Category: Uncategorized (Page 62 of 757)

The PopCulteer
September 13, 2024

It’s magazine deadline week, which means that PopCult is going into “lite” mode for a few days. Since today is The PopCulteer, we will just take this space to refer you to this post which I revived a couple of days ago, and point you to a couple of politically-relevant websites. I usually try to keep PopCult less than obviously political, preferring my own brand of subtle subversion, but since this week the pop culture landscape is littered with the tiny hands, half-eaten cats and concepts of policies left over from the presidential debate, today we’re making an exception so I can send you to a couple of enlightening websites.

If you only come here for the toys, travel photos, comic book reviews, local and independent music and fart jokes, you might want to give this week’s PopCulteer a pass.But you could learn a lot of important stuff if you stick around.

Notes Before You Vote

First up we have a new project from Douglas Imbrogno, the person who instigated and named this blog way back long ago, in the print newspaper era.

Doug has a new Substack called Notes Before You Vote, hosted by AMP Media, and it’s a bit of an outlet for him to express overtly political thoughts and musings without intruding on his other projects like WestVirginiaVille and TheStoryIsTheThing.

Here’s what Doug told me about this project…

At the DNC, Michelle Obama exhorted us to “do something,” while Tim Walz urges us “to get in the game,” with under 60 days to the election. Here’s my doing something.

Notes Before You Vote is a collection of short videos compiled and created by Doug that are filled with pertinent, thought-provoking tidbits of information in an easy-to-digest bite-sized form, perfect for sharing on social media.  As the home page says, these are “Some important things to consider before you cast your vote for the future direction of America in the Nov. 5 Presidential Election.”

For an installment about some interesting quotes from a certain Vice Presidential candidate, couched in his own unique verbiage, just check this out…

You can subscribe to Notes Before You Vote HERE, and catch up with WestVirginiaVille HERE.

The Turtle Diaries

I started following Amanda Moore onTwitter shortly after she “came out” after spending a year undercover with MAGA. She was at January 6, but not in the capitol, and while posing as a die-hard Trumper, she rubbed shoulders with many of the heavy hitters in the former president’s dirty, dirty schemes. She told her story as an undercover MAGAt in a great article in The Nation, and since her identity was revealed, she’s devoted her time to shadowing and exposing the deep ties between the GOP and the most extreme lunatics on the far right, like the Groypers, Proud Boys and other Neo-Nazi, Old-school Nazi, Christian Nationalist and KKK-affliated groups.

Amanda writes for The Nation and was interviewed for The Daily Beast‘s Fever Dreams podcast, but she also works independently, publishing stories on her SubStack, The Turtle Diaries, which is vital for anybody who wants to keep tabs on the really dangerous extremists groups that have way, way too much influence in this country.

She’s been stalked, threatened, harrassed, thrown out of events after paying registration fees, and she deals with daily hate from online trolls with strength, class, dignity and humor.  It’s the humor that bothers them the most.  This is an engaging, unfiltered and laser-focused look at the dark underbelly of the far-right wing in this country.

Amanda does not get a lot of mainstream press, possibly because corporate-owned media outlets are afraid that their own ties to these extreme groups will be uncovered and discussed, so except for The Nation and Mother Jones, she hasn’t been given much of a chance to tell her story and share her reporting with a wider audience. Aside from being extremely important, her adventures in the world of hate would also make for one outstanding movie.

It’s a hell of a story, and pretty damned terrifying when you realize the horrors contained within the visions of our future held by these lunatics. It’s wonderfully written journalism, as fascinating as it is terrifying.  You can subscribe HERE.

For the pop culture angle, I believe the title of her SubStack is taken from the 1985 movie of the same name.

And with that, we wrap this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for fresh content every day, even when I’m working on a paying gig.

Sometimes you just can’t come up with a clever headline, so you go with a dumb one instead. Yet there’s still  lots of STUFF TO DO, even with Friday the 13th looming. In fact, our events are pretty Friday-heavy this week, including a couple of free showings of a certain film.

Remember, if you are attending an outdoor event, stay hydrated and please don’t smoke or vape around any humans who might find the associated stank to be offensive. Be mindful of your health and of those near you. Look for and offer to aid people who might seem frail, look like they’re about to pass out, or have had their pets eaten by ALF.  With that bit of a caveat, let me tell you about plenty of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and the surrounding area as we stagger our way toward autumn.

