The CBS Holiday Party: Morley, Bradley, and David Lee Roth
Last night’s holiday party at the CBS offices was a wall-to-wall media affair (conveniently labelled with magnetic nametags thanks to a quick-thinking CBS party-planning staff). Many faces we recognized, like Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, and Morely Safer (who is Canadian); others we read on nametags and made the face-with-name connection (starstruck by a Jacques Steinberg sighting in the coatroom; Henry Schlieff, in an oh!-that’s-why-we-recognize-you-we’ve-seen-you-at-Michael’s moment and Jon Friedman, who caught us off guard because he’s taller than I expected and not always wearing the huge grin of his MarketWatch mug shot); others we heard were there, but missed cornering (your loss, Les Moonves!).
Still others had to be pointed out to us, because we would not have recognized them even if we were specifically looking for them, which we were: to wit, former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth who was not in white spandex leggings and flopping an oversized mane of flaxen hair. Going totally incognito to hair metal fans, Roth (who will be taking over for Howard Stern) was in a snugly-fitting pinstripe suit (just the vest; no jacket) with a short ‘do in what I assumed was his natural color of brown (flecked with gray, no less). Still, even a short chat revealed that old high-kickin’ “Jump!” spirit: Roth said he’s excited to get the morning show audience riled up ’cause that’s how he gets out of bed – “like a pop tart! Pow! Like a Tomahawk missile! Boom!” (punctuated with emphatic arm movements). David Lee Roth is excited about his new gig — go David! You get up! And nothin’ gets you down!
Fun times were had by all, and delicious hors d’oeuvres consumed, including sesame seed-coated chicken skewers, mini quichettes, sushi platters with big slabs o’ raw fish, and the event’s signature delicacy: pigs in blankets, personally overseen by CBS EVP Communications Gil Schwartz (as a mark of respect to our gracious host, I ate one. Delicious, insofar as one who does not eat red meat can pronounce on such things).
Oh, who’s kidding who, you want to know who was there, don’t you? Non-exhaustive list of attendees in no particular order as follows: Additional 60 Minutes-ers Chris Osgood and Steve Kroft; the NYT‘s Bill Carter, Steve Reddicliffe and Stuart Elliott; American Media’s Bonnie Fuller (who is Canadian) along with her AM pals Joe Dolce and Stu Zakim; HarperCollins exec editor David Hirshey along with colleague Marjorie Braman; CBS News prez Sean McManus (who sent a shout-out to our own Brian Stelter of TVNewser), Cindy Adams, Men’s Health editor David Zinczenko (who ate an appetizer that I think was fried); Henry Schlieff (but no Bob Schlieff, sadly)(new DJ nickname); Lloyd Grove and fetching companion; CBS exec Susan Zarinsky (whom was referred to as “a pistol”), publishing poobahs Jane Friedman (CEO of HarperCollins) and Jack Romanos (president of Simon and Schuster)(yes! They had a Romanos!), Henry Finder (Remnick’s no.2 at the New Yorker), hot new CBS show “Love Monkey” star Jason Priestley with his very adorable wife Naomi (Jason Priestley is Canadian and promised he’d check out Fishbowl), NPR’s DC-based media macher, David Folkenflik (as fun a guy to meet in person as his last name is to say); AP’s Seth Suterl, Sara Nelson, EIC of Publisher’s Weekly; author and former MB EIC (and founder of this here blog) Elizabeth Spiers; Steven Zeitchuk of Variety and last but not least, Max Robbins, EIC of Broadcasting & Cable, to whom the line of the night was spoken by Gil Schwartz: “Happy Holidays — and that’s off the record!”
There’s lots of other stuff, but it’s really off the record. Call me and I’ll tell you, though. Thanks to Les, Gil, and the gang at CBS for a fun night!
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