I Found Some Blog...by Cher Scholar

End of Year Cherities

Cher auctioned an iPod: winning bid $510

http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=921

The winner received the autographed iPod which came with her own selected playlist and a gift card to with iTunes.

For the second year running, an impressive star-studded group has rallied for Tonic’s Celebrity iPod Auction, benefiting Music Rising, a nonprofit works to support the Gulf Region’s rich musical heritage from replacing destroyed instruments to rebuilding music education programs to re-opening the historic Preservation Jazz Hall in New Orleans.

To donate to Music Rising: http://www.musicrising.org/

And who wouldn't love to see that playlist!? That's worth the auction price, right there.

Cher Scholar received her first press release this week:

Cher Joins List of Notables in Library Named for Her, in Bali, Ind. / The World Is Just a Book Away

CHER, adding to her list of humanitarian efforts, has offered her support to The World Is Just a Book Away, based on her belief in the importance of reading and books. For the libraries opened in June in Sidoarjo, Indonesia, many prominent people who also support the organization's mission had libraries named in their honor, including Muhammad Yunus, Queen Noor Al-Hussein of Jordan, Jane Goodall, Desmond Tutu, Yo-Yo Ma, Miep Gies, Shirin Ebadi, Lois & Buzz Aldrin, Fess Parker, and the late actress Natasha Richardson.

The non-profit organization The World Is Just A Book Away supplies books, and builds libraries and schools for children in developing countries--partnered with the InterContinental Bali Resort to opened a school library in Bali, Indonesia, on Friday, Dec. 18, named for the worldwide entertainer Cher. The 'World Is Just a Book Away-Cher Library' is TWIJABA's first one in Bali. The Resort was intent on refurbishing the school and asked TWIJABA to do the library. Only a year old,TWIJABA opened its first 10 libraries in Sidoarjo, Ind., in June 2009, and a dozen more PLUS a mobile library will be opened there, as well, later this month.

The mission of The World Is Just A Book Away is to bring hope--in the form of books, libraries, and schools--to thousands of children in developing countries. The program was launched in Sidoarjo, site of the mudflow disaster that displaced more than 60,000 people and destroyed many schools. The libraries introduced the idea of loaning non-classroom books for recreational reading. The libraries also have educational DVDs for on-site use.

2009 results:

• 10,000+ children will have access to books
• 20,000+ books will be provided to children
• 22 "The World is Just a Book Away Libraries" will be built
• 1 Mobile library serving an additional 28 schools will be launched
  

Cher is a force across all areas of entertainment, is a worldwide performer, and humanitarian. Singer-songwriter, actor, director and record producer, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards and a People's Choice Award for her work in film, music and television.

To donate: www.justabookaway.org

 

Buy a Cher House for a Loved One

Is someone on your Christmas list oh-so-hard to shop for?

Well, you are in luck because Cher is selling her Hawaii Island House: http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=909

"Cher Didn't Sleep Here" was a popular theme in reports of this sales event:

"After building a house on Hawaii’s Big Island but never living in it, Cher is auctioning off the property."

Uh, people...isn't this like the umpteenth house Cher has remodeled and sold for shoe-money?

Concierge Auctions, which is marketing the property located at the Four Seasons’ Hualalai resort, anticipates bids between $8 million and $12 million. There’s no minimum bid, but there’s an unpublished reserve price that must be met. The singer bought the 0.76-acre property in December 2004 for $2.9 million and began building the house last year. A gated courtyard leads to the main house, which comes with an infinity pool overlooking the fourth hole of the Ke’olu Golf Course.

The main house is flanked by four one-bedroom bungalows and a detached media room. The property will be auctioned on Jan. 18. The resort, on the Big Island’s northwest coast, counts brokerage pioneer Charles Schwab and computer mogul Michael Dell among its residents.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204261704574271971197658300.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_realestate

Ooh. Who wouldn't want to live next to Charles Schwab? Good times.

At least with Michael Dell you might get a free laptop with your annual Christmas fruitcake.

Other story:

http://www.starbulletin.com/business/20091220_Chers_house_not_home_up_for_auction.html

 

Even Stars Feel Weather

All over America…it’s CA-HOLD! Even in our warm little paradise of Southern California. Look! Even Cher is cold.

Daily Mail commented she was “Looking less like an international superstar and more like The Pirates of the Carribean’s Jack Sparrow…”

And she’s shopping for shoes again. I myself hate shopping for shoes. But as the Zen Buddhists say, you must take care of your feet above all else. They are the foundation of your life.

Here is a blow by blow of the shopping expedition (it’s like the paparazzi is following Lewis & Clark. Do we need this much useless information?)

She and a friend headed into Beverly Hills where they stopped at department store Barneys New York, where a pair of long black boots caught her attention.

In true celebrity style, she kept her dark black sunglasses on but ditched the big coat as she warmed up during her spending spree, showing off a trim figure in snug velour tracksuit bottoms and a tight hot pink vest top.

Still without her coat, she dashed out to her stretch limo but battled with her scarf as she tried to pull it back over her face again.

Cher then visited a day spa for some pampering before heading to LAX International Airport where she flew off to Las Vegas by private jet.

The Grammy-winning singer began a three-year residency at the city’s 4,300 seat Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace in February.

Last Tuesday, she celebrated her 100th show and throwing a huge party for her crew. She hired the Las Vegas Pussycat Dolls revue girls to perform for her and her bandmates, dancers, acrobats and technicians at the Pussycat Dolls Lounge in Pure Nightclub at Caesars Palace.

Buzzfoto didn’t like the hat, but has self-awareness about living in a world of Cher hats:

Normally, we’d ask WTF was this star thinking for being allowed to go out in a hat like this, but since it’s Cher, we won’t even bother trying. Cher shopped at Barney’s yesterday. We hope she purchased something to replace that atrocity on her head.

The Coverage with More Photos:

• http://perezhilton.com/2009-12-09-that-really-is-cher-under-all-those-clothes
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1234490/Feeling-bit-chilly-Cher-The-singer-wraps-warm-Christmas-shopping.html
• http://socialitelife.celebuzz.com/archive/2009/12/09/swashbuckling_cher_shops_for_shoes_in_beverly_hills.php?img=0&gfmt=m#alpha-inner
• http://www.buzzfoto.com/2009/12/cher/cher-shops-for-the-better/

Three New Cher-ity Sightings

Cher recently attended a Reach Out to Asia (ROTA) gala fundraiser looking sweet:
http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=868

Here's a report on another sighting:

"Cher's got Kyle, babe: The oddest celeb charity pair ever" By Jay Busbee

Quick-hitter for you here -- spotted this ad for some kind of charitable gala in Miami Thursday night, featuring -- of all people -- Cher and Kyle Busch. Wha ... ?

Sure, Cher doesn't seem like a good match for NASCAR, but think about it -- she's been rebuilt more times than one of Robby Gordon's cars, and at this point her makeup/plastic surgery team probably works as quickly as any pit crew.

Har.

Seriously [folks], the charity is to benefit Operation Helmet, which helps provide helmet upgrades to combat troops, so it's a good cause. And it's exclusive, too -- only people who visit their website and pay $125 to $250 for a ticket are invited. Get to it!

http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/blog/from_the_marbles/post/Cher-s-got-Kyle-babe-The-oddest-celeb-charity-?urn=nascar,203118

Cher herself went on Auction:

Cher's fans can now bid on a once-in-a-lifetime chance to join the music icon in her personal suite for drinks and attend her Vegas show. Three auctions are currently ongoing on eBay to benefit The Heroes Project through the GlobalGiving Foundation.

The three auction lists, from November 9 until the 19th, offer tickets to Cher's show at the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, a one-night hotel stay, and a meet-and-greet with Cher in her very own hotel suite. Winners will choose one date from December 5, 12, or 19.

All proceeds from the auction will benefit The Heroes Project, which aims to improve the care and protection of heroes through individual support, community empowerment and systematic change. As of November 15, the auctions have 32 to 51 bids and have reached $3,100.

So I wonder who won. And come on! 3k? She doesn’t auction herself off everyday!

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7017009173?Cher%20Auctions%20Meet-And-Greet%20In%20Vegas%20On%20eBay#ixzz0YTZoYdNm

News Wrap-Up (Kooza, Liza, Fans, Body Image)

While I’ve been beyond-my-mind busy. Beyond, beyond, beyond. Muti-tasking every minute of the day. As I type this, I’m thinking about an email I need to write to the caterer about the groom adding another person to the rsvp list a day after I turned final numbers into them and two days after printing and laminating all the seating “library” cards! ...which are very very kewl, by the way. Do you know how calming the lamination process can be to a frazzled bride-to-be?

Do you know how stressful Beauty (or in some cases non-beauty) can be?  And I'm up to my ears in programs, programs, programs!! In times like these, I depend on Cher World for my Cher news stories…

In Santa Moncia Cher goes to see Kooza show and we see her pictured at the gate.

So we do know she is going to see Cirque de Soleil shows.

More info on the show: 
http://theguide.latimes.com/santa-monica/events-and-festivals/cirque-du-soleil-kooza-event

At the Coloseum,  Cher surprised the five-millionth Coloseum ticket-buyer since Celine Dion opened the theater back in 2003 with back stage passes and front row seats.  Lucky Jason Hernandez!

That story also had this tidbit:

Also rumours are circulating that CHER is keen to tour Europe and possibly the world with a SUPER tour next year after the release of her next studio album and movie Burlesque.  Cher is said to be in talks with management and whilst her Farewell Tour was supposed to be Cher’s last, the last laugh may be with Cher with a Farewell Farewell Tour Part II.

Ick.

Cher was also visited at the Coloseum by Liza Minnelli recently. Sweet!! I love these gals. They should do a single! Or what about a whole album: Cher and Other Fantasies Deux. Duets with all women: Tina, Liza, Stevie Nicks, Cyndi Lauper, Annie Lennox, (not Aretha please), some ballads, some dance, some real grrrl power! A few young gals, a few older gals, a few forgotten gals. Sigh. That would be sweeter than sweet.

Speaking of sweet and tear-jerking, Cher met with a long time fan and pancreatic cancer-victim recently. I love this story, I really do.

Tom Moore is 53 years old and in hospice care, which means he is in his final stages of his cancer. To celebrate his wife’s 50th birthday, they decided to go to Vegas, renew their vows and see the Cher shew. Cher obliged, gifting them a room at Caesars, a limo, VIP tickets, and back-stage passes. Tom has had a crush on Cher since childhood and owns all her albums.  It’s a really touching story by Cathy Dyson, detailing their trip backstage and how Kathy contacted Cher.

 “I’ve led a blessed life,” he said, trying to keep his eyes open through the pain and fog of medicine.

 “I’ve met the love of my life, I’ve traveled the world and served the greatest country on earth.” Then, as Kay patted his knee, Tom added: “I’ve had a good life, a very good life.”

And Cher At Home...Cher, like the rest of us, has body issues.

She said:

“I was underweight all my life. So thin, no matter what I did. I was one of those active kids. Then, a few years ago, for the first time ever, I suddenly had to watch what I ate.

“Your metabolism changes, and if you eat the same, it goes to all the wrong places. On the hips, round the middle, the arms. I had to up the exercise to get less of a result.”

I can relate.

   

New Interview

Feeling out of the loop in Cher list news and down and tired in the midst of editing processional music in music editing software I was learning, I went to ebay for the first time in quite a while to cheer myself up with Cher goods.

Wait a minute. I just realized I’m looking for a break out of my wedding obsession with my celebrity obsession…that’s not good.

Sigh. It’s all relative I guess.

Anyway, I found some Caesars’ brochures and the new Caesars Players Vegas magazine out with a new Cher spread and interview. And it's the best new interview in a long while – great layout (although I miss a magazine's original Cher photos; why must they capitulate to using Cher's PR photos?).

The Chrome Hearts fashion label is again quoted prominently. 

There's some good info here. Cher has an iPhone with some calendar feature where she seems to be adding spontaneous messages to Sonny. I wondered if this worked somewhat like a diary but I have yet to get my iPhone (can't wait!) so I'm not exactly sure what she was referring to.

Cher remembers that Chas helped the show behind the scenes during the last Caesars run of the late 70s. I remember pictures of her in the 1979 People Magazine looking quite helpful. Cher went to the gun range with her brother-in-law and fired a 9-millimeter and an automatic rifle, and that she likes to try things she’s afraid of. Which is a good thing. My bf talked me into taking a gun-firing class a few years ago. You never know when you’re going to need those odd skills. Cher wants to take tennis lessons too…all her friends play. She says she loved sports in school and was real tomboy.

To keep in shape it's weights, running, ballet, yoga, and the occasional hike on mountain trail with the aforementioned iPod. Cher loves to sing outdoors to the tunes of Springsteen, Bob Seger, Hall & Oats, “all the old people” she says.

The reporter states “the stage of her show in essence doubles as a runway.” And I think it helps to frame her show in this way. Which is why I feel Cher would be so awesome on Project Runway as a dual guest with Bob Mackie.

Cher says, “On a given night, a song will be more fun to sing or seem newer and I sort of forget I’ve done it hundreds of times.”

Their filmography of her does claim Drop Out in 2010 and Burlesque in 2011 (wah! Long wait). This confirms with JimmyDean posted a week or so back from his sleuthing at the Cher Store. Cher says she picked the film Drop Out because she loved its 14-year old humor...it made her laugh. She liked Tropic Thunder for the same reason.

The discography only covers Cher albums with the exception of the Allman and Woman album; and All I Really Want to Dois completely out of order, listed as her 3rd album in 1966. Backstage is called Cher Backstage. She delayed working on a new album because she chose to vacation during her last break.  Tough titties for us, huh?

Here another fun pics I found on ebay last weekend: the original late 70s Caesars program!

I See Black People!

Here is an interesting peak into Cher's 1980s Egyptian-style house and working with Cher and her team from a photographer's point of view, Anthony Barboza in particular.

Remember that chain mail and jewels look?

But what is the black-people obsession about in this article? Kind of an explosive issue and I thought it should either be eliminated by Barboza or pumped up a bit more. As it was I couldn’t tell what his point was. Did he think Cher's entourage was racist? This is a surprising idea to me. But what do I know? Was Barboza overly sensitive to what was more of a photo lighting issue than a race issue?  Or did he suppose the lighting issues were code for racism?

We’re all tuned in to issues of race right now with the President and the protests, so it’s a timely topic but the article was kind of a tease. How refreshing if he would have just come out and talked about it fully. Because I’m liked a dog with a cocked head, like did I just hear something juicy?

Full story on: http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=821

His celebrity gallery has a very cool alternate take of Cher from the session described in the article; Cher is surrounded the fur of her white couch: http://www.barbozastudio.com/celebrities/galmain.htm

  

Cher at the Fair

Cher was spotted at the Malibu fair a few weeks ago!

It's sweet to see Cher out having fun -- especially with her bf!

…or at least one would assume fun is being had.

I mean who doesn’t have fun at a fair?

   

Update on The Chaz Chronicles...

Cher has apparently released a statement through People Magazine:

Cher is speaking out for the first time about daughter Chastity Bono's decision to become her son Chaz.The 63-year-old entertainer tells People magazine exclusively,

"Chaz is embarking on a difficult journey, but one that I will support. I respect the courage it takes to go through this transition in the glare of public scrutiny, and although I may not understand, I will strive to be understanding. The one thing that will never change is my abiding love for my child."

That's a good and touching statement.

The Chronicles of Chaz

Introduction

The only tragedy I can see in the amazing-but-not-completely-unforeseen news that came out last week, my cher peoples, is that it is forcing me to put off some really, really awesome posts.

First of all, I found an amazing poem about Moonstruck to share with you, written by a fabulous new poet whose first book primarily explores gay and coming-out themes, as well as family relationships in that vein (a really well-written book in all aspects)...but that has to be put off. Another item: I was at a Culver City birthday party two weekends ago and met someone there who works as an accounting consultant for Universal (but the publishing side) and I intended to  post my longer exchange with him. The jist of it: while I was interviewing the accountant regarding Cher’s recent lawsuit for royalties, the birthday-party host, (who once playyed in Johnny Thunders’ band but now is in the music-marketing biz), waltzed by and declared loudly. “People are suing Universal all the time, Mary. You only care because it’s Cher.”

Okay, fair enough. Turns out there’s a spreadsheet for all ongoing lawsuits, how much cash they have in the kitty to deal with it, and what they’re going to counter-offer. Imagine some Cher line-items in that .xls. Also at the same party, I learned that Preston Sturges’ son Soloman lives in the accountant’s garage apartment...which has become somewhat of a Collier’s Mansion.  The accountant defined Collier’s Mansion for us all a few times so we’d know what that meant.

But all that LA gossip is tidily-winks now! Although you could draw out a larger discussion about celebrity kids trying to survive in LA and how many of them spontaneously combust in various sorts of ways...that’s for another day.  Because I was ALSO contacted a few weeks ago by Sonny & Cher’s 70s-era album engineer Lenny Roberts who found some errors in my comments about him (since corrected) in my "All I Ever Need is You" review (long form). I was able to interview him. But that awesomeness will also have to wait, because I have been completely upstaged by the formerly-Chastity-Bono’s announcement that she is becoming officially Chaz Bono, a he.

This news is a real bombshell all over, although Cher fans probably remember rumors stating Chastity has been thinking about this. I actually had friends call, email and facebook-poke me about it. My first question is will he keeping his middle name? Because Chazsun really runs together quite nicely.

Overview:

So in a nutshell, Chaz is getting what is technically called a gender reassignment (and I have never understood the assignment word in that phrase which sounds more like a school project than a physical reality). He will be doing this through hormone treatments and/or surgery which could possibly involve a legal gender switch as well as a biological one.

Reports are that Chas has the support of his family, including Cher and Mary Bono, her father’s widow. He has also received support publically from Neil G. Giuliano, the president of GLAAD; Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese; and Casey Schwarts, a trans youth specialist -- and probably others by now. All are emphasizing Chaz’s courage and honesty in his decision. It’s hard to say Chaz has gone public with his decision, since going private with the decision was simply never an option for someone so famous.

A Chaz Bio Review

One thing that fascinates me about this story is how news outlets perceive both Chaz and Cher. Chaz seems best known as a political and social activist. But he has had a checkered career as media advisor for GLADD (which led to a public feud with Ellen DeGeneres over her sitcom Ellen and its possible “gayness”), memoir author (of sorts—both books under the Chastity name were co-written), a musician in the band Ceremony, and a journalist for The Advocate, among other vocations.

Likewise, Cher in one report was described as an LGBT icon. This is new.  I have never seen her identified as an icon for lesbians, not to mention bisexuals and transgenders. For years I’ve been meeting many lesbian Cher fans at shows and conventions, but no one in the media seems to fully recognize this fan base.

To review, Chastity came out to her family in 1987 while a freshmen at NYU. She was outed forcibly in  1990 by a tabloid. Chastity came out herself in a 1995 cover article of The Advocate. She chronicled her relationships in her book “The End of Innocence.”  She has said her coming-out helped her mother see her as a full person –- which is interesting because this seems to be a common Mother/Daughter struggle for many women, as opposed to men. Which seemingly has more to do with how mothers perceive their daughters vs. how they perceive their sons. And I wonder if Chaz's gender reassignment will alter this aspect of the mother/child relationship.

That Hate-Take

You know there’s always a freakin’ hate-take. So skip over this section if you have a low tolerance for hate...or if you’re so over it.