Category: What This Really Says About Me (Page 7 of 15)

Plastic Surgery in “Joyful Noise” and Other Recent Books and Movies

January 24, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

With Mr. Cher Scholar and our recent visitor, my Los Angeles friend Christopher, I've been seeing a lot of movies and discovering some interesting book-fare from watching Book TV.

Christopher wanted to see Joyful Noise because we both like Dolly Parton. I was hesitant because the trailers looked pitiful. But he talked me into it and I must say I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. You might chalk that up to lowered expectations but I would defend the musical numbers as fun, kind of like a gospel Glee episode. Also, Queen Latifah (who I love dearly but cannot continue to support her crappy movies) had an absolutely awesome performance in the movie in a scene where she chews her daughter out in a hotel elevator bank. And finally, you have to see the thing just to make some sense out of Dolly's latest plastic surgery.

Cher's usually our fall-girl for this kind of gripe to be sure. And how frustrating because this is a ridiculous no-win situation for our aging female stars. I heard my friend watching TV and saying about one star, "she really should get her neck fixed." But she can't win because if she "fixes it" we get this, the latest face of Dolly, which clearly doesn't look right. All through the movie, she had to overact to get her face to even work, and her smile resembled the face of The Joker's. Her lips didn't fully close! It was creepy. To stay-off the aging process, Dolly went right from pretty (if pancaked with makeup) to grotesque. Surely this wasn't the goal. In fact, this is a sure backfire. I watched the movie thinking Dolly looked like a frail grandmother. She's Cher's age!

This insanity must stop. To see the beautiful Dolly Parton come to this.

We also saw the documentary Urbanized at the local Santa Fe art house. It was a fascinating look at how cities are thinking creatively about how to handle urban problems. The city of LA was noticeably absent from the world-wide cities showcased and citizens of LA could surely gain something from watching it. One South American mayor changed my whole idea about the usefullness of subways!

My husband and I also saw Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique), the French movie about Serge Gainsbourg. With animation, a puppet altar-ego, much music and beautiful surreal elements, I only wish Cher could have a biopic this cool someday. My favorite songs from the movie were "La Javanaise" and "Initials B.B."

Book TV also lured me into purchasing Justin Frank's Obama on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Frank also covered George W. Bush with this psycho-analytic treatment. We learn how Obama's early childhood and lack of contact with his parents possibly shapes his behavior in the White House and with the Republicans.

Book TV also showcased a book I haven't purchased yet, Hollywood Left & Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics by Steven Ross. He explores in depth Charlie Chaplin, Louis B. Mayer, Edward G. Robinson, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and recounts that although the Left gets a lot of screen-time, the Right has actually made further inroads in Washington with their cadidates and policy. And at one point he says something like "because you're a celebrity doesn't mean you give up your citizenship." Very true. Sometimes I am critical when celebrities endorse candidates (more because I feel the clash of their celebrity brands working against the cause). But all citizens have the right to feel the passion and get involved.

Christmas with Billy the Kid

January 7, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Sigh. Life continues to get in the way of Cher schoalring. For Christmas, Mr. Cher Scholar and I headed down to southern New Mexico to visit the Billy the Kid locales of Fort Sunmer (where he was kilt) and Lincoln (where he made his brazen escape). Then we headed to Roswell for the night. Sadly, my Uncle Ben (really my Dad's cousin but practically an Uncle to me) passed away on Christmas Day and the funeral was set for the following Wednesday. So we decided to head home, on the way seeing our remaining sights of Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands. Mr. Cher Scholar poses to the left with Billy the Kid; Franz poses below on White Sands snowy beach.

In the meantime, I've been saving up a few links from friends.

Cher groups at Yahoo posted this link to USA Today's own version of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame –the fashion edition and Cher sits here with some reputable company: http://mediagallery.usatoday.com/Women%27s+role+in+rock/G2245?csp=lfmpg

Cher scholar Tyler sent around this interesting link — a story about one-time Cher Show and Sonny & Cher Show writer Iris Rainer Dart who wrote Beaches with Cher in mind. Oh, how sweet that would have been.

In fact, she was apparently the only female writer on those TV shows, saying,

"she had to prove her mettle, mostly by "not crying," even when criticism was rugged. Brutal honesty was the name of the game and no one was too concerned with hurt feelings. Still, as the sole woman on the show, she had a close relationship with Cher, who ultimately became the model for the lead character in "Beaches." Initially she had hoped Cher would play the part in the film version, but in the end it went to Bette Midler."

And finally, Cher scholar Dishy was kind enough to recall my frustration that not enough non-"Believe" Cher mashups existed in the Universe and sent me this new mashup, Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" mashed with "Song for the Lonely."

I so love mashups. I really do.

Open Letter to the Horror Movie Industry

October 31, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 5 Comments

Happy Halloween. My favorite holiday. And since I'm on a rant-roll, I thought I'd make a few complaints about the state of the American Horror Movie Industry.

I love horror movies. My favorites tend to be really creative ghost stories. But I have plenty of sci-fi horror flicks on the list, even some classic slashers. I even appreciate many things about Italian and Japanese horror.

Like the "American Western" or closed poetry forms (ex: metric verse, sonnets), there's an architecture of rules made to be followed or, for the more gifted artist, rules made to be broken.

Ever since the mid 1990s, I feel like I've been avoiding more horror movies than I’ve been watching: the formulaic slasher has evolved into the "apocalyptic masochistic slasher." I see this as the result of a decade of Gen-X irony. But as iconic writer David Foster Wallace said when I saw him at a reading in Los Angeles (a year or so before he killed himself), haven't we taken irony as far as we can? Essentially irony implies we don't really care. And how long can we not really care? Isn't it time to return to a little sincerity?

As much as I love the mose recent Japanese films, which are artful and scary, they are ultimately dissatisfying. Sure, it may be a cultural thing: American like happy endings. Europeans and Asians find those to be drippy and unsatisfying. Why should our hero always survive?

Due to irony and Japanese influence, no one has survived a horror movie in about 20 years. The movie Insidious was highly recommended to me recently as a very creepy ghost story. My last straw broke in the final scene where the whole cast will likely die at the hands of our hero, suddenly possessed…after all that freakin work to persevere.

Rob Zombie movies…so awesome looking, but again with the message that all the work one might do to survive is for naught. It this any more realistic than the hero always succeeding?

I’m depressed by these movies.
I’m bored by these movies.

I'm bored with the storyline of a parent who has lost a child and can’t go on (and doesn’t have the will or energy to fight the monster). Of course losing a child is THE worst storyline. But people did used to be able to survive it. Give them some hope of survival for chrissake.

I’m bored by the storyline of the ingenue who is smart and brave but will be undone by evil forces much larger than she is…just because. Just because what? Just because she's a girl?

This era of our lives: a bleak economy, hateful crowds, rampant narcissism, real lunacy, horror and abuse in people’s real lives: I want to see that horror can be overcome. I don’t want to be shown over and over characters who can never overcome in situations that cannot be overcome.

Why would I keep watching this over and over again?

Snap out of it.

How thrilling was it back in the day? Back when Linda Blair made it over that fence (finally) in Hell Night? If she can do it…hell, we can do it.

My Stuff Marooned on My Parents’ Lawn

September 21, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 4 Comments

This is a picture of some of the last of my stuff that I've had stored in my parents basement for the last 20 years as it's being loaded on to a United Van Lines truck.

This is a shipment that includes about 30 boxes of Cher stuff, all my childhood tchotchkes, that green chair I inherited from my grandmother and many, many other things.

It also includes this somewhat large dollhouse you see in the picture. When I was a baby, my grandmother from New Mexico gave me savings bonds (probably for college or something). When I was eleven, I instead cashed them in for a Victorian dollhouse that my Dad ended up building shingle by shingle. When I was about 19, my grandfather moved in with us from Reedsport, Oregon. He helped me finish the outside work on it. I remember how he used to spend about ten minutes organizing all the glue and wood before we got going each night, telling me how important organizing things was.

My Dad had actually already built me another dollhouse (from scratch) when I was about 4 or 5 that looked like The White Hosue. Then when I was 27 years old, my parents moved from St. Louis to the Lancaster Pennsylvannia area. Before the move, my Dad told me he would only move one dollhouse, not both of them. What? It was a very traumatic decision somewhat like Sophie's Choice. I chose this one.

And I'm 42 years old now and it's time to get my stuff moved out so I can finish the dollhouse project before I die. My mom emailed me this picture this morning as the truck was being loaded. I guess my stuff has kind of gotten attached to my parents. I think the dollhouse was symbolic of something…like my childhood…because seeing the thing out on my parents lawn has made me weepy all day.

I've very happy to get my stuff and all; I guess it's just a bit sad to be finally moving out.

Friday May 20th

May 20, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Okay, so the last time it was Friday, May 20th (a date I tend to remember because it's Cher's birthday), I went to see the documentary Inside Deep Throat with my friend and caught my boyfriend at the theater (The New Beverly) with another girl. He told me earlier in the day he was babysitting his kids (as he said he must do every Friday night).

I learned some things that day:

LA is a small town and you keep running into people you know.
Don't trust any man who says he can't go out on Friday nights.
I can't sit through a movie I've wanted to see for months after I've just caught my boyfriend cheating.

I still haven't seen Inside Deep Throat and I've become a little superstitious of May 20ths that fall on a Friday.

I have my fingers crossed about today.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of a camping trip John and I took earlier this week. It was a place called Mills Canyon in Harding County, New Mexico, an awesome canyon in the middle of the high plains. In the late 1800s, a man named Melvin Mills once had an orchard empire down in the canyon. He also ran a stagecoach hotel. He used innovative irrigation for the time. Unfortunately his bad karma caught up with him (he was a somewhat suspect Santa Fe Ring politician) and a massive flood at the turn of the century wiped out his orchard. He never recovered from the loss and died penniless.

But his outbuildings are still there in the canyon, some fruit trees are left, and many forms of wildlife, including Barbary sheep, eagles, turtles…

We let the little Blue Gill go.

Our evening watchman:

Cher Tweets on Missouri Puppy Mill Ban

April 22, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Cher and fans have been discussing Missouri’s Puppy mill issue in her tweets lately. This got my attention because I was raised in St. Louis (mostly), and Missouri was then horrifically reported to be one of the biggest puppy mill abuse states in the country. So I followed this anti-puppy-mill vote closely last year. It was sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States.

Catching up to the legislative aftermath, it seems the Missouri legislature scaled the law back considerably in favor of law-abiding breeders and agricultural interests who claimed the "puppy" bill extended to far out toward other animal interests. God forbid!

Democrat Governor Jay Nixon seemed to be caught in the middle and was trying to broker a compromise between voters and the Missouri congress. The Human Society is against the compromise. Both sides appeared in Jefferson City to protest.

Some good articles:

I also checked the website of The Animal Legal Defense Fund. Their action item recommendation based on news from March was to write the Governor: http://www.aldf.org/article.php?id=1596

Their Update–March 17, 2011: Missouri legislators have voted to repeal Prop. B, endangering countless puppies in the abusive puppy mill industry. Please send your urgent letters to Governor Jay Nixon asking him to veto this repeal:

Office of Governor Jay Nixon
P.O. Box 720
Jefferson City, MO 65102

Greer Garson Had a Blue Bathtub

April 22, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 4 Comments

As long as I've been visiting and living in New Mexico, every time my family took the long drive up Highway 25, past Santa Fe and through Pecos and past Las Vegas, New Mexico (where we always stop to eat at El Rialto near the plaza) on our way to our family seat of the small town of Roy (where the Great Plains meet the Rockies), I'd always hear the story about how Greer Garson had a big house off the highway. Back when I was 17, I'd look off into the dark, dark New Mexico darkness and try to imagine this house. Every time we pass Pecos, the same story my Dad would tell about Greer Garson's house out there somewhere.

So I've moved here for a spell, as they say; and my relatives have been lamenting the rumor that the house and grounds had been sold off or destroyed.

John and I live close to Pecos and John works with many Pecosites as a security guard. So we've visited to find hiking trails, indulge in their Dairy Queen and hear disparaging stories about one-time Cher boy-toy Val Kilmer (Pecosians don't care for him, it would seem) and to visit the Pecos Pueblo ruins and National Park, which we've been to now three times.

Much to my happy surprise, The Santa Fe Community College offered a continuing education tour of Pecos Pueblo, including Greer Garson's house! Whoo hoo! It's still there!

In fact, we were to find out, Greer Garson and her husband, Texas oilman Fogelson, owned so much property for their cattle raising, their land included the Pecos Pueblo. They donated the pueblo grounds to the National Parks service and Greer designed the small movie theater there to look like a Kiva and narrated the video about the site. (Ricardo Montelban does the Spanish version)

When Fogelson died, Greer ended up with the house and half the property. Fogelson's son ended up with the other half, which he promptly sold to Val Kilmer and Jane Fonda (who locals seem to like).

Speaking of Jane Fonda, one of our elderly members on our tour still managed to say dismissive things about Jane Fonda due to her remarks about Vietnam. Her friend lightly defended Fonda, saying she has since apologized. I thought to myself, although Veterans still have a right to be pissed off about it, kids today don’t even know what that was all about.

I told them that Fonda's latest workout DVD, Fit and Strong, is for old people and is still kicking my ass. I mean, I used to not like her because she could do aerobics better than me. That was before her titanium hip. Now I seem to like her much better.

LA Visit

February 16, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

My blogs were recently interrupted by a job-related trip to Los Angeles, where I promptly met a bunch of sick, near-sick, were-sick-last-week people in the office and within 48 hours I too was sick. It was a hard week to get through due to the sniffles and all, but good food did keep me hanging in there. I stayed in Silver Lake with my friend Natalie for the weekend. We ate at my favorite LA mexican restaurant, Malo on Sunset Blvd. She also treated me to an awesome breakfast at The Village Bakery and Cafe on Los Feliz Blvd. In Redondo, my friend Julie and I tried the gastro-pub Chez Melange on Catalina Ave, which was great. I got my fix of sushi with a sushi boat in Santa Monica (Main Street) and had great drinks at The Arsenal (my friend Ken's sort of Cheers bar). Julie, her bf Dave, and I also had good Thai at Palms Thai in Hollywood before we snuck over to Grauman's Chinese to catch photos of Cher's footprints. Cher is right by the front door between Julie Andrews and Rhonda Fleming. It was dark. My pictures weren't that good. We were double parked. No time to be artistic about it.

While I was in LA, Cher did her last Vegas show on February 5. Robin Leach estimates she earned nearly $200 million in ticket sales. Las Vegas host Robert "Bubbles" Ubriaco also died shortly after Cher's farewell party in Vegas:

Las Vegas lost one of its most colorful characters Thursday. Rao's host Robert "Bubbles" Ubriaco died at Desert Springs Hospital, surrounded by many of his friends. He was hospitalized on Wednesday, after what friends believe was a stroke.

A week ago Thursday, Ubriaco was in his glory while facilitating Cher's farewell party for her cast and crew at Rao's. With Cher running 90 minutes late, "Bubbles" chatted with Roman centurions who were waiting to carry Cher into Rao's, ala Cleopatra.

A friend came by and had "Bubbles" pose for a photo with the centurions. "Say Chucky Cheese," said Ubriaco, his signature line. It was one of the last photos of the legendary greeter.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/colorful-club-host-ubriaco-dies-at-65-115863864.html
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/feb/04/cher-sing-final-farewell-caesars-palace-residency-/

Cher also attended the premiere of the new play with Jane Fonda in it “33 Variations” at the Ahmanson Theatre. My friends and I were discussing this due to my odd need to now do Jane Fonda workouts. In fact, I visited Hollywood's Amobea Records last week and bought $50 worth of Cher stuff and Jane Fonda's Fit and Strong DVD (it looks like a good low-impact one for old gals like me). I also found a Nelly workout DVD for Julie and due to her buying Nelly's latest CD, I became obsessed with his recent "Just a Dream" single.

Anyway, Jane is getting good reviews for the play. LA Times called her riveting. The premiere audience was stuffed with celebs:

Also taking in the show was writer-director Richard LaGravenese (seated with Cher), Tony Award winner Ben Vereen, “Smallville’s” John Glover, Tony winner Adriane Lenox, Michael Emerson (the creepy Ben from “Lost”), Corey Stoll of “Law & Order: Los Angeles,” Joan Van Ark and Mary Hart.

http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=1660

More Grauman's photos:

Obligatory fan's appendages (mine) in the celebrities hand print.

Julie's tootsies in Jack Nicholson's feet.

I don't know why that feels so necessary. But it does.

Husband Plots Against Cher Scholar

December 4, 2010 / Cher Scholar / 4 Comments

It's been a very crazy month and I've been lagging with my blogging. But Cher Scholar is exhausted. We got back from Cancun early in the month and then went right into Thanksgiving prep. My mother-in-law Donna came for the long weekend (and I love it that she was so enthusiastic about seeing Burlesque Thanksgiving-eve with me and John. See our collective review for more about that.) Unfortunately, in between launching the big dinner with new recipes and juggling a huge work ramp-up to a Cartagena Colombia meeting, I've been wiped out, in pain and feeling a bit deflated from all the work.

One pre-Thanksgiving task I looked forward to was putting up Christmas decorations, which (like cooking Thanksgiving dinner instead of grabbing take-out at Dinahs) I hadn't done for two years. And this means hoisting up the Cher Christmas tree!

However, I was initially thwarted in this most pleasant task because two mice had been living in our garage. John freaked out and spent $50 on every kind of imaginable mouse trap to place on every conceivable mouse path in our garage, leaving the leftover un-opened traps sitting right on my boxes of Cher crap.

Sure I could have moved them out of the way. As if that were that easy! I was afraid of them! What if one accidentally fired off or had a dead mouse decaying in its clutches. I couldn't even look at them. Before our trip to Cancun I had asked John to move the traps and he, thinking I was being a big baby (guilty as charged), was in no hurry to do it. I kept expressing how important it was for me to get to my Cher junk so I could assemble the glorious Cher tree. On a layover from our fight back from Cancun I started again to worry about the traps and having to lose a finger trying to get to my Cher dolls.

This was around the time I was overspending on Burlesque memorabilia and it sort of seemed like he had set Cher traps as an intervention! So I confronted him right there in the airport (after finishing the Vanity Fair magazine article)…why you gotta be puttin out Cher traps on me?

He mocked some outrage and said it was all untrue and ridiculous that I would accuse him of such a thing. Then he said it was a moot point because he already picked up the Cher traps!

Ah HA! He admitted it! They were Cher traps!!

Can you believe it?

Anyway, the Cher traps were indeed gone when we got home and I was able to assemble the Cher tree. Thank God for tender mercies! A few new things about the Cher tree:

There are now 10 Cher dolls and some new outfits, including my favorite Foxy Lady outfit.
I acquired the white tux outfit for the Sonny topper. I think this makes him look both elegant and angelic.
I decided to assemble all of Cher's boyfriends and lovers as the nativity scene at the bottom of the tree. This proved challenging because only Gene Simmons and Richie Sambora have dolls (or "action figures" as they like to be called). Val Kilmer as Batman didn't count because you couldn't tell it was him and besides, the doll was too expensive. My friend Coolia suggested I make paper dolls. At first I didn't want to do this because I hated paper dolls as a child. Really found them excruciatingly boring. But the Cher tree project changed my mind. I found a tatted-up Paul Bunion paper doll for Gregg, a nerdy paper doll for David Geffen and a somewhat dapper doll for Val. Note: I am still working on the Robert Camiletti doll. I haven't found the right body yet.
Click to enlarge any of the pics.

Things I Do Now That I LIve in New Mexico

September 30, 2010 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

So for years my family has roasted chile peppers from New Mexico. But this year I got to visit Chavez Farms myself to pick out my own batch. I got home and roasted them to show my hubbie what New Mexico Pepper Roasting is all about…

Unfortunately he spent most of his time studying in the other room, except for some brief time spent posing with the peppers. That's a look that says, "I'm not going to help you, sweetie."