Remembering my friend Bernard Kerik — NYC's top cop
Kerik was friend to the end
Eternity is breaking up that old gang of mine.
In his good years, Bernie Kerik was good. Very good. Nobody gooder.
I was often at his New Jersey home. Dinners. Parties. Crowded? You couldn't throw a summons without hitting a VIP. Son Joe a detective. Himself a former NYC cop. As top cop, one Christmas card pictured his favorite one-namers — Donald, Geraldo and me.
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I've kept letters he sent me from prison. Talk was maybe a movie being written about him. He wanted Tom Cruise to star.
Yeah, he went bad. In politics it's catching. It's in the walls. Like the virus. USA — greatest piece of Earth God ever created — and Mrs. ventriloquist Biden getting hairs bleached a swab away from the nuclear codes?
Before Bernie went to jail we talked. Just us. Blotting tears he said: 'Not easy to take. My brother said he didn't know I was this tough. I don't read newspapers, don't watch TV. Seeing, hearing it yourself is awful.
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'Friends fell to three types. Those who fled, those who stayed as support, and those I'll have to try to forget.
'Happened was I got involved in my own celebrity. It's arrogance. You think you're above the law. I made mistakes. I'm paying the price for it. People have said I had no right to have reached that high because I'm a nothing who came from nothing . . . so what do I know . . . I don't know.'
Down 50 pounds, NYC's once-heralded former police commissioner — who now spoke very quietly — 'Even at this stage I'm getting offers. Stuff like international security. Israel, Jordan, Middle East. Consulting on counterterrorism.
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'And you don't know your friends until trouble hits. I've been ignored by them all. Close ones stick. Some show up to see — or help. Then there's the so-called ones you thought you always had. They disappeared.'
Ciao to Chow's
And from life's other side: another deeply appreciated Philippe Chow Chinese restaurant's opening.
His East 60th branch — after 20 years — is closing. His new East Side location's opening September.
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Why's he moving? Because Extell Development Co. founder Gary Barnett has building plans. Philippe Chow Downtown inside West 16th's Dream Hotel is already getting jazzy queries.
The clientele included Mariah Carey, Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar. Need a table? The GM at the new place is Kostas Paterakis.
Doc is music to his ears
Sting and Trudie Styler's kid Jake Sumner doing a doc about famed NYC concert promoter Ron Delsener — he brought Simon and Garfunkel back together for their 1981 reunion in Central Park.
Paying tribute in the flick, Jon Bon Jovi says: 'His name even came before the band.' Paul Simon: 'New York was his town.'
Delsener, for some reason, eats a sandwich during the piece. Sandwich, OK. But if it's ribs — better he should ship them to my house.
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And be it known the previous government was desperately trying to help small businesses. We should be grateful a little fellow once made the rounds with a hand organ and a monkey. Biden gave him a loan. Now he flounces around with a steam calliope and a gorilla.
Only in Washington, kids, only in Washington.
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