UPDATE: Sting and Trudy Styler

Earlier in the week, Your Mama followed up a juicy article by Josh Barbanel at the New York Times who reported that Tantric sexing rock star Sting and wifey Trudy Styler's Central Park West pied a terre was going back on the market with an asking price of $26,000,000, a large number millions higher than when it was last listed in 2006/2007.

However, as happens sometimes in the murky waters of the celebrity real estate gossip game, apparently Mister Barbanel received some incorrect information.

Mister Barbanel originally reported that Mister and Missus Sting's 18-room doo-plex in a Beaux-Arts building called the Brentmore was going to be listed at $26,000,000 and handled by big-shit real estate agents Claudine and Raphael DeNiro–that would be Robert's son and daughter-in-law–who push pricey properties for Prudential Douglas Elliman.

A new report in the New York Times reveals that the apartment is actually going to be worked by a much less well known agent named Mark D. Friedman at Halstead Property and will be listed at a still very expensive but much less shocking asking price of $19,000,000.

Ain't that inneresting?

Listen puppies, Your Mama knows nuthin' about what happened between the Mister and Missus DeNiro and Mister Friedman, but you know it's a savage and sordid tale of revenge and deceit. Right? Okay, we don't know that. Maybe everyone was pleasantly cordial and hashed out the confusion over a friendly lunch at the Four Seasons. However, Your Mama well knows from personal experience the real estate world is a cut throat, dog eat dog sort of place, and when business is bad–and it is not good for most folks right now–even nice agents will verbally eviscerate and claw out the eyes of another agent in order to get a leg up.

150

Hello darlings. This is my 150th flogging Where does the time go? The same place as Little Dougie's sex life?

As the above picture shows, Life has had me in a whirl lately, and I've been in my cups as usual, although in this case, that's Little Dougie and I in one of Walt Disney's cups over at Disneyland, and I'm hoping to catch Monstro's eye (He literally has only the one), because I've heard he's hung like a whale.

I have a lifetime Disneyland pass owing to my having provided the voice of the Wicked Queen in Walt's Snow White sequel, 7 Brides for 7 Dwarfs, as well as playing the lead in his 1960s musical extravaganza, Mary Poppers. As a result, I am officially a Walt Disney "character;" in fact, Ward Kimball used to call me "Quite a character." They may regret having given me a lifetime pass. I'm 111 now. They're losing money on me. Here I am in Fantasyland (as usual), while a character parade is passing by the Matterhorn with their beloved Giant-Tallulah balloon float. You haven't truly arrived in show business until some minimum-wage kid plays you in a giant rubber head in a theme park.

And here's Little Dougie and I with the floral Mickey in front of the park. I must say, the crowds there are well behaved, never pestering me for autographs, just occasionally asking me where the Haunted Mansion is.

I've been so busy of late that I failed to post on one of our favorite annual holidays this past Tuesday: Barry Humphries's Birthday.

As I said, this is post number 150. What is one half of 150? I contacted Professor Stephen Hawking with this very query, but he was busy trying to make sense of this season of LOST (He's stumped!), so I had to take my question to M.I.T., where a team of Nobel Prize-winning mathematicians researched the problem for six months, with 97% of them eventually agreeing that the answer is 75. (Coincidentally enough, I used to be known as M.I.T., back when it stood for "Massively Inebriated Tallulah".)

Well as it happened, this past February 17 Barry Humphries turned 75. Most people are retired at his age, but not Barry, who is still entertaining folks the world over. In March he resumes his American tour, and in the fall he tours England, Scotland, Wales (That's that weird place on Torchwood), and Ireland. It's all I can do to come downstairs for my wake-up cocktails, while Barry is still singing, dancing, and telling jokes on stage, 8 performances a week, all over the world.

Though Barry still faces challenges. Here he is in 1992, being put to sleep by the mere proximity of Little Dougie.

Happy birthday, Barry. Keep having them. We love you.

Another professional colleague of Little Dougie's was 77 year old Wayne Thomas, but Wayne isn't doing as well as Barry. In fact, Wayne is suffering from an advanced case of Acute Death. I'm afraid it's terminal.

For 27 years Wayne was a staff announcer at KHJ-TV channel 9 in Los Angeles. (These days it is KCAL-TV) Wayne estimated he announced KHJ's nightly Million Dollar Movie (Which were really more often $200,000 movies) some 7550 times. He created and produced the annual TV rip-off special Your Choice For the Oscars, though of course, no one gives a rat's ass about your choice for The Oscars. This show eventually went off the air when The Oscars told him to lay off of their copyrighted trademarks. Let's face it, "Your Choice For the Oscar-Like, Generic, Pretend Movie Awards" is not a winning concept. It ranks just above "Fred's Movie Awards." (No offense, Fred.)

