Here’s what we can tell you about PhillyMag’s Best Of Philly Party, held last night at the Cira Center (aka “The cool new Amtrak building”): They didn’t fuck it up! Now, look: The BOP party is just about as venerable as the issue itself, but even more than that, the incredibly junior-varsity snafus that often happen at/to the party are… well, legendary. And frankly, we look forward to that, at this point, even more than the issue. One year, everybody’s nametags got tangled together and we witnessed PR girls losing their robot minds right before our very eyes, until they all gave up and for one brilliant year, the BOP party was a place where VIP-dom was held in equality. Another year — was it last year? — the valets mixed up everybody’s keys and the party location was like the Superdome if Katrina had happened in Conshohocken.
Report continues (with slide show) after the jump.

But this year, nothing like that happened. Sure, Alycia Lane got her knickers in a twist at the last moment and bailed out on hosting, so Larry Platt had to do the honors of announcements and such, which thankfully were kept to a minimum. Nobody goes to these things to hear magazine editors awkwardly fumble through what is essentially a creation of the ad department; they go to be seen, and they go to witness the insane melting pot that the BOP party is.

And on this count, the party did not disappoint. Executives rubbin’ elbows with rock show bookers, journos mixin’ it up with Corona girls, and daughters of rich men hangin’ with… daughters of rich men. But we spied some boldface anyway: Pierre Robert, and his hair, was everywhere. Nice dude. Weather people always abound at these things, and so it was not uncommon to see Hurrican Schwartz milling about and Good God NO, we did not attempt to speak with him. We hear he’s easily angered. Sighting of the night HAD to be none other than beleagured llama farmer Vince Fumo, looking more like Lou Dobbs than ever. We wanted to say hello, but really: What can one offer the man who has it all? Oh, ALSO? There was a cop on a Segway there. (See slideshow.) We were hoping he was gonna turn out to be a male stripper, but no such luck.

A word about the population at this thing: Less Main Line leathery wives with straw hair than ever before. We don’t know if this is because of a purposeful demo shift on behalf of Philly Mag, or if it’s because they’re all dying off. (UV rays, both A and B varieties, are a bitch.) The party was also overstaffed with what had to be 45-120 sweet young PR things in white dresses, diligently reminding us why we stopped dating WASP-y chicks in 2003. On the plus side, every woman at this thing, from 18 to 65 (and I do mean “65″) was showing major cleavage. No idea why, son: Sometimes these things are just in the air. The dude scene? Crisp, in a word. Maybe a little too crisp, actually: Even the token “rocker” dudes at the party looked like they were styled by Pete Wentz’s gay cousin, also in 2003. It really was a magical year.

The Cira Center itself, though, is a stylish, sexy beast. Rae, the house restaurant that did the catering (think “global finger food”), is very, very Gattaca. And if that was too much cold futurism for you, there was also a huge party tent outside the building sponsored by House Of Blues with DJ Mark Farina laying down pretty much the same DJ set he’s rocked since 1998. He’s like the Grateful Dead of outmoded nu-jazz DJs. It’s weird. But the hookah/Ali Baba tent was totally where it was at, Daddio: We chewed the fat with Jim McGuinn, rapped with Hilary from Casino-Free Philadelphia and gently broke the news to Dan Gross that, vibe to the contrary, free weed was not in abundance in the HOB-BOP tent. There were, however, free tickets to see Richard Marx or Los Lobos in the gift bags. Which is just as good, really.

Tigre Hill told us about the Mumia Abu-Jamal documentary he’s working on, which we can already tell is going to be huge and controversial and probably fucking awesome. Dorothy Robinson from the Metro also repped hard, as did Josh Cornfield, winner for Best Blogger. (Enjoy it, dude, and don’t think the BOP Blogger Crown is not redeemable for ass, don’t think it even for a second.) But beyond that, you know, it was just people hanging out. No stranded trophy wives, no tears over VIP passes, no PhillyMag attorneys serving us with papers. Great job, guys, but next year, can you at least, I dunno, stage a cat fight or something?

Previously: Special Report: We Read The Best Of Philly Because You’re Not At Your Mom’s House So You Don’t Have To

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 2:56 pm.