At Bette's Hulaween: Mayor Bloomberg "Dressed" as Matt Damon

Friday night, in the razzling-dazzling Waldorf-Astoria, Bette Midler entertained a packed ballroom of ghostly and goofy guests, raising over a million dollars and counting, for the New York Restoration Project.

Dressed as a Moulin Rouge madame, Midler and comedienne/gay rights activist, Judy Gold--a theater-joke crackin' Abe Lincoln--worked the crowd, shaking people for $2,500 a tree.

"Everywhere I turn I see hippy bags and beads; it's fantastic!" said Midler, as she cruised by the table of designer Michael Kors, dressed as a musician hitchhiking to Woodstock, 1969. Peace signs, protesting hippies ("No Nukes!") were in abundance, possibly a nod to our growing quagmire in Afghanistan and God knows where else, or the night's special performance by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, dressed as themselves, save for Nash's Guru-gettup, which could be how he normally goes about town.

Other notable costumes included NYRP's executive director, Drew Becher, as a renassiance lord, tights and all, Katie Couric as Kate Gosselin (hilario), Martha Stewart as...a root? (still not quite sure), adorable, soulful Australian singer Sia as a bunny or back-up dancer for the Flaming Lips, Gloria Gaynor as a pirate, and The B52's Kate Pierson went as Annie Oakley.

(Speaking of Woodstock, Pierson runs a 9-acre retreat, Kate's Lazy Meadow, in the Catskills. From the website it looks rustic retro chic--very "Love Shack.")

Whoopi Goldberg, wearing black fairy wings, gave opening remarks, "I love me some Mayor Bloomberg, but Bette is cleaning the city." (NYRP has turned 55 vacant lots into community gardens and planted over 250,000 trees on its way to a million by 2017).

"Who would have thought one tree could make such a difference...I have a cat so I don't f--- with trees," said Goldberg. Commenting on Midler's fearlessness in building the first boathouse in Harlem in over 150 years, Goldberg cracked, "'I'm Jewish, I go where I want!'"

Later in the evening, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, dressed in orange slacks and a black sweater, received Midler's "Wings Beneath My Wings Award," for his support in teaming up with NYRP to green New York.

Midler presented him with two tickets to her Las Vegas show and a signed CD. Bloomberg looked down at the tickets and read off a nose-bleed seat number. He gave brief remarks, that running for re-election is "easier than saying 'no' to Bette Midler" and claimed to be dressed as Matt Damon for Halloween. His hardy sign-off of "Let's go NY Yankees!" got the ballroom chanting,"Let's go Yankees!"

Costume winners of the annual Hulaween Ball, judged by Kors, included half-a-dozen people as ginormous potted flowers and a group of dudes dressed as a stocked liquor cabinet--Jose Cuervo carried a sparkling giant slice of lime--very economically appropriate. Also in that category was a woman donning chains, cobwebs, clutching an assortment of shopping bags, including a white crisp one from Chanel, and wrapped presents, and a book with the big, bold title: "Dow 36,000." With a resigned smirk, she said that she was the ghost of Christmas past, "when we all had money."

Luckily, there are so many insane prizes to choose from on the NYRP online auction [www.charityfolks.com], making it affordable. Prizes include a bike ride through Brooklyn with rapper Matisyahu, meeting Whitney Houston and 2 VIP tickets to her concert, a customized outfit by Christian Siriano, a walk-on role and lunch on the set of "It's Always Sunny in Phildelpiha," a day in the studio with Jackson Browne, and if you want to keep the spooky spirit of Halloween going strong, you can bid on lunch with Jann Wenner or tennis lessons with John McEnroe.

Now, for the moment you've all been waiting for, mermaid me for Halloween! Cute clutch by Italian designer Stefano Marcantonio and vintage hairpin is IGO by April Torres.

Photo by Stephen Kosloff

More pictures, courtesy of the iPhone!

Sia and Kate Pierson enjoying Whoopi's stand-up

dessert!

