Author: Jenn Hall

I’m guessing that by now many of you have heard about the bad news brewing for the Prince of Darkness. It seems that the next time old Beelzebub visits his travel agent to book a trip for a little R & R, he’ll have to avoid Florida’s gulf coast–at least for now. Satan has been officially banned from the fishing village of Inglis, a speck on the map almost directly across Florida’s pan from Daytona Beach.

Thrown into a fervor after seeing one to many of those pesky Goth kids milling about in white make-up, mayor Carolyn Risher decided to take action and drew up a proclamation on city stationary warning The Evil One to back off. The warnings were then posted at the four corners of town, which is pretty logical since we all know that Sir Darkness travels only on major highways. Ahem…

But it gets better. Aside from being a zealot and a bigwig in town politics, it turns out that Risher and her righteous villagers are also mighty big Elvis fans. As an aside, don’t you think Risher and her Righteous Villagers has the potential to be a great name for a gospel group? No, maybe it’s just me.

Anyhow, in 1996, the town approved the renaming of Inglis’ portion of Levy County Road 40 to the “Follow That Dream”
parkway, commemorating the like-named film Elvis shot there in the Sixties. Risher claims that the film changed her life, and stood by the road’s name change even when nearby Yankeetown refused to follow suit.

Recently, the heavenly mayor went ahead and hung her anti-devil proclamation on the mayoral office wall, right near three adorable little heart-shaped frames full of Elvis. So the woman stands by her, um, beliefs, as we can see. (You know, if I were making this up I’d be awfully proud of myself.) Of course, any true fan of the devil will handily point out that the re-arrangement of the letters in Elvis’ name spell out “E-V-I-L S.,” which is, obviously, the name on the back of the unholy one’s baseball jersey in the seven-levels-of-hell softball tournament. But you know what they say about ignorance.

So here’s a quote from Risher’s ode to all that is not evil, which I know you were dying to read:

“As blood-bought children of God, we exercise our authority over the devil in Jesus’ name. By that authority, and through His Blessed Name, we command all satanic and demonic forces to cease their activities and depart the town of Inglis.” That’s enough for me, so I’ll stop there. But I think something should be said about this before we move on toward other things.

When “Operation Enduring Freedom” started getting under way, I found myself wary about one particular aspect of the social dialogue regarding September 11th and all that has followed. While elected officials have been sturdy in their insistence that we are not fighting a religious war, the word “evil” has been kicked about from day one like a flaming potato.

I don’t know what your interpretation may be, but when I hear the word “evil,” I find some strong religious connotations. A response like Risher’s, particularly significant in that it concerns a public office, highlights the danger of that rhetoric. Thankfully, the ACLU seems to agree, planning to “go to bat for Satan” in this wild aberration from the separation of church and state. Ok, Ok, sermon complete.

Maybe it was with all of this in mind that I ended up at the gospel brunch at Elvis Presley’s Memphis on Beale this past Sunday. I’m not really sure what possessed me to go to this particular affair, although it was kind of interesting in a couple of ways.

The main aspect of the gospel brunch that I found to be intriguing is the very fact that in this room, full of Elvis memorabilia, people sit at a fully stocked bar and listen to songs about Jesus for about 3 hours of every week. Cigarettes lit and smoke-ring halos ascending, a small crowd digs the gospel vibe that is rocked out Sunday morning style on stage.

The gospel brunch isn’t a bad bet if you have any Sunday AM guilt complex symptoms. You see, when you go to the gospel brunch, you don’t have to choose between that Bloody Mary and the expression of your faith. You’ve got vodka, V8, gospel, and cigarettes all in one place. Plus, they have banana pudding

here. Yum. I like to eat banana pudding for

breakfast. Banana pudding is a whole lot of fun.

Oh sure, the place is full of tourists, tired people, and the pantsuits of Elvis. Not to mention the illuminated bar that was somehow left out of view in the traditional rendering of the Last Supper. But if I can go back to the RisheAdd Color and Graphics r proclamation for a second, I think you’ll find

something significant at this Beale Street venue. People who are willing to let differences co-exist. If you’ve got a hangover, and somehow (gasp) you still want to worship, then go for it.

If you want a cigarette, and want to sing, too, then feel free. Silly little notes posted up on the walls aren’t what Faith is about. Faith is about letting yourself enjoy the world around you, and through that enjoyment, sought for its own sake, you get to make the world a more positive place.

