Friday, October 31, 2008

Jade Jagger Lists London Residence


SELLER: Jade Jagger
LOCATION: Keslake Road, Queen's Park, London, UK
PRICE: £1,500,000
SIZE: 1,989 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Offering lavish, extremely well presented accommodation throughout, the property comprises fabulous reception and dining room, convenient eat-in kitchen opening onto garden, master bedroom with incredible en suite bathroom and walk-in wardrobe, two further generous bedrooms, glamorous bathroom with mosaic mirror wall and ceiling tiles and charming private garden to the rear...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A very kind British bloke we'll call Sweeney Todd recently sent Your Mama a covert communique informing us know that rock and roll heiress turned jewelry designer and property developer Jade Jagger has listed her louche London home with an asking price of £1,500,000, a figure our bejeweled abacus reveals converts to $2,471,970 at today's rates.

It probably goes without saying the Jade Sheena Jezebel Jagger is the party princess progeny of mammoth mouthed Mick Jagger and the wonderfully bizarre Bianca Jagger, who the children will recall was recently booted from her rent controlled apartment on New York's posh Park Avenue.

Thirty something year old Miss Jagger spent much of the last ten or twelve years earning a good living as the creative director of the old-school and very expensive British jewelry company Garrad. Somehow she managed to design gem encrusted jewelry while living the hedonistic life of a well-heeled hippie in a converted barn on the Spanish island of Ibiza. However, a couple of years ago, with her two daughters reaching their terrible teenage years, the single mommy relocated the family back to London where they settled in a modest house on Keslake Road in quirky Queen's Park where some of her neighbors are reported to include 007 hot-bahdee Daniel Craig, naughty and outspoken singer/songwriter Lily Allen, novelist Zadie Smith and super slim actress Thandie Newton.

Listing information indicates Miss Jagger's brick built house measures in at a modest 1,989 square feet and includes just 3 bedrooms and two garishly glitzy bathrooms, including one where in the absence of gravity one could snort cocaine off the mirrored walls and ceiling.

The front of house is surrounded by a garden with high hedges which may (or may not) provide enough privacy and protection for Miss Jagger to sunbathe in the nood. The ground floor consists of just two large rooms divided by a long and narrow entrance and stair hall. At approximately 600 square feet, the reception room–which we call a living room in the good ol' U-nited States of America–is large and high enough for Miss Jagger's glossy black dining room table topped with two insanely terrific gold statuettes. Several sofas and chairs provide plenty of lounging space, but curiously, there is not a coffee table in sight.

The kitchen features a complicated and spectacular tiled floor, a big mama sized Aga range, a few other chintzy looking appliances, a marble topped Saarinen dining room table surrounded by four of those great looking but ridiculously uncomfortable Philippe Starck ghost chairs. Have any of the children ever tried to sit their fat asses down on one of those chairs? We have, and the seat is so narrow that even whisper thin model Kate Moss' teeny tiny toosh would spill over the edge of the damn thing.

Upstairs, Miss Jagger's two gurl children, who have reportedly begun to cut quite a rug on the London party scene even though they've barely received their womanly gifts, each have their own room that shares the above mentioned mirrored bathroom. Now hunnies, pleez, what teenage gurl wants to be showering, shaving, pooping and primping in a bathroom where they can't help but see every unflattering angle of themselves? That's right, no teenage gurls we know.

Miss Jagger has created quite a master suite for herself which includes a colossal king sized bed, walls covered in grass cloth, a naughty black crystal chandelier, a walk in closet and a bathroom that is both larger than either of her children's bedrooms and features a gold plated stripper pole smack in the middle of the room. In. The. Middle. Of. The. Damn. Room. As if that were not tacky enough someone has seen fit to place a pair of white chairs so that Miss Jagger's stripping spectators can sit back and enjoy the show. Klassy.

The entirely uninviting and not particularly private rear garden has a large tiled terrace, a patch of lawn for the pooches and some pretty paltry landscaping around the perimeter.

Now that Miss Jagger has lately become deeply involved in designing and developing slick and sleek apartments buildings in New York City, could it be that she's selling house so that she can uproot her family to live across the pond? Or perhaps she's headed back to her converted barn on Ibiza? Your Mama hasn't a clue, but we do know that wherever the glammy gal lands, she's sure to make a serious splash on the beau monde social circuit and will likely do up her house like a damn night club. But what else should we expect from a boho babe who had Andy Warhol for a baby sitter?

Happy Halloween



Happy Halloween darlings. It's the most spookiest time of the year, The Gay Christmas. And to be especially festive, I've posted this lovely painting of Donald Duck's Halloween done by the legendary Disney artist Carl Barks.


Speaking of Gay Christmas, there's an election next week. Did you know? They've been keeping it quiet, so few people even know about it. But with any luck, six days from now, we'll be able to speak of "President Elect Mandingo."


But if you live in California, be sure to vote NO on Proposition 8. It's just simple fairness. We call it "Equal Rights." You see it's this simple: either everyone has the same rights as everybody else, or they don't. The lying bigoted assholes behind the "Yes on 8" campaign, like the Mormon Church for instance, say "Restore Traditional Marriage". You remember "Traditional Marriage." That's when a teenage boy knocks up a Republican Governor's teenage daughter; they're forced to marry, they make each other miserable beyond belief for a few years, and then they either divorce, or one kills the other. Lovely thing, Traditional Marriage. But the thing about Traditional Marriage is, it doesn't need "restoring" because it hasn't gone away. All we've done is expand it to include everyone.


The liars say they won't be able to practise their idiot religions. Nonsense. Members of bigoted, small-minded religions, like The Mormons for instance (Odd people to champion "Traditional Marriage," since for Mormons, that involves one husband and three to ten wives. Some "Tradition."), won't be forced to perform gay weddings, they just also won't be able to force their imbecilic beliefs and tenets on other people, you know, like the way The First Amendment says they shouldn't anyway. So vote No on Proposition 8. Let everyone be miserable, not just the straight folks.



Last year for Halloween, Little Dougie told the tale of his friend Larry Vincent. it bears repeating, so feel free to click on Mister Halloween, and read it again.


However, for this Halloween, I thought I'd share a tale from my universally-available autobiography My Lush Life, this time, the tale of my scariest marriage, a very non-gay marriage that could make anyone prefer gay marriage.