Crosby, Stills, and Nash take the stage

 

Follow Andrea Chalupa on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LifeB4Tw1tter

Comments

[Alvin4NY]

NYRP is one of the most fiscally repsonsible charitable organizations out there, period! They run a tight ship, and never lose sight of the goal... If they have been able to coax good-will out of Bloomberg, more power to them. You have to work with who-ever is in charge....you can't begrudge NYRP for being responsible and making the most of it.

[PoliticalRockChick]

Btoomberg needs to go. Anyone who extends their term and want to play dictator needs to go. Bloomberg is out of touch with the general public. Allowing his rich friends get off not paying their fair share of taxes (like the corporate taxes that are hurting small businesses in the city), he needs to go.

[PoliticalRockChick]

They buying trees for $2500? Are these trees made out of gold or something? Do they have magical powers or something?

[benjaminblue]

What's frightening about this Halloween shindig is that the greedy, wealthy constituents of Mr. Bloomberg continue to spend lavishly while -- due at least in part to his indifferent, incompetent "leadership" -- hundreds of thousands of other New York City residents have lost jobs, homes and health care benefits.

What's scary about this Halloween blow-out is that these disgusting, self-serving individuals support Mr. Bloomberg, who casually, callously ignored the electorate and broke the law in his grab for a third term. These enablers would rather have a dictatorship for Mr. Bloomberg and his petulant, narrow-focus, mean-spirited ideas than a democracy. All of them should be incarcerated for aiding and abetting a criminal.

It is time for New Yorkers to reclaim their once-great city before Mr. Bloomberg and his foolish court jesters ruin it entirely.

[c-lupa]

This event is one of the most important in NYC, in raising funding to build community gardens and parks in some of the poorest neighborhoods in New York. Just last month the NYRP opened a community garden in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium, for children in the neighboring public school to grow and maintain gardens, to learn about and appreciate nature in this concrete jungle. This was all done with the support of America's greenest Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. He created 527 acres of new parkland in the city and 91 new playgrounds in his quest to make sure that every NY'er lives within a ten-minute walk to a green space. And 15-percent of NYC's taxis are hybrids because of him. He could have ran for President, if he wanted to, when the GOP had nobody else except for loopy John McCain, but he refused, becoming an independent. If he was such a dictator he would have done it, but he loves this city and wants to make it the strongest it has ever been.

[Jesse Kornbluth - Huffpost Blogger]

[Tone: harsh, superior] You are SO RIGHT! Rich, spoiled New Yorkers decided NOT to go to their country fortresses so they could show off their continued ability to buy tix for charity events --- and then spend even MORE money to buy trees! That's right, TREES --- the ultimate status symbol. Suitable for a nice gold plaque with your name on it. A bargain, dahling, don't you think, at just $2,500 a tree?

[Change of tone] Really, this knee-jerk hatred of money, spent at an evening that just happened to honor a mayor who actually cares about the environment (unlike Giuliani, say, who never saw a tree he didn't like better as a Yankee bat or a cop's club), is really kinda knee-jerk, don't you think? Better, I guess, that those who have money just hold on to every penny, so our sensitve eyes aren't offended by them spending it --- even if their spending cleans and beautifies our city.

I nean, really!!!!!!

[BigGuy]

Nah, nothing's frightening about this. And $2,500 a person is not a lot for a good party where just about all of it is going to a good cause. The performers worked for free. The only cost of this was for the room rental and the food and drink. And big surprise, when it's a charity people believe in, not that many people drink too much, even at a masquerade ball.

You don't have a clue about how much work Bette Midler does for this charity which does very good work. There are plenty of parties and charities that are all about people honoring each other without doing good works. NYRP is not one of them.

I'm not voting for Bloomberg either, but he doesn't use parties like this to get votes. He showed up because Bette Midler asked him and she asked at least a hundred others who showed up and paid the $2,500 too.

When a party raises over a million dollars for charity, the person throwing the party usually has to ask people directly to contribute money. Yes, sometimes big stars humble themselves in order to do good works and raise money. That's what Bette does.