Fab Las Vegas Magazine - Volume 23 #11

The LGBTQ+ locals choice

Volume 23 #11

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CHER THE ‘CHRISTMAS’ ALBUM INTERVIEW

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW

By: Chris Azzopardi

-----------------------------------------------------------------------‘Why Mariah Carey Matters’ Speaks to the Power of Pop Star Idolization

Andrew Chan’s book is about Mariah, sure, but really it’s about a love that sometimes we only find in the music Mariah Carey is in sharp focus as a pop music innovator and gay icon in some of the bestwritten commentary on her artistry and what she means to queer fans, thanks to writer Andrew Chan’s remarkably studied new book “Why Mariah Carey Matters.” The book plumbs the depths of Mariah’s voice, songwriting and production savviness since making her debut in 1990.

Chan, who wrote about her previously for NPR, writes with a window into his own deeply personal devotion to Carey as a gay ChineseAmerican man. In the 1990s, when Chan was first drawn to her, his connection to her music was “intimate and private,” he writes just a few pages into the book. Here, Chan is summarizing his feelings on “Outside,” a song revered by many of Mariah’s queer lambs, her name for her most loyal fans, for understanding that once an outcast, always an outcast.

“The too-muchness of the vocal was an accurate description of everything I 6 Fab Vegas

felt but couldn’t say,” he writes before adding, “Mariah’s vocals seemed to be saying that the ultimate voice could also be the one that resonated on the queerest frequency. The most beloved voice could be the most freakish.”

At 40, it’s hard to imagine I don’t already fully understand why Mariah matters to me — like Chan, my foundation for perseverance, enduring those tough gay teen years, was built on her own survival, her own outsiderness. To that end, I wrote how extensive

my connection to her music is in an essay for The New York Times in 2020, coincidentally around the same time Chan began writing “Why Mariah Carey Matters.” Few people in my life fully understand how deep it goes, exactly. On some level, my mother does; after

Author Photo Credit: Grant Delin

all, she saw me struggle the most as a queer kid, and she saw Mariah’s music keep me afloat throughout that period of time.

And yet, after reading Chan’s careful analysis — in one part, he recognizes how she entered Black gay club culture in the 1990s by flipping her hits into house mixes — alongside his own personal introspection, I found myself catching my breath several times. Though I didn’t think it possible, I felt like I was graduating to the next level of understanding my own connection to Mariah.

I even called my mom to read her some of his best passages — could it be that my defense of her was really an extension of me defending myself as a queer person? I was seeing parts of my own story on these pages, told by someone else who, at one point, also needed, as he puts it, “a glamorous, hetero-feminine idol.”

When I wrote my essay on Mariah for The New York Times, I was having this moment where I was craving the comfort of home during the first year of the pandemic. When that need kicks in, I find that feeling in so many of the Mariah songs that have been healing since I was an adolescent, so “Through the Rain,” “Hero” and “Can’t Take That Away.”

For you, at what point during the pandemic did you realize that you needed to write this book for yourself?

It was after the NPR piece, and there was kind of just an itch. I think there’s a deeper reason, but I think the more superficial reason was I was

Facebook.com/FreeZoneLV

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LGBTQ+ VEGAS NEWS

-----------------------------------------------------------------------a little bored and I needed a project. The deeper reason was I knew that tapping into her as a subject was going to allow me to explore a lot of other themes. As much as this is a tribute specifically to her and giving her her flowers as an artist, it also opens out onto bigger subject matter that I think will resonate with people who don’t even know her music: the subject of the voice and how we connect with singing voices. During the pandemic, I too had that craving for home, the familiar.

I think maybe there’s not enough writing about what it means to return again and again to the same music and how that can be profound.

A song like “Anytime you Need a Friend,” I was just listening to it this morning.

I’ve heard that hundreds, thousands of times in my life and it pierces my soul every time. That’s such a magical, profound thing. I mean, even as I’m talking about it, I’m getting emotional because I think the pandemic also revealed something about our fundamental needs as human beings and also the cyclical nature of what makes us tick and what hurts us, and those wounds from early in our lives never really go away.

In the book, you examine how many Mariah songs look at adversity and emotional pain as things that can be life-long struggles.

“Outside,” “Close My Eyes,” “Petals” and “Portrait” are all examples of this. For many who are queer, that feeling of being marginalized 8 Fab Vegas

and oppressed doesn’t ever completely wane.

knew something about what I was feeling.

That’s something that really sets her apart. Sometimes I get sick of comparing her to the other major diva singers of the ’90s who we love. I love Whitney; I love Celine. But I think the clarity of Mariah’s worldview, when it comes to that kind of pain, which is often why we make music in the first place and listen to it in the first place, especially as queer people, we turn to it as a lifeline. She gets that on just a really instinctual level.

What is so moving about “Outside,” “Petals” and “Close My Eyes” is that they’re very specific songs. They’re written from inside the particularities of her experience as a mixedrace woman, as someone who had the family dysfunction that she had. To me, what’s kind of most moving and miraculous about our relationship to those songs as queer listeners is that she doesn’t identify as queer and you can’t really conflate the experience of being mixed race with being queer. They are two very different things, and yet she’s speaking to us across this great divide, and we’re finding a commonality there that we’re connecting with, which was so important at a time when there were so few images of us in the media.

The fact that I could connect with her songs at such a young age and not even really know what she was talking about in terms of the mixed-race themes of those songs — even if you set aside the words, I could feel in her voice that she

I really moved through life like Mariah did in some ways. Her triumphs over adversity became my mantra for my own hardships.

It’s interesting because we don’t personally know her, but we don’t have to. I mean, I am kind of wary of stardom in a way. I think there’s something really toxic about fame, and so part of me, as a critic, is scared to touch that. My comfort zone is listening and really getting deep into the sound and the aesthetics of the music, but you can’t deny that the reason we’re able to connect with her in that way over the decades is because of the machinery of stardom.

And I think there’s something really deep and intimate being shared, even with the whole corporate structure of how stars are made. It is kind of magical how something really human can be transmitted even through the veils and the smoke and mirrors of the star machinery.

From a writing standpoint, I’m wondering how early you started investigating Mariah through your writing.

I actually had never written about her until the NPR piece, which really surprised me.

I feel like there had been so little serious writing about her, and maybe it was easier for me to go to the classic soul people like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding. Mariah was a

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LGBTQ+ VEGAS NEWS

-----------------------------------------------------------------------gateway to that music for me.

I don’t think I would really know or care about that music without having first heard the influence of those singers in her.

But yeah, I think in those pieces I was working up to, I was preparing to write this subconsciously. And when I started writing it, I realized that actually there’s no other artist I could have written a book about like this. I mean, there’s so many books on Aretha Franklin. I needed to find an artist for whom there was a void in the writing, and I needed to feel like there was something unique about what I could bring to the table in terms of how I listened to her music. So I think there’s no one else that I could have done this with for a first book.

After reading your book, I’m listening to her music with fresh ears, newly appreciating, for example, the layered complexities and the harmonies on the “Butterfly” album.

I am kind of adamant that this is very much a work of criticism, and that’s what’s different about what I’ve written and other books that have been published on her before that are more celebrity profiles. And criticism, I want to emphasize with people who maybe don’t read it a lot that this is the point of it — the writer writes it in order to hear something that they have maybe heard hundreds of times anew. Because through the writing, you’re creating a new encounter, and then with the sharing with the reader, 10 Fab Vegas

you’re multiplying it, and you’re able to hear these songs that are so ingrained in you, almost like for the first time.

So, for me, the experience of writing is almost, at times, less about the writing and just about the listening that is required to do the writing. I want to be able to hear deeply again.

I wanted to talk about Mariah’s most prolific period of dance remixes, which was the 1990s. What I didn’t fully consider until I read your book was how she was creating these remixes because it was the music authentic to her as a person and artist, whereas her exhusband and label head Tommy Mottola controlled the sound of her earliest albums. But those mixes, many of which were house music played in gay clubs, ended up reaching the queer community almost exclusively. I don’t know how much she even knows that or how aware she is that what she was creating was being played in those clubs.

Considering that connection, do you think that Mariah was as aware of herself being a gay icon then as she is now?

I am guessing it was a gradual awareness. I mean, she even says in the memoir that she didn’t even know how many fans she had or how famous she was until “Music Box” [in 1993]. You can take that with a grain of salt, but I think she’s probably being sincere in that she was so cocooned

and famous, so I’m sure such a weird experience that you kind of dissociate. I’m not sure she really knew what to make of her relationship with her listeners, let alone a segment of her listeners, the LGBT audience. But I think she had to have known that house music was creating a connection, that releasing this kind of really attentively, carefully, passionately made house music was going to foster a relationship with this particular community. And also you have David Cole as this really key collaborator, a gay man. So I think she couldn’t have been completely unaware of it.

This is what’s kind of interesting to me, and I don’t really say this, maybe I should have said this in the book, but I do focus a lot on me experiencing her from the outside of her own experience.

She’s a Black woman, a mixed-race woman; I’m this Chinese-American gay man, and so I don’t really belong to the specificity of her world.

But, also, she is creating in our world too, as someone who’s not queer, but making music, incredible music in kind of a queer idiom. And so it’s almost like this becomes this common ground for us to meet at.

Not to say that divas hadn’t been singing on house tracks forever. Black women are pioneers of house music. But I think the specificity of the address in those remixes is really powerful, and it’s kind of exciting to know that she found this freedom in that format, in that genre.

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------In the book, you write, “By sticking up for our beloved diva, are we trying to protect something from our childhoods — something that feels even more precious for having been at times as uncool as we ourselves may have once been?”

This passage hit me hard.

I hadn’t thought about my connection to her on that level, exactly.

Just as we need to remember being in the closet and the shame and the fear we experienced in it, memories of how uncool Mariah was at that time if we were part of that generation are tied up in that because she became such a signifier, especially if you were a cis, male, gay child and you were closeted and you didn’t want to be found out. Admitting that you love Mariah’s music was going to be the tip-off. Now a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon and they’re more than welcome because it’s a big tent [laughs], but we remember a time when she was uncool and uncool had a lot to do with homophobia toward her fan base as well as misogyny and racism toward her.

I wrote this with lambs and people like me in mind, but I was also thinking about friends of mine who come from a completely different experience, and sometimes I think this is common in friendships between straight men and queer men: As much love as there can be in those friendships, it can feel like there’s such a wide chasm culturally and emotionally in 12 Fab Vegas

the way we express ourselves that is so hard to communicate across. I do think this is a way of offering something of my interior life to friends of mine who don’t share this experience, and even though this book is not my memoir and it’s pretty minimal about the personal stuff, it’s about how I listen. Implicitly, I’m saying I’m listening to this as a gay Chinese-American man, and I have been really moved by their response to the book.

