Hurray! Look at these new envelopes filled with zines, well-wishes, and prints!

With all of this support and activity there is no possible way I could be in an angry, grumpy, or vengeful mood….I am bursting with sunshine, happiness, and…..and….

Grr..gr…ga…….RAAAAAAAARGH! ANGELO SMASH! ANGELO DESTROY!

I know this is going to ruffle some feathers, I do. Just like that whole taser incident, I am sure my little rant on Tibet is going to piss off some of my liberal-minded friends. I just can’t help it, though, with the recent issues regarding the Olympics in China and riots in Lhasa (Capital of Tibet) I feel compelled to explain why I couldn’t care less if Tibet is ever “free”.

I mean, could someone please explain to me why I should support a theocracy? Does anyone else notice that Tibet was a poor, theocratic dictatorship before the Chinese came in? Not only was the political system just as constricted (if not more) than the Chinese system, the complaints of torture under the Chinese (which I am sure occurs, and the Chinese are horrible for doing so) are a little strange (coming from the monks, not the people) when we found out that they did the exact same thing to their serfs and slaves (that’s right people, Tibet was a serfdom/slave holding society up until the Chinese came in….in 1951):

“In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation–including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation–were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs.”

“Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet.”

There’s more, much more. Unfortunately it is difficult to find alot of information on the reality of the Buddhist era of Tibet due to the obsession over Tibetan “freedom”. A good overview, however, can be found here.

I don’t like the Chinese government, and I don’t like theocracies; the position I take in these matters is the same as in the Palestinian-Isreali conflict, both sides are wrong and I refuse to actively support either. I don’t want Italy to be run by the pope, and I don’t want it to be run by a violent, but secular dictator either. So if the fight is between the two I find that my position must be neutral, for neither seems much better. At least under the Chinese Tibet entered into the 21st century instead of lagging back in the middle-ages.

I don’t believe in countries, I don’t believe in national rights or regional rights, I believe in human rights, liberty, and prosperity. If a nation’s liberation will enslave (or enslave further) a group of people and dramatically reduce their standards of living I can’t support it; though I do support nationalist struggles that would, in fact, liberate the people. As far as I can tell; the people of Tibet are no less oppressed than the average Chinese and wouldn’t be any better off than under his charismatic-ness, the Dalai “Pope” Lama.

Now, I know the people of Tibet have the right to choose who they want to live under; but it isn’t my job to help them install theocratic dictators (if that is what they want, which I am not entirely sure is the case).

Before I end this little blog rant I want to remind everyone that I think the Chinese treatment of Tibetan resistors is terrible, violent, and wrong. But they treat the Tibetans like they treat their own citizens, violently and tyrannically (which is exactly how the Tibetan’s were treated by their Buddhist overlords and slaveowners). I would certainly support Tibet if the struggle was by political entities that I think would actually make things better for those people (political entities with ideologies I agree with, quite frankly). There are a number of separatist movements I do care about and would like to see succeed, such as various Native American separatist tendencies and movements (should they ever gain traction within their respective communities) and the newly created Kosovo nation (though I fear the country will be short-lived for reasons I may elaborate on in a later blog).

However you feel about the Tibetan situation, I am willing to bet you are not willing to hand your home, town, city, county, or state over to Native American tribes, are you? It’s silly to protest and boycott the Olympics over just the Tibetan issue (though there are plenty of other reasons to do so). Until I see Richard Gere hand over his mansion to the Sioux (or whatever Native American people lived, and were forcibly evicted from, the land his house now sits on) I won’t be jumping on this bandwagon any time soon.
As Americans I don’t feel we have much room to talk. Whatever the Chinese are doing now to the Tibetans we did a hundred fold on more than one Native American nation. Remember, Tibet is still full of Tibetans; in the Americas it is hard to spot a true Native. While China stole a sizeable territory to add to its domain the United States literally stole ALL of its territory, we all live on stolen land; possessed by a people who the U.S. largely murdered, raped, pillaged, and reeducated. We need to clean up our own house and make amends with those we wronged in the past (and currently wrong) before we start harping on other countries for their wrongs.

Oh lord, I didn’t even need to mention Iraq, did I? How many Iraqi’s have been killed so far? Is it near the 100,000 mark? Maybe we should clean up that mess first, at least? Seeing we, as Americans, are directly responsible for what’s going on?
I encourage everyone to really take a look at the facts, do abit of research, and argue with me until we’re all blue in the face. It’s been awhile since I had a good shout-fest.

Spring just puts everyone in the mood for change.. no not a viral plug for Obama’s campaign! We just re-arranged the store to make more room for people to stand around and chat during shows! We moved out one big shelf and compacted everything into a small space… which means there is enough room to flail around and jump if you were into that sort of thing.

Side One Before:

Side One After:

 Side Two Before:

Side Two After:

So basically we have more stuff crammed into less space. We’re also working on FINALLY getting the back two rooms ready to open! The second room is open from time to time when we have a show hanging… but we’re really going to spice it up!

More blogs soon. So much has happened!

Camilla from Doodle Everyday came into the shop a few weeks ago and gave us this amazing piece! It’s now proudly hanging behind our desk for the whole world to see…or at least the 2 people who ever stop in to see!

Check out her site and keep up with her wonderfully amusing doodles as they pop out everyday. Most days. Sometimes!

Thanks Camilla! You’re groovy… Amazing… and your friend needs to pick up that piece of art he bought!

I swear to god, some other people with horrible taste better come here and rescue me from the crap David brought into the store to sell.

Okay, let’s see what we have here (from left to right):

A deer with two slave deer to serve it, made out of beautiful (I just ate an orange and puked it back up) orange. An florescent owl, you know, so it can fly through the night undetected and capture its prey: glow-sticks discarded by drunk ravers.  Oh, and last but not least: a bored frog skateboarding on a beach in front of a sign with nothing on it; the layers of intrigue are never-ending.

