15Apr 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m off to Detroit!

15Apr 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m off to Detroit!

Off to host a greatest hits concert at my high school, Mumford, before the wrecking ball knocks down one of the most gorgeous Deco buildings ever ….

(Don’t start me on THAT!)…and the teachers, staff and principal are all let go so kids can walk into the cement block replacement and a wall of new faces over the summer.  So this is going to be a big, fat blowout-sendoff-of-an-affair if I have anything to say about it.  Which I do!

So 6PM. Thurs. night at Mumford. If you live in Detroit, get yourself to the funkiest couple of hours in the city.  You do NOT need to have gone to Mumford to enjoy this. Really, if I do say so myself, there isn’t a corner or mousehole in the world where they don’t know “September”.  It’s a fundraiser for the choir and tickets are only $5!!!

I’ll also be heading over to my father’s high school, Cass, which becomes only the second high school in the country to perform my musical, The Color Purple. Performances are Wed. – Sat.  Ive been waiting for the high school part of TCP since I wrote it so I can’t wait!

The rest of the week is filled with an endless slew of meetings with movers and shakers, large and small, as I feel out a couple of long term projects I want to do in Detroit. There will also be a lot of barbecue and soul food. In anticipation and though it’s not from Detroit, this was lunch from Uncle Andre’s in Studio City, Ca. yesterday:

 

Usually, I blog endlessly about my exploits in Detroit, but this time I come back to LA just in time to jump into rehearsals for my Allee Willis’ Super Ball Bounce Back Review live show at King King on May 8 & 9.  Im going to try and use this trip to become an interested and dedicated Tweeter, which has felt more like an invasion of my mental state since I signed up soon after the bird launched.  But I’ll be in trouble if I concentrate on blogging and not beefing up for my live show, using my hotel bedroom as a pretend stage and finishing the seemingly endless amounts of special visuals and animations I started getting ready with Alfonso Estrada for the show.

So Bon Voyage as I head for LAX. Listen for the tweety bird (which I’ll probably post the best of here too).  Back in a week. And back with AWMOK.com postings tomorrow when I awake in the Motor City.

11Apr 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Countdown To Blast-Off! 27 days & Counting ‘Til May 8&9!

11Apr 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Countdown To Blast-Off! 27 days & Counting ‘Til May 8&9!

Rehearsals for my May 8 & 9 return to the stage in my Super Ball Bounce Back Review have begun. Given what happened at my last show in October this is very significant!

I also leave for Detroit on Sunday where I’ll be hosting a benefit greatest hits concert at my high school and telling stories of how some of my biggest hits were written while students perform the songs. This includes kids from the dance and drama classes, concert choir, marching band and ROTC drill team.

Don’t even ask me how excited I am about that! Plus it gives me a chance to rehearse some of the stories I’ll be telling at my live show in LA in May. I’ll also be speaking to students at my father’s high school as Cass becomes only the second high school ever to perform my musical, The Color Purple. And all this is stuffed in between 8 trillion meetings with movers and shakers, big and small, to feel out a couple of long term projects that I want to do in my beloved home town.

All of which means I’m going to be completely insane over the next 30 days, which will inevitably cut down on my blogging activities as time I may have spent writing is now going toward prep and rehearsal of those ever-important two days in May, not to mention my week in Detroit.

As a result, I’m going to try and become an interested little tweeter. I don’t know if this will work as I’ve resisted regular tweeting ever since the bird first launched. As an avid natural writer, I’ve always viewed the constant barrage of 140 characters as an invasion to my headspace. I’m also someone who likes to think about what I do, so longer than 140 has always suited me best. But, at least from where my head is right now, tweeting may save me as I try to report in tiny chunks as opposed to longer daily excursions. Here are my tweets from yesterday documenting my first steps toward the stage again:

Rehearsals for my Super Ball Bounce Back Review at King King May 8 & 9 have begun! http://kingkinghollywood.com/


(BTW,What are the chances of there being another A. Willis gracing the stage with me? Well, that’s exactly the case here. That’s A. (Akua) Willis in the hat.)

