At (Long) Last: Celine Dion Releases Video Clip For Neo Duet 'Incredible'

I'll never understand why it took six months to release a music video for Celine Dion's duet "Incredible" (with Neo) from album "Love Me Back To Life." For god's sake, word broke in January that the pair was filming the clip. And astonishly, even after it made its long-awaited debut on ABC's "Good Morning America," it's still not on YouTube. Grrrrr!

In fact, at this point, it appears that all momentum has been sapped from the project... at least in the States. Shame, shame, shame on Sony. THIS should have been the second single, following the title track... instead of the tepid "Somebody Loves Somebody."

The video itself is vaguely amusing, with waaaaay too much superfluous footage from secondary players. Aside from Celine and Neo giving it their all on an NYC rooftop, about the only intriguing footage is of a giraffe walking down city streets. Really? This is the best we got after six months?

I was truly hoping that this would be the track to restore Celine to the mainstream Top 40, with Neo's assistance. It's a mighty fine track and a should-be single. Fortunately, views on social media now count toward the Billboard Hot 100... so if Sony doesn't have the gumption to make a proper push, maybe... just maybe... the public's might will make a difference.

And yet here we are in 2014... as the latest, greatest non-talent Iggy Azalea rules the Hot 100 with the decidedly low-octane "Fancy." Oh, mercy, what a world, what a world!

UPDATE... At last, posted publicly...

ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY IN NORFOLK! Part Three (Finale)

"Luck in life is an engineered effort."

And now the final chapter in this trilogy regarding my mid-January exit from NYC to VA amid a most egregious effort to get the hell out of New York City. See previous posts HERE and HERE.

So here we are, in the midst of the heinous, blustery, truly unpleasant two-and-a-half-hour closing for my Brooklyn Heights apartment… as buyers’ attorney deemed Dick (by my attorney) is interrogating me—in condescending fashion—about electrical non-issues that the buyers' Corcoran agent “discovered” during walk-through.

And just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, the attorney representing my coop announces: She has received an “addendum” from my Montague Street building’s Managing Agent. Huh?? In the midst of closing?

It states that the Board is not convinced that the four days I spent rebuilding my kitchen after it flooded—uh, utilizing the contractor THEY HIRED to do the work—is up to par. They're apparently concerned there may be moisture remaining in the ceiling and so… despite repairs for which I laid out major ca$h (which succeeded 100% in drying all moisture and properly sealing & repairing damage caused by my neighbor above's burst radiator pipe)... hey, you know what… We might tear it all apart!! And guess who pays for the “pre-existing damage”? Yep. Of course. Me.

No one at the table saw this one coming. After I had frantically and successfully rebuilt my kitchen after a waterfall decimated the drywall four days before closing, here we are with a last-minute notice from my coop saying, “No deal unless Chuckie understands that it might be fun to tear it all apart—on his dime."

Buyers’ attorney Dick eventually negotiated with my attorney Z to place a shitload of my money in an escrow account so we could all just get the hell out of there and close the deal—allowing the poor blindsided couple buying my apartment to take possession of their new home, while allowing me to just get out of town. (I can imagine how happy my buyers—with a 1-month-old infant—were really looking forward to the coop coming in & tearing apart their brand new kitchen...)

So ultimately, I was forced to leave $5,000 in escrow for 1) the previously described bogus electrical repairs and 2) potential demo of all the kitchen work I had just completed.

And then, at long (long) last, I was able to sign the last of 873,892,759,847 documents, and close on my apartment. Outside, as it poured rain, I had a sweet moment with the new owners of my home, wishing them happiness there.

At 5:30p, once I arrived home to spend my last moments in the apartment that I had nurtured for some 13 years, you might imagine that I might like to spend an hour reflecting, reminiscing and bidding a sweet farewell.

Honestly, after such a sullied closing, I pulled my new Ford Focus in front of the building and decided that despite it was the midst of rush hour, I’d rather sit still in traffic than wait for a single overhead light bulb to potentially burn out in the apartment—because, for sure, the buyers’ Corcoran agent would pound on the door, swearing the entire apartment was miswired.

