Cher's new single, "The Greatest Thing" has turned into a duet with Lady Gaga. And the world is agaga waiting for it. It's being tweaked even as we speak. The new album is set for Christmastime but that sounds like a hard deadline to meet when they might still be recording tracks.
The movie Zookeeper came out on DVD and Blu-ray yesterday.
And Cher-scholar Rob sent me a great copy of Cher and Gregg Allman singing "Love Me" -- see screen shot above.
There are some "You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me" remixes out:
Sony has also released Burlesque earbuds for purchase.
And Burlesque T-shirts have appeared on eBay (see below).
In the news of fundraising, Cher announced an Ebay.com auction to help her Heroes Project,
"a non-profit organization that works with veterans, soldiers, and the families and organizations that support them on all levels. Its mission is to improve the care and protection of heroes through individual support, community empowerment and systemic change. The core work of the Heroes Project includes three initiatives:
You might remember Tim Medvetz as the fellow Cher was romantically linked to a year or so ago. For more information visit www.theheroesproject.org
- Hope for Heroes –As one of the Heroes Project’s founders, Cher helps organize and lead volunteer groups and outreach efforts to support the military community. The Heroes Project promotes and augments the good work of organizations working with this community across the country.
- Voices for Heroes –The Heroes Project conducts media campaigns to highlight
success stories in veterans care as well as conduct educational activities targeting decision makers and the general public about the needs and successes in caring for veterans and military families.
- Climbs for Heroes – Under the leadership of Tim Medvetz, the Heroes Project supports climbing programs for wounded soldiers and veterans. After a serious accident left Tim injured and in long with a wounded veteran. Tim is now planning climbs to the “Seven Summits” of the world, each with soldiers and veterans, as part of the Heroes Project. term physical therapy, he vowed he would climb to the summit of Mt. Everest, which he ultimately did in 2007. The comeback Tim experienced inspired him to share the challenge and triumph with those who need it the most—wounded veterans. Recently, Tim reached the peak of Elbrus in Europe
Meanwhile, there was the Vegas Memorabilia auction with a spattering of Cher stuff:
The most expensive Cher costume sold at the auctions was a tiny two-piece, barely-there costume including wig worn by Cher during her Living Proof Farewell Tour for $24,000. The auction house originally estimated the costume to be worth between $1,000 and $2,000. Another costume worn by Cher in a 1975 episode of The Cher Show sold for $21,000.
Story beginning the auction: http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=1131
Story ending the auction: http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=1139 I’ve found it really hard to get back into the swing of blogging since the holidays came and went. Post-Wedding, then Thanksgiving. Christmas. Parents visit for New Years. House is a mess. My space is cluttered. My head is feeling cluttered and lethargic. There are poetry and other writing projects I’m itching to do. But all I seem to have the energy for is curling up on my couch with my Furkid, a mimosa, and a book. I’ve got about six of them going: The book of essays about Sarah Palin, Going Rouge, Pattie Boyd’s biography, Wonderful Tonight (I can’t resist co-dependent rock-star wife stories), Mastering the Art of French Cooking (to read for tips, not to make any of the recipes, are you kidding me?), The Collected poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Richard Wright’s biography.
Wright is one of my favorite writers and I’ve always wanted to explore more about his writing style, there’s so much going on there, not to mention the drama surrounding his life. There's the dramatically racial component of his life which overshadows his craft, for better or worse. I just wanted to learn what his influences were. But it's impossible to separate that out from his experiences inter-racially.
I'm tempted to cope with my lethargy by shopping. Buying a sconce wason my list of things to do. However, Cher Scholar, Robrt Pela, recently commented to beware of the sconces.
Are they flammable? Are they agents of big brother? In poor taste? Are they a portal to the netherworld. A poor investment? All of the above?
Well, lucky for me I am broke. Or at least I plan to be broke after I purchase the new Google Phone tomorrow.
There's a cool page on Cher’s 80s perfume venture Uninhibited on the site Perfume Posse (their tag: “Perfume is our poison”): http://perfumeposse.com/2009/07/26/cher-uninhibited/
First of all, I love the idea of a “perfumista cult” – and I love that perfume experts are dissecting Uninhibited so expertly, so scholarly! They’re using jargon like “notes"and “drydowns”! How exciting!
The best line:
[the perfume] “manages to convey both sensuality and aloofness.”
That’s seems Cher-like, no?
