Speaking of imperfection, I continue my discussion on this topic in my Ape Culture blog review of the Lucinda Williams concert at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles on Thursday nite.
http://apeculture.blogspot.com/2007/09/luncinda-williams.html
Category: What This Really Says About Me (Page 14 of 15)
Today I posted a few articles on Ape Culture:
- A blog review of the Spinal Tap acoustic concert from August 27
- A book review of my grad-school friend Gwendolyn Gross’ novel about motherhood The Other Mother
I’ve recently posted:
- A tribute to Tammy Faye Messner on the Ape Culture blog.
- A review of the final books in the series for Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events – also on Ape Culture.
I had a weekend birthday bash in Palm Springs last weekend and aside from trip to Soak City waterpark, the gang didn’t venture outside our rented house. It was hotter than Hell so we staying inside to play video games (Guitar Hero 80s Edition, American Idol karaoke), boardgames (Redneck Life) and we put together an odd puzzle with penguins. We cooked dinners and lounged by the pool.
Not since my friends bought me S&C’s Greatest Hits (MCA) in 8th grade have I been so Sonny&Cherprised on a birthday with friends. Who but my compatriot at Ape Culture could have thunk up this birthday cake idea. And not only did it take a pop-culture-savvy and twisted mind to conceive (and I say that with love and admiration) but it required not one but two others in a conspiracy to Photoshop my face into this very turbulent scene of Brunschwig and Fils madness. Best not to mention the major supermarket chain that had to make some cake magic with this disturbing project.
I just have one question: does pink make me look fat?
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/
This snarky pop blog has a Cher sort with some nifty pics. They call her a diva-saur. That honestly made me laugh out loud. Remember the confusion between Lee Tergesen and that other long-haired dude with a cap she was huggin way back? Re-read up on the scoop here. It reminds me of when Cher once said she likes guys with a “street look.” I call it more of a “just out of prison” look. And what is that outfit she’s wearing toward the bottom with the plaid skirt and mini-skirt? It’s a cross between ho and hoe-down.
I found that site while searching online for more information about the Japanese magazine Chrome Hearts which Cher is now on the cover of. Copies going for 40 bucks on eBay. I just blew my wad on Cher dolls so I’ll have to pass on this goodie.
I actually love this cover with Cher looking disheveled (not a common occurrence), giving the shirtless guy an alluring gaze. Does that work for us? Is this a play on Cher with the younger feller? Are we disturbed? And is this a double-standard disturbance? These are all questions I’m vague about so I have decided to quiz my bf tonight on what makes an mature woman sexy. And is this different from what makes an mature guy sexy. My knee jerk theory about why girls like older guys is that we are often under the mistaken impression men have finished sowing their wild oats by then, that they’re somehow wiser for the wear and not so erratic-like in the love department.
For women to be perceived as sexy, I have a feeling it’s a constant game of surrender and control. Typically with gals in the surrender role. But age demands a change. I’m just not sure how or why. I just know it’s all very complicated and sexist.
By the way, Cherword.com did some fine reporting, as always, getting the scoop on this and other late-breaking, rare and trendy Cher news. I’m always impressed how on-top of it they always are in matters of Cherabouts. They do the leg work so we don’t have to.
Cher looks lovely in the photo…much less posed than her usual photographs. Reminds me of the Believe era but with better hair. And so voluptuous. And that’s comforting.
While I was back in Lancaster, PA, my parents, my bf and I watched some old family movies to find video of Helga, my former dog. He’s heard so many stories from friends about her very caustic, un-dog-like personality. We came across Christmas footage which included me looking really, really, really stick-like thin. It felt like a punch in the gut to see. It looked unattractively skinny to me now and I’ve never ever thought this about an image of myself. I am now “hippy” and trying to lose weight for my 20th high school reunion later this year. But my whole life I’ve felt hippy and chubby. There’s never been a time when I didn’t feel I could stand to lose 5 pounds.