My exit from the HOME that I bought in 2000 and transformed from a dump into a palace was, in that moment, so very bittersweet. I made a final hasty walk through each room that I had lovingly renovated over the course of 13 years and then said out loud, “G’bye.” And I closed the door.

The next turn of our story doesn’t get much better, I’m afraid. As I motored down Brooklyn’s BQE, traffic moved at a clip. Hurrah! Abby & Spencer were relaxed and dozing in the front seat next to me. But as I passed one annoying toll road after another (Verrazano Bridge, Goethals Bridge, New Jersey Turnpike, Delaware Memorial Bridge), I drove

past the rain… and right into dense, impenetrable, thick-set FOG!! Seriously?

For five hours I pretty much could not see 20 feet in front of me… roaring forward every time there was a vehicle in front of me on what turned out to be deserted coastal roads... just to follow in their taillights, until they ultimately turned off the road, leaving me anxiously slowing down at some points to 30 mph. All the while, I'm pondering my epitaph: “Poor guy. He moved out of New York City and drove off a bridge on the way to his new house…” Honest to god, it’s as if I were driving through cotton candy for 5 of the 7-hour journey.

And that’s where this long-winded tale reaches its blissful end. As I crossed the

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel just after midnight on January 15, 2014, I exhaled that I had survived one of the cruelest days of my life. And I inhaled with gusto for all possibilities of this brand new chapter.

As I write this, it is now my two-month anniversary as a resident of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

An NYC pal asked me on the phone last week, “What do you miss most about New York?” I paused and responded: “Except for the people… not much of anything. Actually, nothing."

I was ready. It was the right move at the right time. And here we are. The page has turned and the colors on this side are as bright as could be.

Hey, and Spring is allegedly coming (following the cruelest winter the East Coast has seen in 30 years), so I will have an entirely new & colorful world to discover beyond the doors of this wowsah property in Norfolk, Va., that I have been fortunate enough to make my home. I am blessed, I am a lucky man and I wake up every morning recognizing the bounty before my eyes.

P.S. Thankfully, I got the ENTIRE $5,000 returned from the escrow account (cool cats, that's why it took me 2 months to post this: get it?). Obviously, those electrical issues turned out to be bogus. And thankfully, either the coop decided not to decimate the new kitchen—or the new owners refused to let them tear apart my beautiful work.

P.S.S. Har, har, har... And yet it's not over yet. The coop decided in February that the building is not responsible for the damage that occurred between walls (they are, via the bylaws) and are now leaving it up to me to have my homeowner's insurance company duke it out with the coop—which, mind you, I, of course, CANCELED at the end of January. Guess who is going to end up ponying up more cash months after getting the hell out of BK?!

And herein is my great lesson learned: Enduring luck in life is an engineered effort. I am a fortunate man, feeling lucky once again. *

Zillow: As Usual, As Accurate As A Ouija Board

Har, har, har... I was always amused watching Zillow's "Guesstimate" value of my former Brooklyn Heights apartment skyrocket... and then plummet, for no reason. Just got an update on the current value of my beloved home, after selling it for $816,000 in January.

Not only is its "estimated sales value" now posted at a laughable $513,000, but it is also reported as sinking $24,446 over the last month—uh, just as it sold for more than $15,000 over asking price.

In a neighborhood like Brooklyn Heights, there are hardly standard "comparables," with so much variety in terms of space, views, condition, building amenities and the like. So what does Zillow.com base its zig-zag figures on?

I stand by the fact that the buyers of my apartment—who purchased in a time when there were all of four comparable properties in the entire 11201 zip code—did just fine.

