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Not a Member? Then You're Not Getting in
London club kings Nick House and Piers Adam’s newest venture, the Brompton Club, just opened business. But if you think you can slip into the exclusive watering hole just like that one time you somehow managed to get past the velvet rope at the West End enclave Mahiki, well, think again. The “Brompton,” as the club kids are calling it, is a members’-only establishment. The venue, adjacent to the stylish Kensington Hotel in London’s Kensington neighborhood, is so shrouded in mystery that the owners, whose portfolio of nightspots includes young-royal haunts Mahiki, Whiskey Mist, and the Punch Bowl (Guy Ritchie is part owner of the latter hangout), won’t even distribute pictures of the interior, which was designed in-house over the past seven years. Membership fees start at £500 annually, and although the Brompton only officially opened on February 25, it already has a roster of A-list jet-setters, including Naomi Campbell, Leonardo DiCaprio, Claudia Schiffer, and Harvey Weinstein.

Was Corey Haim on the Brink of a Comeback?
Corey Haim, left, with Corey Feldman, in 1987. ©Patrick McMullan. Corey Haim, who died yesterday at the age of 38, fit almost too snugly into the cliché of the child star slung asunder by drugs, the Hollywood purgatory from which so many young talents never emerge for every Drew Barrymore that does. After his promising run in the 1980s with such movies as Lucas and The Lost Boys, Haim drifted into the straight-to-video netherworld along with frequent co-star Corey Feldmand and Haim?s one-time fiancée Nicole Eggert. But according to screenwriter Eric Goren, Haim was on the brink of turning his life around. Goren, a social studies and history teacher with no ties to the industry, never met Haim in person. But he and his wife, Patricia, had caught Haim?s interest with two of their spec scripts. After signing on to play the comic relief role as a school janitor in one of them, The Science of Cool, to which Mischa Barton was also attached, Haim decided he wanted to make his directorial debut with the second one, an action thriller called The Throwaways. (Logline: Homeless people are ?disappearing? at an unprecedented rate from the streets of New York City. A determined reporter and a renegade cop must uncover this mysterious and baffling situation without risking losing their lives.) ?This was going to be [Hain?]s big comeback,? says Goren. "We really thought this was going to be his breakout year.? Indeed, Haim had a half dozen projects lined up, though none of them were studio films. ?People would have realized that Corey Haim was not just a teen superstar but a great actor.?

Insider Tips for Visiting Jackson Hole
A view of Jackson Hole. By Tristan Greszko/courtesy of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Dying to get out of your cubicle and hit the slopes for some spring skiing? Head to Jackson Hole, a sleepy ski town in northern Wyoming with an aura of the wild, untouchable West. Revered for its jagged peaks and expansive terrain, Jackson Hole is also known for friendly locals. VF Daily asked one of them, professional skier Rick Armstrong, to show us around the mountain and town.

Three Things Obama Should Think About While Watching The Pacific
At approximately 5 p.m. today, Barack and Michelle Obama will host a screening of The Pacific, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg?s new HBO miniseries documenting the American Marines involvement in the Pacific theater during World War II. Hanks and Spielberg will be on hand, as will national security adviser and retired four-star general James L. Jones, as well as members of the V.F.W. and Women in the Military Service for the American Memorial. As the president draws down troops in Iraq and ramps up the war in Afghanistan, he has a lot to learn from America?s past conflicts. This fall, when the White House was reevaluating its strategy on Afghanistan, Obama?s staff passed around Lessons in Disaster, Gordon Goldstein?s account of then national security adviser McGeorge Bundy?s poor decision-making in the early days of Vietnam. The Pacific is a miniseries, not a documentary or memoir, but Hanks and Spielberg (who also produced Band of Brothers) stay true to history?s timeline. Herewith, three things Obama should reflect upon about while watching The Pacific.

Bethany McLean on Fannie, Freddie, and Goldman Sachs
“Nobody really understands Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” You can say that again! Here’s Vanity Fair contributing editor Bethany McLean untangling that utterly confounding (and, for taxpayers, expensive) mess on Bloomberg TV, and talking about something way more fun: Goldman Sachs, whose recent spate of horrendous press strikes many onlookers as decidedly overdue. Says McLean, “They don’t know how to deal with a new world where people are more inclined to criticize them than to admire them. Read “The Bank Job,” Bethany McLean’s January 2010 exposé on Goldman Sachs. Buy The Great Hangover: 21 Tales of the New Recession from the Pages of Vanity Fair at Amazon.

