I Found Some Blog

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Category: That’s The Obsession Talking (Page 4 of 5)

My Whereabouts

August 15, 2008 / / 1 Comment

JurydutyThe Cher Fanclub is back up (sort of) after a few years of going dark. A week or so the site said it was only open to past members for the time being and I must admit, I feel a little shut out, like a second-class Cher-citizen, as it were.

Now the Join page says “sign up today” but there’s no link, only a button that says “instant enrollment coming soon.” But to clarify: soon is not today. In other words, join today, but not today… soon. Capiche? The site's frames are very complicated and heavy to load. But still…I’m ready to plunk down my $25 smacks a year as soon as someone…returns.. to the register. http://www.officialcherfanclub.com/

This week the 5th Cher Convention happened in Las Vegas this week at Caesars Palace to coincide with the current block of Cher concerts. I haven’t seen any Cher group posts about it yet but initial newspaper reports say there was a low turnout and Cher didn’t show. You can lead a Cher Convention to Cher…

2737211608_40ab0a4fab It’s hard to be a super-Cher fan sometimes. It really is. But as Cher has proved recently, her show is selling out amongst American hoards. She don’t need no stinkin’ superfans. Sigh.

Lots of links happened last week. More later as I settle back in to my life! Not to be melodramatic about it but I’ve had a rough two weeks. Where the hell have I been? I was on jury duty (with loud court-disturbing coughing bronchitis no less) and when I got home was too exhausted to even type out a distress message to y’all about where I been.

Imagine Cher Scholar driving to a criminal courtroom in the Compton area of Los Angeles for a gang trial with intent to sell cocaine allegated, a defense attorney who looks and talks like Yeardley Smith and a prosecutor who looked like Tyra Banks. A petite and pretty Japanese-American judge who proceeded at the speed of frozen molasses. Imagine a deliberation scene somewhat like 12 Angry Men. An acquittal struggling to happen: 4 to 8, then 9 to 3, then 11 to 1, then 11 to 1, then 11 to 1. Almost a hung jury until the white Redondo Beach juror releases a angry fist of his racial-profiling-prejudices against the face of a melting pot of peer pressure.

It was stressful but I learned a lot. Did you know the Bloods wear St. Louis Cardinal and Boston Red Sox gear cos it’s red?

In the Cher-meanwhile, my bfs co-worker gave him an article to give to me with some fabulous pictures of Cher’s live show in full-spread-out color. The article is about how her stage and effects were built. The magazine is Live Design and the issue is August 2008. I have no idea where one would get a copy of one’s own. Start with http://www.livedesignonline.com/ and have a good, healthy, stress-free, jury-duty-free weekend.

Cher Tossled

June 26, 2008 / / 3 Comments

Sandckewl I will be on a two-week hiatus from I Found Some Blog in order to work on a family reunion and my parents’ 50th Anniversary shindig. If I come back sane, I’ll tell you all about it. There is a chance we may never speak again.

So it’s a bummer that my last pre-hiatus post has to be about Cher fans behaving badly. Well, who knows if this arrested guy in the news was even a real Cher fan. He claimed his parents worked for S&C or something as he was grabbing at Cher’s hips at Tootsies Orchid Lounge, a famous honky tonk in Nashville. Yes, the man was plastered so who even knows what kind of a ‘Cher fan’ he was sober. And frankly, I think only sober fans should count.

There was a lot of fans behaving badly last week. Paparazzi (who are ultimately working on behalf of pop-culture junkies or fans in general) were attacked by surfers in Malibu. Could it be that the LA public is finally taking charge of an issue the authorities have been struggling over for too long?

Apparently photographers were at the beach stalking Matthew McConaughey and some local surfers got angry and pummeled a few of them. Here’s the LA Times story about it.

But the real story here is that paparazzi anger many more people in LA than the celebrities they stalk. The unfamous also feel the strain. A friend of mine from Larchmont recently reported that one day she couldn’t get from her car to her own apartment building as the paparazzi swarm wouldn’t let her pass on her own sidewalk. She had to bully her way through. Then when she reached her front steps she found them sitting there smoking on them. Who were they stalking? Lindsey Lohan on a movie location.

