Tag Archives: Balladeer’s Blog

July 28, 2018 · 10:49 pm

BLUE DRAGONS FOOTBALL PICKED FOURTH IN THE JAYHAWK CONFERENCE

Hutchinson Blue DragonsWICHITA – There was one overriding theme on Friday at the 2018 Jayhawk Conference Football Media Day at Newman University.

“The Jayhawk Conference is an elite conference. There are eight great teams,” Hutchinson College head coach Rion Rhoades said during his turn at the podium.

“The conference is a grind. You have to be on your A-game,” Butler coach Tim Schaffner said.

The other six coaches had similar feelings about the 2018 football season. With the new scholarship rules in place for one full recruiting cycle, all eight coaches agreed that the KJCCC has more talent on all eight teams top to bottom than at any time in the league’s storied history. Continue reading →

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July 27, 2018 · 10:27 pm

FRONTIERADO POKER: THE RULES

 

“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!”

Here’s a refresher on the rules for Frontierado Poker, the game that is strictly my own invention, to be played on Frontierado (the first Friday of every August).

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

2. Every player antes up. (I’m not advocating gambling. You can decide for yourselves what you play for.)

3. Each player is dealt 4 cards (the deal rotates like in many conventional poker games). Continue reading →

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July 27, 2018 · 12:02 am

TEN NEGLECTED GUNSLINGERS OF THE OLD WEST

MASCOT COWBOY 2JUST ONE WEEK UNTIL FRONTIERADO! As always Frontierado is about celebrating the myth of the Wild West and not the grinding reality. Part of the fun each year is an examination of neglected gunslingers from the 1800s. 

The likes of Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Calamity Jane and Jesse James have been the subject of a variety of movies and folk tales. Unfortunately some figures from the Wild West led lives at least as interesting as the big names did but have not gotten nearly as much attention. Here is a look at ten such men and women. Continue reading →

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July 25, 2018 · 9:11 pm

DESPERADO: FRONTIERADO SONG

Frontierado is coming up on Friday, August 3rd. For the holiday season here is another “Frontierado Carol.” It’s Linda Ronstadt with Desperado. 

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July 25, 2018 · 12:43 am

CLIVE BARKER’S THE SCARLET GOSPELS (2015)

Scarlet GospelsTHE SCARLET GOSPELS (2015) – Written by Clive Barker, or I guess I should make that “Written by Clive Barker” (wink). I notice from other reviews of this disappointing novel that I’m far from alone in thinking Barker wrote only the Prologue and a ghost writer completed the work. Probably Damon Lindelöf. (I’m kidding!)

How do you go wrong with a novel featuring Barker’s recurring Occult Detective Harry D’Amour taking on the Hell Priest aka Pinhead (or “Lead Cenobite” as he was known to the ancients. Hellraiser fans will get it.)? How do you do it? With horrific writing that is worse than most fan fiction, that’s how.

Let’s start with the good: the Prologue. This prologue is so tantalizingly good that the jarring plunge in quality the rest of the way makes reading The Scarlet Gospels feel like some exquisitely refined brand of torture being pioneered by the Cenobites and their Order of the Gash.  Continue reading →

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July 23, 2018 · 10:41 pm

FEMALE MARSHALS IN THE OLD WEST

FRONTIERADO IS COMING UP ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 3rd!

As always, Frontierado is a holiday dedicated to the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Here is a look at a handful of ladies who served as gunslinging Marshals.

Ada CarnuttADA CURNUTT

Around 1889 or 1890 Ada Curnutt moved to Oklahoma (formerly Indian Territory) with her sister and her brother-in-law. By some accounts Ada chose to head west to get out from under the influence of her Methodist Minister father and equally devout mother.

When she was 20 years old, Curnutt started working as a Clerk of the Court in Norman, OK. Finding a desk job too dull for her, Ada soon became a Deputy Marshal for United States Marshal William Grimes. Her duties included serving writs and warrants, escorting dangerous prisoners from one jurisdiction to another and, of course, making arrests.   

