January 14, 2021 · 4:27 am

DENNIS QUAID FILM FESTIVAL

dennis quaidDennis Quaid aka Furious DQ is the subject of this list of brief film reviews. Ignore Buzzfeed reports that Dairy Queen (DQ) is partnering with Balladeer’s Blog to sponsor a Dennis Quaid Film Festival in Rio. In fact, you should just ignore ALL Buzzfeed reports, period, at this point.

Let’s dive into this look at some of the films of Ed Miller himself from The Long Riders: Dennis Quaid. NOTE: These will be films in which Dennis was the male lead, hence no Right Stuff, Wyatt Earp, etc. Quaid should have been made the new Indiana Jones right after Harrison Ford’s Last Crusade in 1989. Magnificent missed opportunity.

big easyTHE BIG EASY (1986)

Role: Police Detective Remy McSwain

Female Lead: Ellen Barkin

Comment: One of the most underrated films of the 1980s. Think of The Big Easy as Cajun-blackened Film Noir, which, of course, makes it colorful and upbeat Film Noir with kickass music.

Set in New Orleans (known as the Big Easy for you overseas readers) this hardboiled mystery features Assistant DA Anne Osborne (Barkin) clashing, bickering, flirting with and falling for Quaid as Lt Remy McSwain. Remy is investigating Wiseguy murders that hint at an impending gangster war while Anne is probing police corruption.

The sparks fly between McSwain and Osborne but we viewers wonder if he’s playing her because he has too much to hide or if she’s playing him A Taxing Woman style. We also wonder if the omerta practiced by Remy and his police colleagues is simply because of the casual graft they’re into or if they’ve graduated from being crooked cops to being outright soldiers of organized crime.

Ned Beatty, Grace Zabriskie and John Goodman are in supporting roles in this enjoyable mystery/ rom-com/ travelogue for New Orleans.

great balls of fireGREAT BALLS OF FIRE (1989)

Role: Jerry Lee Lewis

Female Lead: Winona Ryder

Comment: What The Buddy Holly Story was to Gary Busey, this movie was to Dennis Quaid. Hollywood bio-pic rules apply so the emphasis is on old-school rock music and a rip-roaring good time instead of accuracy. The movie plays its story so lightly and entertainingly that the approach works. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Filed under opinion

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 13, 2021 · 7:00 am

DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO LET THE REST OF US GET ON WITH OUR LIVES

Consider this an abbreviated version of my recurring Transgress With Me feature.

mascot donkey and republican heads*** I WAS PLANNING ON GOING TWO OR THREE WEEKS WITHOUT MAKING A BLOG POST ABOUT POLITICAL ISSUES BUT THE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO STOP WITH THEIR HATE-FILLED AND DIVISIVE ANTICS. Yet, being Democrats, they simultaneously make with hypocritical lectures about “unity.”

*** THAT’S BECAUSE DEMOCRATS ARE SUCH EMPTY PEOPLE THAT THEY HAVE NO IDENTITY OUTSIDE OF THEIR POLITICAL OPINIONS. They feel that espousing those opinions makes them safe within the fascist mobs they call “home.” They certainly have no individual strength.

*** One of the reasons Democrats seem so desperate to act quickly against President Trump is because they just had 4 years of crying wolf against Trump and though they’re crying wolf AGAIN they hope that they can ram through some extreme foolishness before the passions they’ve inflamed have a chance to cool down … as happened with “Russian Collusion” and all their other lies up to and including their previous failed Impeachment Trial. Democrats and Republicans alike are terrified that a post-White House Trump may upset the corrupt apple cart of the two-party/ uniparty/ Republicrat system that lets them grift all kinds of money from the Federal Treasury.

*** Career Democrat politicians, apparently terrified that there are still people in the U.S. expressing opinions that they disagree with, are more determined than ever to push for a totalitarian system under which anyone who strays from the Democrat Party line must be eliminated.

*** The Republicans in office? Well, they’re too clueless, timid and impotent to do or say anything until they see which way the winds are blowing. Sometime around October of 2022 maybe they’ll release a terse message saying “Hey, c’mon now!” to the Democrats.

Democrat rat

DEMOCRAT PARTY

*** Career criminal HILLARY CLINTON of all people, proved to be utterly lacking in self-awareness by saying the Republicans should publicly say that senile groper Joe Biden won the election. This after Hillary and her supporters STILL claim she really won the 2016 election. And Democrat Stacey Abrams still calls for violence by claiming she really won the Georgia governor’s race.

