The Hamptons Has New Artwork To Get Pissed About!

In 2010 it was Larry Rivers' legs sculpture in Sag Harbor that got all the local blue hairs in a twist, diming the sculpture to Code Enforcement and getting it removed.

Now it's Westhampton Beach's turn to have a holy conniption over the one thing that might actually make Westhampton Beach interesting to visit again.

Photo: VICTORALCORN.COM

 This is "Walking Man," a 30-foot aluminum sculpture by New York-based artist Donald Baechler. The sculpture was erected in the roundabout located near Westhampton's Gabreski airport, a sort of welcome committee for those who get off the County Road 31 exit on Sunrise Highway.

It's "Peanuts" meets Jeff Koons, in our Joe-the-Plumber approach to art appreciation.

"Balloon Dog" by Jeff Koons

 The installation was made possible by a commission from Rechler Equity Partners, the development company that is doing a lot more landscape-altering shit to the Hamptons than this walking Charlie Brown character rising up out of the middle of an air force base. But no matter, the residents are in a tizzy and they want it taken down.

Describing the sculpture as "ugly" and "in your face," one resident in the New York Post article from Taylor Vecsey of the East Hampton Star even volunteered to donate a crane and wrecking ball. Slow down, Rob Swanson Jr. We all know there hasn't been a wrecking ball in the Hamptons in some time and all you contractors have the foreclosure proceedings to prove it!

Which brings us to our finest point. In his stand-up routine Lewis Black talks about how small towns ought to build a "big fucking thing." Doesn't matter what it is, so long as it's big, and it's a fucking thing. Because everyone will drive out to see the big fucking thing, and then want to spend the night, which will lead to a Big Fucking Thing Hotel, and then a Big Fucking Thing-themed restaurant, a Big Fucking Thing Spa! And that's how you stimulate the economy.

Ever stop to consider, Westhampton, that this might be your big fucking thing?

"Where is the public forum?" wrote Cynthia McAvoy Schunk on the Westhampton Chamber of Commerce Facebook page.

Oh shut up, Westhampton.

Kardashian's Landlord Hounded For Trying To Earn A Buck

So once again we are faced with the completely illogical phenomenon that is the Kardashians. Specifically we're referring to how successful their TV show is, despite the fact that seemingly the whole world wants them to pretty much die.

Fresh off totally reliable news outlet  Page Six of the New York Post, the villagers of Southampton are sharpening their pitchforks and lighting their torches to snuff out Irma Herzog. Her crime? Not responsibly going on welfare for the greater good of Keeping Out With the Kardashians. Herzog is the owner of The Driver's Seat and apparently the space adjacent to the long-standing eatery, which she rented out to the Kardashian girls for their pop-up store "Dash," which they'll be running for the duration of their reality TV show: "Muppets Take The Hamptons." 

Come on. Girl gotta eat.

Ever since word got out that Herzog dared to make a buck by leasing the space, she's been the subject of "harassment and torment," according to the article, which also quoted Jerry Della Femina, who oddly enough didn't blame Obama for the rented space. "She should be brought up on charges," said Della Femina, the Hamptons' resident right-wing lunatic. Suddenly he's anti-capitalism. Funny how that works.

[Hand raised]
-Yes, Hamptonyte Blog, do you have a question?

HB: We do...um...did the people of Southampton honestly think the entire production, public relations, advertising and network team that runs the Kardashian TV franchise would just pack up their trailers and cameras and leave because they couldn't find a place to rent?

-Yes, Hamptonyte Blog, yes, they apparently did.

[Face palm]

SIDEBAR:

We don't watch any of the Kardashian shows, so could someone tell us if Kourtney has trouble walking or something? Why is it that every picture of the two girls in the Hamptons shows Khloe leading her sister around like a pet Orangutan?

Observe:

Occupy the Hamptons Doesn't Occupy Common Sense

That grim looking fella to the left of this photo is right. We are the 99%. Especially us here at Hamptonyte Blog. We have all the requisite 99% problems: unemployment, disenfranchisement, disgust with corruption, irritation at the continued illusion we call the American Dream. Hell, we practically started this blog along similar sentiments.

We can't be so cynical as to criticize a small group of protesters holding up signs in a community that is veritably empty during the winter months, and sure to have them lined against a wall and executed arrested during the summer. Despite the usual Hamptons media eye-rolling these protests often create, we're pretty much on their side. We sort of admire the fact that reminders of the greed and corruption that plague our Republic will not be escaped when these creeps from Wall St. head out here on Memorial Day. For that we thank this small band of flies buzzing into the luxury ointment.

But we can't get on board their recent decision to occupy HarborFrost. It just doesn't make any sense. Simply pulling into the 7-11 parking lot, where a lot of the HarborFrost attendees parked, it was visibly evident by the lack of BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis, that many of us jumping into the frigid water were in the 99% and are most likely attending to take our minds off the struggle we endure daily.

I recognize there will always be some degree of shouting at the choir, but the last thing anybody wants to see at a festival, is a group of sober-faced grouches standing there with signs, reminding us how fucked we are change needs to take place in our capitalist system.

The occupy movement needs just a tad bit of PR in this spot. They already have policed themselves when it comes to individual members' behavior. Here's another instance where they should do so. Nothing makes the average person, liberal or otherwise, more turned off to a movement than when the movement doesn't know where or when to land its blows. The perception many walked away with during HarborFrost is that a bunch of sign-wielding, friendless shut-ins, with nothing better to do on a Saturday, attempted to hijack a fun event by drawing attention to themselves. The operative word "themselves." Not the movement. Or the message. Such is the importance of PR in this circumstance. The protest had absolutely no relevance to the festival, except for the fact that hundreds would be gathered in one spot. From a PR perspective, this screams the protestors want attention, more than they want to inform the public of an injustice. Now, if the festival was paid for and sponsored by Goldman Sachs or Lehman Bros., and the soup being served was made from the ground up bones of unemployed Americans who went into default on their mortgages, that would be a different story.

I'm often reminded of a great line in Oliver Stone's Jim Morrison biopic The Doors. The entire movie script is pretty much Jim Morrison wandering around being profound and prophetic, and waxing philosophical over every little thing. But there is one instance...one little line, when Morrison has just recorded one of his uber-intellectual, drippy, philosophical poems. He stands up from his session and says: "C'mon let's get some tacos."

Note to Occupy the Hamptons: Sometimes even Jim Morrison knew when to give it a rest!

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

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

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

Pussies.

Steven Gaines Nothing From This Fight

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

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

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

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

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

Students Don't Get Mad Anymore, They Lawyer Up!

So it's not exactly storming the college president's office and hijacking the entire building circa 1969, but let's give a standing O to Stony Brook Southampton students who slapped a lawsuit against SBU's president and decider Samuel Stanley Jr. for allegedly cutting the undergraduate program at the Southampton campus because he felt like it.

The lawsuit has the support of local politicians. The students are hoping the lawsuit will cause enough distance and irritation for Stanley to reconsider his move to pull out of Southampton and leave the school vulnerable to the carousing wiles of the two graduate programs slated to remain, one of which is the very unruly and unpredictable Creative Writing program. The message? Don't abandon the campus to a bunch of drunks!

I'm sorry, were you expecting Kent State? These are students majoring in "environmental sustainability," people, cut them some slack.