I Found Some Blog

a division of the Chersonian Institute

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

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.

Continue reading

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. 

      
 

My Early-80s Sonny Bono Birthday Dinner Party

July 27, 2007 / / 4 Comments

Joancusack This week my attention was directed to the fact that I may have offended one of my readers in a post last week (the petition one). This is highly likely. And problematic as I consistently forget I have actual readers. If it’s any consolation, I’m sure I say offensive things about Cher and her posse all the time.

The thing is it’s awfully hard to objectively critique a celebrity (Cher) and a mass mental phenomenon (celebrity obsession) without stepping on a few rhinestoned toes. It’s simply part of the scholastic process. Doing this takes distance and a sense of humor. Especially because many, many celebrity obsessed people don’t have either of those things. So sociologically, the study absolutely requires it from me.

That said, when I take off that scholarly hat it pains me to think I’ve hurt someone’s feelings. Both because I’m empathetic to that situation and also for purely selfish, karmic reasons. Which is why I’m going to offer up (in the spirit of reconciliation) my own nutty story of embarrassing fandom.

The first thing I ever collected as a human being (circa early 70s) was Sonny & Cher records and dolls. But it wasn’t until I became a pre-teen that I started my actual Sonny & Cher scholarship. This was when I started collecting clips about them in People Magazine and reading their bios in record guides. Learning their birthdays was a big deal when I was in Junior High.

I was also making new friends who hadn’t yet wrapped their heads around my Cher obsession. Understand this was 1982. Cher was way past her disco hit and just shy of her movie career. She was in her has-been phase #3 (phase #2 being the late 60s, phase #2 being 1978, if you consider "Take Me Home" a comeback hit. If not, then we’re talking about has-been phase #2…but that is simply a debate for another day). My new friends were cocking their heads and wondering, shouldn’t this young gal be into The Go-Gos and Survivor and other hits of 1982? 

But my feeling was and has always been: can’t I be into both the trendy and the has-been? For instance, in 2007 I can fall in love with Patti Griffin’s latest song "Heavenly Day" (which I did yesterday) and still love Cher’s TV version of "Rhinestone Cowboy."

And it was with this resolve that I decided to throw a dinner party when I was 12…for Sonny Bono’s birthday on February 16. Now this really confused my new friends. Why is this 12-year old throwing a dinner party instead of the typical slumber party? And why Sonny Bono?

Why…Sonny…Bono?

I didn’t even have Sonny Bono recipes. I just made lasagna and a salad. And as 12-year olds are often at a loss for good dinner conversation at dinner parties, ours quickly denigrated into a daring contest. Someone plunked bits of lasagna and salad into a glass of coke (only the finest beverages at my dinner parties) and the bravest of the bunch tried to drink it.

I’m sure none of my guests ever got over that night. And eventually I had to get all new friends entirely. Just to cover my tracks. But if I ever run for political office, that dinner party will forever haunt me.

So I don’t care what some petition-wielding Cher fan says I said about her. I’m nuttier.

These recipes claim to be inspired by Sonny Bono:

Pasta: http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Sonny%20bono’s%20pasta

Frutta di mare a la palm springs: http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Sonny%20bono’s%20frutta%20di%20mare%20a%20la%20palm%20springs

But if you want an authentic Sonny Bono dinner party, you might try to visit his eldest daughter Christie’s restaurant in Long Beach, California:

http://www.toprestaurants.com/la/bonos.htm

http://www.bonoslongbeach.com/

    

Petition to Congregate in Unified Fandemonium

July 19, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Petition It almost looked like Cher had another Palm Springs house for sale this week according to the Daily Telegraph. But turns out this is the same house as she was selling last January. These Cher houses all look the same.

Has the house not sold yet? Maybe this isn’t a good time to be selling. Tuesday, Associate Press reported that southern California home sales have plummeted; but it turns they’re just talking about po’ folk homes.

“While sales of high-end homes have remained stable, many entry-level homes have been languishing unsold as would-be buyers try to time the market in hopes of seeing even lower prices.”

Cher doubled the size of the $650,000 house and put a $2.4 million price tag on it. This new story also claims Cher has put up her Malibu house on the market for $25 million. But what about the Buddha-build? Is this typical bad reporting or typical Cher indecision? We may never know.

Speaking of Cher not doing stuff we thought she would, Vegas is eternally unconfirmed. That’s not news. But this nutty Cher petition is.

Reference the article “Petitioners Want Caesars to Court Cher” Reports of this petition have been going around for a few weeks. I can’t decide if this is an annoying or inspiring development. Somehow I doubt Caesars has much power in the situation. My guess is they’re waiting on Cher for a yea or nea. Cher will either do it (less likely) or not (more likely) or not agree to do anything until we all lose interest. I doubt she can be petitioned into anything by her fans.

But this article has some highlights. They call Tamara Hampton’s celebrity obsession an unconventional hobby of iconic immersion. I’ll say. Hampton, a real estate broker and music promoter, says “Cher is the most captivating, explosive, modern icon the world has ever seen”!

I love the hyperbole! How would you define explosive?

Hampton claims the petition has global support – but only 1,000 people had signed yet…that’s from over 194 countries worldwide, which breaks down to average of 5.15 people per country.

“She’s the people’s choice!”

The article mentions an uproar that occurred in Cher’s fan base when it was announced that Bette was going to be given top billing. 

What base? What uproar? Nobody…ever…calls….me!

Apparently, fans are demanding preferential treatment and top billing. But how can someone uncommitted to a job be given any billing, I wonder. It all makes no sense to me but what do I know?

If you want to sign the petition (get inspired by our founding petition above), visit http://petitiononline.com/cher2008/petition.html.

Moveon.org can’t even get me to sign anything. Well Jesus, I can’t sign everything. I’m worried about my brand.
   

Cher Dolls Speak to Fan in Dreams

June 7, 2007 / / 1 Comment

Cher_doll_outfit_foxy_lady First I want to comment about news last week regarding Cher’s redecoration of her house from Goth to a Buddha style, complete with Buddhist tchotchkes and whatnot. On an unrelated project, I’ve studying Zen Buddhism. I scratch my head over this new décor because it’s not very Buddhist to have a house full of Buddhist crap. It would be more Buddhist to design a room with no crap, sit in it and meditate on having less crap.

But who am I to scratch my head? I’m far from there yet, to speak for myself. For instance, I am asking for used Cher dolls for my birthday. Lots of them for an unrelated Christmas art project.

And even my dreams are materialistic. This week I dreamt I was walking through a Target store walking in an aisle by an outside wall (isn’t it weird how you know these odd details in your dreams). I came across a shelf stocked with new Cher dolls and related stuff, all in similar pink packaging from the 70s. There was even a new makeup head; and the doll itself sold outside of a box, strangely, just on a stand (with growing hair potential I could see), and a plethora of hair extensions. I especially remember a purple extension you could slap on the doll’s head. I threw one of everything into my shopping basket with great disregard for what it would cost. My dream shopping basket was full.

I’ve had similar dreams since childhood: I’d be in a store and find Cher stuff (usually rare albums with rare songs or out-takes) and I’d feel a little skip-to-my-loo in my heart. But then the dream would abruptly turn into a nightmare where a) I’d have no money and must make Sophie’s-choices between all the new-found treasures or b) I’d misplace the treasures and spend the rest of the dream trying to find them again in a frustrated panic. I should probably tell this all to my therapist.

The aforementioned dream turned into part b. I saw a little girl with a Cher 45 record – newly released to coincide with the doll line. She told me where she found it but there were none left!

What a nightmare, huh?

Truth is with all the drama going on with poetry, my job, my summer trips and my friends, I had completely forgotten about the dolls to be released this month. It’s as if my subconscious was poking me with a stick in my dreams, telling me not to forget to buy Cher dolls! My freakin’ subconscious is so much more obsessed than me!

    

« Older posts Newer posts »

Cher Scholar reserves the right to modify or delete any comments deemed inappropriate at our discretion.

Email Cher Scholar

© 2024 I Found Some Blog

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