This weekend I had one of the most frightening thoughts that I have ever had. I was relaxing with a few of my friends after a day spent cruising estate sales, when all of the sudden Michael Jackson popped up on the television and threw me a really ugly mental right hook. Now Memphis, from what I’ve seen, is a city with a fairly thriving estate sale business. It’s also a city, obviously, with one of the most famous and well-visited estates in the world of music culture.

Ah, the city of the King, where for about $15 you can lay your eyes on the actual jungle room (and I’ll admit that tacky as it might be I want to steal every piece of furniture from that ridiculously ornate room.) But what’s going to happen to Memphis when that other “king” hangs them up? How will Graceland compete with the Neverland Valley Ranch petting zoo?

Disturbed yet? When I raised the question of the pilgrimage possibilities for Jackson’s future estate, the aforementioned friends told me that their stomachs were turning. And I have to agree. The day they convert that place into a full-blown Mecca for pop culture memory, I fear that the apocalypse will be peddling on its bicycle just a little bit faster, good songs and music history aside.

To be serious for just a moment, though, I find it really interesting that people are so fascinated by the homes of deceased cultural and historical figures, but often overlook the goldmine of history and inanity that can be gleaned from a couple of good estate sales.

I once knew an aging hippy in Orlando who was an estate sale aficionado. At one particular sale, he found a dusty box of old science fiction comics from the 1940’s in a garage. As the box was unmarked, he offered $40 for them, paid them and went on his merry way. On a whim, he then decided to bring them to an appraiser. The estimated value of the box was $10,000! I sat there and wondered. Could I, a mere novice in the world of post-mortem resale, find a gem like that too?

I haven’t. Not even close, unless I’m grossly underestimating some random knick-knack half-buried in my apartment. But that’s OK. I did find a series of paintings of alien-eyed 1950’s looking girls playing guitar, which I later noticed on the wall in an episode of Third Rock From the Sun. Besides, the real reason I like going to these sales is that I’m just plain nosy. Little facts like where some random person kept their underwear appeal to me more than the Antiques Roadshow possibilities. I would cash in, though, given the chance.

The estate sale culture of Memphis is pretty serious. Most weekends there are at least four or five sales, all spanning various socio-economic brackets and corners of town. This, to me, is where the intrigue lies. How do people in Memphis live? Where do they live? What kinds of things do they fill their lives with? We can all pretty easily find out what Elvis had. What about the rest of the city?

A year or so ago, I went to a sale somewhere near the Memphis Botanic Garden in one of the coolest houses I have ever seen. I wandered through a series of angled walls and sloped ceilings, spiral staircases and rainbow-colored art until I found myself in a dark paneled basement. Amidst the clutter that basements are made for there was a box of letters. Suddenly I found myself sprawled out on the floor, much to the dismay of the company holding the sale it seemed, and engrossed in a huge romance story. The letters were dated around the time of World War II, if I remember correctly, and were post-marked from all over Europe. They were from a woman who had been involved with the estate’s owner for what seemed to be many years.

Apparently a freer spirit than the archetypal cookie-cutter housewife we normally associate with that era, she beckoned the man to tell her if they could be together without the relationship consuming the identity she had struggled to create for herself. Move over Fabio! This was the real thing, and though I poured over the letters, I never found out whether this woman had ultimately become the mistress of the house, or if this was just a box of treasured memories that the man had carried with him until he died.

Maybe it’s morbid in a way, but I love pouring through the stacks of possessions that are in a home to try to figure out who was there. To find out how real people live is to see a side of culture that often gets overlooked in a city’s tour guide descriptions and summaries. Why is it that certain people collect figurines of mice? What is the significance of a large collection of Japanese vases? You can tell so much about people by looking at the landscapes inside their homes.

It’s also fun to watch the people that go to estate sales. From the get-go, you can always spot the “professionals.” These people have absolutely no time for you to get in their way, and will physically block your passage if they think they’ve spotted something of value. These people kind of scare me. They conjure an image in my mind of the Good Samaritan lying face down on a Memphis street, picked clean of any and all valuables. The hardcore estate sale set will barrel through room after room practically foaming at the mouth. Sometimes I like to get in their way just for fun. You’ll also see the artists who wander about, rich and less than rich people looking for a bargain or a centerpiece, and everybody in between.