If there's any name people associate with me more than my own, it's Frankenstein. Of course, in 1968, I co-starred with the divine Peter Cushing in the Hammer horror classic Frankenstein's Reason for Living. In this unusual story, Frankenstein put the brain of Jack-The-Ripper into the body of a dead female street-walker, played by me, so I was The Frankenstein Monster in that movie. It was a challenge, since I had to play a man in a woman's body. The trick to playing a man is remembering that all men think with their penises. But I don't have a penis to think with, no matter how many thousands of them I've borrowed. But then I realized that my male brain didn't have one when he was in my body either, so I didn't have to think at all!





Anyway, my story takes place many years earlier. In 1933, The Great Evil [Prohibition] was repealed, and I set out to celebrate. That was the last thing I remember before begining My Lush Life, Chapter 13:





When I awoke I was lying in my bed in Morehead Heights, next to an unfamiliar man. When I looked closer, I realized I did recognize him, and when I did, I let out a scream. I was lying, naked, next to the equally naked, Scariest Man In The World, Boris Karloff!



Boris woke up, looked over at me with his hooded, monster’s eyes, and said: "Good morning, Tallulah dear." And then leaned over and kissed me.

"Mr. Karloff," I said, "Aren’t you being a bit forward?"

"Aren’t we formal today, Mrs. Karloff?" Boris replied, and I went into shock.


What woman hasn’t woken up after a particularly Social party and found herself married to a strange man? I’m sure that’s happened to all my readers once or twice. But who else has woken up from a party and found themselves married to Frankenstein’s monster?



Not that I wish to malign dear Boris; he was actually a very nice, soft spoken, polite Englishman, with an incomprehensible, boring obsession with cricket. In any event, finding myself married to Boris Karloff was only one of the shocks I had waiting for me that morning.


Once I stirred up Terrence, he filled me in and I had the largest series of surprises since the time Mildred Puett woke me up in Tijuana more than twenty years before. The big shock wasn’t that I was Mrs. Pratt [Dear Boris’ real name was William Henry Pratt. Thank Heaven he changed it.], it was that it was 1934! My blackout had lasted just a little over a year! Honey, when I celebrate, I really cook!


Studio head Louie B. Thalberg had been furious when I’d disappeared without a trace for more than six months. One production had to be cancelled and then another had been shot with my role being played by
Delores Delgado! That was the lowest blow of all! I was on suspension.


Eventually I had been found in San Francisco, working as a drag queen! Worse than that, I hadn’t been too successful. When Terrence and Major Babs came to collect me, the owner of the club where I’d been performing said to them, "Tell your friend that if he wants to be a convincing woman three words: Depilatory and Face Lift. And if he must impersonate a celebrity, why not someone other than that washed-up old hag Morehead? Now, how about settling his bar bill?" What a rude monster! How sensible of loyal Major Babs to have broken his collarbone.


Once I’d been brought back to Los Angeles, a disgusted Louie loaned me out to Metro, where I was now halfway through shooting a film with Boris Karloff, a sequel to his The Mask Of Fu Manchu called Fu Manchu’s Blessed Event! I was playing Fu Manchu’s white mistress (As with all the Fu Manchu movies, the film was wildly racist.) who gives him a son.



Yes, you read that right. It wasn’t bad enough that I’d lost an entire year in a Social Blackout, failed as an unconvincing drag queen, had missed out on two films, been replaced by the extremely untalented Delores Delgado (Thank God the film tanked at the box office), been suspended, been loaned out to Metro, was appearing in a racist piece of escapist claptrap (As opposed to the always high-class, quality films I made at PMS) and had married The Scariest Man In The World, but, worst of all, I was playing a MOTHER! Could I possibly sink any lower?


I learned the answer to that question when I arrived at Metro later that day and saw my costume.


Apparently Boris and I had had a whirlwind courtship and married three weeks into production. Further, I had been the aggressor in the relationship.


Oddly, considering that for most of the film I’m performing in a Social Stupor, I received some of the best reviews of my career, with Variety calling Boris and I "The Lunt & Fontanne of horror movies." So immediate was my fan response among the Horror Community that both Universal, the Horror Headquarters of America, and RKO, which was trying to compete with Universal for the horror dollar, asked Louie for loan-outs of me. Universal had the brilliant idea of teaming "Horror’s Big Three", namely Boris, Bela Lugosi and I, in a film that could charitably be described as "Loosely Adapted" from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Pussy. RKO wanted to feature me in HER! Louie, still disgusted with my disappearance, agreed to both films, but with one proviso; they would have to wait until I first shot a super-spectacle for him at PMS.


Paramount had had a huge success that year with Cecil Blunt DeMille’s Cleopatra, starring Claudette Colbert . Everyone expected them to turn out a sequel but DeMille instead chose other projects, announcing that there could be no sequel to Cleopatra. How wrong he was.


Our legal department had discovered that Cleopatra, Marc Antony, Egypt and the Roman Empire were actual historical personages and places and thus in the public domain. Paramount didn’t own them. Anybody could make a movie about them. Thus Louie B. Thalberg, who never saw a bandwagon he couldn’t jump on, decided that if DeMille wouldn’t make a sequel, Von Millstone would. And so I came to play the title role in PMS most expensive movie ever, The Revenge Of Cleopatra!


I played Cleopatra, of course, and Rod Towers played Caesar Augustus. Despite being a natural Platinum blonde, I played Cleopatra as a brunette, thus demonstrating the broad range of my legendary versatility. The film begins at the very moment that DeMille’s picture ended. Cleopatra lies dying of snake bite beside the body of Marc Antony. My faithful friend Polidorus, played by the immensely tall (Six foot seven) and strong character man Harry Rumpole, sucks the snake venom from my wound. [Terrence, venom-sucking expert that he was, voluntarily spent many long hard hours demonstrating snake sucking techniques to Harry Rumpole. So enthusiastic was Harry about the lessons he received that the coaching continued after the venom-sucking scene had been shot, and, in fact, even after the entire movie was completed. That’s professionalism!]

Over Antony’s body I vow revenge on Octavius who killed him and has become Emperor Caesar Augustus of Rome. With Polidorus’ help I travel to Rome, disguised as a Greek Princess, intending to make Augustus fall in love with me so I can then kill him and take over his empire.


