Pop Relics, Lost Places, and Huge Props affiliated with Guerrilla Monster Films.
TRI-STATE VACUUM GORILLA
TOMB OF HELVIS BRICK
HOUSE OF REBELVIS
SARCOPHAGUITARUS
TUPELO
FAIRGROUNDS
TREE HOUSE
ELECTRIC CHAIR
PILLS
Jack King Kirby
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Rockroaches
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 Not many Auteurs could prepare for such an out of control "ego trip" during the abounding chaos of Christmas and New Years Eve. But for JMM, Elvis Birthweek IS Christmas! He only had to move about 8% percent of his attic downtown to the beautiful old two story gallery. The show occurred on Elvis' 69th birthday (ten years ago DAMSELVIS, DAUGHTER OF HELVIS had premiered on January 8th). Different JMM films showed in chronological order each night.
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text by JMM - fotos by HMM
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Coming sooner or later
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 "...Several weeks ago, I was looking at a painting in the regional gallery of Memphis Brooks Museum of Art when I heard a burst of laughter and thigh-slapping behind me. Three young men who had apparently never been in a museum before were whooping it up as they surveyed the gallery walls. They were at least responding, although they were not relating. They were angry.
The fact that they couldn't relate to what they saw was like a slap in the face, a personal insult. It really wasn't all that different from what might be the reaction of conservative Southern adults if they happened to wander by accident into the ambisexual, ambiracial, teenage dream movie, "Purple Rain." The majority of humanity is disturbed by the appearance of something alien on their everyday horizon."
Donald LaBadie, FANFARE, August 26, 1984 (a supplement to the Commercial Appeal)
 The Commercial Appeal published an article by cultured columnist Donald LaBadie called "Something Alien In The Park" in their Fanfare supplement on August 26, 1984. LaBadie had observed three 'angry' young men laughing at 'art' in the Memphis Brooks Museum in Overton Park. I was one of those 'angry young men'. LaBadie claimed that I and my friends knew nothing about real art or culture - as if the Museum was above criticism by people who showed their disdain openly. What we did know was "low brow" culture: comic books, rock and roll, and drive-in movies. These original creations were end products of American Pop Culture, not the "high brow" european influenced modern art that LaBadie championed - but Labadie never spoke to us in person. From the safety of his typewriter Labadie suggested that we would be better served by the "teenage dream movies" of our peers. The eighties only offered us a serviceable culture, there was no 'teenage' to be had. Maybe that could have been why we were so angry. Gone were the decades of the golden age that we had barely caught a glimpse of. Ironically 'WE' were the art in the park that day. We were the 'aliens' on our own everyday horizon. There was no way out and there still isn't. You have to laugh or get angry - or both. For me that is the seed of creativity. LaBadie's elitist commentary foreshadowed my bands, my comics, and my 'teenage dream movies'; ten years later I founded Guerrilla Monster Films in Memphis.
John Michael McCarthy (JMM)
 "SOMETHING ALIEN IN THE PARK, PART 2:" 1972: ZIGGY STARDUST VISITS THE MEMPHIS ART ACADEMY IN OVERTON PARK BEFORE HIS SHOW AT ELLIS AUDITORIUM. MIGHT BOWIE HAVE STRAYED TO THE OVERTON PARK SHELL (CONNECTED TO THE SCHOOL BY AN OLD STAIRWAY), THE SHELL (WHICH SITS NEAR THE BROOKS MUSEUM) IS THE SITE OF ELVIS PRESLEY & THE BLUE MOON BOYS FIRST LIVE PERFORMANCE IN 1954 FOLLOWED BY MANY MORE AT ELLIS AUDITORIUM.
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Now dig this: David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust (and the Spiders from Mars) play Memphis on September 24, 1972. Bowie would attend an Elvis show in Las Vegas soon after. Was he dressed as Ziggy in the crowd? He would not approach Elvis after the show in fear of rejection - it's too bad. He and Elvis had a lot in common:
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Both Presley and Bowie have names and titles seemingly born out of science fiction movies:
The 'Tupelo Flash' versus the "Flash Gordon of Rock"
The Blue Moon Boys versus the Spiders from Mars
The Atomic Powered Singer vs. the Space Oddity.
A King and a Queen, both on RCA.
Both in debt to their unusual brothers, dead and soon to die.
David Bowie and Elvis Presley each born on January 8th.
JMM
(A graduate of the Memphis Art Academy).
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