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.

Should you ever find yourself thinking…

“I wish I could own a painted representation of a person in an eerily accurate Grimer costume, longingly pursuing a naked woman with disturbingly disproportionate breast, through the ocean… on a vintage book page.”

… then you should probably stop in at Cranky Yellow and check out the work we have stocked by the master of anonymity: Kettle! We’ve got a whole handful of naked, low-brow paintings and some nifty wood block puzzles in vintage cigar boxes that he created!

We might even get stuck with one (or two) of his “Ghost Holding a Pickle” plushies from the Crammed Organisms Show! Who knows.

So next time you’re thinking in run-on sentences, with an unhealthy amount of adjectives, just jump on over and browse the junk at our store. It will help you and you might even find what you’ve been looking for!

We’ve got a pretty cool new album in the shop by Muscle Brain! The packaging was hand silk screened by the band members! Sweet! We only have two copies since it’s limited edition, so you should get your hands on it before that jerk in your band class does.

There are also 6 copies left of the mildly outdated March 2008 Arthur Magazine. They’re free so you (really) don’t have an excuse to pass them up. I mean come on, get your ass over here and take them home. I know you have tons of unused space on a book shelf somewhere, because, I doubt you read anymore. If they don’t get taken soon I’ll be forced to recycle them, and you all know I would much rather someone have the pleasure of reading them first.

That’s right kids! You heard it! The wonderfully whale-iscious shirts by James Kaufmann are currently on sale for a durt-cheap price of $12.00 (James… correct me if I’m wrong…)! Damn guuuurl, you better be getting one. These things are so adorable and available in various sizes, colors and designs. Whales have never looked so good. These are like super-model whales. Except, you know, they don’t have to starve themselves to be considered sexy! They spend all day gorging themselves on krill… and then proceed to feel totally comfortable with their blubber-bodied figures.

If you’ve forgotten what they look like… just check it:

I’m continually shown unimaginable amounts of kindness. Sheri, a new/awesome friend, donated a bucket (seriously… a bucket) of old zines she had. She once owned a kick-ass store called Tension Head Records. It’s super unfortunate that it had to close… and even more unfortunate that I didn’t get to see/meet it while it was alive. I’ve heard that it was amazing, and knowing Sheri’s coolness, I believe it. It even won a 2006 RFT “Best Of Saint Louis” award; which is pretty impressive since it wasn’t open long before receiving the award.

Anyway, due to her generous donation, I actually had to sit down and spend some time organizing the Zines. You seriously need to get in here and buy some of them. These things are freaking awesome. Sheri can testify. You might see her around, and then find yourself asking: “Are the Zines freaking awesome?”, and she’ll reply: “What the hell are you talking about!?” or “Which Zines are you speaking of?” or “Stop talking to me you creepy bum!”

It will be worth your time regardless. So get to it.

Here are two total goof-balls (Ages 5 and 19) modeling the new bags/hats by the amazing production duo SKIRT! SKIRT makes the most subversively cute items in the world! We also have some rockin’ red wallets… but I didn’t photograph them. Booo.

You’ll know you’re getting a quality hand-made item when you purchase from SKIRT. Their stuff is put together with extreme precision! It’s simply beautiful and 100% unique!

I’ve also been chatting it up with 18andCounting about his upcoming show at Cranky Yellow, which hits our walls in about 2 weeks (on Aug 2nd). There is obviously lots to do.

My life has, recently, been filled with Lyndsey and the color green! Two of my favorite things; I’m a very lucky boy! I’ll tell you the whole story:

Our “Free Stuff” bin is happy to be holding the new Confluence Newspaper! I’ve already read it front to back! The cover is graced by a lovely illustration that Lyndsey drew (it’s also green. hah)! This baby is a beautiful self-loving issue: The DIY Heal Yourself Toolbox!

Confluence is a free, great, independent bi-monthly newspaper created cooperatively in Saint Louis. Inside this publication you’ll find a slew of topics that make me giddy: politics, environmental issues, labor, art, social justice, science, history, urban affairs and lots more! It gets brought to life down at the Community Arts and Media Project (C.A.M.P.) which is our neighbor on Cherokee Street.

If you’re interested: C.A.M.P. operates an open and accessible space that fosters art, media, education, and urban sustainability as tools to connect local and global struggles for social justice.

Finally, a few days ago, Lyndsey donated an amazing hand she created last year for the El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration on Cheroekee. She worked with the children at C.A.M.P. to create “Our Power Hands” which were utilized on a street-wide community celebration and project… wickedly-totally cool! The hand has found a happy home: blessing everyone who comes into Cranky Yellow with super love-vibes from outer-space!

One aspect of Crammed Organisms that I’ve really refused to talk about is the 235 page, full color, book that we published. We whipped this thing out in record time. We photographed 700+ pieces of art, cleaned the photos in photoshop, laid out the book, and went to press in roughly 3 weeks.

We haven’t put it for sale online yet. We are still resting from the show openings, the stress of organizing the whole event, and preparing to ship these things out. If you live in Saint Louis you can pick it up at our shop. Pretty soon it will be available online and stocked in independent book shops around the country.

The book gets my heart pumping fast every time I look at it. I’m pretty sure it is still radiating stress onto me. That’s why I’ve taken a week to retreat. I’m still hard at work… I’m just not working in the shop…

I should eat some ice-cream. Yeah. Ice-cream.

We’ve been getting in tons of new Zines! We are getting so many, in fact, that they have started avalanching out of their section. If I ever feel really energetic, I’ll make an effort to organize and compact them.

In the mean time, however, I’m going to start showing off all of the new things we are stocking. The first being: Publick Occurrences #10 by Danny Martin!

This little book is just beautiful all over. It has thick, traditional letter-pressed cover that your super sensitive fingers will love to touch. The inside contains page after page of creepy (but lovely) illustrations of school book photos. The zine is a study of the class of 1925 from The Manual Training High School in Peoria Illinois!

You’ll need to buy one to show your kids what people looked like before artificial tanning, blond hair dye, and blue tooth (teeth?) head-sets. Bah Humbug.

Please don’t come in and buy this. It’s probably my favorite thing in the shop. I should just buy it myself and take it home… but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it stays well hidden (and by well hidden I mean sitting on the floor by the door)!

It is a totally fine folk-artifact. Seriously look how stupid his trunk looks. The person who painted this obviously had never seen an elephant.

The frame is really crappy and falling apart… so it’s $15. If you want to buy it… I’ll fight you for it. Better watch out. I might walk away with it. Or maybe I’ll have it re-framed and then put a ridiculously high price on it so you can’t afford it. Then you would be screwed!

Yep. Them be fightin words.