PopCult

The PopCulteer
April 17, 2026

As I may have mentioned recently in this blog, I need to play catch-up with some comics, books and toy reviews in order to keep PopCult sufficiently poppity and cultural.

Today we’re going to do comics.

I’ve got two great comics to tell you about that you can buy now, and two comic book Kickstarter campaigns to recommend. So let’s dive in…

Thrill Seeker Comics Anthology #2
by Scott McCullar and various
Bandito Entertainment
$9.99

This 40-page giant anthology collect’s Scott McCullar’s terrific pulp-inflected super-hero homage comics, with new material combined with some long-out-of-print earlier works. This is a retro-comics treat, loaded with great art, clever writing, and loads of pop-culture references. You never know when Doors lyrics or slightly-disguised Cobra Troopers will pop up.

The writing is clever and fun, and the artwork is great. The main character is The Yellowjacket, a retro-reboot of a public domain, Golden Age character (coincidentally, the star of the very first Golden Age comic book I ever owned a lifetime or two ago). In a fun twist, this Yellowjacket, rather than wearing tights like his 1940s incarnation, is dressed more like the original Sandman or Crimson Avenger, sort of a super-detective in a trenchcoat. Both of those characters were rebooted back in the 1940s to be more like their tights-wearing colleagues.

Trust me, comic book nerds will understand what I’m saying there.

The supporting cast is made up of various other superheroes, some very recognizable as homages to other heroes of the past, others more original creations. Some of the villainous henchmen will be very familiar to fans of Real American Heroes.

This book is just a load of fun and it can be ordered directly from Scott at his website, where you can also read his blog, pick up the first issue of Thrill Seekers Comics Anthology and get a preview of his upcoming publications, including his take on the now-public-domain adventures of Popeye and further installments of Thrill Seeker Comics.

We go to the blurb, to wrap this up:

THRILL SEEKER COMICS ANTHOLOGY™ #2 featuring YELLOW JACKET: MAN OF MYSTERY™, THE MIGHTIEST EMERALD MANTIS™, THE BOLD BOWMAN: ROBIN HOOD™ and The Dame Detective MS. TITTENHURST: FINDER OF LOST THINGS™ by Scott McCullar (GREEN ARROW SECRET FILES & ORIGINS #1). An anthology series with a shared universe.

SAINT MOSES THE STRONG
by Philip Kosloski (Writer), Grayson Bowling, Clareanne Ysmael (Artist)
Voyage Comics
$7.99

Okay, I have to be honest here. I only ordered this book because I know the penciller. Grayson Bowling and his father, Lee, are regulars at The Marx Toy Show, so I’ve known them for more than fifteen years. I remember Grayson as a kid, working with his dad to create custom Marx-style playsets and figures, and I follow him on Instagram where I’ve enjoyed watching him develop into an excellent classic comic-book style artist.

So while I was eager to see Grayson’s artwork in print, I didn’t really know what else to expect from the comic book.

I was very pleasantly surprised. In addition to Grayson’s layouts and pencils, which reminded me of the work of Russ Heath, one of the all-time great comic artists, I was really impressed by the writing as well as the inks and colors.

Saint Moses The Strong is a very Catholic comic book. It tells the story of a fifth-century saint, of whom I had very little previous knowledge. And this book works, not only as an inspring tale of repentence, forgiveness, redemption and strength, but also as a solid adventure tale.

And while it’s very religious, it’s not like a Jack T. Chick comic book. Chick comics are fun for all the wrong reasons. They read like Ed Wood dropped acid and woke up in a Baptist church, then decided to devote his life to what he thought he learned there.

Saint Moses, on the other hand, is a level-headed, respectful and non-didactic story that’s enlightening and educational, and leaves you wanting to learn more.

it’s a comic book about getting into heaven, not going to hell. That’s pretty refreshing in this day and age.

Plus the artwork is just spectacular.

You can order Saint Moses The Strong directly from Voyage Comics, who have a number of other interesting titles at their website.

It’s Fun To Kill People Volume 1 – A Dark Comedy Comic
By Anthony Stokes and Marco Leone
Kickstarter Campaign running another week

Taking a turn into a considerably less-Catholic direction, we have a collection of Anthony Stokes’ slapstick comedy terror comic, It’s Fun To Kill People. I’ve been a fan of Stokes since his debut series as a writer, Decay, and it’s wild to watch him shift gears and tackle multiple genre with equal excellence.

In It’s Fun To Kill People, imagine if Richie Rich, instead of having billionaires for parents, was the offspring of a couple of serial killers.

It may be hard to believe this…but hijinks ensue.

It’s Fun To Kill People Volume 1 is a 90-page Trade paperback written by Anthony D. Stokes, Illustrated by Marco Leone, Colored By Fabi Marques, Barlo Moriera, Alessandro Ruggiero, and Lettered By Stephen Kok.
In addition to Issues 1-3 there’s also a previously-unpublished Christmas Special.

You can find the Kickstarter Campaign HERE. If you laughed out loud at any part of A Clockwork Orange, then this is the comic book for you.

Red Ram: Toxic Suicide #2
by Paul Rashid and J.C. Grande
Kickstarter Campaign running 20 more days

We have another cool comic book Kickstarter campaign to tell you about, and like Thrill Seeker Comics Anthology, it’s a second issue of a comic book we told you about previously.

The Red Ram: Toxic Suicide is the brainchild of Charlestonian Paul Rashid, MD, a board-certified Psychiatrist, and an old buddy of your humble blogger going back over thrity years, to the days of Comic World. He’s created this comic book both to indulge his life-long love of comics, but also as a bit of an outreach to help make people more aware of mental health issues and erase some of the stigma of mental illness.

The Red Ram: Toxic Suicide #2 continues the story of Technology Titan RJ Ronaldson who, in his alter ego as The Red Ram, is at the end of his battle-damaged vigilante career. But before RJ can set down his mantle, he gets roped into one last war with his arch-nemesis.

The first issue (which you can get as an add-on reward to this campaign if you missed it first time around) introduced the characters and set the story into motion, and it’s going to be great to see what happens next.

You can kick in on Red Ram: Toxic Suicide #2 at THIS LINK. Rewards include the basic comic book in print or .pdf form, along with print variant covers and retail bundles, add-ons include the first issue and Paul’s loving tribute to a certain show about nothing, .

That is this week’s PopCulteer. Be sure to check PopCult every day for fresh content and all of our regular weekly features.

Today I’m going to take a little break from writing about pop culture to get a little personal.

Ten years ago today, I was officially diagnosed as having Myasthenia Gravis. I’d been silently suffering with it for at least eleven years prior to the diagnosis.  I wrote about it at the time HERE. Ten years on, Myasthenia Gravis has become a recurring character in this blog, more like the wacky neighbor in a sitcom than a chronic auto-immune disorder. I imagine some of my readers start rolling their eyes every time they see “Myasthenia” in a post.

In the decade since my diagnosis, the disease hasn’t much changed. I still have good days and bad days, but my bad days are generally better than my best days were before I began treatment. I still have trouble operating a touch-screen, which is why I rarely text. I am fortunate that I have a very mild case of MG, but one of the trade-offs is that I don’t seem to be anywhere close to being in remission.

And I’m okay with that.

For the first year-and-a-half I was treated with Prednisone, which I hated. I have since switched to a much better medicine and it looks like I’m not having any bad side effects from that.

I am actually in pretty good health for someone my age. Aside from the MG, I don’t have any major problems. My cholesterol is 133. I’m getting closer to a healthy weight. My blood pressure is fine. Following cataract surgery several years ago, my eyesight has improved to 20/20, but I still wear glasses to correct some lingering double-vision from MG. All-in-all, things are swell.

I have had some major life-changes. I used to go out four or five nights a week to record bands for the Radio Free Charleston video show. I can’t do that anymore. The meds that I take usually make me too drowsy to function after 10 PM.

When I do have the energy to get out and do things, I’m really enjoying travelling with my wonderful wife, Mel Larch. We have been together for 36 years, but for more than the first two-thirds of that time I was tied up with caregiver duties and simply could not travel.

Mel and Rudy at The ROQ

For the last ten years or so, we’ve been making up for lost time. Now we regularly go to Chicago, New York, Lexington, Louisville and other favorite cities. When possible, I try to share those trips with my readers with photo essays or video.

I mean, we’re planning a trip to the new Buc-ee’s in Dayton in a few weeks. It’s the type of worldly, sophisticated content that PopCult readers have come to expect.

I haven’t completely forsaken the local scene. In recent weeks I’ve made it out to The West Virginia Punk Rock Flea Market in Huntington, Ann Magnuson’s closing night talk at the Warhol exhibit at the Clay Center and just last Saturday, an incredible show by Lady D at The Roq, below the Quarrier Diner.

I’m hoping to do more stuff like that, now that things are normalizing a bit and some local music events are starting at earlier times.

I really want to go see Factory Reset, the resident Improv troupe for The Alban Arts Center, but they have an uncanny knack for scheduling shows when we’re out of town.

