If you happened to skip out on the Schwarzman party before his 30-minute self-tribute, before the hired orchestra did the Zeppelin cover, or before party favors were handed out, the Schwarzintor has a pocket full o’ reckoning to issue your lowly $5 per crab-claw eating self. After all, what is there left to live for after attending Schwarzman’s 60th Birthday Party to End All Parties (La Fiesta Terminal)?
This was the reasoning of party planner Philip Baloun, who passed on 6/28, shortly after losing all sense of purpose in the grim spectre of Schwarmapalooza. New York Social Diary commemorates Baloun’s passing by adding him to “The List.”
Baloun, pictured here with a girl wearing a purple tablecloth, ninja Martha Stewart and fashion designer Edna Mode from the Incredibles, was the go-to submissive when it came to Wall Street ragers.
Some background – Baloun started out as a high school English teacher and completely freaked out when he turned 30 (in 1976). He ditched his students (right in the middle of the Heart of Darkness unit), “changed his life,” and moved to New York to become a theatrical director (translation – out of the closet, with a punctuation mark). A short three years later, Baloun started his own design firm in New York and the rest, as they say, is inanity history.
According to New York Social Diary, Baloun “became a pioneer in combining forestry, interior design, lighting, exfoliates, carpenters, pipe cleaners, painters, early Bowie LPs, seamstresses, livestock, epidermis and funnel cake into transforming an ordinary room into a palatial confection.”
Baloun’s catalogue of notable ragers included George Soros’ Millennium Party, Saul Steinberg’s $1mm 50th Birthday Bash, a Sandy Weill Sock Hop, a Richard Lefrak C’est Chic Fete, an Alfred Taubman Date Auction, a Steve Cohen Bris and an Evening with Journey featuring Jamie Dimon.
Baloun was not a stranger to his own “artistry,” frequently decorating his own residences (notice the plural). For instance, Baloun acted as contractor, landscape designer, hedge trimmer, decorator and freshly manscaped lawn boy for his own East Hampton house.
Philip Baloun, dead at 61. R.I.P.
Old Rich People Are Productive Normal Members of Society [New York Social Diary’s “The List”]
parties
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Posted in:
Blackstone Group
The Blackstone Bash
Pete Peterson Parties On Eve Of BX IPO
By John Carney
On the eve of the company he co-founded with Stephen Schwarzman going public in the sixth largest IPO in US history, Pete Peterson threw a party for his daughter Holly at the Four Seasons. The party, ostensibly to celebrate the publication of Holly’s debut novel The Manny, attracted a host of notable guests from the world of finance and media. It was a lavish affair in the grill room of the Four Seasons, defying expectations that Blackstone’s founders would be shying away from public exhibitions of their wealth after recent attention on Schwarzman’s wealth seemed to provoke a public backlash.
Our invitation must have been sent to the wrong address because we’re pretty sure Pete and Holly wouldn’t have neglected to invite DealBreaker. After all, they had invited riff-raff from New York magazine and “Page Six.” So we crashed the party. And promptly got tossed out into a raging storm.
We’ll forgive the Petersons because they have far more money than we do. Besides, being outside gave us the chance to pall around with CNBC’s Bertha Coombs and her team, and snap some pictures of the arriving guests. And eventually Holly stopped by to speak with us. She mentioned that she was proud of her father and that she thought that video for the Manny was “very funny.” But we wanted to know the answer to the most important question: was the publication of her book and the scheduling of this party the reason the Blackstone IPO was moved up an entire week.
“That’s just a coincidence,” Holly said.
A long time after all the important guests arrived, the party crash team from Gawker showed up, dressed in costumes that were part Eastern European goth and part Williamsburg drunktard. They tried to sneak into the party. No dice. Security and the PR girls blocked them like a third-rate Jersey City hedge fund trying to buy into the BX IPO. Instead, they hung around in the rain with us, chatting up the wealthiest cougars they could find.
[After the jump we bring you a slide show of Scott Bressler's photos from the Peterson party.]
More coverage of the events from around the internet:
Crashing The ‘Manny’ Book Party [Gawker]
Liz Smith Gets Grabby at ‘Manny’ Celebration [New York Magazine]
[Photo: Lauren Lancaster, Veras]
Tell us and we’ll get you wet. Details:
This past Saturday, a party was thrown to celebrate Leveraged Sell-Out’s book deal. While we’re eagerly looking forward to the book, not one member of the regular DealBreaker team made it to the party. But a DealBreaker has spies everywhere and this afternoon we debriefed the pretty blond girl with the cute Southern accent who we sent to represent our team.
DealBreaker: What was that LSO party like?
SouthernBelle: sort of a weird crowd
SouthernBelle: not many peeps i knew and young.
i also remember the following: enrique iglesias was playing
SouthernBelle: and someone actually name-dropped [Gawker media boss] lockhart steele
DealBreaker: Why did you agree to go the party?
