PopCult

The PopCulteer
October 17, 2025

I wanted to take this week’s PopCulteer to bid farewell to an old friend. Last week I learned that Greg Miller, the former owner of Comic World in Charleston, passed away in late August after an accident at home. He was two days shy of his 74th birthday.

Greg was a good friend at a time when I really needed one. I haven’t written much about him in PopCult, but I did include him in my “Secret Origin.” He was very supportive of CODA, the book my brother and I published in the mid-1980s, and was a sympathetic ear when my first marriage was crashing and burning. Greg was also a big supporter of Radio Free Charleston, which I wrote about in this blog before…

At this point in the narrative, let me digress and share with you a commercial that I wrote and produced.  Greg Miller, owner of Comic World on Charleston’s West Side, was a friend of mine, and he wanted to advertise on the show.  It fell to me to produce a commercial on spec just to give him a rough idea what it would sound like.  So I wrote this fun little exchange between a husband and wife, and started to record it.  I was going to do my “wiseguy” voice, and get one of the female announcers at the station to play his wife.  My boss, the aforementioned program director, Garrett Majors was supposed to do the bit at the end with all the “money info.”

Sadly, Garrett was having sobriety issues that made him unavailable.  Also, the female announcers at the station were either too busy to record the spot, or they were refusing to speak to me.  So I had to do all three voices myself.  I figured it wasn’t too bad, since this was only a spec spot, and would never be aired.

I forgot about Greg’s sense of humor.  When he found out that I did all the voices, including the woman who sounds a bit like a drag queen, he insisted that they use the rough spot on the air.  I became known as “The man of a dozen voices.”  You can hear for yourself.

If anybody knows Greg’s current whereabouts, leave them in the comments. I haven’t heard from him in years. (Note, I originally wrote that 17 years ago. It’s still true)

I was saddened by the news that he died, but not surprised. What surprised me was that he’d passed so recently. I hadn’t heard from him at all since the last time I saw him, probably twenty-eight years ago.

After losing his store to his ex-wife, who ran it briefly before shutting it down (leaving Charleston seriously underserved in terms of access to comic books for years), Greg became a bit of a recluse. He didn’t want to have anything to do with his former customers when they tracked him down, and nobody seemed to really know what had become of him.

I was a loyal customer and friend of Greg’s from 1982 to 1997, when I had to give up comics for a year when my mom suffered a stroke and I became her full-time caregiver. I just couldn’t get away long enough to make it to Greg’s store to pick up my comics and catch up with my buddy.

Greg was understanding and supportive of my decision to drop out of comics, and we parted as friends, with the hope that I’d be able to return as a customer some day.

During my disastrous first marriage, Greg was pretty much my only point of socialization. He consoled me through the break up, and during the worst days of my marriage, when there was no money to be had, he hired me to draw comics and stickers and things just so he could pay me in comics and keep me in the hobby I loved.

He also listened to me, and I returned the favor as his marriage crumbled.

I’m not going to take sides in that dispute. I didn’t witness anything myself, and it’s not fair to just present one side of a story I was told in confidence. I do know that there was a remarkable amount of bitterness on both sides.

Greg was so bitter that after he lost his store, he didn’t want to have anything to do comics or his former customers. His ex was so bitter that she financed, produced and starred in a feature film that seemed designed largely to paint Greg in as negative a light as possible.

The infamous Air Pirates comic

Over the years that I’ve been writing PopCult, one of the questions I’ve been asked most often is “What the hell ever happened to Greg Miller?”

I mean, even people who worked for him were in the dark. He was a well-liked guy and a major presence in the local comics scene. This was the guy that sold me my copies of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and special-ordered Love and Rockets and Nexus for me. There was even one time when we bootlegged a few copies of the famed AIR Pirates underground comic, but that’s a story for another time.

He has been missed by many since he left the comics scene so long ago.

I’m sad to know he’s gone. Rest in peace, old buddy.

About Comics And Me

After going almost a year without buying new comics, things improved for me. Mom stabilized and I was able to get some additional caregiver help. I also started bringing in some disposable income thanks to some magazine-writing gigs, and I decided to start getting new comics again.

I was a bit distraught to find that Comic World was gone. It was almost a decade before I found out the whole story of what had happened, but if I wanted to get new comics, I was sort of stuck. There was (and I think still is) Cheryl’s Comics in Kanawha City, but she wasn’t exactly welcoming of Greg’s customers, and it was a bit farther for me to drive.

Then I remembered that Beau Smith and Cliint McElroy, whom we almost published during the CODA days, enthusiastically endorsed Westfield Comics, a mail-order subscription service. I decided to give them a try, and I’ve been a very satisfied customer for over twenty-five years now. . I still highly recommend them. Since I’ve been a customer, I have never missed a single issue of any comic book I wanted. I’ve never been waylaid by a fellow customer who wanted to explain in detail why his taste in comics was better than mine, and I never had to worry about a comic shop disappearing overnight like The Comic Kingdom in South Charleston did back in 1977.

It’s been rather blissful, even if the new comics aren’t nearly as good as the ones that came out back when I was in the target demographic.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for fresh content and all our regular features every day.

It’s another busy weekend as Bridge Day happens at The New River Gorge on Saturday, and that’s after Thursday’s ArtWalk in Downtown Charleston, and there’s just tons of STUFF TO DO all weekend…even though many of us will be glued to the TV to watch Young Frankenstein on Svengoolie Saturday night.  Thursday’s ArtWalk is listed as running from 4 PM to 7 PM, so be aware of that if you are inclined to attend.

As always, you should remember that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. Seriously, for the last several weeks, by the time the weekend rolls around, I discover several events that I just totally missed out on.  Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or possibly Elon’s beast, if it should ever choose to forgive me.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. Note that some links look like they shouldn’t work because they have lines through them, but that’s just a WordPress glitch, so click on them anyway. They should still work.

We are very happy to remind you that Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.

Most weekends you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and Friday and Saturday shows start at 7:30 PM. This weekend they have Travis Vandal and Jay Hill on Friday, and Julien Aklei and Matt Green on Saturday. Sunday afternoon at 1 PM, stop by for Charlie Murphy.

You can find live music every night at The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe. Mondays feature open mic night. The first Tuesday of every month sees the legendary Spurgie Hankins Band perform. There’s both Happy Hour music and local or touring bands on Thursday and Friday, and live bands Saturday nights.  On Sundays when there’s a new Mountain Stage, musicians from the legendary WV Public Radio show migrate to The Glass for the Post-Mountain Stage jam.

Live at The Shop in Dunbar hosts local and touring bands on most weekends, and is a nice break away from the downtown bar scene.

Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, regularly brings in local bands on weekends.

In Huntington, local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club), brings in great touring and local acts three or four nights a week.

The Wandering Wind Meadery holds several events each week, from live piano karaoke to bands to comedy to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late bring in live musical acts as well. I tend to miss a lot of these because, being a non-drinker, they fly under my radar.

Roger Rablais hosts Songwriter’s stage at different venues around the area, often at 813 Penn, next door to Fret ‘n’ Fiddle in Saint Albans, or at The Cavern on Charleston’s West Side, and also at The Empty Glass many Tuesday evenings or Sunday afternoons.

You might also find cool musical events at Route 60 Music in Barboursville and Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side. Pumzi’s looks to be beefing up their offerings in the coming weeks and months, so be sure to check that link in case we miss something. This week they have SE3 and Minor Swing on Saturday.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment.  I am looking to expand this list, so please contact me through the social media sites above if you know about more alcohol-free performance venues. The Huntington Music Collective has recently started hosting all ages shows at Event Horizon and those look to be incredible.

For cutting-edge independent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illnesses are still a going concern and many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff. If somebody asks you to refrain, please respect their weishes and don’t be a jerk about it.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order, it’s graphics for local events happening over the next several days that I was able to scrounge up online…

Continue reading

{Note: When his post was originally written in October, 2005, PopCult was hosted at The Charleston Gazette, as a “Gazzblog.” It has been partially restored with existing graphics and is re-presented here to show part of this blog’s history, and also to cover for your humble blogger being called away for a routine doctor appointment.}

Elsewhere here at thegazz.com, you’ll find articles about Wallace and Gromit I wrote with my partner in animation crime, Melanie Larch. You may be wondering how we know so much about the process of creating clay and stop-motion animation. The answer is simple… for most of my life, I’ve been an eyewitness to it.

I had the unique experience of growing up in a house with an animator. My older brother, Frank, started making his own animated films as a young teen in the late 1960s. Being five years younger meant that, not only was I likely to hang around watching him do this, but I was also pressed into service as something else to be animated. Yes, I was a child animation model.

It was better than getting beat up for not doing it.

Now, back in those days, Frank had to use Super 8 film to create his masterpieces. He experimented with all forms of animation. I was used to mimic the popular gas station commercials of the day that had pixilated humans scooting around like they were driving, only without cars. I ruined many a pairs of pants doing that. This technique is still being used for commercials today. In addition to little brother animation, Frank also tried his hand at using typing paper, Terry Gilliam-style cut-out animation, notebook paper, and clay.

It was tedious and expensive work. Film cost nearly $20 for three minutes, when you figured in the processing costs. This was before home video had revolutionized the home movie market. Back then, it was so rare for anyone to shoot home movies that people would actually watch them, as opposed to today, where more than half of the home movies shot on video are never seen by human eyes again.

Frank would work for weeks on some of his clay-animated films. He’d move the models, shoot one frame, move everything else again, and so on. It might take several minutes to move each model for each frame of film, and it takes 24 frames of film to add up to one second. So, there were many days where I would have to be quiet and still for hours. Loud noises or sudden movements could upset the models, which were often precariously balanced.

Frank managed to do some pretty impressive things with the limited resources he had available to him. There were cute alien cartoons, dinosaur fights, and the bloody ultra-violent finale to his “Mugger” series. I remember after the final shot was completed for that one, the set with the dismembered Mugger was left on display in the basement for weeks. Every time Mom did the laundry, she’d have to walk past the table with the little clay guy with his entrails strewn about. I think she eventually made Frank clean it up.

Aside from clay, Frank also made movies starring action figures. The epic adventures of “Captain X” spanned several films, and featured special effects ranging from scratches on the individual frames of film to the later years, when real pyrotechnics came into play. I still have film of my GI Joe Space Capsule getting destroyed. Somewhere in the basement, we still have a Latex-covered animation model of a monster for a film he did in college. Thirty years on, the latex smells just as bad as it did the day it was brewed up.

Anyway, these days Frank is using a new medium for his animation. He’s pretty much mastered computer animation. He has done commercials, educational films and television shows, and is currently working on a movie, which stars IWA East Coast wrestler Mad Man Pondo. While he used live-action actors, all the backgrounds, most of the aliens, and all the vehicles and special effects are computer-generated. You can read more about REPERKUSSIONZ over at Frank’s production blog, here. Frank shot the live-action earlier this year, and expects to be working towards finishing it sometime next year.

Making the story complete, I also show up in the film for two brief appearances. I play a giant spider-legged creature. That’s me up at the top of this post. I don’t really have spider legs. It’s just my amazing acting ability. I also play a few hundred tree-headed monsters. Nearly forty years after first being used in one of Frank’s films, he’s asking me to share my incredible screen presence. I couldn’t turn him down.

It’s still better than getting beat up.

{Update: Repurcussionz is still unfinished}

Normally Tuesday  is a great day to tune into The AIR  for a new episode of Radio Free Charleston to lighten your mood and make you forget the real world. But today, we don’t have a new show. I needed a week off. I wasn’t even in town most of Monday, when I usually record the show, so instead I’m running a 24-hour marathon of recent episodes.

To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

Normally you can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with boatloads of replays throughout the week.

But today you can listen to eight episodes of the show that were originally broadcast between July and September.  They’ll let you catch up and support the local scene, independent music and yadda, yadda, yadda.

I think this is just the third week I’ve taken off from doing RFC this year. We’ll be back with all all-new episode next week, and we might also have new episodes of our other music specialty shows.

But this week you’ll have to be content with reruns. Luckily they’re really gosh-damnned good shows, loaded with incredible local and independent music, plus cult tunes, novelties and oddities, so it’s not like it’s a major loss or anything.

This week’s art is an elaborate pencil doodle that I did while trying to limber up my fingers, and then went back and finished with black and gray markers. I think at one point it was almost supposed to be a peacock feather but then it went off in its own direction.

I’m trying to train my fingers to do what my brain wants again, so I spent about an hour on the initial doodle (Blackwing Palamino on paper for pens) and let it set for a day before I decided I could add more to it and use it here.

It’s less like art, and more like doing random math problems. It’s just an exercise so that I can finish working on regaining my cartooning style so I can illustrate some recent dreams.

If you want to see this image larger, click HERE.

Meanwhile, over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you an encore of a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM we do the same with Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM.

At 8 PM you can hear a classic episode of The Comedy Vault that delivers music of one Weird Al Yankovic.

Tonight at 9 PM we bring you our newish Monday night line-up featuring two hours each of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, plus six hours overnight with an assortment of our programming from Haversham Recording Institute: Psychedelic Shack, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat and Prognosis.

As promised, every Sunday in October we are going to bring you something horrific in PopCult.

We didn’t exactly promise that it’d be something good.

This week you will find floating somewhere above this text the 1966 Horror “Comedy” The Undertaker And His Pals.

Here’s part of a description…

Mort the Mortician, and his two friends Spike and Doc (who run the aptly named “Greasy Spoon Diner”), collaborate on an interesting business model. The owners kill and dismember people – with body parts ending up on the following day’s menu – and Mort provides $144.98 funerals to the survivors.  Of course, Mort’s add-ons drive the price up a good bit…but he also gives trading stamps to cushion the financial blow.

If you go into it thinking that it’s a bit of a cross between Sweeny Todd, The Munsters and the sitcom, Alice…you still probably have higher expectations than you should.

Be warned that it’s gory, in poor taste and not very well-made. But what it lacks in quality is more than made up for by it’s near-total lack of charm.

From April, 2012 comes Radio Free Charleston 156, “Warning Trioxin Shirt,.” This week we featured music from The Renfields and The Tom McGees, plus we brought you a terrific short docu-drama by Stephen Schmidt.

Charleston’s Ska kings, The Tom McGees perform a song called “Enemy Spy Plane Inbound,”which I mistakenly called by two or three different titles during the show. We also had Three-fifths of The Renfields on this show, to promote the then-in-the-future Zombie Prom at the old Kanawha Players theater. You’ll get to hear our favorite monster cereal band performing “From Beyond” and “Ramones Zombie Massacre.”

Sandwiched in between our musical guests we presented a wonderful short film by Stephen Schmidt. “Give Up The Fuzz, a few words with Clarence Fuzzy Haskins” In this film, Stephen combined an interview with Fuzzy Haskins, with dramatic recreations of some of the events starring such notable local performers as Newman Jackson, Philip Washington and Billy Hambleton. Fuzzy Haskins, who passed away back in 2023,  was a founding member of Parliment-Funkadelic, and the interview with him was conducted at a West Virginia Music Hall of Fame event. I want to thank Stephen for letting me share his wonderful film with the RFC audience. It really classed up the joint.

You can read the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
October 10, 2025

I hate getting calls from telemarketers. I have made no secret of this fact.

Eleven-and-a-half years ago, I came up with a fun way to mess with the folks who cold call you and pester you at all hours.

I’ve also warned you about telemarketer scams.

And I’ve taken my battle to stop being interrupted to my front door.

Lately, it’s gotten worse…so much worse. One day, a couple of weeks ago, I counted over 30 telemarketing calls. It got so bad that I was just grabbing the phone and screaming “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” at the top of my lungs.

Startled the hell out of my sister.

I have explained in the past that years of being responsible for the health of various relatives put me in the hard-to-break habit of always answering my landline on the first ring. Even when I no longer had caregiver duties to worry about, my life as a freelancer meant that I couldn’t really afford to miss a call.

This latest round of over-aggressive telemarketers broke me. I finally did something that I should have done years ago. Something that I had foolishly resisted for far too long.

I moved my Caller ID unit from across the room to a spot on my desk that is right in my line-of-sight.

I realize that anybody else would have done this a decade or two ago.

I should also mention that I also have a cellphone. I don’t use it much because Myasthenia Gravis does not play well with a touchscreen. Late last year I dumped AT&T, moved to Mint Moble (with zero regrets) and got new phones for my beautiful wife and myself.

I’m now paying one-sixth what I had been, and get much, much better service.

But I still don’t text. It’s just too hard for me. I use the phone when we travel, mostly as a camera, and sometimes to navigate, but I just don’t text, much to the irritation of many of my friends.

Since I got my new phone, I have not taken it off airplane mode. It does not ring. If it ever made the noise it would make if I got a text, I wouldn’t recognize it anyway. I’d just wander around the house like The Beverly Hillbillies trying to figure out why the music was playing every time somebody rang their doorbell.

Spam calls on my cellphone are not an issue. When I mention over 30 calls in a day, that’s just on my landline. I mainly keep this number because it’s been in my family longer than I have, and I keep it as a landline mainly due to a combination of laziness and inertia.

So…I finally decided to partake in the technology that’s been around more than thirty years and stop answering every call that comes in. Unless it’s someone I know, when the damned thing rings, rather than ignore it, I just lift the handset an inch or so and put it back down without saying anything. I know I should just not pick it up at all, but then it rings and rings, and sometimes they leave crap on the voicemail, and by then my concentration is thoroughly destroyed, so this is quicker and easier, if less efficient in warding off robocaller mojo.

With my new normal, I have learned a few things.

First of all, almost every bogus Medicare robocall lists as its origin some quaint little town in West Virginia which I have heard of, but have never been to, like Follansbee or Iaeger. I guess they’re gambling that I might know somebody there and pick up the phone expecting to hear from Uncle Horatio or Aunt Flamphart.

My favorite calls are the ones that proudly introduce themselves as “Possible Spam.” Thank you for the warning. Click.

I’ve only had one so far that was listed as “Pakistan.” I guess somebody at the office forgot to turn on the phone number spoofer that day.

While I still startle way to easy when I’m in deep concentration, I have found that the quick hang-up lets me get past the interruption without being totally thrown off my train of thought.

Maybe someday, when the volume of calls drops from dozens per day to one or two a week, I may revive my old hobby of playing mind games with the instrusive disembodied voices with thick accents on the other end of the line, but for now, I shall simply wish them to the cornfield, like I do with internet trolls on social media.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for all our regular features and fresh content every day.

This is one of those weekends that comes along every so often where IT’S COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO ATTEND EVERY COOL EVENT HAPPENING IN THE AREA! Seriously, there is so much STUFF TO DO that my brain hurts even thinking about it.

As always, you should remember that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or possibly Elon’s beast, if it should ever choose to forgive me.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. Note that some links look like they shouldn’t work because they have lines through them, but that’s just a WordPress glitch, so click on them anyway. They should still work.

As featured on Radio Free Charleston this week, SettleFest 2025 is coming to the Mountaintop Pavilion at ACE Adventure Resort on October 10 and 11. It’s shaping up to be an unforgettable weekend of incredible music, scenic views, and good vibes! Hosted by none other than one of the most popular bands on RFC, The Settlement, this two-day festival will bring together fans for an epic celebration of live music and outdoor adventure.

And it is, indeed, a two-day festival. That was a detail I sorta stumbled over while recording RFC this week. That makes two weeks in a row that I forgot to mention a two-day event actually lasts two days. Sorry about that.

The Settlement will headline the weekend, delivering their signature high-energy blend of funk, rock, and soul. Plus you can enjoy amazing performances from a stacked lineup including Yarn, Into The Fog, John Inghram Band, Jeremy Short, and more regional favorites.

Its a Breathtaking Venue where you can experience incredible live music surrounded by the vibrant colors of West Virginia’s fall foliage at the Mountaintop Pavilion, overlooking the stunning New River Gorge.

With onsite camping available, you can make it a full weekend escape. Explore ACE’s trails, tackle the outdoor adventure playground, or simply relax and soak in the views. For more details, check out the Facebook Event Page and for ticket info, go HERE.

Also, this weekend (actually beginning last night), Charleston becomes a work of art again as it’s time for FestiFall. Thursday’s ArtWalk is included this year, and you can find graphics for an event or two below, but for the full schedule, go HERE.

As if that weren’t enough, TsubasaCon happens this weekend, October 10,11, and 12 at The Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center. This is the big show for fans of Anime, Gaming, and Cosplay, and this year the theme is Yokai…I’m more of a Kaiju guy myself, but whatever floats your boat, more power to you. For full details and ticket information, go HERE.

This Saturday, October 11, WVU professor/author Sarah Morris will host a reading and discussion about her new book titled “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” The book begins with a discussion of the most well known song about The Mountain State – and continues to explore the music of West Virginia through the stories and anecdotes of WV musicians.

Sarah Rudy, Ron Sowell, and The Carpenter Ants will perform songs about West Virginia – as well as versions of “Country Roads” It begins at 2 PM at The WV Museum of Music located in The Charleston Town Center.

And now is the part of our program where we boilerplate…

Those are the two big shows, but there’s always more than just two things going on around here.

We are very happy to remind you that Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.

Most weekends you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and Friday and Saturday shows start at 7:30 PM. This weekend they have Zach Elmore on Friday, and Steve Himes on Saturday. Sunday afternoon at 2 PM, stop by for Ray + Jon.

You can find live music every night at The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe. Mondays feature open mic night. The first Tuesday of every month sees the legendary Spurgie Hankins Band perform. There’s both Happy Hour music and local or touring bands on Thursday and Friday, and live bands Saturday nights.  On Sundays when there’s a new Mountain Stage, musicians from the legendary WV Public Radio show migrate to The Glass for the Post-Mountain Stage jam.

Live at The Shop in Dunbar hosts local and touring bands on most weekends, and is a nice break away from the downtown bar scene.

Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, regularly brings in local bands on weekends.

In Huntington, local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club), brings in great touring and local acts three or four nights a week.

The Wandering Wind Meadery holds several events each week, from live piano karaoke to bands to comedy to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late bring in live musical acts as well. I tend to miss a lot of these because, being a non-drinker, they fly under my radar.

Roger Rablais hosts Songwriter’s stage at different venues around the area, often at 813 Penn, next door to Fret ‘n’ Fiddle in Saint Albans, or at The Cavern on Charleston’s West Side, and also at The Empty Glass many Tuesday evenings or Sunday afternoons.

You might also find cool musical events at Route 60 Music in Barboursville and Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side. Pumzi’s looks to be beefing up their offerings in the coming weeks and months, so be sure to check that link in case we miss something.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment.  I am looking to expand this list, so please contact me through the social media sites above if you know about more alcohol-free performance venues. The Huntington Music Collective has recently started hosting all ages shows at Event Horizon and those look to be incredible.

For cutting-edge independent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illnesses are still a going concern and many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff. If somebody asks you to refrain, please respect their weishes and don’t be a jerk about it.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order, it’s graphics for local events happening over the next several days that I was able to scrounge up online…

Continue reading

The PopCult Cereal Bowl

TINY FRUITY CUTIES
Sweetened Corn & Oat Cereal
sold exclusively at Trader Joe’s
$3.99 for a 16 Oz. box

So I’ve been writing PopCult for 20 years now, and this is the first entry in “The PopCult Cereal Bowl.”

I have written about breakfast cereal in the past. I am known to wax rhapsodic about the recently-discontinued Quisp (AKA: The food of the gods), and earlier this year I wrote about a limited edition orange-cream flavored Captain Crunch. I’m sure that I probably mentioned the monster cereals at some point over the last two decades, but this is the first time I’ve sat down with a bowl of cereal intent on writing a review.

How did we get here? In this week’s Monday Morning Art, I posted a pencil drawing of my friend, Pixie, who lives in Liverpool, England (currently). When Mel and I travel, we send Pixie photos of cool and/or funny stuff. Pixie’s dealing with a lot of heavy issues in her life, and we figure that, if we can give her a smile or a little diversion, then at least we’re doing something to help our friend.  At some point I’ll probably run a photo essay of Mel’s “Travelling Squidward (and Plankton)” series of photos we’ve sent Pixie in recent months.

But for the rest of the story, I have to go back to our June trip to Chicago. Now, we love going to Chicago, and only an evil and insane fool would think that it’s some kind of battleground. We had a wonderful trip and stayed at a new hotel (for us), The Hotel Versey, which was really cool and fun.

Seriously, the weather was perfect. We both felt like walking a lot and we had an L stop less than half a mile away. Also, across the street there was a Trader Joe’s.

You may know Trader Joe’s as that grocery store that we’ll never get in Charleston. Other people know it as “Aldi for rich people.” We decided to go poke around and see what they had.

To be fair, they had a lot of cool stuff, and it wasn’t as insanely expensive as we had been led to believe.

But I grabbed a photo of a silly box of cereal because the name was goofy and I sent it to Pixie.

And she responded with “Oh my god! You have to buy a box and write a review!”

And since it seemed like a really good idea, we went back and picked up a box.

And that box sat in Mel’s luggage from June until Tuesday morning, when I remembered it was there while trying to decide what to write about in PopCult for Wednesday.

You can probably guess where this is going.

So…how is it?

First of all, the expiration date isn’t until next January, so it was still plenty fresh enough to eat.

The cereal itself probably qualifies as what some boring people dismiss as “candy cereal.” I have to be honest and admit that it’s the only kind of cereal I’ll eat.  My favorite breakfast food is warmed-up whatever I had for dinner the previous night so I don’t make a big deal out of buying cereal.  If a cereal is bland and flavorless, like pretty much any cereal that doesn’t have a cartoon mascot or a brightly-colored box, then I have no use for it.

Life is too short to eat a cereal with a taste that’s indistinguishable from the box it comes in. If you like bran or flakes or granola…you may have my share. I’ll pass.

I’m happy to report that Tiny Fruity Cuties is quite tasty. It is naturally flavored and colored with vegetable-based dyes, so parents can pretend it’s somewhat healthy. It’s actually a little higher in sugar and much lower in dietary fiber than Kellogg’s (American) Froot Loops.

None of this is as important as how it tastes. Nobody should eat candy cereal as part of a regular diet. It’s only good as an occasional treat. If you try to live on this stuff you have more problems than reading a cereal review can solve.

As soon as I cracked it open, I noticed the very nice and somewhat nostalgic waft of fruity goodness coming out of the bag. It reminded me of the way Froot Loops or Trix cereals smelled when I was a kid. Nowadays they smell more like some kind of chemical cocktail to me. This was a nice surprise.

As I said, Tiny Fruity Cuties is quite tasty. It’s got a natural fruit flavor–sort of a blend, like a fruit punch or something. There are discernable notes of grape and cherry, and just a hint of lemon.

The texture is crunchy, but not the type of crunchy that shreds the roof of your mouth like Captain Crunch does. The cereal has two shapes–sort of a banana and sort of a raspberry cluster.

There is no hint of banana flavor, as far as I can tell. The banana-shaped pieces are colored yellow and orange, and the cluster pieces are purple and a reddish-magenta.

I have no idea how it behaves in milk because I haven’t eaten milk with cereal since I was maybe four years old.

It was $3.99 for a 16 ounce box when we bought it. That’s comparable to, or maybe even a little less than your typical brand-name candy cereal.

It is a little carb-heavy, but you’re not going to eat this stuff as health food.

I find myself wondering how it would work crushed, mixed with butter, and used as the crust for a cheesecake.

All-in-all, Trader Joe’s Tiny Fruity Cuties is a nice, fruity treat of a cereal. It’s not super-healthy, but it tastes great and can scratch that nostalgic itch you might have for the kind of cereal you liked when you were a kid.

Of course, it’d be a hundred times better if it came with some kind of plastic toy or other small prize.