St. Patrick's day is coming up, and you know what that means: time for New York Post media columnist Keith Kelly's annual "Kelly Gang" dinner event! Famous Irish types, attend or else.

The Kelly Gang started as Keith's little annual get-together for NYC's most important Kellys—Keith Kelly, naturally, and police chief Ray Kelly, and Jim Kelly, who's both a former Buffalo Bills quarterback and the former head of Time magazine, and...the whole plethora of other important Kellys. Nowadays it's a charity event. Last year it raised $85,000 for good causes!

But the Kelly Gang party is an expensive evening at Michael's, and we hear that some people feel bullied into it by Keith—like, they're afraid that if they don't shell out the cash and show up, they'll get on his bad side, and sooner or later they'll be trashed in his column.

Well—without insinuating these fears are well-founded—isn't that how all charity dinners work? What's the problem here? Lord knows most of the people famous enough to get personal invites to these things deserve to be trashed in columns occasionally. Better to have your New York Post protection money go to a good cause than to Jared Paul Stern.
[Pic: Mediabistro]