The latest look at a college whose sports teams have a nickname that is out of the ordinary.
WESTERN TEXAS COLLEGE Continue reading
WESTERN TEXAS COLLEGE: COOL NAMED SPORTS TEAM
Filed under Cool names and cool logos
PETER PAN (1976): FORGOTTEN TELEVISION
PETER PAN (1976) – This Hallmark/ ITV joint venture is not as good as the Mary Martin or Sandy Duncan versions or the original Disney animated movie, but its obscurity made it a “must review” item for Balladeer’s Blog. Dwight Hemion directed this telefilm with Andrew Birkin and American comedian Jack Burns (of Burns and Schreiber fame) adapting the screenplay.
The fourteen new songs for this Peter Pan were written and composed by Leslie Bricusse of Scrooge, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and so many other musicals. Anthony Newley, Bricusse’s long time musical partner, worked with him on this project as well.
MIA FARROW, in her Rosemary’s Baby hairdo, portrays the title character with an accent on the little boy aspect of “the boy who wouldn’t grow up”. It’s interesting to watch her depict Peter’s cockiness as more like bravado to cover up how frightened he is. Not brilliant, but interesting. Her singing is okay.
DANNY KAYE gets to play Captain Hook and Mr. Darling after a previous film project with him in those roles fell through years earlier. The veteran Kaye steals the show in his usual comedic and boisterous fashion, making his Captain Hook my personal favorite from all of the versions of Peter Pan. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television
FOOL KILLER: THE KLARENC WADE MAK VERSION FROM 1917-1918
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN THE 1850s, CLICK HERE
THE FOOL KILLER (1918) – The 1918 one-shot publication called The Fool Killer collected written works by Dr Klarenc Wade Mak, poet, author and socialist political candidate for mayoral office in Kansas City, MO around 1918. Mak had also written Ekkoes (sic) from the Hart (sic) and Mental Dinamite (sic).
Mak’s Fool Killer was yet another of the many incarnations of this fictional, quasi-supernatural vigilante featured in folk tales and political satires from the 19th Century through today. The Fool Killer possibly originated among the “Hill Portugee” (Hill Portuguese) of the American south.
Those oral traditions of this deadly character may date back to the 1830s as Melungeons melded the Portuguese folk hero Longstaff with Tennessee traditions about a supernatural figure who killed any non-Melungeon “fools” who tried stealing their legendary gold.
During the 1850s Fool Killer tales were fused with political satire and commentary as Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans launched his series of Fool Killer Letters. Those fictional epistles, penned by Evans himself, were presented as tongue-in-cheek confessions from the Fool Killer about the political and social menaces he murdered to make the world a better place.
Evans added another element to Fool Killer lore at the start of the U.S. Civil War, as the vigilante grew disgusted with both the North and the South and hibernated in a cave for years. By 1870 Evans revived the character and his “letters” by saying the Fool Killer had emerged from hibernation dressed in the latest men’s fashions and ready to start killing fools once more. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOON ROUNDUP FOR AUGUST 15th
Another roundup here at Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog.
DISGRACED JANUARY SIXTH COMMITTEE CALLED OUT FOR DESTROYING CRUCIAL EVIDENCE. As if that pathetic exercise in political persecution didn’t already seem illegitimate enough. Pure garbage.
REPORT: UNDERBOSS HUNTER BIDEN’S “BUSINESS PARTNER” (LOL) PROVIDED WAR CRIMINAL VLAD PUTIN WITH ARMORED VEHICLES FOR HIS INVASION OF UKRAINE. Just when you thought the Biden Crime Family couldn’t look any worse.
CALLOUS AND UNCARING JOE BIDEN BASHED OVER HIS HEINOUS REMARK REGARDING THE SUFFERING IN HAWAII AND HIS REGIME’S KATRINA-LEVELS OF FAILURE. More HERE. And HERE. And HERE. And especially HERE. Joe Biden is filth.
LAW PROFESSOR JONATHAN TURLEY CALLS OUT BIDEN REGIME’S MERRICK GARLAND FOR HIS FAILURES, SCANDALS AND CORRUPTION. Including the pretense of an “investigation” by Biden’s DOJ into his son Hunter’s crimes. Uh. Yeah. Like they’ll really probe their boss’s son.
AFRICAN JOURNALIST SIMON ATEBA SUES BIDEN REGIME OVER THE GROUNDLESS REVOCATION OF HIS PRESS PASS. Biden’s war on journalism continues.
FDA NOW ADMITS THAT IVERMECTIN HAS ALWAYS BEEN SAFE TO TREAT COVID WITH. Disgusting. Remember how they mocked it as “horse medicine” a few years back, just because Trump called it effective at fighting Covid? Once again, Trump was right and his deranged detractors don’t care how many people die just because they feel obligated to disagree with everything he says.
MORE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT BROUGHT AGAINST JOE BIDEN. More HERE.
BARACK OBAMA’S BROTHER MALIK SAYS HE WILL AGAIN SUPPORT TRUMP IN THE NEXT ELECTION.
LOVED ONES OF THOSE SLAIN IN JOE BIDEN’S AFGHANISTAN DEBACLE IN 2021 SPEAK OUT.
Among the remarks: Regarding Biden’s utter callousness toward the families of the slain “You (Joe Biden) tried to interrupt me and give me your own sob story and I had to tell you, ‘This isn’t about you so don’t make it about you!’” Chappell wrote.
“You then said you just wanted me to know that you know how I feel and I let you know that you don’t know how I feel and you do not have the right to tell me you know how I feel! You then rolled your f— eyes in your head like you were annoyed with me and I let you know that the only reason I was talking to you was out of respect for my son.” Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
BALLADEER’S BLOG’S NJCAA FOOTBALL RANKINGS FOR THE PRESEASON
The 2023 college football season will kick off on Thursday, August 24th in the divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog. Here is my preseason Top 12 for the NJCAA.
*** 1. IOWA WESTERN COLLEGE REIVERS (defending national champions) ### 2. HUTCHINSON COLLEGE BLUE DRAGONS ### 3. COFFEYVILLE COLLEGE RED RAVENS ### 4. NORTHWEST MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE RANGERS ### Continue reading
Filed under college football
SEPTEMBER 2018: LOOKING BACK
FOR PART ONE (2016) OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE FROM INDEPENDENT VOTER SITE BALLADEER’S BLOG CLICK HERE.
YET ANOTHER BLACK TRUMP SUPPORTER PRAISES THE WAY TRUMP’S POLICIES ACHIEVED RECORD-HIGH EMPLOYMENT FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS. Some quotes: “I can tell you right now. I saw jobs when Obama was in office, and I saw jobs when Trump’s in office, it’s night and day,” Hughes told Flock. “I couldn’t go out in rural communities and get a job when Obama was president. I can’t keep up with the jobs now that Trump is in office.” … “Not only are black wages and incomes up since the election of Donald Trump – black employment has repeatedly hit historic highs.” It’s HERE.
DE FACTO THIRD-PARTY PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP VS AMERICA’S CESSPOOL OF CORRUPTION. His enemies have spent decades in politics looting the public treasury and abusing their positions for personal gain. Click HERE.
FACEBOOK’S DEMOCRAT FASCISTS BAN BRANDON STRAKA, THE GAY FOUNDER OF #WALKAWAY. And remember, this was back in 2018. It’s HERE.
DON SURBER’S GREAT BOOKS TRUMP THE ESTABLISHMENT, TRUMP THE PRESS AND FAKE NEWS FOLLIES. Click HERE.
MORE ABOUT THE UGLY SIDE OF REPUBLICAN JOHN MCCAIN. It’s HERE.
BIG TECH’S 2018 WAR ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. And it’s gotten so much worse since then. You can read all about it HERE.
FACULTY LOUNGE FASCISTS – The September 10th of 2018 edition of “academic” (LMAO) hysteria HERE, including the reason Democrats now say milk is racist. I wish I was just joking.
AMERICAN STEEL WORKERS APPLAUD TRUMP’S TRADE POLICIES. Click HERE. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
JANUARY 1975 MARVEL ISSUES
This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will take a look at the Marvel publications from January of 1975, excluding reprints.
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #20 (January 1975)
Title: Batroc and Other Assassins
Villains: Batroc and the Cult of Kara-Kai
Comment: Iron Fist got well and truly integrated into the Marvel Comics universe with this battle against Captain America’s frequent supervillain Batroc the Leaper.
Synopsis: It’s a day after the previous issue. Iron Fist is involved in another battle against four or five members of the Cult of Kara-Kai who have come to try killing Professor Wing yet again so they can steal The Book of Many Things. That mystic tome includes arcane information about how to destroy the enchanted city of K’un-Lun. Our hero defeats all the cultists.
Iron Fist grows annoyed with the Professor’s flippant attitude toward the murder attempts and informs Colleen about how her father claims the Cult has tried to kill him over 40 times in the years since he started trying to translate The Book of Many Things. Colleen tells her father that she has agreed to guard him alone while her partner Misty Knight runs their business herself for a while longer. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
THEDA BARA: SILENT FILM STARLET
Born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, OH on July 29th, 1885, Theda Bara was the first monumental “man-eating”, femme fatale sex symbol in American cinema. Theda chose – or was assigned – her screen name because it was an anagram for “Arab Death” but the supposed appeal of that has always eluded me.
Bara at first sought success on the stage but managed few roles beyond a brief appearance in Act Two of Ferenc Molnar’s play The Devil on Broadway in 1908. Like many failed stage thespians, she turned to the comparatively new film industry, which in those days was centered on the east coast of the United States.
The future superstar had a walk-on role as a gangster’s moll in Pathe’s production The Stain (1914) and was then signed to a contract by William Fox of iconic Fox Studios. The fact that most of her movies are among the many lost silent films adds to Bara’s enduring mystique.
A FOOL THERE WAS (1915) – Theda Bara embodied “the Vamp” character as surely as Douglas Fairbanks would later embody the swashbuckler. In this film based on Rudyard Kipling’s 1876 poem The Vampire, Bara portrayed a metaphorical vampire whose erotic appeal drove men wild.
In A Fool There Was, the vamping woman has already left in her wake a long line of ruined men who lost everything in their mad desire to keep her in their lives. The story depicts our starlet luring another wealthy man away from his wife and children, exhausting his money, then moving on to her next conquest.
This film had a Dialogue Board with Bara’s character saying “Kiss me, my fool” to her latest male victim, a line which was mistakenly quoted as “Kiss me, you fool” for decades. Because this movie was made before the 1930 Hays Code, Theda’s seductive and spiteful character was allowed to go unpunished for her actions in the storyline. Continue reading
Filed under opinion
AUGUST 10th ROUNDUP OF NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS
The latest such roundup here at Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog.
BURISMA CHIEF: BOTH JOE AND HUNTER BIDEN WERE INVOLVED IN THE CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR. Life in Joe Biden’s corporate fascist kleptocracy.
NEW: BIDEN CRIME FAMILY “BUSINESS” RECEIVED OVER TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS FROM RUSSIA, UKRAINE AND KAZAKHSTAN. And more proof of their Pay to Play capers HERE. Even more proof of their funneled payments from China’s government HERE.
CONGRESS-MAN GREG STEUBE SAYS IT’S PAST TIME TO IMPEACH JOE BIDEN. Unfortunately, the people who run the clueless, outdated and utterly useless Republican Party seem terrified that their own graft money from Ukraine and elsewhere might be exposed. Ukraine’s corrupt company Burisma is the 21st Century Credit Mobilier – so many politicians are in the scandal up to their neck.
NEW HAMPSHIRE JOURNAL POLL – FIFTY-SEVEN PERCENT WOULD STILL VOTE FOR OPPOSITION LEADER DONALD TRUMP EVEN IF HE IS IMPRISONED BY AMERICA’S CORRUPT POLITICAL SYSTEM. And for overseas readers I will mention once again that long ago Eugene Debs ran for president from prison. There is nothing to stop this and considering the absurd persecution of de facto Third-Party President Donald Trump – America’s Lech Walesa and Nelson Mandela combined – you can see why that is so. Democrat and Republican office holders are often the biggest criminals.
DISTASTEFUL LITTLE TOAD JOE BIDEN CONTINUES TO PUBLICLY LIE THAT HIS SON BEAU WAS KILLED IN THE IRAQ WAR. Well, Joe took what his daughter Ashley described as “inappropriate” showers with her when she was a child, so I guess Joe has sunk even lower during his lifetime.
DISGRACED FBI AGENT INVOLVED IN THE ATTEMPT TO FRAME TRUMP FOR “RUSSIAN COLLUSION” TO PLEAD GUILTY TO THEIR OWN RUSSIAN COLLUSION. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
QUINCY COLLEGE: COOL NAMED SPORTS TEAM
Here is another college team staying far away from the overused names like Eagles, Tigers, Bulldogs and Wildcats.
QUINCY COLLEGE Continue reading
Filed under Cool names and cool logos
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