a division of the Chersonian Institute

Category: What This Really Says About Me (Page 5 of 15)

Fan Burn Out

FanaticThe big news (literally) in Cher World last week was that the man behind Cher World is stepping down. Personally, I love Travis’ very comprehensive web site and have for years. Many other Cher sites out there are quite simply shrines. Some are very good shrines, mind you, literal libraries of amazing images; but Travis always published something extra, not to mention staying on top of continually breaking news, something Cher Scholar will never be any good at.

Keeping up with Cher news not only takes a great deal of time but some extra patience to make your schedule available for breaking stories. (Such as the fact that a new set of D2K tickets went on sale last Friday for Midwest dates).

Cher Scholar did not make this breaking-news post because last weekend she was in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, getting a very affordable hot springs soak. In fact, due to lack of time this summer, even my posts will be slowing down. I just finished a finalized draft of my next book of poems and I’m starting on my first novel (very scary!). That and an upcoming camping trip, two sets of summer visitors, day-job demands and a big family reunion on the coast of Oregon and something’s gotta give.

It seems to be a tragic summer for Cher fan sites. CherNews is MIA and now Cher World is closing its doors.

The pertinent gossip on Cher World is that Travis was banned from Cher’s Twitterspace for discussing the fairness of how meet-and-greet access was being made available and whether or not there is a Cher clique of extra-special fans.

I can completely relate to the phenomenon of losing your enthusiasm for a fan site when you become a disappointed fan…which is the number one reason I don’t want to go there. Meet and greets themselves are a mixed blessing. Meeting the man behind the head of Oz can be problematic.

My one meet and greet with Cher was at a 1998 book signing in New York City. I would never have gone but I was sent by my co-editor at Ape Culture to write a story about the experience. My favorite part was hanging out with other fans on the street in a line circling Tower Records. My interaction with Cher was uncomfortable and without any meaning I can define. After all, what do you say to a stranger?

Offering up nothing to say is inappropriate. I found this out years earlier when I met poet Adrienne Rich in New Jersey at the Dodge Poetry Festival. Although I respected Rich, I was not a fan — even though I somehow found myself in a line of them to get a book signed by her. My silence was met with sour disapproval. So for Cher, I tried to come up with something interesting to say. A futile exercise becasue how can you guess what a stranger will find interesting?

Neither of these meets were substantial or awful enough to change my respective feelings about either media personality but I did have one meet and greet that did. For years I had a crush on a well-known lead singer. When I heard he was offering meet and greets for a charity function in Las Vegas, I bought two tickets and dragged my only close friend from Los Angeles to the show. Unfortunately, my friend felt the charity concert was too loud and he plugged his ears for much of the time. This was a pretty small venue and let’s just say that during the resulting meet and greets, friendliness did not ensue. A year later there was a blow up on this singer's own website, a blowup allegedly between the singer and his longtime web assistant. Gossip-filled web posts and emails were exchanged between fans.

These behind the scenes snafus did a lot to disengage my celebrity obsession. Events like this, even when the drama dies down, provide a kind of perspective in the guise of an exit door.

Cher probably does have her cliques and mean-girl moments. Although she sure seems to have less drama surrounding her than most celebrities. But that’s still too much celebrity drama for me.

In full disclosure, I have entered two or three fan contests going back to that one for Not.Com.mercial and I did join one or two fan clubs. The last online Cher fan club never bothered to respond to my emails about being unable to access their site after I paid my dues. I had to literally stop a charge on my credit card to extract myself. Cher conventions have been fun to participate in but are full of their own dramas as well.

This time around, I didn’t even know Cher was doing meet and greets.

And now that I do know, these kinds of things should go to better fans than me. I’m not a good soldier. I’m not a good zombie.  In fact, I will go as far to say Cher the person is a threat to my enjoyment of Cher the product.

But I can relate to the other side of it, too. I have fans myself—three of them including Mr. Cher Scholar! That is if you don't count those 70 Tumblr fans who have mistaken me for porn-star Marie McCray. In any case, when a fan criticizes what you do, your first inclination is to ask, “Who the hell asked you?!”

