Memo Pad: Gentlemen's Ball, Maybe Not... Coming Home... Stone Unturned...

GOOD DEEDS, BAD DEEDS: Attendance was considered an act of kindness Wednesday night at GQ’s Gentlemen’s Ball held at New York’s Edison Ballroom. “You’re all gentlemen tonight, because you showed up here instead of watching the Yankees win game one of the World Series,” said Josh Lucas to a crowd that included Ashton Kutcher, Adrian Grenier, Akon, Kid Cudi, Michael Bastian, Mark Wahlberg, Jamie Burke and Thom Browne, along with Demi Moore, Chanel Iman, Emmy Rossum, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Universal Motown’s Sylvia Rhone and a slew of fashion elite. (The Yanks lost later that evening.) The event honored several do-gooder guests supported by GQ’s Gentlemen’s Fund, which helps advertisers enter partnerships with celebrity ambassadors and nonprofits. But other guests’ antics weren’t so gentlemanly. Akon, who performed several songs including his cover of Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” asked one woman what color her nether regions were. His crassness didn’t deter Kutcher, Moore and others from dancing with the rap star. And though Kid Cudi was gentlemanly enough to ask GQ publisher Pete Hunsinger if he wanted a shot from the bar before dinner, Cudi later excused his performance to the crowd by saying, “I’m a little tipsy.” Finally, while most guests wore their cocktail finest from Burberry (Restoin-Roitfeld, Lucas), Ralph Lauren (Iman), GQ fund sponsor Nautica (Grenier) and Calvin Klein (Kutcher, Cudi), Wahlberg opted for a more casual jeans and a T-shirt, as he arrived straight from a movie shoot. Attendees gave one suit in particular a standing ovation: Master Sergeant William “Spanky” Gibson, who, dressed in uniform, picked up an honorary award from the Pat Tillman Foundation and Ketel One vodka.

— Stephanie D. Smith