Okay so my actual 40th Birthday was hellish. Basically a chaotic work day of disaster. I got home and my bf had set out two sets of flowers (roses and orange daises that I like), the daises displayed very cutely in an old coffee thermos because he couldn’t find another vase. He also set up both champagne and champagne cake, too. We watched ghost shows. 

The next day was my 40th celebration day — officially. We went to a DVD-signing at Dark Delicacies in Burbank to visit our friend Akiko Shima who is in the DVD, a horror flick called Ghost Month. Akiko is very creepy in the movie and has a great death scene.

Then we went to buy my present: a VHS-DVD-R dubbing contraption that will help me convert a lifetime’s worth of Cher clips on VHS over to DVD. A very generous gift in so many ways.

I will also be able to re-watch quite a few John Waite videos taped a thousand times. We also found the wedding guestbook pens we’ve been looking for at an art store and then we cruised over to dinner at Maloon Sunset, my favorite restaurant for their spicy corn on the cob, salsa trio appetizer and hotter-than-hell shrimp diablo. I’ve been there four times and always get the exact same thing.

Then we went to see the new Harry Potter movie at Mann's theater over on Hollywood Blvd. Potter was great, per usual, except for one fatal flaw. They cut out all the back story on Professor Snape (played by Alan Rickman). Not only is Snape my favorite character but his development is the point of this whole book (The Half-Blood Prince). It explains all his prejudices (the book does, with real heart – it’s Wuthering Heights-esque), and not only does this prepare you for the series finale, it serves to knock you off your own prejudices about good and evil and who is on who’s side.

You could say Snape and Potter are the characters that define the whole series and its main theme. Cutting out the meat of the book made me feel emotionally robbed and also robbed of major plot foundation, and then confused about why the movie-makers decided to even keep the title if they were barely going to refer to it. They tried to cover that fact by a throwing in a scene at the end to quickly resolve that elephant-in-the-room, and that scene was frankly insulting to the book’s readers.

Since birthday weekend, I’ve been dealing with work craziness and car issues. So not a great week starting my somewhat-middle-age.

This week I also checked out a Cher compilation CD I found at Amoeba Records, a compilation I didn’t think I had – although there are so many Cher compilations now, I’m starting to forget.  This one is The Best of Cher The Early Years, a two CD Set — undated.

A waste of God’s good materials if you ask me. 

I always wonder how songs are picked for these when they’re not actually comprised of real hits. The producers quirky choices? Random selections out of a hat? This set is divided like as follows…

CD 1: Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves (I appreciate the attempt to correct the spelling of 'Gypsys' but is it better to be a good speller or misquote history?)

1. The Way of Love
2. Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves
3. He’ll Never Know
4. Fire & Rain
5. When You Find Out Where You’re Goin’ Let Me Know
6. He Aint Heavy, He’s My Brother
7. I Hate to Sleep Alone
8. I’m In the Middle
9. Touch and Go
10. One Honest Man

Okay kids, so this is basically a redux of Cher (1971), the album later re-titled Gypsys Tramps & Thieves. Maybe the re-release of the CD is already out of print, thus necessitating HALF of this compilation being taken up by a re-re-release of the whole damn thing. More likely, it looks like somebody had a mass of old Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves album CDs without cases, vulnerable to repackaging just like those old Mego doll Cher heads in the late-70s that were left over and stuck on cheaper plastic barbie bodies. Atrocities to Cher heads, that was.

Half Breed is what the second CD is titled and I’d think we’d be getting the full Half-Breed album, if I've learned anything from what’s on CD 1. What was I thinking? Trying to use logic on Cher compilations is thankless.

1. Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves (inexplicably again!)
2. Don’t Hide Your Love
3. The First Time
4. Let me Down Easy
5. Half Breed
6. Dark Lady
7. Carousel Man
8. Song for You
9. Train of Thought
10. The Way of Love (inexplicably again!!)

At first I thought we were getting Cher’s Greatest Hits (1974 MCA) until I hit “The First Time.” What hodge-podge of hits and non-hits is this? And WTF, two songs repeated twice? And the same song beginning and ending the entire compilation…for no purpose!!

Listen, I don’t care if you try to rip me off with cheap compilations, you scammy record-companies. But just don’t throw crap at a wall. Is that too much to ask? Can you at least put ten minutes of thought into this junk before you send it on its merry way? With all of Cher’s recordings in the world, ten monkeys could type out more coherent, cohesive compilations combinations. 

Okay…maybe that’s my lack-of-transportation-frustration talking.  But come on. Is it me?
 

I completely missed my blog posting deadline this week; and I sit here typing out this blog entry on a Saturday while listening to my street's block party on the Fourth of July, everybody having a frolic outside while I sit inside coughing with chest pains and a headache. Fleh!

In the meantime, I've been wanting to post this entry for quite some time. Weeks ago I was very giddy to have been contacted by someone who was on-site for one of Cher's 70s album recordings. Lenny Roberts, her recording engineer, was kind enough to spend a short time answering my many, many questions after his cataract surgery.

Cher fans will remember Lenny credited on just about every Cher Kapp/MCA project of the early to mid 70s. Lenny didn't seem to remember being involved in the Snuff Garrett-produced Warner Bros album Cherished, but he is listed on the back album cover credits.

Anyway, it was thrilling to get some behind the scenes peaks at recording with Cher during that time.

Interview with Lenny Roberts