Category: History (Page 6 of 15)

Chaz on OWN, The Leopard Moment, Feminist Anita Sarkeesian

February 25, 2016 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Chaz on Own

Mr. Cher Scholar and I have been home sick for the past two weekends. So it was a home-bound surprise to find that my DVR had taped Chaz on Oprah’s Where are they Now? show (first air date: 2/6/206) a few weekends ago. Chaz looked good, talked about new ventures including a clip from a new movie. Orpah and Chaz also had further discussion on life before and after transitioning and whether Chaz’s experience reading as a woman gives him any insight into that gender (spoiler: no it did not). There was also an update in regard to his relationship with his mom (sounds much better).

Disappointingly, I find Chaz can be kind of Sonny-ish on the topic of women. Interviewers probably set him up for this, as if to say “you’re a man now…say something sexist!” For instance, his example about not understanding women involved a comment about how they are so mysteriously offended all the time. He still doesn’t have any more insight into that.

How many stoic women do I know in relationships? A lot. How many men do I know who get easily offended, much more so than their wives and are uncommunicative about why? A lot. I’ve never heard Mr. Cher Scholar say anything like this. I rarely, if ever, hear my contemporary male friends say this about their spouses. I don't think I've even every heard my Dad make a comment like that. But I have heard some of my friends with same-sex partners complain about it with their partners. The issue seems to defy sex and has more to do with character and relationship dynamics. So it’s kind of an guy trope, this thing complaining about how sensitive women are, and an old-man trope at that.

Having read as a woman for so long should have provided Chaz with some insight into the idea of, shall we call it, female hysterics, simply for the fact of possibly once being erroneously accused of it. I simply don’t buy the idea that you’re born with male prejudices. You opt to have them. Maybe I know some extraordinary guys. Chaz has the option to be an extraordinary guy.

The episode also included an awesome update on Linda Blair where she revisits her feelings about The Exorcist. As you know, William Friedkin is one of our peripherals here because his directorial debut was the Sonny & Cher epic Good Times. In just over a decade he would go on to make his most iconic classic. I still maintain that if you carve out all the gore and bugaboo from this movie, the scenes are quietly and delicately constructed. It would seem Linda has made peace with that movie and is also working an adorably furry charity venture. Her eyes still creep me out a bit though! Watch the show’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31SUgyocMZo.

Cher History

Remember the scene in Cher and Other Fantasies where they tie Cher's hair and outfit up into a tree? A good tribute to that popped up online last week. I love how Cher specials are getting some well-deserved revisionist love.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

There's also a great new interview/dialogue between Cher and Zendaya where they talk about girl power and fashion as empowerment. Great candid and friendly tone from Cher.

Relative?

Every few years my nieces or nephews will solicit me for magazines subscriptions for school fundraisers. I always purchase Time Magazine for a year and then spend three years reading it in the privy. In one issue from 2015 I recently came across a familiar name in their most influential people list: Sarkeesian. It’s only one letter away from Sarkesian! Amazingly I’ve been reading about this woman for years but have never put a name to a story! From Time:

Anita Sarkeesian, 31 year old activist and gaming feminist advocate, one of Time’s 2015 most influential people. She became the “target of vicious, misogynist harassment, death and rape threats and pornographic vandalism on her Wikipedia page and an effort to have her Kickstarted flagged as terrorism. All of this because she wanted to have a conversation about the way women are portrayed in video games. Anita is just the latest women writer to prove the law coined by journalist Helen Lewis: that the sexist comments onany article about feminism justify feminism…Anita has refused to back down…As her detractors grow increasingly unhinged, we have proof that her efforts are working.” Written by Wil Wheaton.

Anita is actually Canadian but she went to college at Northridge in the Los Angeles area. She is the other Sarkesian you should be following. Wow. I never thought I’d have occasion to say that.If you don’t think we are still in need of feminists in the new millennium, just read her Wikipedia page.

Cher on the Cover of Ms. Magazine, 1976

October 8, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 5 Comments

A few years ago on a visit to NYC I met with Cher scholar Dishy at his house in Brooklyn. He showed me some thing in his Cher collection, including a 1976 Ms. Magazine with cartoon drawings of Cher on its cover: a contemporary Cher with her butterfly dress she wore to the 1974 Grammy awards, a teen Cher in a green t-shirt and a fat baby Cher swaddled in a blanket. Not only had I never seen this thing before, but I was intrigued by it. I finally found my own copy last week.

