So that headline is why this post was delayed for one day.  September 19 is “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” and today I’m telling you about a fun Kickstarter campaign for two cool trading card sets, one of which is devoted to Pirates.

This is actually from RRParks Cards, and in previous years I’ve only been able to tell you a little about his annual Halloween campaign because I also write about his card sets in Non Sport Update and I’m not supposed to double-dip with my writing.  So I haven’t written extensively about them here in PopCult.

I’ve interviewed Richard Parks, the one-man show behind RRParks Cards several times, and I’m a big fan of his trading card sets. This year, I didn’t write about these sets (which are covered in depth as the cover feature for Non Sport Update this month), instead getting the assignment to cover Transformers trading cards, so this year I can tell you all about this cool campaign, to which I’ve already contributed.

In fact, this campaign crushed its meager goal in the first few hours, and is beyond 20 times that goal, just a couple of days in, with 23 days left to participate. Even cooler, Richard is promising that these will arrive before Halloween. Most of the cards are already manufactured and ready to go.

As I said, there are two sets…one is RR Parks annual Halloween card set, which is actually a collection of a whole bunch of mini-sets, and the other is the second series of his Pirates & Privateers cards.

Supporters can choose to support either set, or both, or just get a promo card or a smaller version of either set. It’s a very flexible campaign. There’s even a fully-authorized eight-card Halloween Ultraman set, to go along with Richards impressive Ultraman Trading Card series. Allow me to quote liberally from the Kickstarter page…

We’re wrapping up our ELEVENTH year as a trading card company as well as our ELEVENTH  Halloween as a publisher. Every October, I publish some fun spoOooOoOoky and creepy horror and monster card sets … and THIS is years’ Halloween is EXTREMELY, BIGLY HUGE IN SCOPE!  ELEVEN DIFFERENT TRADING CARD SETS with a ‘theme’ of HALLOWEEN ART plus a continuation of our PIRATES & PRIVATEERS card series! Your pledge on this project helps with production costs, and will make sure you get ALL the CARD SERIES as well as exclusives.

We are DETERMINED to get this years’ RRParksCARDS Halloween Trading Cards to you BY HALLOWEEN! We might not be able to go out trick or treating … might not be able to have a Halloween party … but, by golly, I want everyone to be able to enjoy the holiday and so the scar-r-r-r-ry LOGISTICS for getting these cards to everyone by Halloween was started over a YEAR ago in preparation and even production for some sets. This project is planned to ship in time for Halloween… THIS Halloween! October 31st 2024.

The Halloween sets are one of the most fun trading card sets on the market. Designed to warm the hearts of us “Monster Kids” and anyone who loves the October holidays, Among the fun sets-within-this-set are Halloween Art Cards; “Choke & Gag” cards filled with bad taste jokes made in good humor; A series based on William Castle’s 13 Ghosts; a set of classic Planet Comics covers; sets devoted to the art of Paul Maitland, John “Smitty” Smith and David Day; an off-size set of cards with vintage art of Baron Munchausen; a set of Kute Afflictions by Lindsey Greyling; the aforementioned Ultraman set; and a Hugo The Living Skull set of playset cards. Plus there are loads of extras that you can read about at the Kickstarter page. Most of the smaller sets come in their own wax packs.

But we need to get back to the Pirates for today’s big talking event, so I’ll go back to what Richard writes…

This Kickstarter is a ‘double feature’ … Collectors of our PIRATES & PRIVATEERS Series One will be happy to know that we’ve got the SECOND SERIES DONE, HERE and READY TO SHIP!  If you want pirates but aren’t into Halloween, you can get this SECOND SERIES of pirates all by itself as either a base set OR a master set (see pledge tiers for details or the options listed below.

Priates & Privateers Series II is a 48-card base set that reprints the ultra-rare Sea Raiders sets (both series) , plus there are tons of cool extras available at the Master Set level. There’s a sketch card, portrait cards, art cards featuring N.C. Wyeth,  and tons more special cards and features.

Indeed, with this set BUCKLES WILL BE SWASHED! This is no half-avast Pirate set, me buck-os. This is pretty epic.

You can find out more and get your Pirate activities for the day under your belt by going to the Kickstarter page.

Here’s the deal. I had a great post written and ready to go for today, but then I realized that it’s much, much better suited to run tomorrow, for reasons that will be obvious, tomorrow.  However, I have a doctor’s appointment and I don’t really have time to crank out a replacement post for today.

So, I’m going back seventeen years, to September, 18,  2007, for a rare “Tuesday Morning Art,” which ironically did not run on Monday that week because…I had a doctor’s appointment. The more things change, you know.  Also, because STUFF TO DO is being bumped to Friday, I’ve got one early event listed at the end of this post, so’s you don’t miss the first day.

Anyway, here, presented in a larger size than it was originally, is a photograph with digital tweaking, and a brief description of what it is…

Delayed by a day due to a doctor’s appointment (just a check-up, your loyal PopCulteer is in good health) here’s this week’s Monday Morning Art–on Tuesday.

It’s a shot taken last Saturday at Appalachian Power Park during the Oktoberfest fundraiser for the Clay Center.   I was using the “color accent” function on my new camera so that the only color that came through was blue.  Everything else is in black and white. You can get some really neat photos of the sky this way.  Like this one, in which you can see some of Whistlepunk playing at the bottom of the picture, but the star of the photo is the bright blue sky peeking under the canopy and over the buildings and mountains.

You can see this image bigger HERE.

(Update: A year later, that camera was stolen by a former friend who was a houseguest at the time. I replaced the camera, but the newer model did not have that much-missed feature)

And here is your preview of a big cool thing happening this weekend down Lewisburg way…

Somehow Tuesday has happened once again on The AIR.  As such, we have a new episode of  Radio Free Charleston 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.

Today we have three full hours of cool stuff for you. Our first two hours are our usual mix of local, independent and just plain cool music, while our third hour brings you the 2006 Caustic Eye Productions Sampler CD (minus the non-local tracks) which was a benefit CD for AdamFest.

Of late you may have noticed that I’ve been using special themes or gimmicks to fill up the third hour of the show. This is my way of mixing up the formula. I’m trying to cut down on using recylced episodes of previous incarnations of the show, but sometimes my schedule gets a little too heavy to do three full hours each week.

So I’m trying out “mixtape” themes for the third hour.  It’s less work for me since I don’t have to record back-announcing for that hour, and it keeps us from falling into a rut. In the coming weeks you’ll see us throw the RFC spotlight on different genres and special collections.  This week we celebrate a cool Charleston-based record label from the decade before last.

But before that, we open the show with brand-new music from Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess, and the rest of the show includes new music from Gardenn, Chvrches, David Synn, Mapped By A Forest, Bleachers and more.

For the second week in a row, we play a track from Tony Levin’s new album, Bringing It Down To The Bass, and coincidentally this week on WVPR’s Electopia, hosted by Jim Lange, the entire show is devoted to an interview with Mr. Levin, who you may know as the bass player for King Crimson, Peter Gabriel and on tons of recording sessions, like those for John Lennon’s Double Fantasy.

You can hear Electopia Friday & Saturday nights at 9 PM. He’ll talk about his new album, plus lots of insights, road stories and a bit of fun too. If you can’t pick it up on the old wireless, tune in on your computorial device HERE.

Hour two begins with some Pirate music from The Dread Crew of Oddwood, to get you in the mood for “Talk Like A Pirate Day” on September 19.

For our third hour, I’ve put together a mixtape of the first eleven tracks from Guilty By Association: Five Years of Caustic Eye. Released in 2006 as a benefit for AdamFest, this CD includes music from Byzantine, Jeff Ellis, Stone Ka-Tet and more. It’s a pretty nifty snapshot of the local music scene, roughly two decades ago. Caustic Eye was the brainchild of Rod Lanham, who’s done quite a bit to support the local scene.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the local and independent artists where possible…

RFC V5 194

hour one
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Kira”
Gardenn “Mt. Mama”
William Orbit “A Hazy Shade of Random”
Chvrches “Good Girls (John Carpenter Remix)”
David Synn “Hypomania”
The Settlement “Midnight Train”
Mediogres “Drownin'”
The Residents “The Weatherman (Demo)”
Frenchy & The Punk “Sleepwalk Shuffle”
Mapped By A Forest “Big Fish”
Tony Levin “Espressoville”
John Bunkley “On The Basis of Something Superficial”
Joi “Seven In, Seven Out”
Mark Davis “Little Girl In The Ring”

hour two
The Dread Crew of Oddwood “Give Me Your Beer”
The Broken Relics “Crosswalk”
4 OHM MONO “Entertain Me”
Dhani Harrison “New Religion”
Bleachers “Ordinary Heaven”
M & Chuck Biel “Fools Line Up”
Hellblinki“Bella Ciao”
Milva “Uno Come Noi”
Kitten & The Tonics “Howlin'”
Hasil Adkins “Ha Ha Catwalk Baby”
Kevin Scarborough “Algorithm Rock”
Treasure Cat “Hurt Myself Being Stupid”
Crazy Jane “Silver”

hour three
The Caustic Eye Sampler, A Benefit for Adam Weaver
Against “My Bitter Half (DBD)”
Jeff Ellis  “Hatfield (Cover)”
Byzantine “Purity”
David White “Zwak”
Guinness Clarke’s Wine “In Pieces”
Stone Ka-Tet “A Song For Adam’
Jeff Ellis  “Tina”
David White “Intransit”
The Fringe “2 (Version)”
Guinness Clarke’s Wine “Last Days Of Summer”
David White “Aurora”
Jeff Ellis  “On Top Again”

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 give you an encore of two classic episodes of The Swing Shift.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 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 Thursday and Sunday evenings.

This week’s art is a small acrylic-on-illustration board study for a future larger canvas work. The plan is to make it another homage to Edward Hopper…hence the name.

This is based on a random photo of an apartment building I took from the L in Chicago. I don’t remember for sure where it was, but it was probably somewhere on the Brown line, North of the Loop.

I basically slapped this down to get the color and compostion, and paint out where the reflections from inside the train were.  The finished piece will have a completely different approach to the sky. I consider the sky a weak point of mine, and really need to work on that in the future.

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 songs from The Simpsons on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we devote ten hours to the first five episodes of Prognosis. We will be alternating between Prognosis and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat for the next several weeks, because we’re going to be pulling the early episodes of those shows from the server soon to make room for newer programs. After they’ve been offline for a year or so, we’ll bring them back into rotation but for now, you can hear them Monday evening into Tuesday morning, and then those episode will go on hiatus.

With your humble blogger still working on a paying gig, this week we’re going minimalist with a 1982 Tokyo concert by The Clash. This shows the band at their peak, before they found superstardom, then quickly imploded.

Folks don’t remember how important this band seemed at the time. They combined several different styles of music into their Punk sound, and pioneered the crossovers between Rock and Hip Hop, with Reggae, Dance, Rap and Pop in the mix as well. In this video you will hear some of their most powerful songs: “Messages/Radio Intro,” “London Calling,” “Safe European Home,” ‘Train In Vain,” “Washington Bullets,” “The Leader,” “Spanish Bombs,” “The Magnificent Seven,” ” The Guns Of Brixton,” “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais,” “Ivan Meets G.I. Joe,” “Brand New Cadillac,” “Charlie Don’t Surf,” “Koka Kola,” ” I Fought The Law,” “Somebody Got Murdered,” “Career Opportunities,” “Janie Jones,” “Clampdown,” “This Is Radio Clash,” “Clash City Rockers,” “Stay Free,” “Armagideon Time,” “Complete Control,” “Jimmy Jazz,” “Tommy Gun,” “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?,” “London’s Burning,” “Fujiyama Mama,” “Police On My Back,” “White Riot” and “Radio Outro.”

This week we flashback to a huge milestone, our one-hundredth episode, from May, 2010.  This edition of the show, titled “M.C.Escher Shirt,” was, at that time, our longest show, with the most bands. It featured the RFC debut of  The Nanker Phelge, the second appearance of Eva Elution,  local superstar Jeff Ellis, the return of Hellblinki Sextet and the kickoff to “Stark Charleston,” an animated travelogue project I’d started with music by David Synn.

My co-host for this show was my imaginary daughter, Kitty Killton.  We shot host segments at Top O Rock, which was in pretty derelict condition at the time, but at least it was still standing, which is no longer the case…dammit.

Who woulda thunk we’d still be doing Radio Free Charleston as a weekly radio show and annual video show fourteen years later?

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.