• Apparently on a boozy limo ride home from a few Halloween parties where they were dressed as matching tooth fairies, Paris Hilton's boyfriend Doug Reinhardt threw her phone out the window. It appears that excessive texting annoys him too. Paris got out of the car to find it on the side of the road to no avail. When she got back into the car, Reinhardt started to choke her. Of course, the paps were swarming and friends tried to stop them from taking pictures. Like a good girl, Paris fought back, kicking and screaming at her man. The good news? A photographer found her phone and returned it. [NY Post]
• Real Housewife of New York Kelly Bensimon showed up on time for the Halloween party she hosted on Saturday night, instead of showing up two hours late like she did last year. Hurray for lessons learned. Bensimon was dressed as a sexy Heidi or some such. Also in attendance was Jill Zaron dressed as Poison Ivy from the Batman comics. The real news is that Bensimon and fellow Housewife Zarin are apparently new besties now that Zarin had a falling out with former partner in crime Bethenny Frankel. Because she's still on the show this season, Bethenney has been relegated to hanging out with crazy-eyed Ramona Singer and Brooklynite Alex McCord. As goes Jill Zarin, so goes the audience, so maybe people will start to like this Kelly creature now. [Gatecrasher]
• Speaking of Halloween parties, Tinsley Mortimer showed up with reality crew in tow for an event to benefit cancer charity City of Hope on Friday night at Marquee. "She showed up with 20 people. The crew shot her walking into the venue, but not inside the party as promised," says City Of Hope's Jocelyn Levy. "They just hung out and drank, for free, even the producers. We didn't ask them to come, they called us." Hmm. That's funny, because we were there and we saw with our own two eyes that Tinsley did, in fact, film inside the party. Sure it was in the back by the dessert bar and the production kept a tight perimeter around Ms. Mortimer, but she did actually film inside the party. Don't go trying to tarnish our Tinz unfairly! [Gatecrasher]
• Nicolas Cage is going to miss a New York screening of his movie Bad Lieutenant, because his father, literature professor August Coppola (brother of filmmaker Francis Ford), died of a heart attack. We love it when celebrities actually do the right thing. [P6]
• Elton John has been hospitalized for a bad case of the flu and a minor case of e. coli and has canceled several concerts. All his pairs of sparkly glasses tell him to get well soon. [AP]
• Because her life hasn't been charmed enough, Dakota Fanning is now a cheerleader and the homecoming queen at North Hollywood's Campbell Hall Episcopal High School, which she is attending. Transformation into mean girl is complete. [E Online]
• Mel Gibson's girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, might have maybe had her baby (Mel's eighth) two months early. We hope this isn't like Heidi Klum baby thing where all the tabs were trying so hard to scoop each other that they just started making up the birth. [People]
• John DeLucie the fancy chef at Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn isn't leaving. That's great news for all of us who couldn't get a reservation even if we wanted one. [P6]
• Gossip dowager Cindy Adams is obsessed with the making of Wall Street 2. Has she not seen a film in the movie theater since the original came out 22 years ago, or does she just have a huge crush on Shia LaBeouf? You decide. [Cindy Adams]

[Image via Getty]

We already heard that club queen Suzanne Bartsch turned down the gig. That would have been an awesome addition indeed, but we have some other fantasy candidates that would really make the sparks fly over on Bravo.

Ruth Madoff: Well, if they don't send her to jail. Not only does everyone already love to hate her, but poor Alex McCord won't have the worst husband on the show for a change. And just wait for her first public event. The cameraman is going to need a bodyguard. [Photo: AP]
Paula Froelich: Well, it's not like the former Page Sixer has a job right now and she does have a book to promote, so what better way that by talking some shit about New York faux-cialites. She's been doing that for years! And Paula is witty, sassy, and just a bit crass. She'll either be Jill Zarin's new best friend, or eat her alive.
Fabiola Beracasa: An honest to God socialite, Beracasa won't need Bravo's help to get invited to fashion shows. We'd love to see how this little spitfire would square off against former model Kelly Bensimon. It would make Bethenny vs. Kelly look like a game of patty cake. She might be nuts enough to do it. She did wear this dress in public.
Ali Wise: She is a young, pretty professional. Just the type that casting directors should look for. She's also nutso enough to allegedly break into someone's voicemail. Just think about what Ramona Singer will do when she finds out someone has been reading her email.
Michael Lucas: Four versions of the Housewives franchise and not a gay housewife yet? You'd think that straight people watched Bravo. This self-promoting gay porn mogul doesn't take crap from anyone, and loves to argue. And, if he's willing to let Perez Hilton take his shirt off in public, imagine what Countess Luann De Lesseps will say about his etiquette.

