Hollywood Hearts- CHER LIVE



Five girlfriends and I went to the Dressed to Kill 2014 Cher concert in Jacksonville, Florida. The opening act was Cyndi Lauper. In black leather and a wicked long red wig, she looked great and sang for a solid hour.  What surprised me was the power in her voice doing At Last near the end of her performance. Her only props were a backdrop of psychedelic colors. Since part of the fun for me, besides the music and the costumes, are the sets, I guessed Cher's show would be the same level of nothing stage production.
 

Take It Like a Man  (Where is Cher? Watch the video and see.)

 click here to see the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNiyGQE3Nt8

 

Man-oh-man was I wrong.  Cher's show was full-blown Las Vegas-style entertainment! And at age 68, she looked beautiful.  I took my binoculars and, checking out the movie screens on either side of the stage, she hadn't a wrinkle.  We all know she's had work done, but it is the best work ever. Hats off to her doctors and her face isn't so stiff that she can't smile. I sincerely mean this in the best way possible.

 

 

So back to the show.  Cher began with a question to the audience, something like, "So where is your granny tonight?", and she was off.  Beginning with  Woman's World,  it morphed into some vampire thing, not my favorite,  and she continued to sing seventeen more songs, all of which were hits.  Between her songs, her dozen dancers wiggled and writhed in their expected scanty costumes while she changed wigs and outfits, oh the outfits.

 The sets changed, too, with the help of a huge back screen wild with a castle interior or a Greek temple (as in first picture/video above) on fire or glittering stars, all with the accompanying flashing flurry of ever-changing lights bouncing to the beat. With so much to see, there was no way to take it all in the first time. Bring on YouTube.com.  I found the video clips there and most of the traveling tour show can be seen, too.  It doesn't compete with being in the Veteran's Coliseum live with Cher, but it will give you a good clue as to what it was like.
 

 

Sonny and Cher singing I Got You Babe

She didn't forget Sonny and sang an I Got You Babe duet with him from their old black and white TV show days.  She said it took her a long time to be able to get through it.  She mastered it without a hitch. The scenery was back and white, so she popped in her red body suit. Bring on the golden Trojan Horse and her exit from it. Colors and glitter and sparkle were everywhere as her performance lasted about an hour and three-quarters.  It was a workout but you'd never know because it's all a part of her.  She said this is her final-final tour and then winked.  I'm glad she winked.  She can never say goodbye to her music, her sequins and her great hair.  Her fans won't let her.  
 

 

 Hope You Find It, closing number

click here to see the video -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wxUeVYKkFE

 

 

I snapped the photos of Cher myself.  The two videos are from YouTube.com.  Thank you, as always to them and those who post for all of us to see. 

 

Traveling Book Club from Georgia

I was recently honored by a visit from The Traveling Book Club from north Georgia.  Read the article below and hear how it happened!
 
Reprinted from September 4, 2013 Fernandina Beach News-Leader.

Book Club Travels Through Time

 The Traveling Book Club members shown
 standing in the back row, left to right,
are Melissa Camp and Billie Carlock.
Seating in the front row, left to right, is Cheryl Parham,
author Jane Marie Malcolm and Amy Chambers.

One phone call from Maggie DeVries, owner of Books Plus, 107 Centre Street in Fernandina Beach, to local author Jane Marie Malcolm, resulted in a two-and-a-half hour laugh-filled jaunt around historic downtown Amelia Island, Florida. 

As is the custom on their annual vacation, members of the seven person Traveling Book Club from Ringgold, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, pick a place to visit and then an author from that area.  This time, four in their group drove some seven hours to spend time on Amelia Island.  Member Melissa Camp did an internet search of historical fiction on Amelia Island and Malcolm’s name and her Goodbye Lie trilogy appeared.     

Camp, along with Billie Carlock, Cheryl Parham and Amy Chambers, all teachers at Heritage Middle School in Ringgold, had read The Goodbye Lie by the time Malcolm met them at the bookstore two days later.  What was requested to be a book discussion ended up in an expedition of many of the historical places described in the novel set in 1882, with an occasional reading of a descriptive paragraph from the book.  

From the docks to The Florida House, up Centre Street and on to St. Michael Catholic Church, Amelia Island Lighthouse, Fort Clinch and Amelia Beach, plus much more in between, they ended their journey in the dark in Old Town.  

“About all we could see up in Old Fernandina was the outline of the Pippi Longstocking house," Malcolm explained, "but it was enough for them to realize the distance between old and new Fernandina, as I wanted."

Questions and opinions regarding their common interest, The Goodbye Lie, filled the time, making the hour hand seemingly whip around the clock.  “As a writer, it is so wonderful when readers get it and enter my world.  I hope these ladies are hooked for life because there is more to come!”  As a reminder of their time on Amelia Island, Malcolm left each of the women with one of her hand painted "Secret Pebbles", featured in her Amelia Island’s Velvet Undertow, the second novel in the series. 

“The secret in the pebble is what is shared,” the author said.  “May their love of reading about the escapades of my fictional Dunnigan family and my love of writing about this close Irish clan bring The Traveling Book Club back to see new friends and old places here on our island.”

For information about Amelia Island’s Goodbye Lie Trilogy (where Little House on the Prairie meets Gone With The Wind in Fernandina, Florida), visit Malcolm's website at http://www.graciousjanemarie.com/,  her family friendly blog at http://www.http/graciousjanemarie.blogspot.com/  and read her free and silly online Martha Bear stories at http://www.marthabear.com/.  The Goodbye Lie and Amelia Island's Velvet Undertow are available online and where books are sold.                    
  
********************

Jane Marie,

I wanted to thank you for how "gracious" you were in meeting us and sharing a great evening of fun.  We are meeting Friday with the rest of the "girls" who were not able to make it on the trip.  They will be so jealous!  It is true that we are officially "Good-bye Liars" since I know we will be back and not able to say good-bye to such a peaceful, relaxing place so full of history and stories that are waiting to be told.  Now you just have to publish those stories, so we can read them!  Thanks again for a wonderful step back into history. 

Billie