Central Park Rangers FC

For those of you unfortunate enough to have missed Ciaran’s 30th birthday bash at Central Bar last night, here’s a quick recap:

The night promised to be full of surprises (and so it was) when Nikle finally produced his mythical girlfriend and she turned out to be quite cool, attractive and, dare I say, civilized. The only way Nikle manages to keep her all these years turns out to be his passion for modern art – a passion he keeps carefully hidden from all of us, it seems. Can you really blame him?

I’m jumping forward a bit here, but I know you’re all dying to hear whether our favorite celebrity correspondent was in attendance. He was, and he had a delightful young lady in toe (you’ll have to excuse the very appropriate pun) and she had some very interesting revelations to make – namely, that she and Rob started dating when she was an intern sent to interview the highly respected veteran reporter. I know what you’re thinking. Rob doesn’t date. Not in the traditional sense anyway. It’s true it doesn’t quite square with the Chilton myth but we’re going to give him a pass on having a quasi-steady girlfriend because, God Bless Chilton, she happens to be a senior in college. You know what this means. Here we’ve been ragging on BP for dating a girl who’s been an undergraduate all three years of their relationship, when all the while, here’s 30-something Chilton prancing around with Columbia co-eds. Which brings me to my second important revelation of the evening. But I’ll get to that in a minute. (Wait for it, Marko. I know you know where this is going.)

On the scandal front, Caroline’s girlfriends were in attendance, as promised, and it wasn’t long before our resident Casanovas – Eduardo Mazzi and Ilya Zlatar – were locked in the mortal combat of head-to-head flirtation. The battle joined, it was closely contested for a good half hour before the Serb remembered he left his front teeth at home and, implicitly throwing in the towel, excused himself to go drink more Guinness with the boys. Which was probably the right move, as watching Eduardo do everything he could think of to not kiss the girl in front of him was infinitely more entertaining than the simultaneous Wii boxing match taking place in the corner of the bar. Here’s a hint Mazzi: when she insists on you grasping her in your arms while she snaps multiple portraits of the two of you on her Canon SureShot, you can probably sneak one in at that point. Dipping her in an ill-advised ballroom dance move and then falling on top of her wasn’t the smoothest way to go. In your defense, the gang of guys chortling into their beers two feet away probably wasn’t helping your game. Our bad.

The already bright evening brightened even more with the arrival of Ugo Solinas, just back from a peacekeeping mission at Hogwarts. If I had a picture of Ugo sweeping into the pub in all his sartorial splendor, you would understand.

And then there was the final revelation: a very reliable source present at the party and granted anonymity for fear of Serbian retribution, revealed that Marko Guzijan, who tells more people he went Columbia than I tell people I’m the fastest man in the club, actually went to Hobart College. He transferred to Columbia (and here I quote) “as a GS, which is basically for people who have taken a few years off between high school and college.” That sounds suspiciously like “continuing education” to me. Or maybe it sounds like a program Rob Chilton might want to look into. Either way, we still love you Marko – even if your Ivy League reputation has been slightly tarnished.

And finally, I know you are all dying to hear whether or not justice was served on the mean streets this morning. Unfortunately, it was not. Returning home to my apartment without even the hint of a Jaeger Bomb in my system (and thus more or less ready to execute that warrant a few hours hence), I received a frantic phone call from Sarah telling me her taxi had been in an accident and she was bleeding everywhere and could I please come quick. Which, of course, I did. When I got to the scene, there were two totaled yellow cabs and firetrucks everywhere. Thankfully, Sarah was in the backseat of one of the taxis bleeding from a gash above her eye (and with a slight fracture in the orbital lobe) but not too badly injured otherwise. We spent the next eight hours in the emergency room, where it occurred to me more than once that not drinking those Jaeger Bombs probably kept me from repeatedly puking into a bedpan like the really drunk guy on the next gurney over (I did do a quick walk-by to make sure it wasn’t one of you clowns). In any event, my all night vigil at Beth Israel meant the bad guys won the battle today. But we will win the war – of that you can be sure.

Have fun tonight, fellas. And remember, should things go south on the legal front, your first call should be to Hakan as my cellphone will be off. He can point you in the right direction.

Cheers and Happy Holidays.

Linehan