In Touch Party Provides Janet Jackson the Opportunity to Save Lives 38581

This is Jossip publisher David Hauslaib getting bleary-eyed with Post media scribe Keith Kelly. (Yes, that is one thumb way up.)

Keith had just returned from the bar with a Ketel One and soda for David, and a proper beer for himself. You see, when Keith arrived at In Touch’s fifth anniversary party, he had been handed some sort of raspberry-and-pommegranite beer concoction. He did not like it. We’re sure of that.

What we’re unsure of it whether he enjoyed Kanye West’s performance, because we were too busy noting how many feet apart a Post columnist and a New York Daily News columnist (in this case, Ben Widdicombe) should keep between them.

Eyeballing it, we guessed at least six or seven.

Likely, we cared more than Widdicombe, who was attending his new boyfriend guy he’s dating, along with New York Times Magazine fashion titan Horacio Silva. They did not join us in our banquette dancing.

But to be fair, we did have reason to celebrate: We braved the mob outside (eyeballing it, we’re guessing several hundred) and successfully made our way past The Bloc Group’s Matthew Isaacs, looking dapper in pinstripes and an earpiece, and the ill-tempered Tenjune security squad, who succeeded in making the most enemies that night. After so many years in the nightlife industry, it appears owner Mark Birnbaum has yet to teach his staff which people deserve to be screamed at (e.g. obnoxious Tenjune regulars) and which people deserve to be accommodated (e.g. press and advertising clients there strictly for the party). Snooty, we know.

There was one person, however, who made plenty of friends: Janet Jackson. She joined the party via private entrance and was quickly escorted to a private banquet where she could look uninterested in private. And just when she was privately settling into her comfort zone, she became the night’s hero. After one of our staffers insisted she smelled something burning, Janet noticed a woman’s hair had been lit aflame from a candle, and promptly put it out.

All that, and she didn’t even get an appearance fee. We understand her publicist arranged her RSVP, which she was only too happy to do after In Touch ran a very skinny version of Janet on their cover.

In between adjusting his sunglasses and announcing his new single “Flashing Lights,” Kanye West performed. Elsewhere, red carper-walker Shaggy proved he is still sometimes invited to the events he attends.

In Touch editor Richard Spencer – refreshed and glowing in a way someone who just signed on to edit a second magazine should definitely not look – was in a swell mood, as one should be when they get to blow off New Jersey. His deputies Dan Wakeford and Michelle Lee, meanwhile, ensured the bottle service was put to good use.

By the time we made our exit, the mob mentality outside had reached a new peak. There looked to be a thousand people trying to burst through the barricades and storm into a venue that’s long overstayed its welcome.

So, see you there on Wednesday?