Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 4 of 143)

GI Joe Winterfest, the January show put on by the folks who do The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, happens next weekend, and above you see a music video I made for last year’s show.

Weather permitting, your PopCulteer and his lovely wife will be heading West (it’s really a pleasant drive) to just South of Louisville, Kentucky for the GI Joe Winterfest, a toy show produced by the fine folks behind The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo (which happens in July). Check out the Facebook Event Page for full details and preview photos. I have not decided if I’m going to shoot video this year. I will take tons of photos for the blog, but I’ve got to do some major computer maintenance before I can crank out video, so I may not shoot as much, if any, just to lighten my workload.

I’ll probably at least do a music video, though.

This will be our fourth or fifth Winterfest, and it’s back at the home of The Kentuckiana show.  GI Joe Winterfest happens at the Paroquet Springs Conference Centre, at 395 Paroquet Springs Drive, in Shepherdsville, KY.  It’s not far at all from the South Louisville Antique Toy Mall, so most toy collectors ought to have an easy time finding it. Check out how cool it looks…

Kick off the new year with a a celebration of over 60 years of GI Joe. Find old and new 12 inch and 3 3/4 inch GI Joes, plus Star Wars, Super Hero figures, Marx, TMNT, Transformers and much more. In addition, There will be dozens of vendors  and the show promises lots of old and new Megos, Big Jim, Pop Culture items and much more.

GI Joe Winterfest is Saturday, with a Friday preview. Here’s the hours and details:

Saturday 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM Admission Just $8.00
Early Bird Admission at 9:00 AM for $15.00

Friday Night Preview (5:00 PM-8:00 PM) for $30.00
(Preview includes Early Bird admission on Saturday)

All admissions payable at the doors.

Below we have music videos for the previous two years…

This week we head back to the first day of October, 2012, for Radio Free Charleston 170, “Regular Show Shirt.”

This episode is a valentine to Budget Tapes and Records, the legendary music and lifestyle emporium that was just then celebrating forty years of serving area music fans from their Kanawha City location, and managed to hang on almost another dozen years after this.

Our host segments originated from Budget, and we even have two songs by Farnsworth, recorded on location at the release party for their first EP at the legendary store.

RFC 170 also brought viewers a song from the Contemporary Youth Arts Company production of the Dan Kehde/Mark Scarpelli original, The Legend of Ginger and Billy Joe: The Stock Car Musical, as well as animation and a found film compilation by Frank Panucci.

You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
January 16, 2026

Charleston’s Restaurant Week is coming up from January 26 to 31, and it’s time for my annual reminder that, if you’re in the area, this is a great way to sample some of the Charleston area’s newest or trendiest restaurants at a discounted price.

We’re talking about “fine dining” here, so those discounted prices range from twenty-five to forty-nine bucks for a three-course meal for one person. This is not fast food, and you’ll want to be sure to scope out the menus ahead of time to make sure that the set selections at that price are to your liking.

Each restuarant offers an appetizer, entree and dessert, for one. Drinks are extra. And most of the restaurants give you a choice between two offerings for each course. This makes it more efficient for them, so don’t expect much in the way of substitutions.

You can find graphics with the Restaurant Week menus for each participating restaurant at the Facebook Page for Restaurant Week.

You can also find Steven J. Keith’s  detailed analysis of those menus at his blog.

Steven offers an enthusiastic rundown of the complete menus, and he’s more qualified to write about this event than yours truly because…I have no plans to try any of these special menus.

I think it’s a great idea, and it’s wonderful for the area. Foodies should definitely partake and sample as many of these great restaurants as they can.

But…as I have written about in PopCult many times, I have far too many dietary restrictions and my own sets of tastes and quirks that make attempting to try any of these meals downright dangerous, if not off-putting for me, personally.

Before I go any further, let me explain that I am not complaining about nor am I condemning any of these restaurants. Any restaurant that tried to exclusively cater to my food quirks would probably go out of business in a week. There’s just too much stuff I can’t eat, and an even longer list of stuff I won’t eat.

