Battle Over Who Owns God Headed For Courts

One would think that in the age of "Occupy," the 1% would just pipe down a little bit. We're sort of delighted that they haven't.

Homeowners in Napeague (aka, the 1%) are in the middle of a legal fight with the Town of East Hampton over their desire to keep all the poors off the beach they feel is rightfully theirs because they purchased it years ago from God.

The Town says the parcels along that stretch of beach were sold under the condition that beach access would not be restricted to anybody. At the time, the beach was mainly accessed by east end baymen who parked on the street and walked down to the water to go to work in the morning. As the baymen died off, and they began to gradually be replaced by fucking assholes wealthier residents, those residents decided they didn't want barnacly, old, raggedy and completely not fabulous poors wandering their beaches.

The residents of Napeague of course are arguing that the beachgoers leave behind broken bottles, and burned out cars, and dead bodies, and zombies, but nobody is buying that to date. Bottom line is, God gave them the right to close off the beaches to the stinky public and the town should honor God.

Their appeals have fallen on deaf ears in the local courts and now it's headed to another court. So the residents said, "well, can you at least temporarily bar the poors from coming here?" and the courts said...not so much.

So yeah. The public says by principle nobody should own the beach, nobody should own nature. Shut up public.

*God did not immediately return calls for comment.

Inside the Social Life Magazine Kerfuffle

After some follow-up conversations with Christopher London, Hamptonyte blog got a pretty broad picture about the nature of his issue with Social Life Magazine Editor-In-Chief Devorah Rose, who recently landed back on the pages of the NY Post after airing her dirty possibly imaginary relationship with novelist Salman Rushdie.


When the story broke, London issued a formal letter that essentially posed an ultimatum to the magazine's publisher Justin Mitchell: either Devorah goes, or I can no longer contribute to the magazine as its Society Editor. The magazine, along with the people it covers, are in hibernation until Memorial Day, so no word yet from Mitchell how he plans to deal with the friction between the two editors. In an e-mail to Hamptonyte blog, Rose declined to say anything on the record about London's letter. (Incidentally, if Rose was in journalism she'd know that "off the record" is not something you can just say, like Hocus Pocus, or Olly-Olly Oxenfree. Both parties are supposed to agree to it, but we decided to be nice).

Usually when an Editor-in-Chief (see: head honcho) is threatened with resignation from a section editor (see: NOT head honcho), the section editor gets escorted out of the building by security. We found it curious that London's letter didn't lead to an automatic shakeup at the magazine. Then we got some more information about the gist of Social Life's operations.

According to London, Rose is really just an EIC in name only. Like, really just name only, as in: doesn't have much jurisdiction or veto power over editorial content. In a sense, London boiled her responsibilities down to a marketing/PR role, whereby she wines and dines and 69s the subjects the magazine covers and then lets the writers step in. She makes decisions about the cover, and contributes her column "Royal Court," which sounds so completely obnoxious, (without having actually laid eyes on the column) we are currently on e-Bay seeking to purchase a guillotine.

For the most part, all editorial content flows to Mitchell, and everyone who works on the magazine does so as contributors. This includes London, which explains why he's not sitting on the curb at the magazine's NYC office with a box full of his personal items and a sign around his neck. London is one of the older contributors; according to him the magazine has a young staff. We're imagining something along the lines of a journalistic sweatshop. Young, disadvantaged, naive little hopefuls, working for gold stars and what's left in the bottom of a Devorah-ransacked charity-event swag bag.

London said when he was first approached by Mitchell it was a collaborative effort to pool resources and tap into London's knowledge of NYC high society, a knowledge he'd apparently gained while photographing society events for his own website. According to London, Mitchell seemed hungry to get a look into the world of NYC society, and worked overtime to develop his own contacts. Somewhere along the line, and if the NYT article is accurate that "somewhere" was an event at the MoMA, he met Devorah Rose and he had his EIC.

Most journalists will often tell you that when they get invited to attend an event, charity or otherwise, they usually hang back and observe. But according to London, Rose took no such approach to Social Life's coverage, much to the chagrin of some of the charitable organizations that invited Social Life along. London wrote to us:

"Once I started writing for the magazine, certain invitations that came to my attention were swiped by Devorah and they began to ingratiate themselves with people who knew me, including insisting on a table at their gala if they want SL Mag to cover the event. I had certain publicists ask me why they wanted a whole table. Did they not know that this was not proper protocol?"

It gets better:

"Any swag which came to the magazine was often seized by her for use with her friends. Hence most of what Devorah shows up at are nightclub events and commercial charitable vehicles for Reality TV."

Which brought London to his ultimate point: Rose is merely using her position to leverage any opportunity to become a reality TV star, even stooping, according to London, to placing key players in reality television on the cover of Social Life. In essence, the magazine gives her access, and she uses that access to further her less-than journalistic aims. Tsk, tsk, Devorah.

Over the phone, London told Hamptonyte blog that the Rushdie incident was the straw that broke the camel's back because it came off as so inauthentic. In a follow-up e-mail, he added these remarks:

"It is even more clear that Salman Rushdie was a 'mark', a man who was clearly being used to extend DR's Famegame. The fact that she tweeted the pic herself with rather suggestive language for a "do over" with the famous author and then complained he was only after one thing, is interesting...There was a quick effort to cash in on the notoriety of having had any contact with him...Wouldn't she try to persuade him of her sincere interest first before giving him up to the tabloid media? Rushdie served his purpose, the famous ladies man got her two front page appearances in the NY Post, in one week."

Let's put it this way. If London doesn't leave the magazine, and Rose stays put as EIC...this is going to make one hell of an awkward office Christmas party.

Breaking: Social Life Magazine editor threatens to quit

Social Life Magazine's standing Society Editor Chris London drafted an official letter threatening to leave the magazine if Devorah Rose continues on as Editor-In-Chief.