Wayne's most-famous and celebrated gig was as "Freight Train Wayne," the man who called out the signals in Red Light/Green Light on Engineer Bill's Cartoon Express for 16 years. Little Dougie discussed this here back in August when Engineer Bill died, on my flog entry The China Thunderdrome.

But Wayne's most important gig was as "Wayne" the off-screen announcer on Fright Night With Seymour, the TV show Little Dougie used to write.

Dougie wasn't always happy with Wayne. Wayne pre-recorded his cold readings, and often didn't bother with a second take even if he'd screwed up the copy. On at least one occasion, Dougie had to walk onto the set and stop a take, demanding Wayne be located and brought into the studio to do the copy as fucking written. He was and did.

In Dougie's next script, "Wayne" was portrayed as phoning in his performance from home, to Seymour's annoyance; Dougie's way of pointing out that Wayne was, in Dougie's opinion, "Phoning it in." Wayne's being gay just wasn't enough for Dougie to cut him slack when doing a less-than-professional job with Dougie's scripts.

When Seymour left Channel 9 for Channel 5, Dougie did a screen test to replace him as the new horror host, but the job went to Wayne Thomas, who was already on staff, and thus available cheaper. Wayne became Arach, of "Arach & Nid." Arach was Wayne in a silly spider costume, and "Nid" was his fly sidekick.

Arach & Nid was such an utter disaster that it was yanked from the air forever after only 2 broadcasts. They should have hired Dougie.

As Dougie himself put it: "I know it's been over 35 years, and he's dead and all, but still ...

Heh, heh, heh."

Sorry to be a bit disjointed, but The Huffington Post has been claiming most of my limited flogging energy. I am doing weekly recaps for them of Survivor Tocantins. My second is online now. Check it out:

The Survivor Tocantins Diet: Cut Out Candy


And come Monday, look for my Oscar Awards review there, and linked to from here of course. Meanwhile ...

Cheers darlings.

Another Behemoth Bel Air Mansion Goes Up on the Block

SELLER: Mohamed Hadid
LOCATION: Nimes Road, Bel Air, CA
PRICE: $85,000,000
SIZE: 48,000 square feet (approx.), 10 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Dramatic location, aristocratic beauty, incomparable quality. Set on the most prestigious street in Bel Air, this three-story, approximately 48,000 square-foot masterpiece offers 280-degree majestic views of the city below and the surrounding mountains. The 2.2-acre property, embraced by a massive 1,000-foot long by 36 feet high hand-chiseled Jerusalem stone wall, is softened with lush foliage and specimen plantings, a swan pond and an infinity pool reaching toward the endless vistas. Stepping stones and monumental gates lead into the garden?s delightful tranquility. There is ample secure parking for 20 vehicles.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier today, Your Mama spent considerable time and energy discussing the palatial pile in lower Bel Air, CA that philanthropist/widow Iris Cantor recently listed with an astronomical $53,000,000 asking price. That is, without a doubt, a lot of damn dinero.

However, Miz Cantor's asking price positively pales in comparison to real estate developer Mohamed Hadid's behemoth Bel Air mega-manse that has just heaved and humped its way on to the market with a spine-tingling, knee-bucking and mind-numbing asking price of $85,000,000. Lawhd children, Your Mama needs a nerve pill and a pitcher of gin and tonics just to loosen our mind up enough to comprehend a number that large.

In addition to having made millions developing 15 5-star hotels for Ritz-Carlton, Mister Hadid now dabbles in developing property for people who want 5-star amenities in their hotel-sized homes. In fact, Mister Hadid is the man responsible for the lavish mansion on Bel Air's N. Carolwood Drive where Michael "The White Lady" Jackson is currently holed up and reportedly paying $100,000 per month in rent.

Mister Hadid recently whispered to the lovely Miss Christina S.N. Lewis who pens the Private Properties column for the Wall Street Journal that he purchased the 2.2 acre parcel on super-swish Nimes Road about 6 years ago and claims to have spent an utterly shocking $59,000,000 to build the monstrous 3-story mansion that measures approximately 48,000 square feet and includes 10 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.

