On May 8 and 9, 2012, I took a giant leap in my evolution and broke through an almost 4 decades-long bout of stage fright, performing two sold-out performances of my Super Ball Bounce Back Review, a combo concert/sing-along/party extravaganza at King King in Hollywood.

Lack of performing has always been a raw, gaping hole in a long career that’s stretched across various fields of the arts, despite the fact that I’ve always had the balls to throw myself off cliffs as I periodically dive-bomb into pursuits I know nothing about. I’ve hosted multimedia theme parties where I’m perenially on mic so that even the conversations I have with everyone are blasted throughout my house or wherever else I host these beasts. And God knows I walk around in hair and clothes that makes peoples’ necks snap if they’ve never gotten a gander of me before. Throw in that I’ve sold 50,000,000 records despite the fact that to this day I have no idea how to read, notate or play music, and I sold hundreds of paintings before I realized that you mix colors to get different colors. So backing away from displaying myself publicly made absolutely no sense.

But then I realized that this theme of living fearlessly was at the heart of everything I ever created. View life as a creative process. You are the canvas. If you’re stuck with a weakness, for God sakes turn it into a hook. Nine times out of ten, you’re the bogey monster scaring yourself shitless so just get out the way! So I finally did.

So here then are four videos from my Super Ball Bounce Back Review.  If you like them and are going to be in LA on September 21 and/or 22, I’m rising again at NoHoPAC in a salute to “September”, the first line of which mentions the date of the opening night.

“September”:

“Boogie Wonderland”:

“Neutron Dance”:

And the whole enchilada:

Badeya!

99¢  and discount stores in general are fabulous all year round but there’s no question that the season they shine most at is Christmas, when all stops are pulled out and the shelves are packed with more crap than even a kitsch loving aKitschionado such as myself can absorb. These stores at this season offer the perfect storm of circumstances for me, especially as I needed some Christmas arts and crafts supplies to make Pigmy Will Christmas ornaments.

So I got my head together to stand in line as these severe discount stores are the kind of places where there are five or six cash registers but only one or two staffed at a time. But despite the long lines and shelves stuffed with misplaced items because people change their minds on the go and stick things anywhere, it’s always a delight to see what’s offered at this most special time of the year. Here are a few of the things that crossed my eyeballs within the first 10 minutes of walking into two such establishments in North Hollywood, CA.

This seems like an awful lot of plaster or whatever these things are made out for four little hooks:

This looks like it was made by someone who’d drunk too much Red Bull and was let loose in a crafts store:

This kind of kitsch scares me:

Could there be any more going on in this frame to take away from a photo?

I know that this Stocking Wave-Cap is impressive but what I want for Christmas is that foot shaped emery board next to it:

I’m buying everyone on my list a “snug and comfy” non-Snuggie-looks-just-like-a-Snuggy Fuzzy Wuzzy:

And maybe some Elvis in a can…:

I bought ten Elvises in a popcorn filled guitar.

Forget about the doggie Santa suits; I like that pink coat with the fur collar down in the bottom right corner:

I didn’t know that Barbra Streisand had her own line of beauty products:

If the best thing you can say about your pantyhose is that they are “Beautifully  effective” I’m not even excited about them being Velvet.

As if there already wasn’t enough of this in the world, we don’t need more of it at a buck a pop:

And whoever buys this, please take me to your home and let me see what other supreme kitsch you have inside:

If you were kitschilousciously koncious this Christmas shopping season you could have everything on this page for under 100 clams. May you have a excellent 99¢++ Christmas!

Last weekend I drove down to San Diego to see a performance of my musical, The Color Purple. I rarely get a chance to see the show but when it’s anywhere near LA I choose which performances I’m going to see by which town has the best thrift shops and then I make a whole trip out of it. For this performance I mapped out all the second hand shops between LA and San Diego. But we left too late so dealt with the shopping jones in one antique mall in Solana Beach on the way to SD. I especially love antique malls this time of year because the Khristmas Kitsch comes out in full force.

Which is why no one should ever travel without a camera at this time of year. There is far too much kitsch to document by storing the wonderfulness in your head only.

The first thing I came across was this Bedazzled holiday fauna interpretation. These trees on felt or velvet are common Khristmas kraft faire but this one was done with more precision than most that line thrift shop shelves this time of year, with everything lying at the bottom of junk drawers messily glued on to form the tree. This crafter used chunks of resin to fill in the gaps between jewels instead of just accepting patches of black velvet  looking like dead branches on the tree.

I am so not a Mickey Mouse connoisseur so don’t know the vintage of this, but were I to let the mouse run around my house it would likely be in the form of this plastic cup with the big feet and double holed grip.

You can always count on a sweater smorgasbord this time of the year.

I dig homemade Christmas decorations but for $95 Santa’s mail won’t be delivered anywhere near my house this year.

Were I of the right religion I would definitely have gone for the following. If anyone ever spots Moses rolling through the rushes in mosaic let me know.

I’m definitely not into these little guard guys but you always see them around at Christmas. This one is particularly festive. I especially love his rubber chair leg tip shoulder:

I know that it was the individual bunches of tinsel that were for sale here but if I were someone who was decorating for Christmas I would’ve bought this whole thing and used it as a giant ornament:

Barbie, of course, always gets in on the Christmas action. With this kind of packaging I wish she were made out of chocolate:

Little baldheaded children with long eyelashes always look good dressed for the holidays:

I know that snowmen always abound in Christmas decorations so nothing special here other than the homemade quality of these three. I especially like how off-center the nose is on the guy all the way to the right (the snowman’s right, not yours):

I always like light up yard decorations of Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. I love how coiffed Jesus is in this one, especially in his pink pantsuit, and how much baby Jesus looks like a bubbling soufflé.

Vintage Pebble Art is great all times of the year but looks especially good in these praying Christmas portrayals:

Although it has nothing to do with Christmas, The Color Purple, the musical I co-wrote and which is what brought me down to San Diego in the first place, has an awful lot to do with a little girl praying and writing letters to God. Seeing my show for the last time for a few months until I fly to Detroit in April to conduct my high school marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the lobby of the Fox theater, where The Color Purple will be, was an excellent early Christmas present for me, especially after a day of such kitsch as aforementioned lighting up my eyes with wonderment. Look what God has done!

And speaking of purple and Christmas, it’s still not too late to order a lovely Pigmy Will ornament for the tree or to use as a hat on little baldheaded rubber Christmas children.

Each ornament and tree topper is a unique work of art crafted by Pigmy Will, Feathers and Whiska, when he’s in a good mood.

Adorable! Seasonal! Real art! CHEAP! And mailed within 24 hours of placing your order.

You can see all twelve styles of ornaments and tree toppers here: http://store.alleewillis.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=ornaments.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of making Pigmy Willl’s acquaintance you can see him at http://www.pigmywill.com or hit him up on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/PigmyWill.

Merry Christmas and happy ornament shopping from Pigmy Will!

I hope all aKitschinados are having a very happy holiday season so far. Brighten it up with the most unique Christmas ornaments around and be even happier!

Seasonally yours in Pigmy Will,

Allee

PW-chainsaw

For any of you reading this who might not know “Pigmy Will” because this is the first animated one of the under-60-seconds series we’ve done in quite a while, it’s a horribly drawn/ much beloved chronicle of Pigmy Will, a diminutive yet eternally optimistic being whose best friends with a palm tree named Feathers and a pineapple on a tricycle named Whiska. They’re all the creations of me and Prudence Fenton, much more heavily tilted toward the latter, who IS Pigmy Will as she possesses an unnatural ability to thrust her voice into the ozone and come out with a sound that makes dogs hide under the nearest couch. If you remember the hi-pitched voice of the flowers in the window box in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse that was Prudence (who also created Penny).  We write these, record them, voice them, score them, direct them and work with our animator, Alfonso, and engineer, Scott, to finish them. Here are two of my favorite “Pigmy Will”s:

“See My Dive”

PW-dive

…and “The Counter”

PW-counter

Usually Pigmy Will appears twice daily as a still on his Facebook pages as well as on pigmywill.com, which we really just use as an archive. Both Prudence and I are fanatic photo takers so the Pigmy  finds himself, Feathers and Whiska in a variety of exotic locales and situations. These aren’t even my favorites and none of them show off his foreign travels but they were sitting in an open folder so I just grabbed them to give you some idea:

PWTictacToastBig PW-YieldtoPresentRR pigmy-cake sprinklers-make-me-happyRR

I just realized that none of these stills contain Feathers or Whiska so am giving them their  close-ups now.

Feathers…

feathers

…and Whiska:

whiska

I asked Pigmy Will where he’s taking all of this and here’s what he said: “I’m available for TV, film, magazine, newspaper and web syndication, coffee mugs, washrags, salt ‘n pepper shakers, sneakers, flip-flops, T-shirts, night shirts, hair shirts, hats, goggles, intimates, lamps, rugs, shower curtains, tricycles, surfboards, cutting boards, pie franchisings, and TicTac spokesman.”

Deet deet deet deet!

PW-whiska

Pigmy Will and Feathers – created, written, art directed and “acted” by me and Prudence Fenton, animation and special effects director for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and all around the animated visual genius – have added a new friend to their neighborhood. Whiska,  a pineapple who sees the world through polar opposite eyes than Pigmy or Feathers and who tricycles into town in this introductory episode (if I can be so generous and label something an episode that consists of a few seconds of poorly drawn and animated nonsense).

Pigmy Will is a prince of Kitsch and exemplifies what I love most about the genre, an eternally positive and happy outlook on life, choosing to forge ahead on one’s own individual path despite what anyone else may think about it.

Other Pigmy Will faves:

Pie Day

“The Counter

“The Boat Ride

“SOS#1

Pigmy Will Holdings

La Bamba