I posted a silly note about this on Facebook earlier in the week, and my comedic skills must have been diminished because most people reacted as though it were a sad lament. It was not. I was poking fun at myself. This is not a “poor me” column. It’s a “go ahead and laugh at me” column.

It could also be an “easy ways to kill Rudy” column, but hopefully that angry guy from KV Live won’t be reading this.

THINGS I CAN’T EAT

I have a lot of unusual dietary restrictions. I can’t eat mushrooms (or truffles or stuff like that). It’s not exactly an allergy. It’s an extreme toxic reaction. I do not pass anaphylaxis, I go straight to organ failure. I have to avoid mushrooms. It is a matter of life and death for me. Anybody who thinks this is something to joke about is just being an asshole.

I have a standard food allergy to strawberries, as well as many other berries that are supposed to be good for you. With these it’s itching, rashes, general misery, but nothing fatal.

I am allergic to rubbing alcohol, and alcoholic drinks burn enough that I consider myself allergic to them, too. This is no great loss since I could never stand the taste of any alcoholic beverages anyway. This includes beer. I have tasted beer before, just out of curiosity. I have never tasted urine, but I would imagine it tastes about like the beer I tried, so I’ll gladly pass on that.

It’s just as well, since I don’t show the usual signs of inebriation. A doctor once told me that I could drink until I died from alcohol poisoning without ever getting drunk. I’ve never had any desire to test that theory.

A few years ago I learned that avocado somehow counteracts the meds I take to control Myasthenia Gravis. This is apparently a rare reaction, but I managed to learn about it the hard way. It’s part of the joy of being a medical anomoly.

With mushrooms, alcohol, strawberries and avocado out of the question for me, that’s more than half of the restaurant week menus ruled out, and that’s not even taking my personal tastes into account.

THINGS I WON’T EAT

Personal tastes are where I draw a whole new set of boundaries. Some food I just don’t like. Nobody has any right to tell me I’m wrong for having my own tastes, and I don’t judge anybody who loves food that I find repulsive. I see way too much of people demonizing other people on social media because of what they eat or how they eat it. The food bullying is pretty pathetic, and says a lot about the person doing the bullying.

If somebody wants their steak well done, then let them have it well done. Get your head out of your ass and mind your own damn business instead of calling them “evil” on social media because they don’t like their meat cooked the same way as you.

For the record…I don’t even eat red meat anymore. About seven months ago I just lost any desire for it. It doesn’t even look like food to me anymore. Of all the evil things in the world today that you can call people out on, what they eat (unless it’s babies) is not in the top million.

I do have strongly-held opinions about what I will or won’t eat. I do not expect anyone else to conform to my tastes, and to be fair, I will refrain from posting some of my reasons for hating certain foods because I don’t want to do anything to lessen the enjoyment of those foods by other people.

Just accept that I like different things than you, and move on. In fact, you can have my share.

There are foods I find repulsive to the point that they nauseate me. These include mayonnaise, cole slaw, ham, bacon, deviled eggs, oysters, sour cream, candy corn, cucumbers (oddly enough, I like pickles), most jams and jellies and preserves and spaghetti-like pasta (it’s the shape, not the pasta itself). Again, I could write very funny reasons for each of those, but I see no need to possibly ruin them for folks who like to eat that stuff.

I also can’t stand the smell of smoked meat. It smells like a tire fire to me. I have been known to avoid streets where I know one of those BBQ trailers is parked because the smell is so offensive to me. I’ve been like this for years, and maybe that had something to do with me finally losing any desire to even eat a hamburger. I don’t miss it at all. I’m fine with chicken and fish as my main source of meatish proteins.

Of late I’m even feeling a bit tofu-curious.

