Here is the iconic Holiday standard Hooray For Santy Claus! It’s by the poor man’s Skitch Henderson – Milton De Lugg – and The Little Eskimos.
And here’s the version by Al “Green Hornet Theme” Hirt: Continue reading
TEAR-GASSER IN CHIEF BARACK OBAMA
If anyone in the world is still wondering why Fake News is what everybody except Democrats call America’s media then this is another flagrant example. Just like the Democrats’ media outlets tried blaming de facto Third Party President Donald Trump for the family separation policy that OBAMA AND GEORGE W BUSH had followed at our southern border they are playing the same game with the tear gas incident.
With their typical selective outrage and outright lies the anti-Trump fascists are claiming that Border Enforcement’s use of tear gas was “unprecedented.” Wrong again. Or, more accurately, they’re LYING again.
Barack Obama’s Border Enforcement men used tear-gas on illegals – including women and children – TWENTY-SIX TIMES in 2012, TWENTY-SEVEN TIMES in 2013 and 3 more times in 2016. In addition, Obama’s men used pepper spray on illegals of all ages and genders ONE HUNDRED FIFTY ONE TIMES.
And remember Obama using drone strikes on CHILDREN?
I will say again – President Trump gets gifted with more and more loyalty and support every time the Democrats in the media flagrantly lie and lie and lie like this.
IF YOU’RE ONLY A CASUAL OBSERVER OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCENE YOU CAN’T GO WRONG BY JUST ASSUMING THAT THE CORPORATE MEDIA’S CRITICISM OF PRESIDENT TRUMP IS ALWAYS MISINFORMATION. ALWAYS DIG DEEPER.
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984): GEORGE C SCOTT VERSION
Balladeer’s Blog’s 9th Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues with this take on one of the perennial staples of Christmastime viewing. Readers are often surprised that I haven’t reviewed this one even though it’s one of my favorites. No special reason, it’s just that so many excellent reviews have already covered this Carol that I wanted to hit the more obscure versions first.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984) – Let me kick off this review with my old, overused joke about wanting to hear George C Scott holler “Dickens, you magnificent bastard … I READ YER BOOOOOOOOK!”
My only complaints about this undeniable classic would be 1) the way it’s one of those Carols which unnecessarily add extra tension to the relationship between Scrooge and his father and 2) unnecessary magnification of why the poor and unemployed are sad at Christmas. Dickens put it poetically. This adaptation belabors it.
Moving on to the performances:
SCROOGE – Be thankful that George C Scott toned down his George C Scottishness for this role. If you’ve seen him as Fagan in the 1982 adaptation of Oliver Twist you know what a bullet this Christmas Carol dodged. (“When you put your hand into a pile of goo that a minute ago was the Artful Dodger’s face … You’ll know what to do.” That’s the last time I’ll do that. I promise.) Continue reading
Filed under A CHRISTMAS CAROL
DEMOCRATS’ LATEST BIGOTED RANTS BASHING BLACK PEOPLE FOR SUPPORTING PRESIDENT TRUMP
*** FIRST, ON A SIDE NOTE, BARACK OBAMA’S BORDER ENFORCERS ALSO USED TEAR GAS ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS 26 TIMES IN 2012 AND 27 TIMES IN 2013 AS WELL AS 3 MORE TIMES IN 2016. IF YOU DIDN’T COMPLAIN ABOUT BARRY DOING IT DON’T WHINE TO ME ABOUT TRUMP.
(PLUS BARRY’S MEN USED PEPPER SPRAY ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS 151 TIMES.)
The Democrats at the Boston Globe and the Washington Post recently spewed more venom at the way in which de facto Third Party President Donald Trump has attracted so many African-American voters. Rasmussen and other polls have had Trump’s support among voters of color as high as 40-plus percent, an ASTRONOMICAL number for any Republican not named Abraham Lincoln.
Naturally that’s because President Trump is not a real Republican – the Republican trash in the Bush Family and at National Review never get tired of pointing that out. Since I despise both the Democrats AND the Republicans I LOVE the way that the Donald has been rocking the boat and championing the working class and the poor of all colors. The people abandoned by both major parties.
At any rate the pompous Democrat Supremacists at the Boston Globe and Washington Post are even blaming President Trump for the way that Republican candidates that he campaigned for got much higher percentages of the African-American vote than Republicans normally get. In various races the higher support from voters of color gave the (R) victory over the Democrat!
