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David Patrick Columbia's New York Social Diary has just gone bi-coastal.
He informs readers that, beginning today, a NYSD West Coast edition will be published every Friday in the form of a new column by "The DuPont Twins in Hollywood" (pictured above).
We welcome the idea of a society column about Los Angeles, but we wish DPC (as Columbia's affectionately known by his society swans and readers) would direct his correspondents to focus more on LA society and less on Hollywood. This week's column is chock-full of the same celebrity sightings and not-so-subtle plugs for well known hotels and restaurants that clog our daily media.
Here's a taste of the column's opening paragraphs:
We attended two HBO parties this month for two of their shows. The party at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood around the David Hockney-painted pool was for Entourage. We were so glad to see our longtime friend Debi Mazar there looking tres chic. Our days with Debi go all the way back to when she was slathering makeup on the face of Her Majesty, Madonna, in the early 80s. Debi plays a publicist by the name of Shauna in Entourage and steals every episode she's in. we collared executive producer Mark Wahlberg and suggested he have his writers build up Debi's part. And he told us, that's "exactly what we're planning to have them do."
Guests at the party included Casey Johnson, Kevin Connolly and Nicky Hilton, Brett Ratner and Serena Williams, Amanda Demme, Dodd Mitchell, Lisa Eisner and Liz Goldwyn who told us her documentary, Pretty Things, will be premiering on HBO in July. Also there: Amanda Peet and Kevin Dillon, both of whom appear in Entourage, and who arrived with Kevin's brother Matt.
What LA really needs is a new gossip columnist like Los Angeles Times vets Joyce Haber (deceased) or Mary Lou Loper (retired); someone who lets us eavesdrop on the real rich and powerful people in this town.
Remember when the LA blogosphere was bemoaning the need for a gossip column in the "Los Angeles Times"? Perhaps the Los Angeles Social Diary can fill that void.
Yeah, Yeah, we know, we know: no one gives a flying f*lk about the lives of LA's privileged caste. Yet who can deny that it's fun to read about the rich and shameless. Somebody's buying "Vanity Fair."
Some might say that the days of an identifiable social elite are over, but we disagree. When people like Jacqi Getty, Tom Ford and countless billionaires keep choosing to live here, there must be a way to document their impact on our city. We don't believe the journalistic canard that LA is still such a "company" town that fear suppresses the publication of any really flavorful society stories. There's just as much ambition, old money, new money, real estate maneuvering, spouse swapping and social climbing here as in New York.
When Mr. Columbia visits LA, a city he lived in for many years prior to his return to Manhattan, he always gives us the real LA--interesting men and women involved with the world of arts, journalism, design, philanthropy, and practitioners of the good life - in addition to the usual blather about show biz folk.
We hope subsequent dispatches from the "Dupont Twins" are closer to the New York Social Diary mold.