First let me catalog some interesting things I found in this Ms. Magazine. It’s always fun to look back through old magazines, page by page, to chuckle over the advertisements, the formats and the photos.

There was an interesting column bemoaning Heloise and her household hints with the call-out text noting that 50 years of cleaning convenience has given us, disturbingly, an increase in hours spent on housework. It’s hard to believe that we spend less time doing housework in total for the simple reason we no longer have to chop wood 365. But aside from this, I’m also inclined to believe this has as much to do with conspicuous American consumption (more stuff to clean) as it did with 1950s anti-feminist propaganda (and the idea of the super housewife). But the whole conversation is interesting to me in light of how Bust Magazine and 3rd-wave feminist writers redefined housework in the 1990s and 2000s, the resurgence of knitting and some of the kitchen arts. I think the 1970s feminists were very right to question the idea that women were made to do housework. However, the issue did evolve.

I also found a very interesting news item on the first female National Union head Grace Hartman. I looked her up and if you’re interested in her story, here it is: http://womensuffrage.org/?p=22379

I’m not too familiar with Ms. Magazine so I had never heard of their somewhat famous column in the back of the magazine called “No Comment” where readers send in disturbingly (and laughable) sexists ads and press clippings. Ms. is still doing the No Comment column. You can search their recent archive. The results are much more subtle but also more violent. The old-school no-comments are strictly jaw-dropping in their obviousness. It’s definitely worth your time to pick up old issues in order to read these.

Did you know you could buy a Rabbit car in 1976 for $3.500? There were also WAY lots of booze ads in this issue…like hard alcohol ads dominated the advertising. What’s up with that? I also spotted the beginnings of the Age of Narcissism advertising in the Ultra Ban Roll-on ad: “It’s right for me!” Or crazy promises of consumption in the “I Found It” ad for Happiness Foam-in hair color. Am I finding hair color or am I finding happiness? Because we know they’re not the same, right?

There’s an article in this issued titled, (I kid you not), “Can a 40 year old woman find happiness with 29 year-old man?” Uncanny.

But back to the Cher cover. What did it mean? The cover art was done by Melinda Bordelon (1949-1995) and it references a cover article on genetics by Caryl Rivers titled “Cloning: the New Virgin Birth.” It just bugged me, this cover. What the hell could genetics have to do with Cher? I mean culturally it bothered me. Because I felt certain it couldn’t be good. Although I had no desire to read a very dry article on genetics from 1976, I felt I needed to explicate this situation. I was an English Lit major…it’s what I do.

First of all, the cover cartoon really captures Cher-face full of delight circa 1964, a somewhat child-like Cher. Interesting choice considering 1976 Cher was very different from both her deadpan, sophisticate face or the more accommodating yet hipster Cher-Show face. But Bordelon captured the big eyelashes, dark eye shadow, and thin eyebrows. Bordelon gave her straighter teeth. By the way, that butterfly dress from the 1974 is still having an impression. I found it in this fashions list of the best Grammy dresses (including the famous green Jennifer Lopez dress that launched Google Images.

The genetics article itself mostly describes nightmare scenarios about in vitro fertilization. You know, because this was back when everyone was alarmed by the idea of “test tube babies.” The author provides scenarios where the poor could be forced to sell their uteruses for food money: “It wouldn’t be the first time that poor women found that their bodies are their one salable commodity.” The author also talks about selective abortions from the results of amniocentesis testing for Down’s Syndrome; in other words, aborting due to sex-of-baby results.

Forty-years later we can see that none of this came to pass. You could argue in vitrio has even liberated some women who wanted children but were fed up with bad relationships. It’s also allowed same-sex couples to become parents and, over all these years, prove their parenting skills.

Nothing remotely in that article could be tied to Cher, but there’s a side panel story on issues surrounding cloning. Unlike the in vitro article, some of Rivers' points are still relevant for many people today. And here is where I found the connection to the cover art:

“The misuses on cloning aren’t hard to predict [and the author discusses dictators controlling their regimes after death through cloning]. “Would women and men project their egos into the future by producing their own ‘carbon copies?’ Would society choose to clone our most valued citizens? Artists…?”

There it is! Multiple Chers! Here I must stop the press and beg to differ! Because if the decades have shown us anything, it is that there can be only one Cher!

In these articles, Rivers is concerned that cloning and in vitrio progress concerns women but that women and minorities were not included in the high-level decisions being made about them, which was no doubt true.

So I don’t mean to fully dismiss the point of view in this article. It feels very patriarchy-obsessed looking back (I mean, the fear of cloned dictators?). But that was fully the point. Back then, the patriarchy did control everything. And it’s because of the good work of the 2nd-wave feminists that I had the more pleasant opportunity to work in a reality that incorporated more female leadership, female decision-making and female opinion-expressing, and I found all of it outside of Ms. Magazine.

Cher in John Lennon’s Rock and Roll

September 2, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

In the outtakes of The Wrecking Crew DVD Mike Lang talks about the John Lennon Rock ‘n’ Roll album with Phil Spector and how Harry Nilsson came in wanting to do a duet with Lennon.

These sessions were famous because (a) Phil Spector reportedly held a gun on John Lennon and (b) this was during John Lennon’s infamous lost weekend, the year he spent estranged from Yoko Ono, the year of drinking and carousing with May Pang.

Apparently, during the Nilsson/Lennon duet, Cher arrived and did some backup. Mike Lang joked that they were like a strange Peter, Paul and Mary singing together. Then at some point during the duet Yoko Ono calls on the phone and upsets John Lennon and he leaves abruptly. Since all the musicians were there and the time was booked, Spector decided to go ahead and produce a duet between Cher and Harry Nilsson, (an artist not known for his many collaborations with women), covering the Martha and the Vandellas song, “A Love Like Yours Don’t Come Knockin Everyday.”

Here’s some online historical mentions of the happening:

In 1974, John Lennon was in a bad way. After he lost a copyright lawsuit to Chuck Berry, as compensation he was forced to record a few songs from Berry’s publisher’s songbook. Using this situation as an opportunity to create a rock classics album, he recruited the legendary producer Phil Spector and traveled to L.A. to record what would become 1975’s Rock ‘n’ Roll. During the sessions, Nilsson started hanging around the studio. Spector brandished a gun in the studio one night, Lennon began his descent into a sloshed hellscape, and Nilsson got to share a vocal booth with Cher (who chipped in on backup).

http://grantland.com/features/the-legacy-harry-nilsson/

As they progressed, the sessions quickly attracted a number of celebrities to the studio, among them Warren Beatty, Cher and Joni Mitchell. Lennon and Spector often fought, and the project was moved to Record Plant West after Spector let off a pistol one night at A&M Studios.

After three months a number of suitable takes were finally in the can, although Phil Spector's habit of taking the tapes away with him each night eventually led to disaster.

http://www.beatlesbible.com/people/john-lennon/albums/rock-n-roll/2/

May Pang’s words

Blogger: Was Harry Nilsson around at that time?

May Pang: Yeah, he came in for a visit. Joni Mitchell was recording in the other studio. When she found out that John was recording in the studio we were in, she was coming in all the time. She would bring in other people. One night it was Warren Beatty and David Geffen. Musicians were always coming through the door: Elton John, Cher. Then Phil would give his speech, “How dare you walk into my session.” I would have fights with Phil, because I wouldn’t take it from him. I was in my early 20s at the time, and I was really strong-headed with him. He couldn’t handle that. I was trying to keep John from all the crazy things that people were trying to drag him into, things he was not aware of.

http://articles.absoluteelsewhere.net/Articles/may_pang_rocknroll.html

The Cher influence on the outtake "Be My Baby"

In 1973 Spector produced a number of recordings for Lennon's Rock 'N' Roll album. Inspired by Cher's version of The Ronettes' Baby I Love You [CS: which Spector had just produced!], he slowed down Be My Baby and another of his hits, To Know Her Is To Love Her. Never one to underuse a recording technique, the trick was repeated on Sweet Little Sixteen, Bony Moronie, You Can't Catch Me and Since My Baby Left Me.

In the knowledge that John Lennon and Yoko Ono were separated at the time of Be My Baby's recording, the funereal pace and cathartic pleading transforms the song from being an account of teenage desire into a desperate plea for acceptance.

The decision not to include Be My Baby on Rock 'N' Roll remains puzzling. The song features some of Lennon's most impassioned vocals from the sessions, and stripped of the Wall of Sound backing it would not have sounded out of place on 1970's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.

The song did appear on Roots: John Lennon Sings The Great Rock & Roll Hits, a rare mail-order album containing rough mixes of the sessions. The collection was released by music publisher Morris Levy and followed legal action over The Beatles song Come Together's similarity to Chuck Berry's You Can't Catch Me, a song owned by Levy. Roots was briefly available in January 1975 before EMI blocked its sale.

www.beatlesbible.com/people/john-lennon/songs/be-my-baby/

So, after the fights between Spector and Lennon over their resulting collaboration, Lennon did gain custody of the tracks but found many of them unusable. The resulting album only has a few Spectorish tracks. Some of the official song selections interestingly have been Cher staples for years: "Stand By Me," "Rip It Up," "Do You Wanna Dance," and "Bring It On Home To Me."

As for all the celebrity backup work done on the album, none of the songs use backups at all or just barely. "Do You Wanna Dance" maybe slightly. Little from the Spector sessions remain: "You Can't Catch Me," Sweet Little Sixteen," "Bony Moronie," and "Just Because." "Stand By Me" is not credited as a Spector song in the album notes but it sounds obviously wall-of-soundish to me. “You Can’t Catch Me” is the song that most addresses the lawsuit over the Chuck Berry song as it was excerpted into The Beatles’ song “Come Together.”

Lennon said the following about Rock 'n' Roll: "It started in '73 with Phil and fell apart. I ended up as part of mad, drunk scenes in Los Angeles and I finally finished it off on me own. And there was still problems with it up to the minute it came out. I can't begin to say, it's just barmy, there's a jinx on that album."

But Rolling Stone's Album Guide: wrote that "John lends dignity to these classics; his singing is tender, convincing, and fond." And AllMusic described the album "as a peak in [Lennon's] post-Imagine catalog: an album that catches him with nothing to prove and no need to try."

Listen to the Nilsson/Cher duet here courtesy of Dangerous Minds.

Other interesting tidbits surrounding the album:

Wikipedia album entry
John Lennon's Letter to Phil Spector (Rolling Stone Magazine)

Cher in St. Tropez, in LOVE Magazine, Harold Battiste

July 29, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I'm back from vacation. Back from a New Mexico family reunion (where there were 93 of us). Back from catching up on CNM projects. And there's so very much to catch up on. So much time has passed. Have we all changed?

Donald Trump has been busy making a mockery of a fiasco. Bobby Kristina is no longer with us. Oft-mentioned friend of Sonny Bono, Dick Van Patten, has passed on. There’s so much to cover, I’ll have to do take it in chunks. Today's chunk is a roundup of links regarding Cher appearances and music news.

Articles & Appearances

The rags have been busy proclaiming Cher's impending demise and her heavenly return to Sonny. That this tactic is even still in use tells us how much Sonny & Cher still maintain a hold on the national fantastical imagination.

Cher's cover of Love Magazine is out but it's hard to find. Cher scholar Dishy in New York City tells me her cover is even hard to find on newsstands in the city! I guess the problem is she shares the cover with other talents. And surprise, surprise! Her face is on the cover! (Click the photo to enlarge.)

Cher made a few trips recently and one magazine had all the dets!

Daily Mail said, "Can you Believe she's 69? Cher turns heads in skintight bodysuit and eclectic jacket as she departs from LAX." (Click the link for pics.)

Daily Mail also said in another piece that Cher could turn back time in hippy bell bottoms. (Click the link for pics.)

Then the Daily Mail posted pics of Cher walking barefoot in St. Tropez. And then even more pics of barefoot walking! (Click the links for pics.)

Then they posted more pics of Cher in see-through pants. (Click the link for pics.)

It's like they were stalking her or something.