And then you catch yourself and think, “Oh. I did when I asked you to buy my book and engage with it as a human being, one who is separate from me and sees things from another perspective.”

You ask for attention, you get opinions. That said, you do your best to be cool about it. But we're all human.

Which is what is especially interesting to me here: how fandom plays out on the Twittersphere. Fans now have contact with Cher’s daily thoughts (what we choose to read anyway) and Cher now has daily contact with ours (what she chooses to read anyway). It’s a contract of the new technology that can’t help but lead to human drama.

“It’s the human element,” my grandpa used to say, as if the world consisted of fire, water, air and human kerfuffles.

At the end of the day, I feel sympathy for anyone involved in the celebrity/fan symbiosis. I feel solidarity with my fellow fan-site maestro who feels let down and the celebrity who may have little inclination or power to please all fans all the time.

Oz is an uncomfortable place. You meet the wizard behind the curtain and he sends you off on some dysfunctional mission to kill the witch because you’re full of expectation and frenzy and he doesn’t know what else to do with you.

  

Cher on Bad Biographies

PeterlanzThere’s a new biography of Cher in German, “Cher, Die Biografie” by Peter Lanz. Cher responded to its existence on Twitter, saying “Don't buy this unauthorized biography crew. It p*sses me off when some *sshole I don't know presumes to write about me. Idiot." She went on to say she’s “not protected in any way, because I'm a public figure".

Biographies are a fascinating cultural artifact. They usually outsell many other categories of books. As a culture, we seem to care a great deal about trying to get to know our favorite people. This is either an obsessive pastime or some misguided intellectual quest to figure out other humans.

It is also bizarre this idea of being a “public figure.” Aside from the fact that entertainers use their “personas” as their product, I don’t see how they themselves can be defined as “public people” beyond having a public career. And to Cher's credit, it must be very discomforting to have a stranger tell your story incorrectly. Nobody can speak to how you felt.

But on the other hand, if there weren’t unauthorized biographies, there would only exist public relations spin. Although a celebrity controls the story in public relations, it isn’t necessarily always more truthful.

Cher is right that biographers don’t know her and likely get an embarrassing number of facts wrong. They may even have agendas. I always felt Lawrence J. Quirk had a conservative agenda.

But at the end of the day, even the best biographies are flawed artifacts. Every perspective is in some way prejudicial. Even one’s own. Although I enjoyed Lauren Becall’s autobiography By Myself, a book essentially made up of published diary entries, I don't doubt it's full of rationalizations, self-censures, agendas and untruths. It seems one’s own self isn’t even really qualified to write about one’s own self. And who are you anyway? Are you who you think you are, who your mother thinks you are, who most of your friends or co-workers think you are? It's hard to say.

And how would we learn anything about Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi or even Buddha, for example,  if we had to rely on someone who knew them, all long dead. We should still be learning about historical icons even if their biographies are full of myths and mistakes.

Any book about Cher is doomed to this inaccuracy: a book by a stranger, a book by a friend, a mother, one of her sons, a book by Cher herself. But despite their imperfections, biographies make a good try at explaining someone’s trials and motives. Facts do tell a part of the story but certainly not all of it.

Without the messy attempts, I’d be left not knowing anything about why Frank O'Hara wrote "The Day Lady Died" or how a hard childhood in Oklahoma could make James Garner so prone to fist fights.

Which is not to say opportunists aren’t out there trying to make a buck off of celebrity fame. But who really thinks the spin Kitty Kelly doles out will affect how we view famous figures? The dis-credible biographers may make some ill-gotten earnings, but in time they tend to fall by the wayside.

The fact that Cher biographies exist at all matters. Think about how many films and books have been written about The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. None without mistakes I'm sure. There are factual mistakes in Sonny's autobiography.

And it’s fascinating to think about what Cher might mean to Germans. Too bad this book might not tell us. I still wonder why there aren't more international biographies of Cher.

