“You’re not goin’ nowhere, ya bottom-dealin’ Hombre,” the gambler-gunfighter exclaimed, “We’ve got us a few apparent paradoxes and their effect upon contemporary religious thought to discuss!”
The Frontierado holiday is coming up fast – on Friday, August 5th in fact. Today we’ll revisit the rules of Frontierado Poker for newbies to the holiday.
Here are the rules for Frontierado Poker, the game that is Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
Frontierado is Friday, August 5th!
Pistol Pete
PISTOL PETE – Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton was another of those real-life figures that some people mistakenly think are fictional characters. The elementary alliteration and the association of the name Pistol Pete with the mascot of the Oklahoma State University sports teams are part of the reason. That mascot was named after and was designed to look like the real-life Pistol Pete.
Eaton was a man who LIVED what would eventually become a cliche of Wild West fiction: the quest for revenge over the murder of a loved one, no matter how many years it takes.
In 1868 young Frank was eight years old and living with his parents in Twin Mounds, Kansas. Frank’s father had served in the Union Army during the Civil War and was being harassed by several former Confederate Army men who had ridden with Quantrill’s Raiders for a time. One day six of those men shot our hero’s father to death right in front of him, setting the course for the rest of the young man’s life. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
Frontierado is Friday, August 5th!
SALLY SKULL – Sara Jane Newman, the future Sally Skull, was born in Illinois in 1817. In 1823 her family moved to Fayette County in Texas, which was then part of the area that Mexico had seized from Native Americans.
Like all the other ranch families in the area, whether from Mexico or the U.S., Sally and her family lived a rough life managing their land and surviving periodic assaults from the American Indians in the area. Sally killed her first man – an attacking Indian, when she was 11, using a rifle. At age 12 Sally was proficient with all firearms and provided plenty of food for the family table by hunting.
In 1831 Sally’s father died and she began running the ranch for her grieving mother, even registering her father’s old brand in her own name. 1833 saw the 16 year old married to a Texas Ranger named Jess Robinson and settled in Gonzalez, TX, still part of Mexico.
Over the next 10 years, as Texans rebelled against the tyrannical Mexican government and broke away to form their own Republic, Sally and Jess had 2 children who survived – a son and daughter. In 1843 the couple divorced and 11 days later Sally married a gunsmith named George Skull (or Scull), whose last name she would keep throughout all her future marriages. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
** I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CRISIS INVOLVING A LOVED ONE. THIS BLOG POST WAS PRE-WRITTEN.
Self-portrait by Kid Russell
Frontierado is Friday, August 5th! My most popular Frontierado articles over the years have been the ones about neglected gunslingers of the American West. Here is another neglected western figure whose life was at least as interesting as those of the bigger names.
KID RUSSELL – How cool is it that an authentic, acclaimed international artist spent some of his younger years wandering the Wild West, even earning the nickname Kid Russell? Charles Marion “Kid” Russell was born in 1864 in St Louis, Missouri. As with Klondike Kate Rockwell, most of this figure’s life story is outside the purview of this article.
Since Frontierado is about the myth of the Old West I’ll focus on the legends about Kid Russell’s wild, wandering younger years full of guns, ranches, saloons, cattle drives, bordellos and sketches drawn on any nearby flat surface, sketches that showed the nascent talent that would one day make Russell world-famous.
When he was age 16 Charles’ well-to-do parents gave up trying to force him to continue his schooling and let him move to Montana, where, clad in a brand-new buckskin outfit, he worked on a friend’s sheep ranch north of Helena. It took skill with a gun and a true survival instinct to live through encounters with rustlers, hostile cattlemen and their hired gunmen but Charles, already being called Kid Russell, thrived and felt more at home in this rough and tumble lifestyle than among his family’s hoity-toity friends in St Louis high society. Continue reading
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Frontierado is coming up on Friday, August 5th! In keeping with the seasonal feel, Balladeer’s Blog has been showcasing various neglected westerns.
LEGACY OF THE INCAS (1965) – Guy Madison and Fernando Rey starred in this Llama Western which would be guaranteed to make some of the emotional cripples of the 21st Century faint at its “Colonialism Squared” plotline. To me the staggering tastelessness of it all makes it more funny than pernicious.
Rey plays President Castillo of late 1800’s Peru. He has a Jim West-style assignment for his gunslinging agent, nicknamed Jaguar. His birth name is Wutuma, and he’s the last of “the proud and noble Incas”. His job is to eradicate a gang of Native Peruvian bandits and guerillas who are robbing and killing all non-natives as part of their bid to resurrect the ancient Inca empire to rule Peru! Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO, Spaghetti Westerns
Frontierado is on Friday August 5th!
In the past Balladeer’s Blog has examined some of the big names among the fictional gunslingers of Spaghetti Westerns. I’ve covered the original Django, Sartana, the Holy Ghost, Dynamite Joe, Harmonica and even Tony Anthony’s character the Stranger. Here is a look at the Italo-Western hero Noon.
The Man Called Noon (1973)
The Story: Long before Robert Ludlum’s amnesiac secret agent Jason Bourne came this film. Based on a Louis L’Amour story The Man Called Noon featured Richard Crenna as the title character, an amnesiac who has incredible abilities with a gun but no knowledge of his past.
Just like Jason Bourne in the later novel, our hero Rubal Noon must piece together who he really is, why he has access to some large sums of money and why various dangerous factions want him dead. He also struggles to survive while all this chaos closes in on him. Luckily his instinctive skill at killing keeps him alive, albeit increasingly confused. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO, Spaghetti Westerns
Painting by Charles Marion Russell aka Kid Russell
HAPPY FRONTIERADO! The joyous day is here at last so let’s enjoy our meals of buffalo meat, Tumbleweed Pizzas, Southwest Fried Rice, corn on the cob, Cactus Salad, mashed potatoes and Western Spaghetti ! Later we can wash down some Deuces Wilds (Red or Black) and Cactus Jacks while playing Frontierado Poker or watching Silverado.
My most popular Frontierado articles over the years have been the ones about neglected gunslingers of the American West. Here are another man and woman whose lives were at least as interesting as those of the bigger names.
Self-portrait by Kid Russell
KID RUSSELL – How cool is it that an authentic, acclaimed international artist spent some of his younger years wandering the Wild West, even earning the nickname Kid Russell? Charles Marion “Kid” Russell was born in 1864 in St Louis, Missouri. As with Klondike Kate Rockwell, most of this figure’s life story is outside the purview of this article.
Since Frontierado is about the myth of the Old West I’ll focus on the legends about Kid Russell’s wild, wandering younger years full of guns, ranches, saloons, cattle drives, bordellos and sketches drawn on any nearby flat surface, sketches that showed the nascent talent that would one day make Russell world-famous.
When he was age 16 Charles’ well-to-do parents gave up trying to force him to continue his schooling and let him move to Montana, where, clad in a brand-new buckskin outfit, he worked on a friend’s sheep ranch north of Helena. It took skill with a gun and a true survival instinct to live through encounters with rustlers, hostile cattlemen and their hired gunmen but Charles, already being called Kid Russell, thrived and felt more at home in this rough and tumble lifestyle than among his family’s hoity-toity friends in St Louis high society. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
Frontierado is tomorrow, August 7th! When it comes to Wild West towns places like Tombstone, Dodge City and Deadwood get the lion’s share of the attention. In keeping with Balladeer’s Blog’s overall theme here’s a look at some of the action in the neglected town of Sidney, NE. Figures like Wild Bill Hickok, Luke Short, Susan B Anthony, Whispering Smith and Dom Pedro II of Brazil passed through Sidney in its heyday. Here’s a timeline of just some of the events in the town infamous as “The Wicked Burg”:
April 29th, 1868 – Daniel Richardson, Thomas Cahoon and William Edmondson became the first recorded dead men buried in Sidney’s Boot Hill Cemetery. All three men were killed in a clash with Native Americans.
May ?, 1875 – Susan B Anthony delivered a lecture in Sidney advocating women’s suffrage.
October 24th, 1875 – At the Capitol Saloon the livery stable owner Robert W Porter and Charles Patterson got into an argument (the subject is not known) that resulted in Patterson shooting Porter to death with 3 shots. Patterson was placed under arrest. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
THE WILD WILD WEST REVISITED (1979) – Frontierado is this Friday, August 7th.
A better title for this Wild Wild West telefilm would have been Night of the Half-Assed Reunion Special. (For non-fans of this old Robert Conrad show let me explain: every episode of The Wild Wild West bore the title “Night of the Such and Such”, just like every Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode was titled “The Such and Such Affair” and every Friends episode was called “The One with Such and Such.”)
The original 1965-1969 television series starred the athletic and charismatic Robert Conrad as Jim West, a Secret Service Agent in the 1800’s American West. His cover was that he was a high-stakes gambler/ gunfighter who traveled in his own private train car. Ross Martin portrayed his hammy professional actor sidekick, Artemus Gordon.
The Wild Wild West was a genuine classic, combining James Bond/ Napoleon Solo spy antics with the gunplay and mis en scene of the best Westerns. Jim West was forever saving the country – and sometimes the world – from a long line of suave or at least colorful villains. Those villains inevitably had sultry female accomplices, about eighty percent of whom seemed to be played by Michelle Carey. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, FRONTIERADO
Frontierado is this Friday, August 7th! In honor of the season here is a look at female gunslingers who don’t get as much attention as the big names like Calamity Jane, Belle Starr and Annie Oakley.
Queen Kitty
QUEEN KITTY – Kitty LeRoy was also known as Kitty the Schemer, Dancing Kitty, the Female Arsenal and much later as Deadwood Kitty. Queen Kitty is the most appropriate nickname in part because of her last name but mostly because she was variously known as “the Queen of the Hoofers”, “the Dancing Queen”, “the Queen of the Barbary Coast” and “the Queen of the Faro Tables”.
Kitty was born in 1850 and by the age of 10 was earning money for her family as a professional dancer and novelty act in her home state of Michigan. By 14 she was performing exclusively at adult venues and had added trick shooting to her repertoire.
Her most famous shooting trick at this time was shooting apples off the heads of volunteers. At age 15 Queen Kitty was performing in New Orleans and married her first husband – the only man in the city brave enough to let Kitty shoot apples off his head while she was riding around him at a full gallop.
LeRoy loved flirting and sleeping around, however, and this led to the breakup of her first marriage within a year. By 1870 Queen Kitty had married a second time, to a man named Donnaly, with whom she had a daughter. The Queen had gravitated more and more to the Faro tables, making a killing as a celebrity dealer.
With Dallas as a home base Kitty and her husband would travel throughout Texas with LeRoy earning money dancing and dealing Faro. Kitty also earned a name for being able to handle any violence that came her way from sore losers and was involved in multiple gunfights and knife fights in dangerous saloons. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
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