The Last Thing You'll Ever Need to Read About 'Brat Summer'

also: The Most Important Restaurant (Story) of the Summer (That Nobody's Read Yet), how to not choose a therapist, how to choose a therapist, who's getting the Hamptons Boozebag Vote, and more!

Aug 03, 2024

Yesterday was Friday, August 2nd, 2024.

It was the 11th Summer Friday of the year, four to go until Labor Day.
Chris Rea’s “On the Beach” is on the radio.
New in theaters this weekend is M. Night Shyamalan’s latest, Trap (featuring Josh Hartnett playing a serial killer lured into a sting); Kneecap, an Irish indie Sundance darling about Gaelic rappers starring Michael Fassbender; and The Instigators, a Matt Damon/Casey Affleck crime caper.
At the 2024 Olympics, the mens singles tennis finals will be fought between Alcaraz and Djokovic, and Sha'Carri Richardson will run in the womens 100m.
Finally, around the world today, the weather: New York City: 89/74, scattered thunderstorms • Los Angeles: 90/65, sunny • East Hampton: 83/74, cloudy • Paris: 77/58, cloudy • Ibiza: 85/72, sun—

—hey, sorry, shit, hi, I know: It’s Saturday! How can I sit here and publish a newsletter concerning Summer Fridays on (two!) Summer Saturdays? Well: How could I not? It’s summer, and the first rule of summer is that there are no rules because you’re actually living in The Purge no ha ha just kidding that’s only how waking up in an American Summer in the second decade of the 21st Century feels. There are sometimes rules! But we’re not here to stand on ceremony, unless we’re standing on a podium for gold, and goddamn are we ever: This weekend, restaurant/media gossip, the last thing you’ll ever need to read involving the words “brat summer,” some adventures in psychotherapy, even some politics regarding the Hamptons vote. Tally-ho, let’s go:

A Context-Free Review of Some Very Recent ‘Brat Summer’ Headlines Upon Which You May Project Some Broader Conclusions

How to Have a Brat Summer [Kelly Oxford, July 22nd]

Is Brat a Good Album? [One Thing, July 25th]

Brat Summer Is Dead, Long Live Brat Summer [Pitchfork, July 25th]

Well, it’s over: How the lamest people on earth ruined our Brat summer [The Tab, July 31st]

KC Pet Project pushes $3.65 animal adoptions for ‘brat summer’ [The Pitch, August 1st]

Steven Guilbeault jumps on the 'brat' trend on social media [National Post, August 1st]

Donald Trump is Brat [The New Statesmen, August 1st]

Has brat summer already become mainstream? [NSS Magazine, August 1st]

How ‘Brat’ Green Killed ‘Barbie’ Pink [NYT, August 1st]

Brat Summer’s sun might be setting, have marketers noticed? [Digiday, August 2nd]

I Tried This Viral Brat Summer Lip Stain x Chipotle Collab – and It’s Truly Burrito-Proof [E! News, August 2nd]

Oh, you thought Brat Girl Summer was 'over'? These women are proof it's not [Metro UK, August 2nd]

Here’s how you can have a ‘Brat Summer' in winter [Sunday Times, August 2nd]

Commentary: The Bible’s Eve is the original ‘brat’ [Salt Lake Tribune, August 3rd]

Most people don’t know what ‘Brat Summer’ is, YouGov poll reveals [PinkNews, July 30th]

That One Restaurant Story About to Drop

I’ve heard from a few friends in the service industry that a certain local periodical is teeing up a big story on one of New York’s most acclaimed chef-restauranteurs, and — let’s just say — not the fun kind. What I’ve heard so far isn’t as bad as the last time I heard something, or as a source put it…

…but it is still, decidedly, not great. Word on the piece is that it’s gonna be anything from “the usual bad toxic workplace toxic [person]” (and paying people to keep quiet about it) to things far, far more unsavory. Given that the most horrific rumors around the Horses thing didn’t (thankfully) turn out to be true, the more extreme bits around this one are (hopefully) worth hedging by a few degrees, which makes it all still pretty bad.

Nobody’s surprised, which: Never a great sign. Also, this person escaped unscathed from a previous scandal some people thought theoretically could’ve (and maybe should’ve) ensnared them. Other people love this person (though isn’t that always the case?). But this one-half of an NYC power service industry couple is likely about to face some very real heat. Whether or not their career or the restaurants will be able to withstand it: Depends on what’s alleged, but ‘wouldn’t be surprised either way. They’re phenomenal places, deservingly beloved — two of them are in the Times 100 Best — but don’t have quite the shine they used to. A two-top for Friday night at one could be booked for 7:15, the other only had a 6pm. On the other hand, consider all the restaurants that have survived stories like this, and continue to thrive. People have short memories.

A New Frontrunner for the Owning of Another Human of The Summer

“oh so you work for him too then!”

- Macy Gilliam, senior video producer at Morning Brew, choosing cheery violence against the founder of Friend, that new Her-like wearable AI absolutely nobody wants, mostly notable for how universally loathed it is against the fact that it’s being sold at the URL friend dot com. While I’m not much one for online contretemps lately — it is the summer, and we all have better things to do — please click through, it is exquisite.

Adventures in Therapy

HOW TO NOT CHOOSE A THERAPIST // Therapy is often like so many things in this life: You get out of it what you put into it. And so, what do you get when you pay $700 a session to Phil Stutz, Hollywood’s favorite therapist, who counts among his clients Joaquin Phoenix, John Stamos, John Cusack, Hank Azaria, and Jonah Hill (who made a documentary about this therapist, before being famously lambasted for his abuse of therapy speak)?