At one point, my friends and I talked about staging an estate sale in our apartment and hiding video cameras around the rooms to capture the strange aura created by so many different walks of life shopping side-by-side. How many people would stop to ask about the person behind the shirts in the drawers, the story behind the choice of art on the walls? What would people decide to make their own? I think it would make a fascinating documentary, and Memphis would be the perfect filming ground for such an endeavor.

Oh, and to get back to the Michael Jackson issue for just a moment, I think I’ve devised a plan. There’s a safe possibility, I think, that when the time comes for the King if Pop to pass, the rest of his family will be so caught up in the ever-intriguing Jackson family slew of personal melodrama, that maybe they just won’t notice. Maybe they’ll sell off the place and be done with it. And if I can find enough boxes of old sci-fi mags lying around, I’ll buy the place, shut it down, and make sure the world will be safe from the frightening Neverland petting zoo for as long as I possibly can.

This weekend I had one of the most frightening thoughts that I have ever had. I was relaxing with a few of my friends after a day spent cruising estate sales, when all of the sudden Michael Jackson popped up on the television and threw me a really ugly mental right hook. Now Memphis, from what I’ve seen, is a city with a fairly thriving estate sale business. It’s also a city, obviously, with one of the most famous and well-visited estates in the world of music culture.

Ah, the city of the King, where for about $15 you can lay your eyes on the actual jungle room (and I’ll admit that tacky as it might be I want to steal every piece of furniture from that ridiculously ornate room.) But what’s going to happen to Memphis when that other “king” hangs them up? How will Graceland compete with the Neverland Valley Ranch petting zoo?

Disturbed yet? When I raised the question of the pilgrimage possibilities for Jackson’s future estate, the aforementioned friends told me that their stomachs were turning. And I have to agree. The day they convert that place into a full-blown Mecca for pop culture memory, I fear that the apocalypse will be peddling on its bicycle just a little bit faster, good songs and music history aside.

To be serious for just a moment, though, I find it really interesting that people are so fascinated by the homes of deceased cultural and historical figures, but often overlook the goldmine of history and inanity that can be gleaned from a couple of good estate sales.

I once knew an aging hippy in Orlando who was an estate sale aficionado. At one particular sale, he found a dusty box of old science fiction comics from the 1940’s in a garage. As the box was unmarked, he offered $40 for them, paid them and went on his merry way. On a whim, he then decided to bring them to an appraiser. The estimated value of the box was $10,000! I sat there and wondered. Could I, a mere novice in the world of post-mortem resale, find a gem like that too?

I haven’t. Not even close, unless I’m grossly underestimating some random knick-knack half-buried in my apartment. But that’s OK. I did find a series of paintings of alien-eyed 1950’s looking girls playing guitar, which I later noticed on the wall in an episode of Third Rock From the Sun. Besides, the real reason I like going to these sales is that I’m just plain nosy. Little facts like where some random person kept their underwear appeal to me more than the Antiques Roadshow possibilities. I would cash in, though, given the chance.

The estate sale culture of Memphis is pretty serious. Most weekends there are at least four or five sales, all spanning various socio-economic brackets and corners of town. This, to me, is where the intrigue lies. How do people in Memphis live? Where do they live? What kinds of things do they fill their lives with? We can all pretty easily find out what Elvis had. What about the rest of the city?

A year or so ago, I went to a sale somewhere near the Memphis Botanic Garden in one of the coolest houses I have ever seen. I wandered through a series of angled walls and sloped ceilings, spiral staircases and rainbow-colored art until I found myself in a dark paneled basement. Amidst the clutter that basements are made for there was a box of letters. Suddenly I found myself sprawled out on the floor, much to the dismay of the company holding the sale it seemed, and engrossed in a huge romance story. The letters were dated around the time of World War II, if I remember correctly, and were post-marked from all over Europe. They were from a woman who had been involved with the estate’s owner for what seemed to be many years.

Apparently a freer spirit than the archetypal cookie-cutter housewife we normally associate with that era, she beckoned the man to tell her if they could be together without the relationship consuming the identity she had struggled to create for herself. Move over Fabio! This was the real thing, and though I poured over the letters, I never found out whether this woman had ultimately become the mistress of the house, or if this was just a box of treasured memories that the man had carried with him until he died.

Maybe it’s morbid in a way, but I love pouring through the stacks of possessions that are in a home to try to figure out who was there. To find out how real people live is to see a side of culture that often gets overlooked in a city’s tour guide descriptions and summaries. Why is it that certain people collect figurines of mice? What is the significance of a large collection of Japanese vases? You can tell so much about people by looking at the landscapes inside their homes.

