You and me can dance so free

Our Scilla peruviana ("Portuguese Squill") is stunning. [click to embiggen]

"Hooray, hooray, the first of May! Outdoor sex begins today."

In the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers, the daffs, tulips and primulas - as well as the cherry and apple blossoms in the neighbourhood - are over. The air is now scented with the intoxicating perfume of lilacs, jasmine, rowan and the last of the wallflowers. How does one adequately encapsulate the scents of Spring? The combination is simply divine.

To add to the uplifting mood, I'm counting down to the end of a particularly gruelling week - and tomorrow we're up in the deathly hours in order to get a taxi to Gatwick Airport, to catch our flight to Spain for a week's much-needed holiday! I have never needed a holiday this much [since the last one, of course 😎]!

Let's have something suitably Spanish to get the celebrations going, shall we - and who could be more appropriate than our Patron Saint of Plastic, Charo?!

¡Gracias Disco Es viernes!

Charo - Dance a Little Bit Closer

Have a great weekend, dear reader! We intend to.

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STOP PRESS:

I don't know when - or even if - you will actually see this, dear reader, but I timed it to publish at 7.30am...and it is now 6.30pm and it still hasn't shown up! I hate the Google gnomes.

Better get rid of your accent!

Monday looms again...

After an eventful weekend - we went to a drag show in, of all unlikely places, the leafy and affluent suburb of Southgate (actually a stone's throw from here), on Saturday [more on that later, no doubt]; and yesterday I finally got a fully-functional set of venetian blinds up in our living-room, after a bit of a disaster with previous attempts.

Now it's time to go back to the grind, unfortunately. We need something completely OTT to wake us up on this Tacky Music Monday, and who better to fit the bill than not one, but two Patron Saints - last week's birthday girl [slap on the wrist for missing that!] Charo... and Cher!!

Campness abounds.

Cher and Charo - America

Have a good week, dear reader.

Now every time I say cuchi-cuchi, people give me money

From an article in the Las Vegas Sun in 2009:

How old is Charo?

Some say she made a deal with the devil to avoid ageing entirely. A Las Vegas bartender says she claims 58, but he knows her to be 68, which has been officially confirmed by documents in her birthplace of Murcia, Spain. Others have reported that she had her age legally lowered by 10 years - the amount of time she was married to then-60-year-old bandleader Xavier Cugat before divorcing him and becoming an American citizen.

It is whispered that images of a tiny, whirling blond figure have been discerned in cave paintings in Western Europe. We may just have to wait for carbon dating to establish the facts...

As we embark on another joyful week's work, we first pay due homage to one of the ultimate "Queens of Tackiness" herself, Charo - who celebrated (according to her, anyhow) her 70th birthday on Saturday! We rather suspect that there might be ten more candles due on that particular cake...

Regardless, on this Tacky Music Monday, what better than her tribute to a 1970s classic?

From the same article as above:

Charo has built a multi-decade international stage-TV-recording career by essentially performing a drag performance of herself. It’s campy, kitschy and yes cuchi-cuchi, and Charo cheerfully (always cheerfully) acknowledges the self-caricature.

And we love her for it.

Charo - Love Will Keep Us Together

Peerless.

Facts:

• Charo long maintained that her stated date of birth was incorrect due to a "clerical error". Official documents in Spain and the United States maintained she was born on 13th March 1941, but Charo argued she was actually younger. In 1977, she went to court, and was able to successfully convince a Los Angeles judge, Roger Foley, to rule that her correct date of birth was 1951. This would have made her 15 at the time of her marriage, and the legitimacy of this date is widely questioned.
• Her first screen appearance was in 1963 in a Spanish film called Nuevas amistades. I haven't been able to find any clips of this movie with her in it, but since at this date according to her she was supposedly only 12 years old, it would be very interesting to see.
• She was considered for the role of Eva Perón in Evita in 1996, which went to Madonna.
• She appeared on The Love Boat 10 times during its run, most of them as the character April Lopez. The only guest stars who appeared more on the show were Florence Henderson and Marion Ross.
• Her trademark "cuchi, cuchi" comes from her nickname for her dog, Cuchillo (Spanish for "knife"): "When Cuchillo was happy, he wiggled. I copied him and I used to say 'como Cuchi, como Cuchi'. Everybody thought that it was very cute when I wiggled and say cuchi-cuchi, and they give me cookies and candy. Now every time I say cuchi-cuchi, people give me money."
• As a youngster she studied studied classical guitar with Andrés Segovia; and she won Guitar Player magazine's Readers Poll "Best Flamenco Guitarist" two years in a row.

Feliz cumpleaños, María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza (aka Charo, 13th March 1941, or 1951, or even 15th January 1951)

Acércate y oye como bate mi corazón

Oo-er - it's Friday the Thirteenth!

I also happen to have been posting to this very blog (in one form or another) for thirteen years this month...

...and I have sneaked a long weekend out of annual leave I needed to use up so we are off to Kew Gardens today...

...plus it's the birthday of one of our tackiest ever Patron Saints, the original "triumph of art over nature", Charo!

As I said way back in 2015:

She wants to Dance A Little Bit Closer - and who are we to stop her? Thank Disco It's Friday!

Charo - Dance a Little Bit Closer

Feliz compleaños, María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza, aka Charo

Ole, Ole!

Yesterday, it was Mrs Miller's "moment in the spotlight". Today, as we welcome with open arms the prospect of the looming weekend (and, fingers crossed, a chance to get into the garden and start clearing some space among the drooping vestiges of summer to plant some stuff for Spring), it's the turn of another artiste who was always "in with the joke". Señorita María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza to bring some cheer into our lives...

Charo (for it is she) always knows how to start a party - so let's set her loose, and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Charo - Stay With Me

Have a good one, peeps!

The great Cuchi Cuchi enigma

"If you believe in what you do, you are immortal. The day that you don't believe it, the day you're taking other people's opinion, you better go to Tijuana."

Some ladies are adamant that they intend to "stay at a certain age". Our beloved Charo - uncrowned "Queen of Tacky Music Mondays" - is one such case in point.

There are so many question marks over the year she was born; IMDB lists her as being born in 1941, but Wikipedia has it as an "adjusted birthdate" of 1951 - and at some stage in her history, even the date upon which she blows out however many (or few) candles on her cake has changed too. Here at Dolores Delargo Towers, we have for many years celebrated her birthday in January (see here, here, here, and here) - yet now she seems to have moved it to March. Baffling!

Actually "baffling" is the perfect epithet for the lady herself, in many respects...

Here she is on the Tonight Show - guest-hosted by Burt Reynolds(!) - back in 1971. If we are to believe the lady herself, she was only just twenty years old in this clip:

Charo and Burt Reynolds

Hmmmmm.

Regardless of her many self-created enigmas - ¡Feliz Cumpleaños! and Cuchi, Cuchi!, Señorita María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza!

Mamacita!

It is the last day in work before the madness descends, and I anticipate we may get out of the office a little earlier than usual (which inevitably leads to a huge round of attempted "buck-passing", as people suddenly realise they haven't done something important because ordering stuff on eBay was far too time-consuming to concentrate on - umm - work). I am aiming to be in the pub at lunchtime...

Regardless, and despite my loathing of the Festering Season, at least it means we won't be back there for another TEN DAYS! Whoo-hoo!

I think it appropriate to get this party started with a rather "special" number, courtesy of the awesome talent that is Charo... and Thank Disco It's (Xmas) Friday!!

Charo - (Mamacita) ¿Donde Esta Santa Claus?

As one reviewer surmises, a song that will be played at Christmastime in Hell.

Do you know what you started? I just came here to party

As a new week gathers, so do the clouds and the drizzle. Yuk. No "Super-Moon" for us, then...

Never mind, to cheer us up on this Tacky Music Monday, here's one of our all-time favourite performers in this particular category - Charo!

Charo - Don't Stop The Music

Please Don't Stop The Music? Some may disagree.

Have a good one!

Smoke on your pipe and put that in!

Congratulations are evidently due to the ever-resilient Cher, who, at the venerable age of 69 is not only one of the "faces" of Marc Jacobs' autumn/winter 2015 collection, but also features on the cover of the latest edition of "fashionista bible" Love magazine.

On this Tacky Music Monday - to put us in a happy frame of mind as we face another week back on the treadmill of work - here is Miss Sarkisian herself in the company of another of our regulars, Charo. They're in America!

Cher and Charo - America

Have a good week, peeps...

You and me can dance so free

It was a "toss-up" (as always) whether to showcase the lady's talents (in her spiritual home) on a "Tacky Music Monday" or here... But a decision was made.

So, as we hurtle "a little bit closer" to the weekend, let us shimmy our way through the rain and storms in the company of the "Cutchi Cutchi Queen" herself (whose birthday it was yesterday) - the indomitable Charo!

She wants to Dance A Little Bit Closer - and who are we to stop her? Thank Disco It's Friday!

Charo - Dance a Little Bit Closer

Feliz compleaños, María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza, aka Charo (born 15th January 1951)

Footnote:

• Charo famously said of Lady GaGa: "I don't like it when somebody copies somebody and just adopts it like their own idea. I can tell you, to me, Lady Gaga is Madonna with diarrhoea."

