If I were a local business owner summoned to court for violating our state or local disabilities laws, I might simply ask the judge, “Why should I comply when your court doesn’t?”

Since its completion in 2010 in the back of our history-themed town government complex, the $4 million East Hampton Justice Court has been defying New York State and town disabilities laws designed to guarantee access to people with disabilities and which the court is charged with enforcing. It also violates the Americans With Disabilities Act, which the federal government enforces.

Some of the court building’s extreme violations have been cleared up over the years, notably a heavy entrance door that frequently and unexpectedly slammed shut. This was particularly perilous to use during periods of congested pedestrian traffic entering or exiting the building. The path of travel through the street to the entrance from the handicapped reserved parking area bulged with an array of bubble-shaped lumps that was especially difficult for disabled people to use and suggested a geyser beneath that was about to blow.

It took more than a year to fix the dangerous door and uneven pavement. Major violations persist in the court’s handicapped-parking arrangement, which is tucked away in a notch around a 90-degree turn past the entrance door. The parking area itself is too tight to provide safe backing out and turning, and has no identified unloading-access aisle and only one marked parking space. Two spaces are required, as was noted in plans the developer filed with the Building Department in 2004.

Most important, the path of travel from the designated parking notch to the court building provides no curb cut or ramp for disabled court users or employees to ascend to the sidewalk and safely proceed off the street to the court’s entrance. The curb throughout the handicapped area is at least seven inches high — impossible to access if you use a wheelchair, treacherous if you use a cane or walker. The Americans With Disabilities Act requires that grab bars be situated on any curb that is higher than six inches. There are none.

As a result, a disabled person must traverse the street, potentially in the face of vehicles driving toward and around the right-angle curve to park there. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

An apparent quick fix exists. Readily reachable parking spaces with ample visibility and a level building entrance that easily can be made wheelchair-accessible are in place at the south side of the structure. Why not designate three of these for disabled people — two for parking plus a wheelchair-unloading aisle between them? If necessary, eight more spaces for the general public could easily be added to this location.

Use of this area looks obvious. I urged the Wilkinson board to check it out at a town board meeting in 2011. But neither this nor any other serious proposal to produce a solution has been undertaken by any town board or by the disabilities advisory board, which I also informed of the dangers and violations five years ago. I reported these issues to the Ordinance Enforcement Department in 2012. I was promised a response within a week, but have not heard back.

How did it all come to this — a new justice court’s disregard for the law and the various town boards’ indulgence of it now for so long? A.D.A. compliance in the old Town Hall-court building was excellent, having been seen to by the Bullock administration circa 1993. Why was such attentiveness to the law and the needs of so many East Hampton residents set aside in the construction of our new court? Why has it been left that way by three town administrations that respond to questions and suggestions about it with what amounts to one long Gallic shrug?

An explanation is that the new justice court was built backward. Really. I don’t have the comic genius to make this up. It’s Laurel and Hardy stuff. It’s become a regular joke around town offices that “Ho-ho-ho, they put it in backwards,” which could logically explain how the back became the entrance, requiring contortions to provide handicapped access space near it. But that cannot justify the town’s apathy in dealing with this situation.

We advocates have passively consented to this neglect for years now, regardless of the Gandhi and Martin Luther King quotes we keep pinned on walls over our desks.

Both the A.D.A. in 1991 and our local law in 2003 were enacted with overwhelming bipartisan support. In fact, two Republicans led the effort: President George H.W. Bush at the national level and Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, then a Republican, in East Hampton.

These were good days for the town, the culmination of a respectful, firm activism that promised to bring our 1,000-plus disabled year-round residents out of isolation into the participatory mainstream of the town’s social, political, and commercial life. But for the past 10 years or so, it’s the complacency that has been bipartisan.

A very effective leader during our early endeavors was the East Hampton Village clerk, Larry Cantwell, who negotiated such important settlements as the access compliance of East Hampton’s U.A. Cinema. Other U.A. cinemas in Southampton, Hampton Bays, and elsewhere on Long Island quickly followed suit, installing wheelchair spaces, accessible bathroom facilities, and FM assistive-listening systems. I believe that now, as town supervisor, he would enjoy making things right again.

Which brings to mind a story, perhaps apocryphal, about President Franklin Roosevelt. Early in his first term, a group of labor leaders visited him and urged his support for legislation they favored. F.D.R. listened silently as they passionately presented their case. When they finished, he leaned forward in his wheelchair and said, “All right, gentlemen, you have convinced me. I am in favor of your proposal. Now go out and make me do it.”

Richard Rosenthal was disabilities advocate for East Hampton Town from 1993 to 2002.

I remember some of the pregame chatter driving to Shea Stadium from Huntington, Long Island, on the night of Oct. 25, 1986. It was me and my dad, one of my best buds and his dad, all riding in together. Being neighbors it made sense to car-pool, plus this would give us a chance to collectively rev up, theorize, geek out with stats, and predict the in-game moves of both managers. 

“It usually comes down to how the pitching is handled,” I recall my dad saying. The game we were headed to was the one we Mets fans refer to only as Game 6, no need for any further exposition. Just say “Game 6” and everyone knows what that means. 

The series versus Boston had been a mighty struggle up to that point, the Mets down 3-2 in games with the Red Sox having their ace, the barrel-chested chin-music-maestro Roger Clemens, going for them. This was an elimination game, lose and it’s over. For the first time that whole season we all felt truly vulnerable because, let’s face it, we rooted for a bully of a team, almost the baseball version of the ’77 Raiders. 

Much has been written about that aspect of the team, so I don’t have to do it here, but it’s important to remember that these ne’er-do-wells, despite their infamous behavior, also won 108 ballgames, kicked everyone’s ass all season long, and, in our minds, were supposed to win it all. The Red Sox had other ideas.

With both our dads being age-old Brooklyn Dodgers fans, the conversation on the L.I.E. soon veered to the heartbreak that goes along with losing a World Series. “I remember a lotta long and bitter winters as a kid, right, Jack?” my dad said to my friend’s dad, who was driving. 

“Oh yeah, most of the time at the hands of the Yankees, which made it even more bitter,” Jack concurred, “but the worst one didn’t even happen in the World Series.” My friend John, knowing our fathers, then interjected, “Think we’re gonna get a ‘shot heard round the world’ story here.”

“Everyone remembers where they were for that one. Remember where you were for the Thomson home run, Bob?” he innocently asked my dad. 

“Do I? One of the worst nights of my life. I was in the Navy, on watch duty, laying in a hammock listening to the game on Armed Forces Radio. The groan I let out made half the whales in the Atlantic surface.” 

Jack laughed, “Yeah, you’ll never see anything like that again.” As we know now the night was young . . .

They kept riffing about different series losses, and finally I said, “You won it all in ’55, beating the Yankees, even. How come I never hear any of you guys talking about that?” 

They answered at the same time, “It wasn’t enough.” 

I think that’s how most Mets fans of a certain age feel about the ’86 team, that they should’ve gone on to win more championships, maybe even successively as the star-studded Oakland A’s, the Cincinnati Reds Big Red Machine, or the Yankees Bronx Zoo teams of the 1970s had done. But even without multiple rings to their résumé, the story of Game 6 enshrines them in the annals of postseason baseball history, mostly because of the high drama unfurled in that rollicking 10th inning.

One could almost persuade oneself with the argument of “quality over quantity,” but I think most of us wanted a few more parades. We know Doc Gooden did. What, a couple of his teammates couldn’t have propped him up and “Weekend at Bernie’s”-ed him up through the Canyon of Heroes? C’mon, no “I” in team, fellas.

We pulled in a few minutes before the first pitch, and there’s always that excitement you get when you first see the ballpark spring up out of nowhere and into full view. No matter how old you get it never goes away, almost like it’s the first time you’ve ever laid eyes on it. 

On that night I remember all of us looking at that beautifully ugly, metallic, dark blue eyesore of a stadium, with the cheesy ’80s Lite-Brite configuration of a baseball player across the facade, and my dad saying, “There it is, gentlemen, Shea Stadium, the only ballpark in the majors in close enough proximity to be accessed by all modes of transportation: plane, train, automobile, or boat.” 

About 15 minutes later, in the top of the first inning, some nutbag parachuted in with a huge “Go Mets!” sign streaming behind him, landing just to the left of Bobby Ojeda on the pitcher’s mound. I turned to everyone and said, “Guess we can add parachute to that list.” 

If that happened today people would run screaming for the exits, setting off a stadiumwide panic. That night on the news we’d hear terms like “Homeland security breach,” everyone demanding an answer to the question “How could this happen in a metro area?” 

The way we handled it then was to chug beers out of big green Harry M. Stevens cups and have a giant laugh about it. I remember drinking really fast after that, but not out of any excitement for the moment. You had to down your beer quick with those cheap cups. If you didn’t finish it in five minutes or less the wax bottom would fall out, the cup would disintegrate in your hand, and you’d be wearing it in your lap. These were the problems we had to contend with at the ballpark back in 1986, kids, not terrorism. Didn’t have sushi either. What can I say? It was a simpler time.

A few minutes later Red Sox outfielder Dwight Evans singled in a run, helping the Red Sox jump out to an early lead. My nerves were already beginning to fray when I met the fiery nemesis that would hound me for the next 10 arduous innings.

Seated directly in front of me was this cherubic little Chucky-like demon child wearing a Clemens jersey and a Red Sox hat. Just as Boston plated that run he wheeled around with a centrifugal force, his malamute eyes ignited, his punchable, freckled little Irish face flush with a bloodlust to torment (or he might’ve had food allergies — I watched the little glutton put away three hot dogs; we didn’t know much about it then). He pointed his mustard-crusted finger at me and yelled in his thick Boston accent, “Oh yeah, Dewey! Get ready to loooooze loozas!”

His old man was a nice, mild-mannered guy who gently spun him back around. “C’mon, son, watch the game. We came all this way, now watch.”

And for the rest of the game, that’s how it went. Every time something went right for the Sox or wrong for the Mets, that budding sociopath spawn of Satan would turn around and give me the business just like that. He was about 10 years old to my 20, so I resigned myself to having patience and rising above it, but the little bastard was under my skin for sure. 

The game was low-scoring and agonizing. They had a 2-0 lead till the fifth, then we tied it. Then in the seventh Ray Knight committed an error that scored them a run, and it lingered at 3-2 for another inning and a half until Gary Carter hit a sac fly in the bottom of the eighth to tie it up again. You could feel the entire stadium exhale. Neither club scored in the ninth, and the teams were now knotted at three as we headed into extra innings. 

Sox outfielder Dave Henderson led off the 10th with a solo bomb off Rick Aguilera, and, I’m telling you, I could feel all the energy leave my body, but I was quickly reanimated with white-hot rage when devil boy spiked his nine-inning-gnawed-upon pretzel at my feet. “Yes!” he shouted. 

They tacked on another run after that, and you could hear the swipes of the ump’s brush dusting off home plate during the changeover, that’s how quiet it got. 

The Mets made two quick outs to start their half of the inning. The demon seed in front of me helped us all with the math: “That’s one! That’s two!” My blood boiled. It was also so depressing. We all thought it was over. So much so that my brother Kevin, who was sitting elsewhere at the game, actually made for the exits in an effort to escape seeing them celebrate on our field. He got as far as the turnstiles and heard a smattering of hopeful applause, just enough volume to turn him around.

That was, of course, Gary Carter’s two-out single to start the rally. And we all know by heart the sequence that followed.

With all the excitement of base hits and men being on base, I was intensely focused on the game and had momentarily forgotten all about that little Boston brat in front of me. This was it, man, our shot! I’d just gotten a fresh Harry M. Stevens beer when Mookie Wilson, on a 2-2 count, a strike away from losing the series, waved in Kevin Mitchell on a wild pitch. Game tied!

Then in the heroic rest of the at-bat by Mookie, on a 3-2 count that saw him foul off I don’t how many balls, but it seemed like a million at the time, each pitch seeming to take a thousand years, he hit a slow but deep grounder to Bill Buckner that came off the bat with some weird spinning English on it, like a cue ball. “Will Mookie beat him to the bag?” we all wondered as we held our breath. Of course, we’ll never know the answer to that question because the ball squibbed through Buckner’s legs, Ray Knight jumped on home plate, the rest of the Mets charged out from the dugout to mob him, and we won the game!

The stadium erupted in a way I’d never seen before or since (at Shea or Citi Field) — a thunderous quake that shook the entire edifice to its core and us along with it for at least 10 minutes. The sheer force of it actually felt dangerous, but nobody cared. 

I still had that beer in my hand as the celebration continued, and I thrust my arms into the air, victoriously screaming thank you to the baseball gods for sparing us. When I did that I noticed that a little bit of beer came out from the top of the cup and a drop or two landed on the little Boston boy’s head in the seat below. 

I swear to God I’m a good person normally. I’m not vengeful by nature, but in that single instant my wrist sort of involuntarily tilted and down came the entire beer over this kid’s head, completely soaking him. To this day I don’t remember making the decision to do it. What I do remember is my friend’s dad, Jack, seeing it all from a few seats away and a smile curling up on his face as he watched me struggle to feign an apology to the kid and his father. “Umm, sorry, in my celebrating I got a little careless with that beer and uh . . . so sorry.” 

Jack took my secret to the grave with him. Anytime I ever saw him after that game he’d shoot me a knowing look, but we never spoke of it. To repay his loyalty I told the story at his memorial luncheon, freeing us both, and getting a few laughs along the way.

My dad is gone now too. He and Jack are shagging flies in the sky at some heaven-made mock-up of Ebbets Field with Pee Wee, Jackie, the Duke, and all the rest of their boyhood heroes. The truth is, the Mets were a logical conclusion for them, but they never had the same ache for the team that John and I and the rest of my contemporaries have. For those guys and their generation, that piece of them remained with the Dodgers in Brooklyn. To them the Mets were just a National League team in New York that they could enjoy and take their kids to see and that weren’t the Yankees.

The last thing I remember about that night 30 years ago was how surreal it was getting in the car to go home after the game. It was the usual logjam of cars and trucks inching their way out of the parking lot, drivers leaning heavily on their horns, only this was a different kind of honking. These weren’t aggravated New York driver beeps. These were sustained honks of joy with people in their cars still cheering from the game, banging on their steering wheels. 

We settled in and, well aware we’d just witnessed history, John said, “I wonder what they’ll end up calling this one — ‘the ground ball heard round the world’?” 

Nope. We all just call it Game 6. That works.

Christopher John Campion is a singer-songwriter and the author of “Escape From Bellevue: A Dive Bar Odyssey,” published by Penguin-Gotham.

With the latest email scandals and accusations of womanizing, all eyes have been on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In the months leading up to the election, it has been one surprise after another, proving to be riveting and entertaining at the least. Who would have guessed, when these two candidates were high-profile presences in the Hamptons these past few decades, that they would end up competing for the highest position in the nation?

Donald Trump and his two brothers, the late Fred Trump and Robert Trump, have been out here for years. When I became a babysitter for Fred and Mary Trump at their house on Lake Montauk as a teenager in the 1960s, I never dreamed that one of Fred’s younger brothers would one day run for president. They were like any other gorgeous young couple, with two adorable kids and a dog with the funny name of Two-No-Trump, which is a poker term. 

Fred had a boat that he kept on Lake Montauk to take his family fishing. I loved to go to their modern house with its sweeping water views, where they would generously tell me to eat whatever I wanted, use the phone however much I wanted (and back then each call cost money), and even have my friends over. 

They used to go to parties until the wee hours of the night, and Fred would drive me home, throwing me $20 bills, which back then was a small fortune for babysitting and helped put me through college. I was sorry to learn years later that he had died at a young age. 

In Montauk we would also see Robert Trump, who spent time around Gurney’s Inn. He dated and eventually started living with Anne Marie Monte, the niece of Nick Monte, the inn’s former owner. I remember seeing them at New Year’s Eve, Halloween, and other special occasions at Gurney’s. The inn used to have theme parties for New Year’s Eve, and one year it was all about Woodstock, with everyone dressed as hippies, including Robert. He had a great sense of humor, parading around in a longhaired wig and wild clothes. 

I first started seeing Donald Trump in the 1990s at polo games in Bridgehampton. He would often take his daughter Ivanka and other family members, and I didn’t know if he was into horses or the game itself, but he seemed to enjoy socializing with other Hamptons celebs in the V.I.P. tent, watching the action from the sidelines. Back then I hosted a television show for WVVH-TV in East Hampton called “Innerview in the Hamptons,” produced by David Nadal of Blue Lemon TV, and we interviewed Donald at those games. 

We also ran into a tanned Donald Trump on the ocean beach, looking more casual in white shorts, white polo shirt, and white visor. He was with Marla Maples, his wife then, at a charity volleyball tournament to benefit pediatric AIDS. “I came here because we are trying to raise money and awareness of this important cause,” he said.

I asked him about his yacht, which he tried to bring into Montauk Harbor, but the draft was too deep, so he couldn’t get it to the Montauk Yacht Club. He talked about how he loved boating, fishing, and Montauk, and how he was enjoying his time in the Hamptons that summer. He was in a good mood. But when we started asking more personal questions, about his plans for the summer and rumors about his marriage having problems, he abruptly got up and walked off the set. That was the last we saw of him, but we left that segment in our show.

I also saw Hillary Clinton many times here, when she came as first lady with President Bill Clinton, later when she was raising money for her Senate race, and more recently during her presidential campaign. She and Bill flew into East Hampton Airport on several occasions to attend parties at the homes of the lobbyist Liz Robbins and the fashion designer Vera Wang, with entertainment by the comedian Jon Stewart and the rocker Jon Bon Jovi. 

I will never forget one of the biggest events they attended, a 1998 Democratic fund-raiser at the Amagansett home of Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger, his wife at the time. It was the height of summer, a moonlit night at their sprawling farmhouse, and hundreds of people paid $1,000 and up for tickets. They sipped wine, dined on hors d’oeuvres, and gathered to dance to Bill Clinton’s favorite band, Hootie and the Blowfish.

But security was tight, and the press was banned, so the only alternative was to sneak in under the gates and bushes. This I did, as I had to get the story, pretending to be a guest and staying in the shadows. It was a thrill to see Bill and Hillary lined up on the porch alongside Bassinger and Baldwin, who was the host and was thought to have political ambitions then. They greeted the crowd with their speeches, and I tried to take notes quickly so I could run back to the bushes and call them in to my editor in the city.

I got much closer to Hillary during her Senate campaign swing, when she spent a day touring East Hampton. This time, the press was allowed, and I followed her as she divided her time between the town’s older and younger generations. I still remember her black pantsuit and bright pink blouse as she shook hands and posed for photos at the senior citizens center. 

Hillary told the seniors she would do “everything possible” to protect Social Security, Medicare, and prescription drug programs and keep the costs down, as her own mother, in her 80s, was in a similar situation. 

She spent the rest of the day at the day care center, where she seemed to be at ease with the children and enjoyed their questions. She asked if anyone knew who the president was, or her cat’s name, or her dog’s name. The kids weren’t so sure of the president, but they knew Socks the cat and Buddy the dog. They asked her if the animals were real, and she answered, “Yes, they’re real, and they live with us in the White House.” 

As she talked with the children, Hillary loosened up and seemed to lose herself in their innocent humor. As she sat on a tiny chair in the middle of the 4-year-olds, they handed her bunches of flowers. 

“Did you pick these for me?” she wanted to know. 

“No, I got them in the flower store,” one boy piped up. “Some of them smell.”

Hillary later burst out laughing when she read a story to the kids about a caterpillar that couldn’t stop eating everything in sight. She told them how caterpillars turn into butterflies, asking if they’d ever seen a butterfly.

A couple of years ago, as secretary of state, Clinton was again sitting with a book before a crowd in East Hampton, but this time it was her own book, “Hard Choices,” which she launched with a signing at BookHampton. I couldn’t believe the line waiting for hours to meet her and have her sign copies — it went from one end of Main Street to the other, and included people protesting problems in the Middle East. 

No matter who wins this Election Day, it has been exciting to see these two candidates in the Hamptons. It seems as though, sooner or later, everyone comes here. We may not be in the pulse of Washington, D.C., but living in a popular summer resort we’ve had the privilege of seeing the rise of these two candidates in a more relaxed, casual, and fun environment — right in our own backyard.

Debbie Tuma is a freelance writer and a host at WLNG Radio. She lives in Riverhead and can be reached at [email protected].

It was spring along the East End beaches of Long Island. The striped bass moved along the rolling surf, driven to follow all the baitfish before them as they had when no humans were around to remember. They were followed by the gannets and the ospreys diving from above, feasting on the baitfish pushed to the roiling surface by the bass and bluefish.

The humans joined in to play their part in this epic opera at the shore whose score is the constant thrumping, hissing, and roaring of the waves. The libretto being the briny palaver supplied by the human fishing crew vying to make a meal out of the monumental scenery of the sea. That talk is often nod and grunt, as one’s focus is on naught but the loop of line, the pop of lure, and smooth retrieving by the reel — and breathe and point and once again repeat, the loop of line . . .

This particular day a few of my fishy friends and I were kept at the suds until late morning by the frequency of the fish we were relentlessly hooking. “One more cast, one more cast” was repeated down the beach until the last of the hard-core fishers stood in a pleasant trance, popping the lure out into the deep and back again.

(The popping plug is a tubular lure with a concave nose that makes a little splash in the surf with every pulse of the rod, attracting bigger fish, hopefully fooling them into biting what looks like a smaller fish.)

Out of the cloudless sky an osprey appeared, hovering 50 feet above my lure, flapping his six-foot wingspan. He then broke into a high-speed dive, wings folded back, gaining on my splashing popping plug, fooled into thinking it was one of those smaller fish. Just before the osprey hit the water, and my lure, I yanked it forward out of his grasping talons as he swooped away only to position himself once more, soaring, then hovering in the constant offshore breeze over my pulsing lure below.

“Alex,” I yelled. “Check out this osprey!” One of my fellow fishers was 40 feet east of me. “He’s diving on my lure!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex replied, focused on nothing but his line and his lure. 

The second dive came quicker as I was distracted trying to distract Alex, and the osprey was within feet as I yanked the popper from its open talons still dripping from skimming the surface. His third attempt was so halfhearted even Alex yelled out, “What the . . .!” as the osprey flew over my lure yanked from him once again.

Minutes more of “one more cast” passed, and the osprey took up gliding over Alex’s lure — he was not distracted by all the fellow fishers calling out to warn him. Once again the determined osprey went for the lure, and as his talons closed around it Alex yanked the line too late and set the hook in the big bird’s foot.

The panicked osprey flew ashore and over Alex as he tried to bring it back to the beach. It reached the other end of the Scott Cameron Beach parking lot and started back. Not stopping for Alex below, it headed out to sea, where it dropped in the drink exhausted from the fight. Alex quickly pulled him through the breakers and dragged him up to the wrack and tide line.

A large towel was draped over the whole bird as we tried to stabilize it and free it from the lure. I had my left hand firmly but gently on the back of his neck and my right hand flat on his back while the other two fishers had his wings. The “V” of the fishing pliers that every fisherman carries snipped off the hook’s barbed end and the hook slid easily off, freeing our determined bird from the metal talons of the lure.

We were about to free the bird when a rogue wave lifted him and the towel and shifted our grip on him. Seeing that the razor-sharp beak had now moved to within a quarter of an inch of my thumb, I quickly readjusted my grip to the nape of his neck and the square of his back, gently holding him to the sand once again. We all looked at each other and counted, “Okay, on 1,2,3, lift!” 

The towel off, the osprey turned slowly and stood up in one careful motion, eyeing all of us, shaking off the sand and water and at least part of the humiliation. He shook once more, getting enough flutter in his wings to feel the air going through them. Then giving us all his best predator “hairy eyeball” glare, he seemed to say, “What the heck was that about?” 

He took two steps back and flapped those muscular wings in a quick liftoff, banking up and away seaward, leaving us astounded on the strand.

Excerpted from Terry Sullivan’s “My Sag Harbor Bird Notebook,” published by Empire Science Resources.

When writing on spec, all you have is your idea and a blank screen. You stare at a blank computer page with its steady blinking cursor like an artist staring at a blank canvas. If you are writing a book that you plan to self-publish, no matter how much research you have done or what an authority you are on a subject, at some point in the writing of it doubts of whether you are in the final throes of delusional dementia will surely creep in. (No one will read it. Who will want to? This sucks.) 

If you are a self-published writer, if you don’t once think you’re turning into Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind” or Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” as he hammers away at his typewriter knowing that no one will read his words, then you’re doing something wrong. Let the hopeless thoughts visit; they may linger a bit but will pass. 

I am nauseatingly self-deprecating by nature. It is a crutch if not a character flaw, but let me take a moment to be serious and brag a little: Despite big setbacks, all three of my self-published books have made money (and continue to), and all three have gotten press and attracted big publishers and Hollywood producers. One book, “Caught,” landed me a contract with an established TV production company. Sections of my books have been excerpted in major magazines. 

Don’t get me wrong, this is all B-level stuff, but really, on paper, I am a self-publishing success story. Like my writing or not, if you are a writer, by definition, you want what I have. No, I did not win the brass ring like E.L. James (“Fifty Shades of Grey”) or Andy Weir (“The Martian”) or make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and develop a loyal following like a handful of other self-published authors (albeit no more than 20, mostly sci-fi writers, 15 of whom have either a vampire or a werewolf as their central character). Nevertheless, on paper, it would appear I won the lottery.

Let’s consider the facts: Back in 2001, I self-published a typo-ridden, incoherent memoir. By a bizarre stroke of luck, it was optioned by a major production company. Six million dollars was raised to make the film. Big Hollywood actors were attached. The film was made. It got a glowing review in Variety. I got an agent. My book got sold at auction to Simon & Schuster. The movie got released by Lionsgate Films, and later (drumroll, please) “Trainwreck” — a.k.a. “American Loser,” the name changed to stir association with the “American Pie” trilogy — was an HBO feature presentation in 2015. “American Loser” was trending in February 2016 as a popular movie on Hulu.com, a top streaming site. 

Isn’t this what all authors want? Self-published or traditional? I also eventually received just shy of $160,000. Plus speaking gigs (25 grand). So who am I to complain? Why am I calling it a horror story? 

In 1998 a literary agent passed on my manuscript “The Little Yellow Bus: A Special Education Memoir” (later to be called “Trainwreck: My Life as an Idiot”), citing, among other things, the memoir’s lack of a strong narrative. Driven by vanity and all of its byproducts, I did not take the agent’s advice or advice from anyone else in the publishing establishment. All passed. All cited the same flaws. This is where my horror story begins.

The film had no obstacles for the central character to overcome, hence no arc, and, worse for me, no humor. I say this without the slightest trace of sarcasm: The agent was right. A weak memoir was turned into a weak movie.

You might say I have become a connoisseur of self-publishing disaster stories. I simply can’t get enough. Misery loves company — the worse the story, the better. But some of these book launchings are such trainwrecks that they are indeed funny. Even hilarious. 

Looking back, many self-published authors like me are able to laugh at their own expense. One friend admits that even though he got a couple of good reviews he sold zero copies of his children’s book on Amazon. As in not one copy! I saw the book. It was good. 

Others cannot see the humor in it. Another friend spent $20,000 on Facebook ads and got 275,000 likes for a cover with a cute cat on it, yet when he checked Amazon sales at the end of the month he was horrified to find that he’d sold only 23 books.

A host of problems brought my “would’ve been successful” story to its current horror story status — in short, the memoir was written as a comedy. The movie was not a comedy. In fact, it can be interpreted in no other way but as a bleak, sad drama. Make no mistake: It was a stink bomb. So what? I got paid, you say. Yes, and I am happy for that. And for a while I did brag that my book got turned into an HBO film. Wouldn’t you? But most of the time I am reminded that there is a very bad, unfunny movie, not about my book, but about my life. (Second in importance only to one’s own life must be how it is portrayed. The words “American Loser” will certainly creep their way into my eulogy at some point.)

To add insult to injury, the movie about my life, “American Loser,” seems to have a life of its own. Unlike my “Trainwreck” life, it may even be a very lucrative “American Loser” life — for somebody, somewhere out there. After a robust DVD push, the movie has been on cable constantly for the last five years (Cinemax, Showtime, Time Warner On Demand, and now HBO). 

Perhaps worst of all, the movie just misses the “it’s so bad it’s good” genre. (Mind you, it came very close.) Developing a cult following like “The Room” would have been good enough for me.

Jeff Nichols lives in Springs. This is excerpted from “My Life (Direct to DVD): How to Sell Your Self-Published Book to Hollywood, and Other Disaster Stories.”

For nearly two years, starting with the breakup of my marriage, I regularly ventured during the fishing season to a secluded beach along an eastern Long Island bay known for holding good-size striped bass in its shallows. There I would walk, spinning rod in hand, casting and casting, often piercing with my lure the ripples and swells made by rolling stripers. 

Sometimes the fish would show themselves, or parts of themselves, revealing a flash of a fin, the curve of their backs, their bucket-shaped mouths as they rose to the surface and sucked in sand eels, peanut bunker, or whatever bait they were chasing. But my offerings stayed untouched, and during that time my rod never once bent in defiance, nor did my line tighten against a formidable foe. 

Fishing was something I learned how to do and did do with my father, starting at an early age, when we would target fluke and flounder, porgies and blues during summers spent vacationing on Long Island. After college, as often is the case, time spent with my parents, my father, was less frequent, and so my time fishing decreased as well. There were several years, in fact, when I fished only once or twice, and even then the experience lacked meaning. Somewhere along the line, I had lost interest. 

Getting divorced changed that. I needed time to lick my wounds and to figure things out, to be alone but not to feel lonely. Fishing filled the bill. I found solace and solitude in the sport, gratefully distracted as I tried to decipher meaning from the elements, from tidal currents, wind directions, and moon phases. Fishing served as a guided mediation, helping me navigate through the pain, allowing my subconscious to work on deeper problems while my conscious self was concerned with the mechanisms of angling. 

Perhaps because I was so grateful to feel better while I was fishing, I didn’t feel bad about not catching fish. But as I began to heal emotionally, when my head finally held more answers than questions, it began to bother me. No longer was I satisfied to return home empty, to not even entice a strike from a striper. Yet I did not change my approach, my tackle, or my mind-set: I fished the way I was taught, and the way I knew. 

But then I met and fell in love with the woman who would later become my wife. Her beauty matched a pristine pragmatism I admired and needed. Early into our relationship, when she joined me on a walk one morning on the beach and watched my futile casts amid water-breaking bass, she asked me what I was doing wrong. I told her I didn’t know. 

She responded without pause: “Maybe you don’t want to catch one.” She was right, of course, but it took me some time to accept the idea as true, and longer to figure out why. 

Basically, I was conflicted. Ever since I was young, I often felt a sense of guilt when catching a fish, for wounding it during the fight or for taking its life if I didn’t release it. This feeling had gradually intensified as I got older, contributing to my staying more or less away from a hook and line for several years. Yet as my first marriage imploded, I was drawn back to the water, to the sport, and so I fished with a psyche divided: one half desiring the thrill of landing a striper, the other dreading the emotional consequence that might come after. 

I believe this is why I never mimicked the methods of other fishermen who were catching bass, or never once asked a tackle shop owner for advice on a lure or type of bait that would bring me luck. Finally, I realized I needed to make a decision, that I could no longer sit on the fence — either I was going to fish to the best of my ability or I was not going to fish at all. I chose the former. 

And with that decision I began to study other fishermen, I spoke with the owners of tackle shops, I purchased new equipment, I restocked my tackle box. And, not long after, I began to catch bass.

Several years later, I was faced with a similar choice, but this time it involved my writing career. I had worked hard to get an M.A. in creative writing, and after that had worked just as hard to write and publish many short stories. When I figured I had pushed the limit of that genre, I set out to write a novel. It took time and effort, and several rewrites, but I finished a book I thought good and immediately set out to sell it. 

But just as I hadn’t educated myself on how to catch bass, I did not take time to learn about the publishing industry. Basically, I sent my novel out without much thought, using a scattergun approach to get it into the hands of as many decision makers as possible. The result, not surprisingly, was uniform rejection. 

As with my wife’s remark on the beach, it was the words of a mentor that finally woke me up. It was after yet another round of rejections, and I was considering rewriting the novel yet again, when he suggested, gently, that maybe it was time to let go and move on. It was sound advice, but devastating for me to consider. Faced with the realities of my situation, however, the drag on my emotions caused by the constant turn-downs, and the holding pattern it put me in regarding working on new writing projects, I realized I needed to make a decision: move on, or continue to try to market the book. 

I chose the latter, but instead of sending out more queries, I took time to better understand the field, to determine the publishers most receptive to my book’s genre (dystopia), to improve my website and presence on social media, to hone my synopsis, and make my cover letter pop. I did everything I could possibly do to encourage a publisher to accept my novel. And, not long after, one did. 

It is easy to say that the connective tissue between my not catching bass and my not selling my novel was ignorance. I didn’t know (well enough) how to fish for bass or how to pitch my book, so I failed in both attempts. But in each case there was a deeper issue fueling my reluctance to seek out the knowledge I needed. For fishing, it was guilt. But for writing, it was fear. 

Because I feared my novel might be rejected, I did not do all I could to sell it, thus, when it did get rejected, I tempered my disappointment by telling myself it was not the quality of the book that was lacking but the quality of the approach. In this regard I kept up the illusion that my novel was perfect. And with each rejection I retreated deeper into this fallacy, lured, in a way, to the safe and sheltered haven of failure. 

I would like to say that I now fish free of guilt, and submit manuscripts without fear of rejection. Neither is true, but recognizing I have these feelings, and accepting them as part of who I am, has helped me to not be limited by them, to not be held back in being the best I can be, whether it is on the water or on the page.

John McCaffrey lives part time in Wainscott. He is the author of “Two Syllable Men,” from Vine Leaves Press, and “The Book of Ash,” a science fiction novel. 

Having my four kids home for the summer was special. Having them join me for dinner, together, was very special, but trying to fit four big kids as if they were toddlers into a booth at Pizza Village in Montauk wouldn’t work, so it came with great joy when my daughter, Elizabeth, made a startling suggestion after she caught Jeff Foxworthy of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” scream, “The best buffet in the U.S.A.!” in a Golden Corral commercial.

“Let’s go to Golden Corral!” she shouted.

“Yay!” they all screamed.

Quickly their “yays” turned to “nays” when I discovered the closest Golden Corral was in Middletown, N.Y., 175 miles away from our home in Springs.

Huh?

Without missing a beat, my determined son Paul grabbed the remote, said, “I’ll take it from here,” and surfed until another appetizing dining commercial appeared.

“Look!” he proclaimed, pointing at the 42-inch flat screen in our living room. “Let’s go to Cici’s Pizza instead!”

“Yay!” they shouted.

Again, their “yays” were muffled when I learned the nearest Cici’s was in North Brunswick, N.J., 148 miles to the west.

What the —

My son Anthony then hijacked the clicker and locked in when he saw two familiar Lenny and Squiggy look-alikes sitting side by side in a car enjoying the best day of their lives relishing tiny hot dogs. It was the Sonic commercial.

“I love hot dogs with all the fixin’s,” he said, fist-bumping his siblings.

“Yay!” they screamed.

Sadly, the only Sonic on Long Island is in Deer Park, 70 miles to the west.

Bummer.

While pondering the dread of driving to Deer Park in the height of summer traffic to eat tiny hot dogs, my wife flung at me a piece of paper and then thrust her index finger in my face.

“You can’t go anywhere!” she yelled. “Allstate cancels at midnight! Pay the &%$@# bill!”

As if on cue, the computer-generated General character for the General Insurance TV spot came on, so, faster than a New York minute, I called the number on the screen hoping they would write a policy so I could avoid being without auto insurance, happily postponing for another month a premium payment.

“Are you in Louisiana?” the agent asked.

“I’m on Long Island,” I answered.

“Our locations are in Louisiana, we don’t write insurance on Long Island,” the customer service agent said.

“But you advertise on a Long Island TV channel?” I asked.

“Sorry, call Progressive,” and she hung up.

Frustrated, I hopped out of my recliner to pop an aspirin to relieve my throbbing migraine, but in doing so I aggravated my already herniated sciatica, dropping me to the floor in damning pain.

“That’s divine intervention,” Elizabeth gasp­ed. “The Spine Institute is on TV right now. Maybe we should take you there?”

Barely able to move from my fetal position, I searched on my Galaxy 5S “Spine Institute” to schedule an appointment.

“We’re in Philadelphia,” the service agent said.

“But I’m in great pain,” I pleaded. “You advertise here on Long Island, so you must have a Long Island location, right?”

“Sorry, our only location is in Philadelphia,” and he hung up.

That sucks.

I sat confused, distraught, and angry, staring at TV channels that rarely advertise a restaurant, hotel, nightclub, store, or activity east of Riverhead. If not for the News 12 anchor Doug Geed having a summer home in Southold or Mattituck, the East End and its hundreds of businesses would be invisible on Cablevision. At least when the plagued and bankrupt Plum TV existed, Channel 18 in East Hampton, many East End businesses, notably high-end businesses but East End businesses nevertheless, were seen. 

For some peculiar reason, seldom have advertisers and their polished commercials from this part of the world bombarded our cable channels as have similar businesses miles and miles to the west. Perhaps Cablevision believes East End businesses do not need to advertise, or recognizes the three-hour drive each way from Bethpage for their account executives isn’t worth the trip.

Too bad.

An hour passed, the pain from my sciatica subsided, and so my four kids, my famished wife, and I squeezed into my five-seat Honda CRV and headed east, back to our ol’ friend Pizza Village in Montauk for two large pies and a salad dripping with their secret, mind-blowing dressing, the recipe for which our waitress, Carmen, for years has refused to sneak to me.

This time, we took up two booths.

Frank Vespe is a regular “Guestwords” contributor.

We returned to the tangle of place called home in 1994 — me, my husband, and our young daughters. I was afraid of it, terrified of myself in it, loved it the way you love food you think you’re not supposed to eat and fear will make you sick. 

This is where when I was a child Claribel the angry Angus cow taught me caution. 

This is where Trill, the Welsh pony, reared up each time I attempted to slip my leg over her back, my stepfather, the farmer, and his brother trying to hold her down.

This is where my mother and her friends showed me how to start something (a school) in your community, at the kitchen table.

This is where the vast salt ocean and rough wind soothed my agitated mind; I learned that in the physical world one could locate a sense of belonging and mystery.

This is where I got the train from the spit of a stop in Bridgehampton back to my father’s life — the city and its grit, activism, my Jewishness, art.

This is where I was the only Jewish kid in John Marshall Elementary School.

This is where I learned to hide my fear.

This is where I couldn’t/can’t hide. Because it’s where I live. The fields, sea, the spectacular beauty, the farmers and what they grow, my family, and the bald glare of contradiction and old plantation segregation. 

This is where the landscape of race rode up on me, closed like a barn door locking in the rat of injustice.

This is where I saw how people live in daily acceptance of inequity and don’t name it.

This is where I sometimes joined on the harvester after school. 

This is where I sometimes rode in the pickup truck with my stepfather to take Geraldine, who was black and from the South and up here to pick potatoes, back to her shack a few miles from our so comfortable barn-turned-home near the beach.

This is where Geraldine and the others working the harvester welcomed me, showed me how to pick out the bad ones, toss them off to the side — dirt on my hands, brush of wind, red crank of the tractor, the stories, her pipe and deep voice. 

And this is where something felt so wrong when I saw where she lived — the tattoo of two worlds divided by train tracks. This is where those who lived on the Turnpike didn’t make that decision, didn’t say: We want to live here in shacks while you have your bigger homes across the tracks and we take care of your kids, clean your messes, and pick your potatoes. 

This is where in fourth grade I witnessed a young black female slammed against a cement wall by a white gym teacher, couldn’t shake my inability to intervene, a rock of guilty silence lodged in my abdomen, prodding me like a splinter.

This is where as a young woman I returned after travel to war zones. This is where the summer of ’82 I was called an ignorant self-hating commie in the letters section of this newspaper after writing that American Jews (me) should protest Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. 

This is where when we decided to come home, a number of progressive white friends said: You’re moving there? Why? And most of my friends of color said: That’s wonderful. Can’t wait to visit. And did.

This is where whenever someone visited for the first time I was afraid she or he would judge me, find out my secret. 

This is where I returned. To live inside contradiction. 

This is where once a week as I write my poems or take a run, a woman from Central America cleans my house. 

This is where more than one black woman friend traveling on the bus from the city to visit us was asked by a white woman sitting next to her: Oh, are you going to work? This is where, in our backyard, under the mimosa tree, we laugh in that uneasy way when the friends report the story over pasta and poems, as I step back from the squirm of my whiteness.

This is where when our younger daughter was in high school some of her white classmates threatened her Latino and African-American classmates, made swastikas and emblems of white supremacy, so a group of us, parents and teachers, formed a committee. This is where the black former teachers and administrators told about their daily pain working at the school. We didn’t use the phrase white supremacy. This is where the committee soon stopped talking about race and focused on drugs and alcohol. This is where I learned that drugs and alcohol don’t discriminate, even though law enforcement does. This is where I knew that project was urgent, tapping into my own scab and flood of denial. At the same time this is where discussion of race was once again erased. 

This is where our older daughter and her friends were told to return after volunteering in New Orleans post-Katrina. The leaders of the unlearning racism workshop led by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond instructed the group to go home and find the Katrina in their own communities.

Here the hurricane lives underneath the belly of the good life and enlightened conversation.

This is where the storm lives, where I live, in my body and the body of the split. In the ZIP code 11962. Under our floorboards. On Shinnecock land. Where many who speak the language of Lorca and Neruda are called alien while digging up weeds in other people’s gardens and mopping other people’s floors, often living crammed in motel rooms and also running businesses or making art. 

Here not all residents go to Pilates classes and the ocean on weekends. 

This is where it’s hard to find a hair salon that does black hair. Unless you know who’s opened up shop in her living room.

This is where my paragraphs break down because I’m afraid of what I’m writing. It will never be right. I will never be right in it.

This is where I returned after standing on the bridge in Selma last year marking the 50th anniversary of the bloody march. And couldn’t move for a moment. And couldn’t write about it. Couldn’t find an adequacy of language in my throat.

This is where as in so many wheres I often hear white people asking the one or two persons of color in the room to be the expert, the wizard of addressing race, the flag carrier, burdened by teaching. 

Where the mirror is confused.

This is where I get calls and emails from people who identify as white asking if I could recommend a person of color for their activity. I believe they are driven toward inclusivity and change. At the same time I want to suggest they ask themselves what prevents them from knowing black or brown people where they live. Will white people fight white supremacy living in isolation, when the reality can be turned on and off like a TV show? 

This is where I fear alienating friends and neighbors.

This is where this summer, 2016, I march with my daughters, mother, and husband in support of Black Lives Matter in our villages, following new local leadership. Where in our home we make signs as we’ve always done. This time: Black Lives Matter/White Silence Kills/Cultural Equity/Don’t Shoot. And our older daughter’s boyfriend, who is white, joins, for whom this is a first, and that is powerful. This is where I know again that the young leaders of Black Lives Matter are doing my job for me.

This is where I sit with my coffee after a dunk in the magnificent Atlantic, watching the strolling turkey family, small chicks, and a lone big-antlered buck on our nearly two acres. I hear my best friend’s voice. A brilliant and acclaimed writer, a black woman, and our daughters’ godmother, she recently said to me: “I want to wake up one day and hear that people who identify as white are calling the demonstrations so we who are being killed can stay home for a change.” Her voice vibrates in my chest. 

This is where one of the people who have bravely stepped up where we live was a friend of our older daughter from high school days. A young black man, it turns out he is the son of a man who worked for and alongside my white stepfather, the farmer. 

This is where I live. I am steeped in the story. I seek an ethical, lyrical language and the courage to do the next right thing. To end the systemic, structural denial and brutality that is white supremacy and is killing us, and my participation in it. So we can all live well where we live.

This is where I live, in this gift of a place, in this particular America, where in mid-August on a Monday evening I go to enjoy Escola de Samba BOOM, the band my husband and a number of friends play with, on the beach, under a nearly full moon, kids of all sizes and colors dancing in the ocean and on the sand, the sound of multiple languages infusing the air, piping plovers still alive. A truly community formation, when I look around, inhale, it smells like hope, it tastes like joy, the sweat and beam emanating from a group of people who resemble the world. For an hour. Making music, in music. By the sea. 

Kathy Engel is chair and associate arts professor in the department of art and public policy at N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts. 

The two-week period ending with Labor Day was one that my family and I usually spent at our place on North Haven, enjoying what was left of our summer vacation before a return to work and school. On the Tuesday after Labor Day, I was back at court, immersed in the mix of cases awaiting all of us. On that day in 2001, Sept. 11 was a week away. Now, it is the ordinariness of that week that was so striking.

My memory of Sept. 11 is not of the horrendous pictures of planes flying into the Twin Towers or of the fog of smoke that quickly engulfed Lower Manhattan. Our court, the Appellate Division, First Department, at 25th Street and Madison Avenue, was not in the immediate area of the attack, as was the Supreme Court at 60 Centre Street and the other courts downtown, but I — and, I am sure, many of my colleagues — have deeply etched recollections of that day.

What first comes to mind about that absolutely gorgeous late-summer day is the disconcerting quiet inside and even outside the courthouse after the attack was known.

Some of us sought solace in the chambers of colleagues; the conversation, if there was any, was short, and whatever words were exchanged were spoken quietly. Perhaps the enormity of what we had seen on the one television at the court foreclosed the ability to speak in detail.

Toward the later part of the morning, I left the courthouse and walked aimlessly around the neighborhood. There was virtually no automobile traffic, and hoards of pedestrians were beginning to trek northward on Park Avenue South, apparently a favored route. There was a stunned silence to these throngs as they maneuvered northward, maybe with thoughts of making it home or of removing themselves from further danger. The sky was quiet, air traffic having come to an enforced halt, except for the occasional supersonic fighter jet that crisscrossed the sky, ready to intercept some later terrorist attack.

When I returned to the courthouse, I received a call from a young lawyer I knew who had arrived at his firm’s office at the top of the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan, not far from the World Trade Center, early that day to prepare some exhibits for trial. From his office window, he had seen the horror of people jumping from the buildings in an attempt to escape. He was very agitated and asked me if he could stop off at the courthouse to chat on his route north toward Grand Central. Of course I agreed, and we talked for almost an hour. I hope I helped him cope.

I was surprised that no one in authority called off the scheduled arguments at the court that afternoon, or for that matter the rest of the week. I know we often make determined efforts to enforce normalcy — the show must go on, and that sort of thing — but this day was so extraordinary that I could not understand acting as if it were not.

Most of all, I remember that for days and weeks afterward, hundreds of photographs of missing workers and first responders were plastered on the outer walls of the large armory on Park Avenue South between 25th and 26th Streets, a block or so from the court. For me, more than anything else, the printed-out photos of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and other loved ones that gently weathered on the armory wall told the story of that day. On my way to and from court every day, I made it my business to walk past their faces. I wondered then if we realized that we were officially ensnared in a conflict unlike any previous one.

Fifteen years is almost a lifetime for a court. Only five of us from that era (Justices Peter Tom, Angela Mazzarelli, Richard Andrias, David Friedman, and me) still preside on the Appellate Division, First Department. On that Tuesday afternoon, Justices Milton Williams, Richard Andrias, Richard Wallach, Alfred Lerner, and George Marlowe sat on the bench in order of seniority. 

For me, the gathering of our judges in our communal lunchroom that day served as a source of sustaining comfort.

David B. Saxe is an associate justice of the Appellate Division, Supreme Court, First Department. He divides his time between New York City and North Haven.

As another social season in the Hamptons comes to an end, one is reminded of the importance of friends. If you don’t have ’em you’re dead in the waters of Shinnecock Bay. You can’t get arrested socially in a place like East Hampton unless you have friends. Isn’t this what “The Great Gatsby” is ultimately about? A larger-than-life personality like a Gatsby is a way of attracting bigger fish, say, like flies to excrement. 

Neither Franz Kafka nor any of his retiring characters, from Gregor Samsa to Joseph K., would be likely to thrive in a competitive social situation in the Hamptons. Could you imagine Kafka making a cameo appearance in one of those photo spreads that follow the Hampton Classic or the Artists and Writers Softball Game? Could you imagine Kafka with his arm around some local luminary like Jerry Della Femina or Mort Zuckerman? Could you imagine Kafka autographing copies of “The Trial” after reading at the Hampton Library’s Fridays at Five? Would Kafka fight for his bike at Flywheel? Would you see his pallid countenance reading under an umbrella on Main Beach or trying to get a reservation at Nick and Toni’s?

But you don’t have to be Kafka to get shipwrecked on the shoals of the Hamptons social scene. Some people seem to have been given the handbook that enables them to walk on water or part the seas, as it were. But Jesus himself is another one who might have a tough time figuring out his place in the Great Food Chain of Hamptons Being — for which even bottom feeders play a significant part in the local ethology. 

Here are some helpful tips for those who might feel a bit befuddled and dejected in their attempts to become social in the Hamptons:

First, pretend that social life is like an episode of “Wild Kingdom” or some other nature documentary in which a hyena chases down a giraffe and finally ends up dining on its entrails. Imagine yourself as the fallen creature, its legs still thrashing helplessly as its stalker, mouth covered in blood, dines on living flesh. That’s going to be your experience of going to your first Hamptons party, and you’ve got to get used to it if you’re going to survive. No pain no gain. 

You don’t have anything to sell. You don’t have a reason for being, beyond providing another car that lines the road by the house where the party is being held. You’re only another car that may need to be valet-parked, but you exist in a state of pre-snubual bliss. If you accept your condition, you’re going to do a lot better than if you try to resist and take on airs. You can’t fight back against hyenas or piranhas, for that matter. So if you want to be invited back, be prepared to give in and have your insides devoured.

Second, acquire books like Dale Carnegie’s “How to Make Friends and Influence People.” This kind of how-to guide will not solve the major existential problem you face when you rent or buy a house in the Hamptons and realize you are a fish out of water. For that, you need to read philosophical tomes like Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” and “The Sickness Unto Death.” Still, it’s important to read the literature.

Third, acquire a trophy dog or pet. This is little talked about by chroniclers of Hamptons life, but dogs can help a person rise socially. At the very least an unusual breed of dog is a subject of discussion. A car full of arguing family members is neither going to register socially nor make the Social Register, but an oversized Saint Bernard occupying the passenger seat of your car will make a huge difference.

Which brings us to the discussion of cars. If you have to be told, then you probably should not be coming to the Hamptons in the first place. But okay, if you’re going to appear in a modestly priced car, let it be a Deux Chevaux. If not, a Range Rover, or preferably a gas-guzzling Hummer, is de rigueur. A Prius, or other practical and uninspired model, is social suicide and tantamount to not possessing the two primary ingredients for social success in the Hamptons, or anywhere else, for that matter — money and looks. Freud talked about “love and work” being the two most important elements of adult life. But he was wrong — at least as far as a hot spot like East Hampton is concerned.

Last but not least, do not be true to thy self. The ability to spew forth with Polonius’s advice to Laertes may have helped you pass Shakespeare, but when it comes to the Hamptons social scene it’s roughly equivalent to standing at the event horizon of a black hole and not wanting to have your being sucked out of you.

Now that the season has passed, you will have time to prepare for the forthcoming year in which hopefully you’ll fare a little better than you did this past summer. Take it one friend at a time. It doesn’t even matter who it is, as long as he has a decent car. There’s strength in numbers. Think of yourself as a hive. If you have the honey, then the other bees will swarm around you.

Francis Levy, a Wainscott native, is the author of the comic novels “Erotomania: A Romance” and “Seven Days in Rio.” He blogs at TheScreamingPope.com and for The Huffington Post.