(Click on the photo for more)

Bloody cool fundraiser for the Promethean Theatre, a small troupe at Nova Southeastern University in Davie.

The theater is about to launch its stage production of the horror classic The Evil Dead and has been looking for props (fake limbs, blood, teeth, etc). So it organized the Evil Dead Prom last night at Fort Lauderdale’s Monterey Club, where 100-plus made-up supporters packed the nightclub for a party.

Special guest: Davie resident Taso Stavrakis, an actor/stuntman who has dubious honor of having been the most killed zombie in Dawn of the Dead and other scary fares.

– Click here for more on the party

Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins, including two brand new members, played a packed Revolution in Fort Lauderdale Monday night. But even with folks standing 12-deep, the venue fits just 1,1000 people. Why is the band that gave us Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness playing stuffy caves? Corgan says he wants to see how the new band jells!

Corgan, Monday night at Revolution (Click on the photo for more)

– Click here for the pbpulse review of the show

UPDATE: Billy Corgan collapses on stage in Tampa:

Attaboy, Kellin Deglan! The Major League prospect is accused of ripping off Rothstein minion Howard Kusnick

Poetic justice!

One of the alleged players in the Scott Rothstein Ponzi scheme is going to spend what could be his last few months of freedom chasing a professional baseball player who allegedly ripped him off!

Howard Kusnick, a partner in Rothstein’s now-defunct Fort Lauderdale-Boca Raton lawfirm expected to be indicted for his role in the $1.4 billion scam, last week filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit in a Palm Beach County court.

The lawsuit alleges that Kusnick’s Double Diamond Sports Management represented Major League baseball first-round draftee Kellin Deglan, a catcher prospect of the Texas Rangers. Kusnick supposedly babysat Deglan through the pre-draft weeks — and now Deglan won’t pay the $50,000 he allegedly owes Double Diamond for the work.

That amount of money, according to the lawsuit, represents five percent of the 18-year-old Deglan’s $1 million-signing bonus.

For more, look below or click (Read more…)

Nugent, Tuesday night in Fort Lauderdale (Click on the photo for more)

Reactionary rocker Ted Nugent brought his over-the-top brand of guitar playing to South Florida Tuesday night at a sold-out show in the intimate Revolution in Fort Lauderdale. The Motor City Madman, 61, is now known as much for his ultra-conservative views on things like gun control as for having founded the supergroup Damn Yankees. Which is probably why he felt it’d be okay to surround the drum set with assault weapons! (See below)

Gun control, anyone? (Click on the photo for more Ted Nugent)

– Click here for pbpulse’s coverage

Never the poster girl for the fight against anorexia, and fine with that, former American Idol winner Jordin Sparks‘ now looking downright unhealthy! At just 20, the talented A.I. Season Six star’s bloated new look shocked some fans at her Battlefield Tour appearance at Fort Lauderdale’s Revolution last night. Once proud to be size 12, Sparks now seems headed toward size Aretha Franklin!

Jordin Sparks, last night in Fort Lauderdale (Click on the photo for more)

And this was Jordin four months ago, at a Super Bowl gig in Miami:

(Click on the photo for more Jordin)

When singer Connie Francis was handed a lead role in Where The Boys Are 50 years ago, she accepted only after producer Joe Pasternak promised her that “boys grew on trees” in Fort Lauderdale, where most of the movie was to be filmed.

Unfortunately for her, Francis arrived in the middle of summer.

“There was nothing going on,” Francis said, adding she called Pasternak a liar. “I told him: You expect me to spend months on this prairie?’”

Francis surveys the Fort Lauderdale beach she made famous in Where The Boys Are (Click on the Mike Jachles photo for more)

By March, however, 20,000 college youths descended on the sleepy town. Key scenes of the comedy, also starring George Hamilton and Paula Prentiss, were filmed using young, tanned people near the infamous Elbo Room bar — and spring break as we know it was born.

And so was a rip-roaring cult movie.

For more, see below or click (Read more…)

Is it about sexy bodies?

