Allee Willis Blog » Accessories

16Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage “Little John” Toilet Ashtray

16Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage “Little John” Toilet Ashtray

I’m not sure how toilet ashtrays became so ubiquitous in the novelty ashtray department but they did. I guess because they’re a natural place to set butts and the basic design offers so many opportunities for storage – the bowl for ashes and the tank for smokables, though I stick everything in there from Post-its notes to paperclips. The back of the tank has a hole to hang it on the wall. I always like my toilets at eye level.

Having been made in the 1950’s it’s amazing that any of the little sticker remains.

In pristine form the sticker would read, “Little John, A Cigarette Set – To complete your bathroom and add to your comfort”. I’m not sure how this size toilet bowl adds to one’s comfort but I’m willing to go with it.

If I ever were to get a new toilet I would want it to be the perfect 50’s pink that the Little John is. Though it would take an earthquake knocking my current toilet off its base to make that happen as it was installed when the house was built in 1937 and it ain’t going anywhere.

In conclusion, my cat Nibbles struck a toilet pose next to the toilet ashtray. I couldn’t have directed it better myself.

27Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Gum Shoe Gum Catcher

27Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Gum Shoe Gum Catcher

What to do with gum when you’re done chewing it or have to get rid of it for whatever reason can be a bit of a muddle if you’ve already thrown the wrapper out, which most people do upon opening. Especially when it’s only a temporary landing and you may want to stick the chewable back in your mouth at a later, through hopefully soon, point. That’s where this Gum Shoe, a place to park your gum, is brilliant. Though I can’t say I really understand its construction as so little of the real estate is devoted to the concave surface upon which the gum is to be placed. Unless it’s for a lot of different people’s gum, in which case the heel and all surfaces of the base seem like prime resting spots as well. Though that seems so gross, a bunch of little germ mounds begging to be redeposited in the wrong mouths. So I just keep my Gum Shoe on the windowsill in my kitchen where it’s also home to rings and anything else that may need to be redeposited on my body once I leave the sink area.

20Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Lipstick Umbrella For Rainy Day in LA

20Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Lipstick Umbrella For Rainy Day in LA

It’s been dripping for days in LA. I used to spend so much time looking for my umbrella, the rain would end before I even made it outside. So began my umbrella collection. Of course, then I could never bring myself to use any of the vintage ones I collected because they would get ruined in the rain. So I started buying a bunch of cheap ones, of which this lipstick umbrella, picked up at the 99¢ store about 10 years ago, was one of my favorites. But it’s soooooo cheap that the first time it rained after I bought it I never got it to fold up again to fit back into the cheap white plastic tube. Soooooo cheap that even just lying in my purse the tube got poked full of holes from my pens. So I tossed my crippled lipstick umbrella out and headed back to the 99¢ store where I bought the last one on the shelf and committed to never opening it so I could preserve its lipstick loveliness. This became a persistent problem every time it rained as I struggled whether I should get my one-time-only use out of the umbrella or preserve it for my kitsch collection as I was also always the type to leave my umbrella at whatever destination I happened to be in should the weather have cleared before I left to come home.

Everything changed when I started buying golf umbrellas. This started when I was spending so much time in New York for my musical, The Color Purple, and had to schlep around computers, keyboards, books and whatever else it took to emulate my studio and work habits back in LA. What a revelation the golf umbrella was! All of a sudden, I didn’t need to decide whether the back half or front half of me was going to get wet or whether my body would stay dry but I’d sacrifice my purse or backpack to the elements. As long as you had a hand to carry it or a way of balancing it against some body part, a golf umbrella was like having your own private building move with you. Of course, it’s ideal to be of a certain height and you MUST have street sense while using it, but for me this was definitely the way to go. These days I always have enough golf umbrellas at any one time that I never again have to worry about losing my umbrella.

Which means that I don’t have to disrupt the sanctity of the not-really lipstick umbrella by removing its plastic tube. Or having to deal with its un-ergonomically designed the little lipstick nub handle once its opened.

If you see anyone walking around LA today looking like this it’s me.

03Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mayonnaise Case

03Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mayonnaise Case

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This is one of the craziest and most spectacular products I’ve ever seen. It’s a Mayonnaise Case, made in Japan. You flip the little monkey head up by lifting the banana latch which is actually a little spoon to scoop and spread your mayonnaise with once opened. I’ve never heard of anyone carrying around mayonnaise, not to mention that a thimble would hold more than this case does, so I’m not sure what good spreading a dime sized dollop of mayo is going to do anyone anyway. And I sure wouldn’t want it living in the bottom of my purse for a week, where it’s certain to fall because of its diminutive size.

Some people get freaked out by mayonnaise. I love it. It’s the glue that holds so many sandwiches together.

I know know that many of us here in America eat like pigs but honestly, the amount of mayonnaise contained within covers maybe too dainty bites. Thankfully, the package holds two mayonnaise cases.

Lucky for us who are less familiar with mayonnaise cases, the manufacturer, Daiso industry, includes handy instructions though I personally could use some instructions for the instructions.

I get not putting it near a fire or not using it in the oven but I wouldn’t even know how to use it “with” the freezer. I perhaps might be tempted to use it “in” the freezer, though frozen mayonnaise has never appealed to me. And common sense tells me I would “never give it to the baby” though I would think that the danger would be the baby trying to eat it by mistake as opposed to “drinking by mistake”.

In a few days, I fly to Madison, Wisconsin to conduct the marching band at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, when they play several of my songs at the Homecoming football game. I always take some food along when I travel and that usually includes a sandwich or two. I must admit that sometimes I sink my choppers into a tuna fish sandwich and think, “Gee, I wish I had more mayonnaise”. So I think these two little monkeys might just accompany me to see the UW Badgers. Of course, the big food in Madison is is bratwurst, sometimes referred to as “Wisconsin Soul Food”. I don’t suppose that spreading a little white stuff on them will diminish any of the funkiness.

30Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Church & Funeral Fans, Wienerschnitzel and The Color Purple

30Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Church & Funeral Fans, Wienerschnitzel and The Color Purple

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I bought my first African American church fan in the late 1970’s but my collection really kicked into gear after I worked with James Brown in the mid-80s. He always told me my music was so hot and picked up the fan to “cool himself down”. So after that I always bought the fans when I saw them cheap enough. But the collection blasted into overdrive when I began writing The Color Purple musical in 2001. The very first time Alice Walker, the author of the original book, came over I gave her her choice of over 50 fans. I used them all the time with Brenda Russell and Stephen Bray, my music co-writers, but sadly can’t seem to find any photos of us cooling ourselves. But anytime anyone came over to hear any of the music they always listened with church fan in hand. I think we had just finished one of the Church Ladies’ songs when this group, including Alfre Woodard, Lorraine Toussaint, Stephanie Burton, Peter Hastings, Roderick Spenser and Maggie Wheeler (Janice on Friends), came over.

As often as they came from churches, the fans were also a hot promotional item given out by funeral homes. They usually portrayed a gorgeous, dressed in their Sunday best, peaceful looking, happy family. The fans I’m featuring today aren’t necessarily my favorites so much as I love that they all feature white hats. This first one comes from the Brown & Robertson Funeral Home in Picayune, Miss. According to the back of the fan, they offer “A Dignified Service in a Sympathetic Way”.

This next one comes from the Jones-Gaines & Sons Funeral Home in Topeka, Kansas, “Serving Topeka Area Families With Over 51 Years of Courteous and Efficient Service”.

This one’s courtesy of the Dykes Funeral home in Covington, VA. “Consideration for the Living–Reverence for the Dead”.

And finally there’s this one from John Q. Adams of Victoria, Texas that says simply “Ladies Hose & Shoes”. I’m assuming that that does not refer to a selection in the funeral home so I guess the fans were available to any business that wanted to hand them out.

I took a fan with me last night when I crawled along the 101 to Thousand Oaks to see the Second National Tour of my musical, The Color Purple. After 2-1/2 years on Broadway and a three-year First National Tour, this was going to be my first time seeing this all new production and cast.

There was a huge traffic jam on the freeway for about 7 miles because of an accident on the other side. Los Angeles has just gotten over record-breaking heat so people were a little more cuckoo in their cars than usual. I stayed cool because I had my fan and sensible shoes for driving.

I wish I could say that the show was fantastic but I ended up staying in my car on my Ipad for most of it because an idea I’ve been attempting to massage out of my head for several weeks finally decided to spill out while I was in line at Weinerschnitzel.

So I spent most of Act 1 pounding away in a parking lot under the glow of the yellow W neon. Having driven all the way to Thousand Oaks though, I made myself get to the theater.

I walked in during “Uh Oh”.

But this idea kept smacking against the front of my brain and I couldn’t open my Ipad in the theater because the last thing I wanted to do was distract anyone in that audience from what was going on on stage. So, knowing I had tickets to see the show the rest of the week, I joined my now-sitting-in-the-car-way-too-long-to-eat Wienerschnitzel and fan and headed back home.

16Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Lipstick Camera and Greg Gorman’s Retrospective Last Night at the Pacific Design Center

16Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Lipstick Camera and Greg Gorman’s Retrospective Last Night at the Pacific Design Center

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Anyone who knows me knows that there are two things I never leave home without, my lipstick and my camera. I always carry at least two of each; my lipstick because I’m forever losing tubes in the bottomless pits of my purses, and cameras because you never know what will pop up in front of you and you don’t want to be without some way of capturing it should one photographic device malfunction. Not that I take it with me anymore, but a constant companion in my former years was this great looking, incredibly clunky Lipstick Camera, much more effective for its mental effect on the people it was shooting – they always smile when they see it – than for the grainy, patchy photos it took. Last night when I started writing my blog, where I like to tie in objects from my collection into what’s really going on in my life, the Lipstick Camera seemed like the perfect artifact to feature as I was on my way to a party for famed photographer and friend, Greg Gorman, honoring his 1970 – 2010 retrospective at The Fahey/Klein Gallery. As one who likes to match clothes and accessories to the event, I even thought about bringing the Lipstick Camera with me. But I knew I’d be seeing too many old friends and didn’t want to capture all of it with crappy photos.

I first met Greg Gorman when I moved to LA in 1976. He was the up and coming photographer to the stars and my friends, Bette Midler’s Harlettes, already back in New York, asked me to pick up some proof sheets from their photo session with him. He was really friendly and as I walked out of his tiny apartment on Laurel Canyon I remember thinking how great it would be to take photos of everything I saw that was interesting or significant to me so I would have this incredible documentation of my life. That began my habit of forever buying cheap novelty cameras as I was forever on a budget. Meaning most of the documenting I did until I stumbled on my first Canon Elph in 1996 made for some very grainy memories. Even when I knew where to buy film for the Lipstick Camera, the photos it took were pretty awful. But as someone who loves to play it as it lays, there was also always something so soulful about them.

When I started making furniture out of found objects in 1984, Greg Gorman was one of the first people to buy a piece. I know it’s embarrassing to show this fuzzy of a photo of a famous photographer but all I had with me the day I delivered his table made out of a window from a World War II fighter bomber plane I painted on and a spring from my 1955 De Soto was one of my cheap, nasty cameras.

A few months after that, Greg shot actor Christopher Atkins at my house. The white throw draped across my couch is Chris.

Here’s a much more flattering shot of him that Greg took that day.

And here’s a much more recent shot of Greg, taken last night at his reception. Unfortunately, we were standing in front of the only section of the gallery where his photos weren’t hanging.

Just as unfortunately, when I opened my photos once I got home, all of them were so pixelated they looked like a can of vegetable soup had spilled on them. It was as if they were taken on the Lipstick Camera, not the most ideal situation when you’re capturing you and one of the most iconic celebrity photographers of all time. If I had had half a brain cell awake in my brain last night I would have checked the settings on the Elph every time whoever was taking the photo said, “did the flash go off?” because it never did. Each and every time I said to myself, “hmmm,why isn’t the flash going off?”, only to get distracted by someone else I hadn’t seen in a zillion years until a few minutes later the same thing happened and I would say to myself, “hmmm,why isn’t the flash going off?”.

So what I have are a bunch of grainy, yet totally evocative of the evening photos. And here’s where my love of kitsch kicks in, allowing me to make sense of these moments of catastrophe. Had my Elph been on the right setting I would have had beautiful photos of people I saw at a photographer’s opening to feature in a post about a funny looking vintage camera. But now I have photos that look like they were taken with the Lipstick Camera itself! It’s so cosmic, so organic! And it’s these collisions of high and low art in the manifestations of my creative expression that I absolutely live for.

So knowing that I know that these photos look like they were pulled out of a landfill, here’s me with some other friends I bumped into last night. This one with my Earth, Wind & Fire compadre, Verdine White, and his fantastic wife Shelly, who I’d just seen last week at the life altering Earth, Wind & Fire(works) concert at The Hollywood Bowl, looks like it’s one of those early Polaroid color camera shots that you slopped that stick of goop on.

This one with Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn looks like it’s a still from an airport scene in a way too low-budget 1970’s movie.

This one with John Fleck and Stan Zimmerman almost looks normal but that’s probably because the boys have such good skin. Were you to see this at high resolution my hair looks like it has ants running through it.

This one with Ken Page is almost okay as it was taken in a particularly bright hallway.

So what, I will never be able to blow any of my photos from last night up into giant super graphics and paste them on the side of my house. But I’m incredibly artistically and psychically satisfied that so glued to my fingers is my trusty Canon Elph that it took it upon itself to emulate the Lipstick Camera and give me crappy yet perfect photos to remember a wonderful night by.

15Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – African Lady Ashtray

15Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – African Lady Ashtray

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Made of heavy metal and showing signs of many smokables ground out on her head, this petite 3″ long ashtray is one of my favorite pieces of Africana. I bought her in 1979 for 25 cents during my first run of the Earth. Wind & Fire hits, when my Soul memorabilia collection really kicked into high gear. On the African tip, I snatched up every wooden, ceramic or chalkware bust I could find, all excessively cheap because this was way before the frenzy to collect them set in. Since then my collection has tipped way more toward the pop culture soul side, primarily late 60s/early 70s massive Afro laden stuff, but my little expressive African lady is never far away from the pop action.

She has two convenient places to store smokable rolled substances: one, the concave series of necklaces that cover her neck for things already lit and two, her earring, into which a brand-new log can be inserted to stand up vertically until it’s ignited.

I shall never turn my back on this little lady becasue I love her so much.

13Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ the Day – 1960’s Resin Seashell Masonic Lodge Pen Holder

13Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ the Day – 1960’s Resin Seashell Masonic Lodge Pen Holder

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Made of abalone shells sunk into resin with a big gold and red Masonic crest stuck smack dab in the middle, this kind of pen holder was all the rage among 1950’s and 60’s crafters who plopped anything and everything into the gooey hardening stuff to preserve it forever. Seashells were one of the most popular kinds of sunken treasure, right up there with butterfly wings and pennies.

I was never a one pen person, to this day misplacing them almost every time I take a break from writing and put one down. In my pre-computer days, before 1985, I used to have an array of these resin writing mates lined up on all my desks so at least ten writing implements presented themselves before me at all times. Though I had already begun my digital digression by the time I found this one, it was a must to buy as I love any product that has the Masonic or Shriners or whatever that circle and star thing/crest is on it. I have toiletry sets and salt and pepper shakers with it emblazoned on but my seaside pen holder is absolutely one of my favorites of the ilk.

A lot of times, crafters are too lazy to cover the bottom of their resin creations. The action’s all on the top and the bottoms are left to scratch tables and chip until the whole piece cracks. The Masonic shell freak who made this one was not one of those to take shortcuts and adhered cork to the underside of his construction.

Which is great because this honey gets moved around a lot. It’s also like a big Tetherball pole to my cats who bat it back and forth until the pen finally flies out to join the legions of others that collect under my couches for their 4 AM playground breaks.

06Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ Day – Swashbuckle Your Way to the Perfect Sausage!

06Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ Day – Swashbuckle Your Way to the Perfect Sausage!

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For all of you wielding BBQ tools this Labor Day there is now a fashionable addition to your tool universe, the BBQ Sword! I love stuff like this. Kitsch to be sure but also incredibly practical as the stainless steel hand guard protects your precious digits from the flames and spitting fat.

Made from heavy gauge stainless steel, the BBQ Sword is perfect for grilling in safety and style. It even comes with a Musketeer Mask. I was never into swashbuckling stories or pirates (though I did take fencing in camp one summer) so I’m not really up on the importance of the need of the swashbuckling barbecue-e’s identity to remain secret, but as they’re throwing the mask in for free I’m willing to explore it.

Besides, I’ve never been the person to take on the grilling of the meal. I’m the one choosing the perfect BBQ from among on my collection of vintage ones, a couple of my favorites pictured here:

I’m also the one choosing the perfect dishes and serving pieces:

Though I suppose that my possession of the BBQ Sword might induce me to take on the task of cooking the dogs one day.

The sword, made by Slam Hebe, takes itself very seriously:

And I take my hamburgers and hotdogs very seriously:

I’m actually out the door on my way to a friend’s house who reliably takes on such cooking tasks on the holidays. I would bring him this BBQ Sword but I only bought one and have grown too attached to it while writing this post to give it up now. Perhaps I’ll wear the mask so the identity of the guest who walks in empty-handed is not revealed. But I’ll make up for it with my sparkling swashbuckling personality.

05Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ the Day – Happy Almost Labor Day and a Capital Metals Company Metal Ashtray

05Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ the Day – Happy Almost Labor Day and a Capital Metals Company Metal Ashtray

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As we in the states scrape down the barbecues and pack the picnic baskets getting ready for big Labor Day feasts tomorrow, it’s only fitting that I drag out my Capital Metals Company Inc. ashtray and shine it up as best as one can shine a piece of 60-year-old textured metal, so those who still smoke have something labor-themed to squash the labor of their puffing out in. As we stuff hot dogs and hamburgers and baked beans and potato chips and potato salad and coleslaw and, if we’re lucky, barbecued chicken down our gullets this Labor Day, I hope we all remember what we’re celebrating. Especially this year when less and less people can even say they’re a part of the labor force. Some people fly a flag. I just rummage through my drawer of over 200 vintage ashtrays and pull this one out for the weekend.

Although I spent almost every Saturday of my childhood poking through piles of metal in my father’s scrapyard in Detroit and thus have a much healthier knowledge of metals than the average gal, I don’t really know what the two mechanical wonders in the tray of the ashtray are.

I’m assuming they’re both some kind of metal stamping or forming apparatuses and weigh several tons. I’m also assuming that they make a spectacular sound as they do whatever they do to the metal or whatever it is that passes through their jaws and conveyor belts. These are the kind of machines to this day that I’m obsessed with making recordings of and using as percussion loops under my songs.

Who knows if these babies are still around…? They probably met the same fate the Capital Metals Company Inc. that doesn’t show up in a Google search did. Depending on what these machines popped out and how they triumphed in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, they may have taken a tumble in the 70’s when the transition from labor driven factories really started to kick in.

There’s no address or area code with the phone number on the ashtray so I have no idea where the Capital Metals Company was/is. One might think Washington DC from the little Capital dome at the bottom but being such a ubiquitous icon it still could be from anywhere.

As we celebrate the once great tradition of the American workforce, I personally celebrate the fact that I had the good sense to snap up this ashtray for the 10 cents the labor force at Salvage Masters, “The Champagne Operators Of The Salvage Industry”, in Long Beach, CA asked for it.

Here I am there moments before I stumbled on the Capital Metals Company metal ashtray in 1984:

On this one-day-before Labor Day, all hail labor and, of course, gorgeous metal ashtrays!