{"id":17971,"date":"2010-07-03T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2010-07-03T17:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/?p=17971"},"modified":"2010-07-04T11:40:36","modified_gmt":"2010-07-04T18:40:36","slug":"allee-willis-kitsch-othe-day-%e2%80%93-ball-barbecue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/allee-willis-kitsch-othe-day-%e2%80%93-ball-barbecue\/","title":{"rendered":"Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day \u2013 Happy 4th of July Ball B-B-Q!"},"content":{"rendered":"\"ball-bq_3421\"\n

Designed by William Wiggins for Shepherd Products of Toronto in 1970, this aluminum ball shaped barbecue which featured a double stack of cooking racks and a rollover cover <\/span> was about as modern as you could get back in the day. The hottest of the colors it came in was a gorgeous shade of red orange which this one originally was when I rescued it for 99 cents from a Salvation Army. Here it is in brand new, pristine shape:<\/p>\n\"ball-70s_bbq\"\n

But through the years of chicken juice and hot dog grease all that was left of its color by the time I found it were a few flakes that peeled off if you even breathed on it. I hate when vintage things are restored to look “brand-new”, translation: too cheesy for a purist  to even look at, so I couldn’t consider that. But the opportunity for cosmetic surgery presented itself when I art directed  a Debbie Harry video<\/a> over here in 1987 and covered the B-B-Q with a coat of chrome spray paint to use as a prop. Which made it look gorgeous but even more dangerous to eat anything that was cooked in it. So through the years it’s served a variety of other functions, mostly at parties.  Sometimes I use it as a candy dish…<\/p>\n\"ball-bq_3428\"\n

A lot of times it’s used as a name tag container as I hate to be responsible for introducing everyone myself…<\/p>\n\"ball-name-tag-bbq_1908\"\n

At a party over here a couple of years ago when the musical I co-wrote, The Color Purple, came to LA, Adam Wade, who played Ol’ Mister, dipped into the Ball and used the flip top as a ledge to fill out his name tag.<\/p>\n\"Ball-bbq-name-tags,-adam-wade_3287\"\n

This is significant because decades before I met Adam I had photos of him plastered all over my bedroom because I swooned over his Johnny Mathis-smooth-as-wine-which-I-don’t-even-like-so-I’ll-say-smooth-as-Skippy-Peanut-Butter-smooth voice. Here’s what I looked at on my ceiling every night as a teenager when I got into bed:<\/p>\n\"ball-adam-wade\"\n

I can’t believe I have no photos of the bedroom I grew up in. It was decorated to the max and gave all indications of how and who I would grow up to be which is exactly how and who I grew up to be both from a decorative and musical standpoint. But me having no photos is another matter entirely so suffice it to say this is why I document everything so incessantly now. But back to the Ball B-B-Q…<\/p>\n

My little Ball B-B-Q may not be capable of smoking with the big guys…<\/p>\n\"bbq-chef-douglas,-aw\"\n

…and it may not be capable of turning out food like this…<\/p>\n\"bbq-hef-douglas,aw2\"\n

…but as it sits in my yard this Fourth of July, probably wishing it had a big bulging steak or some burgers sweating on its grills, it just makes me happy to look at it and celebrate the fact that I had the good taste to buy it in the first place.<\/p>\n\"ball-bq_3425\"\n\"ball-bq2_3420\"\n


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Designed by William Wiggins for Shepherd Products of Toronto in 1970, this aluminum ball shaped barbecue which featured a double stack of cooking racks and a rollover cover was about as modern as you could get back in the day. The hottest of the colors it came in was a gorgeous shade of red orange … read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,181,223,87,193,29],"tags":[1573,61,1567,1569,1565,3232,3245,1571],"class_list":["post-17971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-furniture-and-housewares","category-holidays","category-kitsch","category-kitsch-o-the-day","category-party","tag-adam-wade","tag-allee-willis","tag-ball-barbecue","tag-ball-barbeque","tag-ball-b-b-q","tag-kitsch","tag-kitsch-o-the-day","tag-william-wiggins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}