Much to my despair, I was diagnosed (by family Dr. Vorhees) with anorexia when I was 13 or 14 years old. If I thought I was thin in this video! Jesus, I must have been all bones in junior high. But happily, I got better. Which is not something you usually hear about anorexics. They usually struggle over a lifetime. I’m thankful, believe me. I love to eat. For me it was mostly mis-education about dieting from listening to pop-star interviews and reading Cosmo issues with too much faith. I believed you could shrink your stomach and live on bean sprouts. But still, I do remember the very real madness that ensues when you willfully stop eating. Exhaustion, both mental and physical, moodiness, an overall sense of darkness, like the whole world is tinted over. Your head is full of conspiracy theories (why does everybody want me to be fat?) which leads to a scary kind of alienation from everybody.
I was heartbroken when my doctor told me what was happening. Karen Carpenter had just died. I couldn’t even read the People cover story. I still remember its horrific blue cover. I knew at its heart that this was a madness I wanted no part of. I started eating right away (Lucky Charms as an afternoon snack), gained weight and then eventually learned, with the help of a nutritionist, how to stay thin in a healthier way. But that was a turning point in my life in many ways. I knew I wanted to be sane much more than I wanted to be thin. And whenever I have some weight to lose and I’m tempted to crash diet, I always ask myself the same question: would you rather be fat or crazy?
I surely feel celebrity culture affects our goals and desires and our self-image. That’s why celebrity obsession can be so dangerous. But Cher’s thin-figure never did inspire me to starve myself. It was rather people around me in class who were very thin…tiny body types mostly. The tiny Indian girl who sat next to me in science class.
All that bad flashback aside, I did have a great vacation…although traveling there and back was exhausting. It took us 17 hours to get home from Philly after we missed our plane due to excruciatingly slow check-in and security lines. My bf said we could have gone to Hong Kong by then. Poor guy. He endured a neighborhood picnic, a small town parade with veterans and fire trucks, a town faire with a hilarious baby parade, and poker with my unscrupulous family members. He also was introduced to the Ephrata Cloister, Wilbur’s Chocolate, Gettysburg re-enactments, a Philly hotel fire alarm in the middle of the night, a fun tour of South Street, and ersatz history at the City Tavern. He was the new plaything for all the family kids and was dubbed Funckle John. He was also told, by my 10-year old nephew, that he wouldn’t be allowed to come to our family reunion in New Mexico next year until he became “a Ladd.” I wonder if my mother put him up to it.
Cher is 61 years of lovely living now…very well done. Her birthday was last weekend. Fans rejoiced all over the globe. Drank Dr. Peppers while listening to Cher’s greatest hits compilations. By the way, I recently drank a Dr. Pepper when my office ran out of diet Coke…and this is after I went and said I wouldn’t a few posts back. Can I say I love that my office provides free soda?
Unfortunately, I’ve never been a big birthday celebrator. Once when I was thirteen I threw a dinner party on Sonny’s birthday. I remember my friends all seemed very confused. "Why are we celebrating Sonny Bono’s birthday?" But that was my last blast. Like my birthday, it’s just another day.
Unfortunately for me, Cher’s birthday is not just another day. Unfortunately, two years ago her birthday began to mark a sad historical event in my life…the night when I caught an ex-bf out with another gal at a somewhat steamy movie on a Friday night when he had previously told me he had to baby-sit is his three kids that night. I came to find out, in the span of five minutes of shock and awe, that the person I had moments earlier thought was a stand-up character and attentive parent was actually an habitual liar. Sobbing did ensue. And all this soon after an unfortunate stint with a jazz pianist who wasn’t all that into me, as that bestseller so kindly put it.
They both came around, I guess, after I had moved on and was then harder, if not impossible, to be regot; and that alleviated the pain somewhat but it was definitely a particularly rough time for me that night of May 20, 2004, when I was cursing Northern Irishman and jazz pianists the world over and getting drunk on some mysterious green concoction my room-mate made to drown our stunned sorrows.
That night also reinforced in me what I’ve been saying about LA for years: it’s is a small, small town, smallest town of any city I’ve ever lived in. I lived in NYC for four years and never once ran across anyone I knew on the street or anyone who knew anyone I knew. In LA this happens all the time. Someone walks in my office and I know them through another friend; an interviewer knows someone’s wife whose husband I used to work with. Co-workers know other past co-workers. How could it happen in all the gin joints of LA, I would walk in on my cheating date…in this outrageously sprawling metropolis?