Bringing this back to how MG has affected PopCult (aside from being my go-to excuse when I’m not happy with a piece I do for Monday Morning Art), It hasn’t really done too much besides making it easier to decide to take RFC back to being mostly a radio show.

In the coming weeks in this blog you can expect more comics, books and toy reviews. We’ll still be providing new content on our sister internet radio station, The AIR. Radio Free Charleston will continue as a radio show, but…for the first time since 2015, we are planning to do more than one episode of the video version of the show this year.

And if we pull off all of the trips we have planned, you can at least expect photo essays of the new Buc-ee’s, a massive toy store, a wild grocery store/amusement park, The Warhol Museum, a really cool video store, The Marx Toy Show, The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, The KrugerFest Action Figure Show, The Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show, plus a Christkindl Market or two.

Basically, ten years into officially having MG, not much has changed. I’m still PopCulting. I’m not planning on that changing any time soon. It doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with MG, but last year readership of PopCult more than doubled over 2024, and the first three months of this year have already exceeded the readership for all of  2025. We’ve actually more than tripled our annual readership since we left The Charleston Gazette-Mail.  And I’m not even trying to promote it that hard.

I dont think all of that can be attributed to AI bots scraping this blog for content. There have to be some new readers out there…right?

Thanks for reading…even you AI bots.

While on Prednisone, I constantly imagined that I was being followed by giant food.

Record Store Day and ArtWalk in Charleston both happen this week, but we have even more cool STUFF TO DO all over and just beyond the borders of the state, to tell you about, noted as briefly as possible.  This ought to take you through the next week, folks.

Again, I’m just scratching the surface here. Please don’t think this is all we have to offer.

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, even if your promotional graphic uses cruddy AI art, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or Twitter.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote.

Record Store Day is a big event where record stores get special releases, mostly on vinyl, of new or reissued albums by major and independent artists, and if you are a music lover and collector, it’s a fun day when they offer the cool stuff you want. It happens again Saturday, and there are big events at Orbit’s Record Shop in Barboursville and Sullivan’s Records in Charleston, and those are our featured events this week…

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.

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.  Many Sunday afternoons at 2 PM they also have live music. This weekend they have music from Sandy Sowell & Gerry Collyard on Friday and Ty McClanahan on Saturday. Sunday afternoon stop in for Ray + Jon.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.  Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Among the notable music venues in town are The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe, Live at The Shop in Dunbar, Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, In Huntington, there’s local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club),  The Wandering Wind Meadery is on Charleston’s West Side, Plus there’s music in Charleston at The Blue Parrot, Sam’s Uptown Cafe and Fife Street Brewing.

You might also find cool musical events at 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. Saturday you can catch Joslyn & The Sweet Compression, Holly Forbes and Emmy Davis, with the show kicking off at 7:30 PM.

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…

Wednesday

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Tuesday is NEW RFC DAY on The AIR  and today it most certainly is again as we bring you a brand-new first hour of Radio Free Charleston combined with an episode of RFC Volume Four that hasn’t been heard in nine years. 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.  

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

Radio Free Charleston brings you a new show with a killer first hour that opens and closes with Lady D.  Your humble blogger and his wife made it out to The Roq, underneath The Quarrier Diner, last Saturday and caught an amazing three-hour set by Lady D and Mi$$ion, and it was so incredible that I knew I’d have to open this week’s show with her music.

Our first hour also includes brand-new tracks from The Heavy Hitterrs, Corduroy Brown, Duck City Music, The Moon My Twin and Joe Jackson!

Because I have several routine, but time-consuming, medical things to do early this week, for our second and third hours I decided to reach into the archives and bring you a classic, two-hour, episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume Four that premiered in May, 2016.  Here’s what I wrote about it then:

We bring you two hours of great local music, this week featuring debut tunes from Todd Burge, Timothy Truman and Under Surveillance, plus classic cuts from the RFC archives by Lady D, The Tom McGees, Out of Nowhere, Dr. Curmudgeon and more.

This episode of RFC Volume Four has not been heard since late, 2016.

Check out this playlist, with links to the artist’s page in the first hour…

RFC V5 266

hour one
Lady D “Karma Is A Bitch”
The Heavy Hitters “Strawberry Peppermint”
Aliza Hava “Let It Roar”
Corduroy Brown “Fourth Avenue (live)”
Stitch Jones and His Bionic Marines “Buddy, Brotha From A Different Motha”
Buni Muni “Moringa”
Duck City Music “Vivid”
Joe Jackson “The Face”
Deni Bonet “Why Not You”
Frank Zappa “Uncle Remus”
The Moon My Twin “Hope”
The Settlement “Questions”
Cult Canyon “Real Sublime”
Lady D “Somebody’s Gotta Move”

hour two
Tim Truman “The Ballad of Oscar Wilde”
Todd Burge “I Believe This,I Believe”
Ron Sowell “You Might Take It Right”
Happy Minor “Gypsy Queen”
Lady D “I Tripped”
Farnsworth “Already Written”
No Rain “Don’t Come Around”
The Tom McGees “The Choice”
Under Surveillance “Pushed Me To Far”
Scrap Iron Pickers “Strange Bytes”
Dr. Curmudgeon “My Demon Math Metal Tune Just Ate Your Artsy-Folksy Americana Song…Sorry”
Under The Radar “All Along The Watchtower”

hour three
Hybrid Soul Project “Get On Up”
Out Of Nowhere “What Was Lost”
Sheldon Vance “Best That I Can Do”
J Marinelli “Human Landmine”
Ghosts of Now “Alaska Looks Like Arizona”
Karma To Burn “Domino 2JDean”
InFormation “She’s Like Poison”
Government Cheese “Camping On Acid”
The Renfields “Ramones Zombie Massacre”
69 Fingers “GGG”
Mother Nang “Fuggin’”
David Synn “Space Gun”
Hydrogyn “Rejection”
Crack The Sky “Invaders From Mars”
Hellblinki “Zombie Jamboree”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different classic episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

After RFC, stick around for encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM get ready for two classic episodes of The Swing Shift.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 AM,  Friday at 10 AM and 8 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR . You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursdays and Sundays.

This week we have another acrylic piece done on illustration board. This was inspired by a series of photos I took when I was on a recent road trip with Mel, but to be honest, I only like part of it.

If I ever take this one to canvas, I’ll have to change the lower half. That highway retaining wall just doesn’t work for me. I should have just left it out.

In fact, I may just take the sky and redo it in a different painting.  I think I put a lot of effort into capturing the late-afternoon sky, but not enough into the rest of the composition.

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 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.

Tonight at 8 PM, tune in for a classic edition of The Comedy Vault. That’s followed by two-hour blocks of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast at 9 PM and 11 PM, and then an overnight assortment of our Haversham Recording Institute programs at 1 AM.

Above you see a short film I first posted here fifteen years ago. Those codes had gotten scrambled and the film disappeared, so I decided to fix it up and bring it to you again.

Buster and Sam, waiting…

In 1965 experimental playwright Samuel Beckett teamed up with film comedy legend Buster Keaton to create “Film.”  This is a silent exploration of the nature of perception and existence. And you can see it above, courtesy of the Prelinger Archives.

According to the IMDB entry, written by Michael Brooke, “A twenty-minute, almost totally silent film (no dialogue or music save for one ‘shhh!’) in which Buster Keaton attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye. But, as the film is based around Bishop Berkeley’s principle ‘esse est percipi’ (to be is to be perceived), Keaton’s very existence conspires against his efforts“

Enjoy!

We launch our video time machine back to March, 2013, to bring you this epic episode of Radio Free Charleston.

Above you see a very special episode of RFC. Our friend, international music superstar, Deni Bonet was in this edition of the show with a really cool music video. We also had a very special semi-animated performance by HARRAH, plus we had the Radio Free Charleston debut of Beggar’s Clan.

We also offered up the return of Murfmeef and some trippy animation.You can read the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
April 10, 2026

Today I am going to take you back more than twenty years.  However, this is not a flashback to a post from twenty years ago today in this blog.

This is a photo essay that has never previously been published in PopCult.

But…it’s photos of my office, where, at the time, I was less than six months into my career as a blogger. I had this tucked away in a back-up image blog, and forgot about it until this week. I thought my readers (and my old GI Joe collecting buddies) would get a kick out of seeing these.

I made these to share in the old alt.toys.gijoe “The Sandbox” newsgroup. This was actually before my mother passed away, and I was still a full-time caregiver. Her bedroom was right next to my office, which I’d moved upstairs after my dad passed away almost three years earlier. I was just showing off some of my collection to my fellow collectors. This was back when I was still on dial-up.

The scary thing is, maybe sixty percent of the walls are still like this, with the action figures on display unmoved in more than two decades.

That’s going to change soon. I’m in the middle of a fairly extensive rearrange of the office, which will likely take months. That’s why I’m not doing “before and after” photos yet. Right now my office looks like a cyclone hit a toy warehouse.

Maybe later this year I’ll revisit this idea. For now, you get to see what my office looked like in January, 2006, back when times were simpler. We only had access to a couple hundred cable channels. Phones flipped open and had real buttons. Failed businessmen with TV shows were still only on TV. Disney hadn’t bought Lucasfilm and Marvel yet. Flying cars were just a pipe dream. Foolish people were still waging senseless wars in the Middle East. And people who were born after 9 11 weren’t in first grade yet.

The rest of the copy here is adapted from what I wrote for the Sandboxers back then…

WELCOME SANDBOXERS! THE OFFICE TOUR

Okay, so I was a bit bored, and decided to share some detailed shots of my office with you guys.

Here’s about a dozen pics I took just standing in the middle of my work space, spinning around. Just enough pictures to kill the batteries in the digital camera. Please note that the office is quite messy, due to me not having cleaned up after Christmas yet (this was first posted in January, 2006).

First up, we have a shot of what lurks behind the door, as you can see this is mostly Timeless Collection Joes, with a few odds and ends tossed in.

Aside from the TC guys, you’ll find the 35th set, John F. Kennedy, an Early Dragon dude, and an Honor Guard figure.

Looking a bit more floorward, we find even more TC Joes, plus the Hall Of Fame Rapid Fire, a cheap-o Target Classic Collection Joe, boxes from the 40th Anniversary line, and the Monty Python Knights from Sideshow. Just barely visible is the top of the Action Man croc hunter set. Under the mound of debris is my scanner. On top of the scanner you can see the side of the Billy Yank that went out to Charlie Bury the next day.

On the rest of the East Wall, we see my GI Joe Club convention sets and Club Reproduction figures. Also mixed in amongst the throng are the Playing Mantis Captain Action and Dr. Evil, A Classicos Falcon Piloto that I forogt I had, the Target Duke, and some clear and multi-colored figures from the club. That’s a Sigma Six set in the very corner of the office–the Ninja Showdown.

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The PopCult Toybox

I was eight or nine years old when I first saw the ad.

It ran in comic books, and it was for a new line of snap-together model kits from Aurora called Monster Scenes. These were a combination of figure kits and diorama scene kits that could all be fitted together to create an endless number of cool story scenes.

Among the eight initial kits were one licensed from Universal (Frankenstein), one licensed from Warren Publications (Vampirella, which was a shock to the system to see her advertised in a DC comic book) and six “original equity” creations that were created by Aurora.

But I saw this full-page ad…here it is…

Looking back, even the dialogue was hilariously inappropriate for a comic book for kids.

…and it was instant toy lust. I wanted them, but I knew it’d be damned near impossible for me to get these model kits.

My mom was a little too picky about what we, as kids, were allowed to enjoy entertainment-wise.

Now, she wasn’t a complete hardass. I was the third of four kids, and my older brother, Frank, was a first-generation Monster Kid, so she had been de-sensitized to much of the classic horror stuff that us kids found so cool. We could watch anything we wanted on Chiller on channel 13 because she couldn’t stay up late enough to tell us not to watch it. But she tried her best to protect us from the brain-rotting influence of popular culture.

At one point she was cool with us reading Casper the Friendly Ghost, but Hot Stuff, the devil boy was just a little too demonic for her tastes.

I knew that, if I really wanted to get these, I’d have to bide my time and wear her down.

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Easter is in our rear-view mirror, but that’s okay because, in addition to leftover peanut butter eggs,  we have more cool STUFF TO DO all over and just beyond the borders of the state, to tell you about, noted as briefly as possible.  This ought to take you through the next week, folks.

Again, I’m just scratching the surface here. Please don’t think this is all we have to offer.

Our featured event this weekend is our old friend, Lady D, AKA Doris Fields, performing a no-cover show at The Roq with her band, MI$$ION, below the recently-revitalized Quarrier Diner in Charleston.

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, even if your promotional graphic uses cruddy AI art, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or Twitter.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote.

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.

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.  Many Sunday afternoons at 2 PM they also have live music. This weekend they have music from Steve Himes on Friday and Travis Vandal on Saturday. Sunday afternoon stop in for Charlie Murphy.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.  Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Among the notable music venues in town are The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe, Live at The Shop in Dunbar, Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, In Huntington, there’s local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club),  The Wandering Wind Meadery is on Charleston’s West Side, Plus there’s music in Charleston at The Blue Parrot, Sam’s Uptown Cafe and Fife Street Brewing.

You might also find cool musical events at 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. We have a graphic for Thursday’s William Matheny show below.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment.

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