Another installment of Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead with Billy Joel as the subject. Here’s his 1978 anthem to wicked women – Stiletto.
Monthly Archives: February 2018
WAVELENGTH (1983)
WAVELENGTH (1983) – This is an unjustly neglected science fiction film that stars Robert Carradine, Cherie Currie and Keenan Wynn in a very unconventional love triangle: both Carradine and Currie are fighting over Wynn. (I’m kidding!)
Robert Carradine plays a moody musician suffering a career lull, Cherie Currie portrays a groupie who becomes a bona fide romantic partner for him and Keenan Wynn barks and snarls in his usual “grouch with a heart of gold” manner. Cherie’s sensitive mind is open to alien brain-waves calling to her from a nearby (seemingly) abandoned government installation. Carradine and his neighbor Wynn help her try to find out what’s going on. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
COLLEGE BASKETBALL RANKINGS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG
NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) Division Two – 1. CUYAHOGA COLLEGE CHALLENGERS ### 2. ANCILLA COLLEGE CHARGERS ### 3. PARKLAND COLLEGE COBRAS ### 4. TRITON COLLEGE TROJANS ### 5. MONROE (NY) TRIBUNES ###
6. IOWA CENTRAL COLLEGE TRITONS ### 7. LINCOLN COLLEGE LYNX ### 8. HENRY FORD COLLEGE HAWKS ### 9. RICHARD BLAND COLLEGE STATESMEN ### 10. ARKANSAS STATE-MIDSOUTH GREYHOUNDS ### Continue reading
Filed under College Basketball
SEX AND POLITICS: FEBRUARY 12th
ADAM SCHIFF the ranking DEMOCRAT on the House Intelligence (as in spying) Committee, wins this month’s DUMBER THAN JIMMY KIMMEL AWARD. Schiff got punked by Russian comedians awhile back because this actual elected representative is so unhinged when it comes to the groundless Trump-Russia Collusion scam.
Schiff thought he was dealing with sources who could provide him with NAKED PICTURES OF PRESIDENT TRUMP. Democrats HATE President Trump because of all the good he has done for the working class and the poor. Adam Schiff represents every reason so many of us are ashamed that we used to be Democrats.
HILLARY CLINTON’S ADVICE FOR MARRIED COUPLES
Hillary “Bugsy” Clinton, failed presidential candidate and career criminal, has a unique perspective on how to make a marriage last.
With Valentine’s Day coming up Hillary decided to discuss what makes her marriage work.
“As long as spouses cannot be forced to testify against each other, Bill and I will probably stay married forever!”
MARTIN LUTHER KING WOMEN OF COURAGE
More women of color who courageously reject Democrats who try to order them what to think and say:
Patricia Dickson – https://twitter.com/Patrici15767099 Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
SIXTEEN OVERLOOKED SECRETARIES OF STATE
With Presidents Day coming up on the 19th Balladeer’s Blog has been presenting some seasonal posts. A fair amount of our past presidents had served as Secretary of State in earlier administrations so that is the tie-in to the upcoming holiday.
1. TIMOTHY PICKERING (1795-1800)
Served under: Presidents George Washington and John Adams
Noted for: Conspiring with Alexander Hamilton to undermine some of the policies of the Washington and Adams administrations. When Adams discovered this he ordered Pickering to resign, but Pickering refused, forcing Adams to fire him. Pickering remains the only Secretary of State to officially be fired by the President.
2. HENRY CLAY (1825-1829)
Served under: President John Quincy Adams
Noted for: Fighting a duel with Senator John Randolph, one of Clay’s critics who felt he had struck a “corrupt bargain” with Adams to get this prized cabinet position. Also for completing the first commerce treaties between the young United States and the various nations in Scandinavia and Latin America.
3. JOHN FORSYTH (1834-1841)
Served under: Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren
Noted for: Obtaining long-disputed reparations from France for U.S. commercial losses suffered during the Napoleonic Wars. Also for threatening to resign early in Van Buren’s administration before his relationship with the new president improved.
4. DANIEL WEBSTER (1841-1843 and 1850-1852)
Served under: Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Millard Filmore
Noted for: Negotiating a treaty which set the boundaries between Maine and New Brunswick, encouraging a popular uprising in Hungary and for dying in office in 1852. But mostly for his distinguished Senate career and for his fictional role in the story The Devil and Daniel Webster.
5. WILLIAM MARCY (1853-1857) Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
TOP FIVE FLASHMAN NOVELS: NUMBER FIVE
For Balladeer’s Blog’s Number One Harry Flashman Novel click HERE . For background info on George MacDonald Fraser’s infamous anti-hero Harry Paget Flashman you can also click that link.
5. FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH (2005)
Time Period: The 1867-1868 Abyssinian military campaign and rescue mission.
This volume of The Flashman Papers is set right after Harry’s unsuccessful attempt to spirit away Mexico’s overthrown Emperor Maximilian before he could be executed. (Well it wasn’t Flashman’s fault. As history tells us, Maximilian DID refuse to escape with the conspirators who busted in to save his sorry butt.)
Synopsis: After a passionate farewell kiss from (the real-life) Princess Agnes Salm-Salm, Harry Flashman further raises the ire of his Austrian escorts by seducing a young, blonde and buxom Hapsburg aristocrat on the trans-Atlantic voyage with Maximilian’s coffin.
In Trieste, with the Austrians planning to unleash their wrath on Flashman as soon as the ceremony for Maximilian is over, our main character bolts for the British consulate. HMG is happy to have Sir Harry on hand and entrusts him to escort the notorious 100,000 Maria Theresa Thalers being sent to finance General Robert Napier’s upcoming Abyssinian Expedition.
That expedition is being launched to free British captives being held and tortured by the (historically) unhinged Emperor Theodore II of Abyssinia (Called Ethiopia today).
Before Colonel Flashman knows it he’s caught up in a clash with Muslim slavers on the Red Sea, then breezing right along to the Eritrean port of Zula, embarkation point for the British campaign into Abyssinia.
The author George MacDonald Fraser’s descriptive talents were in top form in Flashman on the March. As fans well know, Fraser creates scenes in the reader’s mind that surpass the biggest-budgeted cinematic blockbusters.
This particular tale lets him fully unleash his genius for seeming to take his audience to faraway planets while never leaving the Earth. Abyssinia/ Ethiopia feels menacingly alien and its hostile terrain might as well be on an orbiting asteroid as we get dragged into deadly danger with the reluctant Flashman.
Harry and his Royal Marine escorts eventually catch up with General Napier far inland, and even though our protagonist officially turns over the shipment of Thalers he is still at Napier’s mercy in terms of papers and transit orders home to England.
With the British forces – complete with 44 war elephants from India – moving more slowly than anticipated, Napier decides to send Flashman on ahead of the main army.
Harry’s orders: a) to covertly keep tabs on the location of the hostages in case the Emperor decides to take them even further inland and b) to feel out Theodore’s many enemies in the war-torn country and try to recruit ad hoc allies to prevent the Emperor’s army from escaping.
Flashman’s guide, translator and fellow warrior will be the beautiful Ethiopian woman Uliba-Wark, half-sister to the country’s Queen. Uliba-Wark has a small domain of her own and is up to her neck in Abyssinia’s countless political and sexual intrigues & rivalries.
A running battle on horseback which leaves Harry and the warlike beauty as the sole survivors enroute to her castle is just a hint of the wild bed and battle action that lays ahead. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History, opinion, Pulp Heroes
FOR ELFIDD/ THE ROOSTER – A SHOUTOUT TO THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
For Elfidd at As The Rooster Crows Blog ( always a great read, by the way) here is my belated congratulations to his Philadelphia Eagles for their franchise’s first Superbowl Victory!
Hope you enjoy the shoutout, Elfidd!
Filed under Neglected History
SAM PHILLIPS SINGING HER HIT “I NEED LOVE”
I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to this underrated song with terrific lyrics like “I need love, not some sentimental prison/ I need God, not the political church.” It’s Sam Phillips with I Need Love on this installment of Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead.
Filed under opinion
POLITICAL CARTOONS: A FEW OF THE LATEST
With daily revelations about the Uranium One Scandal and the way Obama used governmental agencies against political opponents here’s a few light-hearted political cartoons about the ongoing mess and the corporate media’s role in abetting the cover-ups.
And here’s Obama as Nixon …
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT ANNIVERSARY AND A CALL TO THE FANS
Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault
Balladeer’s Blog’s fondness for the old Movie Host Shows of long ago has been well established. Today is the 33rd Anniversary of the very first episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault from Saturday, February 9th of 1985. My psychotically obsessive research on the show has yielded a lot of info over the years but I have now worn out every source I could find.
Even the show’s co-host and co-creator Randy Clower has been bled dry of information on the show by me. Over the years other fans of the show – and a special shout-out goes to “the Cap’n” – have provided info here and there that often led me to concrete source material.
Anyway, here are some movies that we have general, varied reason to believe were shown on The Texas 27 Film Vault but I need original broadcast dates, info on comedy sketches or movie ticket give-aways, etc. Episodes aired for 2 and a half hours Saturday nights from 10:30pm to 1:00am in Texas and Oklahoma.
FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (1958)
The Film: “Thought Monsters” leech into atomic energy, then extract human brains and spinal columns to use as their corporeal forms. This is a Bad Movie Classic remembered largely because of the scenes where the flying brains, sporting antennae, attack their prey, with their spinal cord “tails” streaming along behind them.
Serial Episode: No idea, for now.
Reason for believing it was shown: Some of the Flying Brain Creatures are on the 1987 Texas 27 Film Vault poster.
EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)
The Film: The title says it all for this fun but weird black & white time-waster.
Serial Episode: Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe.
Reason for believing it was shown: Tex (Ken Miller) announced it was to be the movie “Next time on The Texas 27 Film Vault” on one of the surviving episodes that I have.
THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN (1963/ 1968)
The Film: This movie is so infamous surely nobody needs any information from me at this late date.
Serial Episode: No idea, for now.
Reason for believing it was shown: It is mentioned by the hosts in some episodes AND appears on the 1987 T27FV poster.
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Forgotten Television, Movie Hosts
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