Perhaps one day I’ll learn the lyrics to my own songs… Creeping slowly through Boogie Wonderland.

Slashing the script right outta da gate with Richard Dorton, my SKILLED and WELL REHEARSED tech director.

I know these are nothing dramatic and so far the only way I’m interested in tweeting is if I can have a photo as a punchline. I put this one up this morning, though the photo’s just a photo and not a punchline:

We’racing 2 finish horror film that opens my new show @ KingKing May 8&9. Best of horrific tech failures frm last show.

I hate typos like ‘We’racing’. That happened in efforts to cut down to less than 140 characters so a photo could accompany the tweet.  In the old world I also wouldn’t have wanted to give away the fact that I was making a horror film of the most Titanic moments from the last show, but in a tweet-filled world there’s no room for secrets.

Today’s a free day at home, marking the start of the three day/three suitcase packing process. Hopefully the bug hasn’t hit me full strength just yet and I won’t become one of those tweeting fools who shows you every single thing I’m putting into those suitcases.

Of course, I couldn’t resist and just tweeted that. Now I just need to knock this down to 140 charcters:

My nimble assistants, Dina and Suellen, cut face masks and assemble souvenir multipurpose “Unisex Pendants and Keychains” made out of bubblegum charms that will be for sale at Allee Willis’ Super Ball Bounce Back Review May 8&9 at King King in Hollywood.

 

 

09May 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 14, THE VIDEO

09May 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 14, THE VIDEO

As I’ve been blabbing about for weeks now, I had the extreme pleasure of conducting my high school marching band playing a medley of some of my greatest hits in the lobby of the theater I grew up in in Detroit with the cast of the musical I co-wrote, The Color Purple, singing along. I meant to post video of our performance as soon as I got home but to my horror, one of the three cameramen only shot the students from the back and the other both forgot to turn his camera on for parts of songs and babbled over the footage like he was the subject of a documentary. So it took quite a lot of editing to get something where you could even begin to see the  warm, wonderful and uplifting-higher-than-the-sky feeling that permeated the theater that day.

The performance was a benfit to buy new marching band uniforms for the Mumford band. The last time they got new uniforms was in 1984 when Jerry Bruckheimer, also a Mumford grad, bought them so they could play at the premiere of Beverly Hills Cop in Detroit. I got a Grammy for Beverly Hills Cop so this entire extravaganza was tied up in one fantastically organic bow!

Also organic was my shoes and socks combo in the Mumford school colors.

I had an excellent time wearing my hat, color coordinated to The Color Purple, the matinee of which started immediately after the closing notes of the marching band. Though my hat ecstacy only lasted a couple of bars. Too wobbly on my head.

If the music was wobbly at all it’s only the charm of a high school band and a songwriter who’s never learned how to read, notate or play music despite her songs selling more than 50 million records.

That’s the innocence of youth. I hope you enjoy our youth as much as me and the kids did. It was a VERY special experience indeed.

28Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 10 , The Restaurants

28Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 10 , The Restaurants

An important part of any urban experience is where and what you choose to eat. Anyone who knows me knows that no money needs to be wasted on the fanciest or trendiest restaurants in town. I wanted to hit the institutions in Detroit that not only involved the excitement I had as a child driving to them but that have proven to be quality enough (or, preferably, kitschy enough) to live on, restaurants whose very presence defines the personality of the city. Most of my all-time favorites have long since succombed, like Dinah Inn, Jerry’s, both great steakhouses off Woodward, and my all-time favorite deli, Darby’s. Even Carl’s Chop House closed a few years ago.

Thankfully, the Italian restaurant my family went to every Sunday night, Mario’s, is still there.

But although I recognized it from the outside, it’s gotten too gussied up on the inside to be of value to my hungering memory cells now. But old time tradition is still alive in some excellent vintage haunts I’d never been to before. First there’s Mr. Mike’s.

Now selling itself as a karaoke sports bar, Mr. Mike’s is old school dining experience enhanced by dimly lit fake Tiffany lamps, burgundy leatherette booths and stained glass windows.

I could do without the lattice work and Americana dowels but I do like that the banquettes remain intact.

I’m also not a big one for stripping away the plaster to expose the brick underneath in efforts to make a place look old. This place looks old enough without this 80’s postmodern touch.

The waiter didn’t have much patience for me flipping back and forth between a turkey club, onion soup au gratin, Chef’s Salad, and meatloaf, all steakhouse classics for me.

I finally settled on the meatloaf and loaded baked potato. Notice the fringe on the “Tiffany” lamp tilted for optimum lighting of my meatloaf.

The potato especially deserves a closeup:

Though we were all jealous of the liver and onions someone else at the table ordered:

As old school and perfect as the food was, as one of the “grown and sexy people” I’m really sorry to have missed DJ Poppi Smooth:

Another favorite restaurant this trip was Vince’s, an Italian joint in Southwest Detroit. Though I almost didn’t get past the entrance because of the blinding brilliance of this display:

Is the fluffy cotton/Christmas snow backdrop supposed to be steam rising from the pasta?

I don’t know, but the supreme naïveté and kitschiness of the encased pasta art was enough for me to proclaim Vince’s a must-eat-at Italian pit stop in the Motor City. And I’m happy to report that the beauty on the walls continued throughout the restaurant:

As impressed as I am with this Golden Colander award, I’m sure the owners are more excited by this:

I know it’s blurry but you can see it’s a hand-signed personal note from Frank. And you know that means business when it comes to an Italian restaurant. This one isn’t bad either:

Also not bad is the decor:

I was too hungry to remember to snap shots of any of the food but I did get this one of us eating. Well, I’m texting, but eating every other text.

Another stop on the vintage-and-still-standing restaurant run was Sign Of the Beefcarver on Woodward past 10 Mile.

I really wanted to go to this place down the block but it was closed:

But I was excited to hit the Beefcarver as I knew it was a cafeteria.

The food line did not disappoint. As I’ve come to expect in great cafeterias, there’s always a complete selection of salad items.

I had tossed salad with Thousand Island dressing, roast beef, mashed potatoes and corn, my signature meal when I’m in a cafeteria. I forgot to photograph the food here too as I was too busy looking at the walls.

Then, of course, there’s The Telway, with four burgers for $2.25.

And Lafayette Coney Dogs.

I wish I could’ve hit more joints when I was in Detroit but I was too busy preparing for this:

And this:

But my utensils remain sharpened. I’m all ears if anyone else can suggest more vintage eateries for my next trip home which, I’m happy to report, is imminent!

 

25Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 7, Fox News and Marching Band Rehearsal

25Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 7, Fox News and Marching Band Rehearsal

Tues., April 5, started at 7 am. (Kill me now; that’s the middle of the night for me.) Thank God there was a Yum Yum (my dictation software just typed that as Young Dumb) Donuts open in Southfield, the suburb of Detroit where Fox News is located. So I hit Young Dumb for a quick sugar infusion and rolled up the street to Fox in time to be on the morning news. Thank God the Green Room, one of the few actually painted green I’ve been in, had a nice, squishy couch. The donuts hadn’t quite kicked in yet.

The lighting in the studio definitely woke me up…

…though unfortunately, not quite enough.

The anchor interviewing me, Anqunette Jamison, was really nice and definitely had done her research. Nothing worse than waking up two hours after you’ve gone to bed to be interviewed by someone who wished that Reese Witherspoon was sitting across from them.

Driving back we passed this sign on a building, which emulated the discombobulated feeling I still had from being up before the crack of dawn and having to sound coherent.

