As promised I have come to bring you some ideas on what we should be advocating for in order to create a stable a prosperous economy. This little rant will be comprised of two sections: What to do instead of this Economic Stimulus Package and what to do with your money when this ridiculous thing passes.

(I am actually giving you pictures with this crap because SOME PEOPLE say my posts are too boring).

Energy Costs:

First off, we tackle one of the major reasons our economy is in the tubes. It’s been an increasing problem over the years, reaching back decades in scope. However, as things progress the energy question has been looming larger and more menacingly than ever. With every rise in the price of a barrell of crude your wallet loses a little weight. Everything, and I mean everything, is effected by the price energy. Everything we own is transported to our stores with the help of fossil fuels, all of the materials used to produce those things are shipped with fossil fuels, a substantial amount of our electrical power comes from fossil fuels, and we use fossil fuels to go to and from work, school, and everywhere else.

We have to understand, right now, that this problem is never going to go away. Fossil fuels take millions of years to develop, and it has taken us only a couple hundred to come about half-way in depleting them. As this resource becomes more and more scarce expect prices for everything to rise, expect our economy to become less and less stable, and expect ever escalating wars over the few remaining barrels of oil left on earth.

This can all be stopped very soon if the right policies are inacted. It won’t be easy, it will certainly be an adjustment, but we have little choice:

Taxes on cars and fuel need to go up, way up. We are going to have to force people to stop relying on their cars and start relying on public transportation. The suburbs are going to have to learn to deal with walking to their damn grocery stores. People are going to have to get within 100,000,000 feet of strangers (not barricaded behind ten ton piles of steel) and ride the bus or trains into Saint Louis and other major cities instead of driving 700 miles back and forth from their house in B.F.E. every single day.
Heavy investment in public transportation, especially light rail and super-fast national train systems and buses is going to have to occur. We need to connect New York to Los Angeles with America’s first bullet train. We need to lay much more track for both our passenger and commercial/industrial trains.

Let me just say this before I hear any whining:

Hydrogen cars are going to be here as soon as flying cars. Unless your name is George Jettson you might as well start learning local bus schedules now.

(You wish)
Ethanol cars are completely workable now, however we cannot grow enough ethanol for our current and especially future fuel needs. If we tried we’d see food prices skyrocket. Your food or your car people, your choice.

Electric cars are also possible in the moderately near term, but would also be a massive and expensive undertaking. This solution will not be viable in time either to avert economic disaster or global warming.

To summarize: The United States must make itself a leader in mass transportation and try using the “Carrot and Stick” approach to private motor vehicles. We need to make very real incentives to get people out of their cars while punishing those that keep driving them. Our environment, our health, and our economy simply cannot keep going like this. It’s either we do this or risk ruin for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children.

Real Estate Crisis:

This has to be one of the dumbest problems the United States has faced since the “Social Security Crisis” and the “Budget Crisis”. In fact, why does this generation seem to have the dumbest problems? Social Security: Durrr, we have been stealing from it for years. Budget Crisis: Hurrrrrr, we lowered taxes while we were in a state of war.

Anyways, the main problem with the real estate crisis is not the crisis itself; it is the fact that the goddamn real estate market is what’s been driving our economy for the past ten years. Even before the damn bubble burst I was a little freaked that our economic growth hinged on people buying property. That didn’t seem like a sane economic model to me. Most other countries specialize in building or making stuff, Americans specialize in creating fake money and buying houses.

Tighter Federal Controls over sub-prime lending institutions, regulations limiting the amount of debt individuals can carry, punishing profiteers and individuals who sit on their vacant properties with an inflated price waiting for the market to change, speculation control, and simple education of Americans in basic economics will probably keep this from happening again.

Let me break this down:

1. Don’t let people get themselves into ridiculous amounts of debt.

2. Don’t let loan companies screw people over and trick people into getting themselves into ridiculous amounts of debt.

3. Free up properties that sit vacant for years because their owners are greedy bastards.

4. Control people whose entire method of making money is buying property and selling it at a higher price. It comes in next to the stock market as one of the laziest forms of making money and comes in first as the most despicable. Guess what, those people are making YOU pay more money just by doing what they are doing (which drives up demand). You pay more for your house, more for your rent just because people are buying up property without any intention of using it.

Economy as a whole:

Okay, this is where things get tough. I know most of the people reading this are probably CEOs, rich managers, stock brokers, bankers and the like but I just want you all to know that it is for your own good. Take a deep breath, we’ll get through t his together. Remember, these are just some silly suggestions here:

1. Hey, guys, ummmm, why don’t you buy crap that is made in your own country, maybe even locally?

2. Maybe we should shop small business so the money is more spread out and not primarily in the hands of the top 1% of this country?

3. Perhaps it would be a good idea to shop at primarily unionized outlets, where the workers get a greater share of the money? Maybe we could encourage unionization in our own places of work or help others unionize!

This is the problem, and I wrote about this in the previous rant: The United States has plenty, and I mean PLENTY of money. The problem is that most of that money, and most of the power associated with having that money, is in the hands of an extremely small number of people. Right now most of the country owes more than it owns, those people are the people we owe all that money to.

This little giveaway that congress is trying to push through is doing, pathetically, what needs to be done greatly: giving the average person more money. The more money individuals have the more money they will spend; the more money they spend the more demand there are for goods and services; the more demand for goods and services the more jobs there will be. On and on and on.

The current system of “rich take all” allows them to literally horde that money away, keeping it out of the hands of the people that need it, will actually spend it, and who actually created that wealth to begin with. I’d like to see Bill Gates make 100 million computers, I’d like to see Paris Hilton clean the rooms of fifteen hundred hotel guests. These people take what you made and built gigantic nest eggs for generations of their spoiled spawn to squander.

(She works hard for the money)
Unionizing, an increase in the inheritence tax (or the death tax as its opponents like to call it), and a heavier tax on the rich is what will bring this country out of the economic doldrums and secure for yourself and your family a brighter future. It is up to us, the consumers, to choose small business and union business, it is up to us, the voters, to choose progressive politicians who will get the American people what they deserve.

I will add this as well, because I think it needs addressing: The immigrants are not stealing your jobs. In fact, the stupid wall is probably going to cost you more, personally, than the current level of illegal immigrants in this country. Most economists that I have heard say that immigrants are actually a net positive, especially since they pay taxes without (usually) receiving major benefits such as social security. The people who are really stealing your jobs are older white men who decided to move them overseas so they can get two new houseboats. This whole immigration thing is meant to distract you from the real reasons you can no longer pay your mortgage.

This is especially true if we embrace these immigrants and unionize them, that way the depressive effects they have on wages will not only be neutralized, but they will begin helping to raise them.

The second part of this will be in the next blog. Until then, I hope this motivates you to start making better decisions in where you shop. I also hope it gets you to writing your member of congress and scrutinizing the candidates up for election this year.

For added help, here is where you can find out how to contact your senator (I would add representatives but it has already passed in the house).

Though I may not write as much as Angelo, you can rest assured that I absolutely love Famous When Dead.

Famous When Dead has such a beautiful style and amazing subject matter that even the biggest stick in the mud will crumple into a gooey little pile of happiness.

Check out our interview here!

It’s not so bad, really, the zines are actually quite good (as far as artistry goes). For the sake of brevity, benefiting both you and me as it is, I will do a basic rundown of each of them in the order the following picture presents:

Isn’t that just so handy? Anyhoo, in order:

1. Martin Ernsten’s mind slowly entropies over the course of about 30 pages in his zine “Zeldon Plan”. Through adorably crude depictions of crapping bunny adventures, tales of an extremely lonely robot-man, the battles between boring and exciting man, and Martin’s own terrible life as a comic we get a vision into the thought process of that guy in art class that wouldn’t stop drawing skeletons eating babies.

I highly recommend this and his other two zines (one of which I understand). If you are of a somewhat strange, creepy, or otherwise deviant nature AND a huge nerd you’ll be hooked on the creations of this guy.

2. “Everybody Get Up Zine” is sort of a “Baby’s First Graffiti” book (it even has a connect-the-dots puzzle). It’s a hodgepodge of rebellious, graffiti, and gratuitious artwork that anyone thinking about getting into underground art should seek as a primer. The star of the zine is a lude but adorable bunny rabbit whose benign but pervasive appearance is on nearly every page.

From the zine: “Q: What do you think the future of street art is? A: Laser Paint”

Angelo Gives it ten Marshmallows out of ten.

3. The teeny pages of “Paper Thin Zine, Issue three” are basically a photo-journal of the author’s daily adventures through the streets of his depressing U.K. city. The pictures are interesting and the commentary is witty and incisive, he seems to be an expert at representing the oddity of both himself and the world around him.

Double plus good.

4. Our good friends at “Subculture Clash” have graced us with a new addition to our shelves. It seems they are resurrecting the long-dead art of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel by presenting us with a zine where we control the destiny of the main characters. We are the star in this printing, and isn’t 2 bucks worth stardom?

Choose this comic (result on page 22).

Taking a break from my political ranting for just a bit; I am here to introduce you to our new addition: Jupey Krusho.

We two are common in our mutual geekery; his works comprising references to video game culture and others certainly taking their style from the style emanating from Japan. Because of this I love him like the brother I never, ever call or allow to stay at my place for a night while his car/home is being repaired after the fiftieth car-crash. (On a side note, I am holding a fiftieth crash party at my place to celebrate this momentous occasion in itself and the Guinness World Record it achieves).

While he certainly utilizes Japanese culture Krusho does so in the form of humorous parodies. His stuff is most certainly not copies of Kawaii Coteur but a merger of Japanese style with American nerd-humor.

At the same time he sketches rather rough depictions of women doing, well, I have no idea what these women are actually doing and personally I’d rather not. Now, the picture below doesn’t really seem as bad as I make his female subjects seem, I know. However, this is certainly not representative of the truly bizarre stuff I have seen and am unable to show you due to their content and programming issues. Suffice it to say; his women tend to be rather scratchy, sketchy figures in depictions and poses either revealing or generally unsettling. Not to say that it’s bad, but it is odd (to me at least).

I am rather impressed with his depictions of the male body (DO NOT SNICKER YOU HORRIBLE PEOPLE!). Krusho draws men in action poses that are a mixture between anatomical reality and fiction. They tend to be well-built, powerful, and dominating. (The women are no less strong, generally speaking all of the non-Japano figures tend to be developed in an imposing, aggressive, or powerful fashion). Ready for action, his male subjects seem ready to leap off of the page (or computer screen) and beat the crap out of anyone who dares challenge their authority (or steal their ninja-princess!).

I would encourage all of you to check out his website and peruse his wares at the store (right now we only have his zine, but I am sure we can pressure him into giving us some of his other stuff).

Oh what a wonderful week it has been:
Dennis Kucinich bit the dust.

Italy’s leftist prime minister fell.

Congress is passing a “Let’s worry about our tanking economy and budgetary crisis later” spending spree package. (Otherwise known as the Economic Stimulus Package).

One man cost a banking firm several billion….BILLION dollars in hidden losses due to insidious stock trading.

Hillary Clinton decided to start attacking Barack Obama on his history, forgetting her history is twice as dubious (and freaking confusing).

Lemme’ start out with the event that broke my heart: Dennis Kucinich’s withdraw from the presidential race. After gaining absolutely no delegates from any of the state primaries, finishing close to the bottom in every one except Michigan (where him and Hillary were the only real candidates).

Michigan, as we are all bewildered to know, has had it’s people stripped of their right to help choose who will be the Democratic nominee. They, apparently, had the audacity to decide when they felt like holding their election. Most candidates pulled out in order to show those damn Michiginians who’s boss! Hillary, Kucinich, and Uncommitted, however, stayed on. Sadly, my Dennis fell into third place even in that uncrowded race; with Hillary finishing first, Uncommitted second, and him third. I should also note that while Uncommitted finished second in Michigan they did not recieve very high votes in any of the other states, it is still unsure if they will decide to withdraw as well.

