outdoor sculpture garden of Roman figures is one of the best places to take a cup of coffee and contemplate the unfairness of life.

It's now where you can find Mayor Mark Epley. Moping. Kicking the grass. Holding the locket he planned on giving the museum as a token of his love. Go annoy him about the new parking ordinances! Go now!

Law Defying Protest Cancelled. 'It Might Defy The Law'

In one of our old Dan's Papers recaps, Dan Rattiner tried to write an article on a planned act of civil disobedience from the Baymens Association to draw attention to the harsh new fishing restrictions they say are threatening their livelihood. The protest was supposed to go down in June, and from the tone of the article, it sounded like Dan was heading down there to get his head busted by a copper with a nightstick. Or, you know, fined and possibly arrested for catching three porgies.

Now the protest has been called off. Why? Because it might cause legal troubles for two baymen standing trial for illegally trading seafood without valid commercial licenses. They don't want the protest to run afoul of the law. What?

Pussies.

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.

At Trata East, Your Waiter Might Actually Be A Slave

If you've ever eaten at Trata East in Water Mill, you might as well call yourself Thomas Jefferson, because you own slaves. At least that's what two waiters and two busboys are claiming in a lawsuit reported in this article from 27East.com.

According to the lawsuit, sometimes they got paid and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they got their tips taken away and sometimes they got their tips distributed upward to managers. Also, they weren't paid for extra time worked in their shifts. Basically, Trata East was operating like a household full of children. Sometimes they got their allowance, and sometimes they had to be locked in the freezer and threatened that if they ever went to the authorities they'd make their passports disappear and claim they were here illegally. Ah, memories of home.

Check out the article. Then pick someplace else to eat your souvlaki. And feel free to e-mail us at news5525@gmail.com with some of your waiter/waitress/bartending nightmares. We'd love to hear it.

Something Positive (Gasp!)

We interrupt our usual broadcast snark to bring you a nice wrap-up in the Hamptons art world courtesy of the East Hampton Star. Day late and a dollar short to catch the opening weekend of “Winslow Homer: The Pleasures of Summer” at Guild Hall in East Hampton, (although the opening reception was a members-only affair) but this and three other interesting exhibits are open until July 25. Winslow Homer is considered the first major artist to work and draw inspiration from the Hamptons. Our personal interest: the exhibition of east end art teachers in the Boots Lamb Education Center. Nice to see living artists getting some space in the Guild.



And it's not too late to catch the opening reception of Moises Esquenazi's “Natural Boundaries,” at Gallery B in Sag Harbor. The reception will be held on June 26 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. That exhibit is running through July 5.

The Star calls out a bunch of other interesting receptions. Check out the full article; it's worth pencilling in a couple of these shows. Real artists doing real work! Yay!

Decorate Your Ego In Pink

Make no mistake. If you wear this shirt, you're a toolbag. You're a pink toolbag. Guest Of A Guest wrote this article about how hard it is to get your hands on this new, Zev Norotsky-inspired T-shirt that obnoxiously declares "We (graphic of people running) The Hamptons." Translation: "We Run The Hamptons." Because they? Oh I get it, because they go to clubs in the Hamptons. And that's so cool because nobody else does that. Also, who's Zev Norotsky, you ask? See: Fameball.

From this T-shirt gag, we're surmising that he's a 30-something man-child apparently stuck in high school. You know, that time in life when making declarative statements that are testament to how cool you are was marginally acceptable and generally ignored. Only he's not in high-school (at least we don't think he is). Also, this ass-kicking-worthy shirt is available only in ass-kicking-worthy pink, for an ass-kicking-worthy $48.

Unintended laughter of the entire GofaG article? The whole angle of the blog post centered on their 3-part wisdom of how to cleverly score one of these "hard-to-get" T-shirts from Zev or anyone in his non-tourage. A commenter leveled them by posting up a website where it's easily for sale to anyone with a credit card and zero understanding of how much of an asshole they're going to look like.

P.S.? I've heard enough about this Axe Lounge in one month to make me want to punch whoever goes there in the face for a lifetime.

Brown Publishing's Papers: The June 11 Recap

By which we parse that parrot cage lining people call "Dan's Papers" (but is really Brown Publishing's Papers, or Jimmy Finkelstein's News Communications Papers) for all its subtext and stupidity. Mostly stupidity.

Dan doesn't know it, but this week he touched on what may become the new "summer of" theme on the east end. Sure, there's the "summer of the shark," and the "summer of the child abductions." This week Dan lent his voice to the journalistic echo chamber of what is becoming the "summer of the dog."

From Steven Gaines' crusade to clean up dog crap, to dog owners protesting tougher restrictions on when and where they can allow their adorable little members of the family to terrorize people--make no mistake: Dogs are taking over the Hamptons.

From the front lines Dan reports on two dog incidents rattling around in court this month. Well, "reports" is a generous term. What he does is more like eavesdrops midway through a private conversation, dumps out of the conversation when he thinks he's spotted Alec Baldwin, and then tunes back in to hear the out-of-context conclusion. Then he makes that his lede story. So it's sort of reporting. You just have to take away objectivity and fact-finding. Subtract what he might have learned had he gone to J-school, and then multiply his opinions. Then add rumor, but be responsible and attribute whomever started the rumor. There's also grammar. You know what, never mind, it's the lede story because it is (this is like explaining God).

The article tells the harrowing experience suffered by a lawyer and his wife. Allegedly some bimbo was jogging on the beach when her dog trotted up and summarily mauled the two. The bimbo kept right on jogging.
"Sorreeeeeeeee," she yelled, "but I did forget his chew toy, so it's not really his fauuuuuult," as she jogged off into the fabulous cocktail parties of her near future. The two bloody stumps dragged themselves up the beach like at Normandy and latched onto her bumper just before she tore off. She doesn't know, but she has just entered The Nightmare. And her little dog too, whose brains they intend to feast on. At least that's how Dan was told the story and he actually says he "hopes" the person who told him "got it right." Ahh journalism.

The other case was of a woman who walks her dog and thinks about going near the Piping Plover sanctuary. The teenage cops who run East Hampton village sent out numerous warnings not to even think about going near the Piping Plover sanctuary. But she did think about it. And she got ticketed. Now she's fighting it. She'll take it to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. She has the time, trust us.

Sharon Feirreiraeiouandsometimesy weighed in with "A Night of Amazing Star-F-ing," a comprehensive look at how many people are bribing guests to RSVP with the promise of meeting a celebrity. Which begs the question: have we really become that cynical? Even among the wealthy? We can't pony up to attend a party that helps prevent young gay and lesbian kids from committing suicide, or provides relief for children with HIV/AIDS or cancer--we can't turn out for drinks and dancing to keep a museum running or help the environment without the promise of bumping elbows on the dance floor with some actor, reality TV star, or washed-up supermodel? Are we that insecure in our causes that we don't think people will show unless you tell them they can create their own awkward, celebrity-to-foaming-fan moment? Sorry, but if you need to shake hands with Joy Behar and tell her how funny you think she is in order to feel your cancer relief check was money well spent, then hell awaits you.

Seriously, if I had the $50,000 for a "Platinum Table" at the Ross School benefit, I would shell it out, walk up to Christie Brinkley, and say "you have no idea how many tissues I burned through watching you in Billy Joel's Uptown Girl video." Her expression would be worth the price of admission.

Moving on, Susan Galardi was unavailable to work much this week. She finally snapped and decided that instead of Piping Plover sanctuaries, we need "Human Resting Areas." (Pssst: they're called cemeteries, Susan!) You might see her resting at the beach, but do not approach her. She'll attack you. And if birds come flying by, she'll attack them. And if your dog comes along, she'll eat it. We think she might be kidding, but just in case--be on the lookout for bat-shit. She might be nearby.

In the "We've Got A Huge Set Of Balls" section, Dan actually put together an event where he presented a "Donkey Award" to the book reviewer him and a few other mooks thinks is contributing to the "pathetically low level to which book reviews have sunk."

A group of book reviewers, book publishers, and prominent authors (who, Dan? Bwahahahaha) assembled on the lawn of Dan's Papers..."

The "award" went to Janet Maslin of the New York Times. Runner up went to Nellie McKay, Stanley Fish, and Walter Kirn. The inscription on the plaque (presented in front of a rapt audience of no one) reads: For the Best Abuse of Space For the Least Deserving Book" (subtext alert: books, that is, not written by members of this stupid committee.)

If David Lion is still searching for something to plug the leaking oil pipe in the Gulf (and we think he is) he need look no further than his own father's balls. We're speechless. Gobsmacked. Flabbergasted that Dan's Papers would have the gall to call out a reviewer when the very review included in this same issue is nothing short of sycophantic payola. How many reviews have we been subjected to that were poorly written, misunderstood, and in violation of every conflict of interest known to journalism? Why some of these editors would even stand in a photo with one of the poorest writers ever to be published, let alone sit on a jury panel to judge the writing of others, is beyond comprehension.

Speaking of sycophantic. Speaking of payola. Dan's team coverage of Bay Street theatre's season-opening play "Dissonance" carried over into the photo pages. Joy Behar, Terrence McNally, Eli Wallach and a bunch of other people who accidentally got in the picture was there. Then Real House-nut Ramona Singer was in attendance at the "Take-A-Black-Kid-To-The-Hamptons" Benefit, along with her husband Mario (he has to be cheating on her). "Janice" from the Sopranos was there. She got mad and shot everybody. The end.

Meanwhile South O' The Highway, Joe Biden tipped the scales of balding white-haired men window shopping in Southampton, and Frazier's brother Niles bought a house in Amagansett with his husband Brian Hargrove. (Yo, that actor is gay? Who knew?) Ralph Lauren is still playing monopoly, this time buying hotels, Alex McCord and her slave Simon celebrated their 10th Anniversary in Wainscott, Real House-whore Sonja Morgan got tossed in the clink, and Christie Brinkley smacked her daughter around like Don Corleone in the Godfather when Alexa Ray checked herself in a hospital for whatever the hell could possibly ail her. "You can act like a man!" Christie yelled, smacking both sides of her face. Then she got back to her tell-all book on Peter Cook's sexual proclivities while making sure the gag order on Cook's side of the story remains in tact. Also Brooke Shields is on a hit-list from PETA because she's heading over to Denmark to go kill animals, skin them alive, and sew their fur together for a coat--apparently her "little girl's dream." Models don't just model clothes. They model behavior. They do.

And in David Lion's ode to 20-Something boredom, he observed a woman in East Hampton getting a parking ticket by the snot-nosed little fucks that are sure to get their comeuppance for doing the Devil's laundry. You see, he sides with the little fucks. Sure, they have nothing better to do, they can't get real jobs, oh no, that would require a little effort on their part, so they take these patronage jobs walking around with chalk and making sure that nobody does anything serious, like stay in their parking spot 15 minutes longer than they paid for. Can I say little fucks once more for good measure? Sure I can.

So there's David chortling at the outrage this rich old woman is exhibiting at her ticket. She's circling the blocks in East Hampton, and for all we know she's still circling the blocks into eternity looking for someone who gives a crap about her ticket. Because David sure don't. No, he's too busy enjoying her little hissy fit while the little fucks walk off with their little chalk sticks, feeling the power of the world in the palm of their hands. Feeling God's power. David imagines the woman telling them "Don't you know who I am?" "Don't you know how important I am?" He watches her pace and pout and piss herself over this ticket, and he laughs. He laughs the comforting laugh of someone living in the land of Notaticket. He watches the woman and laughs so long, he loses track of time. And when he gets back to his car, he sees a smear of white chalk on his tire.

Sonofabitch.

Steven Gaines Nothing From This Fight

Apparently East Hampton's largest rising problem is the fact that people own dogs, and when people own dogs, people own the dogs' need to poop, and they satiate this need by bringing those dogs to the beach.

Enter Steven Gaines. The author of Philistines at the Hedgerow apparently draws the line of wealth and privilege...at dog shit. Now a resident of East Hampton, Gaines visits a private beach every morning, I guess when he's not writing about the cult of privilege. Read about his recent fight to clean up the beaches and toughen anti-shitting laws in his America, in this article from the New York Times news service.

