Today’s art is a small acrylic and ink painting based on a sunset I saw while on our trip a few weeks back. This was the view from the porch that inspired last week’s Monday Morning Art. This one is a possible study for a larger piece, but I may do a totally different take on it by then.
If you want to see this painting/drawing larger, just click on it.
As a bonus, here’s a short film, a timelapse, of the same sunset. I just sat my camera down on a table and pointed it sunsetward. Take a look…
Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, followed at 3 PM by 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 at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.
PsychedelicShack 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. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday at 9 AM as part of our Sunday Haversham Recording Institute collection.
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. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM.
Tonight at 8 PM you can hear an hour of stand-up from Maria Bamford on The Comedy Vault. Wednesday evening at 10 PM, we’ll have another new episode of The Comedy Vault.
Then, at 9 PM we bring you an overnight marathon of Psychedelic Shack, providing you with ten classic early episodes of our Psychedelic Rock extravaganza, presented by Nigel Pye and The Haversham Recording Institute.
Between editing photos and video and trying to watch as much of Wrestlemania and its related shows as possible, your PopCulteer has been caught without any time to carefully choose a video for today. So, for the first time in over ten years, we present footage of a monkey washing a cat.
This week we are departing from our usual chronological re-presentation of our local music video showcse to jump ahead a few weeks for an obvious reason. From April, 2010, this was the Radio Free Charleston April Fool’s Day show for that year. If we didn’t skip ahead and run this now, I’d be posting it here in the middle of May.
This time I decided to do an entire show with the “Fake Rudy” joke that ends almost every episode of Radio Free Charleston. The kindly old schoolteacher who was mouthing my words was the host of “Ding Dong School,” a kid’s program from the 1950s. Many thanks to The Emergency, Simply Sadi and especially Jeff Ellis, who were all very good sports and let me cut music videos using old cartoons with their music for the show. Big thanks also go out to Scott Elkins and Murfmeef for letting me use their short films for the show.
Over the end credits, that is indeed RFC’s resident diva, Melanie Larch, joining WATT4 for their version of the Police classic, “Message In A Bottle.”
This was the show that, I feel, most lived up to our promise of “mind-hurting weirdness.” You can read the Kayfabe production notes HERE.
Next week we’ll bring you episode 92, and continue in order from there.
Every year ToyLanta offers up at least one giant-sized 1/6 scale diorama, and this year did not disappoint.
Caleb Brown created a massive diorama that told the story of Nazi forces, in WWII, holed up inside a bombed out church, with a collection of ill-gotten treasures that they’ve looted, while the Allied Forces storm the church and stop the forces of evil.
I’m not going to try to describe it any further. This is just an amazing diorama with an astonishing amount of detail. Just check out the pictures. The diorama tells the story.
It’s that one day of the year where fake news and absurdity run wild! Well, at least it used to be. Now that seems to be the norm for a lot of people every day. Anyway, Friday we offer up shiny new episodes of MIRRORBALL and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. The AIR is PopCult’s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player at the top right column of this blog.
At 2 PM, Mel Larch uncorks a new MIRRORBALL! The AIR’s showcase of classic Disco music presents a wild collection of classic Disco tracks that all have the word “Dance,” or some version of it, in their titles. It’s an all-star line-up of classic Disco artists, with a little bit of a bitterseet twist.
This week Mel bends her rules just a bit so she can include three tunes from the Foo Fighters “DeeGees” project, which was released last year. This EP saw the band doing very faithful covers of some of The Bee Gees’ top Disco hits.
In light of the recent death of Foo Fighter’s drummer, Taylor Hawkins, Mel thought this would be a good time to remind people of this fun detour the worlds reigning rock band took into the world of Disco. It’s part of a full hour of Disco delights.
Check out the playlist…
MB 048
Foo Fighters/DeeGees “You Should Be Dancing”
Baccara “Sorry I’m A Lady”
Gene Chandler “Get Down”
Esther Phillips “What A Difference A Day Makes”
Johnnie Taylor “Disco Lady”
New York City “I’m Doin’ Fine Now”
The O’Jays “I Love Music”
Tina Charles “I Love To Love”
Foo Fighters/DeeGees “Night Fever”
The Drifters “There Goes My First Love”
The Nolans “I’m In The Mood For Dancing”
Gladys Knight & The Pips “Come Back and Finish What You Started”
Brainstorm “Lovin’ Is Really My Game”
MFSB “TSOP”
Dan Hartman “This Is It”
Curtis Mayfield “Move On Up”
Foo Fighters/DeeGees “Shadow Dancing”
You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays this Saturday at 9 PM (kicking off a mini-marathon), Sunday at 11 PM, Monday at 9 AM, and Tuesday at 1 PM exclusively on The AIR.
At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen decided to throw us a curveball. On realizing that this episode of her show would debut on April Fool’s Day, she also decided to bend the rules and present two hours of the goofiest New Wave music ever, in a mixtape form. Sydney opens the show with Weird Al and Barnes & Barnes, and proceeds to present genuine New Wave novelties mixed with offbeat covers, and a few parodies, recreations and ringers in the mix.
It’s all in the spirit of fun, so check out this playlist…
BEC 088
Weird Al Yankovic “Dare To Be Stupid”
Barnes & Barnes “Fish Heads”
The Vandals “National Brotherhood Week”
The Units “Bugboy”
Captain Sensible “Wot”
Cyndi Lauper “He’s So Unusual”
DEVO “Speed Racer”
Divine “You Think You’re A Man”
Tim Finn “I See Red”
Big Daddy “Once In A Lifetime”
Julie Brown “Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun”
Big Daddy “Safety Dance”
Weird Al “You Make Me”
Neil “Hole In My Shoe”
Hazel O’Connor “EE-I-ADDIO”
Martini Ranch “How Does The Laboring Man…”
Mystery Music
Wall of Voodoo “Exercise”
Violent Femmes/The Dickeies “Eep Op Ork Ah Ah”
Lene Lovich “I Think We’re Alone Now”
Laibach “Sympathy For The Devil”
Little Nell “Beauty Queen”
Neil “Lentil Nightmare”
Nina Hagen Band “TV Glotzer”
Robert Fripp “You Burn Me Up”
The Stranglers “Old Codger”
Celia & The Mutations “Mean To Me”
The Bad Shepards “White Riot”
Big Daddy “Whip It”
The Dickies “If Stuart Could Talk”
Oingo Boing “Goodbye Goodbye”
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 what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back later Friday afternoon for a photo essay dedicated to a really impressive ToyLanta diorama. We’ll also have our regular weekend features and more ToyLanta coverage next week.
All right, I have to admit I’m slacking off a bit here. Today’s photo essay is nothing but toys we saw almost two weeks ago at ToyLanta. Next week I hope to bring you some short videos, and tomorrow the plan is to show off the dioramas and custom figures, but today it’s all about the toys.
I’m talking reallly cool toys, like Aaron Luck’s 3-D printed miniature Adventure Team vehicles (seen right) and thousands of other cool action figures, dolls, robots and other cool things.
Face it, this is just pure, dirty, dirty toy porn.
Many of these pics were taken when we snuck in a little early to shoot photos of the dealers setting up, so if some displays seem a little disheveled, it’s because they’re a work in progress. I was still skittish about being in crowded rooms, so once the general public came in, I made myself scarce. Hopefully we’ll be back to normal enough next year for me to feel comfortable in crowds, but we’re not there yet.
I also made the sad discovery that the videos I shot on the final morning of ToyLanta, before we hit the road, did not come out in any usuable form. I will be posting about a couple of the folks I intended to spotlight in those in the coming weeks.
I’ll probably still be posting ToyLanta photos and video through next week, so I hope nobody’s sick of this stuff yet. We’ve been back more than a week, but it takes a long time to decompress from your first extended trip in over two years and we’re still finding our footing. Today is all about the toys, so dig in…
I used this as the feature image for the Sunday Evening Video, but folks asked me to post it again, unsquooshed and without the logo.
Some dealers had cool Barbie stuff. Take note of that ’57 Chevy.
Continuing our series of photo essays about our mid-March trip to ToyLanta, we have one more stop before the toy show. Actually, this was supposed to be our first stop before snow decided to mess with our original plans.
While we were headed South for ToyLanta, and we left early so Mel could visit her happy place of Senoia, Georgia, we had also learned of a magical place called The Alabama Dish Outlet, in Oxford, Alabama.
It’s just twenty miles or so from the Georgia/Alabama border, and Mel’s buddy, Jim Preece, who owns Table Talk in Senoia, told her about this cool place filled with FiestaWare, and that they had retired colors.
I checked Google Maps and told Mel we were going. It’d be foolish to be that close and not visit this place.
Alabama Dish Outlet is a very friendly place, packed tight with all things FiestaWare (plus Kit Kat Clocks and even some Blenko Glass). The building is smaller than the Fiesta Outlet in Flatwoods, but seemed to have about three times as much stock, neatly arranged in a maze-like floorplan that leaves you finding a new treasure every time you turn around.
I am not a FiestaWare expert by any means, so I’m not going to write captions for these photos. I will say that the vast majority of what you see below is FiestaWare. The store does carry a few complimentary brands other cool pieces, in addition to the Kit Kat Clocks and a shelf filled with Blenko goodness.
You can visit The Alabama Dish Outlet’s Facebook Page for more information, and if you’re in the South Atlanta area, it’s less than a 90-minute drive. Well worth it for the die-hard Fiesta collector.
I only took one photo in that back room, in case you were wondering how packed this place is.
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 thanks the Quicks for taking the time to put smiles on the faces of passers-by. Hopefully we’ll return soon and bring you more photos when the weather is better.
Over on our internet radio station, The AIR, Tuesday is a day of cleaning up technical messes and slapping together a new , full-length Radio Free Charleston. I’ll fill you in on the details below. To hear all this stuff I’m talking about you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and listen to the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column, unless you’re reading this on your phone.
At 10 AM and 10 PM you can hear one new hour of non-local music, and two hours of great live local music from our video archives.
The first hour of RFC is all-new, and we open with a the Ukrainian band, Beton, and their re-worked Clash cover, “Kyiv Calling.” The rest of our first hour is packed with an eclectic mix of new, newly-reissued and classic tunes from a cool assorment of international artists. Because of the nature of this show, and yours truly still be wiped out from his recent trip, ther are no links to the artists in this week’s playlist.
Our second and third hours present a deep-dive into the Radio Free Charleston video archives. We offer up some previously-unheard recordings by QiET, Whitechapel District, The Snake and The Pot, Wiley Sonic, Mother Nang and Frenchy and The Punk in our second hour. Our Third Hour has a few tunes from Mother’s Nature, and then several songs by Whistlepunk, recorded at LiveMix Studio, probably circa 2008.
Check out the playlist:
RFC 083
hour one
Beton “Kyiv Calling”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Not The One”
April March “Open Your Window, Romeo”
Colin Hay “All I See Is You”
Hall and Oates “Romeo Is Bleeding”
Joan Jett and The Blackhearts “Frustrated”
Soft Cell and The Pet Shop Boys “Purple Zone”
The Undertones “Joyland”
The Art of Noise “Dreaming In Color”
Beth Hart “Kashmir”
Royal Blood “Trouble’s Coming”
Franz Ferdinand “Darts of Pleasure
hour two live archives
Qiet
Whitechapel District
The Snake and The Pot
Wiley Sonic
Mother Nang
Frenchy and The Punk
hour three live archives
Mother’s Nature
Whistlepunk
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 3 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, and Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different 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.
Immediately after RFC, at 1 PM we replay last week’s new episode of MIRRORBALL. Then at 2 PM and 3 PM, due to technical issues that caused them not to be played in their regular timeslots Monday, we are going to run the new editions of Psychedelic Shack and Prognosis that we told you all about HERE.
That problem was a little mortifying and I suspect it’s more human error on my part than anything technical.
Later Tuesday check back as PopCult brings you a photo essay of an eccentric roadside attraction we encountered on our trip.
Our first photo essay from PopCult‘s Spring vacation is a visit to The Official Walking Dead Museum in Senoia, Georgia. We have been here before, and documented it in photos and video (use our search box to the right to find those posts), but since we were last there, three years ago, things have changed.
The Woodbury Shoppe (the official TWD store) used to be located on the ground floor of 48 Main Street, a cool multi-story building in Senoia. In the back of the store there was a set of steps that led down to the lower level, where you would find the museum.
Since our last visit, the spot that The Woodbury Shoppe used to inhabit has been partioned, with the front part becoming home to a new business called Boots and Bling, and the back part becoming the new location of the TWD Museum. Now, you go downstairs to find an expanded Woodbury Shoppe, while the cool exhibits are mostly upstairs.
We’re going to take an updated look at the new space today. This is also where some new walking and golf cart tours devoted to TWD meet before they kick off.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
There’s a tour group just leaving. That means the place ought to be deserted so I can get good photos!
Peeking in through a window, I can see new cabinets with new exhibits.
Another window view shows a cool wall of stuff to examine. Also, you can see the rails for the stairs to The Woodbury Shoppe.
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