Allee Willis Blog

24May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s BonAmi “Push Button” Cleaner and A Smatering of What It’s Cleaning Up

24May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s BonAmi “Push Button” Cleaner and A Smatering of What It’s Cleaning Up

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This vintage cleaning product can may be a little worse for wear but so am I as I hobble around my house shining it back up to its usual state after a couple hundred people trounced through here yesterday in celebration of John Lloyd Young’s debut exhibition featuring his very first works of Kitsch Pop art. I love that cleaning products in aerosol cans were so new when this came out in the 1950s that it was made of silicones (more than 1!) and was referred to as the “push-button cleaner”.

John Lloyd might be referred to as the “push-rhinestone artist”. He does phenomenal work jeweling everyday food products like a box of Cornflakes, a can of Spam and a bucket of the Colonel’s favorite.

Most of the food appearing as bejeweled art was actually served at the party. If you had a couple minutes to spare we would even toast you a Pop Tart.

I’m sick that I didn’t take a photo of the gigantic three-foot round pizzas that arrived to match this piece John Lloyd made of himself holding his Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for Jersey Boys (trouncing my own musical, The Color Purple, I might add) surrounded by a melange of Tony’s Pizza boxes.

The intricate jeweling doesn’t read well in the longshot so here’s a close up of the pie:

I won’t see all the photos from the party which was a benefit for AIDS Project LA until later today but here are a smattering of some a friend snapped until I post the real deals tomorrow.

Honoree and hostess:

Michael Lerner, me, RuPaul and Charles Phoenix:

Stu James, Lesley Donald (Both in The Color Purple), me, JLY and Jai Rodriguez:

Prudence Fenton, Mark Blackwell and me:

Mito Aviles, me, Tiffany Daniels (Squeak in The Color Purple) and ChadMichael Morrisette:

JLY and me and our shows as bejeweled by the artist:

I need to get back on my hands and knees and start cleaning so I’m ready to look through the real photos when they arrive later today. Thankfully, the Bonami can contains handy instructions for how to use the contents:

23May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s “What’s Yours?” Drink Markers

23May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s “What’s Yours?” Drink Markers

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As any good party hostess knows, one of the biggest drags is seeing a sea of half filled cups littered all over your place left by guests who are on their way to the bar to get a fresh hit because they have absolutely no idea where they left their drink. As someone who is writing this as 200 guests head toward here for “Food For Thought – The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch presents The Art of John Lloyd Young” party/AIDS Project of LA fundraiser, I don’t have to worry about such things because over the years I have bought at least 20 sets of these brilliant “What’s Yours?” Drink Markers that you snap on the side of a glass as soon as a drink is poured so the hostess not only knows exactly what’s in the glass to refill it but as each little tab is numbered also knows what drink belongs to who.

The manufacturer seemed to be particularly attached to Bourbon and Scotch:

In case the party host gets too inebriated to remember that all you do with these little clips is to clip them on the side of the glass. handy idiot-proof instructions have been included. My favorite instruction is that the host is instructed to carry the box of tabs with them as they offer their guests a drink and ask each of them, “WHAT’S YOURS?”.

Despite the fact that, in theory, this bar accessory serves a very practical purpose the most amazing thing about it is that every time I use these I come back to my glass to find it stripped of its badge. The Alexander & Wilson Co. of Pasadena, California may have put a lot of thought into the concept of their product but apparently not enough into the composition as per longevity. Perhaps the plastic was elastic enough in 1950 to ride the glass as if it were a polo pony and stay on but it doesn’t take more than about 60 seconds for the front of the tag to bust loose from the clip today and land in some undesirable drinking spot like the floor.

Yesterday John Lloyd, the honoree at my party today, and I spent the day setting up. We did actually have drinks before we sat down to take this photo and would have brought them with us had we remembered where we set them down.

I have no idea why I wasn’t you carrying around my “What’s Yours?” Drink Markers.

20May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Chefs Spoonholder

20May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Chefs Spoonholder

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Brought to you in the early 50’s by realtor and insurance agent Joe Hodge this big mouth plastic chef spoon holder, or spoonholder as Joe spells it, is one of my favorites from my collection of fifty or so chefs in the same genre. I especially like this one because of the tongue relief in the mouth/spoon cavity as well as the clef in his chin as most other plastic chefs are flat in both places.

I also like any establishment that might be located on a street named Dairy.

As cute as these vintage spoon holders are they’re incredibly impractical.

If you’re cooking anything on the stove the chef needs to be close enough so the spoon won’t drip all over the place before resting in his mouth. But if he’s that close he’s sure to start melting and will end up poisoning you. So ultimately most of these chefs ended up hanging on people’s walls for decoration as opposed to actually assisting in the kitchen.

19May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1957-’59 Newberry Rulers

19May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1957-’59 Newberry Rulers

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Newberrys, before and after dropping the J.J., was an American five and dime store, my favorite genre of store growing up later supplanted in my affections by 99 and 98 cent stores, thrift shops and any other place I could find a wide and often nonsensical variety of goods for bargain prices. These foot long metal rulers encouraging shoppers that “For a Full Measure of Value The Year-Round Shop Newberrys” featured calendars from September 1957 through December 1959, peak years for the chain whose beckoning portals invited shoppers to drop their cash on lots of cheap and oftentimes fantastically cheesy finds inside.

Although green on green was a popular color combo in the late 50’s it would have been even better if the rulers featured the store’s original gold serif signature logo on bright red that used to spread across the entire width of the top of the stores.

The logo changed over the years, dropping the serifs and going to a more modern script font but very little changed inside and it became one of the more excellent trips down memory lane before all the stores disappeared, gobbled up by time as chain monsters like Wal-Mart, K-Mart. stomped through the land.

This 1928 Newberrys on Hollywood Blvd. in LA is now the Hollywood Magic Shop.

Thank God I still have two full measures of Newberrys..

18May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – ItaliAnnette! Mousketeer Extraordinaire

18May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – ItaliAnnette! Mousketeer Extraordinaire

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An excellent sign of Kitsch is when names are bent and mutated to fit a purpose. This one’s a perfect blend – The ever-Italian Mouseketeer, Annette, with the perfect name (and flip hairdo) to add that guaranteed-to-be-cheesy ‘ette’ onto the end of something to assure its kitschified status.

Annette Funicello’s embroidered blouse may be as snappy as her fingers but nothing’s knocking me more out than her perfectly painted lips. About 20 years ago I was in a thrift shop. It was pouring rain, perfect conditions to hit the outside bargain area where they’ll practically give away things for free on a rainy day just to not have to deal it after. There was a canvas lying face down on the ground. There was no chance it was going to be good as even if something fabulous was painted on it it was surely now melted from soaking in the bathtub sized puddles. But lo and behold, when I turned it over I almost melted myself. It was a hand-painted portrait of Annette, nary a hair askew, colors as vibrant as the day her ever-present smile popped out of the womb. And even better, there was a cut out photo of her lips pasted next to her on the canvas and in large childlike scroll this autograph in lipstick: “To Tony, Lots of luck to you always! Love, Annette”.

This portrait deserves a lot more than a quick mention in a post about something else, even something as great as “Italiannette”. So I merely show it here as evidence that my story above is true as the autographed portrait is deserving of its own Kitsch O’ The Day exploration which will happen someday soon. I think I’m going to put on “Italianette” and enjoy looking at it even more right now.

17May 2010

“Allee Willis’ Wonderland O’ Kitsch – East San Fernando Valley, CA. Part 2” VIDEO

17May 2010

“Allee Willis’ Wonderland O’ Kitsch – East San Fernando Valley, CA. Part 2” VIDEO

In part 2 I take you on a tour of even more grand and kitschifyingly wonderful monuments of aesthetic in my beloved east San Fernando Valley just outside of Hollywood. This time eye-popping wonders include giant golf balls, plaster families, official city art that says I don’t know what about the city, nipping happy faces, Russian onion domes, ancient Italy, unnatural rock, glittery hemp, an airborne 59 Corvette, Amelia Earhart and a misplaced giant Emmy.

If you haven’t seen Part 1 with the spewing volcanoes, frog families and shoe cars go here now.

16May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Chase & Sanborn Coffee Can

16May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Chase & Sanborn Coffee Can

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These days I’ve dialed back down to decaf but every Sunday morning begins with a nice steaming cup of this stuff. Now it’s slightly more exotic brands than Chase & Sanborn but this is the one that got the habit rolling back in the ’70s for me. Though the can may be a little battered now it actually represented lots of breakthroughs in coffee can packaging that revolutionized the industry. For one, the No-Slip Strip, a little sardine like key that you broke off the bottom and used to wrap the metal strip that held the can together into a neat, tight coil avoiding bloody fingers that were inevitable without such an instrument.

