06May 2013

Heads Up, Detroit!

06May 2013

Heads Up, Detroit!

Just got back from an amazing trip to Detroit where I was laying the groundwork for the big project I’m coming back in September to do there and the project for which I’ve just launched a fund-raising campaign in order to pull off.  Below are are a couple of great stories that came out about my exploits. Please, please, PLEASE pass the link to the Indiegogo campaign for “The D” around so your fearless Kitsch leader can spread all the kitsch and glory around Detroit in September and pull off the greatest sing-along/theme song/video/documentary known to mankind!!! (That may be stretching to a bit but that’s what it feels like in my head!). http://igg.me/at/WeSingTheD

Here’s a great peice about “The D” by Karen Dybis, who I first spoke to a couple years ago when she was hired by Time Magazine to blog about Detroit for a full year. So she knows all about my passion for Detroit.

And here’s a great story (with slideshow and video) that ran on the news last week in Detroit:

Please help fund “The D”!!! And please spread this link around to anyone who you think might donate or help in any other way: http://igg.me/at/WeSingTheD.  Onward Detroit!!!

12Feb 2013

Doing “The Vagina Monologues” (!) and hitting the standup trail

12Feb 2013

Doing “The Vagina Monologues” (!) and hitting the standup trail

Anyone who knows me knows that I invite change in my career like most people do with hairstyles. Perhaps because I haven’t changed the latter since 1983 I’m now tweaking the former like crazy since I finally took to the stage last year to do my sold-out-standing-room-only series of live shows, a brief snippet of which you can see here.

The day before my haircut in 1983:

I’m now expanding the repertoire and this Friday night only, February 15th, will be performing live in a charity production of Eve Ensler’s critically-acclaimed “The Vagina Monologues” at the Atwater Village Theatre in LA (3269 Casitas Ave., 90039) as part of Ensemble Studio Theatre LA’s, “Winterfest”.

The shows will be performed on February 14th, 15th & 16th at 8pm. Each night will feature a different cast of twenty actresses from TV, film, and theatre (list below), and will be directed by LA Talk Radio’s Sheena Metal (“The Sheena Metal Experience”). Proceeds go to the anti-abuse charities V-DAY (http://www.vday.org) and PROTECT (http://www.protect.org). For more info on the shows, the charities and to get your tickets visit: http://www.vdayla.com .

Also, on March 9th I’ll be hitting the stand up trail again at Eve Brandstein’s Poetry in Motion/The Road Not Taken (tickets: www.EveBrandsteinPoetryInMotion.com) as well as performing an all-new pulsating St. Patty’s Day routine at Beth Lapides’ UnCabaret on March 17th (tickets: www.uncabaret.com).

So be it for vagina, poetry and/or shamrocks, I hope you come play with me!

THE 2013 V-DAY “Vagina Monologues” LA CAST:

Rosemary Alexander (“Sordid Lives, “Cold Case”)

Zuri Alexander (“Fierce: Relations”, “Supernatural: The Play”)

Alison Arngrim (“Little House On The Prairie”, “Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch”)

Jill Bennett (“In Her Line Of Fire”, “Dante’s Cove”)

Lisa Bishop (“Ensemble Studio Theatre LA”)

Kim Chueh (“Without A Trace”, “Strong Medicine”)

Patty Cornell (“Faux Baby”, “Bob Funk”)

Kathleen Coyne (“Who’s the Boss?”, “Locked Up: A Mother’s Rage”)

Kristen Dalton (“The Dead Zone”, “The Departed”)

Anne DeSalvo (“Arthur”, “My Favorite Year”)

Tamika Katon-Donegal (“Boston Public”, “Something Like A Business”)

Bobbie Eakes (“The Bold And The Beautiful”, “All My Children”)

Kim Fitzgerald (“Leap Year”, “Janeane From Des Moines”)

Caitlin Gallogly (“The Turn Of The Screw”, “Snow White”)

Ilene Graff (“Mr. Belvedere”, “Grease”)

Jessica Graham (“2 Minutes Later”, “And Then Came Lola”)

Elizabeth Greer (“The Shield”, “Cold Case”)

