It was pretty dry at our favorite watering hole today. Everyone must be off cranking up their barbeque pits. There was one headliner at Michael's: Mel Brooks, in his darkest blackout shades and a shock of white gray hair.

[For expediency, this post is going up unedited and unfact-checked, so excuse any mistakes. Or, email me and I'll correct them later today].

Table 1: Mel(could he have been celebrating his birthday?) with a bunch of guys, including Tom Meany.

Table 7: Andre Leon Talley, Vogue's larger-than-life editor-at-large with tall blonde woman.

Table 8 (his usual table by the front door): David Patrick Columbia, New York Social Diaries, with two smartly-dressed women.

A (we need table numbers!): Sally Susman, Estee Lauder, and Cindy Lewis, VP/Publisher, Shop Etc.

B: Joe Armstrong with politica Maureen Ratner (wife of Steve Ratner) and attorney Cynthia Brill (wife of Steve Brill).

C: Variety's Army Archerd in dark blue plaid shirt with his wife in a striped shirt.

Table 5: Designer Arnold Scaasi in dark blue striped shirt and tan jacket, with two guys.

D: Famed flack Bobby Zarem with woman who looked like an actress.

Table 17: Jack Myers, author of The Jack Myers report and founder of mediavillage.com, was with Joanna Jordan, Central Talent Booking.

F: Someone who looked very much like Ahmet Ertegun (we think) with United Radio Stations' Nick Verbitsky.

E: Not sure if it was her, but it looked like Director Joan Gellman with a woman in a peach jacket.

G or H (couldn't see very well): The Daily News' Lloyd Grove with CBS News Anchor Bob Schiefer. He reads TVNewser!!

Table 15: Attorney Lewis Korman(NYU Law '69) with his sister, Shelley (sp?).

Nightclub entrepreneur Amy Sacco was there eating with someone.

Table 21: Charlie Schueler, of Cablevision, with Andrew Sorkin, a Times Business Reporter.

Table 23: Jordan Ringel, an attorney at Pavia & Harcourt with some other fellow.

Table 26: Guy with orange tie drinking (!) white wine with woman in yellow jacket.

Table 22: This was our table. I was with our e-i-c Elizabeth Spiers and Aileen Gallagher, our new Associate Editor (you read it here first!).

J: Heather Vincent (former producer for Tina Brown's Topic A; now at BET's Nightly News, we believe), with an unknown guy.

K: Seated nearby, NBC Senior Producer Aretha Marshall (she and Heather greeted each other warmly) with a man and a woman.

I: Ralph Destino, VP (formerly? presently?) Van Cleef & Arpels with an HBO exec.

Table 25: Larry Burstein, publisher of New York magazine, with Bob Chavez, President of Hermes.

BACK ROOM:
Self's Lucy Danziger.

Amy Bonawitz, a reporter at People, with Tracey Spector, in PR at Lifetime, and Maggie Gallant, of Spotlight Communications (which does PR for Lifetime, Animal Planet, PBS and more).

Larry Hackett, deputy managing editor of People was lunching with Albert Kim, assistant managing editor there.

IF you were at Michael's today (or any day) and would like to report in, or correct the record, please email LaurelT AT mediabistro.com (also, please send us table numbers!)

ROOM MAP