Page 102 of 113

The Internet, Video and Links

November 1, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

I don’t feel much like blogging today but here goes. Yesterday as part of a work excursion I attended part of ICANN’s (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers) 30th public meeting. You probably don’t know ICANN (and their name isn’t very sexy for sure) but they do things like run the Internet – make sure it works and isn’t hacked into and all that sort of thing. It was fascinating – the three session I attended.

The Internet is one of those things you take for granted but is so crucial to life in the modern world. My favorite quote from the meeting was from ICANN-ite George Sadowsky who said “All forms of human behavior have moved to the net and magnified.” And he went on to say how that included both good and bad forms of human behavior, saints and thieves. Do you consider how important the Internet is to your modern life and how crucial it is that it doesn’t break down?

I definitely feel mentally exhausted today. The energy there was calm but intense and now my brain is completely fried. Just listening to the translations was exhausting but very cool.

I’ll just leave you with these links for thoughts…

Cher single "Believe" was huge. Least we forget how big it was, this Today in Music article coves the basics, how it was the dance record of the 90s and probably the biggest selling dance record of all time.

Here’s more news on Cher swearing on TV and whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing according to US courts. Ugh! I wish this story would just go away! I’m so friggin over it already. Grant on Ghost Hunters says "What the Frig!" all the time and I think it’s so funny. My bf said yesterday that he was suffering from a bad case of the friggits.

Here’s a clip of Sonny & Cher singing "We’re Gonna Make It." Wow! First of all, didn’t we associate that song with the Allman and Woman album. Sonny & Cher did it too? Just like "You Really Got a Hold on Me." Was Cher trying to recreate Sonny & Cher with Allman duets? It seems so beyond comprehension – how could we have considered it? Or did Sonny & Cher cover so many friggin songs it would be impossible not to re-cover her covers? Of course, Cher and Allman didn’t make it, Sonny and Cher didn’t make it either but it would be hard to top their version. Bobby Sherman, that ridiculous dance, the screaming kids, the sudden appearance and disappearance of backup singers (if it wasn’t the 60s I’d think they were CGI’d in there), Sonny going absolutely crazy at the end. Wow!

This last clip is about a Joni Mitchell impersonator. It’s tone irked me…a lot. The article begins by indicating how high class it is to be a Joni Mitchell impersonator and how that possibly elevates the act to cabaret. First of all, you could argue that a Joni Mitchell impersonator is even more ridiculous of an act than a Cher impersonator…that is if you think impersonations are ridiculous in the first place which you probably do if you’re a close-minded Joni Mitchell fan. Then there’s the implication that other impersonators are of a lower-caste, being reduced to hand out pamphlets on the streets of Provincetown to their shows because “Ms. Mitchell appeals to far more rarefied tastes.” I can personally attest that you can be both a fan of Cher and Joni Mitchell. (I have her collected lyrics in my library for frig’s sake!). This was a subtle Cher-shaft in action and I had to say something.

The picture above is Bar Ilan University‘s map of the Internet. The Internet. What an awesome thing. Just this one post has brought us a blog conversation, a youtube video, factual information on a pop song and potential opinions blossoming out of billions of brains worldwide.

New Sonny & Cher Compilations

October 28, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 3 Comments

September 2007 gave us two new Sonny & Cher compilations. I was a little hesitant to buy Forever Sonny and Cher by Warner Custom Products because I could find no picture online. I’ve been burned before on these fly-by-night compilation CDs. But then it arrived and I was so excited. The CD comes in a tin! A Sonny & Cher tin!! Glory-be! The booklet inside is pretty spartan (considering it comes in a tin!) and spells Cher’s last name Lapierre and calls her an aspiring singer. But there was a picture in there I hadn’t seen before with Sonny & Cher lying on the floor of their house, Sonny in what looks like snake skin boots. This is one of those rare pictures showing Sonny in mustache and Cher still in her 60s bangs.

