Dan's Pumps Up Local Authors

Still smarting from literary events getting hijacked by movie stars with ghost-written cookbooks, to quote Jay McInerney?

Just a few short months after the East Hampton Library's 9 Annual Authors Night, which looked more like Black Friday at Walmart USA when Gwyneth Paltrow and Alec Baldwin showed up, Dan's Papers put together a nicely researched poster of local authors whose books might make for some stocking stuffers.

Oliver Peterson drafted "5 Picks For Readers and Writers," and it was impressive not only to see some of the old guard (Steinbeck, Vonnegut) but that serious contemporary writers got a mention. Kaylie Jones' novels "Speak Now" and "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" features along with Hilary Thayer Hamann, whose novel "Anthropology of an American Girl" saw more resurrections than an episode of AMC's "Walking Dead."

Jones used to teach at Southampton College and continued on as a professor in the MFA in Creative Writing program when Stony Brook University took over the campus. Not sure if she's still there, but she recently stinted as the editor of Akashic's Noir series where she contributed a short story based in the Hamptons. Translation: her Hamptons ties run deep, unlike some others we won't mention. (Ahem--tomwolfe-Ahem) Excuse us.

AWESOME: Not seeing Nelson Demille's cover on the tapestry

NOT AWESOME: Seeing Dan Rattiner's "In The Hamptons" on the tapestry. Come'on, man. I know he's your boss and all, but...

ALSO...surprised to see James Frey on the tapestry, as I had no idea he spent any time in the Hamptons. Good for him. (Always thought he got a raw deal over the whole Oprah thing. There's truth and then there's emotional truth.)

The Most Ridiculous Help Wanted Ads Pt. 2

We're chronicling some of the most corporate-inspired lines of BS to ever find its way into a job description or title. Last week we brought you the "Educator" position at Lululemon. This week's installment includes Nike's bizarre job title for its openings in Riverhead and Deer Park.

Nike Seasonal Athlete.

Athlete? Will Nike be sponsoring my long jump? Are they looking for someone to wear their shirts at the Winter Olympics?

You wish. No, the Athlete is what they call the people who stock the shelves and ring up customer purchases. Or as we used to call them: stock boys and cashiers.

Nike Athlete. A position that holds firmly to the optimistic notion that the young people we're targeting don't read past the headline.

The Most Ridiculous Help Wanted Ads Pt. 1

Here at Hamptonyte we pride ourselves on our continued unemployment because it permits us the delicious advantage of reading the most amazing help wanted ads and job descriptions this side of Goebbels. We also realize our unemployment is the direct result of that "karma" Bruce Buschel an anonymous commenter left with us on our blog post about Southfork Kitchens going belly up. 

Did you know you can be a Sandwich Artist in East Hampton? Sign me up! Also, if you apply for that job try not to be shocked when they hand you an apron and tell you to make sandwiches for people who come up to the counter during lunch time. Or, as you might know them: a Deli worker.

But here's one classic example from Indeed posted by East Hampton yoga and clothing studio lululemon athletica (we don't know why they lower case their store name, but the Hamptonsdouche is so strong in this post that we felt compelled to follow suit.)

They're looking for an Educator.

An educator? They're holding classes there?

No.

Apparently that's what they call their cash register people. Note:

"Their main role is to effectively educate our guests on the fabrics, features, fit and function of our product, our culture and the communities we belong to. By educating guests we empower them to make decisions for themselves based on the facts that we offer them. By doing this, the guesswork is taken out of shopping for customers, and a ‘Wow! It’s You!’ guest experience is created, leaving customers with the knowledge to educate others on behalf of lululemon athletica."

Wow, it's you!
Wow, what horseshit!

Seriously, who writes this stuff? It goes on and on like this before they finally get down to brass tax and tell you that you'll need a High School Diploma and a good mop. Also, you'll need a "strong personal sense of style," which means you'll be judged by a panel of salad eating designer monkeys at the interview so make sure your ish is tight.

We don't want them all choking on their vitamin water now do we?

Yes. Yes we do.