Despite the company merging with Nabisco in 1981, a lot of Chase & Sanborn cans still exist today because the key allowed the can to open without squashing its shape so many people kept them to store a bunch of other junk in.

This can was also the first of Chase & Sanborn’s “Pressure Packed” models, an innovation that insured the coffee stay fresher longer inside its little coffee tomb.

Fresh is what I need today given the amount of coffee/decaf I will be chugging as I’m immersed in making sets, props, ipod playlists, name tags and the like for a huge party I’m throwing here next Sunday in addition to whacking away at several song deadlines and attempting to talk myself into working on my first ever performance in 35 years which I’ve also threatened to do this summer. It may not be Chase & Sanborn that I’m swigging back but memories of twisting open this can and THAT smell hitting my nose as I made a cup of coffee before starting out on my day in New York, banging on the doors of record companies trying to get a job, is enough to keep my senses alive and keep me slugging through the day.

13May 2010

Allee Willis’ Props O’ The Day – Bye Bye, Jerrie Thill…

13May 2010

Allee Willis’ Props O’ The Day – Bye Bye, Jerrie Thill…

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I just got the news that Jerrie Thill, the 91-year-old female drummer on an oxygen tank who I did my song and video, “Hey Jerrie”, with in 2009, passed away last night. She was a killer drummer and an astounding spirit, albeit a slightly deflated one over this past year since she broke her hip and was no longer able to play. We became great friends after I met her in 2008 during one of her regular Sunday gigs at El Cid.

Jerrie was the hardest working woman in show business, smacking the drums since being discovered in the midwest by one of the Capone boys during Prohibition.

Eventually Jerrie moved to Hollywood in 1945 to be the bandleader at The Flamingo, a drag club on Sunset owned by Myron Cohen.

She gigged constantly ever since, doing all kinds of dates including appearances on shows like The Golden Girls with her then band, The Dixie Belles, until her hip injury which happened just a few months after “Hey Jerrie” came out. The video caught on fire on YouTube and at one point was even the 12th most viewed video in the world. With no promotion it’s gotten almost a quarter of a million views, a source of great happiness to Jerrie and mandatory viewing for anyone who walked into her house or hospital room. If you haven’t seen it please watch it now as a way of paying tribute to this fine, ever-foxy lady who smacked the skins like no other.

I’m happy to say that Jerrie was sharp all the way to the end. She loved to gossip and talk about music which we did frequently.

She did one final performance at El Cid after her hip broke.

I was set on re-cutting my song “Neutron Dance” with her, the jungle drumming on that being something that Jerrie could do in style, and getting The Pointer Sisters to sing backup on the record. I reassured her that in this day and age we could cut one drum at a time but I think she couldn’t deal with the fact that she had slowed down at all so it sadly never happened.

I’ll miss Jerrie a lot but am heartened by the fact that she knew it was her time to go and that she can make a lot more ruckus up there, free from injury and age. I’m assuming she’s playing her signature song, “When You’re Smiling”, right now.

For more essential Jerrie hit these links:

https://www.alleewillis.com/woa/jerriethill/index.html

https://www.alleewillis.com/music/jerrie-thill/index.html

12May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Market Basket Coffee Can

12May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Market Basket Coffee Can

market-basket-coffee-can_2418 I love names that are this unassuming. Market Basket Coffee. But who wants their coffee to taste like a market basket when you think about it? It’s not very exotic, just a bunch of metal bars being rolled around and stuffed with food, cleaning products, panty liners and the like. Maybe it was a brand from some big supermarket called Market Basket. Maybe they just wanted to be super generic and basic like a good cup of coffee sitting next to a fried egg; no muss/no fuss, just a nice basic breakfast that won’t upset your stomach and a nice vintage can that still looks good.

The can is battered from decades of use, missing the top and scratched, but still has a permanent spot in the Willis Wonderland kitchen holding its precious cargo that also starts with a ‘c’, cat food.

11May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Liberace Mug

11May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Liberace Mug

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I bought this Liberace mug at the first Hollywood estate sale I went to when I moved to LA in the late 70’s. I think Jack Hellman, the recipient of this inscribed mug from Liberace, was a critic at Variety. I know that he was a Taurus.

Whatever he was he was a big deal who had very fancy clothes and a lot of personal gifts from a lot of Hollywood stars. I also bought a tux jacket there, maybe Jack’s, that I wore a lot right after “September” came out and I started getting invited to fancy music events.

Of course, no matter what I wore I never was going to dress better than Liberace….

….to whom I lift my/Jack’s mug now!