Maybe it was a strike of good luck at the end of the day. At the time, it felt terrible…very bad-luck-
like. I don’t particularly like the day May 20 any more. I tread though it very carefully now…like something bad might happen or because that old shell shock demands my respect.
And it never helps that there are always a smattering of blogs and sites out there which commemorate Cher’s birthday with cracks about plastic surgery next to photographs of her now and back the 70s with pig-tails. This is simply a 21st century annoyance we must now bear as fans of the unwitting poster-child of cosmetic enhancements.
I came across another despicable site this week, one describing ridiculous and unnecessary tabloid tactics, this one regarding Cher’s reaction to Sonny’s death. Simply gruesome in its dehumanization of celebrities. Also disturbing is the reference within the page about a celebrity who participated in trying to generate their own tabloid coverage.
Speaking of my room-mate who fed me powerful alcoholic concoctions I so needed two years ago on Cher’s birthday…she is going through a tough time this week. I was set to fly out to meet her in St. Louis this weekend. We were going to make a cross-country drive from the Gateway Arch to LA to move her ailing Dad. Sadly, his health took a turn for the worse in the last few days. All plans to move to LA were canceled. She could definitely use your thoughts and prayers at this time.
On the brighter side, Cher’s birthday did bring about two fan gatherings last weekend. One in Chicago (pic top), hosted by "Chicago’s Very Own Cher" at the Kit Kat Lounge complete with a "Turn Back Time" martini and large video screens playing "Mermaids" and "Moonstruck" all night. I would totally have gone to that if I lived in Chicago. We never get stuff like that out West.
New York City also loves Cher (pic to right). A 61st birthday party was hosted by Cher Connection on Saturday near Madison Square Garden. Check out Cher Connection’s fan gathering photos.
And one of my poems was just published in the Spring 2007 issue of The Wisconsin Review (Vol 41 Issue 2), a poem called "At 5th and Pacific." This is a little lyric about passion in life and wanting to bust out. It’s my veritable I love a parade poem and one you may find useful if you wind up having a sad week like this.
You can order a copy for $5 at: The Wisconsin Review, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 800 Algoma Blvd., Oskhosh, WI 45901.
Last week I was discussing Sonny’s role as a Cher peripheral. While I was taking a walk yesterday and listening to my iPod I realized this was an egregious error on my part. I was walking with my iPod in tow. S&C were singing "Something" off their 1971 Live album. The song came up on my shuffle right after Verve’s "Bittersweet Symphony."
I was thinking it would be a right neat-o thing to be able to talk to one of S&C’s pre-Toto band mates about Sonny’s tendency to punctuate his musical transitions to Cher or the band with dictations such as "Talk about it – go ahead!"
Did they think that was an effective exclamation or did they giggle behind their drum sets? Or did they think it was just plain ridiculous and eye-rolls ensued? I actually love those little blurtings, myself. They’re a circus sort of "take it away!" moment in the live songs.
And the fact that I spent 10 minutes walking and thinking about it makes me think maybe I’m a Sonny scholar? And I never call myself a Sonny Scholar. But the honest to goodness truth is that at age 5, circa 1975, I was really a bona-fide dye-in-the-polyester Sonny & Cher fan…from the beginning. It was my first aesthetic inclination as a consumer of the popular entertainment arts. So why not be a Sonny & Cher scholar, then?
Well…because it sounds very nostalgic (a) and (b) it sounds defined to just that era, as if my interest ends where that act broke up finally in 1978.
Ah…I remember my innocence back in 1979. It was all too clear we were due for Simply Cher Solo ahead. There would be no more TV shows, albums or concerts from Sonny & Cher. I harrumphed and supposed I could continue on as a Cher fan. Although I doubted she would be interesting enough. I had a hard time conceiving of her as an artist entity without Sonny. I even went cold turkey for a year in 1980.
I remember Cher lamenting how boring her show would be if she just sat there on a stool and sang. Imagine: Cher thinks she might be boring. All too much pointless worrying on her part because that seems to be genetically impossible.
And not only did Cher continue to be interesting, when I was twelve I discovered I could look up Cher albums on the card catalog computer at the library. Cher research never looked back. I subsequently learned how to use those green periodical guide books, microfilm and microfiche machines, and the Internet all by looking up Cher stuff.
