I’m still incredibly bleary-eyed from my month’s buildup to my Sound Of Soul extravaganza Monday night, the recuperation after from which  I still feel numb not to mention running back and forth to The Pantages to see the final ever performances of my musical, The Color Purple, as originally conceived before it closes on Sunday and jumps to another tier of performance when the second national tour begins in a couple weeks. Honestly, I’d rather be lying in bed watching TV, my favorite sport, then running myself ragged like I was 16. But I’ve never been the type to do the former and I seem to eternally be the type to act the latter so at least it makes me smile when my drinkware matches my state of mind.

I’ve always admired cups like this, interpreting in clay what the artist feels inside.  I’ve also never been the type to practice  perfection, preferring instead to let things happen as they may, my skill being to figure out a creative way to deal with everything that smacks down into my path. Were I a sculptor of coffee cups I would naturally be drawn to this philosophy of design. If the cup isn’t perfect, crush it. Then it looks intentional. Then people like me come along and go this is just  what I feel like today and if they have the need, as I do, to make each action in their life organic and connected they have no alternative other than to pop down the coin for the cup.

This beauty has no other manufacturing marks than simply “Japan”. Of course, it was the 1960’s.

May you also see the day out of cockeyed eyes so you notice something new and wonderful to be grateful for.

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There it is this morning, right there on the homepage of the LA Times – the Sound Of Soul celebration at Willis Wonderland, the  physical extension of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch, to honor all things Soul – historic audiotapes and my collection of whacked out Kitschified Soul artifacts: http://www.latimes.com/theguide/events-and-festivals/lat-et-soundofsoul-pg,0,2371356.photogallery Movin’ on up!

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.                               Me and RuPaul

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In anticipation of the throngs about to stroll through my house tonight for my annual Sound of Soul fundraiser with Pacific Radio Archives not to mention a celebration of the culmination of The Color Purple First National tour I thought that my James Brown whistle from the Godfather’s little known late 50s TV show, a rare item indeed, was the perfect Kitsch O’ The Day today.  I rotate my collection fairly regularly but for this particular party everything in the house is part of my African American Pop Culture stash. As I said yesterday, it was James Brown himself who encouraged me to keep collecting these Soul artifacts as there was usually no budget to market these products on a national let alone worldwide level so they were only popular regionally. Like my game of Slang-A-Lang, Black Bingo, that was manufactured in 1969 in Detroit probably never got on shelves farther away than Cleveland.

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Mr. Wah Wah,  the prized work of Bubbles the artist, has become the symbol of the Sound Of Soul fundraiser I throw every year in conjunction with Pacifica Radio Archives. This year it’s tomorrow and I’m going nuts trying to get ready for 300 people storming my house to eat outrageous soul food from Mom’s Barbecue House, peruse my collection of Pop Soul artifacts that the Godfather himself, James Brown, encouraged me to  turn into a museum when he first saw it in the 1980s, and to celebrate the end  of the first national tour of The Color Purple.  (Second national tour begins in two weeks  with a brand-new production and cast.)

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Can’t even move I’m so stiff and a little pissed as well as me who usually travels around with four cameras, different resolutions for different occasions, only had one on me last night at the opening of my musical, The Color Purple, back in LA for the third time, and after many years of faithful service this camera just handed in its resignation and quit. I suppose that could be considered Kitsch, the co-author of the show’s camera rebelling at the opening no less, leaving a master archivist, me, with little other than words to describe the UNBELIEVABLE NIGHT it was.

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Yes, my birthday’s today and that means it’s time for me to make another one of my signature spewing fire and lava volcano birthday cakes! Ranging from a foot to 4′ wide and anywhere up to 25 pounds and 2 1/2′ tall, these overdosing towers of sweetness have accompanied me rounding the bend to another year ever since I first saw a commercial for The Special Effects Cookbook in 1992.

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These Party Pickers were all the rage in the 1950s – women poised to fulfill male fantasies, their high heels spiking popular canapés like Pigs In Blankets, Bacon Wrapped Olives and other fanciful party faire born in modern kitchens powered by the postwar Atomic mentality of style and convenience. 

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It was the 21st night of September, the opening line of my very first hit song as well as the date of the grand opening party at LA’s Ghettogloss celebrating the launch of AWMoK.com, The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch, my mini social network and ongoing exhibit of all things Kitsch. I am SO NOT the type to get up at a party and perform my own songs but this was the night that tradition broke.

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Seems like there are hundreds of photos circulating on the Internet from my party Monday night where, among a zillion other things, members of Earth Wind & Fire performed in a parking lot for anyone who wanted to sing my EWF hits, “September” and “Boogie Wonderland”. 

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