When I get to Rome all goes according to plan. I find Caesar Augustus is under the influence of his evil wife Livia, played to perfection by Delores Delgado, and her cruel son Tiberius, played by the always amusing Vincent Lovecraft. I seduce Augustus and he falls for me hard. I’m about to kill him when we meet Jesus Christ (Spencer Hooks), when he comes to Rome with his disciples. I realize that I’m now in love with Augustus and we both convert to Christianity. With the help of Jesus and the disciples we foil the evil plans of Tiberius and Livia and kill them. Then the Roman Empire converts to Christianity and Augustus becomes the first Pope. Jesus himself gives the Pope special permission to marry me and we live happily ever after in the newly built Vatican.


As this brisk summary of what is, after all, a four hour movie, shows, unlike DeMille’s pagan orgy of gratuitous sex and violence, our film was a moving and deeply religious epic about the power of Faith to change history.


Critics were stunned by this massive film, and their reviews reflected their bewilderment: The Times wrote: "In The Revenge Of Cleopatra Miss Tallulah Morehead makes a spectacle of herself." Variety wrote: "In his Egyptian/Roman epic Cyril Von Millstone is unfettered by historical fact" The Christian Science Monitor, never my fan since I cancelled my subscription, gushed: "Miss Morehead’s performance as Cleopatra is every bit as believable as the screenplay." The London Times wrote: "Watching a movie in which Cleopatra, Caesar Augustus and Jesus Christ creep about a palace at night and stab Livia and Tiberius to death in their beds, is to understand how far civilization can sink."


Though popular, the film was simply too expensive to turn a profit and plans for a second sequel, Cleopatra Saves Atlantis, were scrapped despite the most powerful screenplay I’d ever had summarized for me, and I went off to Universal to work with my husband again, this time with Bela Lugosi as well, in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Pussy.


I hear you out there, loyal reader darlings, saying "Tallulah dear, I worship the stool you drink on, and I believe every word of this inspiring autobiography, but I’ve seen The Black Cat with Karloff and Lugosi, and you are not in it." I will explain.


I reported to work at Universal with Boris, Bela, some hopelessly plain looking little actressette named Jacqueline Wells *, and darling David Manners who was gorgeous and who I would have been all over like L’Orange on duck if it weren’t for the facts that: 1. My husband was in the film and on the set of a picture about a man who murders his faithless wife and her lover, and 2. David was just the merest whisper, if you follow me. Presiding over us was the dark, fascinating master Edgar G. Ulmer.


The film made some slight changes in Poe’s story, but basically I play Boris’ wife, who is having an affair with Bela Lugosi. (I know-insane!) Boris finds out and walls us up alive in the cellar. When the police come and knock on the fresh brick wall they hear what sounds like the wail of a bewildered kitty come from behind the partition. The police tear down the wall and find Bela and I behind it, still alive and using our last bits of oxygen to make passionate love as we die. (Well, what would you do in that situation?) The wails they heard were my passionate moans. Boris then goes completely crazy, laughing dementedly and saying over and over: "It was the pussy! It was that awful, disgusting, smelly black pussy! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" Bela and I are rescued and live happily ever after.


Unfortunately, during my blackout celebrating the return of alcoholic freedom to America, Beelzebub’s minions had conquered Liberty in another way. Lucifer’s second-in-command [The Breen Office] had inflicted Satan’s Manifesto [The Motion Picture Production Code] on the motion picture industry and the movie business had capitulated! The First Amendment was used for toilet paper for the next thirty years!


The Black Pussy was declared completely unacceptable for release, and Carl Laemmle Junior took the unprecedented steps of cutting me and my storyline out of the film altogether, instead building up a minor subplot about a devil cult that Boris runs as a hobby into the main show. The only glimpses of me in the released film that you saw were some shots of me lying in bed beside Boris, photographed through gauze netting. Another actress, a little nobody named Lucille Lund, replaced me in a few scenes as Boris’ new wife, who is supposed to be Bela’s daughter, who is killed off early. Jacqueline Wells’ and David Manners’ characters, extremely minor supporting parts in the original film, are built up into the hero and heroine. In short, the film was defaced beyond all recognition!


The Breen office even objected to the title! Classic American Literature apparently meant nothing to those barbaric cultural vandals. Hence the name change to The Black Cat, and, just to strip the icing from the cake, they even stuck a cat in the picture! Subtlety was completely lost on the philistine Mr. Breen.


By the time the ruined film was in release Boris and I were divorced. Our marriage had been placid at best, dull at worst. Boris drank in moderation, ate in moderation, made love in moderation, he was, in fact, just too English for words! But the worst thing was his inexplicable obsession with cricket! Every single weekend he attended cricket matches. I didn’t even know there were cricket matches in Los Angeles, but apparently a bunch of English misfit malcontents had some sort of cricket club and Boris never missed a game. I went with him exactly once! The game is incomprehensible, The athlete’s outfits are unsexy, and they served TEA! I’d rather talk clothes with Terrence.


At Morehead Heights things were peaceful. Boris and Major Babs (Whom Boris knew only as Illinois Smith) shared an interest in military history. Boris loved dogs and so took to Terrence’s Yorkshire terrier Felicia, and the Headless Indian Brave was frightened of Boris and avoided him.


The marriage might have worked out if Boris hadn’t been so damned curious. I had this one cupboard at Morehead Heights that I kept padlocked. Boris wouldn’t leave it alone and one day I was awakened from a sound, restful stupor by the sound of a man shrieking in terror. Not thinking clearly as I was shocked awake, I grabbed an immense butcher knife and ran upstairs, followed by closely by Major Babs. There we found Boris standing before the padlocked cupboard, which he had pried open with a crowbar. It so happened that this was the cupboard in which I kept the jars containing the "Keepsakes" I’d supposedly sliced off my late husbands in Bluebeard’s Daughter, which I kept locked up, as they were valuable movie prop souvenirs.


