Allee Willis Blog

22Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – AMI JukeBox Tip Tray

22Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – AMI JukeBox Tip Tray

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A petite 4″ x 6″, this little metal tip tray was a promotional item given away in the 1950’s by the AMI corporation to celebrate their massive line of exclusive multi-Horn, high fidelity sound system jukeboxes. It’s been sitting in my recording studio collecting guitar picks for as long as I can remember after originally being brought in as a drink coaster after I ruined several keyboards with an avalanche of Diet Coke, Yoo-hoos and decaf.

Sunday night I was in Sonoma, CA. writing with Pomplamoose. We were shooting to finish three songs in four days. The work never stopped even when we went out to dinner as is evidenced by my little digital recorder that was on for four solid days capturing every thought and breath we had.

But when it came time to pay the check I reached out to lay the tip down and knocked over a bowl of lentils, dousing the recorder with a river of Indian goo. So every time I went to record after that I had to push down extra hard on the buttons to break through the crust that seeped into and dried in the recorder. If only the AMI JukeBox Tip Tray had been there so there was a nice designated and protected area to deposit the gratuity I would still have a recorder that didn’t smell like Bombay.

16Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Candy Scented Socks

16Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Candy Scented Socks

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No one loves socks, the most over looked fashion item in the clothing arsenal, more than me. I have hundreds of pairs and they change with every outfit. Easily the cheapest but what should be the best smelling socks in the drawer are these two pairs that are supposed to wreak of Sugar Daddies. But short of stuffing these socks up my nostrils I haven’t detected any such smell or I’d be running out to buy matching pairs of Tootsie Rolls, Blow Pops, Junior Mints, Charms and Dots foot coverings.

I can’t imagine that it would take foot sweat to activate the olfactory function so I’m going to have to assume that these were ill-conceived from the jump as I plucked them straight outta the unopened packages where not a scintilla lot of candy smell remained either.

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Made in 2004 for Designs by Skaffles, Inc. of New York, these 65% Acrylic, 30% Polyester, 4% Spandex, 1% rubber and 0% smelling socks are supposed to retain their scent for 4-5 washings.

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I swear I would love to walk around smelling like a Sugar Daddy but unless these were pre-washed 4-5 times before they were packaged in China the only hint of candy is on the way-too-light-to-read-without-squinting pink label.

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So the socks don’t smell and the label is hard to read. All of which makes for excellence in Kitsch but, unfortunately, not in socks.

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15Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Toast Wallet

15Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Toast Wallet

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This 100% genuine piece of plastic toast wallet looks just like the real thing right down to the butter starting to melt into the cushiony fake leather wonderfulness of it all. It feels like a big marshmallow in your hands and makes pulling out endless streams of cash a slightly more pleasant procedure.

Made in China for Accoutrements, the wallet is jumbo sized as if it needed to be big enough to accommodate a certifiKitsch of AuthentKitschity to vouch for the legitimacy of each dollar extracted from it.

Maybe it’s a psychological thing to make you feel like there’s a never ending well of money tucked inside. One way or another, I like keeping this little snack in my purse. Sometimes I alternate with my other favorite wallet that’s more normal sized though still inedible but goes well with the toast wallet.

The bacon wallet even has matching shoes:

The toast wallet has no such matching ensemble but should it ever get cold enough here in LA I swear it’s large enough that I could tuck my hands into the marshmallowy flaps and stay warm.

13Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s TV Dinner Fathers Day Card

13Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s TV Dinner Fathers Day Card

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The front of this card looks conservative enough that you wouldn’t know it was sold in the decade when greeting cards went bonkers and beatniks and sputniks and all other kinds of alternative living spaces and lifestyles expressed themselves via them. But when he opened it up Dad would have seen that this card was very much of its era given that the choice that the saccharine sweet angel tot offers her dad inside is one between TV dinners.

Dad’s choices most likely would have been Swanson’s chicken and turkey or beef, all with vegetables swimming in a butter sea.

Here I am with my father Father’s Day, 1957, whipping back to shore to get ready for dinner.

My mom cooked that night but I’m pretty sure my dad would have chosen the Salisbury Steak with gravy, whipped potatoes, peas in seasoned sauce and peach cake cobbler. After dinner, I’m pretty sure I used the aluminum tray to organize my marbles into teams for some sport I made up to play with my dad on his big day.

08Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day –1954 Fifth Annual Convention of the NLBA, Los Angeles Ashtray

08Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day –1954 Fifth Annual Convention of the NLBA, Los Angeles Ashtray

I have no idea what the NLBA is but apparently they covet grapes, handshakes, a wine bottle or a hat- I’m not sure which it is in the bottom left corner of the shield – and what appears to be a bunch of asparagus in the top right. Whatever these revelers did it was on November 7-10, the latter of which is my birthday, 1954 in Los Angeles. Maybe it has to do with the Olympics as half of the interlocking rings are there too. Maybe Shriners? I don’t know but they sure make a sturdy ashtray. Made of copper and glass it’s large enough to hold at least 10 Marlboros, Viceroys, Kents or Camels that undoubtebly got crushed in them constantly during those four days in November and for years to come.

07Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Plastic Fruit & Vegetable People and The Most Talented Man You’ve Ever Seen Playing Music On Vegetables

07Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Plastic Fruit & Vegetable People and The Most Talented Man You’ve Ever Seen Playing Music On Vegetables

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I used to actively collect figurative sculptures made out of plastic fruits and vegetables. Largely crafts projects, I loved them because most of them were so completely stupid looking but you could always tell a lot of love went into making them. I eventually stopped collecting these anthropomorphic fruit and vegetable people because in order to stand up straight most of them were made out of really light, cheap plastic food that would crack after a couple of years leaving them looking like accident victims. Much like what happens to actual vegetables that I periodically have a conscience to buy only to end up jamming them down the disposal when they start curdling and smelling up the frig because they’ve gotten too old to eat. But as with anything, I love when things have dual purposes like plastic fruit for display/plastic fruit for body parts. Like what a great shape an apple makes for a head or how natural the sprouts on the top of an onion look for hair. And until now, that’s how I prefered to experience vegetables.

But a few nights ago I ended up staying up most of the night after stumbling on this guy on YouTube who also makes excellent use of vegetables for purposes other than which they were grown. Here he is playing a cucumber trumpet:

I’ve never heard a carrot used as a pan-flute before:

This would definitely be a way to get me to pay attention to broccoli:

Cabbage is one vegetable I actually like though I prefer it as cole slaw or with corn beef at a good deli. I’ve never experienced it in concert as a flute.

Both apples and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” annoyed me as a kid. They still do.

I’m used to radishes being little round red things that I actually like but I guess if I knew they could be used as musical instruments I could wrap my mouth around this one too:

I have no idea what a butterbur is but it’s leafy and would probably taste good on top of a hamburger.

I’ve never had trouble with scallions as I love them in tuna fish salad.

I may have a Grammy and songs I’ve written may have sold over 50 million records but I can’t blow a watermelon and make it sound like a clarinet no matter how strong my musical proclivities are. I suppose there’s nothing to stop me from trying but in the meantime I’m doing fine without adding this skill to my repertoire and I’m just going to enjoy my fruits and vegetables as really cute plastic people.

03Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Slim Jims Ashtray

03Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Slim Jims Ashtray

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Anyone who knows me would be shocked I’ve never actually tasted a Slim Jim given my proclivity for junk snacks. It isn’t even that I don’t think I’d like the taste; it’s more that these are usually located near the cash register where the candy is and if my eyes ever wandered towards junk they were drawn to chocolate and caramel as opposed to meatstuff.

My “Packed in Cellophane All Beef Ready-to Eat Spiced Sausage Treat for 10¢” Slim Jim cig dunk is one of my favorite tin ashtrays. I’m especially intrigued with the slogan, “Make Your Next Drink Taste Better”.

If that’s the best thing that can be said about the taste of Slim Jims I will probably spend the rest of my life never having partaken of one.

I’m not quite sure what’s in a Slim Jim but among its ingredients is “mechanically separated chicken”. I’m not quite sure what that is either.

Slim Jim’s are manufactured by the Cherry-Levis Food Prod. Corp. Any company that’s too lazy to write out ‘Productions’ or “Products’ is Kitsch enough for me. Not to mention that Cherry Levis sounds like a great drink or line of jeans.

Speaking of great drinks, I left that Slim Jim soaking in my Vernors Ginger Ale after I took that photo and now it looks like a life preserver.

Seen from another angle it looks like a variety of things:

Speaking of angles, after hawking pickled pig’s feet to local taverns and observing that the most popular food there was pepperoni, Adolph Levis, inventor of the Slim Jim in the 1940’s, created his own preserved meat product that rather than curing for weeks could transform in a matter of days via fermentation and hot smoking.

Speaking of smoking, my Slim Jims ashtray has little cigarette rests…

… though I think using it as an appetizer tray and resting a Slim Jim there is more appropriate.

