Lunch at Michael’s: Half-Assed Thursday Edition

My boss, mediabistro CEO Laurel Touby, has permanently secured the “Lunch at Michael’s” beat, and is responsible for our impossibly comprehensive Wednesday reports. Laurel is friendly and outgoing and I’m misanthropic and antisocial, so not surprisingly, she’s much better at this than I am. But as long as I’m here…

1. Upside down and inside out: Diana Ross with two unidentified guests.

8. New York Social Diary’s David Patrick Columbia with New York Sun columnist Liz Peek.

2. Ex-Beatles manager and PR man Peter Brown (“Peter Brown called to say, you can make it okay…”) with some people I didn’t know.

4. David Hasselhoff. Seriously. David… Hasselhoff… And three people I didn’t know.

11. Rob Friedman, of Golden Books with guest.

D. Time, Inc.’s John Huey and guest, who left and were replaced by Court TV President and CEO Henry Schleiff and a guest (who pre-ordered Cobb salads that were waiting for them when they sat down. Is that a new Michael’s-related status symbol? A table in the front and the ability to pre-order?)

20: Me (mb EIC Elizabeth Spiers) and travel writer/book author Michael Gross. (I was actually supposed to go to Michael’s with someone else today but he cancelled so I called this morning and cancelled the reservation. A few minutes later, Michael called and said, “my lunch date for Michael’s today cancelled on me. Wanna go?” All of which proves that Lunch at Michael’s is inevitable.)

17: Men’s Journal editor in chief Michael Caruso and guest.

G: Town and Country editor in chief Pamela Fiori with Chanel President and COO Arie Koppelman and Chanel VP Barbara Whose Last Name I Scrawled on a Piece of Paper So Illegibly That I Can’t Read It Cirkva. (Help?) They were later replaced by two youngish looking guys who I couldn’t identify, but who deserve to be mentioned solely because the only thing I saw them order was a matching pair of martinis, and here at FishbowlNY, we’re forever lamenting the untimely death of the three-martini lunch. A one-martini lunch may not be quite the same, but it gives us hope.

H: Jonathan Tisch and guest.

15: Time-Warner EIC Norm Pearlstine and Time-Warner EVP of Corporate Communications, Ed Adler.

23: Richard Holbrooke and someone who may or may not have been Ralph Gardner.

On the way out we also ran into Entertainment Weekly founder, ex-Advance.net prez and Buzzmachine proprietor Jeff Jarvis.

IF you were at Michael’s today (or any day) and would like to report in, or correct the record, please email elizabeth AT mediabistro.com

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