Cher in pasta: http://www.jasonmecier.com/bcher.html
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“Cher and David Bowie Singing Every Song Ever Written” is the entry on Debbie Millman’s blog. When I first saw this on TV — on VH-1 during their afternoons of Cher love many years ago — I actually did a roll-on-the-floor laugh. It lasted a long time, that laugh did. It’s just that it’s like…yeah…every song ever written…in one medley! It’s Olympic in nature really.
I’ve been contemplating a lot lately about the act of being taught. I admit, I’m a total nerd. I love to read; I love to self-teach. At home, I have How To and Intro books coming out my ass. Over the last year and a half I’ve been self-teaching on Zen Buddhism for a poetry project. Alarmingly, looking back I counted 41 books I read to try to “get the jist” of it. Many of those books said clearly that reading books on Buddhism is pointless. You have to practice Buddhism to get it, something which includes meditation. Fair enough I thought. So I went out and bought a book on how to meditate. That books said you can’t teach yourself how to meditate from a book either! Crap. Not only do you need to practice it to learn Buddhism, but you must find a teacher not a book.
But I didn’t like that idea, quite frankly. I wanted to learn it ah-LONE. I was nervous about not picking it up fast enough in front of other people. Besides, meditation is about losing the chaos in your head and clearing out your mind. It’s practiced alone frequently. Why do you have to do it with other people when it’s something you must eventually come to understand all by your lonesome? So I practiced alone and it was good enough.
But then two things happened. I started taking a ceramics class (my first adult art experience) and then for work my department started taking Spanish classes (my first post-French trauma language class – I’m so not a left-brained/memorize-it person).
And a strange shift in my brain happened. I loved these classes. Like those green pants in that Dr. Seuss story, at first I was afraid of them; but then I loved them. In Spanish class, I actually started to feel the camaraderie of participation and to not to be freaked out by failing. Just trying and practicing felt good. Laughing about mistakes felt even better.
Then in ceramics I fell in love with my teachers’ passion for clay. At the end of our first class, many of us struggled with the wheel. It was so much harder than we could manage. Recently I found another teacher in a private studio who gently guides us through it step by step. She has a palpable love and respect for teaching and pottery. And I’m eating it up.
After our trip to France in a few weeks, my bf and I are going to start taking yoga mixed with meditation. And I’m really looking forward to finding a new teacher.
These generous acts of teaching truly move and humble me. They have helped me to understand my life is not about amassing knowledge and successes. It’s more about comprehending little lessons, these little sparks of life, moments of communication, precious gifts of being shown by hand how to ask a stranger “Te gusta comer los enchiladas?”, how to center your clay on a wheel, and how to center your shit on a spinning life.
I want to take a moment to finish up reviewing bootlegs Cher peeps have sent me. Regarding the 60s set I got for purchasing two posters off eBay, I have three clips left. I also just received a new and fabulous DVD from Jimmy (aka gypsy90028) that I’ll start discussing, as well.
Back to the Late 60s…
The Smothers Brothers
Most of us have seen Cher singing “Alfie” on this show. I never ceased to be amazed by Cher in that short baby-doll dress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lDSf0A9RTk
The Jerry Lewis Show
Now this show had some cool effects with background projections and whatnot and Cher arrives with BIG mascara. Things have clearly gotten out of hand in that regard. S&C sing “What Now My Love” and you can see Cher is definitely more confident these days. Lots of finger snapping goin down. And doesn’t Cher have skinny legs though?
Are they lip synching again? Cher gets ready to sing “You’d Better Sit Down Kids” introducing it proudly as a song “my husband wrote for himself.” I was reminded watching this clip how unusual the song is being about broken homes and change and all, that painful moment when a parent has to explain divorce to their kids. Have you ever heard anything like it…before or since?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJlubAgs7uM
Glen Campbell
We’ve already seen the super-fine duet of Cher singing “All I Really Want to Do” with Glen on his variety show. If not, get his latest DVD. It’s fabulous.
On that episode, Cher also sings “The First Time” in a set looking like a bedroom after a cheap one night stand. Cher’s eyelashes have improved. And she’s growing out her bangs….they look like little orphans, uncut and running away. She gives Glen a big smile and he asks if Sonny produced that song. She again proudly says that he wrote that song and doesn’t someone in there say “and he can cook too.”
Then things really gets crazy with Neil Diamond. He’s just become successful (and it now occurs to you 40 years later how rarely you see him on TV). Cher is in an Indian top and they all three do a medley of Diamond hits up to that time, which include “Thank the Lord for the Nighttime" (full with emotive ‘Oh Yeahs’), “Kentucky Woman,” “Brother Loves Traveling Salvation Show” and “Sweet Caroline” which we only recently found out is about Caroline Kennedy. Come on, Neil! That ruins it! I thought it was another song about booze all this time!
Now skip to the early 80s…
Black Rose on Midnight Special
I had never seen Black Rose in action. And I loved it. I was amazed by it. This is honestly a side of Cher no-one gets to see. It never appears in biographical footage and it’s a phase of her career mostly ignored. And even though I would accept the critique that Black Rose was no great shakes when you stack them against Hall of Famers, they was fairly a good enough new band that could’ve stood up against other new bands out there.
Because it was Cher’s third or fourth or fifth (according to your timeline) incarnation, she brought all her former incarnations’ baggages, infamy and expectations to the act which was unfortunate. Had Cher started her career entirely with this band, they may have evolved and succeeded and we’d probably see Cher as a respected rock singer today alongside our other stellar rock chicks.
And this is one of the many instances where Cher had to pay her dues (not with drugs or alcohol or poverty, but with no respect); and it also exemplifies ironically in reverse why she should be a hall of famer because she took such risky risks musically in almost every musical genre and survived some huge failures but prevailed to bigger and better successes down the line.
Her rock moves here are fully and faithfully performed in “Never Should’ve Started.” Physically she dances with hard rock enthusiasm no one had seen before and would never see from her again. She rebelliously sings the word ‘bitch’ in the song “Julie” and tries to sing eye to eye with Les Dudek in “You Know It.” However, he’s no Sonny. Like Gregg Allman before him and Richie Sambora after him, no "real rocker dude" seems to have the balls to sing while looking Cher dead in the eye so intently as Sonny did. But she kept trying.
For Cher, loving you must mean singing live with you.
Something bothered me throughout the three songs on Midnight Special: who the hell is that guy on the left, the backup singer. He plays air guitar as if he’s the main act. And yet, with that tight shirt, he seems more like a dancing bodyguard than an actual band mate.
And I know she’s trying to dress down now but is that a hole fit she’s wearing under that sweat shirt?? I think I see a sequin.
In any case, out of love for rock music, Cher wanted to be in a band against her career’s common wisdom. And she had enough conviction to try to sublimate her image and name to try to make it work. However, as we all have come to now know: such a thing is ludicrously impossible. And that’s probably the idea at which most of the ridicule started. Therefore, no one give the act a fair, pure looksee.
See? Even Wikipedia considers it "a Cher album"
The Monte Carlo Show
This DVD also included the Monte Carlo show in its entirety, something I’d never seen before either. I’d been surviving ravenously from clips online. I was so entranced when I watched it I didn’t even take any notes. Now looking back, I must say honestly it felt a little rough compared to Celebration at Caesars a year or so later. Caesars was so smooth and slick and it had that big awesome shoe. I feel the Monte Carlo show stumbles starting directly with Laverne. We expect the big Cher entrance, not a fake out. The fake out with the drag Cher is much better played after the intermission, as Cher did it during her Heart of Stone tour.
However, I love, love, love the outfits in this show. And the dancing makes me nostalgic for the late 70s and early 80s. That encore crotch shot was scandalous! I played it for my bf when he got home!
What really fascinates me is the stupifying contrast between Black Rose and Vegas Cher in 1980. Consider with these:
Merv Griffin clips of Black Rose
(Merv Griffin? No wonder they had a hard time getting steet cred!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omdLRZE5Zh4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB4aSGF66Qs
Then Monte Carlo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFMc668T8xo
I’ll be brief this week as I am in the midst of some dark nights of the soul this week over my writing non-career. However, in the midst of all this, one thing made me laugh out loud this week: a site simply dedicated to the absurd photos people post online of their cats with stuff on them (toys, boxes, you name it). Ridiculous but surprisingly funny. The site is called Stuff on my Cat. This weeks Cher reference was unusual and hilarious. Not what people normally pick on Cher for:
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/index.php?itemid=7900
My credit card bill came this week with $500 dolares of Cher tickets on it. This did not lighten my mood any.
Chastity’s birthday just came and went. Like me, her 40s are looming nearby. It seems mum may be buying her a stylin’ lounge chair or barcalounger as a gift. I’m trying to talk my bf into one of those. He wants to get rid of his couch for a mission-style recliner chair which looks lovely but very uncomfortable. This is a guy who likes to nap and I envision him abandoning the lovely mission-style chair and hijacking my couch every night to nap on while I’m stuck on a very lovely but uncomfortable mission chair, unable to nap myself. Thus I’m lobbying hard for the recliner. But alas, he feels too refined to recline.
Anywho, TMZ was apparently on the scene of the Cher and Cher-daughter shopping event, taking video through the store window no less. Creepy. And yet we watch.
Cher’s competition and supposed rival, Bette Midler, opened her Caesars show this week. I’m interested to see how they will compare:
And here’s more on the story that the Cher catalog was part of the song titles of Universal sold to a Dutch civil service workers pension fund. I’m sorry this wont be turning up as a 401(k) choice for us.
This photo is here in honor of the new sun-glasses I bought this week. The rest is miscellaneous knits and gnats:
Tyler on Chergroups posted this interview last week – more preview info on the show plus a sneak peak at the outside of the Cher store! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KNbEv-0DX8
Speaking of Tyler, he did a great video tribute to Cher singing "Nature Boy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PkQJRLTJ5M with some rare photos. I’m envious of 
his rare photos.
And there’s a new fun online game: Cher or Drag Cher: http://cityrag.blogs.com /main/2008/02/cher-or-drag-ch.html. I missed one!!!
And here’s a photo of Cher in Beverly Hills recently. I love her bun!
I haven’t done a Cher site review for eons. But my friend Jeffrey sent me this fabulous photo of Cher’s bling-bling nails circa the 1960s. The photo came from an absolutely even more fabulous Russian site called Cher Love: http://www.cherlove.net/
Home page photo of Cher doing a 360 is a tad creepy and the colors are gray and gloomy with an odd spray of pink. It’s almost like a subliminal political statement about a modern cold war.
Sections include:
- Film – a flat list with release dates; some personal commentary would be nice
to add - Multimedia – a good video collection from 2005-2008 including Cher’s Keep a Child Alive commercial and a C-span appearance.
- Biography – nothing for non-fans and nothing for 80s Geffen-era or Believe fans.
- Forum – the forum is in Russian so I didn’t bother to join. I will have my Russian-speaking friend dig in to it.
- Music – Flat list with release dates. My only quibble with the list is that the line item "1973 The Two of Us" should be in compilations since it was basically a re-release of two S&C early 60s albums.
- Links – Small list that’s a good to start doing your Cher surfing. I noticed yesterday that EverythingCher.com is back offline again. Sad face. So I took it off my favorites list. Another sad face.
- News – only began two months ago but is up to date. I like that it posts movie alerts when Cher movies appear on cable. Legitimate news that is always overlooked on other sites.
- Awards – Way cool awards list. So kewl I printed it out.
- However, the best section is the gallery which is absolutely a delicacy: http://www.cherlove.net/gallery/ It’s organized very efficiently – how Russian of them.
Gallery is organized by:
- Public events
Various public events, and other appearances. - Television
Captures, press photos, interview, and other images from television series and specials. - Candids
Various paparazzi photos. - Professional
Photoshoots, and modeling. - Films
Captures, press photos, and posters. - Magazines
Covers, and scans. - Live Tours
Live tours, and concerts. - Other Photo
Books, parfume, posters, art works, and other.
