Bash Compactor: The Truth Beneath the Stockings
Stay at home Manhattan moms love soap operas, so it's no surprise that the crowd that trundled to last weeks soap-star filled celebrity bartending Stockings With Care benefit at Bar 13 had a glut of ladies of advanced age milling about hoping to catch the glance of some chisel-cheeked All My Children hunklet.
Rosalie Joseph, the Linda Richmond-esque Stockings founder, pressed a headphone to her ear as she spun adult contemporary hits from the second floor DJ booth. After a couple hours of tunes she ordered everybody upstairs; a throng of party gays would soon take over the space where we were reveling and staying put was not an option. Rosalie, who moonlights as a casting director when she's not DJ-ing or starting not-for-profits, told me she hoped to raise eight to 10 grand from the event.
Every 20 minutes or so, a new team of Guiding Light beauties or Broadway personalities would swoop behind the bar to take a turn as a fundraising bartender. Many celebutenders, however, spent their terms struggling with the register.
I pondered ordering annoying stuff like Bahama Mamas or tap water, but since everybody was there to save Christmas for homeless children, I kept my jerk hat off. Tips went towards buying whatever insipid toys kids are all begging for these days.
A gruff celeb chaser, who looked a bit like Andy Samberg's impersonation of the comic strip character Cathy, kept distracting Harold Perrineau from working the bar by attempting to pull him close for passionate cheek kisses. Asked her if she learned anything about the next season of Lost, she slurred, "Buy me a drink and I'll tell you everything." I'd given enough to charity already, thanks.
Later, wild-eyed Xanadu manslab Cheyenne Jackson palsied bar patrons with his impossibly steely blue gaze. Dude can cut limes with his eyebrows alone.
Later on, I nearly bar crawled headfirst into a People vs. US Weekly money-shot bidding war when I realized I was snapping pics of Gossip Girl's young Paolo Connor and his entourage pouring Grey Goose. If I've learned anything from the Plaxico Burress cover-up scandal, it's that we all have a civic responsibility to report any illegal celebrity activities to the proper authorities as soon as possible. Turns out you only have to be 18 to bartend in New York and Paolo is just barely legal; 911 wouldn't be hearing from me this night.