Dan's Papers - November 7, 2008

This past May 6, the memoir I wrote called In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years With Farmers Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities appeared in bookstores all throughout the land, as the editors and publicists at Random House said, referring to the fact that this book would be distributed nationwide.

As a major component of the effort to get copies of it sold, the editors urged me to create a campaign in the Hamptons on my own that would help that happen. I decided to read In the Hamptons in the Hamptons. I would go, every Saturday morning, all summer long, a total of 16 times between Memorial Day and Labor Day, to some particular spot where events in a chapter took place and read that chapter aloud to whoever wanted to come hear it. Inasmuch as each chapter was about a particular person, consisted of a particular incident and was always set in a particular location, this would not be hard to do.

To accomplish this project, I needed to consider, last spring, a whole bunch of things. One was that I needed to investigate whether there were laws to prevent me from reading a book to a crowd in a public place. (You don't need a permit so long as the number of people gathered are fewer than 50.) Another was that I would have to put together a marketing campaign of press releases, newspaper articles, posters and radio and TV show interviews to let everybody know where I was going to be. That was easy. I have been doing promotions in the Hamptons all my working life.

The third thing was that I had to look into my soul and decide if I wanted to make a fool of myself. (I did.)

And so the press releases went out and the media responded. Articles appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, and even in Newsday, which in the heart of the summer excerpted an entire chapter. I was interviewed on radio and TV, both locally and nationally. The publicity I was sending out, it seemed to me, suggested that I actually was not a person, but a cultural center, such as Bay Street, or a rock star, such as Billy Joel, who was about to go on tour. Or maybe a marketing firm for a rock star with his own cultural venue. That was it.

Of course, it was just me, with a little bit of secretarial help. On the other hand, it was fully mini. The rock star tour was all within about 50 miles of Dan's Papers and the entertainment was just some guy reading his book. Oh well.

I am not about to tell you about each and every reading, which soon ballooned from a planned 15 to a total of 22 (plus readings in nine bookstores) before we got to October, when I finally pooped out. But I would like to tell you the highlights.

My very first outdoor reading took place at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett on May 11, within sight of a spot on the beach where four Nazi saboteurs landed from an enemy submarine intent on spreading havoc at train terminals, department stores and airplane factories around the country. I arrived at the appropriate time that morning, a beautiful sunny spring day, and found about half a dozen people waiting for me at the back of the beach there. There were no bathers. It was too early for that. We'd have the beach to ourselves.

From the back of my SUV I unloaded a microphone stand, a small amplifier and speaker system that ran on D batteries, a cable and microphone, a three by four foot framed blown up book cover, a folding chair, a small metal side table and two boxes of books. With the help of an assistant, I carried all this stuff up to the back of the beach and, as a rock star might set up a stage, proceeded to set up a miniature version of just that from which to read this chapter.

It went off well. Eight people showed up. A few fishermen wandered by as I was holding forth and scratched their heads. And a few local residents came by to walk their dogs. I read a chapter called "The Flesh Eaters," which was an account of my being an extra in the making of a movie about a mad Nazi scientist on the beach in Montauk. I sold six books and autographed them on the spot. For the record, I paid a wholesale price of $12 and sold them for $20. Retail was $24.95 plus tax. "ATM money," I said. "Author's signature free."

I did an encore at that first reading, which was an account of Merton Tyndall, president of a local bank who, when I was starting Dan's Papers 50 years ago, lent me thousands of dollars, without collateral, just on my word of honor. He did not ask me to sign anything. It was quite amazing.

Among the people attending that reading was Connie Anderson, a well-known East Hampton woman who said that, back then, Tyndall had not only lent me money that way, but also Bob Gosman, for Gosman's Restaurant, Joe Hren, for the nursery in Amagansett, and also her, for Franklin Triangle, which she started up by Skimhampton Road in that town.

In the next few weeks, I read a chapter on the Plaza in downtown Montauk, at Alison's Restaurant at the Maidstone Arms, on the soccer grounds behind the Montauk Theatre and on the dock at the Coecles Harbor Boatyard on Shelter Island, where Billy Joel has workmen building the half million dollar cruising boats he designs and sells. I read the chapter "Billy Joel" to about 20 people sitting at tables under a tent between the boatyard's swimming pool and docks. You could see two of his boats. The management of the boatyard served lemonade.

The event on the soccer grounds, where I read a chapter involving my encounters with shark fisherman Frank Mundus, drew one of the largest crowds. I sold about 40 books.

At 11 a.m. on May 31, I read a chapter about CBS anchorman Jim Jenson and how he believed some hoax story I wrote about a sea serpent and sent out reporters and photographers by helicopter to find it. The event took place 100 yards down a dirt path on the shore of Long Pond in Bridgehampton deep in the woods north of that town, which is where I said there was such a sea serpent. Only two people showed up. They were a woman from Brazil and her daughter, who was six years old. But I set up my microphone and amplifier and speaker with the framed cover of the book standing in front of it, and I read to them the story about the sea serpent.

There was one event where absolutely nobody showed up, on June 7 in East Hampton. I was quite surprised that nobody did. It was a lovely day, it was a really good chapter and the reading was scheduled for the lawn just outside the little colonial saltbox home at Mulford Farm across from Guild Hall.

I waited around for 15 minutes after the scheduled start. There was a "docent" sitting on a folding char at the entrance to the historic saltbox "Home Sweet Home," reading a book. Nobody else was there. After debating whether to force this person to listen to me read I thought better of it and didn't. Then I went home. For the record, I would have read the chapter about my encounters with Robert David Lion Gardiner, the seventeenth Lord of the Manor and owner of Gardiner's Island.

I read a chapter about a romance I wanted to have with a pretty girl that got thwarted by German shepherds blocking my way to meet her on the beach at midnight in front of the Andy Warhol estate.

I read this actually out on the beach in front of the estate, courtesy of the current owner of that estate, who was asked on my behalf by cowboy Rusty Leaver, owner of the adjacent Deep Hollow Ranch. Leaver arranged for me and about six other people to go alongside that property and out on the beach by buckboard, driven by his grandfather-in-law Shank Dickenson with two horses at the front. Shank and the horses waited while I spoke to the "crowd" down there. And I am eternally indebted to Rusty and his wife, Diane, for their help with this wonderful morning.

I read to a crowd of about 20 people in the dining room of Bobby Van's Restaurant in Bridgehampton at 11 a.m. one morning while the restaurant personnel were preparing the place for lunch. The chapter was entitled "Bobby Van," and included a story about my getting thrown out of that place.

I read a story entitled "Bill Clinton" to about 10 people in the outdoor courtyard of The Lodge Restaurant in East Hampton. Clinton called balls and strikes during the middle innings of the Artist-Writers Game one year, while I called balls and strikes at the beginning and the end.

I read to about 20 people at the ArtHampton Expo in Bridgehampton. The chapter was, of course, about an artist, Bill de Kooning. I read a chapter about Jackson Pollock to about 30 people at the Pollock Krasner Art Studio and Museum up in the Springs. And I read a chapter called "Saving the Bull's Head Inn," on the front lawn of the Bull's Head Inn in Bridgehampton, to exactly three people, two of whom were the co-owners of the place.

Showing up at these places with a book under my arm and a microphone, framed picture, amplifier and table in tow made me feel as if I was a cross between a nineteenth century snake oil salesman and a twentieth century gospel preacher. It really felt weird.

I tried three times to read a chapter about the owner of a liquor store named Bill Scanlon at Lake Agawam Park in Southampton, but the first two Saturday mornings, it got rained out, and the last time nobody showed up, apparently anticipating it would be rained out again.

I read to about 200 people who were gathered under a tent at the Night at the Montauk Lighthouse party in Montauk on August 16. And at another appearance at the Lighthouse, for the Montauk Lighthouse weekend, in September, I read to just two people because they organized a spot for me to read from on the side of a building where almost nobody ever went.

The two readings that were absolutely the most amazing of all, however, were at Starbucks in Bridgehampton and at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. I was getting a bit knocked out by this time with all of this going on all over the place. (The book has gone into three printings, has sold briskly, got a rave review in The New York Times and in the Hamptons, and was either the best or second best selling book at every bookstore in the Hamptons all summer long.)

And, honestly, I was now not doing everything quite in the proper order. I only had a verbal permission from the manager to read aloud at Starbucks. I don't think Bay Street even knew I was coming. I just plain forgot to ask them, and then all of a sudden there was the date.

It was busy in the Bridgehampton Starbucks at the appointed hour. I set up to speak with a three-foot high, framed cover, microphone, stack of books. People looked at me. Was I going to make some kind of announcement?

Turned out there were exactly two people who wanted to hear me. I said we ought to wait 10 minutes, perhaps more would show up. One of these two, a guy named Kevin Bodkin, of Sag Harbor, picked up my framed cover and said this: "I'll take this outside and get some more for you." He came back, slump shouldered, sad and dragging my book cover picture. He only had gotten one other person, and that was his wife, Maureen, who was in the library next door. Nope, it would just be him and his wife, and this other guy. Again, I read the chapter on Tyndall, the banker. Starbucks, today, is in the building where the Bridgehampton Bank was years ago.

As a result of this, Maureen and Kevin Bodkin apparently decided to come to every reading I gave all summer after that experience. I am very grateful to them, and for all they did helping me set up and carry everything back to the car afterwards each time. They have become good friends of ours.

As for Bay Street, that took place on Saturday September 13 at 11 a.m., and, as I was pretty sure I had failed to ask them for permission, I simply swooped in and, in kamikaze fashion, did the reading in the lobby courtyard there.

Indeed, Bay Street that morning was setting up for a movie showing at noon, one hour after my reading, and they had folding chairs out in the courtyard all set up out there and so we just commandeered them. So a crowd of 15, as well as a group of puzzled Bay Street employees wondering who the hell we were, sat and listened while I read. So I was a featured act at Bay Street this summer. And they never knew.

At Bay Street, I read a chapter about John Steinbeck and how he had been the honorary chairman of the first Sag Harbor Whalers Festival. Then, after applause, and after being hustled off by a guy pushing a popcorn popping machine, I got the hell out of there.

The book In the Hamptons: Fifty Years with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities got a rave review in The New York Times and is for sale everywhere that books are sold for $24.95 plus tax. Have it gift wrapped. It makes a great present for Christmas about what this place was like from 1958-2008.