We also passed vintage gems like this. I love that the pigeons have checked in.

I love any and all Deco/Streamline Moderne architecture.

Other than that second story looks like an add-on. Way too boxy and wrong kind of windows.  But excellent color scheme and at least the occupants had the good sense not to knock it down.

This wall killlllled me:

I took photos next to everyone and then it was on to Mumford, my high school and the main reason I was in Detroit that week, to conduct the marching band playing a medley of seven of my greatest hits with the cast of my musical, The Color Purple, that was playing at The Fox, the theater I grew up in.

My best friend from high school, Sherry (Erman) Stewart, went with me. Which was completely appropriate as it was Sherry I wrote my first song for at 15. She was running for class secretary and I wrote her campaign theme – “Oh vote for Sher-ry/fur (erman is a mink-like animal) sec-re-tar-ry”, kind of to the tune of “This Land Is Your Land” but not really. (Even in those days I thought about copyright infringement.) Here we are standing over the plug that was our mark to position ourselves over on stage for that most auspicious musical debut.

I hope someone saves me that plug when the wrecking ball hits the school next year (don’t get me started on wrecking balls hitting gorgeous Deco buildings…). I art-directed Sherry’s campaign as well.

It’s shocking looking at that from five decades ago how little my style has changed…. Sherry, btw, won the election!

Next it was watching the marching band, pom pom girls and twirlers rehearse for our big extravaganza coming up at The Fox on Saturday.

I was shocked (and awed) at how together they were.

Then John Wilkins, Mumford’s band conductor and arranger for over 20 years, asked me to come up and conduct the band.

First I warned the kids that despite selling over 50,000,000 records I still had no idea how to read, notate or play music.

Then we swung into action playing “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Neutron Dance”, “Stir It Up”, “In the Stone”, “I’ll Be There for You (theme from Friends)”, and “The Color Purple”, the songs we’d be preforming.

Here I am with the Pom Pom Girls and Twirlers. This was, of course, what I always wanted to be when I was in high school. But this photo is as close as I ever got:

I know you’re going to ask me what “GRAMMI” is. I don’t know. Perhaps a misspelling of Grammy, which I misspelled constantly myself – Grammie – after receiving one for Best Soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop, the film that I not only had songs in but that immortalized my high school after Eddie Murphy wore a Mumford Phys Ed shirt throughout the movie, linking Mumford and I forever.

As we drove back to the hotel I finished the Young Dumb donut from this morning, though I was tempted to stop here, which I hear are the best donuts in Detroit:

20Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 5, The School and The Hot Dogs

20Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 5, The School and The Hot Dogs

The first time I ever went back to my high school, Mumford, after graduating in 1965 was when my musical, The Color Purple, first came to the Fox Theatre in 2008.

I do love the color purple but growing up my two favorite colors were pink and baby blue, the colors of my high school.  And I don’t mean team colors.  I mean the high school itself.

The aesthetic impression this custom dyed baby blue limestone with maroon-faded- to-pink trim 1949 edifice made on me is immeasurable. I’m still obsessed with that color combo and carry it on in much of my daily life.  For example, the sidewalks at Willis Wonderland are baby blue.

My Corvair was pink with a baby blue interior.

And oftentimes my footwear is revving up the school spirit.

I had those exact shoes and socks on when I conducted the Mumford marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits with the cast of my musical, The Color Purple, singing along at the Fox the weekend before last (Ap. 9). I wish you could see my socks in this photo:

Back in 2008, it had been 43 years since I had walked into Mumford. I was always dying to go back but my visits home were very short and my family had long since deserted Detroit for the suburbs. But throughout the writing of The Color Purple, from 2001-2005, I felt very close to Detroit. Despite everything I had heard about the city crumbling, I still believed it could pick itself back up and be great. Be it a person or a city, believing in who or what you are is crucial. But how do you build up into something great when everyone has counted you out? That for me was close to the Color Purple storyline.