The compilation itself however is a bit crazy. The tin (a tin!) comes with three CDs, all with different labels, the last one being extra copies of that bad compilation from the 1990s All I Ever Need is You – a title which still confounds Allmusic guide. They think the 90s compilation is the same as the original 70s studio album. See, they’re not so smart.

The first two CDs catalog some S&C 60s hits but is by no means comprehensive or educational. Sprinkled in are some sub-hits and a few B-side rarities ("Good Combination," "Have I Stayed Too Long," "Love Is Strange" and oddly one of Sonny’s LP songs "Revolution Kind"). And there is an unusual representation of S&C songs from their freshman album Look At Us. The third disc picks up with S&C in the 70s and is the aforementioned left-over copies of All I Ever Need Is You including the misleading error that you will hear a version of "United We Stand" live. Back in the 90s I was so excited to read that when I plucked the CD out of a Tower Records bin in Yonkers, New York. But it was just a lie.

Disc: 1
1. I Got You Babe
2. Little Man
3. Just You
4. Good Combination
5. But You’re Mine
6. Beat Goes On
7. Have I Stayed Too Long
8. Beautiful Story
9. It’s the Little Things
10. What Now My Love

Disc: 2
1. Baby Don’t Go
2. Laugh at Me [Sonny Solo]
3. Living for You
4. Love Is Strange
5. 500 Miles
6. Revolution Kind [Sonny Solo]
7. Let It Be Me
8. Unchained Melody
9. Then He Kissed Me
10. You Really Got a Hold on Me

Disc: 3
1. All I Ever Need Is You
2. Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done
3. When You Say Love
4. Mama Was a Rock and Roll Singer and Papa Used to Write All Her Songs
5. You Better Sit Down Kids
6. Crystal Clear/Muddy Waters
7. Beat Goes On
8. I Got You Babe
9. United We Stand
10. Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

The tin compilation however turned out to be quite normal compared to Sonny & Cher Classics released by Rhino Flashback records. This one is compilation very similar to the one Rhino Flashback did a few years ago I Got You Babe with S&C playing bongos on a red and white checkered background. This compilation spells her last name La Piere and contains only one S&C hit: "Baby Don’t Go." The other hit is Sonny’s "Laugh at Me" and the rest is a few aforementioned B-sides similar to the other compilation and again lots of Look At Us material.

At the end of the day these compilations make no sense, have no cohesion and contain negligible rarities.

Disc Tracks:
1. Baby Don’t Go.
2. Laugh At Me
3. Living For You.
4. Love Is Strange.
5. 500 Miles.
6. Revolution Kind, The
7. Let It Be Me.
8. Unchained Melody.
9. Then He Kissed Me.
10. You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me.

But I do enjoy rediscovering "500 Miles," the song they did made famous by Peter, Paul & Mary.

Miracle Seaweed Pots

October 28, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I have two new pots to show. I call these two pots my miracle pots. This was for a saggar seaweed kiln project in class. I left them to be bisque fired before I missed a class to go to St. Louis for my high school reunion. Well…here’s what happened – apparently when all the class pots were fired, the kiln went all nutty and all the pots exploded! All except for my two pots which came out unscathed for some odd reason. And no I didn’t sabotage the other pots! This apparently happens quite a bit in ceramics…things explode, break or some other such thing. It’s a heartbreaking art. Anyway, all the other classmates had to make new pots the next week while I was gone.

Here are my miracle pots, fired with seaweed to give them funky designs. I’m still new to the wiley ways of clay so I’m still making safe, small pots.

I call this one Miracle Pot #1 with Bulges.

Miracle Pot #1 with Bulges from the top.

During the seaweed firing of this pot, the kiln didn’t turn off by itself and the pots became over-cooked. So I’m calling this one Miracle Pot #2, Crispy.

Crispy from the top.

Caesar(s) is Dead

October 26, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

Et tu, Brute?

So the bad news as of last week was from the Las Vegas review Journal. Which irks me is why this publication feels the need to be both a review and a journal. In any case, they reported that Cher’s negotiations to perform part-time at Caesars next year fell through. El finito. The report stated Caesars was concerned Cher may be over-exposed after her Farewell Tours of the early 00s and not able to fill the 1k seat coliseum. This seems the least likely reason to me. Cher was just as over-exposed (if not much much more) before these negotiations began. As they’ve drug on, she’s disappeared back into the mist. Do you suddenly get more exposed the less work you do?

Caesars has made no official comment and Cher is mum as usual. If this is even true, it’s most likely a save-face measure borne from desperation due to Cher not negotiating for too long for whatever reason. Maybe she couldn’t get a spa installed in her dressing room. Maybe she’s got a sick family member or just doesn’t feel like creating a giant girdle stage prop. Who knows. The only thing that really surprises me is how quiet the fans have been about it on the big list. But then Cher fans have learned to have a heart of stone in such matters.

This Las Vegas review-journal-quarterly-paper-chronicle-record did say however that Cher is one of the biggest selling artists of all time.

And that’s something! 🙂

See what we Cher fans learn to live on?

Cher’s Name

October 26, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

On Friday, December 17 2004 Alicia Q. wrote:
How did Cher get her name?

Cher’s birth name is known in biographies to be Cherilyn Sarkisian. I don’t feel up to figuring out the mess of her adopted names, including that mess of a name she used circa meeting Sonny Bono. It’s never spelled the same: La Pierre/La Piere/Lapierre/Lapiere. Like Susan Sarandon in Witches of Eastwick – sometimes I just can’t face it. Sarkisian is Cher’s Armenian father’s name. Remember what Dyan Cannon said to Al Pacino in the movie Author! Author!? All Armenian names rhyme with Armenian.

Cher’s mother Georgia named her first daughter Cherilyn after Georgia’s friend Lana Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane. Incidentally, Cheryl Crane murdered Lana Turner’s mob boyfriend Johnny Stampato in 1958. Thankfully Cher is not into mob hits of that nature. I’m sure there must have been a Georgia husband or two she didn’t care for.

Ever wonder what the other Cheryl’s up to? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Crane

Cher Poems

October 26, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

I promise to you – wherever I am and whatever poem I’m reading from the canon of great poetry being composed even as we speak… if I come across a great poem or a crappy poem that mentions Cher, I will retype it out herein this blog…for you. Because I love you…that much.

It just so happens this is a brilliant poem by Diane Burns, a Native American poet (of Ojibwa and Chemehuevi descent) who passed away last year. Diane won the Congressional Medal of Merit and attended Barnard College at Columbia University. She was a smart broad.

Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question

How do you do?
   No, I am not Chinese.
No, not Spanish.
   No, I am American Indi-uh, Native American.
No, not from India.
   No, not Apache.
No, not Navajo.
   No, not Sioux.
No, we are not extinct.
   Yes, Indin.
Oh?
   So, that’s where you get those high cheekbones.
Your great grandmother, huh?
   An Indian Princess, huh?
Hair down to there?
   Let me guess, Cherokee?
Oh, so you’ve had an Indian friend?
   That close?
Oh, so you’ve had an Indian lover?
   That tight?
Oh, so you’ve had an Indian servant?
   That much?
Yeah, it was awful what you guys did to us.
   It’s real decent of you to apologize.
No, I don’t know where you can get peyote.
   No, I don’t know where you can get Navajo rugs real cheap.
I don’t know if anyone knows whether or not Cher is really Indian.
   No, I didn’t make it rain tonight.
Yeah. Uh-huh. Spirituality.
   Uh-huh. Yeah. Spirituality. Uh-huh. Mother
Earth. Yeah. Uh’huh. Uh-huh. Spirituality.
   No, I didn’t major in archery.
Yeah, a lot of us drink too much.
   Some of us can’t drink enough.
This ain’t no stoic look.
   This is my face.