As it happened, I’d never told Boris they were in there, so he didn’t know they were only props made by the brilliant artisans at PMS. Boris, I’m afraid, thought they were real! Then he turned and saw me running towards him brandishing that huge knife! Well, it was too much for poor Boris. The Scariest Man In The World was terrified! He cupped his hands over his crotch, screamed: "You won’t get mine, Devil Woman!" and turned and crashed through a second floor window. Fortunately Terrence happened to be outside and broke his fall or Boris might have slipped right off the end of Tumescent Tor to certain death! As it was, both men spent four weeks in hospital.


Even after the misunderstanding was cleared up, Boris wouldn’t come back. Some traumas just strike a man too deep. We divorced on grounds of irreconcilable differences and went our seperate ways. Four husbands down. would I ever find True Love?


[I must emphasize that the Karloff family and all historical documentation denies every word of this chapter. So far as we can establish it, Tallulah was never married to Boris Karloff. We can only assume that Tallulah’s memories of making those two films with him while still recovering from her End Of Prohibition bender have eroded over the years into a false memory. Fortunately, this is a Show Business Star Autobiography, so Truth isn’t an issue. -Douglas]


Cheers darlings.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Toby Keith Lists Nashville Crash Pad


SELLER: Toby Keith
LOCATION: West End Avenue, Nashville, TN
PRICE: $1,595,000
SIZE: 3,428 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms (as per listing)
DESCRIPTION: Old World design meets stylish in-town elegance that is secure & private. With all of the amenities of new construction plus outdoor living space & pool! Soaring ceilings, tile & hwd flrs, Pecky Cypress cab. Wine cellar ,built-ins, tile roof, 2 car garage

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen children, Your Mama has got to be snappy here because our good friend Fiona Trambeau is winging her way down from San Francisco for a visit and we had best get to the airport to pick her up on time. Lahwd have mercy on our snarky soul if we make Miss Thing wait at the curb for even two minutes clutching her tatty snakeskin handbag, clenching her big teeth and looking like a damn street walker–and you know she will. We'll pay for that perceived indignity all weekend, so it's imperative we show up on time or better yet, early. Plus, poor Fiona is mortally afeared of aero-planes so we are quite sure she's gonna show up acting a halacious hot mess because, you know, a big nerve pill, several vodka gimlets and a ferocious fear of flying do not mix well.

Anyhoo, thanks to a man we'll call Nashville Ned we have learned that unapologetically patriotic and award winning country singing superstar Toby Keith and his wifey Tricia have put their Nashville nest up for sale with an asking price of $1,595,000.

Property records show that the Dixie Chicks detesting cowboy purchased their 3,428 square foot house on bizzy and wide West End Avenue in September of 2006 for $1,350,000. Listing information reveals the three story, tile roofed Tuscan inspired residence includes three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. It appears to Your Mama that the Keith crib is part of a tightly packed three house development of similarly styled houses, although as far as we can tell, the Keith couple own only the one.

Whatever the case, we do not think this is Mister Keith's primary residence. Not only is it hardly large enough to house he, the wifey and their three children, property records reveal the well booted country couple also own an 8,714 square foot house that sits on 160 acres in Norman, Oklahoma where we believe the family bunks down. Therefore, we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that this modest mini-manse acts as a crash pad for when Mister Keith has bizness in the country music capital of the world.

The floor plan indicates that the residence is entered on the middle level through a shallow barrel vaulted entrance hall that either shoots guests down a wide stone stairway to the lower floor, into a guest room (with private pooper) on the left or to the right and into the master bedroom with its surprisingly beautiful bronzy colored walls and rather unappealing four poster bed. The master bedroom is comprised of a bathroom with separate tub and shower, a walk in closet and, strangely, the stacked washer and dryer. We can understand having a second washer/dryer set in the master bedroom for washing the undergarments, but this appears to be the only washer/dryer in the house which means that Paulette the Laundress will be hanging out up in the master bedroom and watching her stories on the boob toob while folding clothes on the bed. Uhm, no. The master bedroom also has a private stairway to the third floor where the floor plan shows a windowless office, a large walk-in cedar closet for stashing out of season fashions and an exercise/media room. This would also, if so inclined, be an excellent location for the sexually adventurous to build an s/m dungeon or some other fetishistic hideaway.

The wide staircase sweeps guests down from the entrance to the lower floor where the main living and entertaining space is comprised of a 40+ foot long, stone floored and dramatically decorated living/dining room combo which features a soaring wood beamed ceiling, a fireplace, a row of french doors leading to the itty bitty backyard and equally tiny swimming pool and two large and wonderfully simple chandeliers. A powder room for guests has been tucked up into a corner of the dining room, a particularly risky location for all the obvious reasons.

The stone floor in the living room has been continued into the galley style kitchen where cabinets have been fashioned from Pecky Cyprus and a giant magazine rack has been affixed to one wall. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter do not choose keep all our printed publications where we make meals, but we can certainly appreciate having a commodious rack like that could be invaluablet for sorting and organizing all the New Yorkers and gossip glossies that arrive in our mail box every week. A large walk in wine room between the kitchen and two car garage will make all the wobbly winos (who claim to tipple and toss back for the flavor) go weak in the knees.

Who knows why Mister and Missus Keith would choose to sell thei Nashville pied a terre just two years after purchasing and at a time when real estate values are sinking like the damn Titanic in most parts of the country. Then again, it's unlikely Mister Keith needs the proceeds from the sale of this property to pay the water and eklecktrick, you know?

Now we gotta run and stash a few vomit bags in the big BMW before popping down to the airport to pickup Fiona Trambeau who will very likely lose her breakfast of nerve pills and booze on the ride home.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Tom Perkins Lives the Luxe Life on Belvedere Island

SELLER: Tom Perkins
LOCATION: Golden Gate Avenue
PRICE: $20,500,000
SIZE: 7,535 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms (as per assessor)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Today we're going to spread our celebrity real estate wings a little bit and discuss Bay Area bizness tycoon Tom Perkins, a filthy rich financier who recently put his big house in the super swank San Francisco suburb of Belvedere Island on the market with an asking price of $20,500,000.

For those not familiar with Mister Perkins let Your Mama give you the Reader's Digest version of his rather extensive and impressive rezoomay. After helping to steer Hewlett Packard into the personal computer bizness in the 1960s, Mister Perkins went on to make mountains of money as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who provided start up cash for companies such as AOL, Amazon.com, Netscape and Google. Some of the more quirky elements of his life story include being convicted of involuntary manslaugher in France due to a death that occurred in a yacht racing accident and his brief marriage to ridiculously prolific romance novelist Danielle Steel who may have inspired him to write his own tawdry novel in 2006 called, not surprisingly, Sex and the Single Zillionaire.

Mister Perkins also spent a rumored and reported $100,000,000+ to build Maltese Falcon, the largest privately owned sailing yacht on the planet that includes a staggering 11,000 square feet of interior space and requires a crew of at least twenty. However, only two short years after dropping the luxe and lavish boat into the water he has put the 289-foot feat of oceanic engineering up for sale at a figure some yacht brokers are whispering is somewhere around $150,000,000€, a grotesquely large number that Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us converts to $187,360,500 at today's rates. Nothing like having a little pocket change to indulge one's hobbies.

Anyhoo, we're not here to blather on about a boat but rather to wag our tongue at obscenely expensive real estate. Not only is Mister Perkin divesting himself of his big boat (so that he can get into sports submarines, whatever that is), he is also looking to unload his spectacular mansion on Belvedere Island with it's crazy intricate paneling and enviable views across the San Francisco Bay and towards the gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge.

Located on the choicest section of Belvedere Island's Golden Gate Avenue and just down the block from mining mogul Robert Friedland's $65,000,000 residential extravaganza, property records show Mister Perkins' palatial digs measure in at 7,535 square feet and include 7 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms. A closer look-see at listing information reveals that the bedroom breakdown is more complicated than it sounds. The main floor includes a good sized guest suite and private pooper, the second floor has two wings, one for the master suite with its dual bathrooms and commodious closet space and the other for three family bedrooms, two bathrooms and laundry facilities. The lower floor features the sixth bedroom and attached terlit and has been designated as a "maid's quarters," while a "chef's apartment" rides astride the three car garage.

Although the day-core is not our cup of tea, we find the living and dining rooms to be elegant in the way that only the houses of the very rich can be and we're absolutely breathless over the manly looking library with its hidden wet bar and we're faint with glee over the dee-voonly detailed linenfold paneling and intricately carved mantel in the living room. These rooms reveal the subtle hands of a skilled tradesman and the very expensive vision of a deft decorator, nice, gay or otherwise. However, what in heaven's name happened in the study with its upsetting cacophony of visually vexatious fabrics? And do not even get Your Mama started on that bedroom with its rose colored carpeting and disturbing balloon curtains surrounding the four poster bed. Lawhd have mercy children, that room has us pouring an early morning gin and tonic to get through to the next hour.

Other rooms and amenities on the meticulously renovated and maintained main floor, according to listing information, include a temperature controlled greenhouse (for the orchid lovers, natch), a powder room, and a kitchen with attached butler's pantry and laundry room. The lower floor features a large entertainment room, a second full kitchen, full service wet bar for all the boozy types to sidle up to, a temperature controlled wine cellar (almost all rich people require wine cellars nowadays), and access to the stone terrace which leads down the hillside to the swimming pool and pool house, a real rarity in this neck of the woods due to the damp and chilly climate. The almost one acre grounds include rose gardens, level lawns for drunken games of croquet, stone paths meandering up and down the sloping lot, flowers, vegetable gardens and fruit trees. A damn Garden of Eden, children.

Additional features that will please and impress potential buyers is the alarm system, the fire hoses designated for each of the three floors and the two safes, because let's be honest children, when your pockets are deep enough to fork over twenty million clams for a house, one safe is simply not enough to stash and secure the family jewels. Okaaay?

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A-Rod and C-Rod List Coral Gables Crib

SELLER: Cynthia and Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez
LOCATION: E. Sunrise Avenue, Coral Gables, FL
PRICE: $14,876,000
SIZE: 8,310 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 3 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Nothing short of Paradise yet comfortable & inviting, this unparalleled property offers the finest in waterfront yachting, entertaining & living. Completely renovated, with a unique combination of new & old handcrafted, custom designed finishes creating and unmatched setting with an abundance of water surrounding more than an acre of park like grounds.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week we had a discussion about the Park Avenue digs of New York Yankees' soon to be dee-vorced third baseman Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez recently listed with an asking price of $14,000,000 during which mentioned that the bay front Coral Gables mansion that he once shared with his soon to be ex-wifey Cynthia had also been tossed up on the market with an asking price of $14,876,000.

At the time, we had little information about the E. Sunrise Avenue estate. However, listing information has been beefed up and we now know the "Old World Mediterranean" mansion in suburban Miami was built in 1952, measures in at approximately 8,310 square feet and includes six bedrooms, five full and three half bathrooms.

Property records show the once convivial couple scooped up this property in December of 2004 when they paid an even-steven $12,000,000 for the 1+ acre property which records also show sits just a few short blocks from the much more modest crib of C-Rod's parents

Listing information shows the renovated and rehabbed residence features a stone floored entrance hall leading to a double height living room with a disturbingly modern and entirely unnecessary row of skylights and an area rug so dizzying Your Mama almost tossed up the candy bar we had for breakfast. The dining room has been wallpapered in a very Palm Beach Chinoiserie style wallpaper that has been smartly toned back with a well sized sisal rug under the too-traditional dining room table.

The eat-in kitchen appears to have been outfitted with pickled wood cabinets, marble counter tops and some rather unfortunate bar stools. Other rooms at the manse include an den/library/office and a media room.

The walled, gated and seriously secured property includes a large circular motor court with additional parking on what we think (but do not know for sure) was once a tennis court, all of which is surrounded by towering palm trees and all sorts of tropical foliage that provide the property with the kind of privacy often craved by rich and famous folks. The backyard offers a free form shaped swimming pool overlooking the Biscayne Bay and it appears to Your Mama there are docking facilities for at least four boats. A pool side pavilion provides an excellent place to get out of the scorching southern Florida sunshine and where we imagine might be a lovely spot for Sven the scantily clad massuer to stop by and give Your Mama a full body rub down.

Although the soon to be ex-Missus A-Rod asked for this property in the dee-vorce, it appears that in the end she's not interested in keeping the couple's house of connubial bliss and in fact, it's reported that C-Rod is out shopping for a new home in the Coral Gables and Coconut Grove areas.

