Artist Writers Game Rescheduled for Aug. 25 p.m
I’ve been reading chapters of my just-out memoir STILL IN THE HAMPTONS at 11 a.m. on Saturday mornings at the locations where the chapters take place. Every one of these readings has been an adventure. On Saturday August 11, I read the chapter “Manny Quinn” to about 10 people on the front lawn of the East Hampton Town Hall. It was a beautiful morning and it went well. This is a chapter about the former Saks Fifth Avenue store mannequin that that town duded up as a police officer and every day for five years propped him up behind the wheel of a police car on the side of a busy road, getting people to slow down. In the end, he got kidnapped, returned and then retired. Probably stopped a lot of prospective auto accidents, though.
This past Saturday, August 18, my plan was to read a chapter on Alec Baldwin on the third base line of the sandlot softball field in Herrick Park in East Hampton. The chapter would be about that game, which I have umpired for each of the past 30 years. After the reading, it was my intention to show up for batting practice at noon, play umpire at 2 p.m., possibly get to Polo at 4 p.m., then go to a Daily Dan party at Michael Kors on Newtown Lane at 5 p.m., have dinner with family at Race Lane then head off to a band concert on Shelter Island at Joe Lauro’s Pleasure Lounge.
At eight that morning, I got out of bed, pulled the curtains open and saw that outside it was pouring rain. I also pressed buttons on my iPhone and learned it would rain all day. Two people called around 10 to ask if I was holding the reading and I said I didn’t know, but if they’d show up so would I, what did they think? They were non-committal. We could meet under the archway of the pavillion out of the rain if it wasn’t coming down too hard, I told them. At 10:30 I got an email telling me the Artist-Writer’s Game was cancelled and would take place same time, same day but next weekend August 25. I also heard on the radio that Hampton Polo was washed out.
I really thought that at the site of the reading, nobody would show up, I’d sit there in my car in the nearby parking lot for 10 minutes watching my windshield wipers go back and forth and then drive home. I put on my rain slicker, ran out to the car, and drove down to the softball field. There were seven people under that shelter, wet as can be, waiting to get read to, though. Also there were two photographers who had come out from New York for the Artist-Writers Game, one for The Daily News and the other for The New York Post. They listened to the reading—I read the chapter on the softball game and both photographers, separately, wound up buying copies.
Gee. New York City media coverage.
As the rain let up at noon, my wife and I and our little dog Bella went over to Hampton Chutney in Amagansett and shared a chicken curry dosa on a picnic table under a beach umbrella with the water dripping down, then headed off to the state park in Napeague where we took the dog for a wet run along the ocean beach. We came home, toweled down the dog and then at five, I went back downtown and joined the crowd at Michael Kors on Newtown Lane to share some champagne celebrating the Daily Dan. I talked with the Managing Editor Guillaume Bruneau.
The evening? I built a fire, took off my wet shoes and fell asleep on the living room sofa for four hours. Nobody woke me. I hope the band at Joe Lauro’s is around for next week. So that’s what I did last Saturday.
This coming Saturday, August 25, I’ll be reading a chapter about the Potatohampton 5K Race on the steps of the Bridgehampton Community House at 11 a.m., attend and umpire the first few innings of the Artist-Writers Softball Game at 2 p.m., then head over to Guild Hall where at 4 p.m. I am hosting the awards ceremony for the Dan’s Papers $6,000 Literary Prize competition we’ve had underway since April. It’s an invitation-only event and as I write this we’ve almost entirely sold out the 360 seats of the John Drew Theater, so if you want to come it will likely be for standby.
After that event, between 6 and 7 p.m., I should be at the Harvest event on the Horse Show Grounds at the Hampton Classic in Bridgehampton, and then I’m off for a surprise party for soembody at 8 p.m. in Southampton.
The Hamptons can be really fun if you want it to be, even in the pouring rain. But it does help if you can fit in a nap here and there.