Big things come in small packages, indeed, especially when it comes to the celeb-packed Beacher's Madhouse, the bawdy sideshow currently housed in Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel, where anything goes--especially height restrictions. We have it on excellent authority that the show's creator Jeff Beacher, has been taking meetings in Miami for the past couple of months with several local hotel groups, looking for a permanent location for his madness. His partner and creative director Kelly Osbourne was in town a few weeks ago to scout locations. The theatre in Los Angeles has attracted every celebrity from Johnny Depp and Sandra Bullock to the young stars like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato, both who recently celebrated their 19th birthdays there. Following his breakup with Courteney Cox and prior to his breakdown, David Arquette was spending lots of time amongst the show's burlesque dancers and dozens of little people performers including Mini Nicki Minaj, Mini Rhianna, and a mini mixologist making "Mar Tinys." Small folk and enormous egos. Sounds perfect for Miami. We'll keep you posted.
Now casting: paid extras for Charlie's Angels Miami-based redux
Filming starts soon in Miami for the ABC remake of Charlie's Angels and, while they're not looking for their Farrah or Drew depending on your Angels point of reference, they are looking for willing and able extras to appear in the background of the show. And while this may not mean breakout star for you, per se, it is a paid gig, which in these parts especially, is rare these days. According to casting director Bill Marinella, they're looking for all ethnicities and types 18 and over with one major caveat:
We want you to look your best; this is shooting as present day Miami. Bring your high class party outfits! This is not Miami Vice. We want Miami to look as gorgeous and real as it does TODAY. Bring a variety of outfits (or pictures of you in a variety of outfits) to be photographed. If you are comfortable to be on screen in a bathing suit, please bring it along and be prepared to have a reference photo taken. Please arrive with make-up and hair ready.
Present day Miami, high class and party outfits seem a bit oxymoronic, but we'll let it go. Casting's at the Doubletree, 1717 N. Bayshore Dr. from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, February 26. Do bring with you head shots and wardrobe sizes. For more information, email charliesangelsextra@gmail.com. Good luck and make us proud.
Celine Dion checks into West Palm hospital to prevent preemie births
Jupiter resident Celine Dion checked into St. Mary's Medical Center this morning--not quite for the delivery of her twin boys, but, rather, to prevent their early arrivals. According to an official hospital press release, “Ms. Celine Dion has been admitted to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida for observation at the recommendation of her doctors. She has been admitted to prevent the early delivery of her babies which is the standard of care for any patient with twin pregnancy in this clinical setting. This is done to ensure the patient can be in close contact with their doctors and clinical resources, leading up to their birth. " According to our source, Dion had a hospital suite reserved since September 9. "The suite was paid for in advance and off limits to any other patient," said the source.
Dion, due in November, was said to have pulled the pregnant diva card, rumors which the hospital insist are completely just that. "Recently, rumors have circulated that Ms. Dion has made certain demands of St. Mary’s Medical Center regarding the birth of her children. All of these rumors are false. At no time did Ms. Dion or her husband make any special demands or requests of the hospital. She is not scheduled at any predetermined date for her delivery. She has not requested or selected any particular staff or accommodations not available to other patients. The patient is being treated as any other OB patient who comes to St. Mary’s Medical Center. "
Uh, she may not be pounding on her chest demanding ice chips, but she sure as hell isn't just any OB patient either. Regardless, we wish her a seamless, albeit not so speedy, delivery.
Estranged couple Luis Fonsi and Adamari Lopez's awkward Miami encounter
Josh Woodward update: Not out of the woods yet as LAPD almost ready to present its case
Bienveguidos a Miami: Jersey Shore tsunami hits South Beach
Roll out the welcome mats, the red carpets, the parties hosted by Snooki with special guest DJ Pauly D', fashion shows by J Wowww, work out sessions with The Situation, spray tanning with the other ones whose names we forget but, you know, the ones riding on this gravy trainwreck, too, and, well you get the picture. They're heeere, them Jersey Shore kids, and Miami's about to get a lot more sensational, and you decide which definition of that word we're using here. Between the hush-hush nature of their arrival and the MTV lockdown on information you'd have thought it was a matter of national security. Even the details of President Obama's April 15 visit to Miami are less secretive than this tried to be. But anyway, the giddy gang of self professed juiceheads and their molls are staying, just as we expected, in the same place as the classy chongas casting we told you about the other day. Yep, as Miami hopefuls for the Latin version of Jersey Shore lined up to outclass each other in front of casting agents at the Catalina Hotel & Beach Club, in walked a well-oiled Ronnie Magro (that's his name!), who emerged from a minivan sporting headphones and a decent tan. Ronnie was pretty low keyed when he walked past Maxine's restaurant. And then, one by one, the rest of Ronnie's entourage arrived a la the Beatles at Shea Stadium circa 1965. The anticipated (?) arrival took a lot longer than expected, perhaps because they were detained by security out of fear they may have been carrying some communicable diseases or because their stashes of gel were over the 3 ounce limit. If you missed it, don't worry. They'll be here for the next two months. But don't go stalking them at the Catalina. That was just a temporary holding cell before their "permanent" digs at sister hotel, the Metropole, was ready for them. But back to those Beatles. As all this excitement happened, none other than Sir Paul McCartney, a bona fide celebrity with talent and pedigree, quietly slipped into his hotel nearby with hardly any fanfarfe. Jersey Shore could end up being a great distraction for real talent who may actually dare to vacation in Miami for a change. In the meantime, who else will join Team Mynt as a Jersey Shore-free zone? Stay tuned for details. We you know you can't wait even if you can't admit it.
It's getting ugly out there: Gerald Posner vs. Miami New Times
Beleaguered author Gerald Posner was at the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens last night on the premise that he'd speak about his book-in-question, Miami Babylon. The Miami New Times, of course, was there to capture what could have been just an awkward book reading. Instead, it turned uglier than a drag queen detoxing from makeup and stimulants. At least according to the New Times, it did. Apparently there was an altercation between Posner and Lera Gavin, the fiancee of Frank Owen, author of Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture, from which Owen alleges Posner plagiarized. We also heard from Owen earlier this week via email in which he sent us his account of word thievery as seen on the New Times blog.
After Posner caught wind of the blog this morning, he fired back at the free weekly with a letter (forwarded to us afterwards) to Tim Elfrink, the author of the blog's post, and to the newspaper's editor, Chuck Strouse, calling them out for posting without giving him a chance to comment first. In the letter, Posner says he received a note for comment three minutes after New Times posted the blog. He also says he wrote back saying he never saw comments made on Owen's personal Facebook page because, well, Owen defriended him.
Here they are: The real sparks came after the reading when Lera asked Posner "Are we still going out for a drink to discuss this?" Posner exploded. His plastic face turned red: "Yeah, I'm a thieving cocksucker." "Yes, you are a thieving cocksucker," Lera replied. And then an elderly lady came running towards them: "This is a botanical garden. It's a peaceful place. Can you please take it some place else?"
According to Posner, a lawyer who once worked at New York's Cravath, Swaine and Moore, the New Times account of the incidents in the garden is false, fictional and defamatory. He also says that Owen wasn't present during the altercation and cites Elfrink's friendship with Owen as affecting the quality of his reporting.
In Posner's account in a second letter to Strouse, he said he was disapponted by the way Owen had gone about all of this and told his fiancee he has apologized twice to which she replied, "It's not enough because you haven't admitted it's intentional plagiarism." Posner said it wasn't and the debate went on. "None of us, including Lera, ever raised our voices. But my impression was that somehow Frank, who strangely didn't come up to me to talk, was somehow enjoying all the publicity he's engendered. . . This isn't a game. It's not a matter of "gotcha" or fireworks" or vulgar mud slinging. When I called you on that remark last night, after you introduced yourself to me, you said, 'Oh well, you know Frank.' Actually, I don't, and the more I learn, I'm glad I don't."
While some are crying foul, others are introducing the pot to the kettle, and, somewhere out there, an old peacenick lady may still be traumatized, the jury is on spring break on all accusations. In the meantime, we asked both sides, really, what's going on here, to which Posner replied:
"A reporter accepted a second hand account of what he called 'real trouble' without getting comments from anybody who was actually there . . . And the reporter's friendship with Owen, my accuser, raises ethical questions of whether he is unbiased in his reporting. That is because the same reporter had a few days earlier posted on Owen's Facebook page that "I expect an invite for the fireworks," referring to my talk before the Miami Beach Historical Association. It raises questions about whether the reporter hoped for 'real trouble' to write about in the New Times, and was so anxious to publish what turns out to be a false account, that he cut corners."
As for Strouse, he posted Posner's letter online in its entirety and sent us an email statement saying "Tim Elfrink's reporting on the Posner situation, which was followed by the New York Times, Gawker, and the Miami Herald, has been professional and ethical. On the other hand, after resigning in disgrace from the Daily Beast amid plagiarism charges, Mr. Posner acknowledged that "already published sources [got] through to a number of my final [works]."
Elfrink also sent us an email saying: "If a Facebook 'friendship' is the mark of being too close to a source these days, we're all in big trouble. I'd never met Frank Owen before Thursday night. I Facebook friended him earlier this week after learning that he felt Posner had plagiarized him. It was the easiest way to contact him for his phone number. . . I'm not sure why posting Gerald's account counts as 'first-hand information about what happened, while posting Lera's account is 'second-hand' just because she posted it on Frank Owen's Facebook wall first . . .Interesting that Gerald is blowing up over all these minor complaints at the same time he's admitting his second major act of plagiarism in just over a month. Why, do you suppose, is he trying to shift the conversation?"
Gavin's own account of the incident is posted on her Facebook page. In it she writes, "Gerald Posner wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in the ass," and goes on to recreate the scenario as she saw it, refuting a few things in the process, saying, "The idea that Gerald made me uncomfortable is ludicrous. If he had come any closer, I would've flipped him on his Ken-doll ass, Staten Island style. As for the notion that either Tim or Frank has behaved unprofessionally, that's rich coming from an admitted serial plagiarist like Gerald Posner."
After our post went up, we also heard from Owen, who emailed us a statement saying "First, Tim Elfrink is not a friend. This is a flat-out lie from Posner. The first time I talked to Tim was Monday when I sent him the same email I later sent you. The first time I met him in person was last night. Secondly, calling Tim 'unprofessional' is ludicrous, especially coming from an admitted serial plagiarist like Posner [ed note: similarities between the affianced is not plaigiarism--LA]. Thirdly, saying that I'm doing this solely for publicity is equally ludicrous--especially coming from a media whore like Posner. I offered to settle the matter earlier in the week . . . if he gave a full and frank apology for stealing multiple passages from my book, a fact Posner doesn't deny. Instead, he resorted to lawyerly evasion, first claiming that a Miami Beach policeman he interviewed must have read 'Clubland' and repeated passages from the book to Posner, which is how chunks of my book ended up in his book. Yeah, right. Then he tried to blame his wife Trisha and his two assistants who helped him on the book. Real classy. Blame the help. Now he's blaming a new system of 'trailing footnotes' he instigated for Miami Babylon. Now he says he copied and pasted bits of my book and just forget where they came from. Eight examples of plagiarism--half of them full paragraphs, plus five stolen quotes. This is bullshit beyond belief. He's delusional if he thinks anybody buys this nonsense."
Our apologies for this long post. As the wise prophet Judge Judy once said, "If you want the facts, you go to a therapist. If you want the law, you come to court."
Exclusive! The Hangover 2 starts pre-production in Miami
Trainwreck alert: Lindsay Lohan expected at 1OAK's South Beach Super Bowl party
Just when you thought it was all over by Sunday night, this comes into our inbox. And there hasn't been a more motley folly of a trio since Moe, Larry and Curley. But it was inevitable. A Super Bowl without a resident trainwreck? Unless Justin Bieber goes on a Bacardi-infused bender this weekend, brace yourselves, Miami, as Lindsay Lohan makes her way down to host this satellite party Sunday night at Wall at the W South Beach by NYC hotspot 10AK. As you see here, while Lohan and D. Wade galpal Gabrielle Union get top billing as "special guests," Jessica Alba gets a bigger font as "honorary chair." But it's a benefit for Haiti so we'll refrain from making any more disparaging comments other than the fact that the party's name, Victory Party, may be a bit of a misnomer unless you're like us and hoping for a big, sloppy mess to write about.
John Edwards, Sean Penn and Paul Haggis pow wow in Miami en route to Haiti
Packing his bags and leaving his baby scandal behind, John Edwards joined Sean Penn and filmmaker Paul Haggis for dinner and a 4 hour pow wow with several doctors at the Cane Fire Grille at the
