PARKER: Bonkers benefit aids charity for children

By Penny Parker, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 2, 2007 at midnight

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Avs left winger Wojtek Wolski thought he was coming to Elway's Friday night for a quiet dinner with his girlfriend and TV star Ashley Leggat of Life With Derek fame.

Instead, he ended up donning a pink party dress and singing New York, New York on stage with his Avalanche colleagues. Why, you ask? Wolski walked right into the madness that included costumes and karaoke during the "celebrity server" evening to benefit Concerts For Kids, a local charity that raises big dough for children's organizations.

The high jinks, which raised more than $52,000, included teams of bold-face names doing tricks for tips. The fiercest fundraisers were: King Soopers' Kelly McGannon, Denver DA Mitch Morrissey, Opie Gone Bad's Jake Schroeder, KOSI radio's Denise Plante and Murphy Huston and the auditor's office guy RD Sewald. The team took in $4,900.

CFK president Christie Isenberg stopped at (nearly) nothing to fill her charity's coffers. "I'll give you $200 if you put on a sperm costume and get me a drink," she told a startled Tony Granato, Avs assistant coach, who obliged. "Tony, what are you thinking?" his boss, head coach Joel Quenneville, said while laughing. "You're dangerous."

Not to be outdone, goaltending coach Jeff Hackett put on a baby costume complete with a disposable diaper over his black boxer briefs. "It looks good on him," Quenneville said.

Other stunts included Christie's husband, hotel honcho Walter Isenberg, wearing a shocking-pink wig (and trust me, it was shocking) while doing a table dance. "We decided his drag queen name should be Strawberry Shortcake," said David Westman, also known as drag queen Nuclia Waste. But after the table dance, Waste changed his mind. "Now we've promoted him from Strawberry Shortcake to Strawberry Hotcakes."

John Oates, one half of Hall & Oates, made a bundle singing Maneater with an acoustic guitar. And Josh Hanfling donned even bigger breasts than the falsies he wore last year. "My back is killing me," he joked.

FARBER FEST: When Barbara Davis is the hostess and Steve Farber is the honoree, Denver's society types figure it's a command performance.

So Denver's bold-facers put on their finest feathers and flocked to the Denver Marriott City Center Saturday night for the High Hopes Tribute Dinner, a fundraiser for Davis' Children's Diabetes Foundation at Denver, honoring Farber.

Emcee and stand-up comic George Lopez took a few friendly jabs at our Mile High expense. "This is the city that has the first Mexican quarterback," he said. "John El Way."

Then he turned his humor on the tony attendees. "There's a lot of diversity in this room - white people and really white people."

Smokey Robinson, who left the stage after two songs because he wasn't feeling well, wowed the crowd with My Girl, and David Foster and Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds reminded us what great songs they've written for other singers.

EAVESDROPPING on a man trying to ignore the karaoke singers at Elway's: "This has got to stop soon."

Penny Parker's column appears Tuesday through Saturday. Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail parkerp@RockyMountainNews.com.

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