Back in September, we were all a twitter over Wenner Media staffer Gwen Cooper, who was flipping her stint in the South Beach social circuit into the fictionalized roman a clef Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves: The Memoirs of a South Beach Party Girl that would – besides tell the tale of a girl suddenly thrust into the party scene – name drop the likes of Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Chris Ciccone, and Diddy and all their diamond-and-coke fueled fetes.
So who better to weigh in on UPN’s very-late-to-The-O.C.-game South Beach, which premiered last night, than Ms. Cooper herself?
Disclaimer: I????????m a Miami Beach native (rare in a town where people occasionally die, but nobody seems to be born), and will admit to being somewhat possessive of my hometown and how it????????s depicted in shows like UPN????????s new offering, South Beach. Sure, we????????ll beat you over the head with our sex-drugs-club triad, but we do it self-consciously — for fun. The faint whiff of citywide corruption and graft is something we like to dab lightly behind our ears like a fine perfume, not wallow in like a bathtub of Paco Rabanne.
But stereotypes are the lazy scriptwriter????????s stock and trade, so let????????s see if South Beach has our full allotment of South Beach clich????s: Hyper-buff no-necks in shiny suits, cruising the nightclub scene? Check. Gratuitous poolside boobie shots? Check. Hooker – er, “model” – with a heart of gold? Check. Slow-motion gunfights? Well, maybe I shouldn????????t write that one off — I mean, I was involved in, like, five gunfights before I????????d even finished the third grade. And every single one of them happened in slow motion. Yeah. Anyway.
After the jump, Gwen illustrates how producers can simply adopt the plotline of, say, North Shore, The O.C., One Tree Hill, Laguna Beach, 90210, or The Mountain and simply find a new locale for a brand new series — even if they can’t figure out that the sun (still, and forever) rises in the east and sets in the west.
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It’s only been a few hours and already Wenner Media’s shitstorm is, well, a shitstorm. Full on diarrhea here, folks.
The upcoming Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves: The Memoirs of a South Beach Party Girl is causing many a headache at 1290 Sixth. Even though Jann Wenner‘s reps won’t say much officially, they’re well aware many a tabloid are already hovering over the SoBe tell-all from Gwen Cooper (yes, we can reveal her name now), who actually doesn’t answer to Janice Min or anyone in editorial.
Thus far the only comment we could wrangle out of Wenner’s camp is as follows:
The author of this book is a Wenner staffer who is in a non-editorial position. She is a fourth generation Miami native and her decision to write this book is separate and distinct from Wenner media.
Completely separate? Lovely. We’re sure that’ll turn media hounds exactly zero degrees away from the connection.
Meanwhile, we hear Jann himself offered to match contributions made to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort at tonight’s Us event in L.A.
What’s that we hear? More scandal coming out of Wenner Media’s walls?
The house that Rolling Stone built might be tidying itself up and begging staffers for Hurricane Katrina donations, but that’s going to do little to dam the coming waterfall of borderline slander oozing from 1290 Sixth.
We’re told a Wenner staffer just put the finishing touches on a South Beach tell-all, with notorious negotiators The Firm already repping the scribe and shopping it around to publishers (and film studios).
The “fictional” roman a clef Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves: The Memoirs of a South Beach Party Girl is going to name drop SoBe’s boldface names, from Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Todd Oldham to Chris Ciccone, Niki Taylor, Patricia Field and Diddy — with the drug-fused, sex-laden tales to match.
We’ve got nightclub impresario Chris Paciello caught in a compromising poolside position with Jennifer Lopez at the Delano along with Candace Bushnell parading naked with a local party boy.
Anna Wintour‘s reaction to The Devil Wears Prada should pale in comparison to the seething that’s sure to infiltrate the SoBe set.
Oh, plus there’s the coming-of-age tale of the Wenner writing narrator, from her befriending of an heiress to her eventual New York (and Jann Wenner office) arrival. And with the fat book deal (we’re hearing a six-figure sum is on the horizon), this Wenner staffer might wave goodbye to her desk — and leave it a mess just to spite Jann.
(In the interest of maintaining a smidge of journalistic integrity, we placed a call to Jann Wenner’s office. Thus far, “No comment.” For now.)