My favorite photo on the site so far is this one to the right above. I love that picture – so grunge-glam.
Plus an added benefit: you learn the Russian translations for all your favorite Cher words, like Mask is Маска. Cher Love: Worth it’s weight in rubles! Bravo.
So it seems Mask has gone Broadway like Witches of Eastwick and become a musical. Except not on Broadway, at the Pasadena Playhouse. I don’t have high hopes though. I saw a terrible California-ized Shakespearean play there a few years ago.
Tickets range from $48 to $66 and previews start March 12 with the official opening set for March 21 through April 20. For more information call (626) 356-PLAY or visit www.Pasadenaplayhouse.org.
But alas…I could be wrong. The music was written by our friends Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. They wrote "Holy Smoke," as you remember from my previous blog. And other Cher tunes of the late 70s, as well as the 60s hit "You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling" and the 80s hit "Somewhere Out There."
Anna Hamilton Phelan, who as you know did the Mask screenplay, is involved again in this project. Did you know she also did the scripts for Gorillas in the Mist and Girl Interrupted. Tony-Award winner Richard Maltby (creator of Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Fosse, and the co-creator of Miss Saigon) directs.
Playbill On-Line has more info: http://news.yahoo.com/s/playbill/20080222/en_playbill/115299
…including this good quote from Phelan (from the production notes):
"When I was researching the screenplay for ‘Mask,’ I entered the world of The Tribe. After the
release of the movie in 1985 I remained friends with them, especially Rusty. As the years passed Rusty became more open about her feelings, especially about being Rocky’s mother. When I told her I was going to tell the story again, but this time as a musical play, she was thrilled. My subsequent visits with her in her trailer in Azusa unearthed a treasure of rich material as she continued to share her memories with me. I also learned that biker clubs as far away as Missouri had ‘adopted’ Rocky as a kind of mascot. Some had his initials painted on their bikes.
"The last time I spoke to Rusty was a few weeks before she died in October 2006 at the age of 70. She was driving her chopped, three-wheeled motorcycle to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. One of the back tires fell off, she was thrown and hit a curb. I’m sure she was saying to herself, ‘What a bitchin’ way to go!’
"I regret she won’t be in the front row at the opening as we had planned, but I know she would have been grateful, as I am, to the Pasadena Playhouse for giving me the opportunity to tell this story a second time”
So maybe there will be more insight now with an expanded story.
Some clips that have come across Cher Scholar’s desk this week:
A Cher Investment: songs written by Bon Jovi, Cher, Celine Dion and Justin Timberlake now form part of the investment portfolio of Dutch civil service pension fund ABP.
Dinner Date Night Idea: stay at home, watch Moonstruck and bake a pizza; here’s how.
Good News: the paparazzi are starting to get arrested in LA when their volume and tactics put people in jeopardy. Uh…it’s about time. Read about such an arrest.
And if you recall my gripes last week or so about Cher’s modern dance routines compared to her 80s Vegas ones, here is a story on her choreographer Doriana Sanchez and how they hooked up.
And Cher may not support Obama but he supports Cher: in a joke last week Jay Leno said: "In an interview in People Magazine, Barack Obama said he was more a fan of Sonny and Cher than he was a fan of Donny and Marie. Well, that should answer the question of whether he’s black enough!" That’s actually very kewl. Sonny & Cher got soul…we knew it!
A party of Sonny, Chers, Donny and Maries
A soulful Cher among honkey Osmonds
The Latest News Clips
(as posted on Cher groups)
Honestly, a good source for the latest Cher clips is always Cherworld.com. It’s an amazing Cher site that fishes out the late-breaking Cher news so you don’t have to. Cherworld’s on it!
Items covered in latest interviews
• Farah Fawcett’s cancer treatments with embalization and cyber knives
• Dangerous pug-faced paparazzi
• Cher’s good genes
• Cher’s good ex-boyfriend Gene
• Sonny ghost
• Cher’s Elvis teen crush (and she still didn’t go to Vegas with him?? Imagine if your teen crush invited you to Vegas for the weekend. Tell me, who is it? Would you go? I just got over my teen crush…last month. So no, I guess I wouldn’t go now.)
• Cher’s good health habits with the succinct quote: “I never saw drugs do anything good for anyone.”
• Her other tips for longevity including love well…and often.
So, it irks me that latest press reports state Cher is set to record her 27th album (one source even said 25th). Not to be a Cher nerd (too late), but It’s only 25 when you only count studio solo albums. But why leave out Sonny & Cher, Allman and Woman, Black Rose and the live albums? It’s so much more impressive to say she’s starting to record her 36th album (which includes the three major live albums and the Good Times soundtrack album –with all its original material– but not Chastity because it was mostly instrumental.)
It’s all about me
And this Cher nerd is feeling a little wiped-out and overwhelmed at the moment. Basically too much going on right now and I need to simply simplify. Helping my parents with their reunion/50th Anniversary party this summer, planning for my trip to Paris with the bf (which includes brushing up on my French, planning our itinerary and buying suitable non-American looking clothes so I wont be ostracized as a tourist), working on a somewhat large poetry project, and studying Spanish, Information Architecture (and now Project Management) for work.
I’ve had to put off my second class in ceramics for the time being. Which smarts.
At least Valentines Day is a hurdle that has passed. My bf and I have really sorry luck on romantic holidays including anniversaries. This year traffic made my bf late and our restaurant had some crisis and couldn’t seat anybody. After hearing angry comments from other couple’s left waiting in the lobby for 40 minutes, we left and went to a Mexican dive (my favorite, Rosa’s, on PCH). But overall, better than some fiascoes of years past. This year I got my bf a slew of chocolates and a singing Johnny Cash card. I also bought a singing Sonny & Cher card for myself. They were $4.99 each. The S&C card said:
“You got the honey,
I got the bees.
You got the mac,
And I got the cheese.
You got the hand,
I got the glove.
But the best part of all is…Inside: we got the love.”
And then the card played:
“I got you to kiss goodnight
I got you to hold me tight
I got you and I wont let go
I got you to love me so
I got….you babe.”
Really loud. Honestly, it was lame. I guess it’s important to have it for historical purposes. To document the crap our Hallmark society puts out. I hope the estate of Sonny Bono received a good chuck of that $4.99.
Grammys: What are you wearing?
For more information on Cher’s outfit last week at the Grammys, visit Julia Gerard who designed Cher’s fitted skirt. J. Gerard holds shop on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. My obsession with the show Project Runway makes me wonder if Cher would like Jeffrey Sebelia from last year.
The new show
In the Feb 10 edition of the La Times there was a full-page ad that said:
Cher
opening may 2008
The Coliseum
Caesars Palace
Las Vegas
I almost got excited until I noticed it was in the same Cher font as used for the Farewell tour and Living Proof. This goth font has been used for so many years it’s becoming like that Barry Manilow font he on all his albums from the first one in 1972 to the Even Now album in 1978. It was a butt-ugly font, too. Cher’s font is not butt-ugly but it does make me worry that the Vegas show will recycle things. I saw the Farewell show about…um….5 times. Which seems like a lot but in Willie Wonka terms is like that scene when Charlie was in class and asked by his teacher how many Wonka bars he had 
bought hoping for a golden ticket and all the other kids were like “you only bought two? How insane is that?” and Charlie felt like a dolt. Well, that equates to how I feel when I tell other Cher fans I only saw 5 or so farewell tour shows. But believe me, five was enough. Nothing changed except an incredibly shrinking set list.
All I am saying is that I yearn for new font assets. It’s not that I hate these goth assets. They’re strong and ballsy and look like they’ve been around for centuries. What’s not to like?
This all may sound crabby but I’m really looking forward to this year’s show. I hope to see lots of stupidly large headdresses. Headdresses like in Celebration at Caesars – so big Cher could only make it down a few steps before cute male dancers are forced to come to her aid.
And is Cher at the Coliseum really the official title of the show? Not quite the pizazz of The Showgirl 
Must Go On or the simple artistry of The Red Piano.