God forbid that anyone actually takes Zillow seriously... Not only is its information inaccurate, but imagine if I was in the process of selling the apartment now, and someone considered this data credible. This is actually harmful to the real estate market and a disservice to both sellers and buyers. FAIL! *

ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY IN NORFOLK! Part Two

Hello Cool Cats! When last we spoke, I had just endured holy hell as I was preparing to exit my apartment in Brooklyn Heights... Four days before closing, a radiator pipe in the apartment above mine burst and poured down into my kitchen for nearly 4 hours, pretty much turning the drywall into Play-Doh.

As previously reported, I hustled like a madman—tossing money into the air—to rebuild the walls and ceiling of my kitchen in three days, fearing that my buyers might come in during Tuesday’s walk-through, balk and say “So long, no thanks!” Thankfully, the work done by my contractor was 100% solid and by the time he finished Monday, my kitchen truly looked better than new.

But of course when one lives in a New York City coop, you can pretty much count on drama (which is among my Top 5 reasons for making a new start and exiting NYC). For 13 years, I had to ask permission from my building's Board (and often pay a shitload of money for the privilege of taking their time) if I so much as wanted to paint my door.

A houseplant on the fire escape: NO, it's a fire hazard! Host a party: We need to know when and how many! Scratch my butt: Not after 11 p.m.! My coop President was a doll, but the building’s Managing Agent... Hmm, let's put it this way... I am quite fond of her personally—and worked with her amiably when I was a member of the Board for 8 years—but there were times when she could be relentlessly "by the book"… and apparently it's one she has written herself. Yeah, that's good...

More than once I was treated like a Catholic School kid being whacked on the hand with a ruler… only with FINES added to my smackdown. 

Here's a timely and relevant example: When she got a copy of my typical sales contract to sell my apartment, it stated that I had 10 days upon closing to move out of my apartment. (Unlike most areas of the country where you move and then close, things are more complicated in NYC.)

Nope: She mandated that the contract be amended so that I had to move out all belongings before closing and get out pronto. 

That meant that the night before I left the Heights, hey, I slept on the bare floor! In fact, at closing, everyone at the table—brokers, attorneys and mortgage lenders—said they had never heard of such a thing in New York. At the least, it was unorthodox. At the most... As one stated, “That’s just MEAN.”

On to the real drama of the day… The Tuesday I am CLOSING on my Brooklyn apartment, my buyers are scheduled for walk-through with their Corcoran realtor and my beloved Douglas Elliman brokers (Marty Ellman & Myrel Glick, true pro goddesses). They told me this is a mere formality: 15 minutes. Obviously, I was nervous as hell after the kitchen flood (all were informed from the moment it happened).

So it’s raining that day. Pouring rain. I take my doggies Abby & Spencer out, figuring on an uncomfortable 20 minutes standing under the scaffolding next door to my building.

Should have known better with the way things were going, huh?

Turns out that the Corcoran agent representing my buyers came in with some sort of electrical outlet tester—thinking that she is a professional electrician? (Read: We’re sniffing for money back, baby!)

After TWO HOURS in the rain, I am informed there are “major concerns about the electrical in your living room,” because of something who the hell has ever heard of: reverse polarity.

To streamline the tale, that afternoon, the Corcoran agent insisted on sending an electrician to my apartment to inspect this horror!! And here’s the electrician's take: “Reverse polarity basically means that there’s potential for certain electrical appliances to run in reverse… like a blender.”

Got it! Because everybody knows we all tend to use a blender… every day… in the living room. Mind you, I had the room renovated in Fall 2012 by a licensed contractor, and I can state for the record that nothing I ever plugged in operated in reverse. Now I must admit, I did not make daiquiris in the living room during that time…

By this point Tuesday afternoon, the cloud was hanging so heavy over my hopes for closing that I took a meeting with my (kickass) attorney “Z”. Her advice: Let me talk, don’t get angry at closing… because they’re looking for money…"

After the electrician completed his inspection, I high tale it to closing in Manhattan, 45+ minutes late. And it just gets worse…

The attorney representing the buyers (who, BTW, were a sweet young couple with no agenda) is smarmy, arrogant, way too talkative, and personifies everything that gives the profession its deserved reputation. Let’s call him “Dick.”