Hilaria Thomas teaches Yoga like her husband speaks to 'Moss.' (Allegedly)

So says a recent civil suit filed in a Manhattan court yesterday by a man who claimed he suffered "serious injury" and "emotional upset" after attending one of Hilaria's apparently hard-core yoga classes.

According to the suit, filed by Spencer Wolff, the injury was not caused by his own freakish ability to actually get injured while lying on the ground holding your leg in the air, but by the "negligence" of Alec's wife. Also, he claims, the class was overcrowded, which contributed to the horrific carnage at Yoga Vida last month.

We think she might have said something like:

"You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker, you can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit?"

Glengarry references aside, as much as our reflexes would tell us to quickly smack anyone in Manhattan named "Spencer Wolff," we'll have to see what comes of the suit.

Mostly, we can't wait to hear how Dan's Papers plans to spin this one. It might even cause us serious injury.

Not just a failure in business, a failure in life

We're more than just curious about the mental processes of whoever posted this Craigslist ad looking for a "Millionaire Mentor," we're curious if anyone responded!

"I am a failure in my professional career and need to reinvent myself and get my head screwed on straight," the ad laments. It's so full of self-loathing and so unclear in specifics ("I have no direction or focus and need to be put on the right track") that it reads less like a Help Wanted ad and more like a search term for a good dominatrix.

Poor creature. We don't know a lot of millionaires, but we'd venture to guess that most would never want to work with someone who describes themselves in such terms as this ad.

Then again, times are tough for everyone.

Did Bruce Buschel's douche chills contribute to his shuttered restaurant?

We'd like to think so, and so do the good folks at Curbed Hamptons, who reported a few weeks ago that Buschel's Southfork Kitchens on the Bridgehampton Turnpike is up for sale for $3.8m.

Buschel, no stranger to this blog, is somehow a complete stranger to the idea that shitting on your target demographic often makes your target demographic suddenly hungry for McDonalds. Although, in fairness to Buschel, McDonalds is probably where Buschel figured his demographic eats anyway.

Buschel is a rare and interesing character in that, it's rare for people to want to see someone's dreams battered like Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, yet sooo many people wanted to see that with him (peep the comments in the link). It's rare for someone to see their dream fulfilled and then completely undermine it by publicly attacking his own patrons in all his New York Times-contributing what-the-fuckery. It's rare for a New York entrepreneur to be so vaginally thin-skinned as to respond to relatively obscure blogs that criticize said what-the-fuckery, and it's rare for a massive amount of people to take glee in someone else's demise. Yet that is what Buschel and all the douche chills he invokes, has done.

Look at it this way: his restaurant closing is the equivalent of people saying 'I would rather starve than eat at your place.' Ah Buschel. The douche is strong in this one.

So Southfork Kitchens has shuttered. And that's a good thing. And Buschel may walk away with $3.8 million. And that's a bad thing.

See. We don't even want you to have money!

What's with all the horror films in the Hamptons?

We know it's a horrible place, full of fameballs, loud-mouths, vengeful deers, suicidal whales, dog-poop activists, pyramid schemers, sex-offenders and celebrity suck-up ass-wipes, but we didn't think it would attract peoples' homicidal fantasies.

Last month, Hampton Bays was host to Old 47, a horror film about Miley Cyrus desiring to put her younger sister through the same bullshit she has to endure. Now another film crew is looking to film "Horror in the Hamptons," by the end of February.

This Craigslist casting call doesn't give much on the plot details, but it could be an opportunity for local actors to embarass themselves land a screen role with a SAG-sanctioned film. The call asks for 5 men and 8 women to audition for parts. And, of course, the most important element of any successful actor in the history of acting: you must be good-looking.

If you're interested and you think you're good-looking enough to be in movies, break a leg. Please.

Poet Harvey Shapiro: 1924-2013

We were a little bummed out to learn that noted poet and sometimes East Hampton resident Harvey Shapiro has died. The 88 year old was just a couple weeks shy of his 89th birthday. He was one of the old-school artist yeoman, an editor at multiple print publications and was devoted to letters.