It’s also fun to watch the people that go to estate sales. From the get-go, you can always spot the “professionals.” These people have absolutely no time for you to get in their way, and will physically block your passage if they think they’ve spotted something of value. These people kind of scare me. They conjure an image in my mind of the Good Samaritan lying face down on a Memphis street, picked clean of any and all valuables. The hardcore estate sale set will barrel through room after room practically foaming at the mouth. Sometimes I like to get in their way just for fun. You’ll also see the artists who wander about, rich and less than rich people looking for a bargain or a centerpiece, and everybody in between.

At one point, my friends and I talked about staging an estate sale in our apartment and hiding video cameras around the rooms to capture the strange aura created by so many different walks of life shopping side-by-side. How many people would stop to ask about the person behind the shirts in the drawers, the story behind the choice of art on the walls? What would people decide to make their own? I think it would make a fascinating documentary, and Memphis would be the perfect filming ground for such an endeavor.

Oh, and to get back to the Michael Jackson issue for just a moment, I think I’ve devised a plan. There’s a safe possibility, I think, that when the time comes for the King if Pop to pass, the rest of his family will be so caught up in the ever-intriguing Jackson family slew of personal melodrama, that maybe they just won’t notice. Maybe they’ll sell off the place and be done with it. And if I can find enough boxes of old sci-fi mags lying around, I’ll buy the place, shut it down, and make sure the world will be safe from the frightening Neverland petting zoo for as long as I possibly can.

It wasn’t fire and brimstone that greeted me as I drove through Alabama en route to Memphis, but rather hell and high water. Or a hell of a lot of high water. Unrelenting Alabama-in-April torrents of high water.

Cruising late at night in my state-of-the-art Geo Metro, complete with an electrical system that kept shorting out my headlights, I smoked my first pack of Marlboro Lights ever and realized that prayer in the Bible belt just might have some allure. Please God, don’t let that semi wash me off the road. After about seven hours of this the storm let up and I was left with two realizations. Firstly, I understood why people smoke. I also realized that under certain road conditions a hand-painted billboard with a huge depiction of Satan admonishing “go to church or the devil will get ‘cha” can be extremely effective advertising.

When I finally got into town, at about 4:30 in the morning, I was almost immediately sucked into the ambience of the city. My best friend was living in downtown’s Paperworks building at the time, and from the roof all I could see was mist and history and something more indescribable that I guess you call vibe. An opportunity to work on a small (really, really small) independent film had brought me here temporarily, but the second I looked at the city from that rooftop I knew I was most likely going to stay. Something was going on here, and I wanted to figure out what that was.

My first indicator came when I had a grand falling out with one of the city’s more popular Elvis impersonators. Now I had not a clue that one who spends their life impersonating a dead man could both get paid nearly as much as the real artist did (probably on the economic scale of the fifties, but still) and actually have more rock star bravado than the actual performer.

The “film” that I was working on called for a culminating scene involving Elvis and a Buddhist monk. I’m not going to get into all of the details because it’s kind of embarrassing artistically, but suffice it to say that $300 dollars and a scheduling conflict later my work on the film was over and I had a strong urge to drop-kick every “Elvis” in sight. Random. Very, very random.

The monk was an indicator of the more positive random elements of Memphis, though. My first experience with this gentleman, who was here on a visit from Bhutan, involved a trip to a shooting range in Northern Mississippi. The director of the aforementioned “film” that brought me here, was bringing the monk out to the range to learn how to shoot a rifle. He thought it would be great if we could capture some of this on film.

This was right up my alley. I had never even held a gun prior to this, but to my mind, a day at a shooting range with a Buddhist monk is one of those things you don’t pass up if the opportunity comes your way. He wasn’t a bad shot, truth be told. Not to mention that when I gave it a go at the end of the day, I blasted my little clay disk to bits, and can now tell people that I’m a 100% shot with a rifle. Hee hee!

Inadvertently, a psychic in Orlando had forecast my move to Memphis months before it had ever even crossed my mind. Apparently, the amalgamation of letters in my name and the elements of my birth date make me a numerological double-digit. An eleven to be precise. I’ll be honest here, I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean.

