Music On The Beach

One thing that I've wanted to do all summer long is to check out one of the excellent Southampton Cultural Center's Summer Concerts In The Park, if only to check out the banners that I made for them back at the beginning of the summer. I finally made it down to Cooper's Beach last night (AKA the Scene of the Crime - my first 5k) to check out Project Vibe, a truly fantastic local reggae band.

SciFi Chick was running late, so we got to the beach just in time to hear the last song and enjoy a pretty sunset - but hey, at least we got there! After a lovely stroll along the beach (tide coming in, 1-2 foot surf) it was time to head back to town for a beer. That means the Southampton Publick House, because who wants to drink bottled beer that's been trucked in from St Louis when someone is making fresh beer for you right around the corner from your house? Another part of my environmentally-friendly "Drink Local!" campaign.

The evening wound down with a late-night walk through Agawam Park. The sprinklers had already been on so the grass was cool and damp on bare toes.

Time's Running Out

Labor Day Weekend is approaching, which is a good time to take stock on my progress of my Hamptons Summer. So how have we done?

Well, I've completely failed to visit the Parrish Art Museum, the Atlantis Aquarium in Riverhead, Madame Tongs, any of the Southampton Cultural Center's Concerts in the Park, to go horseback riding in Montauk, or to pick any of my own produce at any local farm - so as far as achieving my planned goals, not so good.

On the other hand, I've run 5 different races, played a lot of summer gigs on the North and South Forks, visited wineries and new restaurants, acquired some great finds at yard sales, made some wonderful new friends, got a soft top installed on the Jeep and put some miles on it - so as far as having a fantastic summer, pretty well.

So here's the plan. In September, I'm going to see what I can do about that initial To-Do list, starting with the Shinnecock Nation Pow-Wow this weekend. After all, the beauty of being a local is that those things are still there for me in the off-season!

Ellen's Run

Despite my best intentions to party it up in the Hamptons this summer, it seems that most Sunday mornings I am supposed to be somewhere in East Hampton by 8:30 am to run 3.1 miles. Now, running 3.1 miles is not something you really have to get up early to do. Also, it's not absolutely necessary to drive to a place a half hour away - there's plenty of perfectly runnable roads and sidewalks much closer to my home. But these 5k races have a secret weapon: the T-Shirt.

Oh, the mighty t-shirt. Remember, these things are ugly, and they're plastered all over with a bunch of sponsor logos, and really, people should pay you to wear the hideous thing. But a 5k t-shirt is still a powerful thing. Thrown on with your rattiest jeans and a baseball cap for a Sunday morning donut run, it says to the world "I'm not a lazy slob, I can actually run 3.1 miles and for all you know, maybe I just did! Yeah, that's it! It's not overeating, it's carb-loading, buster!"

Which is why this morning, exhausted from an unplanned trip to Florida and the previous night's gig, it was the thought of that stupid t-shirt that got me out of bed. And it's not just any t-shirt - this was Ellen's Run, one of the biggest running events out here on the East End. Ellen's Run raises money for breast cancer related charities to the tune of $160k or more per year. It attracts hundreds of runners and all of them wear their Ellen's Run shirts to run around the Hamptons. I've seen the shirts. I've coveted the shirts. I'd registered and already paid my entry fee, and I wanted my %*#&@ t-shirt!

So that's how I found myself flying down Route 27 at 8:45. I made it to East Hampton High School at about 8:52 - plenty of time, I said to myself! These things NEVER start on time!

Ah, how wrong I was. This is without a doubt the best-organized race I've been involved with. The large milling crowd was my first sign - most other races I've been in have had maybe 100 runners at the most - here, there was the better part of a thousand participants lining up (the final results listed some 787 participants). Someone on a loudspeaker was announcing that it was 5 minutes to race time.

I was in trouble. There were no t-shirts in sight! A brief sprint took me to the school cafeteria where numbers were being passed out. Fortunately I had pre-registered, so all I had to do was find the right table to pick up my number and my timing chip. Then it was off to the next table where for one awful moment, it seemed I had wasted all this effort - I was told there were only youth shirts left. Heartbreak! Another volunteer went digging around (I must have looked extremely disappointed) and found a box of adult smalls. Triumph!

I joined the mob at the starting line just as they announced 30 seconds to race start. But I was still carrying my t-shirt. I suppose at this point, shirt in hand, I could have bagged the whole thing but that seemed like cheating. I wanted to EARN the shirt, so off I went. And here's the funny part - I had parked the Jeep right along the race route! It only slowed me down by about 15 seconds to throw my shirt inside, and it gave the nearby runners a good laugh.

Chip timing turned out to be unexpectedly cool. With a large number of runners, you just can't all get past the starting line at the same time - it took me more than a minute. But the chip keeps track of when each runner starts, so you have an accurate time when you finally reach the end. I got there in just under 40 minutes, doing 12.5 minute miles, 439th out of 787.

Towards the end, I met up with a walker who asked me if I had run the whole way. I admitted that I had taken a few walk breaks. She seemed to think that meant I was doing better than she was - so I had to point out that since she was in fact ahead of me, that wasn't necessarily the case. She jogged the remainder of the run with me and crossed the finish line on my heels. I found her name on the list of participants, so if Lori Schultz of East Hampton ever reads this, please drop me a line. You seemed super cool.

Post-race, I met up with my running buddy G-Mac and we raided the samples, breakfast, and water. So, all together, it was entirely too much effort, but now I've Been There, Done That, and Got The T-Shirt. It is Jeep-red, too small, over-logoed, and I will wear it proudly on my next hung-over morning juice and donut raid.

Wine, Women and Song

We have our South Fork vineyards, but the real Long Island Wine Trail is found to the north of us. For those of us in the Hamptons who don't have boats, that means a long drive around the Peconic Bay to Riverhead and back out the North Fork. While I have dreams of a drive down the Main Road, wandering from winery to winery, the only place I've managed to go so far is Osprey's Dominion (mostly 'cause they pay me).

Back in May, my band did our first official paying gig here, following it up with our second official paying gig that night at a restaurant in Hampton Bays. This was a repeat - not only were we back at Osprey, but we apparently didn't learn that 7 hours of performing in one day is maybe a little too much, and we booked the restaurant again for that evening.

The weather on Saturday was just beautiful - low 80's, sunny and breezy - so we played outside under a tent, with a great view of the grapevines. We could actually pull the car right up to the stage, which made this the easiest load-in in our gigging history. There was a good turnout of people who were all drinking lots of good wine, so everyone was in a good mood and feeling quite mellow. Often at gigs a listener will offer to buy us a drink, but this was the first time they had the bottle in hand! Our favorite table included a charming redhead who we named "Ginger Spice", who was singing along on the 80s music.

Osprey seems to be a bigger operation than Channing Daughters, my South Fork favorite. The staff is a little more harried, but when things calmed down at the end of the evening and we were ready to trade some of our hard-earned money for wine (the band gets a discount, of course) they were quite helpful in our quest to give our pay right back.

The visitors are a mix of locals and tourists, though the vineyards in the summer seem to be something like the Statue of Liberty in NYC - New Yorkers only go there if they are hosting a guest that wants to go. The outside picnic setting attracted a lot of families, but the usual vineyard guest is often fairly upscale. So that's one way to see how the "other side" lives here in the Hamptons - get a job somewhere that they go!

Cluck Cluck

Today is my friend Jan's birthday. We're going to celebrate with a sushi dinner and a little mini luau/fire party at their house - that means throwing a bunch of logs in a barrel on the back patio.

Jan's house is where I get my eggs. They have a small property in the woods in Hampton Bays where they keep goats and chickens, mainly as pets. Now, I've talked about the farming tradition out here, but this is still a little unusual. There are plenty of working farms (that have not yet been sold and turned into subdivisions) but I don't think there are many residences that are trying to turn back into farms.

I've never touched a live chicken before. They are very soft.