#prince mongo

[princemongoformayor]

*please play for me the song of my people*

[hungry-joe]

Advertisement for Memphis local “Prince Mongo” and his infamous nightclub the Castle based in the historic Ashlar Hall.

[princemongoformayor]

Need me a man like this

[mikeandalexdoathing-blog]

182. Pieces

Alex

New exercise today. Four topics, three minutes each, all on the same theme: pieces. I'll stop at the buzzer, even if the sentence isn't done. The only prep work I did was to find this picture of Prince Mongo - he's on the left, of course. Let's see what we come up with!

I. Prince Mongo for Mayor

Prince Mongo is a perennial mayoral candidate in my home city of Memphis. He lives in a crazy home with dead cars and assorted nonsense out front - or maybe he doesn't.

I know almost everything I know about Prince Mongo from this poster. It's up in the burger place my friends and I used to eat at once a month. It's his campaign poster, and the larger version is very convincing.

He's a local legend to people above a certain age, but it's pretty hard to find concrete information about him these days. I've lied and said I've seen his house, but despite being obviously worth knowing, I don't know a damn thing about him.

And this is in a city where Jerry "The King" Lawler ran for mayor - and that wasn't weird enough. It's amazing how little of the story I know, having seen that poster and tried to explain it so many times to out-of-towners.

II. Dead Laptops

I went looking for a mix tape track list some weeks ago before I realized that it lives on a dead laptop. I tried everything to resurrect it, but it refused to come back.

It's senseless to care about this track list of assorted Soul Coughing and Belle and Sebastian songs that I made for a woman I haven't had contact with in years. It's long gone and deserves to be.

But that got me thinking: it's not that I need this content, it's that there's something out there I can't come up with. There's something that I have bits and pieces of - the last song is Sufjan Stevens' "Sister" - but I can't see the middle. I can see these frayed edges of something that made more sense at the time than anything I'd ever compiled, but the connective tissue is lost to time.

Often I'd burn myself copies, but with this I must have lost them. So it's gone, forever. Gone into the ether where it must

III. Closed for Repairs

Recently I ran a little "mini-feature" of a week of remembering bars in Peoria. In conversation with an old friend, they took issue with my hatred of one of them. They then said they hated my favorite of them all.

Neither one exists anymore.

The idea of "remembering" a physical space is odd. People are remembered because we want someone to remember us. We want our mark to be indelible, and for that to be true the marks of the people in our lives must be so also.

Places are only important to people who have been to them. I can tell you 20,000 words about why a bar built in a weird, drive-thru part of the world was the most important physical structure in Central Illinois from 2005 to 2008, but does it mean anything? Could I find the specific sequence of words that would explain this to you?

No, if you haven't been there. I can make you feel like you see it, but I can't make you love it. And now I never can, because now it is not real for you to visit.

Places can die.

IV. Never, Forever

Freshman year at college is a lonely time. Most stories of that 18-19 year of people's lives end up talking about homesickness and awkwardness.

Mine didn't end up being sad, but it started that way. I used to spend a lot of time in the building's spare room that had an air hockey table and a ping pong table. It had couches. It had TV.

I once spent a long time in there in one of those bouts of loneliness you hope someone notices. I was watching infomercials. It was four in the morning. I was sober.

That room will never be that, though, because I once sought solitude there to record a phone call with my dad. I had to write an oral history of someone who lived through a racially tough time.

He grew up in Arkansas during desegregation. He talked to me openly and honestly. He may never have done that before in his life.

He died less than a decade later. Neither of us knew that this was a first, and we definitely didn't know how few we had left.

I don't know where that tape is.

[fuckyeahmemphis]

I am currently working on updating the theme/layout of FYM! so please ignore the constant changing. I'm indecisive. 

Here is a picture of Prince Mongo to hold you over.

[ellebougiegirl]

Ashlar Hall

Prince Mongo

Robert Hodges, better known by his self-styled moniker Prince Mongo, is a Memphis eccentric and minor political personality. He claims to be the ambassador of the planet of Zambodia and claims to be 333 years old.  Hodges is famous in Memphis, where he has owned several large nightclubs. For many years he met the public via Prince Mongo's Pizza in midtown Memphis before moving on to such endeavors as the giant Prince Mongo's Planet — three stories and 30,000 square feet of partying — and another called the Castle, which was housed in a century-old stone mansion, Ashlar Hall. He has also run for and been defeated as a Mayoral candidate on several occasions. When Willie Herenton beat Dick Hackett, by less than 200 votes, Mongo got 2000, perhaps spoiling Hackett's chances. He never wears shoes and refers to everyone as "spirit" When he was planning the 3-story Planet he is rumored to have asked a topless dancer if she would like to work there, on the third floor, and offer "more than lap dances." He told her this would serve to thumb his nose at city authorities. (She declined.) Hodges is apparently financially secure, rumored to have family money, but nobody has been able to verify the source of his wealth. Before assuming his current nom de guerre, Robert Hodges owned a clothier that sold the finest imported men's clothing on Union Avenue. One legend has it that he was insured against mental illness and keeps his money by continuing to act crazy. Prince Mongo's mother was an immigrant from Lebanon. He is rumored to own a $2 million Fort Lauderdale home near Las Olas Boulevard. He is also rumored to own homes in Virginia Beach. His primary (verifyable) residence is in Memphis. In the 1970s, when he lived in Central Gardens on Eastmoreland, he asked permission to bulldoze his front yard to park a cabin cruiser. This was strenuously defeated by his neighbors. In apparent revenge, he piled sand, dirt, toilets etc. in his yard and declared it "yard art." This seems to have been his start. Once, he was jailed for dumping trash in the yard of one of his enemies. He was also dogged by lawsuits over the drunk-driving deaths of two teenagers who died after they were served beer at the Castle in 1992.  He is also notable for a September 2002 run-in with the Shelby County General Sessions Court, which had ordered him to remove a collection of patio furniture, beach umbrellas, mannequin heads, toilet seats, and other items from his East Memphis front yard. He challenged the order in court, appearing in a green cape and goggles, green body paint, and festooned with a rubber chicken. He was charged with contempt of court, sent to prison for ten days, and was fined $13,875. He vowed to fight the case, but on June 10, 2004, pled guilty and paid a $500 penalty. His stunts have made him a household name in Memphis, and got him featured on the 1980s television show Real People. Recently, an elderly stand-up comic purporting to be Prince Mongo's brother has begun making the open-mic rounds in Memphis. However, Prince Mongo's actual brother is Warner “Rusty” Hodges III, former mayor of nearby Germantown, TN.

[karmadebt-blog]

I love you prince mongo.