Balladeer’s Blog’s recurring segment Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead strikes again! This time it’s Van Halen with their hit Dance The Night Away.
Balladeer’s Blog’s recurring segment Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead strikes again! This time it’s Van Halen with their hit Dance The Night Away.
Filed under opinion
Balladeer’s Blog’s recent look at the short-lived comic book company Atlas-Seaboard was a big hit. As a follow-up here’s a look at an Atlas figure I did not cover in the main article, which can be found HERE
MAN-MONSTER
Secret Identity: Paul Sanders, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist
Origin: Hedonistic Paul Sanders lives the life of a playboy from his endorsement deals and his resented oil baron father’s vast fortune. After a flirty/ bickering battle of the sexes-style interview with two female reporters from Women’s Lib Magazine Paul boards a motorboat for one of his father’s offshore oil wells.
To show off for the still-watching ladies Paul leaps overboard to swim the rest of the way to the oil drilling platform. As fate would have it, the oil drilling had just churned up some rare, mutated bacteria from the ocean floor. Sanders winds up covered by the bacteria, which causes changes to his body.
Paul barely escapes the bacteria and makes it back to shore, where he transforms into a red-scaled amphibious monster. After a brief rampage he becomes human again and the female reporters take him home.
From then on in times of danger the transformation comes over Paul again and he finds himself battling various forces of evil.
First Appearance: Tales of Evil #3 (July, 1975). His final appearance came in September of that same year.
Powers: Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) – 1. LSU-SHREVEPORT PILOTS (Riverboat Pilots) ### 2. GEORGETOWN (KY) COLLEGE TIGERS ### 3. WILLIAM PENN UNIVERSITY STATESMEN ### 4. LINDSEY WILSON COLLEGE BLUE RAIDERS ### 5. MID-AMERICA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY EVANGELS ###
6. HOPE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY ROYALS ### 7. OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY STARS ### 8. LSU-ALEXANDRIA GENERALS ### 9. DALTON STATE ROADRUNNERS ### 10. UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND ARTS OF OKLAHOMA DROVERS ### Continue reading
Filed under College Basketball
It’s the long-awaited return of Balladeer’s Blog’s mock headlines:
DELUSIONAL TRUMP-HATERS OFFICIALLY GO INSANE OVER MICHAEL “DR EVIL” WOLFF’S ANKLE-BITING OF PRESIDENT TRUMP
WHITE SUPREMACIST MICHAEL WOLFF’S BOOK CLAIMS DONALD TRUMP KILLED ELVIS PRESLEY
DEMOCRATS INSIST THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP SAVED AMERICA’S ECONOMY JUST TO SPITE THEM
MICHAEL WOLFF VOTED CREEPIEST-LOOKING MAN IN THE WORLD FOR TENTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR
PAUL KRUGMAN OFFERS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO ANYONE WHO WILL COME FORWARD AND SAY THEY HAD SEX WITH HIM
MICHAEL WOLFF CLAIMS BARACK OBAMA BEGS MELANIA TRUMP FOR HER SOILED PANTIES (Hey, it’s on the same level as anything else this guy writes.)
BLOATED RICH PIG AND CORPORATE FASCIST TOM STEYER REDUCED TO HANDING OUT COPIES OF THE WOLFF BOOK
MICHAEL WOLFF’S BOOK CLAIMS GOD TOLD HIM HE THINKS PRESIDENT TRUMP IS “A BIG POO-POO HEAD”
DEMOCRATS MOVE TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT TRUMP UNDER LITTLE-KNOWN “BIG POO-POO HEAD” PROVISION IN CONSTITUTION
SOURCES SAY MICHAEL WOLFF ASSOCIATES CONSIDER HIM A CHEAP GOSSIP MONGER
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion

It’s Battle of New Orleans Day AND Elvis Presley’s birthday! In the past I’ve posted my review of Change of Habit, the Elvis movie with him as a doctor, Mary Tyler Moore as a nun and Ed Asner as a cop. I’ve also posted about the musical in which Elvis IS Andrew Jackson – Rock ‘N’ Roll vs the Redcoats. (With an Ann-Margret drag queen as pirate Jean Lafitte. )
This time around I’ll dredge up the often-neglected Orion business from decades ago. It was a fun bit of nonsense that only the most far-gone Elvis Conspiracy Theorists take seriously. As always I consider conspiracy theories, put-ons, hoaxes and ARG’s to be modern variations of myth and folklore.
