1616-83 Various Miami Beach 1 of 22 , 2 Terms
mhcur PARTY PLANNER
07/27/2001
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 2001, The Miami Herald
DATE: Friday, July 27 , 2001 EDITION: Final
SECTION: Weekend PAGE: 24G LENGTH: 71 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: Miss Kitty, Suzy Buckley at Macalousos (a) , Gary James,
Louis Canales, Mandy Fernandez at RIO nightclub (a) , Janet de Armas, Shalim
at RIO (a) , Nino and Linda Vendome at Touch (a)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: Compiled by Phoebe Flowers
PARTY PLANNER
Tonight: In South Beach: GODSKitchen comes to Shadow Lounge with
performances by Azzido de Bass and Drew Bongiorno. Level reminds us that
evolution is grand with the Official Planet of the Apes Post Premiere Party;
DJ Connie Casserole spins with an open bar from 10 to 11 p.m. Progressive
house at crobar with weekly guests, and Cedric Gervais in VIP. Do not be
afraid of cabaret Upstairs at Yuca, where Doug Williford and Wedner & Friends
perform for a second and final weekend. Elsewhere: Experience The Weld at
Titanic Brewery & Restaurant in Coral Gables. The artwork of Danny Ramirez
meets the music of Mantra at Diaspora Vibe gallery, Miami. Go Latin at the
Wallflower Gallery in Miami, where Trumba and Jose Tequiero perform.
Saturday: In South Beach: Discover a world of beats at Shadow Lounge ' s
Acostanation 2001, when George Acosta and Ariel Baund bang out high-energy
trance. Salvation launches its first monthly Members Nite, with no cover and
expanded free drinks for members. crobar trots out resident DJ David Waxman
for a night of progressive house. As if the first one weren't decadent enough,
Level reprises bordello decadence with Moulin Rouge Part Deux; DJ Lazaro Leon
is on the turntables. Elsewhere: Pop Life booms back with another installment
of Miami Bass, hosted by the ubiquitous DJ Le Spam, at the Piccadilly Garden
in the Design District. Get tribal with the Baboons at Titanic Brewery &
Restaurant in the Gables. Longtime local band Psycho Daisies celebrates the
group' s record release at Churchill ' s Hideaway, Miami.
Sunday: In South Beach: Jazz guitar reigns with New York' s Bob Devos at
Upstairs at the Van Dyke Cafe. Traditional and modern live Cuban music at
Bolero. Check out the St. Tropez Party with DJ Jp Rigaud at Nikki Beach;
teepee and cabana rentals available. Look, but don't Touch: DJ Nemo D' Inca
spins at Touch Restaurant with live percussion by Luciano Stazone and horns by
Douglas Michaels. Cuban nostalgia reigns at The National Hotel ' s Old Havana
Nights with singer Isis. It ' s all about the boys at crobar' s Anthem.
Elsewhere: Hide from Kenny G look-alikes at Love 94 ' s Sunday Jazz Brunch at
the Sheraton Bal Harbour Resort.
Monday: In South Beach: Feel the Love Lounge with DJ Snezana at Pearl.
Ignore the dirty implications of Back Door Bamby at crobar; DJs Shannon and
Gigi spin lounge, house and disco. Search for a pet of your very own - or just
listen to music ranging from house to hip-hop - at Fat Black Pussy Cat at The
Living Room. Alliteration abounds at Little Leroy ' s Lyrical Lounge at Level,
where DJs LS1, Irie and Smeejay spin. Elsewhere: Get jazzy (and ever so
unpretentious) at Churchill ' s Hideaway in Miami.
Tuesday: In South Beach: Canvas of Sound is in the house at Goddess.
Hip-hop and jazz fuse at Zanzibar. Go Upstairs at the Van Dyke Cafe for some
live blues and jazz from the Nicole Yarling Quartet. Elsewhere: If you can't
find a martini to love at Mandarin Oriental ' s Mbar downtown, you might just be
•
dead inside.
Wednesday: In South Beach: Latin Wednesdays with DJ Willie Pena, live sax
and percussion, and performances by flamenco and salsa dancers at Touch
Restaurant. Take a break from divas and other assorted VIPs at Slurp! at
Beauty Bar at the Albion, where DJs spin classic rock and house and cover is
an unpretentious 50 cents. Drag your date to B.E.D. for Michael Capponi' s
locals ' party with DJ Lippi. Elsewhere: Happy hour revelry with a live band
and DJ J.C. Digon at Caffe Amore in Coral Gables.
