Media Christmas: Friday Fun with Rupe
The big News Corporation party was Friday night, including the staffs of the all the company's New York operations — folks from the Post and Fox News and Channel 5 and the sports nets and the movie company and everything else — and it took over the entire ballroom floor of the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue. We went with a friend to the party last year and found it profoundly odd. According to some emailed reports we received today, last year was no exception.
Disclaimer: I don't work there. After Friday night, I'm more certain than ever that that's a good thing.
The theme of the night? Relentless self-promotion, the epitome of which was "Club Ice" — a banquet hall swathed in white flowing fabric with ice sculptures and freezers full of Haagen Dazs. Oh hey, whaddya know, Ice Age 2 is coming out soon! Nothing like dancing to Z100-style "hip-hop" while watching large screens featuring "exclusive clips" from the film. What could be more pathetic? Perhaps the fact that there was a line — complete with velvet rope — to enter the room come 10 p.m.
Rumors of Rupey's attendance swirled but no one had actually seen him. That's because he was probably in the VIP area. That's right. There was a VIP area (situated in the balcony above the main ballroom so that Rupert and other higher-ups could feel physically superior in addition to mentally).
It was the first (and hopefully last) company party I've been to where a map was required just to figure out where the hell you were.
Cheerleaders were hired to "fire up the crowd" in one of the rooms. They were wearing uniforms with NewsCorp logos. Overhead: "That brilliant bit of customization means that my annual raise just went from 3% to 1%."
All in all I'm grateful to that crazy conservative Australian for getting me sufficiently drunk on white wine. However, once was enough and I'll be much happier at my tiny production company's vodka-soaked holiday party at a dive bar in the East Village. Even if I have to pay for my own drinks. At least there I can be certain that everyone hates Bush.
Which is also the feeling we had when we went last year.
Update: A Postie adds, "on the upside, there was a bar every fucking five feet you walked and you could smoke cigs behind those big, billowy, white curtains."
