Allee Willis Blog » Los Angeles

14Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Crumbs O’ The Day – 3 Day Old Donut Crumbs with Allee & Charles

14Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Crumbs O’ The Day – 3 Day Old Donut Crumbs with Allee & Charles

A couple days ago, I documented my Sunday drive with Charles Phoenix, noting that our very first stop was for an appetizer at Spudnuts, a donut establishment where the donuts are made out of potatoes. We weren’t sure how these were gonna taste but I can tell you that the big fat cakey one I had was literally one of the best I’ve ever tasted.

When Charles and I hit upon foodstuffs of this magnitude we oftentimes stick it in a box, videoing ourselves packing it up, and then open it in a year to see how much has changed. We were about to open a box of two dozen Yum Yums we laid to rest last New Year’s, 2010…

…but decided to let it go another year. We think that other than being harder than a rock, the donuts are going to look perfect but just be more dietarily appealing because, as you can see, all the grease has been absorbed by the box. But that outcome will now not be revealed until 2012.

This last Sunday, our Spudnuts were so good that we both saved the last bites with intentions of also wrapping them up for a year to open in January, 2012. But we both forgot them under the front seat of Charles’ car and when we went out a couple nights ago we found that all they were of use for by then were to break your jaw. At the moment of discovery, we were right across the street from another historic Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank. So we raced out of the car and posed in front of the Boy himself in order to offer you the last look at our delicious, beloved Spudnuts.

If by any chance you have a Spudnut establishment in your neighborhood – I have no idea if this is local to California or what – I’d sure like to know if they’re as good in your neck of the donut as in ours. Happy chewing!

12Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – My Sunday Drive with Charles Phoenix

12Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – My Sunday Drive with Charles Phoenix

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday is to take a drive with my fabulous friend, Charles Phoenix, who knows the kitsch heights of Los Angeles and surrounding areas unlike anyone else on the planet. As we both adore LA and equally revere its vintage past, we regularly tool through sections of town with unbelievable architecture and restaurants still unscathed by the wrecking ball. Usually we have a set destination but this time we just decided to get in the car and let the wheels take us where they may.

Our first stop was at Spudnuts in Inglewood, where Charles had heard there were unbelievable donuts made out of potatoes. We had an appetizer there.

For the main course we hit Dinah’s in Culver City.

The 1950’s interior of Dinah’s is as fabulous as that massive bucket of fried chicken that hovers above the restaurant outside.

I especially like the carvings in the floor:

Charles and his fried chicken look excellent against the interior.

I got fried chicken too but it was my sides that were most impressive if one is judging on the culinary kitsch scale. First, there was my creamed spinach, which looked and tasted much more like elementary school paste:

Then there were my green beans. We were particularly fascinated by one particular bean as it was just a hollow tunnel with no bean inside. See how you can see clear down to the fork prong?

It’s just this kind of detail that makes this relaxed kind of day even better. There was also an outstanding detail at the IHOP we passed in Westchester, just outside LAX.

Most IHOP’s are known for their pancakes, not their horses:

Driving through Hawthorne we passed many modern 60s buildings like this…

…as well as fantastic signage like this:

We didn’t stop at Pizza Show as we were on our way to far more impressive vintage architecture and signage:

Each letter is mounted on a metal mesh canister that lights up.

The roofline is spectacular.

Other then the ratty white plastic chair that too many restaurants use for outdoor seating, the interior of Chips is just as fantastic as the exterior:

Also fantastic is the name of the whipped cream they squirt at Chips:

Charles had quite a lot of Affair going on inside his chocolate malt.

I had a sensible tossed salad with about 10,000 calories worth of Thousand Island dressing and a nice cup of watery vegetable soup.

Next we hit King’s Hawaiian Bakery in Torrance.

Charles, featured recently on the front page of the Wall Street Journal with his towering Chepumple pie/cake, wanted some King’s Rainbow Bread so we each bought a loaf. I think you can see why:

The only thing better at King’s than that psychedelic bread is the giant pineapple holding up the ceiling in the dining room.

We continued on through Torrance, passing many more incredible 1960s office buildings.Some people think these edifices look like crap. To us, they’re a Pantheon among Pantheons.

But by far, my favorite architecture in Torrance is the Palos Verdes Bowl.

The curved rock wall reminds me of 1950’s Vegas.