Geri Jewell (“Deadwood”, “The Facts Of Life”)

Mary Kennedy (“ER”, “Oh Mary Radio Show”)

Jacqueline King (“Deal Or No Deal”, “From Grace”)

Emily Kosloski (“Helen Of Troy”, “The New Normal”)

Tracey A. Leigh (“Grey’s Anatomy”, “Criminal Minds”)

Carol Locatell (“Mad Men”, “The Family Stone”)

Elizabeth Logun (“Birds Of Paradise”, “Butter”)

Meredith Scott Lynn (“Legally Blonde”, “CSI”)

Sandy Martin (“Napoleon Dynamite”, “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”)

Gates McFadden (“StarTrek: The Next Generation”, “Franklin & Bash”)

Sheena Metal (“LA Talk Radio”, “97.1 The FM Talk Station”)

Minae Noji (“General Hospital”, “Memoirs of a Geisha”)

Susan Olsen (“The Brady Bunch”, “97.1 The FM Talk Station”)

Amy Paffrath (“Jersey Shore”, “E! News”)

Angel Parker (“Lab Rats”, “The Soul Man”)

Lizzie Peet (“Cold Case”, “ER”)

Tracy Poust (“Ugly Betty”, “Will & Grace”)

Kim Rhodes (“The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”, “Supernatural”)

Jamie Rose (“Falcon Crest”, “St. Elsewhere”)

Heather Robinson (“Slice”, “Doesn’t Anyone Know What A Pancreas Is?”)

Ingrid Rogers (“All My Children”, “Cosby”)

Jamie Sara (“September”, “Bitesized”)

Eve Sigall (“End Of Days”, “iCarly”)

Ilana Spector (“Ensemble Studio Theatre LA”)

Charlotte Stewart (“Little House On The Prairie”, “Twin Peaks”)

Ashleigh Sumner (“The Event:, “And Then Came Lola”)

Susie Tanner (“TheatreWorkers Project”, “Lady Beth: The Steelworkers Play”)

Barbara Tarbuck (“American Horror Story: Asylum”, “General Hospital”)

Ann Walker (“Sordid Lives”, “Southern Baptist Sissies”)

Dee Wallace (“E.T.”, “Cujo”)

Keliher Walsh (“Year Of The Rabbit”,”Let It Go Already”)

Allee Willis (“Boogie Wonderland”, “The Color Purple”)

Debra Wilson (“MADtv”, “Avatar”)

Jacqueline Wright (“North Country”, “Gilmore Girls”)

Kim Yarbrough (“The Voice”, “Conan”)

 

 

09Jan 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 2

09Jan 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 2

If you’re just jumping aboard The Wienermobile, please exit through the rear and check out Part 1 of my adventure with Susan Olsen,a.k.a. Cindy Brady, and Charles Phoenix, without which Part 2 lacks context. Wagging the tail without the (hot) dog as it were.

Now, assuming you’ve fully digested part 1, join us aboard the Wienermobile as we head east from the Brady Bunch house…

…to another iconic wiener in  the neighborhood, Larry’s.

The Wienermobile ate up quite a lot of real estate in this four- table parking lot eatery.

So we turned the vehicular wiener towards another vintage hot dog-related gem a few blocks away:

Isn’t this where you would go if you were a hot dog?

We knew Chili John’s has very early hours but we jumped out anyway, praying the chili palace still might be open:

If you haven’t been to this place, spit out your food and head there now. It’s as authentic as the day it was born in 1941:

The counter is (perfectly and beautifully) makes up the entire restaurant.

You can see the handpainted mural that runs the length of the restaurant better in this shot with Charles:

Up close it’s apparent that the artist, Mr. Chili John himself, captured each and every crevice of the exploding Vesuvius terrain as possible. Perhaps this was to illustrate the constant lava-like flow of chili that runs through his namesake establishment daily.

While we were there, there was an incredible photo opp for The Wienermobile:

With hot dogs and chili under our belts, it was time to move on to burgers. Very few food symbols are as iconic as The Wienermobile, but surely the Big Boy at Bob’s a few blocks away on Riverside has an equal place on the mountaintop.

