Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 5 of 124)

This is a bit of a big week for PopCult.  Thursday marks twenty years since the start of this blog. While i was regularly posting my art here for the first year, it wasn’t until a couple of months before our first anniversary that I decided to begin every week with a “Monday Morning Art” post.  Since the beginning of PopCult, I’ve published around a thousand works of art, some digital, some photography and much of it physical paintings or drawings.

This week I’m loading up the blog with some special content, including retrospective articles, brand-new reviews and at least a couple of fun photo essays.

This week’s art is a small Impressionistic “painting” of what I saw at The American Sign Museum in Cinncinnati. If you’re not familiar with this cool place, just be patient. I’m running a photo essay of a recent visit there on Friday.

This painting was me attempting to capture the sheer sensory overload and joyous emotion at seeing so much lovingly restored Americana in one place. This was done on heavy illustration board with some new brush pen/paint markers I’m experimenting with.

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

Over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a new episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM an also new 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.

We do not have full playlists for the shows, but Nigel will present an hour of Vanilla Fudge on Psychedelic Shack, while Herman devotes the entire show to King Crimson, performing live on Prognosis.

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 an hour of Fluffy stand-up comedy on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the final edition of Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of  Mel Larch’s Curtain Call. Starting next week we are shaking up the schedule a little bit following a Labor Day Weekend marathon of Radio Free Charleston. After that, Monday’s will look different, but you can still enjoy The Sunday Marathon after that.

This week’s Sunday Evening Video is a repeat from just over four years ago. There is a fantastic new documentary on Netflix about the band, DEVO, who have been one of my favorite musical entities for nearly fifty years. Now all the spuds are finally realizing what I’ve known all along. You should go watch it right now to find out why I’ve been a Devangelist since 1978.  Here’s the entire text of what I wrote when I first posted this video in May, 2021…

Periodically, I like to run something here in PopCult to remind my readers that DEVO was right about everything, and that fact explains the sorry state of politics and human behavior in the world today. Here they are performing at Lollapalooza in 2003, doing songs from their first two albums. If only more people had done their duty then, for the future…

We are DEVO.

If you need some even more DEVO-y DEVO, check out this post.

From December, 2011, we have a psuedo-holiday episode of Radio Free Charleston. That’s episode 149, “Shredd’s Pizzeria Shirt,” at the top of this post, and it was an early Christmas present, that we loaded with special gifts for our loyal viewers.

We were proud to present a World Premiere music video by Sasha Colette, “Rock of Ages,” plus we had a music video by Huntington’s master of pop music, Jordan Andrew Jefferson, the RFC debut of a  then-new band, Trielement, and we dipped into our archives for a special Christmas tune performed by RFC‘s resident Diva, Melanie Larch and The Diablo Blues Band. We also had two trailers for special projects and we met Hasbro, in a vintage commercial.

You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
August 22, 2025

We have a little more urgency than usual with today’s photo essay.  I’m still playing catch-up from an insanely busy summer, but today I’m going to tell you about an exhibit at The Cinncinnati Museum Center (located in the iconic Cinncinnati Union Terminal) that closes on Sept 1. So you’ll have to hurry if you want to see it.

Barbie™: A Cultural Icon takes visitors on a journey through the six-decade evolution and the making of a global phenomenon.  Mrs. PopCulteer and I saw it earlier this month on my pre-birthday fun trip to Cinncinnati.

This is a pretty epic history of Barbie that presents all the major moments and turning points as the first Fashion Doll made her way through the turbulent 1960s to today, with hair and hemlines changing, the culture diversifying and careers opening up from the classroom to the moon and beyond.

To be honest, we hadn’t even really planned to visit this exhibit. I just wanted to see the incredible Art Deco masterpiece that is The Cinncinnati Union Terminal. I wasn’t even sure if the exhibit would still be going on when we wedged our visit in between two other museum stops on the same day. It was a spur of the moment decision, but we are really glad we decided to go.

Let me quote from the exhibit’s official description:

More than a doll. A cultural icon.

Today, Barbie is the most diverse doll line in the world, inspiring girls to imagine everything they can become. A role model, a muse, a best friend – Barbie means something to everyone. Step back into your childhood and join us on this exhibition of a six-decade evolution, and the making of a global icon.

Barbie™: A Cultural Icon takes you from 1959 to present day, examining how pop culture and fashion trends have shaped this global phenomenon. The exhibition celebrates Barbie as a reflection of culture, featuring a priceless collection of over 300 artifacts from the 66-year history of Barbie, including the very first 1959 doll, an original Barbie™ Dreamhouse, behind the scenes prototypes, as well as some of the most infamous Barbie dolls throughout history. You’ll also find numerous photo ops throughout the exhibition for shareable moments.

Curated and toured by Illusion Projects Inc., curated by Karan Feder, in partnership with Mattel Inc.

This is a really amazing show that pretty much uses Barbie to cover the last seven decades of pop culture. We had a blast, and we were so impressed by The Cinncinnati Museum Center that we are planning a return trip…or three.

The photos here just scratch the surface of this expansive exhibit…

Why not start at the beginning? It’s the first Barbie!

And her loyal sidekick, Ken.

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The PopCult Toybox

It’s been a while since I’ve written about Zuru Toys’ popular Mini Brands here in the blog, but they continue to be one of the most successful items in the toy department, with a huge and loyal following among kids and adult collectors.

They’ve expanded their line of tiny brand-name replicas of consumer products into nostalgia, with their Retro line, retailer-specific lines for KFC, Disney and Ulta, plus they’ve introduced Mini Brands of books, home furnishings and other themes.  They’ve also released a line of Mini Brand Create sets, that allow kids to make their own clay miniatures of food and other items that can be cured with UV light to hold their shape permanently.

Mini Brands have been a dioramist’s dream. Whether you’re creating dollhouses, gag photos and memes or action-figure photo stories, these have been a godsend.

Cindy Scott uses a lot of Mini Brands items (particularly the Retro line) in her spectacular dioramas.

Their latest expansion is the Fill The Fridge series, which is anchored by a very cool looking tiny refrigerator.  Not only is this real metal fridge, with a terrific  Mid-Century design, a nifty miniature in its own right, but it also serves a function with its interior light, which can be switched to UV so that kids and hobbyists can safely cure their Create minis without risking exposure to the UV light.

In UV mode, the light stays on when the fridge is closed. In regular light mode, it only  lights up when the fridge is opened.

It’s not only a functional tool, but it’s also a great way to display your collection of Mini Brands.

Accompanying this fridge is a new line of Mini Brands called, natually, Fill The Fridge. This line is exclusive devoted to products that you’d keep in the fridge or freezer, and it includes a lot of stuff that hasn’t been seen before in previous Mini Brand assortments, like fresh meat and produce, and those again are going to be welcomed heavily by dioramists and dollhouse curators.

Oh…and people who play with their large-scale GI Joes and Barbies, too.  They’ll eat up this stuff. This fridge will be right at home in any Dream House or Adventure Team Headquarters, and it’s even workable with MEGO sized figures.

It’s a high-quality toy and collectible, with solid construction and a cool retro design. The only drawback is the demand.  Fueled by viral videos, this toy has sold out locally at Walmart and Target, and is gone from Amazon. I was lucky to snag one when I did. It’s expected that these will be back in stock in the coming weeks, but they’re expected to be one of the hottest toys this Christmas.

I’ll comment more in the photos below.

a bigger look at the Fridge, in it’s double-wrapped packaging. Be careful when peeling the printed film off around the handles.

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On this August occasion it’s still hot and Summer is still very much in full swing despite the marketing entities declaring it over. Once again this weekend there are all sorts of mini-festivals and fairs and outdoor events all around the state.

We also have other cool things happening, so let’s go for a quick tour of STUFF TO DO around the state and beyond, shall we?

Wednesday night (that’s tonight, unless you’re reading this late) FestivALL presents Season 10, Episode 2 of Three Things at the John L. Dickinson Family Homeowner Education & Community Center (ReStore) This episode features Musician/Owner Folklore Music Exchange Justin Puett, Musician/General Manager Fife Street Brewery John Query, and Owner of Cups & Cats Cafe/ DJ at WTSQ Lora Reynolds.  FestivALL’s live monthly speaker series, Three Things, showcases three guests who will share insight into their personal story of where they started, what they love, and where they are going. I actually attended for the first time back in May, and it was a wonderful evening. General Tickets: $10 / Student Tickets: $5 (available day of show).

Friday night the CharlieWest All Stars get to make up their rained-out Live on the Levee show, and this time they have The Carpenter Ants opening for them. The music starts at 6 PM and this is a great chance to see a lot of incredible musicians who have been featured on Radio Free Charleston over the years…including one guy I’ve known since first grade (and that was a long time ago).

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 , Spoutible, Instagram or possibly Elon’s beast, if it should ever choose to forgive me.  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 also 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.

City Center Live at Slack Plaza in Charleston has announced their schedule for the summer.  You can find their schedule HERE.

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. This weekend they have Evan Wayne on Friday, and Minor Swing on Saturday.

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 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 many Tuesday evenings. 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. Pumzi’s looks to be beefing up their offerings in the coming weeks and months, so be sure to check that link in case we miss something.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment. This Friday at 7 PM  Coal River Coffee features Minor SwingI 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.

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. If somebody asks you to refrain, 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 that I was able to scrounge up online…

FESTIVALS

FRIDAY

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Tuesday is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR  but with only a new episode of Radio Free Charleston.  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.

This week  Radio Free Charleston is loaded with an hour of great new music from old friends and new favorites, two hours of a never-repeated episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume Three, from over ten years ago, when we were part of Voices of Appalachia/New Appalachian Radio.

Our first hour opens with a brand-new tune from the one-man band extraordinaire, J Marinelli. Then we have new music from Novelty Island, Erik Woods, The Settlement, David Byrne and Lindsey Stirling.

We’ve also got some great tracks making their RFC debut, including a classic cut from Fletcher’s Grove, who’s Groovin’ in the Grove 8 happens this weekend, with music from several RFC favorites.

Our second and third hours are a local and regional music time capsule from early 2015, with everything from Avant-Pop to Blues to Horror Punk, Americana, Lounge, Alternative, Metal and more. We do produce a diverse lot of music here in the state of mountains.

Even though I forgot to mention it in the show again  this week, links in the first hour below will take you to a website for the artist, where available.

Check out this impressive playlist…

RFC V5 237

hour one
J Marinelli “Eat The Gatekeepers”
Novelty Island “Rainy (Harmonium Version)”
A Tale of Two “The Canyon”
Corduroy Brown“Doin’ My Best (live)”
June Swoon “One Two”
Erik Woods “Do You Ever?
Fletcher’s Grove “Ride”
The Settlement “Searching”
Gilad Atzmon and The Orient House Ensemble “Gaza Mon Amour”
Tymon Dogg “Once You Know”
David Byrne “Everybody Laugh”
Lindsey Stirling “Untamed

hour two
QiET “Yes, I Want It All”
Quick And Dirty “Super Ninja”
Ann Magnuson “Man With No Face”
The Big Bad “Maniac Mansion”
Diablo Blues Band “Price of a Broken Heart”
Underdog Blues Revue “Back Door Blues”
The Horse Traders “Nothing At All”
The Ruinz “Used To Be Friends”
The Velvet Brothers “Savannah Moon”
Whistlepunk 2.0 “The Good”
Pepper Fandango “Wayward Girls”
The Buttonflies “Lil’ Birdie”
Go Van Gogh “I Can’t Sleep At Night”
Hellblinki “Bella Ciao”

hour three
David Synn “Space Gun”
Karma To Burn “Forty”
Dog Soldier “Christmas Song”
Time And Distance “Hell To Pay”
The Jasons “Camp Arawak”
The Nanker Phelge “21st Century”
Casi Null “Blue Haze”
Punk Jazz “Little Star”
Option 22 “Soul Song”
Carpenter Ants “Blessing”
Bob Clay “Fuel For The Fire”
Todd Burge “Hey, Little Christian Girl”
Frank Panucci “Flying Car”

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  While we wait to bring you a new episode next week, you can expect The Swing Shift to be encores of some classic episodes into the timeslot today.

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

This week’s art is a pastel study for a possible large-scale painting later.

It’s my interpretation of a photo I took a little more than a week ago in Cinncinnati’s Union Terminal, the historical Art Deco Mecca, formerly a train station and now containing several museums, an OmniMax theater and an underused Amtrak station. This building was the inspiration for The Hall of Justice on the Super Friends cartoon, and will likely inspire several more pieces of Monday Morning Art over the next few weeks.

This was me looking up at the ceiling in the lobby. It’s almost abstract because so many random angles  in this place are just dripping with artistic sensibilities. I’m still processing the awesomeness of this place, and you will be seeing actual photos and more in the next couple of weeks.

This view, with the sun peeking in through a cutaway window around noon, echoes the sun and solar system with its concentric circles struck me as something I’d want to try to capture in art. It’s nice to have working fingers again.

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 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 a classic episode of The Comedy Vault devoted to the raunchy music of Rusty Warren.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of episodes of Mel Larch’s Disco Showcase, MIRRORBALL.

It’s been nearly a month since the big Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo in Louisville.  and our final blast from the show is the video you see above.

We’ve already covered the people, dioramas this year’s music video and the Bulletman tribute, and Friday we had a massive photo essay of the toys we saw at the show (some of them, anyway).

Today, for the completists among you, we bring you just about every scrap of video we shot (all of it videographed by my lovely wife, Mel Larch). The only thing not in here is a short clip of Ace Allgood talking about the custom set he created of his dad, working in the Medical Corp in Korea. You got to see and hear that in the “People” post we did a couple of weeks ago.

The audio here has been removed because we don’t want to accidentally publish anybody’s disparaging comments, dirty jokes or plans for world domination.  Instead you will get to hear the soothing sounds of Frank Zappa and Emerson Lake and Palmer, because that’s what I was in the mood to hear when I put this video together.

Enjoy!

From late November, 2011, this week’s RFC Flashaback is “Red Popeye Shirt,” episode 148 of Radio Free Charleston. This edition of our show was hosted from a very soggy Veteran’s Memorial in Nitro, and presented music from the rock opera, “MARY” and Frenchy and the Punk.

This episode contains three songs filmed during the rehearsals for the Charleston institution, “Mary.” This was the fifteenth production of “Mary” the Scarpelli/Kehde rock opera from The Contemporary Youth Arts Company. We also had a great music video from our friends, Frenchy and the Punk, plus animation by yours truly, and we also have more confusing superhero action from Turkey, in honor of Thanksgiving.

You can read the full production notes HERE.