Representation was so different in the ’90s for LGBTQ+ people who were growing up. We didn’t have a lot of examples of what it looked like to feel and be different, and that we could be OK despite our differences. How do you think queer people of this current generation will feel the impact differently of what we got to experience in the moment with songs “Outside” or “Close My Eyes,” or these remixes, and what Mariah represented to us then?

I think this is such a great question, and I am always constantly thinking about this intergenerational aspect of queer life, because even as I say in that chapter on house, I was a little too young to really be engaging with house music in the ’90s like that.

So I am almost experiencing those remixes as a portal to an earlier era of queer culture that I don’t have access to. I am also wondering what this music will mean to young queer people now. But I think as far as we’ve come, we also

know how much homophobia and transphobia exists today, particularly with the really violent backlash against trans people in recent years.

I think what I was trying to convey with the book, when I was saying that I see her almost as an antidote to the “it gets better” rhetoric of queer positivity, which has its place, and I’m not knocking it just to be a contrarian, but I think we’ve gotten to a point where Pride has been co-opted by corporations, and it’s been mainstreamed in this way that I fear sometimes that we’ve forgotten what it meant to really be in the closet and the shame, and what that did to our spirits and the aftereffects of that over years and years. Even as our lives go on, we flourish and thrive.

Where’s the space for that conversation?

Songs like “Outside” and “Close My Eyes” and the memories of experiencing them when we were kids, at least I can speak for myself, bring me back to that time.

And I don’t want to fetishize the trauma and the pain. I’m just saying that the after-effects exist, and listening to the music is a way to re-encounter and find a way to face a lot of things that, for myself, because I knew I was queer from a very young age, never really got processed or reconciled.

So the music is a framework in which to do that.

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LGBTQ+ HOLLYWOOD

By: Romeo San Vincente

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DEEP INSIDE HOLLYWOOD Justice Smith joins ‘Magical’ satire Young queer star on the rise, Justice Smith (“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”), is taking a detour from big franchises with colons in the title — he was also in “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” and “Pokemon: Detective Pikachu” — and landing in a satire developed in the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Lab. The comedy is called “The American Society of Magical Negroes” and it’s the debut feature from filmmaker Kobi Libii (who’s written and performed on Comedy Central’s “The Opposition”).

It’s the story of a young man recruited into a clandestine group of magical Black people who devote themselves to making white people’s lives better. Co-starring David Alan Grier, An-Li Bogan, Drew Tarver, Michaela Watkins, Rupert Friend and Nicole Byer, Focus Features picked up the film for distribution and plans to easily upset Fox News hosts with it when it drops into theaters March 2024. We’re buying advance tickets ASAP. The ‘New Look’ will serve fashion in 2024 In the pipeline since early 2022, “The New Look,” a World War II-set drama from Apple TV+, is finally ready to work the runway.

Starring Ben Mendelsohn 14 Fab Vegas

(“Cyrano”) as fashion icon Christian Dior and French acting legend Juliette Binoche as Coco Chanel, the stylish series will explore the rise of the house of Dior as the world was embroiled in a century-defining battle. The cast includes John Malkovich, Emily Mortimer, Maisie Williams (“Game of Thrones”) and Claes Bang (“The Square”). Given occupied France’s atmosphere of dread during the war, expect to encounter as much turmoil as tights, but all the same it probably won’t be able to help itself from delivering glamour and queer resistance to the terror of the time. Apple TV+ will drop the first few episodes on Feb. 14 with weekly installments to follow. Now that’s a Valentine.

Gus Kenworthy’s Christmas ‘Sacrifice’ The holiday slasher genre is giving gory gifts all over this season, with the grindhousesteeped “Thanksgiving” and “It’s a Wonderful Knife” turning the memory of a classic upside down. And the trend will continue over on streaming platform Shudder when “The Sacrifice Game” drops. Directed by Jenn Wexler and set over the Christmas holiday at a school for girls in 1971 — shades of the ’70s classic “Black Christmas” — it involves students (Madison Baines, Georgia Acken) staying at school for the break and

dealing with a gang of strangers/killers at the door.

How does queer Olympian Gus Kenworthy figure into this? Is he the house mother?

A murderer? Well, that’s a spoiler, so you’ll have to catch this one Dec. 8 to find out, but this holiday is going to be blood-red.

In 2024 ‘Tammy Faye’ meets Broadway She was the singing televangelist turned talk show host turned queer ally turned legend. Tammy Faye Bakker’s life was the subject of documentary, Academy Award-winning biopic, and then stage musical from the creative team of Elton John and Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears. Olivier Award-nominated after its hit 2022 British run, now “Tammy Faye” is set to make its Broadway debut for the 2024-25 season. Plot-wise, it charts the way that Ms. Bakker ran up against Evangelical establishment figures in her quest to be her own unique brand of minister, one who reached out to queer audiences when no one else did. No cast news yet for the U.S. production, but that’s coming very soon. Meanwhile, get your outfit and makeup ready: no boring looks allowed on opening night.

Romeo San Vicente is on your 10 Best List of 2023

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CELEBRITY INTERVIEW

By: Chris Azzopardi

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Photo Credit: An Le

CHER We’ve Got Her, Babe

Cher talks new Christmas album, antiLGBTQ+ ‘insanity’ and why she never took credit for co-writing ‘Believe’

After being introduced to Cher on the phone as her “old friend Chris” by Cher’s longtime publicist Liz Rosenberg, there is only one sensible way for me to respond: “Hello, old friend Cher.”

