Mesmerized in Miami

Curtain-raisers:

Just asking: At the rate the Star Olympics (staged by the members of the Kapisanan ng mga Artista ng Pelikulang Pilipino or KAPP) has deteriorated through the years, ending up in fisticuffs and brawls, isn’t it about time that that annual palabas was scrapped altogether? The Star Olympics is supposed to cultivate and foster sportsmanship and camaraderie but look what it has gone to. Instead of being role models to their fans and the public, the star-players are showing a bad example. Time to let the curtain fall on the Star Olympics, isn’t it, Kuya Germs (Moreno, KAPP head)?

Just asking: While several televiewers are alarmed by the brazenness – and derring-do? – of some TV hosts who pollute the air with green jokes and sex-tainted double-meaning quips, prompting the MTRCB to issue warnings to the "culprits," how come the KBP (Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas) is intriguingly quiet about the whole thing? Is the KBP adopting a "see no evil, hear no evil" attitude? Hoy, gising!

GMA executive Wilma Galvante is asking Funfare to announce that the Scholarship Foundation, Inc. of her alma mater, the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, will hold a fellowship and dance party on Saturday, July 5, 6 p.m., at the Century Park Sheraton Hotel. According to Wilma, all alumni are invited. For details, call Remy Gadia at 0918-9056960.

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Have you ever travelled to the States for five days, approximately 120 hours, spending 50 of them 37,000 feet up in the air and/or waiting for your connecting flights at various points in the world?

I did just that over the weekend.

Columbia Pictures Manila’s Doris Torres invited me to the press preview of Bad Boys 2 and to interview its stars, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith (more on them in future articles), in Miami, Florida, along with more than 80 other journalists from around the world and other parts of the US.

I left Friday (June 27) at 9:30 a.m. on a Japan Airlines flight (more than five hours) that made a stopover in Narita where I waited for more than three hours for my connecting flight (United Airlines) to San Francisco (more than 10 hours) where I waited for more than three hours for the same UA flight (more than five hours) to Miami where I arrived, dazed and not knowing the time of day at around 9:30 Friday night (still June 27).

The preview was scheduled the next day at 8 p.m., and the round of print/TV interviews the whole of Sunday, so what’s a first-timer in Miami to do during those few and precious spare hours after he has shaken off (well, almost!) his jet lag?

Call a friend’s brother who happens to be Oscar Barrameda, younger brother of Joe Barrameda (known only as Joebarr in showbiz circles). Joebarr asked me to carry a package for Oscar, a long-time Miami resident with his friend Richard (an American businessman who’s into import-export), and I’m glad he did. It was my first meeting with Oscar who very kindly took the afternoon off from his job as manager of a hotel and, that’s it, took me on a quick tour of Miami that left me totally mesmerized.

Before then, my only idea of Miami came from movies and TV shows (the Don Johnson starrer Miami Vice, etc.). Remember the opening scene in La Cage Aux Folles showing the – here I go again – "mesmerizing" Miami shoreline, lit up by a thousand lights, shot from a plane? That was how Miami looked from my seat (no. 47G) on the UA flight. Mesmerizing!

I also thought of Miami as the haven for senior citizens, a warm place the whole year round where the characters of Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were heading for (remember the finale scene in Midnight Cowboy?) after their sad experience in hostile New York.

"It has ceased to be a senior-citizen country," said Oscar as he steered his Cherokee Jeep from the downtown area where we were booked (at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, overlooking the bay) toward the strip of beaches and bars, with the buildings no more than two or three storeys high, some of them painted green and yellow and other bright colors that make Miami a favorite of tourists and bakasyonistas.

"There were dozens and dozens of senior citizens when Richard and I settled here more than 10 years ago," said Oscar. "Now, Miami is full of gays and artists. Where have all the senior citizens gone? I don’t know. Real-estate here used to be affordable but after the likes of Gianni Versace bought a mansion, the prices went up, up and away. Now, only the very rich can afford to buy lots and houses along this strip."

Besides Versace, murdered by a Filipino (remember Andrew Cunanan?) in 1997 right in front of that mansion, other celebrities who own houses include Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan, Julio Iglesias and Will Smith, turning Miami into a virtual Hollywood – a Latino Hollywood, that is, because Miami is predominantly Latin territory where you see people casually walking in the streets in bikinis and trunks, only in sandals. It’s a place where, according to the Midnight Cowboy theme song, the sun keeps shining through the falling rain (yes, it did rain heavily that morning but the clouds lifted just as fast, making Miami as lovely as a woman after the lovin’).

I asked Oscar to pull over in front of Versace’s mansion which was a popular tourist spot and has become even more so after his murder. From morning till night, said Oscar, "Tourists pour in, having their pictures taken. The house is empty now, sold to somebody else by Versace’s sister Donatella who, initially, was reluctant to do so because she wanted to keep her brother’s memories."

Oscar pointed the exact spot where Versace fell after he was shot by Cunanan and that’s where my picture on this page was taken.

"I saw his body covered with his own blood," recalled Oscar who lived nearby at that time (he and Richard now live in a cozy house near a golf course several blocks away). "I was on my way to work at naki-usyoso na rin ako. After hiding for several days, Cunanan was caught inside a boat docked right in front of the building where we used to stay. The boat owner went on a vacation and Cunanan slipped into the boat unnoticed, hid there until the police was tipped off by a cleaning lady."

Two blocks away, Oscar pointed to a restaurant which used to be owned by Jennifer Lopez. Two more turns and there, in front of us, was the Fountainbleu Hotel, known as "the home of Miss Universe," where Gloria Diaz stayed in 1969 after she was crowned Miss U (the first from the Philippines). Right across Fountainbleu was the white beach where Gloria stood with her crown and scepter, with cameras clicking around her as she flashed her first toothsome smile as the most beautiful woman in the universe.

We drove on, crossed a bridge and, Oscar pointed out, "See that beautiful house with a speedboat docked in front of it? That’s Ricky Martin’s." Could he be there right now, maybe taking his siesta? "I doubt it," said Oscar. "But only several weeks ago, Ricky was here to promote his new album." Yes, it’s in Miami where Ricky, like most Latin superstars, is livin’ la vida loca.

By the time we crossed another bridge and Oscar was showing me the Star Island where Gloria Estefan lives, it was time to go back to Mandarin Oriental where I and the other journalists were to be picked up by a bus for the hour-long trip to the venue of the Bad Boys 2 preview.

And guess what I saw in the long car-chase scene with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in pursuing bad guys (drug dealers, you guessed it!) – yes, several of the same places that Oscar had just brought me to.

Bad Boys 2 is a breath-takingly entertaining movie. But then, that’s another story. Stand by.

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