Popcornbender Spatch
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spatch.bsky.social
Popcornbender Spatch
@spatch.bsky.social
800 followers 370 following 5.5K posts
Writer/old-time radio actor/roller coaster rider/CAT TOWN guy/funy computar maker/etc. Wrote Pick Up The Phone Booth and Die once. Married and we have a cat. Often tells you to enjoy the show at the Somerville Theatre. Aquarius. Hi
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spatch.bsky.social
ELEANOR SHERMAN: First he stole my butler, now he's stealing my daughter!

FRANKLIN: Well, he won't steal the silverware. I've glued that to the ceiling!

DOG ON CEILING: Bark!

JAY: Uh, Dad, I understand the silverware, but why the dog?

FRANKLIN: You understand the silverware? [TO CAMERA] Koo-koo!
In a frame from THE CRITIC, Franklin Sherman (center) gestures up to the silverware-festooned ceiling while Eleanor Sherman (left) looks on petulantly. Jay Sherman (right), as befits a good schlemiel, is shown here in mid-blink so it looks like he's asleep.
January 16, 2026 at 10:34 PM
spatch.bsky.social
Here come the meat balls.
A coloring book illustration of Alice from the Brady Bunch holding (with mitts) a large pot of meatballs. Alice is saying "Here come the meat balls." Alice's hair, skin, and light blue shirt are all colored; the pot of meatballs and mitts are not. Judging from the slapdash way the shirt is colored it appears the colorist got bored by the time they made it there.
January 16, 2026 at 5:11 AM
spatch.bsky.social
Two malls, both alike in dignity, in fair Hadley Mass where we lay our scene

The Mountain Farms Mall had 4 theaters. Hampshire Mall across the street had 4, later 6. All were shoeboxes with the crenulated red drapes on the walls; all were run by AMC. Saw a lot of $2.25 twilight shows at both.
The Mountain Farms Mall was set back quite a ways from the road so its roadside marquee was this enormous display with the big AMC logo and "Mountain Farms 4 Theatres" on top, and four color-coded number lines in varying shades from yellow to orange to another orange to red. I think. This picture was taken well after the mall and theaters had closed, so there is nothing listed on the marquee. A picture of the inside of the Mountain Farms Mall showing the shuttered entry to the AMC Four Theatres (though only the letters FO THEATRES are lit up over the entryway). This picture was taken in 2001 a month before the theater closed for good. The lights are still on at the concession stand and the bank of four movie poster cases on the right are also lit. A banner above them advertises gift certificates. To the right of this, just out of shot, would've been where the Just Fun arcade was. The plastic letter menu board for the Four Theaters, white letters on a classy maroon velvet background, listing ticket prices as of March 2001. $6.00 for adult evening admission, $4.50 for seniors, students, and adult matinees; $3.75 for children and the "Twilite Show" which was usually the showings in the 4-5 pm window. We are also advised that holiday periods are excluded, and the twilite show is "limited to seating" which just means that when it sells out you are SOL.
January 13, 2026 at 9:16 PM
spatch.bsky.social
Tybalt Autolycus Taaffe, the clown prince of cats and snapper-upper of unconsidered trifles, the sweetest cat I have ever known and the one with the most toes (seven or eight on each front paw, five on each back). Gone two years ago today, gone far far too soon, and I miss him dearly
A sweet black cat has rolled over on his back, paws in the Baby Seal of Supplication pose, and looks endearingly at the camera, all but begging you to pet his belly. If you did, the feline venus flytrap would grab your hand and give a vigorous bite-and-lick. It was one of his favorite jokes. A black cat sits on a couch with one front paw and one back paw turned out to us so we can see the multitude of pink paw pads and toe beans which he possessed. A sweet, sweet cat.
January 10, 2026 at 8:28 PM
spatch.bsky.social
Welcome aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf! Here's your mismatched sitcom duo, your love interest, your captain who has no time for anybody's antics, and a smuggled cat.