31May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Have A Blast” This Memorial Day Bottle Opener

31May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Have A Blast” This Memorial Day Bottle Opener

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Here’s hoping that everyone is having a blast this Memorial Day! I hope that includes popping lots of bottles with a similar vintage bottle opener as well as eating lots of hot dogs.

If it had a pointy metal end the hot dog’s hair gel/ketchup would look a lot like the ‘Have A Blast” cap popper.

The ‘Have A Blast’ even has a baby brother:

Obviously the more popular of the two, the baby’s message is almost completely blasted off.

If you had either one of these openers right now you could pop the cap on something cold and celebrate the holiday by whipping up some Festive Hot Dog Soufflé from The New Hot Dog Cookbook, a 1968-updated-in-’83 tome of wiener recipes.

Or if that doesn’t sit right on your taste buds perhaps you could “make your wieners Wynders”. Trust me, this is worth watching:

If you don’t want to drop coin on buying a Wynder’s Wiener maybe you’d like to spend this holiday tooling your own:

However you spend your holiday I hope you’re doing what you want to do and don’t forget to:

30May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Party Jocs” Coasters and Top Chef Masters at Street

30May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Party Jocs” Coasters and Top Chef Masters at Street

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In anticipation of the Memorial Day holiday tomorrow and the many glasses that are about to be lifted these Party Jocs drink cozies make it easy to keep track of your drink and keep your hands moisture free as you chug it down.

Wednesday night I went to my favorite restaurant, Street, in anticipation of lifting a glass in celebration as Chef Susan Feniger won another round of Top Chef Masters on TV. Not only was she one of the final four but she had won 75% of her battles so far.

I went with my good friend, Stu James, who was also Harpo in my musical, The Color Purple. Although I didn’t have the Party Jocs with me and no glasses are evident in this photo we took with Susan we were all in a glass-lifting celebratory mood as the show began.

What’s great about being at Street on the nights that Top Chef Masters airs is that not only can you order any of the completely and insanely inventive food on the menu but also little trays of whatever Susan cooks on the show that night are passed around. We started out with Lamb Kakta Meatballs drizzled with date and carob molasses…

… followed by the Tatsutage Fried Chicken marinated with soy, mirin and sake and crispy fried in rice batter, topped with spicy kewpie mayonnaise sauce.

Then came the Burmese Lettuce Wraps with gin thoke style lentils, toasted coconut, peanuts, fried onions and sesame ginger dressing…

.. and the Paani Puri, spiced potato, chutneys and sprouted beans in crispy puffs of yogurt-cilantro water dipped dough…

… with the Brazilian Acaraje not far behind – black-eyed pea fritters with palm oil, garlic and cilantro stuffed with citrus cabbage slaw and malagueta chile sauce.

Then we topped it off with barbecued pork sliders:

Obviously Stu and I spent as much time taking photos of each other eating as we did talking, all the while watching Susan toil away on TV. The chefs’ challenge this week was to make food “fit for the gods of the heavens”.

Susan was assigned Aphrodite, goddess of love. She went for it with one of the signature dishes at Street, Kaya Toast.

Kaya Toast is a Singapore street cart experience – toasted bread spread thick with coconut jam and sweet butter that you dip in a soft fried egg drizzled in dark soy and white pepper. When you bite into it it fills your mouth with such an unexpected burst and multi-textural slide down the throat that your whole body jolts with the sensation. I can always tell when someone orders Kaya for the first time because there’s always a long drawn out ‘oohHHhhhh’ that accompanies it. That’s love. And it’s certainly fit for Aphrodite.

As individual servings of Kaya Toast were passed around to all of us in the restaurant Susan raced to finish the dish on the show.

As the judging began, the whole restaurant got ready to lift their glasses to celebrate yet another triumph. At that moment I wished I had brought the Party Jocs with me so Stu and I could have toasted in style not to mention hand comfort.

But the only thing about the Kaya Toast is that it looks like a very simple dish. Everyone always thinks it’s going to taste like a grilled cheese sandwich.

And that’s what judge Jay Rayner couldn’t get out of his head, that it looked like a PB&J and he didn’t find that very sexy. So Susan went down in flames…

But I’m here to tell you that it took balls to make a dish like that, on first impression so plain and simple but upon tasting it a cornucopia of textures, tastes and sensations. So come to Street if you want to taste food fit for the gods. And to Jay Rayner and the remaining three male chefs I lift my glass, now adorned with its comely 1960’s fashion statement, and wish them all very happy highballs as they cook to the finish.

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: