I love pens in the shape of things but none more so than this souvenir writing implement from Washington made of plastic in the 1950’s. I don’t know if it’s the first leg or only leg of the trip but the shape of the foot is so perfect to end in a pen point. Although I can’t remember where it was from, either Washington DC or Florida, I had one of these as a kid and loved using it so much I credit it with being part of the reason I became a writer.
Giving equal time today to Dr. Ben Casey as yesterday was Dr. Kildare’s day. Ben Casey was actually my first love. I swooned over his swarthy, dark looks and, truth be told, collected more Casey than Kildare. Although I acquired this actual pair of 3D lenticular “Ben Casey As Portrayed By Vincent Edwards Cuff Links” at Chic-A-Boom in Hollywood in 1980, I did actually have this exact pair as a kid. They went to school with me almost every day as I became fanatic about wearing blouses with long sleeves and cufflinks holes just so I could have Dr. Casey with me.
These “As seen on ABC Network TV” cufflinks were made by Bing Crosby Productions exclusively for Sears, Gerald Sears Sales Promotion Service, not THE Sears, in 1962.
Thought I would give props to Dr. K. today seeing as I spent Friday night over at his place watching The Towering Inferno, which he, Richard Chamberlain, aka Dr. Kildare, costarred in as the guy who skimped on the wire and started the whole barbecue. It was unbelievable to sit next to him watching this movie, one of the two original disaster films along with The Poseidon Adventure, and hearing him yell No, Dick!”, “Don’t do it, Dick!” as he tried to steal a seat in the little swinging chair thing strung between the burning hi-rise and the building across the street before it crashed taking him and his beautiful ’70s wide lapel velvet suit down.
I took my Thumpy stethoscope along with my Dr. Kildare and Nurse Nancy paper dolls book, greeting card with Dr. K.AND Ben Casey and my “Theme from Dr. Kildare (Three Stars Will Shine Tonight)” 45 over there for Richard/ Dr. Kildare to sign but promptly forgot to yank any of it out. And how I didn’t snap a photo of us is crazy given my proclivity for storing every significant moment of my life digitally for the last 25 years… So I’ll just have to listen to this thing beat until I see him again. Which will be very soon as he’s coming over here for dinner in a few weeks. Which makes my heart go thumpy.
Made in 1963 by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Inc. and Amsco Industries Inc, Thumpy’s packaging boasts that there’s no batteries and nothing to wind – “Pick me up!”, “Hear Me Thump!”- and that “light movement activates “heartbeat””. They’re not kidding. This thing, US patent no. 2570740, starts beating if you even tiptoe by.
The water stains weren’t acquired until the late ’80s when Thumpy and my Brigitte Bardot By Lovable bra were the victims of a tragic dishwasher leak on the floor above which they resided.
I collect anything Beatnik, especially when the colloquialisms of the day accompany it. “Like, man, lend me your ear” was in heavy rotation circa 1956, printed on bed sheets, stationery, statues and any other kind of collectibles that could be pushed on the burgeoning newly liberated teen and young adult crowd.
This guy has a “real” mustache and goatee, the kind of furry, feathery stuff they stuck on cats and other ceramic animals in the ’50s and ’60s. But what’s all those black whiskers on his nose?!
Also not sure why the ceramicist portrayed him as an old bald man as the Beat generation represented all that was rebellious about youth. But this incongruity kicks it up a notch on the Kitsch scale so I’m not complaining.
This promotional ashtray was put out by Columbia Records in 1956 for their big star, Doris Day, and her big hit, “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”. It has an exalted place in my Kitsch kollection because the title is printed backwards: “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)”. Whether the record sharks felt the foreign language was above the audience’s head or the manufacturer, Ceramicraft, goofed remains something only Doris or her dogs might know the answer to.
This ashtray was one of the first things I found when I first started seriously collecting in the early 1970’s and I decided to start collecting pop music memorabilia as a result of finding it. It came as a set with “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
I love this ashtray not only for the Kitsch title scramble but for the sentimental fact that my first job out of college was at Columbia Records, though long after Doris’s day had passed.
Don’t even ask how many Ponytail products I had as a kid because not only did I have a ponytail on my head that I thought made me look like the Ponytail girl but I had the diaries, dictionaries, deskettes, jewelry boxes, record totes and anything else that had the Ponytail girl on it.
My dictionary was powder blue and the deskette, a flat binder that opened to reveal slots for paper, pencils and envelopes, was red. But nothing touched my heart and made an indelible stamp on my aesthetic sense forever like the powder pink on the glass case here. Just looking at the pink Ponytail gal poking up in my bucket bag when I went to look for my milk money was enough to keep me happy all day. And since then that same pink has been all around me, from my house to my ’62 Corvair to anything else I love that I have a choice of color in.
Popular causes have always been prime breeding ground for Kitsch but none so powerful as the first wave of products that spin out of these Pop Culture phenomenon. Both Libby The Lovely Liberated Lady and the Do-It-Yourself Coloring Kit Black Power Statuette are two such statements from burgeoning Civil Rights movements in the 1960s and ’70s when these folks were expressing themselves freely among the masses for the first time.
Unintentionally Kitsch, the best kind, these qualify as Kitsch treasures for two different reasons. Libby because she took on THE characteristic of the oppressor she was attempting to free herself from and the Black Power Statuette because whoever his product manager was was too cheap to spend the extra pennies to add a little tan color to the resin. Power to the Kitsch people!
I love actual owls and ladybugs but none so much as these transistorized versions. I have entire zoos and forests of these things but these are two of my favorites – a ladybug who, when you twist her left eyeball, opens her wing to expose a still working speaker and an owl who, when you twist her right pink rhinestone eyeball, chirps the sound of AM radio as clear as the day she was hatched. I bought the owl in the early ’80s and she still works perfectly despite the fact that I’ve never changed her batteries.
The ladybug’s all plastic and made in Hong Kong by Sonnet, British Design. Five inches long by an inch and a half tall, she comes with a convenient wrist strap and two rubber antennae which serve no apparent purpose.
The owl, made in Japan, is 8 inches tall and fat with a plastic body and gold medal wings, eyes, legs and speaker holes in the crotch.
Close ups of the species:
Nothing better than celebrity Kitsch! They have enough money and should know better but that’s when some of the biggest Kitsch gets committed. The killers happen with products that have nothing to do with the person’s name that adorns them like Mohammed Ali shoe polish, products that have all too much to do with the celebrity like a Brigitte Bardot bra, or products that shouldn’t have anything to do with the celebrity like Lucille Ball cigarettes. It’s all here in Film #4 in my “What Is Kitsch?” film fest commemorating the opening of the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch.
Running around all day today on about a second of sleep doing final tweaks on the first party celebrating the Grand Opening of The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch tonight as well as coding my tootsies off on the virtual Museum, the heart of the experience, at AWMoK.com. I hope to open the floodgates online at noon LA time. (Until then, the ‘Coming September 14th’ page with the trailer, press and a few other goodies is still there.) Not sure I’ll make the noon door opening but once it flies open there’s some magnificently supreme kitsch to browse through in The Museum itself and in the Kitschenette wing there are incredibly easy instructions, customized for dummies and people like me who get confused reading directions of any sort, for how to submit your own prize Kitsch.
AWMoK.com is a mini social network, built to scale up and incorporate more interactivity as more Kitsch is injected into it. Please visit later today or tomorrow and register to become an aKitscionado, another process that I’ve slaved over so it’s pathetically quick and easy. You can browse both The Museum and The Kitschenette but you need to register in order to submit anything or make comments.
Party photos will go up sometime tomorrow and video will follow though not sure when. The parties, tonight and next Monday night, were supposed to be webcast but the DSL at the gallery can’t handle the upload speeds so now it means digitizing six hours of footage from each of the three cameras and editing everything, a far more gruesome process than just letting it stream as it happens. But photos will be up as soon as I wake up tomorrow, which could be God knows what time as I haven’t slept in a week and have to do a lot of press tomorrow.
Today is also the beginning of a weeklong “What Is Kitsch?” Film Festival on YouTube, eight short films I made on the subject of Kitsch. I’ll be posting the links to these when I upload them. There are two going up today, the introductory film, “What Is Kitsch?”, as well as one that’s about submitting items to The Museum. (When I say submitting items I mean images and descriptions. As much as I’d love to own all the stuff you guys tell me about, The Museum is virtual so photos and not the actual item is what you’ll be contributing.)
I’ve worked on putting The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch together online ever since I started my Kitsch O’ The Day blog seven months ago. Integrating virtual and physical spaces is what I’ve dreamed about doing since I stumbled on the Internet in 1991. I hope you enjoy The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch, The Kitschenette and the eight short films as much as I’ve enjoyed – though sometimes been tortured by! – making them.
Nice story in the LA Times today too.