Yes, Elvis died in 1977. That’s not the point. The point is the way the whole Orion/ Jimmy Ellis/ Elvis Conspiracy rabbit hole deserves to be studied forever because of the way fiction and reality seemingly influenced each other to the point where they became almost inseparable.

I WANT EL SANTO AND I WANT HIM NOW!
If you’re new to these events get ready for the Elvis Presley equivalent of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast. And let me make it clear I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I have no idea what anyone’s motives were regarding any aspect of the following.
I’ll present the tale in the style of the fictional Carl Kolchak – as “items” in a list:
ITEM: Elvis Presley died in August of 1977, yet in the years that followed an ever-increasing body of folklore and myth would develop regarding the late rock star supposedly faking his own death. His motives varied according to the theory.
ITEM: For a time Elvis sightings seemed to outnumber sightings of Bigfoot, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster combined.
ITEM: The novel Orion was published. Conspiracy lovers often cite either 1977, 1978 or 1979 as the year of publication, so you can see how deep some of the rabbit holes run.
ITEM: Orion featured a very Elvis-like young man from the American south who becomes a sensation as a rock singer. In the end the character Orion is so weary of the stresses of stardom that he fakes his own death to get away from it all.
ITEM: Claims are made that enigmatic power players managed to get the novel removed from bookstores. The claims are sometimes accompanied by insinuations that this was done because the book might have struck too close to reality with its “fake death” ending.
ITEM: A masked singer – who looks like a standard Elvis impersonator except for the mask – appears and calls himself Orion. He begins releasing albums and performing in public. This Orion’s first album, tantalizingly titled Reborn, is released in 1978. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History, opinion
MY COUSIN’S AIRSHIP, A TALE OF 1950 (1902) – Written by W.F. Alexander. Though written in 1902 this story is set in a fictional 1950 which has seen incredible scientific advances.
The action begins in England, where our narrator lives with his true love Margaret. His cousin Stephen Rankin – a former rival for Margaret’s affections – is a nasty mean-spirited mad scientist figure.
Stephen has invented a new type of aerocar which can travel 45 miles per hour, which we readers are told makes it the fastest aircraft of 1950. (!) As a peace-making gesture the inventor invites our narrator along for a joyride in the airship. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
Balladeer’s Blog’s readers just love these! Here are some more before pro football season is over.
DOWNINGTON WEST WHIPPETS
Comments: WHIPPET! Whippet GOOD! Long-time readers of Balladeer’s Blog will surely remember George the Whippet and his owners in the U.K.
Whippets are terrific dogs and more teams should be named after them.
BANGOR SLATERS
Comment: I’m assuming the rivals of the Slaters are the Zachs. (rimshot)
So their helmets may not have any cool logo or design on them but c’mon, some helmets are so cool that just their stark simplicity and kickass shell color makes them iconic. Continue reading
Filed under Cool Helmets, opinion
Martin Luther King Day is approaching. Some of the most courageous champions of Doctor King’s dream of a society in which people are judged by their character rather than their skin color are PEOPLE OF COLOR WHO DARE TO DEFY THE DEMOCRATS. Here is a look at one of those heroic women.
CRYSTAL WRIGHT
Ms Wright runs her own website and makes personal appearances around the country. Race-baiting Democrats always harass people like her who are brave enough to form their own political opinions despite the condescending disapproval of hate-filled American Liberals.
The vile abuse that Democrats throw at her for defying them will disgust you. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
MOTORCYCLE SQUAD (1937) – This neglected little honey is one of the earliest, if not THE earliest, biker films. Kane Richmond and Wynne Gibson star in a story about a motorcycle cop who is dishonorably discharged from the police force as part of a ruse to send him undercover.
Seems a pack of motorcycle-riding crooks are at large and our hero’s skill with a chopper makes him the ideal next recruit for their gang, all the better to bring them down from within.
With my weird sense of humor I get a huge kick out of this film’s cleaned-up 1930s version of what would become biker movie tropes in later decades. And there are moments when you’ll be half-convinced that the creative team behind the 1960s biker movie Wild Rebels based their flick on Motorcycle Squad, albeit with a drag racer infiltrating the gang instead of a cop. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies