it sure looks like a bunch of idiots tried to steal Graceland

thwarted by suspicious minds

UPDATE: This somehow got even weirder!

I don’t know if you’ve been following the Graceland situation this week but it’s got everything you could ever want out of a news story: celebrities, alleged fraud, what sure appears to be a bunch of dumb guys in way over their heads, all of it. I started clicking on links related to it about 36 hours ago and I’ve barely stopped since. It’s fascinating. I recommend you do the same. But I’ll hit the broad strokes for you here. 

Earlier this week, Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley, was set to go up for auction. Apparently, his daughter, Lisa Marie, had taken out a bunch of weird loans using the property as collateral before she passed away, and also sold a huge chunk of the corporation that owns and operates Elvis Presley’s estate. And as all these bills came due, the company that had a claim to Graceland, Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, scheduled a public auction for Thursday. Which was weird. And sad. And then it went and never happened because Riley Keough, granddaughter of Elvis and star of movies like Logan Lucky, went to court and made some interesting points. Points like “this company isn’t even real” and “these documents all appear to be forged.” The judge agreed and halted everything while they looked into it. 

And then things got weirder. NBC News looked into the company in question and found… like, nothing. 

No representative of Naussany Investments and Private Lending LLC appeared in court, and an NBC News search of public databases failed to turn up any record of the alleged lender. NBC News also searched for companies named Naussany or with the initials NIPL, to no avail.

Documents provide street addresses for the company in Jacksonville, Florida, and Hollister, Missouri, that match post offices. A third address is a post office box in Kimberling City, Missouri. 

Which all seems very legit and normal. And gets even more legit and normal when you read the emails that Naussany Investments allegedly sent out to news organizations when they asked questions like “What is any of this?” and “Who are any of you?”

From a website called The Commercial Appeal, which obtained these alleged emails from a man named Gregory Naussany, all of which are pasted below with all their original typos and grammatical goofs. 

"Due to the Deed of Trust not being recorded and the loan being obtained in different state, legal action would have to be filed in multiple states and NAUSSANY Investments & Private Lending will not acquire to proceed. That comes from consultation of the lawyers for the company. There was no harm meant on Ms. Keough for her mothers LMP mis habits and mis managing of money. The company will be withdrawing all claims with prejudice."

A few notes here:

• I don’t know what “mis habits” are but I appreciate Gregory’s attempt to introduce it into the English language in a heated legal situation 

• A typo-laden email that ends with “withdrawing all claims with prejudice” after the tiniest bit of pushback is maybe the least legitimate thing I’ve ever seen

• It is not the shadiest-looking email involved here

That honor goes to, well, whatever this is.

"Please make it NOTED ASAP Kurt NAUSSANY is not affiliated with NAUSSANY Investments & Private Lending and has not been since 2015 nor does he have any claims with this situation. 

I’m the lender in this case, and I will let it be known that LMP has taken out multiple loans with my firm since 2008. It’s not Keough fault for her mothers mis conduct of mishandling money and not paying her obligations. 

Thank you

And no need to contact any further!!!!"

A few notes once again:

• If I had to guess, what I think happened here is that some shady dudes either tricked Lisa Marie into signing stuff or straight-up wrote her name on a bunch of documents when she was older and vulnerable and they were just incredibly stupid about it

• Here’s more legitimate stuff: “When The Commercial Appeal reached out to Kurt Naussany for comment regarding Wednesday morning's hearing, it did so with the email mentioned in the lawsuit. In response, the presumed Kurt Naussany forwarded The Commercial Appeal Gregory Naussany's email address which differed and was a Hotmail account.”

• I don’t know exactly what is going on with Kurt and Gregory but it’s really wild to think about all the possibilities that led to this panicked email, from “Kurt exists and is trying to cover his tracks” to “Kurt exists and found out Gregory was using his name and told him to knock it off” to “everyone here is fake and about to be in big trouble”

• I am going to start ending all of my emails with “And no need to contact any further!!!!”

I can’t get over any of this. It really does look like a bunch of idiots tried to steal and auction off Graceland using Hotmail accounts and they almost got away with it. I admire their ambition, I guess, but it gets a lot less fun when you think about grifters doing stuff like this to people who can’t get lawyers on the phone with one call. It gets a lot more fun, though, when you start thinking about this as the plot of a movie where Jason Statham hunts down the people responsible. There’s a lot going on here. I guess that’s my point. That and “let’s all watch Walk Hard again,” which I meant to mention up at the top under that screencap from the movie where Jack White plays Elvis. Better late than never. 

Listen To Me And Sony Motion Pictures Group Chairman Tom Rothman

I do not usually make it a point to agree with movie executives in public. Sometimes I go too far the other way, actually. Like, to choose one example at random, the time a few days ago when word trickled out that TNT might lose the rights to the NBA and I responded by announcing on social media that I was going to rob David Zaslav’s house for letting it happen on his watch. I should not have done that, in part because you should not threaten to rob people and in part because now I will be a suspect if he is the victim of an unrelated robbery. Or a robbery I do commit. Amateur hour across the board on my part. 

I do have to make an exception this week, though. I need to compliment Tom Rothman from Sony. He did an interview with Deadline and said a lot of smart things, some about how well it’s worked out for them to not start a streaming service, which I appreciate. He also cussed a few times. I love an executive who casually cusses in print. Makes them seem more human. It’s actually a trick I use sometimes when I notice someone being a little nervous around me for wheelchair-related reasons. A well-timed “whew, it’s hot as shit outside” breaks the ice surprisingly well. Feel free to put that arrow in your quiver, too. My gift to you. 

Anyway, the best stuff he said was about the theater experience and how to navigate the challenges it’s facing. His big point was that movies should be cheaper to see. There’s a lot there worth reading but here’s the main thrust. 

There’s a value proposition in pricing for two constituencies that are important to us. Kids are trying to make rent, they don’t have a lot of disposable income. And the second very significant pricing-sensitive segment is the family audience. It’s too dang expensive to take your whole family to the movies right now, even if the kids get in half price or whatever. I sound like I’m arguing against my own business, but I’m not. I’m lobbying that I think we would endear ourselves much more, particularly to that family audience, if the price is moderated some. Exhibition will argue, fair enough, moviegoing is still great value. It’s still a fraction of the cost of a Broadway show or a football game. But for a lot of people bringing a family of four or six to the movies, that can be an expensive undertaking.

I dig it. It’s the old “it’s better to sell 100 tickets for $8 each than to sell 30 tickets for $20 each” thing every economics major learns in college and then gets bashed out of their head before they reach middle management. Seeing movies in theaters is fun. Seeing them in a full theater is a lot of fun. Helping everyone remember that is the key here. Yes,  I’m still mad no one saw The Fall Guy. No, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. 

Which is why it’s nice that Tom — we’re friends now, first names are fine — also said this, a drum I have been banging forever. 

And while we are dreaming, movies should be shorter. Casablanca was 1 hour 42 minutes, with credits, and you know, that was pretty good.

Thank you. 

Thank you. 

The most recent Mission: Impossible movie was 163 minutes long and ended on a cliffhanger. The most recent Fast & Furious movie was 141 minutes long and ended on like three cliffhangers. Most of the cliffhangers involved submarines somehow. It’s madness. Movies should be cheaper and shorter. Listen to me and my close personal friend Tom. 

STUFF I CLICKED ON

— Miles Surrey at The Ringer ranked some movie car chases

— Kelsey McKinney at Defector wrote about the Australian billionaire who got so mad about a mean painting of her face that she accidentally went and made the whole world aware of the mean painting of her face

— good blog about Ayo Edebiri, who rules

— scientists are pretty sure the yacht-smashing killer whales we talked about last week are just a bunch of orca teens being rascals 

— Kevin Costner is hellbent on making a zillion cowboy movies even if it costs him his house 

— cool blog about hackers wrecking predatory scam operations, which sent me down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos where the hackers brag about doing it

— it is very funny to me as a Philadelphia Eagles fan that former Commanders owner and general scuzzbag Dan Snyder put millions into a Trump biopic he thought would be flattering and he is now furious that it isn’t so he’s spending more money to try to prevent its release, which he probably can’t do because he doesn’t own the rights

— there is a lot of stuff going on in the Snoop Dogg memorabilia auction (“SNL 2004 Scenes & Outtakes — Unreleased VHS Tape”) but there’s really no way to top Snoop selling the roach from a blunt he smoked (current bid as of this writing: $1615)

— eel smuggler thwarted 

— a Wheel of Fortune blooper for the ages

— “‘Everyone already hates Malört, so it’s like, let’s just make it even worse,’ said Joey Giardiniera, the restaurant’s creative director”

— Reacher is gonna go up against an even bigger dude in Season 3

— Hulu is making a reality show called Virgin Island, which sounds like something an older brother would call his younger sibling’s video game room

— a notorious Philly mob boss had plans to open a new cheesesteak shop but there was a mysterious fire caused by “two incendiary devices,” which is somehow a real thing that happened and not the plot of a formulaic CBS procedural that you thought ended in 2013 but is somehow going strong in season 22

— turf war between firebreathers and mariachi bands

— congrats to Max the cat

— it brings me great pleasure to inform you that Queerty has named my beloved 2024 Philadelphia Phillies “the gayest team in baseball”

— hmm okay yes this seems like a good time to remind everyone that Chase Utley wrecked the Mets so bad over his career that there is an area of their own stadium known as “Utley’s Corner”

Okay, that’s it for this week. Please share and subscribe and do not try to steal Graceland.