The sheer magnitude of these two sculptural icons together was overwhelming for kitsch lovers such as ourselves.

So we took lots of photos:

But, alas, the sun was starting to set and there was one place we knew we had to hit while The Wienermobile was still under our control:

The Circus Liquor neon clown, on Burbank Blvd. just west of Chili John’s, has been in countless movies and tv shows, not to mention I’ve dropped coin in there every time I need a bottle of anything, just so I can visit the clown.

The height of the Wienermobile was an INSANELY perfect fit. If only the clown were permanently mounted on top of it.

With the evening approaching fast we headed back to Willis Wonderland,…

…already upset that our Wienermobile afternoon would soon be but a memory, albeit one grilled into our braincells forever.

When we dislodged from The Wienermobile we got some parting gifts:

Some Wienermobile whistles, some of which were glow-in-the-dark, a plush toy Wienermobile, as well as this larger plastic one:

It was like we had all been dropped out of a time capsule. I’m someone who likes to have a good time but once I’m done with an activity I gotta clear the house and get back to work. But it was as if we all knew that when we separated we would somehow have to settle back into reality, hopefully just little bitty pieces at a time, that’s how strong the magnetic pull of the Wienermobile was for all of us. So was only natural we sat down to a hot dog dinner to extend the wiener coma we were all in.

The dogs were cooked, as I said in part 1, on my newly acquired 1958 golf ball barbecue:

It was comforting to have such statuary in the yard, softening the blow of the departed Wienermobile as it disappeared into the night.

Thank you, Hot Doggers Traci and Yoli. You drove the Wienermobile like it was a delicate little Smart Car and put up with three drooling adults for longer than anyone deserves to be in ecstasy.

And thank you, Mark Blackwell, for documenting the trip, and I mean Trip.

Susan, Charles and myself are forever grateful to have such a childhood and adult dream fulfilled, especially one that provided such insanely magnificent photo opps.

And we are grateful for the joy of celebrating a junk food that was a building block of nutrition throughout most of our lifetimes. Truth be told, although it has killed me, the foolishness of subsisting exclusively on such foodstuffs is starting to be rectified in my old age. But even Martha Stewart enjoys munching on a good wiener every now and then.

The Wienermobile experience was pretty heavy.

But alas, all things must end.

We love you, Wienermobile. Until we meet again…

27Dec 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Post-Christmas “I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing” Iron-On Patch

27Dec 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Post-Christmas “I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing” Iron-On Patch

cant-believe...whole-thing-patch_9903

After six, count them six, Christmas parties/dinners, I combed through my collection to find this patch in case I needed to iron it on over any rips in clothing that might have occurred from ingesting the aforementioned full turkey meals. Somehow the sting of weight gain is outweighed by fashion statements such as these for me.

Introduced as the Alka Seltzer slogan in 1972, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” became one of the most popular colloquialisms of its day. Glorified here as an iron-on embroidered fake fur patch, including a rip-off Rolling Stones tongue, this proclamation appeared everywhere from t-shirts to comedy sketches throughout the early 70’s. The slogan roared back briefly in 2005 when Alka Seltzer trotted out Peter Boyle in his “Everyone Loves Raymond” Frank Barone character to moan and groan about post food fest inhalations.

Made by Rayberg Supply Co. of San Carlos, CA., the ‘Pik a Pocket’ fashion accessory didn’t go near any of my jeans back in the day as, just like today, I always knew I ate the whole thing and allowed for it in the size of my clothes.

cant-believe...whole-thing-patch_9900

 

20Dec 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 1

20Dec 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 1

I’ve only waited a lifetime for a ride in the famed Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and last Wednesday, December 14, my dream came true!! Susan Olsen, a.k.a. Cindy Brady, the youngest of the B. Bunch, Charles Phoenix, Mark Blackwell and I hopped aboard and rode the wiener to some of our favorite kitsch spots in the San Fernando Valley. When one is onboard such a vehicle, photo opps are not to be missed!

It’s hard to look bad in a photo with The Wienermobile. So there’s going to be A LOT of them in this post, probably enough to serialize the adventure so check back later in the week or beginning of next for more. With that in mind I’ll start slowly, like how we all color-coordinated to look as fabulous against the backdrop of the transportational hot dog as possible. I threw my outfit together last minute but was happy with my choices, picking up all the essential colors of hot dogs, mustard, relish and mayo.

Here’s a closer look at my vintage Legionnaires shirt, made from that kind of expensive 1950’s satin that feels like you’re going down a cashmere slide:

I know there’s no Oscar Mayer at KFC but it was the closest thematically of any shoulder bag I had.  My T-shirt was much more on the nose…

… as were my shoes:

The first thing I did once I was dressed was to roast some wienies.  It gave me a perfect excuse to test out my recently acquired 1958 golfball barbecue:

I cooked up sixteen dogs so we could stuff ourselves throughout the day. Here’s the first  one, literally, on the grill:

First to arrive at Willis Wonderland for our big wiener ride was Mark, who documented us throughout the wiener day:

Next was Susan, appropriately dressed in wiener red:

And then Charles arrived, dressed in a dead-ringer Wienermobile matching suit and carrying a banner bearing our favorite brand’s namesake.

This also doubled as a fashionable cape.

It’s obvious we all passed the color test:

We took many such proof-of-concept photos:

There are so many obvious ways one wants to pose against such a stunning background:

When the Wienermobile first pulled up I wept with joy. I had forever envisioned it in my driveway.  Alas, the wiener was too plump to actually fit so it rested nicely in front until we boarded.

Before stepping into the vehicular hot dog we ran inside for a quick wiener ingestion:

They don’t actually serve food in the Wienermobile so we brought the leftovers with us. But we were so excited to finally board the hot dog we had all been dreaming about since we were born that we forgot and left them on top of my car:

Our Hotdoggers, college interns who serve a full year driving the wiener wondermobile, were Yoli Bologna and Tailgatin’ Traci:

You could literally hear an audible gasp from each of us as we entered the Wienermobile for the first time.

It’s got six seats, a mustard floor,…

… an appropriate floor mat…

… and a sky roof.

The seats were LITERALLY the most comfy car seat any of us had ever sat in. Plush yet solid, with armrests that made you feel like you were waiting in a highchair for a jar of hot dog baby food. We didn’t stop yapping about them the entire afternoon.

We especially loved the embroidered Wienermobile on the back of each seat.

None of us could figure out if the hot dogs on the dash had any purpose other than an as an exceptional decorative touch.

We thought we only had a half hour in the Wienermobile so we headed to Ventura Blvd., the street where we thought there’d be the most foot traffic so we could wave to the masses like beauty queens on a float. Charles mentioned that the real Brady Bunch house, the one used for the exterior shot that pops up in every episode, was probably only blocks away. Not only did I have no idea it was in the hood but Susan – an actual Brady – said she had never even seen it herself! How could this be??!  Cindy-I-mean-Susan explained that as a wee star she couldn’t compute that a house that was clearly two stories…

…was in reality only one.

So the Wienermobile, a deceptibly agile vehicle, whipped a U-ie and headed east toward Dillon St. As the top of the A-frame house poked into sight we started going nuts.

And we SO weren’t the only ones. There were already some sightseers there, dying that not only were they at the Brady house but now the Wienermobile had entered the picture AND a real Brady emerged out of it!  Only God could have put a blessed tourist here at this moment.

Needless to say, we took a lot of photos.

With Susan’s 35 year identity crisis rectified, our Hotdoggers, Yoli and Tracy, told us we could drive around for as long as we wanted.

Elated, we immediately discussed iconic snack food related establishments in the immediate area to best frame us and the Wienermobile. First we headed to a hot dog,:

followed by some chili,…

… a hamburger,…

…and a little something to wash it all down with.

But, alas… I have Christmas shopping to do, three song deadlines to hit, an outline overdue for my new live show, a contract to read, a cat scratcher turntable to assemble, a portrait commission to paint, a bunch of publishing crap to get together, not to mention that I’m supposed to be on vacation in sunny Monterey. So Part 2 of our Wienermobile adventures will appear in a few days.

Until then, eat lots of hot dogs as you kick off the holiday season!