So I’ve gotten to try one of those perfumista cult perfumes – Cher’s Uninhibited, thanks to Melissa! I love the bottle, isn’t that a gas? I had a heckuva time finding a decent image. This is allegedly a factice, which I think looks like the parfum bottle, with a frosted glass (crystal?) half moon stopper. The stopper on the EdT bottles is silver toned.
I personally would expect Cher’s fragrance to suck, only because so many celeb fragrances do. According to Basenotes, Uninhibited was inspired by two fragrances Cher wore together: Charles of the Ritz and Jean Laporte Vanilla. Since I don’t have either of those I can’t say, but Uninhibited has been discontinued for some time and fetches premium prices online. It shows up on eBay and it appears to be available at a couple other sites.
Notes are lily, peony, dried fruits, ylang, orris, magnolia, vanilla, heliotrope, musk. I’m finding that list a little suspect, only because Uninhibited doesn’t smell as sweet as that list would suggest. In fact, the opening smells like aldehydes to me; for the first few seconds you could be smelling some chilly Chanel. It’s a dry cocktail of a thing at that point. Then the fragrance opens up and sweetens on my skin, but never gets all that sweet. It’s powdery the way orris can be powdery, and the heliotrope isn’t overwhelming. The drydown’s really nice, a slightly tart musk that manages to convey both sensuality and aloofness.
I think Cher Uninhibited fits in nicely with Cher’s image of the time – it’s fierce and strong and yet retains a sense of humor. It also has that pre-gourmand vibe when “sexy” smelled like musk and patch and civet instead of like baked goods. I’m not sure I’d go to the ends of the earth to get my hands on a bottle, but if some comes your way it’s worth a sniff.
For those who don’t know, Cher narrated a children’s classic on cassette tape in the early 1990s. When I was a little rugrat I LOVED books on tape so it’s a small crime of happenstance that I didn’t have this waybackwhen. I would have worn the tape ribbon to shreds. This is none other than the famous Hans Christian Anderson story, The Ugly Duckling about an ugo duck who grows up to be a swan (you see? that's why he was ugo? he was swan among ducks...he was just different and had to grow up to find his peoples.
This blog talks about her performance:
Cher's rich contralto voice tells the tale of The Ugly Duckling with dignity and grace. Serving as narrator, and also providing voices of numerous characters, it was clear that each voice was developed and purposeful. I found the older voices she performed to be entertaining and most colorful. You could keenly feel the sorrow of the bewildered water foul. Cher did very well conveying his fellow creatures' bitterness as cold comfort in the midst of unfavorable circumstances. ..Cher narrates over some exquisitely beautiful music performed by Celtic harp player and spoken word artist, Patrick Ball…”
Who doesn’t love The Ugly Duckling story right? Cher, as well as some others of us out there, probably feel we can identify with it. I, myself, feel as if I have failed to fully swan. Zen taught me to accept myself as is, my sort of wabi sabi self. So this story has come to disturb me as time goes by because I think as a culture we have typecast all of ourselves into Ugly Ducklings when we feel alienated and we never really feel self-actualized unless we are Swanned (case in point: the awful reality show a few years ago The Swan which carved up all the women contestants to look all like the same Victoria’s Secret model and then pitted them against each other – it was disturbing and it implied the ideas that “variety is not allowed!" and "Ethnicity is not allowed!”).
The Ugly Duckling also asks us to constantly seek approval from others. And folks, it just doesn’t come. Or if it does, it trickles in with too small of an amounts to appease your insecurities, even if you're Cher.
So you have to let go of the desire to get this mythical all-powerful acceptance and that’s the only way you’ll ever find peace. So what I’m saying little duck is, move on, let go.
I tried to write a poem about it years ago and surely didn’t quite get over what I was trying to say but...here it is:
At first I got excited that this article on collecting Cher stuff was out there! Finally, something I could send my parents to ensure them I’ve investing my money properly. :-)
Who am I kidding?
This article addressed none of the financial advantages I’ve always hoped there’d be in collecting Cher junk. And the author, Victor, is a bit stodgy to boot.
Typical sentence:
“A complete discography of her collectibles is not something to be taken lightly. Ideally, a complete collection could be gathered, giving you something that can be proudly displayed.”
Proudly displayed? A Cher collection can take over your house. Or Basement. Or parents’ basement. Or storage facility B.
