Wordliness is next to oddliness or something like that today in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide. We’re recommending a few books from folks who have had books recommended by us in previous years.

The catch is, these are NEW books!

We’ve got a work of Young Adult humourous fiction, a loving look at classic lunchboxes and a trilogy of novels that are sci-fi sequels to books we first told you about years ago.

So pull up a comfy chair and get a strong light, we’re going readin’, folks.

Jack & Jill: Fury Hill
by Frank Conniff
Podhouse Press
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8218286804
$12.99 from Amazon
$25 autographed, from The Author

If you have a fan of MST3K on your holiday shopping list, this hilarious, brisk read is the perfect gift. It’s a modern spin on a classic nursery rhyme, courtesy of TV’s Frank, Frank Conniff.

Blending Jack and Jill with Mad Max: Fury Road, Coniff treats us to a post-apocolyptic fairy tale where getting a drink of water is the least of their worries.

As the brief publisher’s description says, “As the world fell down a hill, each of our crowns in their own way were broken. Jack and Jill: Fury Hill.”

It’s an all-ages book, and yet still manages to be delightfully twisted.

A perfect gift for anyone with a sense of humor.

Available from Amazon or directly from Frank Conniff himself, who will gladly autograph it for you personally, and then he’ll take it to the post office and personally mail it to you from New York City!

Lunch Box Memories
by Jason Young
Self Published
$25 (Canadian) from Jason Young/Oldtimes Digest

Nostalgia merchant, Jason Young strikes again, this time with a book that looks back at classic lunchboxes from days gone by.

For the last couple of years, Jason Young has been self-publishing some terrific books about the fringes of pop culture where your humble blogger likes to shine his spotlight.

This time around he tackles one of the most heavily-collected items that, a few decades ago, was a ubiquitous part of the childhood experience..the (usually) metal lunchbox, which was often accompanied by a matching Thermos.

Lunch Box Memories is a full-color, 170-page look back that includes a foreword written by an Aladdin lunch box artist, a chapter on the history of lunch boxes themselves, and more than 100 featured old metal lunch boxes that are sure to include your favorites. It’s profusely-illustrated and will be a great gift for any lunchbox collector, aspiring collector, or just any fan of pop culture of that certain era of coolness from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The Starchildren Saga
Tales from the HoloDrome
ISBN 9798866884025
$22.99

The StarHaven Tales
ISBN 9798866890941
$22.99

Beyond the HoloDrome
ISBN 9798866899494
$22.99

by Thomas Wheeler
Self-published
Available from Amazon by clicking on the ISBN number

The StarChildren return in a trilogy of new sci-fi adventure novels from author Thomas Wheeler. We told about the earlier books in this series in previous Gift Guides, and now it’s a bounty of adventure with three new books filled to the brim with outer-space action.

In these new volumes the StarChildren encounter amazing new worlds of adventures, new friends and allies, even as their island home is detected by outside forces that may well have plans of their own.

The third, fourth, and fifth books in the series that has been compared to “Star Trek meets Jonny Quest” are available in paperback and Kindle e-book form, exclusively on Amazon.

These books would be the perfect gift for fans of old-school science fiction and adventure. The series is a throwback to the golden age of science fiction, with echoes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Isaac Asimov and Jules Verne, but with an modern setting.

Day Fifteen of The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide sees us recommending gifts that can be fun for the whole family.

Unless some of your family is ultra-competitive and ruins things when you try to play games. In which case, nevermind.

Today it’s board games. Rather newish games, at that, and each of them can be found for under thirty bucks at major game retailers and department stores.

Our choices today include a game based on a movie, a game based on an amusement park ride, and a game borne from the unholy union of two of the greatest board games of all time.

Without any futher ado, shall we play a game…or three?

Monopoly Scrabble
by Winning Moves Games, under licence from Hasbro

Winning Moves Games, the folks who produce a lot of the retro-games for Hasbro, came up with the idea to merge Scrabble with Monopoly. On the surface, it seems like the kind of idea that folks who really, really like to drink too much beer would think of, however the end result is actually pretty fun.

Let’s look at the PR, complete with fancy registration symbols…

Experience the totally unique gameplay of Monopoly® Scrabble®— the innovative game that combines the best elements of the Monopoly® game with the crossword-building play of Scrabble®.

In place of rolling dice to move around the board, players build words and move ahead by their score. Build a word on a premium space and claim a Monopoly® property.

Clever gameplay twists, along with custom Community Chest and Chance cards, keep things moving at a fast pace.

The winner is the player with the highest total of cash and property value when the last letter tile is played.