Over the course of a two-and-a-half hour closing—populated by my attorney, buyers’ attorney, the buyers, their mortage broker, the coop’s attorney, my agent and their agent (the would-be electrician)—I have been informed that I need to put money in a pot because of the “serious” electrical issues. 

Dick had the audacity to ask me, “Did you do the electrical work yourself?” With steam rolling out of my ears—trying to keep in mind what Z had told me—I responded as calmly as I could that he was a fucking asshole… No, wait, that’s not what I said… That’s what I was THINKING. Um, I believe I said "No."

And there’s MORE!!!! Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more frustrating, my building's Managing Agent blindsides everyone at the table by sending an addendum to closing... STAND BY FOR PART 3...

ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY IN NORFOLK! Part One

This weekend I celebrated ONE MONTH of my spanking new life in Norfolk, Va. I’ve made 3 major moves in my life: from home/college/JMU to Washington, D.C. in 1984, New York City in 1995… and now, some 18 years later, a truly arbitrary relocation… as I recognized the time was

ripe to renew, challenge and indulge a gentler quality of life.

I’ve discussed all the why’s that I was ready to leave NYC previously, so let’s pick up four weeks ago, shall we? Unfortunately, it’s not all pretty. Leaving New York was a living hell—not emotionally, but logistically… The Thursday eve before I was closing on my Brooklyn Heights apartment, I hosted a casual finale gathering at Central Bar, a familiar haunt from my Billboard mag days. It was perfection: dozens rolled in and offered a farewell toast.

Ready for this? When I got home that night (here’s the part I’ve never publicly shared, because it’s too damn depressing), I was feeling all warm & fuzzy and went to bed, looking forward to moving ever closer to wrapping up my apartment sale the following Tuesday. And then, at 1:15 in the morning, I awoke to the sound of rain—only instead of coming from outside, it was clearly INSIDE my apartment.

Turns out the apartment above me—after single-digit temps the week before—had a radiator within a wall and as temps warmed up and the pipe expanded, it BURST, creating what ultimately became a

4-hour WATERFALL in my kitchen. I scrambled to wake the resident (who, ironically, suffered NO damage in her apartment) and my super and the building’s coop president… Ultimately, while the water in the entire building was turned off, it just kept raining and raining from the ceiling.

I sat on the floor scooping water into a trashcan, trying like hell to keep it from flowing overtop the saddle that separated my kitchen from the rest of my home. Had it seeped over the top, my hardwood floors would be ruined, not to mention my furniture, carpets, etc. Let’s just say my entire apartment would have been fucked. And so too, would I be.

There were times I simply paused, wondering if the water would ever stop coming down—if using the dog’s food dish to scoop 8 ounces of water at a time was laughably futile. It rained through my kitchen pantry, through the ceiling drywall seams (which melted away), and then THROUGH the ceiling fan and along the edges of the walls. The wall outside the kitchen bubbled up like a fat man, filled with water. The wood moldings began to swell… This, of course, is within the week that I am set to sell my apartment…

One friend termed it beautifully: “That is just UNFAIR.” Indeed, it was well after 4 a.m. when the water slowed to a drip… and somehow I did manage to scoop scoop scoop scoop scoop for

3 hours and keep it from tipping the edge into the rest of the apartment… as I sat on the floor, drenched, in an inch of cold water, wondering if this was going to sabotage the sale of my apartment and ultimately short circuit everything that I had been planning since September.

The next day my coop, thankfully, moved into high gear, as I discovered that not only was my kitchen wrecked, but the first-floor unit below me, into the basement, where dozens of storage units were also flooded. Can I mention again that the rez above me that wreaked all havoc had a small paper towel kinda puddle in her apartment? Yeah, thanks a lot…

But then, as is typical in a New York cooperative, things became... difficult.

