21Mar 2011

From Allee on the road…

21Mar 2011

From Allee on the road…

As much as I look forward to rolling out of bed every morning and choosing a fresh, new and wonderful artifact of kitsch to present, today is an absolutely torturous day in terms of what I have to accomplish. First of all, I’m driving back to LA from Monterey. It’s supposed to rain like cats and very large dogs most of the way back so I have to get an early start. Also, I have to write tons of the kind of stuff I hate to write because I’ve got to unleash a whole Facebook campaign on a death-defying event I’m attempting to pull off in 2 1/2 weeks in Detroit when I conduct my high school band in the theater I grew up in playing a medley of my greatest hits before a performance of my musical, The Color Purple, with the cast singing along. This should sound like a manageable event, but just imagine the sound of a marching band playing in the four-story high/almost block long lobby of a theater built in 1930 of solid concrete and marble, the acoustical nightmare of which has just dawned on me: What’s the point of having a sing-along if all you can hear is a bevy of brass drilling through your your eardrums?

And how do I conduct an orchestra facing one direction at the same time as a sing-along, which demands me turning the other way to conduct the crowd? These are the kind of mindnumbing challenges that someone like me, who gets an idea and charges ahead, forgets to deal with until it’s too late to examine the sanity of attempting to do such a thing in the first place. So I rely upon my ability to create good enough art and somehow combine it with everything else that inevitably reels off the railroad tracks, tipping over and spilling down the hillside into a vat of how-the-hell-am-I-going-to-pull-this-off-let-alone-raise-the-money-I-need-to-raise-to buy-the-marching-band-new-uniforms to understand that all of this makes for fantastic kitsch and I just have to roll with it.

Also today, my good friend and hysterical comedy person, Maxine Lapiduss, releases a song/video of a song I co-wrote called “Scared About Life without Oprah”, produced by Wendy and Lisa and featuring Jane Lynch. Of course, Maxine expects me, as any artist or co-writer would, to promote it on Facebook. So not only do I have one most important event to promote I have a song to push as well. So the immediate task is to to sit here on the 101 when it’s not my turn to drive and figure out some way I don’t nauseate myself by unleashing a couple weeks of vigorous begging and pleading to take note of all that is wonderful in Allee world without pissing people off I’m hawking so much. To some folks the shameless task of self-promotion comes naturally. To me, it’s razor blades in my eyeballs unless I can think of an entertaining way to do it.

All this to say I apologize for not posting fresh kitsch today but I will be back tomorrow with bran’ spanking new wonderfulness from the shelves at The Allee Willis Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com (shamelss plug #3). Please send all creative vibes my way today! And pretty please go here and support the cause: https://www.alleewillis.com/mumfordinvite. And if on Facebook please join here to follow the precarious journey to new band uniforms for the funkiest high school band on the planet: https://www.facebook.com/AlleeWillisMarchesOnDetroit

07Feb 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Detroit Zoo Hat and My Homegirl, Lily Tomlin

07Feb 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Detroit Zoo Hat and My Homegirl, Lily Tomlin

When I grew up in Detroit I went to the zoo on 10 Mile and Woodward at least a couple times a year. Although I got this particular chapeau on Ebay, I’m certain I had one exactly like it as I never went there without something separating me from the sun. I was quite fond of theme hats as a kid.

I’m not sure exactly what animal is on my zoo hat.

I suppose that’s a bear. Though it looks inbred with a beaver and Golden Retriever. It never made any sense to me that with a baseball team named the Tigers and a football team named the Lions that one of those didn’t get top billing in felt.

At least a tiger made the supporting cast. As did another animal that actually looks more like a bear than the beaver/Golden Retriever or maybe otter mystery animal in the starring role. I’m not going to worry about that though as there’s so much else beautiful that came out of Detroit. Like cars, Vernor’s ginger ale and Sanders hot fudge, the latter two of which remain staples in my refrigerator to this day.

I’m sure I was consuming both the last time I walked around the zoo, which was at least four decades ago.

The Detroit Zoological Park wasn’t the only thing I loved about Detroit. You can read all about my love affair with the city here.

Someone else who was born and grew up in Detroit still feels the love too.

Lily Tomlin and I have been friends since 1984 when we were introduced by Paul Reubens a.k.a.Pee Wee Herman. Lily even used my head to insert her own into for her character, Kate, in her Tony Award Winning Broadway show, Search For Signs Of intelligent Life In The Universe.