When it comes to spicy food, I prefer flavor over heat. I just don’t like the taste of Jalapeno or Chipoltle. I’m fine with milder chiles.  And while I love chicken, I hate wings.  Too many of them are like licking battery acid off of a bone.  Anything “Buffalo,” again…you can have my share.

There are also foods of which I am simply not a fan. I wouldn’t starve myself, they were the only thing around, but if I ever eat pancakes or waffles, I skip the syrup. The combination sorta grosses me out. I find it hard to get excited about iceberg lettuce. If I can build a salad on any other green leafy thing, I will.  I find baked potatoes to be boring. It is the C-Span of side dishes.

There’s plenty of foods I love, but again, I don’t care if you like or hate them. You do you.

PICKING YOUR FOOD FIGHTS

My late friend, Lee Harrah, had a deep, unabiding, intense hatred of vegetable soup. I could never understand it, but I never tried to get him to change his mind. I love a good bowl of vegetable soup, but it was one of the things he hated most in the world, and it could Hulk trigger him into a rage.

He felt the same way about mermaids and Diane Keaton, so I just sort of changed the subject and tried not to bring those things up again.

My point there being, respect other people’s tastes. They may love something you hate, and hate something you love, and that’s okay. And if Restaurant Week sounds like fun to you, by all means go to it. It could be a lot of fun.

A last note: I do patronize many locally-owned restaurants, and most of my favorites are not taking part in Restaurant Week. And that’s okay, because most of my favorite places are inexpensive enough that you can feed two people, leave a nice tip and bring home leftovers for less than the price of the average Restaurant Week menu for one.

And I never get any grief for asking them to leave out something that might kill me. It has been my experience that the more expensive a restaurant is, the less flexible they are about adjusting their menu to accomodate your food allergies.

If you find the Restaurant Week offerings a little too expensive, or outside your tastes, let me recommend Dwight’s, Shuckers, Mediterranean Breeze or The Red Line Diner in Saint Albans; Shima’s in Nitro; Roma’s in Cross Lanes/Nitro; Graziano’s in South Charleston; Plaza Mayo in Kanawha City and Leonoro’s in Charleston.

And if you have other recomendations, feel free to leave them in the comments.  Mel and I are always up to try a new place. I just need to see the menu first to see if it’s safe.

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

20 years ago (tomorrow, actually), I posted a “Local Notes” story that tied together brief items on three local things. You can read it HERE.

It wasn’t a spectacular post, but revisiting it gives me an opportunity to address one of the curious things about PopCult.

Due to our origins as part of The Charleston Gazette, the local scene has always been a huge part of this blog. Being a blog about pop culture means that my reach exceeds my local grasp, and as the years have gone by I have written more and more about things that are not necessarily focused on Central West Virginia. I must be doing something right, because last year, while I wasn’t really paying attention, readership of PopCult more than doubled, and I’m confident that we actually have more daily readers than The Charleston Gazette-Mail does now.

Even though my local interest posts only attract a fraction of the readers of my book, toy, movie or cereal reviews or travel photo essays and videos, I keep doing them because it is a way to support the local scene, but it also lets me do something easier than writing a detailed review every day of the week. The weekly STUFF TO DO post, where I run a boilerplate and graphics, is sort of my half-day off, because it takes so little effort.

That’s why PopCult is regarded as a “local blog that isn’t always about local stuff,” as another esteemed blogger once said.

But back to that original post from January 16, 2006, in it I plugged three local things, and sadly two of them appear to be gone for good.

The first item promoted a “Briefs and Shorts” program put on by Kanawha Players. KP was designated as the official theater company of West Virginia for much of their existence, but sadly, it appears that existence has come to an end. The last event they actually held was a 100th anniversary performance of Overtones, the very first show they produced on November 3, 1922. The anniversary show was held November 26, 2022 at the Kanawha County Public Library.

A planned performance of The Vagina Monologues in early 2023 was cancelled. No events have been announced since. Their domain name has expired. The Facebook page has only had a dozen posts in the ensuing three years, none of them saying anything about them still being an ongoing concern.

