So the Fluff gang, most of whom flew down from the Oakland/Palo Alto area, have all boarded planes and taken their Fluff-filled tummies home after an extraordinary weekend of sugar highs and flea marketing. As I said on Sunday when I documented some of the fluff-tweaked tasty treats that filled our gullets, between everyone’s cameras there are literally thousands of shots to go through. This is also a huge music deadline week for me and one during which I should be working on my live show, Allee Willis’ Soup To Nuts Party Mix, my first live performance since walking off stage in the middle of my own show in 1974. So I’m going to do this most fluffy Fluff post in pieces, one for each day it takes for my sugar levels to return to normal. So please tune in tomorrow to get the full picture of the marshmallow madness that took place at Willis Wonderland this weekend and from which I am still pulling Fluff off the walls and my clothes.

This whole Fluff thing came about because aKitschionado Rusty Blazenhoff, who threw me a party without even knowing me when I drove up to Alameda for Meshuggah Mel and Kookykitsch’s Clean House garage sale in May, suggested that members of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch take a field trip to the annual Fluff Festival in Somerville, MA. this September. She also suggested a preliminary field trip to Willis Wonderland for a day of cooking with Fluff so we were all up-to-speed on the foodstuff.

Guests were slated to arrive here last Saturday at 12:02 PM, a time mutually voted on by the attending aKitschionados. First to hit the deck was Windupkitty.

To put the attendees in the proper brain-frame, Windup assisted me in making a lovely and nutritious lunch of Cheez Whiz, peanut butter and jelly, egg salad, and fluffernutter sandwiches.

The vegetable portion of the meal was Goldfish in Blue Seafoam Dip.

A good party hostess always thinks about theme-appropriate serving pieces, in this case a dead-on match for the Goldfish.

Appropriate glassware is equally important. Although Disco has absolutely nothing to do with Fluff, Disco anything is appropriate for absolutely everything in a kitsch universe.

The cup goes well with many of the other Disco accoutrements at Willis Wonderland.

It’s really too bad you can’t see aKitschionado John Zenone’s glass better in that photo with my Disco cup. Here it is:

If only Helen Reddy had been in attendance on Saturday it would have been an even Fluffier day! But Disco and Helen Reddy aside, our real purpose was to glorify Fluff, the marshmallow food topping that most of us are flying to Somerville to celebrate and where I, along with Susan Olsen, a.k.a. Cindy Brady, the youngest of The B Bunch, will be riding atop a Fluff float. So obsessed with Fluff is Susan that she glorifies it in her art. Here’s “Fluffaganesh”:

As such, Susan started off the afternoon serving her signature Flufftinis, Fluff and cotton candy rimmed glasses holding enough whipped cream vodka to anesthetize a horse.

Here’s akitschionado Meshuggah Mel enjoying a delicious Fluffitini:

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Most of the Fluff-glued cotton candy was still standing tall on Mel’s glass but you can see the effect the vodka has on such foodstuffs in aKitschionado John Z’s drink as it liquefies the sugary stuff and all kinds of colors start globbing down into the liquor and Fluff-filled glass.

You might also notice the beautiful pendant that John is wearing. I hand-made souvenir Fluff baubles for all the attendees.

Here’s a closer look:

But before the Flufftinis were even stirred, Susan arrived with a beautiful vegetable plate. I’m not a lover of vegetables so I wasn’t upset by the paucity of them as I pried the Saran Wrap, stuck to the glue-like dip, off.

Turns out that the the dip Susan made was pure Fluff and the vegetables were pure candy. As to why she arrived with so few as to make guests share the miniature carrots and such, she admitted that these were all that were left after her dog gummed the rest of them. Here aKitschionado Prudence Fenton admires the candy buds on the canine saliva-smeared broccoli:

Had we not stopped aKitschionado Jesse Greene from eating the healthy vegetables we may have had to take him to the vet.

