Other than the fact that it’s packaged in a 750ml bottle, the standard size vessel for champagne, the stretch  to connect product with name is so thin and precarious here as to induce the medical condition known as Kitschago. As a writer, it’s painful to see so many plays on words in trying to make elements as disparate as popcorn and classical music seem connected. As a kitsch lover, however, it’s ecstasy. Let’s see, how many ways can we thwack the creative brain with a lead pipe and make this popcorn/ Beethoven connection work?  The label, Château de Musica, implores the popcorn ingestee to “HANDEL with care”.  I don’t understand what care it takes to eat “Le grand Pops” but if one does apparently HANDEL it wrong the bottler, RACH MANINOFF, guarantees “your money BACH”.

Unfortunately, the LISZT price isn’t stamped on the bottle. And I don’t know enough about classical music to know if Albert Elovitz has anything to do with the art form but somehow the military managed to get in on the wordplay as Distilled by credit goes to KERNEL Albert Elovitz.

Thankfully, the bottom of the bottle remains pun free.

I cringe when people send me really cheesy song lyrics to critique, so pun filled at times I find it necessary to tell them that connecting together a bunch of plays on words isn’t an original concept and rarely works unless something else so unique is tossed into the mix. In this case, it’s thankfully not a crappy song I have before me but a champagne bottle, vintage 1986,  filled with popcorn. It may not be musical but it’s definitely what I would stock in the bar to serve with the cheese wheel at my next party.

And while we’re on the subject of Beethoven’s Fifth…

There are many things I love about this “Italy” fashion emporium in Van Nuys, California:

• The thoughtfully placed swathed-in-jeweled-look-denin-jeans torso-less mannequin so that her ass is facing incoming  customers and hogging up much of the walkway.

• The only entrance to the store being from the crowded parking lot in back.

• The accent traffic cone.

•  The Hush Gentleman’s Club sign on the roof adding even more exterior elegance.

•  The big sale for 1 suit, 1 shirt and 1 tie for $99 despite there being no evidence of men’s clothing inside.

• The bar outside:

• The decidedly tropical, nowhere near Rome mural painted on the side of the store.

But more than anything, it’s the jeweled-look jeans at the end of the store’s asphalt carpet that race the distinctly non-Italian named Virgil’s the final mile up the mountaintop of Kitsch.  Dotted with paint, the glittering rhinestone patterns are sure to glisten forever, insuring the classy Virgil’s vibe stay with each and every discerning customer long after she leaves the parking lot.

I don’t know about you but there’s nothing that I’d like to see floating in my drink less than a set of teeth. Unless they’re these wonderful ice cubes that pop out of a rubbery bubblegum pink gums-colored tray right into the refreshment of your choice. I’ve even made them specifically for Bloody Mary’s where I put some crushed peppercorns in the water so it looks like the teeth have cavities while slowly seasoning your drink as they melt.

It’s a gorgeous day here in LA today, perfect for sitting back with a nice, cold drink showing off a beautiful extra set of choppers. I’m mixing the Kool-Aid right now.

Anyone who knows me would be shocked I’ve never actually tasted a Slim Jim given my proclivity for junk snacks. It isn’t even that I don’t think I’d like the taste; it’s more that these are usually located near the cash register where the candy is and if my eyes ever wandered towards junk they were drawn to chocolate and caramel as opposed to meatstuff.

My “Packed in Cellophane All Beef Ready-to Eat Spiced Sausage Treat for 10¢” Slim Jim cig dunk is one of my favorite tin ashtrays. I’m especially intrigued with the slogan, “Make Your Next Drink Taste Better”.

If that’s the best thing that can be said about the taste of Slim Jims I will probably spend the rest of my life never having partaken of one.

I’m not quite sure what’s in a Slim Jim but among its ingredients is “mechanically separated chicken”.  I’m not quite sure what that is either.

Slim Jim’s are manufactured by the Cherry-Levis Food Prod. Corp.  Any company that’s too lazy to write out ‘Productions’ or “Products’ is Kitsch enough for me. Not to mention that Cherry Levis sounds like a great drink or line of jeans.

Speaking of great drinks, I left that Slim Jim soaking in my Vernors Ginger Ale after I took that photo and now it looks like a life preserver.

Seen from another angle it looks like a variety of things:

Speaking of angles, after hawking pickled pig’s feet to local taverns and observing that the most popular food there was pepperoni, Adolph Levis, inventor of the Slim Jim in the 1940’s, created his own preserved meat product that rather than curing for weeks could transform in a matter of days via fermentation and hot smoking.

Speaking of smoking, my Slim Jims ashtray has little cigarette rests…

… though I think  using it as an appetizer tray and resting a Slim Jim there is more appropriate.

Here’s hoping that everyone is having a blast this Memorial Day! I hope that includes popping lots of bottles with a similar vintage bottle opener as well as eating lots of hot dogs.

If it had a pointy metal end the hot dog’s hair gel/ketchup would look a lot like the ‘Have A Blast” cap popper.

The ‘Have A Blast’ even  has a baby brother:

Obviously the more popular of the two, the baby’s message is almost completely blasted off.

If you had either one of these openers right now you could pop the cap on something cold and celebrate the holiday by whipping up some Festive Hot Dog Soufflé from The New Hot Dog Cookbook, a 1968-updated-in-’83 tome of wiener recipes.

Or if that doesn’t sit right on your taste buds perhaps you could “make your wieners Wynders”.  Trust me, this is worth watching:

If you don’t want to drop coin on buying a Wynder’s Wiener maybe you’d like to spend this holiday tooling your own:

However you spend your holiday I hope you’re doing what you want to do and don’t forget to:

In anticipation of the Memorial Day holiday tomorrow and the many glasses that are about to be lifted these Party Jocs drink cozies make it easy to keep track of your drink and keep your hands moisture free as you chug it down.

Wednesday night I went to my favorite restaurant, Street, in anticipation of lifting a glass in celebration as Chef Susan Feniger won another round of Top Chef Masters on TV.  Not  only was she one of the final four but she had won 75% of her battles so far.

I went with my good friend, Stu James, who was also Harpo in my musical, The Color Purple. Although I didn’t have the Party Jocs with me and no glasses are evident in this photo we took with Susan we were all in a glass-lifting celebratory mood as the show began.

What’s great about being at Street on the nights that Top Chef Masters airs is that not only can you order any of the completely and insanely inventive food on the menu but also little trays of whatever Susan cooks on the show that night are passed around. We started out with Lamb Kakta Meatballs drizzled with date and carob molasses…

… followed by the Tatsutage Fried Chicken marinated with soy, mirin and sake and crispy fried in rice batter, topped with spicy kewpie mayonnaise sauce.

Then came the Burmese Lettuce Wraps with gin thoke style lentils, toasted coconut, peanuts, fried onions and sesame ginger dressing…

.. and the Paani Puri, spiced potato, chutneys and sprouted beans in crispy puffs of yogurt-cilantro water dipped dough…

… with the Brazilian Acaraje not far behind – black-eyed pea fritters with palm oil, garlic and cilantro stuffed with citrus cabbage slaw and malagueta chile sauce.

Then we topped it off with barbecued pork sliders:

Obviously Stu and I spent as much time taking photos of each other eating as we did talking, all the while watching Susan toil away on TV.  The chefs’ challenge this week was to make food “fit for the gods of the heavens”.

Susan was assigned Aphrodite, goddess of love.  She went for it with one of the signature dishes at Street, Kaya Toast.

Kaya Toast  is a Singapore street cart experience – toasted bread spread thick with coconut jam and sweet butter that you dip in a soft fried egg drizzled in dark soy and white pepper.  When you bite into it it fills your mouth with such an unexpected burst and multi-textural slide down the throat that your whole body jolts with the sensation. I can always tell when someone orders Kaya for the first time because there’s always a long drawn out ‘oohHHhhhh’ that accompanies it. That’s love. And it’s certainly fit for Aphrodite.

As individual servings of Kaya Toast were passed around to all of us in the restaurant Susan raced to finish the dish on the show.

As the judging began, the whole restaurant got ready to lift their glasses to celebrate yet another triumph. At that moment I wished I had brought the Party Jocs with me so Stu and I could have toasted in style not to mention hand comfort.

But the only thing about the Kaya Toast is that it looks like a very simple dish. Everyone always thinks it’s going to taste like a grilled cheese sandwich.

And that’s what judge Jay Rayner couldn’t get out of his head, that it looked like a PB&J and he didn’t find that very sexy.  So Susan went down in flames…

But I’m here to tell you that it took balls to make a dish like that, on first impression so plain and simple but upon tasting it a cornucopia of textures, tastes and sensations.  So come to Street if you want to taste food fit for the gods. And to Jay Rayner and the remaining three male chefs I lift my glass, now adorned with its comely 1960’s fashion statement, and wish them all very happy highballs as they cook to the finish.

As any good party hostess knows, one of the biggest drags is seeing a sea of half filled cups littered all over your place left by guests who are on their way to the bar to get a fresh hit because they have absolutely no idea where they left their drink. As someone who is writing this as 200 guests head toward here for “Food For Thought – The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch presents The Art of John Lloyd Young” party/AIDS Project of LA fundraiser, I don’t have to worry about such things because over the years I have bought at least 20 sets of these brilliant “What’s Yours?” Drink Markers that you snap on the side of a glass as soon as a drink is poured so the hostess not only knows exactly what’s in the glass to refill it but as each little tab is numbered also knows what drink belongs to who.

The manufacturer seemed to be particularly attached to Bourbon and Scotch:

In case the party host  gets too inebriated to remember that all you do with these little clips is to clip them on the side of the glass. handy idiot-proof instructions have been included.  My favorite instruction is that the host is instructed to carry the box of tabs with them as they offer their guests a drink and ask each of them, “WHAT’S YOURS?”.

Despite the fact that, in theory, this bar accessory serves a very practical purpose the most amazing thing about it is that every time I use these I come back to my glass to find it stripped of its badge. The Alexander & Wilson Co. of Pasadena, California may have put a lot of thought into the concept of their product but apparently not enough into the composition as per longevity. Perhaps the plastic was elastic enough in 1950 to ride the glass as if it were a polo pony and stay on but it doesn’t take more than about 60 seconds for the front of the tag to bust loose from the clip today and land in some undesirable drinking spot like the floor.

Yesterday John Lloyd, the honoree at my party today, and I spent the day setting up.  We did actually have drinks before we sat down to take this photo and would have brought them with us had we remembered where we set them down.

I have no idea why I wasn’t you carrying around my “What’s Yours?” Drink Markers.

These days I’ve dialed back down to decaf but every Sunday morning begins with a nice steaming cup of this stuff.  Now it’s slightly more exotic brands than Chase & Sanborn but this is the one that got the habit rolling back in the ’70s for me. Though the can may be a little battered now it actually represented lots of breakthroughs in coffee can packaging that revolutionized the industry.  For one, the No-Slip Strip, a little sardine like key that you broke off the bottom and used to wrap the metal strip that held the can together into a neat, tight coil avoiding bloody fingers that were inevitable without such an instrument.

Despite the company merging with Nabisco in 1981, a lot of Chase & Sanborn cans still exist today because the key allowed the can to open without squashing its shape so many people kept them to store a bunch of other junk in.

This can was also the first of Chase & Sanborn’s “Pressure Packed” models, an innovation that insured the coffee stay fresher longer inside its little coffee tomb.

Fresh is what I need today given the amount of coffee/decaf I will be chugging as I’m immersed in making sets, props, ipod playlists, name tags and the like for a huge party I’m throwing here next Sunday in addition to whacking away at several song deadlines and attempting to talk myself into working on my first ever performance in 35 years which I’ve also threatened to do this summer. It may not be Chase & Sanborn that I’m swigging back but memories of twisting open this can and THAT smell hitting my nose as I made a cup of coffee before starting out on my day in New York, banging on the doors of record companies trying to get a job, is enough to keep my senses alive and keep me slugging through the day.

The can is battered from decades of use, missing the top and scratched, but still has a permanent spot in the Willis Wonderland kitchen holding its precious cargo that also starts with a ‘c’, cat food.

I bought this Liberace mug at the first Hollywood estate sale I went to when I moved to LA in the late 70’s. I think Jack Hellman, the recipient of this inscribed mug from Liberace, was a critic at Variety.  I know that he was a Taurus.

Whatever he was he was a big deal who had very fancy clothes and a lot of personal gifts from a lot of  Hollywood stars.  I also bought a tux jacket there, maybe Jack’s, that I wore a lot right after “September” came out and I started getting invited to fancy music events.

Of course, no matter what I wore I never was going to dress better than Liberace….

….to whom I lift my/Jack’s mug now!