How Many Dead? So Sad. Hey, Buy My Album!

File this one under "unimpressed releases." We want you to meet Michael Weiskopf. If there is a poor man's Bob Dylan, Michael Weiskopf is that person's poor man. Oh the plight of musicians; they grind it out for years hoping to get their big break. Fortunately the internet has provided a myriad of opportunities to expose that desperation. It's hard to draw attention to your work. And when the going gets tough, the tough capitalize on mass murder in the form of a badly written press release to increase SEO, draw people searching for information on the crime and get them to check out your latest song that's loosely related to gun violence.

What? Isn't that what they do?

So Michael Weiskopf, whose website is here, wrote a song in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre called "Guns Don't Kill." From what we've gathered after spending literally dozens of seconds researching this guy is that he's based out of the Hamptons. His website is created by Hamptons Web Design, and he has radio appearances centered out east.

Today, he accidentally decided to promote his music with this headlined release: "Latest Shooting Underscores New Anti-NRA Rant." 

OK, first: calling your song a "rant" is probably not the best tactic. Secondly, the lead graf calls attention to the recent shooting in "Santa Monica."

On May 23, a young man in Isla Vista, Cal. went on a shooting and stabbing spree reportedly because he kept striking out with women. Whatever the matter, he senselessly took six lives and wounded a number of others before finally turning the gun on himself. He committed this crime near UC Santa Barbara and one of his targets was a sorority house off campus.

Santa Barbara. Not Santa Monica. Which is not that bad of a mistake unless you're writing this press release as your attempt to mark your solidarity and empathy for the victims. Oh wait.

Then there's this to consider. One year ago this week, there WAS a mass shooting in Santa Monica, where another six people were killed, (including the shooter) making it entirely plausible that this "gaffe" was in fact, no mistake, but a press release that was repurposed and sent out again in the wake of the Santa Barbara killings.

So you're capitalizing on TWO mass murders? And you don't even have the decency of a proofreader to make sure your opportunism isn't so transparent?

Oh self-promotion: I love you. Oh Hamptons: I love you more!

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.

Reynolds Dodson: We Goofed On You, But We Didn't Want You To Die

Credit: The Southampton Press

Some sad news coming out of the land made of happiness cocktails and bunnies' noses. Columnist for the Southampton Press Reynolds Dodson has died, after battling cancer. He was 74.

Dodson lived in Water Mill with his wife Susan, and contributed a column entitled "The View East," which won six New York Press Awards, according to this obit in the Press.  He also authored a number of books and edited numerous magazines, including Family Weekly and Reader's Digest.

But it was his last book A Cockeyed Guide to the Hamptons that got our attention last year. We goofed on him (here) for the silly press release announcing the book, which was plastered on every free PR distribution site in existence. It spawned a checklist of how you too can be fakin' it till you're makin' it in the Hamptons. The release was clearly written by Dodson himself, and more than likely distributed himself. The book was self-published, self-promoted, and completely not self-aware, as it makes fun of people with pastel-colored shirts who carry dogs. (Umm, see picture above that ran in his obit.)

But...however hard we goof, however strongly we might seem to resent a person or their actions, however badly we may trample them for their seeming self-absorption, incestuous legitimacy, and fakery...we are not so heartless that we can't recognize that a human being who was loved, who was somebody's husband, son, colleague, or maybe even inspiration...has died. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Hamptonyte Blog...the bell tolls for thee.

Except Ramona Singer from Real Housewives of New York. Fuck that bitch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take away lines from our blonde sock puppet:

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

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

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

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

Rule #127: When commenting on a blog...know who you're defending

Many moons ago, we published in an innocuous little blog piece entitled The Worst. Press Release. Ever. It was a press release that didn't, um...release anything. It wasn't a new promotion, it wasn't an incident, it wasn't details on a new store opening. It was a synopsis of a party thrown by a rich couple, featuring amateur acts all coralled by a man in the know in the Hamptons: Tariq Alexander.

His "network" is called TSW, The System Within, and apparently it's a social network for wanna-be celebrities looking for their big break, not by auditioning, or working hard at their craft, or conceptualizing something amazing and fresh, and new. No. By going to the parties where powerful people hang out and basically throwing themselves at them. It's a form of charlatanism we often overlook in our culture. The by-product of our short-cut, American Idol, skip-the-line, skip-the-hard-work, go right to the front because you're special mentality.

The post sat dormant for months until suddenly we got inundated with multiple comments from "users" (appropriate word) of Tariq's network, The System Within.

Even though you believe the press release mentioned in the original post may not have been the most well written announcement of the Hamptons event, I fully support the spirit of what they were trying to accomplish. I have worked with TSW in the past and found it to be an incredibly helpful organization. They have always bent over backwards to help me with any problems or questions that I have encountered and have been a great resource for connections within the entertainment world. As mentioned by the poster above, the entertainment industry is incredible difficult to break into and having the resources of TSW at my disposal have made the audition process and the endless search for new contacts much easier. From my point of view, knowing the assistance that TSW has provided to me in the past, this event sounds like it was a wonderful opportunity for those involved to network and show off their talents. Although the press release did not relay what it was meant to, I think it is important to look beyond it to the important service that TSW is providing to its clients. I have fully enjoyed and appreciated the assistance I have received from Mr. Alexander and his company would urge others trying to break into entertainment to consider using TSW as a resource.

And

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with TSW. I've been using it myself for quite some time now and personally I love it. I've received a lot of helpful insight and tips that previously did not occur to me. I've also received various career and network opportunities that proved to be very useful. I've also spoke with others who have worked with the company in the past, including those I’ve recommended, all of whom have given positive feedback.

For a while we felt bad for throwing poor Mr. Alexander under the bus. But at long last, the universe makes sense again. Our last commenter dropped us a little alley-oop by way of some link love to multiple news sources reporting that Alexander's "TSW" business is under investigation for developing a pyramid scheme, whereby the number of referrals and paid users funnels money upward for not a whole lot of Return On Investment. The links are here, and here. So yeah. There's a lesson for the above commenters. Before you go out on a limb for someone, make sure it isn't rotten to the trunk. And by rotten, we mean Pyramid Schemes. And by Pyramid Schemes, we mean Tariq Alexander.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.