As members of The Allee Willis Museum Of  Kitsch always arrive fully prepared, many guests carried their Fluff in appropriately vintage suitcases.

Rusty’s suitcase was also filled with tee-shirts for the mommies in attendance. Akitchionado Kookykitsch, the first member to sign up when The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch launched in 2009, joins Susan and Rusty as the third Fluff mommy.

aKitschionado Ken Dashner, made the girls’ tee-shirts.

Since she first mentioned the Fluff Festival a few months ago, Rusty talked about making a Fluffernutter cake. She e-mailed so much about this I took it for granted that this was a tried and true recipe she had long perfected. But when she arrived we learned that not only had she never made the recipe before but, by her own admission, she was a really lousy cook. To a junk food lover of kitsch this makes for very exciting prospects!

Indeed, the cake took over 3 hours to make. I swear to God, this was all that happened after 15 minutes of Rusty wielding the electric mixer:

The other side of my hair could’ve grown in faster. Perhaps it was due to Rusty’s beverage choice, which goes excellent with Fluff btw:

Though the cakemaking process was exhausting….

…the end result did not disappoint!!

Though you might think that it was the Colt 45 that gave the cake it’s Niagara Falls effect, it was aKitschionado Charles Phoenix, a test kitchen expert, who encouraged Rusty to use a full jar of Skippy, more than the recipe called for.

Charles has excellent cakebaking skills as evidenced by his prizewinning/ front-page-of-the-Wall-St.-Journal Cherpumpumple cake.

In fact, the overflow of Fluff-spiked Skippy made the Fluffernutter cake taste even better.

Though the volcanic goo flow made it almost impossible to appreciate the giant sandwich shape it was intended to retain.

I’ve eaten messy sandwiches before but this took the cake.

More fluffied treats and goings-on tomorrow…. In the meantime, may we offer you a Flufftini?

 

Sorry, no real post today as I’m busy playing hostess-with-the-Fluffiest-mostest to members of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch who convened at Willis Wonderland this weekend for a pre-Fluff Festival junk fest featuring, among other outstanding foodstuffs, whipped cream vodka Flufftinis…,


… Goldfish in seafoam dip…,

…a Fluffernutter cake…,

…Cheez Whiz, peanut butter and jelly, egg salad, and fluffernutter sandwiches…


…fried S’Mores…

…. and candy vegetables with Fluff dip.

I hope to get documentation of the pre-Fluff Fest up within the next couple of days. Those shots will include the attendees eating the aforementioned snacks and engaging in various Fluffed activities. But between everyone’s cameras I have at least 1200 photos to go through and I had to get up bone-breakingly early this morning to accompany the aKitschionados to the Pasadena City College Flea Market, followed by a trek to Pie ‘N Burger for an equally nutritious lunch as AWMOK members feasted on yesterday. So I’ll be back tomorrow with at least Part 1 of Fluff Time at Willis Wonderland. Until then, remember to eat your

Judging from the photo on the package I suppose this is some sort of little storage bag or purse or something but the only thing that I can tell from the labeling is that it’s “New” and its name is perilously close to the weight loss drug in the mid 90s that took a whole lotta people out.

Unless you can make sense of it also being “Nearby double seam, abrasive resistance” and that it “Prevents the washings to distort, tie the knot.” But it’s actually the last important point about the product that’s my favorite: “The good classification, the clean is clean”.

This mangled translation, of course, makes me love this product no matter what its use. Serious kitsch value is in leaving the package undisturbed and never knowing the true nature of the contents. And you won’t get help from the back of the package either:

This is what I LOVE about 99¢ and dollar stores. You would think for overstock product shipped from overseas that they would at least slap a label on that told you clearly what was inside. Though for a buck I guess they’re counting on the fact that if you can even guess what it is it’s such a bargain you’re gonna go home with it anyway. For me, it was enough to see psychedelically influenced flowers printed on shades of pink mesh that did it:

Because  it has a zipper I might put my money down on makeup pouch. Or perhaps a small storage bag. I did a search for the company name, Fenfang, but all I found was a Chinese restaurant in Cochin, wherever that is, and a Fen Fang, a praying mantis that’s eating a cricket, on YouTube. Neither one of these give me any clue as to what the mysterious mesh flower artifact is. Hmmm, maybe you stick something like nylons, which I haven’t worn in decades, in so they don’t tangle while drying quickly?

