July 11, 2012--The Hamptons

I was reminded recently why we left the Hamptons.

Basically because of money.

Relatively speaking, we too had money. How else would we have been able to afford a weekend house, albeit a modest one, out there among the gilded? In comparison to Steven Spielberg and Ronald Perelman, each with multi-thousand square-foot "cottages" with hundreds of yards if not a mile of waterfront property on much-coveted Georgica Pond, our contractor's-special on the wrong side of the "highway" could have been slipped into either of their 10-car garages.

If I'm being honest, we bailed out not because of the money. If it were just that we'd have to leave the planet because there is great wealth almost everywhere. We left in large part because of the ways in which money was conspicuously consumed--in the size and vulgarity of many of the beach front houses; the designer clothes and accompanying bling; the $100,000 custom Range Rovers; the ubiquitous flaunting of plastic surgerized faces and bodies; but more than anything else, we left because of the sense of entitlement all this affluence engendered.

We should have known that it was time to get out when the News Shop in East Hampton could no longer afford the exponentially rising rent and Ralph Lauren took over, or when we had to wait on line for half an hour during the off-season to get a table at the seemingly unpretentious Sam's Pizzeria while the afore-mentioned Ralph and his daughter were whisked to a table in spite of Sam's policy of not taking reservations.

But we stayed on in part because of inertia and because our false-pride caused us to enjoy being out there among the rich and famous. Maybe, we too, we thought might one day . . . .

When we no longer could complete that thought while looking at ourselves in the mirror it was time to move on. Which 10 years ago we did.

But we do keep in touch with the goings-on on the East End, including now during the political season as the Hamptons continue to be a place where the Clintons and Obamas and now the Romneys troll among the CEOs in search of mega-contributions to their campaigns. So this is very much a bipartisan rant, though Romney's supporters last weekend surpassed any from the past in their sheer vulgarity.

Romney himself was fine in what he confided to couples who anted up $25,000 a head for some face time with him. Overheard by a reporter who managed to slip close to the tent in which he made his remarks, he said to the assembled:

"If you're here, by and large, you are doing just fine. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about those here. I spend a lot of time worrying about those that are poor and those in the middle class that are finding it hard to make a bright future for themselves."

Ah, if only that were true.

But in the meantime, those he is not worrying about made quite a spectacle of themselves.

One eager Romneyite in a blue chiffon dress arrived at the Perleman 40-room, nine fireplace cottage in a black Range Rover. There was a line of Mercedes and Bentleys lined up ahead. Impatient and not used to waiting for anything, she was seen to stick her head out of the car window, yelling, "Is there a V.I.P. entrance? We are V.I.P." She was told there was no such special entrance but was compelled to watch in frustration as Romney in a Chevy Suburban (a vehicle still being produced thanks to Obama bailing out GM) and his entourage sped by.

A fews cars back, the owner of the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, a favorite drinking hole of the corporate rich and famous, was overheard saying this about Obama, "He's a socialist. His idea is to find a problem that doesn't exist and get government to intervene." No one asked him to give an example.

Meanwhile, on the beach facing the Perleman place, protestors carried signs claiming that "Romney Has A Koch Problem." They were making a punning reference, of course, to the Koch Brother billionaires (pronounced Coke) who have been the major funders of Romney's PAC attack group. Their place in Southampton was Romney's next stop. He made quite a good haul there too. By the end of the weekend, he drove away in his Suburban with a haul of more than $4.0 million. Not quite George Clooney money, but not a bad two-days' work.