But anyway, this is all to say Sonny is abused by being considered a peripheral player in the Cher story and in my celebrity obsession in total. He’s just been sort of the silent player since 1978.
Phil Spector Paper Dolls
It’s not funny. And yet it is. No it isn’t. Well…it kinda is. Choose a Phil Spector hair style.
LA Bookfest
LA Bookfest last weekend was great! Saw two poetry panels, one on book reviews and one on California and the American Dream where everybody pretty much agreed the California dream is dead…but the weather is nice. But seriously, stop coming. There’s not enough housing. And isn’t it always people like me who get here last who say that the loudest?
I also saw Mark Doty read in Poetry Nook. Wonderful reader. Even if you’re not into poetry, he’s very funny and poignant, as they go. Also made a crazy-cool discovery: children’s music maestro Justin Roberts and his Not Ready for Naptime Players. It was even worth sitting in a sea of squirming toddlers to see him. He was that good. His songs are catchy kewl even if you don’t have rugrats of your own. I mean who hasn’t been frustrated waiting for a late yellow bus? The memories are still fresh. Plus his music is as sharp as Ben Folds and his humor on par with both Ben and Sufjan Stevens. Highly recommended.
And no, I did not hear anything Cher should cover. (Oh for the love of Pete, now I have Cher singing “My Brother Did It” stuck in my head.)
Don Imus
This week MSNBC has been filling Don Imus’ spot with a hodgepodge of talk show temps. My favorite early morning radio show host, Stephanie Miller took over early this week. Seeing as Cher was an occasional Imus show call-in, particularly regarding US troop support, I wonder where she is turning for her morning radio needs. Does she miss Imus? Was she ever disturbed by his occasional off-color commentary? I suppose she is probably reluctant to turn the dial over to Howard Stern (who I used to listen to quite happily before he went cable, but who wouldn’t discuss US Troop issues with her as much as he’d inquire about the apparatus size of each of her former lovers).
I love this hoodie look for Cher! I can’t find words to describe how refreshing it is to see Cher in something I would wear.
I just want to continue my Luddite-esqe rant on technology for a minute. (Please keep in mind my day job and the publishing work that I do heavily uses the very technology I am ranting against at this moment and I’m not unaware of that.)
That said – I went to a meeting yesterday for a new calendaring software let’s just call MeetingSpam. It’s a new program we’re supposed to use for scheduling meetings with fellow co-workers. It also happens to have an email component that runs automatically every time you schedule a meeting in it; but other than those specific meeting-related emails, we’re not supposed to use it to send emails in general. We’re supposed to use a program I’ll call WhatEveryoneElseInTheWorldUses. But we can only use WEEIT-WU for email and not the very robust calendaring system it has. There are valid technological reasons for this that I won’t get into. But this I will say – neither of these programs can be open at the same time because they fight over the same dll file; so we have to keep opening and closing each one all day to send emails and schedule meetings alternatively.
As you can imagine, this complicated half-breed pair of programs requires extra work. But here’s the clincher. For this meeting on how to schedule meetings with MeetingSpam, I was the only one who showed up on time (by about 10 minutes!). All of the other meeting attendees had to be emailed or IM’d after they failed to show up. Excuses ranged from "I didn’t know where the meeting was" to "I never got the meeting invite."
I was coincidentally the only one who didn’t use a computerized product to remind myself of the meeting time and place, either with MeetingSpam, a WEEIT-WU email reminder, or a blackberry.
I often feel like we’re stuck in a quagmire of work management programs that have become over-complicated obligations. I’m often drowning in bugs, passwords and work-arounds. And it bleeds over into our fun time. How absurd is it that our social lives have now found the need for project management? (MySpace, endless mobile social softwares, etc.).
Have bugs, passwords and work-arounds made anybody’s life any easier?
I was the only person able to get to a meeting on time (or anywhere near the right meeting time) without extra technology prompts. How did I do it? How did I avoid being overcome by technology’s swamp of time management tools?
A small note to myself scribbled on day 11 of my wacky websites day calendar.
Nothing beats the technology of paper and a pen.