Contains: 1 Quad-Fold Gameboard, 5 Wooden Scrabble Tile Racks, 1 Bag of 100 Wooden Scrabble Letter Tiles, Tile Storage Bag, 9 Silver-Toned Monopoly Tokens, Deck of 24 Community Chest Cards, Deck of 24 Chance Cards, 10 Title Deed Cards, Monopoly Money Pad (Sixty $100 bills and Sixty $500 bills), and Illustrated Rules. Ages: 8+; Players: 2 to 4

It’s a stripped-down, simplified version of Monopoly, but instead of rolling dice, you move what you get on your Scrabble score. One added bonus is that the tokens included with this game are the classic Monopoly tokens, so if you wanna be the Scottie Dog or the Thimble, knock yourself out.

You ought to be able to find it anywhere games are sold, or you can be lazy and get it from Amazon.

Disney Space Mountain, All Systems Go
by Ravensburger Games

Based, thankfully, on the famous ride at Disneyland, and not on Ric Flair, this game lets you experience the thrilling action of Space Mountain from the comfort of your home.

In this exhilarating racing game, you’ll zoom across space, using wormholes to reach distant Starports. On your turn you’ll roll the dice and move your rocket according to what you roll. The planets, asteroids, and comets you pass can be used to complete missions.

The first pilot to complete their missions wins and reach all five Starports wins!

It’s an exciting racing game based on the classic Disney Attraction for Ages 8 and Up

Contents include: 3 Navigation Dice, 1 Space Mountain Dice Tower, 20 Starport Tokens, 20 Mission Cards, 25 Mission Marker Tokens, 5 Starport Standees, 16 Encounter Tokens, Galaxy Board, Fuel Gauge, Fuel Marker, 4 Rocket Movers, Rules.

You ought to be able to find it anywhere games are sold, or you can be lazy and get it for half the list price from Amazon.

Adventure X: Jurassic World
by Playmonster

Okay, this one is a hybrid of a board game and an escape room, and it’s pretty much a single play game. But it’s a very novel concept, and it is based on a hit movie.

As part of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, you and your team members work to track down dinosaurs around the globe and transport them to Biosyn Sanctuary where they can live freely. You pilot a cargo plane that can carry dinosaurs as large as a T.rex. Your Mission today is to deliver three rare dinosaur eggs to Biosyn Valley in the Dolomite Mountains. You look at the portable incubator in the seat next to you. These eggs must be pretty special…

When you begin your adventure  you’ll find that AdventureX is a collaborative dinosaur-themed board game that has an unfolding 3D game board as part of the box.

You will follow clues and solve puzzles to unfold the layers of the game as you journey to get your dinosaur eggs to safety.  Share information and work together. You can refer to the hint card and use the red filter on the Satellite Radio to reveal more hints.

This one-time mystery board game can be played only once with 1 to 4 players and for kids ages 8 and up. It’s really more of an elaborate puzzle than a game, but it can be loads of fun for a family, especially if the kids in the family love Jurassic World.

The game comes with everything you need to complete your mission including an unfolding 3D Game Board with Hidden Puzzles, Satellite Radio Decoder, Plane Instrument Panel, and 39 Cards.

At thirty bucks, it might seem a little pricey for a game you only play one time, but that’s less than taking four people to most movies, so if you think of it that way, it’s not so bad.

You ought to be able to find it anywhere games are sold, or you can be lazy and get it (at full price) from Amazon.

Today The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide gets a little pricey again. All of our gift suggestions today cost more than a hundred dollars, and this time they’re way past a hundred bucks.

So these gift ideas for for people you really, really like. One of these is, I think, the most expensive thing I’ve ever included in a Gift Guide. It’s not really a practical idea for a gift unless you’re wealthy and deeply in love with the giftee, but it is really cool.

With the caveat of sticker shock in place, since we’re going by cost and not any theme, today’s three entries are a bit of a different Gift Guide trifecta: Music, A Book About Music and A Lionel Train.

I’m still undecided about whether or not to do this again next week, you’ll just have to check back and see.

Pink Floyd
The Dark Side Of The Moon 50th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set
Around $300 at most record shops and online retailers. Discounted at Amazon.

One of the most iconic and influential albums ever, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon celebrates its 50th Anniversary.

The album was partly developed during live performances, and the band premiered an early version of the suite at London’s Rainbow Theatre several months before recording began. The Dark Side Of The Moon is the eighth studio album by Pink Floyd, originally released in March 1973.

The new material was recorded in 1972 and 1973 at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London. The iconic sleeve, which depicts a prism spectrum, was designed by Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis and drawn by George Hardie. The Dark Side Of The Moon has sold over 50 million copies worldwide.

The new deluxe box set includes CD and gatefold vinyl of the newly remastered studio album and Blu-Ray + DVD audio featuring the original 5.1 mix and remastered stereo versions. The set also includes additional new Blu-ray disc of Atmos mix plus CD and LP of The Dark Side Of The Moon – Live At Wembley Empire Pool, London, 1974’

This is for the die-hard Pink Floyd fan on your shopping list. The full list of goodies in this box are as follows:

CD1 – The Dark Side Of The Moon (50th Anniversary 2023 Master). Remastered by James Guthrie in gatefold sleeve with 12-page booklet.

CD2 – The Dark Side Of The Moon Live At Wembley Empire Pool, 1974–Mixed by Andy Jackson in gatefold sleeve with 12-page booklet. Cover design by Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis and Peter Curzon/StormStudios, featuring original 1973 line drawn cover artwork by George Hardie.

LP1 – The Dark Side Of The Moon (50th Anniversary 2023 Master). Remastered original studio album 180g LP in gatefold sleeve, with original posters and stickers.

LP2 – The Dark Side Of The Moon Live At Wembley Empire Pool, 1974–180g vinyl in gatefold, with 2 posters featuring design by Ian Emes and Gerald Scarfe. Cover design by Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis and Peter Curzon/StormStudios, featuring original 1973 line drawn cover artwork by George Hardie.

Blu-Ray 1 (Audio)–Original album 5.1 and high-resolution remastered stereo mixes; 1. 5.1 Surround Mix – 24bit/96kHz Uncompressed; 2. Stereo Mix – 24bit/192kHz Uncompressed; 3. 5.1 Surround Mix – dts-HD MA; 4. Stereo Mix – dts-HD MA

Blu-Ray 2  (Audio)–Original newly remastered album Atmos and high-resolution stereo mixes; 1. Dolby Atmos Mix; 2. Stereo Mix – 24-bit/192kHz Uncompressed; 3. Stereo Mix – dts-HD MA

DVD (Audio)–Original album 5.1 and remastered stereo mixes;1. 5.1 Surround Mix – Dolby Digital @448 kbps; 2. 5.1 Surround Mix – Dolby Digital @640 kbps; 3. Stereo Mix (LPCM) – 24-bit/48 kHz Uncompressed

160-page Thames & Hudson hardcover book with rare black and white photographs from the 1973-1974 tours of the UK and the USA taken by Jill Furmanovsky, Peter Christopherson, Aubrey Powell, Storm Thorgerson. 76-page complete songbook of original album. 2 Replica &: Singles with “Money” / “Any Colour You Like” and “Us And Them” / “Time.” There is also a replica of a pamphlet and invitation to the preview of The Dark Side of The Moon at the London Planetarium on 27th February 1973.

KEITH EMERSON (SIGNATURE EDITION)
Limited Edition Book by Chris Welch
Rocket 88
Signed by Chris Welch and Aaron Emerson.
$350 from Rocket 88

Created with the Emerson family, this celebration and examination of the life and work of Keith Emerson is illustrated throughout with over 200 previously unpublished family photos, classic performance images and private correspondence. New interviews conducted for the book by author Chris Welch include contributions from the Emerson family, close friends, and fellow performers, among them Carl Palmer, Rick Wakeman, Geoff Downes, Alan White, Steve Howe, Lee Jackson, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, Marc Bonilla and many more.

This limited edition is signed by Chris Welch and Aaron Emerson, comes in a clamshell box and includes an archival quality art print portrait of Keith, a CD of an unheard interview, and specially created sheet music of Keith’s first ever original composition Quatermass Boogie Woogie, a hand-written score by the then 12-year-old, in 1956.

Rocket 88 always produces top-notch books that qualify as works of art, and the Emerson book is no exception. With the hefy price, it’s a great gift for a much-loved Keith Emerson fan on your shopping list. There is a less-elaborate, unsigned edition of the book available for $55 plus shipping.

UNION PACIFIC ROCKET BOOSTER TRAIN
by Lionel
Available from Hobby Shops or directly from Lionel
$1,699.99

You can pick your jaw up off the floor now. That really is the list price for this incredible-looking O Scale train set.

Which, by the way, does not include any track.

This is an extremely impressive train set, based on a real train used to transport Rocket Boosters for NASA. The prototype Rocket Booster Train is designed to carry the NASA’s SLS rocket over a 2,800-mile journey from the manufacturing facility in Utah to Florida’s Space Coast.

Each rocket booster consists of five individual segments weighing 180 tons each. A planning team from each railroad the train travels over assists with transportation. They have to determine the best route and account for any obstructions. As such, the set includes: a LEGACY ES44AC Locomotive; 6 Standard box cars, including one with special clearance bars; 5 Heavy Duty flatcars with loads ad protective covers; and a 21″ Sleeper Car to accomodate the crew.