I suppose that it’s possible that KP might be revived, but for the time being, we have to consider them defunct.

And that is a sad end for a theater company that has been responsible for some of the greatest moments in local theater for a hundred years.

The second item in that post was a plug for The  West Virginia International Auto Show, which happened the weekend of that post.

It wasn’t until I started updating this post that I realized that the WVIAS is apparently also no more than a memory. The last one was held in 2024. Last year’s show was cancelled unexpectedly, and with nothing scheduled for this year, it appears this event is apparently also defunct. The domain name has also expired. Nothing has been announced since last year’s cancellation and the fact that I either forgot that it was cancelled or never noticed in the first place is a clue that, just maybe, not enough people cared about buying new cars to make the event worthwhile.

I know personally, I don’t find much of anything exciting about new cars. Most of them look alike and have touchscreens for controls.  Add in the fact that new cars cost as much as a house these days, and I think we can figure out why this show ended.

On a happier note, the third item in that post was a plug for Rick Lee’s Blog. Rick’s Blog is still up so you can read it and see Rick’s amazing photography….but he has not updated it since 2012. Rick was one of the major proponents of most local blogs, and was very encouraging to me, and several other local blog-makers.  But he has moved on to other things.

And who can blame him? I mean, nobody reads blogs anymore. You’d have to be crazy to still be blogging in 2026.

Happily, Rick is still an active photographer, and you can see his work at his website, or actually all over the place because his work is in such demand.

And, making things even happier, since I’m writing about Rick here,  I don’t think he’ll mind if I swipe one of his images for the feature image today, since the original entry doesn’t have any graphics for me to mine for today’s post. At least I hope he doesn’t mind.

So credit for the feature image at the top of this post goes to Rick. the image (sans my 20 year logo) is  swiped from Rick’s website.  Go hire him if you need some photos taken. The man has an amazing eye and his compositional skills are a superpower.

And that is an updated look at what was in this blog (almost) exactly 20 years ago, today.

It’s cold, but there’s still things you can get into with our trademark cursory list of cool STUFF TO DO all over the state, noted as briefly as possible.

As always, you should remember that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. Seriously, for the last several weeks, by the time the weekend rolls around, I discover several events that I just totally missed out on.  Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or 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.

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.

This week’s feature event happens all weekend in Beckley…

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 The Carpenter Ants on Friday, Kurt Shultis on Saturday and Spencer Elliott on Sunday.

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 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.

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…

We are two weeks into 2026 on The AIR  and we’re marking the occasion with a new episode of Radio Free Charleston that is packed with three hours of local, independent and really cool music. 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 brand-new show with the first two hours loaded with great local and independent stuff, and the final hour showcasing some great and varied instrumental music.

We open our show this week with Samuel S.C., a band recommended highly by local Scenester, Jon Raider. Jon also mentioned that they’d like to land a show in Charleston, since they’re playing so many towns around us.

We also load up our first hour with great new tunes from J Marinelli, Armeda’s Island, Kula Shaker, and more. Our second hour features new tunes from The Heavy Hitters Band, The Settlement, Spock’s Beard, Moron Police, Gardenn and more.

The third hour this week is all instrumental music, leading off with a brand-new track from David Synn. It’s also a mixtape, so you don’t have to listen to so much of my voice.

This show was recorded less than 12 hours before it’s debut airing, because other stuff was going on all day. So if I sound a little loopy, that’s why.

