Icepack

Amorosi on the news, nightlife, gossip and bitchiness beats.

by A.D. Amorosi

Unless I high-tail my ass to see him kiss his pop, Zubin, goodnight, Saturday was my final chance to see the Kimmel Center's programming capo Mervon Mehta. After eight years, Mehta's heading for Toronto's Royal Conservatory's new Telus Centre for Performance and Learning, which he'll run, teach and hang tough at. Mehta will be replaced by Tom Warner at the Kimmel and that'll be grand. Matt Wolf will do Kimmel's Broadway and Academy of Music/Forrest Theater touring thing. But Mehta was an engine of change that brought oddities like Rufus Wainwright, Ornette Coleman, The Roots/Deerhoof bill and that Stephen Sondheim event I ran into him at, not to mention Orchestra and Jerry Blavat events. I'll miss him. "And I'll miss it here," says Mehta, who just booked première performance artist Robert Lepage into the Kimmel's sched. "But I'm flying back for Leonard Cohen's show, you know, if I can get a ticket." Parting sweet sorrow etc.

► Remember Icepack dropped word on Rim Café — Ninth Street's Frenchiest French coffee klatch — losing its owner, Monsieur Rene, to the motherland? Oui. Rene leased the spot to Giovanni Caffarella, who's run it as Rim for two weeks. "I don't know if he's coming back," says Giovanni of Rene. Caffarella might like the Rim expanded into something Roman and trattoria-like.

► It looks like Philly mag scribe Benjamin "Mr. Pressler" Wallace's pricey-fake-wine mystery The Billionaire's Vinegar (the one optioned by producers Will Smith and Jim Lassiter in '08) just got a screenwriter/director (David Koepp) and a studio (Columbia). If the Fresh Prince and Wallace want a star, they can stop at Pearce Bunting, the gent who'll finish his Theater Exile run of Blackbird this weekend at Plays & Players. But not so fast getting back to NYC, Bunting. You'll be the first victim of a coal-raking Inside-the-Studio-Actor's-Head thing I'm doing at National Mechanics, Mon., March 2, with a screening of Terror Film Fest maestro Felix Diaz's Superhero Excelsior (co-starring Peek A Boo-r Scott Johnston). Rebecca Patek and Liza Clark's Mascher Space Co-Op hosts a cabaret of dance and disturbing perf-art on that same night at the same place. This'll prove messy fer sher.

► With Chifa in full branzino mode on Chestnut's FoodieRow, and Village Whiskey ready to drop on Sansom, what's this about Jose Garces doing a light-bite bistro at the Western Union Building near Washington Square? Our ears're pricked up.

► It took seeing Philly authoress Jenna Bergen on Good Morning America to remind me that Quirk Books just dropped Your Big Fat Boyfriend: How to Stay Thin When Dating a Diet Disaster. So what gives, Bergen? "I was always a health nut," she says. "My mom is an RN. I have two siblings [who are] type 1 Diabetics, so nutrition was crucial. When I started dating I was shocked how little most guys knew about basic health and what they were OK with eating." Dating a guy who snacks like a hog can make the ladies gain the pounds, she found. "So I figured easy ways to cut calories, sneak in activity to balance it out and when I talk to other women who've gained weight in relationships, they're happy when they come across the book. Almost all of them say something close to, 'I know. I gained 10 pounds when I started dating.'"

► While we wait to see if J.C. Dobbs gets its liquor license in a kinda-last-ditch attempt (June?), Tommy T is bar-keeping Saturday day shifts at Pizza Pub on 20th and Passyunk.

► Kate Gormley (aka DJ KiT from FUSE) tells me Foyer of Philadelphia, a new nonprofit serving LGBTQ homeless teens "aging out" of the foster care system, hosts its graduation party for the pilot group of 12 kids from its Job Readiness Program Feb. 28 at 1234 Market St. Foyer offers supportive housing and educational services, etc., at The Attic Youth Center. Following successful completion of their classes, the kids get a stipend and begin a six-week internship placement at a local gay-owned/gay-friendly biz. Info: foyerofphiladelphia.org.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

► WHOWHATWHERE: We've had trouble finding scandal on WXPN operations manager/music director Dan Reed. So when I finally spied Dan out, a) it's with his lovely wife, Ann, and b) it's at Louis C.K.'s show at the Merriam. That's so even-keeled. I need something nasty on this guy. WMMR's Jacky Bam Bam got a call from John Waite last Friday. They were talking up Waite's new recording of "Missing You" with Robert Plant's fave babe Alison Krauss when suddenly Waite stops his chat with Bam Bam and puts Krauss on the phone with the WMMR DJ. "She was sitting there the whole time," says Bam Bam. Apparently, neither she nor Waite would give up more info about the still-unreleased track. But Waite plays Sellersville Theatre tonight with Philly's Tim Hogan in his band. You ask him.

► Max Guerin and Christopher Devenney like it blue with their New Pony Blues ensemble. They got gigs at Fergie's Feb. 27 and Doc Watson's March 14, hit the Clark Park benefit at the Rotunda April 11, then finish recording the follow-up to More Fire by August.

► East Falls is where slumdog Dev Patel and M. Night Shyamalan are filming The Last Airbender — at the old Budd Co. warehouse and the many thousands of square feet surrounding it. There goes the Norristown shopping center studio deal.

► When he's not busy Twittering about his band's new CD, How I Got Over, which isn't due out until December, The Roots' ?uestlove DJs 32°'s seventh anniversary Feb. 27. I don't know what's more surprising — that 32°'s seven and holding or that NBC has the gall to keep the rights to its new Late Night band's compositions.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)