New Orleans Sissy Bounce: Rap Goes Drag
You do not need to spend much time in New Orleans to realize that it occupies a unique position within the pantheon of American cities. As different from similar-sized towns like Pittsburgh as a coyote is from a mound of cottage cheese, the Big Easy is wholly it?s own scrappy, disheveled self (and I mean that as a compliment). So when, during the start of my six-month sojourn here, a friend took me to see my first Bounce show?a local form of hip-hop characterized by a machine gun-beat and na-asty lyrics?it was not that surprising that it featured openly gay artists toasting about big dicks, butts, and lots of oral. Thus began my indoctrination into the church of what folks refer to locally, but not derogatorily, as Sissy Bounce.

All Paul McCartney's Son Needs Is Love
Singer Sharlene Spiteri sits with James and Paul McCartney during Paris Fashion Week, October 2008. Photo by Eric Ryan/Getty Images. Some people (and seemingly all English people) like to hate on Paul McCartney, but the fact is, he’s not just a Beatle—he’s the only surviving member of the world-changing Lennon/McCartney songwriting combo. So give the man his due respect, and get over the fact that he somehow was foolish enough to marry Heather Mills. (I get it: any man sentimental enough to write “Here, There and Everywhere” is naïve enough to fall for a beautiful woman with one leg and a sad story.) But I digress. The point of this post is to point out that McCartney’s son, James, who looks disconcertingly like a cross between Chris Elliott and Giovanni Ribisi, now plays his own music, evidently, and that said music meets with the approval of his god-like father. Or at least his god-like father is fatherly enough to make it seem that way.

Throw-In, Liberia
Monrovia, Liberia, November, 2008. Photograph by Jonny Steinberg. Send VF.com your Soccer Shots! Fair Play will post a soccer photograph each weekday through this summer?s World Cup. Email photos with caption and credit information to fairplay@vf.com

MySpace Is Back! Really! Totally! Meet Jason and Mike! Wanna Interview Them?
The Internet is a cruel, cruel business in which if you?re not going up, you?re going down, a decline which nobody has yet been much able to reverse. But over the last few days PR people have been frantically staging a roll-out of a new plan for MySpace and a series of ?first? interviews with the company?s new co-CEOs, Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones. First question: Do the reporters receiving these calls from the PR people and then actually doing interviews with the co-CEOs really believe MySpace has a hope in hell? (And, if so, on what evidence of one-time Internet category-killers bludgeoned and drubbed by their competitors accomplishing a turnaround?) They don?t, but they write a breathy piece filled with all sorts of hoped-for nonsense anyway. ?Users will be able to categorize and filter music, pictures and Internet links in a live ?stream,? sharing and referring them with online friends,? writes the Financial Times, as far as I can figure, meaninglessly. Second question: Does MySpace?s parent company, Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp., actually believe its new co-CEOs, the third and fourth CEOs at MySpace within little more than a year, can effect a turnaround? News Corp. knows so little about and has played so unsuccessfully in the Internet space that maybe it does believe this. But probably not. More likely, what it is trying to do is to use energetic PR and the lazy good-will of technology reporters to position the company for some kind of sale. For one thing, if you really believe in a turnaround, you do it more quietly: You want to hold down expectations, you want to do something first, and then surprise people with your accomplishment. MySpace?s present initiative seems more road show-like. It?s inviting a discussion. (And, in the short term, it?s a strategy for helping News Corp.?s share price.) Of note, Jon Miller is the News Corp. executive in charge of MySpace. He was, previously, the executive in charge of a crippled and failing AOL, executing a strategy there that can only be called beating a dead horse. CONTINUE READING at Newser.com »

Bill Gates No Longer World's Richest Man but Still Totally Loaded
? Corey Feldman remembered his late friend Corey Haim in the New York Post this morning. [NY Post] ? So what is it, kids, health care or years and years of college loan debt? [Rolling Stone] ? House Democrats announced this morning that they?re going to ban earmarks from spending bills. [Huff Post] ? Bill Gates is no longer the World?s Richest Man. He?s the world?s second richest man, clocking in at a net worth of a measly $53 billion behind Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. [Forbes] ? As if you don?t have enough insight into the Real Housewives of America, they are now starting another show. This time around it?s in Beverly Hills. [Variety]

Manchester United in, Real Madrid Out
? Man U stomps AC Milan, and David Beckham showers praise on Wayne Rooney. ? The jinx continues: Lyon dashes Real Madrid?s dream of playing for the title at home. ? After loss to Lyon, Kaka?s adviser calls Pellegrini a coward. ? Emmanuel Eboue and Arsene Wenger are back in sync. ? Transfer and other rumors: William Gallas, Landon Donovan, Sol Campbell, and more. ? Tim Howard on why the US is not Brazil. ? South Africa colors: would you wear this jacket?

The Athletic Artist Takes on MoMA
Over the past few days, we’ve become acutely aware of talented women after some unprecedented and long-overdue victories. At the Oscars on Sunday, Kathryn Bigelow’s win for best director, the first by a female in that category, and the recognition of the powerhouse ladies from Precious, best-supporting-actress winner Mo’Nique and best-actress nominee Gabourey Sidibe, made indelible marks on the culture at large. That spotlight swung from the West Coast to the East last night on the fourth preview night of MoMA’s retrospective of a performance artist without peer, “Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present,” which opens to the public on Saturday. Abramović is, for lack of familiar comparisons, the Meryl Streep of performance art. She combines the discipline of a great actor, the vision of a seasoned director, and the awe-inspiring power of an athlete. Born in Yugoslavia in 1946, and doomed to being trapped in an Eastern Bloc country, Abramović staged one of her first performances by taking over the P.A. system at the national airport, announcing a flight to a destination that wasn’t possible at the time, from a boarding gate that didn’t exist. The piece combined time, anxiety, and the promise of things that weren’t to be.

Buy It, Steal It, Skip It: Music Releases for the Week of March 8
Gorillaz Plastic Beach (Virgin) With over 15 million records sold, it?s safe to say that Daman Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett?s cartoon collective, Gorillaz, have eclipsed Blur, Albarn?s 90s Britpop act, in popularity. With Plastic Beach, their third record, they have created an environment (I?m picturing a plastic beach for some reason) dominated by orchestral arrangements, downbeat bass, and heavy dub beats, and inhabited by Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, and Mos Def. The cameos by the latter three might have been wasted if not for Albarn?s knack for meticulous production and his propensity for infectious pop rhythms. But for every anthemic jam, there?s something equally freakish?an operatic house beat or Lou Reed?s signature gritty drawl over glittery synths. If I can?t convince you, Snoop Dogg?s welcome track, aptly titled ?Welcome to the Plastic Beach,? will surely make you want to join Albarn and Hewlett?s complex and alluring party. Verdict: Buy it

How Is Sarah Ferguson Celebrating Her Movie's Oscar Win?
Yesterday afternoon in London, a motorbike gang brazenly burglarized a branch of Mappin and Webb jewelers, silversmith to Queen Elizabeth II. As passersby looked on, or strolled by, and onlookers snapped photos, the bikers smashed through the windows of the shop with a hammer and snatched thousands of dollars' worth of jewelry. No injuries were reported.

Vanity Fair Is Nominated for Five National Magazine Awards
Double nominee Mark Seal talks to Bernie Madoff’s former secretary, Eleanor Squillari. Now that the Oscars are over, you thought you were done with awards season for a few blessed months, but no! Today, the American Society of Magazine Editors (that’s ASME to you and me) announced its nominees for National Magazine Awards. The winners will receive cool-looking Calder sculptures of elephants that are fondly known in the magazine world as “Ellies.” But enough back story! Congratulations to Graydon Carter, Mark Seal, Bryan Burrough, Michael Lewis, photo director Susan White, and the whole staff of Vanity Fair on a fine showing: five nominations, in the categories of Seal’s three-part series on Bernie Madoff), Feature Writing (Lewis’s “Wall Street on the Tundra”), Profile Writing (Seal again, for “The Man in the Rockefeller Suit”), and Profile Writing again (Burrough, for “Marc Dreier’s Crime of Destiny”). No word yet on what practical jokes Seal and Burrough are planning to inflict on each other, but you can bet they will be excruciating. You can read “The Man in the Rockefeller Suit” here on VF.com, but to read the full text of our other nominated stories, you’ll have to pick up a copy of The Great Recession: 21 Tales of the New Recession from the Pages of Vanity Fair, which can be purchased here from HarperCollins.