The Brooklyn - Kings County - Republican Party holds its Annual Holiday Party

Wednesday evening Craig Eaton and John Catsimatidis welcomed Brooklyn Republicans to Holiday Festivities at the Brooklyn Bar Ass'n at 123 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights  

GOP "Party Secretary" Russell Gallo chats up local columnist about his own prospects in 2014 

About a hundred folks enjoyed dancing to music from a DJ, plentiful hot food, and beverages such as wine and soda in the main meeting room of the Brooklyn Bar Association on Remsen Street not far from Saint Francis College. It was all compliments of Craig Eaton and the Kings County Republican Party, along with another one of those "un-secret Santas" -- John Catsimatidis.

There was plenty of political gossip; and local reporter Will Bredderman was very interested about the comings and goings of the likes of  E. O'brien-Murray and Rob Ryan; and he noted the enthusiastic greetings and applause from the crowd to the introductions of Mr. & Mrs. Catsimatidis and local candidates like Bob Capano and Russell Gallo. Once or twice during the evening, Gallo and Bredderman were deep in conversation with Gallo coyly saying that he was very interested in going all-out for a big race in 2014 and that he would probably be the only one willing to do that going forward.

For those seeking comparisons, there were about three to four times as many guests at the function thrown Monday night at the Bay Ridge Manor.  Nonetheless, the Eaton-Catsimatidis party didn't need to take any backseat to the earlier scheduled function when it came to the fun  being had by its guests. At one point, there were almost fifty people on a conga line dancing around and trying to Shanghai the less Terpsichorean-oriented politicos who were apparently more deeply involved in political gossip on the edges of the dance area. The dance floor seemed to grow as the conga line grew and the non-dancers retreated from the all-assimilating, pulsating python that included such dancing fools as Russell Gallo, Gene Berardelli and Tom McCarthy, and far too many women of all ages and descriptions to mention by name (even if I did know more than a few of them). There were one or two couples that did the older style ballroom steps, bunches of women that tried some line dances and more than a handful of pairs doing Latin style dances that looked and sounded like Salsa and Merengue.  One or two couples even looked like they could have scored high with Carrie-Ann or Bruno -- and possibly even "A 'Ten' from Len !" There were about fifty still in the room and others outside in the hall and around the building when the DJ announced the last dance. Things continued apace for another fifteen or twenty minutes until somebody flashed the lights some time after 9:30 to signal about thirty stalwart revelers that the party was over.

With that, some lifts home were arranged in the hall and out in front of the Bar Association, and about a dozen YRs went off to continue to party a few blocks away at O'Keefe's on Court Street. Others came and went there; and about eight or nine remained at the Court Street bar after 11:15.