I bowed out at $87,000

DAMN THAT MARSHA!


Robin Williams Gets $87G Christmas Gift: Bruce's Bike

Comedian and actor Robin Williams may be getting quite a surprise Christmas gift: an $87,500 motorcycle that once belonged to Bruce Springsteen. His wife, Marsha, bought it for him last night during an auction for Bob and Lee Woodruff’s Family Foundation.

You know ABC newsman Bob Woodruff — he is a walking, talking miracle after nearly dying last year on assignment in Iraq. He sustained physical damage as well as brain function problems. But if you’d seen him Wednesday night, you wouldn’t know anything had happened. That’s how much progress he’s made. It’s amazing.

Wednesday night, Bob and his beautiful, funny wife, Lee, hosted a bash at New York’s Town Hall Theater called "Stand Up for Heroes." They raised $2 million for the Bob Woodruff Family Fund at an all-star event organized in part by our pals at Freud Communications, Matthew Hiltzik and Lisa Dallos. The audience comprised vets, soldiers, Marines and really rich people.

The fund is designed to help raise awareness about vets and to get them aid and assistance. Who performed? Well, Springsteen, Williams, Conan O'Brien, Lewis Black and Brian Regan, as well as a Marine marching band featuring bag-pipers.

There was a Marine singer named Elizabeth Quinones who was so good singing the national anthem she should be let out to compete on "American Idol." She’d win, hands down.

Conan, by the way, milked the Writers Strike for jokes, insisting he had none, and that his parents had written the ones he told. "And my mother’s WGA [Writers Guild of America]. She’s in trouble," he quipped.

Springsteen not only played three songs on acoustic guitar and mouth harp, he also told some mildly dirty jokes (this was part of Caroline Hirsch and Andrew Fox’s New York Comedy Festival Week, after all). He then helped auction off one of his motorcycles for the charity. Even though ABC’s Chris Cuomo and famed attorney David Boies bid on it, the bike went to someone else: Marsha Williams, Robin’s wife. The price? $87,500. That’s some Christmas gift.

In front of a crowd that included ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and Diana Williams; NBC’s Brian Williams and Jeff Zucker; CBS’ Les Moonves; and actor James Gandolfini, Springsteen sang "This Hard Land," a brilliant version of "Devil’s Arcade," and "Thunder Road." The monied audience sang along to the latter; they knew every word.

Can I tell Bruce’s dirty joke here? A man goes to his doctor and says "I’m having a problem." He says, "I can’t stop exciting myself." The doctor says, "I wish you’d stop." "Why," asks the man? "Because I’m trying to examine you," says the doctor.

That was nothing: When Williams started in, parents packed up the few kids in the audience. It was a school night, after all. But whoa — a few more minutes of his crazy, brilliant genius and shrinks might have been needed in the morning. Williams proved he’s the funniest man alive once again, tearing down the house as he jumped through about 100 subjects in 20 minutes.

The Woodruffs are such an amazing couple that they reminded me of the late Dana and Chris Reeve in their devotion, charm and desire to make something for others out of their story. Brav-oh to both!