Allee Willis Blog

15Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Music Ring, Famous Songwriters and The Beaver!

15Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Music Ring, Famous Songwriters and The Beaver!

I’m so NOT the type to wear a ring with a G-clef on it or have one of those cheesy license plates like GR8T BEAT. My gold records don’t hang in the living room so they’re the first things you see when you walk in and my clothes aren’t Bedazzled with musical notes. But this ring is so stone cold handtooled 1960s my finger had to have it.

I bought the ring about 10 years ago on eBay from someone in Memphis. I can feel a heavy barbecue-grease-guitar-picking vibe every time I slip it on. It also weighs a ton, quite a surprise as it looked like a cheap plastic gum ball machine prize ring in the photo online. So I end up wearing it a lot. Like I did Saturday night when I went out with my friend, Stan Zimmerman, though the hand I’m holding up in this photo unfortunately isn’t the one my fabulous music ring was on.

As unlikely as I am to have musical notes pasted all over my personal accouterments I’m just as unlikely to show up at a party where singers and songwriters take turns singing their own songs. I’m around music and singing all day; I don’t want to be around music and singing all night. Plus, despite my musical proclivities I don’t play an instrument so the possibility of me even being able to plunk the opening note of one of my songs at a party like this is nil. But there were the ring and I and Stan at a party that featured just that, thrown by voice coach to the stars, Eric Vetro, and songwriter/producer to the stars, Desmond Child. So many of my friends were there though that me, Stan and the ring had a great time despite not participating in the main event.

I go wayyyyyyy back with the first folks I saw, from (L-R) Rick Nowels, Maria Vidal, (me), Toni Basil, and Desmond Child.

Soooooo far back that I was practically in diapers when we met. Desmond and Maria were in a group called Desmond Child & Rouge who, in the mid 1970’s, sang at Reno Sweeney, a cabaret in Manhattan where I was the person who walked around the city by day nailing up fliers of upcoming performances. I saw them sing every night because in addition to my $20 a day salary I got to eat at Reno’s for free. Maria married Rick in the late 80’s. Between me, Desmond and Rick we’ve sold somewhere around 500,000,000 records and have had just about as many great times together. What we all had in common was also Bette Midler, the biggest thing to come out of the New York cabaret scene and the biggest jewel in our show biz clique. Even back in the 70’s Toni Basil was Bette’s choreographer. She was also one of my first friends and collaborators when I moved to LA in 1976. Here were are in 1982 at a party I threw for her when “Mickey” went #1.

Here we are Saturday night with singer Sarah Hudson and X-Factor’s Storm Lee thrown in.

Maria and I also spent a lot of time in a corner chatting with Frances Fisher.

Another friend from my 1970’s NY days at the party Saturday night was Allan Rich, who sang at Catch A Rising Star, the big comedy club where I was the hatcheck girl at the time. Allan got his big break when he was a shoe salesman and gave Barry Manilow a tape of his songs when he sold him some shoes.

I spent a lot of time talking to Michael Orland, the Music Director at American Idol and with whom I’m about to start writing tomorrow.

I’m completely sick of not being able to sing my own songs at parties like this so, just like an American Idol, I’m also going to rehearse a little medley of my hits with Michael so when Eric and Desmond throw this party again next year I can get up and sing instead of chatting through everyone’s songs because so many of my friends are there. Like songwriter extraordinaire, Diane Warren.

But despite how much musical talent was at the party there was clearly one star that shone brighter for me than any other and that was THE BEAVER!!!

Jerry Mathers, The Beaver, who I watched incessantly as a kid…

The same Beaver whose memorabilia I’ve faithfully collected all these years…

The same Beaver who’s going to come over in a few weeks and autograph all that memorabilia!! If I collected memorabilia from anything as recent as Desperate Housewives I would also invite Marc Cherry, seen here waiting for his car with me, Stan and The Beav.

All in all, it was a great night for me, Stan and my funky l’il music ring!

14Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – My Seriously Kitschy Birthday Gifts

14Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – My Seriously Kitschy Birthday Gifts

I wasn’t going to do anything for my birthday this year. Too overworked and no extra coinage to throw around. But word leaked out and spread and all of a sudden these people, most of whom I’ve spent every birthday and momentous occasion with for umpteen years, showed up at my house:

Bottom row (L-R): Diva Zappa, Lisa Loeb, me, Prudence Fenton and Michael Patrick King.
Middle row (L-R): Jane Wagner, Lesley Ann Warren, Bob Garrett, Lily Tomlin, Pamela Des Barres, Karen Levitas, Gai Gherardi, Gail Zappa, Nancye Ferguson, Stan Zimmerman and Jim Burns. Top row (L-R): Ben Bove, RuPaul, Tom Trujillo, Roey Herschovitz, Jimmy Quill, Charles Phoenix, Sonny Ruscha Bjornson, Mark Blackwell and Jack Nesbit.

Though all of my friends may not practice kitsch like the religion I do, their lives and occupations are consumed with pop culture and they all bring unique individual style and vision to everything they do. None of us are color-in-the-lines people. Which means that when it comes to birthday presents, it’s fantasyland overload as their sensibilities collide with mine in harmonious gift wrapped chaos! For example, here I am with perennially great gift givers Nancye Ferguson and Jim Burns:

Jim is looking very happy because the video game he stars in, Call Of Duty Black Ops, was released the day before and set the opening day record for ANY type of entertainment,Is he is grossing $320,000,000 by the time he reached my house. Maybe that’s why they got me 14 gifts. Though Nancye and Jim are always reliable for a smorgasbord of age-inappropriate-unless-you-happen-to-be-me offerings like this magnificent 1950’s mother of pearl poodle pocket mirror/pill box:

… and this convenient land line phone ear piece for my iPhone:

They also gave me this wonderfully famous Enid Collins owl box purse…

…and this fantastic 50’s fold up wallet with plastic coin holder inside like the Good Humor ice cream man used to wear on his belt to give people change:

They also threw in this 1960’s Wilma Flintstone bathing cap.

Here I am with Pamela Des Barres, the world’s most famous groupie, and Diva and Gail Zappa, who came straight to my place from the airport after being honored at a Frank Zappa festival in London.

Pamela is a fabulous writer and also travels a lot for her work. Which is lucky for me and the rest of her friends as she hits thrift shops wherever she goes and picks up stuff for us all year round. She makes these finds for pennies and stacks them up so she can arrive like Santa Claus on any given occasion. These “On The Wagon’ coaster and snack trays she gave me are just about my favorite bar accessory ever!

I love when snacks are referred to as ‘Tid Bits’, especially when what is normally a single word is broken up into two separate words as stamped into the belly of the wagon.

This nightshirt could be the heaviest gift of the evening. It’s hard to see all the 1960’s pop culture graphics and slogans in this photo and I’m not sure who the characters on it are but there were more than a few vintage clotheshorses at the party, certainly including myself, and we all agree that Pamela’s $2 purchase would easily go for $500 in the right store.

Then there’s this early 60’s Make-Up Mask that you pull over your bouffant to protect the Max Factor from rubbing off your face when you pull your angora sweater over it:

Pamela graciously modeled it for us throughout the evening.

Her excellent gift giving instincts have definitely rubbed off on the other Des Barres in attendance, Michael, who reliably gives me fantastic African swag.

At one point there was a girl’s conference in the bedroom. Here I am with (L-R) Lily Tomlin,Prudence Fenton, and Jane Wagner:

Prudence not only cooked an incredible dinner for everyone but made the excellent “Crackerature” portrait of me that’s between our heads in the photo above.

Lily and Jane gave me the most ridiculous-in-the-best-kitsch-sense-of-the-word-ridiculous gift of the night:

He’s only about 3″ high, his little arms are made out of bobby pins and his body is some kind of overcooked Sculpy or baking soda concoction. The card that accompanied him was just as kitschy.

The Diller is Phyllis Diller, which adds a few pounds on the kitsch scale for this gift. The note Jane and Lily wrote me make the cheese wheel even weightier:

Joining Lily and I here is Stan Zimmerman. We all grew up in Detroit.

Stan added a little class to my gifts with this 1950’s signed Sasha Brastoff ashtray.

Here’s Lily and I with RuPaul. Both of them have added greatly to the kitsch cache of my alter-ego, Bubbles the artist, as they are the #1 and #2 collectors of her art, each owning over 20 pieces.

Michael Patrick King, seen here with Pamela Des Barres’ lovely feet, brought me some of my most Americanized presents.

He brought my gifts back from Dubai when he was there filming Sex and the City II. First, this green shopping bag featuring a carefree Michelle Obama:

And then this brain-numbing Muslim Barbie shoulder bag:

I got one more bag, actually a Kitsch Emergency Kit, from Karen Levitas.

It’s nice when your friends give you a healthy snack of sardines to enjoy while you read cheesy poetry from the 70’s:

Here I am with Mark Blackwell, who’s also a November 10th birthday baby, and Sonny Ruscha Bjornson, Lisa Loeb and Roey Hershkovitz:

Lisa and Roey gave me some quality reading material:

Maybe I will learn to make beautiful cakes like this one on page 110:

But when it comes to baking, there’s only one Supreme Master and I’m pictured with him here:

Just a few days before my party Charles Phoenix was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal with his signature “Cherpumple” cake, one of which he baked for me.

A Cherpumple is three Sara Lee cherry, pumpkin and apple pies stuffed inside three Betty Crocker cakes and frosted as one happy stack of sugary ecstasy:

Here’s my friend, Lesley Ann Warren, indulging in some. Perennially skinny and always eating healthy, she hit the Cherpumple as an extreme gesture of kitsch on my birthday.

Lesley was my first friend when I moved to Hollywood in 1976. She was also the first person ever to sing one of my songs on TV when she did the third song I ever wrote, “Childstar”, on Johnny Carson.

Some people went back for seconds of Cherpumple. Each plate weighs 2 lbs.

Gai Gherardi and Rhonda Saboff shared their Cherpumple:

They gave me an excellent pair of glasses from LA Eyeworks, which Gai co-owns and where I’ve bought all of my eye coverings for the last three decades.

When RuPaul arrived he brought me another birthday cake.

It was delicious but everyone had already gorged on too much Cherpumple.

Which means that everyone went home in sugar shock, the condition they’ve had much practice existing in as they’ve all been over to my house a trillion times before.

I didn’t have far to go as my bed was only feet away from the remains of the Cherpumple. I went to sleep with my crown on and had sugar sweet dreams anticipating a very good year to come indeed!

More party photos can be seen here.

24Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Xavier Cugat Cork

24Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Xavier Cugat Cork

Revered as much for his marriage to cuchi-cuchi girl, Charo, as for his spreading the gospel of bouncy Latin music and rhythm, Xavier Cugat led the band at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel and toney resorts around the world with his signature batons, one of which was real and the other of which was his pet Chihuahua. Cugat was a multimedia artist before his time, a musician, painter, cartoonist, movie star, business man and ladies man, husband of five steamy women, including the lead singer of his orchestra at its height, Abbe Lane.

Legendary enough to be mentioned in the third scene of A Streetcar Named Desire, his name frequently sprinkled throughout I Love Lucy, and even a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor named after him in an episode of The Simpsons, “Xavier Nougat”, Cugat brought such exuberance and flair to a performance that his signature Tango, Rhumba and Merenge rhythms will forever be recognized, as will his self portrait caricatures.

You gotta love a guy who leads a band with a Chihuahua…

… and marries this:

Cugat was a happy man.

And I’m toasting him today.

13Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – UW Marching Band Conductor and One Of The Best Days Of My Life-Part 2

13Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – UW Marching Band Conductor and One Of The Best Days Of My Life-Part 2

I LOVVVVED conducting! I hope that’s evident in this clip. I’m grateful I got the footage I did though I’d planned to have at least five times as much of it to edit from. But as the journey below illustrates, the path was a little more crooked than I’d anticipated though well worth every swing of the drumstick!

I’m a fanatic archivist. I’ve been a walking reality show since I got my first video camera in 1978, racking up over 40,000 terabytes on my server, most of which is video. At any given point I have at least three fairly recent models of whatever’s at the high end of the consumer line as well as a bunch of other cheaper backups. I also have three Flip cams and all of my digital still ones take video. So when I was going to conduct the marching band at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, this past Homecoming weekend, an incredible honor especially for someone who has no idea what all those dots on the musical staff mean, I took all my artillery with me. God only knows how much I paid for overweight luggage but I had at least nine cameras capable of taking video as well as three tripods, two extendable poles so the cameras could be elevated, 15 batteries, three lights and three mics. I prepared for every conceivable eventuality as there was no way I wasn’t going to fully capture what I knew was going to be one of the greatest experiences of my life.

I wanted to preserve a birds eye view of what I was seeing up on the platform as I conducted so I constructed a rig to hold one of my flip cameras around my neck so it could capture most of my arm movements as well as whatever musicians were in my line of sight.

But as soon as I finished conducting I realized that although I had turned the camera on I forgot to hit ‘record’. I stayed cool knowing all was not lost because I had four backups – 1) Mark Blackwell, who came with me from LA and was was never more than 20 feet away capturing all the sweaty details and whom I was directing throughout the performance.

2) Eddie Alshuler, who Mark and I were staying with and who was sitting directly across the field from where I was conducting on the 50 yard line, who could capture a front view of me and an excellent overview of the 300+ piece band. But as I blogged about yesterday, Mark’s footage snagged at a crucial point in the first song, “In The Stone”, where arm movements I’d practiced for two weeks to make the slowed down section at the entrance of the fade-I have no idea what that’s called in musical terms-ultra dramatic. Now Eddie’s footage consisted solely of his wife and my sorority sister, Muffin’s, crotch as the camera lay in her lap waiting to be turned on when, in fact, it was actually already in ‘record’, only to be snapped off the second I mounted the platform. Here’s me conducting from Eddie’s camera’s POV:

Once I left the conducting platform Eddie turned the camera off, which was actually on, so we got an excellent few bonus minutes of Muffin’s ass.

Alternative #3 was another one of my sorority sisters who shot the pregame tailgate performance where I also conducted. But she’s incredibly short so all of her footage featured a booming bass drum with me like a little ant flailing their arms above it.

Number 4 was the husband of another one of my sorority sisters who got some great shots of me but you only see the tops of the heads of a small portion of the band.

So as grateful as I am for all these people manning my cameras, I didn’t end up with enough footage I could edit together so you’d feel the impact or scope of what was going on. In previous days, the fact that both primary and backup systems failed would have killed me, but with age I’ve learned to roll with the punches. I really think that’s how my sense of kitsch became so well honed, appreciating when things went awry and figuring out a way to deal with them. How else would I ever be talking about Muffin’s body parts in a post that’s about my debut as a conductor? If all I wrote about was the wonderfulness of conducting this would probably be a very boring read to anyone other than a marching band freak.

As one final backup, I decided to go through footage from my rehearsal with the band the day before on the practice field. But the bulk of that was either shot from the back of my head as I tried to concentrate on memorizing the arrangement…

… or on documenting me as I tried to figure out what I was going to stand on to conduct. I’m not one to stand still so the thought of having to keep my feet in cement on a tiny platform ten feet in the air while I’m enduring several other distracting conditions was of major concern to me. 1) I don’t read music and don’t have particularly great memorization skills so the chances of looking like I am leading the band are questionable to begin with. 2) I’m performing in front of 82,000 people when the bulk of my stage experience has been as a little fur tree in my second grade play. 3) I’m sweating to death in the unexpected 84° weather and don’t really have the right clothes despite bringing everything I had with the school color, red, in it. 4) I will be bouncing around on a knee with a ripped meniscus that I’ve put off having an operation on and, 5) I’m waving around sticks with two bum wrists from decades of pounding on keyboards. So the issue of safety while conducting is real.

First I tried a smaller version of the ladder Mike Leckrone, the incredible bandleader/arranger who’s been at Wisconsin since I was there in the 60’s, usually stands on.

But the little platform you stand on was only a couple inches deeper than my big feet and I wasn’t eager to meet my death or crush one of the kids guarding me. So I passed on that and finally settled on something that would only involve a broken ankle or two if I fell.

In fact, I almost tipped over three times during the real deal in the stadium. You can see the first time at 1:02 in the video…

… and again at 1:29…

… and finally at 3:00 where I really thought I was going to kiss the dirt.

Thankfully I made it off alive, ankles, wrists and knee intact, and stayed in rhythm 98.3% of the time. I’ve been obsessed about being a conductor ever since.

Once I got back to LA and transferred the footage I realized my only option was to stick with what Mark shot on the field with me and abandon the idea of putting in different angles to make it more compelling or cover every time it got to an angle on my face or body that made me grimace.

I’m the one who always carries on about loving yourself just as you are so I’ve mentally committed to not spotting the flaws but, rather, to just seeing the spirit that gripped me at the moment. But then I see the video once it’s been uploaded to YouTube and the sync is unbearably off. Now this really drives me nuts because I know the sound and picture as the clip sits on my computer is completely in sync but now, because of YouTube’s ever-changing compression schemes, I’m going to look like an idiot. This then brings up all my issues about designing a social network in 1992 based on things like people’s home movies and becoming friends and collaborators with people all over the world but never getting it off the ground because I was too concerned about screwing copyright owners when someone used something they created without paying for it. I can’t even believe that this is coming up for me now! YouTube thrives because it doesn’t pay people like me royalties and now they’re messing with my conducting debut! I digress, but it ate up most of yesterday to finally get something uploaded that didn’t make it look like I was conducting a band in the next state.

So here’s what I’m left with: footage from one camera that has a blip in it right at the exact second of my one big rehearsed move that’s shot too close when I can’t move my feet, forcing the lower half of my body to function differently than it should when the top half is moving as it was, wishing I had starched my pants so they didn’t look like I had just pulled them out of a suitcase overstuffed with camera equipment, none of which functioned properly anyway. And the camera’s close enough that I can see a flinch of sadness when we hit the final bars of the final song, the theme from Friends.

When I was first told what songs of mine I’d be conducting I didn’t understand how the Friend’s theme made it there, especially over marching band favorites like “Boogie Wonderland” or “Neutron Dance” that were left out. But another blessing of this trip was the opportunity to conduct Mike Leckrone’s seriously incredible arrangement of it.