Proceed to Part 2

29Nov 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Birthdaying at the Madonna Inn – Part 1

29Nov 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Birthdaying at the Madonna Inn – Part 1

Bright and early the weekend before Thanksgiving Prudence Fenton and I hopped in the mustache van and drove up the coast to San Luis Obispo.

If you’ve never been to The Madonna Inn there, drive, fly, walk, bike, whatever mode of transportation it takes, and go there NOW!

I don’t care where you’ve been to see your architectural kitsch, this is one stop shopping of infinitesimal magnitude. I’ve blogged about this place many a time before but one post, even a hundred, could never cover the staggering detail present on the 2200 acres that appear mirage-like on the side of the 101 freeway.

The whole place was designed by this guy…

…. for this lady:

Alex Madonna, a construction magnate and entrepreneur who among other things built the section of the 101 the Inn sits next to, built this palace in 1958. These portraits of Alex and his wife Phyllis’ hang right outside the main dining room.

You need a closer look at that mother of all grape lamps in between them. Eight feet of barrel and the most magnificent assemblage of resin grape clusters anywhere:

This hangs right across the cave from this stairway, one of the subtler ones at The Madonna Inn:

Every time I drive up north taking the 101, I stop at The Madonna Inn to eat. Usually I’m in a hurry and just have time to hit the coffee shop. By the way, coffee always tastes better when the sugar is in one of these two forms, available only here:

The pink crystals and rock formations look especially good on the all copper counter and tabletops…

…which are surrounded by all copper decorative trim…

…which makes sense as this is the name of the coffee shop:

But if I’m not in a hurry to get where I’m going I try to park myself in the main dining room, The Gold Rush Steakhouse. I think you can see why:

Here’s another reason:

That’s one big ol’ slab o’ beef! As an animal lover I  don’t like to think about this but the beef is grown mere feet from the restaurant.  Here I am posing at midnight with the subject of my meal:

I always love a restaurant that starts you off with a relish plate:

Far from the usual celery and carrots and olives, this one has salami and a big brick of cheese thrown on top.  Also thrown in for my birthday festivities was Nancye Ferguson, who drove up to join us.

When it’s your birthday at the Madonna Inn your table is marked with a balloon:

Tables with balloons get free cake for dessert:

I had seen the 9″ high pink champagne cakes in the coffeeshop earlier…

So I got a big hunk of it:

Cake always tastes better when it matches the decor.

It’s even better when the decor is decorated for Christmas.

At this time of year, any place there’s room to stick a Christmas tree at The Madonna Inn there is one:

Angles guard over every table:

Some of the most famous rooms at the Madonna Inn are the bathrooms. The most famous is the men’s room. I finally got the balls to sneak in with Jim Burns, a.k.a. Sgt. Frank Woods in Call Of Duty-Black Ops, who also joined us.

Although the giant clam shell sinks are fantastic…

…the legendary waterfall urinal is the main attraction:

Though sans waterfall, the ladies room next door has its own unique charm:

In another bathroom off of the coffeeshop, little girls get their props.  You can’t tell the scale from this photo but the toilet is teeny tiny tot sized…

…and matches the mini little girl sink in the middle of the big gal facilities:

All of this pales next to the bathroom in The Madonna Suite, where I tended to the needs of my roast-beef-sugared-champagne-caked body.

Here’s a little closer look at the sink, though it’s hard to see detail amidst all the rock. Water trickles down all the troughs dug out of the rock.

A full tour of The Madonna Suite tomorrow…

13Nov 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Riverside Redeux

13Nov 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Riverside Redeux

I’ve blogged about Riverside, CA before. I hit it at least once a year because my favorite soul food restaurant in the state is there.

You can read more details about Gram’s and see some incredible old vintage signs like this that are thankfully left standing in this post as well.

On a typical trip, I also try and hit all the thrift and secondhand shops that are further into town on Market Street once you hop off of the 60. But this was a very short trip, just to eat at Gram’s and see The Larry Dunn Orchestra, he formerly of Earth, Wind & Fire and who played keyboards on “September” and “Boogie Wonderland” for me at my recent Allee Willis Soup to Nuts live show.