Let’s talk specifics. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
CHRISTMAS CAROL-A-THON CONTINUES: JOHN GRIN’S CHRISTMAS (1986)
Wealthy John Grin (left) with a Ghostly Visitor
JOHN GRIN’S CHRISTMAS (1986) – The 2018 edition of Balladeer’s Blog’s Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues with this obscure item from the 1980s. My copy of John Grin’s Christmas was already barely watchable when I first tracked it down and it looks worse and worse each time I watch it. Still no DVD release, though, so I’ve decided to give up hoping for a clearer copy and will just review it as is.
Regular readers are familiar with the obsessive lengths I go to in order to track down the various out-of-the-way adaptations of A Christmas Carol. I’m afraid this time around the story is kind of dull – I bought John Grin’s Christmas from someone on E-Bay a few years back. They had taped it off television in 1986 and were selling that very faded and gargly-sounding VHS tape.
Renaissance Man Robert Guillaume directed and stars as the Ebenezer Scrooge stand-in John Grin, our title craftsman who makes a variety of collectibles. Many sources claim he only makes toys but that is not true, it’s just that as Christmas approaches most of his sales are toys. And, since the story is set around Christmas time … Continue reading
Filed under A CHRISTMAS CAROL
MARK HAMILL AND DEMOCRAT DEHUMANIZATION OF ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH THEM
Mark “Got Milk?” Hamill recently expressed a sentiment that was simple-minded and bigoted even for a straight white male one percenter. That sentiment endorsed the notion that only women should hold positions of power. So here’s some of the people that the delicate child Hamill is suggesting should run things:
LAURA BUSH, ANN COULTER, SARAH PALIN, NIKKI HALEY, CONDOLEEZA RICE, CANDACE OWENS, MICHELLE MALKIN and on and on.
Hey, I don’t know, Mark, I disagree with a lot of their views just like I disagree with a lot of views that assorted men hold. Or is Hamill making the horribly sexist argument that ONLY WOMEN WHOSE POLITICS HE APPROVES OF should hold positions of power?
I don’t think anyone would seriously dispute that what Li’l Mark really means is that he wants only DEMOCRAT women to run things. Women who don’t mindlessly obey white Democrat males like Hamill, Rob Reiner, Michael Moore and others aren’t “real” women to fascist demagogues like Mark.
Like all other Democrats, Mark denies the personhood, erases the very humanity, of anyone and everyone who is not a robotic adherent to Democrat dogma. Surely you’ve noticed the same bigoted and callous way that Democrats insult people of color who don’t obey their political party. Or gay people who dare to think for themselves and refuse to conform to what Democrats feel should be a gay person’s political affiliation.
We see the same thing with the narrow-minded, hate-filled way that Democrats react to Muslims who don’t fit the Democrats’ narrow-minded definition of an “authentic” Muslim. In their eyes ONLY Muslims who hate the West are “authentic.”
You’ll never see self-adoring, virtue-signaling Leftist demagogues doing photo ops with Muslims who came to America to GET AWAY from the suffocating oppression of the Muslim World and the endless wars which Muslim groups have been waging against each other for over a thousand years.
You will NEVER see the Democrats’ media outlets giving air-time to Muslims who want to say “The West is not our enemy” or “Actually I find it fascinating to interact with so many non-Muslims. It’s really opened my mind.” and ESPECIALLY not “I came to America so my daughters can have more freedoms and pursue their own dreams.”
The latest worn-out expression from the gutless zombies of American Liberalism or “Libero-fascism” is Western Triumphalism. Any and all Muslims who DON’T hate America or other Western nations get dismissed by the left-wing parties as Western Triumphalists who have “internalized Western Oppression.”
Just as they claim women who #WALKAWAY from the increasingly fanatical Democrats are “internalizing misogyny” and gay people who #WALKAWAY from the Democrats are “internalizing homophobia.”
As always with the unthinking robots of the political left, members of ANY group they decide belongs to them can NOT be “the authentic voices” of that group UNLESS they show unquestioning allegiance to the Democrats (U.S.) or Labour Party (U.K.). Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF RESULTS FROM NOVEMBER 24th
NAIA
INSTANT CLASSIC IN KANSAS – This game pitted the KANSAS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY COYOTES against the visiting DICKINSON STATE BLUE HAWKS. The Coyotes led 14-7 to end the opening Quarter but the Blue Hawks went up 28-21 at the Half. That was cut to a 34-28 Dickinson State edge in the 3rd Quarter before Kansas Wesleyan came from behind to win the game 43-40.
DEFENDING CHAMPS STILL ROLLING – The Defending National Champions – the UNIVERSITY OF SAINT FRANCIS (IN) COUGARS – hosted the BAKER UNIVERSITY WILDCATS yesterday. The Cougars trailed 7-0 in the 1st Quarter but went on top of the Wildcats 20-13 by Halftime. After the break USF outscored Baker 13-10 for a 33-23 victory. Continue reading
Filed under college football
JUSTICE SOCIETY: FIRST STORY
We live in a superhero-crazed world right now. Here at Balladeer’s Blog I’m always glad to oblige readers’ requests to throw in superhero-related posts because I have a soft spot for the subject since superhero comic books were a gateway to two of my adult passions: mythology and opera.
DC fans have complained that I pay too much attention to Marvel Comics and other comic book companies, so here is the first of my looks at DC’s biggest claim to fame – the VERY FIRST SUPERHERO TEAM EVER. Long before the Justice League came the Justice Society in 1940.
I will review the original issue AND detail how I would “script-doctor” the story for modern audiences.
ALL-STAR COMICS #3 (December 1940)
Title: THE FIRST MEETING OF THE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Heroes: FLASH (Original), RED TORNADO (Original female version), SPECTRE, SANDMAN, GREEN LANTERN (Original), HOURMAN, DOCTOR FATE, HAWKMAN (Original), ATOM (Original), JOHNNY THUNDER
Synopsis: At this very first meeting of any superteam in comic book history, the members make general introductions and each relate one of their adventures via flashback. The Red Tornado stops by for a visit.
While the meeting is going on, FBI Chief J Edgar Hoover invites the entire team to a Top Secret meeting the following Tuesday and the Justice Society of America accepts.
How I Would Revise It: Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
ROBERT LUDLUM EXPANDED UNIVERSE
Here at Balladeer’s Blog I’m about responding to you readers. Some of you responded very strongly to the way I sprinkled my reviews of Robert Ludlum’s Top Seven Novels with observations of what I would have liked to see in terms of offshoots or spin-off stories. So, since Expanded Universes are becoming all the rage in recent decades here’s an outline of my fan fiction-style view of an Expanded Robert Ludlum Universe.
I. BEOWULF AGATE – Series of short stories or a made for cable series. The tales would be set from the 1950s to late 1970s, ending just before the events in The Matarese Circle. Ludlum’s fictional intelligence organization Consular Operations would take center stage.
Brandon Scofield, codename Beowulf Agate, one of the main characters of The Matarese Circle, would be shown pulling off his highest level defections from the Soviet Union in his best “Cold War version of the Scarlet Pimpernel” style. Every so often he would clash with his archenemy – KGB Agent Vasili Taleniekov. To up the suspense level sometimes Taleniekov would win their clashes.
II. OPERATION: MEDUSA – Another series of short stories or a made for cable series. Ludlum’s Operation: Medusa was his fictional version of the Vietnam War’s real-life Phoenix Project. Operation: Medusa was the top-secret, paramilitary Black Operations outfit in which David Webb aka Jason Bourne got his first covert experience.
Officially disavowed by the U.S. government, Medusans spent the final few years of the Vietnam War pulling off assassinations, abducting and torturing information out of North Vietnamese movers and shakers, committing acts of sabotage AND facilitating escapes from POW camps. David Webb, his brother Gordon, D’Anjou (Codename: Echo), Alexander Conklin and “The Monk” himself, David Abbot would be the main characters but we would meet new Medusans, too. Continue reading
Filed under opinion, Pulp Heroes, Uncategorized
CHRISTMAS CAROL-A-THON 2018 BEGINS: LEYENDA DE NAVIDAD (1947)
If it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving then that means it’s the start of this year’s Christmas Carol-A-Thon! Between now and Christmas Day Balladeer’s Blog will examine multiple versions of A Christmas Carol, both new reviews AND old favorites mixed in.
This film version of A Christmas Carol was produced in Spain in 1947 (and was remade for Spanish television in 1966 ) and the Spanish language title is Leyenda de Navidad ( Legend of Christmas, of course).
The film was written and directed by Manuel Tamayo (who wrote the screenplay for the 1955 feature Tarde de Toros) This is a wonderful version for several reasons, not the least of which would be its well-done (for the time period) sets of 1843 London.
We’ll take the differences and similarities to other versions in order – 1. Scrooge has several people working for him for some reason, not just Bob Cratchit and NONE of them get Christmas Day off from this Scrooge …
2. Marley’s Ghost steps out of a life-sized portrait of the man that adorns the wall above a fireplace, and returns to that portrait after his standard warning about the 3 Ghosts … Continue reading
Filed under A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Balladeer's Blog 