Day two of our last-minute gift idea bonanza brings you three reasonably-priced and easily-available items that will thrill and delight the person under whose you tree you deposit them.  We’re going to go with a killer Comedy DVD, a cheap punk-rock CD/DVD set, and some cool retro art that you can buy right here in town. 

 COMEDY

The Upright Citizen’s Brigade-The Complete Second Season
Available where ever boxed DVD sets of TV shows are sold.

Their enemy is the status quo. Their only friend is chaos. In this classic Comedy Central series, Colby (Amy Poehler), Antoine (Ian Roberts), Trotter (Matt Walsh), and Adair (Matt Besser) aim their comedic throwing stars at all manner of pseudo-realistic targets, like suburban baby fighting and that sweet, powdery addiction known as Super Cool.  This is one of the finest sketch comedy shows of recent years, with an inner sense of absurdist continuity that rivals Monty Python and The Kids In The Hall.

There are tons of extras on this two-disc set, including deleted scenes, early stage routines, an audience Q&A, and uncensored commentary on all 10 episodes. Despite the parental advisory regarding “explicit content,” most of the profanity has been bleeped, though the material still easily qualifies as “adult” (sexual situations, drug references, etc.) You can’t go wrong with the UCB.  They are watching you, so you should watch them back.

MUSIC

Take Action!, Vol. 6
Various Artists
2 CDs/1 DVD Under eight bucks, where ever CDs are sold.

This epic collection of modern punk gives you 43 audio cuts on the CDs and 29 videos on the DVD featuring artists like My Chemical Romance, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Rise Against, Anti-Flag, Emory, Taking Back Sunday, and Strike Anywhere.  This is punky power-pop at its finest, and you wind up paying about eleven cents per song in this great value package.  In addition, a portion of the proceeds from this sale of this disc go to The Kristen Brooks Hope Center, founder of the Youth America Hotline, a peer-to-peer counseling line 1-877-YOUTHLINE. 

Great, vital, punchy music at a low price for a good cause.  How can you go wrong with that. If you’ve got a punk conniseuer on your shopping list, then this is the gift for you.

HOME FURNISHINGS

Prints by Kerry Beary
46 Dollars and up at The Purple Moon

This is the perfect wall decoration for your space-age bachelor pad or atomic age household. Ms. Beary’s art is retro to the max, revisting mid-20th-century styles that recall a time when innocence and sophistication met for dinner and later went out for a drink and who knows what.

Beary’s flair for capturing the spirit of the martini age is dead-on.  You’ll feel transported back to the time when TV was just starting to invade the country and the biggest threat to national security was Sputnik.  The Purple Moon has a variety of very affordable prints and a few original paintings, all at your disposal for that last-minute gift that will leave a lasting impression. 

Tomorrow the PopCult Half Vast Gift Guide concludes, with our picks in Animation, Movies, and Food. Later today in PopCult, we’ll have the production notes for Episode 32 of Radio Free Charleston, our Christmas show.