NY Mirror

Anyone who thinks the Hamptons are over is also full of shit; if those snooty resort towns are over anything, they're overcrowded, everyplace crawling with orangutans—I mean people—who are clearly looking for their own noisy culture clash in hopes of a lucrative lawsuit. The other week, I pushed past the East Hampton throng to go to a Cynthia Rowleybathing suit show at NV Tsunami—no food—where the highlights included Alan Cummingin a "boy-kini" and the PR director of Saks Fifth Avenue in a sarong. "It's so wrong it's right," said MC Robert Verdi.

And so wrong she's wrong, Tonya Hardingturned up at the gay hangout Barracuda, only to have me—her onstage interviewer—break the be-nice rule by cracking, "Don't hit me!" "Don't you have anything better to say?" Harding snarled, dropping her girlish demeanor for a chilling second. Yeah—pleasedon't hit me.

And don't slap me for revealing who'll be on the cover of the Vanity Fair "Rock and Roll" issue: Jewel, Beck, Beyoncé, Maxwell, Bowie, and even some people with two names—like Stevie Wonderand Joni Mitchell, who I hear joined for some impromptu scatting after the photo session.

Good news for aficionados of music in the flesh: In the fall, the Mother folks are coming back with an East Village club called Daddy, so make room for it, please. But bad news for Ellen DeGenereslovers: I hate that she's already being lauded for soft-pedaling her lesbianism in her upcoming sitcom, and that even she seems repentant about having been too "issue oriented" last time around. May I remind everyone that a great deal of the public wasready for Ellen's aggressive frankness—it was the network that couldn't deal with it. But as long as hosannas are being sung, why not praise the casts of all the other prime-time sitcoms for playing down their heterosexuality? Oh, they don't? In that case, I'm sticking with HBO and that Madonna lady.

musto@villagevoice.com. Musto can be heard weekdays at 3 and 7 p.m. on Voice Radio.