As I have been copying and pasting for some time now, this a good time to remind you 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. I won’t be offended if you volunteer to do the work I was too busy trolling on Twitter to do.

Our feature event this week sees The Settlement scaring up a hell of a gig at The Lost Paddle in Oak Hill. It’s a free show, Friday from 8 PM to 11 and you can read more about it at the Facebook Event page right after you drink in this cool poster for the show…

Live Music is on tap at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Friday it’s Sandy Sowell and Gerry Collyard. On Saturday Steve Himes takes the stage at Charleston literary, art and coffee institution. There’s also a cool book event listed in the graphics below.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Thursday at 5:30 PM Swingstein and Robin return with music for a cause. Later on Thursday the Golden Boy, Greg McGowan, traverses both time and distance to bring you an evening of acoustic music starting at 9:30 PM.  Friday Tim Courts holds down the forts for Happy Hour. Check the graphics dump below for more weekend events at The Empty Glass.

Sunday from Noon to 6:30 PM at Tamarack Marketplace in Beckley, it’s Fallfest. There will be vendors and food and music on two stages. And it’s quite the cool line-up…

Main Stage
12:30 – 1:15 : Carpenter Ants
1:30 – 2:15 : Kindred Valley
2:30 – 3:15 : Matt Mullins & The Bringdowns
3:30 – 5 : Mike Glabicki of Rusted Root with Dirk Miller
5:15 – 6:30 Kind Thieves

Courtyard Stage
12 – 1: Untrained Professionals
1 – 2: Randy Gilkey
2 – 3: Grace Campbell
3 – 4: Samuel James
4 – 5: Jonah Carden
5 – 6: Andy Tuck

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona still lurking about all robust and reinvigorated and now with Retsin™. Plus there are drought-fueled nasty seasonal allergies, evil Cole Slaw provocateurs, great orange whinging baboons, single-celled organisms with FIVE CELLS and other damned good reasons to be careful. 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.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order…

Continue reading

Fifteen years ago today in PopCult, I had not yet learned never to underestimate the power of stupidity. Looking back, I find this to be a little naive. Enjoy this flashback…

The PopCulteer
September 11, 2009

Living In The Age Of Absurdity

The late 1960s was “The Age Of Aquarius.” The 1980s were “The Me Decade,” Now it’s become clear. We are living in the Age of Absurdity. I think that this is direct result of the subversive humor of the 1970s filtering into the mainstream. Our world today seems to have been shaped by two major influences….Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The National Lampoon. Don’t get me wrong. The Pythons and Lampoon shaped my sensibilities and I have fond memories of them. Unfortunately, I am not alone.

We are paying the price for the sharp, cynical despair of counter-culture comedy finding its way into the mainstream. Not only has it made the original comedy a little less enjoyable, but it’s placed sharpened objects of comedy into the hands of people who lack the wit and ethics to wield them properly. There is still a lot of great cutting-edge humor out there–more than ever, in fact–but there’s also a lot of comedy out there that uses the tools of shock comedy without any concern for what it can do to their audience. The whole point of using shock in the 60s and 70s was to open the minds of the audience and try to change attitudes. Now there are comedians who simply use shock to get cheap attention from stupid people.

The entire culture has become saturated with what would have once been considered “shock humor.” A few months ago, on an Adult Swim cartoon called “Squidbillies,” there was a gag about the lead character buying a pair of “Truck Nuts,” a set of plastic, droopy testicles which you hang under the back bumper of your truck to prove how manly your truck is.

I thought it was a brilliant parody of how moronic and crude redneck culture has become.

Then I found out that they’re real. One of my neighbors has a set hanging off of his truck.

Somehow, it made the joke less funny. Instead of a brilliantly absurd parody, it was merely observational humor.

It made me think how, when I was growing up, The National Lampoon and Monty Python were so cool because hardly anybody else got the humor. You had to be a hip insider to actually understand the jokes. It was funnier because the appeal was not universal. The material was so shocking and outrageous that it offended the sensibilities of the average person. This was special humor for me and a select few special friends who really knew what the score was, and how to laugh at it. We were elite comedy snobs, and that made us special.

The only problem is, we weren’t quite as special as we thought. There were millions of people like us all over the country. Once the counter-culture of the 60s, which included “underground” comedy, became mainstream, everybody wanted in on the fun. By the time Saturday Night Live made it all the way across the country, and The Lampoon movies became hits, everybody was in on the joke.

That’s when the desensitization began. People aren’t fazed by the outrageous any longer. This, coupled by the immediacy of the Internet and the deconstruction of mass media models has lead us to a place where shocking idiocy is no longer mocked or scorned, but instead is celebrated. You got a smokin’ baby? Put him on YouTube! Fat guys embarrasing themselves? Put it on YouTube and sell a shirt based on the clip in Hot Topic.

We have brought sophisticated, edgy, Lenny Bruce-type shock values to lowest-common-denominator humor. A pie in the face has been replaced with oversized plastic genitals bonking someone on the head.

People don’t laugh for the same reason now that they did then. Back then, if a comedian threw out a racist or homophobic crack, it was because they were making fun of how absurd it was that anyone felt that way. Now when a comedian makes a racist or homophobic remark, it’s because he’s pandering to a racist, homophobic audience (I’m looking your way, Larry the Cable Guy). The shock now is not over how horrible it is that anyone feels that way. The shock today is that someone will stand up and say the ugly things that much of his audience agrees with.

Somebody let the morons in the room, and they’re laughing for the wrong reasons. It was so much better when shock comedy was offensive to the common man. Truck Nuts was hysterical when I thought it was just a joke about how stupid people could be. When it became real it was just sad.

Now the average Joe thinks nothing of putting a decal on his car that shows a cartoon character peeing on something he doesn’t like. College elders and grade-school teachers look on and smile as students scream “Beat the shit out of Pitt!” A sportswriter based near the location where a girl was held captive for 18 years writes a column about all the cool sporting events she missed while she was held in isolation. A disgraced lawyer (who probably shouldn’t even be allowed to practice any longer) attempts to win freedom for his accused rapist client by calling the victims “tramps” and “whores.” It’s possible to get famous simply by cramming as many fertilized eggs up you womb as possible.

You can’t make fun of this stuff…..it’s already too absurd.

Back then, bigots were the butt of the jokes. Now they’re the target audience. That takes the fun out of it for people with warped minds like mine.

If you go back and look at the fake news section of 1970s issues of The National Lampoon, you can’t help but be struck by how tame they seem when compared to the real news today. I can’t imagine any harder job than creating material for The Onion. It’s got be daunting to stay ahead of the idiot curve.

It’s permeated politics, as well. Look at the idiocy we’ve endured this summer. On the Far Right we have slick practitioners of Nietzsche’s “Big Lie,” who have managed to obfuscate the issues and redirect the debate away from serious discussion into outright silliness and idiocy. If you’ve ever tried to discuss health care with any of the pre-programmed Obama-haters, you know that it makes you feel like Michael Palin in the Argument Clinic sketch. There’s no substance there, just empty sloganeering and shocking catch phrases like “Death Panels” and “Pulling the plug on Grandma.” Those town hall meetings looked like Andy Kaufmann’s wet dream. It’s not just political theater, it’s political theater of the absurd. Now we have some idiot Congressman yelling at the President during a joint session, and the idiot squad is rallying around him.

Who can listen to a Sarah Palin speech and not think that she’s a refugee from Monty Python’s “Very Silly Party,” perhaps as a running mate for Jethro Q. Walrustitty. That woman makes Dan Quayle sound like William Jennings Bryant.

Part of this is because the cynicism bred by the comedy of the cutting edge has spawned a generation of political operatives who will do anything to win, rather than do what is best for the country. It goes back to Lee Atwater, the late Republican operative who ran the political campaign of George H.W. Bush with all the subtlety and ethics of the Delta House’s assault on the Founder’s Day parade in the movie National Lampoon’s Animal House. His disciple, Karl Rove, continued with this method of bending the truth and diverting meaningful dialog into hysteria to get his charge, young George W. Bush, swept into office.

I wonder if the editors and writers of The National Lampoon would have been as forthcoming with their “bad boy” comedy if they knew that young Republicans were reading. Well, P.J. O’Rourke probably knew. Michael O’Donahue is probably turning over in his urn.

Of course, the problem isn’t that we live in an absurd world. The problem is trying to figure out what, if anything, can be done about the stupefying of America. Is it cyclical? Can we just wait for the silliness to die off? Are we doomed to a world like that in the movie Idiocracy? Can humor ever be subversive again, or is the dirty joke genie out of the bottle?

My take is that our situation validates the theories of another subversive creative force that sprung up in the 1970s. Look at the progression of anti-intellectualism from Nixon to Reagan to Quayle to W. Bush and now to Sarah Palin. Look at how car decorations have gone from peace symbols to “Baby On Board” signs to peeing Calvins and now to Truck Nuts. We live in an age where people will go out and buy a computer–one that has more computing power in it than every computer in the world had when we went to the moon–and use it to watch video clips of babies farting on YouTube. It’s pretty clear what’s happened.

DEVO was right. We’re devolving. Society is winding down. We can’t get much stupider than this.

Can we?

A couple of years ago Mel and I were driving along Route 16 in Georgia, when we came upon a small, and fun, roadside attraction.  Barbie Beach was founded in 2006 when its owners, Steve and Linda Quick had the beer-fueled idea to put an outrageously tacky display of toys in their front yard to replace rose bushes that a careless highway crew had accidentally destroyed.

A couple of weeks ago word came that Linda had passed away. Steve had died a year earlier, and the family is looking to find some way to commemorate Barbie Beach, but the original property, near Turin, Georgia, will be sold and soon the Beach will be no more in its present location.

Today I’m re-posting our photo essay of Barbie Beach, from March, 2022…

We made a discovery while on our trip to Georgia a couple of weeks ago.  While driving Route 16, between Newnan (Home of Full Circle Toys) and Senoia, both of us caught a fleeing glimpse of something called “Barbie Beach” by the roadside.

Mel and I both thought that we’d seen signs for a roadside attraction, and when we got back to the hotel that night, we checked the Google machine and discovered that we had, in fact, seen the entire actual roadside attraction.

It turns out that Steve and Linda Quick, a couple of residents of Turin (located along Route 16), decided back in 2006, in honor of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, to create a roadside sculpture garden in their front yard. The couple put out some sand, a backdrop, and created scenes using mainly naked Barbies and Kens, along with other inexpensive props.

In the 16 years since they began, they have added more dolls and action figures and Barbie-sized cars, and they change the display to reflect the season, or holiday, or commemorate a big even like the NCAA Tournament.  The scenes generally seems to involve a beach and naked Barbies partying at “Mort’s Bar.” And they seem to keep things fairly topical.

If they have any 12″ Will Smith figures, I imagine he’ll be in there slapping away in no time.

Mel and I knew that we had to go back the next day. Unfortunately, that night the area was hit with wind and rain, and when we got there, what had been set up to be a wild party scene for St. Patrick’s Day instead looked like the hungover morning after a wild St. Patrick’s Day party.  Even disheveled, Barbie Beach is pretty cool.

We got some fun photos to share, and had a blast.  We even found a cool Jem and the Rockers vehicle that’s now on Mel’s wantlist.

I can tell you that Barbie Beach will be a regular stop now, whenever we go to Georgia. It’s loads of fun and it’s also harmless, but it reportedly really pisses off their neighbors, which is an added bonus.

Mrs. PopCulteer even started pondering the idea of creating a SpongeBob display for our front yard, but we know that, in Dunbar, such a display would last approximately ten minutes before the local scavengers would pick it clean.

We’re hoping to go back and meet the Quicks, and maybe donate a few action figures to their display.

To get there, you basically drive down Route 16 in Georgia, between Senoia and Newnan, and when you see it, pull off and park by the tree. There is no admission fee, and you can stay as long as you want (within reason…I don’t think they want people sleeping in Barbie Beach). Don’t forget to visit the Facebook page devoted to Barbie Beach.

Here’s a look at the Beach…

…and here’s a short video profile…

Now let’s look at more pictures of Barbie Beach!

Off to the left, a group of three GI Joes (one of them being a knockoff) guard the perimeter.

I would imagine the St. Patty’s doll looked a bit better before being drenched in the storm the night before.

The view walking from where we parked.

A closer look at the main sign and backdrop. They change the scenes on a regular basis.

Mort’s Bar includes naked Barbies, Kens, a couple of Max Steel figures, a cool jukebox, and frog molesting a Barbie, and a drunken Barbie who has fallen off her drunk horse.

A line of Barbie car traffic (along with a smaller firetruck, and a wind-blown display with scattered dolls around it.

More of the post-storm carnage, plus that really cool Jem car, and some table-dancing leprechauns who managed to survive the wind.

One more look at Barbie Beach.

Barbie Beach was a fun little diversion, and PopCult offers our condolences to the Quick family and to everybody who ever got to experience the joy and humor of Barbie Beach. Later today we will have another “flashback”  to a previously-published PopCult post.

We are back to what passes for normal. Tuesday is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have new episodes of  Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift for you. 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.

UPDATE: A due to a technical glitch, the 10 AM airing did not happen. You can listen to the show below, or at 10 PM or the additional scheduled airings throughout the week.

We have a special RFC for you this week.  We have two hours of our usual free-format blend of local, independent, alternative and progressive music, and in our third hour I attempt to recreate a very cool music sampler cassette from forty years ago.

We open the show with brand-new music from The The, which was quite a shock to me because, for some reason, I was under the impression that Matt Thompson, who essentially IS The The, had passed away a few years ago. Happily, I was very much mistaken and his new music is great.

We also have new tunes from David Synn, Tony Levin, The Queen’s Cartoonists (who also open this week’s new episode of The Swing Shift), Corduroy Brown,  Mercury Rev, The Anchoress, and more. We also dig into our archives again and bring you some music that was new ten years ago, when we first started presenting local music at 10 AM and 10 PM every Tuesday.

Our third hour recreates Warner Brothers’ Survival Sampler cassette from 1984. Identified as “SR-1 Sound Rations” and packaged in a tin can, made to look like a military MRE food can, this package was cool enough to persuade a vinyl snob like yours truly to buy a pre-recorded cassette tape. As you’ll see in the playlist below, and hear in the show, it was a pretty amazing collection of musical artists.

In order to fit the whole thing into our third hour,  I had to replace a couple of 12″ mixes with regular album cuts, but essentially this is the cassette that I paid just under four bucks for forty years ago. The can and accompanying pamphlet are long gone, lost to the tumultuous first marriage, but I do still have the cassette. I was able to swipe the accompanying images from various places on the internet. Rather than dub it over, I replaced every track with a higher-quality digital copy.

I’m still a snob that way, I guess.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the local and independent artists in the first two hours of this week’s show where possible…

RFC V5 193

hour one
The The “Cognitive Dissident”
David Synn “Swollen Head”
Tony Levin “Bringing Down The Bass”
The Queen’s Cartoonists “Kyrie/Dies Irae” from Mozart’s Jazz Requiem
Chuck Biel “Sun, Wind, Bicycle”
Corduroy Brown“Lookin’ Over My Shoulder”
John Radcliff “Chase The Sun”
Mercury Rev “Born Horses”
The Anchoress “Further Down The Line”
The Boatmen “Heartbreak Hangover”
Mediogres w/B.Rude “Evening Essentials”
The Settlement “Serotonin”
Frenchy & The Punk “Immortal”

hour two
Dina Hornbaker “Black Coffee”
The Nanker Phelge “The Killer Took A Holiday”
The Company Stores “Rise”
Miniature Giant “Wendigo”
Renaissance “Trip To The Fair”
Jordan Rudess “Embers”
Mapped By A Forest “Things You Want To Hear”
The Aquabats “Don’t Make Me Run”
Clownhole “Old Man Jumping Over A Fence”
Golden “I Want To Run”
The Defectors “Easy Target”
Velez Manifesto “Blue Air”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Ignorant”
Novelty Island “1102”
Buni Muni “Battle Pass”

hour three
Novo Combo “Sorry (For The Delay)”
The Smiths “What Difference Does It Make”
The Church “Electric Lash”
China Crisis “Wishful Thinking”
Scritti Politti “Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)”
Carmel “More, More, More”
King Crimson “Sleepless”
Aztec Camera “Pillar To Post”
The Cure “The Caterpillar”
The Bluebells “I’m Falling”
Modern English “Rainbow’s End”
The Assembly “Never Never”
Depeche Mode “Everything Counts”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different classic episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

After RFC, stick around for encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we offer up a new episode of The Swing Shift that’s loaded with new Swing, classic Swing and everything in between.

Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 163

The Queen’s Cartoonists “Sanctus from Mozart’s Jazz Requiem”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Royal Street Swing”
Lester’s Blues “I Want A Little Girl”
Maria Muldaur with Tuba Skinny “Let’s Get Happy Together”
Sassy Swingers “All The Whores”
Squirrel Nut Zippers “Axman Jazz”
Swing Ninjas “Mummy’s Finger”
David Campbell “Beyond The Sea”
Tyler Pedersen “Lap Four 53”
Passepartout ‘Menilmontant’
Megan & Her Goody Goodies “It Had To Be You”
Louis Prima Jr. & The Witnesses “Fame and Glory”
Brian Setzer Orchestra “Kiss Me Deadly”
The Wolverines Big Bad “String of Pearls”
Royal Crown Revue “Sparky’s In The Kitchen”
Wolfgang Parker “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”

 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 tiny pastel crayon study of a potential future painting…possibly to be re-done in the style of Edward Hopper. Inspired by a couple of photos I’ve taken in train yards over the last several years, this was done on the back of an oversized index card, just to try to jot down the composition and colors.

Once scanned, one side was cropped off because I didn’t go all the way to that side, instead using that space to make additional notes.

it’s not much yet, but it should look cool if I ever get around to finishing it. I’ve been putting it off because of all the detail that the gravel will need.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a recent 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 an hour of The Flight of The Conchords on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we devote ten hours to this year’s new episodes of The Swing Shift, just to catch you up because I’m planning to debut a new one tomorrow.

Above you see a new music video of Ann Magnuson’s “The Enchanted Forest,” taken from her Dream Girl album, and animated by Adam Dugas.

The Dream Girl album was made up largely of songs from Ann’s one-woman show, An Evening of SuRURALism™, which debuted during FestivAll in 2015, Ann explored the mysteries of dreams, what they mean, and the world in which they happen. I was proud to have contributed a couple of pieces of artwork to that show (thanks to Mark Wolfe) and was thrilled to see Ann’s dream-based creation.

It’s really cool to see Ann’s Dream Girl visions fleshed out further.

In case you don’t know already, Ann Magnuson is a writer/actress/singer/musician/performer whose eclectic resume traverses the entertainment landscape like few others. She has acted in Hollywood blockbusters, Off-Broadway plays, TV sitcoms and indie films, fronted various bands, written for numerous publications and has presented her original performance art pieces at several major museums.

The credits for the video:

“The Enchanted Forest” by Ann Magnuson [Official Music Video] from the LP Dream Girl
Written by Ann Magnuson Based on an actual dream Ann had.

VIDEO Shot, edited and prompted by Adam Dugas / Lookitnow AI images and footages created with Midjourney and RunwayML
Arzetta doll by Grandma Magnuson ©2024 Ann Magnuson

MUSIC All vocals by Ann Magnuson Organ and synth effect: Ann Magnuson and Mark Wheaton Percussion: Joe Berardi Recorded and engineered by Mark Wheaton at Catasonic ©℗2016 Ann Magnuson

This week we go back to May, 2010 for our 99th show, “Porkchop Shirt.”  This time we produced what was then an extra-long show, with music from Highway Jones, OVADA and HARRAH, plus a visit from IWA East Coast Heavyweight Champion contender, Chris Hero, a short film by Murfmeef and some really cute, but disgusting animation.

This was the first show where we used the Kodak Zi8 video camera, which was then-new, and is today obsolete, but it’s still our weapon of choice, at least for the time being.

It was also the first appearance of HARRAH as a band, although Lee Harrah had been part of the show since episode 19.

The promo for Chris Hero was shot for us by Bo Vance, and is notable because Chris later spent years at WWE’s NXT brand as “Kassius Ohno,” and in this clip he challenges Roderick Strong, who is now a star in AEW, where Hero is now working behind the scenes as a producer.

All  in all, it’s a pretty solid show, loaded with great music and plenty of weird extras to help you pass the time. Original production notes are HERE.

The PopCulteer
September 6, 2024

The clarion call to dance has gone out, so  Mel Larch returns with a brand-new MIRRORBALL! You can hear this and more cool music Friday on The AIR.

The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear our shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes her hour of Disco to a delightful and funky random assortment of classic dance tracks from the golden age of Disco. The focus this week is on extended mixes of some of the grooviest tunes ever created.  The show starts off with The Silver Connection, but by the time Foxy wraps things up, it’s all pure gold.

It’s yet another tasty collection of Disco treats in the grand MIRRORBALL tradition. Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 105

Silver Connection “Get Up And Boogie”
George Benson “Give Me The Night”
Gonzalez “Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet”
Musique “In The Bush”
Donna Summer “Could It Be Magic”
The Blackbyrds “Walking In Rhythm”
Jigsaw “Sky High”
Average White Band “Pick Up The Pieces”
Foxy “Get Off”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Sunday night at 11 PM and throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM plus there’s a mini-marathon that includes the latest episode Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM, it’s encore time on the Big Electric Cat time as Sydney Fileen graces us with special mixtape-style new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This week Sydney presents a salute to the year 1983.

Forty-one years ago we witnessed a very significant year in the New Wave Era. As Sydney says in her intro, “This week, instead of spanning the entire New Wave era, we are going to zero in on one year that many people consider to be the peak of New Wave Music. In this week’s show, we will hear songs that debuted as either singles or album cuts in the year of our Lord, 1983.”

This was when MTV was taking over the nation, but hadn’t yet been corrupted by Hair Metal and crappy reality shows. Music lovers were mainlining innovativeand exciting new musical forms and a generation had their musical expectations turned on its head.

With this episode filling in the blank, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat has devoted entire shows to each year from 1978 to 1984. That means the next time Sydney decides to grace us with a “yearbook” show, she’ll be covering the fringes of the early, either in the very early days, or the very end.  I’m looking forward to seeing what she does.

Check out the playlist…

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat 108

Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Relax”
The Cure “Love Cats”
Orange Juice “Rip It Up”
Eddie Grant “Electric Avenue”
Siouxsie and the Banshees “Dear Prudence”
Madness “Our House”
Bananarama “Cruel Summer”
Tears For Fears “Pale Shelter”
Fun Boy Three “Our Lips Are Sealed”
Style Council “Speak Like A Child”
Kajagoogoo “Too Shy”
Public Image Limited “This Is Not A Love Song”
Yazoo “Nobody’s Diary”
Heaven 17 “Temptation”
New Order “Blue Monday”
Joe Jackson “Steppin’ Out”
Freeze “I O U”
Human League “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”
Nik Kershaw “I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”
U2 “New Year’s Day”
Duran Duran “Is There Something I Should Know”
The Pretenders “Middle of the Road”
Minor Detail “Columbia”
Re-Flex “The Politics of Dancing”
Art of Noise “Beat Box”
The Stranglers “Midnight Summer Dream”
Ultravox “Hymn”

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays Saturday afternoon,  Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR.

That’s it for this week’s PopCulteer, check back for all our regular feature, with fresh content, every day.

Summer’s not over. August is done for now, but we are still in the midst of the hottest summer on record.  Yet there’s still  lots of STUFF TO DO, even with Labor Day Weekend in the rear-view mirror.

Remember, if you are attending an outdoor event, stay hydrated and please don’t smoke or vape around any humans who might find the associated stank to be offensive. Be mindful of your health and of those near you. Look for and offer to aid people who might seem frail, look like they’re about to pass out, or have met a sad fate.  With that bit of a caveat, let me tell you about plenty of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and the surrounding area as we trade-in the dog days of August for the red panda days of September.

As I have been copying and pasting for some time now, this a good time to remind you 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. I won’t be offended if you volunteer to do the work I was too busy wallowing in nostalgia to do.

Live Music is on tap at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  After a couple of weeks in the wilderness, we have their line-up of artists.  Friday it’s Ty McClanahan. On Saturday Sean (Richardson) and Bug (Schuyler) take the stage at Charleston literary, art and coffee institution.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Thursday at 5:30 PM Swingstein and Robin return with music for a cause.  Friday Tim Courts holds down the forts for Happy Hour, and then at 10 PM, Spurgie Hankins Band and Golden celebrate Ron & Marry’s birthdays Sunday evening at 9 PM, Joe’s Cousin and Alan Dale Sizemore take the stage at the Glass. Check the graphics dump below for more weekend events at The Empty Glass.

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona still lurking about all robust and reinvigorated and with a chip on its shoulder. And now there are drought-fueled nasty seasonal allergies, Moose bearing ping-pong balls, sentient ham salad sandwiches, skating KGB Agents and other damned good reasons to be careful. 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.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order…

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY