The sleepy village of Quogue normally flies under the radar of the Hamptons, avoiding the trappings of high profile residents and public scrutiny that all to often beget other townships like Southampton. In Quogue, you won't find P. Diddy, or share houses, or hours of traffic congestion. This WASP nest has managed to retain its exclusive community feel for decades and residents won't be looking to let up anytime soon.

So when a village resident recently filed a 4 million dollar civil rights lawsuit against the village alleging widespread police misconduct, and created an accompanying online public message board asking people to sound-off on the police force, it was much more activity than usual for Quogue.

But perhaps the most curious development in Quogue this summer has been taking place at the Quogue Inn. The bar at the Inn, which once served as a local watering hole for residents and their guests, now has new owners, has been remodeled, clubbed out, and renamed the Q. The new decor at the Q is a bizarre visual assault of South Beach meets Southampton, and there is a DJ the spins on Fridays and Saturdays. But that's only the beginning...One of the partners/investors in the Q is gay, and has been attracting a gay crowd to the Q on Fridays all summer long. So far this has been kept on the down-low, however, with the owners pushing to make the Q a destination point in the Hamptons, people are starting to catch on to the ongoings on Friday nights, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Paul Addis, pictured above, is the suspect believed to have been behind the premature burning of the 40 foot Burning Man effigy.  For a guy who has no doubt invoked the ire of 35,000+ hippies, he looks pretty darn happy.

For a while, however, we were almost certain it was this fabulous queen pictured below:

At around 3am PST today (6am EST), the Burning Man figure caught fire.  He is supposed to be burned on the 6th day (Saturday) of this 8 day festival....sources suspect arson.  The 35,000+ person experimental community festival  is held annually in Black Rock City, Nevada.  The figure is still standing, but damage has yet to be assessed as to whether figure needs to be rebuilt...

Could it be the business men disguised as business hippie douchebags trying to sabotage the anticorporate hippie douchebag lifestyle?  On second thought these guys are most definitely too high on designer weed to pull off something like this.  Its probably the green hippie douchebags from Coolingman, peeved about the festival's carbon footprint...developing...

Ever wonder how to cruise at an Airport or your local truck stop?  Well, just take a page out of Minnesota Republican Senator Larry Craig's playbook:

"According to Roll Call, the arresting officer alleged that Craig lingered outside a rest room stall where the officer was sitting, then entered the stall next door and blocked the door with his luggage...[then] Craig tapped his right foot, which the officer said he recognized 'as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.'"

We can only imagine the look on the cruising Senator's face after the officer told him he was under arrest.  We can then only imagine the look on his face after he immediately realizes that he has to tell his socially conservative voting constituency. 

Bets are being taken whether Craig will enter rehab a la Mark Foley.  In the meantime try and reconcile his voting history with his cruisin' habits:

1)Senator Craig has received much praise for his voting record from conservative groups including American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council

2)1996 voted for Defense of Marriage Act (Stops Federal recognition of same-sex marriage, and allows states to ignore legal same-sex unions made in other states).

3)1996 voted against bill outlawing employment discrimination based on sexual orientation

4)Opposed having federal hate crimes bill cover gay and lesbian motivated hate crimes

 Hmmm...someone hasn't been very honest with themselves...

With Fall Fashion Week coming up, Missoni put on a great show this Saturday at the W Hotel Hideaway House in Sag Harbor.  We really like Missoni.  Besides the clothes, the models actually weigh more than 90 pounds and are fit

Singer John Legend was spotted there mingling with the models and later at Pink Elephant to party for what was the weekend before the weekend that will officially end the maddness out east.

[photos from rob rich]

It's mid august and you know what that means....the time is slowly waning for the season of  St. Tropez.  We are well on our way towards Labor Day Weekend and are already starting to get nostalgic for long lunches at Club 55, swims in the Mediterranean, late afternoons at Nikki Beach as the DJ cranks up the music, the adorable little cars that scoot you around an even more adorable town, and of course nights at Les Caves Du Roy  underneath the Hotel Byblos with Jack E (we love your music, but find you personally to be a reprehensible starfucker). The beaches on Long Island are a great escape from the city, but there is nothing like one week in this small fishing village turned playground for the euro jetset.

What we won't miss are the likes of P. Diddy and crew trying to be ballers as they spray around Crystal, the many Russian "gift girls" (aka prositutes) scouting for Arabs (slick with their oil money), and the ubiquitous Euro-douche.

[Nikki Beach]

P.S.1 is the MoMa affiliated Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens. P.S. 1 started out as Long Island City's first public school, but closed due to low attendance in the '60s. It is now known for being one of the largest and oldest institutions in the U.S. dedicated solely to contemporary art. It's also host to one of the most highly anticipated weekend events in New York City, Warm up. This unique, multi-sensory music series provides musicians, artists, hipsters, and families some common ground to boogie on. The series runs every Saturday from July through early September and draws thousands of local and international visitors each day. Highlights from the series include a stellar group of international DJs and live music ensembles: DJ Harvey, Groove Collective, Afrika Bambaataa, Mad Professor, Richie Hawtin, Francois K, Fischerspooner, Kid Koala, Arto Lindsay, Scissor Sisters, Luke Vibert, and many more.

It seems to be a worthly outing at least once this summer from what we're hearing. We can't wait to go, singing Mayer's "I wanna run through the halls of my old high school" at the top of our lungs.

We love it when socialites try and be normal (well at least quasi normal). This picture was taken at Nick Mele's 4th of July shin dig this year. Can you spot Byrdie Bell, Amanda Hearst, and Lisa Rockefeller? We like how they are at least trying to fit in with the other prepster graduates from Georgetown, GWU, Skidmore, the New School, Trinity, Emory, and Oxford.

After all they are just like us...just with lots of money and title. One thing we never got about Amanda Hearst is how she gave up on Boston College to go to rush back to New York and finish up at NYU. She is going to spend the rest of her life going to social events in the City, why not try being a student in a collegial environment for a little while? Once you leave it, those years are gone, never to return again. In about 5 years, she is simply going to be a) jaded, b) married and jaded, or c) divorced and jaded.

Polo Players are HOT.  Mandy Moore...NOT.  But for those of you who may still have a crush on her, you can find her this weekend at Bridgehamtpon Polo from 4-6pm.  We were pretty weirded out by the cougar crowd last week, so we may have to pass.  But the horses, game, and field are definitely worth visiting especially if you have never seen this beautiful sport before.

Sources close to the management indicate that Pink Elephant in the Hamptons makes quite a bundle of cash in the 12 short weeks it runs a year.

Revenue

Friday Night = $45,000

Saturday Night = $90,000

Weeks = 12

Total Revenue = 12 x ($45,000 + $90,000) = $1,620,000*

That is a pretty hefty take. Its unclear exactly what profits are, but most entertainment accountants would estimate their costs (alcohol, promotion, salaries, rent) to be roughly $600,000-750,000, making the profit well north of $500,000.

These numbers must make David Cabo and Shawn Kolodny pretty happy. We can only guess how much Dune is losing this summer...

*Not including Memorial Day and Labor Day Sunday

 We didn't make it so good thing Rob Rich did:

Of course they were there...Kelly and Christie are officially THE Hampton-ladies of the year.

 Here's some people we aren't used to seeing out east:

Renee Zellweger chopped off her hair and found a new boyfriend?

Adam Sandler's shows off his new "do":

Oh No you didn't Shaneenee?!  Oh Yes you did! We were speachless when we saw this tramp lady at Bridgehampton Polo this past Saturday at JetOneJet's Field. Some of the cougars were trying so hard in their fight against the clock, but most were sadly failing miserably. In case you don't know what a cougar is, this definition from the urbandictionary may help:

An older woman who frequents clubs in order to score with a much younger man. The cougar can be anyone from an overly surgically altered wind tunnel victim, to an absolute sad and bloated old horn-meister, to a real hottie or milf. Cougars are gaining in popularity -- particularly the true hotties -- as young men find not only a sexual high, but many times a chick with her shit together.

Speaking of older women, Brooke Shields was there trying desperately to hold onto the limelight by leveraging her child much like the growing celebrity trend. I'm not sure about you, but I find her bringing her child into a situtation where she is being hounded by paparazzi for her own personal gain is pretty creepy. Please Brooke, give it up and focus on parenting.

And speaking of parenting, there was a pregnant women at Pink Elephant on Saturday. No, this is not a joke! And no, she wasn't a just few weeks or a month pregnant, she had a major bulge the size of a basketball. Where the heck are these people's priorities!?