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Calling Cher an old friend to Cher feels completely natural — well, almost. There is at least some familiarity in knowing her off the phone too, through a treasure trove of a half-century’s worth of artistic contributions, even if the icon

is a higher pop culture power.

But then, at the same time, the enduring gay icon has also been like an old friend to those in the LGBTQ+ community, including me.

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----------------------------------------------------------------------Just a couple of years after coming out at 18, I saw my first Cher concert with my mom, who brought Cher into my world when I was a young kid, before I felt confident enough to tell her I was gay (weird to think that now even Cher knows I’m gay). The 2002 Michigan show at the Palace of Auburn Hills, part of her not-so-farewell “Farewell Tour,” is one of my earliest memories of finding other gay people outside of male-formale AOL chat rooms — so many gay Cher fans in one big space, a glittery, strutting pop goddess our master of ceremonies.

From her California home on a recent November day, Cher says this relationship she has with us runs even deeper, though. That particular connection, she notes, began at 9 when she first felt like an outsider herself. Now, at 77, it has only strengthened after six decades spent growing a gay icon status built on music and film, live shows across the globe and the kind of loyal allyship that feels like a mother’s love. “We’re family,” she tells me.

I first interviewed Cher in 2018, just after she released an album of ABBA covers in conjunction with “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” which also starred the Oscar-winning actress. This time, our conversation was prompted by a different project, one that she surprisingly has never tackled until now: a Christmas album.

Titled simply “Christmas,”

Cher does the holidays her own way, with a couple of Christmas party songs — the “Believe”-style club romp “DJ Play That Christmas Song” and the funky hip-hop track “Drop Top Sleigh Ride” with rapper Tyga — along with two collaborations featuring fellow gay icon Cyndi Lauper and a duet with Darlene Love on “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” On the poignant album closer, “This Will Be Our Year,” she, like the best of friends, keeps the light flickering in the dark. “I won’t forget the way you held me up when I was down, and I won’t forget the way you said, ‘Darling, I love you, you gave me faith to go on.’”

An “old friend” can also get away with joking that they’ll punch you if you print something that is said off the record, which Cher did during our wide-ranging interview on everything from the possibility of touring again, anti-trans hostility and being “so stupid” for not taking credit for cowriting “Believe.”

It’s wonderful to talk to you again.

I bet you didn’t think you’d be talking to me again. Is this the third time?

This is the second. Where are you going to be in your career the third time we talk?

I’ll be singin’ in heaven, baby!

I think that we could get a long extension cord.

I heard you were just at the gym.

Well, I was doing steps for “DJ,” and I was down in the gym earlier working out.

So put some ketchup on me because I’m fried!

I miss you on what was formerly known as Twitter.

I just miss the constant witticisms.

Can I tell you something? I miss it. You have no idea how I miss it. When Twitter was real, I did it through Tweetbot, and so when I came on, everybody that was a fan of mine just came there. Now, everybody is scattered. I can’t find people. This is just, please…

I don’t know. Don’t fuck with something that’s good, OK? If you buy it, why ruin it?

That sounds like a good career motto.

[Laughs.] It always hasn’t been true, Chris.

How so?

This is the weird thing: People always say, “Oh, you keep reinventing yourself.” That’s not exactly true. I’ve probably been like this since I was about 5, but I have valleys that are like, “What is going on here?”

And then I do something, and it comes to the public and all of a sudden people go, “Oh my god, she reinvented herself again.” No, I just got a job. Tell me, have I ever been different?

I feel like the essence of Cher has always been Cher.

Even on this album. It’s a Cher album.

There’s no “Silent Night,” right?

No, there’s no “Silent Night.”

What songs were you eager to do and which ones did you FabLasVegas.com

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------say no to?

I just picked all the songs. And I had some friends that gave me songs and I took some of them. Like Rob Dickins gave me “Run Rudolph Run” and then Sarah Hudson, who I’ve known since she was 4, wrote “DJ,” “Drop Top Sleigh” and “Angels in the Snow.”

But I didn’t have anybody in the beginning. I wasn’t planning it either. I called Cyn and I said, “If I did something on my Christmas album and it was good for you, would you want to do something?” And I have no idea why I did it. But it happened really with Stevie [Wonder]. Because I’d done the song [“What Christmas Means to Me”] and there were parts that were just… I couldn’t find them.

So I called Stevie and I was like… well, if I say something, will you not print it?

Off the record between us?

Yeah. I want to say this one word and it won’t sound… you have to swear to God or I will come and punch your lights out!

Can I say that?

[Laughs.] All right. Anyway… oh, fuck. I don’t want to say it.

I’m afraid it won’t sound good.

So anyway, I was really, really frightened and I was saying, “Do you think Stevie will remember that we knew each other?” And so I called him and I was like, “Stevie? Um, this is Cher.” “Hi, Cher.” “Well, Stevie, uh, I did your song but there are parts in it that I can’t do and I need you to do it.” He said, “Is it one of my songs?”

And I’m like, “Yeah, of course it’s one of your songs.” And 18 Fab Vegas

so then he said, as we were hanging up, “Cher, you want me to play harmonica?” And I passed out. And then I ran around my room screaming and jumped on my bed, and I was screaming, “Stevie Wonder’s going to be on my album!” Over and over and over. Until I fell down dead.

I love the idea of Cher being starstruck. It’s like, you are my Stevie Wonder right now.

Yeah, but he’s a genius.

And you mean the world to people like me who are queer.

I know, and I’m so angry. I’m so angry with America for every fucking thing — racism and anti-Semitism and being anti-LGBT. Oh, did you hear about how the Pope came out?

