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Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 6

July 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I was thinking this week would be another Dear Sonny & Cher, but it’s actually another solo Cher with a picture of Sonny & Cher. So technically Cher made it through four columns by herself. The final four of the ten will all be “Dear Cher…and Sonny.” So six total were with Sonny, four solo.

This is an interesting picture. It shows the mature Sonny and the doe-eyed Cher. They look like brother and younger sister here. Sonny showed some real courage to wear those polka-dots.

This was a frustrating week for me, the obvious answers for teeth and nails and always the boys. I think I’ve reached my limits on the variation of “does he like me” questions. These boys are gonna be the death of me.

 

If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact—there’s no need for you to suffer at all, Cher wants to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, I like this boy who lives near my house, but I’m not sure whether he likes me—or is just teasing me. It seems like all the boys tease me. I feel like they must hate me. How can I be sure just what they mean? Unsure, Mystic, Conn.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Unsure, I think you are nurturing a queen-size inferiority complex—and all over nothing. First, if a boy notices you enough to tease you, you can be almost positive that he is interested in you. Second, it is a habit of fellows, when they are hanging around together, to single out a girl or two and pick on them. All this means is that they are watching. Don’t take [it] the wrong way. Just be a little lady and don’t be afraid to smile at them occasionally—with a dash of humor in your eyes. Soon you will find that they will stop teasing and start talking to you, which is probably what they are building up to, anyway,

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Oh boy. There’s a lot to unpack in here. I even ran this one by my mother this week. We were talking about sensitivity gone amuck. Common wisdom on “picking on” as flirting is pretty strict. It’s “not okay” and practically considered abuse. Sometimes the more innocent “teasing” gets caught up in that, however, which makes flirting in this century very complicated.

As the “little lady” in a house with two older brothers I was obviously teased and this was in the 1970s so it was obviously tolerated. The issue wasn’t the teasing per se (which all four of them did). It was the not-stopping after teasing fatigue set in. I gained a reputation for being explosive when my buttons were pushed for too long. Plus, I tend to be sensitive, after all, practically emotionally fragile.

When I moved from Albuquerque to St. Louis I was also teased by the Missouri boys, (I think that was a genetic predisposition), because of my last name being Ladd, (which is why I’ve always found name puns to be low hanging fruit, comedically speaking). My mother consistently would tell me that the boys were only teasing me because they liked me. That did help take the punch out of their puns.

But where does teasing end and bullying begin? I do not know. But I do know, if the teasing crosses the line into bullying than you can f*%k that shit about being “a little lady” who smiles “with a dash of humor.” That would not be the recommended strategy today. Bullying is not funny. It’s basically the pre-stage of a fist fight.

However, teasing is not always bullying. Even though gaslighters will tell you “they’re just teasing” as they’re bullying you (ask me how I know). It’s all very complicated.

And here’s the rub. I am teaser myself. And I’ve been told I tease like a Ladd (which is not necessarily a good thing). I definitely, like those boys, wouldn’t bother to tease someone I didn’t care for. But I also wouldn’t tease someone I didn’t know very well or trust. It is definitely one of the ways I express both affection (dare I say the primary way) and a sense of feeling safe.  Which brings us to the love languages. I’m not a huge fan of the love languages because they seem to train us to accept our default (and everyone else’s) comfortable languages and I contend we should all be good(ish) at all of them. (To review the love languages are service, touch, gifts, words and time. I get it, we’re all bad at some of them, (err, or all of them). But we all needs goals, right? We certainly should have goals to love better. We all need a repertoire of thoughtfulness, conversation, experiences…and teasing.

The dialogue at the beginning of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was designed to be marital teasing. Sometimes it got pretty barbed but the idea was that it was all in fun and games and that Sonny and Cher would go home as a happy family. That didn’t exactly turn out to be truth, but it wasn’t because of height jokes or Indian jokes or Italian jokes. It was due to much more serious fault lines around infidelity and control. Cher actually liked short Italian guys…like a lot. Her barbs were just part of the game playing and the banter was popular because everyone was getting used to seeing more “ethnic” looking people on TV making fun of each other. Then maybe racist America wouldn’t take it all so seriously either. I think the banter was doing real cultural work via the guise of teasing. Looking back it seems more mean-spirited than it did at the time.

And in the real space of a relationship between two people, teasing has a function. It is part of the suite of affections. But the world is full of misinterpretations and sensitivity; so where flirting is concerned, we probably aught to be a safe word for teasing deployments.

I’m going to pick one right now: “fluffernutter.”

Dear Cher, I am 14 years old and I have always been thin—skinny, to be honest. I feel afraid of people. I can never talk to them easily and I feel as though I want to run away and hide sometimes. Frustrated, Glen Allen, Va.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Frustrated, If I were you, I would look at the bright side of things. It is easier to gain weight than to lose it [not true], for instance. I suggest that you eat a well-balanced diet of three big meals and day, and then help yourself to between-meal snacks. You can eat pizza, popcorn and ice cream—all those groovey goodies that most teenage girls have to say “no” to. [Uh, is this a good idea?]  I would advise you to avoid chocolate, coconut, soda pop and sundaes, as these can cause acne. To overcome your intense shyness, you will just have to force yourself  out of your shell. Try talking to yourself in the mirror. Don’t laugh, I really mean it. Then try talking to two or more friends. I know it’s hard to do, but if you don’t make some kind of effort, you’ll never get anywhere. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

What a mess. Half of us have fat thighs and half of us have toothpicks (my Dad’s word for his legs today). The very idea of the ideal is exhausting.

Metabolisms can get really screwed up with extreme diets in one direction or another. So this advice seems very dated now: pig out, basically. This could have bad unintended consequences down the line at the other extreme. Science is just now figuring out how metabolisms function and it’s kind of wacky. There’s still a lot we don’t know about food and how our body processes it. Neil DeGrasse Tyson in his Master Class talked about “frontier science” (science at the very outer edges of our knowledge and understanding) and food seems to fit into that category for me, which is why the media jumps on all the contradictory studies about common foods: eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you, coffee is good for, coffee is you bad for you, wine is good for you… We don’t know yet fully is the thing. The weight-loss show The Biggest Loser demonstrated how much we really don’t know scientifically about weight loss and weight gain.

The Cooking with Cher cookbook is a good example of this. When this Cher’s fat-free-everything cookbook came out, fat free was the fad, accepted on faith. But as it turns out, we need some of those fats. Eating is complicated.

My friend Julie and I once hosted a A Battle of the Stars dinner party in Los Angeles with our friends: Jack Nicholson’s fat-free cookbook recipes pitted against Cher’s fat-free recipes. Cher did win in the final voting but everyone was pretty unilaterally unenthused about the goods. And that’s not surprising for diet food. Fun jobs don’t pay. Good food tries to kill you. C’est La Vie.

Michelle Obama’s new book The Light We Carry (one of the books saving my life right now) had some great advice about talking to yourself in the mirror. She tells a story about a man she knows who starts every day with a look in the mirror and a friendly, “Hey, buddy.” It’s about starting the day with something nice to say to yourself. I am trying to figure out what the girl equivalent should be. I don’t like the Barbra Streisandly “Hey gorgeous!” Too much. I want to talk to my little self, actually. With some bit of teasing, truth be told, like, “Hey there, wiseacre” or “Good morning, smarty pants!”

Sonny teased Cher about being too thin and this was probably one of the things she was actually a bit sensitive about. She said before Bob Mackie, she wasn’t even sure people realized she was a girl. Which just goes to show what the power of an outfit will do.

The great ones have like super powers I guess.

Dear Cher, I have boy trouble. I am 13 and every time I get a boy to notice me, he seems friendly at first but [then] he loses interest. How can I get a boy to keep liking me? Troubled, Pablos Verdes, Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Troubled, To get a boy to keep on liking you is an age-old problem with us girls. I think you have to make something “special” of yourself [oy vey]. To be special, you should have your own flair with clothes, have an original hair style, or do something that is different (but no way-out) [god forbid]. Most girls have a tendency to “run with the herd,” and guys get bored with that type. [Is this Sonny, talking? It sounds more like Sonny in some of these.] It is the girl who tries new things, [*snicker*] who is stimulating and full of life, and who has imagination and uses it that keeps a fellow alert and interested. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Sigh. So what is the recipe again? Be stimulating, full-of-life, not boring, imaginative but not “way-out.” Good grief. No, bad grief. This is an age-old story. It’s called Scheherazade.

You know what? This is the right answer (and I’m not disagreeing with Cher here; she came to this answer eventually): girls don’t need boys. That’s the answer. Stop all the “does he like me if he teases me” or “does he like me if names his car after me” or does he like me if I do A,B,C,D,E,F….

I’m getting bored with the bored boys, to be honest with you.

Let me tell you a story. I once worked at a Mortgage Company in St. Louis. My job all day was to make legal-sized photocopies and send faxes to the corporate office in Minnesota. I did so much faxing I started to dream about it. In the dream I had trouble flipping over the double-sided legal paper correctly. (I hate work dreams.) Anyway, there were two women there I completely misjudged. One was a very cool, beautiful curly-haired brunette woman who I thought would never want to be friends with a boring person like me. But she invited me to dog sit for her and we went to concerts together (the best one being Steely Dan) and she became the only friend I maintained out of that job.

The other woman was a very tiny, trad-wife looking woman. Or trad-fiancé anyway. Just the way she dressed, talked and did her hair. She was at that time planning her upcoming wedding and it was all she was talking about. I thought, she’s just waiting for her “real” life to begin. I wasn’t dismissive so much as I considered her an alien property. I was only 22 or 23 at the time. Little did I know she was over 30, (all the girls in that office were over 30, the cool, beautiful girl, the getting-married girl, the girl training so hard to get into the FBI she passed out one day by the fax machine).

We had an amazing boss there. He was a Baptist minister. And I told my first joke in that office. I remember it like it was yesterday. I sat next to the boss and we had an open office plan. There was a light flickering above us and we could see a bug up there dying in the light fixture. I said, “Well, I guess you can say he’s finally seen the light.” The whole office starting laughing and not because the joke was any good but because quiet-Mary actually told a joke. I turned beet-red and became committed to doing more of that.

Anyway, after a few months I got to know the not-so-trad-wife girl as I delivered copies to her desk by the window. She asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. I was just moving into my first apartment. She said, “Good. Live on your own for as long as you can. You will discover who you are, learn how to stand on your own two feet and then you will never feel trapped by a bad relationship.”

I thought, “That’s f*%king brilliant!” She wasn’t a trad-wife at all. She turned out to be a god-damn love guru.

Cher has said as much. Boys are fabulous but you don’t need one to live.

I don’t want to live in a world without boys. I want to be friends with boys. Relationships with boys are important and exciting and fulfilling. But if all the boys in the world find me boring or unimaginative or unstimulating, I will survive it.

Dear Cher, I have trouble with my hair, my face, and—worse—I have buck teeth. Please don’t laugh. I really want to know what to do. I am 11 years old. Carol, Atwater, Col.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Carol, you must never think for one minute that I would laugh at you or anyone with a problem. I was young once [like two days ago], too, and I know how very serious all these problems are. I only hope that I can help you and any other 16-ers who write to me in some small way. I think it would serve you well to order 16’s Beauty and Popularity Book, as you did not spell out your problems in any detail and the Beauty Book covers all problems, from shyness to skin and hair care. Buck teeth can only be treated by a dentist (who will probably send you to a good orthodontist). I advise you to get your parents to take you to the dentist at once, as you are still young enough to get the braces that will cure your buck teeth problem forever.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I had braces too. I was thinking the transformation was going to be bigger than it was after that year of mouth metal. Like I would have magic new teeth basically.  But I pretty much looked the same. I had the same teeth. I didn’t suddenly have Farrah Fawcett face.

I wish I could get a copy of this 16  guide book to beauty. I still can’t find it. But I did find an ad for it. Yikes!

And I found the next best thing: Susan Dey’s Secrets on Boys, Beauty and Popularity.  I can’t wait to read this. The answer is out there about beauty and boys, folks. This is just more “frontier science.”

Cher’s mother did not have the money to fix Cher’s teeth. And Cher didn’t get braces until she was in her late-30s, somewhere between the movies Silkwood and The Witches of Eastwick. In some ways, her straightened teeth completely changed the look of her mouth. The fist time I saw Cher’s new mouth was in the movie The Witches of Eastwick. I had cognitive dissonance watching the first outdoor lunch scene where Alexandra Medford meets Daryl Van Horne in the beginning of the movie.

Maybe if you’ve got a magic smile you shouldn’t fuss with it. More “frontier science” right there.

(Click to enlarge)

Dear Cher, How can I stop biting my nails? They are a mess. I want to hide my hands when I go out on a date. Please help me. Nails, Ft. Lee, N.J.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Nails, First try to get a “substitute” habit. In other words, every time you want to bite your nails grab a piece of gum or a Life Saver—or twist a piece of your hair. Next, run lanolin (it’s cheap at the drug store) in your hands and massage your finger-tips each night (this is to keep your cuticles soft). Every time you feel like “biting in,” stop and  say, “That’s silly. I’ll find something better to do with my hands”—and do it.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

The old “substitute habit” theory. I don’t think that works. I think that’s just regular ole science. Besides, twisting your hair could be just as annoying for everyone else to have to watch. How about this, the next time you want to bite your nails, smoke a cigarette instead. See? And soon we’ll have to start ranking and color-coding all the bad habits and it will be a mess. Mo habits, mo problems.

I either have the best nails or the worst nails. It’s called life balance, people. Sheesh. My grandmother always has glamourous nails and sometimes having my grandmother’s long fingers with her glamourous nails can feel like Dumbo’s feather, but sometimes I feel like nails should get a breath of fresh air or I’ll be taking a ceramics class and fingernails wreak havoc when you’re doing pottery.

Cher, too, has gone through nail phases. Her most famous nail phase was in the 1970s when she popularized the crazy-long talons. She was so infamous for her long nails that there are stories about her bringing recording sessions to a halt if she needed a nail repair.

But then she went to a more natural look when she started acting in movies because well, of course, serious actors need to have serious nails. It makes total sense.

She has recently started wearing longer nails again but with less color.

(Click to enlarge)

Biting your nails is probably one of the better bad habits, all things considered. I mean they keep growing back so…live a little.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 5

July 16, 2024 / / 0 Comments

What a picture this week! Cher is wearing some future-Cher-signature hoop earrings. She was literally before her own time, not just everybody else’s time. This is also classic 60s-Cher with the thick eyeliner and the neutral lips, the thick bangs. She looks slightly miffed, like kids are writing to her via 16 Magazine and they are not telling her how old they were. (Can you believe it?)

This also marks the last solo effort of this column. From now on, Sonny will weigh in on questions, too. Maybe his new movie-mogul schedule has freed up. Who knows. The bottom line is Cher only got through three of them by herself.

 

If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, Do you think it is wrong for a girl to try and make herself look like another girl? For instance, I think you are beautiful and I model my hair, clothes and looks after you. Who would I try to look like? I flip for John Lennon. Worried, Niagara Falls, Ont.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Worried, Since you didn’t say how old you are, it is hard to give you advice. You 16-ers must remember to state your age when you writer to me—as that does make a difference. If you are 14 or younger, I think it is quite a good thing to choose another girl whom you admire to model yourself after. However, as you get older, you should start discovering yourself. You should—sooner or later—get your own style. That’s like letting the real you emerge. Everybody starts by copying, but in the end they must come to themselves. I agree with you that John Lennon is quite flippy.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

From Canada. She’s getting international letters now! I think this is a very good response, except for the scoldy you-16-ers part…and the part about John Lennon being flippy. I don’t agree with them on that one and the comment itself seems aside from the question. Just a non-sequitur. Maybe it was a hey, girl-to-girl thing, look at that hottie John Lennon. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

Truth be told, I don’t find any of the Beatles “flippy” or handsome and I know this will piss off millions of Boomer ladies by saying that. I have always struggled with the mandatory exercise of “picking my Beatle” and I have defaulted to Paul just because he and his wife Linda sided with the animals and Linda had a line of TV-dinners taste-tested in St. Louis. The dinners didn’t ever “go” but it was back when there were no vegetarian TV dinners in grocery stores and, incidentally, they were very tasty and so I also have her cookbook. You could argue I’m more of a Linda McCartney fan. But I do like the Beatles themselves. It’s more of a problem of picking a cute one. (And Cher Scholar’s gonna drop some catty bits here).  I contend that there is a fatal flaw in each of the Beatle faces. I had these thoughts watching the excellent Get Back documentary. For Ringo, yes, unfortunately it is the nose. For Paul, it’s those droopy eyes that most Boomer girls did indeed flip for. George Harrison has the most classically handsome face, but I can’t get past those teeth. For John Lennon, the eyes, nose and teeth are fine. It’s his mouth.

That all is needlessly (and maybe inappropriately) said because quantifying beauty is very subjective and cultural. For example. I love Cher’s older crooked teeth. I don’t like George Harrison’s crooked teeth. Probably sentimentality plays into our evaluations more than we like to admit. I have no sentimental attachment to the Beatles so I can nit-pick away. Maybe if I was an older person, I would have joined my peers and “flipped.” As it was, I was born later and flipped (and floundered) for people in my 1980s-teen-era instead. (However, I did not pick a Duran Duran member either. Sigh. Okay, maybe it’s me.)

And how are all these I-want-to-look-like-you Cher questions coming through the slush pile anyway? Is that the bulk of the mail coming in? Are they choosing only questions that discuss Cher beauty or Cher hair? Which is an interesting marketing strategy to pick only those questions that made Cher look good (but look at me being all conspiracy theory right now).

I am fascinated by these changing age borderlines in the 16 Magazine responses. Like was some teen-psychologist being consulted? Age 14 seems like the fulcrum of many changes in one’s life. Boys getting more sensible with girls, girls coming into their “real you-ness.” The real Eunice, as it were. How can I get to my real Eunice?

I actually love the idea that you begin to discover your own look by copying others and then making small tweaks away from that copy, so many tweaks that eventually you won’t recognize the source. I would love to hear (or read) about Cher’s childhood models, what and from whom she copied to finally define her Cherness, her Eunice. And I think this practice applies to probably everything we do as creative people or thinkers. We model other things until we understand the thing fair enough to try out tweaks for ourselves. There’s some great quote out there about artists who become great because they fail at trying to be someone else.

I was 15 or 16 when the Cher movie Mask came out. But since I was a slow kid, let’s just say I had the maturity of a 14-year old and that’s being generous. Watching the movie in the theaters I remember thinking Cher looked so great and that of all the eras of Cher, this look seemed somewhat copy-able for a girl from Missouri. You know, a sprinkle of hillbilly in there? Her 1960s-hippy chic look: eh. The glamourous TV star look: not do-able. Biker chick: possibly. Looking back it seems folly but I did try it out. And the form it took was to copy her character’s white undershirts and ribbon/shoestring necklaces. The shirts didn’t work immediately. But I did wear those shoestring necklaces all through my Sophomore year until I decided, you know, I’m not really a choker-necklace person.

Dear Cher, I have very dark, coarse hair on my forearms and on my face. Do you have any suggestion as to how I could get rid of this unwanted hair? Hairy, Ft. Collins, Col. 

