One of our artists, the extraordinarily talented miss Dora Magrath was found dead in St. Charles County. She had gone missing last week and I had hoped that everything was fine and the pessimistic expectations of some would be met with her eventual reemergence. It seems my optimism was proven terribly wrong. All I can say is, I only knew her for a short time but her absence will be felt for some time within myself and all of us here at Cranky Yellow. I feel we all missed out on a beautiful life, the world will be sorely lacking with her gone. Perhaps the world didn’t deserve her anyways, it’s made itself too dangerous for good people.
For more information go here.

Here’s something to remember her by:

Check it out boys and girls:

We’ve just got “Nightly Zine #1: The House Warming Issue”. It’s got all kinds of diagrams and examples of interesting home decor’ and design. I’m absolutely in love with architecture, there’s just something about floor-plans that make me all tingly inside. This zine is a cooperative production of the Glass Jar Project, have a looksie if you desire to learn more of the mysterious world of interior design.

“A Heart I Carved for a Girl I Knew” is a collection of poems from someone who seems a little bit angry, defensive, perhaps abit cranky? I really hate poetry so I probably shouldn’t be writing this review at all. It’d be like George Bush talking about the latest burka designs. I suggest you ignore everything I say and check it out for yourself, I am sure that if you actually liked poetry in general that you’d end up enjoying this little zine. I mean, the cover art looks rather fancy at least. (Please don’t kill me Chris King, I didn’t wanna do this in the first place).

“System Failure” is one of my personal favorites out of the collection of newbie zines. It is an angry polemic against the Bush administration and our current form of government and economy in general. It cuts right to the heart of the issues and exposes the nonsense that led to the tragic destruction of the city of New Orleans and all the lives that were lost or ruined in the tumult. A relatively anonymous rebel from an undisclosed location in California penned this one, along with a couple other zines currently taking up residence on our shelves.

“Fruit Monster” is an adorably tiny zine featuring snapshots of cute monsters enjoying a little vitamin C. Ainsley Yeager did this and other remarkable zines/ art work that will be featured on our site and in our store. She even asks me questions on AngeloAnswers.com! We’re hoping she’ll have an ever increasing presence here in Cranky Yellow, a hope that will become more and more likely with your support! Check out her stuff and spend a few bucks on something too precious for words!

Our next featured zine is “Plano B”, a cooperative work filled with bizarre pictures of an undescribable character. Zebras melting into a million stripes, DJs being turned into large penguins, satanic rituals, and much much more stuff that I sort of made up! Explore the crazy world of Plano B and be amazed at what a few minds can conjure up!

The folks from Plano B also created “Zine Parasita”. This zine is actually a little different than most. As it’s name suggests it is a “parasite”, it survives by burying itself in other zines, hoping to be picked up along with its host by some hapless victim. We aren’t entirely sure which zines its managed to infest, our efforts at eradicating it have been met with failure. In our effort to combat the parasite we tried learning a little about it. Through our research we found that we have been infested with #03, Animais, Animals, Animales. It’s composed of a number of languages (none of which seem to be English) and is extremely resistant to both fire and radiation.

Our last new zine is “Frumps”, a cute storybook-like production which centers on the world of the Frumps, strange yet amiable creatures from a distant world who love to tell a good story. You’ll find two of such stories within the zine, but I won’t ruin anything by telling you many details; all I will say is that it involves cats, strawberries, and leaves (the tree-kind, not the exiting kind). We thank the author (The Fetus) for bringing these humorous beings to us; let’s all hope that one of our solar probes won’t fly off-course and land on one of their heads.

Well, that’s all of Angelo’s Zine Roundup, I hope you enjoyed this blatant advertising! (We are a business after all).

Our traitorous friend, James Kauffman, had accepted an interview challenge by yours truly not so long ago. After being backlogged for about five months we have finally been able to present it; the man known to the media as “Red Kauff” has finally be exposed to the light of day. He started off with slanderous lies about our great nation, claiming that Canada is, indeed, not the 51st state of the U.S.! The audacity of such a claim can only come from those who are still involved in the failing rebel group: “Canadian Liberation Front and Free Healthcare Enthusiast Club”. For those of you who would fall prey to his lies I offer you this map, drawn up for us by the Bush administration’s Homeland Map Department of Education for the Young Peoples Who Needs to Learn This Stuff (HMPEY-PWNLTS):

What other lies and devil-speak has he subjected us to? Check out his interview to find out!

Check out more of this guy’s work here.  You won’t be dissapointed.

Yeah yeah yeah, my last blog posted sucked, I know. I’ve been trying to adapt to this thing called “being busy”, what with all of the homework I ignore, all the classes I skip, and all the activist events I’ve been trying to hold my mind has been abit scattered. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it up to you all with this post; if not I will do the honorable thing and commit internet-harikiri.

Anyhoo, on to the news:

We’ve got a new interview up: Lindsay Petrick. This star of stage and screen has been around the world making black and white noir films and campaigning for world peace. I asked her a number of hard-hitting questions about the ongoing crisis in Darfur, the Iraq war, Kosovo’s bid for independence, and a recent news report indicating that she once was a member of the Black Panthers. Check out the interview and find out the story behind the first three-armed woman to be elected to the Iowa state legislature!

Following up my primary-night soul-searching it’s time I told you who I voted for, why, and what I now think of that decision:

I ended up voting for Barack Obama. Even though I do like Hillary, and even though I get a little worried for her when I hear of her recent primary losses, I just couldn’t vote for her. It was a tough choice, I stood in the polling booth for about 5-7 minutes trying to decide. When I stepped into the booth my mind just went blank, I stared at the two names and tried going over and over in my head why which one should be president more than the other. I even went as far to try to imagine future press conferences, what they’d probably end up telling us, what they’d be trying to get away with, what they’d be spinning, and what they’d be inspiring us with.

In the end I chose Obama, somewhat for the fresh start he presents us with. Obama doesn’t carry alot of baggage, he is fairly new to the system and hasn’t been bent and reshaped into the Republicrat mold that too many of our politicians fit into. I also really don’t like Bill Clinton, he has a remarkable reputation among moderate liberals despite the fact that he went against every single one of their principles. He was a prime proponent of outsourcing, due to his NAFTA policies. He did nothing to stop our jobs being sent to sweat-shop nations; in fact he promoted the practice outright. Under him welfare was smashed, funding for education dipped, and he completely fumbled our first bid to enact a universal healthcare program along with Hillary. I supported Hillary early on because I hoped she was more liberal than Bill, but as time went on and he became more and more involved in the campaign I decided that I just couldn’t trust her to be my liberal choice.

My vote for Barack, however, was not a vote against Hillary Clinton. I do like his plans for expanding welfare benefits; in general he wants to increase spending on the poor and increase taxes on the rich.  His website is rich in information on what he plans to get done while in office, and as a student of Social Work it seems that his values and ideas line up completely with mine and my profession’s. His programs will do alot to help the poor, and despite the rhetoric that he is all talk and no content I found that even though Hillary’s speeches are more specific than his; her speeches and plans on her website are not nearly as specific and extensive as Barack’s.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I know all five of you furiously wrote your senators in a desperate attempt to stop them from making yet another ridiculous mistake; it looks like it was all for nought. The bill is going through, the Economic Stimulus Package has rocketed out of the senate and into the monkey cage that contains President Bush.

Many of you are probably salivating over the coming money (which looks to be about 600 dollars for individuals and a thousand or so for couples, with an additional 300 per dependant child (and probably college student)). With this inevitable flood of cash I will offer helpful suggestions that will allow you to spend your money in a way that will actually help you and your neighbors out of poverty.

Here is a quick guide to what you can do to turn a bad idea into a slightly okay idea:

1. Donate that money to charity. (ha ha ha ha, I know I know. I like to start out with a joke sometimes).

2. Spend the money on local businesses; spend it on businesses owned and operated by people within your state, your county, your city, and especially your neighborhood. Most chinese food places count, as do ethnic grocers. Also look to farmer’s markets, local art stores (like ours you stingy bastards), and IGA’s for your foodly needs.

3. Spend the money, when there isn’t a locally owned one in reach or in the market you are wanting to participate in (if a local shop doesn’t sell sprockets or something), in stores and on products made in unionized businesses. You can usually find some good directories online on which businesses are closed shop or union friendly (I know Schnucks, the grocery chain, is union).

4. Do not spend your money in stores owned by gigantic corporations that do nothing but rape and pillage, Wal-Mart especially. (Also, Today is Valentine’s day, so if I hear of any of you buying Hallmark I swear to god I will hunt you down and stuff a giant chocolate kiss into a hole of a much smaller size, I don’t care which one, I just want it to be unpleasant for you.)
5. Purchase green items such as energy efficient light-bulbs, the things will save you alot of money in the future. Added insulation will keep your home warmer in the winter and save on your heating bills and planting trees around your house will shade it in the summer, keeping it cooler and decreasing your air conditioning bill.

I hope this has been an informative and helpful guide as you all decide ways to frivilously blow your money away in a hurricane of levee busting consumerism.

My next post will be a follow-up on the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. stay tuned for more vintage Angelo-ranting (I swear it’ll be more interesting than this one, I am just in a very bad mood today).