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.

Perfect makeup: Check! Perfect hair: Check! Hip clothes and thigh-high boots: Check! This, people, is reality TV star Kim Kardashian exiting a red eye from LaLaLand at 5 a.m. today at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport. Word is Kardashian is in town partly to find a love nest for her and boyfriend Reggie Bush, the undefeated New Orleans Saints’ running back. She’s also the co-grand marshal (with former Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning) of tonight’s Christmas boat parade on Lauderdale’s canals. I guess Kim expects to sink! (See below)

Actress Pam Anderson may be a dirrrty girl, but at least, she smells good! Pammy took advantage of her early arrival for Saturday night’s Make-a-Wish Foundation gala in Miami to do a little selling. The former Baywatch babe, 42, hawked her own line of perfumes,  Malibu Day and Malibu Night,  at the W hotel on Fort Lauderdale Beach Thursday. The day juice is described as fruity floral with a hint of honeysuckle. The night stuff is more oriental, with black orchids and lotus. And animal lover Anderson says she made sure no animal was harmed during production. Malibu retails in chain drugstores and discount outlets.

Assailed by critics for his poor showing in previews of the Broadway play The Starry Messenger, actor Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Freshman) spent the weekend in Fort Lauderdale. He appeared at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival premiere of his new indie flick, Wonderful World, while his wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, is busy filming the Sex and the City movie sequel in Morocco.

Bueller! Bueller! Stop talking about yourself like that!

Juliette Lewis, circa 1990, when she starred opposite Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear

Well, you won’t believe what she looks like now! Check it out below or click (Read more…)

Technosluts, anyone? (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

Now, here’s something you don’t see in Palm Beach County.

At least, not in public.

Fort Lauderdale’s swanky Voodoo Lounge throws “Technosluts” parties every few weeks.

Part Mad Max, part Saw with a dash of Escape From L.A., the wingdings are slowly growing into the area’s largest fetish gatherings.

And they are keeping it mostly clean! Check out Page2Live’s photo gallery below, by Michele Sandberg.

Promoter Joe Freedom (left) and rising porn star Jerrod Steed (right) at the W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale Saturday (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

When it comes to the nightlife, the once gritty Fort Lauderdale Beach occupies a no-man’s land.

SoFla after-dark belongs to Miami Beach, Hollywood’s Seminole Hard Rock, the Clematis-CityPlace corridor in West Palm Beach and Palm Beach’s restaurants.

Somewhere in the middle, there’s Fort Lauderdale Beach.

So, the area is out to remind the tri-counties that its newer chi-chi hotels and clubs, too, are a legit nightlife destination — one where, like this weekend, you can find yourself hanging with former Miami Dolphin Zach Thomas at the steakhouse or porn star Jerrod Steed.

On the first three Saturday nights in August, vendors and bands are scheduled to line up the strip while hotels and restaurants and clubs are in “open house” mode.

And Page2Live caught the event’s first installment Saturday to check out what the buzz is about.

The findings? You no longer need to subject yourself to the stale-beer stench at the world-famous Elbo Room!

Between the avant-garde Tinseltown airs of the W Hotel, and the hushed luxury of the Ritz-Carlton, the modern elegance of the Atlantic Hotel and the social zoo at Exit 66, there’s plenty to occupy a night on da beach.

Check out Michele Sandberg’s pictures below.

Sierra's ministry

– Miss Florida 2008, Sierra Minott, has re-enrolled at Palm Beach Atlantic University. But it’s unclear how she’ll keep her head in the psych program at West Palm Beach’s Christian school. Minott, according to the university’s website, is working on a book for teens and developing her own talk show for a Christian TV network. Of course, the school also will squeeze Minott for all’s she got. She’s appearing on radio and TV commercials touting the institution (check them out here, here and here). “I’ve always been an advocate for inner beauty. Your beauty has to start from the inside out, not the outside in,” said Minott. The majority of her appearances as Miss Florida so far centered on youth, at churches and schools. “It was a ministry until the very end,” Minott said of her just-ended reign.

Jackson

– Big-deal SoFla restaurateur Jack Jackson is joining the Boca-based restaurant chain the BOVA Group as president, the group announced this week. BOVA is co-owned by Anthony Bova and Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Rothstein, aka Gov. Charlie Crist’s moneybags. Rothstein owns the lawfirm that employs rookie Palm Beach County Commish Steve Abrams. Jackson, meanwhile, is best-known as actor Burt Reynolds’ partner in Fort Lauderdale’s long ago destination restaurant Burt and Jacks. Jackson has owned a steakhouse named after him on Las Olas for a decade, and a nearby seafood place. Both are being gobbled up by BOVA as part of the deal. In addition to now owning four major eateries in Boca and Fort Lauderdale, BOVA is looking for more. It’s negotiating to take over another Boca place, the sports bar named after Miami Heat superstar Dwyane Wade that closed last year.

– Hightailing it outtahere: Four-time NFL pro-bowler Darren Sharper. The New Orleans Saints safety has put his off-season home in Aventura on the market for $3.3 million, according to South Florida Block Shopper. He bought the four-bedroomer two years ago for $2.8 million.