I mean, he didn’t come out, but you know what I mean.

[Laughs.] He came out with a thing where he’s recognizing the LGBT community. They can be godfathers and they can be whatever. I was so, so happy. Prejudice in this country is... I can’t find the word because I don’t know words bad enough. I mean, it could be an atomic bomb of a word. I just don’t know words bad enough to say how I feel.

I wanted to ask you about how hard this year has been for LGBTQ+ people because the community is so close to your heart.

Do you know why? Do you have any idea why?

I know you and the community go way back .

Way back to 9. But it’s because we’re both outsiders. We’re all outsiders.

You’ve always felt that way about yourself?

Always. And so I gravitated to these two [gay] guys and then I met my first lesbian and she was fabulous. She was a friend of my mom’s, and then as I started to grow up, I came in contact with everybody [in the community]. I said to some guy the other day, “You’re my brother.” We’re brothers and sisters. We’re family. It came out of me, but that’s kind of the way I feel.

In a lot of ways, it feels like I was raised by my mother, but I was also raised by Cher.

Well, it doesn’t get better than that. You have two moms.

But what you’re saying about how hard things have been this year, as a gay person, it has felt particularly harsh this year.

Babe, it’s been since Trump.

Can I tell you a little story?

Yes, of course.

I had a friend and he had a friend and she was this little girl who worked in the FBI and she infiltrated a white supremacist group. She was with them, I think, for a couple of years. She was saying they were causing a lot of trouble and she said there were so many groups in the United States. And I said, “Well, then why aren’t they doing bigger things? Why aren’t we aware of something gigantic?” And she said, “Because they hate each other.” And then she said, “It won’t start until someone can come and unite them.” And someone did.

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------As the mother of a trans child, Chaz Bono, I’m wondering how you process the anti-trans hostility in this country.

You know, how can you process it? I mean, it doesn’t process. It’s not like long division. You can’t do it.

You have to just be open and loving and sometimes you don’t get things right away, you know? You can’t understand things right away, but if you stay open, look, I was nervous and I was afraid, and Chaz is my child and I’m Cher and I thought, “This is going to be a major spotlight.” But Chaz is so happy and we have so much fun together. Also, I have to tell you this, and this might not be politically correct, but when you have a trans child, you know the child you had, but you don’t know the new child. There’s a big difference.

But the person is the same.

But Chaz has different feelings about things, you know? Like, Chaz comes from a guy’s point of view.

What would you tell people who struggle to understand or accept trans people?

I would tell them if I woke up tomorrow and I was a guy, I would just lose my mind.

[Laughs.] And that’s what I would tell people: “What if you woke up tomorrow and you were in the wrong body?”

Everyone can understand that. It’s like, if you woke up tomorrow and you were a different sex but you had no control, you would just want to kill yourself.

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There’s been so many attacks on drag queens in the country, and I’m thinking about all the Cher drag queens when I ask this next question. But what are your thoughts on how conservatives think that drag queens are trying to groom children?

Oh my god, it’s fucking insane, OK? Like, you’re just going to pull that out of you know where? I think Democrats, they’ve got to get some show business. They’ve got to get something that’s not dry, because they don’t really understand how to sell it. I mean, I think Joe’s doing a great job. Not in everything.

I don’t agree with him on a few things, but he’s done a lot of good, and the thing is, no matter how bad any other candidate would be, it couldn’t touch the hem of Trump’s garment with how horrible he is. We can’t use that as an idea because that has a religious connotation and I just forgot.

I just meant no one is as bad as he is. I can’t fathom what it would be like to be him.

While we’re talking about drag, a few years ago, you teased that you would consider going on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” but you still haven’t been on.

But you know what? I don’t know why, and I love him. He’s the nicest person — really, really nice, and I’m not just saying it. I really don’t know why. I just feel like the bar would be so high that I just don’t know.

What do you mean the bar would be so high?

I mean, I’d have to go on and be I don’t even know what. I’d have to be 10 feet taller than I am.

Do you, though? You just have to be Cher, right?

Yeah, but you know those guys; they’re so tall, so they make you look like a dumpy little thump.

And that’s not what you want to get yourself into?

[Laughs.] No! Is that really why you’re avoiding it?

I’m never going to be that.

I exaggerate; it was just the biggest exaggeration I could come up with off the top of my head.

Sounds like you’d still be down for it.

Photo Credit: FOX Yeah.

You and Chaz are coproducing a horror film together called “Little Bites.”

What can you say about that?

I had my hand over one eye and was just kind of squinting because it was too scary. I don’t really like scary films.

What is it like to work with Chaz?

Chaz is really easygoing. And also, I stay out of it. It’s not my gig. I’m helping.

“Burlesque” is getting the musical treatment, with Christina Aguilera coproducing. Are you involved in that?

They asked me if I would have something to do with it but I don’t know. I really don’t know how I feel about it, you know?

21 Fab Vegas

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CELEBRITY INTERVIEW

-----------------------------------------------------------------------I mean, it’s not negative. It’s just questioning.

What about it are you questioning?

I don’t know if I should be involved. Does it make sense?

What kind of power do you have? I mean, my experience with my musical [“The Cher Show”] was a nightmare.

“Burlesque” has embedded itself in the queer community in a way you probably didn’t expect it to when that movie was first released.

Are you kidding me? Come on.

Ha! OK, fair point. You knew exactly who you were making that movie for.

Come on, babe, don’t try to pull that old chestnut.