If you'd like to see a roundup of all the people involved in the new Marc Jacobs fashion campaign, this site has it.

And here is another website that has taken on the task of reviewing Cher's most outrageous outfits! It's so subjective.

In Music News

Musician and arranger Harold Battiste has passed away in New Orleans. He received an obit in The New York Times. The article uses a photo of Battiste with Sonny & Cher (as their long-time arranger and musical director) to lead the story.

Giorgio Moroder Dishes On Producing Cher & Janet, Talks Gay-Bait Bathhouse Oblivion (Pride Source)

Someone has started a Facebook page to get Cher into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Cher World reports that Cher performed a private shew in Monaco. Some say this is proof she's starting back up to tour again. Here is some fan video to get you excited about this news.

In one odd story from Mediate, Mike Huckabee is shown dressed up like Cher to sing "I Got You Babe." I don't know what to say about this. I'm speechless.

Over my vacation, I was reading an email argument between some friends regarding the recent rape allegations against Runaway's producer Kim Fowley. One friend posted this NPR story about "the cruel truth about rock and roll" and how sexually predatory it is regarding young performers. It's truly sobering and something every fan of rock music should read. It makes you wonder what awful experiences Cher might have had as an almost-underage performer working in the 1960s.

The Eye Has To Twitch

June 7, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Cher Scholar Jimmy Dean notified me last week that the Diana Vreeland documentary The Eye Has to Travel is now on DVD. So I purchased it and watched it hoping (a) to for some Cherness (let’s be honest) and (b) to learn something about something.

Disclosure: I recently watched the movie Monk with a Camera about Nicky Vreeland, Diana’s grandson, and loved it. And I’ve beginning to think these movies represent, for me, a dichotomy of meanings. I recommend watching them as a two-fer.

If you understand what I mean by that, you’ll probably agree that I’m not the target audience for this kind of thing. In fact, I have to admit I found Diana Vreeland pretty insufferable. It didn’t help that Mr. Cher Scholar was listening to the movie from the kitchen where he was making homemade dog food (long story) and making snide impersonations of her affectations. A bit distracting but could I have survived this movie without them? No I could not.

You might disagree with me completely. Especially if you love fashion. Here’s the thing. I actually love the Vogue spreads of 1970s. I agree they’re timeless and raise the level of fashion photographer to art. So I wanted this documentary to make an argument for the value of Diana Vreeland and her contributions. Not only did the movie fail to make a coherent, meaningful argument (I don’t even remember the title of the movie being explained), but I felt like one of Diana Vreeland’s sons: my lot in life is to make do with the measly morsels of substance Vreeland consents to provide.

I was put off by the whole thing. Vreelands “voiceovers,” (really interview footage with Paris Review editor George Plimpton), are a misleading attempt to give the documentary cohesion. Unfortunately she comes off as completely full of herself in the process. Sure, Cher could do the voice over on the story of her life. But wouldn’t it be better if someone else did it? You see what I mean? You can say you’re fabulous. But it’s really more effective if someone else says you’re fabulous.

A lot of the dialogue between Plimpton and Vreeland went as follows:

George: Were you still living in London then?

Diana: Nooooo!
(with a tone of “how can you even ask me that, you silly person!”)

And when I say affectations, one of hers was to talk like she was a character in a William Faulker novel or a Tennessee Williams play. Real people don’t talk that way. Oh, but Diana Vreeland wasn’t a real person. Ok, fashion-designer-person-who-must-talk-with-a-cigarette in your hand…"whatever."

Because the film is full of vapid statements from everyone, you start to notice the big black holes in the story. Like there’s no life here. It’s all work and no play. Plimpton makes a few attempts to draw Diana out about her mother and her children. Diana deflects all attempts to talk about her feelings and her family, with the exception of how she appreciated her handsome husband. Her own children interviewed mentioned how her disinterest in them hurt their feelings. Asked by Plimpton to tell a story about her kids, she instead told a fantastical story about Charles Lindberg. Ironically, her sons and grandsons all come across as infinitely more interesting than she does.

Maybe this is because, as one of the designers insisted, "Fashion is Boring." Is that even true? Fashion didn’t seem boring in the French movie about St. Laurent, Amour de Fou.

I think the wheel-spinning monologues from colleges, (the Anjelica Houston outtakes illustrate this well), reveal that it might have been a hard stretch for folks to talk about her. Every story is either too general or too specific. Granted, nobody in the fashion world ever really seems passionate about anything so it’s usually hard to tell if their lack of enthusiasm is just an affectation of the profession or they’re actually not that passionate about the Vreeland. They might be passionate about what she achieved or about her innovative ideas but very few of those ideas were actually described.

No cohesive life chronology evolves after an hour and a half and there are few lessons to be drawn from the “story” such as it was, although Diana would pause after anything she said as if she’d just dropped a profound turd on you.

Vreeland aggressively markets herself as style and artifice over content. I was never bowled over by this marketing strategy although people all the time accuse Cher of mastering it. And you can believe that if you don’t want to look very closely at Cher. Personally I couldn’t be a fan for 40 years if that was the case. I’d die of boredom, I would! Cher may not articulate a point of view about depth but she exists as a statement of some interesting complexity.

That all said there was one Vreeland idea I managed to untangle out of this mess of a movie, her appreciation of and focus on 'the flaw.' I agree with her on this. Your flaws make you lovable. Not your perfections. People go chasing perfections all the time (myself included) in a misguided attempt to gain love (or attention). But even in Vreeland’s case, (a woman highly whose body is heavily flawed by high-fashion standards), the attraction to the flaw seems more about what this means about her. It’s as if she’s saying, “Flaws are good. Sure I happen to have them. Does that make be biased? Is that a coincidence? Maybe I’m not the ugly duckling my mother said I was. Now I boss pretty perfectly-faced, statuesque women around. Now I determine what’s beautiful and what’s not. In other words, my mother was wrong." That’s messed up!

But she did give us Cher in many pages of Vogue magazine.

To add insult to my injuries of time lost watching this film, the Cher photos are in a paltry three scenes: a scarce few modeling shots, her famous appearance at the MET party in 1975 and one photo with Sonny as part of a scene suggesting Diana was hanging-out-buddies with many celebrities, including Jack Nicholson (who she had a crush on), Angelica Houston and Warren Beatty. Now that’s a dinner party.

The movie was self-important and boring. The translation fonts and descriptive text were affected and hard to read… and that pretty much describes the whole experience.

Cherrants, Dave Letterman Tributes and Cherbits

June 7, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Social Mediums

Recently I also made an effort to check out Cher’s Facebook page. Reportedly she’s been posting more there and happy to have more room to speak her mind. But she doesn't post there as often as she does on Twitter and her tweets continue to make news on an almost weekly basis:

Cher on Obama and the ISIS war: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/27/cher-is-not-impressed-with-obama-s-isis-war.html

Cher being frustrated with the black hole that is Pinterest: http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a28569/cher-pinterest-twitter/

Pure Gossip

Cher is allegedly giving advice to Bruce Jenner and Kim Kardashian vis a vis transtioning.

Peripherals

Chaz Bono is still helping out on the West Hollywood election of Heidi: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3096389/Chaz-Bono-campaigns-help-former-bandmate-try-win-local-council-election.html

Old Boyfriends: Gene Simmons talks about the Cher/Diana Ross transition: http://www.guelphmercury.com/whatson-story/5653999-gene-simmons-fell-for-diana-ross-while-dating-cher/

Music

Autotune appreciation: http://wgno.com/2015/05/26/the-invention-that-changed-music-forever/

Television

David Letterman exists late night. This was cause for many trips down memory lane for the press, including many instances of Cher on the show.

The article describes the taking of the photograph above: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/photo-cher-peeping-dave-offered-laugh-article-1.2230110

More Cher/Dave reminisence: http://decider.com/2015/05/22/today-in-tv-history-cher-made-her-first-letterman-appearance-called-dave-an-asshole/

Okay so I was not prepared for my melodramatic sobs during the final episode. For the past 20 years I’ve only watched the show if Cher was on it. I stopped watching back in the NBC days. But the exit of Letterman affected me very emotionally for many reasons, none of which have anything to do with Cher.

