Anything that took off as fast as Farrah’s hair did when Charlie’s Angels debuted in 1975 – 80% of females on earth immediately sheared their manes into replicas – insured immediate Kitsch Kollection status for all products released in association with the legendary locks. Although no one’s hair could have been further from Farrah’s than mine, I bought this bottle of Farrah Creme Rinse/Condtioner by Faberge the day it hit the shelves in 1978. I never intended to open it but a tragic haircutting mistake forced me to pop the cap and see if its magic powers worked.
This was in 1983. I had finally decided to chop down my middle-of-the-back length hair and the hairdresser, who I had never been to before, chose to give me a Farrah. Unfortunately, this was years past when it was hip to have all the little feathers and wisps that marked that haircut. Appalled that my heretofore trademark long curly hair was replaced with such a dated and and, at that point, conservative look I tried the conditioner praying it would somehow force my hair to match my head as well as Farrah’s matched hers.
When that didn’t work I locked myself in my house for thirty one days and every day cut a little more off one side of my hair thinking I would stumble on the ideal length and then cut the other side to match. As anyone who’s seen me in the 26 years since knows, I never committed and the lopsided experiment became permanent. Sometimes I read where people describe my hair as 80′s asymmetrical but to me it’s Farrah asymmetrical all the way.
Years later I met Farrah at a mutual friend’s house. She was really funny and incredibly nice. When she told me that she loved my hair I regaled her with the story of how it came to be. It made the biggest hair trauma of my life all worth it because I got to discuss The Farrah with Farrah.
R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett.
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This awkwardly made 1988 plastic drink kooler is one of the rarest and kitschiest of all my MJ memorabilia. You put the puppet kooler in the freezer til the patented freezing gel kicks in, insert a can in MJ’s torso once it’s out and flip his Smooth Criminal hat to get at the drink which supposedly stays cool for hours. It comes with a plastic drinking glass, a total inconvenience as there’s no place to keep it once the drink is popped into Michael. The bottom of the cooler reads “Sherman Oaks, CA., Made in Mexico”, a mysterious combo indeed.
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A friend sent this lookin-good-on-Sunday-for-church car to me so I have no details as to the who/what/where or when of it. But the how is that many folks, driven to the extreme, use their cars as a canvas upon which to paint their personalities for the world to see. I have shot photos of these vehicles for years and the confidence and power of self expressed in the drivers/creators is of such heavenly Kitsch proportions as to amaze me. I always consider myself blessed when I’m lucky enough to stop at a light behind them.
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I only met Michael Jackson once. It was 1980 and I was at Hollywood Sound recording with Earth Wind & Fire and he was working in the room next door. This was before Billy Jean shot him into the stratosphere but Michael Jackson was still a music God. He walked over to me but as he gave me a big grin and very gentle almost-handshake someone burst into the studio and said Richard Pryor had set himself on fire. Everyone just froze and I quietly slipped out of the room. Those old school recording studios are as soundproof as tombs but I could hear all the commotion in the lobby as he ran out.
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Garlic is about my favorite thing in the world. I drive up to Monterey a lot on the 101 and always pass 20-wheelers filled with the stuff coming from Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the world. I match the speed of the truck for about 10 miles to luxuriate in fabulous garlic fumes…
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Hooray for vintage Mary Kay anything! I serve Kool Aid out of this coffee urn, made by the appropriately named Poly Perk, at my all parties. Mary Kay and Brownie Wise, who invented the concept of Tupperware parties in 1950 and was the first woman to appear on the cover of Business Week, are two of my biggest entrepreneurial idols. I’m brewing coffee in the pink percolator as we speak and will toast finishing another Kitsch O’ The Day as soon as it’s ready.
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How I’ve sold 50,000,000 records and still don’t know how to read, notate or play music is in part because of these beer can shakers. I can always rattle them into some groove that I can hum a melody or write a lyric to. See, all it takes is some uncooked beans and rice knocking around inside some vintage tin. I’ll have some Rheingold with that beat please! Works everytime.
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Not that we don’t need a toast to Peace but the last inebriant a hippie or flower child was thinking about was liquor in 1968 when this Bourbon decanter was unleashed. The incongruity of which is what pushes this 86 proof Limited Edition Royal Enfield Porcelain booze vessel by Maloney into the higher echelons of Kitsch. As is inevitable when a trend as powerful as hippydom sweeps the world, all bastions of the old guarde attempt to hop on the wagon and cash in.
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Massive mug o’ joe dwarfing normal size coffee cup guarantees Dad will remain jacked up on his big day. Vintage 1960′s, handpainted, crazing on the outside from maximum sips and handling by Dad over the years. Happy Father’s Day!
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I see lots of green thumb inspired objects but this articulated fat fleshy hand is one of the best. This kind of molded hard plastic stuff kills me. And the green paint hugs the thumb perfectly like one of those stretchy self-adhesive rubber bandages. Holds just enough water to take care of my matching plastic plants.
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