Both of us still love Detroit and are looking for something to do together there on a permanent basis.  We don’t know what that is yet but it will most certainly revolve around the arts as coming from the big D had such an enormous impact on what we both do. It also made my once alter-ego, Bubbles the artist, the artist she was, whipping out copy paintings of Lily’s character, Ernestine, like they were on the Ford assembly line, which the star would then autograph so a few more dollars rolled into my coffers.

Now we want a few more dollars rolling into Detroit, where I’ll be heading in April, perhaps with Lily in tow, to figure out what we can do there together. My specific mission is delivering the closing keynote speech at the three day Rust Belt To Arts Belt conference, exploring ways and mental states to turn decaying American cities like Detroit into cities of the future, which I’ve long held my home town can be if it rises from the ashes with both heart and conscience. I’m also going there to conduct my high school marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the lobby of the Fox Theatre before a performance of my musical, The Color Purple.

Despite the fact that I can’t read a note of music, including my own, I became obsessed with conducting last October after I was asked to conduct the 350 piece marching band at my college alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, when they played my songs at the Homecoming football game.

You can see the details of the excellent Priority Mail envelope hat I wore then here. Conducting the Mumford band with The Color Purple cast singing along will also give me a chance to wear another excellent hat:

Although I now collect marching band hats –  I’m up to over 30 different color combos though still missing the maroon and blue of the Mumford Mustangs –  my little hat from the Detroit zoo remains one of my favorites. I may not know what kind of animal sits on my head but I know a great city when I see one!

24Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s “Last Leg O’ The (knee) Trip” Pen

24Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s “Last Leg O’ The (knee) Trip” Pen

I’m happy to report that my own recently operated on left  knee is finally allowing my leg to return to its natural state such as modeled by this fantastic “First Leg ‘O Trip’ Washington souvenir pen. Although my own appendage is not as shapely and slim as this perfectly poised on-point gam, it’s just about at the point of where it looks more like an ‘I’ than a ‘V’ and is allowing me to hobble around rather than setting up permanent camp in bed.

I have no plans to go to Washington but, rather, to Detroit, the trip that I suspect sent my knee into hyper-gear and caused my meniscus to rip. Not known for my disciplined exercise regimen, in April I’m heading to the Motor City, my hometown, to conduct my high school band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the lobby of the historic Fox theater before a performance of the musical I co-wrote, The Color Purple. In efforts to bounce around as if I were four decades younger, I got a little overaggressive as I rehearsed, conducting every TV commercial that came on and threw my knee so out of whack it was a lesson blaring in neon signage that one can never let themselves turn so fully into a couch potato that they’re more likely to grow sprouts before being able to function as a fully exercised human being.

Why, you might ask, was I rehearsing to TV commercials when I’ve actually written the songs that are to be performed?  That would be because I never learned how to read, notate or play a stitch of music so even if the Mumford marching band arranger scanned his arrangements onto my skin I’d have a better chance of deciphering Chinese than the musical notes and rhythms before me.

So long ago I developed my own technique of being able to jump on a note and rhythm at the first milliseconds of its sound so that it might appear I know what I’m doing. I’m the same way with melodies. Nine times out of 10 I can sing along with something despite never having heard it before. It’s a weird skill I know but I can’t say it hasn’t come in handy:

But back to the leg at hand:

I love my little leg pen and, if I remembered where I put it after I shot these photos, I would have most definitely had it at bedside to psychologically aid in my recovery. That’s one of the beauties of being a collector. The objects around you aren’t just there because that’s what ought to be sitting on an end table or where there’s a chair there’s also an ottoman. The objects and you are one, all manifestations of energy in a world that’s largely up to you to create. Now it’s my job as a diligent patient, and one who has a marching band to conduct to boot, to manifest having a left leg as strong and shapely as my souvenir Washington leg pen and to stay on point forever.

Thank you all for taking this weeklong knee/leg journey with me. It actually made it feel like fun and that’s a lot to be said for surgery! This is, indeed, the ‘last leg’ of this journey.

12Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Margaret Mitchell’s Mealtime Magic Meat and Poultry Cookery Book

12Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Margaret Mitchell’s Mealtime Magic Meat and Poultry Cookery Book

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Unless you can’t stand to look at meat or poultry this is a cookbook that’s filled with thrilling visuals, not the least of which is of the author herself:

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I love her little Swedish meatball hair, Hostess cupcake shaped glasses, and Revlon ‘Love That Red’ lipstick that’s redder than any slab of beef that passes before her. You might be thinking, ‘Oh, is that the Margaret Mitchell who wrote the meaty “Gone With the Wind”?  I’ve seen the movie but not being a vociferous reader, I’m much more likely to have read this book by the carnivore loving Margaret Mitchell than the better known literary one by the other Margaret Mitchell where it’s Scarlett O’Hara being served up at the end rather than a nice Porterhouse steak. Though I guess they both have scarlet in common, one being the lead character and the other being the color of the meat product featured here:

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These two-page spreads of meat cuts kill me:

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Though I don’t care how pretty the pictures are, I will never be making this:

Here’s how Margaret suggests using aluminum foil:

I, however, have always had a different primary use of aluminum foil. I wrap presents in  it. Here’s a gift I’m taking to a mystery gift exchange at a high school reunion today for Detroiters who went to Mumford High who now live in Southern California:

It doesn’t have meat in it but it does come stuffed with Elvis popcorn. Which seemed an appropriate mystery gift for an exchange at a 60’s high school reunion and a blog about meaty presentations.

Elvis comes in a non recyclable plastic guitar bank. The publisher of Margaret’s book strongly suggests that your meat be popped in an aluminum pan that gives the gift of long-term toxicity to humans if ingested in large enough quantities.

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I’m hoping none of the food at the reunion will be cooked in aluminum pans though I’m sure that’s what all of us were brought up on. For now, I prefer to look at my meat and poultry in pretty pictures as opposed to them sauteed in aluminum gravy.

I always love when there’s nothing left to say about a topic by the time you reach the back cover. When in doubt just repeat the author’s name and title of the book in the shape of hangers until you run out of room.

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I would’ve preferred something a little more festive on the back cover but I guess all the money went toward the groceries on the front, as despite the raging red properties of meat the only color in Mealtime Magic is there. Frankly, Margaret, I fear your publishes didn’t give a damn.

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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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18Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Souvenir Of Detroit Shoe and My Love Letter To Detroit in Time Magazine

18Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Souvenir Of Detroit Shoe and My Love Letter To Detroit in Time Magazine

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When the post I wrote for Time Magazine‘s wonderful Detroit Blog was published yesterday, my love for Detroit escalated even higher than the sky-high affection I already had for the city I grew up in that still inspires just about every move I make. Despite whatever you might think of Detroit for anything you may have heard about it’s slow and agonizing demise over the years, it’s still the Soul capital as far as I’m concerned and a city that has the potential to lead us into the future this century as it did much of the last. As anyone who’s half evolved knows, when things fall apart it becomes a ripe breeding ground for rebirth in new and magnified ways.  The revolution is coming and it’s already arrived in Detroit. My love letter to my city is here.

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I’ve always collected kitsch souvenirs from Detroit. I have everything from custom painted Detroit bottles to can openers, pot holders, funeral fans, miniature cars, notebooks, pencils, rolling pins and more. But this little unassuming shoe has always been one of my favorites.

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As small as this souvenir high heel is, only 2 1/2 inches long, it’s as giant in stature to me as the old 25′ x 30′ x 20′ stove that sat out in front of The Michigan State Fairgrounds for years on Woodward Avenue. I used to drive by it every day and wonder if I would ever learn to cook. The answer remains no.

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And then there’s the giant tire that started life out as a ferris wheel at the ’64 New York Worlds Fair and was then moved to the side of I-94 where it still sits to this day. I’ve had better success with tires than with cooking though not as much as with shoes.
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Detroit is a city that many may have lost faith in, a shrinking blip on the map, no longer looming above the horizon of hope like a massive stove or tire. But the naysayers should remember that spirit and strength are qualities that lie inside and, when nurtured, can bloom in the most unexpected places and ways. All it takes is the brains and balls to stay the course, and the belief that change is the one constant in our life and that it can be steered like a big giant-finned Caddy to a better place if enough people just believe that can happen.  People from Detroit have always dreamed and given the world some amazing gifts – cars and Motown for starters.  So I have faith that whatever comes of the ashes of Detroit will be great. It may just look like baby steps now – afterall, the shoe is tiny – but get outta the way because wheels are turning and the footprints that will be left are BIG.

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02Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1968 Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars Book and Saturday Night with Earth Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder, 2010

02Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1968 Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars Book and Saturday Night with Earth Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder, 2010

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My life would have never been the same without Soul music. Growing up in Detroit, my teenage years were spent on the far right of the AM radio dial, down where the black stations were. I had no idea I would eventually become a hit songwriter especially because I never learned (to this day) how to play an instrument. Call it a limitation but I’m someone who believes in finding power in limitations. I learned everything I know from the Soul Stars in this book. Published in 1968 by Right On! magazine, a division of Tiger Beat, Right On! was THE commercial rag of blended Pop Soul, music that rippled with unbridled joy of freedom and self-expression, exuding confidence and spontaneity that sprung from a Black Is Beautiful social consciousness. Listening to THAT music was all music training I needed.

Here’s Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars as of 1968:

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I know the names are small but squint to read them because they changed music forever and most of the records they made sound as contemporary today as the day they were mixed.

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I loved every record the Supremes made though I loved the earliest ones the most.

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The original version of “I Heard It through the Grapevine” by Gladys Knight and the Pimps slayed me. In 1973, “Midnight Train to Georgia” became and remains my single favorite background vocals record ever recorded.

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Marvin Gaye’s songs recorded by the time Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars came out, especially “Wonderful One”, “Ain’t That Peculiar” and “I’ll be Doggone”, were my favorites. When he released his version of “I Heard It through the Grapevine” I think it became one of the greatest records ever made.

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Merry Clayton was the believable female voice on The Rolling Stones ‘Gimme Shelter’. I got a promo copy of her solo LP in the early 70s when I was working at Columbia Records and played it constantly until I used it as a hat brim for an outfit that really screamed for an albeit impromtu hat.

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The highest form of Godliness in Soul, Aretha’s ‘Soul ’69’ is still one of my favorite LPs ever.

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I was very depressed when I graduated college having to leave all my friends at the University of Wisconsin. The only thing that kept me somewhat calm and optimistic on the long drive back to Detroit was hearing  “Oh Happy Day” over and over again on the radio.

For as great as 1968 was in producing Super-Soul Stars it was still too early to include the group that honestly and for real changed my life, Earth Wind & Fire. In 1978 they gave me my first hit single, “September”, and in ’79 my first hit album, “I Am”, on which I co-wrote every song but two.  Here’s they are in 1975:

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Larry Dunn, keyboardist extraordinare, had the most awesome Afro of anyone in the group.

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Though they too had spectacular Afros I hadn’t even heard of The Emotions when Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars came out in ’68. But years later they joined Earth Wind & Fire to sing my second hit, “Boogie Wonderland”.

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Last Saturday night I went to The Waterfront Concert Theater in Marina Del Rey to see Elements of Fire, an EWF tribute led by Larry and Sheldon Reynolds, who joined the group as guitarist in the late 80’s and filled in for co-founder/lead singer and my favorite singer of all time, Maurice White, when he left the group. I bumped into Larry as I was walking in.

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Once inside I met up with one of my favorite friends and funniest persons alive, Luenell, who was introducing the band.

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If one just judges the music and love affair between performers onstage and the audience, the evening was spectacular. I spent two exquisite hours enjoying some of my favorite music on earth, several songs of which were mine.  I was surrounded by friends from back in the day. But that’s where the party ended. Once the evening was in the hands of The Waterfront “Concert Theater” it was a 3, no, 23 ring, circus of errors.

As a purveyor of kitsch and aforesaid strong believer in rolling with limitations if you can’t do anything to change them, these are the moments I must take a breath and remember I’m blessed.  Rather than chasing down the manager to strangle him/her I just squint and look at the evening as a massive wheel of brie spilling off a way-too-small buffet table and know I will remember it as a stand out in the annals (or anals depending on how hard you’re squinting) of Kitsch.

The screw-ups started a full week before I even got to The Waterfront “Concert Theater” when I tried to buy tickets over the phone and talked to a chain of robots, none of whom could help me other than tell me that dinner was served during the show. I would’ve bought tickets online but after five minutes of searching the site for a link to the box office there was no link to tickets for the band I wanted to see. I finally bypassed the club and got tickets through the tour manager. But even with them printed out in hand you still had to stand in line to pick up the real tickets which were the identical printed sheets of paper. Which would have been slightly more tolerable if the air conditioning had been working.

Soaked like a mop, I went to the bathroom to freshen up. I know this place is called The Waterfront because it sits on the harbor. I just wish they would’ve confined the standing bodies of water to outside. Nothing short of a few sticks of dynamite could’ve unplugged this:

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I moved on to sink  number two but unless I had brought my bathing suit and spent the night sitting on the bathroom counter dipping my toes to try and cool down from the malfunctioning air conditioning I still was left with no place to wash my hands.

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I included the following photo because it’s important for you to see the primo condition vintage 1950’s rayon shirt I have on. Covered with starbursts, it’s one of the best Atomic Age shirts I own.  I only wear it on special occasions when I know I want to feel good.

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Little did I know as I swept  past the Waterfront’s beautifully finished bathroom walls…

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… and well-attended to wastebasket…

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… what would happen the second I got to my seat in the “VIP” section, three bridge tables plopped in the middle of the one and only narrow aisle that led to the stage and at least 20 other people who would need a waitress or a bathroom throughout the night. Though we were in slightly better shape than hundreds of other sardines smashed together in a room with only one exit. I finnnnnaly stepped over enough bodies to crumble into my seat and a waitress dumps a bottle of beer and a full whiskey sour on my beautiful, special, rare and beloved Atomic shirt. Ice cubes dribbled down my back coating both sides of the garment with sticky goo and deposited yet another body of standing water in my chair, the kind that has ass indentations carved into the wood so any liquid just sits there. Despite not being enough to soak up the mess on me, my chair, the floor, the people next to me and my once beautiful but now permanently spotted leather bag the waitress returned with six towels, a blessing as she only brought one thin paper napkin when she finally delivered our meal, the one and ONLY item on the “full dinner” menu the robots had told me was available, a Styrofoam plate with a tiny pile of bagged salad, an unidentifiable mound of squishy stuff that was probably going for Jumbalaya and “Chicken Strips”, 4 tiny frozen Costco chicken legs. As Luenell said when she got on stage, “Don’t be tellin’ a black woman you got chicken strips and then bring her no chicken legs dripping with sauce so now her lipstick’s smeared all over her face and she got to get up on stage. That’s dangerous.”

After about a half an hour I adjusted to the fact that I was stuck in a beer and whiskey soaked outfit in a club with little to no air conditioning and no sink to clean any of it or me off. The music was SO good – “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Reasons”, “Serpentine Fire”, “Can’t Hide Love”, “I Can’t Let Go”, “In The Stone”, “Getaway” “Fantasy”, “That’s the Way of the World” and on and on. I even got used to having my chair shoved in my back every time anyone needed to get by. Of the hundreds of times it happened that night thankfully one time it was by this guy in the blue shirt:

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He had many hits by the time he made it into Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars in 1968.

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Ultimately, I think covering a sweat soaked body with an outfit made of beer and whiskey made Stevie’s medley of “Shining Star” and “Superstition” even better for me. Despite the constant efforts of The Waterfront Concert Jail I Mean Theater to do otherwise, it was the kind of night where you couldn’t help feeling like a Soul Star when you left.

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(For more of me, EWF & Luenell on an evening that was far better managed, see the opening party for my social network, The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch at AWMOK.com, last September 21st, the date that’s in the opening line of the song, “Do you remember the 21st night of September…”.  Larry Dunn and founding EWF member Verdine White, greatest bass player who ever lived, played for anyone who wanted to sing kariokee of “September”.  Though there are no drinks being spilled, no germ infested bathrooms, lots of food, air conditioning and folks who worked there who actually got past the first grade,  it’s still fantastic viewing material for anyone who likes me, Earth, Wind & Fire, Luenell or Super-Soul Stars in general.)

Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B12TPKuVcSY

“September”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKXU2o6NVT8

“Boogie Wonderland”:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj1tzW4kyMg

29Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Gold Bell Gift Stamps

29Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Gold Bell Gift Stamps

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Were it not for Gold Bell Gift Stamps I never would’ve had a new blanket or clock radio to go off to college with. I’m not sure where these stamps  were given out in Detroit, where I grew up,  but it had to have been an A&P or Kroger’s as that’s where my mom always did her shopping. I loved licking and pasting in all the stamps she brought home and I collected those books like they were diamonds knowing that I could cash them in on the items of my choice.

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It was definitely looking through the Gold Bell Gift Stamps catalog that my love of catalogs blossomed. It was absolutely mind boggling to me that you could actually get something for free and all it required was licking little stamps and gluing them onto the pages as the book got lumpy and lumpier, looking almost as if a pitcher of water had been poured on it the fuller it got. For someone who’s a paper freak like me it was just as thrilling to fill the book as it was to get the items the books were cashed in to get. In fact, sometimes I got so attached to the books as they warped as more and more stamps were pasted in that the book itself became more precious than the gift it could procure.

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I’m not sure if this hand-painted wooden counter sign was for Gold Bell Gift Stamps or whether there was an entirely different brand called, simply, Gold Stamps:

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Whatever the case, my tattered book of Gold Bell Gift Stamps, ready to be redeemed for a hood hairdryer, mohair argyle sweater or automatic hand mixer, looks very nice sitting next to it.

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I used to pour over this page making sure I had done everything right. I could smell the new pogo stick or 45 player as I filled in my name and address.

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I shall always love Gold Bell Gift Stamps for being a big part of my childhood. Past a certain point I just couldn’t give the books away anymore. I must’ve known somewhere in the back of my head I was going to have the world’s most gigantic memorabilia collection. So I have this book and a few spare stamps and that’s just as good as the portable TV I always wanted which took hundreds and hundreds of books that I never managed to amass before falling for a turtle bowl, dictionary or any of the other smaller gifts that made me feel rich as a Queen.

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10May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 3D, Miami Beach & Charles Phoenix

10May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 3D, Miami Beach & Charles Phoenix

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With 3D all the rage today many people forget that the first ubiquitous mass consumer experience with the technology was with View-Masters.  Introduced in 1962, one could view seven 3D images as they spun around on a paper disc creating lifelike reality inside the mouse hole of two eyepieces. The earliest View-Masters featured popular tourist attractions like this one of Miami Beach, where I first started buying these.

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When I was young my parents drove to Miami Beach from Detroit twice a year.

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We stayed at the Carlyle Hotel.

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I bought every Viewmaster reel of Miami Beach I could find because the Deco architecture drove me so batty. When I had my first hit record I immediately bought a house that reminded me of Miami Beach.

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A frequent visitor to my house is Charles Phoenix, one of my best friends and Kitschmaster General of vintage slide shows and books featuring insanely on-the-nose location and human examples of living wheels of brie.  The last time he came over, Charles gave me a lesson in how to bake one of his signature Cherpumples, a cake with three pies stuffed inside of it.  As soon as I get done editing the footage we shot I will post our instructional film.

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Something like the Cherpumple with M&Ms bubbling out of the pepto -bismolian-pink frosting and utensils at rest would make an excellent 3D photo if only we had the right camera.

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Yesterday, I went downtown with Prudence Fenton, Nancye Ferguson and Jim Burns and saw Charles’ first ever all 3D retro slide show.

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We learned a lot about how 3-D photography and View-Masters came into being.

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We saw a lot of families in the 50’s learning how to not only use their View-Masters but make their own 3D reels.

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Of course, you won’t be able to see anything clearly because you don’t have your 3-D glasses on. As opposed to this slide from Charles’ show featuring an attractive threesome with a very clear view of the LA freeway when it was built in 1960 standing less than 10 feet away next to oncoming traffic.

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I hope to have a clear view of the week ahead of me although it could go either way. I could feel like an outsider…

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… or I could choose to see the world in super enhanced, bigger than life 3D.

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Thank you, Charles for an excellent afternoon and thank you View-Master for putting 3-D in the palm of our hands.

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03Apr 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – In My Easter Bonnet

03Apr 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – In My Easter Bonnet

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Once again I don the Easter bonnet I made to go to my friend April Winchell’s mother’s house Easter, 1998 where she had a smorgasbord of international foods, the unrecognizable contents of which were festooned with name tags stuck into the dishes on popsicle sticks, an excellent sign if one likes a side of Kitsch with their holidays.

This was the first Easter bonnet I ever wore, modeled with the Sears Easter Bunny in Detroit in 1952.  It was storebought and wasn’t very Eastery. I vowed to have more festive haberdashery after that.

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My current chapeau is made of foamcore, eggs, chicks, peeps, bunnies, roosters, shredded cellophane, bagels and about 10 pounds of hot melt glue. It has held up remarkably well over the years .

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There were recipes for “Eggs In Exciting Ways” from a vintage cookbook under the brim.

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I’m wearing the hat now and having a very Happy Easter.  I hope you are too.