At first, management sent a drywall dude (DD) to start tearing down the damage in my ceilings and walls. Miraculously, my cabinets, granite counters and ceramic floors were unharmed… but, of course, everything was drenched. So over the next 4 days, DD returned again & again to try and deal with the disaster, which took days to even begin to dry out and be ready to repair… that is, until…

On day 4, my building manager contacts DD and tells him to STOP working in my apartment, cause there are insurance issues and the coop has decided that I am re$ponsible for $ome of the en$uing work. Okay, fine. But it would have been constructive if you'd told ME, before calling DD and telling him not to show... as it's now TWO days before my buyers' scheduled walk-through.

In the end, on Sunday, I begged DD to return to finish the work, and ultimately paid him a small fortune out of pocket so that when my buyers came in that Tuesday, they would see that all good faith had been pursued to SOLVE a problem, instead of presenting them with one (of course, I notified all parties of the disaster Friday morning).

Oh, but it gets worse (before it gets a lot better). TO BE CONTINUED!!

Bloomberg's Brilliant Bike-Share Program Forgot One Thing... Winter

FORMER (hurrah!) New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's pervasive attempt to supplant NYC as a pedestrian-friendly urban city into a biker's paradise with his May 2013 Citibank-sponsored Citi-Bike Share program got a bit of a reality check with the 10-inch dump of snow Friday morning.

It appears that Nanny Bloomberg forgot that for six months of the year, it's WINTER in the city, as some 10,000 bikes sit in their holsters, lining hundreds of New York City Streets, ready to turn to rust. Oops... dummy.

The Villager reported that amid this week's wintry blanket, "While the plug wasn’t pulled on the system, for all intents and purposes, it was out of commission, with conditions unfit for riding." You think?

It appears that Bloomberg has retreated from public office just in time for successor Bill de Blasio to have to figure out what the hell to do with THOUSANDS of metal bikes sitting on public streets that are covered in snow, slush and ice, ready to rust. Here's one more Bloomie effort whose backdrop is spelled like this: I-D-I-O-C-Y.

Tech... And That's The Way It Is...

The inaugural New Yorker magazine cover for 2014 reveals how society has become so entrenched in technology that it is no longer able to live in the moment. Artist Chris Ware explains his inspiration on the mag's webbie—which follows a similar Halloween cover from 2009 (right).

Ware writes, ever so wisely, "Sometimes, I’ve noticed with horror that the memories I have of things like my daughter’s birthday parties or the trips we’ve taken together are actually memories of the photographs I took, not of the events themselves, and together, the two somehow become ever more worn and overwrought, like lines gone over too many times in a drawing.

"The more we give over of ourselves to these devices, the less of our own minds it appears we exercise, and worse, perhaps even concomitantly, the more we coddle and covet the devices themselves."

Damn, so true. I'm no martyr here. Often, an event I partake in comes off as only as worthy as the photograph that might come out of it. Good time? Oh, yeah! No photo? Compromised. Perfect example is when I had the pleasure of seeing Celine Dion in NYC last November. I indulged every second of her performance, but remained focused throughout... wondering... Will I see Celine, get another Starfucker photo, update my wall o'Celine... And so it is. And we (all?) are. *

VH1 Divas Beefs Up Line-Up (Ever So Slightly)

The upcoming VH1 Divas Live concert, which airs from Los Angeles Sunday, December 16, "boasts" a line-up that is really, truly, honest-to-fuck a sham to the proud term diva, cool cats.

With a line-up comprising Ciara, Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato, I can only imagine that such past headliners as Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain and Tina Turner are giggling into their bedpans.

Thankfully, true divas Jordin Sparks and Kelly Rowland are also part of the cast, to save the day, alongside divo host Adam Lambert.

Apparently, VH1 recognized that its roster was as lame as a flaccid winkie, because now the list has grown slightly more robust. Added to the ticket: Kelly Clarkson and Natasha Bedingfield.

That's the good news... Also added are a bunch of no-names: Melanie Fiona, Metric and Havana Brown. And just to stir the pot with a guaranteed tune-out: Pitbull!?! God, this is actually getting worse by the moment.