Then skip ahead three million years and everybody's dead, Dave. WHAM. It's audacious; so is naming the first episode "The End"
Dave Lister, the lowest-ranking crewmember aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf, has been placed in stasis as punishment until the ship makes planetfall. It never will, and Dave will wake up three million years in the future as the last human alive. In this picture Lister is in stasis, frozen in a sarcastic wave goodbye.
January 7, 2026 at 9:26 AM
spatch.bsky.social
Snow art and observer in parking lot
Someone scuffed, with their feet, a 30-ft-long curving braided pattern in the thin layer of snow on top of a Davis Square parking lot. Beside the pattern are dog tracks of an eager observer.
January 4, 2026 at 11:30 PM
spatch.bsky.social
and with that, Charlotte's great plan to save the juice was set into motion
Plastic bottles of orange juice in a convenience store cooler. The labels read "SOME PULP" at the top.
January 4, 2026 at 9:29 PM
spatch.bsky.social
Three well-raised boys with parted center cuts and wholesome, fun-loving attitudes, from Joe Cappa's "Haha You Clowns"
January 4, 2026 at 8:19 PM
spatch.bsky.social
phone home
The empty carcass of a pay phone is still affixed to a rust-stained stucco wall. A closed convenience store window looms in the upper left. I think a phone jack sits in the window, mocking the dead phone. Closeup of the squid sticker, presumably a Splatoon character(?) stuck to the shiny metal face of what once held the pay phone's coin box. To its right the coin return slot stays permanently open. Closeup of the twelve empty holes where the pay phone's keypad used to be, now dark squares into a void. The handle is similarly devoid of handset. Nothing of value remains here.
January 4, 2026 at 12:13 AM
spatch.bsky.social
have brought metheglin to a family dinner for the new year toast, sweet and smooth and strong, a good sippin' mead
A bottle of spiced mead from the 1634 Meadery out of Ipswich, MA. It is called Viking Victory and tastes lovely. Next to the bottle is a nice long stemmed glass with mead in it and a shorter glass for someone who didn't want a larger glass.
January 2, 2026 at 12:21 AM
spatch.bsky.social
Last night I found the square all peaceful when 1. empty and 2. full of snow
Picture from a second story Hobbs Building window shows the side end of the Somerville Theatre marquee (Marty Supreme, Secret Agent, Dec 5 - Jan 4 / The Slutcracker) where green neon shines over the dusting of snow on top. The trees in Statue Park across the street are lined with hundreds of tiny white bulbs, and the entire expanse is covered in a white snow blanket. A close-up of the theater marquee top corner, with the little colonial lantern shining brightly near a green swath of neon. The rest is snow. Across the street in Statue Park you can see the two statues that gave the park its name.
December 29, 2025 at 12:19 AM
spatch.bsky.social
chartpak in western mass has for years made dry transfer letters in a lot of typefaces & more importantly typeface sample catalogs with every symbol for aspiring graphic designers to study, trace, then freehand on their own

my 6th grade teacher got em for us
I remember working out so many of these
A print ad featuring the winners of a typeface competition by Chartpak with their names, faces, and samples of their winning work, with names such as circuit (lower-case tubular letters), VALHALLA (all-caps nordic-style stroke letters), Good Kids (a juvenile scrawl), Star Bright Star Light (brush letters with capitals on top of stars), LZHI (an unstable all-caps scrawl), and Alligraph (handwritten sans serif font with abnormally tall parts). I remember sketching quite a few of these.
December 28, 2025 at 5:36 AM
spatch.bsky.social
oh hey fucking rad wanna see the restaurant where we had our wedding dinner in 2013
A big ass empty lot with demolition debris and yellow construction equipment. There is no restaurant A badly taken picture from a moving bus shows yellow construction equipment amidst a field of demolished debris and no restaurant in sight
December 26, 2025 at 7:44 PM
spatch.bsky.social
update with pic by sonya
A Christmas pudding proudly perches on a plate and, having been lit on fire only a few seconds previously, gives off an enormous quantity of blue and yellow flame. It is majestic.
December 26, 2025 at 8:59 AM
spatch.bsky.social
Observing Christmas where they're boiling the pudding and making eggnog with enough rum for a fleet and I hope if you're observing the day you're doing so in peace and good fellowship
A cloth-wrapped metal contraption, containing a Christmas pudding, is boiling in a pot on the stove A bowl of homemade eggnog with lots of rum and some brandy too, a mug of the eggnog, and a shaker bottle of nutmeg ready for application
December 25, 2025 at 9:11 PM
spatch.bsky.social
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love lights gleam
The open stage of our main house where red drapes stage right recede to reveal Amy, the legendary candy cane-striped phallus which at the climax of each act ejaculates bubbles and, for at least one year, rose petals
December 25, 2025 at 12:06 AM
spatch.bsky.social
"As for Tiny Tim, well, he's dead and buried. Turned out Scrooge was right all along."

"Bobby Heenan, that is a mean and despicable thing to say. Kids all over the world are watching and they love Tiny Tim!"

"That's their problem."

"Kids, Tiny Tim did not die! Couldja shut him up, Monsoon?"
A split screen shot of Bobby Heenan (left, dressed as Santa Claus) and Rowdy Roddy Piper (right, wearing Santa hat) during the infamous "Santa Claus shoot" on Prime Time Wrestling where Heenan tried to tell all the kids watching that there was no Santa Claus, while Roddy rightly stood up for the jolly old elf
December 24, 2025 at 11:05 PM
spatch.bsky.social
Is your tail long and thin?
Do you stand out in the grass?
Are your kids on your back?
Can you scream at own ass?

Because Jellicles AAAAAA and Jellicles AAAAAAAAAA
A basket full of opossums on a green and white striped towel, each possum looking at the camera and going AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
December 23, 2025 at 9:41 PM
spatch.bsky.social
Inez is holding a clay pot that she seems very proud of. She has carefully detailed it with lots of paint and glaaaze.
Jan Hooks as the impossibly cheerful and gloriously tonedeaf Alamo tour guide
December 23, 2025 at 2:26 AM
spatch.bsky.social
Of course you can use store-bought urine but like I say it's always more special when you make your own
Martha Stewart in an amazing champagne piss-colored shiny pantsuit outfit, standing in front of a Christmas-decorated mantel, itself painted completely white to blend in with the white walls and adorned with three or four plain beige undecorated stockings to really bring out the joy, with a green Christmas tree on the right. Martha is holding a green and gold wrapped gift box of which she seems very proud. Hopefully it's an ounce or two of homegrown dank for Snoop.
December 23, 2025 at 1:53 AM
spatch.bsky.social
Underneath the balcony tonight, getting ready to serve drinks to 500 thirsty folks; behold the ordered chaos my impostor syndrome tells me I am not qualified enough to refer to as a mise en place but I'm going to anyway, the sanctity of which will last approximately 9 minutes into the preshow rush
On top of an old, loud, shakily vibrating kegerator I have assembled a booze force of sometraordinary magnitude. The back three rows consist of our well liquor (campo tequila, johnnie red, tito's, captain morgan, jack daniel's, breckenridge gin) and the three pre-mixed bully boy cocktails which people go for and that's fine by me since we don't have bitters here. In front of that we have three bottles of batch for the specialty cocktails. In front of that are the squeeze bottles and pourers containing juices and simple syrups I'll need to make those specialty cocktail. Two shaker sets and a measuring cup are at the front. On the right of the shot is a beer tap for the session pilsner, the bottles of red wine that don't need chilling, and three fruit garnish caddies located well away from where the beer may spatter yes I said well away just take my word for it.
December 23, 2025 at 12:17 AM
spatch.bsky.social
A full color ad by R.F. Foucault depicting a manic, wild-eyed Buster Brown bursting out of a poster which ominously reads "BUSTER IS COMING"
December 22, 2025 at 12:09 AM
spatch.bsky.social
The staff lockers at work are covered in stickers, some going way back, yet it was only today when I made the connection that the devil girl on the locker I inherited is a genuine @artofcoop.bsky.social piece by way of an MTV album ad apparently
A beige locker door is enlivened by a sticker for an MTV compilation album called "The Return of the Rock" which is apparently from the early-mid 2000s, given that the artists listed in a little circle include the likes of Korn, Papa Roach, Slipknot, Staind, and P.O.D. Whether these bands did indeed return the rock or not is left as an exercise to the viewer. The sticker is further enlivened by a drawing of a lascivious red devil girl with horns and a presumably saucy tail and lustrous black hair and wicked spike heels and a two piece purple outfit which is just enough to cover her ample devil breasts and it must have been cold in the studio that day cause she is nipping out. She squats in front of us and smiles enticingly, holding an electric guitar right in front of her humbucker. I am very sorry to have written that but not really. Anyway! The piece is signed "Coop" and there's no mistaking the admirable devil cheesecake style for sure.
December 20, 2025 at 4:51 AM
spatch.bsky.social
Sonya took a picture of this temple cat placidly guarding the mug and making sure nobody sticks their snoot into it
A little black cat sits on a desk with her tail curled around a blue mug with the word "LOVE" on it.
December 20, 2025 at 12:17 AM
spatch.bsky.social
goddamn I mean goddamn weegee only wished he'd had opportunities like this
A picture of two open but unstaffed pharmacy windows. Each one has a sign which reads "Please use next window" with arrow. The two windows are pointing at each other. Filename twenty twenty five dot jay peg.
December 16, 2025 at 12:08 AM