I had the privilege of meeting Shapiro when he visited Southampton College to read in the mid-1990s. He committed a lot of his poems to memory and was a very open and inviting guest poet. He sat with us as young writers and was not in the least bit condescending. In hindsight, after reading his obituary in the New York Times and the East Hampton Star, I'm sort of glad I didn't realize (at 22) how important he was to literature because I probably wouldn't have mustered the courage to speak to him. As it was, we had a great conversation and he left an impression on me.

The two obits are well done. Give them a read. As for Harvey...thanks for leaving your mark before leaving.

Sex offenders ring in the New Year: Hamptons Style!

If you're looking to party with the hottest, sexiest, trendiest sex offenders in the world, look no further than toney Southampton Town! That's right, these totally fabulous fingerers decided to hit the town for New Year's Eve, as their residency in mobile homes parked in Westhampton appear to be staying put into 2013.

County Executive Steve Bellone was supposed to pass a measure to move them out of Westhampton by year's end, but...oops. He totally forgot! Now they're here, they're fierce, and they're ready to party it up, Hamptons Style!

Check out Pat McGroin's definitely 2013 neckware he snagged from the mannequins at Cynthia Rowley's Montauk Shop. Holden McCrotch is absolutely fabulous and forward in this matching popped collar from Ralph Lauren. And he accessorizes! Nothing attracts the kiddies like his candy bracelets from Ralph's fabulously lovely, and totally not entitled princess daughter Dylan!

So where were these heavy-panting hotties tongueing down the toddlers at midnight on December 31? Our sources don't know. And they'd never kiss and tell...that would be soooo last year!

Special election to decide if we should save homes built on sand

This isn't so much a class warfare piece, because the taxes it would affect are only for those who are directly effected by erosion, but Newsday ran an interesting news story about a vote coming up in February to decide on two $13 million plus tax levies that would pay for emergency sand drops on properties threatening to wash away in future storms.

The two votes are for districts in Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, each calling for a little over 13 million in tax increases.

Question: Where are they getting the sand from?
Answer: Beaches where poor people live.

OK, now it's a class warfare piece.

Unintended hilarity of the story: the amount of absentee ballots that will need to be sent because the vote is being held in February and rich people don't exist in the Hamptons in February.

Right-Wing Jabrone of the story: This guy-- Snafu803: Of course they should get it. They work hard and everyone is jealous they get nicer things then the average person. Who wants to go to jones beach with all the drunks and city trash. I say close jones beach and give it all to the hamptons where it will be appreciated

Hamptons deer population, sick of everybody's shit too

 We've got helicopter noise ruining everyone's life. We've got Twitter accounts documenting rich people's problems (which aren't really problems at all). We've got blogs dedicated to calling out douchebags for their douchebaggery; we've got the term "citiots." And now...the deer are getting pissed off too.

And they're droppin' many suckas, one by one. According to this East Hampton Star report, the deer out there have turned kamikaze, diving out in front of cars left and right and disabling a 2008 Porshe driven by a person who uses an acronym for a first name.

Rule #376: If you use an acronym for your first name, or if you hyphenate your last name and you drive a Porche and it gets crushed by a deer...good!

A Dodge also got jacked up. One of five other car vs. deer incidents, according to the article. The story led off with a related police report about someone it was totally a deer who abandoned a Jeep SUV on the side of the road near Stephen Hands Path. When police arrived at the scene the Jeep had been used as a battering ram for utility poles and trees. They heard a rustling noise in the woods, as though the driver of the vehicle was escaping. No human suspect has been apprehended.

Lesson to take away: Deers are totally rippin' shit up out there!

David Rattiner: 'Hamptons in the winter rain isn't boring'

Then he proves that it is. Check out David Lion's blog post he was apparently forced to write at gunpoint. It's a true confessional, a treatise on a life lived, spilled out on the page in all its whogivesashittery.

The Hamptons isn't boring in the winter when it rains, he posits. Shoot, I go to the movies! I'll even plan to go to one movie (Les Miserables') and then suddenly change my mind and see Django instead; that's how off the chains I am in the Hamptons. Or I'll read a book. Or work on a novel. (Please don't.)

We think David should open up a suicide hotline that convinces people ordinarily not contemplating suicide to go ahead and do so.

Also, David...Les Miserables'? You're fired from manhood. Turn in your testicles before you leave.