SouthernBelle: I was wooed with the promise of free drinks
SouthernBelle: plus I liked my outfit too much to call it a night
DealBreaker: What was the highlight of the party?
SouthernBelle: that it was a party for a hipster, faux-banker populated by actual bankers pretending to be hipsters…mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the faux-est of them all…
SouthernBelle: From the cheering it seems like most people’s highlight was when Don’t Turn Out the Lights came on
DealBreaker: What as the lowlight?
SouthernBelle: lowlight: no soda to mix my vodka with
SouthernBelle: oh, and the point where a girl accused me of sleeping with you to get ahead in the blogger world. if i’m going to social climb through beds, it certainly won’t be through blogger beds
SouthernBelle: also the influx of the guys in ties with awful pick up lines and girls who looked like they came straight from jersey
SouthernBelle: that’s when i left
DealBreaker: Thanks. I guess that’s where we’ll leave off as well.
(This is ‘New York’ mag’s pic; we’d never be so gauche as to suggest that this is
where you go to grab ass. If you’re looking for that kind of thing, try New Jersey)
Have you been itching to nail a Wall Streeter but are unsure of where to get the job done, short of stopping by 277 Park on the way home tonight? (Let’s be honest—85 Broad too far out of everyone’s way to f*** a dude who’ll who will kick you out just prior to the culmination so he can finish to the sound of Jim Cramer’s voice). Lucky for us—er, you, New York magazine’s annual Best of New York issue is out and, in addition to naming the best place in the city for PB&J, an “alternative briefcase,” and a one-night-stand, they’ve singled out Fizz on East 55th as the “Best Place to Meet A Wall Street Guy.” Previously a members only club, the stop between Marquee and UES apartments now only requires an annual fee of $1,000 from half its members, many of whom are “Masters of the Universe from Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers…hoping to clean up in the singles market.” Since we’ve never been to the ‘izz, preferring to pick up our Wall Streeters at Joshua Tree and occasionally Dorian’s, we checked in with former JP Morgan analyst/Mergers and Acquisitions auteur, Dana Vachon, who we felt confident could speak on the matter just as eloquently and informatively as he did RE: the Weill/Prince tête-à-tête.
DB: can I get your thoughts re: http://nymag.com/bestofny/nightlife/2006/golddiggerbar/?
DV:It’s like Au Bar on drugs, which is to say it is just like Au Bar.
DV: On most nights it’s totally empty
DV: On good nights, generally after benefits, it resembles a tweaked-out Sultan’s caravan
DV: minus the virgins
DV: Fizz is rather like Lichtenstein; a place you pass through, but not a destination in its own right
DV: And if you think that Ivana Trump is writing thousand dollar checks for her membership, then you must live in Lichtenstein
DV: because I have lots of far less glamorous friends who are members and not one of them pays a dime
DB: interesting, interesting. What else?
DV: well Ivana just got a boob job
DV: Did it have anything to do with fizz?
DV: I don’t know
DV: But it had a lot to do with gravity, that is for sure
DV: and as this place is in a basement, perhaps the gravity is a touch stronger, eh?
DV: So is Fizz responsible for Ivanka’s boob job?
DV: I think the readers ought to decide.
Best Place to Meet a Wall Street Guy [NYM]
(And don’t feel bad about invitees already calling tonight’s bash The Poor Man’s Schwarzman. He might’ve had jumbo sized shrimp puffs and an ice sculpture of Dick Parsons, but jumbo sized shrimp puffs and an ice sculpture of Dick Parsons aren’t John Carney serenading you with “Happy Birthday, Mr. (Activist) Investor,” now are they?)
For those of you who are unlucky enough to not still be drunk from the big Schwarzman bash last night, either because you’re now hung-over (take a page from Jamie Dimon’s playbook and have a few of whatever you were throwing back last night, which in JD’s case, would be some Fuzzy Navels) or because you weren’t there in the first place, take comfort—we’re about to soothe your woes with a little rundown of the big event, as compiled by notes from DealBook, the Post, and the tiny camera Melania Trump agreed to wear between her cleavage for the better half of the night (but only after we promised to tell you “This footage was brought to you by Trump, All Rights Reserved”).
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Posted in:
banking culture
Roth: “Everyone Goes Home With An STD Or No One Goes Home At All”
By Bess Levin
The other day, John, me, The New Guy and the proprietor of Todd Mahal (Todd Thomson to you) were lamenting the lack of spirit on Wall Street these days. TT was all, “You really can’t meet any quality women at after hours functions unless you’re putting money in their g-strings or giving them comped flights on your boss’s jet. And even then, they won’t do the stuff they’d do back in the eighties.” The New Guy bemoaned the fact that “I was six years old when it was considered socially acceptable to impregnate a hooker and then stiff her on the child support– not that that stopped me much, but it did hinder my game.” And John was like, “I can’t even remember the last time I went home with a good trannie.” Sure, you’ve got the decent people over and Jefferies putting in overtime to make sure most parties have at least a midget toss or two during cocktail hour, but that’s about it.
Which is why we were thrilled—nay, doubled-over—to read this morning that Roth Capital Partners is knee-deep in its 5-year plan to “bring back the bygone glory days of rich, white, middle-aged men having sex with prostitutes whilst ‘gangsta rap’ plays melodically in the background, Everclear flows like water and the question isn’t ‘Do you have a prescription for that drug,’ it’s, ‘Anybody got a fresh needle I can borrow?’”
While big banks may be worried about sexual harassment suits, Roth, thankfully is not. Last September, the small-cap underwriter threw a soiree at the Meatpacking District’s Buddakan for a “Cancun-meets-Wall Street-themed Lollapalooza,” replete with “several dozen topless Asian models, with the ticker symbols of the companies Roth underwrote body-painted on.” (Which coincidentally sounds vaguely reminiscent of the talent at my Bat Mitzvah party, though the girls were fellow Jewesses, and the spray-painted symbols were lines from my Haf Torah, written in very tiny font). A Roth spokeswoman told the Post’s Roddy Boyd that the women were an integral “part of a plan to help everyone unwind after a really long, hard day.”
In a few weeks, after an upcoming stock conference, Roth will be hosting a two-day “blow off steam etc” event. The first evening will be a party featuring Ludacris (who, we’d like to put it out there, was fantastic in Crash, though obviously not nearly as good as the inimitable Brendan Fraser). The next night will be a “Roman-themed toga Party” with performances by Otis Day and the Knights, who were last seen in 1978’s Animal House. Anyone with dates and times—get in touch. We’ll all meet up at the Pussycat Lounge to pre-game beforehand.
ROTH CAPITAL’S $LEAZE TO PLEASE [NYP]
Forbes, which, little known fact, is actually an off-shoot of the Emily Post Institute, offers a handy how-to guide today, per attending holiday parties. And by handy we mean handy for people who either a. are the human equivalent of watching paint dry (no flirting! “This is a no-flirting zone. It risks being construed as sexual harassment. Besides, it’s just creepy”) or b. have never actually attended a party (“Attend other parties. If you’re invited to another party, go”). What’s also interesting is that, aside from Forbes’ obvious attempt to be a total buzz-kill (“Enjoy a drink or two, not 12″), the list of Do’s and Don’ts seem to have required no research, akin to helpful hints on dating: “meet men,” “shower,” “show up when you have a date.” And speaking of parties, don’t forget about us! If you can top the invite to dinner at a Deutsche Bank’s managing partner’s home in Westchester, the drinks are on us, provided there’s an open bar. (Also, rest assured, we do not subscribe to ANY of Forbes’ commandements).
Office Party Do’s and Don’ts [Forbes]
We’re not exactly sure why we didn’t get the invitation to this party Steve Clemons details at the Huffington Post:
Last night, Washington’s political stars turned out to pay homage to the banker who started in 1976 lending $27 to 42 people in one village in Bangladesh.
Muhammad Yunus and many of his colleagues from the Grameen Bank were feted at an extraordinary reception and dinner gathering — on a Sunday night — at the Willard Hotel in Washington and hosted by the United Nations Foundation.
Among the guests were former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Congressman and Mrs. Tom Udall, Senator and Mrs. Paul Sarbanes, Pew Research executive and former Washington Post “Outlook” Editor Jodie Allen, Ted Turner and his companion Kathy Leach, Bruce and Hattie Babbitt, former Senator and UN Foundation President Timothy & Wren Wirth, former State Department Legal Adviser William Howard Taft IV, former Senator Donald Riegle, Ashoka founder William Dreyton, Kathy Bushkin, Kenneth Adelman, John Cochran, Diane Rehm, John Henry and Ann Crittendon, and many others.
A Grameen Gala and Ted Turner’s Birthday [Huffington Post]
So you thought another post about Wall Street Warriors was out of the question, did you? Well, guess what? You thought wrong. Dead wrong. You don’t pop open a bottle of wine and start drinking without letting it decant and we don’t take just one shot at the greatest story ever told and call it a day. (Not sure if that analogy even works but spilt milk and, as they say, no crying). Thus, last night we found ourselves at Trinity Place, the site of the (fingers crossed) award winning show’s We’ve Made It Through Two Episodes, This Is Cause For Celebration! Happy Hour. Pete had to “work late” (sounds like a good cover for staying home to play World of Warcraft) and unfortunately couldn’t make it but I’m going to continue with the first person plural while going through the pictures I–we– took because it gives me a false sense of superiority and because Carney is, in his own words, “omnipresent” and was therefore with me last night. Let’s take a look. Christian Slater—->
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