Well, then I should say new generations of queers are discovering what I knew was gay when I first saw it.

It really was a good film; it was just too long. It needed better editing.

Getting back to “Christmas” and your collabs with Cyndi, when did you know that you both stood for the same things when it came to LGBTQ+ rights and equality? Is there a history there? I mean, I know there must be.

Of course there is, but the thing about being close with the community is that you kind of just are close. We could talk about some specific thing, a problem or a good thing or whatever. But we just know who we are, you know?

22 Fab Vegas

We don’t sit around and talk about it. Because I know who she is, I know how she feels.

So no, we didn’t. It just is.

When two of our gay icons come together, the gay fantasy is that you are talking about us all the time.

Of course! I think everyone’s talking about me all the time too! No, I don’t. I really don’t.

[Laughs.]

But I don’t know what your interior life is like with Cyndi Lauper.

No, but it’s really good. We’ve had great times and I respect her so much and she’s so funny and she’s so crazy. We’re a good couple.

It’s good to have you two singing together on this album.

Yeah, it was really great. And Darlene, how great is that?

That history is crazy. When I was 17, I did background on that song. Now we’re doing it together. And I called her and went, “I’m not going to do this without you. It wouldn’t be right.” And she said, “Oh, I’ll be there.”

“Drop Top Sleigh Ride” could be considered camp, and so could the album’s cover. Do you still enjoy leaning into the campiness of being Cher?

Well, I don’t consider it camp.

I consider it a really good song. This is what I feel about the album: I just picked songs, and when they were all done, I thought, “Oh my god, do these guys go together? How is this going to launch?” And then, everybody around me loved it

so much but then I thought, “But what if people don’t like it because it’s not what they expect and it goes from one place to another place and I made a wrong decision?” That was worrying me for a while.

And then I thought, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.” I did what I wanted to do. That’s why I never did a Christmas album, because I wanted to just take it and make it and master it and hand it in.

And that’s what you did here?

Yeah.

Let’s acknowledge the 25th anniversary of “Believe” this year.

Oh, do we have to?

[Rosenberg chimes in: “Put a muzzle on her.”] I mean, do you know how fast 25 years has gone? Dude. It’s crazy.

Also, I was talking downstairs about this: I wrote a part of that song, and I didn’t take credit for it because I was so stupid. That song was a monster. It was like… I don’t even know what. That song was like Trump in the beginning; it was horrible.

What I thought, too, about the song is that a chick can be upset and crazy over her relationship falling apart, but she can only do it for the first verse. So I’m sitting in the bathtub and I got my toe stuck in the faucet, and all of a sudden, what came to my mind was, “I’ve had time to think it through, and maybe I’m too good for you.” And Jennifer [Ruiz, Cher’s longtime personal assistant] said, “Oh my god, that’s perfect.” And

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CELEBRITY INTERVIEW

-----------------------------------------------------------------------then she said, “You will get a writers [credit].” And I went, “No, no, I just want to do it for the home team.” And of course, I was an idiot.

So you’re kicking yourself, as you should, right?

Yeah, but you know why? It was because it was so horrible.

It was such an awful time. I was so depressed. I got into a fight, the only fight I’ve ever gotten into with Mark [Taylor, the producer]. And I just felt like such a loser because I couldn’t get it better.

That’s why I walked out. I just couldn’t make it better because the verses were not interesting. So then the whole thing happened with the pitch machine.

I didn’t know that you wrote that line in “Believe.” I guess not a lot of people would, because it’s uncredited.

Nobody does except my immediate friends. But I didn’t think I was going to be here this long. I’m upset about it in a girl way, you know? I didn’t want to be 25 years older in a minute. I turn around and I’m 25 years older.

Do you ever consider touring again, or are those days really long gone?

We were just downstairs dancing and talking about it.

I would have to change the show somewhat because I just can’t run around constantly and do it. I mean, today we were dancing and it was like, “Whoa, what happened here?”

So I couldn’t do the exact same show, so I don’t know how it would be received. I mean, I still can sing. I sing 24 Fab Vegas

well.

How about something more intimate? Cher in a chair.

Well, that’s what my sister said.

She said, “You could just tell stories about your life.” You know, all of the monologues I make up myself. I want to do it. I’m a professional and I want to be really, really, really good, because I think I have been.

I heard you were close to finishing your memoir.

What’s the process for you in writing your memoir? Is it hard to go back through some moments in your life?

You know what I have to do? I have to go back. I was thinking about this the other day. Or no, I thought about it months ago. But I was thinking, “You didn’t tell enough. You played this too safe. You’ve got to put your ass more on the line and let the chips fall where they may.” How is that for all the stupid, cliché sayings that I can put into one sentence?

[Laughs.]

Is that because you learned that Barbra Streisand’s memoir is over 900 pages long?

[Laughs.] No. But do you know what it’s like? It’s like two of the film scripts couldn’t be done because everyone says you’ve lived too long and done too much. Sorry.

[Spoken unapologetically.] But it’s true. It’s hard to get all my life in a book unless I came out with volumes, like the encyclopedia. Not that anyone knows what that is anymore.

It is really, really a lot. I’m struggling. I want to do a

better job than I did. I want to do a better job. I want to pick up my big girl G-string and just do a better job.

When do you think we’ll have the book?

I don’t know, babe. Don’t ask.

Well, you just did, but don’t ask me again.

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27

Information for Teens: Staying Healthy and Preventing STDs If you choose to have sex, know how to protect yourself against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

What are sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)?