It was time for Letterman to retire. Just like Johnny Carson did. The new kids have taken Letterman’s comedic and talk-show achievements and are now building further on them. This is as it should be. And as the tributes of Letterman have shown, the new comics revered him as he revered Carson.But it makes me sad for Letterman anyway. There’s a melancholy rightness about it but you still want time to stand still and time to bring you new and shiny things at the same time.
Although I hadn't been watching Letterman anymore, he represented "cutting edge" during my high school and college years. He was the acceptable alternative to Johnny Carson who Gen Xers like me did not relate to. Talk about ass holes. Ask Cher to tell a Johnny Carson story. Hopefully, we’ll get a bigger and more dramatic expletive. In any case, Carson was “tired ole” and Letterman was brilliant. The end of his show marks the mortality of most of my early cool sites. These mementos of cultural significance are retiring faster and faster. To make matters worse, most of my co-workers are now too young to understand Letterman as a cultural significance for me or the idea of panic caused by losing something from your childhood and how the modern world is less emotionally significant because of it. I’ve never felt sentimental about aging before. I DO feel wiser, stronger and better able to understand the world’s dramas and political quagmires. So this feeling is new for me. And as a Gen Xer who was very emotionally attached to my television shows, this predicts rocky weather ahead for me.
Letterman is built like my dad. Same body, same big head. For years my Dad watched Letterman, back on NBC and CBS. Both are sarcastic masters. Letterman’s aging sadly reminds me of my dad’s mortality. Ugh!

Which reminds us, Anne Meara passed away last week. My earliest memory of her is on this mysterious talk or award show she appeared on with Jerry Stiller Sonny & Cher as a they joked together as a mirrored foursome. I’ve never seen that clip since. Did I imagine it? Was that a dream? Sad to see her go.

Cher Scholarship

Possible local location for the future Chersonian Institute!

Speaking of the Institute, one of my plans was to hang my Cher tapestries. Remember the Cher throw with the praying hands? The Believe-era shot from the Farewell Tour. I know I had one of these because it seriously creeped me out unfolding it, especially the back side. Over the last 10 years of moving I’ve lost it. Mr. Cher Scholar just purchased another one for me for my birthday. He said having worked at the Georgia O'Keeffe museum , he understood a "major acquisition" when he saw one. We re-opened it yesterday and I was freaked out again! That's one scary rug! Mr. Cher Scholar agreed and said it reminded him of the Shroud of Turin.

Impersonations and Tributes for Cher’s Birthday Week

May 21, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Impersonations

This week another Christina Aguilera impersonation video came up online. She does impressions of Britney Spears, Cher, Shakira, Sia and Lady Gaga. I thought the Sia and Lady Gaga ones were very funny. The Cher impersonations are hard and usually miss the mark. This one is pretty typical in that way but the Adam Levine as an accountant is pretty funny.

Online Birthday Cards

Cher's 69th birthday was yesterday and tributes appeared from all over the entertainment Internet:

An Unforgettable Look At Cher Through The Years, In Honor Of The Star's 69th Birthday (Huffington Post)

Celebrate Cher's 69th Birthday with 69 GIFs Showcasing 69 Reasons Why She's the Greatest (People)

Turning back time and looking at Cher's most iconic moments! (Woman’s Day)

Happy Birthday, Cher! 9 Times the Diva Defied Age (ET Online)

10 Things Millennials Don’t Understand About Cher (VH1) – This one was my favorite!

Cher’s craziest outfits: 23 of the singer's most outrageous fashion over the years (British Telecommunications)

Notable Tweets

Cher's tweets about the Amtrak Crash got some ink alongside tweets by Donald Trump. But unlink Trump, Cher didn't assume her presidency would solve all the world's ills.

The Hill
CNN

Cher and Bob Dylan

April 28, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

Cher scholar Robrt Pela did some research on Cher and Bob Dylan and found this very cool video explaining the initial meeting between Cher and Bob Dylan as pictured to the left.

They met other times, however. Dylan was on David Geffen’s record label while Cher dated Geffen. She also ran into him while with Gregg Allman. See the photos below.

Bob Dylan always seems happy to see her and yet equally happy to dis her in regards to her version of “All I Really Want to Do” and his comment about calling “Dark Lady” trash when she played it for him and Geffen back in 1974.