Listing information for the preposterously posh Hadid house, dubbed Le Belvedere, indicates it is almost entirely surrounded by a 1,000 foot long retaining wall that stands 36-feet high in some sections and is clad in Jerusalem stone. Apparently, ordinary concrete would simply not do. One of the property's seven fountains sits at the center of a massive motor-court that spreads out in front of the imposing and seriously over-articulated front facade where the entrance is flanked by a pair of mature cyprus trees.

The definitely designed to impress the guests entrance hall has glossy herringbone wood floors and a curving Norma Desmond worthy staircase with dozens of heavily carved and super-fat spindles all lit by an impressively glittery chandelier that probably cost more than it would for Mister and Missus Hadid to feed fifty families for a year, which for all we know, they actually do.

According to listing information and recent reports, the massive main floor contains a reception hall, formal living and dining rooms, a paneled family room with a bar lounge (we'd need to be drunk to relax in a house this over-stuffed too), a music room, a wood paneled library, and a paneled office, and the main family kitchen, butler's pantry and staff room. If the children look really hard, y'all can see that one of the rooms with wildly intricate carved and ornamented wood paneling is, in fact, one of the home's two indoor kitchens. Your Mama was only able to determine that room was indeed a kitchen by the over-sized pot rack that hangs over what appears to be whopping work island.

At least five of the 10 bedrooms are located on the second floor–we're not sure where the other five are–and include three family bedrooms with private poopers, a junior master suite with a private lanai and mini-gym, and the ridiculously regal master suite which encompasses a sitting room, bedroom, dual bathrooms, dual dressing rooms and, strangely, a powder room. Now children, why in the world would a master suite with two living room sized bathrooms even need a powder room? Aren't powder rooms usually for guests? Do people this rich actually entertain guests in their boo-dwars?

On the large lower floor, Mister and Missus Hadid can easily entertain a few hundred of their closest friends in the ballroom that seats up to 250, feed 'em with the commercial kitchen, get 'em drunk in the 5,000 bottle wine cellar and make 'em sit through a home movies in the screening room that features obscene amounts of gilded ornamentation and a ceiling painted like a cloudy sky. We would die like that twiglet fashionista Rachel Zoe if the screening room ceiling changed from day to night like the one at The Forum Shops in the sensationally tacky Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Also on the lower floor is a game room, a home gym set-up, a Moroccan themed room with a fantastic carved ceiling where we imagine the Hadids all gather to smoke the family hookah, and, finally, a barrel-vaulted and extravagantly tiled Turkish hammam where the Hadid clan can bathe and sweat communally with all their friends who don't mind stripping and scrubbing down in front of each other.

The landscaping and outdoor recreational facilities are no less lavish than the interior spaces and include all those above mentioned fountains, a swan pond–which is really such a bad idea since not only are swans notoriously mean, they poop indiscriminately, a 70-foot long infinity edge swimming pool, a 12-person, orgy friendly spa, an outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven and a courtyard where up to 100 people can eat a casual dinner al fresco.

Additional amenities include staff quarters located over the garage, outdoor parking for 20 or more cars and underground parking that accommodates two limousine-length vehicles, 19 fireplaces all with heavily carved and ornate mantels and surrounds, commercial grade utilities and entertainment systems and, thankfully, an elevator because Your Mama is plum tuckered out just imagining the cardiovascular strength necessary to haul our big booty up and down and around all three sprawling levels of this supermarket sized residence every damn day. Hopefully the Hadids allow the household staff to utilize that lift otherwise you know they're cursing every member of the family every step they take up and down the back stairs.

So where does one go after selling a monster mansion like this? Although we don't know if he plans to live there or not, Mister Hadid told Miss Lewis at the Wall Street Journal that he's currently building a new, slightly smaller 35,000 square foot chateau-style house over by the Beverly Hills Hotel. If we're being honest, and we always are, we'd confess that we don't have any idea where this new house is located. We're pretty sure, but can not seem to confirm, that Mister Hadid once owned a 980-acre estate called Pokety Farms located outside Washington D.C.. However, it's unclear whether he still owns that particular property. Anyone have any insight there?

As an aside, don't the children find it interesting that there are so many so-called trophy estates currently on the market not only in Los Angeles but in New York, the Hamptons, Palm Beach, Aspen and all the other high priced locales really rich people own real estate? We do. Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air posits that with no more 40 to 1 leveraging of private wealth, this sort of excessively lavish lifestyle is going the way of the dinosaur. Hmm. More on that later.