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.

Cops Care About Drug Use(of the bridge and tunnel variety)

This story came over the feed from 27east.com. Apparently over Memorial Day Weekend, Southampton Police staged a silent raid on drug dealers and users alike. At the Axe Lounge of Dune? At the new Day&Night brunch ridiculousness in East Hampton? No.

At Neptunes. 'Toons' as it's referred to by those in the know. And by "know" we mean those who know almost nothing. Which presents a natural rift in the Hamptonyte Blog space/time continuum. Do we mock the mouth-breathing fist-pumping toolbags that haunt this outdoor silicon convention, laugh at the image of tribal tats all being stuffed into a paddy wagon? Or do we reach into that other part of our psyche that sees how much this prejudicial Latino-round-up sucks the big one?

Drugs are everywhere in the Hamptons, particularly in the summer months. In fact, there was recently an article on the growing use of heroine among east end teenagers. So with all these communities stuffing all this junk up their noses and into their veins, forgive us if we're a little suspicious of a "drug raid" that garners the arrest of middle to lower-middle class youngsters from just about everywhere except the Hamptons. Really Southampton cops? Really? Of all the gin joints in all the world, you pick Neptunes to suddenly wage the war on drugs?

In the same breath...all those morons at Neptunes that got arrested? Consider it a douchebag tax.

Brown Publishing's Papers: The May 21 Recap

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

This week Dan got lost in the Metropolitan Museum. He wandered around the hallowed halls of the museum trying to the remember the name of an artist a gracious girl had gone out of her way to give him.

Well, really, he creepily slithered up to her and made a subtly racist pass.

"You look like a hot little Oriental, tell me. What's your favorite painting in this here museum? I mean besides the artwork and weaponry of the heathen Chinee?" he asked. She rolled her eyes and told him. Then he asked her where it was. She told him. Then he asked what floor. She told him. Then he asked what room. She told him. Then he asked the dimensions of the room. She told him. Then he asked the cieling height. She told him. Then he asked where in the room it hung. She told him. Then he asked how to get there. She shot him.

Turns out, after much searching while he held in the blood of his bullet wound (he seriously went back downstairs to find her and asked her to write it down, and then went back upstairs) he stood in front of the all-too ellusive painting. His reaction? Meh.

He decided to stalk through the museum, find the girl once again, and actually tell her how underwhelmed he was by it. And the angels in heaven cried out: "Run, you poor volunteer at the Met, run like the wind!" And she did, because he couldn't find her. But he'd be back. Oh, he'd be back to tell her what he thought. And when he does, you can rest assured of her reaction. "Huh?" She'll say. Then she'll shoot him.

But back in Bridgehampton all sorts of things were going on not in the Hamptons. Barbara Walters was recovering from surgery, Alec Baldwin was boring swaths of graduates at NYU, Gwyneth Paltrow was consulting a raging drug addict about happy marriages, another novel came out about the Hamptons and shockingly it covers the wealth of the area, and Dan's due to read from his Meh-moir as soon as they find him wandering out from behind the Temple of Dendur.

He kept trying to reach his son's cell phone, but David Lion had his devil horn fingers pumping in the air and was too busy rocking it out to hair bands in Montauk. "What!" he yelled to his friend beside him. "My bone is singing?! Oh, hell yeah! Woo!"

For David Lion it was all the calm before the storm. Before the droves came like locusts and descended upon the Hamptons. It was a time to reflect. Get a few things done. Like empty out the bay with a hand pump. He was devising a new strategy to deal with the oil leak in the Gulf. He just couldn't understand why, when he sucked the bay through one end of the hose, and dumped it back into the bay on the other end, why oh why, didn't the bay drain already?

He gave up. And fell into the slumber of a king. He let his poors fill out the police blotter. They filled it with jokes. Incidents they'd seen at the supermarket. David slumbered. "andamememememe..." while his cell phone rang and rang.

Finally outside the Metropolitan Museum, lonely, tired and disoriented Dan closed his phone. That painting sucked, he thought. She sent me up there on purpose so she could do her Oriental hoo-doo and switch around the museum on me so I can't find my places to write. It's all a big joke to those slanty-eyed people, he huffed. Then he kicked a Central Park carriage horse in the ribs. The horse neighed in pain.

