Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 103 of 581)

The PopCulteer
March 13, 2020

This has been one of the strangest PopCulteer essays I’ve ever had to write.

As everyone knows, we are most definitely living in interesting times at the moment. The original plan for today’s column was to tell you all about ToyLanta, the big toy convention that I go to every year now. It’s supposed to start next Friday, and as I write this, it has not yet been canceled or postponed. I will tell you more about that in a bit, but first we have to address the sick elephant in the room.

The last few days have taught us not to count on things remaining stable. As I sit here in my office on a stormy Thursday night, the whole country is joining together to make a sacrifice for the good of the weakest of us. Sporting events, concerts, plays, film festivals, pop culture conventions and any other imaginable gathering have been canceled so that we can hopefully “flatten the curve” and stem the proliferation of Covid-19, which is a pretty lethal virus. I think we can all agree now that this is not a hoax or a political stunt, and all serious-minded people need to work together to stem the tide of this horrible disease.

Update…11 AM: Demonstrating the fluidity of the situation, we have a statement from ToyLanta…

We understand your concerns and our priority as always is for everyone to have a safe and happy experience. We are meeting multiple times each day when we have new information. Buddy, one of our board members, has met with the Cobb County Board of Commissioners to seek their counsel. We commit to you that we will advise you of any change as soon as we have any update.

Update…5 PM: Larry Hama, creator of the “Real American Hero” GI Joe, has pulled out of the event due to concern over Covid-19. He will attend virtually, and take sketch requests, if the event goes on.

Update: 7:20 PM: The show has been canceled.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
With an ache in our heart, we announce that after an extremely difficult deliberation, meetings with the hotel, and meetings with local officials, we regretfully have come to the conclusion that we need to cancel Toylanta/Joelanta this year.  We are working on plans for refunds and we have already booked the dates for ’21 and ’22 and will be announcing those shortly. Please forgive us. It is with a heavy heart that we arrived at this decision but we believe it is the best decision because we love you all and want to keep you safe. We will be announcing some details shortly. Please bear with us in the interim.

About eight hours ago (as I write this), I posted a review of the play, Bug, which is running at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. Or rather, it was. All remaining performances of Bug have been canceled, along with every other play at a major theater in Chicago, as well as Broadway and off-Broadway, and just about every other large event in the country. All that stuff I said about making sure you don’t miss it?  Nevermind.

Wednesday I posted a long “Stuff To Do” column, plugging local events, and to be honest, I’m wondering now if it was a good idea to even do that. I don’t know how many of those shows are going to happen as planned. There’s certainly a strong argument to be made for postponing everything scheduled for this weekend. It seems like the whole world is changing every five minutes or so, so maybe the best advice I can give anyone is that this is a good weekend to watch Netflix and chill. We don’t really need to be out gathering in large crowds.

The reason for this is to keep the Covid-19 virus from spreading and killing the eldery, sick, young or immuno-supressed among us. This is not panic. It’s common sense, and after spending way too much time trying to explain it to way too many people today, I just don’t have the energy to do it again without getting insulting.

Instead, let me remind my longtime readers and inform any new readers that I suffer from Myasthenia Gravis. MG is an auto-immune disorder that causes your muscles to not respond to the signals your brain sends to them, and leaves you with paralysis. The more you use those muscles, the weaker they get. I am lucky enough to have a mild case, but I still take some pretty heavy-duty meds to allow me to do things like see straight and use my fingers.

I am immuno-suppressed. My immune system was attacking my body, and I have to weaken it in order to function. I’m one of those people for whom events are being canceled. I take a medicine that is normally used for organ transplant patients so that they don’t reject their new body part.

Yet, I still hope to attend ToyLanta. This is a show that’s so special to me that I am literally willing to risk my life to go there. As I write this, the show’s organizers are gung-ho that it’s going to go on as planned. It’s the 20th anniversary year for the show, which began as “JoeLanta,” and it’s their first time in an exciting new location. I hope to be sitting in that new hotel a week from now, trading toys and shooting video and having fun.

This could all change in an instant, so keep checking PopCult for updates.

I will not be shocked if a number of guests and vendors make the decision not to attend this year. This is a most unusual situation. I’m sort of prepared for it because the water crisis in West Virginia back in 2014 was a bit of a dry run for coping with previously unthinkable dystopian conditions, but this is quite different. I don’t blame anyone who decides to change their plans, and if the organizers decide not to have the show next weekend, I absolutely understand.

