Last night's gossip panel at the 92nd Street Y starring Richard Johnson of Page Six, Joyce Wadler of the NY Times, and Joanna Molloy and Lloyd Grove of the NY Daily News, teetered on the edge of entertaining — and it would have been great if the moderator, Ken Frydman, had ever SHUT THE HELL UP. He asked all the right questions, but then never let the gossip mongers talk. For example, he totally went where it counted: "The war of words have increased between the Daily News and the Post. The three of you" — excluding Joyce — "are the main combatants in what appears to be a tabloid war. Is it personal, or is it business? Do you like each other?"

Richard gave a charitable answer about how the tabloid gossips used to have a non-aggression pact, and was probably about to get dishy, and then Ken just moved it along. What the fuck? He did this OVER and over again. Ken should take a page from Boldface Names queen Joyce Wadler and her minions, who understand the art of letting people hang themselves.

Joanna Molloy was in fine catty form, as in this exchange on the joys of blind items:

Richard Johnson: I think it's a great way to get something into the paper. It's something that you can t prove, and we only put stories in that we think are true.

Joanna Molloy: And they become much bigger stories later... elsewhere.

And more Joanna:

Joanna: We did a story a friend of mine was at a party at Sean Penn's house, and Sean was doing the horizontal mambo with someone who didn t look like Robin Wright Penn ... you know, having sex? ... So when I called about it, he called back and was like, I... HAVE... A.... FAMILY. And I was like, you didn t think about them then?

But, as always, it's crazy Auntie Joyce stealing the show, this time on most-hated interview subjects:

Joyce Wadler: Mel Gibson. He was doing a remake of 'Mutininy on the Bounty' in Tahiti. I should accept some of the blame, I didn't realize he wasn't a talker. He didn't want to talk, I came at him. There are all these cute little Tahitian cupcakes, and [PAUSE] I'd seen Mel leaving the party, and [PAUSE] I'd seen the girls leaving the party at the same time, making conversation. "Well Mel, you used to be a struggling actor and now you have the same press agent Richard Gere has." [Etc., etc., to which Mel is nonresponsive.] He says, "this interview is fucking boring me to tears." Well it was fucking boring me to tears too, but I d come all the way to New Zealand. The next day I arrived on the boat and no one's talking to me. Finally the publicist tells me that Mel has come down to talk about 'that cunt from New York." And I was the only reporter there from New York."