Schneider

Funnyman Rob Schneider’s interview on the Wild 95.5 morning show last week has put co-hosts Kevin Rolston, Virginia Lang and Jason Pennington in the national limelight.

Schneider cut short the already-infamous live banter fest on West Palm Beach’s station and left in a huff after Lang walked out on the comic, mumbling: “I quit this bitch!”

And after the video of the ill-fated interview spread on the web, the King of All Media himself weighted in on his Sirius show this morning. Howard Stern sided with the diminutive Schneider, saying that the locals behaved like small town amateurs. Stern called Virginia’s colorful co-host, Jason Pennington, a d…head.

“That’s awesome,” Pennington gloated.

See the video here.

Schneider, an alumni of Saturday Night Live who went on to the big screen in flicks like The Animal and Deuce Bigalow, was at the station Friday to hawk his weekend gig at The Improv in West Palm Beach’s CityPlace.

Schneider, however, got ticked off that a previous interview ran long and that he had to wait in the stations’ parking lot.

Kevin, Virginia and Jason (Courtesy Wild 95.5)

At one point, Schneider told Virginia on the air: “I make a lot more money than you. I can buy and sell you, and people like you.” What’s more, the actor kept calling the threesome “a-holes.”

“He was pompous and condescending to the staff even before the show,” Lang said, adding that waiting in the parking lot had been Schneider’s choice. “Then we started going back and forth on the air. I was devastated. That’s not what we do. We don’t fight with people. He was a jerk. I just had to leave the studio.”

One highlight: When Schneider put down his headphones and walked out, Pennington announced: “Elvis has left the building. Uh . . . Make that, little Elvis has left the building!”

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Spanish radio jock and TV personality Enrique Santos, at Sammy Sosa's party (Courtesy enriquesantos.com)

A Spanish radio jock and TV personality was kicked out of a party for retired baseball slugger Sammy Sosa on Saturday night for mocking Sosa’s changing skin tone.

Enrique Santos, morning jock on the Miami-based WRTO-La Kalle-98.3 FM and a Sunday night stalwart on the Spanish TV network Univision, said he was given the bum’s rush for having had his face blackened, according to Santos’ Web site.

Sammy Sosa

A publicist who worked Sosa’s 41st birthday party at the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami Beach stopped the Cuba-born Santos on the red carpet and accused him of making fun of Sosa, a native of the Dominican Republic.

Slammin’ Sammy, one of baseball’s most prolific hitters, made news over the past few weeks when it became apparent he’d had his face bleached a la Michael Jackson. Sosa has said he’s just undergoing a skin rejuvenation procedure.

So, why couldn’t Santos do the opposite, even for a publicity stunt?

Well, it was Sosa’s party, and he could do what he wanted to!

“I explained to (the publicist) that it was a special cream I was using that darkened my face and then I asked her, ‘How many women in here are wearing makeup?” but she wasn’t having it,” Santos told The Miami Herald. “Was I not white enough for Sammy’s party or have the millions gotten to his head . . . I mean skin?”

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Coop

– Have you noticed that CNN star anchorman Anderson Cooper looks even more relaxed on the air these days? There may be a good reason for that. The New York media are abuzz that the Silver Fox just returned from a vacation in India. And, according to the New York Post, the 42-year-old son of socialite Gloria Vanderbilt spent most of his time in a $3,200-a-night suite at the famous Rambaugh Palace hotel in Jaipur with — gasp! — a dude! Coop’s friend was id’ed as Ben Maisani, the owner of a gay bar in Manhattan’s East Village. And boy, is Maisani beefed up or what?

Ben Maisani (Courtesy gawker.com)

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– TV actress and self-help book author Suzanne Somers (Three’s Company) was on hand Tuesday to welcome to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale the brand new MSC Poesia, an ocean cruiser from the Italian-owned MSC line.

Doreen Wade, the West Palm Beach-based president of Freedom Broadcasting, pocketed $150,000 in bonuses on top of her almost $300,000 salary as the company drifted toward bankruptcy. In addition, she also submitted reinbursement forms for sums as little as $12, $24 and $29.

While WPEC-Channel 12 drifted into bankruptcy over the past few months, the bosses at the CBS affiliate nickel-and-dimed their employees.

There were unpaid furloughs here, and straight pay cuts there for the likes of station stars Suzanne Boyd, Liz Quirantes, Curt Fonger and John Matthews.

But what many workers, some paid as little as $30,000 a year, didn’t know is that, at the same time, those ordering the cuts were stuffing their bank accounts with bonuses.

In all, according to a Page2Live estimate based on bankruptcy documents filed in October in Delaware, the Freedom Broadcasting station’s top six managers grabbed more than $400,000 in performance bonuses from September 2008 until August.

That’s in addition to some salaries in the 300Ks-a-year range.

Good performance on a sinking ship? And you thought that corporate ‘tude was confined to Wall Street?

“Often, a management group sets its own salaries and bonuses, so what do they care where they get the money from,” said University of Florida management professor Henry Tosi. “Their bonuses probably came from the pockets of their employees and creditors and equity holders.”

For more on this, and the poll, please look below or click (Read more…)

Harris

John Harris‘ claim to fame always was that he went on one of the most colorful assignments in the Boca-based National Enquirer’s colorful history.

Straight from the desk of Enquirer owner Generoso Pope, Harris received a form spelling it out: “Is there really a Utopia left in this world? What’s it really like to live in Tahiti and those other pipe-dream paradises? Let’s . . . write a series of articles.”

Harris ended up spending the next four-and-a-half months circling the world on his search for Utopia.

Said Harris’ colleague at the time, Malcolm Balfour: “He didn’t find Utopia!”

Maybe, Harris finally did, 36 years later.

Harris was found dead at his home in Boca’s University Park neighborhood Oct. 9. His death certificate lists a heart attack and hardening of the arteries as the cause. He was 76.

A rare bird in the newsroom because he didn’t drink, chain-smoke or fudge quotes, Harris was hired by the Enquirer out of Cincinnati Post in Ohio.

“He was known as ‘Honest John,’” said Iain Calder, a former editor-in-chief. “He was the ultimate southern gentleman. And he did get the greatest assignment ever given to any reporter in any newspaper.”

Within months, Harris embarked on the trip that took him to dozens of exotic, at times unknown, locales. At first, it was the Mediterranean, off Greece and Spain, and the Channel and North Sea near England and Scotland. Then he moved on to Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Fiji, Samoa, Molokai, Bali, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, Mauritius, and many more.

Thing is, every time Harris thought he’d found something close to Utopia, Pope at home shot him down. Tahiti? No good. There was a rush hour and parking meters in the capital. Bora Bora? Too many hotels. American Samoa? Too dirty.

At one point, Harris is said to have called in he discovered Utopia, in the Western Samoa. But when Pope found out there were phones, it was decided that Utopia shouldn’t have phones, and Harris was ordered back to Lantana. He’d spent well over $100,000.

“Well, they did hire him because he’d do anything he was told, anything at all, with no questions asked,” Balfour said. “He was perfect for that assignment. Even if no story was ever published.”

“Utopia may be more a state of mind than a physical place,” Harris later wrote. “I found my Utopia when I got that around-the-world, all-expense-paid, assignment to search for it.”

Harris will be buried Saturday in his hometown of Morganton, N.C. He was divorced and had two step children.

Mr. Bean lookalike David Irving says Hitler was an OK guy (Photo courtesy irvingbooks.com)

Unlike run-of-the-mill publicity book tours, British author David Irving’s is the stuff of spy novels.

There’s a good reason for that.

An Adolf Hitler apologist, Irving denies the Holocaust existed. His fans usually run the gamut from skinheads to white supremacists. And protesters often stand outside.

Irving’s coast-to-coast circus passes through West Palm Beach tonight, according to his Web site www.irvingbooks.com.

Thing is, only a chosen few know where he’ll be at 7 p.m.

Irving, a military historian by trade, reads from his books and meets followers in hastily rented hotel meeting rooms or restaurant back rooms. The establishments’ owners are kept in the dark about his beliefs.

Those who’ll attend the West Palm gathering need to sign up online, and pay $15, before being told where to go.

“Each person is vetted by his local contacts,” said a WPB activist who only gave his first name, Nick. “We’ve called just about every hotel in the area and he hasn’t reserved a meeting room. We were hoping to protest, but we can’t find him.”

This time Irving, who owns a home in Key West, is pushing Banged Up, a book in which he writes about spending 400 days in solitary confinement in Austria for spewing his rhetoric in that country.

If someone knows where Irving will be tonight, please post it on a comment. I’d like to interview the dude.

Larry King

The crummy economy has put the big hurt on Palm Beach’s philanthropy biz , but someone’s thinking ahead.

Lois Pope, who’s using quite of bit of her deceased husband Generoso Pope’s National Enquirer fortune on a slew of charitable causes, has found a way to sell a few extra tables at her upcoming Life Foundation gala.

She’s offering those who have something to celebrate — say, a wedding, retirement, anniversary or birthday — to do it at her gala, Dec. 4 at Mar-a-Lago.

Some may find it tacky to celebrate anything personal at a fancy dinner with folks they’ve never met before. But, Pope says, it’s a win-win situation. Someone who couldn’t otherwise afford it is able to party in a private club with an open bar, classy food and world-class entertainment … and her charity benefits, too.

Lois Pope

CNN host Larry King is scheduled to emcee and comedian Rich Little will perform at Pope’s 16th annual Lady in Red gala, which raises money for the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., among other causes.

Is it working?

So far, so good. Pope says she sold 10 tables to a wedding party and another three for a 30th wedding anniversary. With tickets going for $500 per, that’s an extra $65,000 for Pope’s foundation.

“There’s going to be a giant cake at the entrance of the ballroom to celebrate,” Pope said. “We’re very excited. And I hope it’s going to give other organizations ideas. With the economy, it’s going to be a tough season.”

In case you’re wondering, the lucky bride on Dec. 4 is Manalapan widow Terry Ebert, who will officially marry Joseph Mendozza at Mar-a-Lago an hour before the ball. Elissa and Dominic Papparone are set to celebrate their 30th.

As for long-ago SoFla radio personality King, Pope said she landed him after he visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C.

“You can’t visit that place and leave without feeling for our veterans,” she said.

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Can’t blame some TV viewers for getting a little confused. Krista Marx, the judge in the recently ended, high-profile Dunbar Village rape trial, and WPBF-Channel 25’s Terri Parker, who covered the trial gavel to gavel, look like they could be sharing the same DNA.

Krista Marx (left) and Terri Parker: Do they share similar DNA?

(Kevin Kolczynski/Special to Page2Live)

I guess we can forgive Ghost Hunters stars Steve Gonsalves (left) and Dave Tango for looking like they’re about to get sick. For the first time in years of trying to capture ghostly sounds and sights in the world’s most haunted locations for cable’s SyFy Channel, Gonsalves and Tango are actually surrounded by demons. Well, sorta. The spirits-hunting duo passed by Universal Orlando yesterday, and stepped smack dab in the middle of Halloween Horror Nights.

This definitely beats the snarling Serena Williams the world saw last month at the U.S. Open.

The Palm Beach Gardens tennis star got naked for the cover of ESPN The Magazine’s first ever “Body” issue. The glossy comes out Friday.

The dozens of world-class athletes photographed in various stages of undress for the issue include former Florida Marlins catcher Pudge Rodriguez, Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain, Orlando Magic tallhead Dwight Howard and Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.

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