The load that needs protecting is a scale model of a NASA SLS Rocket, which can be removed and assembled, whereupon it stands over 30 inches tall.

The train is loaded with all of Lionel’s latest sound, light and wireless Command Control technology, and it’s pretty astounding, and not just for the price.

I’m just here to make you aware of it as a gift idea for somebody with a love of NASA, an existing O-Scale layout, and no qualms about you spending so much.

Here’s a cool, but longish, video unboxing from Ben’s Trains…

While still embedded in a very busy this week, thanks to magazine deadlines and The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, your humble blogger still managed to eye out a partly-new Radio Free Charleston on The AIR.  In fact, our all-new first hour of  Radio Free Charleston opens with a new song by The Beatles. 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 tons of replays throughout the week.  This week we have one all-new hour, and two hours of a 2017 episode of a long-lost episode of RFC International that hasn’t been heard for over six years.

Our first hour opens with “Now and Then,” the latest, and presumably last, single by The Beatles. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, so I won’t go into details about it, but it’s here because I won’t have time to do a new Beatles Blast for a couple of weeks, and I wanted to open at least one RFC with them anyway.

We also have new music from Corduroy Brown, Hello June, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Brian Diller and more.  We also feature a new solo  tune from Pierce Crask, one of the founders of the band, Falling Martins. He has a new ablum out and you can find it HERE.   Pierce comes to use via our Chicago pipeline.

We also bring you a track from Teddy Kumpel/ Nome Sane?  who will be performing at The Empty Glass in Charleston on November 16. Check out the music on our show, then go hear them play live. Kumpel is a former guitarist for Joe Jackson and Rikki Lee Jones, and he’s coming to town thanks to Dave Roberts!

Because your humble blogger and radio host is still buried under work this week, our second and third hours are a classic episode of Radio Free Charleston International. This episode dates back more than six years, and was split between then-brand-new music and classic tracks from some of my favorite artists.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store. Live links in the first hour will take you to the local and indie artist’s pages (where possible)  so you can find out more about them, buy their music and find out where to see them perform live…

RFC V5 153

hour one
The Beatles “Now And Then”
Brian Diller “The Last Train”
Pierce Crask “Sparkle and Shine”
The Moon My Twin “Tie Score”
Frenchy & The Punk “Monsters”
The Tom McGees “Overrated”
Strawfyssh “Ghost”
Teddy Kumpel/ Nome Sane? with Bob Stander and Matt Miller “Try The Whole Thing”
Hello June “Faded Blue”
OMD “Kleptocracy”
Duran Duran “Psycho Killer”
The Tom McGees “Half That Bad”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Kingsized”
Corduroy Brown “Looking Over My Shoulder (live)”
Miniature Giant “Jerk In A Nissan”

hour two
Bob Dylan “That Old Black Magic”
Corinne Bailey Rae “Ice Cream Colours”
Radiohead “Burn The Witch”
Billy Sherwood “Breaking The Cycle”
John Frusciante “Foreglow”
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals “When Sex Was Dirty”
Rome “Broken”
Oscar “Breaking My Phone”
Cross and Quinn “For Someone”
Future Idiots “Miss Summer”
Razor Red Noise “Reboot”
Nadia Nair “Beautiful Poetry”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Dark Necessities”

hour three
King Crimson “Elephant Talk”
Emerson Lake and Palmer “Pictures at an Exhibition”
The Zombies “Care of Cell 44”
Blue Oyster Cult “Veteran of the Psychic Wars”
Frank Zappa “Stairway To Heaven”
Astor Piazolla “Violentango”
Joe Jackson “Soul Kiss”
Prince “America”

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,  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 two recent 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.

Today we’re going to flirt with our unoffical price limit in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide as we devote our picks to HO Scale Model Railroading.

We’re going to recommend an O scale set in tomorrow’s set of Big Ticket Tuesday picks, but today we’re sticking with the traditional scale, and in fact, we’re including a fourth pick that exceeds the hundred-dollar limit I’m trying to observe this year.

Our picks include three structures in HO Scale, and our bonus pick is a good starter set, for those of you who want to indoctrinate a new fan into the hobby.  If the stucture is available in different scales, I’ll include links.

Let’s look at those structures…

Menards Rocket Launching Tower Model Railroad Structure
Made and sold by Menards
in O Scale and HO Scale
$60 to $100 at Menards (with some weird rebate discount).

I just told you about this a few weeks ago, but here we go again, just in case you missed it.

Menards, who just arrived in Barboursville a couple of years ago, have their own line of model railroading products nestled among their hardware, groceries, work clothes and home goods, and they are a godsend for model railroaders. This is a major retailer who does not have an extensive toy department, but they have provided a lifeline to hobbyists who might now have a hobby shop nearby.

