it is with a heavy heart that i report to you, dear readers, the passing of one of this town's finest thrifting institutions. the goodwill on chelsea ave is no longer with us, i'm afraid, as i was pained to discover this week when i was out and about. i happened to look on the google maps listing before i left the house, and there in sad gray text under the address and phone number were the words "place closed." before i got out my weeping handkerchief (doesn't everyone have one of those?) i resolved to at least drive by and see for myself, and in fact, yes, the place is closed. the thrift store, the administrative offices, all of it. boarded up with trash covering the parking lot, like something out of a shitty movie. this is a royal bummer, for several reasons:
1. the last thing that neighborhood (or any neighborhood in this city) needs is another boarded up building. i've always been of the mindset that any business (with the exception of the really hideous corporate monstrosities like starbucks, wal-mart, blockbuster, mcdonalds, etc) occupying a given space is better than no business. even if it's another check cashing place or a nail salon or a fucking porno shop, i don't care, which leads me to
2. this is just another blow to the infrastructure of the city, and it's going to make me wince just a little bit more every time i have to drive out to bartlett or southaven just to go to a goodwill. i can imagine that the chelsea ave location wasn't exactly an enormous cash cow for goodwill in general (i know the building was in massive disrepair... hell, i photographed it) but isn't half the point of a charitable organization to help the people who need it the most? trust me, they're doing much better on stage road than they are on chelsea ave. boarding up the store is only going to contribute to the urban blight that is driving people out of the city in the first place. you shouldn't make them have to go all the way to olive branch just to get a cheap pair of pants. and lastly,
3. this was actually kind of my secret favorite store. the very fact that it was in a rough-looking neighborhood (although for all the times i went up there i never once saw anything sketchy going on, and my dopey white ass always cruised in and out completely without incident) kept the tourists away, the fact that the building was pretty fucked up kept the prices low, and i always, always found something i wanted. i never once left that place empty handed, which i don't think i can say about any other store, anywhere.
i suppose the writing was on the wall for a while - they had been having a 50% off the ENTIRE STORE sale for the better part of the last year - but it's still a shame to see the place go. i'm leaving it on my (recently revived) thrift store map (aka "A HUGE EVER GROWING PULSATING BRAIN THAT RULES FROM THE CENTRE OF THE ULTRAWORLD") partly in memoriam, and partly in the vain hopes that maybe someday they'll open it back up, although i'm not holding my breath. maybe they'll even fix the roof.
here are my past visits. rest in peace chelsea dear, you were truly one of a kind.
http://bitterbooks.blogspot.com/2008/03/3182008-goodwill-chelsea-ave.html
http://bitterbooks.blogspot.com/2009/01/psychedelic-serenity-prayer.html
http://bitterbooks.blogspot.com/2008/08/8308-salvo-danny-thomas-goodwill.html
love
d
Showing posts with label goodwill chelsea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goodwill chelsea. Show all posts
7/22/09
1/5/09
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
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
1/4/09
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.
3/19/08
3/18/2008 - Goodwill Chelsea Ave
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GET BACK IN THE WATER...
well actually i guess it is safe to get back in the water...until they invent under water thrift stores then WATCH OUT! because i'll be there...sharking all the good deals...or...something. okay, bad analogy. anyway i'm back for round two, had a good outing yesterday but was SO wiped by the end of it that i had to put off writing until today. i know, the suspense was just killing you right
before i get down to business, i'd like to thank everyone who read and commented on last week's batch of stores, the inaugural ones, it was really nice to hear your responses, although frustrating that i can't find a way to communicate back with you directly through blogger. forgive my technological retardation. i hope to give you guys a lot more stuff to chuckle bemusedly at in the future. keep reading. also, for the two or three locals who've actually looked at this before, you might notice that i've added a little block at the top of the page, under the title, that lists the specials at the stores i've been to. this (like this entire project) is in no way a comprehensive listing of all the random deals and sales and half off specials that nearly all the local thrift stores run, sometimes with little or no notice or logic as to when they happen (the second to last tuesday of every month, for example?), and is yet another reason to actually get up and go out yourself and check out the insane litany of secondhand stores that are one of the coolest things about memphis. consider this blog the proverbial finger pointing at the moon. if you only look at the finger, well then you're just sitting around looking at a finger, aren't you?
