05Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Lipstick Pens

05Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Lipstick Pens

Although none of these little mini pens come in the signature Mac Morange ultra bright neon shimmer orange color that I slap on my lips almost every hour of the day, they’ve been a staple in my purse ever since I received three of them for Christmas. They’re the exact size of and dead ringers for a real tube of lipstick so, as someone who always carries multiple pens because I’m forever writing myself notes, size and beauty rank these high on my list of practical kitsch accoutrements.

I hate keeping things in my head. I don’t like my brain clogged with anything other than empty space for ideas to float around in and percolate. And, despite the fact that I have three iPhones because I can’t take the time to look for my phone when I inevitably misplace it, I’m still in the habit of scribbling notes on little pieces of paper.

And just as I am with iPhones (and pocket recorders and keys and anything else that’s small that I need to put my hands on at a moment’s notice), I’m incapable of only owning one lipstick pen.

I tried to live with just these three for a couple weeks but broke down today and went on the hunt for them online. I was going to get a conveniently priced set of 12 but was watching Extreme Couponing on TLC during my search so felt inspired to stockpile. In just a few days I’ll be the proud recipient of enough lipstick pens to keep one constantly in sight for a year. My one regret is that the pens don’t come in all these gorgeous 1970’s shades:

I still get a thrill when I uncork a new tube of lipstick for the first time and that perfectly shaped oval ski slope of slick, untouched color emerges. If you’re someone who loves lipstick, there’s nothing like that first virgin drag across your lips. I like lipstick so much that I have several other lipstick shaped  items.  For example, I have a lipstick camera,

… a lipstick umbrella

… and several lipstick lighters.

But most beautiful of all are my new lipstick pens!

03Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Folks O’ The Day – Friends Over The Holidaze

03Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Folks O’ The Day – Friends Over The Holidaze

I have a lot of friends. I love my friends. I even wrote the theme song. As I usually work as far as the hands on the clock stretch, I mostly see my friends at parties, which is where most of them see each other too.  The seven-day stretch between Christmas and New Year’s is always fun as it’s chocked full of some of the best of them. And for the last umpteen years, the same two friends throw a New Years Eve and New Years Day party respectively, taking the pressure out of the holidays as along with sugar cookies and cheese balls I know what and, most importantly, who to expect:

Me, Charles Phoenix and Prudence Fenton:

Michael Des Barres, Roseanne Barr, Sally Kellerman, Dweezil Zappa and me:

Billy Bob Thornton and me:

Matt Groenig and me:

Buck Henry, me, Gail Zappa:

Me, Steve Vai and Pia Vai:

Me, Beverly D’Angelo and Eric Idle:

Dweezil Zappa and me:

Me, Dr. Kildare Richard Chamberlain and Nancye Ferguson:

Michael McDonald and me:

Peter Asher and me:

Me and Stan Zimmerman:

Nancye Ferguson, me and Beverly D’ Angelo:

Prudence Fenton, Jim Burns aka Sgt. Frank Woods, me:

Nancye Ferguson, Michael DesBarres and me:

Candy Clark, Bob Garrett and me:

Me and Charles Phoenix:

The bagpipe player who serenaded Gail Zappa on her New Year’s Day birthday:

Me, Antonio Hendricks, Prudence Fenton and Nancye Ferguson:

Diva Zappa, me, Irene Ramp:

Ian Buchanan, me, Nancye Ferguson:

Now back to work and to more wonderful friends in 2011!

02Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Happy Fake Jan Day!! Celebrate With A Wonderful Cheese Ball!

02Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Happy Fake Jan Day!! Celebrate With A Wonderful Cheese Ball!

We are blessed here at The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com to have an actual Brady in our Bunch and, as such, “Fake Jan Day” is now one of our National Kitsch Holidays! If you don’t know what “Fake Jan Day” is, Cindy Brady will explain it to you here.

Should you not decide to celebrate Fake Jan Day by dressing as a fake Jan I would suggest you simply acknowledge this most precious Kitsch National Holiday by ingesting the traditional “Fake Jan Day” food, the beloved sculptural culinary wonder known as the Cheese Ball. As far as I’m concerned, any day one has an official excuse to make a Cheese Ball is a holiday worth celebrating!

Oops, I didn’t mean those Cheese Balls.

I know the Christmas decorations are finally packed away but squirting cream cheese out of a frosting cone to enhance your Cheese Ball means that Santa gets one more closeup here at AWMOK.

It takes hardly any prodding at all to get me into the kitchen and in artistic mode to begin crafting a Cheese Ball. Were I not so lazy and overextended from holiday parties I might have even made it to the supermarket to construct one of my own so that it might serve as a veritable religious icon in the celebration of  Fake Jan Day. However, YouTube proved to be a loyal assistant here, and finding enough cheese balls, both gastronomic and human, proved an easy task.  So, if the holy fromage spirit inspires you to celebrate Fake Jan Day, wash your hands now and get ready to roll!

“Deep Fried Cheese Ball” – There seems to be a few steps missing here:

“Cheese Ball” – And now for the silent treatment:

“Corn Of Plenty Mini Cheese Ball recipe” – Don’t any of these people have heads?

“How To Make A Cheesy Spider Cheese Ball” – This is for Halloween but I’m sure it will keep til then:

“How To Make A Cheese Ball” – If the energy were any lower here I’d bottle it and take it to get to sleep every night:

“Pineapple Cheese Ball – Happy New Year”  I’m not sure if Pineapple Cheese Ball is the name of the dish or our sparkling hostess:

I never made a cheese ball of the magnitude of the following but I did make quite an impressive mashed potato ball once:

I sculpted the ball out of mashed potatoes, hit it with red food coloring, and stuck olives, gherkins and miniature corns in for a satellite effect and then fit it on top of my 1950’s Saturn shaped coffee urn for maximum presentational effect. You can see it and other impressive food ideas in my 1991 tiny short film, “Foxy’s Tips On Love – The Road To A Man’s Stomach Is Color-Coordinated”.

Whether you make your balls out of cheese, mashed potatoes or whatever ball material you choose I hope you have a very festive Fake Jan Day today!

29Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Soul O’ The Day – I’m Here and so is Oprah, Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia and LaChanze

29Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Soul O’ The Day – I’m Here and so is Oprah, Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia and LaChanze

Last night on the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS Oprah Winfrey was the first one to receive her award. Not only did my song,“I’m Here”, co-written with Brenda Russell and Stephen Bray, from my musical, The Color Purple, get played during the montage of Oprah’s life but it was then sung to her live by Jennifer Hudson, backed by the choir at Oprah’s alma mater, Tennessee State University.

It was a spectacular moment, not only for Jennifer Hudson and Oprah, but for me as a songwriter, who rarely gets to hear their music performed in a way they imagine it while writing as so many songs mutate from a fabulous little gem to an unrecognizable life form once they’re in the hands of an artist or producer. In my case, I’ve been blessed to see this particular song performed spectacularly by an bevy of fantastic singers and actresses, most notably Fantasia, LaChanze, Jeannette Bayardelle and Hudson. Here’s Fantasia, who played Celie, who WAS Celie, on Broadway for a year as well as for many months on the First National Tour, singing “I’m Here” at the Tony’s in 2007.

I would’ve much rather shown you Fantasia in costume as Celie singing “I’m Here” as it’s performed in the musical but it’s one of the quirks and, to me, one of the most backwards and archaic practices of musical theater, that they don’t allow performances to be filmed. Which means that unless you were one of the 1,000,000+ people who saw The Color Purple on Broadway you not only will never get to see LaChanze, the brilliant actress who originally starred on Broadway as Celie and won a Tony for her performance, but you will never get to experience the show as it was originally conceived. As such, all you can do is stare at this CD cover for the next 4 minutes while you listen to LaChanze sing “I’m Here”.

How beautiful does LaChanze sound and how dumb is it that you can’t see her?! Or that you can’t see Fantasia, who lives the life portrayed in “I’m Here”?! And the same for Jeannette Bayadelle, one of Celie’s understudies on Broadway who graduated to the lead role for the First National Tour. There are scattered and muffled pieces of Jeannette singing the song on YouTube, taken on cameras snuck into the show, but that’s not the way for you to see these great singers and actresses and it’s certainly not the way for you to see the show.

It’s nutty to me that people can’t be exposed to theater the way they are to all other entertainment mediums because of some ancient rule that the only filming allowed is of one performance that lives in the archives at Lincoln Center that only the authors and producers of the show can see. And by appointment only. How out of touch is that?!!! But you don’t want to get me started on everything I think needs to be adjusted in the world of theater so that new generations can embrace it as enthusiastically as ones did did back in the 40s and 50s, when hit musicals were on the tips of everyone’s tongue and not just the elite and tired few. Okay, enough… this post is about the brilliant performance of Jennifer Hudson last night and the brilliance of Oprah as an outstanding human being, not to mention how completely overwhelmed and thrilled I am to see the effect of “I’m Here” on the honoree:

Often times as a songwriter you’re the one left behind. Everyone knows the artist, in some cases the person who has the least to do with what you’re hearing or seeing, and many people know the producers. But songwriters create in the privacy of their little hovels and and rarely get the glory unless they’re recording artists themselves. I’m not complaining –  well, I am – but I know that I’ve been blessed to have my songs covered by artists all over the spectrum of music. And one of the nicest gifts of all was watching TV last night and seeing this bunch of people kicking back and enjoying my song:

28Dec 2010

My Song Sung to Oprah on The Kennedy Center Honors TONIGHT, Tues., Dec. 28!

28Dec 2010

My Song Sung to Oprah on The Kennedy Center Honors TONIGHT, Tues., Dec. 28!

Sorry this is so last-minute (not as sorry as I am for that crazy smile on my face) but if you have a chance to catch or TiVo The Kennedy Center Honors tonight, Jennifer Hudson is singing my song, “I’m Here”, to Oprah when she gets her honor. The Kennedy Center Honors are on CBS, I think at 9 pm. I’m told it’s toward the beginning of the show but with this said, you never know how things are going to be edited and whether the song is going to be there or not. But I have a lot of friends who were there and said it’s fantastic. Of course, it’s a great honor to know that “I’m Here” is part of such an honor for Oprah!

“I’m Here” is the lead character, Celie’s, big song or as they call it in the theater, the 11 o’clock song, in the musical I co-wrote with Marsha Norman, Stephen Bray, and Brenda Russell, The Color Purple.

Here I am with my co-authors the first time we met Oprah in 2005 when she walked into a rehearsal to announce she was coming onboard:

The Color Purple ran on Broadway for two and a half years and is going into its fourth year on tour.

That’s not seventh place American idol winner Jennifer Hudson in the poster, it’s first place Fantasia, who starred as Celie for a year on Broadway and for some of the First National Tour. Coincidently, LaToya London, who came in fourth, played Celie’s sister, Nettie, on tour.

Our original Celie on Broadway was the brilliant LaChanze, who won the Tony for Best Actress, our only win out of 11 nominations, one more than the movie got with the same number of noms.

Oprah definitely enjoyed producing The Color Purple:

There’s nothing inherently kitschy about Oprah Winfrey but in terms of my connection to her as producer of my musical, I love the kitsch value of the following photo. One waits a lifetime to be spoken to by Oprah and here I am not even paying attention…

Here we are opening night of the First National Tour in Chicago, May, 2007. I have no idea who we were all looking at.

The lyrics of “I’m Here” are a testament to the survival of the human spirit despite incredible odds. I saw an interview with Paul McCartney, who also receives an honor tonight, saying that what touched him the most was that all of the winners came from exceedingly humble beginnings and overcame incredible odds to become who they are. So “I’m Here” seems like a perfect match. You can read the lyrics and hear an incredibly fuzzy made-by-someone-who-snuck-a-camera-into-the-theater recording of Fantasia singing the song here. To hear the real thing, a version I co-produced with Fantasia and a 30 piece live orchestra, check it out on iTunes on Fantasia’s Back To Me CD.

For anyone doubting whether they have any worth, “I’m Here” is your theme song. Lucky for me, it’s Oprah’s tonight.

27Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Clothing Dust Proteetive Set

27Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Clothing Dust Proteetive Set

When I first looked at this Chinese import from the Dollar Store I thought that it was much too straightforward to qualify as a product I love because of really bad translations on the packaging. But then I saw that the spelling of Protective had mutated to ProteEtive. So I started nosing around the packaging and found that it very much lived up to my high expectations for cheap products coming from the Orient.

Although I’ve never heard a clothing garment bag referred to as a “Dust Protective Set” let alone a “Dust ProteEtive Set”, it’s pretty clear to me that these are, in fact, garment bags. However, I’m really not sure how I’m supposed to be “sweeping neat” or what the act of sweeping has to do with anything proteetive anyway.

Similarly, I’m very happy that “the dust protective defends the tide” but I’m not sure what the ocean has to do with anything. And the cover of a “Dust Protective Set” doesn’t seem to be the right place to start a song lyric. I’m also grateful that my new garment bags are “beautiful generous” though I prefer those qualities in people. I almost thought that the last selling point was about to make sense but ultimately am much happier about the forgotten ‘c’ in “practial convenience” than if these people had enough money to hire a skilled translator.

As far as the graphic goes, I understand the garment bag and the suit that goes in it but I’m not sure what that loaf of bread looking green thing is doing there.

Perhaps it’s just another illustration of the proteetive bag lying prone to show you that it can be  overstuffed, or oversteefed, with clothes. I do hope that the bags themselves are constructed better than the title of the product, though I would never rip the plastic to get them out as I’m far more concerned with proteeting the sanctity of the Proteetive packaging than I am about proteeting my clothes.

Thank you, aKitschionado Margaret Lewis, for your generous contribution of one Dust Proteetive Set to the physical collection of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com!

23Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Grinch Who Made This Christmas Tree Hat

23Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Grinch Who Made This Christmas Tree Hat

I always hated these theme hats but ever since I’ve had my Kitsch O’ The Day blog I’ve found one that’s dumber than the next and that seems to serve the cause of Kitsch well. In the case of this particular Christmas tree chapeau, I hope that most people who don it bought it for themselves as opposed to getting it from under the real tree as it lives up to excessively few of its claims.  For example, the label definitely leads one to believe that the star on top lights up and stands erect as any good tree topper should:

In real life, the star flops over like a dead fish.

Although it might look like the star is lit in that last photo it’s just that I shot it in too bright of light. In fact, the wire connected to the star is clearly not connected to the battery terminal.

Inside the hat, the battery case flops around on your head like another dead fish. Should you attempt to adjust the sized-for-a-child-and-grips-your-head-like-a-vice hat on your now bruised head, the battery case flops out like the ornament that’s always too ugly to put on the tree.

So far my cat, Niblet, has hacked up six bunches of tinsel that have fallen off the tree hat. If you even look at this thing it sheds.

All in all,I think it might be less frustrating to wear a real tree on my head. I hope Fun World Div., Easter Unlimited, Inc. of Carle Place, NY by way of China is making a New Years resolution to take better care of their trees before extracting $30 for the malfunctioning stump that sits atop my head this Christmas!

22Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschy Khristmas Shopping List #2

22Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschy Khristmas Shopping List #2

99¢  and discount stores in general are fabulous all year round but there’s no question that the season they shine most at is Christmas, when all stops are pulled out and the shelves are packed with more crap than even a kitsch loving aKitschionado such as myself can absorb. These stores at this season offer the perfect storm of circumstances for me, especially as I needed some Christmas arts and crafts supplies to make Pigmy Will Christmas ornaments.

So I got my head together to stand in line as these severe discount stores are the kind of places where there are five or six cash registers but only one or two staffed at a time. But despite the long lines and shelves stuffed with misplaced items because people change their minds on the go and stick things anywhere, it’s always a delight to see what’s offered at this most special time of the year. Here are a few of the things that crossed my eyeballs within the first 10 minutes of walking into two such establishments in North Hollywood, CA.

This seems like an awful lot of plaster or whatever these things are made out for four little hooks:

This looks like it was made by someone who’d drunk too much Red Bull and was let loose in a crafts store:

This kind of kitsch scares me:

Could there be any more going on in this frame to take away from a photo?

I know that this Stocking Wave-Cap is impressive but what I want for Christmas is that foot shaped emery board next to it:

I’m buying everyone on my list a “snug and comfy” non-Snuggie-looks-just-like-a-Snuggy Fuzzy Wuzzy:

And maybe some Elvis in a can…:

I bought ten Elvises in a popcorn filled guitar.

Forget about the doggie Santa suits; I like that pink coat with the fur collar down in the bottom right corner:

I didn’t know that Barbra Streisand had her own line of beauty products:

If the best thing you can say about your pantyhose is that they are “Beautifully  effective” I’m not even excited about them being Velvet.

As if there already wasn’t enough of this in the world, we don’t need more of it at a buck a pop:

And whoever buys this, please take me to your home and let me see what other supreme kitsch you have inside:

If you were kitschilousciously koncious this Christmas shopping season you could have everything on this page for under 100 clams. May you have a excellent 99¢++ Christmas!