To paraphrase what Rosie O’Donnell once said about Sonny, “Sit and spin, Bob Dylan!”

Out-take of the above meeting:

Cher singing happy birthday to Bob Dylan in 1974:

In the late 1970s:

The Wrecking Crew Movie

April 28, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

I went to see The Wrecking Crew movie again at my local art theater in Albuquerque. It was a big hubbub there on Saturday night with oldies fans and press coverage. I sat next to a grizzled old DJ who lamented that Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker were not yet in Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He admitted it was very political.

Before the movie ran, pics of the wrecking crew artists flashed on the screen. One was Cher at the Hollywood Bowl. I wasn’t able to find it online but the man in the row behind me said, “so beautiful!”

Denny Todesco, the director, called all the movie's hardcore fans "wreckies." He said he started working on the movie in 1996 when his Dad Tommy Todesco was diagnosed with cancer. Nineteen years later, the movie is getting theatrical release. Todesco used Kickstarter and donations to pay off the crazy $500,000 in licensing fees for all the music in the film.

Afterwards, we had a Q and A with Denny and Marty Cooper. They talked about the Jack Nitzsche song "Lonely Surfer."

Denny Todoesco said the only criticism anyone had about “Snuffy Garrett” was that he wouldn’t let the musicians fix mistakes or do it better once Garrett felt he had a take he felt was sell-able.

When I saw the movie at the Arclight in LA many years ago, Todesco said he couldn’t get Leon Russell for an interview. Someone in the audience said, “I can get you to him.” Leon is in the new cut wearing a pinstripe suit and twirling a cane around like the New Orleans mafia. Todesco said he never could get Tom Petty, Max Weinberg or Bonnie Raitt and said he didn’t know if this was them or “their people” who were impenetrable. But he got Cher early on it sounds like! I was worried new Leon Russell footage would deplete the Cher footage in the movie but she’s still prominently in there.

Todesco mentioned an interview he had done for the Mark Maron podcast. If you're interested in more about The Wrecking Crew, it's really good.

In the podcast, they also discuss the Muscle Shoals movie. From this trailer, it doesn't look like Cher is in this one although Gregg Allman is. For a nano-second at the end of the trailer you can see a flash of Cher's album go by. I was wondering if they were going to cop to it.

The Wrecking Crew website store is full of great stuff now: http://store.wreckingcrewfilm.com/. You can get a coffee table book, a DVD or Blueray of the movie with six hours of footage! There's also a cool Goldstar jacket available. I was inspired to get Tommy Todesco and Hal Blaine’s books after seeing the movie again. They both have sucky reviews on Amazon and Todesco’s book lists only one paperback copy the seller wants $999 for. What the hell? You can get an eBook copy for $25 (actually an outrageous price for an eBook, too).

But that Hal Blaine! What a cutie he was.

Cher as Armenian

April 28, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

A recent US Magazine has the Kardashian clan exploring their roots with a visit to Armenia on the 100th anniversary of Armenian genocide. Cher went to Armenia back in the 1990s with Robert Camiletti.

Recently, Cher called on Turkey to admit the genocide: http://armenpress.am/eng/news/801610/cher-urges-turkey-to-acknowledge-genocide.html

Turkey resisted: http://us.cnn.com/2015/04/24/europe/armenia-turkey-massacre/index.html

The press will stay on the story: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-turkey23-20150423-story.html

Cher admits she didn’t have as much contact with her Armenian relatives but that doesn’t mean her Armenian side is less important than her other heritage. Sometimes absence matters as much as does presence.

You can explore the reasons why a certain side of the family is missing. For instance, why didn’t Cher see her Dad enough? He was allegedly a mess. Why would he have been a mess? Maybe his parents coddled him too much (just a hypothetical—I don’t know these people!). Why might he have been coddled? Because his parents were genocide survivors and they were just happy to have a family alive and breathing. Why was there a genocide in Armenia? Well, for that we turn back to the Turks.

Whatever the story, every decisions her relatives once made has impacted her life in some way.

Other Armenians of note: http://www.armradio.am/en/2015/04/22/cher-kim-kardashian-and-andre-agassi-armenias-a-list-diaspora/