In 1893 alone, Marshal Curnutt arrested at least 19 criminals wanted for various offenses. In December of that same year the gunslinging heroine traveled to Oklahoma City and dramatically got the drop on a pair of outlaws in the Black & Roger Saloon in front of a large, admiring crowd.     Continue reading →

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July 21, 2018 · 7:00 pm

RAVURAVU: FIJIAN GOD

Balladeer’s Blog’s recent look at The Gods of Fiji has been a hit! For another deity from Fiji here is Ravuravu, whom I also went ahead and added to the main article. For more than 20 other gods from Fiji see my blog post HERE

Fiji 2RAVURAVU – One of the evil deities defeated and driven from Skyland by the demigod Tuilakemba.

Ravuravu was the patron god of murderers and after his initial fall from Skyland he assumed human form and lurked in Navukeilagi, where he killed several men and women. Continue reading →

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July 20, 2018 · 11:01 pm

BILLY GET YOUR GUNS FROM YOUNG GUNS II

With Frontierado coming up on Friday August 3rd here’s another song for the season. It’s Jon Bon Jovi with Billy Get Your Guns from the Young Guns II soundtrack. 

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July 19, 2018 · 10:42 pm

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977): BRUCE LEE EXPLOITATION

Dragon Lives Again

The Dragon Lives Again

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977) – Category: Brucesploitation with an enjoyably absurd twist   

Even for the bizarre sub-genre of Brucesploitation films this movie is out there! The film starts with the recently – deceased Bruce Lee arriving in the afterlife, where the concubines of the King of the Dead gather around to gawk at the bulge in the pants of the late martial arts superstar. (Just in case you thought NO opening could be more tasteless than the one in The Clones Of Bruce Lee ) In a bit of alleged comic relief the bulge turns out to be caused by a weapon, not Lee’s organ. (Corpse schlong jokes! Who doesn’t love them?)

As head-shaking as that bit is at least it’s coherent, unlike virtually everything else that happens from this point on in the movie. And the time-honored tradition of Brucesploitation films having  leading men who don’t even look like Bruce Lee is well-represented in this flick, but at least here they try to explain it away by talking about how a person’s face and body change after death.  Which, of course, makes no sense since this is supposed to be Lee’s soul, not his body. 

Anyway, Bruce somehow persuades the King Of The Dead to grant him a chance to return to the world of the living, and is told he can return if he outfights all the other inhabitants of this odd netherworld. 

You see, this isn’t just any bland version of the afterlife our hero finds himself in. It’s kind of a Valhalla of cult movie characters and Bruce spends the rest of the movie fighting all of them in various combinations. Continue reading →

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July 17, 2018 · 11:41 pm

FLASHMAN IN THE OPIUM WAR: LOST FLASHMAN PAPERS

Flashman cutFor Flashman Down Under click HERE  Balladeer’s Blog moves on to another Harry Flashman adventure referred to but never completed before George MacDonald Fraser’s death.

Projected Title: FLASHMAN IN THE OPIUM WAR

Time Period: Late in the Second Opium War in China (1859- 1860)

The Setup: In Flashman and the Dragon (1985) readers learned that our antihero Colonel Harry Paget Flashman had been serving in Hong Kong and mainland China long enough to become fluent in the language. Flashman in the Opium War would detail Harry’s adventures in the closing period of the Second Opium War up until the start of the Anglo-French military expedition to Peking.

The Second Opium War is still an incredibly controversial conflict from Queen Victoria’s reign. Even at the time passions ran very much against the war AND against the fact that HMG was seen as accommodating the opium trade in Chinese ports.

Hong KongTo the most critical eyes – then and now – the Empire seemed to be facilitating the market in opium so that certain British businessmen could get rich and if the drug’s use had a very negative, epidemic downside for the Far Eastern customers, that was callously perceived to be a fringe benefit.

As I say, that is the most critical view. More sympathetic figures point out that in the 1800s the world did not have the same derogatory view of the drug trade as now and the drug trade was LEGAL in the Far East. If it hadn’t been British merchants making money off the opium trade then any gaps would have been filled by the Chinese merchants who had been dealing in drugs for centuries.

The Story: Continue reading →

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