We’re now carrying Brett Marren’s album: Kitchen Sink! Brett and Sam Kertz made this super awesome listening station for the shop! You can stop in now and hear Brett’s CD, which will make you want to buy it. It’s seriously one of my favorite things in the store right now, and we’ve already sold a copy! It’s only $6.66, so if that alone doesn’t sell it to you, then there isn’t much more I can offer you.

Cranky Yellow is awesome due to the complete and utter awesomeness of all the dedicated people involved! Check out this totally rad illustration/advertisement that Michelle (Lemon Squeezie) squeezed out (bad pun intended) for the website. WOW!

Michelle definitely went the distance! She even took it upon herself to snag some totally nasty-baby-poop-yellow shirts from the thrift store. That girl didn’t even think twice about silk screening this image on them. Oh Snap! Now I just wish everyone could have one.

(MICHELLE! EMAIL ME A PICTURE OF THE SHIRT SO I CAN POST IT HERE! FEEL FREE TO MAKE SASSY MODEL… OR YOU CAN MODEL TOO!)

Anyway…Thanks again Michelle! I’ll cook delicious buttered toast, for you, some time!

The super talented art teacher, robot specialist and groovy dude Jeff Sass is like totally my new best friend! We’re lucky enough to get to hang out with him semi-regularly!

While Michelle (Lemon Squeezie), who I equally adore… and will be blog-admiring soon, was helping me organize the DaDa Salon @ Shangrila, Jeff was super busy painting this guy on the Cranky Yellow Bathroom wall!

Sorry for the super bad photo. You can blame it on shitty bathroom lighting.

So now when people go pee-pee at Cranky Yellow, they can rest easy knowing this big-yellow-angry futuristic tin-can is watching! How perfectly relaxing!

We’re also selling some paintings and prints by Jeff in our store-front. Stop in and buy them.

No. Seriously. Do it.

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!

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!

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”.

I get pretty excited every time the mailman (Hi, Gary) brings in packages. There is just something really special about getting a new load of adorable goodies. The feeling is greatly amplified when the packaging is amazing!

If you’ve ordered from Cranky Yellow before you’ll know we package with recycled materials.. and always (I mean always) decorate the package! We really love getting fun mail… and assume you do too!

Recently we’ve received some honorable packages. These two fella’s are after my own heart! Seriously… Just gander at these and feel your soul move!

The first was sent here by Yannsfart and sister Sylvie LS! It had some amazing zines! The best being the “Prevailing Nonsense” series and “He, Her, Him: Free, Fer, Frim” zine! Both of these are perfect examples of what a good zine should be! I seriously recommend you stop by the store a snag a copy for yourself… they’re bound to be gone soon!

The next package (sent by Alex Chiu) had a super sweet illustration on the front! I love how the “w” was left out. No worries… We know where it should be! The inside contained Alex’s new zine “Love People, Respect Life”! We’re giddy has hell to be able to offer it!

We’ve been receiving so much new stuff that we’re having a hard time keeping up with blogging it all! I’m making a personal promise to blog about one new product everyday until we catch up! I know I’ll fail… but hell… who cares!

I’m sure it’s rather obvious that I could apply myself a bit more to this blog. Angelo dominates the blog archives with massive rants on various political topics and extravagantly written reviews of art, new products and events. I on the other hand only pop in to slap up a quick little note of something new without thinking twice about how “boring” it may be for the reader…

Sooo…
I’ve decided to make a well needed change. I’m going to start pulling my weight a bit more on our beloved blog of generally well written reflections of “Cranky Life”. This is the first installment of my destined to fail project:

If you know me, you know that I love (and by love I mean I am completely obsessed with) junk. Well not junk… but Treasures. Tacky little Folk-art pieces, forgotten toys, ugly housewares and left over trash just makes me giddy. So it’s no surprise I nearly jumped in my car to drive to Worcester Massachusetts to visit HBML Junk Shoppe when I first found out about it.

This place seriously puts shame to all other wannabe junk shops. Walk in these doors and find yourself inside a treasure chest of amazing finds. This building, located at 420 pleasant street, Worcester MA, is home to some of the greatest examples of awesomeness the world has to offer.

Their space is open Wednesday Thursday and Friday (WTF) from 4:30 to 8pm and Saturday from 2 to 5. During those perfectly puny hours you can immerse yourself in all the joy flea-market finds can offer. I mean seriously who doesn’t love giant squid and packaging foam stuck to the ceiling. This place is an amazing store, art installation, primitive art gallery, and general mental stimulus package.

If you find anything you like on their website, flickr page, or myspace page you’ll need to drive to their location to snag it for your very own. They don’t offer their goods online, which I think is magically awesome and depressingly unfortunate for me (since I live in Missouri). Overall, though, their unwillingness to sell online seems pretty perfectly matched to their aesthetic; An aesthetic that makes my skin bubble with happiness.
Now… To keep this post at a manageable consumption size, I’ll leave you with a few more photos:

Just look at that wall of greatness. I think a little bit of excrement came out the first time I saw that photo.

This is possibly the best mask every conceived by mankind… though I’m thinking it might only look good on that guy.

Oh and they have free condoms (male and female) which is enough to drag even the biggest stick in the mud to their store. I mean seriously who can pass that up? Even A-sexual’s can stock up and play a game of Condom-Santa, delivering hefty packages of contraceptives to all of their more horny acquaintances.

See? This place is a Win/Win situation for all.

(all photos totally stolen from the HBML.ORG website)

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!