Monthly Archives: July 2020

SUICIDE THEATRE (1950): FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

“I wish I was dead, Jim!”

SUICIDE THEATRE, aka THE LITTLE THEATRE – When you spend your life happily wallowing in oddities like I do, you often get the mistaken impression that everybody must be as aware of the out of the way nuggets of joyous weirdness as you are. I was assuming that the presence of future Star Trek star Deforest Kelley in the surviving footage of this incredible television rarity made Suicide Theatre as well-known as Mr Spock’s ears. Today I had a conversation with two very special ladies (and you know who you are – I’m kidding) who are usually pretty deeply immersed in the weirdass wonders of life but they had never heard of this show.

In a way it’s serendipity that a recognizable face like Kelley portrays the unfortunate man contemplating suicide in this playlet followed by psychological commentary on depression and suicide PLUS critical evaluation of the performers in the playlet. If it was an unknown figure starring as the down-on-his- luck character in this one and only example of Suicide Theatre plenty of people (myself included) would probably be convinced the surviving footage must be a hoax with modern-day people dressed up in 1950’s clothing and surrounded by 1950’s-era furniture.  Continue reading

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BLACK VOTER RECALLS DONALD TRUMP’S LOANS TO BLACK BUSINESSES WHEN BANKS WOULDN’T LEND TO THEM

Melissa Tate and Trump“WE NEED THIRD PARTIES!” is my frequent refrain here at Balladeer’s Blog. Donald Trump has been a de facto Third Party President and has been fighting BOTH of America’s notoriously corrupt major political parties. No other president of my lifetime has done more for the working class and the poor than Trump has. Unfortunately, the working class and the poor don’t own major media outlets so stories like this one from Melissa Tate’s social media are often overlooked.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1281409618527301632

Trump never called racist til running against Democrats

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Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

SAM SIXKILLER: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER

Frontierado is coming up on Friday, August 7th. Balladeer’s Blog is, as always, the international hub of this holiday which is now celebrated on 6 continents. Anyway, as the glorious day approaches here’s another neglected old west figure. 

Sam Sixkiller

Sam Sixkiller

1. SAM SIXKILLER – Not only does this  gunslinger have a name that screams out for cinematic treatment (or at least a cable television series) but he also saw more action than many western figures who are better known. Born in 1842 Sam Sixkiller was a Cherokee lawman in Oklahoma back when it was still being called Indian Territory and had not yet been opened up for white settlement. The unique setting of life in Indian Territory and the way it served as a microcosm of issues that the nation at large was dealing with after the Civil War adds layers of depth to Marshal Sixkiller’s tale that I find incredibly intriguing. 

After starting out in the Confederate Army, in 1863 Sam enlisted in the Union Army as the Civil War raged and saw action in Arkansas and Indian Territory. Because many Native Americans owned slaves (black and mixed-race) as their tribes had for centuries the Indian Territory was as split in terms of support for the Union and Confederacy as were badly-divided states like Missouri. Between conventional battles and Bushwacker raids the Territory was reduced to a wasteland in many areas by the  end of the war. In May 1865 Sam was discharged and returned to his wife Fannie to attend to their farm.

masc chair and bottleFollowing the Civil War the slaves in Indian Territory were declared Freedmen like the slaves in the late Confederacy, and as citizens of Indian Territory those Freedmen were in theory entitled to some of the money that was still being paid to the tribes in the Territory and to land. In reality the Five Civilized Tribes who called Indian Territory home were resentful of their former slaves’ new status and often used violence to drive out the freed slaves, even burning down their homes in many cases.

Outlaw bands would ride in to loot and pillage in the Territory then flee outside its borders to escape prosecution. In addition bootlegging and rustling were rampant and construction of railroads through Indian Territory brought new crimes. Throw in the usual inter-tribe conflicts that still surfaced and the Territory was a very dangerous place at the time. Continue reading

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MORE COOL BUT NEGLECTED FOOTBALL HELMETS

Balladeer’s Blog’s readers can’t get enough of these blog posts about cool football helmets, so, since I aim to please here is another one.

Abraham Lincoln RailsplittersABRAHAM LINCOLN

Team Name: RAILSPLITTERS

Comment: How can you NOT love this name for the football teams of any educational institute at any level? The Railsplitters is great. The Emancipators would be great, too!

