April 21, 2009

DBA'ers,
In a previous life, I had a friend named Jim Kaiser who owned a Ben Franklin store in West Memphis, Arkansas.

In the early 70's one of Elvis's "people" would give Jim a call every few months and ask him to open his store on Sunday afternoon or keep it open later than normal hours because Elvis wanted to come over and shop. Jim and his wife Francis would agree to a time and The King and his court would cross the river to Arkansas and shop for 2-3 hours all by themselves. Jim and Francis would sit behind the counter, keep to themselves and at the end of the shopping trip ring out Elvis and his entourage. Elvis would always make it a point to personally come to the counter and thank them for keeping the store open for him. Jim said sometimes it would be $200-$300 and sometimes it would be $2,000-$3,000. He never asked for Elvis's autograph and Elvis never offered it. Jim always got the feeling that Elvis enjoyed the chance just to be normal for a few hours.

I was sharing this story with Janice and VC and we decided we should do the same thing. So we are offering "Shop like Elvis at DBA". Here is how it works. You call us and tell us when you want to shop. We will be happy to be there anytime between 9am-7pm, Monday through Saturday. You come in and browse all you want and we won't bother you. When you get done shopping, we will ring you out and not ask for your autograph on anything but the charge slip. And as an added bonus, we will softly play Elvis tunes on VC's record player and say things like, "you ain't nothing but a hound dog" and "don't step on my blue suede shoes". We might even say, "Dance like no one's watching, love like you've never been hurt" in an Elvis voice. While that's not really an Elvis quote, the conspirators say he said it to either Ann Margaret or Priscilla....when no one was watching. Lastly, for the true Elvis treatment, we will make sure to have a peanut butter and banana "samich" handy so you can not only shop like Elvis, you can munch like Elvis.

In other DBA NEWS, we have just a few days left of the Alex Chambers April Special. Alex is a wonderful watercolor artist from Homer and for the rest of the month we are offering any of his prints FREE when you frame it. Quite a deal and we have done several great pieces this month. You can see his work at www.donbyramart.com/carpediem.

May is a huge month for us.

On Saturday, May 9th, we will be opening The Athens Photography Guild's Juried Show at the store. The APG is a passionate group of local photographers, both professional and amatuer, who meet monthly to share their work and experiences with each other at the Lyndon-House in Athens. It is a great way and setting to learn a little and get the creative juices going. The APG website is www.athensphotographyguild.com for more info. We will be showing some of the APG member's current work and we are proud to be both a member and partner with The Athens Photography Guild. Most of the work will be for sale.

May 23rd and 24th is the YART SALE to benefit The Boys & Girls Club of Jackson County. It's officially time to bring into the store all the art you don't use anymore as a donation to the Boys & Girls Club. We have a fairly large concept of what art "is", so don't worry if you're not sure if that weird wall thing you got for a birthday 10 years ago is really art. We promise it is. On the 23rd and 24th, we will have the actual YART SALE and all the goodies will be for sale at yard sale prices! It is a great way to redecorate, recycle, and reevaluate your art!!

I know we covered quite a bit in this email....thank!!