Utentedrummbeat

Patrick O'Brian, Cormac McCarthy, now reading Samuel Pepys journals written during the English Reformation, Mark Twain, Allan Weisbecker, I like story tellers as opposed to navel contemplators. Also like history and biographies, especially about salty types. But basically, my library is extremely diverse.

Newspaper reporter (The East Hampton Star), author, surfer, sailor. I've written two books, "In the Slick of the Cricket," a fishing trip with Capt. Frank Mundus, shark fisherman and Peter Benchley's model for the character, Quint in "Jaws," and "The Barque of Saviors" the story of the Coast Guard's training ship Eagle from the time it was trainer in Hitler's Kriegsmarine. I am a regular contributor to The Surfer's Journal. Lived in Montauk, N.Y. at the end of Long Island for the past 40 years. Came here to surf and worked offshore on a commercial fishing boat for a couple of years. Jonah crabs were a bycatch. This led to Sweet Crab a processing plant I opened in Montauk. We sold crab meat to Mrs. Paul's and ate a lot of our own product. When the company went under, I limped back to journalism. I had a degree in filmmaking from Columbia University specializing in documentary work. I've covered the waterfront for The Star, both commercial and sport fishing, also the East Hampton Town Trustees, the town's 300 year old governance which hold sway over the remaining commonage, beaches and bottomlands for the most part. Makes for some interesting fights. I've written a great deal about East Hampton's baymen, inshore fishermen who's inshore fishing culture and communities have been forced into extinction by fishing regulations and the tide of second home owners and their false economies. Peter Matthiessen's book, "Men's Lives," chronicles their colorful history. I recommend it.