Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Academy Award Screen Stars Stamp Album

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This is an amazing movie find, especially for a stamp collecting movie nut (which I’m not but I can appreciate the passion).  Sixty pages of  blank squares, each ascribed with the name of a 1920’s – 50’s star, from Academy Award winners to TV stars, “The Young Set”, International stars, World-Famous Women, Animal stars, Shootin’ stars (Western), Symphony stars, Singing stars, Comedians  and every other category that Hollywood could possibly subdivide itself into.

The Screen Stars Photo Album was made in 1955 by the Harlich Manufacturing Co. of  Chicago and approved by the National Poster Stamp Society with “All Rights to Screen Star Stamps and Stamp Albums fully protected by Hollywood Star Stamps, Inc. in cooperation with the Stars, Studios And Motion Picture Relief Fund, Inc.”.

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Categories: Awards, Crafts, Dance, Famous, Film, Hollywood, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, Memorabilia, Music, TV/Radio

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1970’s “Disco Beat” Earring Holder

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One of my favorite genres of Kitsch is when objects are produced to take advantage of a massive trend in pop culture but actually have nothing at all to do with that trend.  My next favorite genre of Kitsch is when the products themselves are impractical for the use they were created to serve. This “Disco Beat” earring holder qualifies on both fronts! The bouncy,  clean cut 1950’s American Bandstand bobby-soxers would have never gotten into the 1970’s disco-beated Studio 54 and the zillion holes provided to dangle earrings from makes for too crowded of a surface to effectively hang more than a couple sets of earrings without them hanging over each other and coalescing into a tangled mess.  All of which makes for one hell of the fantastic Kitsch product!

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Categories: Accessories, Consumer Alert!, Dance, Disco, Forgot to Categorize, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, Music, Products

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THE COLOR PURPLE coming back to LA. Feb. 10-28

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Fantasia as Celie. Fantastic cast, many from the original Broadway production. Five years of my life into the making of this baby. I’m very proud of it. If you’re in LA come to the Pantages.

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Categories: Afro, Art, Awards, Book, Civil Rights, Creativity, Dance, Famous, Hats, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, LPs, Los Angeles, Music, Nature, Self expression, Songwriting, empowerment

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Maya Angelou, “Miss Calypso”

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Right, the first thing that hits your lips when you think of Maya Angelou is that she’s “Miss Calypso”. But in her early days the prophet poetess was a chanteuse in a slinky red dress back-bending under the limbo bar. This Liberty LP was recorded at The Keyboard club in Hollywood in 1956. Angelou’s Afro-Cuban-with-a-pinch- of -Blues-and-Jazz standards include “Scandal In the Family”, “Mambo In Africa”, “Donkey City” and “Stone Cold Dead In The Market”, the first two of which she wrote.

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Categories: Afro, Dance, Famous, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, LPs, Music, People, Self expression, Songwriting

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – A Go-Go Beginning To 2010!

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May everyone’s New Year be off to as sunny, bright and choreography filled a start as this romp through cheesy video effects and bouncy hair is. I hope you go-go-GO wherever you are (and turn off the hideously obnoxious Google advertising that sucks up the bottom quarter of the screen so as not to lose the thighs, crotches and go-go boots it so insensitively covers up).

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Categories: Clothes, Dance, Fashion, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, Music, video

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Donny Osmond “Boogie Wonderland”, 1980

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Last night Donny Osmond bagged an almost perfect score doing the Cha-Cha to my song, “September”, on Dancing With The Stars. In his former life as an Osmond he and his brothers took on my follow-up Earth Wind & Fire hit, “Boogie Wonderland”. What makes the latter performance in Provo, Utah in 1980 kwalify as Kitsch isn’t so much that Donny’s singing is uncharacteristically off, flatter than an iceskating rink in spots, but that the lyric changes made to suit Mormon sensibilities are so odd:

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Categories: Boogie Wonderland, Dance, Disco, Earth Wind & Fire, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, Music, Religion

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Soupy Sales “Do The Mouse” Hat

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One of the first rituals I ever remember doing with total religious fervor was eating my lunch every day with Soupy Sales. “Lunch with Soupy Sales”, his landmark kids show that launched in my hometown, Detroit, in 1953 and ran there exclusively until 1957 when it went nationwide on ABC, was mandatory noon viewing accompanied by my staple of one half peanut butter and jelly and one half tuna sandwich with a large glass of Sealtest milk spiked with several hits of Bosco.

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Categories: Clothes, Dance, Famous, Hats, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Abilene High’s Pure Gold 2006 Performance of “September”

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This starts out looking like a performance in a dinner theater and quickly spirals into something out of “Hair”. Between ’costumes’ from much earlier in the  ’70s than when my song came out and the exceedingly Caucasian phrasing of the lyrics and choreography this is, in a Kitsch lovers universe, a stupendous rendition of “September”.

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Categories: Clothes, Dance, Discography, Earth Wind & Fire, Fashion, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, Music, September, Songwriting, bad art

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – She’s even better at “Boogie Wonderland”!

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A couple of weeks ago I featured the world’s happiest gal dancing to my song “Neutron Dance”. Now, the Krown Princess of Kitsch Khoreography turns her attention to the sweeping horns and strings and theatrical chorus melody of another one of my most danced-to songs. Black leather against backlit drapes encourages an even more dramatic performance, made exceptionally special by how the dancer’s mouth moves aggressively though rarely quite mouthing the words. Other favorite aspects of the performance are the freeze poses and excellent recovery from a stumble in the first chorus. The moves in the instrumental are especially impressive. Kudos from the author to this Neutron Dancer in Boogie Wonderland!

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Categories: Boogie Wonderland, Dance, Disco, Earth Wind & Fire, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, Music, Neutron Dance, People, Self expression, empowerment

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Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Best Neutron Dancer Ever!

PLAY THIS VIDEO!:

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Categories: Creativity, Dance, Kitsch, Kitsch O' The Day, Music, Neutron Dance, People, Self expression

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