*** AS LATE AS MAY 16th 2017 NANCY PELOSI TWEETED THIS ABOUT THE 2016 ELECTION –

Nancy Pelosi
@SpeakerPelosi
Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.    12:44 PM · May 16, 2017

*** AND REMEMBER, DEMOCRATS STILL CONSIDER IT OKAY TO POINT OUT THAT THE AWFUL GEORGE W BUSH STOLE THE YEAR 2000 ELECTION. They still make remarks like “Bush only won ONCE” when clueless Bush supporters say he was elected President twice. Obviously it does not result in “insurrection” to make such statements.

*** THE DEMOCRATS CONTINUE TO PRETEND THEY CARE ABOUT AMERICAN LANDMARKS LIKE THE CAPITOL BUILDING AFTER DECADES OF TELLING US IT WAS THE SEAT OF WHITE SUPREMACY AND SYSTEMIC RACISM. Prior to January 6th they always acted like people were patriotic hicks if they revered such “symbolic” institutions while they put on faux “intellectual” (LMAO) airs of contempt toward the U.S. government, claiming it was the greatest menace/ terrorist threat in the world.

*** Even worse, Democrats pretend to embrace the “symbolic” value of the Capitol Building after trashing it themselves in 2018. And they dare to lecture the rest of us about that symbolism while real people were killed and lost their livelihoods during the MONTHS-LONG JOE BIDEN RIOTS OF 2020.

*** IT ISN’T JUST THE SOCIAL MEDIA TOTALITARIANS LIKE JACK DORSEY WHO PROVE THAT DEMOCRATS LOVE CORPORATE FASCISM. THE NFL, NBA AND MLB WERE TAKING A PUBLIC RELATIONS BEATING OVER PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE YEARS AGO.

                     MAGICALLY, ONCE THEY MADE THEIR LEAGUES MOUTHPIECES AND CASH COWS FOR DEMOCRAT TALKING POINTS AND ORGANIZATIONS THE FASCIST CORPORATE MEDIA STOPPED COVERING THEIR BEATING AND RAPING OF WOMEN, THEIR CHEATING AND THEIR P.E.D. USE. Continue reading →

31 Comments

Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

January 12, 2021 · 6:04 pm

FREE-SPEECH “GAB” GAINS 600,000 NEW USERS IN ONE DAY

gabMany times over the years, Balladeer’s Blog has recommended Gab for people tired of the heavy-handed abuses by Techno-Fascists like privileged white male Jack Dorsey and his ilk.

Be sure to join all the daring, iconoclastic and free-thinking adults at Gab.com / Gab Social

Speak truth to the fascist power of the modern Robber Barons, some of whom are trying to land Pentagon IT contracts by pandering to political partisans. 

Freedom of expression amnesty international

techno fascists attack libertyAnd, if you haven’t had enough laughs so far from Democrats – yes, DEMOCRATS (LMAO) pretending they care if the U.S. government got overthrown after five decades of telling us the U.S. government is the greatest menace/ terrorist threat in the world, below is a great bit yesterday from Gab about TWITTER LOSING 4 BILLION DOLLARS IN ONE DAY.twitter lost 4 billion

(Although, I grant you, under the Corporate Fascism embraced by the Democrats no company that supports their politics will ever again truly lose money. If worse comes to worst the Democrats will conjure up excuses for a bailout of their cronies. Just like they did recently with Hollywood rich pigs getting Covid relief money but not small theater chains, who can’t open back up because of Democrats’ Covid regulations.)

 

40 Comments

Filed under opinion

Tagged as , , ,

January 12, 2021 · 12:02 am

CHARLES DALLAS: RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1973)

rivals of sherlockFor Balladeer’s Blog’s review of the very first episode of this 1971-1973 series about London by Gaslight detectives from both the Victorian and Edwardian Ages you can simply click HERE

Charles DallasEpisode: THE MISSING Q.Cs. (April 9th, 1973)

Detective: Charles Dallas, created by John Oxenham (pen name of William Arthur Dunkerley). The first Charles Dallas story was published in 1898 in Harmsworth London Magazine.

Comment: John Oxenham’s crime novels and short stories deserve to be rediscovered and made available to a much wider audience. A Mystery of the Underground, his 1897 detective story about a serial killer committing seemingly impossible Phantom of the Opera-style murders on the London Underground was his best-known crime thriller. However, his mystery-solving lawyer Charles Dallas should also be remembered since he was basically a Victorian Age forerunner of Rumpole of the Bailey.

As an example of the impact of Oxenham’s writing consider this – it’s a historical footnote that while his subway killer tale was being serialized, Tuesday night use of the London Underground plummeted to record lows because the fictional murderer only struck on Tuesday evenings. You can look it up for yourself.

Synopsis: Handsome young lawyer Charles Dallas (Robin Ellis) is a Junior Defense Barrister for Queen’s Counsel (Q.C.) defense attorney Sir Revel Revell (seriously), played by John Barron. Like the Victorian Age’s fictional master thief A.J. Raffles, he’s also a top-notch Cricket player whose athletic accomplishments are often in the newspapers.

Milly Revell and Charles DallasCharles has been dating Sir Revel’s daughter Milly (Celia Bannerman), a practicing nurse who keeps pressuring her beau to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Between his law career, his Cricket games and his sleuthing he just can’t seem to find the right moment for it, which causes periodic tensions between the two lovebirds. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Filed under Forgotten Television

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

January 11, 2021 · 3:39 am

POLLS: TRUMP APPROVAL RATING AS HIGH AS 51%

How about a headline that reads “PEOPLE WHO HATED TRUMP BEFORE LAST WEEK STILL HATE HIM, PEOPLE WHO LIKED HIM STILL LIKE HIM.” Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog as always feels WE NEED THIRD PARTIES given what jokes are the white-collar criminals who run the Mafia style bust-out operation masquerading as our government.

twitler And it goes without saying that the Techno-Fascists at Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere are even more zealously biased than ever before as they move to ruthlessly eliminate competitors while feigning concern over “safety”.

Presidential approval polls from Rasmussen and elsewhere have shown that de facto Third Party President Trump ended last week with approval ratings of anywhere from 51% to 48% despite all the frothing at the mouth from America’s notoriously inaccurate and corrupt media.

Since Rasmussen had the low with 48%, even if we go by THAT, it reveals how little people trust our corporate media, especially when it comes to their incessant attacks on Trump. Their take on events, like the make-believe “insurrection” (LMAO) at the Capitol last week, is shrugged off as the shrill, make that VERY shrill, propaganda that it is. Or it may also indicate that so many of us have tuned out the infamously biased (in one direction or the other) media that they aren’t really shaping anyone’s opinions like they used to.  Continue reading →

28 Comments

Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 10, 2021 · 6:50 pm

CHARLEMAGNE: REINOLD ON ANGELICA’S MYSTIC ISLAND

FOR MY FIRST CHAPTER ON CHARLEMAGNE’S PALADINS CLICK HERE  

castleMAUGRIS (AKA MALAGIGI) THE ENCHANTER, freed from his undersea prison by Princess Angelica of Cathay, arrived back in Paris to rejoin Charlemagne’s court. Angelica had liberated him only on the condition that he trick Reinold, the Paladin she loved under magic compulsion, into visiting her enchanted island so she could continue wooing him.

Within a few days, Maugris engaged Reinold in conversation about some of the Paladin’s past adventures and upon Reinold confessing that he longed for even more daring escapades the enchanter asked if he was sure that was what he wanted. Reinold replied in the affirmative and Maugris asked him a second time. Again the answer was yes, so Maugris asked a third time and no sooner had the Paladin again said yes than the enchanter cast a spell on the warrior.

Reinold was teleported on board a magical ship which sailed along with no crew. After a search of the vessel had convinced Reinold that he was the only person on board, the Paladin noted that the ship was putting in at an island before it. Continue reading →

10 Comments

Filed under Mythology

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

January 9, 2021 · 4:58 pm

“HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE THE DONALD?”

That is the question being pondered in Washington DC … 

Trump is like jfk

One by assassination, the other by vote fraud?

Not for several long decades has America had a non-career politician as president – not since Eisenhower. American career politicians are career criminals who spend their time in office just one step ahead of criminal indictments. They are a very closed circle of fascist authoritarians who were happy with the corrupt way things were run before de facto Third Party President Donald Trump crashed their party and spoke truth to power.

It’s a once in a century gift to have someone like the Donald who is wealthy enough to not be bought by America’s cesspool called a government AND who is thick-skinned enough to endure the non-stop attacks that the Democrats and Republicans and their media outlets will unleash on anyone who tries GENUINE reform like Trump has done.

The fascists in both parties proved how terrified they are of Trump and his millions of supporters by the way they have absurdly overblown the events of Wednesday. See my article HERE regarding the hilarious hypocrisy from Democrats who usually never see a protest or a riot they don’t encourage.

It is remarkable how much this man STILL strikes fear into the hearts of America’s hate-filled, divisive and totalitarian political and media establishment. I repeat, he is NOT a career politician and that’s why he has always been worth rooting for. He’s the kind of reformer that the left used to PRETEND they wanted. Continue reading →

51 Comments

Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

January 8, 2021 · 4:03 pm

ORION: THE ELVIS PRESLEY HOAX/ PUT-ON

5.1.2

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 blog post will 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.

Orion 2

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.

Orion RebornITEM: 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 →

20 Comments

Filed under Mythology, Neglected History, opinion

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

January 7, 2021 · 11:37 pm

SPARE ME THE HYPOCRISY

Democrat Mobs This Year

THESE BIDEN RIOTS WERE CALLED “MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS”

Anti-Trump fascists have sunk lower than ever over the past two days. We had MONTHS of Democrat mobs rioting and starting fires and causing literally BILLIONS of dollars of damage and the loss of lives while the media and Democrat political figures cheered them on. Biden’s organization as well as several celebrities even PAID BAIL to get their fascist rioters back out on the streets for more mayhem. (Kamala Harris and 13 Biden staffers even donated money to a bail fund for rioters in Minneapolis and encouraged other people to do so, ballooning the fund up into the millions.)

When Harris was on The Late Show she praised the Biden mobs, saying “They’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop. This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop. And everyone beware because they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop before Election Day and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And everyone should take note of that. They’re not gonna let up and they should not.”

Biden RiotsSO DON’T TRY TO CLAIM PRESIDENT TRUMP IS TO BLAME FOR YESTERDAY IF YOU DIDN’T BLAME BIDEN, HARRIS AND OTHER DEMOCRATS FOR THE MONTHS-LONG WAVE OF VIOLENCE LAST YEAR.

When the White House was violently attacked for about 24 hours and many secret service agents were seriously injured, Biden and other Democrats said Trump “used tear gas against peaceful protestors”. Listen to those hypocrites today!
.
The night of May 31st, rioters set fires all over the capital of the United States. A mob of them gathered outside the White House and threatened to storm it. The president was said to have been moved to a bunker. Many on the left laughed at him and supported the mob. Never mind that the safety of the president, as a symbol of America and self-governance, goes beyond individual or party and should never be a laughing matter, like anti-Trumpers are sniveling about the Capitol.
.

When Antifa animals caused destruction night after night the powers that be in America praised them as “heroes” and when they inflicted violence on innocent people the media made excuses for them. (Remember Cuomo’s remark “who said protests should be polite or peaceful?”) 

There were political and media pieces of garbage who pretended the months-long orgy of Democrat destruction was an example of “mostly peaceful protests” while buildings burned behind them as they said it. We were told those fascist marches were “93% peaceful” as CHAZ and other “autonomous zones” were declared, with violence and extortion being practiced within them.

In 2018 Nancy Pelosi said “I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be …” as just one of the many times Democrats called for the type of “insurrection” they now pretend to be appalled by. In 2019 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that “marginalized people” “have no choice but to riot.” Where was all this corporate outrage then?

The ONLY difference yesterday at the Capitol Building was that the would-be “Royal Houses” called Democrat and Republican career politicians finally got a taste of what they have inflicted on the rest of us month after month after month. If such events happen near YOU they’re fine with it and will spout abstractions to justify it. When it happens near THEM the narrative changes and their majesties feel that it’s just ever so wrong.

If you weren’t condemning Antifa and other fascist mobs these past several months don’t waste my time sniveling to me with faux outrage about yesterday’s events. Furthermore, everyone can see how phony the Democrat outrage is. Reverence for sites like the Capitol Building is the kind of thing they used to ridicule the political right over, painting them as clueless rubes while Democrats struck calculated poses of contempt for the U.S. and cheered terrorist vermin like the Weather Underground and other leftist groups. (Who by the way exploded ACTUAL BOMBS in the country, including in the Senate side of the Capitol building.)

But yeah, we’re supposed to pretend the Democrats are horrified at a protest overflowing into the Capitol Building, AS HAPPENED IN 2018 WITH A DEMOCRAT MOB. Continue reading →

44 Comments

Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

January 7, 2021 · 1:06 am

J.T. LAXWORTHY: RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1973)

For Balladeer’s Blog’s review of the very first episode of this 1971-1973 series about London by Gaslight detectives from both the Victorian and Edwardian Ages you can simply click HERE 

rivals of sherlock holmesEpisode: THE SECRET OF THE MAGNIFIQUE (February 19th, 1973)

Detective: Mr J.T. Laxworthy, created by the incredibly prolific Edward Phillips Oppenheim. The first Mr Laxworthy story was published in 1912.

Comment: In J.T. Laxworthy’s adventures he wasn’t so much a rival of Sherlock Holmes as a detective, but more in terms of the handful of Holmes stories in which he served as a spy. However, while Holmes was motivated by patriotism, Laxworthy was largely interested in the money he could make from his espionage activities.

Bernard HeptonSynopsis: The enigmatic but well to do Mr J.T. Laxworthy (Bernard Hepton) recruits two men fresh out of prison – the handsome and smooth conman Sydney Wing (Christopher Neame) and the brawny safe-cracker & thief called Anderson (Neil McCarthy).

After a six-month period in which the two ex-cons acclimate themselves to their restored freedom AND refine themselves into useful agents for Laxworthy, the trio kick off an illicit operation on the Cote d’Azur. Continue reading →

18 Comments

Filed under Forgotten Television

Tagged as , , , , , , ,