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Because the world simply cannot have enough gossip industry-inspired novels and memoirs and no one in their right mind could ever tire of a man who dresses like the seersuckered incarnation of Mr. Peanut, we happily present the proposal for former Page Sixer and accused extortionist Jared Paul Stern's memoir. Luckily, we've snorted enough adderall today to happily transcribe most of the godforsaken hard copy, just so that we might share its hilarity with the world. The working title is Stern Measures (of COURSE), and if Mickey Spillane hadn't died, surely this would've killed him:

The gossip elite has often been compared to the mafia and the CIA because of its power, influence and network of secret agents which need to be maintained at any cost in an increasingly ruthless industry. Indeed such a strong code of omerta pervades the upper echelons of the gossip business, none of its members has ever broken ranks and reveaed the true inner workings and tangled web of intrigue which goes into delivering the public its daily fix of scandalous and titillating tidbits. Until now.

Are you not entertained?!

After the jump, the bulk of Jared "Henry Hill" Stern's proposal.

STERN MEASURES
 (working title)
By Jared Paul Stern

The gossip elite has often been compared to the mafia and the CIA because of its power, influence and network of secret agents which need to be maintained at any cost in an increasingly ruthless industry. Indeed such a strong code of omerta pervades the upper echelons of the gossip business, none of its members has ever broken ranks and reveaed the true inner workings and tangled web of intrigue which goes into delivering the public its daily fix of scandalous and titillating tidbits. Until now.

Jared Paul Stern, an 11-year veteran of the New York Post's Page Six, the world's most powerful gossip column, and the former executive editor of Star magazine, is writing the ultimate, definitive, no-holds-barred book on the gossip business and its movers, shakers, foot soldiers and subjects. No one with Stern's experience, expertise, stature, insider knowledge and access has yet written a work of non-fiction lifting the lid on life at the world's most powerful gossip column and the celebrity-industrial complex that feeds it - and feeds off of it. Stern Measures spills the secrets about the columnists themselves - the gossip on the gossips - and their often surprising sources, motives and manipulations as well as presenting a broad view of what goes on inside the nation's biggest gossip machines. In different ways, Stern Measures will do for the gossip business what best-selling Kitchen Confidential did for restaurants and You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again did for Hollywood.

Stern Measures is an entertaining, amusing, eye-popping and completely unabridged lid-lifter on what goes into the all-important gossip column "mention" which can get you fired, hired, laid, made, make you rich or leave you for dead. You can never be too rich or too thin or have too many mentions on Page Six; as celebrity culture reaches a fever pitch, the column that started it all and towers over the gossip landscape is more important, influential and fascinating than ever. This is the story of who gets the breaks and who gets burned, who did what to whom and how it all went down.

Only Stern can deliver the scoop on the glamorous heights and seamy underbelly of the gossip industry and the New York tabloid wars; the behind-the-scenes machinations of moguls, celebrities, publicists and secret sources; the inside dish on the sometimes dirty business of churning out Page Six 365 days a year; and the increasingly brutal competition for dish from glossy magazines, websites and tabloid TV shows. Stern Measures is an explosive expose of the high-stakes gossip game that will send shockwaves through the media and generate a headline heatwave.

These are stories that have never been told before and you won't read them in Page Six - or anywhere else. You'll have to buy Stern Measures to find out...

• Which megawatt music mogul used the column to wage war on the sultry starlet wife he wanted to get rid of...

• Which colorful Conde Nast editor was coerced into killing an unflattering profile of a top tycoon...

• Which ritzy Manhattan restaurateur sent cash bribes to gossip columnists and showed off nude photos of his well-known glossy magazine editor girlfriend...

• Which handsome celebrity chef was caught having sex with a staffer on a food prep table in his downtown eatery's kitchen...

• Which other boldface celebrity chef's own publicist fed dirt about him to Page Six to get ink for her own event?

• Which Manhattan media mogul managed to keep his wife's Nazi art scandal out of the newspapers...

• Which New York newspaper editor made sure the strip club where he got free lapdances always looked good in print...

• Which same editor toed the party line and kept an unflattering story about President Bush's daughter out of the paper...

• Which diplomats extra-curricular antics went unreported thanks to his country's business dealings with the newspaper's megabucks media conglomerate-owner...

• Which celebrity fashion photographer took pictures of his three-way sex sessions with two famous supermodels, one of whom is now the wife of an A-list actor...

• Which stunning supermodel's ex-husband asked the column's help in selling a sex tape...

• Which New York gossip columnist frequented Hoboken bars in full drag and barely escaped being exposed on Page Six [Ed: Please let it be Lloyd Grove.]

• Which other gossip columnist had heroin delivered to the New York Post's midtown office building...

• And which very well-known columnist's junket to Brazil included an all-expenses-paid visit to a local brothel..........???


Working Outline

Ch. 1 - The big (and not so pretty) picture: Page Six - life force of the New York Post, bane and boon of celebrities, addiction of the masses. The sociology of gossip. Proust was right - gossip's "psychological value," the way it turns surface appearances inside out. How gossip has become news and an industry unto itself. Magazines are glossy versions of what we do best. What was once solely the province of Page Six now co-opted by the rest of the media. The history of the column and its founder. Page Six, Liz Smith and Cindy Adams - the Post's "Murderer's Row."

Ch. 2 - Getting started in the gossip game: Who's cut out for dishing dirt. The gossip's pathology. Bloodlust and bruising egos. The "feeder schools" and talent pools. Nightlife and parties and meeting the people who matter. Coming into contact with the fringe players on the gossip circuit and then the jaded professionals. The beautiful people - beautiful but stupid. Making your mark. Getting noticed. It's who you know. The road to landing a job at Page Six, the most powerful column of all. A day in the life of a gossip columnist. "It beats working."

Ch. 3 - Tips, leads, leaks and payback: Where gossip comes from. Developing sources and the fine art of favor banking: "I love this dirty town." Finding your niche. Working the contacts. "What conflict of interest?" [...]

Ch. 4 - The players and the outfield: Navigating the shark-filled gossip waters. The Dickensian cast of scroungers, crashers, spongers, suckerfish, bluffers, fluffers and freaks surrounding gossip columnistis. Working with colorful characters. A field guide to flacks. Publicists are paid to lie. Waging war with the Hollywood PR machine. The Harvey Weinstein tactical advantage. [...]

Ch. 5 - How the sausage gets made - read before eating: Everything the gossip columnist does is a transaction of one sort or another. The stories we couldn't run and why. How an owner's/newspaper's politics affects even the gossip pages. How to decode a Page Six item. [...]

Ch. 6 - Power over pay: The gossip's compensation isn't measured in money. The perks, freebies and droit du seigneur that come with the job. The world's your oyster. It's "The Sweet Smell of Success" for real. Close encounters of the celebrity kind. Sipping champagne with supermodels on crack. The right way to go about quid pro quo. The gossip's give and take. Throwing our considerable weight around. Ruling by fear. [...]

Ch. 7 - The competition and alterations to the gossip landscape: Extra space for Page Six to fill after the death of our colleague Neal travis and annexing his column inches. Expanding our coverage as a result and inevitable diluting. The column altered by the attacks of 9/11 - but not for long. [...]

Ch. 8 - Truth and consequences: Making and breaking careers - from Heidi Klum to Paris Hilton. Celebs suck up and suck it up. A subject driven to suicide? Branded for life. The power paradox - you can never leave. Retractions and clarifications. Skirting the libel laws - "Get it legaled." A cottage industry for one top Hollywood player. Letters by the bushel. Rubbing elbows and crossing swords with the likes of Graydon Carter and Tina Brown.

Ch. 9 - Black hearts and battle scars: Some say it's the Devil's work; "Your heart will turn black," according to Bruce Willis. Burnouts, flameouts and failures. Feuding with Alec Baldwin, Mickey Rourke, Al Pacino and Jennifer Aniston. 'Never get in a war of words with someone who buys ink buy the barrel.' A gossip's tragic suicide. "You can't do this job sober." Secret deals and supplementing your income. Pissing off the wrong people. Radar magazine's death wish. Pushed over the edge. "Guilt is for sissies."

Ch. 10 - Jared Paul Stern's Gossip Hall of Fame. The best and worst in the gossip game. The top 10 publicists, crisis control experts and fixers. The must-reads and never-minds, the has-beens and up-and-comers. The places to be seen and when to go. Who has the goods and who's just bluffing. The best scoops of all time. The A, B, C and D List. Who's hot and who's not.

Publishing Details

Length - 250 pages. [...]
Delivery - 6-8 months. Stern is friendly with several well-known authors who can be counted on to provide blurbs. Cross-promotion - Simultaneous marketing of film/TV projects will boost interest in publication. Publicity - There will obviously be no shortage of media attention for this project.