I’m standing up there on the podium thinking that in the context of everything that was happening, “I’ll Be there for You” was the grandest sounding song of all. So in addition to everything else I’m thankful for that occurred last weekend, a serious supreme joy was letting me appreciate my song in a way that so many people have told me through the years that they do. Sometimes it takes massive distance from something you do to appreciate why you did it in the first place.

Such is the life of an artist. Such is the joy of conducting a marching band playing your songs. Such is life.

05Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Party Bling and The Party I Forgot To Wear It To

05Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Party Bling and The Party I Forgot To Wear It To

party-pendant_2552

I bought this Party Pendant at a thrift shop recently, brought it home, shined it up and glued little rhinestones on it. I’ve only worn it out a couple of times but people have ooh’d and ahh’d as if I’d gotten it at Tiffany’s. So I decided to make it a habit and wear it when I knew I’d be attending a hot party. I did, in fact, know that Nancye Ferguson’s birthday party Sunday night would be hot as all of her parties are at her amazing Atomic house that gives you one of those aerial postcard views over the entire city of LA. But when I got home and dumped my photos I realized that not only had I forgotten to take a photo with Nancye, the Party Pendant along with every other piece of jewelry I meant to wear had been forgotten in a drawer at home, replaced with my Color Purple backstage pass that I still had on from earlier in the day when I went to see the fabulous new cast of my musical at the Performing Arts Center in Thousand Oaks. As proud as I am to have that pass swinging from my neck, I do wish that my ratty ass cheap Party Pendant were also present as it would have been so appropriate hanging in the following photos.

Here I am party pendantless with Michael Patrick King and Prudence Fenton.

Michael may have written and directed the Sex and the City movies and much of the TV series but this guy wrote The Graduate and created and wrote TV series like Get Smart.

Not that I wasn’t excited to see Buck Henry but I almost needed to be hospitalized when I stumbled onto Dr. Kildare in the kitchen.

I’ve long been a collector of Richard Chamberlain/ Dr. Kildare memorabilia.

Speaking of doctors on television, here I am with Ian Buchanan, Dr. Greg Madden on All My Children, and Diva Zappa.

Diva’s father was Frank. Here’s a portrait of Frank carved a few years ago by Diva’s brother, Dweezil.

Dweezil was missing in action Sunday night but here I am with his mom, Gail Zappa.

And here I am with Pamela Des Barres. Among other things, Pamela used to babysit for the Zappa kids and was in the all girl band Frank put together in the 60’s called The GTOs.

It’s ancient history but Lisa Loeb used to go out with Dweezil.

In 1999, Lisa commissioned my alter ego, Bubbles the artist, who I used to manage, to do a portrait of Dweezil and all the things he loved for his birthday. Lisa is standing outside the window playing golf, Dweezil’s favorite sport.

I wish I could say that we played golf or did anything other than taking long rides on Sunday and eating in dives and somehow tie it into the rest of the narrative, but here I am with Charles Phoenix and Jack Nesbit.

Ultimately, I can only tie that photo in by saying that Charles and Jack brought the balloons we’re standing in front of for Nancye’s birthday, the one person I somehow forgot to take a photo with. Here’s one of us for reference, taken at Diva Zappa’s birthday party last year, tying things up nicely.

I love going to parties when they’re good parties. I have good friends who throw good parties. Now I also have good bling for good parties which I’ll hopefully remember to wear the next time I go to one.

04Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Gertrude Stein/ Alice B. Toklas Mug and Stephanie Miller’s Coming Out Party

04Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Gertrude Stein/ Alice B. Toklas Mug and Stephanie Miller’s Coming Out Party

gertrude-stein-stein_2494

I don’t usually like mugs with serious faces on them but “The Gertrude Stein” mug made by Fitz & Floyd in 1976 is a rare one featuring legendary and first-outta-the-gate lesbian life partners, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Gertrude actually looks like Gertrude while Alice looks like a mushroom person, the kind of poisonously sweet little gnome-like being that ceramicists were somehow infatuated with in the late 1960’s and 70s.

Stein, an American writer living in Paris in the first half of the 20th Century, was ultimately known most for her “a rose is a rose is a rose” saying and for coining the term “Lost Generation”, while Toklas is revered for a brownie recipe with a little something extra she published. They were also known as spectacular party throwers for the salons they hosted that attracted the “mugs” of great artists and thinkers of the day, including regulars Ernest Hemingway, Thornton Wilder, Picasso and Matisse.

As gay women who are out and throwing parties go, #1 progressive morning radio show host and Larry King regular, Stephanie Miller, threw a spectacular one Saturday night. After years of being an outspoken supporter of gay rights, especially as regards the repeal of Caifornia’s Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage, Stephanie announced her gaiety on her radio show last month and then threw this combo Birthday/Coming Out bash to celebrate.

Stephanie’s “mug” looks an awful lot like this 1964 Republican Vice Presidential candidate’s. That would be because William E. Miller was her father.

Stephanie being a staunch liberal Democrat, their “mugs” are as far as the resemblance goes. My “mug” doesn’t look anything like Mr. Miller’s but it would have been stupid to have been this close to his in his daughter’s house and not popped off a shot.

There were a lot of fantastic “mugs” at the party, the kind that sit on top of your neck and smile as opposed to ceramic ones like Gertrude that you sip something out of. Here I am with three excellent ones, Jane Wagner, Rep. Maxine Waters and Lily Tomlin.

My compadre, Julie Brown, was also there…

…along with Prudence Fenton…

…and this “mug” who I was very excited to meet, George Schlatter. His show, “Laugh In” changed my life, not to mention introduced the world to Lily Tomlin.

I die for Rep. Maxine Waters. She speaks her mind and is right on target. I’ve always loved her for her mojo and spirit. She has an amazing personality for a politician.

I only saw the “mug” of attorney Gloria Allred from afar.

Although Stpehanie’s “mug” appears out her cake, it’s her starts-with-j-and-rhymes-with-mugs that are used to best advantage on it.

A big blow-out Happy Birthday & Coming Out to Stephanie Miller!!

29Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ “The 365 Days Of September” – Day 9

29Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ “The 365 Days Of September” – Day 9

I’m always happy when my work inspires folks to take on their own creative endeavors. But in this case, the spirit of my song, “September”, just might have inspired a little too much confidence in three college boys out to make a concept video. I get the fact that the guy in front suspects something is going on yet somehow misses that there are two (bad) dancers prancing behind him, but as storytelling goes this sinks like a tugboat loaded with cement. I especially love that the dancers often duck prematurely, even before the guy in front turns around to discover nothing. And sometimes the music just mysteriously stops. Best is once the innocent in front leaves the room so that the guys don’t have to mime anymore, one of them continues to silently mouth the song. Once it turns into a full-blown dance off, I can’t say I would be awarding any prize other than to advise them that their allowance money ought to go towards a new mic. Without question, the best part of this video is the toilet paper covering the door of the room across the hall.

For a more through exploration of my “365 Days Of September” mission as well as details of how the song was written, go here. Until tomorrow, ba-de-ya!

21Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The 21st Of September Jubilee!

21Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The 21st Of September Jubilee!

Because the opening line of my very first hit song, “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire, is “Do you remember the 21st night of September?” I constantly get asked the significance of that date, the very day it is TODAY. People are always looking for some great meaning, especially those whose birthdays are today and to whom the song has held a special place. Sad to say, the only real significance is that that it felt so perfect to sing. Those three syllables – twen-ty-first – hugged those notes tighter than an angora sweater and once that happens any good songwriter knows they need to just leave it alone because it works. What I’m most proud of achieving with my co-writers, Maurice White and Al McKay, is the transformative effect the song seems to have on people. I could be at a funeral and if “September” even came on as a ringtone most people’s lips would curl into a smile and their toes would automatically start to tap. Beyoncé and Jay-Z even chose it to dance their first song to at their wedding. And that makes me very happy.

Ever since the song was released at the tail end of 1978, September 21st has been a magic date for me. In the pre-email/text days when I used to check my phone, the messages would be filled with people singing me the song. Some of the singers were famous and the versions were killer. Sometimes it was my dentist or a friend from camp and the versions were terrible, just the way, as a lover of kitsch, I love them.

Through the years, the popularity of “September” seems to grow, so much so that the entire month of September has started to feel like a holiday to me, especially this year when it started with Earth, Wind & Fire playing “September” with a 70 piece orchestra and fireworks at The Hollywood Bowl. So, I’ve decided to honor this date that has given me so many gifts with a few gifts of my own:

• First, the release of my “Jungle Animal” video/song with Pomplamoose, a YouTube sensation band I contacted to work together after I saw their version of “September”, with over 2,000,000 views on YouTube. Now would be a good time to watch “Jungle Animal”:

• Second, the matching “Jungle Animal” music composition game I designed and that’s ready for your jungle playing pleasure right now at https://www.alleewillis.com/music/pomplamoose/jungle-animal-player.php

• Third, in celebration of the one-year-to-the-day opening of my social network, The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch at AWMOK.com, The Jungle Animal Petting Zoo is now open, featuring some of the most cheesy and brilliant jungle animal artifacts on the planet.

• And fourth, the launch of “The 365 Days of September”, where I’ll post one new version of “September” a day for a year from the thousands of insane versions of it on YouTube.

