But since I had no other choice since I hadn’t brought along anything, I went ahead and purchased one of her items. I wasn’t thrilled about any of the selections, but since my sister and cousins were big fans of the movie Clue, I opted to pick up the screen capture still from that film. She had played the deliverer of a singing telegram and been shot at the front door.

My girlfriend Jamie, knowing that I was going to see her, had added her highest charting single Rush Hour to a mix CD that she made me. With this tune fresh in my head, I had her add an inscription that would be relevant to singing career as well.

She was a nice go-go gal and didn’t charge for a photo with her. I’m glad I stopped by her table, even if her ‘selling habits’ were a little off.

Celebrities of the Spring 2011 Chiller Theatre Show will continue…

Why would you call him, you ask? Well, you might be trying to work out a deal so that you didn’t have to pay the outrageous sum of $40 to get a signed picture and photo op with him when he appeared at the Hollywood Show in Burbank on April 2, 2011. Because if you were to call him and ask him that, you might get him to knock off $10 like he did for Bob and me.

What else could you ask him? You might also ask him to confirm that he was in fact the front-man for the band Raydio who scored three top ten hits between 1978-1981, and yet another one as a solo artist in 1982 (The Other Woman). And could he also confirm that his song I Can’t Get Over Loving You actually made it into the Top 100 Billboard songs of the year?

Because if you’re like me, all you ever knew about Ray Parker Jr., if you even knew this, was that he sang “GHOSTBUSTERS!” a lot in 1984, and even appeared alongside the principal actors of the film in the video for the song.

He was a pretty friendly guy and added a little smiley face to his signature. I was more interested in the Ghostbusters icon than the pleasantry though. So I had him add a slash through it.

So, if you need a virtually unknown singer to autograph a photo from an iconic movie video for a song that you can never seem to get out of your head and add a silly illustration to the bottome of it, who ya gonna call?

Celebrities of the Spring 2011 Hollywood Show will continue…

Uncle Lou’s, of course, had been featured on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, in the episode Where the Locals Eat. Apparently everything they cooked, they cooked to order. They were scheduled to close at 8pm, and I think they were overwhelmed by us and the other pair of customers in the restaurant – so much that they decided to lock the doors early! This made no difference to me as it became one of my very favorites of all of the diners I have so far visited. We got the fried chicken (both the Homestyle and the Sweet and Spicy Love varieties), with side items fried dill pickles and corn nuggets. It was all delectable, but the Sweet and Spicy Love sauce (which had been named by Guy Fieri right on the show) was the most incredible of all.

DD&D #5: Uncle Lou’s Fried Chicken in Memphis, Tennessee

Chicken and other good eats. Can you tell which one is the Sweet and Spicy Love?

This was quite the feast

After dinner, we checked into the Knights Inn motel and amazingly enough ended back up in one of the same rooms in which we had stayed three days earlier. We didn’t swim on this night, nor take a midnight adventure to a BBQ joint. We just rested with our fresh sunburns in order to get an early start the next morning.

Our first stop of the day was at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. It is a privately owned museum that had been built around the Lorraine Motel on Mulberry Street where Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated on April 4, 1968. The complex included the restored motel as well as the building across the street from where it has been determined that James Earl Ray fired the fatal shots. The museum itself is built on the same property and displays an absolutely fabulous history of Civil Rights in America, kicking off with an in-depth examination of the King murder in a film called The Witness. Once you find yourself in the area where the Martin Luther King museum begins, you realize that you are now actually inside the motel. So the point in history where his killing would happen corresponds to you standing right next to his motel room and the balcony where he stood when he was shot.

One portion of the Lorraine Hotel, with the old-style neon signs

The Motel portion of the museum was under some construction

A wreath placed on the balcony at the spot where Martin Luther King was shot and killed has been perpetually in place since the day of his murder

Jamie outside the motel, with representative cars mirroring what was sitting there on that fateful day in 1968

Outside the terrific National Civil Rights Museum – as the rain began to fall

The museum was dead serious about not taking pictures in the museum with signs every ten feet with warnings that you will be ejected if you even attempt it – so I didn’t. So I’m afraid you’ll just have to visit it to see the great, informative displays. After we went through the museum, we went through the building where the shots came from. There was a lot of info about James Earl Ray, as well as other theories as to whom may have performed the killing. In an amazing twist, Martin Luther King’s family supported Ray’s efforts for a re-trial and publicly stated that they didn’t believe that he had anything to do with the murder. I did sneak one photo of the bathroom which had been restored to the way it was found on the day of the murder. Ray – or whomever – supposedly fired the shots from this boarding house bathroom window.

The former boarding house from where the shots were fired. The second story window partially obscurred by the tree was the room in question.

The shared bathroom in the boarding house is reputed to be from where the shots were fired.

After finding a parking garage, lunch that afternoon was at The Little Tea Shop. Yep, you guessed it. It had been featured on DD&D in the episode American Classics. I ordered the soup of the day and the Lacy Special, which included chicken breast between corn sticks topped with gravy, served with rice and carrots. Because Jamie and I were actually going to eat a second lunch this day, we split this one – but still wound up full. The Little Tea Shop is only open on weekdays from 11-2, and it was incredibly busy. In fact, I almost thought that our waiter wasn’t going to be able to take our picture, so we took pics of each other. Eventually, he came back and snapped one of us – once our food was almost gone.

Jamie and one of the homemade cornbread sticks

Ready to devour another fine meal

The waiter takes a second and quickly snaps a picture for us

DD&D #6: The Little Tea Shop in Memphis, Tennessee

Next up on the Memphis agenda was a visit to one more records studio, this one the famous Stax Records. Similar to the Sun Studios, this studio (although much larger) had fallen into disrepair and had to be completely restored to get it back to its original form. The studio area was cool to see and they combined it with a dynamic museum of relics and memorabilia from the great recording artists that had worked at the studios. The opening move really got my heart pumping to the beat of the R&B and Soul tunes that had been recorded right there. Again, no photos were permitted unfortunately. Before we left, I purchased an autographed copy of the newest Huey Lewis CD Soulsville, which is a tribute to the artists and music of Stax Records.

The Stax Records Studios

The historical marker outside the studios

The highlight piece in the museum: the Hammond Organ used in the recording of Green Onions by Booker T. and the MGs., which is sitting in the area where the song was actually recorded.

As a young boy, I had a 45RPM record called What the World Needs Now is Love by Tom Clay, and within that record were representative recordings of the assassinations of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. One of the clips featured part of the end of his “I’ve Been To the Mountaintop” speech. I played this record over and over again as a kid. This very speech had been delivered in Memphis, and ended up being King’s last speech before he was murdered the next day. Knowing this, I took the opportunity to visit the Mason Temple from where this speech was delivered. The temple wasn’t open at the time, but it gave me chills to stand outside of it, and then listen to the Tom Clay song in my car.

Outside the Mason Temple, from where Martin Luther King gave his final speech

After checking out the Mason Temple, as un-hungry as Jamie and I were, we headed over to Alcenia’s for our second lunch. This had been featured on the DD&D episode Traditional Dishes. Alcenia’s motto was “Feeding the heart, the head, and the stomach.” And they did that just fine. We ordered up some Fried Catfish and Fried Green Tomatoes that came with corn and green beans. Just for fun, we ordered the Ghetto-Aid – which is like Kool-Aid with five times the sugar. This is my estimate only. Unlike the The Little Tea Shop, this place was absolutely empty the entire time we were here. We attempted to play the jukebox, but only got out one song before it apparently broke. Appropriately enough it was Green Onions. Although we shared our food again, needless to say, we were quite full by the time we left the establishment.

Jamie fiddles with the jukebox at Alcenia’s

Some crazy-good home cookin’

Under the portrait of Alcenia herself. Her daughter was cooking that day and her granddaughter was our waitress. No hugs from Alcenia today.

DD&D #7: Alcenia’s in Memphis, Tennessee

It was around 3:30 when we departed Memphis. About an hour north of Memphis, is a small town called Henning. My friend Dean Garrett had recommended that I visit a location found here, they boyhood home of Alex Haley, the author of Roots. I concurred; it was well worth the visit. It was on the front porch of this home that Haley’s grandmother would regale him with stories of his ancestors that would ultimately inspired him to write the famous novel that would become a TV mini-series in 1977.

We took our photographs outside in the front yard where Haley is now buried and then attempted to go inside. The door was locked and no one answered when we knocked. Upon closer inspection, it seems that there was a giant visitors center (which we hadn’t seen from the road in front of the house). It too, however was closed. So I phoned the number and the tour guide answered from inside the house. It was like a bad horror movie. Turns out she was in the middle of the tour, so we joined up with them inside the house. Anyway, it all worked out.

Outside the Alex Haley boyhood home

Alex Haley’s grave in the front yard of his boyhood home

Playing piano in the family parlor

The Haley kitchen. This was our last photo before Jamie was scolded.

After the house tour, we checked out the museum in the visitors center, as well as the documentary on mini-series that can be found on the Roots DVD.  I told our tour guide about my encounter with Levar Burton from the year before, although I didn’t tell her what I really thought of him. Although the museum was supposed to close at 5pm, they let us stay inside until nearly 5:30. Once again, no photos were allowed in the house or museum, but due to my blissful ‘unawareness’ we were able to capture some images. See…this would have been a boring posting if I didn’t bend the rules a little bit.

Alex Haley’s chair from the set of Roots – located in the visitor center and museum

On the Haley front porch, where Alex first heard the tales of his ancestors from his Grandmother. The roots of Roots…

It was about a three hour and very peaceful drive (despite some bridge nervousness) from Henning to Columbia, Tennessee. We checked into the Days Inn upon arrival around 8:30 that night, finding the desk clerk lounging in the lobby, watching TV. This joint had ice. We got it in the lobby and took it to our room so that we could enjoy cold drinks with our lime chips and nacho and ranch dip courtesy Jamie. We looked at the pool and kicked an electrical box, but didn’t swim.

This would be our last night in a motel, as we’d be starting the next day in Columbia and sadly begin our trek back home.

Our Tennessee road trip will conclude in the next posting…

I found it a bit humorous that of all of these amazing feats and accomplishments, Frankie Avalon was present at the show as part of a reunion of the cast members of Grease. I’m not sure which idea came first, to have the reunion or to invite Frankie Avalon, but I was just glad that he was there.

He was sitting up front, and since the long lines hadn’t yet started to form, I went ahead and purchased the nice photo seen at the top of the posting and a photo op with Frankie. He was friendly enough although we didn’t chat, and I’d say he was definitely at the upper eschelon of celebrites at this show.

Celebrity encounters from the Fall 2011 Hollywood Show will continue…

The drive to Memphis, Tennessee, was roughly three hours long. Jamie napped for some of the trip (as I promised she would be able to do) and I listened to the tunes of Vampire Weekend, Hard-Fi, and eventually as we neared Memphis, Elvis Presley. It was around 10:30am when we reached the Beale Street area. We quickly found the Hard Rock Cafe, but since they wouldn’t be opening until 11:00, we walked over to the Memphis Rock ‘N Soul Museum.

The museum, which was run by the Smithsonian, gave a broad overview of the history of soul music from its earliest days to the rise of local record studios and the urban influences of Beale Street. It started out with an entertaining movie before we moved into the exhibits that included costumes, instruments, jukeboxes, and other memorabilia. As always, we didn’t really have enough time to soak in everything, much less listen to the portable audio guide, but I think we got a pretty good feel of it.

The Memphis Rock ‘N Soul Museum

Jamie, listening to the museum narration, stops to check out a jukebox

Beating on Ike Turner’s first piano

A fun array of Beatles memorabilia

After we finished at the museum, we went back over to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. Since we were trying to get in as many of our Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives as we could, we decided to split a Hickory BBQ Bacon Burger, knowing that we’d probably be eating twice later on that day. This visit to the Hard Rock was also special in that it was my 40th Hard Rock overall, and I told the waitress so. On behalf of the manager, she brought me a free ice cream sundae.

My tenth and final Hard Rock of 2011, ninth new Hard Rock of the year, and 40th total

Enjoying the last Hickory BBQ Bacon Burger of the year

Claiming my free ice cream sundae, courtesy of the Hard Rock Cafe in honor of visiting my 40th Hard Rock

Hats and sunglasses worn by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the movie The Blues Brothers

This Hard Rock Cafe also claimed to have the second largest collection of Elvis memorabilia in the world. The first, they noted, was Graceland. The certainly had some nice pieces, but let’s just say that there is clearly a giant gap between the biggest and second-biggest collection of Elvis things.

The denim jacket that Elvis Presley wore in the film Jailhouse Rock

Jamie shows off her version of Elvis’ hip shaking dance move in front of one of his stage suits from around 1972

We then walked back to the Rock ‘N Soul Museum where Jamie and I waited for the free shuttle service that would take us to our next two destinations. This was a rather cool feature of downtown Memphis – a shuttle loop that traveled between the Rock ‘N Soul Museum, Graceland, and Sun Studio. Since it was run by Sun Studio, the only catch was that you had to get off for an hour at that stop – which was not a problem since we fully intended to see it anyway.

But our first stop on the shuttle was Graceland. They dropped us off at the visitor center and we purchased our tickets for the basic house tour (bypassing Elvis’ private jet and car collection) and then waited the long wait of nearly an hour for a different shuttle to take us over to the Graceland property. We finally entered through the front door of Graceland at about 2pm.

On the stoop of Graceland

Getting ready to enter through the front door

For those of you who may have been living under a rock, Graceland was the home of Elvis Presley from 1957 until his death in 1977. In fact, he died in the upstairs bathroom of the mansion. I had seen Graceland once before - in 2003 – but wanted to see it again and get some better photos. Jamie had never seen it before and I think she found the experience rather fascinating.

There are many common things that you will hear about Graceland: that it is smaller than one would think, that it is closer to the road than one would think, and that you don’t have to be an Elvis fan to enjoy it. There are really no words to describe Elvis’ decorating choices, which although especially garish today, were the cutting edge of hip in the 1960′s and 70′s. Rooms like The Jungle Room, the billiards room, the media room, and the racquetball court (now re-designed as a museum) will leave you speechless. And incidentally, the portable headset that guides you around the room is timed amazingly well to move everyone in a continuous loop at roughly the same pace.

Elvis’ fancy shmancy living room

Painting of Elvis at the foot of the stairs. Upstairs was Elvis’ bedroom and bathroom where he was found dead on August 16, 1977. The area, which has not been changed since the day of his death, is off limits to visitors.

Yes, I actually got yelled at for touching this sign in Elvis’ bar area

Outside of the mansion is Elvis’ father Vernon’s office, the swimming pool, the former racquetball court, a giant museum of Elvis mementos and memorabilia, and the final resting places of Elvis and his parents and grandmother. There is also a cenotaph commemorating Elvis’ twin brother Jesse who died in childbirth. Overall, it’s most definitely a place that everyone should visit at least once.

The back of Graceland

In the museum building with tons and tons of gold records

Jamie with a poster for Double Trouble – not to be confused with the TV series of the same name starring the Sagal twins

It was all I could do to keep Jamie from jumping into Elvis’ pool

The lounge area of the racquetball building was where Elvis spent much of his last morning alive, playing songs on the piano. Note two familiar intruders in the mirror.

The racquetball court has been modified to include more museum pieces

Cenotaph for Elvis’ stillborn twin brother Jesse

Overview of the burial sites

Elvis and me

Farewell to Graceland. Thank you, thank you very much.

The tour had lasted roughly 45 minutes before we caught our shuttle back to the visitor center and then jumped on our Sun Studio shuttle in the nick of time to finish up this leg of the Memphis tour. Of all three of our museum visits that day, I think the Sun Studio was the most pleasant surprise. Ironically, it was also the one with the least number of bells and whistles. It was just what it was and remains to this day: a recording studio, a dank, dusty, run-down recording studio. But it is only in this condition because it has never really been renovated, so just about everything you see inside of it is original.

The fabulous Sun Studio

Enjoying a Dr. Pepper in the adjoining bar, which is now part of the Sun Studio gift shop

We also had a very enthusiastic young tour guide, who told us the history of the Sun Studio and its founder Sam Phillips in the museum portion of the studios, and then continued in the studio itself. She punctuated much of the Sun Studio story by playing snippets of famous recordings that had taken place here. She also told the story of the day that Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins all jammed together in the studio. They were quickly dubbed “The Million Dollar Quartet.” And in a most unprecedented move, they allowed us to hold and pose with one of the original microphones that had been used by all of the performers who had recorded there.