The issue is over Rose's recent public outing of author Salman Rushdie's ill-fated decision to speak to Rose on a personal basis. The two have been involved in a mini-Page 6 battle in the NY Post, spurned on by Rushdie's attempt to deny anything more than a platonic relationship with the EIC of Social Life. After more than 20 years, Rose was able to do what the Ayatollah couldn't: deliver Rushdie's head on the platter of public humiliation, by essentially copy/pasting all of his personal messages to her via e-mail and Facebook.

In the letter, London described Rose as "socially parasitic" and took issue with her description of the Rushdie relationship as "abusive."

"PLEASE NOTE that if Devorah remains on Social Life Magazine's masthead as Editor in Chief in the Summer of 2012, this Society Editor will no longer contribute in any capacity to said publication. The publisher has a decision to make."

London also posted a scathing column as a contributor to Cape Cod Today. We'll keep following this and let you know how it all washes.

Well-documented stupidity

Are we really this desperate to become friends with our kids now?

What if the South kept "concierges" in chains?

There would have likely been no Civil War! Instead of a slave trade, how nice does a concierge trade sound?

We stumbled on this advertisement for a company that specializes in consolidating the numerous ways Hamptonites can remain spoiled, weeping, drinking balls of incompetence. This particular brand of servitude goes by many different names. Concierge service. Luxury concierge. Personal concierge.

"Whether you need a rental home, reservations at the best Hamptons restaurant or a babysitting, pet-walking, dry cleaning-picking-up assistant, we've got you...We tailor our services to suit your every need, and we strive to ensure there is no limit to what we can do for you. At Open Minded Concierge, our relationship with our members is always treated with the utmost respect and extreme confidentiality."

Yassuh, we aims to please, and we please to aim, suh. Our prediction: By 2025, the American population will consist of two groups...the wealthy, and their "concierges." If we've said it once, we've said it a hundred times, the failure of the South was in its poor marketing efforts. No worries. It will rise again. And that fact pretty much blows.

Hamptons porno to shoot July 18

We're not sure if this is slated for the Hamptons International Film Festival yet, but while Dan's Papers has its eye on the very latest in the world of Royal Pains we'll be on the lookout for a porno that is set to shoot in the Hamptons this coming Monday.

According to this Craigslist casting call, Casting Director Steve Murphy held auditions late last month in South Huntington for not one, but two porno films. He was looking for sexy females between the ages of 18 and 30, to get paid a tidy sum of $2,500 each.

We reached out to Murphy, but unsurprisingly he never got back to us for comment on such questions as, "What hotel are you shooting in? What room? How can one get invited to the wrap party."

Here's to hoping the film shoot goes so well that the Hamptons becomes the next San Fernando Valley. You think a 7-11 opening in the Hamptons is bad, wait until Dirk Diggler walks into a Golden Pear and stirs his coffee without using his hands.

Hate Mail, and Devorah Rose's obnoxious post-Times profile reaction

After our take-down of Devorah Rose, the shameless, self-promoting, celebrity-obsessed suck-up who edits a magazine nobody has physically seen editor of Social Life magazine, we'll admit our shock to see in the comments section of the post, one of her satisfied customers, lying in a Bridgehampton motel bed, smoking a cigarette, breathing in the lingering scent of Rose's perfume long after she got dressed and headed out to be seen...somewhere other than, um, editing something. After a long drag on the cig, "CPT" pounded out this missive:

"You're clearly an idiot and clearly unhappy with your own life. Devorah and a lot of other people are out there doing things with their lives. Oh, and besides the libel, you are flat out lying to readers when you claim Devorah is "admittedly...'more interested in Social Life's parties..." - the biased NYT writer said that, it was not a quote from Devorah. Get a clue, you miserable hack."

Oh, little friend...there are quotes and then there are quotes.

“The first event I went to, the paparazzi were there, and I had my photo taken,” she said. “After that, people started sending me clothes.”

"Ms. Rose bubbled with pride as she described the celebrities at the party."

"When Mr. Stern showed up, Ms. Rose said she nearly cried. “It was the highlight of my night,” she said."

The highlight of her night. Not that she'd written a successful piece, or that she'd discovered something about Beth Stern that was unique and difficult to ascertain, or that she'd put together a solid issue of stories with journalistic integrity. No. She met Howard Stern. So, um...yeah, Devorah Rose is admittedly more interested in Social Life's parties than its content. The libel case against Hamptonyte is hereby...dismissed.

But what's more infuriating than this sycophantic dipshit supporter defending her? Her post-NYT profile Q&A with Abe Gurko, that's what. In it she kvetches about how she was duped into believing that the NYT writer was going to put together a glowing, suck-up review of her life and nonaccomplishments. She thought the profile was going to be all hyperbole and promotion, and chock-full of flattering and congratulatory paragraphs. In short, she thought the profile would be like most of the celebrity profiles that get published in Hamptons magazines! Then this horrible NYT writer goes and ruins it with her "agenda." You know, her agenda. Like being objective. Like not taking Rose's word at face-value. Like reporting the truth when Rose tries to sneak some bullshit through. That agenda. In J-school it's not called an agenda, so you might be more familiar with its other name. Reporting.

Some lines from her Q&A:

"DEVORAH: I was hesitant at first but she put on a quite an act. It wasn’t until right before the article came out that I realized she did, in fact, have ulterior motives" (By ulterior motives she means journalism.)

DEVORAH: The tone of the article does not seems fitting for The New York Times
(Devorah wouldn't know what "tone" is anymore than she knows what "ammonia" is; she's not a journalist.)

DEVORAH:Seeing the photos felt great…but then I read the article. I never knew “self-made” could be a pejorative term. (Self made? One of the most irritating descriptions anyone can assign to themselves. From the NYT piece: "her mother, a physician, moved to Newton, a predominately upscale Jewish suburb of Boston"... "She later said [her father] was a businessman who split his time between Bogotá, Colombia, and Boca Raton, Fla"... "Ms. Rose met Mr. Mitchell at a soiree at the Museum of Modern Art in 2001. “If you start a magazine, I will edit and write for it,” Ms. Rose recalled telling him. He agreed."

Ah, that's so self-made!

DEVORAH: Well, let’s focus on the positive – which requires ignoring High Society

(No. You don't get to needle and scratch backs and wheel and deal your way onto reality shows and then turn around and ignore the very vehicle that landed you the notoriety you have.)