The cut-out metal overhangs are pretty great:

The font is even greater, with a new ‘O’ getting it almost right except the color:

But even more impressive than the bowling alley exterior was the outfit on this bowler:

It’s hard to see in this photo but that’s a matching shimmery lion shirt and pants. The way the sun bounced off the lion on this guy’s butt was astounding. The jeans were very shiny too. I can only hope that he had matching bowling shoes.

We left Palos Verdes and passed a plethora of great vintage signs like these in Lomita…

… and these in Long Beach:

We passed so many vintage motels they deserve a separate post. But this classic “Colonial” estabishment, with enough pillars to hold up a stadium, was one of my favorites. Fake facades are to motels what Liberace’s capes were to Liberace.

As the sun began to set, we passed this excellent mural saluting the working people of Long Beach. I especially love the marionette looking man or is it a woman out in front with the orange toupee.

Our last stop was at this historic Bob’s Big Boy in Downey. Originally built in 1958 as Harvey’s Broiler, it’s considered the birthplace of car culture dining. Unfortunately, some of the neon was out.

We did get these excellent photos with Big Boy though.

And we got to sit in a fabulous newly-tweaked-but-vintage-nonetheless interior:

And we ate very sensibly as Charles demonstrates with his fit-conscious cottage cheese…

… and me with my second tossed salad of the day. It seems blasphemous to be in an authentic diner and not get a lump of Thousand Island on something.

All in all a was a wonderful day, tooling around LA with a wonderful friend whose eyes absorb kitsch as fast as mine and whose stomach knows how to theme eat so that what goes in matches the staggering sites that lie outside.

15Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschtastic Mansion and the Folks Inside

15Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschtastic Mansion and the Folks Inside

I always love this time of year in LA because the Christmas parties really kick into high gear. There aren’t as many of them this year because all pennies are being pinched but there was a killer one last night at a house RuPaul is renting for the month for just such holiday festivities. The added bonus last night was that it was our mutual friend, Tom Trujillo’s, birthday.

There’s nothing especially kitschy about all of us – except me I guess – but we all embrace our vast love of kitsch in the way we live and entertain. In Ru’s case, the house he rented takes appreciation of the genre to staggering heights.

First, some of the attendees and then, more photos of the kitschtacular edifice itself. Here’s a closer shot of Ru, me, birthday boy Tom, and Prudence Fenton.

Here I am with Santino Rice, of Project Runway and RuPaul’s Drag Race fame:

I love my soul sistas and sisters in real life, Scherrie Payne, formerly of The Supremes, and Freda “Band Of Gold”, “Bring The Boys Home” Payne.

Here’s me and five-time Grammy-winning composer, producer, conductor, arranger, and songwriter, Mervin Warren.

(L-R) Mito Aviles, Prudence, me, ChadMichael Morrisette and RuPaul.

Now onto the co-star of the evening, the house, mansion, palace or whatever you want to call it. First of all, it was massive. From the street it just looks like a long bush but from the back, if you put the following three photos side-by-side, it’s a hunka hunk o’ burnin’ living space:

The entire outside of the house is distressed so you constantly felt like you were whizzing through Europe.

There are three floors that I know of, possibly more, but we had already walked so much I was going to have to hire a car to take more of the tour. Most of the ceilings look something like this:

Many of the ceilings twinkled:

Most of the walls gave lots of time to the women:

The walls that weren’t giving props to the ladies had screens embedded in them with moving images of exotic places:

All of the staircases are very rustic yet ornate:

There are tons of little seating areas like these:

And lots of statues everywhere:

That statue overlooks the pool which overlooks the city of LA…

… and leads to a disco complete with a stripper pole downstairs:

I don’t know what I was thinking not taking a photo of the unbelievable pole dancer from Jumbo’s Clown Room who came to entertain Tom. I guess I was too busy running around taking photos of myself next to all the statues.