Cher’s Response:

Dear Hairy, YOU FORGOT TO GIVE YOUR AGE!! If you are under 16, I advise you to try to ignore this excess hair for the time being. It may just be a passing thing and soon gradually begin to disappear. But if you are over 16, it is probably going to be a permanent problem, and you should speak to your family doctor about recommending a good electrolysist. There are people who scientifically remove hairs permanently—one at a time. Do not use “hair removing” creams and plasters on your body or face, as it is very dangerous.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, THE YELLING!! Maybe 16 Magazine needs a form kids can fill out to send in with their letter. That would eliminate all the forgetting to tell Cher what age you are. I now feel compelled by these stern reprimands to give my age when I have a question for anyone. “I’m 55!” That’s got to be the boundary of some kind of life cycle change, right? Wait a minute. Maybe Cher should start an AARP advice column right now! “Dear Cher, I’m 55 and not yet having hot flashes like all my friends? Am I a freak of nature. I feel so left out. What should I do?”

And I notice the age boundary has moved to 16 in this case. I hope there’s a chart somewhere of all these teen thresholds. Or is 16 just the age when girls can start going through draconian beauty practices? Boys can get drafted into the military at 18; girls can start electrolysis at 16?

There is some intense social pressure to be hairless, oddly. As a race, human animals are turning into hairless cats. I personally like hair on people, cats and dogs. And I know some very beautiful girls with hairy arms. In the third grade, a girl named Laura moved to our neighborhood from somewhere in the south. She sat next to me and we became friends for a year. All the boys went nuts. She was very pretty and had a southern accent. And hairy arms. The boys did not care. She was the most popular girl that year.

It’s interesting that this response differentiates between removing hair scientifically as opposed to what? Magically? I think they mean these snake-oil type remedies. You know, the whole skin care industry basically. I have a love-hate relationship with skin care products and I wrote about this extensively in Cher Zine 3, “Cher and Your Skin (The Infomercials).”

Hair removal has come along way (err, scientifically) since the 1960s. Just look at this Wikipedia page with its hilarious drawings of human hair and old-tyme ads for hair removal. There is now sugaring, threading, drugs, laser, IPL, diode epilation.

One thing is for certain, people care an awful lot about their hair. It’s a very serious business. Do I have too much? Not enough? One good thing about hair is that you can play with it.

Dear Cher, My father is in the Army and we lived in Europe for five years until about five months ago.  Before I left, all of my friends told me they would write to me. I have written to them all and given them my new address, and not a single one has responded. What is wrong with me—or with them? Now that I have gone, have they forgotten me? Depressed, Ft. Ord. Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Depressed, Nothing is wrong with you or them—except that you are all human beings acting in a very human way. You remembered to write and [were] anxious to hear from them. In fact, it was probably easier for you to spend a lot of time writing to your old friends, rather than make new ones. They, however, still have each other, and are not lonely—though I am sure they miss you and speak of you often (and also feel guilty about not writing). But you should also remember that writing a letter is hard for your former friends, as they are all caught up in the busy life they share. That doesn’t mean they think ill of you. Don’t be such a pessimist. Go out and get some new buddies and start all over. When you remember the past, think only of the good things and—if you feel so inclined—if you feel so inclined—just drop your old friends a happy little picture postcard from time to time,. You’ll make out all right—you’ll see.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Europeans!

I was a big nerd and also in French class so I had a lot of international pen pans in high school. The two pals who petered out first were the boy from Germany and the boy from France. I really don’t think this is because they were Europeans. I think this is because (can we all agree?) they were boys. My best pen pals were from New Mexico (Maureen I had as a pen pal the longest, through my twenties, and yet have never met her, even though I lived in the small city of Santa Fe for three years where she was from and probably still living), the French-Canadian (who wrote to me in French and I returned letters to her in English) and the girl from the Philippines (who wrote to me until the Marcos were deposed and then I never heard from her again). So it’s situational is what I’m saying.

I guess I’m pretty hot-headed because I didn’t spend much time making additional attempts after one went unanswered. So for this question I went to one of my bffs, Julie, to get advice. She has a remarkable reputation among our group for doing something we call “never forcing a falling out.” You know, sometimes you get fed up with a friend and you “force a falling out.” You instigate trouble to cull that friend from your herd. This may be a catty girl thing to do but we would often find Julie in a situation where “forcing a falling out” would seem beneficial and we would recommend she do it and she would never do it. Admirable really. So I told her this scenario and she texted me back: “I wouldn’t send more than two unanswered letters unless this was a really long-time relationship, then maybe three or four. And I would probably try calling if it was a long-term relationship before accepting being ghosted.” We then discussed the word ghosting and me using it here in this anachronistic scenario and we decided it was a very useful term. Because ghosting was happening long before “ghosted” was a word. To be clear, ghosting is not nice. To force a falling out is, although still dysfunctional, somewhat nicer. At least the victim has closure.

I do like the idea of converting to postcards as a way to touch base without the pressure of a response. “Remember me? I’m in America now doing obnoxious American things! Thbbbbffttt!” Then again, I can see where that wouldn’t help things much.

There’s probably not much hope in this sort of situation and I see Cher now giving me the stern Cher-stare and saying, “Cher Scholar, don’t be such a pessimist!”

Dear Cher, I have fat thighs. I am not tall, so it really shows on me. I am 14 years old. [Thank God she said how old she was!] What should I do? Out Of Shape, Bossier City, La.

Cher’s Response:

Be glad you are 14—for that means that some of this weight is still “baby fat” and it will slowly disappear in the next couple of years. However, I think you should practice rolling around on the floor. [Is this code for sex?] What you do is recline on the floor propped up by your arms with your elbows straight. Point your toes and stiffen your leg muscles. Now slowing roll over to the right as far as you can. Hold it for a moment, and then slowly roll all the way back to your left. Repeat this 25 times a day, and within two weeks your measurements will be on the way down.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Roll around on the floor?? There’s not a better, more “scientific” name for this exercise? Ok, I’m gonna try it. Hold on a minute…

Okay I don’t think I did this right because it seemed more of a workout for my arms than my thighs, which were also chubby as kid. I have a distinct memory of being in my Wonder Woman swimsuit down at our neighborhood pool where Lillian, Diana and I would yell “Laugh at Me,” (after Sonny’s solo opus, no kidding and no idea why), and then jumping into the pool and grabbing at each other underwater and then Lillian coming up to tell me she found my legs chubby. And I wasn’t mad about it but I do remember being a bit irritated, thinking “Oh great, now I have to worry about my legs.”

Those chubby legs turned into tween-anorexic skinny legs (you saw that coming) and then I had a decade in my late-teens and twenties with normal legs and now we’re back to elderly chubby legs again.

I just did a google search that made me feel a bit fat- shamey: “best workout for fat thighs.” I got the usual suspects: lunges, squats, dead lifts with weights and jumping jacks (which are hard on your knees…just ask Jane Fonda).

Cher obviously couldn’t have thrown this out in the mid-1960s but there will come a time in the 1990s when Cher would turn into somewhat of a fitness guru. So we have quite a suite of workouts, guides and encouragements to suggest now.

Cher’s VHS A New Attitude, a step workout, was released in 1991. Body Confidence was released in 1992 with weight band exercises and a hot dance. When these came out, I just watched them while eating ice cream. I was thin then and the devil may care. Years ago I actually bought a step and tried the workouts. They were good and hard. The most distracting thing about them is the fact Cher is really overdressed in them. And that is kind of a turn off somehow. She does honestly struggle through her own workouts sometimes and that is refreshing. But to show up dressed for singing “Turn Back Time” is not motivating for those of us who do not have Turn-Back-Time-fits or care to.

In 1991, Cher also came out with a nutrition and fitness book, co-authored by nutritionist Robert Haas (who wrote Eat to Win), not to be confused with the poet Robert Hass (who wrote “The Nineteenth Century as a Song“).

Cher also did a series of commercials for Jack LaLanne gyms from 1984 to 1989. You can get some inspiration for your fat thighs here by listening to some memorable Cher epigrams about sweating:

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 4

July 7, 2024 / / 0 Comments

We are here today with the next installment of Dear Cher (and later Sonny) from 16 Magazine.  From this new preamble, we can tell this is column number two. I really should have ordered these.

We also get an unusually earnest photo choice, maybe meant to engender some trust here. I’d say it’s working. I, myself, am ready to divulge my deepest, darkest secrets to 1960s Cher. Luckily this column redux isn’t (all) about me so I won’t have to.

We’re only four columns into this exercise and we can already see recurring teen-girl themes. A “life full of problems” amounts to basically two things, boys and insecurity about how we look. No one is struggling to raise money to backpack across Europe or training to become Amelia Earhart. (Don’t look at me. I wasn’t either.) That’s too bad but not surprising, I guess.

Here we go:

 

“If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants help you—right here in the pages of 16!

HELLO AGAIN!

As you know, last month I started a regular column in 16 in which I will answer the letters you write to me and attempt to help you in any way I can with your problems—large or small. When you write to me (since most of your letters are of a very personal nature), if you choose to use a code name I will write back to you in that name. Each month I will answer as many of your letters as I possibly can, so keep looking here for your reply.

Dear Cher, There is a boy who lives near me who hangs out at the soda shop where all we kids go in the afternoon [all we kids?]. If I see him on our block and he is alone, he speaks to me and seems to be very friendly, but when I see him with the gang down [at] the soda shop, he doesn’t speak and looks right through me. I really like him very much (in fact, I think I am in love with him), but I don’t know how he feels. He sure does act funny. What can I do? Confused, Little Rock, Ark. 