I had read how many schools were closing in Detroit so I figured Mumford would be a total mess. A few months prior to my trip I contacted then-principal Linda Spight to see if I could stop by. I also said I’d be happy to speak to the arts students if she wanted me to. I didn’t have my hopes up as there was actually no school the week I was in but Linda said she thought she could get some students there. We left it at that and I wasn’t even sure that she was going to remember I was coming when I walked in with my brother, sister and two best friends from high school. Instead, it was one of those dream sequences that happens when you conjure up your fantasy of what it’s going to be like when you go back to something so massive in your memories. Anything in the school that could have been covered in purple was, including this gift basket presented to me by Miss Spight, stuffed with Mumford pencils, t-shirts, keyrings and anything else that could be impregnated with that gorgeous baby blue and maroon/pink hue.

And all over the school there were posters like this:


Teachers and students had come in special and even did things like perform dance pageants for me…

…and sing.

The marching band even played a special medley from Beverly Hills Cop, the film that made the high school famous when Eddie Murphy wore a Mumford Phys Ed T-shirt throughout it.

I won a Grammy for Beverly Hills Cop, which happily and inextricably linked me to Mumford forever.

Though it seemed a little strange that this BH Cop band salute to me didn’t include “Neutron Dance” and “Stir It up”, my two songs in the film. But here’s where being an avid kitsch lover kicks in. The enormity of the exclusion was almost better than if The Pointer Sisters or Patti LaBelle had popped in to sing the songs with the band. And trust me, John Wilkins, the then and now band director, more than made up for it with the extravaganza at the Fox we pulled off a couple of Saturdays ago, of which I will be posting about and putting videos up on Youtube soon.

Despite my songs being left out, I made it to the yearbook in 2008.

I look much better as a full page than one of a thousand heads.

You probably want to see that photo close up…

As great as it was, I haven’t talked much about that trip to Detroit. I took a camera person with me so that every single inch of my big homecoming could be preserved. I was even getting an official commendation from the city.

As I received my award from Councilwoman Martha Reeves – MARTHA of Martha and the Vandellas, the singer whose records had had such an impact on me as a songwriter – all I could think about was how lucky I was to have this moment preserved forever on tape.

But ha ha, silly me. Never assume that just because someone is holding a camera they know what they’re doing.

I’ve never talked about this trip before because I came back with literally not one minute of usable footage. I was so excited to get a Detroit section up on my blog and to send footage and photos back to the high school, but other than shots of people’s feet, ceiling air vents and a camera that shook so much I put money down on a slow Wild Turkey drip directly into the veins, I got nothing. I even told my friends or family specifically that they didn’t have to take photos because I knew I could pull stills from the video. For example, here I am receiving my commendation:

Exactly… So to prevent a similar catastrophe this trip I took three camera people. One of them was perfect, one of them shot as if they were filming a funeral – dead-on straight shots with little sense of the oomph of the spirit of the person they were shooting – and one of them not only consistently showed up late and missed much of the action but blabbed all over the footage as if shooting his own documentary. But at least I got something. Plus, I know it’s these kinds of unforeseeable mishaps that often make for the best kitsch in retelling the story. A love of kitsch can turn trauma into opportunity!

This trip I went back to Mumford to attend an alumni meeting in the library.

I always loved the book reliefs in the hallways.

It’s architectural details like that that make me SICK the wrecking ball is slated to hit the school next year. Please save me the drinking fountain…

…and a few of these tiles that run along the walls through the entire school.

We didn’t discuss wrecking balls or keepsakes at the alumni meeting but, rather, volunteers for the big Mumford marching band event at the Fox that coming weekend. That’s Linda Spight to my right. And look, more baby blue and maroon clothes for my closet!

Which is good because the last time I fit in my letter sweater (for volleyball) was in 1974, when I mutated it into a backdrop for my fan club pin collection.

I was to return to Mumford the next day for a quick run-through of my seven songs I’d be conducting the marching band playing on Saturday – “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Neutron Dance”, “Stir It Up”, “In the Stone”, “I’ll Be There for You (theme from Friends)”, and “The Color Purple”.

More about that tomorrow. But as for how I ended my Mumford day this day, I’d been dreaming about that ever since I knew I was coming back to Detroit: Lafayette Coney Dogs, THE hot dog in the city and fortunately (0r unfortunately depending on how you look at it) right around the corner from my hotel.

For anyone who’s saying that Coney Islands are from New York I would like to set the record straight. Coney Islands – Nathan’s hot dogs with mustard and chili – were indeed born at Coney Island, NY. But the chili was added in Detroit. And for the greatest chili dog I’ve ever tasted (sorry Pink’s) it’s Lafayette, the front window of which is also immortalized in the opening titles of HBO’s Hung.

Not only are the hotdogs insanely incredible – with that signature pop when you chomp down – but they’re delivered by a waiter who does (exceedingly obscure) magic tricks. Meet Ali Faisel.

That’s a fork balancing on the end of two toothpicks, one of which is shooting out of a pepper shaker. He does quite a trick balancing twelve nails on a screw too.

There’s no trick to smothering french fries with chili at Lafayette.

Thankfully, that wasn’t my order of fries. There’s nothing baby blue or maroon about them. And this post is supposed to be about school and not hot dogs and fries. So I’ll leave it at that and see you tomorrow.

11Apr 2011

Oops, I thought I’d be back in action….

11Apr 2011

Oops, I thought I’d be back in action….

My intentions were good. I was gonna wake up and spring back into action as I haven’t blogged regularly in over a week but my body still feels like it’s broken into 13 million pieces and I need a recuperation day from one of the greatest weeks in my life in Detroit that included giving a speech about the rejuvenation of the city, conducting my beloved Mumford high school marching band playing a medley of some of my greatest hits and, for the first time since my musical, The Color Purple, opened five years ago, conducting part of the show. My spirits are HIGH, like being powered by a hemi engine, but I need time to decompress, not to mention unpack my seven suitcases, go through the thousands of photos that were taken, begin transferring the close to 75 videotapes that were amassed, and somehow attempt to get back to my everyday life of music and mayhem in Los Angeles. So give me 24 and I hope to be back with something soon…

 

28Mar 2011

Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! – A Benefit for Mumford High School

28Mar 2011

Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! – A Benefit for Mumford High School

Next week I’m going back to my home town, Detroit, to conduct my high school marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the lobby of the theater I grew up in before a performance of my musical, The Color Purple, with the cast leading a sing-along.  It’s a fundraiser to buy new uniforms for the Mumford marching band because with over 40 kids in the band, some of them are still marching around in threads from when I were there.  Although I never made marching band as I never learned to play an instrument. I never learned how to read music either which should make my conducting this event most interesting to say the least!

My high school was made famous in Beverly Hills Cop when Eddie Murphy wore a Mumford Phys Ed T-shirt throughout the film. I won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop so my destiny and that of my high school  are inextricably linked.   Mumford is one of the largest schools in the city, 99% African-American and close to that percentage underprivileged. The Color Purple is about believing in and loving yourself, a rise from less nothing to everything that you never even dared to dream.  I want to instill that hope in these kids.

I know most of you don’t live in Detroit –  any of you who do please come to the Fox on Saturday April 9, from 11- 12:30 PM – but you  can still help us march. Please donate to help this most fabulous high school and help invigorate the spirit of Detroit.

And please forward the invitation or give the links to anyone you think might be interested in attending the event or donating to the cause. We need all the $$ we can get!

Invitation- https://www.alleewillis.com/mumfordinvite

All text version – https://www.alleewillis.com/mumfordinvite-text

Direct link to ticket/donation page: https://www.alleewillis.com/mumford

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!