STDs are diseases that are passed from one person to another through sexual contact. These include chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, human papillomavirus (HPV), syphilis, and HIV. Many of these STDs do not show symptoms for a long time. Even without symptoms, they can still be harmful and passed on during sex.

consider before having sex. It’s okay to say “no” if you don’t want to have sex.

•

If you do decide to have sex, you and your partner should get tested for STDs beforehand. Make sure that you and your partner use a condom from start to finish every time you have oral, anal, or vaginal sex. Know where to get condoms and how to use them correctly. It is not safe to stop using condoms unless you’ve both been tested for STDs, know your results, and are in a mutually monogamous relationship.

•

Mutual monogamy means that you and your partner both agree to only have sexual contact with each other. This can help protect against STDs, as long as you’ve both been tested and know you’re STD-free.

•

Before you have sex, talk with your partner about how you will prevent STDs and pregnancy. If you think you’re ready to have sex, you need to be ready to protect your body. You should also talk to your partner ahead of time about what you will and will not do sexually. Your partner should always respect your right to say no to anything that doesn’t feel right.

•

Make sure you get the health care you need. Ask a doctor or nurse about STD testing and about vaccines against HPV and hepatitis B.

•

Girls and young women may have extra needs to protect their reproductive health.

Talk to your doctor or nurse about regular cervical cancer screening, and chlamydia and gonorrhea testing. You may also want to discuss unintended pregnancy and birth control.

•

Avoid mixing alcohol and/or recreational drugs with sex. If you use alcohol and drugs, you are more likely to take risks, like not using a condom or having sex with someone you normally wouldn’t have sex with.

How are STDs spread?

You can get an STD by having vaginal, anal or oral sex with someone who has an STD. Anyone who is sexually active can get an STD. You don’t even have to “go all the way” (have anal or vaginal sex) to get an STD. This is because some STDs, like herpes and HPV, are spread by skinto-skin contact.

How common are STDs? STDs are common, especially among young people. There are about 20 million new cases of STDs each year in the United States. About half of these infections are in people between the ages of 15 and 24. Young people are at greater risk of getting an STD for several reasons: •

Young women’s bodies are biologically more prone to STDs.

•

Some young people do not get the recommended STD tests.

•

Many young people are hesitant to talk openly and honestly with a doctor or nurse about their sex lives.

•

Not having insurance or transportation can make it more difficult for young people to access STD testing.

•

Some young people have more than one sex partner.

What can I do to protect myself?

•

The surest way to protect yourself against STDs is to not have sex. That means not having any vaginal, anal, or oral sex (“abstinence”). There are many things to

28 Fab Vegas

against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

If Iare getsexually an STD, how will Idiseases know? (STDs)?

What transmitted STDs are diseases that are passed from one person to another Many STDs don’t cause any symptoms that you through sexual contact. These include chlamydia, gonorrhea, would notice. only way(HPV), to know for sure genital herpes, humanThe papillomavirus syphilis, and HIV. if you haveSTDs an STD to get tested.forYou can get an Many of these do notis show symptoms a long time.

Even without they can stillwith be harmful and passed STDsymptoms, from having sex someone whoonhas no during sex. symptoms.

Just like you, that person might not

even he or she has an STD. How are know STDs spread?

You can get an STD by having vaginal, anal or oral sex with Where can I get tested? someone who has an STD. Anyone who is sexually active can get an STD.There You don’t have that to “gooffer all theteen-friendly, way” (have anal or vaginal areeven places sex) to get an STD. This is because some STDs, like herpes and HPV, confidential, and free STD tests. This means that are spread by skin-to-skin contact.

no one has to find out you’ve been tested. Visit

How common to arefind STDs? GetTested an STD testing location near

tell partner before youyouhave sex. partner Although • Ifyour you do decide to have sex, and your should get tested for STDs beforehand.

Make sure that you and it may be uncomfortable to talk about your your partner usehonest a condom from start to finish every STD, open and conversation can help time you have oral, anal, or vaginal sex. Know where to your partner make informed decisions to get condoms and how to use them correctly. It is not protect his or her health. safe to stop using condoms unless you’ve both been STDs, knowwho your results, and are them? in a mutually If Itested havefor questions, can answer monogamous relationship.

If• you have questions, talk to a parent or other Mutual monogamy means that you and your partner both trusted be afraid be each openother. andThis agreeadult. to only Don’t have sexual contactto with honest with themagainst aboutSTDs, yourasconcerns.

If both you’re can help protect long as you’ve been and know evertested confused or you’re need STD-free. advice, they’re the first place to start.

After were young once, • Before you have sex, all, talk they with your partner about how too.you will prevent STDs and pregnancy. If you think you’re ready to have sex, you need to be ready to protect your

STDs are common, especially among young people. There are you. about 20 million new cases of STDs each year in the United States.

About halfSTDs of thesebe infections are in people between the ages of Can treated?

15 and 24. Young people are at greater risk of getting an STD for Your doctor can prescribe medicine to cure several reasons:

Talking about sexalso with parent or another body. You should talkato your partner ahead of time adult doesn’t need bewill a one-time about what you willto and not do sexually. Your partner conversation. bestyour to leave the forthat should alwaysIt’s respect right to saydoor no to open anything doesn’t feel right. conversations in the future.

• Young women’s bodies are biologically more prone Other STDs, like herpes, can’t be cured, but you to STDs.

• Make sure you get the health care you need. Ask a doctor It’s also important to talk honestly with a doctor or nurse about STD testing and about vaccines against or nurse.

Ask which STD tests and vaccines HPV and hepatitis B. they recommend for you.

some STDs, like chlamydia and gonorrhea.

can take medicine to help with the symptoms.

• Some young people do not get the recommended If STD youtests. are ever treated for an STD, be sure to

•finish Manyall young peoplemedicine, are hesitanteven to talkifopenly and better of your you feel honestly with a doctor or nurse about their sex before you finish it all.

Ask the doctor orlives. nurse

testing and treatment for your partner, •about Not having insurance or transportation can make it more difficult young people to access STD avoid testing.having too.

Youfor and your partner should until you’ve both been •sex Some young people have moretreated. than one Otherwise, sex partner you may continue to pass the STD back and forth. It is possible to get an STD again (after

What can I do to protect myself?

• The surest way to protect yourself against STDs is to not you’ve been you have sex with have sex.

Thattreated), means notifhaving any vaginal, anal, or someone who has anThere STD. oral sex (“abstinence”). are many things to consider before having sex. It’s okay to say “no” if you don’t want to What happens if I don’t treat an STD? have sex.

Some curable STDs can be dangerous if they aren’t treated. For example, if left untreated, CS287360A chlamydia and gonorrhea can make it difficult— or even impossible—for a woman to get pregnant. You also increase your chances of getting HIV if you have an untreated STD. Some STDs, like HIV, can be fatal if left untreated.

What if my partner or I have an incurable STD? Some STDs, like herpes and HIV, aren’t curable, but a doctor can prescribe medicine to treat the symptoms.

If you are living with an STD, it’s important to

• Girls and young women may have extra needs to protect

their reproductive health.information?

Talk to your doctor or nurse Where can I get more

about regular cervical cancer screening, and chlamydia

CDC and gonorrhea testing. You may also want to discuss

unintended birth control.

How You Canpregnancy Preventand Sexually Transmitted • Avoid mixing alcohol and/or recreational drugs with sex.

Diseases If you use alcohol and drugs, you are more likely to take www.cdc.gov/std/prevention/

risks, like not using a condom or having sex with someone

Teen youPregnancy normally wouldn’t have sex with. https://www.cdc.gov/ teenpregnancy/teens/ index.htm

CDC-INFO Contact Center 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636) Contact wwwn.cdc.gov/dcs/ ContactUs/Form HealthFinder.gov STD Testing: Conversation Starters https://healthfinder.gov/ HealthTopics/ Category/health-conditions-and-diseases/ hiv-and-other-stds/std-testing-conversationstarters American Sexual Health Association Sexual Health and You http://www.iwannaknow.org/ teens/ sexualhealth.html FabLasVegas.com

29

STD (SEXUALLY TRASMITTED DISEASES) INFO SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES INFO, TESTING & RESOURCES WHAT IS A SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE? Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), are infections that are commonly spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex and oral sex.

WHAT IS HIV? HIV is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system.It is usually spread by anal or vaginal sex or sharing syringes with a person who has HIV. The only way to know you have HIV is to be tested.

Everyone aged 13-64 should be tested at least once, and people at high risk should be tested at least once a year. Ask your doctor, or visit gettested.cdc.gov to find a testing site. Without treatment, HIV can make a person very sick or may even cause death. If you have HIV, start treatment as soon as possible to stay healthy and help protect your partners.

Nevada is the fifth highest state in the United States for rates of new HIV diagnoses and is #1 in Syphillis *According to CDC HIV Surveillance Report, 2017 and the CDC Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report, 2017 released in 2018

30 Fab Vegas

STD TESTING RESOURCE SOUTHERN NEVADA HEALTH DISTRICT ADDRESS 1: 280 S. Decatur Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89107 HOURS: Monday – Friday 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (closed 12 – 1 p.m.)

ADDRESS 2: 4201 W. Washington Ave. Las Vegas, NV 89107 HOURS: Monday – Wednesday 9 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

The following services are offered at the Sexual Health Clinic: 1.

Diagnosis and treatment of active or suspected cases of:

•

Chlamydia

•

Gonorrhea

•

Syphilis

•

HIV

•

Trichomonas (females only)

•

Bacterial Vaginosis (females only)

2.

Free condoms and instruction on how to safely use them (both male and female condom)

3.

Follow-up bloodwork

4.

Hepatitis screening, diagnosis and treatment

5.

High-risk behavior counseling

6.

HIV Nursing Case Management

7.

Injection series for syphilis medication

8.

Partner notification

9.

Referrals by private physicians

10. Sexual assault follow-up 11. Test results and couseling Clients seeking treatment at the Sexual Health Clinic should know that the Health District is required to report cases involving assault or abuse to appropriate agencies.

HIV Testing: HIV antibody testing is a simple blood test performed by a trained professional. This procedure is strictly confidential. Counseling regarding the meaning of the test and its result take place before the actual testing to ensure you understand HIV infection and the testing procedure.

HIV testing procedure: Blood Test – Blood drawn from a vein is tested for HIV antibodies. This test is available at the Sexual Health Clinic (280 S. Decatur Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89107 ), Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Please call (702) 759-0702 for more information.

If you have questions, contact the clinic by phone at (702) 759-0702 or by email at SexualHealth@snhd.org.

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www.afanlv.org Aid for AIDS of Nevada (AFAN) provides support and advocacy for adults and children living with and affected by HIV/AIDS in Southern Nevada.

AFAN works to reduce HIV infection through prevention and education to eliminate fear, prejudice and the stigma associated with the disease.

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