But that's Devorah Rose in a nutshell. As opposed to falling to her knees in disbelief at the good fortune she's had, disproportionate to her talent, she besmirches the few venues she's managed to trick into believing she's worth turning the camera toward. Like The New York Times.

Abandoned Virginia Fort yearns for white slacks and pink sweaters

Virginia's Fort Monroe is due to be abandoned by the US Army this coming September. Located on the southern tip of the Virginia penninsula, the fort, with sheer white walls emerging from the water in carved out, octogonal shapes, looks in no way like the Hamptons. But that's not stopping the Virginia Film Office from trying to convince movie-makers that Fort Monroe can easly replicate the Hamptons at a fraction of the cost.

According to Mary Nelson, communications flack at the Film Office, "the white homes at Monroe could easily be used to depict areas in New England or The Hamptons."

Sure, the Army's white barracks are almost exact knock-offs of what people live in in East Hampton. As much as I'd like to see the Hamptons get invaded and sacked, even I can't go along with this premise. Besides, if you insist on drawing similarities, it'll only be a matter of time before The Real Housewives, Alec Baldwin, and Devorah Rose show up, and then you'll be wishing you'd seceded from the Union.

On the other hand, I think the only recourse is for the Hamptons Film Festival to start offering the region as an ideal place to make a war movie.

When good trend stories lead to arrests

I distinctly remember one of the worst days of my teenage life, when a Newsday article ran about my local deli selling alcohol without proofing the buyers. That deli was the lone source of my increasing demand of 40oz. St. Ides, an oasis in the desert of suck called the working class suburbs. The article ran, and the next day, Haziz was asking for my ID. Goddammit journalists! I remember screaming as I walked out with nothing better than a can of Jolt and some Pixie Stix so I could at least get a sugar high.
That was then. When newspapers articles at worst caused the wrongdoer to straighten up and fly right. Now, they can get you tossed in the clink.

So 27East ran a trend piece entitled "Prom Season Brings Wave of Illegal Party Rentals," an expose on the unsupervised droves of teenagers whose desperate to still be considered cool parents allow to rent houses in the Hamptons for post-prom hi jinks.

Guest of a Guest mocked the piece. It was so old fashioned, so square...stupid adults with their stupid curiosity making a silly issue for no stupid reason, the stupid-heads. Besides, the rentals are totes nothing more than answering to supply and demand. Whatta you got against profit, 27East, what are you communists or something?

It was all "laughable" and so mock-worthy. Until the cops showed up. Since the piece ran, four arrests have been made in the Hamptons for violation of the social host law. The first in Eastport, and the second in Remsenberg. In the case of the latter, cops investigated after a kid had to be rushed to the hospital when he started puking up blood. Guest of a Guest could not be immediately reached for comment regarding whether they believe puking up blood to be a bad thing.

What have we learned? Despite the doomed fate of print journalism, you should read the newspaper. Or you may find yourself chained to a metal bar right next to a rapist.

NYTimes profiles most transparent fameball in history

You owe it to yourself to welcome Devorah Rose into your life. If you don't know who she is, well...that upsets her greatly. No outfit to date has put together quite the chronology that Gawker has, about this particularly persistent fameball, but to the uninitiated non-Gawker-reading public, The New York Times has kindly profiled her in the June 8 Sound & Fury Fashion & Style section.

Her trajectory that led her to this nearly 2,000-word profile is torn straight out of the "shotgun blast" approach to fame and success: do everything (writer, actress, model, editor, novelist, reality TV star, casting call hound), be everywhere (Upper East Side, openings at the MoMA, Hamptons in summertime), and sooner or later people will notice you. Despite her multiple forays into every form of camera-chasing possible, alas, she's mostly known as the Editor of Social Life magazine, a glossy Hamptons mag that, similar to Loch Ness, I've only heard about...never actually seen. (And I live out here. Very weird.) Aside from that, she enjoyed a brief splash of small-screen notoriety as the girl who ran out on her spindly legs and tossed her drink at another girl at one of her stupid, self-congratulating pool parties on the one-and-done show High Society.

The profile attempts at objectivity and even a little snark. It calls her out for lying about her 100% involvement in all her cover shoots (apparently Beth Ostrovsky Stern supplied Devorah with this month's cover photo for her silly magazine Social Life)

But all the snark in the world can not rescue the Times from the simple fact that the publication of record, The Gray Lady itself, actually went and profiled the worst person alive this phony, fame-starved asswipe.

Nothing about her is impressive, or entrepreneurial, or even interesting. She's the girl we all knew in high school who did two things: 1. found out where the popular kids hung out. 2. her hair. Now she rubs elbows with the beautiful people and pretends that all the hatred and bad karma that continuously befalls her is merely testament to her importance. It's the grossest case of incestuous legitimacy since Julia Allison. From having enough money to attend fiction writing classes in the extremely-difficult-to-get-into Columbia University MFA program, to meeting her publisher at a museum and blowing him promising him to edit his magazine if he launches one, she's nothing short of every other attractive woman who manages to convince guys to give them what they want. If she were reading this blog post (and she's not) she would stop right here to glory in the fact that I called her "attractive." She's Anna Nicole Smith without the stripper pole. Nothing more.

One of the more poignantly obnoxious moments in the NYT piece? When the reporter asks about her family background, she pulls a celebrity diva act and waves the question off with a hand, stating "I think we can move on." Why the reporter didn't get up and say "I think I'll move on too, to someone who's actually done something and wants to share their story" is beyond me.

So thanks, New York Times. Appreciate the legitimacy you just gave a girl who admittedly was "more interested in Social Life's parties than its content," launched by a guy who started the magazine because he also liked going to parties.

Read the profile yourself. Then wonder if the world didn't really end on May 21, 2011 after all.

Grazia plays 'pin the tail on the cliche'

So without intending to, Grazia's fashion section has highlighted one of the things that make the Hamptons such an eye-rolling place to visit between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Spotting the Walking Hamptons Cliche.' Never mind the traffic, the real indication that it's summer in the Hamptons is when you see these chicks walking around in multiples.

Grazia just hearts the daylights out of Morgan, 25, and her white blouse, cut-off jeans, and they're coocoo for Sofia's lesbian gym teacher look, pink pants and all. Morgan and Sofia are the names they were given when they got on the Jitney. What they've done is compiled quite a portfolio of women who watched too many 80s movies about the Hamptons and then did that.

If you want to meet Sofia or Morgan, you can! Just wait until this weekend, drive out to Southampton, and there will be octuplets of them. Chances are...they'll ignore you. Unless you have on a navy blue blazer, linen pants, and designer stubble.

Graduating from high-end prep school still means doing the 'Shocker'

The other day the Statue of Liberty welcomed behind its trailblazing torch the next line of America's white hope: East Hampton's Ross School graduating class of 2011.

The apple-cheeked and nightmare-free hopefuls will be going on to a palette of promising colleges in the fall, from American University, to Northwestern, to Columbia and Tulane. A testimony to how exclusive prep schools create an environment in which intellectual challenge can be fostered through peer success and influence. Rich parents don't hurt either.

But what's most disheartening heartening to see is that the hallowed ivy walls of privilege and circumstance, the thick, protective hedge of intellectual discourse and high-profile instruction, couldn't keep out "The Shocker" in the culmination of four years of hard work: the official graduating class photo.

Check out the kid in the front row sitting on the floor on the farthest left. One shocker wasn't enough. He had to do a double.

He's also my new hero.

Study Hamptons Culture: Get Paid...Nothing

Sorry. That's the way internships go. But if you haven't heard back from a real job yet, or you already got turned down for that job as a public restroom attendant, or a sewage worker, or the guy holding a sign, waving to motorists, or the "geek" in "Shoot the Geek," or a waiter at Chucky Cheeses, there's one more option.

Hamptons.com is looking for interns. They put out a press release, and with a straight face tried to lure you in with the golden opportunity to learn journalism this summer .

Kids...you're going to learn many things at that internship. You'll learn the difference between a cosmo and a martini. You'll learn how to cozy up to celebrities. You'll learn how to re-can press releases. How to get invited to all the right parties and how to dangle your camera in front of you when you get there. How to use over-the-top hyperbolic language when describing a person, a party, or a dish. (fabulous, fantastic, fantastimonious, superberrendous!) You'll learn how to decipher between important people and not-important people. You'll learn how to ignore the not-important people. But you'll never. Ever. Ever. Learn journalism.

But hey, it's something to do, and maybe you'll meet Pauly Shore.

The Weakonomy: Naming Names

So we got a kick out of this article on CNBC.com, not because we don't think Lehman Bros. royally screwed people out of their future, but because, as a society, we've evolved to the point of stalking Lehman Bros. employees.

Meet Lehman Executive Erin Callan and her hunky piece of Queens firefighter love-hunk Anthony Montella (pictured here). They're enjoying themselves on a beach. Just look at her. She looks happy. Which is against the rules for executives at Lehman Bros., Goldman Sachs, or any of the investment companies that made us so proud to be little entrepreneurs.

Apparently Ms. Callan is named in a lawsuit filed by the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which, without even reading the details of the suit, sounds painful to think about. (Read: please don't tell me Lehman Bros. ransacked peoples' pensions.) Ms. Callan is one of three executives named in the suit, so CNBC.com decided to go dumpster diving on their asses.

No news regarding the other two, but they did get some sweet photographs of Callan and her boy-toy living it up in East Hamptons, dipping their toes in the sand. Callan poses with her head cocked, puppy-love style. Montella still has that look of disbelief prevalent on the faces of many wonks who bag themselves a financial whale. That "pinch-me-this-can't-be-happening" look. Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and morally bankrupt.

In addition to this bit of paparazzi scandal, the article also unearthed a montage of photos published on Webshots that Montella took of Callan's East Hampton home, which was on sale for a very modest $3.75 million, then pulled from the market and put back on the market for an inexcusable $3.9 million, and then pulled from the market and put back on for a more realistic and feasible $3.6 million. Be right back, I gotta go hit a cash machine.

As it stands, the house is back off the market and it appears Ms. Callan will remain in East Hampton, holed up with her hunky firefighter-man, (who may come in handy should Californian pensioners decide to come burn her house down). And lastly, but more importantly, her boyfriend has a Twitter account.

Tweeting? Really? The jury's still out on whether or not to behead you both.

Bruce Buschel's Special Whine

This week we learned that Bruce Buschel, the thin-skinned owner of Southfork Kitchen in Bridgehampton, Googles himself. Or has his name on Google Alerts. Hi, Bruce.
We got a nice note from him in the comments section of our last blog post, which might have actually helped call attention to his need for added staff. No matter. He took issue with...whatever:

To Whom It May Concern,
Returning to Southfork Kitchen in mid-March will be the executive chef, sous chef, chef de partie, beverage manager, two cooks, two servers, two runners, porters and dishwashers. We are looking for more people because we expect the spring and summer to require a larger staff than the winter, and we want to spread the good fortune. In an industry that tends to have a lot of turnover, especially in a seasonal location, we think we are doing all right. But thanks for noticing.
By the way, I was building a restaurant before I became a blogger, not the other way around. Sincerely,
Bruce Buschel
Owner, Southfork Kitchen

We continue to belly laugh every time he talks about how to run a restaurant, using all his grown-up words, and explaining the way of the world to us, like this venture isn't just another one of his dollhouses. Oh, Bruce. You were building the restaurant before you became a blogger? What that implies is that we give a rat's ass about the chronology of your life. We don't. But thanks for noticing.

Fabulosity Navel-Gazers Wanted

Either there are not enough, or there can never be too many, we're not sure, but another lifestyle outlet is looking for another lifestyle writer to contribute to another lifestyle blog that covers the fabulous lifestyles of the absolutely fabulous this summer.

We found this posting on Craigslist while looking for actual real work. Haute Living is looking to extend its coverage of the most important unimportant people as they take their importance east for the summer.

Why should you? The perks, people, the perks!

• invites to the hottest parties (pretty important)


• a chance to write for an "established brand" like Haute Living (very important)


• opportunities to make "high-end" contacts (how high-end? How about Gwyneth Paltrow's pool-boy?!)


• a way to expand your online presence (the most important)


• an opportunity to fine-tune your suicide note

Good luck. But remember, you must be willing to document your drool on Facebook. And the Twitter.

Work For A NYTimes Blogger, Turned Restaurant Owner!

Bruce Buschel, the restaurant owner who recently bitched out readers on his New York Times blog You're The Boss, is now looking to hire just about every position it takes to run a restaurant. Why? Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that he posts the personal woes of his employees on his blog. Or maybe it has something to do with his overall lack of sympathy for staffers who believe that if they get behind the wheel in the midst of an east-end snowstorm, they'll die. Or maybe it's because he assumes his servers, by nature of their lowly stations, will never attend a book release party, or film premiere.

Either way, he's looking to fill the following positions. Be ready for a 10-day training period and, at the end of it, to be able to recite not only the menu, but Southfork Kitchen's "philosophy." Whatever that means. Godspeed:

He's looking for Cooks

He's looking for Front Of The House staff

He's looking for a Dining Room Manager

East Hampton Angry It Doesn't Get To Be Special

So, last year, even though helicopters have been in existence for a long time, helicopters suddenly became too noisy to bear. All the residents in East Hampton who flew there by helicopter, went out in their back yards, looked up at the sky and frowned at all the noisy helicopters. So they formed a committee, called the Permission to Use Anti-Aircraft Ground Artillery Committee. It was exclusively an East Hampton committee, because, basically, the only people who can afford to fly above the bridge and tunnel crowd heading out to the Hamptons, can also afford to live in East Hampton. They were all set to submit recommendations to the FAA to curb the noise that was clearly ruining their already difficult sunning, bathing, tennis, equestrian, partying, catered-lunch lives.

Then the rug got pulled out from under them, and the Permission to Use Anti-Aircraft Ground Artillery Committee got disbanded in favor of a committee that is made up of people from a number of townships on the East End, including (gulp) the very black, fairly poor, Riverhead.

Now the East Hampton committee, which was informed by the town board it wasn't special at a meeting last week, is completely livid. They feel like a multi-town approach would have "competing interests"--mainly, East Hampton's interest in seeing the helicopters buzz very black, fairly poor Riverhead and those hicks in Southold rather than them. If Riverhead and Southold are allowed to have voices in the new committee, they might actually prevent East Hampton residents from being able to fly into their homes without the troublesome inconvenience of noise. To that end, members of the now disbanded committee want this new committee to carry with it a majority East Hampton representation.

“There was no willingness to consider routes that would spread the noise,” Mr. Ehrens wrote in his letter, noting that “even then, one of the towns [Riverhead] failed to sign on.”

So Riverhead was basically saying, look...nobody who flies out here from the city is daring to get in a cab and visit very black Riverhead. The helicopter passengers are primarily East Hampton residents, so why should we allow those helicopters to fly over our airspace when the passengers aren't even coming here to live, or spend their dollars?

Oh, shut up, Riverhead.

Alec Baldwin For Town Troubadour

So far he's taught a class at Southampton College (when it was a college still), played a lead role in Equis at Guild Hall in East Hampton, and sits on committees all over the east end. Last week we saw him changing someone's tire on Jobs Lane while delivering mail on his usual route.

Now, according to the East Hampton Star, the actor/activist/professor/political-hopeful/tire-changer/mail-deliverer is going to read sections of "Huckleberry Finn," at Bookhampton in East Hampton tomorrow at 4 p.m.

Someone hand this guy a guitar and plop him in the middle of a gazebo somewhere.

In other news, exit polls will show that 90% of the audience at this Bookhampton event will have no idea what Huckleberry Finn is, or who wrote it. Or when. But 100% of the audience WILL have a camera in their hand.

Copywright Alert! Don't You Dare Steal This Word

The "Hamptons Business Strategy" strikes again. This time a baker posted this press release announcing her very exciting move to Sunset Avenue in Westhampton. But this is just not any store. No. It's a cupcakery, where she specializes in "Cuptails." And if we knew how to put the little "TM" in the upper right-hand corner of the word, we would. As it stands, we're risking serious jail time for copyright infringement, because she actually, very seriously, quite intentionally TRADEMARKED the term "Cuptail." Perhaps we'll just shorten the font. CuptailsTM.
There you go.

Sign your trademarked product isn't going to catch on? Having to explain what the heck it is in the subheading of your press release:

"Cuptail™ Hour Has Arrived in the Hamptons
Cupcake Lounge™ Capitalizes on the Cupcake Craze with Cuptails™. Combine Cupcakes with Cocktails and you Get Cuptails™, Cupcakes for Adults"

Meh. And exactly how many TM's do you need to put at the end of your unfortunately trademarked word in a press release? One. Not EVERY time you mention the word. ONCE. That's right, PR flack extraordinaire. Take you finger off the "insert symbol" tab...and slowly back away.

Anyhow, the cupcakeTM place held an opening receptionTM last week at the Hamptons Wine ShoppeTM in WesthamptonTM. Did anyone attendTM? E-mailTM us and let us knowTM.

In related news: there already exists "cupcakes for adults." It's called whiskey and cigarettes.

The Blog That Keeps On Giving

We love Patrick McLaughlin, and his blog, Hamptons Chatter, which, like Patrick himself, underwent a facelift recently. Bravo!

This week's installment is one of those blog posts that give pretext for the author to go on about his social status. We're all impressed with his former Upper West Side address, just as we are impressed with his unproven taste in restaurants. But...it was nice to hear about some restaurants that deliver to your door, and Patrick supplies a nice list, even if, in the middle of a post about how lazy he is to get in his car to satiate himself, he tells his readers to get off our lazy butts and look up the phone numbers and addresses of the eateries.

Of course he did. What would a self-important, superior Patrick McLaughlin blog post be without a little Grrrrrr in it?

Calm-ents: Time To Play "Name That Tool"

We knew it wouldn't be long before someone with a serious case of self-delusion, brought on by parabens from the tanning booth saturating an already fragile brain, would jump onto the comments section of our recent post regarding the hopefully upcoming reality show "Strong Island." And that delusional asshat didn't disappoint.

Anonymous said...
This show will blow up just like Jersey Shore. I hope to be on it, and then I hope to walk into your office and show you my fat paycheck, now that should give you something to write about.

Well, "Anonymous," (and your name is very fitting) here's to hoping that you are on anything...television or otherwise...that blows up.

For bonus points, feel free to give this guy a name. I vote for Joey Basement.

Another Loss In Hamptons' War Against Convenience

Unbelievably, this is the SECOND 7-11 store slated to open in recent history, and quite frankly it's an outrage! What do these people think, we LIKE being able to grab a cup of coffee past 6 p.m.? Or get our hands on some NyQuil when our cough wakes us up in the middle of the night? Or grab some snacks at 4 a.m. when we're about to embark on a road trip?

They must. They must think that. But guess what? We don't. So to the construction worker that thankfully spilled the beans to a community activist in Amagansett, and let us all know that they're building another 7-11, we salute you. You tipped us off to the War-of-the-Worlds-like invasion. If you have any sense of decency at all, you'd quit that job. Or chain yourself to a bulldozer. And chant in unison with the rest of us: "Heck no, we won't get a bag of charcoal when we run out in the middle of having guests!" Too many syllables. Keep it here, we'll work on something.

Hamptonyte Blog Reaches 100 Posts!

Yay! Perhaps we should draft up a phony press release and put it on the wires!

Hamptons Restauranteur Gets Ugly With Commenters

Our favorite, clueless, and harmfully unhinged restaurant owner Bruce Buschel is currently engaged in a cyber-smackdown with commenters on his New York Times blog "You're the Boss: the art of running a small business."

Buschel is a recovered writer, editor, filmmaker, and whatever else draws him attention. We're still waiting for him to release his own fragrance: Eu de Poorly Run Restaurant. He owns "Southfork Kitchen," a fish-house located on what is locally referred to as the Bridgehampton Turnpike: a double-yellow stretch of highway that bypasses all the cops and the need for safe driving. His restaurant doesn't need a menu-change: it needs an overpass!

Anyway, since he opened his fish-house, (local fish only, so we hope you like Ling and Porgies) he's had the unique luxury of blogging about it in the NYT (he even had the gall to review his own restaurant!) He's an absolutely perfect specimen for the Hamptons. Except...his blog posts are kind of obnoxious. And his ideas on how to run a restaurant are kind of um...idiotic. His commenters think so, and this week Bruce decided he'd had enough, and got cunty with em'.

Exhibit A:
Dear Wasting time,
I see how you earned your name. We had 60 people coming for dinner and six staffers protesting. You would have called the guests? People get hurt on the ski slopes. You would close them down?

Exhibit B:

Our first general manager left after four months of work, one month after we opened to the public. The current manager has been with us from the git-go. Thanks for paying attention. No, really, thanks.

And:

If people put their passion and time and money into a project, who determines if it’s a hobby or a business? I have an idea that might please you: Stop reading.

Ooh, burn. So we're trying to decipher Buschel's tack here. Either he has no concept that bitching out commenters on his blog is sort of a bad PR strategy for his restaurant, OR...he's trying to channel the success of McSorley's Ale House on 7th street, which is famous not only for its microbrew of the same name, but for its notoriously cranky bar staff. Either way, he has learned one effective strategy for running a Hamptons restaurant in January/February. Close down.

Rescue An Underprivileged Hamptons Partier Today!

It's rare that you get an opportunity like this. To help a team of struggling fame and namewhores, whose only dying wish is to repeat the glamorously good time they had last year! Guest Of A Guest (GofaG) is appealing to corporations' sense of philanthropy, by advertising for someone to "sponsor" their Hamptons party-house rental this summer.

That's right, folks. They had an amazing time last summer. Headbanging to Bon Jovi at the Talkhouse. Pretending to understand Polo in Bridgehampton. Toasting to the good life, and mainlining Bicardi and cocaine with Mary Kate Olsen until she suddenly hopped the fence and started eating her neighbor's bushes.

Now they want a repeat. A do-over. And for just the price of a cup of coffee, you can help this poor group of illiterate, and helpless souls realize their dream. A cup of coffee! A dollar a day.

We know, we know...you're thinking: 'Why should I? What's in it for me?' GofaG has that answer!

"We are excited about a possible partnership that would bring innovative ideas to the table, and is also excited about the value we could hopefully ad to their brand."

There you go. They'll "ad" to your brand, even if they can't spell "add."

So dig deep, friends. Don't be desensitized. Don't click off this blog post because you can't emotionally handle the heartbreak. These people need your help. Think about how sad you'd be if no one came forward to sponsor your parties.

What Were We Thinking: A Trip Down Memory Lane

The good people over at Online Degree sent us an e-mail, presumably after they'd read our post about the reality TV show slated to air this summer about partying in the Hamptons.

"We at onlinedegree.net recently came across your blog and were excited to share with you an article “10 MTV Shows that Make Us Long for Yesteryear” was recently published on our blog, and we hoped that you would be interested in featuring or mentioning it in one of your posts.
It has been a sincere pleasure to read your blog."

And it's been a sincere pleasure to see Jenny McCarthy once again, before she became a pain in everybody's ass. It was also nice to see Downtown Julie Brown, but it was not nice to remember that she used to say "Wubba, wubba, wubba."

So here's the part where we have to begrudgingly acknowledge the fact that, yes, there was a certain degree of innocence in those shows of the late 80s/ early 90s. Which is what our parents used to say about their television shows, when they watched Club MTV in abject horror, and we would roll our eyes and grumble how they just didn't understand. The torch has been passed. Thanks OnlineDegree.net. And to think we used to sing The Who's immortal line: "Hope I die before I get old..." (Pinches self on the arm) Still alive. Dammit.

New Web-Feature To Prove The Hamptons Is Year-Round, Proves It Isn't

Have you heard the latest development over at Hamptons.com? They have a new Web-feature now: a short video wrap-up show called The Scoop, featuring the Web site's extremely charismatic and photogenic Executive Editor Nicole Brewer.

In this first installment, Nicole insists that there's plenty to do in the Hamptons year-round, and then proceeds to prove otherwise. A 70's band? Playing live? Somewhere in the Hamptons? No way!

And she even cracks a joke. I'm not going to spoil the punchline; you'll just have to watch. Anyway, check out The Scoop regularly for updates that are not exactly about nothing...it's more like next to nothing. In other words, it's a notch above the on-location news segments Kermit The Frog used to do.

"This is Kermit A. Frog, live at the farm, where a cow has jumped over the moon, and allegedly the dish has run away with the spoon..."

Yeah, sort of like that. Only not as informative. Sigh.

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.

Strong Island: The Reality Show That Was Bound To Happen

As if obnoxious behavior wasn't rewarded enough in the Hamptons, we stumble upon this ad in Craigslist: a casting call for Strong Island, a new reality show filming in the Hamptons this summer. How do we know it's going to be obnoxious? A cursory glance at the language in the ad:

"It's 2011. You've decided that this is your year.
If you are looking for fame, fortune and the opportunity of a lifetime then now is your chance."

And:

" If you think you can handle the other people in the house, the drama, the shots of patron, the long nights partying at the hottest clubs in Long Island and of course the endless days at the beach apply today."

The ad also says it's a reality show revolution, which we know it isn't. And for the record: if you wake up, go to the mirror, and say to yourself, "this is my year"...kill yourself. We recommend taking an electric shaver and pressing it hard against your wrist, for a slow death. Don't stop! Don't ever stop.

This isn't the first time a reality show decided to document how important everyone is out here. Many of you may still remember "Single in the Hamptons," which aired on the now-defunct Metro Channel from about 2000-2002. A precursor to "The Real Housewives of New York City," "NYC Prep," and "High Society," Single in the Hamptons was more of an Animal Planet-style documentary on the mating rituals of hustling, bustling, New York City know-it-all toolbags, and their victims. It wasn't a bad show, actually, although it was to that insidious and vapid Sex and the City franchise what Desperate Housewives was to The Real Housewives of Whereverthehell: its tragic and pathetic muse.

In either event, similar to the Real Housewives, the subjects would make that all-too-familiar summer weekend pilgrimage to the Mecca of their empty lives: the Hamptons. They'd have their existential crises between sipping martinis, and trying to pick up gold-digging skanks at Jet East by awkwardly mentioning how they took a helicopter to get out here. It was a cultural tour-de-force, a shrine to the money-grab of the dot.com era. Then Lizzie Grubman threw her truck into reverse and ran over the shrine. Also, 9/11 happened, and tragically one of the cast members of Single in the Hamptons actually perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center.
But the question for this upcoming bit of puke shouldn't be, what tragedy will befall the nation as a result, no, the question burning in our minds is: which brand of Hamptons tool will this show feature?

1. The Neptunes-going, muscle-bound, tribal tat, Axe body spray, Guido peckerhead cousins of Jersey Shore?
2. The o.m.d. watch-wearing, polo-playing, pink shirt-white slacks, overly tanned, name-dropping, self-important douchenozzles of the yacht club sort?
3. The beer-bloated, red-faced, red-headed, baseball cap-wearing, frat-boy, Boardy Barn jugheads you see forever pulled over by the side of Sunrise Highway by a state trooper?

A quick glance at their Facebook page inclines us to go with what should remain hidden behind Door #1, but time will tell. And to be honest...either way, the universe loses.

How To Begin Ruining A Good Time

An update to our recent blog post about the proposed 3-day outdoor festival in Amagansett, the East Hampton Patch is reporting that protesters now tried to get the East Hampton Town Board to pull the permits issued for the concert.

It's step one in how to ruin a good time for everyone. This reminds us of the legal acrobatic moves the people of Westhampton pulled last year when they managed to get those homeless sex-offender trailers shut down. It's a classic maneuver carried out by people who in all likelihood are lawyers by trade. They can't shut down a public gathering because it would run amok of our right to freely assemble, so now they're going to get their permit to use the land revoked. Or at least try. They failed. But step two is just on the horizon.

In related, hilarious, news: East Hampton Supervisor Bill Wilkinson still believes he's going to get $100,000 donated to a local charity as a result of this concert. Tee-hee, tee-hee-hee.

Breaking News: Hamptonyte Blog Forgets To Know What The Hell It's Talking About!

So...corrections are boring. In lieu of a correction, we'd like to explain what transpired and call ourselves out for toolbaggery. Yesterday we goofed on a local Internet publication called NabeWise, for placing an ad on Craigslist where they seemingly solicited for unpaid content to weed out prospective interns. We threw up a screen shot of a scene from Amistad and haughtily mocked NabeWise for operating under the use of free labor. It was fun. We laughed. We shook our heads. We rolled our snarky eyes.

Then we got this comment from an anonymous source:

"Interns are paid at NabeWise!"

Doh! So maybe an e-mail or a phone call to NabeWise would have been in order before we called them out for slave-driving? Maybe? But what's an anonymous commenter anyway, right? What do they know?

Then we got this comment:

"Hi, I'm the CEO of NabeWise,
Thank you for calling my attention to this issue.
I changed the ad, so that people can email us their reviews if they prefer. We really do select our team based on how they capture neighborhoods through writing.
This also allows us to screen for people who are serious, over people who just spam their resumes out to every job. We've worked hard to build a program at NabeWise where people learn a lot -and interns are more likely to have me fetch them coffee, than the reverse. :-)
Hopefully this change alleviates your concern."

So this is what a douchebag feels like. Doh! In related news...do you think I should apply for a job at NabeWise?

The Weakonomy: Write For Free--THEN Prove Your Worth

Here's a great business model for upstart publications. Launch them Internet-only and then lure aspiring writers to fill the content under the illusion that perhaps one day they'll get paid. We've been seeing more and more of these "internship" opportunities popping up on Craigslist and other job sites.

Kids...if you want to intern at a publication, try the New York Times, or The New Yorker, or Bloomberg News. Every other publisher...stop trying to get free labor out of people by pretending you have so much priceless wisdom to impart. Pay up!

Our latest culprit: Nabe Wise, at nabewise.com. They want you to submit THREE pieces to their new Hamptons Web site venture BEFORE they even agree to take you on as an unpaid intern! Now that's taking it to the next level. We've got their slogan: Nabe Wise. Thinking outside the predatory entrepreneur box.

On the other hand, if you're Charlie Brown, convinced that Lucy will eventually not pull the football away before you kick it, here's the ad on Craigslist. Now go get me my coffee!

****UPDATE****

We're dicks. Read the January 15 blog post regarding this item.

Rule #121: Hamptons.com Must Tell Us What "Inno-Trendy" Means

Does Hamptons.com actually have writers on staff? Or is it just a few trained monkeys uploading press releases to their Web site? Are they all in hibernation until the next post-Memorial Day white-party? If so, why doesn't the site just shut down for the winter?

Item: this canned release from the good people at o.d.m. watches. You know, the "internationally acclaimed timepiece arbitrators?" We don't even know what the last half of that sentence means. Nor do we know what "inno-trendy" means in the second sentence of this press release. Maybe if a Hamptons.com staffer was around to actually re-purpose the release and maybe call somebody at o.d.m. to clarify, we'd know. Naw...too much work.

Anyway, the exciting news is supposed to be that these watches (which look like the eggs from which Yo Gabba Gabba characters hatched) is now available in the U.S. Phew...we've been waiting for this day to arrive.

Amagansett Fearful Of The Great Unwashed

Nixon should have encouraged Woodstock promoters back in 1969. Encouraged them to hold the three-day festival in Amagansett, that is! Then it would have never happened, and the damn hippie lib'rals wouldn't be runnin' the country today!

Well, it's early to call this one dead on arrival, but it looks like some Birkenstock-wearing pot-stirring outside agitators want to hold a three-day festival on a farm in Amagansett, and the neighborhood is already fighting over it. The East Hampton Patch has some pretty good coverage of the town meeting, including a Letter To The Editor from the owner of Bookhampton (whom we'll try to contact for comment). The meeting was contentious and full of all the speculation one can expect from a Hamptons community that would like to vote on the color of your drapes if they could. Some residents believe that when the concert's over, the attendees will go marauding through the streets of Amagansett flipping over cars and sending garbage cans through windows like Amagansett just won the Stanley Cup.

According to this blog, the promoters weren't specific about who would play the festival, but Bon Jovi and Billy Joel have been tossed around the rumor-mill. And they're only expecting about 9,500 attendees per day? Boy Billy Joel really has seen his better days behind him!

We'll have more on this as it unfolds, and trust us, it WILL unfold. Our hands are rubbing together with glee.

A Cockeyed Guide To Self Promotion

Reynolds Dodson is winning the press release war. Y'all know who Reynolds Dodson is, don't you? Why he's the five-time NY Press Award-winning columnist for the Southampton Press. That's okay, if you didn't know who he is, you should soon, because a simple Google search of his latest self-published book A Cockeyed Guide To The Hamptons (which is self-published) turns up dozens of hits. Unfortunately those hits are all briefed by the same opening sentence to the same press release about Dodson's self-published book, which is self-published and available at Amazon.com.

You know what else is self-published? Dodson's press release! "A Cockeyed Guide To The Hamptons Offers Amusing Insight," touts the self-published headline about the self-published book by self-publisher Reynolds Dodson. Who thinks this book offers amusing insight? Self-publisher Reynolds Dodson, that's who. And who knows the amusing qualities of Reynolds Dodson's self-published book better than Reynolds Dodson?

Here's a cockeyed guide to Hamptons literary legitimacy:
1. Self-publish book
2. Draft your own press release
3. Distribute said press release on every free PR/press release wire service and local media looking to fill space
4. Draft press release in a tone that seems to imply you did not draft your own press release.
5. Bank on local media outlets being too lazy to ignore the non-story of your self-published book, or at the very least re-word the press release so it maybe seems as though they put thought into filling their editorial space.
6. Pull up a bar stool at 75 Main, order a martini, and casually drop your self-published success to the bombshell next to you.
7. Rinse and repeat

Why We Write

Because literature is the axe that breaks the frozen sea inside us. Because writers hold a mirror to culture and capture all that is beautiful and ugly about the celebration of human existence. Because writers lay down the gauntlet to challenge our preconceived notions of the cultural zeitgeist and body politic.

Or, you can just be Michael Braverman, lunatic at large for Hamptons Magazine, Contributor to Edible East End, and kids-party Ben Kingsley impersonator. He writes because...well...because he's on the east end and he wants to be the 1-millionth person to claim to be an authority on fine living. Visit his blog Hamptons Rich and Pour. Then immediately regret it.

What To Do When Your Kid Can't Stop Saying "Dildo" In School

Sue! Every so often someone leaves a window open in the house of the privileged, and this time around, that someone is Jennine Gourin, yes THAT Jennine Gourin, of the real estate executive/bearer of Jack Nicholson's love-child Gourins.

According to this extremely reliable Page Six article in the New York Post, Ms. Gourin is suing the bourgeois Ross School in East Hampton for allegedly hoisting her 13-year-old son into a hovel and only letting him out attached to a chain like "The Gimp" in Pulp Fiction.

But seriously, she's suing because the Ross School housed the future reality show ne'er-do-well in a basement apartment in Sag Harbor that did not meet Ms. Gourin's high standards when she eventually got around to swinging by the east end to check on her kid. But the real reason she's summoned her team of lawyers? Little Jimmy has been asked to leave the school because he kept saying "dildo" in class.

Sports figures routinely get fined about $50,000 if they're caught on camera cursing. The Ross School costs $56,000 per year in tuition. The lesson? It's cheaper to say dildo if you play second base for the Cincinnati Reds.

And now you know.