Category: Scholarship In Action (Page 17 of 17)

The Cher Convention deserves its own post, really. So I won’t go into that right yet: the difficulties, the disturbances, the humor and the joy, the disappointments, the sorrow, the learning experience, the community, my inability to stay up past 10pm. All that’s in there.

I’ve always supported the Cher Convention. I always loved the idea of conventions in and of themselves and the Barry Manilow Convention always served as my model of an ideal Convention. Jam packed full of art, education and debauchery. Beatlefest and the Kiss Expo just reinforced that idea. At Beatlefest, there was an art gallery of Beatle-wife art, guitar sing-a-longs in the hallway and tons of vendors. The Cher Convention isn’t like any of that for various reasons. But it’s still a thing worth doing. Cher fans just don’t bring their guitars to Cher Conventions. And how else can you get a spontaneous sing-a-long to "Heart of Stone" going? Maybe someday there can be an art gallery of Sonny Bono photographs, some of which are quite good–I always thought.

The thing is–I feel strongly that a convention should have an educational component, both for the newbies and oldies alike. Ward Lamb did some great seminars for the 2000 and 2002 conventions, but was MIA for 2004 and 2006. In 2004, the educational spot was saved by an interview with Mary Anne Cassata, author of the must-have Cher Scrapbook, a fan book stocked to the hilt with great Cher photos.

This July, I ended up doing the seminar, but not for lack of trying to finagle no less than three other Cher Scholars: Ward Lamb again (he wrote a great article for Cher in Goldmine; liner notes for the Sundazed Sonny & Cher releases and the Rhino release of Sonny’s InnerViews; see also his Amazon product reviews); Jo Kozlowski (a writer from Chicago who helped me with the first Cher zine in 2000; check out her website, Cricket in the Corner), and Robrt Pela (a writer from The Phoenix New Times; check out his article, The Virtues of Chastity). These Cher aficionados couldn’t do it for various reasons.

The seminar I put together was based on the theme of the 2006 convention–The Cher Show of 1975-6. The slide show is located on www.cherscholar.com (under Cher Conventions). You can also find it by clicking here. During the seminar, I pontificated a bunch of extra blather about the show with the help of Christopher Brisson (writer, poet and cultural commentator) and Javier Ozuna (a major collector who had been to some tapings of the show).

Someday I hope to post a whole Cher PowerPoint curriculum with a final quiz you can mail in for a diploma in Cher Scholarship. Feel free to post or email me your syllabus ideas.

To speak to my last blog entry, here is the full text of the wonderful poem by Enid Dame.

Cinderella

Every daughter has two mothers:

my good mother believes in government.

She loves and distrusts her house.

She scours the ceiling, scrubs the floor with a toothbrush.

Father’s been gone for years.

My bad mother is an anarchist.

She sleeps late in a cobweb bed.

She walks through the house naked,

feeds tramps at the back door.

My good mother says: “Your body is disgusting.

It flops and bulges; it has no self-control.

I must keep you locked in this basement

because your smell would overpower the city.

Boys would fall out windows for lust of you.

A young woman is a walking swamp.

She leaks and oozes. Insects and toads cling to her hair.

She draws trouble

like a pile of manure draws flies.”

My bad mother likes to walk barefoot

in mud. Cats and dogs sniff her crotch.

She laughs. She gathers flowers:

shameless daylilies,

bluebells seductively

open their skirts for her.

My bad mother says, “Trust your body.”

My good mother gives me a necklace of cowrie shells.

I think they are ugly. They look like vaginas

with jagged, sharp teeth.

My bad mother hands me

a garland of dark red roses.

They are beautiful. But they too look like vaginas.

My good mother says, “If I let you go to the ball,

don’t come home with a man or a belly.

If you do, I’ll kill myself.

My bad mother says,

“Someday you’ll bring home a man.

I’ll make him chicken soup.

I’ll knit you an afghan

to warm yourself under.

If he says your body smells like fern and rain-worked earth,

if he says your juices taste like flowers     then

stick with him.

Whoever he is,

He’ll be a prince.”

Last Thursday, October 5, I was also on The Megan Mullally Show for one split second. Last July, they did some coverage of the Cher Convention. I did an interview for them, my friend Christopher Brisson read some Cher haikus and they covered the events of the day, including the Cher seminar and the Family Feud game which I hosted. I was more than a tad worried they would do a Daily Show aren’t-these-people-loony sort of send-up of us based on a review of the show I had read two weeks ago. I was sweating bullets actually. I’m a Cher dork. Does America have to see me in action? I mean seriously, I can hide behind the blog. I resolved to tell no one if I found out when the show would air. Okay, not that I don’t deserve it, mind you. Obsessive behavior deserves a kick in the pants once in a while. I’m with the program, believe me. I just hate to watch myself getting the kick in the pants. But thank Buddha, they were kind. I let out a sigh of relief after the swift showing of my disheveled self passed in a lineup of Cher Scholars: Christopher, me and Javier waxing authoritatively on The Cher Show. Hours after this shot was taken (see above), I was over buying a Cher beach towel when the man running my credit card mentioned he had heard me leading the seminar. He said it was very interesting and that I had a writer’s cadence of speaking. He said “you can get over that.” What? Did he just say I talk like Kurt Loder? Which means basically I suck at public speaking, right? I thew him a fake smile and walked away with my Cher towel. Thankfully none of this horrific stiffness can be seen on Megan Mullally. You will see Phil Costa showcasing his impressive Cher trivia knowledge. Phil has entered Convention trivia contests for many years now and always came in second place due to a bad bit of luck. It’s great to see him get spotlight for his trivia prowess. There’s also funny coverage of twins Wanda Corn and Linda Vala, but unfortunately no mention of the fundraisee, the Children’s Craniofacial Association. Did someone stick a very bad wig on my head while I wasn’t looking? What is that?