As much as I look forward to rolling out of bed every morning and choosing wonderful gems of kitsch you all bestow upon me and AWMOK, today is an absolutely torturous day in terms of what your curator, me, has to accomplish. First of all, I’m driving back to LA from Monterey. It’s supposed to rain like cats and very large dogs most of the way back so I have to get an early start. Also, I have to write tons of the kind of stuff I hate to write because I’ve got to unleash a whole Facebook campaign on a death-defying event I’m attempting to pull off in 2 1/2 weeks in Detroit when I conduct my high school band in the theater I grew up in playing a medley of my greatest hits before a performance of my musical, The Color Purple, with the cast singing along. This should sound like a manageable event, but just imagine the sound of a marching band playing in the four-story high/almost block long lobby of a theater built in 1930 of solid concrete and marble, the acoustical nightmare of which has just dawned on me: What’s the point of having a sing-along if all you can hear is a bevy of brass drilling through your your eardrums?
And how do I conduct an orchestra facing one direction at the same time as a sing-along, which demands me turning the other way to conduct the crowd? These are the kind of mindnumbing challenges that someone like me, who gets an idea and charges ahead, forgets to deal with until it’s too late to examine the sanity of attempting to do such a thing in the first place. So I rely upon my ability to create good enough art and somehow combine it with everything else that inevitably reels off the railroad tracks, tipping over and spilling down the hillside into a vat of how-the-hell-am-I-going-to-pull-this-off-let-alone-raise-the-money-I-need-to-raise-to buy-the-marching-band-new-uniforms to understand that all of this makes for fantastic kitsch and I just have to roll with it.
Also today, my good friend and hysterical comedy person, Maxine Lapiduss, releases a song/video of a song I co-wrote called “Scared About Life without Oprah”, produced by Wendy and Lisa and featuring Jane Lynch. Of course, Maxine expects me, as any artist or co-writer would, to promote it on Facebook. So not only do I have one most important event to promote I have a song to push as well. So the immediate task is to to sit here on the 101 when it’s not my turn to drive and figure out some way I don’t nauseate myself by unleashing a couple weeks of vigorous begging and pleading to take note of all that is wonderful in Allee world without pissing people off I’m hawking so much. To some folks the shameless task of self-promotion comes naturally. To me, it’s razor blades in my eyeballs unless I can think of an entertaining way to do it.
All this to say I apologize for not posting fresh kitsch today but I will be back tomorrow with bran’ spanking new wonderfulness from the shelves here at AWMOK. Please send all creative vibes my way today! And pretty please go here and support the cause: https://www.alleewillis.com/mumfordinvite And if on Facebook please join here to follow the precarious journey to new band uniforms for the funkiest high school band on the planet: https://www.facebook.com/AlleeWillisMarchesOnDetroit
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Michael Ely
Sending MAJOR positive and creative vibes your way, Allee!
Allee Willis
Thank you, Michael!
suzette
Just get home safe!!!!!! We will all support you in any way we can!
Allee Willis
And thank you, suzette!
Douglas Wood
I saw Maxine Lapiduss’s video this morning on a friend of mine’s Facebook page and thought it was really clever– how cool to find out you co-wrote it!
Allee Willis
Great that you saw it! We had a blast writing it. Maxx has started the lyrics already with a writer in New York and then asked me and Michael Orland, music director and accompanist on American Idol, to help with the music. The two of them came over one afternoon and we banged it out in about four hours. We’re all great friends and live close to each other so it was too easy and too much fun. The video was a big family affair because Maxx got so many of her friends to work on it. It was produced by Wendy and Lisa. And that cameo by Jane Lynch is pretty sweet. If I can wake up early enough in the morning I’m gonna blog about the video. I talked a little bit about the song a few weeks ago as well as Maxx’s hysterical comedy show she’s done at Vitello’s a couple of times over the last month (last performance this Sunday) https://www.alleewillis.com/awmok/kitschenette/2011/02/02/allee-willis-kitsch-o-the-day-vintage-harlem-nightclub-shaker-and-my-weekend-at-vitellos/
BeeJay
Joined and shared the campaign on Facebook and hope you had a safe drive, Allee!
Allee Willis
Thank you, BeeJay. Need a lot of support so I appreciate that so much!
denny
Being a part of awmok is pretty sweet but I think it’s even sweeter to be able to attend the event in Detroit at the Fox Theater! Go Mumford. I sure hope that when I am in Detroit that I can also sing along. At least my voice will be obscured by the horn section of the marching band.
I am so excited about attending this event and believe me, I’m bringing along my own camera man! lol
I know it’s too late but the third picture in this post would make fantastic t-shirts.
So excited!!
Allee Willis
Not only will you be singing, I hope you’ll be assisting me! I don’t have my usual party crew with me to pull off all my shenanigans as this isn’t taking place in my backyard so I’m hoping that the aKitschionado faithful who are there will be doing things like handing out lyric sheets, manning video cameras, trying to get 200 people, many of whom probably won’t have paid yet, inside the theater in 10 min., and about 1 million other things I haven’t thought of yet that will take extraordinary juggling to tackle. so get ready!!
I wish there were money to make T-shirts as that would be an incredible way to raise more money. Maybe we could make T-shirt order forms…