Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 22 of 124)

The PopCulteer
March 14, 2025

This week in The PopCulteer I’m going to go back and reunite (writing-wise) with my lovely wife, Mel Larch.

From 1991 to 2005, we collaborated on Animated Discussions for The Charleston Gazette. This was back when writing for The Gazette was actually a respectable gig, and we were proud to write the only regular animation column for a major daily newspaper.

We covered the Ren & Stimpy controversy, the birth of Adult Swim, the creation of many notable TV cartoons like Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and Rugrats, and we reviewed dozens of animated features, including gems like The Lion King, The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie and Wallace and Gromit.

We stopped writing for The Gazette when they slashed their freelancer budget and I started on PopCult, but we did continue to include Animated Discussions in PopCult as an occasional feature in the early days, but this week, for the first time since December, 2006 I welcome my partner-in-life and crime, Mel, back to the blog as we review a couple of animated movies in…

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Mel Larch

The Day The Earth Blew Up
A Looney Tunes Movie
directed by Peter Browngardt

It’s hard to believe, but The Day The Earth Blew Up is the first ever, honest to God, Looney Tunes feature film. We don’t count the compilation movies like Bugs Bunny Superstar, and we don’t count the Space Jam movies (because they are essentially a blasphemy against Looney Tunes), but this movie is the first time that Daffy Duck and Porky Pig have been trusted to carry a feature film.

Fortunately, Earth was created by the same team who produced the brilliant Looney Tunes Cartoons for HBO Max back in 2020 – 2023.  Led by Peter Browngardt (Uncle Grandpa), this crew for the first time since the 1940’s captured the brilliant animation and madcap, screwball gags of the original Looney Tunes cartoons.

The Day The Earth Blew Up manages to take that inspired lunacy and build a feature length story that balances enough elements of drama, pathos, romance, and action to keep from burning out the audience completely. Ninety minutes of Daffy on a rampage might just be a little too tiring for most audiences.

In The Day The Earth Blew Up, we see the origin of Porky and Daffy in a delightfully surreal and bizzare sequence where they are taken in by Farmer Jim, who is drawn and animated as though he just walked out of a WPA-era industrial cartoon. Keeping the movie visually interesting, aside from the bulk of it looking like the best of  Bob Clampett and Tex Avery’ classic cartoons, there are also sequences that look like Soviet propaganda posters come to life, straight sci-fi adventure, and mutant horror zombie movies.

The voice work, with Eric Bauza portraying both Daffy and Porky, Candi Milo as Petunia Pig, and Peter McNicol as an alien overlord, is on par with the work of Mel Blanc and June Foray. The score is a brilliant homage to Carl Stalling and Raymond Scott, and the use of recognizable pop songs adds a hint of familiarity but is also perfectly married to the sequences in which they are used.

There is a major plot twist that we’re not going to spoil here, but it should be noted that this plot twist makes the movie perfectly suitable for children of all ages. Adults who appreciate humor and classic animation will also find a lot to love about The Day The Earth Blew Up.

The Day The Earth Blew Up opens in theaters in wide release today and you should make a point to see it as soon as possible, because Warner Brothers, in their latest in a series of inexplicable business moves, sold off the distribution rights to a tiny company that can’t afford much of a promotional budget.  However, we should be grateful that it got released at all, considering how many quality animated projects WBD has buried to get the tax write-off recently.

Plankton:The Movie
Directed by Dave Needham

Plankton: The Movie is not a theatrical release, but is currently streaming on Netflix as part of a deal with Paramount to create spin-offs of the Spongebob Squarepants franchise. True fans of Spongebob Squarepants should love this movie.

We say “true fans” because there seems to be a vocal community of spurned former Spongebob fans who rush to the internet to condemn and complain about any Spongebob project created after 2004.

Luckily, those people don’t matter. Plankton: The Movie is the tour de force that the little green copepod has deserved for the last quarter century. Voiced by Mr. Lawrence (who also co-wrote the script with Kaz and Chris Viscardi), this shows off the more human side of the vindictive single-celled organism who’s hell bent on world domination.