Next up is the Economic Stimulus Package, which I ranted about in the forums already, but I feel I should on the front page as well. I think it is sad that the media is reporting this as a win-win scenario, with ABC morning news repeating over and over how virtually all economists think this is the best idea since Bush opened up his first bag of pretzles.

I think it is obvious to anyone not caught up in the hysteria and frenzy of the recent economic downturn that this bill, if it passes, will only forestall the economic problems and only make them more difficult to deal with later on. Our government is going to be increasingly hampered in dealing with the economic slumpage as it takes on more and more debt (With the passage of this bill the budget deficit will be twice, TWICE what it was last year).

Let me break this whole thing down for you, as I currently understand it:

The United States (and many parts of the world along with it) has been going through an economic slump. With the crash in real estate markets, a shaky stock market, decreased consumer spending on useless items, and steadily rising energy prices our economy isn’t sitting pretty. Of course, the geniuses in our Federal Government have come up with a comprehensive and incisive plan that will help us out of these troubled times. Now, this could get abit complicated and filled with equations and advanced mathematics, but break out your calculators and bear with me people:

Congresses plan is as follows: GIVE LOTS OF MONEY TO PEOPLE! MONEY TO EVERYBODY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!!

Of course, this money is not real money; the money is not going from people who have too much money (the obscenely rich) to those with relatively little money (you and me). It is going from magic fairy-land to our pockets. And by magic fairy-land I mean the pockets of the future, our pockets, our kids’ pockets, and our kids’ kids’ pockets.

This money is going to have to be paid at some point, and congress is going to have to either raise taxes, cut benefits, or do a combination of the two. Which is going to make it harder when the newly elected Democrat (and a Democrat will get elected) has to face up to all those promises for healthcare and social services.

This plan is literally stealing 150 billion dollars from our future selves and our descendants in order to temporarily help the economic problems we are facing.

Let me repeat this: This is not going to solve the damn problem.

All it is doing is giving us all a little extra spending money which we will then hand over to the rich. This will not generate jobs, this will not generate investment; no effect this money is going to have will be in anyway permanent.

This is again a big boon for investors, banks, and the rich (as the stock markets have stabilized again on the news of promised consumer cash and slashing of the Fed’s interest rate) but even for them it is a temporary help. What is probably going to happen is the rich will be using this little breather to buy up as many golden parachutes as possible, ready and waiting to hang us all out to dry as they settle into nice condos in the Bahamas.

Hopefully the rising waters will submerge their greedy asses as the global warming they helped to produce (and prevented us from stopping) takes effect.

Call your senator, Call your representative, Call your governor, Call your mayor, Call your mother! Just stop this bill from getting through! Demand real help!

(More on what we ACTUALLY need to do in a later post.)

Awww. How cute!

My mother and myself have been collaborating on these cats and owls for Indie Valentine.

You can have first grab if you come to the show. I think I am going to keep one cat and one owl… for posterity.

We’ve been neglecting posting the new stuff in the store… and posting interviews.
Speaking of which we have a new one with Famous When Dead, which Angelo will blog about tomorrow.

We will catch up with everything else soon. Stick with us.

Dora the musical matron of magical melodies has pounced on the music scene like a very sleepy leopard! The release show at local vegetarian restaurant Shangri-La (whose food was as delicious as the tunes) was a rather big hit. We sold quite a few Cds (people were eating them up like hotcakes after hearing Dora’s beautiful voice), and met some rather interesting people. The Ukuleles and jazzy notes rained down on the audience like a shower of rapturous marshmallows made of the purest sugars and cow-hooves. Everyone had a good time, and you should feel personally ashamed and empty if you missed it.

The after-party showcased a wide array of insane individuals. Stories of litter boxes used as latrines and long-winded political shout-fests abounded as the night wore on. Noone seemed to mind the fact that the wine was purchased at Aldis and the cheese was, well, actually the cheese was rather delicious. I don’t drink wine, or any alcohol for that matter, so I can’t really attest to its yum or lack thereof.

In the first hour or so of the party about seven-eight of us sat down to play the sadistically fun game of Apples to Apples. All I can say is a few lives were changed over the course of the game. After we had finished laughing histerically at “Babies” being matched with “Deadly”, and “Plane Crashes” with “Brilliant” I plied my ancient trade, passed down from generation to generation on the gypsy side of my family: Tarot Readings.

I am sorry to say; one of my participants got rather horrific cards for her question “What will my career be?”. We ended up having to do two readings because I didn’t quite believe that all of her cards would be that terrible. I figured that I must have done a terrible job shuffling. Unfortunately; the second reading was exactly the same: Torment, violence, explosions, vice, chaos, misery..etc…etc… I can only assume that she’ll wind up either as a third world dictator, a freelance photographer of third world wars and civil strife, abducted before she completes college and sold on the global slave market, or move to Los Angeles.

Another honorable mention was one of the starter bands, a young musician by the name of Franco (Band: Nurturing Fidelity). Franco seemed completely engulfed in the madness and horror that is Cranky Yellow’s social circle. Most of the time he held back to the outer edges of the room as me and a Anarcho-Libertarian nearly came to blows over politics and economics, as this same A-L started yelling at another friend of ours who herself tending to yell and shout for no reason whatsoever. Most of the time he would sit smiling or laughing, up until the major debate got going at which point him, his friend Jesus (who we affectionately call in reference to a rather adept costume he war on Halloween) and Dora Magrath’s brother, me, and A-L all joined in for about three hours.

We discussed everything from the war in Iraq to global warming to the Large Hadron Collider to the existence of god(s). I, of course, won every debate. But that’s not important, what is important is that we all accomplished what is rarely done in today’s society: we started a spontaneous political debate that managed to be fulfilling in its diversity, intensity, content, and comradery. I’ve always wanted such things to occur, I am consistently starved of real political discourse with real-life individuals (not over the interwebs).

Of note: Dora Magrath’s brother, mentioned earlier, is also musically inclined. He, along with Franco, performed as the opening bands. Alex’s performance was a mixture of covers and his own songs (some of which utilizing retro tunes with his own words over it). He did, however, perform a few originals, one of which being: “Fuck the Police”, done to an older soft song (whose name escapes me). Alex was quick to say, of course, that “Fuck the Police” is an endearing term and that he knows, personally, many of the men and women in blue. His cd is being sold in Cranky Yellow along with Dora’s, so you might wanna check him out. His subjects pertained mainly to civil rights and social/political feelings and tendencies. His voice is rather beautiful, even though he has testosterone coursing through his veins, his music soft and melodic.

Franco’s music is much more contemporary, much of the young alternative scene. Soft, yet masculine he is preparing himself for that transition to the college music scene (I believe he’s a Freshman actually). He demonstrates a sensitivity and a mature worry, common to all of us youngsters anxious about our futures as responsible adults. His most popular song “Oh Lady” features his light-hearted remembrance of a girl who broke his heart (featuring BONGOS!). Franco is being sold in Cranky Yellow as well, it is well worth it to check him out.
I am sure I completely mis-characterized and misrepresented everyone I mentioned above. Don’t bother trusting a word I said, just come to the next shin-dig and find out for yourselves!

(Here is a horribly mangled look at a tiny part of the show. David apparently doesn’t know how to work a camera so quite abit was lost)

My Life has been consumed with working on Dora Magrath’s CD Release Party. The event is tomorrow and I’m still working on some last minute preparations.

A few mornings ago I awoke to a lovely breakfast of peanut butter and tea while cropping flyers for the event. Notices how Dinah gets just close enough to be irritably cute but far enough to avoid being touched. She is an evil demon cat of fatty-fat love!

I’ve seriously spent most of my waking hours the past week finishing up everything involved with this CD (along with working on a few pesky web-design projects that are taking forever to finish). I’ll be posting some photos of the CD tomorrow…. because I know you are excited to see it.

Now I must be back to work!

Click here for more info on the show! 

P.S. We’ve received some lovely new items in the store… so don’t worry… we will be talking about them here soon.

By sheer luck alone our grand overlord, David, happened across someone with free tickets to a free screening of the Cloverfield movie (one week before its national release).

Quite frankly I have been trying to dodge the hype. I have always been curious of the movie and intended to see it, just not with the same lustful anticipation that David and many others seem to possess. I will, of course, be adding to the hype with this blogging; I do believe, however, that the movie warrants such buzz, as it is one of the best movies I’ve seen in awhile.

What’s great about the movie is the balance it strikes between various elements important to the design and implementation of any motion picture. Unlike its older cousin, Godzilla (The god-awful American version) it managed to create a mega-monster disaster movie without relying solely on special effects. The story-line is actually well-developed, the characters have substance and depth, they are believable in most respects. The humor was well-timed, didn’t interrupt the general feel of the movie, and (most importantly) refrained from being drenched in gobs of cheese.
The only major issue I have with the character composition is this: They are all beautiful except for the man behind the camera. The movie was filled with attractive people (ugly people usually keeping to the background or making rather minor appearances and impact on the plot’s development). It’s not really a big deal, I just found it kind of funny how this “Vice-President” (the main protagonist happened to be awfully successful) managed to reach his position while being about 25 years of age. Not only that, but apparently all of his friends would fit easily on the cover of “Mode” (yes, that’s a reference to Ugly Betty).

Anyways, I am not one for spoilers so I won’t go into detail about the plot. I will, however, show you the Cloverfield monster. I just can’t keep it to myself, it is a wonderful work of imaginative horror, sort of what would crawl out of Jim Henson’s worst nightmares. It’s big, it’s mean, it’s ugly, it really doesn’t like the Statue of Liberty: IT’S MONSTERFIELD! I know, I know, scary. I am sorry to have to spoil the surprise here guys but I feel you should know before going into the theatre. I wouldn’t want anyone having heart attacks during the movie. It’s probably best if you see the terrible monster in the comfort of your own home.

I will spoil one more thing for you, which I am rather uneasy about doing. As much as I’d like to keep the suspense of the movie intact I have to make this announcement due to the utter rarity of the situation. This movie does what few movies accomplish. Cloverfield actually, and I know you are going to be shocked, allows a black person to survive! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, African Americans are safe from the Cloverfield monster (some of them at least)! You aren’t safe from most other monsters, serial killers, natural disasters, wars, the WB, zombies, but you won’t be ethnically cleansed by this beast of beasts!

Due to this fact Angelo (me) will award Cloverfield with an honor he has just made up:

“Black Survival Award”. I was going to go with “Your Movie-World Doesn’t Cleanse The Planet of Non-Caucasians” but it seemed abit drawn out. It’s a nice change of pace from Resident Evil: Extinction. In which the primary group of people going extinct was anyone who wasn’t white. I swear to god, I saw like seventeen black major and minor characters die in that movie (and in many cases completely unnecessarily). The KKK couldn’t have done a better job; if only they knew that all they had to do to get rid of African Americans was to create a zombie-plague we’d be knee-deep in undead by now.

Anyways, Cloverfield proves how great a movie can be when the people producing it are completely in love with the film (and have talent, oh lord please have talent). This movie is J.J. Abrams baby, and he raised it right. The guy treated this movie like it was his only child, both protecting it from the world while making sure everyone saw how wonderful it was. Like taking your super-intelligent daughter and locking her in her room until she’s 22 (except to participate in regional spelling bee and chess competitions). Once mature, you prep her and send her out into the world, ready to show off her home-schooled brilliance and use it to take control of the hearts and minds of the world. Like some precious little Stalin she will march across the continents reigning down benevolent destruction as we all scream and cower, while admiring her gusto that is.

I have no idea what any of that is supposed to mean, so watch the damn movie.

P.S. (I have nothing against Hillary Clinton, it is just that there are more terrifying pictures taken out of context than there are stills from teen slasher movies.)