PopCult

Let’s pick up where we left off in our series of pastels based on a recent trip. It was during a slow meander through the South Side of Chicago, which is normally a brief part of the trip where Amtrak’s Cardinal rides on an elevated track, but for that particularly trip it took nearly an hour. .

Like the last two weeks, I used pastel crayons on texutred paper. This week we’re back in the railyard for a piece based on elements from several photos I took during this slow trip. It’s more of what I’ve been doing, combining scenes from this trip into compositions that I hope are somewhat artisitic.

Harkening back to my time spent studying the work of Hopper, I took advantage of the extreme early evening shadows and based this work on the crossing signal from one photo, the intermodal cars from another, the sky from a third, and the rest from a fourth.

It seems to have come out almost natural-looking.

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 an encore of a more recent episode of 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.

All this week  have brought you marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM today you will be able to immerse yourself in one last solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program. 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.

Beatles Blast is another show hosted by yours truly. I am a true Beatles fanatic, and putting together an hour of music by The Beatles, together and solo, along with cover tunes, songs by their relatives and music on which they guested is a complete labor of love for me.

Today’s marathon will bring you the best episodes from the last ten years of the show. You can hear Beatles Blast every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week and a mini-marathon Monday evening at 11 PM.

Because of the need to rest up after a long trip, Sunday Evening Video will take this week off.

If all goes according to plan, PopCult will return to normal Monday morning.

This week we go back to October, 2014, for our most recent “elaborate” Radio Free Charleston Halloween Special. I did another Halloween special the next year, but that one was exquisitely half-assed.

This is sort of appropriate now since Halloween Season seems to run from June to November now, so you can just slack off and enjoy it whenever.

For this show, which was shot at Mark Wolfe’s old house, I gathered some friends together and we did a framing skit with a Ouija board, and summoned up Mark also directed the host segments which featured me, Mark, Penny Maple, Kitty Killton and Mic Bradford. Our music is courtesy of The Jasons, Radio Cult, HARRAH and The Possum KIngdom Ramblers. Plus we have some quick and sloppy animation from yours truly.

You can read the detailed original production notes HERE,

All this week we have treated you to marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming.  Now we’re down to our last two, and we’re taking the weekend out with a bang! Beginning at 7 AM today you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program. 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. 

Our newest Music Specialty Program, and one of the most well-received, Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL celebrates the classic era of Disco music from the mid 1970s into the early 1980s. If it seems like we’re going to dance to the end of the world, why not do it while you’re shaking your booty?

The irony here is that MIRRORBALL sprang out of conversations Mel and I had in the car during an anniversary trip across Pennsylvania back in 2019.  That trip ended in Hershey for the toy show. This time the trip began in Hershey, and we traversed the state in the opposite direction.  since the plan is for us to arrive back at our humble abode today, this marathon sort of brings it all full circle.

MIRRORBALL can be heard every Friday at 2 PM with replays throughout the following week. In addition there is a weekly mini-marathon which will be changing nights in the near future,  but for now can be heard Saturday nights at 9 PM.

The PopCulteer
August 28, 2026

I’ve basically been off all week. Wednesday was the 12th anniversary of the day Mel Larch and I became husband and wife…

…on the stage at Steppenwolf Theatre, in Chicago. You can read about that HERE. To celebrate this year, we decided to go on an epic road trip, which is still in progress, and you’ll see pictures from it below.

Coincidentally, today is the 21st anniversary of the very first post in PopCult, so this blog is now old enough to drink…but won’t.

This week the Grim Reaper seems to have gotten into the sugar-coated crack stash, and we lost iconic figures in pop culture, Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, Yayoi Kusama, Peter Cullen (the voice of Optimus Prime), and Jaye P. Morgan, all of whom deserve more elaborate write-ups than what I’m doing here. That’s on top of the passing two weeks ago of Len Brown, co-creator of Mars Attacks, The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Wacky Packages, who I interviewed several times for Non Sport Update.

I’ll have to make up for lost time once I’m back at the office.

The rest of this column will bring you teaser images from some of the stops on our trips. Many of these stops will get entire photo essays of their own in the coming weeks.

We began our trip at The Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show in Hershey, PA. Expect photos and a video next week.

The next day, on the way to Akron, we stopped at Pottery City in East Liverpool, Ohio.

They had tons of FiestaWare.

While in Akron (my first visit) I bought DEVO records. I mean, I had to.

The hotel in Akron had fancy-ass toilet paper.

Tuesday’s trip to take the FiestaWare Factory Tour, sadly became a video tour, but we still had a great time, and now have an excuse to go back again.

After the video tour, a quick trip across the river, back to East Liverpool, took us to the Museum of Ceramics. Expect a photo essay. That place was epic.

Anniversary day, and matching zodiac bracelets. Awww.

Also anniversary day, aside from a trip to Ikea (see the feature image), we went to the Vinegar Syndrome store in Pittsburgh.

The next day we made our first trip to the Warhol Museum, thanks to my sister, Debbie, and nephew, Gino.

Here’s Debbie, Gino and Me, leaning into the Warhol. For copyright reasons, we can’t bring you a full photo essay from the Warhol, but I will be writing more about how cool it is.

Our trip is not over yet, but that’s just a taste of the fun we’ve had. It’s also this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for fresh content every day, plus all our regular features, and a couple more days of marathons on The AIR.

All this week we have brought you marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM today you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program. 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.   

Legendary London DJ Sydney Fileen presents another program from the Haversham Recording Institute, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.

This two hour weekly megadose of pure New Wave music will whisk you back to the days of neon, skinny ties, big hair, Swatch watches, and Farfisa organs.

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat can be heard every Friday at 3:00 PM, with repeats throughout the following week.

All this week we’ve been exposing you to marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM today you will be able to immerse yourself in yet another solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program. 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.   

Today our marathon is devoted The Swing Shift. After two very well-received episodes of Radio Free Charleston International devoted to Swing Music, I decided to go all-in and do an all-Swing program. This also tied in with some nice synergy involving our music license, and now The Swing Shift is among our most-listened-to programs.

Not a lot of folks knew that Swing Music, in addition to The Beatles, New Wave, Prog and Ska, is a passion of mine.

The Swing Shift is a weekly one-hour show that mixes together the best swing music from the last century into a concise, swinging, blast of jumpin’ music. We mix Swing hsitory with brand-new music and even some genre-bending experiments…but they all still Swing.

The Swing Shift can normally be heard Tuesdays at 3 PM, with replays throughout the week and overnight marathons Thursday and Sunday beginning at midnight.

All this week we are treating you to marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM today you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program. 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.   

Mel Larch presents a weekly hour of the best of musical theatre with Curtain Call.  Running the gamut from the early days of Broadway to today, Curtain Call brings you the entire history of the world of musical theatre in weekly one hour doses.

Curtain Call can be heard  every Wednesday at 3:00 PM, with replays throughout the following week. You can also hear an overnight marathon every Wednesday at midnight, and two bonus hours of classic episodes Mondays, beginning at 9 PM.

All this week we are going to treat you to marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM today you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program. 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.   

Today the honors go to our flagship program, Radio Free Charleston. Hosted by your humble blogger, this show has been around in radio and video form since 1989.  You can expect a wild mix of local, independent and excellent and/or bizarre music, presented in a free-format radio style for three hours of crunchy sonic delightfulness.

Seriously, this show is my baby. Be nice to it, or I’ll kick you.

Normally, RFC premieres Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays throughout the week, and a classic episode running every weekday at 5 PM.

As promised, we are still making art based on photos I took on our way back from Chicago recently. It’ was during a slow meander through the South Side of Chicago, which is normally a brief part of the trip where Amtrak’s Cardinal rides on an elevated track, but for that particularly trip it took nearly an hour. .

Like last week’s piece, I used pastel crayons on texutred paper, this time with a light wash on the sky.  Our subject this time is a look at one of the highways we crossed, and the relatively light traffic is a combination of the time of day, and my decision to omit several large semi trucks and a couple of cars from the image as photographed.  I kept the weird Batman TV show angle, just for the hell of it.

If you want to see this image larger click HERE.

Meanwhile, over in radioland, Monday beginning at 7 AM on The AIR,  we bring you 24 hours of Herman Linte’s Prognosis. This is day two of our AIR Marathon of Marathons, and you can read all about it in today’s previous post.