Ultimately, none of this matters as I’m way more attached to packaging that makes no sense than I am to having one more little case that can get lost in the bottom of my drawer only to have me discover it years later and re-gift it.

Of my entire immense collection of Disco artifacts this almost-John-Travolta-with-almost-Toni-Tennille disco mirror is way, way, way up there on my favorites list.

Almost-Travolta and his partner are exactly the kind of people who wouldn’t have made it into Studio 54. Quite the contrary, her little-too-late  swish of Farrah Fawcett hair, drapey polyester dress and bangle bracelets make for the kind of outfit that filled up discotheques on the outskirts of towns at the sides of freeways all over the United States.

There’s so much more going on on this mirror than disco dancing it’s totally nauseating to look into it for very long.

But I would never complain too loud about a product that hangs on a wall that’s actually called “Disco Dancing”.

The footwear especially kills me:

Which is good because after staring into the mirror for too long it’s all I can do to stare down at the floor and see my own feet in order to bring my head back to a normal state. Then again, it’s a very cheap and medically safe high to look at almost-John, almost-Farrah/Toni T. and their disco floor-inspired mirror background to feel like I’m hallucinating.

I know that in most of the rest of the US having an umbrella barely pricks the surface of the smoldering heat that’s gripping it like a rabid python. If you live in one of those places you probably don’t want to hear that here in LA, outside of a couple 100° days, it’s been a pretty water park of a summer.

Frogs are more suited for heat infused weather then I am. I would happily volunteer to be a guinea pig whenever they invent air conditioning chips that can be inserted into your body.  But until then I’ll just have to pray the sun behaves in LA and look for shade when a super hot ray pokes through, just like these happy little frogs.

I wore my fringe vest for years. It was gold suede, just like the cheesy-haired couples’ on the bottom of this McCall’s pattern, though mine didn’t have the little turquoise beads. I think the sound of them knocking together would have driven me insane. I wore that that vest religiously from about 1970 to 73 but it got so pit stained I finally had to retire it. Suede does not take kindly to pit stains. I know I still have it sitting in a box somewhere. It was too much a part of my formative years to part with forever.

Speaking of pit stains, I’m not wearing my  fringe suede vest in this 1971 photo, when such a garment frequented my body, but I certainly am exhibiting pit stains:

I had just graduated college and got a job in the advertising apartment of Columbia and Epic Records. Although I would soon go on to become a copywriter, writing ads and commercials for all of the female and black stars on the labels, and eventually recording an album there myself, here I am as a secretary getting Johnny Cash to approve some copy my boss had written to promote his upcoming album. I remember being so upset about the pit stains when I finally got my photo developed, but it makes me love it more now.

I can’t seem to find any photos of me in my  fringe vest. But here’s one taken not long after the Cash photo where I’m wearing another vest  that displays the art of macramé, another massive trend in 60’s and 70’s fashion. This was the first and last vest I ever made. You can tell by the difference in the size of the holes that something that demanded this much precision was not my forte.

But back to fringe vests. I’ve never seen anyone wear one better than Peter Carpenter, writer, producer and star of one of my all-time favorite bad movies, “Point Of Terror”.  Just look at him work the fringe in the opening titles of his 1971 masterpiece.

Should I ever have the urge to wear a Fringe vest again I can always pull out my McCall’s pattern and pray I have better luck and skills then I exhibited with macramé. I’ve definitely learned how to control the pit stains.