According to this woman who endeared herself to me by giving a fifteen-minute reading for only $5, however, this is a rarity. But here’s the interesting part. When explaining this phenomenon of the universe of the spirit to me, her examples of other doubles were Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King Jr.! Now remember, Memphis wasn’t even a spark in my mind at that point. Coincidence? Probably. But I prefer to think that it’s not because it’s a whole lot more fun that way.

The point of all of this, I suppose, is that Memphis is the type of town where you can experience the utmost in randomness if you open yourself up to it. Maybe it’s the fact that so many people from so many walks of life have walked down these streets and left a mark, or a residual energy of some kind.

Hell, I even got a hug from Tammy Faye Baker at the flea market one weekend, along with a signed picture professing her love for me, and a tub of eye cream from her new make-up line! Where else can all of these things happen in the span of a few weeks? You just never know what you’ll see next, and to me, there’s absolutely nothing more enjoyable than that.

It wasn’t fire and brimstone that greeted me as I drove through Alabama en route to Memphis, but rather hell and high water. Or a hell of a lot of high water. Unrelenting Alabama-in-April torrents of high water.

Cruising late at night in my state-of-the-art Geo Metro, complete with an electrical system that kept shorting out my headlights, I smoked my first pack of Marlboro Lights ever and realized that prayer in the Bible belt just might have some allure. Please God, don’t let that semi wash me off the road. After about seven hours of this the storm let up and I was left with two realizations. Firstly, I understood why people smoke. I also realized that under certain road conditions a hand-painted billboard with a huge depiction of Satan admonishing “go to church or the devil will get ‘cha” can be extremely effective advertising.

When I finally got into town, at about 4:30 in the morning, I was almost immediately sucked into the ambience of the city. My best friend was living in downtown’s Paperworks building at the time, and from the roof all I could see was mist and history and something more indescribable that I guess you call vibe. An opportunity to work on a small (really, really small) independent film had brought me here temporarily, but the second I looked at the city from that rooftop I knew I was most likely going to stay. Something was going on here, and I wanted to figure out what that was.

My first indicator came when I had a grand falling out with one of the city’s more popular Elvis impersonators. Now I had not a clue that one who spends their life impersonating a dead man could both get paid nearly as much as the real artist did (probably on the economic scale of the fifties, but still) and actually have more rock star bravado than the actual performer.

The “film” that I was working on called for a culminating scene involving Elvis and a Buddhist monk. I’m not going to get into all of the details because it’s kind of embarrassing artistically, but suffice it to say that $300 dollars and a scheduling conflict later my work on the film was over and I had a strong urge to drop-kick every “Elvis” in sight. Random. Very, very random.

The monk was an indicator of the more positive random elements of Memphis, though. My first experience with this gentleman, who was here on a visit from Bhutan, involved a trip to a shooting range in Northern Mississippi. The director of the aforementioned “film” that brought me here, was bringing the monk out to the range to learn how to shoot a rifle. He thought it would be great if we could capture some of this on film.

This was right up my alley. I had never even held a gun prior to this, but to my mind, a day at a shooting range with a Buddhist monk is one of those things you don’t pass up if the opportunity comes your way. He wasn’t a bad shot, truth be told. Not to mention that when I gave it a go at the end of the day, I blasted my little clay disk to bits, and can now tell people that I’m a 100% shot with a rifle. Hee hee!

Inadvertently, a psychic in Orlando had forecast my move to Memphis months before it had ever even crossed my mind. Apparently, the amalgamation of letters in my name and the elements of my birth date make me a numerological double-digit. An eleven to be precise. I’ll be honest here, I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean.

According to this woman who endeared herself to me by giving a fifteen-minute reading for only $5, however, this is a rarity. But here’s the interesting part. When explaining this phenomenon of the universe of the spirit to me, her examples of other doubles were Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King Jr.! Now remember, Memphis wasn’t even a spark in my mind at that point. Coincidence? Probably. But I prefer to think that it’s not because it’s a whole lot more fun that way.

The point of all of this, I suppose, is that Memphis is the type of town where you can experience the utmost in randomness if you open yourself up to it. Maybe it’s the fact that so many people from so many walks of life have walked down these streets and left a mark, or a residual energy of some kind.

Hell, I even got a hug from Tammy Faye Baker at the flea market one weekend, along with a signed picture professing her love for me, and a tub of eye cream from her new make-up line! Where else can all of these things happen in the span of a few weeks? You just never know what you’ll see next, and to me, there’s absolutely nothing more enjoyable than that.