¡Amén a eso!

Ay Ay Ay!

It may not be Tacky Music Monday, but it is our beloved Queen of Cuchi-Cuchi Kitsch Charo's birthday...

So, without further ado, to celebrate let's all do the Conga!

Charo - Conga

María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza - a triumph of art over nature!

Charo's friend is a cow

It's cold, it's snowing, it's miserable. We managed to get to and from Brighton to see Madame Arcati's family despite every obstacle being put in our path on Saturday. Now begins another epic battle, as we try and rouse something resembling enthusiasm to leave the warmth and comfort of home for yet another week in work...

Never mind, at least we have a well-deserved week's holiday in Spain to look forward to - and there are only another two weeks to go!

With that joyful thought in mind, and to brighten up our lives on this Tacky Music Monday, here's the ever-wonderful Charo (who celebrated her 62nd birthday last week) and her plea to her homeland to Dance, Don't Bullfight!:

Charo - Dance, Don't Bullfight!

Charo apparently adopted little Manolo, but has had to give him up, as her neighbours complained.

Charo official website

Queen of all things tacky and camp

Many happy returns to the effervescent Charo, who is 71, or 61, years old today - depending on who you believe...

A regularly featured favourite on the turntables here at Dolores Delargo Towers, it doesn't really matter how old this lady really is - she is the Queen of all things tacky and camp, and we love her!

Charo - 2010 MDA Telethon

Yes I know I have featured this "triumph of art over nature" many, many times before, but I can never get enough...

Charo official website

A triumph of art over nature

Our house favourite here at Dolores Delargo Towers celebrates her 60th birthday (or is it her 70th?) today! I know I have featured her here many times before but...



How does one describe in mere words the triumph of art over nature that is Charo?

Born María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Gutiérrez de los Perales Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Hinojosa Rasten in Murcia, Spain, she had to go to court in the US to declare her official birth date as 1951. We forgive her.

Anyone who still has the temerity to behave today like the "sex kitten" she was in 1966 - when at the age of fifteen she married 66-year-old bandleader Xavier Cugat - has our vote!

Simultaneously hilariously bad and yet remarkably talented (she is a classically trained Flamenco guitarist and fluent in Japanese), Charo blossomed under Cugat's guidance into a cult TV star - from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in in the 1960s, through The Love Boat in the 70s and myriad guest appearances on chat shows and variety shows right up to Dancing With The Stars today. And we love her!

Charo - Sexy, Sexy (on the Wendy Williams Show)

Hey, Mambo!

Twenty years ago, at the grand old age of 90 the world lost one of the last of the great bandleaders, Puerto Rico's finest - Xavier Cugat. Credited with bringing Latin music to the airwaves in America (and thence the rest of the previously unconquered World), he married five times - and his widow is none other than house favourite here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Charo!

On this anniversary, I think we should celebrate with some of his uplifting music...

Xavier Cugat - She's a Bombshell from Brooklyn

And some of hers...

Charo's show at the Riviera 2009

Luf will keep us togezzer

After a whirlwind weekend - a fabulous trip to Brighton Pride and a day of putting up light fittings and doing stuff for the house - all of a sudden it's Groundhog Day.

Still, it is after all a Tacky Music Monday, so let us return to the celebrated Queen of tackiness, Charo, to cheer us all up!

All together now...

Charo - Love Will Keep Us Together

Captain and Tennille must be cringing.

Please don't stop the music?

Many happy returns today to the ultimate Queen of Tacky Music (and former wife of band-leader Xavier Cugat) Charo!

Official documents in Spain and the United States indicate she was born in 1941, but Charo insists she actually was born in 1951. We (of course) believe that this cannot really be a woman who is almost seventy years old still performing the "Cutchi Cutchi"... Here she is in 2009 - you can make your own minds up. Happy Friday!!

Charo performs Rihanna's Don't Stop The Music on the Jerry Lewis Telethon

PS Who knew that Jerry Lewis was still (barely) alive?!

Te dijo te amo

On another miserable, wet Monday, I think we are all hoping for a little sunshine in our lives. Who better to provide it but the Queen of Tackiness herself, Charo?!

Charo - La Isla Bonita

Madge must love her.

Cutchi, Cutchi!

Happy birthday today to the outrageous Charo, Hispanic entertainer, guitarist and plastic surgery fan. This woman is 67 years old yet appears to model her "look" on a young Brigitte Bardot, not entirely successfully.

They don't get much tackier than the "Cutchi Cutchi Queen"..!

Charo - Cutchi Cutchi

Charo - Caliente

Charo official website