Gaines has written a number of best-sellers and has had his fair share of books turned into films. This recent bit of ink he's earned himself can only make me think of one thing: Tennessee Williams' essay The Catastrophe of Success, which he wrote just before the New York opening of Streetcar Named Desire. In it, he contrasts the poor, hungry, obscure Tennessee Williams to the now rich, fat, and wildly famous Tennessee Williams, and he comes to this conclusion about the role of art and the artist:

...The heart of man, his body and his brain, are forged in a white-hot furnace for the purpose of conflict (the struggle of creation) and that with the conflict removed, the man is a sword cutting daisies, that not privation but luxury is the wolf at the door and that the fangs of this wolf are all the little vanities and conceits and laxities that Success is heir to...

Oh Steven. Has your fire really burned down to a flicker only large enough to illuminate dog feces?

Decorate Your Broken Heart With Glitter

There are very few universal truths not contradicted by customs, mores, and religious teachings all over the world, but they do exist. One such Platonic truth: "The only thing that really matters is how you look."

It's a fact. And Hamptons.com's newest advice columnist Kimberly Garrett knows it! She wrote a whole article on the secret to not feeling so bad. Do you know what she does when she's a Sad Sally and wants to turn that frown upside down? She shops! Of course, she does. And so should you.

To quote Garrett: "It's hard to be in a terrible mood when you're wearing bright pink lipstick."

Trust her people, she knows. She works with celebrities all the time, and we know how happy they always look.

Here's a prescription from Dr. Kimberly Garrett, bad-mood-killer extraordinaire. (Well, to be fair, we tried to match the ailment to the outfit.)

• Victim of child labor? Versace floral-print stretch satin dress: only $1,775!


• Orphaned by bunker buster in Iraq? Emilio Pucci printed cotton-jersey minidress: $540


• Unemployed with mouths to feed? Tucker printed silk-satin minidress: $210

So you see, it fits all budgets. So cheer up. And remember...if you look good...you'll get into heaven. But if you're ugly and you don't shop, well, just keep your depressed, ugly self away from all of us wearing the bright pink lipstick!

Hamptons.com's Sean MFK Bruns Invents Drinking Game

And it works!

It's real simple. Just read his latest embedded article about his Memorial Day Weekend binge drinking affair. Click here. Then, every time he uses the word "fabulous," take a shot of whatever your poison is.

For bonus rounds, we're willing to bet you can open up any of Bruns' past filed works of namewhoring nonsense and play the same game. There. Now you can be just as drunk as Sean MFK was when he filed this non-story about his three-day-long pub crawl trying to cozy up against people he thinks are important to the world.

Don't say he never contributed anything of merit.

P.S. We know, in fact, how many shots it takes to complete this game, but we're not telling. All we can say is: best of luck.

Brown Publishing's Papers: The June 4 Recap

By which we parse that parrot cage lining people call "Dan's Papers" (but is really Brown Publishing's Papers, or Jimmy Finkelstein's News Communications Papers) for all its subtext and stupidity. Mostly stupidity.





Like Lucy stuffing chocolates into her mouth as they come out on the conveyor belt, we can't keep up with all the possibilities of how to recap Dan’s Papers before another one rolls out.





By now Dan has probably made it a habit of wandering the streets of the Hamptons looking for unmanned tables of food to swipe from, but this week was different. Well, Main Street was different, and after Dan read from his Memoir "Nobody Cares, Again" he stepped down from his soapbox and discovered boutique and ritzy stores all over East Hampton just giving food away. They probably put it out for him. He's been known to stray and run off into the woods, chasing celebrities up trees, but nobody had heard from him since last week's terrible debacle at the Potatohampton MiniFAIL. So, local businesses put out food in case he got hungry. And he did. He got very hungry. And nostalgic. Remembering when the Hamptons was...(fill in the blank). Which made us all wonder, when was the Hamptons ever what Dan remembers it to be? It seems since time indefinite the Hamptons was a place for privileged, accomplished, renowned, and uppity New Yorkers to get away from people and ride horses, or plant corn. They brought poors with them, sure, and perhaps the poors gave it that "blue collar" feel, but simply judging by the age of the mansions and estates to be found out here, it seems pretty clear...all these boutique and ritzy couture shops and high-end clothing stores now invading Main Street are just the offspring of some pretty well-heeled forebears. Dan would be better to take that "remember when" schtick to Williamsburg, Brooklyn or Hell's Kitchen.



Or Twitter and Facebook, which Dan's next big article informs us of his inability to maintain, even when his imaginary invites from Madonna and David Letterman are piling up in his social media inboxes. He needs to hire someone less important than himself to sort through all the ways people are clamoring to talk to him.

Which is opposite of David Lion's 20 Something woes. Nobody wants to talk to him. They just don't have the heart to tell him. So they're blaming it on the cell service provider and so far he's buying it. He keeps trying to make plans with his buddies and they just keep cutting out. Making that khhhh...khhhhh noise, hoping he doesn't pick up on their breathing. He bangs his cell phone on the hood of his car. "Hello? Hello?" Nothing. Just that ceaseless khhhh noise. "Hello?"

Meanwhile, South O' the Highway, Sarah Jessica Parker is still from the Hamptons. Calvin Klein is buying houses like he's playing Monopoly and someone needs to tell him he can't collect money from people who happen to stroll by his properties. Tennis stars from all over visited the very poor and deprived Ross School to speak to some underprivileged, tennis playing kids. Russell Simmons threw a party. Bryan Greenberg of "How to Make it in America" went to one, and consequently started a bare-knuckle, no-holds-barred catfight outside of the Axe Lounge. (though Dan doesn't make mention of this little inconvenient truth). Also, blah blah blah, Howard Stern, Jerry Seinfeld, Phony Countess Housewives, and Alec Baldwin. Always Alec Baldwin. Forever and ever. Love Dan.

Walking, talking Bratz Doll Gina Glickman took on the tough assignment of inserting herself into nightclubs all across the east end and was lucky enough to score an exclusive interview with Real Housewives of New York City's Alex McCord and her slave Simon Van Kempen, which was a genuine stroke of luck because we all know Alex and Simon hate press coverage. Her and her slave were celebrating their 10th anniversary together when Gina's head flapped open and shut like a muppet as she ran for them. Alex told her she'd gone through a transformation, which is good, while Simon sat beside her and wondered if his 10th anniversary present was actually going to be that Alex finally takes on his last name like she promised. It was the year 2000. They were sitting at an outdoor tiki bar in St. Barth's. They were just sitting through a long moment of uncomfortable silence after Simon brought up the name change. "Tell you what," she said. "If we're still together in 10 years, we'll take a ride down to the DMV." He clapped and went shopping with her.

Now 10 years has gone by and still he's heard nothing. He's afraid to ask. He's afraid to get what he already knows is the answer. "Listen, Simon, I know what I promised. It was the year 2000, we all thought were going to die." And that was true. So what could Simon do about it, really? Still...(he dropped his head down in shame) Gina didn't notice. Her back was turned so the photographer could get her in the shot with Alex.

But the parties Gina didn't make it to, Dan was sure to cover anyway, and get lots of photos of celebrities holding up glass dildos at the Drama Desk Awards. Also, he was sure to capture the sleazy, smarmy, slimy, oozing, creepy (please comment with more adjectives) Coerte Felske, an "author" who managed to camera-bomb The Real Housewives to promote his sleazy, smarmy, slimy, oozing, creepy..."book" he's been carrying around. So far it's paid off in dividends because he managed to sneak into Engel & Volker's "Toast to Fake-Famery 2010 Gala" in Southampton. Without any irony, he actually turned up with two models on either side of him. The whole thing was sleazy, smarmy, slimy, oozing, creepy...

"Hello? Hello?" David Lion kept calling into his cell phone as he passed the gates of the party. He was heading back to the office to complete his police blotter. Someone actually paid to have lab tests done on his pool water and found gallons of urine in the water. (We think this didn't happen.) Also a watch caused a truck to break down. (We think this also didn't happen). A Hummer flipped upside down and crashed into trees, a fight broke out in Montauk (no shit?), cops handed out 7 tickets on Shelter Island, a land mass with a population of...7. Also, guidos got pinched in the largest guido sting ever recorded in human history at Neptunes, a young man somewhere in Southampton got high, and the dead Chinese kayaker who was found dead on the beach in Amagansett is still dead. Tune in next week (er, this week) for when David Lion has more dead bodies wash up on shore, and then oddly makes ZERO mention of his pet peeve...the arrest of Sonja Morgan (Real Housewives of New York City) for DWI.

Perhaps he hadn't heard the news. Perhaps nobody has told him yet. "Hello? Hello?" he yells into his cell phone.
Nothing.