Judge unmoved by Brown's travails
It was a case of Bobby being Bobby yesterday as Whitney Houston's husband failed again to show up at a Canton courthouse to discuss his overdue child support payments. The singer's attorney Phaedra Parks told Judge Paula Carey that her client's going through a "very difficult time." Parks apologized and said the check's in the mail. "Bobby [Brown] had other engagements he had to tend to out of the state," she said afterward. ``This is just a minor issue, and we plan to bring the payments up to date." Carey, who's clashed with the Roxbury-bred singer before, was unmoved. ``Whether or not he's going through a divorce doesn't negate the fact that he still owes child support relative to two children that he had prior to his marriage," said Carey, who ordered Brown arrested if he so much as sets foot in the Bay State. Brown has created college funds for his kids with ex-girlfriend Kim Ward but is overdue by about $11,000 in monthly support. Yesterday's contretemps is the first sign Bobby's split from Whitney may affect his finances. "Due to the pending separation with his wife, he has been overwhelmed with other obligations," admitted Parks. So what's next for the New Edition singer? "We're obviously very open to any tour dates," said his attorney. "If you want to book Bobby Brown, give me a call."
Celts CEO shoots for Project 3000
Say this about Celtics CEO Wyc Grousbeck: He puts his money where his mouth is. Grousbeck's latest gambit is a partnership with baseball player Derrek Lee that aims to cure Leber congenital amaurosis, an important cause of genetic blindness in children. ``We organized this in about a week, but there's a lot of substance behind it," Grousbeck told us yesterday. Project 3000 will provide state-of-the-art genetic testing for everyone in the United States with LCA and ID the remaining genes responsible . (Not coincidentally, Lee's 3-year-old daughter, Jada, and Grousbeck's 14-year-old son, Campbell, both have the disease.) Top retina specialist Dr. Edwin Stone of the University of Iowa will do the research.Heroes at the hoedown
Speaking of the Celts owner, Grousbeck's band, French Lick, played at Saturday's fund-raiser for the Lincoln-based Lovelane Therapeutic Horseback Riding Center, opening for featured act Gregg Allman. (Grousbeck, we're told, looked like a Southern-fried rocker in shades and a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt.) Other heroes at the hoedown included Harrah's CEO Gary Loveman, Tudor Investments titan Jim Pallotta, Affinnova chairman David Andonian, hockey Hall of Famer Cam Neely, chef Michael Schlow, rocker Peter Wolf, and comedian Lenny Clarke. . . . James Taylor may have been born in Boston, but he wrote "Carolina in My Mind" while homesick for North Carolina. Taylor, who was raised in Chapel Hill, played the song with the North Carolina Symphony on Sunday when both were given 2006 Carolina Performing Arts Lifetime Achievement Awards by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "It's strange but somehow compelling to come home and sing it," the five-time Grammy winner told the Associated Press .Yesterday was the last day of filming in Framingham for ``The Game Plan." The movie's star, Dwayne ``The Rock" Johnson, used most of his lunch break to sign autographs and pose for snapshots with fans lined up outside the Framingham Civic League. Next up: a day of filming at an area airfield and some scenes at the film's production office in Westwood. And extras casting is underway for scenes that will be shot later this month at Gillette Stadium. . . .
``Babel" director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu was in Boston yesterday promoting the movie, which stars Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, and Gael Garcia Bernal. . . . In town for FM radio station 98.5's MixFest, the Barenaked Ladies stayed at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Towers, while Natasha Bedingfield, Rihanna, and Augustana used the Westin Copley Place Boston as their weekend home base.
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