Melanie and I are still going to Georgia next weekend. I need a road trip (Chicago was a train trip–it’s a different thing completely). If ToyLanta doesn’t happen, we’ll find plenty of things to get into down there, and we plan to take a day to run to Senoia for Walking Dead fun for Mel regardless. We don’t have to stop living. We just have to stop living all in the same place at the same time.

If ToyLanta does happen as planned, I will be there, taking precautions, video camera in tow. I will not be doing interviews with anyone this year. Thanks to the NBA, we now know that microphones can pose a risk of transmission. We’ll steer clear of physical contact, eat our meals in our room and maybe keep to ourselves more than we normally would, just to be on the safe side. It’s not because I’m anti-social. It’s so I can stay alive.

And licking fuzzy-headed GI Joes to check the quality of the hair is right out. We’ll have none of that.

It’s going to be a fun show, if it happens. It always is.

As the event page says, “Join us for our big 20th Anniversary Celebration at our NEW LARGER LOCATION! 2 Floors of TOYS of all kinds, including GI Joe, STAR WARS, MOTU, TMNT, Captain Action, Hot Wheels, Monster Toys,MEGO, Transformers, Marx Playsets, Marvel Legends, Anime, Games, Comics, Records and much more! Plus Special Guests, Custom Figure and Diorama Contests, Cosplay Contest, Exhibits, Demonstrations, Workshops, Film Festival, Musical Guests and more!”

As a reporter, I’m a bit conflicted about how to tell you about the show. There are all kinds of great guests and panelists scheduled, but things are changing so rapidly that I could write about them tonight and before this post goes live, things could have changed completely. I don’t like that my review of Bug ran after what turned out to be the final performance. I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting your time here. Things can change at a moment’s notice, and the city, county or state could declare that the show not go on despite the best intentions of the good folk who produce ToyLanta.

So I’m going to be lazy and post some graphics below. I believe these are largely the work of Bambi Lynn, from Radio Cult and Buddy Finethy (correct me if I’m wrong, guys), and this way if a guest cancels at the last minute I can just edit that graphic out to avoid confusion. Stay tuned for further updates.

Update…Saturday morning: The show has been called off, so I’m removing the graphics and replacing them with this…

So there you have a whole slew of cool stuff that I really really hope we get to experience next week. I will be telling you more about ToyLanta up until the show, so if there are any changes you can read about them here. Sunday we’ll bring you more videos from back in the JoeLanta days, and we’ll also have all our regular features. That’s it for this week’s PopCulteer.

PopCult Theatre Review

First, apologies are in order. Things got busy here and I didn’t get a chance to write and post this review until now. We were able to see this production of Bug two weeks ago.

Be advised, if you are in the Chicago area, you only have a few more chances to catch this play. Its extended run ends Sunday, March 15.

Bug is an early work by award-winning playwright Tracy Letts, and it’s a pretty stark, memorable piece. The action all takes place in a seedy motel room in Oklahoma, and two main characters carry the bulk of the play.

This is either a love story filled with madness, or just a tale of madness with the veneer of love stretched over it. There is drug use, self-harm, murder and full-frontal nudity on stage, and it is all in service to the plot.

Agnes, a forty-something cocktail waitress who has survived multiple traumas is cooped up in the motel, hiding out from her abusive ex, who has just been released from prison. She passes her spare time mostly alone, drinking and smoking crack.

Through one of her waitressing buddies, she meets Peter, a conspiracy-minded Gulf War veteran who may be AWOL, and who shows signs of various mental issues. They bond over lonliness, and Agnes falls into Peter’s paranoid schizophrenic fantasies.

The two become convinced that their room is infested with bugs.

Written at a time when conspiracy theories were just beginning to take hold in mainstream America, when the militias were on the rise in the wake of the Murrah Building bombing and the internet was in its infancy. Letts’ play demonstrates the influence that conspiracy theories can have on the minds of the mentally vulnerable. Even in his early work, his ear for dialogue is amazing, and all his characters come across as strikingly real.

This production is stunning. Carrie Coon as Agnes and Namir Smallwood as Peter deliver performances that rank among the finest I have ever witnessed. They make their characters real and credible. Unless you have been blessed to live a very sheltered life, you’ve probably met people like Agnes and Peter.

Both actors (seen left and below) are powerful and unafraid to depict the descent into insanity that these characters suffer. Fully nude for a significant portion of the play, their tenderness toward each other as they isolate themselves from the real world and ultimately destroy themselves is stunning. The audience can’t help but root for Agnes and Peter until it becomes absolutely clear that they are doomed by their own actions.

When the play was over, there were parts where I wasn’t sure if I was seeing a depiction of what really happened, or if what happened on the stage was, in part, the delusions of Agnes and Peter being acted out. It’s a powerful play that can mess with your perceptions that way. Bug is a black comedy, but it’s more provocative than many dramas.

Coon and Smallwood play their characters as real people. They do not look down on them or turn them into cartoons. You leave the play convinced that you’ve met real people.

Acclaimed director David Cromer (The Band’s Visit) creates what becomes the entire universe for these two characters in one small hotel room. The Scenic design by Takeshi Kata deserves no small amount of the credit, as the room almost becomes an additional character in the play. Lighting and sound effects add to the atmosphere.

This production of Bug is an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime theatrical happening. I can’t imagine anyone topping it, but I can also see that performing this would have to be emotionally and physically draining. There is a film based on this play, directed by William Friedkin, and it’s good, but it’s nowhere near this production in terms of performance or power. This production is as perfect as live theater gets. If you have a chance to see one of the remaining performances, don’t miss it.

Updated Caveat: You really shouldn’t go out to bars or anything right now. Many of the events listed below have been canceled or postponed. Next week and for the foreseeable future this column will be replaced with “Stuff To Watch” as we suggest everyone minimize public gatherings to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Due to the violence of the calendar this year, Saint Patrick’s Day, which is the biggest drunken party holiday of the year in states this far North of Lousiana, falls on a Tuesday, which is not an evening conducive to imbibing to excess. So everybody is getting their Irish out this weekend, and there are a ridiculous number of things you can get into this weekend. Our selection this time is very music-heavy, so if that isn’t your scene, look around for other stuff.

Here are the lucky pre-St. Patty’s Day events for which I could slap together graphics, alongside some from those blessed people who create ready-made graphics to promote their events…

Wednesday

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Billed as “An Alarmingly Activist Episode” and hailed as one of our best, we go back to May, 2014 for “Save Top O Rock Shirt,” a show jam-packed with cool stuff. Sadly, our title shirt turned out to be a lost cause, as one of the city’s most treasured landmarks fell to the wrecking ball, but sad as that is, this is still a great show.

Radio Free Charleston 198, “Save Top O Rock Shirt” was one of our most politically active episodes. We had music from Time & Distance, Little Nomad, The Living Deads and a special music video by The Laser Beams, plus there’s ten epic minutes of animation by Jake Fertig. But first, in this episode I actually talk about the shirt that gives this show its name.

Top O Rock was an architectural marvel in Charleston. It was the home and office of the late architect, Henry Elden. We shot our host segments for Episode 100 there in 2010, a couple of years after he passed away. Despite the best efforts of many people, the structure was demolished, and the land sits empty.

We jump into our show with the first of three parts of Jake Fertig‘s epic “The Flocking: Coal-Aid Freedomsodes,” which takes a pretty harsh and incisive look at some of the industrial special interests which control and afflict West Virginia. This cartoon was first screened (intact) a couple of weeks ago at the West Virginia International Film Festival, and we are proud to include it here on RFC. We split the cartoon into three parts, and you’ll see them throughout this episode of the show.

Our first musical guest this week was Time and Distance. We caught them on their first Charleston show after a nationwide tour, performing at The Empty Glass. Also at The Glass, we recorded The Living Deads, who had previously starred in an RFC MINI SHOW. In this show you’ll get to hear “All I Can Do Is Cry”

The Laser Beams formed out members of The Wayward Girls School of Burlesque, and were still members when we created this music video, where they salute West Virginia’s Attorney General, the sock puppet of big business, Patrick Morrisey. The song is still accurate and relevant, and this IS an election year, so it’d be really cool if, come November, this song becomes outdated.

We wrapped the show up with a performance by singer-songwriter Little Nomad, with whom we were mightily impressed. It sure would be cool if she started making music again.

You can read the full production notes for this show HERE.