Hampton Slut

ADD Beach

Forget the national obesity epidemic. We have a national ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) epidemic. Here’s an entire nation unable or unwilling to focus. Distraction is just too much fun: why pay attention to any one thing when there are so many people, web sites, IM sessions, TV shows, Tivo’ed shows, emails, parties, and iPods to plug into. Unplug from all this and withdrawal hurts. We don’t like it when nothing’s going on.

The Hamptons is the ultimate resort for the ultimately distracted. It’s where we go. There is nothing you actually have to pay attention to out here. And you can’t possibly get bored since the whole experience happens in just a couple of days. We’re attracted to the Hamptons for the same reason fish like lures with lots of shiny objects hanging off them. A continuous stream of shiny people pass by us as we cruise the beach, bars and parties for ever more shiny people. Real conversation presents a threat: focusing can kill this rush in an instant.

Fortunately we’ve adapted: we’ve so honed our ability to schmooze the night away by waving, air kissing, and looking for the next party, that we remain permanently anesthetized to reality. Like all good addicts, we deny it. “Oh, I come out east to do nothing, to hang out with a few friends” we say as we’re dashing to the American Hotel for a drink, arrive, find it boring, and leave immediately for the next venue. We even learned how to keep the cell phone in its place as an instrument of distraction: if the call is in danger of becoming a real conversation, we declare that the connection stinks and hang up. As you know, everyone gets away with that these days.

The Walk of Shame

There is a certain moment after a long night of drinking or an unexpected romantic encounter where you may find yourself in the glaring morning light wearing what you wore the night before trying to slink home unnoticed. The point of the walk of shame is to embarrass you in front of either loved ones or strangers into better behavior. If you happened to have been out in a pair of jeans and a T-Shirt you may escape judgment, but there are numerous more noticeable infractions.

Panties in the pocket. This moment is compounded if you must remove them to get to your coffee money.

No one comes to breakfast in a toga twice.

Nothing says wedding slut like walking by the brunch in the taffeta nightmare you wore the night before.

Anything with a jello shot stain on it is impossible to explain the next morning short of an alien nose bleed.

Why We need Government (or, what to do when the flies come to your house)

In that vicious fusillade of rhetoric between left and right over how much government is the right amount of government, we often loose sight of why we need it in the first place.

It’s understandable why we Americans, who seem to be flabby about everything else, are flabby about all this Democracy stuff. It’s been a couple hundred years since we had no government. No one actually remembers what it was like to dream one up from scratch, what to do with all those crazy ideas from Locke and Rousseau, what it was like to sacrifice a good party just to go write the Federalist Papers; no, not one among us had to wrestle with all that More Perfect Union Stuff. We just grew up with a government that was there, we took it for granted, like the kitchen sink in the house we grew up in. Some one else put it there. It worked. Could we just go watch the Simpson’s please?

Which is why the Hamptons share is such as the vital source of political education. A thing of gravitas. Of great intellectual inquiry. Because in that founding moment, that place in Southampton--- with all 8 guys, 14 women, all those shares, half shares, quarter shares, guests and unexpected guests ---is all civic possibility, just waiting to become an anarchy, democracy or dictatorship. Or perhaps that form if governance unique to the Hamptons, an Apathy.

Wi-Fi on the Jitney

Heard here at Wi-Fi Networking News

Hamptons 4th

Amy Patton reports for the Independent News the Fourth of July celebrity sightings...

Also this weekend, Paris Hilton (and posse) showed up at Sony’s PS2 house in Bridgehampton wearing $1 million in glittery gems from Jacob the Jeweler. Hilton, a Southampton local, was in town to promote her “Heiress” record label and her new record, Paris is Burning. Not only was Paris burning, but the amount of female flesh exposed at the party was, in a word, blinding.

South Hampton Strips

Looks like Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, gossip columnist for the New York Post, has a handle on the Hamptons hot spots. Exposed in her recent article for the Post looks like taking off your top is the price of admission to at least one party. Quote Elisa,

July 4, 2004 -- Alex von Furstenberg's Southampton house is a haven for hedonism.

The 35-year-old heir has been hosting the hottest parties of the summer, in which droves of models are often talked into removing their tops — or running the risk of not being invited back.

The Euro playboy has taken to shooting Polaroids of his topless guests, and, according to one visitor, now keeps a stack of them in the kitchen of his three-bedroom bungalow on Flying Point Road.

'It's an orgiastic scene,' one male guest divulged.

Regular visitors to "Alex von's" house include fashion designer Jamison Ernest, his supermodel girlfriend Anna K., club promoter Justin Melnick, and a regular rotation of stunners who are all expected to indulge in pastimes like topless barbecues and strip backgammon.

After a night of swinging house activities, groups of wine-sozzled guests often collapse into bed naked together.

In fact, the festivities got so boisterous that more space was needed — so two models were hired to drive a rented Winnebago to be parked in the driveway.

I'm Nobody, Who Are You?

Elise had a special introduction to the Hamptons....

Spent Memorial Day in The Hamptons, New York City's version of Martha's Vineyard. (NYkers may take issue with that comparison, as, since NYC is the center of the world, MV would be Boston's version of the Hamptons. It's all amusing to me, a Northern Californian, where in the summer more people go TO the city during the weekend than leave it.) Found myself at a party on Saturday night hosted by the publisher of Gotham, LA Confidential, and other fine, extra large glossy magazines showcasing celebrities and parties. Found myself wandering in and wondering of the spectacle of many tan lithe twenty-somethings with gorgeous clothes and bodies to match. Kept wondering why a video camera was pointed my way until I noticed that I was standing behind James Lipton, the guy from the Actor's Studio. Other notable attendees included Tina Louise (Ginger from Gilligan's Island) and Ivana Trump. Finally managed to congregate with other fellow wonderers (what are we doing here?) and was able to relax and enjoy the party. Later a friend emailed along this poem by Emily Dickinson. Seems like they had spectacle parties in her time as well...

I'm Nobody! Who Are You? by Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!