We should also point out that Plankton: The Movie is also a tour de force for Jill Talley, who voices Plankton’s long neglected computer wife, Karen. she really gets to cut loose here.

In this movie, Plankton once again fails to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula, only this time, Karen has had enough of being belittled by him and decides to dump him and dominate the world by herself, magnetizing the Chum Bucket and transforming into a three headed, super destructive giant robot. It’s up to Plankton to stop her plan, restore her empathy, and win back her love.

Most of Plankton: The Movie is 3D CGI, which serves the story fairly well, but is also a bit of a barrier for fans of the original 2D animation of Spongebob Squarepants. Several flashback segments are animated in 2D and brilliantly mimic other animation styles to help set the tone. We’re treated to rubber hose animation, 60’s Saturday morning animation, 80’s Transformer like animation, and weird 1990’s indy animation.

Plankton: The Movie is also…a musical with very entertaining songs, some written by the teams of Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Concords) and hitmaker Linda Perry, and others written by Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh of DEVO fame.  DEVO fans should be advised you can spot their songs a mile away.

Ultimately, Plankton: The Movie is solidly entertaining, with moments of great animation and terrific gags, plus plenty of Easter eggs for longtime fans of the Spongebob Squarepants TV shows and movies. It’s well worth watching.

And that is the return of Animated Discussions, and is also this week’s PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content.

We are sliding into the middle of the month of the wind, and aside from celebrating the stabbing of tyrannical leaders day, we are also going to have a slew of observations of Saint Patrick’s Day, which actually happens next Monday.  Even though your humble blogger is half Irish, I do not drink, so this holiday is not high on my list of thing to get excited about. I’m long past the days of wearing green to avoid physical harrassment, and I sort of lean more toward the Italian side of my heritage (flawed holiday and all). So, if you’re into drinking green beer, and/or vomiting that stuff back up, you should probably look elsewhere,  Aside from that, here’s a quick list of STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston, WV, this coming weekend.

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 or Twitter. 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.

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

Most Fridays and Saturdays you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. Friday’s musical act is Nolan Collins.  Saturday the music flows forth from Maddie Staqrcher & Riley Imlay.

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 tend to 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 and also at The Empty Glass. 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. 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. See below for this weekend’s big show.

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 illlnesses 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.

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 that I was able to scrounge up online…

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Longtime readers of PopCult might recognize most of this post from when it first ran, back in December, 2023.

However, since Boop!, which your humble blogger and his wife got to see in Chicago on a trail run has made it to previews on the Great White Way ( just last night) I thought it might be time to revisit this, with a little updating to reflect the current run.

Boop! opened in previews last night at The Broadhurst Theatre, at 235 W 44th St. (just around the corner from Schubert Alley).  Since it’s in previews, the big-time reviewers are not supposed to review the show yet, but since I’m just reheating my take on it from the Chicago run, I can get away with it.  One reason I’m doing this is that the original post has been getting tons of traffic lately, so I figured it’d be good to make it a little easier to find and update the theater information.

It is, as you may have guessed, a stage musical featuring the iconic Fleischer animation heroine, Betty Boop. Melanie and I got to see the World Premiere, out-of-town run before the show moved to Broadway.

Producers do out-of-town runs so they can sort of workshop a new musical and make changes based on a live audience reaction.  By the time a show moves to Broadway, it might be substantially different.

However, I’m thinking it’s not going to be that much different because, as it is, BOOP! was nearly perfect. The songs are catchy as hell. The story is fun. The stagecraft is amazing. And Jasmine Amy Rogers (seen left), who plays Betty Boop, will likely come out of this role as a major star. She really IS Betty Boop, come to life. Still, we’re thinking about going to see it this summer so we can see if they changed anything, and also because we had so much fun the first time.

As we saw it, the show was just about perfect. I’m sure the producers will tinker with the pacing and I heard that the composer, David Foster, has two new songs ready to plug into the production. At this point, it seems that this show doesn’t need much to become a major hit. I felt that one song we hear as a false climax would pack more punch if it were foreshadowed with a less-orchestrated verse much earlier in the show, but that’s a minor note.

So much of BOOP! is simply stellar. Bob Martin contributes a clever book that weaves romance, spectacle and interdimensional travel into a thrilling and delightful story. Susan Birkenhead’s lyrics and David Foster’s music manage the difficult feat of capturing the Golden Age Jazz sound of the original Betty Boop cartoons while still projecting a contemporary vibe.

Jerry Mitchell, who directed and choreographed this show has conducted a symphony of pop culture visuals and dance numbers that pay tribute to the original cartoons as well as remaining strikingly original.

Speaking of strikingly original, the scenic design by David Rockwell and the projection design by Finn Ross help immerse the audience in a world based on classic Fleischer animation in the beginning, and then a full-color astonishingly surreal New York City in the “real world.”

Grampy, Betty and Pudgy, before her trip to the real world.

The cast is amazing, and we have to once again note that Jasmine Amy Rogers shines brightly in what should be a career-defining role. She has the look, the voice, and the attitude of Betty Boop, and she also has the acting chops and emotional range to bring her into the real world. It’s telling that the entire key cast from Chicago made the move to New York.

DeRosa and Prince, with a sweet, second love story.

Stephen DeRosa is equally amazing as the real-life embodiment of Grampy. Pudgy the dog is onstage via the puppeteer, Philip Huber, and after his first appearance, you forget that there’s a man pulling the strings visible on stage.

Broadway vet, Faith Prince is a hoot as Grampy’s love interest, Valentina, and Ainsley Anthony Melham is great as Betty’s real-world love interest, Dwayne. It’s telling that the entire key cast from Chicago made the move to New York.

The story opens with Betty hard at work making the cartoons that we all know and love today. The set and costuming are monochromatic, looking like a Fleischer cartoon come to life.  After a long day on the set, Betty expresses her desire to take a vacation “Where nobody knows me.” Grampy tells her about the real world, and shows her a machine he’s made out of an overstuffed chair that can take her there. But he warns her not to use it because the real world is so dangerous and scary.

Of course, after Grampy dozes off, Betty uses the machine and arrives…at the New York Comic Con. Suddenly, everything is in bright, vibrant color. Betty encounters cosplayers dressed as DC Comics, Marvel and Hanna Barbera characters (and more), and experiences colors for the first time with the showstopper tune, “In Color.”

Now, I have to admit that, being a comic book nerd for over 55 years, a musical that includes interdimensional travel, classic animation references, Easter Eggs buried in the animated sets AND cameos by Superman, Cyclops, Velma Dinkley, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Chewbacca and more has pretty much punched all my buttons.

I don’t want to spoil the rest of the plot. Let’s just say that we get a couple of love stories, a city politics subplot, a little sexual harrassment, some inspiring feminism, plus a potentially world-ending crisis, all set to impeccably crafted tunes that will stick in your head for months.

I will be shocked if BOOP! The Musical does not go on to have a major run at The Broadhurst. I can see BOOP! very easily becoming a hot-ticket show like Book of Mormon or Hamilton. It’s that good.

I also see multiple Tony Awards in its future.

The Chicago run at the CIBC Theater is long done, but trust me, you’ll have plenty of chances to see it now that it’s moved to New York. I have a feeling BOOP! will be around for a long time.  You can visit the show’s website for links to full ticket information.

We’ve got another huge episode of Radio Free Charleston for you today on The AIR.  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.

The week we bring you three full hours of our free-format blend of local, independent, alternative, weird and whatever else I feel like playing music. And this week we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to brand-new music!

We open the show with a tune from David Synn’s new album, The Oracle, and then, over the course of our three hours, we bring you new tunes from Ligature, Masser Chups, The Heavy Editors, Lady Gaga, Electric Pets, Jim Lange, John Bunkley and more.

Via our Chicago pipeline, we bring you new tunes from AJ Rosales and Catherine Campbell, both of which will be released this coming Friday.  Chicago singer-songwriter AJ Rosales offers up his new single “Wait,” while Catherine Campbell  will be releasing  the EP Outline on Friday, March 14 and the first single is “Long Hair,” which you will hear in our first hour. Catherine is currently based in Chattanooga, but is originally from Lexington, Kentucky (coincidentally where your humble blogger and his wife were hanging out last weekend).  AJ’s album is due later this year.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show where possible.

RFC V5 217

hour one
David Synn “Better Off Dead”
Ligature “Breathe”
Masser Chups “Kiss of the Night”
Falling Stars “Do Your Thing”
The Heavy Editors “Bleed”
Massing “Stay Inside”
Lady Gaga “Killah”
AJ Rosales “Wait”
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates “Void”
Matt Mullins and The Bringdowns “Big Sky”
Sierra Ferrell “American Dreaming”
Hello June “Honey I Promise”
Catherine Campbell “Long Hair”
The Settlement “The One That Got Away”

hour two
Electric Pets “Kowtow”
Jim Lange “Departure”
SPACE FREQ “Strut”
Dark Entities “Undertow”
Djabe & Steve Hackett “A Storm Is Brewing”
Tori Amos “Insect Ballet”
ABC “Brighter Than The Sun”
John Bunkley “Escalate/Grener Than Blue”
Los Grainders“Deep Grotto”
Andy Summers & Robert Fripp “Bewitched”
Chuck Biel “Season’s Greetings”
Dinosaur Burps “Tavern (Instrumental)”

hour three
David Synn “Odyssey”
Jethro Tull “Drink From the Same Well”
Nektar “Astronaut’s Nightmare”
Pallas “Invincible”
McLuhan “Spiders In Neal’s Basement”
The Heavy Editors “Mr. Green Genes Go!”
The Aquabats “I Fell Asleep On My Arm”

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 we give you an encore of two classic episodes of The Swing Shift.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 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 Thursday and Sunday evenings.

This week I’m still battling a combination of MG and being out of town on fun trips, so we took another dive into the slush pile, and came up with a pencil drawing (Blackwing Palamino and Charcoal) that is really a bit of an unintentional doodle.

I was working in a sketchbook, attempting to draw an archway using high-contrast and negative space.

I was happy with it, but got bored and sometimes when that happens a nearly naked woman winds up in the drawing. In this case, since she’s in silhouette, she could be wearing a catsuit, and the more imaginative among you can craft your own storyline that she’s some kind of Emma Peelish spy lady running around in a Mediterranean coastal village or something.

This was done sometime last summer using the Blackwing Palamino plus a charcoal pencil on sketchbook paper.  After scanning, I removed a lot of smudges digitally because they annoyed me and I wanted this piece to look half-decent in the blog.

Hopefully, by next week, my MG will clear up a bit and so will my schedule, and maybe I can have a color painting or rough for you.

To see this week’s art bigger try clicking HERE.

Before we get to the radio notes, I want to plug this show that I found out about too late to include in last week’s STUFF TO DO.  It’s in Morgantown tonight, organized by Todd Burge, and is for an important and urgent cause.

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 an also classic edition 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.

At 8 PM you can hear stand up from Eddie Griffin on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of unusual episodes of Prognosis, from the few months when yours truly was filling in as host while Herman Linte  was dealing with health issues. In case I didn’t mention it back then, ,Herman was still supplying the playlists.

Above you see a new documentary all about the making of the original off-Broadway run of the musical, Little Shop of Horrors, with a focus on Audrey II, the plant/puppet star of the show.

In fact, the whole title is Little Shop of Audrey:The Puppet that Ate Off-Broadway.

When it came to Little Shop of Horrors, designer Martin P. Robinson faced an impossible challenge: he needed to create a giant plant that could talk, sing, dance… and swallow people whole—live on stage. This is the story of the chaos, collaboration, and innovation that went into creating one of the most iconic puppets in theatre history — as told by those who lived it.

This is a production of Wait In the Wings, who crank out tons of great musical-theatre-centric videos, which you can find on YouTube.  You can also subscribe to their channel, and join their Patreon so they can keep making cool documentaries like this.

It’s still a few weeks away this year, but April Fool’s Day was something that I liked to have fun with on Radio Free Charleston. For this special day in 2011 I finally managed to pull off a joke that I’d wanted to do for years. The truth is that I had already made this joke before, in the middle of Summer with episode 78, a couple of years earlier, only this time I laid it on a bit thicker and made it happen on the right day.  Actually we tried this joke in 2008 on our first April Fool’s Day show too, but for that one we only went to Huntington.

In episode 78 we shot our host segments overlooking Pittsburgh, but said that we were looking at the Charleston skyline from a barely-visted spot in the hills of the West Side. With episode 125, we claimed to be back at the West Side, only this time I said that we were in the backyard of Roger Bartfast, an eccentric artist who had created an amazing replica of The National Mall in Washington D.C. “using miniatures, forced perspective, and kinetic sculpture.”

Of course, we actually shot the host segments at the real National Mall. We had even more total BS in this episode: Pepper Fandango let us use her music video for “Shelter for Wayward Girls” that had her playing banjo naked in the bathtub. You couldn’t see anything in the original video, the banjo being rather a sizable instrument, but we stuck in big black censorship bars to make the video look more explicit than it really was. The bars get more insane as the video progresses.

I also created a music video for the Mother Nang song, “Peel,” which I announced was a big-budget motion-capture piece directed by Robert Zemeckis. In truth, it was just a group of action figures posed playing instruments, while the camera moved around them. Then I stuck in psychedelic backgrounds using sloppy chroma key effects.

This was obviously a joke, and of course the band was in on it. However it flew over the head of one local musician who to this day thinks I need to take the time to properly animate the figures because he didn’t get the joke. Coincidentally, no effort was made to make the figures correspond to way the band members really looked. For instance I had a Jesse Ventura figure playing Brian Young’s drums, Jack Bauer’s figure stood in for Jay Lukens, and Deron Sodaro was portrayed by a GI Joe Land Adventurer.

However, the way I dressed the random figure that represented lead singer Spencer Elliott made him look like a pretty accurate representation of Spencer.  In that instance the joke was on me. The part of Spencer was played by a talking R. Lee Ermy action figure that would spontaneously erupt with a string of obscenities when touched.

Also in this special episode was footage of Adrian DeQuiros busking on Capitol Street, a short Kitty Killton film by Scott Elkins and Frank Panucci’s cartoon adventures of Charlie Manson. I also have a short video that shows how to get to Roger Bartfasts’s “World of Washington.”

You can read the original, kayfabe, production notes HERE. This is one of my favorite episodes of Radio Free Charleston.

The PopCulteer
March 7, 2025

It’s been a while since I’ve cranked out a column of randomosity for you folks, so with your humble blogger being a little scatterbrained this week, how about we just wander all over the map?

OSCAR Apathy

Once again the OSCARs, Hollywood’s annual circle-jerk, has come and gone, and once again, I didn’t see any of the nominated films. To be honest, last year I did go see one Hollywood movie in the theater, for the first time since well before the pandemic.

It was Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, I really enjoyed the movie (I have no idea why the reviewer for the local paper seems to have a hard-on for bashing Tim Burton, but since I almost always disagree with him anyway, at least his reviews are useful).

However, Mel and I only went so we could take our buddy, Lee Harrah, out to the movies. I would have probably enjoyed the film even more if I’d watched it at home and didn’t have to listen to oafish twits run their stupid mouths for the entire film.

Having said that, I think I had other things to do Sunday, so I didn’t see a second of the awards show.

I figure that, by this time next year, people will be straining to remember the name of the Best Picture winner…which has pretty much been the case almost every year for the past thirty or so.

Holes In My Pop Culture Coverage

That brings me to something I’ve addressed periodically here in PopCult, and that is how this blog, which is supposed to cover all things pop culture, has several blind spots.

My mission is to cover as many aspects of pop culture as is humanly possible, but since it’s such a vast topic, and I do this for free, and most of what passes for pop culture bores the crap out of me, the question of exactly what is “humanly possible” is quite subjective.

For instance, video games dominate pop culture. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, and some of the most creative minds in the world are busy crafting new and exciting games.

And I haven’t been able to muster any real enthusiasm for a video game since Dig Dug came out for the ColecoVision. I’m old, have hands that don’t cooperate with game controllers and I would rather stream old episodes of Captain Scarlet than take on the learning curve required to play a first-person shooter.

