Olivia Newton John, Les Dudek and the Marijuana Video

I was remiss in posting last week due to being at a work retreat for three days. As a result, the other two days I was a complete zombie. The retreat was exhausting but amazing and at a fabulous venue, the posh Fess Parker’s Inn in Los Olivos. I spent my very few spare minutes ogling the funky, overpriced art at one of the many galleries nearby.

This week I head off early to my 20th high school reunion in St. Louis (hopefully I’ll have wacky photos coming soon…or photos of myself in tears like Romy and Michele ). Sadly, I did not lose many pounds these last few months but I did gain quite a few muscles in all my Tamilee workouts. Come on…I just can’t work out to Cher with that hole fit on! Besides, Tamilee is so friendly and encouraging. She reminds me of Olivia Newton John.

And I read an interesting article about ONJ by Wendy McClure in the Aug/Sept issue of Bust Magazine. Titled “Reviving Olivia,” it dealt with Wendy’s late 70s, early 80s childhood obsession with ONJ and hearkened back to a more innocent time of celebrity obsession. “They don’t make pop stars like ONJ anymore,” Wendy says as she describes her fantasies “where I got to be her best friend.” She describes ONJ as both exotic and friendly…wholesome and hot.

“The celebrity world has changed for the worse: it’s become too fast, too fickle, too irreversibly fucked-up to give us another like her…[back then it was a time] when female teen stars were still more likely to be seen as artistic ambassadors from the next generation than fresh meat with a legal-age countdown.”

So true. Which brings us to the next topic. I finally watched the Sonny Bono marijuana film again to try and find Cher’s cameo in it. Cher looks so young in her bit, I can’t help but be reminded of Paris Hilton when I see it. In fact, you can also read the film as The Lindsey Lohan Story. Cher appears early on (approx. 7:44) during discussions of alcohol abuse. She’s briefly seen careening over her booze  and finally slumping over a phone. Her mascara’d eyes through the glass, those long fingers and cascading black hair are unmistakable. The closing credits don’t show on YouTube as they do in my cassette version, but a freeze-frame of her eyeball through the booze glass makes a reprise there. In the film someone asks, “What’s so bad about feeling good?” Sonny answers very creepily, “Nothing, baby, nothing.” Ick. Sonny says “the young people” a lot and calls everybody “Bud” (including Cher if I remember Good Times correctly). Every time I watch this thing, I see new disturbing things. The most upsetting image this time was the monkey in the lab with surgically implanted wires coming out of his skull cap. Criminal.

The video can be seen here on YouTube. YouTube poster "blackpimp4u” has interesting footage posted there…and the related file is where I found Sonny & Cher singing more anti-drug messaging in their video for “Circus.”

On an unrelated topic: last Friday night Les Dudek played a show at the Malibu Inn on Pacific Coast Highway. My most celebrity obsessed friend was pressuring me to go to the show but I chose to not be celebrity obsessed last Friday and saw 3:10 to Yuma instead. And I’m not sorry I did because that was the best western I’ve seen since…well, forever. So far I can’t find reviews of Les’s show; but here’s his MySpace page.