Well: Lila Shapiro over at Vulture dared to find out, and profiled Phil Stutz. The headline, “Therapy Daddy,” is somehow the least phenomenal thing about it. I don’t want to give too much away — you should read it — but the reaction to the Jonah Hill backlash from Jonah Hill’s therapist? Absolutely worth the price of admission:

Stutz was not particularly concerned by any of it. […] He said he didn’t pay attention to the press. “If he had shot somebody, I wouldn’t be too upset,” he said. In other words, even if the patient did something bad, he would try to be as supportive as possible; his concern was their well-being. “I don’t want to judge myself by these outer results,” he added.

Which, if you were dealing with any other therapist, sure, fine, whatever. But this is a therapist who does the one thing therapists should by and large not be doing: Giving their patients advice.

A patient given advice that goes wrong could hold their therapist to account for that advice’s poor results; a patient given advice that works out well, once, could put that therapist up on a pedestal (or put the therapist in an unfortunate position of power). Can you imagine your therapist talking to you like this and it ending well?

As he puts it in the film, he tells patients, “Do what the fuck I tell you. Do exactly what I tell you. I guarantee you’ll feel better.”

For $700 an hour, you’re probably gonna find a way to make those words work out well for you, or convince yourself that they did. Personally? I can count the number of people I’d feel theoretically comfortable paying to hear those words from on one hand, and at least two of them sell military-grade MDMA, and are holding it as they say that to me1. Oh, and also, in case you couldn’t already guess: There’s a bunch of quasi-spiritual noise up in this guy’s practice, and people go to him when they’re done with Landmark. Enjoy all that.

HOW TO ACTUALLY CHOOSE A THERAPIST // As taken from America’s Most Important Substack About Therapy, the newly-launched Reality Testing:

Here’s a tip taken from the toolbox of The Profession called reframing: Your therapist is a professional service provider. The relationship between client and therapist is both a real, human relationship and a transactional one, with terms to which both parties need to agree.
Here’s what this can look like. You are allowed – entitled, even – to ask for what you want from your therapist. If they have skill and ethical integrity, they will tell you honestly whether they can meet that need. If they cannot, they might discuss with you why not, or they might refer you to someone else.

…if they sound like that, they’re probably at least halfway decent!

PREVIOUSLY: The Wrong People Are Quitting Therapy.

The Hamptons!

FROM THE GREATEST POLICE BLOTTER IN AMERICA // Ah, yes, been a minute since we checked in with America’s greatest rap sheet, the East Hampton Star’s police blotter. It’s crime time, baby:

4.5: At the Surf Lodge early Saturday evening, a woman had a verbal confrontation with several bouncers. Police were called and she retreated; no further action was taken.

6.8: A harbormaster found a fisherman on Gerard Drive Sunday morning in possession of one porgy and two weakfish, both undersize. The porgy measured an inch too short, he reported, and both weakfish were five inches undersize. The fisherman was ticketed. That evening another fisherman, this time at Maidstone Park, was seen shoving his catches between some bulkhead rocks as a harbormaster approached. He too was cited, for three undersize porgies "dropped between the rocks."

7.6: For the second week in a row, village police were called out on July 24 to conduct a swan hunt, after a woman reported an aggressive swan, which she believed to be injured, on Long Island Avenue. Officers determined that the bird was fine, and was acting like a "normal swan."

9.3: A Beach Lane resident reported his Paris Bistro tables and chairs, together valued at $1,200, missing after he used them to set up a lemonade stand for his daughter on the morning of July 14.

Who uses a $1,200 Paris Bistro table and chairs set for a kid’s lemonade stand? It’s Hamptonstown, Jake.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION POLL OF THE SUMMER // You know what they say: As go the cups, so goes the nation. And you know what I say: Nate Silver is no Nate Freeman. Reporting for Vanity Fair, Freeman — America’s great chronicler of real-life-Christopher-Nolan-villains’ art collections2 — published a dispatch today from The Hamptons, better known around here as Far Long Island.

The Monogram Shop in East Hampton sells plastic cups with presidential candidates’ names on them, and the difference in sales of these cups has been a reliable predictor of presidential election winners since 2004 (outside of 2016, when the cups didn’t know about the electoral college). Like so:

And so, you want polling data? Nate has your polling data:

When Biden dropped out July 21 and the party coalesced around Harris, [the Monogram Shop’s owner] knew she needed to order some new merchandise. She thought 800 cups would be enough for a while. They arrived on Thursday, July 25, and when I arrived on Saturday, two days later, they had sold out. […] She said that, in the hours before the cups sold out, Harris had outsold Trump by 126 to two. On Friday, Harris took the lead again: 419-88.

There you have it: Harris is going to win the election, or at the very least, help facilitate the beached shitfacing by “Summer In A Bottle” more than the other guy. Politics! We report them.

Fine, One More Comment on the Whole ‘Brat Summer’ Phenomenon:

That’ll do it! What do you want? It’s the weekend, and we’ve only got a few more Summer Fridays to go. Get out there! See a movie, get a better therapist, go celebrate Evan Gershkovich’s freedom, go have a Brat Summer, get tossed on Wölffer in a Kamala cup, make some non-computer friends, tip well, keep it tucked in, and be kind. With all that: Good luck, babe. We’ll be here next week with some new surprises.

As ever,

-f.

The other three: Lawyer, accountant, urologist.

And thus: One of the few people I’d ever solicit travel recommendations from. You could text this man from the depths of the Antarctic tundra and he’d immediately hit you back with the GPS coordinates of “the best martini south of Punta Arenas.”