I also don’t drink. Never have. Beer culture, which seems to dominate every aspect of Charleston’s entertainment community these days, is a huge turn-off for me. The older I’ve gotten, the less I enjoy having to be around drunk people. Straining to hear (or video tape) a band over the din of blathering alcoholics is just something for which I have lost my tolerance. I’m hoping to make it out to Pumzi’s soon to actually hear some live music again. I miss live music, but I don’t miss having it drowned out by drunk people.

While I am an enthusiastic toy collector, and support everybody enjoying their hobbies the way that makes them the happiest, I’m never going to be able to say nice things about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I thought the entire concept was one of the stupidest things ever created, the cartoons were dumb as hell and very poorly animated, and the toys are ugly. Don’t get me wrong, I like plenty of stupid crap, but I draw the line at Eternia. If you love He-Man…fine, you can have my share.

Another massive pop culture phenomenon that I just wasn’t born at the right time to appreciate is Harry Potter. Never read the books. Never saw the movies. I have no opinion about the quality of the work or any controversies about the author. It just never seemed like anything I’d spend time reading or watching.

Those are just a few of my pop cultural blind spots. Just in case anybody was wondering why I don’t write too much about those things. You could probably toss pro basketball, college football, role-playing games, sneaker culture and line-dancing in there, too. I try to write about what I know, and there are limits to what I can feign interest in.

Toy Fair

The International Toy Fair in New York City wrapped up earlier this week, and we didn’t go. In fact, we haven’t gone since 2016. Because of that, I’m relying on the reporting of other people to form my opinions about the big news stories and new toys, and I’ll probably spread out my reactions and coverage of that over the next couple of months because there’s a lot of it, and we don’t know all the details about it yet.

So, stay tuned.

A Pet Peeve

Oftentimes, when Mel and I want to go out to eat at a new restaurant (or one in a distant town during a trip), I’ll go to the website to see if they have anything on the menu that I can actually eat because of my long list of food issues. Increasingly, the restaurants demand to know your location and make you pretend to place an order, just so you can see the menu.

This is a huge turn-off, and acts as a deterrent for me when it comes to choosing a place to eat. I need to know if if I can find anything that’s actually compatible with my food allergies and any medicinal conflicts. I also like to see how accomodating they are about making substitutions.

I don’t understand why a restaurant would want to keep their menu secret from potential customers.

Another Pet Peeve

Sometimes when I do manage to get through to a menu for a new place, if all of their salads include bacon and eggs, I’m less likely to go there. They have mistaken my salad for someone else’s breakfast.

I feel the same way when I discover that every vegetable offered as a side, is cooked with meat in it. Folks…not everybody eats pork. Would it kill you to offer ONE salad that just has veggies in it, or one side (that isn’t potatoes) that isn’t cooked in meat?

About “Fresh Content Every Day”

While I do strive to have at least one new post every day here in PopCult, sometime in the next week or two, I may miss a day due to migrating everything to a new computer. Sadly, my stubbornness about updating my my operating system is colliding with the computer world’s intent to drag me kicking and screaming away from Windows 7.

If all goes well, I may keep the streak going, but if I do go a day without posting, that’s why.

And with that, this week’s PopCulteer is done. Check back for fresh content every day (fingers crossed) and all of our regular features.

I was going to start this post with a warning about extreme weather, but since it seems to be changing every five minutes or so, how about we just jump into our weekly list of STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston this weekend.

But before we do that, how about I remind you that tomorrow is BANDCAMP FRIDAY? The first Friday of almost every month, is Bandcamp Friday. That’s the day when my favored streaming service, Bandcamp, foregoes their usual cut of the money and lets the artists keep all the money spent on their music and merch. This is a great way to support the local and independent music scene by making sure the artists get a few extra pennies or quarters. You can scroll down and check the playlists for recent episodes of Radio Free Charleston to find links to many of the artist’s whose music I play on the show.

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 or Twitter. I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. 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.

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

Most Fridays and Saturdays you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. Friday’s musical act is TBA.  Saturday the music flows forth from Travis Vandal. Sunday a special show at 1 PM happens, with music from the acoustic duo, 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 burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late tend to 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 and also at The Empty Glass. 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. 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. See below for this weekend’s big show.

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 illlnesses 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.

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 that I was able to scrounge up online…

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I’m bumping today’s scheduled post to tomorrow so I can say a few words about a friend.

I learned last night that longtime head of the WVLC Film Services division, Steve Fesenmaier, passed away last Friday, from complications after major surgery.  Steve had been an ardent supporter of mine and my work here in the blog and with Radio Free Charleston, and was always a great friend.  He could spot me a quarter-mile away and I’d hear him bark out, “PANUCCI!”  Then I’d have to wait around to see what direction he was coming from.

It wasn’t just me. Steve was supportive of all West Virginia filmmakers, writers and creative people, and in a more sane and logical world, he would’ve been the state’s commissioner of culture and history. There are few people who were stronger advocates for creative people in West Virginia.

I couldn’t let his passing go without comment and I send my condolences to his loving wife, Frani.  Steve was well aware of the fact that I hate writing obituaries, and since he had the foresight to write his own obituary (which I am swiping from the Barlow Bonsall website), I’m going to give Steve something he deserves, the last word…

Steve was born on December 1, 1949 in Minneapolis, Minnesota in Fairview hospital on the West Bank of Minneapolis. He attended three different high schools in Minneapolis, graduating from Richfield. He worked as a certified highway technician at the Minnesota highway department from June 1967 until November 1971. He then attended the University of Minnesota from January, 1968 until his graduation in June,1971 with a magna cum laude degree in Philosophy of Science, studying under Professor Herbert Feigl, the last living member of the Vienna Circle and a friend of Albert Einstein. Feigl founded the world’s first Center for the Philosophy of Science in 1959, the Minnesota center, which exists now, publishing the most important books in the field. While studying philosophy, Steve was elected President of the Honors Student Council where he was active in publishing poetry, programming events, including a night with the President of the University and a film event against the Vietnam War. He worked half-time at the University Student Health Service, the largest such service in the world.

While a junior in college, he took a course from the most famous anti-Vietnam War activist, Marv Davidov, called “ Revolutionary Non-violence.” This inspired Steve to drive with friends to Washington, DC to protest the war in spring of 1970. He participated in local anti-war protests. He was eventually drafted but released due to his asthma and anti-war attitudes. His father denied him financial support for his senior year in college, but he received an Honors Division scholarship which replaced the funds. Steve also promised to teach two honors seminars in philosophy which he did in the fall of 1970 and spring of 1971.

In 1972, after returning to the University and traveling to Europe, Mexico and living in Phoenix and Fresno, California, Steve was appointed to the faculty-student long-range task force. While serving on the task force, he was chairman of the “ student in society” section. He proposed a rule that would require all graduate students be told about professional jobs in their respective fields. This rule has been enforced in all graduate programs.

After declining graduate education at McMaster University in Canada, Steve returned to the U of M, majoring in undergraduate studies in nursing and graduate studies in philosophy. He eventually left both programs without completed degrees but started a career in film exhibition at the world-famous University of Minnesota Film Society with Al Milgrom. He served as Secretary treasurer and president until 1978. In 1977, after a major injury, Steve worked toward the masters of Library Science department at the U. of M. Later he would be hired by Frederic J. Glazer, Executive Director of the West Virginia Library Commission, to become Head of the WVLC’s Film Services division. He met Frani when she accepted a transfer to be his assistant. Steve and Frances were officially married on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1980. Chief Supreme Court judge Darrell McGraw Jr. presided at the Dunbar Public Library with guest filmmaker, Les Blank serving as best man, receiving the blessing of the church at a later date. He was a member of Sacred Heart Co-cathedral.

He retired from WVLC on December 1, 2009, after 31 years of service. He and Frani traveled throughout the country, visiting all parts of Minnesota, Phoenix, Arizona, and many states in the eastern US from New York to Florida, especially enjoying a trip to New Ulm, Minnesota as a member of the Young Pioneers (descendants of the original settlers). They loved to travel, experiencing many memorable events during their travels.

Steve was invited to give presentations at an alternative media conference at NYU and the “First NY Conference on Film Exhibition” held at Saratoga Springs, New York. While he served as head of Film Services, his program was honored with several national and state awards including “ best statewide 16 mm program” by the US Department of Education in 1987. In 2006, he was made a West Virginia History Hero in a ceremony at the WV Cultural Center. Also, in that year, he and Frani were honored at the Pinch Reunion with a Samaritan Award conferred by the late George Daugherty, Earl of Elkview. He was profiled on National Public Radio in 1987 for his work on John Sayles’ landmark feature film “Matewan” and many other films. He was awarded the second “lifetime achievement award” in 1987, receiving the award from William Sloan, his long-time friend and mentor who was the Director of Circulating Film at The Museum of Modern Art. He co-founded the WV Filmmaker’s Guild in 1982, West Virginia International Film Festival in 1984, and the WV Filmmaker’s Festival in 1987. He wrote film columns for the Illustrated Appalachian Intelligencer, the WV Arts News, Graffiti Magazine and a film blog for the Charleston Gazette . He hosted a cable tv program for WVLC television services for 17 years. For many years he assisted Federated Jewish Charities with programming for the Jewish Film Festival. e 15-minute program was shown on cable networks around the state. He also published an annual list of “new films on WV and Appalachia” for Goldenseal magazine from 1979 until 2005, on and off. He finished his film programming career by presenting a WV/Appalachia film series at the South Charleston museum. He served on the board of the West Virginia Labor History Association under Dr. Fred Barkey. He assisted WV public servant Ken Hechler for 5 years as a researcher from 2004 until his retirement, helping him write five books and deliver many speeches nationwide.

Steve advised many filmmakers over his 50-year career in film. He helped a Minnesota filmmaker direct “ Maggie and the men of Minnesota” and encouraged his aunt Evelyn Fesenmaier Wallace, author of And Justice for None. For a decade, he advised film producers from around the world including the BBC and 60 Minutes. In 1985, as part of the 50th anniversary of the WV State Capitol celebration, he programmed the films of native son Pare Lorentz, FDR’s filmmaker, showing special prints donated by Lorentz himself of his two best known films, “ The Plow that broke the Plains” and “ The River”. Steve became friends with Mr. Lorentz, eventually recommending that a WV group create an award in his honor by the International Documentary Association that was headed by his good friend Betsy McLane. His first WV feature film with a credit to a then non-existent film office was “ Angel City” about West Virginians becoming migrant workers in Florida. Steve was an influence in founding the first WV Film Office along with Governor Caperton after testifying to the WV Senate on the need for a full-time film office. He turned down the job twice, preferring his library job. Steve assisted world-famous cataloging librarian Sanford Berman for more than 20 years, mainly doing computer research for over 200 subject headings for the Library of Congress including “WV Mine Wars.” Mr. Berman did not use computers after his retirement in 1999.

Steve’s greatest joy was his marriage to Frani, the person he most loved and trusted during an intense career in film exhibition. Without her, he would not have been able to keep Film Services going or to do many other things in his life. They shared a deep love for West Virginia, the film and library worlds, and their several dogs and many friends. On March 17th, they would have been married 45 years.

He is survived by his devoted wife Frances, his step-daughter Rosemary (Cary) and her two sons, Samuel and Jacob, nieces and nephews, and many dear friends, brother Daniel (Julie) of Fort Myers, Florida and sister Carolyn of Spokane, Washington.

He was predeceased by his mother and father and by brothers, David, Richard and sister, Donna Marie

The family wishes to thank the staffs of CAMC Memorial Hospital and Cedar Ridge Rehabilitation Center who cared attentively to Stephen through his last illness.

There will be no funeral service. An announcement will be made for a memorial service planned for later date. He will be laid to rest in the Mt. Olivet Catholic mausoleum at Spring Hill Cemetery in Charleston, where he will eventually be joined by his wife.

In lieu of flowers please consider a contribution to the Dr. Fred Barkey Education Fund of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, 401 Mate St. Matewan, WV. 25678. Their website, wvminewars.org also accepts donations.