Check out this playlist, with links to the artist’s page where available…

RFC V5 255

hour one
Samuel S.C. “Evergreen”
J Marinelli “I Can’t Care”
HARRAH “Nothing Me”
Custard Flux “Winter”
Byzantine “Servitude”
Karen Lawrence & The Pinz “I Won’t Stop”
Ghoulbox  “Rats in the Morgue”
Armeda’s Island “A Truth Hard to Tame”
Joy Viver “Anima Mundi”
Kula Shaker “Be Merciful”
Heavy Set Paw Paws “Molly’s Chambers”
June Swoon “Blood From A Stone”
Erik Woods “Do You Ever”
The Bad Shepherds “Rise”

hour two
The Heavy Hitters Band “Ain’t No Sunshine”
The Settlement “Lizard On The Run (Live)”
Spock’s Beard “St. Jerome In The Wilderness”
Moron Police “Pachinko”
Unmanned “Light The Beacons”
Gardenn “Tour Dates”
Julian Lennon “I Hope”

hour three
David Synn “1984”
Steve Morse Band “Tumeni Partz”
Byzantine “The Clockmaker’s Intention”
Guitarmy of One “Western Spies Surf at Dawn”
Peter Frampton “The Frightened City”
Ritchie Blackmore “Apache”
Devon Allman & Nightvision “Welcome To Rylos, my boy!”
Jan Akkerman “Big Sur”
Dark Entities “March of the Skulls”
Jim & The Sea Dragons “Shooting Stars”
The Ventures “Love Goddes of Venus”

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  The Swing Shift is an encore of two recent episodes.

 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.

Today’s art is the kind of thing you do when you aren’t terribly inspired, but really want to try out some new brushes and fresh tubes of paint.

Which is why it’s a semi-abstract, glorified doodle. It’s a series of four very rough cartoonish doodles based on a famous 1928 John de Mirjian photograph of actress/showgirl Wanda Stevenson.  I arranged them sort of Busby Berkley style and distored each figure differently.  Hence the title.

It’s acrylic on illustration board, using brushes that are way more stiff than I use for my more photorealistic pieces. If you think the color scheme is a bit influenced by the flag of Chicago…you might be right.

I wish I had a better reason for having done this besides trying out new brushes and paints, but that’s pretty much why this exists.

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 9 PM we bring you our Monday night line-up featuring two hours each of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, plus six hours overnight with an assortment of our programming from Haversham Recording Institute. The Haversham stuff starts at 1 AM and tonight it’s all Sydney Fileen and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.

The Bad Shepherds are a folk/Celtic/Punk band formed by Ade Edmondson and Troy Donockley, and they released three albums from 2009 to 2013, and toured extensively.

Edmondson, as many people probably know, is famous for his roles in The Young Ones, Bottom and other classics of British Alternative Comedy. Donlockley is a multi-instrumentalist known for his work with the band, Nightwish.

They are, essentially, a virtuoso joke band. They perform traditional Celtic arrangements of Punk and New Wave songs, and as with the best jokes, they are delivered mostly with a straight face. Even their name is a religious pun.

They called it a day almost a decade ago, but I thought it might prime the pump for folks to get excited about Charleston’s Celtic Calling, which is just a few weeks away, if I brought you some Bad Shepherd pie. I’m scattering four videos here for you.

We go back to late September, 2012 for Radio Free Charleston 169, “The Black Knight Rises,” which featured music from Emily Burdette, Godmode Broadway and The Nanker Phelge, plus two short films by Frank Panucci.

This episode ws hosted from The Mound in South Charleston as a bit of a preview of the very first ShockaCon.

This episode leads with the first of two shorts by Frank Panucci. “A Guide To International Road Signs” is a classic, award-winning educational short made by Frank way back in 1990, before the fall of the Berlin Refrigerator and the collapse of the Potrzebie regime in Eastern Europe. We also get a new LAX animation, which includes a subtle subliminal advertisement.

Our first musical guest this week was Emily Burdette, a talented singer/songwriter, and a filmmaker to boot. On this episode we were proud to bring you her debut music video, “Fall Air.” This video was directed by Curtis Baskerville, and shot in Lewisburg, West Virginia. A few weeks after this episode, RFC presented a music video by Amanda Brigette, directed by Emily.