And appearing as presenters: La La Anthony, Jenna Dewan Tatum, Stacey Kiebler, Kelly Osbourne, NeNe Leakes, Brandy, Keri Hilson, Bootsy Collins, Ledisi and Iggy Azalea.

Thanks to Homorazzi for the update!

Achoo! Cough, Cough! Wretch... Damn That Bitch On The Train!

Oh, I could smell it in the air, yes sir... Riding the Amtrak rails all day Wednesday with a young woman sitting across the aisle from me blowing her nose 75,000 times and coughing every 4 minutes—without thinking to cover her flap...Thanks so much.

Sure enough, a day later I've come down with the black plague. General Fatigue + Enclosed Train + Rude Sick Bitch = Grossness...

Oh, joy... It's time for a giant bowl of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and a snuggle with my pillow. Hopefully, Abby & Spencer won't be so offended as to join me, too. Argh... *

Black Friday In Lynchburg, Va.... Nothing To It!

Ah, Black Friday, sweet Black Friday... There's nothing quite as satisfying as waiting in a line for five hours at Best Buy to save a whole $15 on a $1,200 55-inch Plasma TV or to be one of the first in the nation to grab a talking Tickle Me Dumbass at Toys R Us.

But as anyone who has ever accessed the Worldwide Webbie knows, almost anything one wants or needs is likely to be available online at the same cost, often with free shipping. Why, oh, why does anyone think it's fun or sporting to join such an absurd "tradition"? I just don't get it.

Here in Lynchburg, where I spent Thanksgiving, I ventured out to Walmart on Black Friday at 3 p.m. Mind you, local Walmarts opened at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving Thursday... so by the time I arrived, the joint was as empty as an average Monday morning.

Meanwhile, shopping is always a heavenly pursuit in Central Virginia, where bargains abound—and since I now travel by Amtrak, I can load up with cheap goods to take back to NYC without worrying about silly airline regs about liquid, weight and the rest of the bunk.

My stopovers: Kohl's (fab new sleeper britches for $10, Walgreens, Ollie's Emporium, Dollar General (more fab than the average low-rent "dollar store") and Bed Bath & Beyond. That's it... Over the course a week, I found all the practical items I could want at bargain prices. Oh, sweet heaven. In my world, you see, finding deodorant for half the price in NYC makes me mighty giddy.

And yet there were still hundreds of thousands of foolhardy grown-ups who bought into the hype that hitting the stores at dawn (or before) on Black Friday was a worthy pursuit. There were nearly 308 million store visits on Black Friday this year, a 3.5% increase from last year—but sales were down 1.8% to $11.2 billion, according to a ShopperTrak analysis.

Consider the following: A man in Massachusetts left his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son in the car while he went shopping for a new 51-inch TV. Store security saw the boy sleeping in the car, forced their way in, and took the tyke to the hospital as a precaution. When the dumbass returned to the car and saw the boy was gone, he panicked and called for another ride home. He's now facing reckless endangerment to a child charges. But boy, that HDTV is going to be beautiful... once he's out of jail.

Two men in San Antonio got into a fight at a Sears about line-cutting, as the alleged line-cutter punched another shopper. Someone then pulled a gun on the asswipe. Fortunately, the gun-toter had a concealed weapons license, so walked out free as a bird. Ain't that America something to see?!

In Maryland, a 14-year-old boy was robbed as he was leaving Bed Bath & Beyond after shopping post-midnight in a mall. The Baltimore Sun: "The suspects, who the boy described as (five) 17 to 21 wearing black North Face jackets and jeans..." Sure enough, as I've stated time and again, the scariest human beings on this earth are teen-agers.

Then there's the couple in Covington, Wash.,, who got run down by a 71-year old man in an SUV while heading into Walmart just after 8 p.m. The driver was arrested for vehicular assault, although it's suspected that he was loaded during the incident. Let's be honest: Getting drunk to shop on Black Friday sounds like a damn good idea to me. Lynchburg, Va.: Ain't nothing going on here but the rent.