They have a full line of fully-assembled structures, with an easy-to-use plug-in power system, so you can just pick them up, find a space on your layout, and plug them in. When I saw they were doing a Saturn V rocket, I was hoping they’d eventually release it in HO Scale (they usually put out an O Scale version of their structures first), and now they have released this rocket and launch tower in both scales, and I’m going to quote from their website, so I don’t get any details wrong…

The mightiest rocket of the American space program was the majestic Saturn V of Apollo fame! Rising 363 feet into the air, the 6.2-million-pound giant could produce 7.6 million pounds of thrust – more than enough to transport three Astronauts to the Moon! Thirteen Saturn Vs propelled thirteen trips to the Moon!

The Rocket Launching Tower salutes the American space program and allows you to include a rendering of this technological marvel on your own HO gauge layout.

The basics: This is fully assembled and decorated. There is illumination of the launch tower and red flashing warning lights on top of the structure. At the base of the rocket platform you’ll spot rapidly flashing red LEDs. Below the platform is a grate that house Menard’s water vapor “smoke” system. Carefully add water, and when power is applied, a visible torrent of vapor can be seen – simulating launch!

The Rocket Lunching Tower requires a 4.5-volt power supply sold separately (Menards SKU nos. 279-4061/4361, 4062/4362, or4050). Power may be applied through either a rear table-top plug in, or from below the building with a pigtail connector.

The HO Scale Launching Tower has an 4-¾ by 4-¾ inch foundation with a height of 9-3/8 inches. There is a complex array of structural support beams as well as conduits for electrical line or fuel for the liquid-powered rocket motors.

It has a massive tower structure with six levels. Five feature support arms reach out to the rocket. The rocket itself is a good model of the real thing. It is white, and decorated with black striping and an American flag. An Apollo capsule is up top, and you’ll find rudders and engine nozzles at the bottom.

The four rapid-flashing red LEDs warn folks that something big is about to happen. Then water vapor flows out at a rapid rate, suggesting the countdown is almost complete! Next stop, the Moon!

I was able to pick this up in Barboursville, but I may have gotten the last one. It can be order from their website, using the links above for the appropriate scale. Here’s a quick look at it in action…

Merchant’s Row VII — Kit
Walthers Cornerstone
In HO Scale
$35-$45

This set is a kit, which means you have to build, paint (some of it) and apply decals. This can be a fun, relaxing and rewarding part of the hobby, if the person on your shopping list is so inclined. Be sure to find out first if they enjoy doing this, because if you don’t like doing it, then it can be like hell on Earth.

In the event that they like to build stuff, then this is a wonderful kit that will fill up space on their train layout and look great doing it. The storefronts are visually flexible to work in eras from the 1940s to present, and the customization possibilities are endless.

Walthers describes it thusly,

Model a modernized business district when you add the Cornerstone Merchant’s Row VII to HO commercial areas big or small. Perfect for steam-, diesel- and modern-eras, the detailed structure kit includes three updated store under one roof plus:

New Left-corner block with 3 different stores
Modernized facades and entrances
Fits late 1940s to the present
Full-color 1950s-1960s vintage signs for different businesses
Great addition to big city or small town business districts
Separate back porch, downspouts and stairway
Easily mix and match with other Merchant’s Row kits (each sold separately) to create a custom business district
Molded in four colors and clear plastic

This is a great kit that can be bought or ordered at any local hobby shop, or ordered directly from Walthers, or at a discount at the link above.

Drive ‘n Dine
Woodland Scenics
in HO Scale and N Scale
Around $85

This is a cool pre-built set, in two pieces, of a nostalgic, 1950’s style drive-in restaurant. I picked it because it looks great, and it’s a bit reminiscent of Dairy Queen or the original Shoney’s. This cool scale minature is loaded with details.

As the folks at Woodland Scenics say…

Drive ‘n Dine sets a nostalgic scene on any layout and features loads of details. Two carhops on skates deliver tasty treats, and a man in a bright red convertible waits for his order. Additional details include a vintage styled signage, soda straw supports for the awning, benches, picnic table, several bicycles, light poles and more! See photos for footprint.

This structure comes with pre-installed LED lighting made for use with the Just Plug^® Lighting System.

As I write this, the HO version is marked down almost to the price of the N Scale version if you order directly from Woodland Scenics at the links above, but you can probably beat even that price if you shop around online or go to a local hobby shop.

Bachmann Trains – Santa Fe Flyer Ready To Run Electric Train Set
Currently $130 via Amazon

Our bonus pick today exceeds the $100 mark, but it’s a great entry-level HO Scale train. Perfect for any new fan of model railroading.

It’s not too expensive, has an iconic Santa Fe “Warbonnet” engine and it’s got Bachmann’s “EZ Track” system, which is a godsend for those of us who grew up in the era of teensy metal connecter widgets.

It’s a basic set, as they say on the Amazon page:

Complete Ready To Run Freight Train Set
Powered by a EMD FT Diesel Locomotive with Operating Headlight
Includes; Open Quad Hopper Car, Gondola Car, and Off-Set Cupola Caboose
36″ Circle of Snap-Fit E-Z Track, Power Pack and Speed Controller
HO Scale 1:87

Santa Fe Flyer Ready To Run Electric Train Set – HO Scale. Hauling freight across the deserts, mountains, and cities of the American landscape is the Santa Fe Flyer. Powered by a mighty Santa Fe FT diesel locomotive with its distinctive “war bonnet” paint scheme, this sleek and powerful train deftly handles the ever-changing terrain of the Southwest United States. The Santa Fe Flyer includes: EMD FT diesel locomotive with operating headlight, open quad hopper, gondola, offset cupola caboose, body-mounted E-Z Mate couplers, 36″ circle of snap-fit E-Z Track including 11 pieces of curved track and 1 curved plug-in terminal rerailer, power pack and speed controller, illustrated instruction manual.

It’s not loaded with bells and whistles, but it’s a good set for kids and adults to begin their entry in the hobby.

You might want to shop around, because while Amazon usually has the lowest prices, sometimes sets like these go on sale at other websites and in hobby shops.

We’re back in abstract land this week. Today’s piece is a smallish real-world painting based on an older digital piece, which was itself based on an even earlier work.

This acrylic painting was knocked out faster than I expected and I managed to squeeze it in between writing assignments. It’s basically just an attempt to paint an abstract pattern that I initially created digitally close to a decade ago. I turned it on its side, which nobody would have noticed had I not mentioned it here.

I went with more primary colors here, and altered my brushstroke style a bit from what I’ve been using to compensate for a minor MG flare-up. The title is just something I came up with and then quickly forgot why.

You can probably expect a few more quick ‘n’ sloppy pieces over the next few weeks.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a recent 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. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of the music of Rusty Warren on last week’s episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon presents ten hours of Mel Larch’s Curtain Call.

Be sure to check back later Monday morning for the next installment of The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide.

We have a change of plans in today’s entry in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide.  Our previously-announced guide to online retailers has been bumped to next Sunday.

This week we are going to feature some local folks, most of whom make their own cool wares, and many of whom are vendors at The Mountain State Pop Expo, which is still going on today in South Charleston.

Next Sunday we’ll tell you about online retailers, and later this week we’ll also tell you about more of the local crafters who were at MSPX.

Rabin’s Relics

We have mentioned these fine folks before, but seeing them at MSPX reminded us to point you their way again.  Rabin’s Relics are two fine folks who make cool gothic and steampunk jewelry and costume pieces right here in The Mountain State. .

You may have seen the work of Rabin’s Relics for sale at local conventions,  but you can also peruse and order the fine merchandise online. They make some really cool costume jewelry, accessories and props, and they are based out of Fairmont.

You can “like” their Facebook page to keep up with their newest offerings and find out what shows they’ll be attending. You can also find contact info there.

This is some really nice, intricate jewelry. Mel likes their crosses, plus they also refurbish and improve vintage hats and other items, and make new leather goods in addition to their pendants and necklaces. There’s a timeless quality to their hand-crafted goods that really makes them stand out.  Perusing their Facebook page will give you loads of great gift ideas for the person on your shopping list who appreciates fine adornments.

This is some very cool and creative stuff, and Mrs. PopCulteer has several of their pieces in her collection, including a new hat she just got Saturday.

Nitro Antique Mall
The Kanawha Valley’s Pop Culture Emporium
110 21st Street, Nitro, WV  304.755.5002

Our old pal (and co-panelist for ShockaCon), Tim Arnott, made big changes in the Nitro Antique Mall and now it’s a one-stop shop encompassing Third Floor Comics, Modern Vintage Records, Gearhead Garage Toy Cars, The Sports Corner, The Creepy Room Horror Collectibles and Bric-N-Brack building toys.

The place is easy to find, just a block off of Route 25, near the Nitro WWI memorials, and it’s a treasure trove of collectibles from the last sixty years (and beyond).

You can expect all items to be graded and priced fairly, and Tim will go out of his way to hunt down special requests if he doesn’t have them in stock.

They’re even hosting the occasional open mic night now. It’s a great place to do your holiday shopping.

