I Found Some Blog...by Cher Scholar

Michael Jackson, RIP

  

Cher's condolences on Larry King Live

Farrah Fawcett, RIP

 

Cher's condolences on Larry King Live

Maureen McCormick Meets Cher

Maureen McCormick’s book about life as a Brady Bunch kid, among other subjects is now available. Cher Scholar Robrt sent me the excerpt where McCormick writes about meeting Cher.

The setup: the group The Brady Kids had their first musical appearance at a music industry show at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Sonny and Cher were there and met the Brady’s backstage.

I was enamored of Sonny and Cher. I couldn’t take my eyes off Cher. It was the first time I had been around a woman who thoroughly mesmerized people, who commanded your attention with her looks. We were introduced to her backstage. She was with her daughter, Chastity, a tiny blond cherub with her mother’s expressions. Eve (Plumb) held Chastity’s hand and sweetly asked, “Can you say ‘elephant’?”

Before she could respond, Cher cracked, “She can say a hell of a lot more than elephant, that’s for sure.”

First of all, in my fantasy version of this episode Cher says “She can f*#king say a lot more than elephant, that's for sure.” I don’t know why but that’s more believable to me for some reason.

Secondly, this brief exchange is interesting on many levels. For one, it shows how caustic and coarse Cher could be even among teen celebrities and her own kid. I’m not judging that; but I can attest to being jarred by it the first time I read Cher's language peppered with the f-bomb all through that People Magazine article of 1979. I was nine years old and sick with the flu at the time and my parents brought me home a milkshake and this Cher gift (Cher gifts becoming somewhat of a rare occurrence after it started to occur to them that I wasn’t outgrowing this Cher fetish). And this was right when my illusions of Cher being the classiest, vulgar-free princess were first shattered. I f*#king got over it but it took a while.

Secondly, it also shows how even the most lusted after teen blonde icon of the early 70s, Marsha Brady, #1 on every boys ToDo list and #1 on every gals ToLookLike list, was actually enamored of Cher who she saw as fully commanding with her looks; and meanwhile Cher is coveting the look of blonde princesses such as her mom, sister and Marsha-Brady-types. It’s insane, absolutely the stuff Dr. Seuss Sneetches fables are made of and evidence that our collective insecurities cause us to chase our own tales like idiots.

And not only could Chastity say the world elephant, she had probably already ridden one in that parade by then.    

Beyonce Gives Props to Cher

Beyonce cites Cher as a influence:

"I love that in the seventies Cher and Diana Ross looked like superstars and never played it safe. When they were onstage, they gave you drama—and I love drama."

For full article

By the way, that outfit is uber-Cher.

Cher Tossled

I will be on a two-week hiatus from I Found Some Blog in order to work on a family reunion and my parents’ 50th Anniversary shindig. If I come back sane, I’ll tell you all about it. There is a chance we may never speak again.

So it’s a bummer that my last pre-hiatus post has to be about Cher fans behaving badly. Well, who knows if this arrested guy in the news was even a real Cher fan. He claimed his parents worked for S&C or something as he was grabbing at Cher’s hips at Tootsies Orchid Lounge, a famous honky tonk in Nashville. Yes, the man was plastered so who even knows what kind of a 'Cher fan' he was sober. And frankly, I think only sober fans should count.

There was a lot of fans behaving badly last week. Paparazzi (who are ultimately working on behalf of pop-culture junkies or fans in general) were attacked by surfers in Malibu. Could it be that the LA public is finally taking charge of an issue the authorities have been struggling over for too long?

Apparently photographers were at the beach stalking Matthew McConaughey and some local surfers got angry and pummeled a few of them. Here’s the LA Times story about it.

But the real story here is that paparazzi anger many more people in LA than the celebrities they stalk. The unfamous also feel the strain. A friend of mine from Larchmont recently reported that one day she couldn’t get from her car to her own apartment building as the paparazzi swarm wouldn’t let her pass on her own sidewalk. She had to bully her way through. Then when she reached her front steps she found them sitting there smoking on them. Who were they stalking? Lindsey Lohan on a movie location.

Articles about Cher in Nashville and the arrest are all over:

Politics and Celebrity Obsession

There are two peripheral subjects I’d like to talk about this week.

For one, during my morning radio this week, the movie Moonstruckwas featured prominently. Apparently a New Yorker named Harriet was thrown out of the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws meeting last weekend (the one regarding the Florida and Michigan delegates) for refusing to stop sounding like Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck. The Stephanie Miller Showkept doing funny between Harriet’s “you’re throwing the election away and for what..?” with Cher’s Moonstruck-mom’s “Your whole life’s goin down the toilet.” Then they’d do the Cher drop “Snap out of it.”

For the record, Cher was supporting Hillary. I liked her reasoning: men have mucked it up for too long. However, I have been supporting Obama because every time Hillary gives a speech or makes an argument in a debate, she talks with the same spin that makes me crazy when the Republicans do it. I know Hillary is supposed to be a great gal behind the scenes; I know Obama and Hillary have basically the same platforms; I know Obama could be a slick as slick is, too, just like any other politician and not the wonderkind we're all making him out to be. But I have more respect for the campaigns he’s run thus far, including his civility under fire, his financial acuity with his fundraising, and his leadership with his staff.

Little Legends

Last weekend I went to Vegas to meet up with an old chum from graduate-school dayz at Sarah Lawrence College in New York City. We visited our favorite spots: The Peppermill, The Liberace Museum and we saw a trashy show at Planet Hollywood casino (formerly Aladdin), 'Little Legends' at the Harmon Theater. I was lured by the possibility of seeing an unusual brand of Sonny & Cher impersonation as done by diminutives, little folk, short people. The show wasn’t so great. The tall magician/host Jeff Hobson was funny enough (he did a hilariously tall and gangly 60s version of Cher partnered with a tiny 60s version of Sonny), but there was little actual impersonating going on of a professional nature. Imagine lip syncing worse than by Sonny himself. The outfits were half-assed and about the only thing I could recommend about it were brothers Abdoule and Adama Kone who are in their 30s and from the Ivory Coast. Of a cast of four little  people, they had dancing talent of their own and scored with routines to The Temptations, Michael Jackson and Milli Vanilli. However, the biggest cheer of the night came from the guest star of the show, in casino cross-marketing for the late-night show Lucky Chengs Drag Show, Elena Perez doing Cher’s "Turn Back Time." See her picture to the right. I've cut myself out because I look fat and celebrity obsessed.

According to reports, the show usually closes with Elvis but a few of the little people were MIA for our show. Again, the fact that Cher was a showstopper here is significant. Like Elvis, she is ubiquitous for larger than life. So not only has she sung like Elvis and dressed like Elvis, she seemed to have earned a likeness of his gravitas.

Another review of Little Legends

Their website

Cher Impersonator Elena Perez

Lucky Changs Site

The Internet, Video and Links

I don’t feel much like blogging today but here goes. Yesterday as part of a work excursion I attended part of ICANN's (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers) 30th public meeting. You probably don’t know ICANN (and their name isn’t very sexy for sure) but they do things like run the Internet - make sure it works and isn’t hacked into and all that sort of thing. It was fascinating - the three session I attended.

The Internet is one of those things you take for granted but is so crucial to life in the modern world. My favorite quote from the meeting was from ICANN-ite George Sadowsky who said “All forms of human behavior have moved to the net and magnified.” And he went on to say how that included both good and bad forms of human behavior, saints and thieves. Do you consider how important the Internet is to your modern life and how crucial it is that it doesn’t break down?

I definitely feel mentally exhausted today. The energy there was calm but intense and now my brain is completely fried. Just listening to the translations was exhausting but very cool.

I’ll just leave you with these links for thoughts...

Cher single "Believe" was huge. Least we forget how big it was, this Today in Music article coves the basics, how it was the dance record of the 90s and probably the biggest selling dance record of all time.

Here's more news on Cher swearing on TV and whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing according to US courts. Ugh! I wish this story would just go away! I’m so friggin over it already. Grant on Ghost Hunters says "What the Frig!" all the time and I think it's so funny. My bf said yesterday that he was suffering from a bad case of the friggits.

Here's a clip of Sonny & Cher singing "We’re Gonna Make It." Wow! First of all, didn't we associate that song with the Allman and Woman album. Sonny & Cher did it too? Just like "You Really Got a Hold on Me." Was Cher trying to recreate Sonny & Cher with Allman duets? It seems so beyond comprehension - how could we have considered it? Or did Sonny & Cher cover so many friggin songs it would be impossible not to re-cover her covers? Of course, Cher and Allman didn’t make it, Sonny and Cher didn’t make it either but it would be hard to top their version. Bobby Sherman, that ridiculous dance, the screaming kids, the sudden appearance and disappearance of backup singers (if it wasn’t the 60s I’d think they were CGI’d in there), Sonny going absolutely crazy at the end. Wow!

This last clip is about a Joni Mitchell impersonator. It’s tone irked me...a lot. The article begins by indicating how high class it is to be a Joni Mitchell impersonator and how that possibly elevates the act to cabaret. First of all, you could argue that a Joni Mitchell impersonator is even more ridiculous of an act than a Cher impersonator...that is if you think impersonations are ridiculous in the first place which you probably do if you’re a close-minded Joni Mitchell fan. Then there’s the implication that other impersonators are of a lower-caste, being reduced to hand out pamphlets on the streets of Provincetown to their shows because “Ms. Mitchell appeals to far more rarefied tastes.” I can personally attest that you can be both a fan of Cher and Joni Mitchell. (I have her collected lyrics in my library for frig's sake!). This was a subtle Cher-shaft in action and I had to say something.

The picture above is Bar Ilan University's map of the Internet. The Internet. What an awesome thing. Just this one post has brought us a blog conversation, a youtube video, factual information on a pop song and potential opinions blossoming out of billions of brains worldwide.

      

Olivia Newton John, Les Dudek and the Marijuana Video

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 booze  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.

   

Kathy Griffin Speaks On Her Gay Fan Base

From Reality TV Magazine: "The gays love me. I'm like Cher almost. I'm like Cher Light."