Off the record, on the QT in WHB, and very hush-hush…
Local attorney Hugh Merle, Esq. has been one of OtBB's earliest and most constant readers, mostly because he is an "information junkie;" he loves to know what's happening around the Village and the West end of Town.
Sometimes he'll call and want to know, "How'd you find that out?," which, of course, I don't tell him.
(First Rule of publishing a blog of this sort: Never give up anyone, ever!) More...
Not a good evening weather-wise, very end of March, low 40°s with such inclement climes forecast for the morrow that the Greater Westhampton Chamber of Commerce has bagged its Easter Egg Hunt for another week1.
Still, the area restaurants all seemed to be doing decent business, and none more so than in Speonk! I mean, Martini Grill and Mahogany's (née Jack and Diane's) were experiencing the types of evenings for which restaurateurs everywhere would cheerfully kill. More...
...Sheridan Whiteside, one of the great curmudgeons of the American theater:
"I may vomit!"
The cause of my current reverse peristaltic impulse was the news that Nadya Suleman, a/k/a "Octomon," was posing in the near all-together for British check-out line periodical, Closer. More...
...by the mainstream media, about the convicted felon who barged into the Boiling Springs, South Carolina Southside Freewill Baptist Church with a shotgun on Sunday.
SC Church Service Disrupted by Shotgun-Toting Man
Probably you didn't read or hear about it was because no blood was shed and no one died. More...
From one of today's Westhampton-Hampton Bays Patch dispatches:
Saturday Marks the End of An Era For Finn's
In the lead we learn:
"The last of Finn's burgers, wings and beer will be served on Saturday when the 6-year-old, Irish restaurant/bar shuts its doors for good."
It's not enough for today's generation to create a new language, ostensiblely patterned on the English tongue, now they're attempting to redefine words previous generations have been using for centuries.
[Le sigh!]
...damnit! And not "just when it was getting good," since the HBO series set around the Santa Anita Thoroughbred Racetrack was good from the jump!
I am reminded of the timeless advice given a jockey who'd asked his mount's trainer how he wanted the race to be run:
"Take the horse to the front out of the gate and stay there 'til you cross the finish line." More...
...or, not so fast, you there with the knotted rope!
More information has washed up in the flotsam of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman tidal wave that casts the February 29th homicide in a somewhat different light than what the media and Trayvon-istas have presented over the past fortnight. More...
[Being a Continuation.]
By now, thanks to the media blitz of the month-old shooting death of an unarmed black teenage in the Orlando suburb of Sanford, just about everyone knows the names of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, and has seen their images, the two most common being...
If the name "Trayvon Martin" doesn't resonate with you, the you've probably been too caught up with "March Madness," "Timsanity" or Westhampton Free Library's move to usurp the perogatives of the Village.
It also means that President Obama's statement, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," either escaped your attention, or failed to pique your curiosity. More...
...of the B3/I1 Districts to allow Andrew Mendelson to build, as he is attempting to frame it, a "grocery store," is found on this morning's local Patch:
Prime Storefront Available for Rent in Westhampton Beach [Empty in Westhampton-Hampton Bays]
There is an irony in the mixed message here. More...
It was helter-skelter in the Six Corners meeting room this evening, a free-form give'n'take between the four Village Board members1 and members of the public.
Discussions revolved around the development of municipal parkland on Glovers Lane and a request by Westhampton Free Library to purchase four Village Beach Passes for use by members of the Library District. More...
Rabbi Marc Schneier has kept his head down, at least in this country1, ever since the disastrous and seismic "informational meeting" held at Hamptons Synagogue in August 2008.
Until now.
In a FrontPageMagazine essay, "Today’s Radical Chic," literary critic and writer Bruce Bawer gnaws a large chunk out of the Rabbi's ample arse for participating More...
...to learn that a film version of Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel, "On The Road," has been completed and is set for release this year.
While I've gotten past it, and the other literary works of that period which informed my late teens and early 20s, I haven't forgotten how important that book became to me after local attorney Bill Burcher recommended it. More...
From OtBB of February 22, 2012:
"If 10 games from now, the Knickerbockers are still even playing .500 ball coming out of their St. Patrick's weekend home-and-home series with the currently .636 Indiana Pacers, then I'll buy Ray1 a new set of blue and orange pom-poms and join him in the bleachers."
My assessment was a pretty safe proposition, and in truth, I might have written this a week ago because the Knicks hadn't beaten anyone in over a week, and were six More...
...and investigation (i.e., poking around), while OtBB took no position on the most recent Town Board/Town Police contratemps earlier this week, had I been guided by one of my personal principles, I would have come down on the correct side of the matter.
That principle, articulated last April during the selection process for the Town's new top cop, Captain Anthony Tenaglia or Southampton Village Police Chief William More...
Can't say as I'm too happy with HBO right now over their decision yesterday to rescind their renewal of the David Milch-Michael Mann series "Luck" after news that a third horse had died during the show's production.
Actually, the Time Warner-owned cable service comes off looking pretty wimpy over this, since that third horse had to be euthanized following an off-camera accident caused by the mount's own actions rather than at the direction of a trainer or a member of the filming crew. More...
I mean, really!
Politically Divided Southampton Town Board Names New Police Captain
I mean, I got nothing for newly promoted Southampton Town Police Captain Robert Pearce one way or the other as I don't know the man or anything about him, but More...
My Dad (1910-1956) with whom I flew in small planes until he was killed in one, used to tell me that the two most dangerous times in flying were during take-offs and landings.
I absolutely believed him, especially after we wound upside down on the middle of the old Westhampton Airport while trying to get home for the Christmas holidays, 1948. More...
While I don't have anything against 11946, I don't spend a great deal of time there... there's a high school gal pal of my wife's East of Ponquogue we visit on occasion, and an occasional doctor's office or the medical labs for blood work, but otherwise, it's the movies and dinner at John's Pizzeria & Restaurant next door.
(The sitdown restaurant part is in the back room past the traditional pizzeria counter.) More...
...of Morpheus last night, we seem to have Sprung forward an hour.
Check your clocks and timepieces, people!
Having survived her near-catastrophic event of seven weeks ago, plucky gal that she is, Susan Johnson O'Rourke is home from the hospitals.
Actually, she's been back in Westhampton Beach for a fortnight or so, but is not yet prepared to receive visitors or field 'phone calls. More...
...thrilling days of yesteryear as "The Lone Ranger" rides again!
The catch is that we'll have to wait 'til June 2013!
This one has been long in the offing, and 3½ years ago this nightmare of a PhotoShopped image1 of George Clooney and Johnny Depp was making the rounds and causing much angst among fans of Fran Striker's famed radio character of our More...
This just in from our friend Erica Jackson at Westhampton-Hampton Bays Patch:
"The [alcohol-free] zone says, Kim{sic} Laube, director of HUGS, a non-profit agency dedicated to alchol{sic} and drug prevention, was created by concerned parents and community members."
Mrs. Laube, in her current heart-of-hearts, may secretly wish that such a prohibition were possible, but she's educated enough know what occurred with the Volstead Act.
...it's not enough to take what he says with a grain of salt, one needs to bring a ten kilogram-size lick as The Southampton Press Western Edition's new correspondent Loren Christie seems to have quickly caught onto.
(Patch's Erica Jackson, please copy.)
At this month's Westhampton Beach Village Board meeting, developer Mendelson and his attorney Frank More...
I chortle in my joy... it is the day which I have awaited since opening my Christmas presents ten weeks ago.
If my doting wife was worried by the 101° temperature1 my bout with shingles was causing, I got so excited that she wanted to soak me in a tub of ice cubes after I discovered that my dear sister had given me the DVD More...
Baseball stopped being "the American past time" with the rise of National Football League under visionary Commissioner Pete Rozelle.
On Rozelle's watch and that of his successor Paul Tagliabue, the NFL grew and grew and grew, and not always with expansion. They did it by being smart, and providing their burgeoning fanbase with an excellent product More...
Seems I'm not alone up here in the blogosphere as an OtBB irregular has pointed out...
"She's untruthful, unethical, hateful and often wrong. She makes America worse."
Who could author Larry Doyle be referencing? Sarah Palin? The Empress of Oneck? More...
"Because of gravity, water and most liquids seek their own level." – answers.com
Interesting article1 on page A5 of the current Southampton Press Western Edition about our good neighbor to the immediate North:
Airport Fuel Spills Are Being Cleaned Up
Really? 'Bout freakin' time! More...
Updated 03/03/2012 – 09:56 am
...or both, to our friend Allan Schunk currently at Stony Brook Medical Center Intensive Care Unit on a breathing ventilator and in an induced coma.
Allan had been complaining of feeling poorly Wednesday and was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center Thursday morning where it was determined that he was More...
For all the drum-beating and Chicken Littlesque exhortations by Elyse Richman, this evening's monthly meeting of the Westhampton Beach Village Board was only modestly attended, with no one speaking about the proposed tax cap circumvention mechanism.
This issue was one the Main Street businesswoman had hoped would fill the room with her fellow Village residents, all in opposition to any such legislation. More...
Jeanne has been adamant since we began keeping company:
"Cruise ships are floating incubators of terrible diseases!"
(Never mind all the foreign ports they visit and acquire bacteria that was eradicated in the United States half-a-century ago!)
So ferocious on the subject is she, that the words "Royal Caribbean," "Carnival" and "Princess" aren't allowed past our E-mail filters! More...
