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!
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.)
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.
I had always thought that the day before the Grand opening of the virtual Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch I would have one of the most spectacular pieces of kKitsch in my collection to feature on Kitsch O’ The Day. But I’m going completely insane on massive overload trying to get the online interface/mini social network at awmok.com scotch-taped together enough to open tomorrow – sometime between noon and 5 PM West Coast time – not to mention building physical displays, handmaking souvenirs and getting auction items ready for the first of two grand opening parties tomorrow night at Ghettogloss on Melrose.
I have no hands left, my brain has been reduced to the size of a pea and the thought of photographing one more piece of my Kitsch and writing a description is enough to throw me into a deep coma after mounting an exhibition of every object featured in Kitsch O’ The Day since I began the blog in early March, building customized bubble display cases for everything, tweaking the descriptions, filling four foot wide bowls almost big enough to take baths in with junk food, and doing the 175 other things on my list for what I’m sure will be another 20 hour day of tweaks. So no Beatles sneakers, bedazzled Snuggies or motorized go-go boots that move on their own to “These Boots Were Made For Walking” today and, instead, an amazing 4′ x 4′ three-dimensional-made-from-all-my-junk “Allee Is Kitsch” portrait of me done by my very talented friend, Jason Mecier. The portrait is featured at the opening parties along with the other 150 aforementioned Kitschifyingly spectacular objects.
If you haven’t seen the trailer yet or don’t know much about The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch please proceed to awmok.com. Otherwise, see ya tomorrow!
I had always thought that the day before the Grand opening of the virtual Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch I would have one of the most spectacular pieces of Kitsch in my collection to feature on Kitsch O’ The Day. But I’m going completely insane on massive overload trying to get the online interface/mini social network at awmok.com scotch-taped together enough to open tomorrow – sometime between noon and 5 PM West Coast time – not to mention building physical displays, handmaking souvenirs and getting auction items ready for the first of two grand opening parties tomorrow night at Ghettogloss on Melrose.
OK. I reallllly should be writing a detailed blog about the party I threw last Thurs. night here at Willis Wonderland to launch the new Bubbles & Cheesecake video, “Editing Is Cool”, and to debut my first official painting collaboration with Bubbles the artist, the Print Painting series, featuring canvas prints of five of Bubbles’ most popular images that I hand embellished with paint and vintage found objects. That sounds pretty ho hum, a party to promote something, but anyone who knows me knows I’m a hostess with mucho mostess and stiff is at the north pole of oppositeness of what went on here.
In order to do this party justice I need to go through 14 hours of video footage and this is not a job to do when you’ve slept for 21 hours total the previous week and your brain mass is still dripping through a strainer trying to get back to any semblance of normal. So I’m slogging through all of it as fast as I can but know if I drive myself nuts to finish in the timely fashion bloggers are wont to do I won’t enjoy any of it. So please know that the merriment of the “Launching Allee” party is forthcoming – you can look at a few photos from it in the meantime – and instead this blog is about how I took my own advise as offered in my brand new shiny video, “Editing Is Cool”, and got through the party without killing someone.
I do a lot of different things. I never knew what to call myself. Composer/ songwriter/ lyricist/ musician except I don’t know how to play/ artist/ interactive artist/ writer/ director/ producer/ party captain/ social planner/ technologist/ collector. By most standards totally different hats. By my standards the road to being a totally integrated, self realized individual. By entertainment industry standards a liability until the Internet finally pounded into their thick heads that someone who was self sufficient and capable in more areas than the one they signed a contract in was an attractive pet to have in the stable. With two notable exceptions my music publishers never got why I had the urge to paint, the art gallery owners viewed me as a songwriter who sometimes paints and very few of them ever got that my real artform was the Party, where all my pursuits sloshed together in one interactive swirl of social interaction and finely honed environment.