Athleticism?

Is it a sport, or a beach-fashion show?

Check out Michele Sandberg’s photos of AVP Pro Beach Volleyball matches Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, and you make the call!

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– For more pictures, click here or on the photo

Obviously flustered, his usually steady hands shaking and unintelligible at times, rock guitarist Pete Townshend — who’ll play Super Bowl XLIV’s halftime show with the British band The Who Sunday — faced the music at a press conference today in Fort Lauderdale.

Townshend and Who frontman Roger Daltrey were breezing through the traditional Super Bowl entertainment presser  — which included Daltrey and Townshend playing, unplugged, Pinball Wizard and Won’t Get Fooled Again — when one last question came from the back of the Broward County Convention Center’s meeting room.

How does Townshend feel about the Florida child abuse activists who tried, unsuccessfully, to have him pushed back by immigration and asked the NFL to ban him from the concert?

Townshend, speechless for a few seconds, said he was “saddened” and equated the groups’ actions to “vigilantism.”

Daltrey (left) and Townshend at Thursday's press conference in Fort Lauderdale (Getty Images)

(Click on the photo or here for more pictures of the press conference.)

In an exclusive story last month, Page2Live revealed the concerns of anti-child porn advocates, including Brevard County’s Protect Our Children, about Townshend’s recent presence on the British sex offenders registry. The guitarist was arrested in 2003 after using his credit card to access child porn on the Web. He was never convicted, but admitted to accessing the site for “research” purposes. He remained on the registry for five years.

When they understood that Townshend wouldn’t be held back by immigration, Protect Our Children flooded the neighborhood around Dolphin Stadium, home of Super Bowl XLIV, with postcards bearing Townshend’s picture and warning of his arrival.

“I’m really saddened by this (attempts to ban him from the USA) and concerned about it,” Townshend said, as Daltrey fidgeted uncomfortably next to him. “I feel like we (he and children’s protectors) are on the same side.”

For more of Pete’s words, look below or click (Read more…)

Paaaartyyyy!!!!!

In a stunning policy reversal, the city of Fort Lauderdale will no longer enforce its cast-in-stone 13-year-old ban on open liquor containers along the beach.

Until after the Super Bowl!

The ban originally was put into place to stymie what made the beach of Where the Boys Are a household name: alcohol abuse by Spring Break college students.

But starting today, boys and girls are allowed once again to walk along the beachside strip of hotels and restaurants with beer, wine and hard liquor. For as long as it’s in a plastic cup. And not on the sand.

The lifting of the liquor regulation affects a two-mile area that’ll be one of Super Bowl week’s hotspots. It starts at the Indianapolis Colts’ hotel, the Marriott Harbor Beach, and stretches north to Sunrise Boulevard.

The ban returns on the Monday after the Super Bowl.

“The hotel community along the beach lobbied hard for this,” said Tom Roth, a marketing honcho at The Atlantic Hotel. The business stands to benefit from the temporary pass, along with the W and Westin hotels. Thousands of fans are expected to bed down there.

“Fort Lauderdale has grown up, and the places we are competing with, The Breakers in Palm Beach and the Boca Raton Resort, have their guests enjoy daiquiris beachside. Why not us?”

Roth says he hopes for a Bourbon Street atmosphere on the days leading to the Feb. 7 Super Bowl at Dolphins Stadium.

– For more exclusives on the Super Bowl, click here.

There it is!

The Vince Lombardi Trophy, which goes to the winner of the Super Bowl, has arrived — days ahead of the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts.

A source along the Fort Lauderdale beachside strip where the NFL is setting up temporary headquarters tells me the sterling silver football is in a ballroom at the Westin Beach Resort, guarded by two armed beefed-up dudes.

It’ll remain there until the morning of Feb. 7, day of the big game at Dolphin Stadium.

The Tiffany & Co. piece is valued at about $25,000 and is named after the oft-quoted, classic Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi.

– For more exclusives on Super Bowl XLIV, click here.