Friday, March 14, 2008

End of Week Mish Mash

Let's continue this morning with a little mish-mash to pick up some of the odds and ends that have been floating around in Your Mama's inbox and voicemail this week.

1. Jude Law Settles Down.
Oscar nominated British actor and noted cad about town Jude Law has reportedly purchased the London house he's been leasing since he moved out of the Belsize Park house he shared with ex-wifey acktress Sadie Frost and their trio of loud children back in 2003. The not always reliable British tabs reported this week that Mister Law forked over around £3,500,000 (that's $7,049,945 for those of us state side) for the four story Georgian style house in the affluent Maida Vale neighborhood.

The reports go on to say that a source whispers that Mister Law is planning on spending another £1,000,000 to renovate and customize the five bedroom house, which is a lot of damn money for a man who claimed to be skint after his dee-vorce from Miz Frost.

2. The Death of the Malee-boo Party House?
The self-proclaimed Queen of all Media Perez Hilton reported yesterday on his naughty little blog that this coming summer the city of Malibu will be cracking down on the (in)famous and neighbor rattling "party houses" that dot the sandy lanscape of Malee-boo. Leased by corporations who throw big parties almost every weekend, these "party houses" have become and popular among young and hard bodied celebrities, "celebrities," star fuckers, and of course, the platoons of paparazzi who descend on Malee-boo each summer hoping to nab a nip slip on film or snap a candid of a vomiting celebutard not wise enough to know the first and most important rule of marathon boozing events: Never mix, never worry.

Not only do these "party houses" irritate, irk and enrage many of the really rich neighbors who just want to sunbathe, barbecue, and quietly get stoned as the sun goes down, it's also not exactly legal to run a commercial enterprise out of a private home...at least not without a permit.

The City of Malibu has not outlawed big parties in private homes altogether, but they have mandated that a permit will need be requested and required to host a commercial event. Oh, and no more than four corporate sponsored parties or events will be allowed on a single property during a calendar year. Oh dear. That's really going to put a damper on on things, isn't it?

Watch out Hermosa, Manhattan and Huntington beaches, because It's unlikely major corporate sponsors like Polaroid and LG will give up these summertime swagfests without a bitch fight. More likely, they'll head south to one of the other, less glitzy beach communities that have yet to ban the party house. However, Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that we'll soon see more Southern California beach communities enact strict ordinances against these pesky party houses putting an end to them altogether. At least n the tight confines of West Coast beach communities.

Good grief children, what will Paris, Lindsay, Lauren, Brody, Brandon, Hillary, Haylie, Heidi and the rest of the tabloid train wrecks do all summer long if not gyrate drunkenly in their thongs and board shorts on the back deck of the Polaroid Beach House? Your Mama almost feels sorry for them. Almost, but not quite.

3. The Bisno Bizness
About a month ago, Your Mama discussed the uglee foreclosure mess that has surrounded the Beverly Park mansion of the controversial Los Angeles based real estate developer Robert Bisno. According to records on file with the Beverly Hills assessor, Mister and Missus Bisno defaulted on a $4,000,000 mortgage that was secured against the value of their 11,984 square foot house that happens to sit next door to the mansion Hollywood honcho Mike Medavoy has on the market for $23,500,000.

It is puzzling and perplexing to Your Mama that a rich man known to purchase high priced art to display his motor court would find himself facing foreclosure proceedings on his private home. But alas, notices were indeed printed in the Beverly Hills Courier, and the house was scheduled to be auctioned off on the steps of the Beverly Hills court house on the 29th day of February, 2008.

It seems, however, that the auction for that particular and palatial property never happened. Your Mama, being the nosy bee-hawtcha we are, set our research dee-va B.S. Beaverman on the case to sort out what exactly happened...or didn't happen. After much struggle, several dead ends, a phone call to the Bisno residence directly, and many calls to many Bev Hills bureaucrats, the impressively tenacious Miz Beaverman finally figured out that Mister Bisno and his team of people managed to stave off the auction by filing something called a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order).

Unfortunately for the children, Your Mama just isn't smart enough to understand or succinctly explain what a TRO is, how they work, or why Mister Bisno got one. Suffice to say that whatever it is and however it was gotten, Miser Bisno now has until April 29 to make good on the loan and save his house. Theoretically that should provide plenty of time for a clever bizness man like Mister Bisno to beg, borrow or refinance what he needs to save his Bev Park behemoth.

4. The Low Down on Aretha Franklin's Foreclosure Snafu
Yesterday the internets and the Detroit news outlets were burning up with the surprising and salacious news that the Queen of Soul's Hamilton Road mansion in Detroit had somehow tipped over backward into foreclosure over a measly $445 in 2005 back taxes. Four hundred and forty five damn dollars? You could of pushed Your Mama over with a swizzle stick when we read that.

Through her publicity princess Robyn Ryland-Sanders, Miz Franklin asserts that the entire debacle was, "a mere oversight on my attorney's part to notify me" and that, "It will be taken care of immediately."

It seems her attorney also forgot to notify the Queen of Soul that she owes back taxes for the '06 and '07 tax years too. Records show that Miz Franklin, a wondrously rotund senior citizen who can still throttle through a song like a Mack truck, owes an additional $18,746 in back taxes and fees for the 2006 and 2007 tax years that will need to be paid unless she wants to go through this back tax trauma all over again next year.

While we have no sources on the ground in Detroit who could confirm or deny, Your Mama sincerely doubts Miz Franklin actually occupies the Hamilton Road house because property records reveal that the ladee owns at least three other high-priced properties in Bloomfield Hills, an affluent, snazzy and safe suburb of Detroit where the rich people fled in droves when the urban areas of Detroit began their slow, dismal and dee-pressing sink into ghetto-dom.

Now puppies, Your Mama is not here to speechify on the punishing and growing economic Grand Canyon that exists between the rich and poor in this county, but we can't help but to express that we find it shameful that in a ridiculously rich country like the U-nited States of America we have the kind of human desperation and heart breaking poverty that can be seen on the streets of Detroit where magnificent mansions have been become crumbling crack dens and too many people do not have money to feed their children. Just shameful.

Anyhoo, on that sour note, we're headed to the booze cabinet to mix up our first big pitcher of Friday night gin and tonics. We suggest you do the same.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've already started!!

:)

Alessandra said...

I'm just totally spit-balling on Bisno's TRO, and I'm sure a securities lawyer or mortgage broker can come in and set me straight in a heart beat, but one of the issues that has come up in foreclosures is "who actually owns the house"? In other words, what entity holds the lien? Given the prevalence of mortgage-backed securities, a savvy home-owner can make the claim that unless the security holder is easily identifiable, there is not actual entity to foreclose on the home. Slick and tricky stuff, and I don't even pretend to know much more about it. It is pure speculation on my part that this is how Bisno issued a TRO, but I'm throwing it out as a possibility.

And Aretha, I love you and Lady Soul is still one of my all time favorites, but girl...pay your damned taxes.

M Richards said...

Thanks Y.M. for the Bisno info.

I still think he should be kicked out of his house long before he gets any chance to kick folks out of their Baldwin Park homes and businesses.

Keeping Bob and his weapons of mass development in the news can't hurt, I feel.

Anonymous said...

Oh, this is gonna be a multi-posting night by all. It's in the air ... much good hard work by Our biz-ee Mama to mull.

Alessandra, I don't have a clue about the deeper layers of real estate and the legal system. But, I did google TRO and property. One interpretation is that this manuver can be a clever process used to postpone foreclosure. Something about simply proving it's your one and only home and foreclosure would cause a hardship? Eh...?! This is all so mysterious, whatever it is.

Anonymous said...

Bisno should just sell that fugly sculpture and pay what he owes out of the proceeds; perhaps Marc Antony will buy it for J Lo as a baby present?

;-)

Poor Ms Aretha - time to fire that lazy lawyer's ass. Then sue him for pain & humiliation.

so_chic_darling said...

Many years ago I was a fashion stylist and I had a huge collection of vintage costume jewelry that I rented out for photo shoots and videos,one time I rented some to a video shoot with Ms Franklin,it was some duet with Annie lennox if I remember,she said on set "seeing as I am the Queen I'm going to keep the jewels".Many invoices were sent,no money was ever receieved.

Anonymous said...

So_Chic, I think many celebrities leave people empty handed out of a sense of entitlement. But the tax man usually insists on being paid.

so_chic_darling said...

Yes Aunt Mary indeed that year I must have taken a deduction for merchandise shrinkage.

pch said...

So Chic, sounds like a little tweak to that song's title is in order: Sisters Are Takin' it For Themselves

Anonymous said...

So_Chic,

I would have pressed charges for theft, just to make her life a misery, or a nasty little blurb on Page Six.

PCH,

Where's that sunset? Stunning - must be CA, right?

pch said...

Hey LGB. It's from my 'hood in Newport Beach. A view over the harbor, from Balboa Island to the peninsula. (The largish building to the left of the sun is the Balboa Pavilion.)

Anonymous said...

PCH,

Looks like a great place for a wedding reception - they ever have any there?

lil' gay boy said...

All the gays have wanted Jude to be one of "ours" for years; looks like we'll have to satisfy ourselves with him being a good daddy . . . "

Anonymous said...

Mr. Bisno appears to have vast amounts of cash currently being released on various development projects. Surely he's not broke?

Anonymous said...

"Many invoices were sent,no money was ever receieved."

She is known for not paying her bills almost as much as she is known as the "Queen Of Soul".

Anonymous said...

I just googled Ms. Franklin's Detroit property. Apparently it's just used for parties and functions. Here's a kicker: There was also a fire at another of her properties in Bloomfield Hills; suspected arson. This is a georgous and impeccably maintained neighborhood of high-end homes. From news accounts, fire investigators were unsuccessful in getting the Queen's cooperation, and her son was a serious suspect. Eventually the investigation was dropped. Following that mess were numerous ignored blight notices sent by the city requesting Ms. Franklin to haul away debris and garbage, tear out the tennis court, and restore the muddy vacant lot to a park-like setting. After many months, the city and neighboring property owners finally got a little RESPECT.

so_chic, how unfortunate about your experience with the jewelry loss. Seems a little like theft to me. You were a gentleman about it, but still...

Alessandra said...

so_chic, that's a good story to tell but not a wonderful experience to have. I'm not surprised by Aretha's sense of entitlement. She is one of the original divas, but still...

Anonymous said...

About a decade ago, she reportedly owed about a million dollars to a couple of dozen people/companies. That is chicken feed compared to The White Lady but The Queen of Soul wouldn't pay her bills until the creditors started filing lawsuits. Supposedly the story then was she paid all her bills herself because she didn't trust anyone and she was "too busy" to pay them. This time it is supposedly an attorney's fault?

I'm guessing she just thinks everything should be comp'd. I hope those outfits she has been wearing lately have been free. Hard to imagine anyone paying for those.

Anonymous said...

There's a funny story about Aretha that I just have to share with you.
A few years ago she was having some trouble with her piano so she called the tuner in to look at it,when he opened it up the strings were covered in a sticky orange dust like coating that had to be cleaned off.Underneath the piano were several discarded bags of cheetos.Can you just picture her sitting at the piano stuffing herself with cheetos children?

Alessandra said...

Cheetos? At the piano? Ugh.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bloomfield Hills Lady,

That's too precious! Funny.

By the way, is that the same famous grand piano she wouldn't pay for so it was reposessed?

Anonymous said...

yup, all us gays have been wanting Jude to be one of ours for years.

and now we can be satisfied that he's a good "daddy."

send in the fookin' clones, LGB you are a template for the term tired.

Anonymous said...

my penith is a wanker.

Anonymous said...

LGB is a fun read,my penith is pidgeon puke in the gutter.

Anonymous said...

I remember, as a very little kid, driving down a freeway in Detroit with my mother. I saw a tenement building that was half burned down, laundry drying on a line from an apartment on a high floor in the non-burned part of the building. It is, to this day, a very vivid image to me. So sad. I wish I could remember my mother's explanation to my query as to why they would live in such a building. Later in life she did give me "Starving in the Shadow of Plenty" to read, which was a very sobering testimony to the plight of the poor in the US.

I do feel that many American cities are re-claiming their downtown cores from the middle class exodus to the suburbs. Thank God.

I am drinking a Grolsch and feeling schuper.

Anonymous said...

It's July 1976 I'm seventeen years old stranded and lost all alone at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Detroit having lost my ticket after just crossing over the Canadian border,this is my virgin contact with urban African American culture and I'm being thrown in at the deep end.
The music,sounds,the sights,the giant cars,the clothing all coming at me like a Superfly explosion in technicolor.Was I scared?Hell no this was stimulation full on.The people could not have been kinder,a giant woman reached into her purse for a dime to call my relatives in Ann Arbor then took me to the station managers office,where on my word only a new ticket was issued and food and drink offered.
My relatives never let me go back to downtown Detroit and thought I was insane to want to go back.I wish I could have.

Anonymous said...

The rich and their foreclosures:

Entertaining but it will never happen, I knew that Bisno would get more time to catch up, he could afford a high priced lawyer.

A high priced lawyer can get you out of just about any problem and the more expensive the lawyer is, the more loopholes they know about end of story.

Anonymous said...

Bisno is an evil man.

lil' gay boy said...

Little English Boy,

What a charming story; I was brought up in a household where you could slip by the occasional "shit" or "fuck" but God help you if you EVER used the "N" word - Ivory soap time for sure.

Anonymous said...

Little Buddy,

I might be the only active poster here who understands the exact panic of Little English Boy's experience being stranded at the downtown Detroit bus station. Must have been terrifying, especially in '76.

It's my hometown, but I no longer defend it; and no longer frequent it, with the exception of visiting my beloved DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts) finally reopened and magnificent; catching a matinee at the gorgeous Fox Theatre; or having a meal at the many fantastic restaurants. It's getting there and back home to my lovely and well-distanced lakeside suburb that's terrifying.

Detroit never used to be this way. The city imploded in the early 70s...TMI to articulate here, except to say government corruption...Mayor Young elected in the early 70s...sealed the out-of-control downward spiral. As Mama expressed, it's sad, especially for the children.

I'll always have my 60s memories of a lively and vibrant downtown district. Had to dress up...wonderful high-end shops and department stores; no sense of danger. Not a trace of that remains. It's been leveled or boarded up.

There are good and wonderful people in Detroit, but there is also random gun fire, random dangerous high-speed chases endangering surrounding traffic, and hostile gangs that intimidate suburban / out-of-town visitors after dark, when straying out of the well-patrolled high visibility districts.

As for the now abandoned and/or condemned magnificent architecture once prevalent, I ache … grand plaster work, beveled windows, parquet floors with exotic wood detail, and so-so much more...now inhabited by squatters or otherwise unliveable.

Why is that? I answer my own question. Look up the newest mayor, "Kwame Kilpatrick ... text message scandal ... to learn how out of control acceptable government behavior has escalated.

Anonymous said...

Sandpiper what I was trying to say is that I wasn't scared,in fact it was a great adventure for me,my first time visiting the USA for the Bicentenial and my point of entry happened to be Detroit.That first contact with the poorer black residents of the city was in fact a revelation because I was blown away by the colorful,loud experience of it all and the extreme kindness shown to me by everyone.

Anonymous said...

i love the poor. they have an authenticity one finds less and less nowadays.

detroit never recovered from the racial eruptions of the 60s and the downward spiral of an auto industry thrown into sudden change when gas started becoming very very expensive and the japanese came in with better cars offering better mileage.

the wealthy white folks fled the city, and the blacks and white that were left faced unemployment due to the sagging industry.

60s detroit was the center of black culture in some ways, which was epitomized by Mowtown and such.

but as we know, even Berry Gordy wanted to head to LA and miss ross to connecticut.

Anonymous said...

Sandpiper, it's sad what happened to your home town of Detroit. I've only flown in and out of the airport, but I know it has a grand history. I was struck by your mentioning that you dressed up to go shopping. So did we. My mother, sisters and I never left the house to go to "town" without our hats and gloves. OK, so I'm old. To give you a hint: as a freshman in college I took hats in hatboxes (to wear to Mass, not class). We dressed for dinner in our dorm. We had a 9 o'clock weeknight curfew. When I graduated as a senior I left in hip hugger bell bottoms and ironed straight hair. There were cops everywhere and martial law was in force. It was a revolution.

Anonymous said...

Aunt Mary, You're stirring up memories. I was a few steps behind you. Those were times one had to experience to truely understand. Yes, it was a revolution, wasn't it. Makes us who we are today. I still have a stained glass peace sign on my kitchen window. (Smiling.)

lil' gay boy said...

Sandpiper,

Are you familiar with the website "The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit?"

http://detroityes.com/home.htm

It breaks my heart every time I visit it.

lil' gay boy said...

Alright ladies, so I made a small typo; what I meant to say is "all my gays" . . .

Geez, one little word and the claws come out . . .

;-)