Cher’s Response:

You didn’t tell me your age (most of you forget to do that when you write—try not to, for it is helpful to know how old you are when I am writing my answers to you), but I’d guess that you are about 14 or 15 and he is about a year older than you. The reason I guess these ages is because of his behavior. Most boys of 14 or 15 are really and truly interested in girls, but they are still sort of shy about it and hate the idea of their buddies catching them showing interest in a girl—for they will get teased unmercifully about it. What this boy does is speak to you (because he wants to and probably likes you) when there is no one else around, and when he is in the company of his pals he clams up rather than risk their ridicule. You have to try to be understanding. There is no great mystery to his behavior. Just give him a very pleasant smile when you pass in him in “public” and don’t expect him to speak (he’ll get around to it one day, so don’t worry). He will appreciate your discretion and sensitivity to his “plight” and like you all the more for it.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Dear Confused, we saw this very issue come up a few weeks ago in Part 2, “How Do You Know When He Cares?” as a sign of his seriousness or unseriousness and at that time I alluded to the disturbing story by the writer Roxanne Gay from her book Bad Feminist. In her case, the same behavior was a big red flag. The boy was grooming her for a gang rape.

But I like how Cher brings the age range into consideration here. An older boy behaving this way might seriously be a red flag: either he’s a jerk or worse. But Cher brings up a good point about younger boys. They’re swimming in the proverbial shark tank of love without their swimmies. As awful as teen girlhood can be, being a young boy has always sounded much worse. So some sympathy goes there, for sure.

But this behavior also signifies the fact that this boy is probably not yet ready for girls. And this is fine. There seems to be a pressure during this period of boyhood to simultaneous like girls and not like girls. Which is very confusing for the girls. I’ve written about this elsewhere but I never understood what the mad dash was all about. Why were we all in such a rush? Ok, I was a tad slow in this area and most of the boys were ready long before I was, so I missed this whole awkward, confusing phase. But I had to sit and listen to all my girlfriends go through it which was truly awful, once removed.

Part of dating another person is the melding of the friend groups. And since you’re not the same people, these are never the same friend groups. Drama can ensue. Sometimes the friends don’t even like each other. But it’s part of the process. I’ve seen some of my friends (men and women both) compartmentalize their dating life. You could be hanging out with them for years before ever meeting their significant other. It’s not terrible but it’s not healthy either. It’s like having part of your life in quarantine. Now if you’re dating the mad woman (or man) in the attic like Mr. Rochester was, then maybe you want to keep this person from your friends. But wouldn’t you rather have friends who understand?

Honestly, this doesn’t sound like a Cher response to me. I don’t think Cher would put up with this for very long. I could be wrong but I don’t see her having much patience for this sort of thing considering she doesn’t feel men are a necessity. I also can’t see a self-respecting Sonny or Robert Camilletti doing this. Cher says Gregg Allman and Les Dudek were very nice. Maybe Gene Simmons would do this. Yeah, probably Gene Simmons. But I don’t think she took much grief off Gene Simmons either.

Look, she made him carry Gregg Allman’s baby:

Dear Cher, My parents consider it “wild” to have long hair, wear short skirt[s] and listen to rock and roll music—and forget about boys! I am 15, I get good grades, and I work part-time during the summer. I’m not wild, but I do like rock and roll and all the other things I mentioned, including boys [don’t forget the boys]. Please, please help me. “Sally,” Spokane, Wash.

Cher’s Response:

Dear “Sally,” You sound to me like a reliable, level-headed young girl who just wants to [buy Sonny & Cher records and] have some fun once in a while.  I think you might try asking your mother to sit down with you for a talk (mothers are usually more understanding about these things than dads are). Tell her that you can be trusted, that you just want to follow the fashions in a normal way—and that dancing, music and boys are also a part of being normal. Tell her that you will introduce her to any boy you go out with (I know that’s a pain, but you must admit it’s worth a try), and that you will gladly bring your other friends home for her to meet and approve. Ask her to give you a certain period of time (like a month) to prove that you can do all the things you wish to without being (or becoming) wild. Come through your “trial” period with all A pluses and I am sure your troubles will be over.

[For some reason, this week’s column was full of typos like “busic and boys” (busic is a combination of booze and boys maybe), a “certan period of time” and “of prove that” [I had to choose between “to prove that” or “of proof that.”]

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Dear Spokane Sally, Cher left home at 16. That’s how Cher handled it. She moved in with some girlfriends in Hollywood, got kicked out and moved in with a man who could have gotten arrested for it.

I myself had the opposite experience with my parents. I was so afraid I’d run afoul of some bad situation, I religiously told my parents everywhere I was planning to go. They found this problematically annoying. I would be like, “send out a search party if I’m not home by daylight” and they would look at me warily like, “well, maybe by noon we’ll look into it.”

Ugh. I’ll be dead by then! First 48!

When I finally did move out they were very skeptical that I would be able to fend for myself. To be honest, I was skeptical as well. But love can give you the power to do many adulting things, I’m here to tell you. I think my family would have liked for me to be wilder. They certainly all were. So I entirely relate to this goody-two-shoes who likes rock and roll. If I would have said, “I just want to follow fashions in a normal way” my mother would have cried with joy.

In the novel Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace talks about how every generation of fathers was a rejection of the previous generation, like a see-saw of points of view. Cher was from a musical family so I don’t think music was an issue per se, but Cher’s wildness was. Her mother didn’t know what to do. And Cher often says Chas was more conservative than she was, the indicative story being the time Chastity once stood in the bathroom with her mother, barring the door in order to prevent Cher from getting a mohawk. So Cher got a mohawk colored onto her head instead.

Dear Cher, What about us ugly girls? I am 12 years old and I am (not chubby, fat), really homely in the face. [Oh dear, the classic butterface.] I have no friends and spend all my time alone day-dreaming. I want to be liked and to have some fun, but I can’t seem to get anywhere. can you give us “uglies” some advice? Homely, Chicago, Ill.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Homely, I admire your honesty. Instead of beating around the bush, you get right to the heart of the problem—so I’ll get right to the heart of the solution. Every single person living on the face of this earth has something good and beautiful in them. Behind the homely face there is often a sensitive soul, and many a fat girl houses an understanding heart. You must endeavor to seek out your own good qualities and then to develop them. I  remember a fat girl in our school whom everybody loved because she was so good and kind. We all went to her with our problems and she became more dear to us than the pretty, popular girls who were just good for “decoration.” I am sure that you have some wonderful thoughts and some fine feelings buried in you. You must forget that you are not “Nature’s favorite” and start concentrating on the positive side of yourself. Remember to go about with a smile on your face (even when you feel blue), to be clean, and neat, and don’t be afraid to reach out to others—even if you feel they may reject you. If you reach out often enough, sooner or later you will find them—in turn—reaching back for you.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Dear Unfinished Person, You’re only 12! Oy. As they say about growing faces, there’s still a lot of football left to play. Okay, they don’t say that about young faces, but they should.

I’ve encountered mean and cruel people in all shapes and sizes. I see no correlation. But since beauty is a cultural idea 100%, I’ve seen some people become very bitter about being born out of time, so to speak. Being voluptuous when thin is in, having the wrong face for where and when they were born. If you happen have attributes a culture considers better than others, life can be easier for you no doubt. But so what. Everyone should endeavor to  seek out their good qualities and develop them. And I honestly cant imagine any human animal right now being “Nature’s favorite.” Please. I also think it’s fine to refrain from having a smile on your face 24/7 if you’re just not feelin it. We need to learn how to cope with feelings but letting ourselves have some.

What does a homely face even mean in all the culture blather anyway? American culture didn’t consider women like Cher beautiful for hundreds of years. I, for one, am not buying into it.

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 3

June 29, 2024 / / 0 Comments

We’re back again with more advice from 16 Magazine. But next up is some solo “Dear Cher” responses. From what Cher (or the 16 Magazine staff dude pretending to be Cher) says, this must be the first installment of the column. Plus there’s such a long preamble.

Did Cher start this solo and Sonny joined her later? As often happened in the Sonny & Cher story, Cher might have started off alone and then beseeched Sonny to help her out, like when she talked him into doing the final variety series or when she couldn’t talk on the “Hello” 45 record and Sonny had to do it all or when Sonny did all the talking to the live and studio audiences or when he tried to get Cher singing in the first place.

Anyway, hang on because this is going to be a long, repetitive and somewhat laborious introduction.

 

“If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants help you—right here in the pages of 16!

[Jesus! That sounds so dire. Don’t suffer alone!]

Hi there! It’s me—Cher—and (like I told you in the last issue of 16) I have what I hope will be a groovey [sic, or maybe that’s really how they spelled it back then] surprise for you? I know it is for me. What it is, is this; beginning with this issue I am starting a column called Dear Cher right here in 16 Magazine. It will be a regular feature in which I will try to answer any of your questions concerning make-up, beauty, hair and self-improvement. I will also help you with your personal problems—[good lord, if only]—you know, like how to overcome bashfulness, how to get that special guy to notice you, how to get along with your parents and brothers and sisters (not to mention with your teachers), how to get a boy to keep on liking you once you’ve got him interested, what to do about those “moods” you fall into, etc.”

[So the target audience for this at the beginning was young girls, not boys. So much for their problems. Interesting we’ve already seen that some boys did write in.]

“In other words, I—Cher—promise you that I will do all I can to help and guide you in every way possible in your day-to-day life. I’ve just emerged from my early teens and I know what unhappiness and suffering a young girl often goes through—and all too often has to go through alone. Well, you aren’t alone anymore. I am here. You can count on me and I will not fail you.”

[Some big and wide-ranging promises are being made here. Oy vey.]

“So if you have a problem—whether it’s a boy who’s causing you a heartache or a hair-do that is giving you headache, you can turn to me. Don’t be shy. I am the only one who will see your letters, as signed by you, and you know you can trust me. [Somehow, I’m doubting this. Whenever someone says “trust me”…and you know what, I think Sonny & Cher taught me that]. Tell me what your troubles and problems are—and then look each month for my answer, just for you, right here in the pages of 16. Since most of your letters will be of a very personal natures, I will not print your name. Be sure to remember to put a code name of your selection at the end of your letters to me. I will use this code name when I print your letter and my answer in 16—so watch for it.

Meanwhile, since I have some extra space in this issue [despite a herculean attempt to preamble this to death], I am going to take care of a couple of letters that came to me recently in my general mail. They will give you an idea of how I will write this column.”

[Ugh! I’m exhausted now. If only we could take a nap. No, let’s forge ahead.]

Dear Cher, When I look at a picture of you, I just flip. You look so beautiful—your eyes are sparkling and your hair is long and shining. Then I look into the mirror and I just hate myself. Please, please tell me how I can get to look like you! Miserable

Cher’s Response:

Dear Miserable, I am glad you like the way I look, believe me—but in doing so you are overlooking a most important fact. I am me and you are you! I am quite sure you are just as pretty (if not prettier) than I am, in your own way. So forget about me and let’s concentrate on you. To have sparkling eyes, you must get enough sleep, keep your face and eyes clean, and perhaps wear a little make-up [that word has unhyphenated itself in the last 40 years… isn’t that interesting?]. A thin eye-liner line on your upper lid and a little mascara may just do the trick. [Is that ironic advice from the woman who, along with Liz Taylor, gave the thick eye-liner look traction in the mid-1960s?] Give it a try. Be sure your eyes aren’t dull because you need glasses. Don’t laugh [too late]—that is sometimes the case! You can keep your hair shining by washing and brushing it regularly. If you want it long, then let it grow. [Is there another way?] Long hair takes extra brushing, so be sure that you have the time required to take care of it. If you do these things, you will begin to discover your own hidden beauty, and soon you will find yourself liking that little girl you see in the mirror!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

If you do these things, you will begin to discover your own hidden beauty…for like 24 hours only and then you will forget about it again and will have to discover new eye-liner tricks and spend some $$ on beauty books and magazines and the latest, most scientifically-improved (or mystical) makeup and then write to more advice columns run by other celebrities and influencers and do you see the problem with this right here?

I’m not an expert on this but I am always most impressed by those women who present beyond their face, so to speak. I just saw an example of this last night on a Diane Von Furstenberg documentary. She’s indisputably beautiful but she presents in a way that indicates she’s not operating from an investment in her own beautiful face. Oh sure, you say, easy enough to tap into your inner beauty when you’ve got outer beauty! Ok, fair enough. You can also see this same phenomenon in certain women who are not considered stylishly beautiful. (Look behind you 200 years to see how trends influence what we think ‘beautiful’ is.) These women are tapping into some kind of arresting self-assurance and inner light. I can think of a few women right now who do it. You think they’re beautiful and then you say, well, they’re not conventionally beautiful but they’re pulling off something that’s very lovely and stunning.

I couldn’t tell you how to get there, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by using a tube of makeup or hair coloring.

As a tween and teen, I did all the things. I read all the library books and paperback books I could find on beauty by the likes of Revlon or Raquel Welch or Christie Brinkley. I did all the hair and face things. I did aerobics religiously. I didn’t spend a single day in high school without my finger nails painted. It seems ridiculous to me now. I mean it’s fun to paint your fingernails. It really is. I still do it. But to feel you have to do it every day is a problem. Because it doesn’t really matter. And I didn’t even need to compare myself to famous women. I had a charismatic, elegant comparison in my own house, my grandmother. To tell you what kind of an “influencer” she was, you just have to meet all the Katharines in my family named after her. I would never measure up, I was sure of it. She was the thinnest, most effortlessly glamourous person and more interesting than any woman on TV; and by the way, her fingernails were painted every single day. The only time I saw her without her nails painted was when she was in the hospital and it was shocking.  I never for one second thought I could pull of a Cher. That never even occurred to me as do-able.  But at least I had the genetics of my grandmother. That seemed somehow do-able. And I went to great and dangerous lengths trying to do it.

I’m probably closer than I’ve ever been to understanding the charisma of my grandmother (because I’m nearing the age she was when I knew her and have had a lifetime to understand her possible struggles and feelings) and still I only paint my nails once in a while. It was never about the fingernails.

There’s a back door into this idea of beauty, is what I think I am trying to say. It’s not a front door. The paint job is only the front door.  And if you find you don’t have time to brush your long hair, “trust me” you will survive.

We lose ground in constant comparisons. They are irrelevant. Celebrity culture makes this  worse. Advertising makes this worse. You have to shut all that down. While you’re comparing yourself to Cher, she was comparing herself to someone else impossible for her to emulate (and that was Audrey Hepburn). It’s a dead end.

Since the mid-60s I have no doubt Cher has received thousands of fan letters telling her how beautiful she is. The letters probably increased significantly in the 1970s when she was a TV glamour goddess and the most photographed woman in America, if not the world.  More photographed than Diane Von Furstenberg even!

Fast-forward to the set of Silkwood with Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols in the early 1980s. I have a friend from High School and we were talking recently about Elaine Mae and Mike Nichols and so she sent me an excerpt she had on Silkwood from a Mike Nichols’ biography. I just read it last night. Here’s the relevant part:

“[Nichols] told Cher that he didn’t want her character to wear makeup. She was so nervous she wept—’I am so convincingly ugly,’ she said.”

Whaaaat? The makeup story is a famous Cher-Silkwood story but I had never heard that quote before and it just kills me! Cher was still beautiful in Silkwood! As I said in Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 1, we’re not always the best judges of ourselves (for good or bad).

Dear Cher, Nobody loves me. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it happens to be true. I am 13 and quiet and sort of bashful. When I try to talk to people, I stammer; and when people talk to me, I blush. My life is so unhappy. Is there anything you can do to help me? Scared

Cher’s Response:

Dear Scared, Don’t worry so much—you’re not alone in this terrible predicament. Guess what? I went through exactly the same phase when I was your age [which, let’s be honest, was six years ago]. I guess it is just a part of those awful growing pains. I think it would help you if you would try to find one good girl friend. It’s harder to get to know a group than just one individual. There must be one girl who seems a bit friendly towards you. Don’t hold back with her. Do something like asking her for help on a homework problem, or about how she gets her hair to go a certain way. Show an interest in her—and in others. If you can manage to compliment people in a sincere way—and there is something good to compliment in everyone—well, they can’t help but get to like you. Don’t be afraid of speaking to yourself in the mirror—out loud, I mean. I don’t care if it is just counting to ten, it will help you to get over the habit of not every uttering a word, and it will be a sure cure for your stammer. You don’t have to be a tiger, hon—but try to be just a bit of a ‘tigress.’ Good luck.’

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Tiger? Wha? Have we moved on to the bedroom? I’m confused.

Okay, compliments. Those are good, always appreciated. But you can go too far with compliments and you can actually get into trouble if you over-compliment or complement on a trigger subject. So stick to sincere feelings and strategically deploy it. Don’t blanket complement. Don’t complement to change the subject or as a diversion of any kind. Because then, your whole complementing apparatus becomes suspect and you’re right back to where you started.

My friend Christopher taught me a good lesson in conversation skills. I took him once to an art gallery in Taos, New Mexico, and he spent an hour chatting with the proprietor. We didn’t have time for anything else. But I was amazed he could do this for such a long time with a stranger.  He later said you can get anyone talking just by being curious and asking them questions and then seeing where that goes. People love to talk about themselves. And if you’re genuinely interested, you can play it as it lays. Be in the moment. Follow the threads.

Chats with the mirror aren’t a bad idea either. Inner dialogue. Get to know your self.

Cher has always said she is very shy and was once paralyzingly shy. She’s said she was even too shy sometimes to sing in front of just Sonny.

Possibly she’s an introvert, too, and you can’t turn an introvert into an extrovert. Their brains are actually wired differently. But you can learn how to communicate more effectively with others. And if you can learn some of these things at 13, you will not have to undo a lifetime of bad habits so good for you.

Cher was an early fan of the movie Dumbo. And like Dumbo, she had a feather to get her through anxious moments. This feather’s name was Sonny.

When I was a tween, I had to set myself a goal. I had a girl gang in Albuquerque. We did things like steal lawn ornaments and write FUCK on the sidewalks with chalky New Mexican rocks. I was on track to become a real problem child until we moved to St. Louis and I feel in with the wrong crowd, a group of nerdy bookworms. But it took some work.

My biggest problem was also bashfulness. Mine took the form of being terrified to express an opinion. Because I knew I would be judged for having an incorrect one. I was at my friend Jayne’s house one morning after a sleepover. She was asking me which box of breakfast cereal I wanted to eat from their pantry of many cereals and I was like, “Uhhhh…which one do you want?” and she lost her shit. “Like just pick a goddamn cereal already so we can eat breakfast.”

I decided right then that I would have one opinion a day. (Sigh. True story.) I even practiced having one opinion a day with my other friends Lillian and Diana. They’d be on there way over to my house and I would think, “Ok, get ready to have an opinion.”

And I started having opinions and it worked out really well and now I have too many.

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

 

Kiss-and-Tell Autobiographies

June 24, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I was using an online bootleg of Sonny & Me; Cher Remembers to finish documenting what was in that TV special and I discovered at the end of the bootleg were some Entertainment Tonight segments from 1998 tagged on, including interviews of Cher on the set of the movie Tea with Mussolini responding to news about Mary Bono helping mount a TV movie about Sonny & Cher based on Sonny’s 1991 kiss-and-tell biography. It was around this time when Mary Bono started to come across as not-a-friend-of-Cher, this biopic news coming after Sonny’s funeral bruhaha died down.

It wasn’t the first gossip of tension there. It was rumored Cher took issue with some of the things Mary Bono had been revealing around Sonny’s late-life struggles with prescription drugs. Cher, like a regular Italian mafioso, was rumored to want to keep such news in the family.