Godmode Broadway made their debut on RFC earlier 2012, and burned brightly, if only for a short time, as one of the coolest bands in town. We recorded Godmode Broaday at The Blue Parrot, and they treat us to their song, “Origins.”

Our final guests on this episode of the show were our old friends, The Nanker Phelge, and they play us out with a song recorded on Christmas Eve, 2010 at The Empty Glass, “Killer Took a Holiday.”

You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
January 9, 2026

Earlier this week Charleston’s Mayor, Amy Goodwin, announced that the city has been engaged in talks with The Hull Group, the owners of The Charleston Town Center Mall, to acquire the mall and attempt to either revitalize it, or develop it into something more useful.

Even though this was all over the local news, it wasn’t exactly news. She said the same thing eleven months ago on 580 Live on WCHS Radio, but this time it was in an official address, so folks are needlessly excited.

This has led to endless talk and speculation about the future of The Town Center, so I figured why not join in? It’s fun! The mall is currently operating with less than 15% of its available retail space actually being used. The rest is comfortably cocooning behind drywall, hoping to be reborn. It’s estimated that as much as 70%  of the current foot traffic at the mall is from people making “ghost mall” videos for YouTube or Tik Tok.  This does not seem sustainable.

There are a few facts that have to be recognized before you jump feet-first into any discussion about the future of the mall.

First of all, you’re not just dealing with one owner. Each anchor store owned their own land, and now with all four of the original anchor stores gone, things are more complicated than they had been.

And they were already plenty complicated. The parking buildings are owned by a separate entity. I believe it’s a group of the original bondholders who bought them back out of an auction to keep them from being sold for less than they thought they were worth. Also, a different entity, one controlled by the city, owns the land those parking building are on.

I think the city also has a stake in the land that was the former Macy’s, which has been demolished to make way for the now-questionable Aquatic Center (with all the aquatic elements excised), which may never happen. The city may have bought the JC Penny, which closed last year. I’m not clear on that.

The former Sears is supposed to be a hotel. Plans were filed about a year ago, but I don’t think any ground has been broken yet. That should still happen. It’s a great location.

Is it a prize, or a boondoggle?

Doing anything with the rest of the property is going to require some serious consolidation. The Hull Group, who owns the actual mall, seem to be perfectly content to use what is now essentially a ghost mall as a tax write-off to offset profits from their thriving mall properties in other states. They don’t seem too interested in doing what might be best for the city. This is a company that bought a mall in Reading, Pennsylvania, and eventually tore it down, leaving a fenced-in grassy field between the two still-operating anchor stores because that was cheaper than trying to refurbish it and attract new tenants. In order to pry this property from their hands, it’s going to take more money that they’re getting now from their accounting gymnastics.

Making the leap into a fantasy world where all of that land: the mall; the parking buildings; the former Macy’s and JC Penny–let’s say all of that winds up in the hands of one entity, then you have to figure out what the best use of the property would be.

I see a lot of posts on social media suggesting that this land be used for low-income housing for the elderly or disabled. There are so many reasons that will never happen, many of them being very ugly reasons, that it’s not worth discussing. There would just be too much money involved to expect it to be used for any purpose that doesn’t generate revenue.

The folks who were pushing big for a sports center so they could grab some of those “sports tourism” dollars may have come back to reality now that there has been a glut of sports centers in nearby areas, and many are struggling. That market is saturated.

I just freaking hate the idea of a downtown casino. Charleston needs to do more than cater to harmful vices in the pursuit of economic development. The same goes for breweries or distilleries. Charleston has plenty of those now, even as nationwide alcohol consumption is dropping and craft breweries and distilleries are starting to shut down.

And that leaves us with retail, which is a shaky enough proposition. Let’s say they try to go with the path of least resistance and keep The Charleston Town Center as a retail space.