Pound for pound, it was a wonderful night with wonderful friends inside a wonderful wheel of brie house. I’m sure I’ll be back before Ru’s rental is up…

14Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – What The Kitschiest House In LA Looks Like At Christmas

14Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – What The Kitschiest House In LA Looks Like At Christmas

Anyone who’s ever driven past Norwood Young’s house in LA knows that it’s a prime candidate for a Kitschmas smorgasbord unlike all others. Depending on who you talk to, known affectionately or despicably as the House of Davids, it has enough wrought iron to circle the White House, all of which protects the 21 statues of David that line the driveway upon which usually sits Norwood’s jewel encrusted Rolls Royce. Here’s what Youngwood Court, as it’s officially known, looks like all year except December:

I, of course, worship at the altar of this edifice and landscaping that depict a victory for self expression through statuary that has driven many of Norwood’s neighbors crazy ever since he moved in umpteen years ago.

After years of religiously driving past the corner of Third and S. Muirfield if I was even remotely in the area I finally went to a party at Norwood’s about 10 years ago. As luck would have it, he was a songwriter and a fan of my songs so in years to come I got to enter the palace many times.

Unfortunately, that shot was taken at Patti LaBelle’s birthday party this year, which was NOT held at Youngwood Court which looks much more like this on the inside:

But this post is all about the outside and celebrating the Christmas spirit in a way that only Norwood can.

Sunday night I made my yearly pilgrimage to his place for the turning on the lights ceremony, complete with performances by the man himself and real snow that somehow managed to stay frozen despite the 80° weather that day.

Norwood had on a fabulous red velvet suit. I, unfortunately, had on the same outfit I wore to Patti’s birthday party:

Despite my fashion faux pas, I documented the fabulous insanity on the front lawn as I have in all years past.

So, in no particular order, here’s a sample of Christmas 2010 at Youngwood Court. Mind you, the Christmas models are all nude statues of David.

My eyeballs thank Norwood for this most merry Christmas tableau! I hope the neighbors appreciate their luck being this close to the West pole.

04Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Crazy California Cars I’ve Seen this Week

04Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Crazy California Cars I’ve Seen this Week

That’s my 1955 Studebaker Commander. There’s nothing crazy about it; it’s just beautiful and an expression of part of who I am. I love people who still drive around in classic cars. But who I love even more are folks who play with their cars, decorating them full tilt as they see fit. It may not mean much to the rest of us that these people are expressing themselves to the world but as long as they’re not slamming into other cars or hurling obscenities out of the window, it makes the landscape more exciting and for that I’m ever thankful. Because of its forgiving climate, Southern California is Mecca for these cars. Here’s just a sample of what has crossed my eyeballs in the last week alone.

THE ROCK CAR, resting quietly in Burbank:

Definitely a homemade job. The top lump is pretty neat:

The bottom’s a little more chaotic:

My guess is that the whole car will eventually be covered to add a little weight as it schleps this around all day:

Here’s THE ZEBRA MONKEY CAR, spotted whipping down the streets of Riverside:

Zebra seems to be a common car motif, though it’s usually confined to the fake fur lining the dash or covering the seats. Less common are stuffed monkeys hanging on your car:

A nice attractive rear end provides the animals a nice home:

THE TIGER CAR, spotted racing down the 101:

THE FLAME FORD, parked in Burbank:

THE OBAMA BLING ESCALADE, with a totally jeweled ensignia and license plate cover. I had to hang a right just as I spotted it so I never saw if the sides or front were embellished as well.

THE CHEVY TRUCK WHOSE PARKING BRAKE DOESN’T WORK:

THE ‘VORK FROM HOME’ TRUCK:

I’m not sure what kind of pest control work someone can do from home and I’m not sure I would let anyone who allowed ‘work’ to turn into ‘vork’ and hasn’t washed their truck in a year teach me anything.

I definitely spotted a few others but my camera wasn’t close enough to snap them as they whipped by. I did, however, have my camera when I tried some eyelashes out on my own little souped-up Beetle:

14Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Giant Penny

14Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Giant Penny

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As you can tell from the photo, this “Lucky Penny” souvenir of Los Angeles is substantially larger than the real thing. It’s also so incredibly heavy that I suspect if I melted down it could pay for someone’s college education. Although it’s dated 1920 it was made in the 1960’s. I’m not quite sure what the tie in was between a penny and Los Angeles but I’ve always felt incredibly lucky to live in LA so I maybe it’s just as simple as that.

02Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Largest Marilyn Monroe Memorabilia Exhibition Ever!

02Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Largest Marilyn Monroe Memorabilia Exhibition Ever!

