Dan's Papers - July 4, 2008 - Twentysomething...By David Lion Rattiner

When I went on vacation to Rio de Janeiro for Carnival last February, I met a guy named Luke whose neck I almost broke in a friendly wrestling match. We ended up in a Brazilian hospital, surrounded by Brazilian nurses, who nurtured Luke back to health by looking at him and asking in broken English, "Are you feeling better?"

Luke told me on the first day that he met me that I looked like Vincent D'Onofrio from the television show "Law and Order." We became great friends on that vacation. Luke lives in Virginia and works as an engineer.

About three weeks ago, I was on my way to the Smart Car Center of Smithtown where the absolutely fabulous people at Smart Car decided that it would be a good idea to wrap my car with advertising displaying Smart Car of Smithtown, Dan's Papers and Hamptons Style. You've probably seen it parked in front of the Dan's Papers office.

Just stay with me on this - I know I'm all over the place, but this is a crazy connect- the- dots story.

I was driving a Mercury Sable with my buddy Tom Scarpulla to the Smart Car dealership when Tom suddenly declared while driving that Pink Elephant had free Starbucks coffee, and that we had to stop. As we walked into Pink Elephant, we found our free coffee, and also a group of about 15 people from Central Casting, sitting or standing around, casting extras for "Gossip Girl," which is a big television show that neither Tom nor I had ever heard of before. I immediately got involved to try out. I'm a huge fan of theater, especially the folks at Springs Community Theater who are working hard to have my play, Main Beach the Musical, go up July 25, 26 and 27 at East Hampton High School.

Tom and I got our pictures taken, we filled out some forms, thanked everybody, told them about the free coffee over by the front entrance and were on our way. I picked up the Smart Car and brought it back to the Dan's Papers office. Within minutes everybody at the office was freaking out about it. Especially Kathy Rae, my friend and Publisher of Dan's Papers and Hamptons Style. "You've got to let me borrow it!"

Kathy borrowed the car, then borrowed it again, and before I knew it, she came back to me with the Smart Car and a picture of her parents in it smiling ear to ear, which is the photo you see in this column.

Three days later I got a call from Central Casting: "Hi, Dave. We wanted to give you a part on 'Gossip Girl.' We are shooting a pool scene and you have to dress up in all white. Do you want to do it?"

I was totally pumped. "Sure, I'll do it! When is it?"

"It's on Monday and Tuesday of this week."

I got really, really bummed out. Monday and Tuesday are the production days here at Dan's Papers. If I took those days off in the summertime, I'd look like a complete bonehead in the eyes of all my friends here, especially the people who count on me to complete certain things so that they are able to do their jobs, and vice a versa. "There is no way I can do that with this short notice," I gulped down the words as I said them.

"Oh, no! We thought you would have been great."

"Thanks anyway., I really want to do it. It's just a horrible time conflict."

"That's okay, it happens. We also do casting for 'Law and Order.' Would you want to do that sometime?"

"Hell yes, I would!"

"Okay, well, we'll be in touch."

She hung up the phone.

All I can think about is how freaked out Luke is going to be if I ever get cast on to the set of "Law And Order," and he is sitting on his couch, still with a slight pain in his neck and doing a double-take.