Roman Catholic CahillitesROMAN CATHOLIC

Team Name: CAHILLITES

Comment: Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know I’m a soft touch when it comes to incredibly cool helmet logos, especially when they’re combined with butt-kickingly unique team names. 

Benjamin Franklin ElectronsBENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Team Name: ELECTRONS

Comment: Electrons is a clever choice for a team named after good old Dr Franklin. Other possibilities might be the Stoves, the Kitefliers, the Lightning Bolts, or maybe the Cougars given his fondness for older wo- … naaah. Continue reading

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PULP HERO G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES: STORIES SEVEN THROUGH NINE

Invisible StaffelBalladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the neglected Pulp Hero G-8. This is a story-by- story look at the adventures of this World War One American fighter pilot who – along with his two wingmen the Battle Aces – took on various supernatural and super- scientific menaces thrown at the Allied Powers by the Central Powers of Germany, Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Muslim Turks.

G-8 was created by Robert J Hogan in 1933 when World War One was still being called simply the World War or the Great War. Over the next eleven years Hogan wrote 110 stories featuring the adventures of G-8, the street-smart pug Nippy Weston and the brawny giant Bull Martin. The regular cast was rounded out by our hero’s archenemy Doktor Krueger, by Battle, G-8’s British manservant and by our hero’s girlfriend R-1: an American nurse/ spy whose real name, like G-8’s was never revealed.

squadron of corpses7. SQUADRON OF CORPSES (April 1934) – G-8’s archenemy Doktor Krueger is at it again! Once again the devilish German scientist has come up with a scientific menace that manages to prey on the superstitions of mankind. Dead German aces are back from the dead and flying into action again against the Allied pilots in the skies over No Man’s Land.

The animated, shambling corpses are impervious to bullets and retain the aerial combat skills they had in life, making them doubly dangerous since they can’t be killed a second time. Even more perplexing is the way Krueger has managed it so that each time a dead German flying ace is “resurrected” an Allied pilot falls ill and dies. Continue reading

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LIFE-LONG DEMOCRAT AND MARTIN LUTHER KING PERSON OF COURAGE BASHES BIDEN, PRAISES TRUMP

Vernon JonesDemocrat State Representative Vernon Jones, a Martin Luther King Person of Courage, who has been very outspoken about the right of African-Americans to vote for any candidate they  choose, NOT just Democrats, once again blasted Democrat Presidential Candidate Joe Biden over his many ugly actions regarding communities of color. (Link below, but first some excerpts)  

Jones has pointed out that President Donald Trump has done more for the black community than any other Washington politician, all while Biden hides in his basement. Vernon also criticized hysterical Democrat plans to defund police.  

Black Voices for Trump pic“Jones applauded President Trump’s decision to sign an executive order on police reform. The EO created a national database of police misconduct. This prevents officers from bouncing between police departments when they’re fired for excessive force or other related issues.”

black in magaSaid Jones “Where were Joe Biden and the previous administration for 8 years in the White House on this issue? I’ll tell you. They were absent in unifying this country.”

“The black unemployment rate under Biden and the Obama administration averaged a horrific 12.8 percent … By comparison, more than double that number – 350,000 black Americans – were lifted out of poverty during just the first two years of the Trump administration.”

Trump black supporters even moreJones also reminded voters of color about Joe Biden’s THIRTY-SIX YEARS of pushing horrifically strict bills against black offenders (sometimes in conjunction with Hillary Clinton, who notoriously called black men “super-predators”).

Trump and black support“Don’t take my word for it,” Jones said, “take then-Senator Joe Biden’s own words for it. The truth is, every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress, every minor crime bill, has had the name of the Democratic senator from the State of Delaware: Joe Biden. Now that Biden is running for president in a woke Democratic Party in 2020, he’s attempting to sweep his racist legacy under the rug. We can’t let him.”

“Joe Biden is directly responsible for the mass incarceration policies of the 1980s and 1990s, which decimated the black community. Biden authored the 1994 crime bill which imposed mandatory minimum sentences, disproportionately putting hundreds of thousands of young black men in prison.” Continue reading

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Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

“COME ON, YOU DANITES” … THE MISSOURI MORMON WAR (1838)

MASCOT COWBOY 1The Latter-Day Saints aka Mormons, faced very real oppression and bigotry because of their faith. In Missouri in the 1830s the Church’s opposition to slavery added to the usual mistrust and suspicion that Mormons faced. The series of Mormon “Wars” were not truly large-scale wars (with the exception of one).

The Mormon Wars bore more of a resemblance to Range Wars of the American West, which is one of the reasons I’m covering them during Frontierado Season. I’m not claiming either side was entirely innocent. Only political propagandists and immature fools pretend conflicts are clear-cut “good guys vs bad guys” situations.

FOR MORE ABOUT WHY I FEEL MORMONS AND DANITES FIT IN WITH FRONTIERADO CLICK HERE

MISSOURI MORMON WAR (August 6th – November 1st, 1838) 

Missouri Mormon WarAUGUST 6th, 1838 – This was Election Day in newly-formed Daviess County in Missouri. One of the candidates, William Peniston, called Mormons “horse-thieves and robbers” and warned them not to vote. A band of 30-some Mormons DID show up to vote on August 6th and were blocked by roughly 200 Anti-Mormons.

Legend has it that a cry of “Oh yes, you Danites, here is a job for us” (sometimes claimed to have been “Come on, you Danites!”) rallied those Mormons who belonged to the armed sect of Mormon “Knights” called Danites, from the Book of Daniel. 

In the resulting clash the outnumbered Mormons drove off the Missourians who were illegally trying to stop them from voting. Continue reading

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SUPERHERO PANTHEON OF FOUR STAR PUBLICATIONS

As always in these superhero-crazed times, readers let me hear about it when I go too long without a post like this. Here is Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the neglected superheroes from Four Star Publications.

GrenadeTHE GRENADE

Secret Identity: Bruce Corbet, reporter

First Appearance: Captain Flight Comics #5 (December 1944)

Origin: Nazi agents accidentally killed Daily Star reporter Bruce Corbet’s brother Danny while searching for Bruce’s notes regarding a top secret War Department development. Since the Nazis killed Danny with a hand grenade he adopted the nom de guerre the Grenade and donned a costume to seek revenge.

Powers: The Grenade was in the peak of human condition. He was as agile as an Olympic gymnast and excelled at unarmed combat. In addition he sported hand grenades which he could hurl with deadly accuracy. 

Comment: I’d have added some knock-out grenades or harmless smoke grenades to the explosive grenades this hero carried with him, just for some variety.  A beautiful lounge singer was the Grenade’s love interest in his civilian identity. Continue reading

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DARK INTRUDER (1965) – LESLIE NIELSEN IN A HORROR STORY

dark-intruder-2DARK INTRUDER (1965) – This thoroughly enjoyable piece of Forgotten Television was a failed pilot for a series. Supposedly the network passed on it because they thought it was too scary and gruesome for tv viewers of the time. Instead they released this 59-minute black & white gem to theaters as the second title for double features.

The story is set in 1891 San Francisco with Leslie Nielsen himself starring as Brett Kingsford, an occult expert and investigator. If this had been picked up as a series the title was going to be The Black Cloak and apparently would have been a forerunner of The Norliss Tapes, Kolchak and Spectre. In my opinion the period setting would have given The Black Cloak the edge, though.

dark-intruder-4Brett Kingsford maintains a quasi-secret identity. On the surface he’s known in San Francisco as a bon vivant and ladies’ man and when the police want to consult him over something supernatural he dons various disguises to rendezvous with them. That way nobody in his usual social circles is made aware of his connections with the cops.  Continue reading

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Filed under Forgotten Television, Halloween Season

CAMPUS DEMOCRATS CALL A STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN “WHITE SUPREMACY” AND DEMAND ITS REMOVAL

Education or indoctrination gifBalladeer’s Blog has often covered the way in which Democrats have reduced America’s educational institutions to “churches” of irrational thought and political intolerance. And just when you may think Democrats can’t show their ignorance, hatred and divisiveness any more clearly, the Democrats of the Student Union at the University of Wisconsin in Madison stepped in to take the lunacy even higher. They want a statue of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator himself, removed since they claim it invokes White Supremacy. (Link below)  

Orwell on historyDemocrat mobs have recently dragged down or vandalized even statues of African-American civil rights icon Frederick Douglass in their ugly madness. Well, Douglass was a Republican and we know that Democrats believe that African-Americans must obey them and NEVER belong to a political party of their own choosing. 

FOR MORE OF THESE TYPES OF INCIDENTS READ ON … Continue reading

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Filed under Education or Indoctrination, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion