Unusual Life

August 16th will be the 33rd anniversary of Elvis’ death, and I thought what better way to celebrate “Weep Week” than to write about Elvis Real Estate.

Reno Fontana lives in one of two homes owned by Elvis when he died. The first, of course, is Graceland in Memphis. The second is the home in Palm Springs on Chino Canyon Road that Elvis and Priscilla bought on April 14, 1970.

When Reno and then wife Laura were looking for a bigger house, he was thumbing through real estate magazines on a Friday night when he saw the Chino Canyon home listed. He called at 9 a.m. on Saturday. “Is it really Elvis’ house?” he asked. Assured it was, he responded, “I’ll be right there, and I am buying it.” He bought the house sight unseen for $1,275,000.

“When we moved in, within a matter of hours on the first day people were stopping by taking pictures,” Fontana relates. “We were so thrilled to say, ‘Would you like to come in and see the house?”‘ The Fontanas don’t share most homeowners’ objection to having a lot of strangers coming into their house. “Even though we own the house, we like to think we are caretakers,” Reno says. “It’s open for Elvis fans.”

For the first few months, they invited people in for free. One day, after touring the home, a gentleman said, “It’s really gracious of you, but here’s $50.” After that, the Fontanas fully realized the value of what they had. Ninety percent of the furnishings belonged to Elvis. “You are not just seeing a house he used to live in. You are seeing a real part of his life,” Fontana says.

Because of his dedication to Elvis and Elvis fans, Fontana has researched and gotten confirmation from people who knew Elvis, and obtained written authentication whenever possible. He has a copy of the house title signed by Elvis and Priscilla Presley in 1970, when they bought it for $85,000. The Presleys were not the only famous owners. In 1960, McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc purchased the house; and in 1981, Frankie Valli bought it for $750,000. In 1986, Valli sold it to a Japanese corporation for $2.2 million. From then until the Fontanas purchased it, the home was open for a few weeks.

Elvis Chino Canyon Road on Zillow

The house on Chino Canyon Road is not the only piece of real estate that Elvis enjoyed in Palm Springs.

In 1967, Elvis and Priscilla were to be married by the pool in the backyard of the house. But the arrival of friends and family tipped off then-leading gossip columnist Rona Barrett (who also lived in the neighborhood) that a wedding was imminent. As the media descended upon the house, Elvis and Priscilla changed plans, deciding to get married in Vegas. In the middle of the night, they snuck into an alley behind the house, where a limo took them to Frank Sinatra’s learjet. They were married in the Aladdin Hotel.

The next day they returned to honeymoon in the Palm Springs house, which is how it got its nickname as the “Elvis Honeymoon House.”

Zillow’s estimate of Elvis’ Honeymoon House

On April 29th, 2010, we at Unusual Life were thrilled to attend the gala opening of The Gay 90′s, the newest set of masterpieces by artist Mark Ryden. The show is at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York City. You can see the full show of 5 paintings, and 18 watercolors and drawing studies online at the Kasmin Gallery website, or in person at the gallery thru June 10th, 2010. 

Guests attending the opening were asked to dress in the Olde Tyme theme. Mark’s friends and supporters showed up from all over the country, ready to congratulate him on yet another remarkable body of work. The crowd was thick with artists, creatives, and smiling admirers.  

-  Click here for many fun photos from the opening celebration!  -

-  Click here for many fun photos from the opening celebration!  -

Unbelievable photo set from Boston.com

It is Carnival Season in many countries around the world with a Roman Catholic heritage. Celebrations and parades put on just prior to the observance of Lent. Tomorrow will be the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but the past couple of weeks have seen parades and celebrations throughout Europe, the Caribbean and South America – notably Venice, Italy and Brazil. Collected here are just a glimpse of some of the elaborate celebrations of this Carnival season.

More fabulous photos about the Carnival on Boston.com

Bill Gates, as Microsoft Corporation Chairman (left), looks at an empty oversized bowl on a giant kitchen table, accompanied by Portugal’s Science and Technology minister Mariano Gago at the knowledge and Living Science pavilion at the Parque das Nacoes, Lisbon, Portugal.

Want your own big furniture? Great Big Computer Key-stool

World’s Largest Chair

World’s Largest Useless Things

Erika Nelson’s cool traveling roadshow: World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things

Bill enjoying his retirement hobnobbing with the rich and famous:

Marlow Harris and Bill Gates

Bill relaxing on a table in his office:

<

To celebrate Lincoln’s birthday and President’s Day, the editors at RoadsideAmerica.com have selected their favorite Lincoln tourist attractions and exhibits. From a much longer list, these 12 leapt onto the stage of infamy — from the Lincoln Watermelon Monument to the bronzed foundation of Lincoln’s Boyhood Home. There’s even one unmentionable exhibit (which they’ve chosen to mention, of course).

Buy Abraham Lincoln candy

Unusual Lincoln objects at Brown University

Abe Lincoln and Jesus Shrine

Lincoln Watermelon Monument

Writing about Elvis so I don’t have to, Seattle/Bellevue Realtor Debra Sinick writes about the recent tour she took of Elvis’ Honeymoon Hideaway in Palm Springs. It wasn’t an agents or brokers open, but an open house for the public to take an inside peek at the home Elvis and Priscilla used as their Honeymoon Hideaway.

Debra works with Windermere and has her own blog Eastside Real Estate Buzz and also writes for the Seattle PI’s Real Estate Professionals.

Her post provides me with the perfect segue to our premiere Elvis event in Seattle, The Elvis Invitationals!

Please join me on January 24th, 2009 for our 12th Annual Elvis competition to find Seattle’s finest Elvi.

Performing again for your viewing and listening pleasure is Dino Macris, husband of real estate educator and marketing guru, Denise Lones.

I know you want to come! It’s on Saturday, January 24th at Club Motor and advance tickets available through Brown Paper Tickets. Also appearing is professional Elvis Steve Adams and his band Kentucky Rain.

Thank you. Thankyouverymuch!

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus has abs of steel.

Or at least this one does.

Leave it to Los Angeles to concoct a wild plot twist involving the role of the traditional mall Santa. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings throughout the holiday season, Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane Girls dance and delight throngs of shoppers at the Beverly Center mall. (The standard jolly and rotund Kris Kringle appears at the mall during the week and midday on weekends.)

Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane Girls

Is it a trend, a fashion or just a really bad idea? Ugly Christmas sweaters are making a comeback and we here at Unusual Life are on the cutting edge, as usual.

Click here for slide show of bad holiday sweaters.

The local Shop-Rite grocery store won’t personalize a birthday cake for little 3-year old Adolph Hitler, son of Aryan Nation members Heath and Deborah Campbell of Greenwich Township. Little Adolph has a younger brother and sister too, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

“We believe the request … to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolf Hitler is inappropriate,” said Karen Meleta, a ShopRite spokeswoman.

The Campbells turned down the market’s offer to make a cake with enough room for them to write their own inscription and can’t understand what all of the fuss is about.

Holland Township family angry that supermarket won’t personalize cake for their son

If you missed the opening, don’t worry, you can drop by anytime to the Official Bad Art Museum of Art at Cafe Racer because it’s now open from 7am until 2am, 7 days a week. Stop by for lunch or dinner or a cold one after work and view the stupendous art.
• Video by Marlow •

This is a great day for America, on so many levels and in so many ways.

Jodavid and I are Obama supporters and we’ve been working on the “OBAMA” Room at Cafe Racer. That is the acronym for the Official Bad Art Museum of Art. So of course we chose to spend election night there, in the OBAMA room, with our friends.

Kurt, the owner and chef, read that an analysis was done to see how much each vote costs and with over one billion dollars spent during the campaign season, the cost for each vote totaled eight dollars. So Cafe Racer had an election party and for the Obama supporters served Obama’s most favorite food, chili, using his own recipe, for $8 and for the McPalin supporters, they served prune juice and caribou jerky.

After McCain conceded and Obama made his acceptance speech, there was a spontaneous dancing in the streets. Jo posted the video on Seattle Twist.

I am so proud of America right now.

• Get fit, bitches !!!

Scary video of guys hurling themselves off of a mountain.

Mountain Wingsuit

Is Apple the Newman of Microsoft ?

Well, Microsoft has released two milestone announcements today.

The first, which most readers may be aware of with today’s media coverage, is that Microsoft has negotiated a $10 million dollar deal with Jerry Seinfeld, who will appear as a key celebrity pitchman in ads along with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, in an effort to invigorate it’s image in the ongoing Apple Inc. young hip dude versus the Microsoft Corp. stodgy old-fart guy.

This new $300 million ad campaign, one of the largest in Microsoft’s history, and pitting it against Apple will no doubt insure minimal market “shrinkage” for a company which identifies itself only as Microsoft.

We here at Unusual Life are devout lifetime fans of Jerry, attend his sold-out shows at the Paramount, and watch Seinfeld reruns incessantly, so we salute you Bill for crashing at Jerry’s place or whatever you’re going to do in the ads. This sounds like great fun and I want to sit in on those ad brainstorming meetings.

As much as this excites us however, The second bit of news Microsoft announced today is the release of the much anticipated Photosynth online software.

Photosynth is an amazing new way to share and experience photography in a 3D environment.

Our introduction to Photosynth here at Unusual Life happened a couple of months ago when we were contacted by our pal Janet Galore, asking if Microsoft Live Labs could film at our home for a new top secret software project called Photosynth to be released soon.

Apparently, for their Photosynth “How To” software release video they were looking for an interesting home with some cool art, and the right amount of synthy quality…?

Of course!, we replied, and the film crew with talent Laura Foy arrived two days later for the shoot, which was lots of fun. I immediately began researching Photosynth, and realized that in the near future I would have a new tool that would fundamentally change the way that I thought about taking photos in a most profound way. At the shoot, my initial conversation with David Gedye set my mind spinning with creative possibilities and practical applications of synthing photos together in 3D environments: online virtual galleries, travel, real estate, anything to do with sharing visual information.

Like the best of any viewer created online community, it opens the doors to a whole new experience in open community visualization and interactive possibilities.

And guess what?

You can create your own synth – fast, easy, and free.

Here’s the Photosynth release video, featuring our living room. Here is a Flickr Set of the Photosynth shoot at our place, and the actual Synth that was created of our “92% Synthy” home by Photosynth group manager, David Gedye.

Jon Ronson’s fascinating film about his experiences and discoveries documenting the thousands of boxes of Stanley Kubrick’s estate. This is a 50 minute documentary, so click on the full screen button under the video and enjoy it when you find the time.