Monthly Archives: October 2015

MWINDO: EPIC MYTH OF AFRICA PART EIGHT

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of this epic myth of the Nyanga people.

PART EIGHT

Nyanga territoryThe semidivine Mwindo, clad in the iron garments his uncle the bat god had made his subjects forge for him, prepared to attack his evil father’s village of Tubondo single-handed. His aunt Iyangura pleaded with him not to go, fearing he would end up as dead as the army of bats which attacked Tubondo in the previous episode.

Mwindo told his aunt that he had to go, and to provide her partial comfort he left her his battle axe and his magical pouch containing the enchanted rope. Wielding only his conga-sceptre (a riding-crop sized staff made of antelope tail) Mwindo went up the hill to attack Tubondo.   Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Mythology

ELEVEN MORE BAD MOVIE CLASSICS FOR HALLOWEEN

Return of Dr X

Return of Dr X

My month-long celebration of Halloween continues! Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are very familiar with my Bad Movie page where I examine plenty of under the radar movies that are hilariously awful. Previously I ran a list of the top Eleven Neglected Bad Movie Classics for Halloween. That was such a hit here is a list of eleven more neglected bombs. My Bad Movie page features full-length reviews of each of the movies I’m offering a synopsis of here.

THE RETURN OF DR X (1939) – The notorious film in which the legendary Humphrey Bogart played a zombified mad scientist named Dr Xavier who was brought back from the dead by another mad scientist named Dr Flegg. Much of the fun comes from Bogie’s unmistakable disdain for finding himself in the kind of stinker that Bela Lugosi often waded through. Bogie’s Dr X kills Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season

THE SOUL GEM OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Balladeer’s Blog presents another neglected American horror legend for Halloween Month.

THE SOUL GEM OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

HANDOUT - In Vorbereitung auf die Jubilaeumsfeierlichkeiten zu 150 Jahren Erstbegehung des Matterhorns, zeichnete der Schweizer Bergsportspezialist Mammut zusammen mit den Zermatter Bergfuehrern in einer Lichterkette die Route ueber den Hoernligrat nach am Mittwoch, 17. September 2014. (PHOTOPRESS/MAMMUT/Robert Boesch)

On the former peak of Mount Monroe in New Hampshire’s White Mountains there used to glow a large light as if from a gigantic ruby or carbuncle. The Native Americans claimed it was a huge stone that fell from the sky one night in the far-distant past. They called it the Soul Gem in their language and they believed it ate the souls of anyone who touched it.   

No one within living memory had survived an attempt to reach the Soul Gem. Over generations multiple expeditions were mounted but all ended in horror. Stories spread that the souls captured by the gem knew new lives as the living trees which at one time were said to grow there.    Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Halloween Season

OVERCOMING MUSLIM OPPRESSION: THE GREAT CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE OF THE 21st CENTURY

Muslim oppression 3Muslims forever try to strip non-Muslims of their civil rights. The greatest civil rights struggle of the 21st Century will involve people in free societies having to fight Muslim attempts to rob us of our fundamental freedoms. We’ll also have to fight elements of our own governments who try to force the rest of us to live according to Islam’s outdated values in the name of not “offending” the delicate little darlings, who enslave women and hate gay people.

To Muslims “diversity” apparently means “everyone else has to live in such a way so as not to offend our savage superstitions.” The Islamic Inquisition is well underway with Muslim groups favoring censorship of everything their religion disapproves of and even demanding text books get cleansed of any reference to Islam’s Imperialism, Colonialism and its involvement in slavery.

In Europe Muslim pressure groups have already gotten references to the Holocaust removed from school courses because their hate-filled belief system insists the Holocaust didn’t happen and was a propaganda invention of the Jewish conspiracy that Muslim fanatics see everywhere.

Muslim oppression 2In America Obama has ruled that Federal prisons must stop serving pork because its mere presence as a menu option offends Muslim inmates. Federal Judge Colleen McMahon has already issued rulings banning posters offensive to Muslims but okaying posters that promote Islamic political movies and the like.  