A tipster spotted either McCord or a lookalike in a Web video for the prewar, Lower Manhattan building. The Real Housewives of NYC star appears to be devouring an infant in the marketing clip, although our tipster argues the creature is actually computer generated. Either way, "it's definitely not screaming [McCord tot] Francois." You can see the video at left, or on the building website under Residences/2 bedroom.

A Curbed.com spy spotted the McCordish video back in October, so it's been online for a while. What has the professional actress done for sales in the interim? Not much, apparently, judging from what's in the Times:

At 99 John Street... buyers were offered a chance to "rent to own," and a promise that Rockrose would buy back an apartment after five years at 110 percent of the purchase price. The developer also began offering the apartments in bulk to investors, in packages of 15 apartments.

Maybe it would help to mention that McCord doesn't actually live in the building, but all the way over in Brooklyn? (Best not to point out how close the bridge is.)

The show was the second installment of Bravo's juggernaut Housewives reality series, which began with Orange County and most recently stumbled through Atlanta. The difference between New York and the other two is mostly that we live here and thus know where and (sometimes) who these people are talking about and it makes us sad. Also, the women seem to think that they're fancy and high society in a way that the Orange County ladies don't give a fuck and just want to get drunk. The Atlanta gals claim to be pretty highfalutin too, but I've never been to Atlanta, so maybe they really are? Anyway! The ladies of New York are:

Jill
The wife of a carpeting magnate, in the first season Jill repeatedly referred to herself as a "socialite." And she is, if socialites are loud, brash, heavily-accented Long Island nouveaus who go on chintzy reality shows. Jill generally seems to get along with the other housewives, save for crazy Ramona. This season, though, she gets in some Page Six fights with dumpy loser Alex when she insults Alex's gay husband/manservant Simon.

Ramona
Ramona arrived on this planet some sixteen years ago from a space realm far, far away. As she searches for a way home, she spends her time with her Earth Husband, who makes religious jewelry, and her Human Daughter, who is a brat. Confused by the strange, guttural human speak, Ramona often mixes up common idioms. One time she said "it's raining cats and buckets." I wish that it rained buckets full of cats in New York, but it doesn't. This season look for Ramona's continued efforts to recover the three lost Xangar Crystals she needs to power her spaceship and return home.

Bethenny
The non-married career girl of the bunch, Bethenny doesn't exactly fit the thesis of the show. But whatever. Wine-faced and tired looking, Bethenny makes healthy "gourmet" food for people and tries to fashion herself into some sort of Uptown wiseacre Martha Stewart. Honestly, Bethenny isn't all that bad. That is when she isn't crowing about her "SkinnyGirl Margaritas" (tequila and a lime spritz) or saying "Oh no she di'n't" in fake black girl cadences. This season look for more crowing about SkinnyGirl Margaritas and saying of "Oh no she di'n't" in fake black girl cadences.

Kelly
Kelly is the new girl! She's into fashion and the Hamptons and, in Bethenny's estimation, is an actual socialite. Which ought to make Jill super happy. Look for Kelly to not fit in and say nasty, snobby things. Judging from the preview clip that Bravo's been running (above), Kelly says stupid things to Bethenny about social status and Bethenny says "Oh no she di'n't."

Alex
Alex is a giraffe that a gay Australian hunter named Simon found on the Savannah, wrapped in a Chico's coat, and brought back to his crumbling Brooklyn townhouse. The pair spends all their time trying to be high society, but failing epically at every turn. Their froofy-haired sons don't want to learn French, like they're being forced to even though neither Simon or Alex are French. They go to St. Barth's, but in the lonely, stupid off-season. Their BROOKLYN townhouse is a shambles. This season Jill says nasty things to Page Six about Simon being a gay person who does gay sex with other gay persons (I'm guessing? Probably not, actually) and Alex loses her temper calls her a bitch or something. Then Simon runs out in his pith helmet and shoots a tranquilizer dart into her neck.

Countess LuAnn
LuAnn is, in our estimation, the worst of the worst. She married an old rickety man who bought French nobility while building the Suez Canal a hundred million years ago so now she thinks she's fucking Lady Diana and makes people talk to her like old-timey servants. This season people realize that she's a big faker and get mad at her for being a stupid faker waste of space. ("That's COUNTESS Stupid Faker Waste of Space to you, sir.") She also will probably work on the guide to Class and Etiquette that she's writing, which is the most laughably ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Saying you're "classy" automatically means you're Classy, right?? This lady is as polished as trailer park turds get, but a turd she remains.

Which means that Alex probz went to P6, crafted a big old honking exaggeration to drum up support for her as-yet-unsold (and probably unwritten) tome, and then twirled for some nonexistent paparazzo. And we kinda bought it (kinda) because it was a Monday morning and she's annoying/fun to write about. No harm done to us, I suppose, but I'm sure it's disheartening for her many devoted and loyal fans who have grubby little non-French-speaking shit factories running around their house and will maybe not have an Alex/Simon lifeline to depend on in the near future. Be strong.

You may recall from the Bravo reality show on which she stars, that McCord is a wildly aspiring New York "socialite," who uses her tenuous connections and new-found TV cameras to strong-arm her way into things like opening night at the Met. She and her husband, a nambypants hotel manager named Simon, have foisted this desperate hoity toityness upon their two innocent children, whom they've named Johanas and Fauntleroy, or something. The tykes have an au pair who only speaks French and the parents regularly quiz their tiny children in the language, even though neither is of French ancestry. It's just, you know, classy. No problem with kids learning extra languages, but c'mon. Spanish would certainly be more practical. (Remember in that Louis Malle film Atlantic City when Susan Sarandon is trying to learn French and she keeps saying dreamily "it is the international language of diplomacy" in this sad little way? It's like that.)

So it's amusing that they'll be dishing out advice about how to raise the perfect urban children, and that people are supposed to heed their advice. Oh, but don't worry. It won't be like mushy gushy parenting stuff. "It's not about how to discipline," Alex tells Page Six. "It's about things like how to get a passport for an infant when you don't have a birth certificate yet." Oh good. "Just popped this sucker out, hun. Pack the bags, we're going to St. Bart's. In the off season!"

Our advice to parents like Alex? One: stop tossing your children in front of reality show cameras for your own pathetic non-gains. Two: stop being naked.

Update! Except, maybe the book hasn't even been sold to a publisher yet.

es-ki-mo's new line beats the original, Real Housewives Star Finally Admits To Being Nothing More Than a Pile of Oats.

on sunday my partner and i were walking down saline beach and who do we see??? that crazy climbing 'social' bitch alex mccord and her gay husband simon... with their kids. they were at the end of the beach, in a sort of wash area where runoff gets trapped in a pool. walked over, and was freaked out because they were butt as naked. kids too. i mean, really. saw simon's junk, and the bare ass and tits of the REAL HOUSEWIFE. they weren't trying to hide their ASSets at all. listen, this is st barts, and naked it ALL OVER, and i love that the french are so free... but it ALWAYS creeps me out when americans go topless here because i know it's not really our custom... but
DAMN, completely nude?? a 'celebrity'??? PS - simon's cock kind of big, just too bad it's attached to such a douche.

"Why wouldn't we do the show again?" Simon recently told New York magazine. "I mean, it's a total success. [Nine years ago] we were sitting around on our fourth or fifth date, at the Blue Water Grill, and Alex was telling me that she wants to be a famous actress and I'm sitting there going, 'Darling, if you were a famous actress, we wouldn't be sitting here on the sidewalk having dinner.' " Haha. Um. Sigh.

Simon, ever the ridiculous idiot, later elaborates:

It made social climbing out to be much more important to us than it is. I've always loved to study people. I mean, for example, Jill's from Long Island, and boy, that shows. You can see these sorts of people from areas outside Sydney and London as well. As for us, well, I use the Dickensian phrase: Who doesn't want to improve their station in life? Everyone does.

...'Darling, if you were a famous actress, we wouldn't be sitting here on the sidewalk having dinner.' "

Alex: "And then I said, 'Oh, yes, we would. It's just that there would be ten people taking our picture.' "

Simon: "And now we have that."