"Aw, knock it off," Dan gruffed. "You like the hustle and bustle of the city, you little bitch!"

Sans Papers: The May 7 Recap

By which we parse that parrot cage lining people call "Dan's Papers" for all its subtext and stupidity. Mostly stupidity.

Dan has concernz. He's worried about this new generation. He's worried they don't have the vim and vigor of the previous generations; the propensity for civil unrest. The need to defy authority. The yearning to hand over hundreds of their parents' money to local authorities and make their one phone call for bail money.

He wants this back, and he's asking you, the reader, to ready for blood. It's the most important demonstration of civil disobedience since the Alabama bus boycotts. Nothing short of our American freedoms hangs in the balance. You probably guessed it: it's a protest against strict fishing laws, which are destroying the lives of literally dozens of the east end's baymen. It's all going down in late June. Local police have already strapped on the riot gear. The baymen are calling for an army of 20 volunteers, and it'll only cost you a very pedestrian $325! That's nothing. That's a Versace handbag, people, think about it! Oh, and you'll get to be on the internet for sure, and you might even get your rebellious mug on the TV news! So it's totally worth it. Hamptonyte Blog would love nothing more than to hear from someone who goes down to this protest and captures the first footage of The Worst Editor Ever being hauled off in a paddy wagon.

This week's "Ripped From the Archives" article is actually an archaeological dig into when Dan first started printing actual horseshit as news. We wish we were kidding, but it's a continuation of a series about a woman who tries to swim from Montauk to Manhattan. This might actually be a true story. At first we weren't sure if it was a fabrication, but then we saw this actual image of the dramatic event captured by a Dan's staffer back in 1965. See that guy in the boat was tying to rescue the woman. She's desperately reaching out to grab hold of his oar, but to no avail. It's really a very sad story. She was so enthusiastic about this swim. She was just 42 years of age.

While The Worst Editor Ever tossed in his bed and rang sweat from his beard thinking about the Bonackers and those scallywags that tries to steal thee treasure, by regulatin' their pillage and not lettin' them leave off with the spoils of war, arrrgggh, David Lion was down the hall pressing his ears to make the pounding in his dreams stop as well.

"Arrrgh, those rapscallions down there in the Gulf of Mexico are destroyin' the treasures of the sea, arrrrgh," he said. "We shoulds make em' walk the plank and send em' down to the depths of Davey Jones's locker, arrrrgh."

Then he awoke with a start. His father's voice echoed in his head, but his room was empty. No massive boulders he'd planned on floating down to the Gulf to aid in stoppering that big oil-hole in the sea-floor. No Navy torpedoes armed and ready at his disposal. He pulled his damp sheets from his body and went to the typing box that glows at night to work on an article for his daddy's paper. He typed "Twentysomething..." across the top of the document. Then he highlighted it and put it in Wingdings. Haha. Funny, he giggled. Then he put it in Helvetica. Haha. That's a funny word, he said. Then he put it in bubble letters. He could always draw the little heart to dot the "i" once it's printed. What was important is that he talk about the oil spill. Nobody was talking about it, that was the problem. Only ABC, NBC, CBS, CW11, CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, News12, NY1, The New York Times, The NY Post, The Daily News, Time Magazine, Businessweek, and The Wall Street Journal were reporting on it. And Telemundo. Haha. That's a funny word, he thought.

So he needed to raise awareness, and provide perfectly sane solutions to this crisis. Solutions even he could execute on behalf of a grateful nation. "What can I do?" he wrote. How about this: 1. With his multiple boats, he would send over huge boulders and drop them over the hole in the ground. And if that didn't work, he'd 2. Send the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines (yes, he has the authority to do so) to fire torpedoes around the hole in the hopes that the explosions collapse the edges of the geyser and plugs up the flow of oil. Or, 3. Shed his feety pajamas, activate his Wonder Twin powers, and take the form of a large block of ice that will freeze the oil into coagulated lumps that can be easily fished out of the Gulf with crab nets.

When Dan awoke, he found his son passed out at the computer, his head rested on the keyboard. He looked over at the screen. It read: I would fire torpedoes at the edge of the hole and projfsdkfjskdfjlksdjvkbhjirjtgrioghidsvhjcbdlkajedrkjg'dfkjsa;ldkfh;lrkjtgfidjgvdkljdkfdfdfs, all the way across the screen. "He's gettin' so good at writing," Dan said, lifting his boy up from his chair and taking him back to his room.

He needed to get on the computer next to work on South O' the Highway. A Madonna song was playing on the radio the other day and people needed to know that. And they needed to know that Madonna has a house in Bridgehampton. Also, they needed to know that Billy Joel's daughter, a "Hamptons gal" no longer has the uglies. And that Alec Baldwin is hosting SNL, and he's from Amagansett. And people needed to know that the most famous Countess, LuAnn de Lesseps did what all countesses do, she released a disco track entitled "Money Can't Buy You Class...But It Can Buy You A Great Piece of Ass." They needed to know all of this. Because the Hamptons feels so lost not knowing where its prodigal children are at all times.

Even though many of them have returned! They returned to bear witness to Eli Wallach and Annie Jackson's dedication of the second stage at Bay Street. Sure, everybody was there. Eli, and Annie (Miss Jackson if ya nasty), and his Eli's 30 children. There was the unique, the very trendsetting, Lauren Bacall, who arrived actually holding a little dog at all times. Who would ever think to carry their dog around to Hamptons functions? She's such a firebrand. And of course there were some who escaped the glitz and glamour of Lauren Bacall and her little dog too, and went to the only slightly less sexy Longhouse Reserve Season Opening, or the Demato Gallery in Sag Harbor. And for good measure, Dan's stalker Barry Gordin went into New York City to photograph actual celebrities. Overall, it was a busy week for all those weary Hamptons partiers. So weary, in fact, they couldn't even make the trip to the Hamptons.

So weary was The Worst Editor Ever, that he couldn't be bothered with the nuances of the Tea Party movement when he wrote his column about them last week, and now suffers the consequences of the hate mail. The mail booed. It hissed. It called him biased. (Psst, hey teabaggers! He has to actually report on real news in order to show bias. Shhh) But there was praise to be had! Even if it did come from a woman who decided to include in her P.S. that she got hopped up on Ambien one night and passed out months later. Or at least that seems to be the chronology; the whole letter reads as though she'd just taken more. So there was Dan, reading his one letter of praise, and trying to black out the bad thoughts of angry tea partiers descending upon his office.

And then there was David Lion, at work on his wrap-up of all the private arrests that took place. A woman in Eastport who ran over her husband, an 18-year-old kid hauled in for possession of drug paraphernalia. Then for good measure he channelled his father's energy and drafted a fabricated report of dropped blood pressure in visitors to Shelter Island. Ahh, Shelter Island, he thought. Where raccoons get sent to heaven. Where there's such a thing as kink worms who can burrow beneath the sea bed and put a kink in the oil shaft. Where the rabbits know their place. You see, he'd struck and killed a rabbit in Montauk, and it felt like he was punting a football. The rabbit soared majestically through the air and landed unceremoniously on the side of the road somewhere. It was the second time he'd done it, and he needed to be stopped. But how could a superhero with the U.S. Navy at his command stop himself? He can't. It can't be done. He had to drive on.

The only thing he could think to do...was shoot at it with torpedoes, in the hopes that the explosions woke the rabbit up from his deathsleep. Haha. Deathsleep, he thought. That's a funny word.

Trailer Residents, Too Rapey For Westhampton

In your textbook case of NIMBYism, the Town of Southampton has successfully managed to at least temporarily slap an injunction on Suffolk County, preventing them from upgrading DSS trailers that house homeless sex offenders.

Everyone is relieved. Well...except the sex offenders. Some of whom you can find by entering Westhampton's zip code (11977) in the NYS Sex Offender Registry.

Read this article for the legal maneuvering it took to get this thing done; it would impress the Nixon Administration. They managed to prevent showers from being upgraded in the trailers, which made the trailers essentially unlivable (everybody knows sex offenders HATE being dirty), and therefore in violation of other town and county occupancy codes. Done. Go somewhere else, rapey homeless pervs!

Like Mastic! While Hamptonyte Blog certainly can't expect residents to be over the moon about registered creepers setting up shop in town (even if it is in the middle of the friggin woods on Old Country Road) I have to take personal umbrage with this quote from Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman:

“The community is not going to tolerate this any longer,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “This is not a policy—this is dumping on a community.”

And this gem:

“The burden needs to be shared,” said Westhampton Beach Village Board member Toni-Jo Birk.

Excuse me? That's dumping on a community? Two trailers plopped in the middle of the woods? And that's not sharing the burden, Madame Birk? Have you looked over the fence at William Floyd Parkway in Mastic, Mastic Beach, and Shirley? Here are the numbers for Level 2 and 3 sex offenders:

Mastic Beach: 18
Mastic: 13
Shirley: 8

Westhampton: 1
Westhampton Beach: 3
Hampton Bays: 8
Quogue: 0
Eastport: 0
Southampton: 2

In other words, adding Westhampton, Westhampton Beach, Hampton Bays, Quogue, Eastport, and Southampton's number of sex offenders draws them into a tie with Mastic. Three communities outnumber 6 communities by a tally of 39 to 13! I wonder where these offenders are going to end up when the county gets rid of its trailer program and switches to a $90-per-day voucher program? Hmmmm.

Run that horseshit by us again, Ms. Birk?

Sans Papers: The April 30 Recap

By which we parse that parrot cage lining people call "Dan's Papers" for all its subtext and stupidity. Mostly stupidity.

Sometimes Dan Rattiner gives us the sads. Last week we learned that NBC is launching a new sitcom about a millionairre screw-up who can't run a newspaper. Dan frowned, and the idea-monster that has latched onto his frontal lobe sunk its little barbs deeper into the soft tissue.

'Why can't I be that millionairre screw up?' the monster made Dan wonder aloud, moving his bearded lips involuntarily to the words. Then it growled, and the vibrations gave Dan an idea. I will be the subject of a sitcom after all! I can use my newspaper to invent one!

And so this week's splash was born.

The show is called Rupert's Rag, starring Paris Hilton, Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Johnson, Rupert Murdoch, and Dan Rattiner's sad ideas. As for The Worst Editor Ever, himself? He'll be making cameo appearances.

We don't know what's worse, the show idea, or the fact that it took us to "Paris Hilton" before we realized this entire "article" was a product of Dan's lonely imagination. So we're going with the show idea. Somehow he tied in Rupert Murdoch's evil plan to sink The New York Times, and its relevance to the "sitcom." It's the equivalent of the little boy who's not allowed to play baseball with the bigger kids in the neighborhood, so he just invents his own game? And it has announcers? And the crowd is cheering his name, and erupts when he wins it for his team. For his town. For his country. For God? God pats him on the back. "Such an important person," God says. "Everyone should want to know you."

Rattiner giggled to himself, but stopped abruptly. The monster was munching. Gnom, gnom, gnom...

...Fresh from the smart of NBC's diss, The Worst Editor Ever decided he needed a healthy dose of self absorption. So he set up a "Google Alert" of his name. This means every time the interwebs mentions Dan Rattiner, he'll know about it. Oops. Does this mean we have to start being nice? Or does it mean that more energy should be exerted on his neer-do-well son, David Lion.

Let's go with option B, because Dan barged into Lion's room earlier this week while he was trying to rack up more tickets for playing "Whack-A-Poor." His wait staff had their heads poked out of holes Lion had drilled in his desk and he was holding a big mallet. Esterina sat to the side watching and he made her root for him.

"Son," The Worst Editor Ever barked. "There's a film being shot in somebody's mansion in East Hampton. Go cover it."

"But dad."

"Go, I said! Alan Cumming is going to be there."

"Alan Cumming," Lion shouted, dropping the mallet and rising to his feet.

"Go cover what they're shooting, and what it's about, and don't do anything stupid."

But David did do something stupid. He accidentally wrote an article entitled "Half of a Film Shot in East Hampton Oceanfront Mansion." And it was accidentally published in the April 30 issue of Dan's Papers.

It was a real house, and a real movie, and had real poors, too, working on the set, and he felt like he was on an episode of HBO's Entourage. And he wondered who he would be, if Entourage was a real show. Turtle? No. Vince? Yes!

Gnom, gnom, gnom... Anyway, with a little luck and good timing, maybe the film will make it to the Hamptons Film Festival, which, to the uninitiated, is a small notch above having your own YouTube channel.

Meanwhile, back at the Blue Amityville Horror House on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton, Stacy Dermont read another book, and this time it was real brainy, hard-hitting non-fiction. A history of Westhampton Beach, a story told in actual words, about the resiliency and determination of hrwlong an, numsisreallysleepshishhhhhhhh.

Ohmygod, did I just fall asleep?

So, through this whole piece, which covers historic buildings and landmarks, no mention of Marakesh? It was right in the village, Marakesh. It was a Roman Coliseum for black people, Marakesh. People like Shane Daniels. I think the game was: run with a white girl through a gauntlet of billy clubs, and if you live, you get to go home. Nothing?

Back from the film set in East Hampton, David Lion got busy on his other duties, writing "This Week In Private Arrests."

Street racers, car keyers, vandals, thieves, they're all somewhere rattling around in the belly of the Hamptons criminal justice system. They're calling out, 'Hello, Hello!' But only their lonely echoes call back. Through the concrete walls they hear fellow inmates crying out from pain of torture and their stomachs groan in fear, knowing they'll be next. Who are these sad people? We don't know. Dan's never says. It protects their identity. Thank God we have private arrests in the United States of America.

But Lion stumbled upon a realization. And in no way was it a cliche'. "In the end, it all comes back to human nature, and when it rains it pours," he actually wrote in his "Twentysomething" column. A column in which you can see the world functioning around him in its every day normalcy while he scrambles to play catchup. "It seems like women aren't even on planet Earth. It's like I'm some kind of weirdo who, for some odd reason, can't get a girl."

But those are not the most egregious of sentiments bestowed upon us. This was: "There's no such thing as bad artists. If you put something out there, that's enough," said this week's "cover" artist Gia Schifano, in all seriousness. We're just glad she's a principal's secretary at a middle school. That kind of sunny optimism is needed there. Elsewhere, like being featured in a newspaper, it's poo.

And speaking of poo, this week's South O' the Highway was back to its usual fecal levels, with gossip bits about celebrities that have tertiary involvement with the east end. More Gwyneth Paltrow, Dan, more Gwyneth Paltrow, I don't think we know she has a house she never visits in Amagansett yet.

So Dan approached David Lion, sneaking up behind him at his desk. He furrowed his brow when he saw David photoshopping his head onto Vincent Chase's body on the DVD cover of last season's Entourage. The idea-monster was suckling sweetly, and became startled when The Worst Editor Ever banged his hand on the desk. He needed David to start thinking about little kids again, and do a wrap-up of all the summer camps opening in the Hamptons.

You see, summer waits for no one, and that kilo of blow isn't just going to snort itself. The kids need to be out of the house and out of their parents' lives. So hop to it, David, and try not to do anything stupid.

But David did do something stupid. He turned a summer camp guide into three pages of free advertising for every ranch that has pretty horses the kids can go pet. As well as neat places for them to drown. But presto bingo the job was done, and he could go over the pages of "Through The Lens," with his quaky fingertips, giggling over the photo of Alan Cumming, and shaking his head in star-awe at the photo of Kelsey Grammer, who was woken up out of bed to take a picture with two of the Stygian Witches. He could imagine a continual life of going from one event to the next, rolling up in his yellow Hummer with Turtle, and E, and Johnny Drama, just the four of them, spit balling. Owning this town. Owning Kelsey Grammer and the Longacre Theatre. And maybe he'd be whimsical like David Gamble in the photo page, with two honeys like bookends to his hipster scarf, oh yes, it would be so glorious. But first he'd need to be rid of The Worst Editor Ever's oppressive glare. First he'd need to sever ties with all these journalismy strings tying him down. But how? How would he do it. And what about Esterina?

Gnom, gnom, gnom...

Committees Comedies

Hey kids, have you ever wanted to do absolutely nothing but still get credit for it? We all have. Only us grown-ups have a word for it. Committees.
Like this one, which recently launched for the Bay Street Theater. You know, that (wink, wink) beacon of cultural light that provides safe harbor for local artists, so long as by "local" we mean summer visitors, and by "artists" we mean celebrities and agent-represented actor's equity talent. Yeah, that place over in Sag Harbor.
This "Artistic Associates Committee" (AACK!!) is described by Hamptons.com as "still in development." Subtext alert! It was spontaneously conceived and will be limply executed.
So what will this newly formed (sort of) committee do? Well:

"In addition to making themselves available for performances on the Bay Street stage, this talented group of artists (Mario Cantone? Joy Behar?) are supporting Bay Street in other ways, including appearances at fundraising and cultivation events (parties) and participating in the ongoing artistic life at Bay Street (vague)."

You mean they'll have to make themselves available during summer stock to earn some extra money and then go to parties where they'll be fawned after and hounded by all the fake press that's spread all over the east end? Man, that's commitment!

Check out the article in its entirety, which comes replete with a photograph of Kim Cattrall on the set of Mannequin. (Boy she's ageless isn't she?) To answer the lede question: "What do Alan Alda, Joy Behar, Kate Burton, Zoe Caldwell, Mario Cantone, Kim Cattrall, Richard Kind, and Mercedes Ruehl all have in common?

Umm...they all just lengthened their obituaries by a sentence or two?

Hamptons.com's Guide to Toolbaggery

Remember the good times? When you could buy a plane ticket in cash at the gate? Do you long for those halcyon days when college classmates were all white, and your alma mater had an a cappella group? Care to dust off that old Panama Jack hat and party like it's 1989?

Go to New Haven. According to this gem from Hamptons.com, there's a bar/restaurant that happens to be paired next door with a cigar lounge, and ever the two shall meet. The restaurant's called Bespoke, and the cigar bar is called The Owl Shop, which is appropriate enough, because it's where a-holes of a feather flock together.

Truthfully, the article is impeccably written and the co-authors really know their cigars and their coctails. And I guess they're doing a service. There just aren't enough toolbag indicators enough these days. Sure, there's tribal tats, and fistpumping, and fake tans, but those are just youthful indiscretions. Even the Mercedes/BMW indicator is gone, now that every 18-year-old owns one. But now you can take heart, thanks to this article, because nothing unleashes your sense of superiority than sitting back in a leather chair, crossing your legs, and sucking on a hand-wrapped Nicaraguan while listening to the pianoman "tickle the ivories."

Ambience you say? How about this: "Today The Owl Shop still attracts a refreshingly mixed crowd of New Haven regulars, visiting dignitaries, Yalies, and a remarkably full representation of the New Haven Bar. Early evenings at The Owl often see stalwart prosecutors encamped in the bay window overlooking College Street, while defense attorneys and trial lawyers congregate at the bar and trade war stories."

Kids. Don't smoke cigars. It makes you wear funny hats.

Welcome back my friends...

I suppose the calm before the storm is as good a time as any to launch a “Hamptons” blog. Mid-April isn't exactly jumping on all these Main Streets. I just moved back into the area, after many years away from where I was raised, in that dirty welcome mat to one of the most expensive regions of North America. I always marveled at what passed for “news” in the Hamptons, the navel-gazing, the exaggerative hype of all those boring parties, the marketing scam put forth by Southampton College and every other business that made one believe there was a celebrity standing on every street corner.

This blog might provide some much needed perspective and introspection. Probably not. It’ll probably just make fun. And reduce itself to name-calling. Beware Dan Rattiner, the end is nigh.