Category Archives: FRONTIERADO

July 24, 2012 · 9:12 pm

THE TOP GUNSLINGERS FROM FRONTIERADO SAGAS

 The Frontierado holiday is coming up on Friday, August 3rd! What would that holiday be without those Wild West figures who blazed their way into the Frontierado Pantheon of Gunslingers? Here are the women and men who earned a spot in Balladeer’s Blog’s Valhalla with their gunplay, courage and resourcefulness. Included are links to the custom Sagas I wrote for each of them:

1. THE BLACKWATER KID – A Civil War veteran from the Union side who went on to be a bounty hunter – https://glitternight.com/2011/05/21/frontierado-saga-the-blackwater-kid/

2. AMARILLO ROSE – The cattle queen whose skill with a rifle helped her faction win the Amarillo Range War – https://glitternight.com/2011/05/23/frontierado-saga-amarillo-rose/

3. DUSTY MURTAUGH – The first female Wells Fargo shotgun rider, who Continue reading →

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July 21, 2012 · 1:43 pm

FRONTIERADO POKER: THE GAME EVERYONE’S PLAYING

 The Frontierado holiday is coming up fast – on Friday, August 3rd, in fact, so the frequency of my Frontierado posts is going to increase. 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 strictly my own invention to go along with my holiday Frontierado.

1. Remove all face cards from the deck. The game is played with a 40-card deck.

2. Every player Continue reading →

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July 15, 2012 · 10:05 pm

FOUR FORGOTTEN GUNSLINGERS WITH COOL NICKNAMES

Bear River Tom Smith

Bear River Tom Smith

The Frontierado holiday is coming up on Friday, August 3rd and Balladeer’s Blog continues presenting holiday- themed articles. I know that in reality the gunfighters of the old west were thugs and worse but Frontierado is about the myth of the American west, not the grinding reality. 

As the glorious day approaches and we are all making our holiday preparations enjoy a sampling of this group of colorful characters who don’t get the attention – or movies – they deserve.

1. BEAR RIVER TOM – That’s our top-ranked figure in the photo to your left. One of the few actual gunmen to wear a fancy two-gun holster, Bear River Tom Smith’s myth begins with his birth in 1838 in New York City. He either did or did not serve in the Union Army in 1861 (accounts vary) but was definitely part of the NYC police force by 1862. In 1867 he headed west, working as a laborer laying track for the Union Pacific Railroad  in Nebraska.

By 1868 the crew he was with had reached Wyoming, where the Hell On Wheels town of Bear River sprang up around their work camp. Bear River was to wild, lawless railroad towns what Dodge City, Kansas was to wild, lawless cattletowns. Bear River Tom put his guns, fists and law enforcement experience to work protecting the Continue reading →

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July 14, 2012 · 4:10 pm

FRONTIERADO: THE TOP FOUR WESTERNS BASED ON REAL-LIFE FIGURES

We all know that in real life the celebrated “heroes” of the old west were a pack of corrupt and/or outrightly criminal thugs who would have had a pretty redneckish worldview. And let’s face it, by our standards their personal hygiene habits would have been pretty disgusting. But since the Frontierado holiday is all about celebrating the myth of the West and not the grinding reality of it here’s my list of the Top Four Westerns Based On Real-Life Figures. Coming up with lists like this is one of the perks of being the international commissioner of Frontierado (along with the seven-figure income and a staff of three hundred people).

1. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) – Redford and Newman set the standard for the “buddy western” with this magnificent movie. Newman once described this flick by saying “It’s a Continue reading →

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July 7, 2012 · 7:00 pm

THE SHOCKING ORIGIN OF FRONTIERADO!

 With Frontierado rapidly approaching this August 3rd you’re running out of shopping days!

What is Frontierado?  Frontierado is a holiday my Continue reading →

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June 24, 2012 · 1:33 pm

BAD MOVIE TRIPLE FEATURE

As more foreplay for the upcoming Frontierado holiday (August 3rd) here’s a look at 3 weird westerns. For more bad movie reviews see my Bad Movie page.

BAD KIDS OF THE WEST (1967) – Even for a Spaghetti Western this movie is weird, weird, weird. A pair of outlaws on the run hide out in a town populated only by children who act like adult western townspeople. The little boys all try to act like the steely-eyed killers played by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Franco Nero, John Garko, etc. The little girls all act like slutty saloon whores, making you wonder if child molesters were this film’s target audience. The charming vibe of Continue reading →

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June 22, 2012 · 8:11 pm

FRONTIERADO RECIPE: CACTUS JACK

Frontierado is coming up on August 3rd so as part of my yearly countdown to the holiday here’s another mixed drink recipe ONLY for those of legal drinking age.

 One of the official drinks of Frontierado is a Cactus Jack (again, my own recipe- two parts Jack Daniels, three parts Mountain Dew and one part lime-flavored sparkling water served with a long stem of Nopolito Cactus in the glass for that essential cactus taste. Just like eating the worm at the bottom of a bottle of Tequila when you’re done drinking your Cactus Jack you can eat the stem of cactus which is Continue reading →

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June 18, 2012 · 12:12 am

SIX NEGLECTED WILD WEST FIGURES

 The big names in Wild West mythology get smothered with attention but with Frontierado coming up on August 3rd it’s the perfect time of year to shed a little light on the myths of some of the American West’s neglected figures. Here are six individuals who never seem to get the attention they deserve.

6. THE MORMON KID – No, that’s not a joke, Matt Warner really was known as the Mormon Kid for the religion he left to pursue a wild life as an outlaw. Some traditions still hold that the Mormon Kid got his first experience with gunplay as a Danite, the “Old West Knights” of the Mormon faith. (For a Danite as a good guy see the Tom Berenger western The Avenging Angel. For a Danite as a Continue reading →

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June 16, 2012 · 12:02 am

HAPPY BLOOM’S DAY 2012

 Yes, it’s the 16th of June, better known to James Joyce geeks like me as Bloom’s Day. The day is named in honor of Leopold Bloom, the Jewish advertising sales rep and Freemason who is one of the major characters in Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The novel also brings along Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of his earlier novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. For those unfamiliar with this work, Ulysses is Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness novel in which he metaphorically features the events from the Odyssey in a single day – June 16th, 1904, in Dublin. (The day he met Nora Barnacle, the woman he would eventually marry after living together for decades) Bloom represents Ulysses/Odysseus, Stephen represents Telemachus and Leopold’s wife, Molly Bloom, represents Penelope.

The novel is Continue reading →

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June 12, 2012 · 11:17 pm

FOUR NEGLECTED WILD WEST FIGURES FOR FRONTIERADO

With the Frontierado holiday coming up on Friday, August 3rd (and isn’t it great to have a holiday that falls on the Friday of its three-day weekend, not on the Monday?) it’s time for another seasonal post. Since Balladeer’s Blog loves to cover under-the-radar subjects today’s post is about four real Wild West figures who don’t get the pub of the big names. My attitude, as always, is that in real life the legends of the west were thugs and worse but Frontierado is about the myth of the west, not the grinding reality. 

1. TEXAS BEN THOMPSON – That’s our number one figure depicted to the right. Ben and his brother were often called Texas Ben and Texas Billy and I  think using the nickname as often as possible will help Ben’s myth get more attention.

Texas Ben served in the Confederate States Army, then after the Civil War he headed south and served in Emperor Maximillian’s army in Mexico. When Maximillian fell Ben crossed back over the border into Texas, and spent the remainder of his life hiring his gun out to Continue reading →

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