As you may know, PopCult has a sister internet radio station, The AIR. You can find it at its own website, or listen to it on the handy-dandy embedded player that you can find at the top right column of this blog.

Normally we do our best to bring you several new programs each week. However, this week the nice Eastern European folks who play host to The AIR have informed us that they will be doing routine server maintainance for the next week, and that might result in intermittent outages, lasting from five or ten seconds to five or ten minutes.  Because I don’t want to get anybody all excited about our new shows and have them tune in, only to have the station go to dead air, we will be running encores of our recent programs all week, and plan to return with bright, shiny new stuff next Monday.

Now, it has been scientifically determined that all of our encore programs are at least 150% cooler than any other radio programming on the planet, so even our reruns are worth giving a listen. You are still free to tune in at will, just be warned that it might go out once in a while. For that we apologize in advance.

In the meantime, starting tomorrow, PopCult will be filled with photo essays of the model-building contest entrants for the next few days, so keep checking back for cool stuff.

Above you see a quick and sloppy pencil sketch of a tank. Actually, it’s based on one of the photos I took on Memorial Day Weekend to send to my buddy, Dave Mattson, for his website, but this is me, sitting in front of the computer, trying to draw from the photograph, armed only with my trusty Blackwing Palamino. It’s rough and sketchy because Summer hates Myasthenia Gravis, and that’s the best I could muster at this time. Had a few hours of major hand cramps after this one, so there was no tightening up the finished product.

It’s drawn on cheap sketchbook paper, scanned and cropped, for your pleasure.

Click the image to see it bigger.

Meanwhile, I will post info about today’s programming on The AIR later Monday morning. 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.

Since your PopCulteer is returning from WonderFest 2021 this evening, I thought it’d be cool to show you a video of my first trip to the cool Horror/Science Fiction/Model Builders convention, some six years ago.

As I write this, I haven’t decided if I’m going to shoot any video this year. If I do, you’ll see it in PopCult in the coming days. Either way, you can expect tons of photos from the event to show up in this here blog.

This video is set to the music of The Possum Kingdom Ramblers, our buddies from down ToyLanta way.

This week we venture back to May, 2015 for an episode of The RFC MINI SHOW that pushed the envelope a bit. While our music was a slice of genuine Appalachian Americana Blues from HoboClay.com, the real star of the show was Pepper Fandango and Kitty Killton, who should be familiar to fans of PopCult’s Monday Morning Art.

Recorded the day before Valentine’s Day 2015, this edition of The RFC MINI SHOW may not be safe for work, but it sure is easy on the eyes. HoboClay.com performs two songs: One, a cover of “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” the other an original song, “Drink To Your Breasts.”

Joining HoboClay.com for these performances are Pepper Fandango and Kitty Killton of Wayward BurlyQ. Pepper dances solo for “Hat,” while the two bring the second song to life with a spirited dance duet. As I said at the time, “These are burlesque performances, so steer clear if you’re easily offended. There is no nudity, but there’s lots of damn-near nudity, so proceed at your own risk.”

This is a fun show, but it reminds me how much I miss Charleston’s currently-dormant burlesque scene. Maybe once this pandemic is over, lovely people will get back to ripping their clothes off to dance in public again.

The PopCulteer
June 4, 2021

Friday brings two gimmicky new episodes of MIRRORBALL and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat to The AIR. 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.

Today’s episodes of our AIR Music Specialty programs are both gimmicks. Sydney’s Big Electric Cat presents 26 New Wave acts, each representing a letter of the alphabet. Having heard Sydney’s show (Mel’s a big fan of Sydney’s), Mel Larch decided to offer up an hour of Disco tunes which all have some numerical connection, either in the song title, artist, or lyrics. Sydney’s show was done first, but Mel’s show airs first, so here’s what you can groove to when you tune in to MIRRORBALL at 2 PM (EDT)…

MIRROBALL 026

Eruption “One Way Ticket”
5,000 Volts “I’m On Fire”
The Three Degrees “The Runner”
Biddu Orchestra “Summer of ’42”
First Choice “Armed and Extremely Dangerous”
Andrea True Connection “What’s Your Name, What’s Your Number”
Stars On 45 “If You Could Read My Mind”
Walter Murphy “A Fifth of Beethoven”
Inner Life “I’m Caught Up In a One Night Love Affair”
Undisputed Truth “You + Me = Love”
Skyy “First Time Around”
Village People “Ready For The ’80s”
Jimmy Bo Horne “Spank 1980”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM,  with replays Sunday at 11 PM, Monday at 9 AM, Tuesday at 1 PM and Wednesday at 7 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with a special mixtape episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat based on what she calls a “silly idea” from Nigle Pye, the host of Psychedelic Shack.  In a two-hour mixtape show, Sydney presents 26 New Wave artists, each one with a name starting with a different letter of the alphabet. Since she didn’t have room to back-announce every song, she has asked me to include the playlist here so you can see who’s playing what…

BEC 073

Animotion “Obsession”
Big Country “In A Big Country”
The Cure “Boys Don’t Cry”
Depeche Mode “People Are People”
Echo and the Bunnymen “In Bluer Skies”
Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Two Tribes”
Gang of Four “He’d Send In The Army”
Heaven 17 “Let’s All Make A Bomb”
INXS “Need You Tonight”
Joe Jackson “Is She Really Going Out With Him”
Kraftwerk “The Model”
Lene Lovich “New Toy”
M “Official Secrets”
New Musik “Dead Fish Don’t Swim Home”
Oingo Boingo “Grey Matter”
Polyrock “Call of the Wild”
Quincy “Critic’s Choice”
Rubber Rodeo “City of God”
Siouxsie and the Banshees “Dazzle (12″ mix)”
Talk Talk “Tomorrow Started”
Ultravox “Astradyne”
Vanity Fair “A Kiss For Every Tear”
Wall of Voodoo “Mexican Radio”
XTC “Melt The Guns”
Yello “I Love You”
The Zeros “Don’t Push Me Around”

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays 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 for fresh content every single freakin’ day.

You should know the drill by now. Here are a few cool events happening in or around Charleston this weekend. If you are fully vaccinated and ready to do your best to stay safe, you should go check this stuff out. Outdoor shows are okay for reasonable and vaccinated people to go maskless. Indoor shows leave you at the mercy of your fellow patrons, and be honest…you don’t know where they’ve been. So use your common sense and stay safe.

Here’s a mix of outdoor and indoor events that start Thursday and wrap up Sunday.

The pandemic is not quite over yet, but we are close enough to normal that a few brave souls are staging comic book, pop culture and horror conventions this summer.

Now, anybody who’s regularly attended such conventions in the past should be keenly aware of “con crud,” the unique cocktail of colds, flus, sinus infections and other easily transmittable ailments that an attendee stands a good chance of bringing home as an unwanted souvenir.

Since we are in the waning days of a pandemic, I hope that folks going to these shows are smart enough to still wear masks (even if you don’t technically have to) and wash and sanitize your hands and refrain from handshakes, hugging and molesting the cosplayers.

Of course, you should always refrain from molesting the cosplayers. They aren’t there to be abused by you. They’re there to stand in the way and block you from meeting the guy you drove eight hours to see right before he shuts down his booth and leaves.

This weekend we have two driveable conventions for Charlestonians to consider.

The one-year-delayed first Huntington Comic & Toy Convention is happening at The Mountain Health Arena, which us old folks still call “The Huntington Civic Center.” They have an amazing guest list, but according to their website, all tickets are sold out, so it’s a bit late to make plans. They are having a lot of free outdoor stuff in Pullman Square, so you could check that out if you want to.

The show will feature some great guests like wrestlers, Sgt. Slaughter, Kevin Nash and Al Snow; voice artist Jim Cummings; TV’s original Flash, John Wesley Shipp; plus a lot of stunt people who worked on Star Wars projects, several actors from the Power Rangers franchise and even a few comics creators.

Like I said, it’s sold out.

Now, in the grand tradition of Huntington’s defunct Tri-Con, the organizers decided to hold their convention on the same date as WonderFest USA, in Louisville. WonderFest USA is a long-running (nearly 30 years) Horror/Science Fiction and model builders convention. It hosts the largest model contest in the world and is also where the annual Rondo Awards are presented for excellence in horror. It always takes place the weekend after Memorial Day.

That’s where your PopCulteer will be going this weekend. Expect plenty of photos and maybe some video next week. We haven’t been since 2017, so this will be a nice homecoming for us.

Greg Nicotero, the Excecutive Producer of The Walking Dead will be on hand, as will artist William Stout, whose work I recently reviewed in Slow Death Zero. They also have actors from The Flash, Deep Space Nine and Lost In Space, plus producers, directors, special effects artists and writers from Star Trek, The Muppets, Creepshow, and more.

The real attraction is the model contest, drawing hundreds of entries from around the world that show off boundless creativity and artistry. The photos you see with this post are from previous years.

Plus they have a vendors room, where you can find all kinds of cool modeling supplies, posters, toys and other cool stuff.

Best of all, for us anyway, tickets are sold at the door only, so we don’t have to worry about it being sold out.

The big San Diego Comic Con is not happening as scheduled this year, and I haven’t heard any news about the New York Comic Expo, but it’s not like we were going to go to those anyway. The Marx Toy Convention in Wheeling will happen (and we will be there). MEGO Meet will not, since one of the organizers is based in Canada and they have yet to lift their lockdowns.

We will try to keep you updated about further local-ish conventions here in PopCult.

Your PopCulteer is back from a mini-trip he took with Mrs. PopCulteer over the weekend. It was our first trip like this in well over a year, and it was a load of fun, even if it’s a bit awkward doing this again after our pandemic year. It’s still strange seeing some people in public without masks, and it’s going to take some time to shake the habit of seeing other people as potentially infectious zombie-like critters.

The main reason for the trip was to meet my new grand-nephew, Indigo. Mission accomplished, and he is a beautiful, healthy baby.

Then we took a side-trip as a favor for my buddy, Dave Mattson. Dave is rebuilding his website devoted to all things Tanks, and I will be linking to it and telling you all about it once he has it up and running again. A few months ago Dave asked me how close I was to Weirton. “Not very” was the answer, but I was willing to make the effort for a friend.

The reason Dave asked me that is that there is roadside park in Weirton, The Brooke-Hancock County Veterans Memorial Park. It’s located right in the curve of an exit ramp coming off of US 22 onto Route 2. They have a tank on display there that is one-of-a-kind. You can see it at the head of this post in a selfie, but I’m saving all the other photos I took of the tank for Dave, who will be able to tell you much more about it than I ever could.

However, there’s more to The Brooke-Hancock County Veterans Memorial Park than just the tank.

The park has several military vehicles and pieces of artillery and monuments, and even a piece of the wreckage of the World Trade Center. It’s a humbling thing to see, and it really drives home the sacrifices of those brave people who swore to uphold our Democracy. It was an appropriate way to spend part of my Memorial Day Weekend. We’re going to bring you photos of that stuff right here.

You can find out more about The Brooke-Hancock County Veterans Memorial Park at their Facebook page. The park is maintained by a non-profit group, and you can find an address there if you are inclined to make a donation. The park is right off of Exit 2, on US 22, headed West, or you can find it by driving North up Route 2, until you see the military Jet by the side of the road. It’s a pretty great day trip. It was about a fifty-minute drive from just South of Pittsburgh, and that was mainly due to some winding roads.  I’m tempted to repeat the trip in the future, so I can get photos at night, when the park is lit up.

I will present these photos without comments. I am not nearly knowledgeable enough about military equipment to identify the planes, choppers and big guns with any descriptor beyond “really cool-looking,” so I will leave that to any experts who wish to leave comments. Photos are mostly by your PopCulteer, with a couple of them taken by Mel Larch.

I’ve done digital paintings of my Mother’s roses before, but this year I decided to do a physical painting.  I went outside (in the sweltering heat) and did a quick color sketch, then came inside, cooled off, and did this small mixed-media painting on airbrush paper. There’s pastel, water color, colored pencil and anyhing else I could get my hands on in play for this piece. I even used some colored markers in places. It’s been scanned and cropped a bit because it was sloppy around the edges.

My mom stuck a rose in the ground near our kitchen door sometime back in the 1970s. Every May they bloom in time for Mother’s Day, and by early June, they’re gone for another eleven-plus months. It’s pretty cool.

Click the image to see it bigger.

Meanwhile, The AIR is still in RFC Marathon mode until Tuesday afternoon. 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.

We are running this cool short film as an encore for Memorial Day Weekend.

I’ve always felt that one of the best ways to honor our fallen veterans is to do everything possible to avoid sending even more young people to their deaths. Our video tonight is an anti-war cartoon from the National Film Board of Canada that uses stop-motion animation and GI Joes to send an anti-war message. From 1966, Toys is a classic by animator Grant Munro that takes a dark look into the war toys often given to children at Christmas time. Starting off as harmless objects, the toys quickly take on the gestures of real soldiers, mimicking the actions and penalties of a real war. This critical commentary on war and glamorized violence creates a real and frightening battle.

Now, to be honest, it’s not really the anti-war message or loose connection to Memorial Day that earned this film a spot in PopCult.  It’s the beautiful, pristine footage of so many terrific vintage toys. Of course, my ulterior motive in presenting this film is that it’s really, really cool to see GI Joe animated so well. I’m a long-time GI Joe collector (even though I concentrate on the Adventure Team era rather than the military stuff), and this is just really cool to watch. There are toys being used and abused in this film that would be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars today. In addition to seeing almost the full range of GI Joe product available in Canada in 1966, we also get to see some other cool toy planes and tanks, and even some vintage Barbie and Ken dolls.

I mean, you could see this as an anti-war film, or you could see it as a cautionary tale about giving children bad LSD. Etither way, just look at those cool toys!