Articles about Cher in Nashville and the arrest are all over:

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CherCON 08

June 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Cher_300 CherCon is coming with some new auction prizes of note. Below is the official press release:

Cher Convention 2008
The Ultimate Cher Odyssey
Caesars Palace Las Vegas
August 11-12

Pre-Concert and After-Concert Dance Parties With Non-Stop Entertainment
Grammy Nominee: Pepper Mashay. Musician: Frank D. Wright. MC: Wayne Smith, and One of the Largest Gatherings of Cher Impersonators in the World.  Many Other Celebrity Impersonators of: Celine Dion, Elton John, Bette Midler, Sonny, Rod Stewart, and Laverne.

Live Charity Auction by Juliens Auctions
Including 2 Tickets to Cher's September 27th Concert, and Meet and Greet with Cher, and 2 Night Stay at Caesars. And an Autographed Guitar from Musician Frank D. Wright.

Cher Impersonator Show, Cher Seminar, Cher Game, Cher Museum, Cher Music, Cher Videos, Cher Karaoke Contest, Dance Contest, Awards Ceremony, Silent Auctions, Cocktail Parties, Rare Cher Memorabilia, Vendors Including StarWares Collectibles from LA.

Cher fans of all ages and from all over the world are invited to the 16,000 sq ft Tiberius Ballroom at Caesars Palace to celebrate the multi-talented Cher!

August 11th   9 PM-2 AM  The Pre-Concert Dance Party
August 12th  11AM-5 PM  The Convention
August 12th   9 PM-2 AM  The After-Concert Dance Party

All 3 Events – $110 per person in advance, $140 per person at the door. To Pre-Register go to www.CherConvention.com.

Caesars Palace Special Convention Room Rate $159 per night, For Reservations go to
http://www.harrahs.com/CheckGroupAvailability.do?propCode=CLV&groupCode=SCCCA8.

All proceeds go to the Children's Craniofacial Association
Cher is the National Spokesperson. She became involved after her award winning performance in the movie 'Mask', in which she played the mother of a boy born with a severe facial disfigurement.  CCA provides support to children born with facial deformities.  www.CCAKids.com.

Registration Contact: Jill Gorecki
Email: JGorecki@ccakids.com

Media Contact: Kim Werdman
Email: KimWerdman@CherConvention.com
  

Meet Cher! And Other Opportunities for the Obsessed

June 13, 2008 / / 2 Comments

Cherwedding Apparently, Cher was spotted at Foxtail restaurant in West Hollywood this week. Now don’t go looking for those pictures the crazy paparazzi take. Just be content in the knowledge that you now know where she was for 30 minutes one day of the year in 2008. A real knuckle-brained, celebrity-obsessed thing to do would be to actually go there and pretend you were actually having dinner there with Cher. Honestly, that’s exactly the type of activity I don’t recommend. Hey, I’m just doling out some tough love for you right now…because I essentially see the I Found Some Blog as a support group environment – deep down.

A better use of your celebrity obsessed dollars would be to try to win a charity auction where you could actually meet Cher backstage. And by participating you’ll be providing a community service to a charity, which as we discussed last week might just offset the side-effects of too much celebrity obsession, which in its pure form, helps no one.

Here’s the press release:

MEET CHER BACKSTAGE AT HER LAS BEGAS SHOW ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2008!": This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you and a companion to enjoy Cher during a live performance at her Las Vegas show at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace and meet her backstage. This fantastic package also includes coach class airfare for two aboard JetBlue AND two night's accommodation that weekend at Caesar's Palace.

AUCTION CLOSES: Jun 24, 2008 12:14:00 PM

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Visit charitybuzz. com

PROCEEDS FROM THE EVENT WILL BENEFIT: The Jorge Posada Foundation, a non-profit organization established by the New York Yankees' All-Star Catcher, Jorge Posada, and his wife, Laura. Proceeds will help the foundation reach out to families in need, whose children are affected by Craniosynostosis, and provide them with emotional support through its family support network; provide financial assistance to underwrite a portion of the costs of initial surgeries in its partner medical centers; and encourage further research of this medical condition. The Foundation also strives to create awareness about the condition through events and through funding other educational outreach efforts.

Direct Link: https://auction01.charitybuzz.com/secure/viewItemDetail.do?auction_item_id=743030

This week we had a financial setback and we think we may have to postpone the wedding for a year. This actually takes me out of the meeting-Cher-via-auction business. But that’s not so much my bag really. Anyway, even though our party-plans have now moved from a boil to a simmer, I’m still on the look-out for some Cher 70s-era dance tracks. This week, the remix of Dark Lady appeared here: http://bcubsmusic.blogspot.com/2008/06/cher-dark-lady.html

The remix is compressed on that site and I couldn’t extract it myself but apparently you can download a free trial version of WinRAR to do this: http://www.rarlabs.com/.

81ab_1 And here’s a celebrity-obsessed project I can fully endorse: creating your own fan-art – be it functional fan-art like purses made of record-albums or classic fan-art like Cher paintings or even Cher-doll-art. This crafty fan has recreated the outfit from Cher’s Caesar’s poster for the newer Cher doll.
Ae28_1
By the way, JimmyDean recently suggested I use this dress as my wedding dress prototype.  But I kind of prefer this dress at the top as a prototype. Do you have any other suggestions?

And collecting ancient Cher artifacts is another Cher-obsessed activity that’s harmless in small doses. You can find even more Chertiques at this new trading site: http://www.ioffer.com/search/items/cher/text_pics/ioffer/0/false

Go crazy kids! Can someone loan me a dollar for a lottery ticket?

  

Politics and Celebrity Obsession

June 5, 2008 / / 9 Comments

Olympia There are two peripheral subjects I’d like to talk about this week.

For one, during my morning radio this week, the movie Moonstruckwas featured prominently. Apparently a New Yorker named Harriet was thrown out of the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws meeting last weekend (the one regarding the Florida and Michigan delegates) for refusing to stop sounding like Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck. The Stephanie Miller Showkept doing funny between Harriet’s “you’re throwing the election away and for what..?” with Cher’s Moonstruck-mom’s “Your whole life’s goin down the toilet.” Then they’d do the Cher drop “Snap out of it.”

For the record, Cher was supporting Hillary. I liked her reasoning: men have mucked it up for too long. However, I have been supporting Obama because every time Hillary gives a speech or makes an argument in a debate, she talks with the same spin that makes me crazy when the Republicans do it. I know Hillary is supposed to be a great gal behind the scenes; I know Obama and Hillary have basically the same platforms; I know Obama could be a slick as slick is, too, just like any other politician and not the wonderkind we're all making him out to be. But I have more respect for the campaigns he’s run thus far, including his civility under fire, his financial acuity with his fundraising, and his leadership with his staff.

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Kid in a Toystore

May 15, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Kidinstore I am not even going to pretend I can talk about anything else this week but that fact that I’m going to see a new (hopefully new?!) Cher show this weekend in Vegas which means I’m expecting an awesome marquee and oh God….the Cher store – I can’t even imagine what Cher crap apropos of nothing I’ll find there! I am like a kid in a toy store, a toy store of all Cher toys!! Wait….I think I may be starting to hyperventilate. Don’t tell my mother!

My Pavlov’s dog response to Cher product is disturbing on many levels. Main thing being I’ll be 40 next year. I’m too old for this. I am a grown up, I swear it! I’ve been making the argument for who will be president next year for about 9 months now and I’ve stopped letting American Idol eat away at my life’s precious hours. Surely, that proves something. (Although I do like the David’s a lot.)

To prove to you that I am a grownup with other interests this week besides the new Cher stuff (!!), here is a list of 10 other things I care about right now besides the Caesar’s Palace Cher Store:

  1. My processional wedding music. My bf nixed my first choice, “Jerusalem” by Herb Albert. I can’t do something as high-energy as I think he would like (I’m just too contemplative and low key) and I hate that Here Comes the Bride Wedding March. But don’t suggest I “process” to Cher music because that would make Cher Scholar’s mother cry.
  2. Although…I would like to find a dance re-mix of “Gypsys Tramps and Thieves” for the reception cos we need a good Cher song to dance to from the 70s…but I’m Cher-gressing again!
  3. Winning trivia last night at Kings Head pub in Santa Monica. We came and we clobbered. We squashed all the other teams the first time we played a year ago but we had a new team this time and I was worried that the Europeans on it would show up late. They’re on EPT you know: European People’s Time. As it was, we had the start time wrong and so at 30 and 50 minutes late, they still made it on time. And were very helpful to our clobberings.
  4. Ordering Audio-Visual equipment for my parent’s reunion & 50th anniversary in 6 weeks. My father and brother have made DVD home movies to show and my father made me record myself reading a poem my grandmother’s sister wrote which was a huge crisis for me because every time I played it back I got hysterical when I realized I have been developing Richard Nixon jowls. My bf eventually had to tape it for me.
  5. Showing my bf the great state of New Mexico soon, specifically Albuquerque and Santa Fe. We’re driving out from LA because we can’t afford airline prices right now…even with our $100 vouchers. He loves Arizona; just wait til he sees NM.
  6. Teaching our furkid Franz how to roll over. He’s acting very put out about it.
  7. Learning the brave new world of Microsoft Office 2007 products which are suddenly on my new work computer. I can’t find clippy! Actually to be honest with you, I’m happy clippy is dead. I just want to be able to find the Thesaurus again.
  8. My Dad’s birthday is Monday and I don’t think he’ll like the gift I sent him via Amazon. But really, he’s unnecessarily hard to shop for and he never tells me whether he likes my gifts anyway.
  9. I start a new ceramics class in June and the bf and I start yoga next week! Whoo hoo! Not even wedding plans can keep me from the mud.
  10. The Edgar Winter Dog’s birthday party is coming in a few weeks. I was thinking of either getting him doggie sunscreen (cos he’s an albino) or poop freeze that I saw in the Skymall catalog on the way to Paris.

I’m off the see the wizard. We’ll talk on the other side.
   

The Bf of Cher Scholar Speaks Out

April 18, 2008 / / 4 Comments

Chenanceua_2 I’m back from my two-week trip to Paris. It’s been a bit of a crazy week managing between personal announcements, dramas, getting back into the swing of work and dealing with my general jet lag and discombobulation being back in the United States. It will take me a bit to get back up to speed with CherStuff.

In the meantime I will make these two small posts. Before our trip my bf answered a question posted by jimmydeanPartee on March 25, 2008: 

I would like to know from your boyfriend — what it is like being the significant-other of a SONNY & CHER fanatic like you and me…I ask because I know throughout my entire life everyone around seems jealous of my S&C devotion..plus, should IIIII ever get a boyfriend…

First of all, I’d link to point out the fact that this issue of finding a Cher-positive lover was once covered in my first Cher Zine, the answer to which appears on CherScholar.com: http://www.cherscholar.com/cherschool-2.htm#odyssey

However, this is John’s personal response:

I admit there was a time when I thought it’d be easier telling my friends I’d joined al Qaeda than admitting I was going to a Cher concert. But, after years of hiding in my cubicle at work surreptitiously listening to the new Cher-mix Mary had purchased off the Internet (which, by the way, always sounded strikingly similar to the last Cher mix Mary purchased off the Internet, except for some mystically incomprehensible rearrangement of the song order), hoping the ex-Marines I work with wouldn’t be able to make out the tinny strains of "Do you believe in life after love" coming from my Walgreens headphones, I have honestly embraced Cher. Oh, believe me, there were still frequent moments of awkward silence, for example when I told my Harley-riding, Vietnam-veteran friend Andrew that I was traveling to La Jolla with Mary to hear the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus sing a tribute to Cher a few years back.

But over time, you begin not to notice the blank stares and gaping mouths so much, sort of the way black people, midgets, and hair bands must feel when they stop at hillbilly truck stops and must go in and order lunch from some toothless waitress who’s afraid to approach their table for fear of catching something. But honestly, all it took was one trip to the Cher Convention and I was hooked. I met some of the most sincere, fun, and yes, completely obsessed people I’ve ever met (and I’m a former drunk!), and I love every one of them.

So, when you ask me what it’s like living with a Cher fanatic, I’d have to say it’s like 1962 and I’m a 26-year-old short Sicilian dude from Inglewood who just met a 15-year-old runaway dropout who looks kinda hot and I’m thinking to myself, maybe, just maybe, there’s something here. In other words, it’s pure excitement.

And, besides, you haven’t lived until you’ve made love in a Sonny and Cher costume…I still haven’t found that damn mustache!

Note to readers from Cher Scholar: I saw many things that reminded me of Cher in France (more pictures of such to come but here’s one above: the fabulous chateau Chenonceau on the Cher River). It was truly a trip of a lifetime in many ways, the highlights being the amazing food we ate, the mind-boggeling history (from Roman ruins to Napoleon’s tomb to James Joyce and Ernest Hemmingway sights near our lovely hotel in the Latin Quarter), and the walk home after one diner at a Turkish cafe (where I got a little tipsy on a small bottle of Turkish wine) where near the steps of The Pantheon my bf proposed marriage. After three years of witnessing wonton Cher obsession, my nagging health issues (my knee completely gave out in Paris and I swear I’m in the beginnings thoes of menopause), I answered simply that I hope he knows what he’s getting into.

   

CherCON

March 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Tentative dates have been announced on the Cher Convention website, August 11 and 12, for the next Cher Convention. This will be the third in five conventions residing in Las Vegas, most likely at Caesars Palace near Cher’s hullabaloo.

When you check your calendar you will find these dates to be week days. I wonder if this will have an impact on attendance. That and the fact that major amounts of monies are going to be spent down the hall for concert tickets where you can actually see Cher live, in the flesh. It will be an interesting study in celebrity obsession to see how many Cher fans are willing to pay airfare, hotel, buy concert tickets, and spend extra vacation days for a convention in the process, and all during a recession.

East-coasters may also continue to gripe about the fact that the convention is 8 years old and has never yet gone east of Chicago. But hey, Cher’s in Vegas again. It makes sense to co-mingle a convention with her shows. Barry Manilow’s fans are doing just that with their conventions (and if you don’t know, I’ve been a long-time student, if not participant, in Barry Manilow fan conventions).

Let’s face it: being a Cher fan isn’t as expensive as being a KISS fan, but it’s certainly no bargain basement celebrity obsessing. 

    

So all of a sudden all these queens start pelting her with gum…

August 2, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Uninhibited My title refers to a funny post on the Yahoo! Cher list this week by JefRey who was describing a Cher-attended Uninhibited perfume-release party at a department store. Someone asked Cher do her TV character Laverne, which she can’t do without simultaneously chewing gum. As soon as she said that, gum suddenly hilariously appeared as described.

I’d love to see a movie with Laverne, by the way. I envision her with Carol Burnett’s character Eunice and the In Living Color character Benita Butrell ("I aint one to gossip; so you didn’t hear that from me") and I see them robbing banks as vigilantes for senior’s rights); but I guess three months of chewing gum nonstop would give Cher lock-jaw.

Anyway, I was like a patient elf this week waiting for my Chrome Hearts magazine to come. It didn’t. I went online to see what the dealio was yesterday and discovered that, to my absolute horror, the post office was claiming to have already left two notices! One on July 30 and one on July 31, my birthday. (This is Harry Potter’s birthday too by the way). It was now late in the day on August 1 and you know what that means. FINAL NOTICE!! None of these little yellow devils ever appeared on my Venice doorstep and I feared the worst, that the US Postal Service had already sent my birthday present to myself back to Japan!

I fell to my knees and cursed the Gods and made my boyfriend’s life a living Hell for about fifteen minutes while I moaned and ripped at my hair as he attempted to drive me to the restaurant Malo in Hollywood for my birthday dinner. (Which was very good, by the way. I love their corn on the cob and shrimp Diablo – very hot – I was crying by the end of it and not because fate was tormenting me with postal snafus.)

I ended up calling the post office just in time this morning to pick it up by hand. More about its innards next week.

For my actual birthday I went to see Atlantic Records: The House that Ahmet Built at the Egyptian theater in Hollywood. My birthday is Ahmet Ertegun’s birthday too as it turns out. Harry Potter, Ahmet Ertegun and me. It was an Ertegun love fest, I have to tell you…with tributes given by Keith Emerson (geez, what a bore), 80s Cher-producer Peter Asher (very funny), R&B giant Solomon Burke (claims to have 87 grandkids), as well as songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. The movie was very interesting (narrated by Bette Midler, the one of these things is not like the other in Ahmet’s musical oeuvre) but the movie did not reference Sonny & Cher (except for two photos of them flashed up in reference to Phil Spector). The movie actually didn’t discuss the ATCO label at all but did interview Jerry Wexler at length and talked about his involvement with Atlantic’s soul artists including his disinterest in Ahmet’s more white, rock acts.

I wonder if Sonny’s interest in R&B was the link in the chain between Jerry Wexler’s involvement on the Jackson Highway album. Otherwise, I’m not sure I understand why he bothered (along with Atlantic’s main-players Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin ), forcing Cher to practically drive straight from Chastity’s labor room to the recording studios.

Well…I exaggerate. 

      
 

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