“You could also try collecting her t-shirts from all of her different tours. This could also be quite a task to complete as she has toured a number of different times. Gathering a complete collection of these shirts could prove to be a challenge, yet one that you could have a great deal of fun with.”
Victor lists possible avenues of collection: Records, the aforementioned t-shirts, autographed photos, autographed movie scripts, the S&C model cars, stuff from her perfume line, the “look-alike dolls,” alarm clocks and night lights (Jesus, I don’t even have a Cher alarm clock!), wristwatches, trading cards, and musical instruments...
“can all bear her name and because of this, you would do well to add any of these items to your memorabilia collection…Cher has certainly always been a vibrant personality in our culture and building up a stock of her celebrity collectibles could not only be a bit of a challenge, but give you a great deal of fun in the meantime.”
Psst...Victor makes it sound WAY more boring than it actually is. I see that this is because he reuses bland monosyllabic words over and over again in his piece. I’d recommend a thesaurus, which you can also have quite “a great deal of fun with.”
The Sonny & Cher Ford Mustangs are up for sale again next February, 2009. I’m so glad they never split up these two cars into separate foster homes. But I could swear I’ve seen them come up for sale before, maybe twice – hmmm – maybe it’s the toy model versions I’m thinking of.
Anyway, if during this depression you find yourself with disposable cash for Cher stuff, please give it to Detroit car companies instead or save it to substitute for the next car loan you probably won’t get. Then again, these cars are symbols of The Great American-Made Car. Okay, go ahead and buy them if you must. But only as a political statement.
The car stats:
These cars were customized by George Barris in 1966 and “are rolling tributes to the over-the-top style of the 1960s.” Groovy! You supposedly see them in Good Times but I can’t recall where.
From http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=136629:
“The Sonny car has an eye-opening Murano Gold Pearl exterior color, dark brown side panel and orange-and-gold "fadeaway" color treatment on the wheelwells and grille. The Cher car is a Hot Pink Pearl and Candy Red blend with deep red side panels. Should that combination seem too staid, a look at the interior should seal the impression of rococo '60s splendor. Sonny's Mustang has bobcat fur, buffed leather and "rustic suede" trim inside. Cher's is dripping with white ermine, hot pink suede and "Scottish leather" upholstery. Did we mention the 3-inch-long Mouton carpet — gold in the Sonny mobile and pink for Cher's car?”
How to get them:
The cars will go on the block at the Greater Fort Lauderdale/Broward County Convention Center over the weekend of February 6-8.
More on the mustangs: http://www.themustangnews.com/people_08/1208-sonny-cher-mustangs-chambers-133.htm (aww look! They got snowed on!)
More on the model kit: http://www.hieroglyph.net/chermodelkit.html
Happy Thanksgiving all. My bf and I had dinner with two friends at The Sportsmen's Lodge this year. Which was bittersweet as rumor has it they're tearing it down next year. It was quite a celeb hot spot in the day. However, the only Cher reference I can find now is from the wikipedia page on the place: "Brad St. James and Susi Q (aka the "New" Sonny and Cher) have been the in-house musical entertainment every Friday and Sunday night since 2005."
Anyway, to quickly cap Cher references last week Air America made two Cher that I happened upon. While talking about cheap toys we loved as kids on The Stephanie Miller Show (in honor of this Christmas in a bad economy), someone called in complaining about having the Cher doll and how the hair would always get caught in the quagmire of the eye lashes.
Later in the week on the Rachel Madow show, Andy Borowitz was a guest to talk about Sarah Palin's Thanksgiving thankfullnesses and he commented that Sarah Palin's political career is like Cher's Farewell tour. You can see this joke coming from the horizon line can't you?
Also of note last week, my bf and I took some time recently to play a game of poker with the Cher deck that Cher scholar Eileen was very nice enough to pick up for me at the Cher Caesars store a few months back. Here is the photo essay of our inaugural game.
When I saw the Bette Midler playing cards in the Cher/Midler Caesars store I thought, Cher should have those! And now she does. Quality control comment: the box came unglued immediately. These seem like they were rushed through production. And only the jokes and queens (of course) have Cher photos...but that aside -- I LOVE THEM! And no Cher junk trunk would be complete without them.
My bf studies his Cher cards....
Franz watches intently. The tension is high!
I throw down my hand...it looks pretty good, those aces and all.
Oh no...he looks pretty confident. What's he got?
Five Queens?
What the?
God dammit!
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