Please, people, for the sake of my sanity; buy this stuff so I don’t have to look at it anymore.

Whoa! Did you know this cool cat is the featured seller on Etsy.com right now!?

He’s also having a solo show here at Cranky Yellow in April! The show opens Friday April 4, 2008 (7-11pm)

He may be here in the flesh… hopefully…. well…erm…. you never know I guess..

Seriously, though, this show is going to be exceptionally awesome! You should stop by and check it out if you live in the Saint Louis Area! We’d love to see you!

I know it’s been awhile since I blogged about anything important. I am currently organizing an event on my campus that will run all day long for two days straight: May Day. Don’t worry, I will be ranting about stuff nobody cares about soon. Until then I’ll be introducing you to some new stuff we have in the store. Without further ado, here be our new stuff!

Love-O-Rama Records dropped some phat beats on us recently from two amazing musicians: Fire dog and Celia. In a perfect world the both of them would be at the top of the charts. Catchy and fun these albums will burrow into your brain like musical prairie dogs and will only leave when avoiding malicious ranchers. Celia has a fairly funky sound, jumpy and energetic, sarcastic to a fault if you don’t like her you’re a damned jive turkey! Fire Dog’s more on the alternative side with a hint of go-go. (Both of these bands have their t-shirts for sale as well; be a loyal fan and sport your appreciation through hand-made silk-screened T’s).

One of my many followers (Hi Katie!) hands me her annul offering: a plush doll by Mayroca (our Brazilian Cranky). For those of you who don’t know, all supplications must be placed within an earth-friendly reusable grocery bag made by new-addition Rommel Mcdonald.

Okay you sock-monkey freaks (where do you people come from, seriously.); we just got a new shipment of colorful primates made by the ever-popular Ahimsa Creations. Please come by the store and buy them, they have already started to annoy me. I mean, do you have any idea how many plush bananas those rambunctious animals eat every day? I swear to god, if I step in one more pile of brown cotton I’m shipping them off to Laos where Monkey’s Brains is a delicacy. If any of you have any love in your hearts you’ll save them from such a terrible fate.

Crypt Candy sent us these two lovely T-Shirts (along with a bunch more). We luckily had a couple from the plush and toy dimension stop by and model for us. They kept talking about some Hadron Collider and giant plush event in Saint Louis but I really wasn’t listening. Anyways, they’re rather nice people and plan on taking advantage of the lack of a plush-toy anti-marriage act. In 1972 their dimension enacted a law protecting the sanctity of stuffed marriage, keeping toys and plushies from intermarrying and cross-breeding.

Fine. Fine. Fine. I know this post is a little out dated since this technically happened last week.

Angelo had the brilliant idea (haha. An oxymoron!) to paint our nasty old shelf blue! Normally I would have been pretty excited about such a project… but he suggested it the night before Denise Simon’s show, and I had lots of stuff to finish up in preparation.

So… Angelo tore into the project by himself. It’s pretty lucky some teenage girls came to the shop to help him out… otherwise he probably wouldn’t have finished. That thing sucked the paint up like a vacuum from hell!

I have to admit though… it does look much better now. Damn him for being right.

And here it is all finished up with some stuff back on it:

We had abit of an opening party last night with the famous Denise Simon. Wine, cheese, board games, tarot readings; all the important ingredients necessary for an art show opening were present. Well, okay, just the Cranky Yellow brand of art shows. We do things a little differently here, as some of you may have noticed. Ya see, we aren’t frumpity bumpities, we don’t try to even seem professional; the Cranky Crew is a laid back bunch, a crack team of loud-mouths, psychos, social rejects, and hyperactive nit-wits. We’re damn proud of it too; so if any of you indie-artists are interested in having a show here let this be a warning to you. The following isn’t one of my usual blogs, full of all of those annoying things called “words” and “sentences”. I took about ten million pictures at the show, a handful of which weren’t blurry, and have constructed for your pleasure a picture-with-caption adventure:

Denise as she sees Cranky Yellow HQ for the very first time; second thoughts perhaps?

The guy on the left started out pretty confident but that didn’t last long.

I don’t know why the blue-shirted lady was whispering to Denise’s neck,

but I am sure the secret will be kept.

I have never seen anyone paint so intricately with so small a brush on

a sandwich board.

Dinah decided that she was more important than a game of Apples to

Apples, she was right of course. We ended up letting her guard the cards for

the duration of the game. She attacked anyone that tried to take a card

back after they laid it down.

Britton, the most colorful girl in the room, tried desperately to get people

to engage in silliness of various sorts. Our artist and her friends went along

with it spiritedly. I am afraid, however, the grumpiest libertarian wasn’t

having it (second to the far right).

You can’t see it in this picture but Dinah had one too many glasses of

wine and started telling really bad dead baby jokes.

At this point even the camera was a little drunk.

I’ve never seen a guy so embarrassed by someone turning the air

conditioning on.

The girl in the foreground is perhaps one of the sweetest people I have

ever met. Whenever she talks it’s like rays of candy-butter are flying

out of her mouth.

A trans-dimensional being named “Alex-22″ popped into existence for

the night. I think he was telling them a story of how washing-machines

in his plane of existence are execution devices.

This is the national dance of Neo-tri-merica. The

trans-dimensionals were very kind in sharing their

alchoholic culture with us (in their primary universe

they never had prohibition, they also have an extra

knee-cap for every third person born).

A local nun-hippy ended up attending the party. She

talked about nothing but Jesus and kaleidoscopes.

Not even free food can please the grumpiest libertarian.

Five seconds before the picture was taken: “I look

really bad, I feel so embarrassed”.