Nightmare1984
The Art of Adam Weaver
Webstore

Adam Weaver has been a friend and a bit of a hero of PopCult‘s for several years. A cancer survivor since childhood and the reason for AdamFest, Adam is now a husband, a father and an artist.

At his webstore you can find several of his prints for sale, as well as stickers ad other goodies. At the Mountain State Pop Expo, he had even more cool stuff, including Mothman-inspired 3-D standees and  cool stuff like that.

Adam’s art is inspired by his love of 1980s horror movies and pop culture. You’ll find paintings based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday The 13th, and of course, A Nightmare On Elm Street and more. All of this is rendered in Adam’s distinctive style and could make the perfect gift for the fan of 80s horror on your shopping list.

Tonight we bring you a masterpiece of Schlock Cinema that we first posted in this space seven years ago, Zontar the Thing from Venus. This 1966 sci-fi…ahem..”epic” was actually a remake of a Roger Corman movie from ten years earlier, It Conquered The World. It was so famously cheesy that it inspired an episode-long parody on SCTV back in the early 1980s. This film never had a full run in theaters, being cranked out on a $22,000 budget to fill out a television syndication package.

According to Jeremey Lunt’s synopsis from IMDB, “A misguided scientist enables an alien from Venus named Zontar to come to earth in order to help solve man’s problems. However, Zontar has other ideas, like disabling the power supply of the entire world and taking possession of important officials with mind control devices.”

This is one of those “so bad it’s good” movies that’s best viewed in a room full of easily amused people. We brought it back for your amusement, and to make it easy to keep up with The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, which continues later Sunday.

It’s Saturday, so we are going to plunder previous years’ Gift Guides to find three cool things that still make great gift ideas.

This year on Saturdays The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide will revisit picks from previous years so that you don’t have to scroll back through eighteen years worth of Gift Guide posts looking for cool ideas for your holiday shopping. Today we recommend cheap toys, cool movies and a little neo-gothic erotica for you.

Tomorrow The 2024 PopCult Gift Guide will spotlight a variety of online retailers, so you can find all sorts of cool gift ideas, instead of just the ones I’m including here.

Final Faction Action Figures

Two years ago a line of action figures showed up for the cheapskates among us. This is a great gift idea for kids who love 4-inch sci-fi and supehero figures, or adult collectors who might have their minds blown when they find out where you got these.

Final Faction is a line of Science-Fiction, alien-fighting action figures in the popular 1/18 (roughly four-inches tall) scale. Most of the figures have five points of articulation. Most come with at least one accessory. The paint detail is above-average. There is a backstory and accompanying nine-minute CGI cartoon on YouTube, and most importantly…they only cost $1.25 each! These are Dollar Tree exclusives.

For a mere buck and a quarter, you get a hell of a lot. Quality-wise, the figures are just a notch below ReAction’s line of licensed five-point figures, but those sell for fifteen to twenty times as much. If you are a 1/18 scale hobbyist, these figures are great customizing fodder. At this price you can try all sorts of things–from total repaints to attempting to add joints.

The backing cards are printed in full color on both sides and include Power Ratings and a bio for each character, along with this intro to the series…

In the year 2050, a large asteroid collided with our moon. Among the debris, we discovered a hibernating alien mothership. Now, the Kharn are awake and they want to plunder our precious natural resources. So, we recruited teams of special operatives to defend Earth from their alien threat.

They are the…

FINAL FACTION!

There you go: A cool space-opera premise with well-sculpted figures that sport decent (if limited) paint detail, and a computer-animated short. And they cost a buck apiece. You can collect the entire first series of figures for eight bucks (fourteen dollars if you buy all six extra accessory packs). For less than the price of one ReAction figure, you can own the entire line (if you can find them–in some stores the first series has long been sold out). These are great stocking stuffers, for the toy collector on your shopping list.

Since we wrote this, there have been a couple dozen new figures added to the line, along with vehicles and a comic book. They’ve even done repaints of the early figures as “Elite” and “Venom” editions.  The comic book includes a checklist of the entire line (with the exception of the new repaints), so you can see what you still need.

Almost every Dollar Tree still has some of these figures, and  you can still order a few of them online, but if you do that now, you have buy them in bulk, which isn’t too bad a deal when you consider how cheap these are.

The Works of Anna Biller

Reaching back to The 2017 PopCult Gift Guide we have the work of a creative genius. Anna Biller is a filmmakier who specializes in exquisitely art-directed movies that mimic the look and style of earlier movies while delivering a completely fresh and unexpected twist on them. Her most recent film, The Love Witch, is such a masterpiece of art direction that I was almost certain that I was watching a lost classic from the early 1970s when a friend showed it to me. She shoots on 35mm real film and has the lighting, props, costume and hairstyles of the era down perfectly.

Lately Biller has taken her talents to th eliterary world, with a new novel, Bluebeard’s Castle.

Bluebeard gets a feminist Gothic makeover in this subversive take on the famous French fairy tale — from the acclaimed director of The Love Witch, and for fans of Jane Eyre.

When the successful British mystery writer Judith Moore meets Gavin, a handsome and charming baron, at a birthday party on the Cornish coast, his love transforms her from a bitter, lonely young woman into a romance heroine overnight. After a whirlwind honeymoon in Paris, he whisks her away to a secluded Gothic castle. But soon she finds herself trapped in a nightmare, as her husband’s mysterious nature and his alternation between charm and violence become increasingly frightening.

As Judith battles both internal and external demons, including sexual ambivalence, psychological self-torture, gaslighting, family neglect, alcoholism, and domestic abuse, she becomes increasingly addicted to her wild beast of a husband. Why do women stay in abusive relationships? The answer can be found in the tortured mind of the protagonist, whose richly layered fantasy life parallels that of the female Gothic romance reader. Filled with dark humor and evocative imagery, Bluebeard’s Castle is a subversive take on modern romance and Gothic erotica.

Abut her films, Biller herself says…

In my work I try to combine pure cinema with authentic experience. When I say authentic experience, I mean that I try to directly translate my experience of living in the world into form. My specific concerns are with the lived day-to-day experience of the female. Years ago when I was first starting out as a filmmaker, I became interested in trying to create a cinema based on visual pleasure for women.

In the interest of pure cinema or “proper art” (which James Joyce defines as art which elicits a state of aesthetic arrest), I try to control everything that goes into the film frame. Thus in my work I am trying to do something most unusual: to create “proper” art films masquerading as popular films. So while I am quoting genres, I am using them not as pastiche, but to create a sense of aesthetic arrest and to insert a female point of view.

Her work is immaculate. Using the styles and even the acting techniques of earlier years, she manages to avoid producing simple parody or homage and creates exciting new works that transport the viewer to another era. I am recommending her horror movie, The Love Witch, and her earlier sexploitation flick, Viva and other short films. You can find her movies, along with posters, stickers and more cool stuff at her website, where you will also find links to where you can purchase her book.
This is great stuff for the jaded cult film fanatic on your holiday shopping list.

Caveman (multi-format disc)

Our final pick is a bit of a ringer…or a Ringo-er, as it were. Originally recommended in 2021, I had to give it another shot because, as you may have read, I got to see Ringo Starr perform live in my hometown last month.

Caveman, the 1981 prehistoric comedy starring former Beatle, Ringo Starr, along with Barbara Bach, Shelly Long and Dennis Quaid, is not an historically accurate depiction of our ancestors, who did not actually co-exist with dinosaurs.

However, this movie is chock-full-o primo stop-motion animated dinosaurs, courtesy of an uncredited Jim Danforth, and it’s loads of slapstick fun for kids and adults.

It also has a musical sequence that will stick with you for at least forty years (speaking from experience) and the actors do not speak English (except for a couple of lines), instead speaking in a language invented specifically for the movie. They did the same thing in the movie, Quest For Fire, which came out the same year, but nobody remembers that movie because it didn’t have Ringo, animated dinosaurs or fart jokes.

Caveman was directed by Carl Gottlieb, who co-wrote the movie, Jaws, but is probably more famous for his portrayal of Iron Balls McGinty in the movie, The Jerk.

This is the movie where Ringo met Barbara Bach, who would become (and still is) his wife, and it’s a fun gift for Beatles fans, fans of dinosaurs, fans of slapstick comedy, and anyone who doesn’t take prehistory too seriously. Available from Amazon and other video retailers.

From September, 2008, this episode of Radio Free Charleston features music from Jonathon Glen Wood and Civil State. We also have a promo video for “Jack The Ripper,” the musical by Mark Scarpelli and Dan Kehde, which opened the week this show was originally posted, and there’s some vintage campaign animation from 1960.

I went back to the original production notes, and was highly amused by what I wrote about one of our guests, so I’m excerpting it here:

“Our first musical guest is Jonathon Glen Wood, and I’m telling the truth. I really didn’t know he was a musician when we first met. I ran into him at Heathen’s bar in South Charleston where we both went to hear our mutual friends, Mark Bates and The Vacancies.  Jonathon was kind enough to let me hide behind him when a rather inebriated woman who looked like Ed Asner decided I was her new boyfriend.

When I found out Jonathon was a musican, I checked out his Myspace page, and was floored by the quality of his voice and his songwriting.  This was golden material, like Woody Guthrie and Hank Sr. had a kid (don’t try and imagine that, though).”

You can find the full production notes HERE.