Last night, the LI Biz Blog had the time of its life at the Press Club of Long Island’s annual Holiday Party, which, thank goodness, was held in a ballroom right next to the Association for a Better Long Island’s holiday party.
When we got there, we had two choices: hobnob with fellow journalists, shell out $5.50 for a glass of over-oaked cabernet, and try your luck at winning a few Top 40 CDs in the Chinese raffle, or we could head next door, shoot the sugar with guys like Gary Lewi and Kevin Law and get the same sawdust-infused red for free.
Needless to say, LI Biz Blog spent some quality time with Lewi and Law.
But, eventually we filed into the PCLI party, just in time for the annual holiday show, which, this year, minus one particularly tasteless jab at Mexicans, was full of the same heavy-handedness and overabundance of inside Newsday jokes to put a non-Newsday writer to sleep.
But then came Richard Kessel, who delivered a wonderful routine on the Top 10 Reasons You Should Hire Richard Kessel even after the Press Club players took several unimaginative jabs at him over his … stature. He was funny, but at one point he stopped and pointed to Nassau Comptroller Howard Weitzman sitting in the audience called him “the man I beat in 2008 for county executive.” Of course he said he was kidding.
But was he?
Hey, Henry…were you watching the same Richie Rebuttal the rest of us were? I mean, the Player’s stuff might have been tasteless (after all, what’s satire without some non-PC humor?). But at least it was occasionally funny! I guess it’s hard when you can’t call on guys like Bert Cunningham to write your jokes anymore. Seriously, though…we are already missing Richie Kessel (and since he was the fodder of some of my best stuff, I REALLY miss him), and hope he winds up in a high profile position where we can abuse him a little longer. Nobody is a better target because Richie has always been larger than life (no pun intended…really!). And nobody takes it with as much grace and good humor as Richie. He knows that as a public figure, the time to worry is when they STOP talking about you.
As for having too many inside-Newsday jokes, I agree…why don’t you step up to the plate and participate, Henry, so we can take some shots at LIBN, too? It’s been too many years since Carl Corry last played along. And we’ve long heard that John K. is a hell of a song and dance man. We’ll be calling!