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The title of this post is somewhat misleading as although I really did go to the largest exhibition of Marilyn Monroe’s personal artifacts ever I assumed it wasn’t cool to take photos inside the Hollywood Museum where it took place so I only took my camera out to snap a few personal photos of my own. As I was driving home I was kicking myself that I didn’t break the rules and at least sneak a shot of Marilyn’s gigantic 1961 Cadillac Fleetwood limousine with her gloves and purse still lying on the back seat and the cap owned by the chauffeur, who owns the car to this day, still on the dash. There were checks written by Marilyn, personal notes, clothes, scripts, magazine covers including huge original photos of her Playboy spread – she graced the cover of the first Playboy ever – and anything else you could have ever hoped to see of Marilyn’s. The star, of course, was not here to celebrate with us having left the planet over 40 years ago but look who was wearing a gown that Marilyn wore to entertain the troops in Korea in 1951:

Our hostess for the evening was the lovely Ester Golderg:

The rest of my crew was (L-R) Chadmichael Morisette, Mito Aviles, (me, Marilyn), LaToya London, American Idol alumni and Nettie in my musical, The Color Purple, and Tiffany Daniels, Squeak in TCP.

The Hollywood Museum is in the old Max Factor building on Hollywood and Highland.

Max Factor was THE preeminent makeup artist and manufacturer during the Golden Age of Hollywood. There are still rooms in the building filled with the possessions and makeup of the stars who inhabited them like Joan Crawford, Judy Garland and Lucille Ball.

Well…Ok…I snuck one shot of Lucille Ball’s dressing table…

Ok, maybe two. This is Cary grant’s Rolls-Royce:

Some of the rooms are still named for the color of hair a star had with the corresponding makeup:

All in all we had a great evening and saw a lifetime of Marilyn but I’m soooo late for a meeting and need to get out of here so I need to end now or I won’t have time to put on makeup.

26Apr 2010

“Allee Willis’ Wonderland O’ Kitsch – East San Fernando Valley, Part 1” VIDEO

26Apr 2010

“Allee Willis’ Wonderland O’ Kitsch – East San Fernando Valley, Part 1” VIDEO

As Kitschmeister General I love, love, love the San Fernando Valley, just inches from the center of Hollywood and pumped full of Kitsch like a buffet line at Trader Vics. This is the first in a series of short films I’m making glorifying the Kitsch monuments that abound around me for bigisgood.tv. Part 1 features everything from Roman architecture and giant submarine sandwiches to clowns, frog families, volcanoes, giant fish, horses, shoe cars and very happy houses.

For the full glorious and kitschyfied tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRxzFdByMQs

And check out bigisgood.tv.

08Apr 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitschen O’ The Day – Susan Feniger on Top Chef Masters

08Apr 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitschen O’ The Day – Susan Feniger on Top Chef Masters

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Last night I went to the launch party for the new season of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters at Street, the restaurant I co-own in Los Angeles and home base for one of the competing TCMasters, Susan Feniger.

I met Susan in 1984 when my second art show ever, “Wear the Right Clothes Even at Home”, was at LA Eyeworks, the first store ever to make outrageous, personality filled eyeglass frames, and the tiny restaurant next door, City Cafe, later the original Border Grill, where Susan and Mary Sue Milliken were the chefs. The food was as outrageous as the eyeglasses and without question this was THE hot spot on Melrose back in the day. My art was pretty good too, including the unveiling of my motorized art version of my hit song, “Boogie Wonderland”.

The next year Susan and Mary Sue opened City, my all time favorite restaurant ever in the world, on La Brea and 2nd. I had my own column in Details magazine at the time, “Some like It Smog”, a diary of my daily life, and every column included the fact that I was sitting at City writing a song, meeting someone or throwing a party there like my big 4-0 that included Luther Vandross singing me Happy Birthday accompanied by my latest talent discoveries, the octogenarian go-go booted singing sensations, The Del Rubio Triplets.

City was my home away from home and the first and last time that octopus was ever my favorite dish. I never got over when it closed in the early 90’s and longed for the day when I had another restaurant to hang out in like that.

Every time Susan and Mary Sue opened another restaurant after that they asked me to invest. I was usually coming off a big hit but oftentimes the money that trickles down to the songwriter is so much less than legend has it it can induce cardiac arrest. So one by one I had to pass. They opened up a much larger version of Border Grill in Santa Monica and later in Las Vegas and in 1998 opened Ciudad downtown. All these restaurants were fantastic, exceedingly experimental and creative in their world vision of food. Susan and Mary Sue were also among the first chefs ever to have their own show on the Food Network, “Too Hot Tamales“. Finally, when Susan went out on her own to raise money to open Street, my musical, The Color Purple, had just opened on Broadway and I was IN!

Street opened in March, 2009. It’s fantastic, a total food adventure and usually where I am if I’m not at home.

Now back to last night and Top Chef Masters…

The party was totally happening, especially because Susan and her partner, Chef Tony Mantuano, won BOTH challenges and will be back to compete in the finals starting May 5th!

But I made a pretty basic mistake for someone who’s gonna blog about food. I forgot to take photos of any of it we were served as I was so busy trying to get shots off the screen with my camera constantly hiccuping as it tried to adjust to the light and fast-paced editing. Most of my shots look like they were taken from a roller coaster. I got numerous photos of my pants when the shots changed to other competing chefs and the flash finally went off as I lowered my camera under the table accompanied by a volley of audible “motherf*&#ker!”s.

However, herein lies the advantage of writing a blog called ‘Kitsch O’ The Day’. It’s the ULTIMATE Kitsch to miss so many photo opportunities not to mention forgetting to photograph the very thing you’re blogging about, food. So I’m at least proud of the fact that I lived up to my blog’s name. I also forgot to shoot overhead shots of the 350 people jammed into the restaurant that normally only seats 100. I was too full and, as LA is in the grips of the worst allergy season in memory, my head too swimmy to remember such basics as these. So try to imagine constant choruses of “oohs” and “ahs” as neverending trays of Street specialties like Paani Puri, Lamb Kafta Meatballs, Brazilian Acaraje and Japanese Shizo Shrimp were passed around with little bottles of signature Street vodka drinks. On the patio, tables were the laden with a family style sit-down feast that folks busted into like pigs at the trough. Here’s the menu (in lieu of the forgotten photographs):

The last dish, Malaysian Clams & Capriotada Bread Pudding, was the dish that Susan won the second challenge with, swapping clams for shrimp as Whole Foods, where the teams shopped, only had two clams in the entire store.

Insanely blurry I know. Blame it on the vodka with a hit of allergies.

The first Quick Fire challenge was one I could have nailed. The chefs were driven to Chinatown only to pull into a gas station to shop. This is a food palette I’m quite familiar with, non-chef/fast food junkie that I am. Susan and Tony did us proud with their top scoring Maple Bread Pudding With Caramelized Bananas.

Susan narrated the evening standing on a windowsill that divides the inside of the restaurant from the outside patio.

What’s so fantastic for me is that Street embodies all of the creative tenets I live by. It’s casual and serious at the same time, ever evolving, spontaneous and so far out of the box the sides aren’t even in sight.

I had lots of friends there and we all left equally stuffed.

Barbara McReynolds, me, Susan Feniger, Karen Levitas, Rhonda Saboff: top-chef-eyeworks_6367

Prudence Fenton, Jordan Vadnais, me, Ryan Hartigan: top-chef-jordan_6368

Me and Vicki Randall, from the Tonight Show Band: top-chef-vicki_6371

All proceeds from the night, both at the restaurant and from Top Chef Masters, went to Susan’s favorite charity which she’s been working with for 25 years, the Scleroderma Research Foundation. You can make a donation now too: https://www.srfcure.org/donate?view=donation. Make sure and say your gift is in honor of Susan Feniger. 100 clams or or more will get you an autographed cookbook. $500 or more will pop you in a seat at the May 25th “Cool Comedy – Hot Cuisine” event in LA featuring Susan’s food and appearances by Ray Romano, Bob Saget, Bill Bellamy, Craig Ferguson and other special guests. I’ll be there too (unless I’m chugging away at Street).

Photo credit: Prudence Fenton, Allee Wills

21Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Circus Liquor Sign

21Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Circus Liquor Sign

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Nothing like using a clown to sell inebriates to get a kid revved up for adulthood. This 26 foot high sign has been a landmark in North Hollywood, CA., featured in enough movies to get a horse drunk. I’m happy whenever I drive by it but still think mixing an icon of childhood with liquor probably happened because the store owner was drunk when he thought of it.