And I JUST found out that September will continue into October for me as The University Of Wisconsin Marching Band will play my songs at the Homecoming football game on October 9th and I’ve been asked to conduct! As some of you know, UW is my alma mater. And I LOVE marching bands. And even more pertinent on the kitsch tip, despite the fact that I’ve sold over 50,000,000 records and counting, I still don’t know how to read a stitch of music. So I anticipate that conducting the band in front of 80,000 people is going to be one of the seminal kitsch moments of my life!

So to all of you on this September 21st I say thank you and wish you a big “Ba-de-ya!”. May you all have nothing but”golden dreams and shiny days”.

19Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Lighted Kosher Sign and Breaking The Fast In Hollywood

19Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Lighted Kosher Sign and Breaking The Fast In Hollywood

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One of the most festive nights of the Jewish year is the ‘breaking of the fast’ meal after Yom Kipper, a veritable smorgasbord of chopped liver, corned beef, brisket, potato latkes, noodle kugel and whatever else there’s room for on the table. Trust me, after not eating for 24 hours the Chosen People are hungry! Although this “kosher” sign hangs happily at Willis Wonderland, mine is not the house that one wants to eat at on a night such as this. As such, I’m very lucky that I have a Break-The-Fast itinerary that I stick to like schmaltz (chicken fat) every year and head over to four hamish (friendly, folksy) friends whose houses are are stuffed with machers (big shots) and even some meshugehs (crazy, nuts people) to schmoose with (talk socially, network) while we nosh (eat) like chazzers (pigs).

For our first stop, Prudence Fenton and I hit Marla and Jeff Garlin’s house. You know Jeff from Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Sadly, I have no photo with Marla, probably because I was too busy fressing (pigging out) every time she was around. It is so NOT KOSHER to only take a photo with one of your two hosts…

Sometimes the baleboosteh (mistress of the house) serves you bagels and lox and sometimes there’s some nice deli platters. But if Az a yor ahf mir (you should be so lucky) to be invited over to the Garlins to replenish your pupik (stomach) after it’s 24 hour lockout, the shtetl (village or small town) sitting on their dining room table includes corn beef, roast beef, turkey, three kinds of noodle kugel, mac and cheese – thank you for that extra goyish (not especially Jewish) bonus – bagels, lox, cream cheese, cream cheese with chives, three kinds of sliced cheeses, tomatoes, onions, dill pickles, black olives, whitefish salad, tuna salad, egg salad, fruit salad, salad salad, coleslaw and that’s just how far I got down the table before my plate was full.

More noshes (snacks) were still coming out when we had to leave after a couple of hours because we had another simcha (joyous occassion) to schlep (get) to.

The next amazing nachas (extreme joy or pleasure) food fest was at Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s, two of the most balebatim (people of high standing) songwriters on the planet. Being with them makes a songwriter such as myself kvell (explode with joy). As songwriters go, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil are EXCESSIVELY KOSHER.

Not only are they real mensches (people of integrity and honor), they’ve written some of the biggest gelt (money) earning songs in the eretz (land). For forshpeiz (appetizers): “You Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” – the #1 most played record of all time, – “On Broadway,” “We Got To Get Out of This Place”,”Uptown” and hundreds of more titles everyone would agree are HIGHLY KOSHER.

In 1992, Barry and Cynthia were over at my place for a distinctively non-kosher meal when they came to a simcheh (joyous occassion) where I asked guests to come dressed matching their potluck food. They brought and came oysgeputst (dressed up) like Blackeye Peas.

Although I was already too stuffed from the tsegalt zich in moyl (melts in the mouth, delicious, yummy-yummy) meal over at the Garlins, I did manage to kibitz (fool around with) with another songwriting maiven (expert, connoisseur) at Barry and Cynthia’s, Mike Stoller.

Mike Stoller is truly a KOSHER TO THE MAX songwriter, a choshever mentsh (elite and respected man of worth), one half of the rock ‘n roll dynasty team of Lieber and Stoller. If you’re going to write songs and you’re not Barry and Cynthia and you don’t want to chop your hair off on one side and be me I would suggest being Mike Stoller. A few of his early megillehs (big deals) include chachkes (little things) like “Hound Dog,” “Kansas City,”“Stand by Me,” “Charlie Brown,” and “On Broadway”, written with Barry and Cynthia. Mazel Tov (good luck has occured)!

All in all, I had a very frallech (fun) Breaking of the Fast and rolled home feeling like a big happy kishka (stuffed intestine). We didn’t dance the Hora (traditional joyous Jewish dance) but we carried on like we were boogieing in the Borscht Belt (Hotels in the Catskills with Jewish entertainers and clientele) on the ultimate KOSHER evening of all kosher evenings and one from which I’m still plotzing (exploding from excitement, as in “You got us tickets for Barbra’s comeback concert?? I’m plotzing!)

16Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Lipstick Camera and Greg Gorman’s Retrospective Last Night at the Pacific Design Center

16Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Lipstick Camera and Greg Gorman’s Retrospective Last Night at the Pacific Design Center

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Anyone who knows me knows that there are two things I never leave home without, my lipstick and my camera. I always carry at least two of each; my lipstick because I’m forever losing tubes in the bottomless pits of my purses, and cameras because you never know what will pop up in front of you and you don’t want to be without some way of capturing it should one photographic device malfunction. Not that I take it with me anymore, but a constant companion in my former years was this great looking, incredibly clunky Lipstick Camera, much more effective for its mental effect on the people it was shooting – they always smile when they see it – than for the grainy, patchy photos it took. Last night when I started writing my blog, where I like to tie in objects from my collection into what’s really going on in my life, the Lipstick Camera seemed like the perfect artifact to feature as I was on my way to a party for famed photographer and friend, Greg Gorman, honoring his 1970 – 2010 retrospective at The Fahey/Klein Gallery. As one who likes to match clothes and accessories to the event, I even thought about bringing the Lipstick Camera with me. But I knew I’d be seeing too many old friends and didn’t want to capture all of it with crappy photos.

I first met Greg Gorman when I moved to LA in 1976. He was the up and coming photographer to the stars and my friends, Bette Midler’s Harlettes, already back in New York, asked me to pick up some proof sheets from their photo session with him. He was really friendly and as I walked out of his tiny apartment on Laurel Canyon I remember thinking how great it would be to take photos of everything I saw that was interesting or significant to me so I would have this incredible documentation of my life. That began my habit of forever buying cheap novelty cameras as I was forever on a budget. Meaning most of the documenting I did until I stumbled on my first Canon Elph in 1996 made for some very grainy memories. Even when I knew where to buy film for the Lipstick Camera, the photos it took were pretty awful. But as someone who loves to play it as it lays, there was also always something so soulful about them.

When I started making furniture out of found objects in 1984, Greg Gorman was one of the first people to buy a piece. I know it’s embarrassing to show this fuzzy of a photo of a famous photographer but all I had with me the day I delivered his table made out of a window from a World War II fighter bomber plane I painted on and a spring from my 1955 De Soto was one of my cheap, nasty cameras.

A few months after that, Greg shot actor Christopher Atkins at my house. The white throw draped across my couch is Chris.

Here’s a much more flattering shot of him that Greg took that day.

And here’s a much more recent shot of Greg, taken last night at his reception. Unfortunately, we were standing in front of the only section of the gallery where his photos weren’t hanging.

Just as unfortunately, when I opened my photos once I got home, all of them were so pixelated they looked like a can of vegetable soup had spilled on them. It was as if they were taken on the Lipstick Camera, not the most ideal situation when you’re capturing you and one of the most iconic celebrity photographers of all time. If I had had half a brain cell awake in my brain last night I would have checked the settings on the Elph every time whoever was taking the photo said, “did the flash go off?” because it never did. Each and every time I said to myself, “hmmm,why isn’t the flash going off?”, only to get distracted by someone else I hadn’t seen in a zillion years until a few minutes later the same thing happened and I would say to myself, “hmmm,why isn’t the flash going off?”.

So what I have are a bunch of grainy, yet totally evocative of the evening photos. And here’s where my love of kitsch kicks in, allowing me to make sense of these moments of catastrophe. Had my Elph been on the right setting I would have had beautiful photos of people I saw at a photographer’s opening to feature in a post about a funny looking vintage camera. But now I have photos that look like they were taken with the Lipstick Camera itself! It’s so cosmic, so organic! And it’s these collisions of high and low art in the manifestations of my creative expression that I absolutely live for.

So knowing that I know that these photos look like they were pulled out of a landfill, here’s me with some other friends I bumped into last night. This one with my Earth, Wind & Fire compadre, Verdine White, and his fantastic wife Shelly, who I’d just seen last week at the life altering Earth, Wind & Fire(works) concert at The Hollywood Bowl, looks like it’s one of those early Polaroid color camera shots that you slopped that stick of goop on.

This one with Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn looks like it’s a still from an airport scene in a way too low-budget 1970’s movie.

This one with John Fleck and Stan Zimmerman almost looks normal but that’s probably because the boys have such good skin. Were you to see this at high resolution my hair looks like it has ants running through it.

This one with Ken Page is almost okay as it was taken in a particularly bright hallway.

So what, I will never be able to blow any of my photos from last night up into giant super graphics and paste them on the side of my house. But I’m incredibly artistically and psychically satisfied that so glued to my fingers is my trusty Canon Elph that it took it upon itself to emulate the Lipstick Camera and give me crappy yet perfect photos to remember a wonderful night by.