16Jun 2011

Allee Willis’ Food O’ The Day – As far As I’m Concerned, Top Chef Master Mary Sue Milliken

16Jun 2011

Allee Willis’ Food O’ The Day – As far As I’m Concerned, Top Chef Master Mary Sue Milliken

I’m sure that Floyd Cardoz is a magnificent chef and I should’ve seen his win coming from that constant coming-in-second storyline all season. But having spent at least half of my adult life eating Mary Sue Milliken’s food, I went into the Top Chef Masters finale openly prejudiced that she would reign supreme.  But alas…

The true true winners last night were Mary Sue’s friends, gathered at Border Grill to watch the finale with her and eat the food she made onscreen amidst the skyscrapers downtown.

Mary Sue won more challenges this season than any other chef. We couldn’t believe she lost, especially as we were sitting there chomping down on the food she competed with. Nano-seconds after Floyd was crowned she was gracious as always, despite guests like me screaming she was robbed!

But I’m here to tell you Mary Sue’s final challenge dishes were INCREDIBLE. Not only were we were served all of them during the finale as they were served to the judges onscreen, but a whole round of other tongue-numbing treasures were passed around during the final elimination show Bravo ran the hour before.

My apologies in advance to Mary Sue for the following descriptions as I undoubtably short-change everything by not being able to describe every ingredient or name the dishes by proper title. I am NOT the next Food Network star! (Though let me loose on diner fare and that’s a different story.)

First came ceviche:

Then cheese empanadas with guacamole:

I know that’s not the way to photograph a foodstuff when one is trying to impress the quality of it upon the reader. The guacamole should be neatly dabbed on top so the empanada doesn’t look like it’s been dragged through the guacamole as one would use a scraper to remove ice from a windshield. Here’s a better, pre-guacamole view:

Quinoa fritters came next:

I THINK the following is avocado tacos coated with sesame seeds and quinoa, but I heard someone at the next table fawning over ahi tuna something. So it could go either way. I just know it was crunchy and good. I also know the photo is blurry, but when it comes to Mary Sue’s cooking it all deserves to be seen.

Finally it’s 7 pm. and the actual finale show begins. For their final challenge, the chef’s had to cook a three-course meal-of-a-lifetime based around food memories. Course #1 was a dish inspired by their first taste memory. Mary Sue made Asian steak tartare.

The second course had to represent a dish that inspired them to become a chef in the first place.

Mary Sue made crab and shrimp salpicon with shrimp and chervil mousse stuffed rigatoni:

An inside look at that rigatoni:
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Mary Sue’s chances were looking excellent on TV as a guest chef diner chomped down on the rigatoni.
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Another guest chef diner was Susan Feniger, Mary Sue’s partner at Border Grill, Top Chef Master competitor last season, and owner/chef supreme of Street, the restaurant I co-own and at which my butt is usually parked at table #20.

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Not such a great shot but night was falling and my camera was snapping slower and slower. Susan was in the kitchen last night helping to turn out the never-ending cornucopia of food we feasted on. Here we are with fellow chomper,Troy Devolld.
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For the third course, dessert, each chef was paired with one of the judges and asked to make their favorite dish. Ruth Reichl requested a lemon soufflé. Mary Sue enhanced it with lemon ice cream, lemon hazelnut meringue and rhubarb compote.
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Our version included the lemon hazelnut meringue and ice cream but the rhubarb compote was replaced with a churro with chocolate ganache. I’ll take dough any day over a vegetable, which rhubarb is despite technically being a fruit. This dish KILLED, but using a flash blew the ice cream out so the churro isn’t getting the attention it deserves in this non-flash photo:
Here’s a tighter yet blurryish shot of the churro mid bite:
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The final slurp of ice cream was sliding down my throat as we learned the Queen was not to take her throne. But Mary Sue’s personality is so infectious, and she’s so damn nice that the crowds’ spirit wasn’t dampened and chewing continued through the night.
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If you’ve never been to Border Grill, that’s a MUST. Really, your tastebuds will be thanking you forever.

Long live the Queen!

15Jun 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m Back!!

15Jun 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m Back!!

Well, it only took close the four decades for me not to be stage fright and have absolutely one of the best nights of my life when I sang and told stories about the songs I’d written live on stage Monday night at The Songs Of Our Lives concert to benefit the Fulfillment Fund. After being hung up about performing ever since I walked off stage after only six songs in 1974, to say I’m ready to come back is an understatement!!  Well, in relatively small doses but I’m willing to try. Thank you SO MUCH, Charlie Fox, for insisting I perform. I feel like a massive weight has lifted and I’m very excited to see the shift that’s going to occur in my never-ending rollout of what I’m going to do next.

As if that massive psychological breakthrough of being terrified and forgetting very word in my head wasn’t enough, I got to experience three incredible hours of sound check and four incredible hours of performances by some of the most legendary songwriters on the planet. I’ve long cherished songwriters’ versions of their own songs over the records made of them. If you’ve never had a chance to hear a songwriter sing one of your favorite songs you’re missing out on a truly soulful experience. Regardless of whether their voices are as powerful as the artists who made the records, the deliveries are so authentic and heartfelt you could die. Not only do you get the power of the song but the intention with which it was written. All I did was swoon for seven hours, and having my own performance thrown in there with the bonus of having an  absolutely insanely wonderful time on stage –  how can I even be saying those words??!? –  this experience was seriously was one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given.

It was the first time ever outside of a friend or two’s living room that I sang “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Neutron Dance”, and “I’ll Be There for You (theme from Friends)” in public. I nipped one previous mental saboteur in the butt by carrying out a fistful of lyrics so I didn’t have to panic about forgetting the words.

A huge epiphany: The difference of singing songs that everyone in the audience knows from singing the first ten songs you ever wrote that no one in the audience has even heard of, which was the case in 1974, is massive. It gave me confidence that I never knew as a singer before.  Added to it was that this was an audience who truly appreciated songwriters, and hearing the stories behind the songs was what they were there for. And if there’s one thing this blog has finally hammered into my brain, I’m a good storyteller.

Of course, now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t tell everyone I know to come. I knew that would make me more nervous and I really accepted the gig to try and get over this hideous weight of stage fright. So I only told those absolutely closest to me, and was very relieved when most of them had conflicts for the evening as Michele Obama was in town and they were going to a dinner for her. But the party faithful were here. L-R- me, Nancye Ferguson, Prudence Fenton, and Laura Grover.

Mark Blackwell trailed me on video, a routine we have worked out to a science by now, as Bob Garrett arrived.

I shared a dressing room with legendary jazz singer, Dianne Reeves. How I blanked on taking a photo with my fellow Detroiter I don’t know, but at least I got the shot of our dressing room door.

There were also a ton of legendary producers and players in the audience, not the least of whom was Michael Boddicker, probably the most lauded synth player who’s ever lived. Like he played on every Michael Jackson record and a trillion other classics.

Michael always tells the story of one time we worked together and I was trying to describe a particular sound I wanted him to make on a duet between Herb Alpert and Lani Hall, who I wrote for and produced in 1981. Now I make no secret that I know absolutely nothing about music other than how to write a great song. I couldn’t tell you the definition of a specific music term like measure, adagio or anything. But for a player who’s excessively visual – and trust me, in those days there weren’t a whole lot of them – describing the sound I wanted as “a ping-pong ball being crushed underneath a seagull’s wing” was perfectly clear to Boddicker.

Right before I went on I did some major bonding with the evening’s emcee, Tony Danza.

I’d never met him before but he knew I was nervous and not only was a very encouraging daddy backstage but gave me a great set up line when I walked out so I could talk about the lunchroom debacle and why I had shunned doing anything on stage ever since. It got an immediate laugh, which was like a Valium rolling down my throat, and I was on my way.

But it was the songwriters themselves who made the evening shine most. Jeff Barry went on right after me.

Here are just a few of Jeff’s gems: “Da Doo Run Run”, “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy”, “Then He Kissed Me”, “Be My Baby”, “Baby I Love You”, “Tell Laura I Love Her”, “Chapel of Love”, “Iko Iko”, “Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand)”, “Leader of the Pack”, “River Deep, Mountain High”, “I Can Hear Music”, “Montego Bay”, “I Honestly Love You”,and “Sugar Sugar”. Not to mention the theme from The Jeffersons, “Movin’ On Up”, my favorite TV theme song (next to, of course, Friends). And literally, those are just a few of them.

Someone I had never met before but whose songs I always loved and who is sure to become a great friend now was David Pack.

