Miami Social: Really?
By: Mary Jo Almeida-Shore
maryjoshore@aol.com
Bravo, the network that brings you train wrecks such as those annoying Housewives from here and there…(yawn) premiered its latest, Miami Social, a.k.a. the Real World, the Middle Aged Years, this week. While the show’s got the blueprint for success, pretty people in a gorgeous setting and lots of sexual innuendoes and plenty of skin, the personalities and relationships seem quite contrived and chewed on to those of us who actually live here. We did get a kick out of seeing the vistas of our hometown from every favorable angle, as well as the places we frequent and cameos from friends and acquaintances. Interestingly, the divorced couples get along better than those in relationships (if only they could have figured it out while they were married). One of the only realistic (albeit cliché) portrayals is that of the straight (or bi in Maria’s case) woman-gay man relationship- one of the few that actually works, in real life as well as in reality T.V. While journalists and critics are filling pages by trashing the show, we thought it was actually kind of entertaining. After all, we are a nation addicted to Facebook and Twitter, who makes a habit out of watching John and Kate plus 8, (John and Kate we Hate…), strangers get married to strangers on T.V. and eat bug/monkey brains to survive. Miami Social is NOT intended to be a documentary about Miami social life. It is what it is: a voyeuristic show about fairly regular, somewhat interesting, nice looking people and how they relate (or don’t) relate to each other. Bravo threw a premier party for Miami Social last Thursday at Louis at the Gansevoort South. Despite much hype- you would have thought Clooney and Pitt were in the cast, the event was not very well attended, with about 100 guests, tops. As expected, all of the cast members were there to bask in their 15 minutes of fame (30, for reality show veterans, Katrina Campins and Hardy Hill). DJ John Cash did bring the house down with old school favs, Michael Jackson (RIP), Madonna, etc. that kept the crowd on its feet the whole night.
Celebs Fete Sweet Mary
On Wednesday, multi-Grammy award winning singer/ songwriter Gloria Estefan hosted a book signing cocktail for her friend, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author Liz Balmaseda. Celebrities including Andy Garcia, Cindy Taylor, Steven Bauer and Tim Hardaway joined Gloria and Emilio Estefan at the circle bar at the Eden Roc Hotel to celebrate Balmaseda’s first novel, Sweet Mary (her Pulitzers were for her writings on the plight of Cuban and Haitian refugees and for her role in covering the story of Elián González). In honor of the book, Atlantico Rum created Sweet Mary Mango Sour specialty cocktails which kept notable guests, Belkys Nerey, David Siguaw, Greg Cook, Marysol Patton, Frank Amadeo, Willard Shepard and Brian Antoni, among dozens of others milling about the crowded circle bar long after the official cocktail was over. After the party, the Estefans, Andy Garcia and wife, Marivi, Carole and Oscar Seikaly, Marysol Patton and Frank Amadeo, the President of Estefan Enterprises, darted over to Solea at the newly-opened W South Beach for dinner.