Me? I could never write a Cher biography. I’m too shy to do the interviews. But I can speak to the cultural subtexts in Cher’s persona and her works and the impact these things might have had on our culture. Does this say something about me? Yes it does. I'm rationalizing Cher. But that's we do as consumers of pop culture. We interpret everything we consume, whether we think we do or not. I may not interpret things the same way Cher would. But I am not having the same experience in life as Cher is having.

There will be crappy Cher bios. (I just read an e-book that was pretty bad). But frustration just leads to suffering. You desire the biographies to be something they can never be: well-intentioned and perfect. From a distance, they’re all part of the whole mass of good and bad. Having some at all, in some way, is a sign of importance.

But there’s nothing amiss with Cher saying, “This is a bad biography. There are a lot of errors in it.”

BonovbonoDid you know Sonny’s sister self-published a biography last year? I found Bono vs. Bono, A Battle Royale by Frances Erikcson when I was searching for Cher eBooks. It's also available in paperback.

Here is a case in point. Sonny's sister is telling the story of her battle with her father’s last wife over Sonny’s father’s small fortune. Although you are sympathetic with Frances as you read the book, you still get an unsettling feeling that she might be skewing the story her way. She often seems too much the victim in battles with her family, and in minor battles with banks and nurses. There are too many perfect betrayals, dramatic to the degree of melodrama, and yet she keeps coming back as the perfect daughter. And you know what, this may even be true. The point is, it’s difficult to believe the narrator of her own story.

That said, the book was a fascinating read, even though Cher isn’t really in it. In fact Sonny & Cher are barely in it. The worst Frances has to say about Sonny is that the siblings grew apart when he became famous, partially because her first husband was a Hollywood player-wannabie. In any case, Frances has nothing bad to say about Cher or Susie Coehlo or Mary Bono. She doesn’t really have much to say about Sonny either, except that he sided with their mother in the family saga. This is a book about the feuds between Jean Bono (Sonny's mother) and his two sisters, with the father being the pawn in much of it. Sister Liz is often mentioned as siding with Frances, but you don’t get a clear picture of her or her story.

Forget about a Cher biography. If you strung together all the dramas of Sonny’s family, Cher’s family and Gregg Allman’s family, you could have a soap opera that would run for 10 years.

JanehJust as I was mulling all this over this week, I came across a poem by Jane Hirshfield. It says all there is to say about biography.

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

     

Cher Concert Billboards Across America

ChernashvilleWhen Mr. Cher Scholar and I were traveling across the country for Christmas, we came across this electronic billboard in downtown Nashville.

Mr. Cher Scholar double-parked for 6 minutes so I could get this shot (we had to wait for all the country star billboards to revolve around). It was only fair since we drove in circles earlier that morning trying to find the original Ryman Auditorium for him.

Anyway, is there a Cher billboard currently up in your town? Kindly send it to me and I will post it here. It would be even better if you were in the shot.

Send pics to mary@cherscholar.com.

    

Music I Got for Christmas and How it Relates to Cher

I had a late Christmas exchange two weeks ago and I've been listening to some really good stuff I received on CD. CDs! So old fashioned, I know.

Kt Dido 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

I received both the debut albums of K.T. Tunstall (Eye To The Telescope, 2004) and Dido (No Angel, 1999). While reading about them I discovered that K.T. Tunstall had badmouthed Dido in frustration after being told she sounded like her. She said Dido can't sing. Then she apologized and said she didn't want to get into a media war with anybody.

Considering Tunstall and Dido really don't sound that alike and considering their media images are so different (as the publicity shots above depicts), I can both see Tunstall's frustration; but I can also see she was taking herself a bit too seriously. It reminds me of Cher, not because she jumps into media wars and then expresses regret after the media machine exploits it, (although I was reminded of that), but because Cher has the flexibility to be both a tough-cookie and a sex-pot. She doesn't have to diss other women artists on that level.

