Battle Over Who Owns God Headed For Courts

One would think that in the age of "Occupy," the 1% would just pipe down a little bit. We're sort of delighted that they haven't.

Homeowners in Napeague (aka, the 1%) are in the middle of a legal fight with the Town of East Hampton over their desire to keep all the poors off the beach they feel is rightfully theirs because they purchased it years ago from God.

The Town says the parcels along that stretch of beach were sold under the condition that beach access would not be restricted to anybody. At the time, the beach was mainly accessed by east end baymen who parked on the street and walked down to the water to go to work in the morning. As the baymen died off, and they began to gradually be replaced by fucking assholes wealthier residents, those residents decided they didn't want barnacly, old, raggedy and completely not fabulous poors wandering their beaches.

The residents of Napeague of course are arguing that the beachgoers leave behind broken bottles, and burned out cars, and dead bodies, and zombies, but nobody is buying that to date. Bottom line is, God gave them the right to close off the beaches to the stinky public and the town should honor God.

Their appeals have fallen on deaf ears in the local courts and now it's headed to another court. So the residents said, "well, can you at least temporarily bar the poors from coming here?" and the courts said...not so much.

So yeah. The public says by principle nobody should own the beach, nobody should own nature. Shut up public.

*God did not immediately return calls for comment.

Inside the Social Life Magazine Kerfuffle

After some follow-up conversations with Christopher London, Hamptonyte blog got a pretty broad picture about the nature of his issue with Social Life Magazine Editor-In-Chief Devorah Rose, who recently landed back on the pages of the NY Post after airing her dirty possibly imaginary relationship with novelist Salman Rushdie.


When the story broke, London issued a formal letter that essentially posed an ultimatum to the magazine's publisher Justin Mitchell: either Devorah goes, or I can no longer contribute to the magazine as its Society Editor. The magazine, along with the people it covers, are in hibernation until Memorial Day, so no word yet from Mitchell how he plans to deal with the friction between the two editors. In an e-mail to Hamptonyte blog, Rose declined to say anything on the record about London's letter. (Incidentally, if Rose was in journalism she'd know that "off the record" is not something you can just say, like Hocus Pocus, or Olly-Olly Oxenfree. Both parties are supposed to agree to it, but we decided to be nice).

Usually when an Editor-in-Chief (see: head honcho) is threatened with resignation from a section editor (see: NOT head honcho), the section editor gets escorted out of the building by security. We found it curious that London's letter didn't lead to an automatic shakeup at the magazine. Then we got some more information about the gist of Social Life's operations.

According to London, Rose is really just an EIC in name only. Like, really just name only, as in: doesn't have much jurisdiction or veto power over editorial content. In a sense, London boiled her responsibilities down to a marketing/PR role, whereby she wines and dines and 69s the subjects the magazine covers and then lets the writers step in. She makes decisions about the cover, and contributes her column "Royal Court," which sounds so completely obnoxious, (without having actually laid eyes on the column) we are currently on e-Bay seeking to purchase a guillotine.

For the most part, all editorial content flows to Mitchell, and everyone who works on the magazine does so as contributors. This includes London, which explains why he's not sitting on the curb at the magazine's NYC office with a box full of his personal items and a sign around his neck. London is one of the older contributors; according to him the magazine has a young staff. We're imagining something along the lines of a journalistic sweatshop. Young, disadvantaged, naive little hopefuls, working for gold stars and what's left in the bottom of a Devorah-ransacked charity-event swag bag.

London said when he was first approached by Mitchell it was a collaborative effort to pool resources and tap into London's knowledge of NYC high society, a knowledge he'd apparently gained while photographing society events for his own website. According to London, Mitchell seemed hungry to get a look into the world of NYC society, and worked overtime to develop his own contacts. Somewhere along the line, and if the NYT article is accurate that "somewhere" was an event at the MoMA, he met Devorah Rose and he had his EIC.

Most journalists will often tell you that when they get invited to attend an event, charity or otherwise, they usually hang back and observe. But according to London, Rose took no such approach to Social Life's coverage, much to the chagrin of some of the charitable organizations that invited Social Life along. London wrote to us:

"Once I started writing for the magazine, certain invitations that came to my attention were swiped by Devorah and they began to ingratiate themselves with people who knew me, including insisting on a table at their gala if they want SL Mag to cover the event. I had certain publicists ask me why they wanted a whole table. Did they not know that this was not proper protocol?"

It gets better:

"Any swag which came to the magazine was often seized by her for use with her friends. Hence most of what Devorah shows up at are nightclub events and commercial charitable vehicles for Reality TV."

Which brought London to his ultimate point: Rose is merely using her position to leverage any opportunity to become a reality TV star, even stooping, according to London, to placing key players in reality television on the cover of Social Life. In essence, the magazine gives her access, and she uses that access to further her less-than journalistic aims. Tsk, tsk, Devorah.

Over the phone, London told Hamptonyte blog that the Rushdie incident was the straw that broke the camel's back because it came off as so inauthentic. In a follow-up e-mail, he added these remarks:

"It is even more clear that Salman Rushdie was a 'mark', a man who was clearly being used to extend DR's Famegame. The fact that she tweeted the pic herself with rather suggestive language for a "do over" with the famous author and then complained he was only after one thing, is interesting...There was a quick effort to cash in on the notoriety of having had any contact with him...Wouldn't she try to persuade him of her sincere interest first before giving him up to the tabloid media? Rushdie served his purpose, the famous ladies man got her two front page appearances in the NY Post, in one week."

Let's put it this way. If London doesn't leave the magazine, and Rose stays put as EIC...this is going to make one hell of an awkward office Christmas party.

Breaking: Social Life Magazine editor threatens to quit

Social Life Magazine's standing Society Editor Chris London drafted an official letter threatening to leave the magazine if Devorah Rose continues on as Editor-In-Chief.

The issue is over Rose's recent public outing of author Salman Rushdie's ill-fated decision to speak to Rose on a personal basis. The two have been involved in a mini-Page 6 battle in the NY Post, spurned on by Rushdie's attempt to deny anything more than a platonic relationship with the EIC of Social Life. After more than 20 years, Rose was able to do what the Ayatollah couldn't: deliver Rushdie's head on the platter of public humiliation, by essentially copy/pasting all of his personal messages to her via e-mail and Facebook.

In the letter, London described Rose as "socially parasitic" and took issue with her description of the Rushdie relationship as "abusive."

"PLEASE NOTE that if Devorah remains on Social Life Magazine's masthead as Editor in Chief in the Summer of 2012, this Society Editor will no longer contribute in any capacity to said publication. The publisher has a decision to make."

London also posted a scathing column as a contributor to Cape Cod Today. We'll keep following this and let you know how it all washes.

Well-documented stupidity

Are we really this desperate to become friends with our kids now?

What if the South kept "concierges" in chains?

There would have likely been no Civil War! Instead of a slave trade, how nice does a concierge trade sound?

We stumbled on this advertisement for a company that specializes in consolidating the numerous ways Hamptonites can remain spoiled, weeping, drinking balls of incompetence. This particular brand of servitude goes by many different names. Concierge service. Luxury concierge. Personal concierge.

"Whether you need a rental home, reservations at the best Hamptons restaurant or a babysitting, pet-walking, dry cleaning-picking-up assistant, we've got you...We tailor our services to suit your every need, and we strive to ensure there is no limit to what we can do for you. At Open Minded Concierge, our relationship with our members is always treated with the utmost respect and extreme confidentiality."

Yassuh, we aims to please, and we please to aim, suh. Our prediction: By 2025, the American population will consist of two groups...the wealthy, and their "concierges." If we've said it once, we've said it a hundred times, the failure of the South was in its poor marketing efforts. No worries. It will rise again. And that fact pretty much blows.

Hamptons porno to shoot July 18

We're not sure if this is slated for the Hamptons International Film Festival yet, but while Dan's Papers has its eye on the very latest in the world of Royal Pains we'll be on the lookout for a porno that is set to shoot in the Hamptons this coming Monday.

According to this Craigslist casting call, Casting Director Steve Murphy held auditions late last month in South Huntington for not one, but two porno films. He was looking for sexy females between the ages of 18 and 30, to get paid a tidy sum of $2,500 each.

We reached out to Murphy, but unsurprisingly he never got back to us for comment on such questions as, "What hotel are you shooting in? What room? How can one get invited to the wrap party."

Here's to hoping the film shoot goes so well that the Hamptons becomes the next San Fernando Valley. You think a 7-11 opening in the Hamptons is bad, wait until Dirk Diggler walks into a Golden Pear and stirs his coffee without using his hands.

Hate Mail, and Devorah Rose's obnoxious post-Times profile reaction

After our take-down of Devorah Rose, the shameless, self-promoting, celebrity-obsessed suck-up who edits a magazine nobody has physically seen editor of Social Life magazine, we'll admit our shock to see in the comments section of the post, one of her satisfied customers, lying in a Bridgehampton motel bed, smoking a cigarette, breathing in the lingering scent of Rose's perfume long after she got dressed and headed out to be seen...somewhere other than, um, editing something. After a long drag on the cig, "CPT" pounded out this missive:

"You're clearly an idiot and clearly unhappy with your own life. Devorah and a lot of other people are out there doing things with their lives. Oh, and besides the libel, you are flat out lying to readers when you claim Devorah is "admittedly...'more interested in Social Life's parties..." - the biased NYT writer said that, it was not a quote from Devorah. Get a clue, you miserable hack."

Oh, little friend...there are quotes and then there are quotes.

“The first event I went to, the paparazzi were there, and I had my photo taken,” she said. “After that, people started sending me clothes.”

"Ms. Rose bubbled with pride as she described the celebrities at the party."

"When Mr. Stern showed up, Ms. Rose said she nearly cried. “It was the highlight of my night,” she said."

The highlight of her night. Not that she'd written a successful piece, or that she'd discovered something about Beth Stern that was unique and difficult to ascertain, or that she'd put together a solid issue of stories with journalistic integrity. No. She met Howard Stern. So, um...yeah, Devorah Rose is admittedly more interested in Social Life's parties than its content. The libel case against Hamptonyte is hereby...dismissed.

But what's more infuriating than this sycophantic dipshit supporter defending her? Her post-NYT profile Q&A with Abe Gurko, that's what. In it she kvetches about how she was duped into believing that the NYT writer was going to put together a glowing, suck-up review of her life and nonaccomplishments. She thought the profile was going to be all hyperbole and promotion, and chock-full of flattering and congratulatory paragraphs. In short, she thought the profile would be like most of the celebrity profiles that get published in Hamptons magazines! Then this horrible NYT writer goes and ruins it with her "agenda." You know, her agenda. Like being objective. Like not taking Rose's word at face-value. Like reporting the truth when Rose tries to sneak some bullshit through. That agenda. In J-school it's not called an agenda, so you might be more familiar with its other name. Reporting.

Some lines from her Q&A:

"DEVORAH: I was hesitant at first but she put on a quite an act. It wasn’t until right before the article came out that I realized she did, in fact, have ulterior motives" (By ulterior motives she means journalism.)

DEVORAH: The tone of the article does not seems fitting for The New York Times
(Devorah wouldn't know what "tone" is anymore than she knows what "ammonia" is; she's not a journalist.)

DEVORAH:Seeing the photos felt great…but then I read the article. I never knew “self-made” could be a pejorative term. (Self made? One of the most irritating descriptions anyone can assign to themselves. From the NYT piece: "her mother, a physician, moved to Newton, a predominately upscale Jewish suburb of Boston"... "She later said [her father] was a businessman who split his time between Bogotá, Colombia, and Boca Raton, Fla"... "Ms. Rose met Mr. Mitchell at a soiree at the Museum of Modern Art in 2001. “If you start a magazine, I will edit and write for it,” Ms. Rose recalled telling him. He agreed."

Ah, that's so self-made!

DEVORAH: Well, let’s focus on the positive – which requires ignoring High Society

(No. You don't get to needle and scratch backs and wheel and deal your way onto reality shows and then turn around and ignore the very vehicle that landed you the notoriety you have.)

But that's Devorah Rose in a nutshell. As opposed to falling to her knees in disbelief at the good fortune she's had, disproportionate to her talent, she besmirches the few venues she's managed to trick into believing she's worth turning the camera toward. Like The New York Times.