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My Pots Have Arrived!

October 4, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Skip de doo, Irv! My first ceramics class pots are done! Who-hoo!

I started my first art class, a pottery class, at Santa Monica college with my friend Christopher. I felt it would be a fun working-meditation activity. Plus I love clay! But it took our first pinch pots (mine below) forever to be fired, glazed and re-fired. It’s week five or six basically and we have finally finished our first pots.

Blueside

   

   

I call this pot Wobbly Blue because it wobbles like a weeble but it doesn’t tip over…and its blue.

Blueinside_3

      

   

Wobbly Blue – inside

Blackside

   

   

This is called Thin Walls with Spot because the teacher wanted a bowl with thinner walls and a mysterious spot appeared in my glaze.

Blackinside

 

Thin Walls with Spot – inside

I’m going to name my pots for their imperfections (I know…it will be hard to choose which one) as the great beauty of this exercise is letting go of the idea of perfection and loving the modest, flawed thing you made.

   

Danny Boy and the Thirteenth High School Confession

October 4, 2007 / / 2 Comments

Nyro I’m back from my bittersweet high school reunion. The trip was great. Gave my bf a big hometown tour of me. Don’t worry, he didn’t suffer. There were plenty of river boats, historical re-enactors and pre-historic mounds to keep him happy. Story and pics coming soon.

In the meantime, Cherworld has posted an amazingly unusual Cher interview (it’s European, of course). Give it a looksee. Something about it will relate to my high school reunion story.

For my bf’s birthday last year I gave him two Laura Nyro CDs. He had expressed interest in my Nyro/LaBelle CD which I bought because I love Patty LaBelle. Still, he didn’t like Laura Nyro at all (although since yesterday, I discovered he secretly has been listening to one of them at work) and these two CDs have been on my list of things to listen to for about a year. Two days ago I finally put on Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, her breakout album on the Columbia label with then-manager David Geffen.

First of all, I had placed Nyro in the mid 70s, not late 60s. Knowing this tid-bit unlocked a door for me. I can say I finally get it: her fluid genre-melds are pretty amazing for the time and her lyrics are poeticly playful. I’m still not very fond of her soprano voice. It’s too shrill for me most of the time. But I love “Sweet Blindness” and “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Poverty Train” has really grown on me. And best of all, I finally see from where came Nelly McKay!

I’m a bit overwhelmed with catching up on Cher news this week but I did join my first Facebook Cher group: If You Don’t Love Cher, You Are A Dirty Dirty Communist. Good questions are not really brewing there yet but I did see a good question on the Yahoo!Chergroups list posted by daniel martinez:

What Cher song has the most meaning to you and why?

This is a particularly difficult question for me. I’m not very sentimental about Cher songs. I’m much more academic and cerebral about my love of Cher music. Her albums do notate the timeline of my life but mostly as a background soundtrack. For instance, we used to yell the chorus of “Laugh at Me” before doing belly bombs into our neighborhood pool. I also remember re-enacting the storyline of “Send the Man Over” from Cherished. However, I was only 8 years old and the major sexual innuendos in the song went over my innocent five-foot head. I guess the two songs that tug on my heart-sleeves would be "Somebody" and "Danny Boy."

"Somebody" reminds me of being five or six years old in the mid-70s, listening to Sonny & Cher on my parents phonograph in our front living room – lots of New Mexico sunlight, the jump rope as my microphone. Groovy times. I love Cher’s vocal on that song. And "Danny Boy" always makes me vaclempt. The sadness in her voice. Speaking from beyond the grave. It’s all there. You can read more about my top 10 favorite Cher songs on Cherscholar.

      

Olivia Newton John, Les Dudek and the Marijuana Video

September 24, 2007 / / 3 Comments

Thruglass I was remiss in posting last week due to being at a work retreat for three days. As a result, the other two days I was a complete zombie. The retreat was exhausting but amazing and at a fabulous venue, the posh Fess Parker’s Inn in Los Olivos. I spent my very few spare minutes ogling the funky, overpriced art at one of the many galleries nearby.

This week I head off early to my 20th high school reunion in St. Louis (hopefully I’ll have wacky photos coming soon…or photos of myself in tears like Romy and Michele ). Sadly, I did not lose many pounds these last few months but I did gain quite a few muscles in all my Tamilee workouts. Come on…I just can’t work out to Cher with that hole fit on! Besides, Tamilee is so friendly and encouraging. She reminds me of Olivia Newton John.

And I read an interesting article about ONJ by Wendy McClure in the Aug/Sept issue of Bust Magazine. Titled “Reviving Olivia,” it dealt with Wendy’s late 70s, early 80s childhood obsession with ONJ and hearkened back to a more innocent time of celebrity obsession. “They don’t make pop stars like ONJ anymore,” Wendy says as she describes her fantasies “where I got to be her best friend.” She describes ONJ as both exotic and friendly…wholesome and hot.

“The celebrity world has changed for the worse: it’s become too fast, too fickle, too irreversibly fucked-up to give us another like her…[back then it was a time] when female teen stars were still more likely to be seen as artistic ambassadors from the next generation than fresh meat with a legal-age countdown.”

So true. Which brings us to the next topic. I finally watched the Sonny Bono marijuana film again to try and find Cher’s cameo in it. Cher looks so young in her bit, I can’t help but be reminded of Paris Hilton when I see it. In fact, you can also read the film as The Lindsey Lohan Story. Cher appears early on (approx. 7:44) during discussions of alcohol abuse. She’s briefly seen careening over her boozeSlumpoverphone  and finally slumping over a phone. Her mascara’d eyes through the glass, those long fingers and cascading black hair are unmistakable. The closing credits don’t show on YouTube as they do in my cassette version, but a freeze-frame of her eyeball through the booze glass makes a reprise there. In the film someone asks, “What’s so bad about feeling good?” Sonny answers very creepily, “Nothing, baby, nothing.” Ick. Sonny says “the young people” a lot and calls everybody “Bud” (including Cher if I remember Good Times correctly). Every time I watch this thing, I see new disturbing things. The most upsetting image this time was the monkey in the lab with surgically implanted wires coming out of his skull cap. Criminal.

The video can be seen here on YouTube. YouTube poster "blackpimp4u” has interesting footage posted there…and the related file is where I found Sonny & Cher singing more anti-drug messaging in their video for “Circus.”

On an unrelated topic: last Friday night Les Dudek played a show at the Malibu Inn on Pacific Coast Highway. My most celebrity obsessed friend was pressuring me to go to the show but I chose to not be celebrity obsessed last Friday and saw 3:10 to Yuma instead. And I’m not sorry I did because that was the best western I’ve seen since…well, forever. So far I can’t find reviews of Les’s show; but here’s his MySpace page.

   

Hallelujah

September 14, 2007 / / 3 Comments

Cohen I’m feeling under the weather this week so I’ll just leave you with just one question. I used to avoid Leonard Cohen songs because I thought he was so Chelsea Hotel. Then I fell in love with Jeff Buckley’s version of "Hallelujah." What was I thinking?

No, that’s not the question. The question is "Hallelujah." Could Cher pull it off? The soaring bird of its melody and its exciting silences. Snuff Garret once said Cher’s voice could cut through a cement orchestra.

Could it stand up to one lone piano?

 

Wisdom Teeth (and Toes)

September 6, 2007 / / 1 Comment

Teeth It’s been sort of a disturbing Cher week. First, a very astute Cher scholar took me on a pilgrimage of Cher’s evolving teeth, from her 70s wild teeth, (which I loved), to her large Witches/David Letterman-era teeth and beyond. And I don’t know why but the whole tooth-journey has taken me quite a while to get my head around, so to speak. (I think I’ve finally found an incidence where this phrase makes physical sense to me). Yes, things did seem odd around the time of Witches but at the time I chalked it up to the new nose.

But the larger problem is I can’t stop thinking about the-Witches-era teeth. For some reason I have a crazy, dancing, grinning kachina running through my brain. He’s like the kachinas from my Dad’s childhood on the Hopi reservation near Keams Canyon in Arizona. My dad told me kachinas were meant to teach children important lessons or to scare them into behaving. So I figure my sudden imaginary kachina must be here to scare me out of getting those da vinci veneers.

Scary enough. But then news broke that in August Cher fell down her stairs and broke some toes. Apparently she’s in a lot of pain. I hope she feels better soon and doesn’t get hooked on Vicodin or Demerol or Celebrex.

And then I read that Mask is being made into a musical! When will it all stop??

I suppose I’m just feeling overly anxious because I’m trying to detach at bit. I’m trying to learn website architecture and compliance on my job (which is helping me redesign the woefully web 1.0 Cherscholar.com); I’ve just finished some new book reviews and a year’s worth of research for some new poems; I’m getting ready for my 20th high school reunion in a few weeks (should I keep Cher Scholar on the low down?); and I’m helping my parents plan their 50th wedding anniversary in New Mexico. To aid in all that mess I’m learning meditation, yoga, and ceramics. Surprisingly, it’s working. I feel very calm.

So let’s break it down. Not ever Cher movie needs to be made into a musical. And stories of extensive plastic surgery only serve to remind me that show business is a dirty business. Not a dirty business like a Starbucks franchise. More like an underground gambling, break-your-knees dirty business.

Or toes. And maybe show business is a knee and toe-breaking business which demands physical perfection.

But as my meditation and ceramics teaches me daily, imperfection is God. And maybe that’s a good arguement against pop culture; it’s not art because it’s too perfect.

   

Jackson Highway Album of the Day

September 6, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Jackson Happily last week Cher’s album 3614 Jackson Highway was album of the day on the fabulous music site Allmusic.

Here’s their detailed review by Lindsay Planer which was quite positive. They give it 3.5 out of 4 stars and label it "earthy, intimate, ambitious, mellow and gritty."

Doubly happily you can learn more about Cher’s band for the album, The Swampers.

Here’s the clincher quote:

"…closer examination reveals that not only does Cher have soul, but The Swampers are the quintessential foil for her decidedly unique style. Like soul-music serpent charmers, they summon from Cher the most authentic, if not interesting work she has been responsible for."

 

Cher Clips Made Easy

August 30, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Last week I found this wonderful catalogue of Cher YouTube clips under the site Vid-arena’s experiment of pitting different divas against each other in YouTube dominance.

http://www.vidarena.com/cher-vs-madonna-video_767_5_vidobPDuaIWfvE.html#videos

I haven’t surfed all the clips but there is a touching tribute to Gregg Allman found there set to the music of “My Song” with some fine candid shots. You might find some new stuff you haven’t seen before.

   

Rejected Blog Title #3: Bell Bottom Blog

August 30, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Building CheEmpires and Education

Castle Cher Castle
I had horrendous pop-up issues with this site all three times I tried to get get on (from two different computers even). Many links are broken – it’s possible this is a ghost town of Cherness. The graphics are worth a looksee…that cute winking photo…but I couldn’t bring up the forum or the chat. The biography was scrolling text too fast for me to read. Most annoyingly, I couldn’t resize the window to get to all the menu items.

…not to be confused with Cher Palace which is now a Yahoo! Group of 800 some people.

Army_2To support a palace or a castle, you need an Army of Cher is a fan database, basically another brand of social site, a place to chat with other fans and create fan profiles. There’s a small amount of multimedia here and the design is the least Cher-sparkly of any I’ve seen for a while. Interestingly conservative. It’s unusual. It intrigues me. I wish I could join all the social hubs of Cher out there. I really do.

UniversityCher University!
Oooh…Cher Scholar loves school! Cher Scholar wants to go back to school. There’s a page of firsts and a list of facts, and active forum, an album database and 102 members in the Yahoo! Group section. It’s a good start but I need more stuff – a syllabus, more homework, more tests! I did love playing with the bubbles.

Cher Web Sites in 1997

This all reminds me of the year of 1997 when I was at Sarah Lawrence studying poetry. My fiction writer Julie had to leave for a semester and she asked me to go into the college computer lab (a place I had never been before and thought must be filled with computer geeks) and send her school news via her email account. It was scary. What if I couldn’t figure it out? What if I broke something?. Julie emailed about web surfing and starting up an online opinion magazine (this became Ape Culture in 1998). I had no idea what web surfing was. I went to the Yahoo! site she pointed me to and typed in "Cher" for lack of any other ideas. And that’s how I learned how to use the world wide web. (It’s also how I learned to use those green periodical books at the library). At the time, there were only two sites about Cher, something vaguely official looking with Cher informercial pages and a great site from the UK called Cher Dedication. It had scrumptious essays, invaluable postings about Cher appearances (this was around the time of the "First Time" book tour) and the first web postings of "Believe" clips. I remember thinking "eh, not too catchy."

Later that year after I got my first computer, a Micron.  I spent a whole day surfing through every site on the web that mentioned Cher. Isn’t that mind-blowing? In 1997 I managed to find all Cher references on the freakin’ Internet! One-hundred monkeys couldn’t do that today.
   

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