I honestly don't think these women are even in the same category. I love the ethereal, highly-ornamental pop sound of Dido and the more stripped-down, but still rocking sound of Tunstall. I probably liked more of Tunstall's tunes overall, but her vague lyrics (vague even in attempts at being poetic) left me somewhat dissatisfied. "Under the Weather" is a good example of this. She's close to saying something but from a safe distance. But I still like it. And although I liked only about two-thirds of the Dido album, her lyrics were less opaque ("Hunter" and "My Life" being favorites), although they were less ambitious.

PinkI also received that old 2006 P!nk album I'm Not Dead. This is the album with "Dear Mr. President" on it that Cher likes. Honestly, this seems like an entire album written for Cher in mind with songs like "I'm Not Dead," "Nobody Knows," "Cuz I Can," "I Got Money Now," and "Conversations With My 13-Year Old Self." The album is about a woman living the rich life and how criticism, men, and loneliness all play into it. A great album.

 

 

Mm 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also received the new album by Steve Marting and Edie Brickell, banjo-filled bluegrass called Love Has Come For You. I thought I would hate this album because I have a love-hate relationship with Steve Martin predating my knowledge that he ever even worked for Cher and I've never much liked Brikell since the 1980s and her annoying, free-spirited, faux-bohemian performances. But thankfully, she's over that now and not singing like street-urchin, Amy-Grant lookalike. I liked these tunes, these lyrics and nothing surprised me more than to read a thank you to Martin Mull in the credits for providing the piece of art you see between Mull and Brickell in the above picture which is a version of what is included on the album cover art.

If you've been a good Cher Zombie, you've been reading all about Steve Martin and Martin Mull working together as writers and rarely-seen performers on Cher's solo variety show. They are noticably absent in the interviews of the book and you have to wonder if they are all still friends. Maybe they were both busy. All I know is there is a great lyric by country-artist Mike Stinson that says, "I got your message when I never got your call." Interestingly, Steve Martin and Martin Mull are still in touch, at least in friendship through a love of fine art.

JbI also received the 2012 debut album by new singer Jake Bugg and this is a winner on all levels. Wall-to-wall great tunes in the same retro-stylings the British and Aussies are exploring right now, from Amy Winehouse to Adele to Daniel Merriweather to the Nosiettes to this set of rockabilly and alt rock and country.

 

 

BdLate last year I also received a four album set of Blossom Dearie. In many ways her sassy style and clever lyrics remind me a lot of Nellie McKay. She sings a version of Cher's oft-covered song, "More Than You Know" that is tasty. For some reason, the song "The Riviera" also reminded me of Cher and her days of appearing on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. She also does "Teach Me Tonite," a song Sonny & Cher sang as one of their TV show openers. One of my favorite songs by her is this quirky song, "Rhode Island is Famous for You." 

 

I Think a Song from Cherished Changed My Life

Cherished1Cherished was the last album Cher did with producer Snuff Garrett in 1977. She was also working with Gregg Allman on a duet album that year and this was the kind of confused personna mash-up that probably occured years later when Cher tried to work on her Vegas shows and her new band Black Rose at the same time. One album personna was gritty, another one was pop.

But if you were 7 or 8 years old when you laid your little hands on this album, you may have loved it as much as I did. I bought my copy, along with Bittersweet White Light and Cher's Greatest Hits (MCA), from a three-dollar bin at our local department store, Styx, Bear & Fuller. I listened to its dramatic story-songs in a constant looping rotation. My best friend at the time would come over and we'd re-enact them all out in our living room where the furniture-sized record player lived. We played the pregnant girlfriend of the pirate, the failed actress, and the groupie.

Flash forward 35 years and the Peter Allen song, "She Loves To Hear the Music" came up on my iPod shuffle. I had a weird epiphany about the song.

I've always felt there are different kinds of celebrity obsession. I'm the kind of Cher fan who collects the stuff. I'm a fan of the product. I never really looked to Cher to model my life after, admire as a hero, or fall in love with. But as a teen I had my share of those kinds of celebrity obsessions. I fixated on a given rock star here and there. With my friends, we'd plot backstage meetings and fantasize about hookups. But I could never carry it through (as if I could carry it through). But even if we ever came close to dumb-lucking ourselves into a situation, something always held me back. Some fact of pride actually. And listening to this Cher song again after all these years, it occurred to me that internalizing this song's story did in fact influence my behavior during these times.

Let's review the lyrics:
Cherishedalt

She's just a secretary
at a small recording firm
and when it comes to music
there ain't nothing she can't learn.

Everything she lives and breathes
Is written on an album sleeve.
She can tell you who's hot,
who will make it and who will not.

She loves to hear the music.
She's got every lyric down.
She loves to hear them say
she's got the greatest ears in town.

Hangs around the studios,
ain't a rock star she don't know.
Sometimes they take her home
but she always wakes up alone.

Men that want to marry her
never satisfy.
In the rhythms that she hears

are all that keeps her high.

So they turn around and go
and leave her by her radio.
She didn't love 'em anyway,
not like she loves the men who play.

She loves to hear the music.
She's got every lyric down.
She loves to hear them say
she's got the greatest ears in town.

She's there at every studio,
the first to come, the last to go.
Sometimes they take her home
but she always wakes up alone.

Years will not be kind to her.
Her world is for the young.
Bands that played so tightly and knit
will soon become unstrung.

She'll be just another face,
out of time and out of place.
When the songs revive again,
she'll come to life and tell them when:

She loves to hear the music.
She's got every lyric down.
She loves to hear them say
she had the greatest ears in town.

She could of been somebody's wife.
Music men destroyed her life.
Each night she took one home
but she always woke up alone.

What a crazy lady, I thought when I was eight years old. I knew then this girl was ultimately a loser, in many ways. And she scared me. Who could throw themselves at a rock star if that legacy was looming over you? Not me.

I was conflicted about this for many years. I remember the day I decided to give up lusting after rock stars. I was in my shower feeling more tired than sad. I said to myself, today is the end of it. I started really looking at the men I was dating as real (and interesting) people after that. I met a string of quite amazing and facinating people before finding Mr. Cher Scholar.

I've seen, since then, how "bands that played so tightly knit" have in fact "become unstrung." Rock stars have come and gone with such unbelievable regularity that it makes the Cher phenomenon seem a bit bizarre.

Peter Allen was a great storyteller and the sentence structure of his lyrics: very bright. But I like Cher's version of this song better. Her voice brings the kind of authority the story needs.

Is it at all ironic that one of my childhood celebrity obsessions subconsciously cured me of my later heartthrob celebrity obsessions?

 

Ben Folds, The Conjuring, Cory Monteith and Zine Show

ConjOur landlord called last weekend. He needs to move back into our house. So this means I'll need to spend the next month or so seeking shelter, packing and moving. I'll be MIA for a while.

But before I go I'd like to cover a few odds and ends.

 

Finn Hudson, RIP

I was horribly sad to hear of Glee-star Cory Monteith's death from an overdose at the impossible age of 31. I love that show and couldn't help but feel its positivity and bubble of perfectness extended to its stars' lives. Considering what Cory's co-star and girlfriend Lea Michele must be going through right now, it's hard not to think of the stress and worry Cher probably must have felt back in 1976 and 1977 when she was married to Gregg Allman. Living with an addict, the possible outcomes must haunt you daily. It's probably no minor miracle Gregg Allman is still alive today. Unfortunately, Lea Michele was not spared in this regard.

Scary Movies

In 2011 I used this blog to post an open letter to the horror movie industry. I'm happy to say they fullfilled my request with the movie The Conjuring. This old-fashioned haunted house movie scared the bejesus out of me last week. I loved the performances, the back story, the inter-cutting of scenes…all of it: top notch. Plus a plethora of early 1970s sets and parphernalia! Both scary and fun.

Cher Zine

Just as Cher has been spending time performing in Russia over the last year, Cher Zine also made an appearance there, at the ZineShow in Ukraine.

Cherzine1

I'm sure my celebrity scholarship fit right in with the underground political screeds and punk zines.

Ben Folds Five and The Cher Experience

Finally, my iPod shuffle served up one of my favorite Cher-referencing songs that probably doesn't realize it references Cher, Ben Folds Five's song "Best Imitation of Myself." Ben Folds may not realize this song is about Cher, but it is. I've made one slight alteration in the lyric to solidify the simpatico.

I feel like a quote out of context
withholding the rest
so I can be free what you want to see.

I got the gesture and sounds,
got the timing down.
It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me.

Do you think I should take a class
to lose my (Elvis) accent?
Did I make me up
or make this face til it stuck?
I do the best imitation of myself.

The "problem with you" speech
you gave me was fine
like the theories about my little stage.
And I swore I was listening
but I started drifting
around the part about me acting my age.

Now if it's all the same
I've people to entertain.
I juggle one handed
do some magic tricks and
the best imitation of myself.

Maybe I'm thinkin myself in a hole,
wonderin who I am when I outa know.
Straighten up now time to go
fool somebody else,
fool somebody else.

Last night I was east with them,
west with them,
trying to be for you what you want to see.
But I can't help it
With you the good and bad comes through.
Don't want you hanging out with no one but me.

And if it's all the same
it comes from the same place.
If my mind's somewhere else
you won't be able to tell.
I do the best imitation of myself.
Yes, it's uncanny you see.
You'd really think it was me,
the best imitation of myself,
I do the best imitation of myself.

That's all for now. I'll write when I can.

 

Three Albums I Got For Christmas

Due to my prolonged cold-flu-cold series of illnesses in November and December, I didn't get my gifts mailed out to my peeps in Los Angeles until January. For this reason, we opened our gifts last weekend and I've just started to listen to some of the music my friends gifted me. Some amazingly good stuff.

EllieMy friend Christopher sent me this Ellie Goulding album. She's is a pop artist in England doing very well, an award-winner and favorite of Princess Kate. She was invited to sing at the reception for the Royal Wedding of Kate and Prince William. Her cover of Elton John's "Your Song" from this debut 2010 album, Lights, was the couple's first dance.

I would have to say Kate has good taste because this is one of the best, most cohesive, dance albums I've ever heard. Every song was lovely.

   

AlexMy friend Julie sent me the next two albums. British artist Alex Clare released this debut album, The Lateness of the Hour, in 2011 and his voice reminds me of Australia's Daniel Merriweather but he's more rocking and more eclectic. Again, almost every song is a winner, my favorites being "Up All Night", "Hummingbird" and "Sanctuary."

It will be hard to beat this album as my favorite discovery this year.

  
       

CeloCee Lo Green never ceases to amaze me. Who can beat his arrangements? I've never had good luck with R&R Christmas albums. Usually, only one or two of the songs are very original. In Vansessa William's case, the whole lot was crap. It makes no sense because I love R&B. I love gospel. How could it fail? It somehow can.

Cee Lo Green not only made a high-calibre Christmas album, it's my favorite of all time. I can even forgive his including Rod Stewart on a track ("Merry Christmas, Baby"). The songs "What Christmas Means to Me" and "All I Need is Love" (with the Muppets) are both rollicking and inspired. He makes "White Christmas" and "Run Rudolph Run" highly palatable and he transforms "This Christmas" and "Silent Night." Even the filler is well made. It's hard to make much of "The Christmas Song" over what Mel Torme was able to do with it from the beginning. Extra treats are his version of "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch" in a Glee-esque arrangement with the group Straight No Chaser. His version of "Mary, Did You Know" gave me chills. Beautiful.

Masterful musical moments from Cee Lo Green. But what's new about that? The man is an ingenious "sanger" and artist.

 

Cher Contest and New Development Deal

60shollywood1960s Hollywood…it was an exciting time for Cher. She was just hitting the big time.