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg that we have all witnessed as the forever-offended Islamic groups demand more and more censorship and even kill people for disobeying Muslim beliefs about drawing Muhammad. Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES

THE MALEVOLENT SEAMSTRESS

Balladeer’s Blog presents another neglected American horror legend for Halloween Month.

THE MALEVOLENT SEAMSTRESS  

PlagueIn Boston in 1775, shortly after the Revolutionary War had broken out a mysterious old seamstress wandered into the rebel-held countryside. This woman always wore a mantel wrapped about her in such a way that most of her face was always obscured.

The gentle and apparently very aged woman would beg a night’s lodging in the homes she visited, offering to do any sewing work that needed done by way of paying her way. Many families were happy to take her up on that bartering offer.  Continue reading

32 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season

MWINDO: EPIC MYTH OF AFRICA PART SEVEN

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of this epic myth of the Nyanga people.

PART SEVEN

batsThe semidivine Mwindo, his aunt Iyangura and Iyangura’s handmaidens set out from the home she occupied as the Ritual Wife of the river god Mukiti. The object of their expedition was Mwindo’s attempt to overthrow his evil father Shemwindo and become the new ruler of the village of Tubondo.

The first night the travelers stayed with Mwindo’s maternal uncle, Yana the bat god. (As with so many other ruling families around the world the Nyanga aristocracy claimed to be related to the gods.) Yana had the creatures he was the lord of prepare a goat of hospitality (as opposed to the wildebeest of misgiving) as a meal for the guests. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under Mythology

BARACK OBAMA’S WORTHLESSNESS NAILED PERFECTLY

Jimmy Kimmel joke about ObamaBefore sniveling Liberals try their tiresome game of accusing me of being a Conservative I’ll point out again that I’m not. I’m pro-choice, pro-Free Speech and I supported gay marriage years before the weak, inept and crooked little man named Barack Obama decided it was politically safe enough to change from opposing it (he even voted for DOMA in Congress) to supporting it.  Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES

HORRORS OF BOON ISLAND

Balladeer’s Blog presents another neglected American horror legend for Halloween Month.

HORRORS OF BOON ISLAND

Boon IslandBoon Island is located off the southern coast of Maine. Though it is now famous for its lighthouse it used to be a deserted island with no plant or animal life upon it.

In the late 1740’s the ship Nottingham went down just off Boon Island. The survivors of the shipwreck swam to the narrow, deserted wasteland and, losing hope of rescue, eventually turned to cannibalism. Continue reading

22 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season

THREE BAD MOVIES FOR HALLOWEEN

Blood SongHalloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! Links to previous lists of Halloween Turkeys are below.

Right now here’s a look at three more classically bad horror flicks for the season.

BLOOD SONG (1982) – Singer Frankie Avalon as a 1980’s- style slasher villain! The godfather’s Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana) as a co-star and co-producer! Who could possibly resist that? Frankie plays a homicidal maniac who escapes from an insane asylum with his beloved flute/recorder type thingee.

Turns out years earlier a girl played by Donna Wilkes – soon to star as Angel herself – got a blood transfusion from Psycho Frankie. In this movie’s logic-free universe that means that she has a mental link with our mad slasher. This link is causing him to track her down to kill her with the single-minded fury that Mike Myers showed toward Jaime Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies. Continue reading

6 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season

LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES AND DEBUNKING

The symbol of the nonexistent Balladeer Political Party

The symbol of the nonexistent Balladeer Political Party

Balladeer’s Blog is the only site that criticizes both American Liberals and American Conservatives. There’s some confusion about the word “debunking”.

AMERICAN LIBERALS – American Liberals hilariously think that they’ve “debunked” something just because they can come up with a counter-argument to a point someone made – even if that someone used dozens of facts to support the point.

Uh. No. That’s called offering a counter-point and does not mean that you laid down “the facts” that other people  just have to accept.  

Loch Ness Monster stories frequently get debunked. Tall tales about historical figures often get debunked. Just citing a statement from a politician’s own website as “proof” that someone’s criticism of that politician is supposedly wrong does NOT mean that that criticism has been “debunked.” Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES