new store(s)!

your humble narrator voyaged out into the hinterlands last week to explore some of the further reaches of the greater memphis area thrifting experience, and was pleasantly surprised by what he found. photographs to follow.



the goodwill on e shelby drive, way out. see it on the google map of pain, to the right side of the page? it's that flickering light far off in the distance. by the time the light from that goodwill gets to us our children's children's children will be long dead. think about that for a while.



this was a pretty nice store, although they were embarking on a massive storewide repainting project that apparently necesitated covering up a lot of the merch with drop cloths



and dampened the cluttered, haphazard, find stuff lying around all over the place type of spirit that makes one want to dig around in a thrift store for several hours on end.



don't get me wrong, they still had some neat stuff, but it was a little... sparse.



i'm not sure i like, appreciate, or endorse this sentiment, but it made me laugh. and cringe. and fart. okay that was probably the burrito

OH MY GOD FART JOKES I'VE HIT A NEW LOW PEOPLE



i managed to snag this sweet bug eyed kid painting on black velvet for our good friend of the blog holly who asked me to keep my eyes peeled for them. so nice to able to spread the love like that occasionally.



and of course i got books. how could i say no to this one?



you should have seen the look the lady at the counter gave me when she saw this. i wanted to walk around the counter and give her a hug and say "don't worry lurleen, the scary picture of the gay man taking his shirt off is going away, it can't hurt you any more, i'll take it home and put it inside a locked vault where it will never meet human eyes again, i promise" and then buy her a pancake or something



snagged this book about historical hebrew pimp Benjamin Disraeli, part of the Time Reading Program thing that i'm pseudoobsessed with. they apparently published a mountain of this stuff so there's no hope of me ever tracking it all down, and it's more or less worthless as collectibles, i just love the aesthetic of these books so much that i can hardly ever put them down once i pick them up



did you know this was a serious problem? apparently it is. they have specials about it on the learning channel and everything. clutter. what a quintessentially american issue.



i'm a sucker for these "and philosophy" books - i'll page through the simpsons and philosophy, the matrix and philosophy, family matters and philosophy (apparently the character of "urkel" was nothing but an exercise in satire against post-hegelian constructivism) - whatever ya got. and being a total james bond fan this was a no-brainer.

anyway that's about it. there were probably more great finds there if i had tarried longer but the paint fumes were getting intense and i had a long day ahead of me, but this goodwill ranks right up there with most of the others in town and i'd definitely recommend a visit, for a change of pace if nothing else. the fact that it's out in the boonies sort of works to its detriment but the next time you find yourself cruising the farther expanses of east shelby drive why not pop in? tell 'em large marge sent ya.

until next time

your pal

d

Goodwill
7040 E Shelby Dr
Memphis, TN 38125
(901) 754-8500

Community Dolla Warehouse

my good friends will and ashley and i went to a new thrift store last month called the community dolla warehouse, on east georgia street, in between south main and 2nd street, in what used to apparently a concrete warehouse that the owner decided to convert into a thrift store. how was it, you ask?



pretty freaking cool! from what i was led to understand the guy who runs the place decided not to pursue a career in the concrete industry any more so he converted his huge warehouse space into a thrift store, replete with the usual:



cds, vhs tapes, totally reasonably priced



books that while not outstanding in their selection, were very cheap



tons of kids toys and games and assorted crap like that (this was about a third of it)



the requisite selection of tvs and old couches, all in pretty good shape



a smattering of truly quirky pieces of decor (never seen a monogrammed lamp before)



a small but decent looking selection of clothes



jars, cooking implements - the kind of kitchen stuff you'd expect



a few "mystery items" that neither my companions nor i could even postulate any viable theories about



a whole mess of dishes and glasses, including a few hilarious shot glasses, which i purchased



the space hat from my earlier post



and this AMAZING little chair desk side table thing, which is left handed, if you notice, which one so rarely sees, anywhere.

all in all a really cool little store... i just totally applaud the idea that some guy decided to just up and put a bunch of junk in a big warehouse and call it a thrift store. my friends and i found out about this place from a random cardboard sign that i'd assume the owner put up at the corner of cooper and union a couple months ago, and i have to say the trip was totally worth it even though i didn't buy a mountain of stuff, and i would heartily encourage anyone who reads this and is intrigued by what they see to pop down and check it out - the actual address is something like 148 east georgia or thereabouts, basically if you take main street south from downtown and make a left on georgia you can't miss it, it's right on the right in a building that looks like an old concrete warehouse, because that's what it was. don't bother telling him i sent you... that has never once in my life done anything beneficial for anyone. usually the opposite

anyway get down there as soon as you can, the hours are pretty usual - i want to say maybe 9-5 weekdays, 1-5 weekends or something like that. i don't know. wow, remember when i used to give a crap about reporting actual information instead of just ranting about random photographs? ah, those were better times. oh well...to recap:

Community Dolla Warehouse
Somewhere on East Georgia in between South Main and 2nd Street
Something like 9-5 M-F and maybe 1-5 S/S(?)
I don't know what the phone number is

that is all

d

the book, the monkey, and the golf clubs

that sounds like a children's classic just waiting to be written. anyway here are some things i've seen lately.



don't ask. really, you don't want to know. i'm not kidding.

i didn't run across enough interesting books this week for a sunday literary suppository, but i had so much fun writing the last one i'll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled...i may be scaring up a LOT of books in the not too distant future, so we might be dealing with a rather large suppository in a little while here, but you know the drill, dear readers, just close your eyes and think of england



i can't put my finger on what it is i found so disturbing about this. it was a little rubber monkey in a wooden box with a sheet of plastic across the front of it, that kind of bounced and wiggled around when you moved the box - i suspect someone just put it in there of their own volition, as i couldn't fathom any reason for it to be manufactured that way, but... nonetheless. maybe it's the color scheme, sort of "twin peaks" or something, but whatever it is, it freaked me right the fuck out. damn monkeys



and this week i finally put my golf clubs where my mouth is and decided to pick up a few from thrift town, considering they were two bucks a piece, and the bag was only five. so for (or should i say fore?) the total investment of like fifteen bucks i'm now a golfer! now i just have to figure out how to golf. oh well, whenever the weather warms up anyone's welcome to join me at overton park and see how long it takes us to get thrown off the course. i've been talking about doing this for such a long time that it was kind of surreal to actually bring all the shit up front to buy it, but it felt pretty cool at the same time. there is a smell, i should mention that, emanating from the bag, kind of an "old man's garage" smell crossed with the usual thrift store melange that everything usually has, but what the hell, we'll be outside (and inebriated), i don't think it'll be that bad. i wonder how fast those golf carts go? i bet they go pretty fast.

until next time

love

d

Compromised Summer's Eve

i received the nicest email last week from a reader who haunts thrift stores and takes pictures herself, and i invited her (as i'd like to invite you all) to send in anything that jumps out at her, and this is what i got.



dear god. it shouldn't take any long time readers of the blog very long to surmise that this came from Nancy's Thrift Store on wells station road, the ninth circle of thrifting hell in memphis tennessee. beyond that i'm just not even sure what to say. there's some sort of story to be told here, but much like that time i found the beat up 3-pack of trojan magnums chewed up on the sidewalk that afternoon, i'm just not sure that i want to know what it is.

i believe this astute reader said it best...her only comment upon sending the picture along was "WHY?" which i think sums it all up pretty nicely.

thanks ever so much to holly for the nice letter and the contribution, i would encourage anyone and everyone in the greater memphis area to send in pics as they pop up, since, sadly, i can't be everywhere at once. if only i could...imagine the possibilities.

see you all again soon

love

d

TEETH!

aaagh!

psychedelic serenity prayer

god grant me the serenity to...whoa, look at my hands. wow. have you ever really looked at your hands before? wow, man.

goodwill, chelsea ave. 2 bucks, which totals up to one buck, since they're still doing their apparently endless "50% off EVERYTHING" sale. they're a little light in some departments (furniture) and it's totally in the hood but for as long as they're doing this sale they're kind of the place to be.