So on this trip I just took a closer look at Market Street in the heart of downtown Riverside. I don’t know what this building was but the shimmering powder blue stone edifice is beyond gorgeous. I shudder to think what that construction fence around it means…

Here’s an excellent use of Chrysler-Imperial-as-awning. Perhaps I should do something like this with my 1955 Desoto Fireflyte:

Despite being a health food store now, The De Anza Theater is a still knockout:

The Mission Inn, a hotel built in 1876 and where the Reagans were married, is Riverside’s top historical landmark. But I’m much more interested in the topiary that tops the columns on the backside of the hotel. If you have any idea what this is let me know. They’re all over the place.

 

I’m guessing this one is a boxing pig:

A little further out on Market, there’s a little time-warp street that intersects it, right before the secondhand shops start.

I know this foot establishment isn’t vintage but I can never resist a name like this:

Leaving the street for a moment, I’ve never seen a Bereavement Center inside a thriftshop before but such is the case at the Goodwill at the top of the block:

Just a hop down the 91 in Corona is this excellence in architecture and signage. Though I would imagine that any Greek might be mystified that a restaurant representing that heritage would feature roast beef and quesadillas.

I always love a good trailer park…

… especially one featuring a curved wall of cutout Atomic cement block.

I love that two trains form the wings of this building. Too bad it’s not a diner and is wasted on a driving school.

I also can never resist the charm of a nice porta-potty  in the front yeard. I love the elegant door on this one, as if that makes it more acceptable to be plopped where it is.

I could have used that facility at the point in the drive I was. Luckily I made it back to the hotel and up in the elevator before duty called.

Be back soon, Riverside.

 

04Oct 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch ‘O The Day – Staggering Signs Along Route 1, Saugus, MA.

04Oct 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch ‘O The Day – Staggering Signs Along Route 1, Saugus, MA.

Although when I was in Boston the week before last for the fluffilectable Fluff Festival, all I did was participate in all things Fluff, I did manage to get in an hour of sightseeing, at least the only kind of sightseeing I’m interested in, which is looking for the best and most kitschtastic signs and edifices a city has to offer. I nearly lost my choppers when I came across the Hilltop Steakhouse on Route 1 outside of Boston. This place was so astounding –  from this greatest sign I’ve ever seen, at least 40 feet high and I can’t even imagine what it looks like it night, to the herd of plastic cows grazing outside – that I’m going to give it its own post. I’m shooting for tomorrow but with all the work I still have to get done for my grand performance on the 18th, only time will tell  when I’ll actually get that done. But trust me, it’s coming.

Of course, whenever a name has “hilltop” in it and it’s not on a hill, not to mention that it’s sitting on the side of a flat freeway, it’s astounding kitsch time.

I don’t care where it’s located, any pizza place with a leaning tower is where I’m going to munch Italian. That it’s next door to Giggles makes it even better.

I love when plaster flags that are constructed in “blow” motion.

I also love vintage stacked signs like this:

“Cocktail Lounge” and a working clock make it even better. That John Sebastion is performing at a Chinese restaurant, even better. But best of all is the massive hunk of the Kowloon itself:

Giant tiki = giant kitsch. If I ever Fluff it up again, I’m going to see if the portions inside loom as large.

You can’t really appreciate this next sign, especially blocked by that pole. But 15 feet of sake can’t be bad.

I love, love, love the Dairy Castle, miniature golf and baseball compound sign, all structures and features of which it beckons you to seemingly untouched since the 1960’s:

This angle is great:

You can spot a rocket ship, dinosaur and this happy Humpty facing the highway from the golf course:

Other than vegetarians, who doesn’t like hot dog signs, especially when an attempt is made at mustard and toppings, and it’s been boiling since 1958?

The Karl’s building is pretty great too, almost as if they couldn’t decide on the exact style of architecture they were going for so they went for everything.  Though 1950’s and 60’s are most predominant in the house.

And last but not least, Ferns, where you’re lucky if you can get the “new room” – only one? – and a Whir Poo. Though I don’t think I want to participate in anything Poo happening in a motel.