Month: December 2019 (Page 2 of 4)

This week we are happy to bring you three short videos produced for PopCult, depicting different parts of our recent trip to Chicago. Everything you see below was shot within the last two weeks before posting.  In the videos below you will see Mel Larch singing under The Bean, the 2019 PopCult Mold A Rama Safari to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, and a chillout video shot out the window of the famed CTA “L” train as it travels through the city and into the Loop District.

I also want to make a quick note that there are some rendering glitches in these videos. Next month I will be upgrading my computer with a new video card and additional memory, and until then, any video I render will have moments of blockiness to it. I could pretend that these were elaborate transitional effects that were done on purpose, but they aren’t. In all liklihood, after I get everything up and running, I’ll re-render these videos and probably repost them, compiled into one long clip.

First up, we bring you a quick video of Mrs. PopCulteer, Mel Larch, doing an impromptu performance of “Christmastime Is Here” underneath the Cloud Gate sculpture (AKA “The Bean”) In Chicago’s Millenium Park in December, 2019.

Keep in mind that it was about 19 degrees, Farenheit, and Mel didn’t know I was going to have her sing. She’s not happy with this video, but then, she’s never happy with any videos or photos of her. I think it’s a nice little holiday treat for our readers.

Next, PopCult goes to Chicago’s Museum of Science & Industry to hunt down Mold A Rama toys from their six operating machines. This is our second Mold A Rama excursion in Chicago, following last year’s trip to Wills Tower.

Since this was the holiday season, the available molds included Santa Claus and the Christmas Tree, in Addition to The Submarine, The Space Shuttle, The Locomotive and The Jet. Looks like we’ll have to make a return trip to MSI to get the tractor and the other regular mold. It never hurst to have an excuse to go back to a cool place like the Museum of Science and Industry.

Our intention is to return to Chicago for more Mold A Rama safaris, particularly to the Brookfield Zoo, which is home to thirteen Mold A Rama machines. We shall see what the future brings.

This is just a short video, showing each machine in action, set to some lively YouTube-friendly music.

Finally, we take a trip on The Brown Line.  Disclaimer: This video actually starts on the Red Line of the famed CTA “L” train, but mentioning that in the title would have made it really long and unwieldy. I could have left out the Red Line footage, but then you wouldn’t get to see Wrigley Field.

This is a collection of footage shot out the window of Chicago’s Elevated Train as it barrels through town. The speed of the video is manipulated, with time compressed or extended, depending on the view. Most of the film is shot on The Brown Line, in The Loop. You’ll get fleeting glimpses of some pretty cool landmarks.

This is all set to some relaxing music, and the entire video is intended to be something you can just watch and zone out during it’s fifteen-minute running time. Shot on a Samsung J7, in December, 2019, this is the video with the most blockiness in the rendering. We’ll get those bugs worked out next month, in time for the next full-length episode of Radio Free Charleston.

I hope you enjoyed these three short videos. We have a little more footage from Chicago, but we may save that for after we get our technical issues resolved.

We interrupt our newly-restarted chronological presentation of past episodes of Radio Free Charleston so that we may cram a bunch of our Christmas specials into this space. With a holiday season shortened by the calendar, and shortened further by a a week-long vacation for yours truly, we have not posted much in the way of our past Christmas Video Goodies. We’ll remedy that with a whole bunch of them today, presented willy-nilly, in random order, with no descriptions. for your holiday enjoyment and/or confusion…

The PopCulteer
December 20, 2019

In this week’s PopCulteer we wrap up our Chicago Photo Essay, and also tell you about a cool Holiday show. This is actually the first PopCulteer that your humble correspondent has put together since December 3, when I prepared all the posts for this blog that ran while I was out of town. To ease yours truly back into things, it’s just a photo essay and a plug for one local event.

First up, we have our photographic trip to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Located in the former Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World Expo, this is a massive, sprawling museum, and our photos probably don’t even show you five percent of the cool stuff you can see there. If you ever have the chance to visit the MS&I, take it. Plan to spend the whole day there, too. We didn’t even make it to the Submarine room before we ran out of time.

I decided that on this trip I wouldn’t knock myself out shooting photos and videos, so I only whipped out the phone for some of the things that immediately impressed me…and my work as a smartphone photographer is sorely lacking, so most of the photos I took were out of focus. While this meant that I was able to enjoy the experience more, it also means I have less material to share with my readers.

I did manage to get a few striking images in a few of the exhibits, so here they are.

The Museum, right before we went in. The place is massive.

Impressive, eh? This is just the entrance way, with the ticket booth and gift shop.

We walked into the Henry Crown Space Center, and I came face-to-face with an actual, space-flown Mercury 7 Space capsule, which was the model for the GI Joe Space capsule I had when I was a kid (and still have now). I was trying to explain to Mel that, for me, this was way bigger than when she met Glenda Jackson.

Continue reading

We continue our series of mini-photo essays about Chicago with a few scenes of Millenium Park.

On Tuesday of last week, Mr. and Mrs PopCulteer spent some time in the Loop, mainly so that we could hop up to the L platform at State & Lake to shoot video of, and board, the Pink Line, which was running The CTA Holiday Train that day. You might see that video in a day or four here in PopCult.  Once we did that and had fun, we hopped off a stop later, and wandered the Loop district a bit, deciding on the spur of the moment to pop into Pizano’s for dinner.

That was wonderful in all ways, and afterward we decided to cross Michigan Avenue and hang out a bit around the Bean. That is the sculpture known formally as Cloudgate, but in the pictures below you’ll see why they call it “The Bean.”

As you will see, Millenium Park in the holiday season is a pretty special place. I managed to get a photo of of the rare and elusive Zamboni, not often seen outside of its natural habitat, and we enjoyed the gigantic tree (seen right), the Bean and the Skyline as twilight fell and made everything so cool and mushy and stuff.

We’ll bring you some more photos tomorrow. For now, look at these…

ZAMBONI! ZAMBONI! ZAMBONI!

Side view of The Bean.

Just look at that thing as the sun sets.

Reflecting the skyline and the tree.

Speaking of that skyline…

…and that tree,

And more of that skyline.

One last look at Cloudgate, as night falls.

Tomorrow we’ll look at too few photos of The Museum of Science and Industry.

You may know by now that last week your humble bloggery correspondent was undertaking a near-winter vacation in The City Of Mighty Wind, Chicago. We have started visiting one of our favorite cities every year for the birthday of Mrs. PopCulteer, and this year we spent an entire week. As this was a vacation, yours truly took way, way fewer photos than he usually does. But we still have enough for a few brief photo essays to fill up this space over the next few days.

It was a great trip. As soon as we hopped off The Cardinal and got checked into our hotel, we were honored to be invited to take in a rehearsal of Dance Nation, the Steppenwofl Theater production of Clare Barron’s hilarious take on the world of competitive dancing, as seen on the show Dance Moms. Our trip was due to end right before the play opened, but we begged the kind folks at Steppenwolf, and they sort of like us (we did get married on stage there, after all) so they let us in to the final rehearsal before they moved into the studio.

As it was a rehearsal, without lighting or special effects, it wouldn’t be fair to review the production, but I don’t think anybody would mind if I say that, if you’re in Chicago while this play is running, you really need to go see it, especially if you’ve seen Dance Moms, or spent any time around anyone involved with dance squads.

The next night we made our way to Timeline Theater to see Rutherford and Sons, a revival of the 1912 play by Githa Sowerby. When we were in Chicago back in July we were lucky enough to spend a few minutes with the actor, Francis Guinan, while riding the Red Line back to our hotel, and he told us about this play, which was his next project after True West, which we’d just seen him in at Steppenwolf. This early modern drama about a wealthy family that owns a glass factory in a small Northern England town is a gripping look at status, social mores and family secrets, set in the industrial age.

The brilliant cast brings the play to life in a memorable and striking manner, and this is a great dramatic work that I’m glad I was able to see. This was my first exposure to Sowerby, and I’m eager to see what other works of hers I can find.

It’s also still running, so in the event that any of my PopCult readers are in Chicago at the moment, they should really consider seeing it.

Aside from our theatrical adventures, we also stopped at The Museum of Science and Industry and Millenium Park, and you’ll see a few photos from those stops later this week. We also attended a talk and book signing by Mark Larson, made a quick trip to Chinatown, walked the Magnificent Mile at night, and hit up two Christkindl Markets. In short, we had a bunch of fun. Here’s some pictures to prove it. (up top you see a shot taken from The Cardinal, as the skyline came into view)

In addition to the main Christkindl Market at Daley Plaza, they also have one just outside Wrigley Field, and this is their big ole Christmas tree. You get some killer hot chocolate here.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but no trip to Chicago is complete without a stop at Rotofugi.

And then we also have to stop in Lincoln Square to hit up Quake Collectibles, Enjoy: An Urban General Store, Laurie’s Planet of Sound and Gidding’s Plaza.

Walking the Mag Mile to check out the lights. That’s the famed Water Tower in the middle, flanked by the artist formerly known as The Hancock Building on the right, and some other tall building on the left.

The city at night. It’s pretty cool. I hate to say it, but this warms my heart more than mountains do.

Right before we checked out, I took this photo out of our hotel room. Not sure exactly what it means.

We’ll have more photos later in the week.

Above you see our virtual Christmas card from PopCult’s internet radio station, The AIR. It’s a digital painting by yours truly depicting the giant Christmas tree at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.  You will be hearing more about last week’s stealth trip to The Windy City in the coming days.

However, you will also be hearing holiday music on The AIR, pretty much for the next eight days, solid, with interruptions for our overnight marathons and a few special presents that we will tell you about as they arrive.

If you want to get in the Christmas spirit, just tune in as Christmas is in The AIR. You’ll hear special blocks of Christmas songs as well as holiday-oriented episodes of some of our specialty music programs, like Radio Free Charleston, Curtain Call, The BS Crazy Show, Prognosis, The Swing Shift, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat and more.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

We’re all in a holiday sort of mood this week, so today’s art is a digital painting that started life as a doodle of a poinsettia. Since I haven’t exactly spent a lot of time looking at the seasonal flower, and in fact don’t have one in the house at the moment, any resemblence is purely coincidental. After drawing it in pencil, I went over part of the drawing in pen and brush, then I photographed it on my phone, rather than scan it into the computer. From there I slopped some digital paint on it and you see the result above.

If you wish, you can click this image to see it bigger.

It’s supposed to make you feel all holiday-y and stuff.

Meanwhile, over in radio-land, Monday on The AIR, our Monday Marathon presents twenty-four hours more of holiday programming starting at 7 AM. You can expect to hear more blooks of holiday tunes over the coming week as we use the shortened Christmas season as an excuse to slack off and bring you special programming.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

Don’t be surprised if you get some bonus photo essays and a recap of your PopCulteer’s stealth trip to Chicago  in the coming days, as I had a blast celebrating Mrs. PopCulteer’s birthday, and have a lot of cool stuff to tell you about once I get the paying work off of my desk.

For the second year in a row we bring you a collection of Christmas-themed short films that are, shall we say, “less traditional” than those you might normally watch to get into the holiday spirit. That makes this a new tradition! Some of these you may have seen before here in PopCult, while some are new to our readers. All of them, are pretty messed up, in their own ways. These are our olive branch to those of us who have more of a “Bah, Humbug” attitude toward the holiday on this Christmas season.

First up we add to our line-up a five-year-old parody of the 30th Anniversary of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” by the comedy crew of 22 Minutes…

We continue with a newish one, a short film from 2017 called “Sleigh,” starring Matt Berry and Nigel Planer…

Next up we have Christmas with The Aquabats…

Let’s go on Christmas Break at Crystal Lake, with The Renfields…

Finally we bring you Ken Russell’s heartwarming holiday classic, “A Kitten For Hitler”…

In the spirit of the holiday season, I say, “There, that oughtta hold the little buggers.”

This week we go back to March, 2014, for an RFC MINI SHOW that featured the very first public performance by Lovejoy and The Killjoys, the band that quickly transmogrified into That High Country Revival.

When I recorded the band, Lovejoy and The Killjoys was Chris Lovejoy on guitar and vocals, Matt Spade on mandolin and vocals and Stan Bumgardner playing fiddle. I had just met Chris and Matt briefly at Third Eye Cabaret the previous week, while Stan had appeared on RFC in the past with Elektro Biscuit and The Poor Taters. With the addition of a few other musicians the band became That High Country Revival, and they still play in Charleston to this day.

The PopCulteer
December 13, 2019

Well, this turned out to be a beast and a half.

My oriignal plan for The 2019 PopCult Gift Guide was to have everything wrapped up two weeks ago, with this master list being posted on Black Friday. Due to a combination of technical issues and blurry vision from overwork, plus pressing outside assignments, I made the decision to extend the list until today.

I have to be honest with you. The reason I wanted to wrap this up early is because I planned to spend a week in Chicago with my lovely wife for her birthday.

We still did that. We’ll be back in town by the time most of you read this, but everything you’ve been reading for the past nine days was written back on December 3. That was one long day.

As I do every year, I take a day to run the master list so that lazy PopCult readers who might not have been paying enough attention over the past six weeks can play catch up, use these gift ideas at the last minute, and make everybody think you’re a genius who really cares about people.

We’ll let the real source of your mighty gifting mojo remain our little secret.

Without any further flumbuggery, here is The 2019 PopCult Gift Guide Master List…

BOOKS

The Chronicles of Don’t Be So Ridiculous Valley by Mike Batt
O, Mountaineers by Danny Kuhn
I’ll See You Again: The Bittersweet Love Story and Wartime Letters of Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond by Maggie McCormick
Star Wars Memories: My Time In The (Death Star) Trenches by Craig Miller
Virginia Slavery and King Salt in Booker T. Washington’s Boyhood Home by Larry Linville Rowe
Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel
The Prom: A Novel Based on the Hit Broadway Musical
STARCHILDREN by Thomas Wheeler
Kahiki Supper Club: A Polynesian Paradise in Columbus
A Is For Audra: Broadway’s Leading Ladies from A to Z
Me and the Sky: Captain Beverley Bass, Pioneering Pilot
Jellicle Cats: Old Possum Picture Books Written by T.S. Eliot,
Rise Up!: Broadway and American Society from ‘Angels in America’ to ‘Hamilton’ Written by Chris Jones
Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theatre Written by Mark Larson
Strippers, Showgirls and Sharks: A Very Opinionated History of the Broadway Musicals That Did Not Win the Tony Award Written by Peter Filichia

COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS

Tonta (A Love & Rockets Graphic Novel)
All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever
Not Brand Echh: The Complete Collection
Marvel Comics #1 80th Anniversary Edition
Ink And Anguish: A Jay Lynch Anthology
Reincarnation Stories by Kim Deitch
The Flaming Carrot Omnibus by Bob Burden
Maria M. by Gilbert Hernandez
Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead
LIFE ON THE MOON by Robert Grossman
JUNGLE GIRLS edited by Mitch Maglio
THE UNKNOWN ANTI-WAR COMICS edited by Craig Yoe
Independent Comics

TOYS and GAMES

The 2019 HESS Toy Truck
JoJoMania Runs Wild!
Trogdor!! The Board Game – Deluxe Version (Burninator)
Bunch O’ Ballooons Party Pump
Rubber Chickens
SpongeBob Toys
The Young Bucks AEW Action Figures
The Lionel #1923020 NYC Flyer 0-8-0 LionChief Set w/ Bluetooth
Bachmann Rocket Freight HO Scale Ready-to-Run Electric Train Set
Kato #106-0017 Amtrak P42 Superliner Phase IVb Starter set
Auto World 13′ Stock Car Showdown X-Traction Slot Race Set HO Scale HO Scale
Boppi The Booty Shakin’ Llama
MEGO Action Figures
GRRRUMBALL

MUSIC

The Dukes Of Stratsphear
Eddie Jobson
Andy Partridge and Robyn Hitchcock “Planet England”
YES “From A Page”
Frenchy And The Punk
Hadestown Original Cast Recording
Beetlejuice Original Cast Recording
Oklahoma! 2019 Cast Recording
McGear
Beggars Clan
Emmalea Deal “Queen”
David Synn “The Mirror”
The Big Bad “After Dark”
Time And Distance “Gravity”
Fletcher’s Grove
The Abbey Road 50th Anniversary Boxed Set
The Beatles Singles Collection
Jack’s Cats “State of Swing”
SpongeBob Squarepants The Musical Original Cast Recording
Ringo Starr “What’s My Name”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Bigger Life”

VIDEO

A Hard Day’s Night
Rick Wakeman’s Gastank
All That Jazz
Matewan
Pick It Up-Ska In The 90s
Shazam TV Series on Blu Ray
Jonny Quest: The Complete Original Series on Blu Ray
SpongeBob’s Best 200 Episodes Ever
Disney+

COOL STUFF

A Patch And Song From Ann Magnuson
Blackwing Palamino Pencil Starter Set
Art by Mitch O’Connell
Art by Glen Brogan
Art by Robert Jiminez
SpongeBob Popcorn Maker
SpongeBob Slow Cooker
SpongeBob Apparel and Make Up
Lights of Broadway Show Cards
Local Restaurants
Remind Magazine
RetroFan

And with that, The 2019 PopCult Gift Guide is done, finito, expired, deceased, and the rest of the Dead Parrot sketch that I can’t remember right now. As has become an annual tradition, I vow that next year I will wrap this thing up in  less than two weeks.

Thanks for reading. Check back for all our regular features and please, have a very merry Christmas, or holiday of your choice.