Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

Month: August 2014 (Page 1 of 5)

Sunday Evening Videos: Wedding Videos

weddin pic 02The original plan was for this week’s Sunday Evening Video to be the wedding video of your PopCulteer and his lovely bride, Melanie Larch. However, that plan involved editing, rendering and uploading said video, and didn’t allow for much time to enjoy our honeymoon, so you’ll have to wait until later in the week for that one. In the meantime, please enjoy this random and inappropriate collection of wedding-related video clips…

Continue reading

RFC Flashback: ShockaCon

1921235_10152582804473563_6793908427038902475_oShockaCon, Charleston’s premeire horror/sci-fi convention is a few weeks away, and this coming Thursday, just to get us in the spirit, ShockaCon presents Arteries, a horror and fantasy-themed art show at Mike Winland Studios in Kanawha City. You will be able to see cool art from Mike Winland, Chris Woodall, Lee Harrah, Melanie Larch and myself and many other of the area’s top artists. The show is one night only and runs from 6 to 10 PM.

This year ShockaCon itself moves to the Beni Kedem Shrine, right next to the Charleston Civic Center. There are tons of great guests, including Fred Williamson, C. Thomas Howell and Erika Elaniak and Michonne’s pets from The Walking Dead. Plus there will be vendors and live music from The Renfields, the Big Bad and The Jasons, and a performance by The Wayward Girls School of Burlesque. In addition to that there will be panels and seminars and a costume parade from The Charleston Town Center. Details are in the promo clip at the top of this post. Last year’s Halloween shows, shot during ShockaCon, are below.

MAKE YOUR OWN POPCULT!

Rudy 002The PopCulteer
August 29, 2014

Your PopCulteer has had a busy week (just scroll down to our previous posts), but we still have our weekly Friday post to create, and we just passed our ninth anniversary yesterday. In the spirit of our nine years blogging here at The Charleston Gazette, and since lately it seems that there’s a lot of interest in what we’ve been doing in this blog (particularly from Charleston’s other newspaper), we’re going to give you…

NINE WAYS TO WRITE LIKE POPCULT!

1. Share Cool Stuff

Drag_Cartoons_24.cbz - Page 29You have to write about cool stuff, be it comic books, toys, animation, music, classic television–actually whatever floats your boat. In PopCult I try to write about things for which I truly have a passion. My whole life I’ve been obsessed with hunting down cool things and telling other people about what I find. It takes more than simply starting a blog with “Pop” in the title. You have to really love pop culture and the artifacts, legacies and influences left behind in its wake. The Batmobile should make your blood rush. Yellow Submarine should be viewed regularly. Robot  B-9 should be the person you want to hang out with. You should be able to speak with authority about the upcoming comic book crossover between Star Trek and Planet of the Apes. Know your stuff. Failing that, post a random non-sequitor. Continue reading

Still On The Honeymoon

Not a lot of time for reading. The PopCult Bookshelf will return next week. Also, don’t expect the PopCulteer to be posted until tomorrow night, folks.

Also, today marks NINE YEARS since the beginning of this, The PopCult Blog. So you can probably guess what the PopCulteer will be about.

Just Married

Hey, y’know that top secret project I’ve been talking about all week?

Well, if all goes according to plan, by the time you read this, Melanie Larch and I will have become a married couple. And to think, it only took 24 years for us to tie the knot. With all our elder-care commitments fulfilled and no other obstacles in our path, we can finally be together.

The ceremony is to have taken place Tuesday morning on the Stage of the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. We wanted a quiet ceremony in a special place, and that fit the bill perfectly. Every PopCult post that has been published since last week was written on Wednesday, August 20. That’s why the tense is all wonky.

If you’re wondering why we decided to get married in Chicago, there are many reasons. First of all, I hate cermonies. I just can’t stand the pomp and circumstance and other related BS that fuels the Wedding Industrial Complex. I just want to be with the woman I love. I don’t want to go through the Spanish Inquisition.

On top of that, Melanie and I didn’t feel right getting married in a state that does not allow all of our friends the same right. I know it’s inevitable that marriage equality will come to the Mountain State, but we didn’t want to wait any longer.

Add to that the moronic law passed a couple of years ago that coerces people, even people who have been together more than two decades, into undergoing religious and/or psychological counseling before they can tie the knot, and it was clear that, as far as getting married goes, West Virginia is not open for our business.

We were planning to go to Chicago anyway, and Melanie holds Steppenwolf in very high regard, so I suggested she ask if we could get married there. She did. And they said yes. And we said “I Do.”

We’re hoping that none of our friends feel slighted that we did this out of town. In the event that anyone reading this really feels the need for us to have a huge reception with tons of guests, please, feel free to throw one for us. We’ll be there… as long as we don’t have to do any planning or pay for it.

The PopCult Toybox: Motorific

…it’s terrific, it’s Ideal!

Yeah, we’re going to wallow in nostalgia again this week and look at videos of old toys from the 1960s. This time our subject is Motorific, a toy car made by Ideal. This was a cool, battery-operated car that came with small, interchangeable motors. In fact, the same motors were used in Boaterific, and with slight modifications, The Zeroids line of toy robots. You could do all sorts of modifications to these toy cars, which cashed in on the car craze of the time. The most sought-after set was the Torture Track, complete with all sorts of tricks and ways you could do stunts and crash your cars.

So take a look at a mix of old commercials and new video of vintage toys in action. And keep checking PopCult for the Top Secret surprise this week.

There’s more after the jump! Continue reading

The RFC MINI SHOW starring Plaid Clash

Image2This week The RFC MINI SHOW presents the mighty Plaid Clash, bringing their Celtic magic to the Bluegrass Kitchen. This four-piece features Chris Higgins, Garrett Maner, Dan Carney and Vaughn Gold singing and playing a variety of instruments.

This dynamic combo has been playing around Charleston for a few months, and we finally caught up to them at the Bluegrass Kitchen just a couple of weeks ago. We will be catching up with them again in the future, as we didn’t bring the right recording equipment to capture the audio at this event in our usual high quality. Bluegrass Kitchen is one of the finest restaurants in town, and was packed, and our microphones picked up nearly every dinner conversation in the place instead of the music.

Even with the less-than perfect audio, we wanted to give you a taste of this great band. Rest assured that Plaid Clash will grace the RFC screen again in the near future, with audio that does their beautiful sound justice.

You can next hear Plaid Clash Sunday, September 7, as part of Culture Fest in Pipestem.

Sunday Evening Video: The Jam in Concert

The Jam-630-80Enjoy The Jam, Live At Bingley Hall, Birmingham, England from 1982. Go back 32 years, when The Jam were a hot young English band that sprung out of the punk/new wave movement and spearheaded a short-lived Mod revival.  Paul Weller’s pre-Style Council band was one of those great musical entities that never quite managed to cross the Atlantic and find commercial success in the US. That doesn’t take away from the excellence of their R&B inflected, sharp British Pop-punk. 

Also, remember to keep checking PopCult for all our regular features and possible top secret surprises this week.

RFC Flashback: Remembering Joseph

jh-jr-rudy

Rudy, Joseph and Rad

This week we’re departing from our normal Flashback efforts to revive missing shows so that we can bring you a couple of shows that featured Joseph Hale, who passed away last Monday. Above you see episode 6o of RFC with Joseph’s first appearance on the show, using the name Joseph Henry (he also turned up as Joseph Hellmouth for a time). You’ll see Joseph performing solo and with his good friend, John Radcliff.

Below you see RFC 77. The title shirt has taken on the air of a twisted, eerie joke, but it’s one that Joseph would have loved. His band, OVADA, which also included John Radcliff, are seen here performing their epic tune, “The Electric God.”

You can find Joseph and his other good friend Todd Burge performing twisted Christmas songs on RFC 89 HERE.

 

 

« Older posts

© 2024 PopCult

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