Dan's Papers - August 1, 2008 - A Crazy Zigzagging Schedule Last Week

This is surely the craziest, hardest and most wonderful summer of my life. I am getting married tomorrow (August 2.) I have been busy promoting my memoir, In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years With Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities. A New York filmmaker named Dennis Lynch is making a full-length documentary about my summer in the Hamptons, and following me around with a camera every day. And I continue to write for the paper.

Each of these things is very important to me. And with each of them, on occasion, there is someplace I have to be at a particular time that is set in stone. I have to be there. And this past weekend was the granddaddy of them.

Not in any particular order, they included going to a memorial for the wife of one of my longtime friends, a reading at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, an art gallery opening where I thought, because of a prior incident involving the police, there might be fireworks and I should be there to write a story about it, the Bay Street Theatre gala in Sag Harbor where Dennis wanted to do some filming, having wedding photographs taken at a Manhattan photo studio, an appearance on NBC on Sunday morning to promote the book, an "author's dinner" at Alison Restaurant at the Maidstone Arms in East Hampton, a big gala at the Montauk Lighthouse where I planned to read a chapter of my book about the Montauk Lighthouse, and an appearance on CNBC, also to promote the book.

The memoir, by the way, is doing very, very well. It got a rave review in The New York Times two weeks ago Sunday, a good review in USA Today this past Friday (although they lamented that there was not very much juicy gossip), and, last week, the announcement by Random House that, after just 62 days, the first printing of the book had sold out and they were now ordering a second printing.

Unfortunately, all these things created an unbelievable transportation problem for me, as geographically I had to zigzag back and forth across the region to get to all of these things as scheduled and advertised.

Here is how my weekend looked:

8 a.m.-noon - Morning with fiancée in Manhattan

1 P.M. - JITNEY FROM MANHATTAN TO EAST HAMPTON

6-8 p.m. - Author's Dinner at Alison Restaurant in East Hampton; read "Ladies Village Improvement Society" chapter from book

6:45 a.m. - Interview with CNBC in Sag Harbor at The Beacon restaurant

(Rest of the day at leisure - I spent much of it writing at the beach)

5-6 p.m. - Cover story at the art opening at Walk Tall Gallery in East Hampton

6:30 p.m. - Dinner with friends at B. Smith's in Sag Harbor

9:30 a.m. - Bagels with Mark and Candy Udell at Goldberg's Deli in East Hampton to meet Mr. Goldberg who, using an old Polish recipe, makes amazing bialys

12:15 p.m. - Memorial for Mickey Perchik in Springs

1-2 P.M. - DRIVE TO MATTITUCK VIA SHELTER ISLAND FERRIES

2-4 p.m. - Read "Jim Jenson" chapter at Martha Clara Vineyards in Mattituck

4-6 P.M. - DRIVE TO MONTAUK LIGHTHOUSE

6-7 p.m. - Attend gala on the lawn of the Lighthouse and read "Saving the Montauk Lighthouse" chapter

7-8 P.M. - DRIVE TO SAG HARBOR

8-10 p.m. - Attend gala on Long Wharf to benefit the Bay Street Theatre

10:15 p.m.-12:30 a.m. - TAKE JITNEY TO MANHATTAN

6 A.M. - TAKE TAXI FROM APARTMENT TO ROCKEFELLER CENTER

7-8 a.m. - "Sunday Morning" on NBC

8-10 A.M. - HIRED CAR TAKES ME FROM MANHATTAN TO WESTHAMPTON BEACH

11 a.m. - Read "George Plimpton" chapter at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center

12-2 p.m. - Lunch with John and Joanna Roland in Westhampton Beach

2:20-4:30 P.M. - TAKE JITNEY FROM WESTHAMPTON TO MANHATTAN

5 p.m. - Wedding Pictures in Manhattan

10 a.m.-12:40 p.m. - TAKE JITNEY TO BRIDGEHAMPTON

1 p.m. - Proofreading at Dan's Papers

The thing that most bothered me about this schedule was the going back and forth and back and forth between New York and the Hamptons two hours away, sometimes on the same day.

I think it's a "guy" thing.

"It wouldn't bother me," my fiancée said. "You have plenty of time to get from place to place."

"But there's all this zigzagging."

"That doesn't bother you?"

"No. Don't even think you're going back and forth. Or just think of it as if it were a straight line. You go east halfway from Manhattan to Westhampton and then continue on after Westhampton, still going east, back to Montauk."