Thursday: In South Beach: The Show comes to crobar; resident DJs Ruckus and
Mr Mauricio spin hip-hop, house and funk. Elsewhere: IFuacata! is the sound
of DJ Le Spam' s Cuban funk at Hoy Como Ayer, Little Havana. Food and wine
abound at the tasting at Meza Fine Art & gallery cafe' s Wine Bar, in Coral
Gables.
For consideration in the Planner, e-mail pflowers@herald.com, fax
information to 305-376-5287 or send to Party Planner, The Miami Herald, 1
Herald Plaza, Miami , FL 33132 .
KEYWORDS:
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2 of 22 , 2 Terms
mhcur ONE MORE BASH, FOR OLD TIMES 05/25/2001
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 2001, The Miami Herald
DATE: Friday, May 25, 2001 EDITION: Broward
SECTION: Broward PAGE: 9B LENGTH: 112 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: The crowded Warsaw ballroom in 1995 (a) , Maxwell
Blandford (A) , Michael Brone dancing (a)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: BY LYDIA MARTIN, lmartin@herald.com
ONE MORE BASH, FOR OLD TIMES
The folks who used to party until dawn in those heady, hedonistic days of
the early South Beach renaissance, when Warsaw Ballroom was king and Madonna
used to grind with near-naked strangers on an overflowing dance floor, have
long given up the night.
Warsaw fizzled in the mid-1990s, replaced by several short-lived operations
until its final death in 1999. Next week, construction crews descend. By
December, the place reopens as a shiny mega-deli, one more corporate-run'
symbol of the inevitability of progress.
But not before the old crowd resurrects the party for just one night.
Swing by Collins Avenue at Espanola Way tonight and you ' ll catch the
pioneers, perhaps a little worse for wear, gathering to conjure the spirit of
a carefree, crazy time - when a bunch of dilapidated Art Deco buildings were
getting their first new coats of pinks and blues and the national media had
yet to hype the new American Riviera.
Warsaw was an all-night mecca for a sea of gym-pumped boys and blissfully
unguarded celebrities who played among the throngs before there was such a
self-conscious thing as a roped-off VIP room anywhere in town.
" I remember Gianni Versace looking down from the balcony while Donatella
danced with Elton John around 1,500 shirtless guys and Sly Stallone leaned
against the bar, " said Maxwell Blandford, Warsaw manager from 1992 to 1994 .
"The place was incredibly wild. Everybody mixed together - gay people,
straight people, superstars. We had things like condom fashion shows where the
guys wore nothing but, well, just the condoms. "
The rules were different then. The city of Miami Beach, drunk with new
prospect, wasn't cracking down on clubs yet. Traffic was beginning to gridlock
on weekends, but you could still invent yourself a parking space in an alley
without much fear of tickets or tow trucks.
"Now the city is on top of everything, " said Blandford, head of marketing
for the nightclub Level and an organizer of tonight ' s Warsaw party, where
jumbo drag queen Connie Casserole will DJ. Cover is $25, $20 for old Warsaw
members. "Warsaw happened before the city started closing clubs right at 5
a.m. We could stay open until whenever, 10 in the morning. Nobody cared. "
Miami Beach Commissioner Nancy Liebman, who led a recent charge for more
nightclub restrictions, has fond memories of Warsaw. " It was wonderful. We
all went to everything then. It was free, because the city wasn't ready for
all the excitement. But if we would have continued without rules, I don' t
think we 'd have the kind of renaissance we have now. "
No rules meant eye-popping decadence. The old-timers fondly recall the days
of Lady Hennessey Brown, a performer who did, um - magical things with a
champagne bottle. "One night I went to Warsaw and there was this woman with
the biggest boobs I ever saw, " said South Beach fixture Merle Weiss, who
owned Merle ' s Closet, an early- ' 90s Lincoln Road shop that kept the drag
queens in boas, wigs and boat-sized stilettos.
PEERLESS PUBLICIST
Publicist Louis Canales, dean of the South Beach rebirth, might miss the
old days more than anyone. As head of Warsaw marketing from the late 1980s to
early 1990s, he masterminded many of the nightlife innovations that spread to
the surging ranks of competitors.
"Warsaw had the first guest list on the Beach. It made everybody feel
important, " said Canales, who moved off South Beach but will be at Warsaw for
the last hurrah. "It was a very free time. There was nothing studied yet. It
was all spontaneous. The Beach was filled with creative people - artists,
writers, painters, dancers. Now South Beach is plastic. "
There was no cookie-cutter corporate influence when Warsaw was at its peak.
No Williams-Sonoma on Lincoln Road. No T.G. I . Fridays on Ocean Drive. No Gap.
Warsaw was born as Hoffman' s Cafeteria in the 1930s. That ' s one reason the
folks who own Jerry' s Famous Deli, which is bringing lots of stainless steel
and a menu with 700 items, aren't sorry.
END OF ERA
"We ' re just completing the cycle, " said Ike Starkman, CEO of the
California-based chain, which also operates Epicure Market on Alton Road and
Rascal House, the Sunny Isles Beach restaurant landmark.
Hoffman ' s was replaced by Warsaw Ballroom in the 1970s, when the
white-haired set went for a very different kind of dancing. Eventually it
died. In 1986 , when South Beach first started stirring with rebirth, it
reopened as Club Ovo, then China Club, then Rhythm Club and, finally, Warsaw
Ballroom again, opened by the "Mayor of South Beach, " former Wire Publisher
Andrew Delaplaine.
Brothers George and Leo Nunez ran it from 1989 to 1993 .
"We made it up as we went along, " said George Nunez , now co-owner of
downtown Miami ' s thriving Space nightclub. "You could be crazy then. There
was Danny the Wonder Pony, a guy who wore a saddle and let people ride him
around the club. There was Lady Hennessey - Lady Hennessey could not work at a
South Beach club now. She would not be understood. "
HAD TO BE THERE
To understand, you also had to be there for the outrageous parties New York
impresario Susanne Bartsch used to throw or the Wednesday night amateur strip
contest or the foam parties.
And who can forget the little bit about Madonna getting turned away at the
door one night? Blandford said she showed up with her Miami buddy Ingrid
Casares, who got carded and didn't have ID. " It got a manager fired, " he
said.
Blandford said he invited Lady Hennessey to perform for Warsaw' s final
party.
"She ' s 55 now and living in New York. And she ' s not doing it anymore, " he
said.
But Merle Weiss wouldn' t miss tonight, even if it makes her wistful.
"Things are just not the same. I don't even know the drag queens anymore.
But then again, we can use a good deli on South Beach. "
CAPTION: HERALD FILE, 1995 REVELRY: In its heyday, the Warsaw hosted all
manner of party animals. The crowded ballroom shown here is from a 1995 'Gay
Night ' at the night spot.
MARICE COHN BAND/HERALD STAFF NOSTALGIC TRIP: Posing under one of the
original paintings from the Warsaw, Maxwell Blandford plans a final party
there.
HERALD FILE, 1995 NIGHT MOVES: During a typical night during the Warsaw' s
glory days, Michael Brone does some free-form dancing.
KEYWORDS:
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4 of 22 , 2 Terms
mhcur LUNCH WITH . . . . LOUIS CANALES 04/30/2000
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 2000, The Miami Herald
DATE: Sunday, April 30, 2000 EDITION: Final
SECTION: Arts PAGE: 3M LENGTH: 112 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: Louis Canales (a)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: BY LYDIA MARTIN, lmartin@herald.com
MEMO: LUNCH WITH . . . .
LUNCH WITH . . . . LOUIS CANALES
It ' s another bustling, crazy afternoon on South Beach, and Louis Canales, a
guy you can blame for a lot of the craziness, is hiding at the most nonvisible
table the Front Porch Cafe has to offer. Like, inside. Where there is air
conditioning. It takes a while to find him, but in the end you' re grateful
he ' s noticed summer is upon us.
Then, Louis has never missed a beat when it comes to this town.
He figured South Beach was a hip destination long before it became one. In
fact, the guy who has been dubbed everything from King of the Night to Pied
Piper of South Beach to Mayor of Miami Beach had a hand in making it so. .
Now, he' s decreed, the party' s over.
It has long been said that South Beach is the American Riviera. So in a
way it ' s like St. Tropez, which is talked about in terms of what it was before
Brigitte Bardot discovered it and what it has become after she discovered it.
Now it ' s a mega-tourist destination with a lot of conventioneers. But then,
that ' s what the city fathers wanted. "
Kind words compared to these: - -We have become a tropical L.A. - shallow
and very one-dimensional . "
Ouch.
This from the guy who hooked South Beach up with every magazine editor he
knew from New York. They came in packs to write about the new American Riviera
because Louis sold them on the story.
Yes, he was a publicist paid to pump some of the early nightlife, Club Ovo,
Paris Moderne, Scratch, Club Nu. But he had a greater motivation than filling
empty dance floors. He knew he was in on a good thing and wanted to enlighten
others. He never got rich off the town, but he did get on every VIP list.