In the museum area were original autographs of the Million Dollar Quartet

The original high school diploma of Elvis Presley

This is it. This is where the famous Million Dollar Quartet photo was taken. Notice the wall tiles, unchanged since the picture was taken on December 4, 1956.

Jamie was excited to pose with a drum set that was brought to the studios by U2 in 1987 when they recorded portions of their Rattle and Hum album, and then left here for fans to enjoy

With one of the four microphones that were used in the heyday of Sun Studio. This was left by Sun founder Sam Phillips for the fans to be able to touch. Incidentally, the black X on the floor under Jamie was where Elvis made his very first recording.

Our shuttle departed Sun Studio around 4:30 and took us back to the Beale Street area. We walked up and down the street (which is closed to traffic), contemplating a hot dog but not giving into the temptation. Jamie bought a t-shirt in one of the gift shops. When we finished browsing the area, we headed out for dinner at Leonard’s Pit Barbecue, our first of two restaurants of the day featured on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. This one was a tasty barbecue joint that had been in Memphis since 1922, and was featured on the episode The Memphis Barbecue Tour. Jamie and I split a Big Leonard pork shoulder sandwich and a half-slab of ribs. It was mighty good.

Hanging out on Beale Street

DD&D #3: Leonard’s Pit Barbecue in Memphis, Tennessee

Barbecue overload at Leonard’s

The barrage of activity was nearly complete for the day. We located our lodgings for the night at the Knights Inn Airport motel, a fine establishment with a very nice pool – but again, no ice (the desk clerk confirmed that the machines were broke). It had rained a bit while we were eating at Leonard’s but by the time we got to our motel, it had stopped and we hightailed it for the pool. We had a nice swim as the sun fell and we attempted to make conversation with a gentleman in the pool, who hailed from Honduras and could barely speak English. It was only our weak knowledge of the Spanish language that got us by, although the man was quite adept at American heavy metal bands and insinuating that I had a girlfriend on the side in Guatemala.

Issues with ice…once again

We took a brief nap after our swim and then decided to attempt one more of our DD&Ds before crashing for the night. Marlowe’s was another BBQ establishment that had been featured on the exact same episode, The Memphis Barbecue Tour. This one was more of an adventure and proved to be one of my favorite stories of the trip.

Marlowe’s had a cool service that they offered to vacationers staying in the Graceland area. They would send pink Cadillac cars to pick you up. We, however, were not in that vicinity and by the time we were ready to head there at 11pm, the service was over. I was very surprised when I called Marlowe’s and they told me that they would be open until 3am.

When we arrived, we found the parking lot to be totally packed, not a parking space to be found. I drove around the building, only to find that a parked car was blocking my exit from the alleyway on the side of the restaurant. Then another car tried to go through the same way as me, so I was locked between them. They had to back out, and then I had to do the same. Eventually I squeezed my car into a space shared with a trash dumpster. This was a lot of work. And why on earth was this place so crowded at 11:30 at night?

We soon found out. When Jamie and I attempted to enter, we were stopped by an incredibly large black man who offered to frisk me. I declined. Then a waitress came outside and asked if we wanted to eat here. Turns out that this was Karaoke night and there wasn’t a table to be found in the whole establishment. She did however offer to get us some food for carry-out. So we went inside, the only white faces in a sea of nice black folks (save for a cardboard cut-out of Elvis), and waited for them to prepare our order.

DD&D #4: Marlowe’s Ribs & Restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee

Jamie waits patiently for our food at Marlowe’s

Guy Fieri, what have you gotten us into?

Ready to head back to the motel, barbecue in hand, we stop to bid farewell to our friend the bouncer

After all the chaos of the packed parking lot, the bouncer, the booming rap karaoke, and the lack of seats, I must say that Marlowe’s had some of the best barbecue I had ever tasted. We brought it back to our rooms, ate it along with some corn fritters and sautéed burgundy mushrooms, and watched part of Funny Farm on my laptop. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

Truly there’s not much better than some tangy midnight barbecue

We had packed so much into this weekend that it already felt as if we had been gone for a week. But there was a lot more to see and do on our road trip.

The trip will continue in Arkansas…