I don’t know where to put this TV movie, to be honest, for various reasons. The origin of it, Sonny’s book, like Sonny himself was “a mixed bag” (as Cher has said recently). There were some good behind-the-music stuff in the book, but then he goes and talks about his sex life with Cher. Icky but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The movie didn’t crawl into bed with the sex storyline which was good. Although I have to admit I do have a fascination with “the Sonny & Cher Bedroom” but only up to stories about them having sex. For me, Sonny &  Cher were more like my fantasy parents. And who wants to go there with their real or fantasy parents? I prefer the quaint stories of Cher reading a book all night in the master bathroom or her wanting to keep the TV on all night to sleep, bedroom stories which sounds interesting in a sort of innocent, albeit still groovy, way. The bedroom seems symbolic for Cher as the core of the house. She has for decades held court in her bedrooms over interviews and Sonny & Cher even captured their bedroom on their last album cover.

The biggest problem I have with the movie, which is the problem I have  with any Sonny & Cher re-enactment, is that it is always hella-boring. And Sonny & Cher were anything but boring characters. It all just proves how completely inimitable they both are, Sonny too. Not to mention that the re-enactments keep portraying Sonny incorrectly, like a happy-go-lucky, trod-upon, luckless, aw-shucks fellow. And that is so far off-the mark when you consider the portrayal of anyone who has ever described Sonny: his family, his friends, his colleagues, his ex-wives. It’s not even an accurate on-stage read of Sonny. And you can tell this if you just pay attention. What we continue to get are just cliched readings of Sonny, dismissive shallow looks. And it is so annoying, a disservice to both Sonny and Cher.

I also don’t know where to place the movie in the Cher-o-sphere. It’s not a TV special but it is a legitimate moment of Cher history (for good or bad). It’s not a TV appearance. A network movie has been made depicting her life. So which bucket does it live in?

I do have Sonny’s book listed on by Book page. It’s Sonny’s documented point-of-view. You can’t fully dismiss it.

Cher Universe just published an MTV Rockline interview from the early 1990s which includes Cher response to Sonny’s book when it came out. Cher maintains in the interview that she did very much want to refute much of what Sonny said in his book but decided she didn’t want to kiss-and-tell. She wasn’t going to respond in kind.

To be fair, Sonny did some great things for Cher and he did some horrible things to Cher. His evaluation of their career are valuable. But his tales of their private sex life comes across as seedy and self-serving. And since we have to go there, (like walking in on your fantasy parents having sex), I feel I have to dance around what he said. And I just want to say that when you’re considering healthy sex between two people, it stands to reason that a 16-year old in a relationship with a 27-year old might be a different sexual relationship than a twenty-something TV star will have with a rock star of approximately the same age, or a forty-something rock/movie star will have with a younger man or whatever the combinations are. Different relationships have their own energy systems.

And why are we even talking about this? Because Sonny’s comments weren’t meant to be anything but tales out of school, the jackpot gossip of “What was it like to sleep with Cher?” (at best) or designed to continue to make Cher feel bad in a public space (at worst), like a punishment for a separate success that had occurred without him. In any case, not a loving or paternal move.

Cher didn’t respond in-kind and I think that says a lot about her character. After Sonny died, she became even more protective. Since then, for years she said she wouldn’t tell her story until “everybody has died.” Well, everyone has pretty much died and she still seems to be struggling with it. She still doesn’t want to throw anyone under the bus, I think she has recently said.

Telling your story is important, but it’s tricky, no doubt. What greater purpose can your stories serve? Fans are interested in details and things we might not know, how things came to be. What were the disappointments and joys we don’t know about.

On the borderlines, maybe it would be good to stick to feelings. We truly own our feelings, after all.

On a micro-level people deal with this every day: how much should I tell my friends and family? Sharing stories creates intimacy between people. But how much intimacy do you want?  Whatever the case, we all own the story of our own lives.

Maybe it’s like talking to a therapist. You’ll get nowhere in self-discovery unless you try to be as fair to all parties involved as you can be. Maybe that’s a good rubric for public stories as well. A balance in all blame and kudos; humility in all stories.

I like Cher in June, How ‘Bout You?

June 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Cher was at the re-opening of The Abbey last night in West Hollywood. Here are some news stories:

https://variety.com/2024/scene/columns/cher-lgbtq-community-the-abbey-1236044264/

https://www.losangelesblade.com/2024/06/21/abbey-launches-new-era-with-star-studded-party/

TV Appearances

And the Cher TV page is now caught up with televised spring events.

I’ve also been working on the TV specials. I still have a cleanup to do on the variety shows, but I keep gravitating to these reviews of the specials.

I recently finished Celebration at Caesars (1982), Extravaganza: Live at the Mirage (1991) and Sonny & Me: Cher Remembers (1998),

We have four more to go. Track the progress at: https://www.cherscholar.com/tv/.

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 2

June 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

So here we are with the next installment of Sonny & Cher’s advice column in 16 Magazine. I’ve stapled them together randomly and this is the second in line. And it’s a doozy.

This was so arduous a question, Sonny & Cher took up the whole column to answer it.

Let’s try to hit this awkward topic head on, the way Sonny & Cher did (or their handlers) back in the mid-60s. And there’s so much to unpack here in this list, Cher Scholar is going to respond differently than she did in Part 1. We’ll take the responses point by point.

How Do You Know When He Cares?

Dear Cher,

[CS: Notice this is addressed to Cher only but Sonny will weigh in too (unasked) at the end with some emblematic Sonnysplaining; but Sonny’s advice is actually better so…  In fact, Cher’s answers feel a bit off-track to me in that they assume a lot, like they assume our young lady is on friendly ground with this fellow already and that they’re already doing things together. This makes me wonder if these were actually aspects of Cher’s relationship with Sonny, things that had really happened between Cher and Sonny. They did move from friends to lovers so her antennas were probably set to these particular relationship markers. She’s only a teenager, after all, or barely into her twenties at this point in time. And immature at that. Still solidly more girl than woman here. So can she be expected to be giving expert relationship advice? Sonny, who is 11 years older and a likely player to boot, probably has some bankable dish for us!]

“I am 14 years old and there is a boy who lives near me whom I like very, very much. [What 14 year old uses the formal whom in a question about a boy?] I think he likes me too, but I’m not sure. I see him from time to time in the neighborhood, downtown, and at sports and social gatherings. I really think he likes me. Please let me know ho I can tell whether he likes me or not.”  IN LOVE, Meridian, Miss.”

Cher’s Response:

Dear In Love, Both Sonny and I read your letter with great interest. I, as a girl, made up a list of the things that I feel are dead giveaways—showing when a boy really likes a girl. When you get through reading my list—read on cos Sonny will give you the very necessary “boy’s point of view”. Here’s my list. Best of luck!:

[Oy. The colon after the exclamation point!:!]

+ He smiles or speaks to you when he’s alone, but becomes bashful when he’s with his friends.

[CS: Bashful is such a great word; This describes what appears to be a literal Grease situation. This could be a positive indicator, in a fantastical movie maybe. It could also mean he’s just being a dick. Roxanne Gay has a harrowing rape story in Bad Feminist along these same girl-confusing lines. Behavior around friends could be a big red flag. Sorry to deflate everyone’s Danny Zucko fantasies. That nightmare aside, I can totally see there being a public and private, behind-closed-doors-with-Cher Sonny. I always say don’t be quick to judge couples, because behind closed doors people are very different. And although that’s true, it’s not a great place to judge early behavior around, especially with people you really don’t know that well. Here is a photo of Cher meeting all of Sonny’s friends:]

 

+ At parties (or local hangouts), you occasionally catch him staring at you.

[CS: One time in high school biology class this happened to me and the guy turned out to be gay. He was just trying to deconstruct my fashion sense or lack thereof. Not failsafe is all I’m saying. And in Sonny’s case, he was probably staring at every blonde that came by.  And it’s worth noting that three of the four women he married were not blondes. Men staring, I don’t know about that as a reliable rubric.]

+ He sends a Valentine or a friendship card [what’s a friendship card?] anonymously – but you know it’s from him.

[CS: Ok, I know I’m being a negative-Nellie here but this is terrible advice. If something is anonymous, by definition…you do not know who it is. Very dangerous terrain and potentially embarrassing to make assumptions. You don’t know. End stop. I’ve seen this end badly for people. Intuition is not evidence.]

+ You compliment him regarding a shirt or a sweater that he wears, and you notice that he wears it more often.

[CS: Ok, this seems reasonable.]

+ He asks if you would like to go for a ride in his car, and when he comes to pick you up you can tell that he must have spent hours polishing it.

[CS: This is a good sign no doubt–effort–but like point one above you should be careful about rides in cars. Unfortunately, the whole “go for a ride in their car thing” has changed in the modern era of both First 48 and Snapped. I’ve had a few close calls where I had to think fast on my feet (or think fast in the passenger seat). And I’m sure I have fewer stories than most people.  I’ve taken a few rides I should not have. One time I found myself with the son of someone I worked with at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy. The father was very nice. It seemed the son would be nice too. The first red flag was the car. It was a mess and had pictures of his estranged kids taped to the dashboard. Bad sign. At the time, I was going to be moving down to NYC and when he asked me out I said I didn’t want to start dating anyone. So he proposed a friendly dinner. (I know.) It turned out to be a very romantically-skewed Italian dinner in the North End of Boston. Over gnocchi, he confessed apropos of nothing that he didn’t believe in hitting women. (Whaaaa?) After dinner he didn’t want to take me home (yikes!) and I found myself in a beautiful but unplanned stop at a penthouse bar in downtown Boston where, get this, he sucked on my fingers. And because this is a Cher blog, I can tell you this should have been very funny because Gregg Allman did this to Cher on their disastrous first date. But it was just too creepy to be usefully funny. It helped immensely to have been living at the time with a brother I could make sound crazier than the date-crazy experience I was on (total fiction). And that is what, I believe, got me home that night. If the car seems weird, no matter how polished the fenders, drive separately (a very reasonable suggestion for a friendly dinner; why didn’t I think of that?) Cher was a bit of a runaway at 16 and had already gotten into cars with Warren Beatty and God knows who else? But sometimes, girl, you gotta drive yourself to those first few.]

+ He gives in and sees the movie you want to see.

[CS: What movie disagreements were Sonny and Cher having? I am dying to know. This clue assumes they are to the movie stage.]

+ He’s polite to your parents, and family – even to your little brother.

[CS: Whoa. We’re really jumping way ahead here. Meeting the parents already? I feel like Cher’s experience is very unique to Cher here. Our damsel in distress is still in the barely-a-stranger stage. It’s worth noting here that Sonny won over Cher’s mother, who was more than ready to call the cops on this adult man dating her underage daughter. In the documentary Sonny & Me, Cher also indicates she was so infatuated, her mother was worried a separation would just make the problem worse. Georgia did try it. And it did make it worse.]

+ He wears the hippie beads you gave him, though you know his buddies tease him about them.

[CS: Actually, a good clue. And Sonny did more than wear silly hippie beads. He wore fur fests.]

+ He’s there when you need him – not just when there are parties and fun.

[CS: Also a very good indicator for more serious relationship material, but premature at this point for our 16-Magazine-letter-writing heroine.]

 

Sonny’s Response:

It’s me—Sonny. Cher has just given you the clues a girl picks up on when she begins to realize that the guy she digs—digs her! But being a guy, I know a few things Cher doesn’t know, so I’ll pass these “secrets” on to you. Stay alert!:

[CS: Alright! The secrets to the castle. Here we go!]

+ He often drives his bike or car by your house. (He may not speak to you, but it’s his way of making sure that you notice him.)

[CS: Ok this is another borderline situation, like the ride in the car above. Times have changed. This could flip over into stalker-strategy maneuvers. Firefighting Academy Son did drive-bys. And stop and ring-the-door-bys.]

+ He starts combing his hair more often and dressing neater.

[CS: Ok this seems reasonable but boys are better dressers these days in general so…not always the giveaway it sounds like it should be. Alexander, for example, was interested enough in fashion to be at Paris Fashion Week where he met Cher.]

+ He names something after you—like his dog, motorbike, etc.

[CS: Do boys do this??]

+ He takes on an afternoon job to have more money to take you out.

[CS: Again, this sounds reasonable but who but his friends would even know? Our girl only sporadically sees this guy out and about. In Sonny’s case, the extra job he took on was the nightclub circuit after promising Cher he’d get them back on top within three years after losing all their money while making a bad independent movie. This is Sonny’s extra job moment, but he made Cher work on it too. I guess it’s the thought that counts.]

+ He calls you earlier or sooner than he said he would—

[CS: Interesting idea, but if we could be much looser with this measurement: he’s not really, really late.]

+ and when he speaks to you on the phone, his voice is softer and deeper than usual.

[CS: Sonny! Good tip there! Now we’re getting somewhere….assuming she even gets to the phone stage. Here’s another example from Grease. Pretty much every item in this column we could tie back to Grease.]

+ He remembers your birthday and other special occasions.

[Yes, usually a sign.]

+ He somehow manages to offer to let you wear his class ring.

[CS: Ok, totally dated…even for Sonny. What other proto-hippies even had class rings? See hippy-beads above. Oh wait, this is 16 Magazine…but still…yeah, no. Now if he gets a ring with your name on it and gives you a ring with his name on it…]

+ He begins to spend more time with you than with his best friends.

{CS: Definitely good news, this clue, and also, sadly a sign the relationships is on the decline when it goes the other direction.]

 

Cher Scholar Adds:

So there were some good things up there. Not all bad, dated suggestions. But what can we add that isn’t on this list above? We’ve had 50 more years to reflect on this issue. In the early 1980s, teens would circle each other at the mall like groups of panthers in baggy neon. It was weird, too. Or alternatively, we had a new version of 1950s cruising, but only around shopping malls.

In college and the later workplace, the deal was finding excuses to work together on projects or figuring out how to set up meetings with each other. Alcohol also seemed to assist in getting those clues out in the open.

Our modern-day Internet has given us some interesting additional avenues:

  • They “like” or respond to a larger amount of your social media posts (that’s how we convinced a friend of ours she had a gentlemen suitor a few years ago when we pointed out he would like every single thing she ever posted.)
  • They find excuses to send you friendly emails or texts.

It’s been my experience that even the bashful have their own tricks, like they’re always hanging around or they’ll try to Cyrano-de-Bergerac-it with the help of a friend.

I had a friend of my friend’s brother once try the whole hang-out-with-us and then argue with everything I said strategy. It’s a strategy I guess. I mean people don’t have to agree about everything, but spread the debates out over a whole relationship, guy. No need to cover all the issues before the first date. Because I had to wonder if he thought everything about me was a hot mess (and I would never argue that point), then why are you hanging around? (The answer which I didn’t know at the time was: it’s complicated.)

This is probably the best sign or the second best sign (aside from telling someone straight out to their face, which is Neil Diamond’s recommend): their willingness to exist in discomforting conversations. A willingness to be candidly vulnerable. Even if they do not “dig” you as girlfriend or boyfriend material, this shows they appreciate you as a deep connection.

You will notice nobody (including me) said to just ask the other person. That’s because we’re all the too fucking afraid to do that. Nobody even suggests it. Isn’t that incredible?

This advice above is also missing its other shoe, so to speak: what should this lovely girl do if over a reasonable amount of time nothing on this list has materialized. We need to let our young inquisitive lover know what to do in case the answer is negatory. As I said to Hotpants last week, don’t escalate the pressure if the other person doesn’t “dig” you. People like who they like and it often defies reason or explanation. As it should.

Love should be more powerful than culture itself, bigger than the riff-raff of advice columns.

It’s also important to note that people often find themselves the object of unwanted attention. One of my brothers was a crush-magnet growing up so I witnessed a good example of this.  I also have a local relative who is exceedingly handsome but also painfully shy and actually grew the Oakridge-Boy-beard like the formerly handsome Oakridge Boy did for allegedly similar reasons.

This is all to say sometimes it’s a act of love to back off and leave them alone. It’s messy out there in Loveland and sometimes you have to take one for the team. Talk to Hotpants from last week and he’ll tell you.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Technology’s Manipulation of Cher’s Voice

June 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

During my nightshift last week I relistened to the song “Dream Baby” (written by Sonny Bono) as I was going backwards through Cher’s catalog one night. This is Cher’s official second recording after “Ringo, I Love You” (written by Phil Spector, Paul Case, Vini Poncia and Peter Andreoli), this one initially released as Cherilyn before appearing on Cher’s first solo album, All I Really Want to Do. Both singles were released in 1964.

Spectorphilia aside, this is clearly a better song.

But I could hear what sounded like Wall-of-Sound production on the track and remembered reading how Sonny’s early records with Cher relied on the production formulas he learned while working for Phil Spector. So I went to speak to Cher scholar Robrt Pela to ask him exactly what was going on here. We had been talking about something else…and so I said,

“Unrelated, I was just going to email you. What are the vocal tricks that are used on Cher’s voice in Dream Baby? Is it just wall of sound? Cher sang the part over and over and they layered it? Or she just sang it once and they layered it? What’s happening there? I just want to make the case that studio/technology manipulations were being used on Cher’s voice from day one so calm down about autotune, grumpy people.”

I had an agenda see? And this is the awesomeness I got in return:

“I love that you’re making this point about Cher!

‘Dream Baby’ uses a wall-of-sound trick called ‘double tracking;’ The same vocal is used twice, on separate tracks, to make it sound ‘doubled..’

It’s a studio trick used a lot by the Bahler brothers, especially when they were recording backgrounds for Partridge Family records; they would double or triple track their backgrounds because they were approximating a sound made by five or six singers (David Cassidy plus the other five members of the PF).

The best way to tell the difference between double-tracking and the kind of close harmony that produces a similar effect (which you mentioned in your question about ‘Dream Baby’) is to listen to the vocals in a headset; you can tell if a singer is ‘following’ herself by recording a second vocal that mimics the first by whether there are different vocal inflections or she’s singing in a different key (usually a half-step down from the original).

Stan Ross does a fun wall-of-sound trick at the top of ‘Dream Baby’ where he ‘wah-wahs’ Cher’s vocal by moving it quickly back and forth between the left and right channels. Why he doesn’t do this again in this song is beyond me, but it’s a keen kickoff to this record.

It’s interesting to listen to the four primary versions of this song: the original mono mix; the original stereo mix; the 1999 remaster and the later 2005 remaster. I like the original stereo version best.”

Watch Cher lip synch the song on Shivaree badly in 1965.

Unrelated: Tom Bahler talks about how he wrote “Living in House Divided” for Cher.

Cher Space and Time

June 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

While I was working nightshift last week, to stay awake I made a list of scenes, movements and styles Cher has been involved with over the decades. This is kind of a piggy-back to the music legitimacy article I did last week and thinking about prior categories I might have missed. But also thinking beyond music. Here it is:

– Part of the mid-1960s Southern California Pop scene with the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Turtles and the Association

– A member of Phil Spector’s Gold Star Studios circle

– Records made with The Wrecking Crew

– One of the first records made at Muscle Shoals Recording Studio

– A top participant in the Golden Age of Variety Television

– Worked with comedy-television icon, producer George Schlatter and his slate of shows

– First Met Gala fashion Icon

– A Vogue cover girl in the Richard Avedon era

– The Crown Jewel of Bob Mackie

– A hot ticket in Old Las Vegas in the late 1970s (the Sinatra/Barely-Post-Elvis Vegas)

–  Part of the Studio 54 scene

– A late-allowed MTV participant but made MTV history with a pretty tame video that was banned from daytime MTV (while in her 40s!)

– Acted under the iconic auteur directors of the 1960s and 1970s: Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Yates, Norman Jewison and Franco Zeffirelli

– Infomercial Queen
Can I just say I still love the infomercials and I may be the only one. In a recent bio-drama, I heard the statement made that Cher had fought so hard for acting respectability and then blew it with these. But did she fight so hard for respectability?  I thought that was what the whole thumbing her nose at the Academy with the 1986 dress was about. Why wouldn’t she thumb her nose at them again with infomercials? Unless you only thumb your nose as an outsider? I am totally fine with Cher going off-script with these postmodern delights.

– Auto-tune ground zero (while in her 50s!)

– Spearheading the big circus live show before subsequent fierce divas followed suit (while in her 50s and 60s!)

–  Newly sainted and recurring Icon Award recipient (while in her 70s!)

 

In the bio-drama mentioned above Josiah Howard can be seen talking about how long Cher has been famous and how she has become part of everybody’s cultural memory because, “we remember it all.” She has become time itself.

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 1

June 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Recently I was sorting through some recipes and I found a copy of the 1960s column Dear Sonny, Dear Cher from 16 Magazine on the back of one of my photocopied recipes for calabacitas tacos. Totally weird but it has inspired me to resurrect “Dear Cher Scholar,” which was a snarky column I used to write for the Cher Zines. (Examples: Zine 1, Zine 2, I don’t have Zine 3 uploaded yet.)

In that Zine feature I had friends and family ask me questions. I would also solicit questions from the Cher news boards of the time. Then, I would answer the questions in the sassy character of Cher Scholar (yes, it was a character back then).

Sonny & Cher really did brand themselves to this 16 Magazine advice column back in the mid-1960s. A good sample can be found on this very informative Sonny & Cher site along with the covers they came with. You can totally tell these responses were not written by Sonny and Cher. Possibly a magazine staff writer composed them or someone in the entourage of Sonny & Cher.

Re-reading them now I can see they are not-terrible responses at all, (a bit canned, tbh). But Cher Scholar feels they are all in need of an update or possibly a happy dose of hindsight. Over time, I’ll try to address as many as I can find, printing both responses, Sonny or Cher’s official response and Cher Scholars revamp.

DO YOU HAVE some personal questions that are crying for an answer? Do you need heartfelt advice from someone who knows and cares? Do you feel that there is no one that you can turn to or trust? If you answer yes to all of these questions, please don’t despair—because Sonny and I are really here and we really are going to help you. Each month, we carefully read your mail and pick out a cross-section of the most important questions that you ask. If your answer is not here in this issue, keep looking—because sooner or later we will get around to you and your problem.

Dear Cher, I have a problem. I am very tall and my boy friend is quite short. When we go to dance together, I think we look funny. My boy friend doesn’t seem to mind at all, but it embarrasses me to the point of tears. Should I find a taller boy friend or give up dancing? Long Tall Sally, Oceanside, Calif.

Cher’s Alleged Response:

Long Tall Sally, It seems to me that your boy friend has done a marvelous job of conquering his self-consciousness about being short. Why not take your cue from him and follow his example. At dances, the couples on the floor pay much more attention to each other than to other couples. I’m sure you are spending the most time worrying about the way you look. Why not forget about how you look and enjoy these dances!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, that totally doesn’t sound like Cher. So this is a ghost writing fail. But I don’t think it’s a terrible response. I just think it can be worded much more strongly, as such:

LTS, Your boy friend is right. You are wrong. You are acting like a shallow idiot if you believe taller people are better dance partners for you. And if you don’t understand attributes that are really important in intimate relationships between two people (and dance partners), then maybe it is time for Short Guy to leave you on this dance floor and proceed to find another Tall Babe! (Please show him this letter.) Look, you’re talking to Sonny & Cher here. Ixnay on the ortshay ingthay. 1970s-variety-show jokes aside, these things never bothered them or Cher even when she dated Tom Cruise. 

Dear Cher, I think you have the most beautiful hair in the world. I ‘d give anything if my hair looked as lovely as yours. I’ve got a real “fright wig.” My hair is dry and bushy, and it looks terrible after every shampoo. Can you give me any suggestions on how I can make it more manageable? Miserable, Atlanta, Ga.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Miserable, I’ve found that a good brushing (with your head down) with a natural bristle (not nylon) every morning and night helps to solve dry hair problems. Try an olive oil or a baby oil massage once a week and then wrap your hair in a towel dipped in very hot water and wrung out. Wash out the oil with a mild shampoo and use a crème rinse afterwards. Try spraying your hair lightly with a lanolin hair spray. Stay away from pronged hair clips and never go swimming without wearing a tight bathing cap. I think it would really serve you well to order 16’s Beauty and Popularity Book. It covers most hair problems in depth. Thank you for the lovely compliment on my hair. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

A book plug? Shameless! But I went looking for it anyway on eBay and all I found was The Beauty and the Beast Coloring Book. Surely, I thought, the “popularity guide” is a passé relic of the 1960s. But alas, they’re still publishing them. Criminal.

M, First of all, move. Like to a state without 100% humidity. Second, do not go looking for the Beauty and Popularity Book. That seems like the beginning in decades of self-help heartbreak. There is some latter-day thinking on dry hair (vitamins A and C, biotin, protein supplements, omega-3s and antioxidants, hats, stop shampooing your hair every day, avoid heat styling, colder showers, argan oil and yes, they’re still recommending  swimming caps and olive oil). But let’s face it, you will never have Cher-hair because only Cher has Cher-hair. And she will keep changing her hairstyle anyway. In the 1970s, she will even wear frizzy wigs. When the 1980s arrive, she will have big curly wigs and frizzy hair will be fashionable all the sudden. And you won’t have to get a  perm like the rest of us did. Wait it out, frizzy. You’re welcome.

 

Dear Sonny, Could you help me? I like a girl very much, but she tells everyone she likes me as just a “close friend” and no more. I don’t want to be “just a friend.! Can you tell me what to do to make her like me more than a friend?  Mike, Centerreach, N.Y.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Mike, Stick to being “just a friend” for the time being and don’t complain about it. Think how much tougher it would be to win this girl if she didn’t like you at all. Just because your present relationship isn’t all you want it to be doesn’t mean that it won’t change in time. Friendship is just a step away from becoming “more than friends.” Don’t lose your footing—you’ve got one foot in the door.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Again, that isn’t terrible advice. I would just rephrase it for 2024.

Dear Hotpants, Love is a mystery to everybody. If any single love-guru in this love-forsaken universe actually knew the trick to this particular problem, that person would be a zillionaire by now and we’d all still be in a pickle because everyone would be trying it out on everyone else. It would still be a mess because it’s always going to be a mess. But let me say this, a wise man once said that basically the likely wouldn’t even exist without the unlikely happening from time to time. So nothing is ever 100% hopeless. Decide what kind of friend you can be to this person you care about. Friends often turn into lovers as all of us morph over the years into different versions of ourselves. You might be concerned this sounds like a waste of time because you absolutely cannot settle for less than becoming “the one.” But that alone tells you how deep your feelings run for this person if the idea of being their best friend is not an option you’d even want to pursue. It’s also worth remembering here that Cher was infatuated with Sonny in the beginning when he was adamantly only wanting to be friends. So if you want to take a page from the Cher-book, move in with this person on an offer to be chaste and clean their house for them but then be terrible at both of those things and finally maybe they will sleep with you. Here is a study in Cher kissing and pre-kissing people she loves and people she’s only friends with. To help you tell the difference.

 

Dear Sonny, I’m a high school girl who never goes on dates. I’ve been told that I have a good personality, but I’m not very attractive. My problem is that my “good personality” isn’t even real. I act funny and make people laugh, but I don’t really feel like it. It’s all an act. I ‘m afraid to let anyone see the real me, because I don’t feel very interesting at all. Can you tell me a different way to act that might make a boy ask me out on a date once in a while.” Lonely, Minneapolis, Minn. (CS: There is no standardization on these state abbreviations! Is it me?)

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Lonely, Try to forget about acting and settle on being real. Even if you did find a way to act that made the boys interested in you – you would always know that it wasn’t real. No matter how many people you fooled, you’d never fool yourself. It’s a strange thing, but almost everyone can recognize and appreciate the truth when they see it. Be true to yourself—and you’ll never be false to others. You might just find that the real you is really happy—cos happiness and truth walk hand-in-hand.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Since when do truth and happiness walk hand in hand, Sonny? Let me take this.

Dear Typical High School Person, You are not alone. This is mostly the teen human condition. If there is one thing I’ve noticed looking back at people I went to high school with, the popular people did not seem to evolve beyond their high school selves. I don’t know why this is, but the people who had the hardest time in high school, (assuming they survived it; we can’t forget that), turned out to be the most fascinating people as adults. I personally believe this is because the skills that help you fit in when you’re young and don’t know any better suddenly seem milk-toast to the adult world. In other words, what makes you different and excluded in high school will be a valuable skill in adult-landia. Things change. The whole mise-en-scène changes. You get by in high school the best you can.  If your gift is funny, don’t discount-rate that gift. You can’t buy funny like you can a makeover. Trust me on this one. High school is four long, seemingly endless years. The rest of your life is so long you won’t even believe it. Cher never felt attractive. Sonny told her she wasn’t attractive. She has always struggled to see herself as beautiful. Isn’t that unbelievable? So, you might not be the best judge of your own beauty at the end of the day. I see it all the time. Not to make this into the ugly-duckling story though because that somehow is too hyper-focused on looks. Adulthood will show you that happiness is attractive. Living outwardly is attractive. Living generously is attractive. This is loveliness you can achieve. Plus, like I told Hotpants up there, life is mysterious. Magic and miracles. Stay tuned and show up.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

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