Today In Pop Culture: Elvis Gets A Promotion

By Jeffery X Martin

Back when military service was mandatory in the United States, no male was immune from getting called up. There were ways around it, if you had the stroke to pull some strings, but most men at that time ended up in the employ of the Armed Forces. Some people looked forward to it, having a real desire to serve their country. It was an honorable thing, not just a career or a last chance to make something of themselves before going to jail. They yearned to give something back, to defend the country with their lives, if necessary.

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Today in Pop Culture: Ernie Kovacs Exits, Stage Left

By Jeffery X Martin

A rainy morning in Los Angeles. A man loses control of his Chevrolet Corvair and hits a telephone pole. He is thrown halfway out of the passenger side, dying almost instantly from the impact. The year is 1962, and the man is Ernie Kovacs.

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Today in Pop Culture: Holy Debut, Batman!

By Jeffery X Martin

He is vengeance. He is the night. He is the darkest of all the superheroes, borne of family tragedy, driven by vengeance and personal demons he cannot exorcise. He faces psychotic enemies and triumphs through sheer force of will.

He is, of course, the Batman.

But the Bat wasn’t always the tortured soul, hiding in the shadows. He was, at one point, a goofball.

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Today In Pop Culture: What is “Ooga-Chaka?”

By Jeffery X Martin

If you had an AM radio in the Sixties or Seventies, odds are that’s all you had because it was the Sixties or Seventies. Thank the gods for real technology, right? AM radio, with its predilection for programming soft rock and one hit wonders, was the place to hear American singer BJ Thomas. The guy had hit after hit. Thomas was the performer of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1970.*

[Do you know which movie “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” was featured in? The answer is at the end of this article!]

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David Bowie: 1947 – 2016

By Jeffery X Martin

When I went to sleep, David Bowie was alive. When I awoke, he was not. Strange, the way things slip.

Knock on the walls. Flick your coffee cup with your fingernail. Stomp on the floor. Do you hear it? Something’s missing. There is a hollowness to the world now, with Bowie gone.

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Today in Pop Culture: David Bowie’s Blackstar Birthday

By Jeffery X Martin

Today is David Bowie’s birthday and I don’t understand why anyone is at work or school. Why aren’t government offices closed? Why is this not a Federal holiday? We should all be in public parks, wearing body paint and having Aladdin Sane lookalike contests. We should put on our red shoes and dance the blues. We should be burning space capsules in effigy in the name of Major Tom.

David Bowie is 69 years old and is still cooler than everyone reading this article, combined.

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Blu-Ray Review: Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats

By Jeffery X Martin

“The Black Cat” isn’t usually the first story that comes to mind when people think of Edgar Allan Poe. It tends to get overshadowed by his poem, “The Raven,” or his story, “The Tell-tale Heart,” which actually shares a lot of plot devices with “The Black Cat,” but that’s not important right now. What is important is that Poe’s work is public domain. No one owns it. That makes his work ripe for the gutting by film producers and writers. Slap Poe’s name on it somewhere and you’ve got a built-in audience of horror fans and American Literature majors.

Roger Corman certainly made his nut making quickie Poe flicks, but that’s not important right now, either. What is important is what happened to “The Black Cat” in the hands of two stylistically different Italian directors, horror maestro Lucio Fulci and giallo king Sergio Martino. Their two versions of Poe’s old tale can be found in one beautiful box set from Arrow Video.

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Today in Pop Culture: Sing Along with History, Volume One

By Jeffery X Martin

Some days just bring songs to mind. The historical events create their own playlist and allow us the opportunity to be educated and entertained. I call these phenomena “educationerments.” Let’s begin, shall we?

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Today In Pop Culture: The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde

By Jeffery X Martin

When one is living a life of crime, some days don’t seem as bad as others. This is subjective, of course, because when a good day consists of only killing one human being, it might be time to reevaluate one’s priorities. So if the murder of Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis comes across as a minor event, it is only in comparison to the other deeds of the man who killed him: Clyde Barrow.

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The Official Popshifter Podcast, Episode #07, Best Of 2015 Edition

Welcome to Episode #07 of The Official Popshifter Podcast, Best Of 2015 Edition.

Let’s send 2015 out with a bang, not a whimper! Your hosts, Managing Editor Less Lee Moore and Featured Contributor Jeffery X Martin, welcome special guest, Featured Contributor Tim Murr, as we round up the favorite things of the entire Popshifter staff. Happy New Year from all of us in the penthouse corner office of the Popshifter International Headquarters!