I don't exactly know how popular culture is digested across the board, but as it is indeed popular, there must be a relatively uniform degree to which it understood and interpreted. Most probably through surface level observations and immediate stimulation - if a pop culture artifact does its job well, it can be enjoyed with no questions asked.

And why not? Most children don't yet have the insight to wonder why something so crafted and universally pleasing works the way it works because chances are, they are too busy having their senses tickled and being wowed. Most adults realize that if you ask too many questions, you'll take the fun out of everything, so you might as well just take spectacles for what they are. Adolescents... are understandably irrational, so let's not go there. But for those wanting to know more about showbiz or any other realm of large-scale entertainment, you'll quickly learn that there are countless people behind the scenes. Not just all of the names you read in the credits e.g. gaffers, grips, and other crew people whose purposes are unknown to the average moviegoer, but rather "ideas people" whose touches can enhance a production through unique judgments and personality. Allee Willis is one of those people.

Impossible to classify under one role or profession, Willis has written smash-hit songs for Patti LaBelle, Earth, Wind, & Fire (most famously "September"), Cyndi Lauper, and other widely recognized artists of this stature. She wrote the theme song to the internationally renowned (and practically worshiped) sitcom Friends. She took part in adapting the groundbreaking film The Color Purple to a Broadway stage production. She has produced art under the alias of Bubbles and her all-encompassing talents put her in the close company of 80s sensation Pee Wee Herman and still-going-strong Lily Tomlin, amongst many other cultural icons Also, she is in possession of "the last marijuana stash owned by Sammy Davis Jr."(via). Don't put that in your monkey pipe and smoke it.

So, underneath a mindbogglingly substantial portion of American pop culture as we know it is a charmingly bizarre female figure; underneath this woman's legacy is a near-lifelong hobby of collecting kitsch items. Countless items to the point of being able to run a "Kitsch O' The Day" blog and now, after all of these years, open a goddamn museum. How is this relevant? Well it can be argued that in having devoured so, so many embodiments of quirky, idiosyncratic pop culture that Willis developed an incredible ability to interpret the mass' taste for the lighthearted and ingenious.

There's a lot to consider here and it rattles the brain, in a way. So who better than to get down to the bottom of it than our FM femme, post-millennial, Web 2.0-era kitchen sink kitsch witch Sheri Barclay? I'm not going to conclude this post in hoping that you tune into the hour-long interview that she conducted with Allee, available for stream on her site and as of today, on Viva!

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