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Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays

Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays

(Bloomberg) -- Colin Jost took aim at how the high and mighty live in the Hamptons Saturday night.

Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays

“I don’t understand the level of landscaping that occurs out here,” Jost said, describing properties with “2,000 bushes” and “gates that cost so much more than the average home in America,” all to keep the neighbors out of view.

“People make fun of Trump for trying to build a wall,” Jost said. “Everyone in East Hampton is building their own small wall.”

On hiatus from “Saturday Night Live,” Jost was on stage for “C.U. Out East,” a benefit for the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center. It was the center’s first event on the South Fork, and Jost, dressed in “the pinkest shirt I could find” for the “Hamptons chic” occasion, mined the setting for material.

Of the police blotter in the East Hampton Star, he said, “Just call it celebrity DUIs. It’s what we all want from it.”

And of the venue where he was performing, Guild Hall in East Hampton: “I don’t know if you know, it was created for writers and artists as a place where they could gather in the mornings and afternoons to avoid traffic from East Hampton contractors. Sorry, are a lot of you contractors?”

In fact, Guild Hall, which operates galleries and a theater and counts SNL Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin as a regular, seems to be busy at all hours of the day. On Friday, the American Modern Opera Company performed arias about desire; on Sunday, Museum of Modern Art curator Ann Temkin previewed the re-installation of the collection in an expansion set to open Oct. 21.

Saturday night, though, the theater was filled with supporters of celiac disease diagnosis, treatment and research, including iStar’s Jay Sugarman and his wife, interior designer Kelly Behun; David Ford of Latigo Partners; Stuart Kovensky, co-founder of Onex Credit Partners, and John Rapaport, a drywall specialist for 423 Park Avenue and other high-profile projects.

Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays
Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays
Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays

When Jost finished, Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers performed, saving the band’s hit “One Headlight” for near the end and rejecting a request for “Heroes” to close with “The Waiting” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Arch Street Capital Partners’ Craig Friedman led the organizing of the event. He said they were aiming to create an evening “without speeches or science,” which guests get at the center’s Manhattan benefit.

Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays
Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays

Eight years ago, Friedman’s son Tyler suffered severe abdominal pain and wasn’t growing on target for his age. After many attempts to figure out what was wrong, a doctor diagnosed him with celiac disease, which makes him intolerant to gluten. Now 15, he’s thriving, and has learned to love Pirate Booty snack food and his mom’s pavlova as he’s eliminated gluten from his diet.

One of the reasons the Friedmans want to raise money for Columbia’s celiac center is to help expand access to diagnosis for families that can’t afford multiple doctors’ visits. The center also conducts research on celiac.

Colin Jost Pokes Fun at Hamptons Fundraiser as Jakob Dylan Plays

“A major thing we’re trying to understand is why does someone get celiac disease,” said Peter Green, director of the center. “If we could work out what happens, then it would be easier to develop a therapy.”

Behun said she’d love to see a treatment developed that blocks the inflammation caused by gluten, while Sugarman acknowledged the explosion of food allergies in kids. “We need to solve this,” he said.

Of course, guests ate gluten-free at the pre-concert reception in Guild Hall’s Minikes Garden. Options included a corn and tomato salad, and a lobster BLT, catered by Art of Eating in East Hampton.

To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl, Steven Crabill

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