 

So that’s it. The third and youngest miniskirted, go-go booted Del Rubio has left the planet to rejoin the act. Normally I’m really sad when a friend of mine passes away. Trust me, I’m upset about Milly, but as the Del Rubio’s themselves were fond of saying, they were one person with three heads. And now they are back together as one.

Milly passed away Thursday night. The last time I saw her was this last Valentine’s Day when I delivered the hundreds and hundreds of cards, many of them handmade, that people sent to me, many of those via Hidden Los Angeles, to give to her. She wasn’t feeling especially great that day and discouraged me from taking the hundreds of photos I usually do because her hair and makeup weren’t perfect. Not that mine are in this photo with Milly from 1996 after a day in the sun on the roof of the triplets’ mobile home.

This was the last photo I have of Milly, taken about a year and a half ago when I saw her and we discussed that if she started playing her guitar again I would throw a big party to present her.

I had the honor of delivering the eulogies when the first two triplets passed, Eadie in 1996 and Elena in 2001. Immediately after Eadie passed, the remaining two, whose lives had always been enriched and enlightened by the performances they did, announced they never wanted to perform again. I tried to pull them back into it for a couple years, telling them that the reason audiences loved them would not disappear because there was one less sister. But they would have none of it. As you can imagine, that worsened for Milly when Elena left to join Eadie.

I can’t imagine that the world will ever again see something as magnificent and innocent as The Del Rubio Triplets. They were completely unaware that they were somewhat of an oddity and lived to entertain and make people laugh. Although people who were seeing them for the first time may have started out laughing because they had never quite seen anyone who looked or sounded like The Del Rubio’s, they were always won over and went home uplifted, adoring the triplets and remaining eternal fans.

The Del Rubio’s were massive part of my life. I always lived to combine high and low elements of art. I met the Del Rubio’s after my songs had already sold over 30 million records, but to have the opportunity to hear my hits performed Del Rubio style was the biggest reward of all to a budding kitsch lover such as myself. The very first time I ever presented them to the public they did a duet of “Neutron Dance” with Ruth Pointer, who sang lead on the hit record that was then number 6 on the Hot 100 chart. That was honestly the peak moment of a lifetime devoted to the pursuit of Kitsch meets Art, a musical highlight equal to winning a Grammy for the song, which was part of the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack, that same year.

If you’re unfamiliar with The Del Rubio Triplets, you can get a crash course here. And here.

There’s a fund established for Milly and her sisters at the Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Foundation in Wytheville, VA., which you can make donations in Milly’s memory to here. You may not know who Edith Bolling Wilson is. She was the wife of Pres. Woodrow Wilson and the great aunt of the Del Rubio Triplets.

That’s right, they had Presidential connections big-time as you can see from that photo taken with Edith Bolling Wilson, with husband Woodrow looking on, at the Woodrow Wilson House Museum In Washington DC. Any of you who saw The Del Rubio’s already know how regal they were. Their presidential link is just one more cherry on the kitsch and musical sundae known as The Del Rubio Triplets.

If you’re on Facebook you can go here to leave a note about Milly and/or leave one here. R.I.P. sweet, blond, go-go booted angel…

Alex Steinweiss passed away last Sunday. Even if you don’t know his name there’s no way you don’t know his work. Steinweiss literally invented the album cover. Before the 1930’s, records came in brown paper sleeves. At 23, he was hired by Columbia Records and suggested that the music be accompanied by poster art. Thus began the singlemost prolific and influential record jacket design career the world has ever known. Not only did Steinweiss give life to the record industry but he made the burgeoning Atomic Age visible to the public, creating the first wave of freeform design that designers still ride today.

Everything Steinweiss did burst with color. You could hear the music without listening to it just by looking at one of his covers. He was as great at what he did as it gets. His style is still imitated, though I’ve never seen anyone nail it like Steinweiss, who makes even the most successful designer of modern graphics look like a copycat.

And those aren’t even his most famous covers. But it gives you an idea of the rhythmic and lyrical style that still influences modern design today. This was the first time this stuff was being done. Just look at the Google image search page for an overview crash course.

I was lucky enough to have a piece of art in an album cover show at the Robert Berman Gallery in LA a few years ago that featured hundreds of Steinweiss’ LPs. It was a tribute show to him with a wide variety of artists designing their own album covers.
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One of my favorite Steinweiss covers was Porgy and Bess. When I was (co)writing The Color purple musical, I listened to that soundtrack a lot. MP3s of course but that record cover was still in my head as I saw it so much as a kid. I hadn’t been a musical theater aficionado before I got the Color Purple gig. To bone up, I started listening to every theater soundtrack I could get my hands on, especially studying Black musicals. Hearing Porgy and Bess again was what put the genre over the top for me and made me excited about writing a musical myself.
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Here’s Steinweiss’ cover:
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And here’s my Color Purple-tinged take on Steinweiss for the gallery show:
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My piece not only interpreted my musical but commented on the fact that both Porgy and Purple were two of the very, very few all Black musicals on Broadway ever, and that one of those was (co)written by me. That’s a lot to stuff into a piece which was at times torturous to design. I could feel the incredible artistic journey I took making it once I stood back and saw it hanging on the wall. Especially with hundreds of actual Steinweisses, not to mention the man himself, only feet away.
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I got to meet Steinweiss too, which was a THRILL. I know we took photos together but I can’t find them for the life of me. So I’ll settle for being thankful for the life of Alex Steinweiss. His artistic influence on me was MASSIVE. Without him, all there was was the record. With Steinweiss, came story and concept and full expression of the artist and art form, without which I would die. R.I. P. Mr. Steinweiss.
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When I was in my adolescent and teen years in Detroit, stuffing my big feet into high heels and T-straps, both of which looked far better sans socks, PEDS were a MAJOR revolution. They were the very first commercially released beige skin colored socklets that acted like socks but were tucked well below the shoe line and made it appear that you were wearing nylons. Which I hated even more than heels.

I’m pretty sure I had Peds on in this photo:

In theory, Peds were brilliant. In practical application, they stunk. Literally. After they slipped down into your shoe until it felt like you were walking on a clump of laundry, the heavy material they were made of soaked up pounds of foot sweat and smelled like they had been used to wrap fish in and left in a gym hamper for six months.

Still, I had quite an inventory of Peds to avoid the dreaded nylons and pantyhose. This might not have happenened had I discovered the beauty and necessity of coordinated socks and shoes, but that adventure into my own style wasn’t to happen for another decade or so.

But back in the 1960’s, a girl needed to dress like a dainty girl. Or so I thought. And that meant wearing those damn heels. Or flats, but even those were still mostly worn without socks. You can’t see them in the photo but this was my first time in high heels, at my sister’s wedding:

I distinctly remember feeling my Peds slipping as that photo was snapped.

This Peds display was a very early thrift shop find of mine. These days I’m much happier to stare lovingly at it than to have little socklets grip my foot like a python in a sauna and lose elasticity faster than a 90 year old.

The only thing I love more than a really bad fashion idea is a really excellent display card to feature it on. The idea of a cigarette ring, or any kind of a ring to park some kind of smokable in, is actually pretty great were the part of the ring meant to hold the smoldering log large enough to accommodate it. But in the case of the Hollywood Finger Ring, unless you’re packing Virginia Slims, that ain’t going to happen.

Though they do suggest this:

Then again, why don’t you just carry a blowtorch? But, if we give some license and assume that a cigarette or some other rolled substance would, in fact, fit into the little carriage, here are some of the many instances in which such a ring would come in very handy:

As much as I abhor cigarettes or being in the vicinity of someone else partaking of the habit, I really think this is a brilliant concept. However, in addition to the already discussed too small opening for an actual sized cig, the rings are made of colorful plastic. Which means that they would most likely appeal most to kids. Who we don’t want to encourage to smoke. So this brilliant concept = stupid product.  Which is just what we love placing on the shelves here at The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch.