Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 775)

The PopCulteer
August 21, 2026

Author’s note:  The two parts of this blog post were not written on the same day. I had prepared the second part of today’s PopCulteer a few days ago, then I felt that I had to acknowledge the sudden loss of a friend, no matter how hastily-written it was. This note is here to explain the discrepency in tone.

Remembering Eliska

Like all her friends, I was stunned by the news of the sudden passing of Eliska Hahn Diller last weekend. When her husband, Brian, shared the news on social media, it was a punch to the gut…one with which I have become all too familiar over the past year.

Eliska was known to many as an actress or a radio personality or an ice-skating coach, but if you met her, you knew her as a friend. She was a vibrant, special person who could restore your faith in mankind and shine a light that melted away your cynicism.  Eliska and Brian Diller connected late in life, but it seemed to be a match that was almost destined to happen.  These are two of the nicest people I’ve ever encountered, and my heart is broken for Brian.  He is living my worst nightmare right now.

Two years ago my wife, Melanie, had a health crisis that, to be frank, was considerably more serious than we’d hinted about at the time. If I’d lost her, I don’t know how I could have gone on, but I know she would want me to. I hope Brian knows that he has the love and support of all of his friends, and all he has to do is reach out.

I am normally more verbose than this when lamenting the loss of a friend, but this has left me a little speechless. My universe of special people keeps getting smaller. Eliska was having a hard time dealing with the death of Danny Boyd earlier this year, and his death, on the heels of the loss of Lee Harrah, Brian Young and Ken Davis left me feeling more than a bit rudderless. To see Eliska’s light extinguished too soon is another sign that the worst part of life is the fragility of it all.

It doesn’t seem fair that Eliska and Brian didn’t have more time together, but it should give us all hope that they did find each other and cherish the moments they did get to share.

You can find a full obituary for Eliska HERE.

I’m hoping Rafael Barker doesn’t mind that I used a photo he took. It was one of her favorites.

A late addition to this, as posted to Facebook by Brian: 

Celebration of Life for Eliska Hahn Diller.
Please join us as we gather to celebrate the life of Eliska Hahn Diller. Together, we’ll share memories, stories, laughter and the love she brought to so many lives. Saturday, September 26. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fireside Grill 439 State Route 34. Hurricane, West Virginia, 25526. “Celebrating a life well lived, and the memories that will always remain in our hearts.” We hope you can join us.

A Marathon of Marathons On The AIR

Your humble blogger is on the road.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Hershey, Pennsylvania for the Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show (read about it HERE), and that begins what is scheduled to be over a week-long trip that will include such cool things as a visit to a mall in Akron, The Fiestaware Factory Tour, Shopping at Ikea and Vinegar Syndrome in Pittsburgh, a trip to The Warhol Museum with my sister and our big 12th anniversary day. Not exactly in that order.

I am leaving open the possiblity of updating PopCult from the road…but I’m not promising anything. I got hit with a less-than-happy gut predicament this week, and decided to leave myself an out in case I’m not up to both traveling all over and writing tons of stuff for the blog.

That’s where it comes in handy to have a radio station as part of PopCult.

Starting Sunday, and for the following eight days, we are going to treat you to marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM each day, you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program.

You’ll be able to come to PopCult every day to see which show gets the honors that day. We will have full days devoted to Prognosis, Radio Free Charleston, Curtain Call, The Swing Shift, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, MIRRORBALL, Beatles Blast and Psychedelic Shack.

Keep in mind that this is a great way to introduce new listeners to all of our programming while also engaging in some Olympic-level slacking.

However, that’s not to dismiss our programs as mere filler or fluff. These are TOP-NOTCH internet radio programs and thousands of folks tune in each week to hear them.

It’s not like I’m leaving you with dry cat food set to be dispensed on a timer.

But that is our PopCulteer this week, because I still need to pack and maybe paint the beard. Check PopCult for freshish content every day, and most of our regular features.

So I’ve been promising tons more photos from last month’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo for weeks now, and I’m hitting the road in the morning to go to another fun action figure show in Hershey, Pennsylvania and I still haven’t posted all my photos from the last show yet.

What gives?

Well, let me try to be blunt without being crude.  Salmonella poisoning is what gives. In fact, it’s the gift that keeps giving for days. It takes a lot out of you…literally.  I mean, when you have your first normal trip to the bathroom in six days, and in your head you hear Maureen McGovern singing “There’s Got To Be A Morning After,” you know you had it bad.

I was a wee bit surprised at how many people didn’t get the visual pun in yesterday’s STUFF TO DO header image.

I am definitely feeling much better now, but I still have to pack, pick up a rental car, schedule The AIR for the next ten days, and drop in a few more PopCult posts.  So, I’m gonna need to punt.

Today we have a half-dozen photos of cool toys I saw at Kentuckiana, and I will have to save the really cool pics of custom figures and dioramas for after my return from the anniversary trip.  That anniversary trip is going to include The Hershey Toy and Action Figure Show, The FiestaWare Factory Tour, a trip to The Warhol Museum and more, so as soon as I’m back, PopCult will be overflowing with beaucoup primo content.

For today, though, here’s a few more photos of the cool toys we saw about a month ago in Louisville, Kentucky…

One of AT Mechanic’s incredible modified Adventure Team vehicles.

Fans of the RAH, 3 3/4″ Joe weren’t hurting for cool vehicles, either.

I’m not sure if I ran this photo earlier, but geez….just look at it. If I did, it’s definitely worth a second look.

Just a couple of Marx Vikings, hanging out. Nice to see Odin in one piece.

Big Earl has, probably, the most complete selection of Six Million Dollar Man (and Bionic Woman) toys on the planet. We’ve been fans since we met him at ToyLanta years ago.

We leave you with the bittersweet photo. I caught myself reaching for this, thinking, “Well, Lee has to have this.” and then remembered that Mr. Harrah is in a place where he has all the action figures he could ever want now. So I left it for another collector.

STUFF TO DO is PopCult‘s weekly guide to just a few of the great events happening in Charleston, Huntington and a few other points here in West Virginia, and sometimes a little beyond our borders, in the coming days. This week we are  trying to recover from an intestinal unpleasantry, so it’s short.

This week’s featured event, is in Pennsylvania, and it’s where I’ll be Saturday. With any luck, I’ll be able to enjoy The Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show without having to run to the bathroom every twenty minutes…

Each week I try to tell you about a few cool events all around the state that you might not know about.  If you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future you can still 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.

I do ask that you send a graphic that includes the date, time and location, of the event, as well as the cost to attend.  I can’t promise that I’ll run it here,  but chances are I will unless it’s something completely offensive or an event happening in South Carolina. If it looks original and charmingly weird, you have a better chance of seeing it here.

Keep in mind that I’ll need this several days in advance, so please don’t send me a graphic on the day of the event and expect it to show up in this feature.

For much more comprehensive guides to things you can get into in our region, check out these two wonderful resources:

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.

Mya Ross at Status Quo does a much better job of compiling a list of local events than I do, and you can find the WTSQ guide to events HERE. Toss ’em a donation while you’re over there.

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. Plus there are free concerts almost every weekend at Taylor Books.

You might also find cool musical events at 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.

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.

Here’s a few select suggestions for STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston and Huntington this weekend…

Since chances are we are not going to have time to put together STUFF TO DO next week, here is what would be our featured pick, for the weekend after next…

Almost every Tuesday is NEW RFC DAY on The AIR  and today is where we bring you a partly-new three-hour episode of Radio Free Charleston because I’m a bit under the weather. 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 we open with a full hour of brand-new local, independent and cult-following music, and that is followed by a rare episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume 3 that hasn’t been heard since the middle of 2015. Without going into unpleasant details, your humble blogger and radio host encountered some food that left him with lots of extra reading time.

Our first hour opens with new music from legendary New Wave/Alt-rock pioneer, Gary Myrick, and then hops all over the map, after bringing you a couple of songs dedicated to friends who left us too soon in the last week. It’s a mini tribute to Eliska (Hahn) Diller and Lucas Flow, which should probably be elaborated on in the future, once your PopCulteer is up to the task.

Our first hour also includes brand-new music from The Anchoress, The Feeders, Long Earth, Paige Kizer, Todd Burge & Larry Groce, William Matheny, Hardy Mums and more.

Our second and third hours bring you an episode of RFC Volume Three that hasn’t been available in any form since Summer, 2015.  This show is loaded with a mix of then-new tunes and mystical gems from our archives. The third hour is a collection of tracks featuring Stephen and Mark Beckner, and their bands, Go Van Gogh, Tunesmiths and Hitchcock Circus, with a some rare recordings from the legendary Charleston Playhouse tossed in, for the sake of HISTORY!

I will note here that next week will be one of our rare weeks off. Your PopCulteer will be on a week-long anniversary trip with his lovely wife, and every day next week we will run a marathon of a different AIR program. Next Tuesday expect 24 hours of Radio Free Charleston.

Check out this playlist, with links to the artist’s page, in the first hour…

RFC V5 282

hour one
Gary Myrick “Evil Men”
Brian Diller “Fill My Eyes”
The BrotherSisters “The Mountains of Instead”
The Anchoress “As We Once Were”
The Feeders “Fruit Flies”
Long Earth “Wanderlust”
Paige Kizer “Your Voice”
Todd Burge & Larry Groce “Letter to Sally Parker (Demo)”
William Matheny “Babylon Man”
best dressed ghost “Dread and Breakfast”
Hardy Mums “Dilettante”
Reserver “Server”
Stitch Jones and his Bionic Marines “Legend of Sgt. Towns”

hour two
Big Money “Face The Flood”
Sasha Colette “You Had Me”
Groove Heavy “Don’t Stop Believin’”
Total Meltdown “Pictures of You”
The Brothersisters “Can’t Be Lost”
Doktor Steamly “The Needle Goes In”
DEVO “Clockout”
J Marinelli “Lockdown Town”
Sheldon Vance “Turn It Back Around”
The Company Stores “No Middle Name”
Mike Morningstar and Rick Roberts “Queen of Hearts”
Martyranny’s Collective Pulse “Banshee”
Whistlepunk “Satellite”
Wolfgang Parker “To Say You Love Me”

hour three
Go Van Gogh and The Tunesmiths
Go Van Gogh “Shut Up, I Love You”
The Tune Smiths
“Say I’m A Fool”
“Incredible Shrinking Man”
“Ballet Dancer”
“Waited For Love”
“For Your Love”
Hitchock Circus “Show Pony”
Go Van Gogh Live At the Charleston Playhouse 1989

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 get ready for two classic episodes of The Swing Shift, featuring the best Swing Music from the last century!

 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, and for at least the two following, we are still using photos I took on our way back from Chicago recently. It’s based on our slow meander through the South Side of Chicago, during what is normally a brief part of the trip where Amtrak’s Cardinal rides on an elevated track.

Most of the time, this passes in mere minutes, but due to mechanical issues, it took us about an hour to travel the relatively short distance. It’s turned out to be a goldmine of inspiration for me, artistically.

This week, I switched to using pastel crayons because they were a little easier for me to use with my MG-impaired hands, and it also made the clean-up a lot easier. Our subject is a cool, but lonely-looking building that sports a single smokestack. I thought it look cool in the pre-dusk light.

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 an encore of a more recent episode 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.

Tonight at 8 PM, tune in for a classic edition of The Comedy Vault. That’s followed by two-hour blocks of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast at 9 PM and 11 PM, and then an overnight assortment of our Haversham Recording Institute programs at 1 AM.

The PopCult crew went to the first Hershey Action Figure & Toy Show way back on August 24, 2019, and tonight we are revisiting our wrap-up video of that show, with sights and sounds and a few interviews. It’s exactly eleven minutes of great toy fun.  After a few years’ hiatus, the show returns next weekend, and your humble blogger and his wife are making it part of our weeklong anniversary trip across The Keystone State.

It’s really cool that my friend, Greg Brown, and Cotswold Collectibles are bringing back the Hershey Action Figure & Toy Show for 2026 after a brief hiatus. The show will once again take place at the Hershey Lodge & Convention Center, which is an impressive facility with plenty of room.

The list of vintage (and new) toys for sale will include G.I. Joe, Transformers, TMNT, Major Matt Mason, Captain Action, Star Wars, Super Joe, Big Jim, Micronauts, Action Jackson, Marvel Toys, DC Toys and more. Faces will be smiling and wallets will be straining.

They’re also promising a couple of Special Guests to appear and sign autographs!

Doors will open at 9 am for Early Bird Admission and 10 am for Regular Admission on August 21st and will stay open till 4 pm.
Early Bird Admission (9:00 am) – $10/person
Regular Admission (10:00 am) – $5/person

Tickets can be bought day of the show at the Admissions Table.

There will also be early bird admissions on Friday night, but those were a late addition and we couldn’t re-work our travel plans to make it then.

So they’d better leave me some stuff.

Check out the Facebook event page for more details.

This week we go back to September 2014 for our most recent video milestone show. Episode 200 was a huge undertaking that went through a lot of changes before it finally made it out into the world. You can read about those in our original production notes HERE. I’m gonna swipe a bit of that so you can get an idea of what to expect:

Radio Free Charleston has finally reached its 200th episode, and it does so in a grand manner with four never before seen performances by the area’s top bands, plus animation, short films and more. Your host, Rudy Panucci, presents songs from Farnsworth, The Laser Beams, HarraH and The Velvet Brothers. There is a short film from Frank Panucci, a movie trailer from Jake Fertig and the first new animation featured on RFC from Third Mind Incarnation since 2007.

This was actually our first video show since your humble blogger married Mel Larch and began our happy life together. We celebrate our 12th anniversary in less than two weeks, and it’s cool to look back that fun time. You might want to follow that link to read the full production notes. They’re pretty interesting.

The PopCulteer
August 14, 2026

It’s brutal honesty time, folks.

Yesterday was my birthday, and as such, I slacked off. I did not do any PopCulting, and because this week has had a lot of moving pieces, I didn’t prepare anything in advance for today. So I’m cranking this out Friday morning.

What I did do was enjoy a quiet day with my beautiful wife. We ran around a little bit and just took it easy. I had a mid-week birthday this year and we didn’t plan any trips around it because we’re going to do a ten-day trip for our anniversary in a couple of weeks, and it just seemed like overkill to do another right before.

So we just took it easy, relaxed and spent time together while close to 350 birthday wishes piled up on social media (and thanks again to everybody who took the time to do that).

Then we settled down to binge-watch a series that premiered last month on the BBC, and is available in America if you have a VPN and know how to use it. I’ve seen reports that it’s coming to Peacock in the US, but who wants to wait for that to happen?  Here’s a quick review…

Ann Droid is a brilliant six-episode sitcom, created by Diane Morgan (Cunk, Mandy) and Sarah Kendall and it manages to be fiercely hilarious and satirical while also being heartwarminig and engaging.

Ann Droid tells the story of Sue, a widow whose husband died 18 months earlier, and her new android assistant robot, whom she names Linda, after her sister…who she can’t stand.

Linda is a “pre-loved” and discontinued AnnDroid Z58/100 Basic Eldercare Robot given to Sue by her son, Michael, because he’s reconciling with a wife who cheated on him during the time his father was dying.

The series is set in 2029, so it’s not a far-flung futuristic tale. It’s quite plausible, given the rise of AI. Sue’s life is populated by a universe of realistic characters who happen to be ripe with comedic potential. We have the loser son, the overbearing friend that everybody hates, an array of cantakerous elderly friends, plus the cheating wife of the son, the guy she cheated with and the various employers of Michael.

What makes the show work, aside from the sharp and well-paced writing and direction, are the performances. Sue Johnston is well-known to Anglophiles from her work on Downton Abbey and The Royle Family, and Diane Morgan has never been less than incredible in everything she’s done. Whether she’s the dimwitted documentarian, Philomena Cunk, or the erratic underachiever, Mandy, she’s simply one of the most briliant comic actors around. As Linda, she manages to balance an almost alien-like naivety with a battery of knowledge equal to the internet, and she’s just as capable as AI of misconstruing reality and screwing things up completely.

She’s very much like ChatGPT with a body, and the comedic potential is fully-realized here.

The supporting cast is note-perfect as well, and the show is one of the rare programs that I’ve actually binged. It’s that compelling and hilarious.

Watch this preview…

And that’s all I’m talking about in this week’s PopCulteer, because I slacked off for my birthday. It was either write about this, or the cake. Check PopCult for fresh content every day, and all our regular features.

Today’s post originally ran in this blog four years ago. It has been updated slightly so that I can take my birthday off. Don’t let that fool you. This is completely recycled. 

Before this post, I’ve never specifically said how old I am in this blog.

It’s not like I’ve tried to hide it. I write about TV shows I watched and toys I had in the 1960s all the time. And I think I wrote about how my earliest memory is the mailman coming to the door crying, asking if he could come in and watch some of the coverage of Kennedy’s assassination, but I’ve never come right out and said how old I am.

Today I turn 64 years old.

How the hell did that happen?

I mean, I don’t feel 64. I haven’t checked lately, but I don’t think I look 64. I sure as hell don’t act 64.

But chronologically I have became a pop culture journalist who’s reached an age that pop culture tends to consider well past relevance.

It must be some kind of aberration. Or maybe this happens to everybody. Maybe nobody ever really feels old unless they’re sick or something.

“Hey check out this Talking GI Joe, it’s really cool! Why is that light so bright?”

I’m not tempted to do anything that “old people” normally do, at least not knowingly. I still collect toys, read comics, watch cartoons listen to music and subscribe to more streaming services than I can watch. I don’t sit around and watch Matlock. I don’t vote for Republicans. There are no goddamned kids in my yard to yell at.

I do not refer to “The Tik Tok,” unless I’m doing it to be funny.

I have to admit to being a bit puzzled by all this. It seems really weird to me to have vivid memories of breaking my collarbone while playing Batman sixty years ago. It’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I have favorite comic book artists who died of old age after I was a fan for more than fifty years. It’s really bizarre having friends who are full-grown adults who have parents that were born after I started buying LPs.

I’d been thinking a lot about what I was going to write in this space four years ago when I first posted it. About a month before that my first wife died. We split up thirty-six years earlier, and that is pretty much an entire lifetime. Kathy’s death put me in a very reflective mood as I relived our time together (a topic for a later column) and then relived the turns my life took afterward. It was a weird time.

Many people can’t imagine me being with anybody besides my Melanie. It’s hard for me to do that too. She is my very reason for being and I would be miserable without her. We’ve been together more than half my life and it’s easy to feel like my life really began when we met.

But it didn’t, exactly. See, being a comic book fan for my entire life, I do have a story to tell for this post. I have a “secret origin.”

I’ve written about how, all my life I’ve been the person saying “Check this out, it’s really cool.” And a lot of folks know me as a strong advocate of local artists and musicians. Now I’m going to pull back the veil a bit and give you some insight about what motivates me to be this way.

Let me take you back to 1986. My disastrous first marriage was all over except for the signing of papers. I was an emotional wreck, but I put on a brave face and threw myself into my work.

My work at that time was as the de-facto publisher, editor, proofreader, gofer and head of publicity for CODA, a comic book written and drawn by my brother, Frank, with a back-up strip by me.

CODA was my main focus. I pretty much felt like a failure in life, and saw this comic book as my path to redemption. Foremost among my jobs was getting promotion for CODA. I managed to convince Jennifer Bundy to interview Frank for The Charleston Daily Mail. I bought ads in The Comics Buyers Guide and sent review copies to other fan publications.

Greg Miller

And I hung out a lot at Greg Miller’s Comic World, on Charleston’s West Side. This was the comic book shop in Charleston and it gave me the chance to network with other area fans.

One day I walked into Comic World and recognized a low-level reporter for a local TV station berating Greg. He was promising extravagant TV coverage of Greg’s store, if only Greg would supply him with some free comics. He was especially keen on getting free Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics to do a feature on the “black and white comics boom.”

I stayed out of the conversation and looked through the new comics until Greg just ended the conversation and said he had to get back to work, but he’d consider the idea.

The local TV reporter turned and started to walk out, and remember now, I was totally emotionally invested in making CODA a success, so I stopped him, held up a copy of CODA #1 and said, “Hey, you know…there’s a black and white comic book published out of South Charleston, and I bet your viewers would love to know about it!”

He turned, looked at me, scowled and said, “Nobody cares about that SHIT!” Then he walked out.

I was stunned, but was resigned to living the life of the rejected at that point. Greg was much angrier about it than I was and did his best to make me feel better. It just sort of stung that somebody in a position to help a local creator could be so unneccesarily cruel. I have to admit, it left a scar.

I drove home, and my Mom said that somebody called about the comic while I was out. I returned the call and it was a writer for Amazing Heroes Magazine. He’d seen CODA and was writing the semi-annual preview issue and wanted to know what we had coming up in future issues.

I was excited, but still down a bit, and he could tell. He asked what was going on, fearful that the book was not going to make it to its second issue, and I told him what had just happened.

He was stunned, but then he told me that he was trying to break into comics himself, and was used to particularly cruel rejections. And then he said, “You can either be the kind of person who builds people up, or you can be the kind of bastard who tears people down.”

So, with that pep talk, from Mark Waid by the way, I decided that I was never going to stomp on anybody’s dreams. I was going to be a person who supported artists, and musicians and encouraged people to create.

I was never going to be an asshole, like that TV reporter was to me.

Three years after that, I wound up on the radio, and I created Radio Free Charleston and have been supporting the local scene for over thirty-five years now. It’s why I still cover local stuff here in PopCult. It’s why I reach out to indie comic book creators and unsigned musicians from other cities.

Basically, living by the mantra “don’t be an asshole” has worked out pretty well for me. When I was put in a position to write a review of something that very TV reporter was involved with, I  gave him decent notices. The temptation was definitely there to get even after all these years, but I didn’t want to sink to his level.

A few weeks before I originally posted this piece, Brian Diller, who was one of the major forces in the Charleston music scene back when I started RFC, wrote a wonderful and thoughtful post about me and my contributions to the local music scene on Facebook. I have to admit it caught me off guard and it came at a time when I really needed a shot in the arm. It’d been a bit of a cruel summer with my Myasthenia Gravis flaring up, technical issues here at the blog, weird power outages, ex-wives passing away and a car that seems to want to have its address changed to my mechanic’s place (that car has since gone to live on a farm in the country where it can frolic and be free).

It was nice to be reminded why I do what I do. That a couple of hundred people “liked” that post, and a few dozen commented or shared it really warmed my aging heart (which has checked out quite well, by the way).

It’s really nice to be appreciated.

Instead of a grand adventure for my birthday (or a party, I absolutely hate being the center of attention at parties), Mel and I are going to have a quiet day, hang out together, eat cake and ice cream and pizza and just relax and watch cartoons.

That is the somewhat updated Secret Origin of your humble blogger. As for that one guy who was a total ass and inspired me not to be like him…I’m still not going to name him, but he’s deader than hell now.

STUFF TO DO is PopCult‘s weekly guide to just a few of the great events happening in Charleston, Huntington and a few other points here in West Virginia, and sometimes a little beyond our borders, in the coming days. This week we are dodging power outages and internet outages, so we  have fewer events that usual, just so we can get this written and scheduled between storms.

This week’s featured event, which I’ve been telliing you about on Radio Free Charleston for three weeks,  happens Wednesday, August 12….that’s tonight, if you’re reading this the day it was posted. If you’re reading it later, you missed it.

Each week I try to tell you about a few cool events all around the state that you might not know about.  If you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future you can still 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.

I do ask that you send a graphic that includes the date, time and location, of the event, as well as the cost to attend.  I can’t promise that I’ll run it here,  but chances are I will unless it’s something completely offensive or an event happening in South Carolina. If it looks original and charmingly weird, you have a better chance of seeing it here.

Keep in mind that I’ll need this several days in advance, so please don’t send me a graphic on the day of the event and expect it to show up in this feature.

For much more comprehensive guides to things you can get into in our region, check out these two wonderful resources:

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.

Mya Ross at Status Quo does a much better job of compiling a list of local events than I do, and you can find the WTSQ guide to events HERE. Toss ’em a donation while you’re over there.

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. Plus there are free concerts almost every weekend at Taylor Books.

You might also find cool musical events at 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.

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.

Here’s a few select suggestions for STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston and Huntington this weekend…