First, both parking structures need to be replaced. They are over forty years old and it’d be more efficient to replace them with a new design than it would to keep trying to fix their many issues. New parking buildings should incorporate retail space into the ground floor, just to boost the potential for revenue, because they should not be charging much, if anything for parking. There’s plenty of shopping down Corridor G with free parking.

Charging for parking hurts foot traffic, and foot traffic is vital to attracting tenants, and new tenants are vital to bringing in more foot traffic. It’s a cycle. Right now they charge five bucks for anybody to park at the Town Center, which is why hardly anybody ever goes there.

Lets look at what the Town Center has now. Not counting restuarants, cellphone stores or offices, there are thirteen stores, an art gallery, The WV Music Hall of Fame and The Post Office.

I’ve been to strip malls with more retailers than that.

Any new retail devleopment is going to face serious challenges to get people to even considering going to the mall. Potential anchor stores aren’t exactly clamoring to come to Charleston. The best hope for the JC Penny space would be a second-tier department store, like Dillards, Boscov’s or Belk.

Meijer would be a fantastic addition, since they also have a grocery store, but I just don’t seem them picking Charleston to be their first West Virginia location. Besides, they demand free and plentiful parking. Getting them might require bulldozing the rest of the mall.

H&M is a possibility, but I doubt they’d want both floors of the space.

Old Navy would also be a terrific choice that would bring in a lot of traffic, but they may make the more sensible choice of locating at the new Park Place shopping center currently being built in South Charleston.

The idea of bringing in local retailers is delightful and a wonderful dream. It just does not mesh well with the reality of how much rent the mall would have to charge and how big a burdon that would be on non-chain retail stores.

I have a dream list of stores, but they either aren’t likely, or just not even remotely realistic. I’d love to see Barnes & Noble, Half-Price Books, Sir Troy’s Toy Kingdom, Lush, Miniso, FYE, Van’s, Box Lunch, Duluth Trading or any of the many cool stores that they have in other cities that Mel and I travel to now because Charleston is so devoid of current hot retailers.

Add to that Panda Express, Insomnia Cookies, Potbelly, Noodles & Company, Pie Five and some newer food retailers, and you could actually see more people going to the mall again.

The problem is, everybody has a wish list, and everybody’s wish list is different, and–at least in my case–too far outside the mainstream to attract much mainstream foot traffic. I’m a bit weird that way. If a mall doesn’t have a book or toy store, or a place that sells vinyl, I have no use for it. Ask Mel. I’m sure it’s annoying.

There are plenty of thriving malls in this country that have nothing to interest me. While I’m sure some of my readers will look at the stores and restaurants I listed and think it looks great, others will shake their heads and ask about clothing, shoe, jewelry, and accessory stores that I honestly couldn’t care about less.

“Completely uncontaminated by humans” is not a selling point for prospective new tenants.

All of this speculation ignores the major issue: Nothing’s going to happen any time soon. If, by some miracle, all of the land involved in The Charleston Town Center could be consolidated tomorrow, it would still take at least three to five years before any plans could be drawn up. The only thing we can count on is that more retailers will leave The Town Center. In the eleven months since it was annnonced that plans have been submitted to build the long-expected hotel where Sears used to be, a dozen retailers have exited the mall.

By the time any development could start, the entire retail and economic landscape could change drastically. We could wind up in a great economic boom, or more likely a depression.

We’ve seen how long it’s taken to demolish the old building and break ground on the hotel on the former Sears. We’ve also seen the Aquatic Center plans, announced three and a half years ago, quietly go off the rails, first eliminating the aquatic aspects, and then putting the entire idea on hold due to a funding gap.

Unless they decide to try to preserve the old mall structure, there’s not a thing that’s going to happen with that land for at least a decade. And trying to revive the mall as it is might simply not be worth the investment.

It’s a harsh reality, but we are living in harsh times. I’ve been trying to figure out what the future of the Charleston Town Center would be in this blog for at least seven years, and I haven’t come close with any of my predictions.

That is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for fresh content every day, plus all our regular features.