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Winners Announced: Fans Rend Garments

January 20, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Despair 

 

The winners of last week's Facebook contest were announced and Cher News has been tracking the tweets of joy and the tweets of despair from those fans who did not make the random cut.

 

 

Zombies will be zombies after all. Sadly, they always want flesh.

But seriously, don't the drama queens ruin it for the rest of us. Just like Jessica Lange emoted in the early part of this season's American Horror Story in her Oscar winning Bostonian accent after the inmates abused a good thing, "Movie night is over for the foreseeable futcha!"

Will Cher continue to provide contests if the contestants lose their minds? She certainly doesn't need to.

Interestingly related to this, I've been saving up quotes on fame for my next Cher Zine and I've just found a treasure trove of good Oscar Wilde ones. Yesterdays find is apropos for the situations of these upset fans:

"It is a very unimaginative nature that only cares for people on their pedestals."

I always thought the phrase "get a life" was too harsh and slightly inaccurate. How does one lose a life after all other than to "drop dead." The better encouragement may be, "please start to care about other things."

If you continue to rent the fates for not delivering up your name in a Facebook contest, life is nothing but suffering ahead for you.

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On the bright side of obsession, one obsessed fan contributed a winning bid of $5,700 to ensure meeting Cher, funds which will go to the Cher Charitable Foundation and the maintenance of the Shikimana School in Kenya. How often is it that nice and needy Kenyans get the opportunity to appreciate Americans for our celebrity obsessions?

 

Contest to Meet Cher Ends Tomorrow

January 16, 2013 / / 0 Comments

ContestCher and her peeps have devised a contest to fly in fans to meet her and attend the taping of her "Woman's World" video. Originally the contest was to be a Twitter scroll random pick sort of thing.

But you know…lawyers get involved and the thing gets mired in legalese.

It's a pretty sweet contest and there are a few ways to win: bid your way to the top (you richie ditchies) or enter the random pick. According to the official rulz, if you bid:

"the funds raised from this auction will go directly to the maintenance
of the Shikimana School in Kenya which Cher built two years ago under
the auspices of The Cher Charitable Foundation. The school educates
young children in need and provides medical help and nutritional meals
for the students. The Shikimana School also acts as a community center."

If you are part of the underclass, like me, you can still throw your hat in the ring for a free trip to Los Angeles and time to hob knob on the video set with Cher. Pretty nice, huh?

Cher World breaks it all down nicely.

Or you can go directly to the Facebook page to enter: https://apps.facebook.com/womansworldwin/contests/310497. God forbid, if you don't have a Facebook account by now you must join.

My husband refuses to do this, even for a chance of meeting Cher.

Cher Zombies, you have until Thursday, Dec 17 at 3:00pm PST to enter. God speed.

 

David Geffen, Joni Mitchell & Cher

January 13, 2013 / / 2 Comments

JonicherSince the David Geffen PBS special last year I've been thinking about the ladies in Geffen's life. Although he gave them expert help and guidance, many of them broke his heart, including Laura Nyro, Cher and apparently he was dismayed by Joni Mitchell's "Free Man in Paris" and how it exposed his private life.

Geffen had better luck mentoring men: Jackson Browne, The Eagles, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits,  Warren Zevon, J.D. Souther–all at Asylum. Most of the Geffen label successes were male: John Lennon, Asia, Elton John, Sonic Youth, Aerosmith, XTC, Peter Gabriel,  Blink-182, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana and Neil Young.

Linda Ronstadt and Lone Justice being exceptions.

Around the time of the special, a few Cher scholars alerted me to Joni Mitchell songs of the mid 1970s that might have lyrics referencing Cher. This was the time she was living with David Geffen and he was dating Cher.

Check out the lyrics and tell me what you think:

Rob alerted me to this line from "Off Night Backstreet" on the album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977):

Who left her long black hair
in our bathtub drain?

Dishy alerted me to the Joni Mitchell song "Love or Money" from the live album Miles of Aisles (1974). It's lyrics are a bit more vague.

According to the the "Big Yellow Taxi" page, Cher's version (from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour??) is available on a recording called Live And Loud, Volume II from 2005 although I can't seem to find any information about this album. Has anybody heard of it?

  

Some Sweet Pics

January 8, 2013 / / 7 Comments

Over the last few weeks I’ve seen some sweet Cher pics float by from different sources, Facebook, Diva Incarnate, Google pics….I’ve been saving them on my desktop to post here.

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Cher with Sonny in the 60s; Cher with Gregg Allman in Japan in the 70s.

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What

I have no idea what these could be. Cher in a shower? Cher in a wedding scene for a torch number?

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Keepcalm

I love, love, love that Sonny & Cher pic. But I would have rewritten that sign, “Stay Calm I’m Back.”

 

Cher Contest and New Development Deal

January 8, 2013 / / 0 Comments

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.

 

Family Guy’s Christmas Special

December 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

FamilyguyLast Sunday, Family Guy aired a Christmas episode called "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" about the story of Joseph and Mary (and Stewey as Jesus). Mr. Cher Scholar and I watched it and our favorite lines are:

Peter as Joseph to Lois as Mary:

Mary, tell me again how it is that God got you pregnant? Cos when you tell the story it sorta makes sense. But then when I tell the guys at work, they poke all kinds of holes in it.

There's a running Cher joke through the episode starting with when Joseph first asks Mary out on a date:

Peter as Joseph: Hey listen I just got tickets to see Cher in Bethlehem. Wanna go?

Lois as Mary: I guess. How close are the seats?

Peter as Joseph: Row LXVI.

Later when Joseph and Mary are trying to find a room at the inn, the character Mort plays the innkeeper and refuses them.

Mort: Sorry. We're all booked up. Cher is in town. You won't find a room in the city.

Joseph and Mary plead to no avail. Mary's water breaks and Mort gives them space in the inn's manger.

From a distance in the town you hear sounds of a crowd and Cher shouting.

Cher: Bethlehem! I have one question for you.

A dance beat starts.

Cher sings: Do you believe in life after love?

Peter as Joseph: Jah! See? I told you she'd open with that.

The joke being that Cher has been around so long….

Anyway, I wouldn't be a Cher scholar if I didn't point out that Cher never opens with that song. But that's the cross I bear.


Cherfamguy2Family Guy has done a smattering of Cher jokes over the years. Last year they did this Cher impersonator in a wheelchair joke.

Years before the show hit its stride, they did a scene where Meg pretends she's Cher singing to the troops, but with disastrous results.

In another episode a few years ago Peter writes "Retire Cher" from an airplane similar to the way
the Wicked Witch of the West wrote "Surrender Dorothy."

Cherfamguy1

Cher Scholar’s Visit to Another Cher Scholar

December 26, 2012 / / 12 Comments

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.

8trackscassets

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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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IMG_8342 IMG_8345  

 

 

 

 

Farewellposter IMG_8375  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!

IMG_8353 IMG_8369

 

 

 

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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.

 

Truman Capote on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour

December 26, 2012 / / 1 Comment

So for years I've been telling Mr. Cher Scholar that The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was so popular in the early 1970s that it was able to pull in some pretty unbelievable guest stars.

The penultimate unbelievable guest star, in my humble opinion, was writer Truman Capote.

Truman

As all my S&C episode are in a box somewhere in my garage, I was never able to prove this meeting of the talent ever occurred, thus get Mr. Cher Scholar to believe it.  

Thankfully, the Los Angeles Times recently posted their memory of the event in December, a happening which originally broadcast on October 3, 1973 on CBS along with the LA Times original interview with Capote by Cecil Smith on August 22, 1973:
Capote3

Capote was called onstage to play the
British admiral doing battle with the French. In his most piping
screech, he yelled: “Where’s the mizzen mast?” To which a sailor
shrugged: “I don’t know. How long has it been mizzen?”

I was curious as to what motivates a
writer of the stature of Capote, certainly one of the most important
literary figures of the century, to play the fool for the glory of
toilet bowl and armpits and other objects sacred to television.

“I’ve always liked Sonny and Cher,” said
Capote over some dry Manhattans at the Hotel Bel-Air. “I’ve never done
anything like this and I thought it might be fun.”
Capote4

“I suppose I did it because I was asked.”

This certainly fits with Capote's image at the end of his career. Famous for writing In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's (one of Cher's favorite films when she was younger), Capote had long stopped writing and had become a Hollywood wannabie, hob-knobbing with the star set. There have been a few films about his life but I really liked Capote (2005) starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Here is more information about the episode:

The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour Season 4 Episode 4
Show 47 – Truman Capote, John Davidson
The Vamp segment looks back at the love affair between Lord Horatio Nelson (Capote) and his mistress Lady Hamilton (Cher). Cher also plays another vamp, Sadie Thompson, in a parody of spy movies, with Capote playing the evil Dr. Leadfinger and John Davidson as James Blond.

Music:
Sonny & Cher "Get Down" and "The Weight"
Cher "Superstar"
John Davidson "Behind Closed Doors"

So far this lovely bit of Sonny & Cher history has not shown up on the YouTubes, but here is a very funny roast of Capote by Rich Little.

 

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