The poem was transcribed from Songs From This Earth on Turtle’s Back edited by Joseph Bruchac. For more on Diane Burns: http://www.thevillager.com/villager_198/dianeburnsnative.html

Art in Ojai

October 18, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

John and I and my friend Christopher made a trip to Ojai last Saturday to take the Ojai studio art tour – it was sort of a field trip for my ceramics class. We saw some kewl pottery (I bought a little Leslie Thomson pot which reminded me of Zuni pots I’d seen in New Mexico but much cheaper – I suppose because she’s not Native American), some amazing wood pieces, not so many great paintings unfortunately but there was much more to see than we could get to in one day.

The highlight was our last stop, a huge gated compound. We thought “Oh great! Rich bored woman tried to dabble in art.” But then we met Sylvia Raz – she was an amazingly warm and funny person with a life story that was made our heads spin. Her parents were holocaust survivors from Russia aided by an Uncle who paid for all his siblings to escape but didn’t make it himself at the end. The uncle transplanted them to Montevideo, Uruguay. Inspired by her uncle, she became a Zionist and moved to Israel where she lived for ten years, experiencing three Israeli wars with a day-job being head nurse in a psychiatric ward.

You see a South American influence immediately but something seems different…a precise and non-equivocal Jewish voice. Her work is cross-culturally powerful, more vibrant and thought-provoking than anything we’d seen. She did some work in stone (a Madonna and Child in pullover and jeans!), but due to arthritis was now working primarily in clay and mixed media. She had knitted a giant woman who appeared to be sewing her toe. It was eve sewing herself! Eve didn’t come from Adam. Eve created herself! I get a shiver just thinking about it. Her latest projects use Barbie dolls in feminist commentary. My favorite piece was a male Barbie (not Ken) pushing a shopping cart full of inverted, disembodied Barbie legs. Amazing, amazing.

Due to an upsetting episode at the Vagabond Inn we ended up coming home a day early. I was depressed about that (no diner breakfast, no hike in the Ojai hills, no more art) and I spent the rest of the weekend moping and working on some Buddhist poems. I read an interesting story about Japanese tea ceremonies. Rikyó, founder of the tea ceremony cult in Japan, visited a man who brought out his best, most expensive tea pot to impress the master; but it was ignored completely. This greatly upset the man so he smashed the tea pot into many pieces and said what is it good for if it doesn’t impress the master? A friend picked up the pieces and lovingly and carefully glued the pot together again. But it had many, many cracks. Rikyó came to this man’s house and made much ado over the tea pot which he said looked familiar but now represented wabi or poetic poverty.

In another story, two men were having ceremonial tea and the guest noticed a vase was leaking water onto the table. He asked his host why he couldn’t just fix it. The host said it was perfect just the way it was…because it had sabi or the pleasurable beauty of its weathered age.

This site has a nice description of wabi and sabi.

It’s Gonna Rain and the Sun Isn’t Coming Back…Ever

October 18, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

YouTube Master Tyler posted a link to Sonny & Cher singing "It’s Gonna Rain" — consider that this was going to be their first single if Ahmet Ertegun had won the first-single fight with Sonny. This video brings up these thoughts:

It’s interesting to me that Sonny would write a song like this living in a city where it never rains.
Sonny is terrible at lip syncing, worse than Britney.
This is the only part of the movie Wild on the Beach you ever need see.
You wouldn’t break a sweat dancing like Sonny & Cher. It’s a dance that says I’m groovy yet bored.
That woman dancing in her chair – too funny. I’m gonna try that out the next time I hit the clubs. Because I like dancing. But not as much as I like sitting.

I found these other links under related links. I wasn’t sure what they all had in common at first and then it occurred to me: they’re all weather-related Cher songs.

The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Mix

The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine from Top of the Pops

Fan Clubbing

October 18, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

As part of my day job, I’ve been reading books on website usability, learning about how web surfers typically behave on websites and what they hate most. Some things used to big usability problems, but aren’t so much anymore: for instance putting on a background of wallpaper that takes five minutes to download or putting up an “under construction” sign. As it turns out, people hate that with at passion. But its not a modern usability issue anymore because rarely do designers still do it.

Well, turns out one site is still doing it: The Official Cher Fan Club. Mr. Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group, “the world’s leading expert on web usability” (according to his book jacket), says there’s no “coming soon” about it.

You either have it or you don’t.

And the official fans have had that silly message posted for over a year now…which means:

They don’t know the definition of soon.
They’re probably waiting for Cher to do something which would be very frustrating if they’ve been waiting like that for over a year.
They’re officially dead to me, and
I completely missed my blog’s one year anniversary! Happy Birthday, My Blog! I can’t believe I’ve been bullshitting about Cher for over a year. Time flies when you’re blogging about celebrity obsession.

Sometimes I feel there should be Cher usability studies for all the “coming soon” rumors in her oeuvre. Mame, Vegas, the next CD or movie rumors.

It’s been a few days of weird gossip, actually: Sonny’s son Chesare’s rumored affair with Lindsey Lohan while in rehab (and strangely, it’s not the Lohan angle of that story that bothers me most), no CD, no Vegas show. I think we’re all just feeling restless for Cher product. Constant delays to current projects have prompted recent chattering on the Cher list that Cher might be seriously ill. Someone brought up the idea that she counseled Farrah Fawcett on cancer treatments in Germany because she had personal experience with said treatments. This is just a rumor, of course; but we’re feeling preemptively sad about that kind of possibility. Like Sonny was Cher’s Dumbo’s Feather, for many fans, Cher is their Dumbo’s Feather. 🙁

Danish Talk Show Circa Believe

October 12, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

CherWorld.com posted this Cher interview from a Danish TV show circa Believe or rather at the last turn of the century. There were very interesting tidbits throughout this unique show. She talked about her interest in fashion and childish things. It was interesting when she said she didn’t care about not knowing things she didn’t know and that she would describe herself in a few words as “on the brink.” Very interesting.

I was surprised to see her play along with the show’s little reindeer games and so good naturedly, too. Although she did seem a little stiff, as I would expect a star of her stature to be, a star of her longevity and old-Hollywood temperament. I was surprised she hadn’t met Bill Clinton or been to China. I keep assuming, despite her claims otherwise, that she’s met everybody and been everywhere. She said it’s a sin to have it and not use it and that she doesn’t like oysters. I love this show for digging up pointless facts like this, I really do.

And then she lip synced "Believe."

There was one point in the show where the interviewer asked Cher about Cherilyn Sarkisian. That person is non-existent; haven’t seen her in a coon’s age, she said. (This is actually generational Americana speak I cannot translate). I thought how sad that sounds. Cher likes childish things but not her past child. I did a little tsk tsk.

Maybe I was being a dolt or maybe I was just re-enacting my own innocence-to-experience drama, akin to a Sonny Bono song about cowboy games. I truly thought for a minute that I loved my former child self. That kid was adorable and so able to entertain herself herself for long periods of time.

Then I went to my high school reunion. It was no disaster by any means but it was just okay, mostly depressing ‘cos nobody showed up I was looking forward to seeing. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Later on after the reunion in our hotel room (the fabulously kitschy Cheshire Lodge), after John had fallen asleep, I read my "Senior Destination," my prediction for my life 20 years down the line. I got mildly excited thinking I would see a heart-rendering clue into the fabulous person I became, a hint of the impending launch into an adventurous 20 years.

Alas…no.

It was all about poppin’ out babies and being June Cleaver. I was crestfallen. Who was that person?? It was alarming to me that I didn’t even recognize myself. I guess only my pre-teen self was so adorable. That teenager, she was a blank slate. It’s not that I judge a life of homemaking. It’s just that I so completely changed, I forgot who I was. And then I mourned the loss of both my old friends who didn’t turn up and the girl-in-me who couldn’t yet see her true nature.

I Found Some Blog

Page 102 of 113

The Internet, Video and Links

New Sonny & Cher Compilations

Miracle Seaweed Pots

Caesar(s) is Dead

Cher’s Name

Cher Poems

Art in Ojai

It’s Gonna Rain and the Sun Isn’t Coming Back…Ever

Fan Clubbing

Danish Talk Show Circa Believe

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