also wanted to place an open request for information about getting my hands on 5 1/4 inch floppies, if anyone knows where they might be sold or has any ideas aside from ebay (not really interested in paying for shipping, you see, theooooo) - i'm looking into picking some up for an art project or some such other endeavor at some point in the future, so any tips would be greatly appreciated. and if you (like one of my friends whom i asked about this) don't know what a 5 1/4 inch floppy is, then congratulations you have just made me feel like a dried up old relic of a man. hooray. AAAAND i'd like to encourage everyone to vote in my poll, at the bottom of the right column. i'll be running a new one every month along with all the other nonsense going on here, and your responses are, i would say as crucial if not more crucial than any votes you might cast in presidential elections, decisions you might make regarding whether or not to circumcise your children, etc etc etc. just vote. you'll be glad you did. OKAY ENOUGH BLATHER ON WITH THE SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!1111111uno
first up this week is the goodwill "industries" store on chelsea ave, which is, let's diplomatically say IN DA HOOD, up in northeast memphis between hollywood and warford. it wasn't as bad as some neighborhoods i've seen on my travels around town (stax museum anyone?), but it definitely wasn't the nicest. all the goodwill stores are technically part of "goodwill industries," (just like all the employees of salvation army technically have a "rank," like colonel or major - didja know that? huh? didja?) but this one definitely seemed to drive the industrial part of the whole thing home really well. large, imposing grey concrete bunker of a building it was, and across the street from this behemoth to boot
OH before i forget, i almost had to fly solo this week, seeing as the wifely person got a job! now the proud secretarial assistant person at some law office downtown (i have no idea what her job actually is in case you hadn't guessed it there), she no longer has time to gallivant around the ass crack of nowhere, flipping through old kenny loggins records with yours truly. bummer central, right? but luckily one of my compadres from work, one k. taylor davis (or "sha-tay-tay," as i've taken to calling her, mainly when she's not around), found herself in need of a table for her kitchen, so i had some company for the day, which was nice. if only i had known the unutterable horrors that lay in wait for us, however, i would have done us both a favor and wrapped the god damned car around a telephone pole on the way to store number one and saved us both a lot of pain and aggravation. but more about that later
this store was great. the first thing i saw when i walked in was this velvet elvis, sneering down at me, which i took as a good omen. i know there are a lot of these things around, ESPECIALLY here in king central usa, but i'm always tempted to take them home with me. but then what? you just have one painting of elvis on black velvet. that's kind of lame. so, naturally, you have to get some more, right? then next thing you know, you've got a whole god damned wing of your home (assuming you live in like stately wayne manor or something) devoted to nothing but cheesy paintings of the king, and then what are you, you know? a hideous twisted freak, that's what. anyway $10
did i mention how huge this place was? it was huge. racks and racks and rows of clothes, enough wide open space for two kids to play an energetic game of catch football (and do that hilarious thing that kids always do when someone's yelling at them to stop playing catch: say "okay, we'll stop" and then just go on playing like nothing happened. f*cking hilarious), in short, the kind of place you could get lost in. just glancing around i noticed a whole rack of men's suits for $10 a pop. great deal. i also saw a lot of clothes and clothing-related items casually browsing around that i just frankly, did not understand at all, like these things
high heeled sneakers i suppose? i seem to remember hearing a song about that at some point, but it was kind of an older song...clearly there's no way it could have been referring to these things, could it?
there were some interesting records and musical selections, including some more albums incorporating some gratuitous nudity, or suggestions thereof at least...is this how they used to sell albums back in the day or something?
also saw this vintage artifact, a cassette tape copy of bruce willis' musical abortion, "the return of bruno." nothing quite screams "the 1980s were awesome/horrible" or "how in god's name did this guy convince demi moore to f*ck him" like this cassette here. well i guess actually all of ashton kutcher's film and television work kind of screams the second one pretty loudly too. moving on
i almost don't even want to say anything about this one. froggy in soap basket. $4
the aforementioned sha-tay-tay, in the first of several hilariously bad pictures i took of her over the course of the day (to be fair she didn't know she was going to be in this one), holding one of the several records she took home from this store. the first time i met taylor she told me straight up, that the sound of a banjo changed her life forever. i cannot possibly hope to sum this dear friend of mine up any better than that. anyway she's holding the cutest record out of the ones that she bought, "the rainy day record" which is apropos considering
the roof was to' up and leaking like the proverbial motherf*cker. a not uncommon problem in some of the stores i've been to, and while certainly not a deal breaker for intrepid adventurers like yours truly, is still kind of disheartening in a sort of general "cool places being neglected and falling into some degree of disrepair" type of way. then again, both the places where i live and where i work have ceilings that leak, pretty badly at some points, so maybe this isn't such a heartbreaker after all.
on to the books, and there's no shortage of ann coulter
or "the reason the term hatef*ck was invented" as i like to call her, along with this little gem
which i DIDN'T buy, unbelievably enough, partially because i feel like i've already learned everything this book would try to teach me on my own, ALSO because if it was really going to be up my alley it would be called "Make Anger Your B*tch," lastly because i noticed it was written by one Dr. Neil Clark Warren, PH.D, founder and proprietor of a little web site called eHarmony dot com whose very existence makes me kind of sad and flaccid in my heart of hearts for humanity as a whole, along with the fact that he looks like a creepy old weirdo in the tv commercials for his website and there was a guy with a HUUUGE unibrow in one commercial who was madly in love with this freaky skinny like birdlike woman with a GIGANTIC beak i mean nose and all i could think about as i watched them playfully chatter and cavort with one another was "good GOD what are their children going to look like?"
"like an alive Basil Wolverton drawing" is what i keep coming up with
anyway these are the books i ended up buying. didn't get froggy in soap basket or velvet elvis. someone should though.
someone should also snag this sickass record player/cabinet thing. i know i covered this last time a little but this one's REALLY nice and small and unobtrusive and seemed to be in good shape although i didn't actually plug it in and test it out. $40 (or something thereabouts) doesn't seem like that much for a sweet vintage stereo, to keep it from ending up on the f*cking junk heap if for no other reason. i also included this picture because taylor looks slightly less like a handicapped person in it, and i feel guilty about putting silly looking pictures of her up on the internet, because she was a trooper and a great thrifting buddy. hooray!
total spending:
6 books @ 1/2 bucks each or thereabouts
w/tax: $8.67
still haven't found my great book hookup (bookup?) yet. i'm spoiled, i know there'll never be another salvation army selling the motherf*cks at 12 for a dollar, i know that, i do, i just can't settle for like four dollars for a dusty old fitzgerald, no matter how witty or drunk all the time he was.
Goodwill Industries
2605 Chelsea Ave
Memphis, TN 38108
(901) 507-5635
hours:
m-sat 9-6
sun 12-6
no specials or sales that i saw posted, but definitely worth the trip out there anyway - i promise there is something for everyone at this store if you can stay focused on one thing long enough to find it, if that makes any sense at all.
music: no store stereo (pretty common at goodwill actually), just a little radio in the back playing some funk station. definitely heard "love rollercoaster" at one point. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN GIVE IT UP FOR THE OHIO PLAYERS!!!!
next stop: salvation army, austin peay hwy. cascading waves of blue neon await. what? you'll see.
a thought: if one's love was indeed like a rollercoaster, would it involve waiting up to two hours in line with screaming children to get on in the first place? would that really be worth it?
d
well actually i guess it is safe to get back in the water...until they invent under water thrift stores then WATCH OUT! because i'll be there...sharking all the good deals...or...something. okay, bad analogy. anyway i'm back for round two, had a good outing yesterday but was SO wiped by the end of it that i had to put off writing until today. i know, the suspense was just killing you right
before i get down to business, i'd like to thank everyone who read and commented on last week's batch of stores, the inaugural ones, it was really nice to hear your responses, although frustrating that i can't find a way to communicate back with you directly through blogger. forgive my technological retardation. i hope to give you guys a lot more stuff to chuckle bemusedly at in the future. keep reading. also, for the two or three locals who've actually looked at this before, you might notice that i've added a little block at the top of the page, under the title, that lists the specials at the stores i've been to. this (like this entire project) is in no way a comprehensive listing of all the random deals and sales and half off specials that nearly all the local thrift stores run, sometimes with little or no notice or logic as to when they happen (the second to last tuesday of every month, for example?), and is yet another reason to actually get up and go out yourself and check out the insane litany of secondhand stores that are one of the coolest things about memphis. consider this blog the proverbial finger pointing at the moon. if you only look at the finger, well then you're just sitting around looking at a finger, aren't you?
also wanted to place an open request for information about getting my hands on 5 1/4 inch floppies, if anyone knows where they might be sold or has any ideas aside from ebay (not really interested in paying for shipping, you see, theooooo) - i'm looking into picking some up for an art project or some such other endeavor at some point in the future, so any tips would be greatly appreciated. and if you (like one of my friends whom i asked about this) don't know what a 5 1/4 inch floppy is, then congratulations you have just made me feel like a dried up old relic of a man. hooray. AAAAND i'd like to encourage everyone to vote in my poll, at the bottom of the right column. i'll be running a new one every month along with all the other nonsense going on here, and your responses are, i would say as crucial if not more crucial than any votes you might cast in presidential elections, decisions you might make regarding whether or not to circumcise your children, etc etc etc. just vote. you'll be glad you did. OKAY ENOUGH BLATHER ON WITH THE SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!1111111uno
first up this week is the goodwill "industries" store on chelsea ave, which is, let's diplomatically say IN DA HOOD, up in northeast memphis between hollywood and warford. it wasn't as bad as some neighborhoods i've seen on my travels around town (stax museum anyone?), but it definitely wasn't the nicest. all the goodwill stores are technically part of "goodwill industries," (just like all the employees of salvation army technically have a "rank," like colonel or major - didja know that? huh? didja?) but this one definitely seemed to drive the industrial part of the whole thing home really well. large, imposing grey concrete bunker of a building it was, and across the street from this behemoth to boot
OH before i forget, i almost had to fly solo this week, seeing as the wifely person got a job! now the proud secretarial assistant person at some law office downtown (i have no idea what her job actually is in case you hadn't guessed it there), she no longer has time to gallivant around the ass crack of nowhere, flipping through old kenny loggins records with yours truly. bummer central, right? but luckily one of my compadres from work, one k. taylor davis (or "sha-tay-tay," as i've taken to calling her, mainly when she's not around), found herself in need of a table for her kitchen, so i had some company for the day, which was nice. if only i had known the unutterable horrors that lay in wait for us, however, i would have done us both a favor and wrapped the god damned car around a telephone pole on the way to store number one and saved us both a lot of pain and aggravation. but more about that later
this store was great. the first thing i saw when i walked in was this velvet elvis, sneering down at me, which i took as a good omen. i know there are a lot of these things around, ESPECIALLY here in king central usa, but i'm always tempted to take them home with me. but then what? you just have one painting of elvis on black velvet. that's kind of lame. so, naturally, you have to get some more, right? then next thing you know, you've got a whole god damned wing of your home (assuming you live in like stately wayne manor or something) devoted to nothing but cheesy paintings of the king, and then what are you, you know? a hideous twisted freak, that's what. anyway $10
did i mention how huge this place was? it was huge. racks and racks and rows of clothes, enough wide open space for two kids to play an energetic game of catch football (and do that hilarious thing that kids always do when someone's yelling at them to stop playing catch: say "okay, we'll stop" and then just go on playing like nothing happened. f*cking hilarious), in short, the kind of place you could get lost in. just glancing around i noticed a whole rack of men's suits for $10 a pop. great deal. i also saw a lot of clothes and clothing-related items casually browsing around that i just frankly, did not understand at all, like these things
high heeled sneakers i suppose? i seem to remember hearing a song about that at some point, but it was kind of an older song...clearly there's no way it could have been referring to these things, could it?
there were some interesting records and musical selections, including some more albums incorporating some gratuitous nudity, or suggestions thereof at least...is this how they used to sell albums back in the day or something?
also saw this vintage artifact, a cassette tape copy of bruce willis' musical abortion, "the return of bruno." nothing quite screams "the 1980s were awesome/horrible" or "how in god's name did this guy convince demi moore to f*ck him" like this cassette here. well i guess actually all of ashton kutcher's film and television work kind of screams the second one pretty loudly too. moving on
i almost don't even want to say anything about this one. froggy in soap basket. $4
the aforementioned sha-tay-tay, in the first of several hilariously bad pictures i took of her over the course of the day (to be fair she didn't know she was going to be in this one), holding one of the several records she took home from this store. the first time i met taylor she told me straight up, that the sound of a banjo changed her life forever. i cannot possibly hope to sum this dear friend of mine up any better than that. anyway she's holding the cutest record out of the ones that she bought, "the rainy day record" which is apropos considering
the roof was to' up and leaking like the proverbial motherf*cker. a not uncommon problem in some of the stores i've been to, and while certainly not a deal breaker for intrepid adventurers like yours truly, is still kind of disheartening in a sort of general "cool places being neglected and falling into some degree of disrepair" type of way. then again, both the places where i live and where i work have ceilings that leak, pretty badly at some points, so maybe this isn't such a heartbreaker after all.
on to the books, and there's no shortage of ann coulter
or "the reason the term hatef*ck was invented" as i like to call her, along with this little gem
which i DIDN'T buy, unbelievably enough, partially because i feel like i've already learned everything this book would try to teach me on my own, ALSO because if it was really going to be up my alley it would be called "Make Anger Your B*tch," lastly because i noticed it was written by one Dr. Neil Clark Warren, PH.D, founder and proprietor of a little web site called eHarmony dot com whose very existence makes me kind of sad and flaccid in my heart of hearts for humanity as a whole, along with the fact that he looks like a creepy old weirdo in the tv commercials for his website and there was a guy with a HUUUGE unibrow in one commercial who was madly in love with this freaky skinny like birdlike woman with a GIGANTIC beak i mean nose and all i could think about as i watched them playfully chatter and cavort with one another was "good GOD what are their children going to look like?"
"like an alive Basil Wolverton drawing" is what i keep coming up with
anyway these are the books i ended up buying. didn't get froggy in soap basket or velvet elvis. someone should though.
someone should also snag this sickass record player/cabinet thing. i know i covered this last time a little but this one's REALLY nice and small and unobtrusive and seemed to be in good shape although i didn't actually plug it in and test it out. $40 (or something thereabouts) doesn't seem like that much for a sweet vintage stereo, to keep it from ending up on the f*cking junk heap if for no other reason. i also included this picture because taylor looks slightly less like a handicapped person in it, and i feel guilty about putting silly looking pictures of her up on the internet, because she was a trooper and a great thrifting buddy. hooray!
total spending:
6 books @ 1/2 bucks each or thereabouts
w/tax: $8.67
still haven't found my great book hookup (bookup?) yet. i'm spoiled, i know there'll never be another salvation army selling the motherf*cks at 12 for a dollar, i know that, i do, i just can't settle for like four dollars for a dusty old fitzgerald, no matter how witty or drunk all the time he was.
Goodwill Industries
2605 Chelsea Ave
Memphis, TN 38108
(901) 507-5635
hours:
m-sat 9-6
sun 12-6
no specials or sales that i saw posted, but definitely worth the trip out there anyway - i promise there is something for everyone at this store if you can stay focused on one thing long enough to find it, if that makes any sense at all.
music: no store stereo (pretty common at goodwill actually), just a little radio in the back playing some funk station. definitely heard "love rollercoaster" at one point. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN GIVE IT UP FOR THE OHIO PLAYERS!!!!
next stop: salvation army, austin peay hwy. cascading waves of blue neon await. what? you'll see.
a thought: if one's love was indeed like a rollercoaster, would it involve waiting up to two hours in line with screaming children to get on in the first place? would that really be worth it?
d
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