As for A-Rod, when not (allegedly) slinking around and getting himself in some sticky and sweet situations in Noo York City with the soon to be single and man-eating Madonna, word on Miami's art deco'ed Ocean Drive is that the third baseman shacks up on swanky Star Island, the guard gated and pill shaped island where all manner of rich and famous folks like Gloria Estafan and Rosie O'Donnell have homes. It's also where, as far as we know, basketball giant Shaquille O'Neal is still trying to unload the monstrous mansion once rumored the erstwhile Mister and Missus Rodriquez were interested in purchasing.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Tori Spelling Is A Valley Girl

BUYERS: Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott
LOCATION: Encino Avenue, Encino, CA
PRICE: $2,495,000
SIZE: 6,718 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Sophisticated inviting entertainer's floor plan. Dramatic 2 stry formal entry, richly appointed cstm finishes, french drs, 4 frplcs, over sized common rms, wood & stone flring, dining rm w/ silver leaf coffered clngs, study, office, gourmet eat-in cntr isl kit w/ Thermador, Bosch, & SubZero apls. Amazing mstr ste w/ sitting area, blcny, frplc, spa tub & multi-head shwr. Landscaped grnds w/ lanai, bbq, pool/spa & putting green.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Like, Oh my gawd! Word on the Los Angeles real estate street is that Beverly Hills born ack-turus Tori Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210, So NoTORIous, Kiss the Bride) and her ack-tor huzband Dean McDermott (Due South, Power Play, 1-800-Missing) are moving up...and over to the San Fernando Valley.

It was recently reported here, there and everywhere that the peripatetic pair listed the 5 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house in Los Angeles' Westwood neighborhood that they bought only last year and where they filmed their most recent reality show embarrassment Home Sweet Hollywood. (Sorry Tori hun, although Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are both unrepentant reality show junkies and we think you are a-may-zing, we just don't care for those stinky reality shows you've been doing with your huzbeau.)

It was only a matter of time before all the whispers and rumors would start circulating about where the couple would be moving next and according to multiple of Your Mama's gorgeous informants Mister and Misses McDermott signed the purchase documents for big house in Encino just last week. Yes, children, Encino.

At this point we are unable to confirm the purchase with property records. However, two of our most reliable sources–the wickedly well informed Lucy Spillerguts and an often in the know gal we call Junebug–swear on their mama's lives that the couple scooped up a walled and gated house on Encino's Encino Avenue. Information we received from Junebug reveals the property was originally listed at $3,895,000, was later reduced to $2,995,000 and that the McDermott duo paid $2,495,000.

Listing information for the property reveals the so-called "Tuscan Villa" was built in 2001, measures in at a celebrity-sized 6,718 square feet and includes 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms (plenty of room for Candy to come visit), 4 fireplaces, and a 3 car front facing garage.

While the house hardly compares in size or day-core to the obscenely over sized Holmby Hills mansion in which Miss Spelling was reared, it does include a dramatic double height entrance hall with inlaid stone floors, a curving Scarlett O'Hara style staircase and a long, tubular chandelier that, for better or worse, looks like a column of sparkling diamonds.

Most of the downstairs rooms, including the formal living and dining rooms, the library, the eat in kitchen and family room all appear to have a complicated, and in our humble and meaningless opinion, a not very attractive parquet flooring.

While we appreciate that the large eat in kitchen includes all manner of high-grade appliances and has not been completely ruined by a gigantic and potentially lethal pot rack looming over the work island, we don't think this food preparation center is going to win any kitchen design awards. Functional, big and boring is how we would describe this kitchen.

Upstairs, the long master suite includes a sitting area focussed on a fireplace and a flat screen boob-toob that looks like it's mounted off -center of the mantel, a balcony overlooking the ratty back yard, and an unnecessarily glitzy hotel-like master bath that looks like it's straight out of the 1980s and which we seriously hope Mister and Missus McDermott will have done over by a nice gay decorator right away. Much to our own surprise (and chagrin), we do, however, like that wall to wall leopard printed carpet. Grrr.

The private backyard currently includes a large covered terrace where Dean can paint Tori's toenails in the shade while the kiddies frolic on the jungle gym, a built-in barbecue center, a swimming pool and spa with one of those horrid child safety fences (surely there is a more pleasing option than this), a putting green (pleez!) and a large lawn area that looks like it could use a drink of water.

Now that Miss Spelling has left the West Side behind in order to become a Valley Girl, we expect she'll soon be pushing strollers around the Sherman Oaks Galleria and shopping incognito at the Van Nuys Costco where she can get a family sized bag of frozen potstickers for like four bucks.

Friday, October 24, 2008

The October People


I hate October. Despite that cheery holiday Halloween, a.k.a. The Gay Christmas, it's a month of death. Little Dougie's mother died in October, 11 years ago. (Read Dougie's tribute to his mom here: Iris Genevieve Puett Dunn McEwan.), our mutual friend and mentor Bill Hudnut died in October, 16 years ago today, and Dougie's best friend, John Fugiel, died in October, 21 years ago today.(You can read Dougie's blog tribute to John Fugiel, originally posted a year ago today, right here: John Fugiel 1952 - 1987.)


Plus, they have some kind of weird ritual called "The World Series" that used to play havoc with the new TV schedules every October. However, these days, no one pays any attention to "The World Series" anymore, and it's been shuffled off to some obscure cable channel, where it no longer intereferes with TV viewing. To give you an idea of how lame it's become, this year The American League awarded its "Pennant" (A small flag shaped like The Bermuda Triangle, which is where all interest in The World Series has gone) to a Little League team!



But even the amusement factor of an amateur team playing in this World Series thing hasn't stopped the usual October Parade of Death, and celebrities have been keeling over one after the other at such a rate, one suspects that Sarah "Sure Shot" Palin has been flying over them in a Helicopter, shooting them for their clothes. (Well, you can hardly expect her to adaquately clothe herself for a measly $150,000. Gracious, I can barely buy a pair of shoes for that in our present economy. As it is, she can barely make ends meet, what with the pittance Alaska pays her to live in her own house.) And what's worse, there aren't even any candidates for The Good Ridddance List in the parade of fresh cadavers.


The closest thing to a candidate for The Good Riddance List this October has been Mr. Blackwell, who fell off the runway forever at the youthful age of 86.


Odious as this untalented poseur was, he was simply too innocuous for The Good Riddance List. However, I have never forgiven the self-infatuated dandy for his including me on his 1966 Worst-Dressed List. I do NOT dress "Worse than she smells." I have sworn affidavits from the "Noses" of three top Parisian Parfumiers, who all stated under oath that I smell much worse than I dress! And further, that my clothes smell worse than they look also. Mr. Blackwell never put me on his list again, as he claimed I had become "Too obscure to bother about." He should talk!


In any event, in 1925, John Barrymore placed me at Number 1 on his far-more-prestigious "Best Undressed List," and if there was anything Mr. Blackwell never wanted to set eyes on, it was a naked woman. The whole reason he became a fashion desgner was to keep women's bodies covered.

Actually, Mr. Blackwell was more of an out-of-fashion designer. I mean when was the last time you heard someone on a red carpet say, "I'm wearing Mr. Blackwell"? 1960? 1860? Never? For Mr. Blackwell, Project Runway meant trying to get into first class on an airplane.


Here's one of his actual dress designs, from back when he still made an effort to actually design something once in a while. Notice how he tried to "Hide the natural repulsiveness of the female body" by making it look like a big hairy penis. I might suck this dress, but I wouldn't wear it.



Mr. Blackwell was a shy, modest, self-effacing man. Here he is recently, seen in his tasteful, understated living room. This man made Jerry Lewis seem shy.

Mr. Blackwell is survived by Mrs. Blackwell, and all the little Blackwells, including 7 imaginary grandchildren, and hundreds of imaginary mourners.


Another death this month, one that actually is a loss, was magnificent singer Levi Stubbs, who died prematurely at 71.



Levi was the lead singer for the legendary group, The Four Tops.


When I told Little Dougie that Levi was one of The Four Tops, he squealed, "I LOVE The Four Tops! They make me feel like Heaven!" However, as it turned out, Dougie was mixed up, and was thinking of a different set of four tops.



Anyway, Levi Stubbs was an incredible singer, as well as a movie star. Here he is singing a love duet with Rick Moranis in the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors, which he sang so well that the song, I'm a Mean, Green Mother From Outer Space, was nominated for an Oscar. In the movie, Stubbs was playing Karl Rove.



By the way,
Little Shop of Horrors, was a musical remake of a classic 1960 Roger Corman horror comedy that starred Jonathon Haze as Seymour Krelboin. As it happens, Jonathon is one of my most devoted fans. In fact, when Little Dougie was pointing out to Haze's Little Shop co-star Jackie Joseph, her mention in my beliked book My Lush Life, Jonathon made a point of mentioning how much he'd loved it when he read it. (No joke!) Here's how he looked in the original film.



"Why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime?" said lovely Edie Adams in many a commerical for noxious, foul-smelling, cancerous cigars 40 years ago. She looked beautiful, but thanks to Murial cigars, she smelled worse than I do, and it's probably the carcinogens she peddled that are responsible for her youthful demise at 81 this month. Here she is on the cover of TV GUIDE magazine, nuzzling a cigar store wooden Indian. My longtime companion, the Headless Indian Brave, may have no head, but at least he doesn't smell like an ashtray, and he never gives off splinters.

Edie had little choice about the commercials though. When her husband, legendary comedian and TV pioneer Ernie Kovaks, was killed in an automobile accident, he owed the IRS over $500,000, and Edie chose to do the ads to work off Ernie's debt rather than declare bankruptcy. I suspect she'll bring this up now that they're reunited in TV Heaven..


Edie won a Tony Award for playing the original Daisy Mae in the Broadway musical
Li'l Abner, in which she sang the song I'm Past My Prime. That was 51 years ago, so she was well past her prime by now. She also sang You Can tell When there's Love in a Home, although really, you can only tell if the bed squeaks or if one of them is a screamer. (And frankly, if Peter Palmer were nailing me, I'd be howling like a banshee!)


She was in a number of movies, ranging from great (The Apartment, The Best Man) to lousy (Under the Yum-Yum Tree, Call Me Bwana, The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood), and she played that slut Mae West in a TV movie about Ernie, in which she herself was played by Melody Anderson, but I always think of her first in the Sinnerama comedy spectacular It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.



In this next shot, that's Edie at the left end. The winner of the It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World cast tontine is several steps closer to being declared. In fact, it's pretty much down to Mickey Rooney, Jonathon Winters, and Stan Freberg now. Go Stan!


This next photo must be from her last film appearance, a cameo in Oliver Stone's current release, W.

This is 1950s game show host Jack Narz.

Jack was a mere 85 when he left the planet this month. Half a century ago, Jack was Little Dougie's favorite game show host, the Jeff Probst of The Eisenhower Years. It was Jack's show Dotto, a favorite of Dougie's, that launched the quiz show scandals of that era, but Jack wasn't to blame.


Among the many shows Jack hosted were Concentration, 7 Keys, Video Village, and Beat the Clock. Little Dougie never met Narz, though he did work once with his brother, Tom Kennedy. Yes that's right. Jack Narz was the least known member of The Kennedy Clan.


Composer Neal Hefti died this month at 85, though we should not consider it rough justice for his having composed the theme song for the Batman TV series.



Bear in mind that I appeared as a guest villain on
Batman once, as The Drunkard, so I endured that "Music" in person. I understand that, on the scaffold, just before they swung the trap out from under him, the last thing Saddam Hussein ever said was, "At least I won't be best remembered for having written: 'Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da Batman'."

Here's Adam West, wearing a mask to hide his shame, trying to dance The Batusi while sticking fingers in his ears to block the sound of Hefti's Batman music. The laugh is on West. He couldn't get his fingers through the purple cowl.



And they just keep on dropping. 1950s Los Angeles TV "Personality" Chucko the Birthday Clown popped off this month after only 86 birthdays. Although his real name was Charles Runyon, even his wife and little Chucko Jr (His son, not his dick. Get your minds out of the gutter.) only knew him as Chucko.


Little Dougie met Chucko once, at a supermarket appearance in Torrance, when he was still young enough to be impressed by a clown. The upside of Chucko's death is that, as the mascot of birthdays, now that he's dead, no one will have birthdays any more. Fine with me. I wasn't looking forward to being 112.


Chucko was quite the entertainer, doing a live morning show 5 days a week with a studio full of kids, all of whom were having their birthdays. I'd have been shooting the tots with an Uzi by the second day. He always opened his show with this song:

"I'm Chucko, I'm Chucko,
I'm Chucko the Birthday Clown.
I'm Chucko. I'm Chucko.
I'm the happiest clown in town."


And just why was Chucko so happy? Well he explained that in the song's release:

"Christmas comes but once a year, but I come every day."

I was happy for him and all (Ulp! Maybe all that "Clown White" wasn't make-up!), but it didn't really seem an appropriate thing to brag about on a children's show. Here he is doing his fabled impression of Judy Garland.



Just as Edie did ads for cancerous smokes that both looked and smelt like turds (What's sexier than smoking a cigar? How about the turd banquet scene in Pasolini's Salo?), so did Chucko do ads that taught kids that the way to health and happiness was popping pills. Such great wisdom in one so white.


But as I've said before, the fewer clowns the better. Here's a scary thought; of this terrifying trio, the only one still alive is Pennywise the Dancing Clown. (And yes, you sharp-eyed ones, that picture of Chucko was taken at Disneyland.)

But let's end up on a positive note: Here's not only a good thing that happened this October, but it will bring a happy anniversary back on each October henceforth. Readers of my above-mentioned, award-adjacent autobiography My Lush Life will remember my musical director Bryan Miller, and my #1 fan Gilmore Rizzo. Well last week, on October 11th, they got gay married.


Here's me, Little Dougie (Wearing Bob Mackie. No kidding. Bob Mackie!), and adorable Little Greg Stanford, "The Ring Bare-er," (Wearing "God". Nice fabric!) at the wedding, in which Dougie, a lifelong bachelor, played "Marriage." Now Dougie playing Marriage; THAT is a "Threat to Marriage"!


And here's the Happy Couple. What do you say we keep them that way? So if you live in California, be sure and vote NO! on Proposition 8. After all, a vote for Propostion 8 is a vote for bigotry! How do these two guys sharing house payments and raising dogs threaten anyone else's marriage?


And while you're at it California voters, vote No on Proposition 11 also. It's a Republican power grab. This is the year the Republcians LOSE! And all Americans, vote for O'Bama! We can make America something to be proud of once again.

Cheers darlings.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Friday Morning Mish Mash

It's been a little while since Your Mama has done a little mish mash. So here we go...

1.
Thanks to all the many emails, text messages and phone calls we've received in the last 24 hours, we can finally clear up some of the confusion we had regarding the many recent reports of Oscar winning hottie Halle Berry and her Canadian-born baby daddy buying a big spread in St. Hippolyte, a wee country town about one hour north of Montreal that one sassy French Canadian told us is "the middle of nowhere."
According to listing information we located online (which was also sent by a number of convivial Canucks) we've learned that the property in question (pictured above) offers "sixty-eight acres of privacy and seclusion" and includes a 2,500 square foot modern architectural hoose with 3 bedrooms and just 1 bathroom. Although the bathroom is dee-voon, we wonder if Miss Berry will have a few Canadian contractors up there tout de suite adding a private pooper to the master bedroom.

Listing information also indicates the gated estate was listed at $1,850,000 (Canadian, we presume), offers deeded access to nearby Lac à L'Achigan and comes with its own "five acre private spring fed lake." At the risk of being completely and utterly incorrect, we're guessing the Lac Molson that was referenced in other reports is this private 5 acre lake.

Thanks to our ever intrepid research superstar B.S. Beaverman who forwarded the snaps. Although we're not into a Canadian winter, we have just three words to describe this property: Gor. Jee. Uhs.

2.
Yesterday we received a phone call from our fine friend Fiona Trambeau, a woman of loose morals who swears it is her sworn duty to ferret out and feel up all the heterosexual men in San Francisco, who hooked us over to a juicy article in the NY Post about jet setting human rights advocate Bianca Jagger getting evicted from her rent stabilized apartment in New York City.

The Nicaraguan born British citizen who is known to keep an apartment in London also held a long term and rent stabilized lease on a posh Park Avenue pied a terre for which she paid $4,614 per month.

According to Miz Jagger's landlord, the ex-wife of Mick Jagger stopped paying rent a few years back, a scenario which tends to piss off landlords, particularly the ones who own rent stabilized units. The two parties fussed and fought until 2006 when the dispute wound up in front of a judge who ordered the rich bee-hawtcha to pony up the back rent. The former model and Studio 54 fixture pushed back claiming she was unable to live in the 18th floor apartment because an asbestos and fungus contamination rendered the apartment uninhabitable.

So back to the courthouse they went where Miz Jagger and her high priced attorney appealed the earlier decision that required her to cough up a big wad of cash for unpaid back rent. However, her appeal was shot down because Miz Jagger holds a B2 (tourist) visa which requires her to maintain a "principal, actual dwelling place" outside of the United States and, of course, New York City rent regulation laws require the lease holder maintain the stabilized unit as a "primary residence." And as we all know from filing our taxes, you can't legally have two primary residences.

There is no word on whether Miz Jagger will choose to lease a market rate apartment in New York.

3.
Hollywood's most famous Scientologist Tom Cruise seems to have brought some of his real estate crazy to New York City where his much younger wifey Katie Holmes is currently appearing in some Broadway play or other. The couple–who last summer were widely reported to be looking at a number of very high priced rentals including the $200,000 per month penthouse at the Trump Park Avenue–are now reported to be shacking up in one of the better buildings in the East Village where the people at Page Six in the NY Post say Mister Crooz has owned a 10th floor apartment since 1985.

Page Six also reported yesterday that one of Mister and Missus Cruz's chattier neighbors claims, "Tom and Katie now keep five units in the building." The nosy neighbor went on to say that one of the units has been turned into a playroom for Suri, another into a gym and two others are utilized for staff.

Listen children, given that one of the Crooz's mouthpieces denies the couple is snatching up apartments in the 12 story East Village building and given all the real estate rumors that have circulated about Mister Cruise–remember last year when we all thought he wanted to buy a big spread at The Dakota?–who knows what's true and what's not about his downtown living situation. What we really want to know is if they chow down on pierogi at Veselka.