There were a bunch of us sold on South Beach. It wasn' t just me. There
was a group that nurtured it because we had the vision. We didn't make it
happen, we just accelerated the process. "
That was then, and this is now. Now looks like L.A.
"The outdoorsy lifestyle in Florida made it so that the average young
person here was more physically fit than the average American. But back then,
when people started discovering South Beach, it was naturally so. You had all
these incredibly good-looking women and men scantily clad, jogging,
Rollerblading, bicycling. Visitors would be taken by the energy and the
visuals, which were amazing.
"Not that the visuals aren' t still there. But now it ' s calculating and
processed. Augmented breasts. Steroids. Capped teeth. In a word, L.A. "
Canales, a Cuban American who lived mostly in Manhattan, wound up on South
Beach in 1984, when Art Deco buildings were getting their first new coats of
pinks and blues . There was nothing beyond the facades, but Louis was one of
the first to see the future.
" I saw a tropical East Village with affordable rent and endless
possibilities. "
Not that the place had much to offer in those days. But Louis, who lived in
New York and did production work for TV commercials and fashion catalogs, was
asked by a client to check it out. He was instantly smitten; inspired to jump
from
production to publicity, a guy sold on the town he was selling. He
remembers how it all started.
" I remember sitting with [South Beach developer] Tony Goldman in 1991
talking about how the sidewalk on Ocean Drive should be widened so there could
be more pedestrians and more sidewalk cafes. He went to the city. Soon after,
Ocean Drive was moved six feet into Lummus Park. "
He knows what made the Clevelander, with its $22 .50 rooms, the hot spot for
the modeling crowd.
"They loved the waterbeds. So there were tribes of models going through.
At night you would see a hundred or more of the most gorgeous men and women
just hanging around on the front porch. People started gravitating there to
see them. It was like a food chain. "
He knows Gianni Versace hated the place at first.
"He first came in the early ' 80s when it was run over with cocaine
cowboys. In ' 91, he stopped here again after flying back from Cuba. The
Versace store in Bal Harbour had just been renovated. I don' t want to say
there was a lot of begging, but there was a lot of asking him to stay for the
party. He finally acquiesced. Every cutting-edge editor, fashion photographer,
stylist and model was at the party. It blew him away. He thought this was
still a dumpy, tacky little town, and all of a sudden, everybody was there.
But that ' s the year JFK Jr. was hanging out at the Century Hotel with Daryl
Hannah. "
He knew the hip ride was over in ' 92 , when New York magazine heralded South
Beach as the "new St. Barts. "
"That ' s when it crossed over. Cutting edge had been assimilated into the
mainstream. Every single person desperately seeking validation started
arriving by the plane load, and along with them came every con artist, every
drifter, every single energy-draining human being in the United States and
Europe. All of a sudden, A lists came in, velvet ropes came in, VIP rooms came
in. The place shifted from a friendly, open place with a social structure as
flat as the topography to a place where the only way some people could feel
like they were in was to keep other people out. "
Louis, who still works as a publicist - Level, the new CafeAdvice.com and
an oxygen bar, Aire, slated to open this summer on Ocean Drive are clients -
was never kept out. He ' s partied with Madonna and the rest but never was one
to grin for a snapshot with anybody. And he never lost sight of reality.
" It ' s not my life. It ' s just a role I play. I was never interested in
glamour by association. It ' s amazing how many people thought being in the same
club with Madonna was going to change their lives. It didn't. There' s only one
Ingrid Casares per generation. And she already exists. "
Louis now lives in Surfside, where the hype is kept in check. " It ' s
peaceful, I 'm two blocks from the ocean, and it' s real. I go to brunch at the
Rubells ' Beach House, which has the feeling South Beach had 10 years ago -
laid back, affordable, comfortable, friendly, no attitude. Everything South
Beach isn' t. "
But Louis is not a guy who gets angst. He' s very Zen about the whole thing.
" I 'm not pi-- about it. The same way I 'm not pi-- that I 'm 50, that I have
to use bifocals to read, that I 'm bald. It ' s just the nature of things. You
have to accept it. Things evolve. "
Not that he ' ll ever leave.
" I ' ll stay because I have a lot of great friends here and because the
weather is great and because I 'm 50 . At 50, the weather does count for a
lot. "
e-mail: lmartin@aol.com
KEYWORDS:
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9 of 22 , 6 Terms
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