He had/has one of those killer voices that made the songs he wrote for his group, Ambrosia, have that classic ring. Last night he sang “You’re the Biggest Part of Me”, “You’re the Only Woman”, “Holdin’ On To Yesterday”, and “How Much I Feel”.

But the guy who put me over the top even more than those pillars of masterful songwriting was Felix Cavaliere, writer and lead singer for The Rascals.

How do you write a song as classic as “Groovin”?! And “It’s a Beautiful Morning” and “People Got to Be Free”?! Felix was the first writer to do a sound check when I arrived in the afternoon. They didn’t have most of the mics set up yet so I got to hear that most incredible “Groovin'” bass line, probably one of the most used and imitated in the history of music, over and over again. I literally was sitting there with tears dripping down my face it was so exciting for me as a songwriter to be in the presence of such greatness. That we became fast and thick friends backstage only added to my joy.

Thank you, Chris Price, for accompanying me. You were PERFECT!

So, all in all it was a pretty classic day and night for me. I can’t believe I wasted all these years being nauseous at the thought of doing anything like this. But I’m back and that’s all that’s important.

13Jun 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Jukebox Tip Tray and My First Time Singing On Stage In Mannnnny Years…..

13Jun 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Jukebox Tip Tray and My First Time Singing On Stage In Mannnnny Years…..

Mere days after my first and only album, Childstar, was released on Epic Records in 1974, I walked on stage in front of 10,000 people to open in Boston for folksinger David Bromberg.

The only other time I had been on stage before was when I played a little fur tree in a school play when I was 8. Now here I was singing soul music, the first 10 songs I ever wrote, plus a Mary Wells medley and Brenton Woods’s “Oogum Boogum”. My band, the singers of whom would go on to become Chic, were dressed as sequined vegetables and I was in a satin suit that I’d autographed from head to toe. This is a really crappy photo of part of the costumes on mannequins but it’s all I’ve got;

Me and The Angle Babies aren’t in costume here but you can get a pretty good idea that between us and our costumes we weren’t what the folksinging crowd came to see.

I didn’t have a very good time on stage. I never could remember my lyrics and I always spent more time designing the sets and costumes than I did rehearsing or getting comfortable being on stage. After five performances on the East Coast we were booked into a lunchroom at Ohio State, the only way the college could also get Joni Mitchell to play in the main auditorium because we had the same agent. Our only audience were three people at a bridge table eating hot dogs and a psychology class being conducted in the back of the room, with the professor telling us to lower our volume after every song. I walked offstage after six songs and made the decision to just be a songwriter, where at least if I was being tortured it was in the comfort of my own room.

Through the years I’ve gotten much more comfortable performing – in my own unique way of doing so which doesn’t include singing live – mostly because I’m a big party thrower and walk around on mic the whole time.

Almost every conversation I have comes through the speakers and I’m literally directing and producing the party as I go. Throw in the thrift shop auctions and stupid party games that I lead the guests through and I’ve gotten very relaxed holding that cold metal thing in my hands.

But I still never have gotten it together to sing anywhere other than in the studio.

So the fact that in mere hours I will be up on the stage for the first time in almost four decades and I’m not sitting here throwing up is a MASSIVE ACHIEVEMENT! Me and five other well oiled songwriters will be singing our greatest hits and talking about how they were written. It’s just with a keyboard – Chris Price, who I’ve been writing and recording a song with and shooting a video all on iPhones, is accompanying me –  but I’m singing and remembering lyrics and lines nonetheless.

And if I can get through the evening not thinking about soul singers dressed as vegetables, psychology professors and hot dogs I will have made a big breakthrough.

I’ll be performing “September“, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Neutron Dance”, and “I’ll Be There for You (theme from Friends)“. At least radio has regaled me with these songs thousands of times over the years so I’m hoping that for once I can remember my own lyrics and be happy I’m up on stage.

Wish me luck!

26May 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m in the New York Times today!

26May 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m in the New York Times today!

Nice, big, fat story in the Times on me today + 12 photos. Thank you, Bob Morris, for seeking me out (no press agent involved here!) and writing such a heartfelt, spirited, and happily long piece. My house thanks you too (at least the part of it that made the photo)!

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.

27Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 9, The City By Car

27Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 9, The City By Car

Wednesday, April 6, had tremendous potential. (L-R) Mark Blackwell and Laura Grover, both of whom worked on putting the whole Detroit extravaganza together with me, and I were being driven around the city by Michael Poris, one of the architects leading the charge to rebuild Detroit. The Majestic Theater is one of his projects.

Here’s a detail of The Majestic’s majesty:

Unfortunately, the skies weeped steadily throughout the day, making decent photos next to impossible unless one was out to amplify the decay of the city, in which case the incessant downpour added just enough teardrops to slam that sentiment home. Most of my shots look like this:

Which is a shame, as to miss the details of a combo Church and car wash is a waste of excellent kitsch:

Just about the only clear shots I got was when I got out of the car,…

…or some of my car-mates did,…

…or when the rain wasn’t spitting into the car, with the window rolled down. Thankfully it stopped for a few minutes when I snapped these murals at the Eastern Market:

Sometimes the gloominess of the skies enhanced the experience of what we were looking at.

Perfect for a place that’s a Home For Funerals as opposed to merely a Funeral Home. Then again, it’s right next door to the happiest place on earth, Motown.

Growing up, I spent many a Saturday afternoon planted on this front lawn, trying to catch a bass note or background vocal seeping through the walls.

I make a pilgrimage to the front lawn every time I go home. In the early 1980s I even got into the actual recording studio when The Detroit Free Press did a story on me growing up in Detroit and how, as a songwriter, I was influenced by Motown.

But, alas, fate was not as kind this time. Had I stashed the three video cameras and four still cams away I could have marched through the studio again. But I had no interest, especially on this trip, in having any significant moment of my life pass by without being digitally preserved. So the closest I got was the hallway as no filming was allowed.

The woman at the desk was really nice. She knew who I was as soon as I walked in as she had seen me on the news the morning before. But rules are rules. Even though I’ve collaborated with some of Motown’s greatest songwriters, like Lamont Dozier…

… and Ashford & Simpson, seen here with me and Maurice White, founder and lead singer of Earth Wind & Fire, and LaChanze, the Tony-winning actress who played Celie in the musical I co-wrote, The Color Purple.

So we piled back in the car and were off to enjoy more of Detroit.

I would have enjoyed it more if the BBQ joint in front of that mural were still open:

Michael had been over to my place in LA about nine months earlier so I wasn’t worried about him showing us the usual tour suspects – The Detroit Institute Of Art, The Detroit Historical Society, The Spirit of Detroit, etc. All completely beautiful and historic but I wanted to see the spirit of the city as evidenced through how people express themselves via their homes, lawns and businesses. I’ve long believed that one’s immediate environment is a canvas for self expression. And places like this would be off the beaten track of any normal tour guide:

Talk about expressing yourself via your home…:

This is The Heidleberg Project, named for the street that artist Tyree Guyton took over 25 years ago and decorated houses, lawns and empty lots on two blocks of.  SPECTACULARLY INSPIRING:

 

One of the great promises of Detroit is that artists can live cheaply and express themselves in novel ways not possible in other cities. Like Ice House Detroit, a 2010 project where two photographers took over an abandoned house, hosed it down til it was an ice cave and then photographed it melting, symbolizing the building up and subsequent melting away of the once great Detroit.

Detroit is full of such self expression:

Artists see the future first – their way is to dream and paint that picture for everyone else. Reinvention and constantly shifting one’s perspective to stay inspired is as vital for places as it is for people. There’s a great effort in Detroit to redesign the city the artists’ way. In fact, one of my reasons for being there this particular week was to be the closing keynote speaker on that very subject at the Rust Belt To Arts Belt conference happening the next day.

But back to the streets… Rain-soaked as this photo is, I hope you can see the use of industrial materials on the facade of this otherwise traditional brick building. Up close it looks like a bunch of sawed-in-half hot water heaters. I love stuff like this.


There are so many beautiful abandoned buildings, waiting for artists to see their beauty and reinvent their once greatness.

And it’s not like artists can’t afford to live in Detroit.

Thankfully, someone bought the old Michigan Central train station. From what I understand, there are plans to renovate.

Forgotten by time, vandalized by squatters and ravers, its internal beauty still shines through.

It was getting late so we headed back as I had to go over my speech about the rejuvenation of Detroit I was giving the next day. I was pretty sure I had it down but wanted to make sure there were no crucial mistakes or  misspellings to trip me up. Sometimes even the most straight-ahead missives go awry. Like at this McDonalds, just a couple blocks from Vince’s, where we had dinner and which I’ll blog about tomorrow. I know they mean a 20 piece chicken McNugget dinner for $4.99 but if I’m to believe the sign it’s 20 P’s of cchcken uggets for four hundred ninety nine dollars.

Which makes it just slightly cheaper than some of the houses in Detroit. Calling all artists!!

26Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 8, Sights In Passing

26Apr 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Allee Willis Marches on Detroit! Part 8, Sights In Passing

One of my favorite things in life is photographing whatever I see around me, especially if I’m in a car and just happen to pass something that tickles my kitsch bone or general love of vintage or personality laden locations. Here are some of my favorites sightings that hit my eyeballs while attempting to find wherever I was going my first two days in Detroit.

Although I never made it in here I hear about this place, in existence for close to 120 years, from everyone:

I love the salute to the Oscars down in the corner of this mural on Wyoming and Seven Mile, with the Diana Ross lookalike eyeballing it:

Long since closed but gorgeous on Michigan Ave.:

It’s always an excellent sign of kitsch when the great architectural details stop as soon as you round the corner.

The real deal theater in town, the most gorgeously restored theatre I’ve ever been in, where my musical, The Color Purple, would be playing and my big Mumford extravaganza was taking place over the coming weekend:

The biggest drive-in movie screen in the country is the Ford Wyoming Drive-In:

The signage is a little anemic, but at least the Ford-Wyoming is still-standing:

If this were original 1930’s it would be great, but I suspect it’s just a cheesy 80’s repro “Deco”-like exterior on Broadway. I’d like to be wrong about that though.

I love the juxtaposition of homemade candy (and an excellent handpainted mural) and The Haunted Bus Ride:

Thankfully still-standing excellent Streamline Moderne architecture on Woodward:

You can tell this place is gonna be nuts from blocks away:

Extreme Dodge dealership (though I saw no signs of cars):

For a different mode of transportation, the old train station in Corktown:

A closer look at the majestic structure, down but definitely not forgotten:

In another part of town, mural excellence:

A closer look at the amphibious human:

Though that mural is nowhere near as excellent as this one, off of Woodward, west of Ten Mile.:

Four (great) burgers for $2.25 on Michigan Ave.:

How can you not be intrigued by a place with a name as flat and unassuming as “Nice Price”, also on Michigan Avenue?

Or this one on Michigan, so kitschiliciously basic::

A nice topless freeway entrance:

A sausage that screams “Detroit”!

A diner that screams Detroit, the Ellwood, built in 1936:

The Ellwood was moved to its present location downtown when the new Comerica ballpark was built.

I love this exterior in Hamtramck:

And just down the street:

Grab your snow cones and head down a few blocks further to Hamtramck Disneyland:

This building doesn’t look like much…

…but it’s all happening on the roof:

Evidently, Warholak is a great place to find vintage tires, which I’m always in need of as I comb the globe for original whitewalls for my baby:

And speaking of tires, here’s the famous one on I-94, once a ferris wheel at a New York World’s Fair.

And Joe Louis’ fist downtown:

I love you, Detroit! And I’m just two days in…

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…

 

03Apr 2011

I’m off to Detroit today!

03Apr 2011

I’m off to Detroit today!

Here’s where I’ll be this coming weekend conducting the bows music to my musical, The Color Purple, and then on Saturday morning from 11-12:30 sharp conducting my high school marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the GORRRRRGEOUS lobby of the historic Fox Theatre with the cast of The Color Purple singing along.  I don’t read music (despite writing all we’re playing), and just imagine what the 60 piece Mumford marching band, 20 member pom pom squad, 25 member Color Purple cast, me and 250 attendees singing along will sound like in here… To kitsch!

https://www.alleewillis.com/mumfordinvite

My postings may be erratic this week as I’m shooting the whole week as a documentary.  I’m also the closing keynote speaker at the Rust Belt To Arts Belt conference about the rejuvenation of Detroit on Thursday. http://www.rustbelttoartistbelt.com/about/. I’m making numerous trips to my high school, going on a lot of tours of the kitschiest places in the city, seeing high school and grade school friends, attending three performances of  The Color Purple, and did I mention that my family planned my aunt’s memorial right smack dab in the middle of the day of my marching band performance and two performances of the show??!

Hopefully I’ll be posting little travelogues daily but no promises to what condition my brain will be in at the end of each day. Off to Detroit and we shall see!