While I was in Urgent Care yesterday for chest pains (Mr. Cher Scholar and I were quite freaked out but it turned out to be costochondritis), I was reading all the announcements for Cher's new development deal on LOGO, an effort she and friend Ron Zimmerman had been working on since last year.

This sounds like a very interesting show and might give us a glimpse into Cher's experiences in this crucial decade in her life, least we dare to wish for Cher in a recurring role.

CNN says: "If Cher's potential Logo TV show would be anything at all like her Twitter feed, we're already on board."

News reports:

Cher is also trying to organize a twitter contest to bring some fans to her Malibu home for a preview of her album. Cher News has the wrap up: http://chernews.blogspot.com/2013/01/get-excited-your-chance-to-meet-cher.html

Unrelated….Sunday night as I was on the floor with my chest pains, waiting for Mr. Cher Scholar to get back from his job guarding Georgia O'Keeffe paraphernalia, I was watching the end of Oprah Winfrey's interview with David Letterman on her show Next Chapter. I love how Oprah dealt with the tough questions on Letterman and his feuds over the years, including his feud with her. But after that was over I turned to watching saved-up episodes of Family Guy. I thought if I'm going to die, I want to be watching Family Guy. Because I want to die laughing.

 

Cher Scholar’s Visit to Another Cher Scholar

Mr. Cher Scholar and I went to NYC to see The Book of Mormon. We both loved it so much we bought the book and CD. Another reason I wanted to get back to NYC was for the food.

ThanksgivingMy Thanksgiving dinner from HopKee in Chinatown.

Prawns with walnuts and a white-wine sauce. A-MA-ZING.

(Click photos to enlarge) 

 

 
I also wanted some long-missed NYC street foods: bagels (scallion cream cheese on garlic bagel), a knish (from the truck behind me), and real pizza!

Bagel Knish Pizza

 

 

  

   
 

Cher Moments: Everywhere we saw these Moonstruck cafes, which I don't remember seeing when I lived there in the late 1990s. We also went to see the Katharine Hepburn costume exhibit outside the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, so I took the fountain picture from the scene outside the opera in Moonstruck. Also a picture of Cyndi Lauper's new Broadway show.

Cafe Moonstruck Cyndi 

 

 

 

 

Other cool finds: We stayed in a brownstone in Chelsea and our neighborhood CVS was a converted bank. I caught a leaf falling in Central Park.

Cvs Centralpark 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another reason I wanted to go to NYC around Thanksgiving was to see all the Christmas window displays. The most amazing included one in Chelsea/Greenwich Village that was inspired by pages of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time which Mr. Cher Scholar and I are both reading right now. We also visited the Macy's on 34th Street. One window had an interactive computer display which John modeled for.

Proust Macys2 Macys 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also visited Yonkers and Sarah Lawrence where I used to live and where went to grad school. We visited our friends Ann and Michael up there. The lion is from the ruins of the Greystone Mansion on the aqueduct trail.

Yonkers Sarahlawrence Hudsonriver  

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the highlights of the trip was meeting Cher scholar Dishy finally after all these years. He invited us over to his house to see his Cher Lair. Mr. Cher Scholar gallantly went with me and endured teasing over his mishearing of Cher lyrics, most notably his singing months ago, "The black lady laughed at me and lit the candles one by one" and that weekend's listening to Cher's new single and saying, "It's no Song for the People."

 

IMG_8354Dishys house is both tasteful (see left) and a neatly packed Cher library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He is the most organized Cher collector I've met. He has his cassettes, 8-Tracks, 45s, books, albums, dolls and DVDs all contained in a very compact lair, easy to access if needed at any time.

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Recordsbooks

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Reels 

He had to school me in what Reel-to-Reels are.

 

 

 

 

 

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I was very impressed with his Uninhibited display in the bathroom. This inspires me to try such at display in the guest bathroom of Cher Scholar.

 

 

 

 

 

He also had some nice items from Sanctuary, decorative wall items and incense (smartly displayed as related to Dishys Harry Potter library).

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And then Dishy had some beautiful posters and pictures. The most I can manage is protective poster covering from Michaels. Dishy really knows how to frame some Cher art including Dark Lady foregrounded with Half Breed through a door, a great Sonny, Cher butt and Farewell tour items.

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Dishy has some magazine covers I had never seen too, including this kooky one from the mid-70s!

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IMG_8380Most amazing was the Cher stuff Dishy made himself including the poster of the Cher Special from 1978. This is not the actual poster but a Dishy repainted recreation! It's amazing.

Dishy also made the Cher CD box below. I love the cool stuff Cher fans create.

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But above all (and I'm not trying to be sentimental here), the best part of the afternoon was not the great abundance of Cher stuff, it was the Cher camaraderie. I really loved hanging out with Dishy because he's smart and fun.

He made us treats including and an awesome corn dip with chile peppers. Two Cher scholars Cher scholarin!

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Dishy also took some smokin hot pics of Mr. and Mrs. Cher Scholar.  

All in all, we had a fabulous time in NYC and can't wait to go back. Coming back, we experienced a string of sad news: we got sick, a friend of a friend…someone I knew better when I lived in NY, Nova Gutierrez, fell seriously ill (and our prayers are going out to her and her family), two of my co-workers at IAIA started experiencing some dire events in December, the Connecticut school shooting…all sad stuff that make me look back to our Thanksgiving trip with, well, thanks giving.

I'll leave it with a common sight of Cher Scholar in NYC:

ShoesCher Scholar has a shoe-tying disability.

Here is Mr. Cher Scholar finally getting frustrated enough to tie her shoes for her.

 

Cher Scholar Has Been Under the Weather This Holiday Season

CherballI've been missing posting little tidbits of Cher news this whole holiday season! For Thanksgiving, Mr. Cher Scholar and I went to New York City to see The Book of Mormon. When we were sitting in the jam-packed La Guardia airport waiting to fly back to Santa Fe, we both started to feel feverish.

Five weeks later and I'm still not over it. It has morphed from a cold to a flu to a cold again. Although dramatic goings-on at work, spending too much time out in the cold weather, and Christmas shopping and shipping duties didn't help for a speedy recovery, I had no energy left to do much Cher scholarin. Here is a flashback over the end of November and December in Cher Land.

Cher calls for a boycott of Walmart due to their guns sales and the tragic Connecticut shooting of school children. I have already been avoiding Walmart for 10 years due to my mother's boycott of Walmart due to their screwing over workers, small businesses and local economies all while their heirs hoard a huge chunk of American wealth. I think Forbes Magazine said it best: "Six Waltons Have More Wealth Than the Bottom 30% of Americans."

Cher does not appear on the X-Factor finale as reported but goes to Russia instead for a private concert. Stories from Cher World and Cher News:

AirportHere is Cher leaving the airport in LA looking like an ageless hipster:

And Cher in Russia doing Russian things:


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Performing and receiving a crown. That must have been her fee.

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Looking like a stern Russian femme fetale (what a role that would be!) while getting in a limo:

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Cher this month also reported being hot for the character who plays Golem in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: Andy Serkus. Here is a picture of him shirtless.

 

 

 

 

 

Cher just released a Christmas Tweet: "Have the best Christmas ever! I know Christmas sucks sometimes – try to do something you like! Watch a movie you like, have a piece of pie, ice cream, pop corn, buttermilk, biscuits or something you love!"

Cher also posted pics of her house decorated for a Christmas party.

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Due to our illnesses, Mr. Cher Scholar and I cancelled our Christmas party and I didn't put up any decorations, which are very similar to Cher's minus the lighting, ceilings, floors, silverware and ginormous trees. Between our lack of festivity, the Connecticut shooting and the sad-sack stories of my co-workers, this made for the most depressing Christmas I've had in years.

I had not read Cher's tweet by yesterday but I inadvertently did something I don't usually do just to cheer myself up: I ate a cheese ball.

Merry Christmas everybody.

I hope the good spirit of cheese balls lives in you this week.

 

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