Balladeer’s Blog
Balladeer’s Blog knows that many people just love true crime stories – especially for maddeningly odd unsolved murders and disappearances. The main trouble is the repetition.
Whether you’re talking about YouTube or regular television it often seems that there are no longer any of those unsolved mysteries that haven’t been examined ad nauseum. Here is a site that features A LOT of fairly fresh material.
It’s called Criminally Listed and here it is: Continue reading
Filed under opinion
CHESAPEAKE COLLEGE SKIPJACKS
Location: Wye Mills, MD
Division: NJCAA
Comment: Don’t call them the Flapjacks. Don’t call them the Blackjacks. Don’t call them Continue reading
Filed under Cool names and cool logos
Balladeer’s Blog looks at another neglected pantheon of gods and goddesses. The Tupari people live near the Rio Branco in Brazil and though they are far from numerous I find their mythology to be as riveting and full of rich details as the belief systems of any other group.
A striking element of the Tupari belief system is the way in which the word “pod” is used the way “kami” is used in Shinto myths. Pod, like kami, can be used when referring to actual deities but also to lesser supernatural beings, so there is often debate over the exact status of an individual entity in the Tupari’s metaphysical heirarchy.
10. MULHER – The primordial Earth goddess from whom all the other deities descended. In the beginning when there was no life on Earth and no gods in the heavens Mulher existed alone. Her original form was that of an enormous black rock with a very smooth surface, much like Zoroastrian mythology describes the Earth before the evil god Ahriman ruined its pristine perfection. Mulher split open one day like an egg and her first child, the god Valedjad was born amid a stream of blood flowing from Mulher. Again she split open and her second son Vab emerged from within her in a similar blood stream. When earthquakes occur today it is Mulher splitting open again, but no more children are born – rather her blood – lava – flows like the blood from menstruating women.
9. PATSIARE – The god who separated the Earth and the sky. He then created the poles that support the sky above the Earth the way similar poles support the domed roofs of the Tupari’s houses. In Tupari cosmology the world is shaped like a Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
If you enjoyed Robert Shaw’s freebooting turn as the pirate Red Ned Lynch in the 1976 movie Swashbuckler you’ll love him as Captain Dan Tempest in this series from the 1950’s. Shaw was equal parts Errol Flynn and Jack Sparrow on the program, which featured him as the captain of the Sultana.
Tempest and his crew were former pirates pardoned and sent to sea as pirate hunters and as privateers against the Spanish, but they still found time to foil the sinister machinations of corrupt British authorities in the Bahamas, Jamaica and elsewhere. Fans of derring- d0 who are bored with the countless retellings of the Robin Hood story are sure to embrace the crew of the Sultana and their rousing adventures.
All 39 episodes of this series are available on DVD and offer a terrific mixture of storylines:
You want tales of our swashbucklers coming to the aid of the oppressed? The Buccaneers featured Captain Tempest and his crew raiding a slave ship then buying the slaves’ freedom with money from the slave ship’s own coffers.
You want semi- historical adventures featuring real- life Buccaneers? This show had episodes with figures like Blackbeard, Woodes Rogers and the famous female pirate Anne Bonney. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television
U.S.A. Polo joined Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Chile in qualifying for the next FIP Polo World Cup, to be played in Sydney, Australia from October 17th-30th this year.
America secured entry with our 9-7 victory over Mexico. Felipe Viana led the U.S.A. with 5 of those 9 Goals.
Polo is the world’s OLDEST team sport.
FOR MY PRIMER ON POLO CLICK HERE
Filed under Polo
May the 4th live long and prosper … or something or other. With this Star Wars festival coming right before tomorrow’s debut of the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie I figured a look at The Micronauts would be appropriate.
The Micronauts was one of those oddly-conceived Marvel Comics titles from the late 70s and early 80s that were about forcing a continuing storyline around an already-existing toy franchise. (Rom: Spaceknight was another example of this ultimate in ass-backward storytelling.)
And a young Joel Schumacher mused “Nipples on black armor, eh? Hmmmmm.”
The above example of Six Degrees of George Lucas or whatever you want to call it was just my odd way of pointing out my reasoning for posting this item on the 4th of May.
The Micronauts (First Issue: January 1979) was mostly a strained imitation of the Star Wars universe but also had a few similarities with Marvel’s ORIGINAL Guardians of the Galaxy. Those Guardians – Vance Astro, Charley-27, Yondu and Martinex – were freedom fighters waging a guerilla war to free 30th Century Earth from the dictatorial rule of its alien conquerors, the lizardlike Badoon race.
The Micronauts was set in the Microverse, a sub-atomic universe which was being ruled by the evil, black-armored Baron Karza, one of the most blatant Darth Vader ripoffs this side of Japan’s Swords of the Space Ark movies. Karza could detach his arms and legs and could transform the lower half of his body into that of a black horse (think of Centaurs) for no better reason than the fact that THAT was the gimmick of the Baron Karza toys. Kids could move around the arms and legs or replace his regular body with the horse-like lower body. Oh what fun! (?) Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
GEORGETOWN VS CUMBERLAND – The 4th seeded GEORGETOWN (KY) COLLEGE TIGERS swept the 5 seeds – the CUMBERLAND UNIVERSITY PHOENIX in 2 games straight. Game One went scoreless for the first 5 Innings before the Tigers notched 4 runs.
The Phoenix could only muster 1 Run of their own in the top of the 9th. Pitcher Michael Conrad picked up the win. Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
Balladeer’s Blog
This is one of the reviews I get the most e-mail over so here it is again for the new readers who have been requesting it without realizing I already reviewed it.
Remember, before requesting a review you may want to see if I reviewed it already by checking my Bad Movies page. https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/
THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE (1979) – Category: Brucesploitation with an enjoyably absurd twist.
In the joyously tasteless beginning of this quintessential Brucesploitation movie British secret agents extract cell samples from the martial arts superstar on his deathbed. Since E-Bay wasn’t around yet they can’t auction off the cell samples so instead they use them to make three Bruce Lee clones to form an elite crime fighting unit.
You have to love a movie called The Clones Of Bruce Lee even though it stars three guys who not only don’t resemble Bruce Lee but who don’t even resemble each other! Some clones! Dick Miller and Priscilla Alden look as much like Bruce Lee as these clowns do. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
*** MID-SOUTH CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT ***
GAME ONE – The 7th seeded SHAWNEE STATE BEARS took the Diamond against the 2 seeds – the UNIVERSITY OF THE CUMBERLANDS PATRIOTS. The Patriots grabbed a quick 1-0 edge in the 1st Inning but the Bears went on top 2-1 in the 2nd.
From there Shawnee State made it a 3-1 game in the 4th Inning and 4-1 in the 5th. The teams each put up 2 Runs in the 7th Inning but no more as the Bears won it 6-3. Derek Moore pitched all 9 Innings for Shawnee State, Iron Man style. Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
Voodoo mythology is a fascinating hybrid of Yoruban, Dahomey, Fon and Christian mythology intermixed with touches from Caribbean belief systems.
Haiti is the central location of the Voodoo belief system but naturally it has spread throughout the world as have other faiths.
Here is a VooDoo god whose Holy Day is today, May 1st.
ZACA – The god of agriculture and the harvest, making him the patron deity of farmers and fieldworkers. Zaca is the friendliest and most approachable of the gods and may be addressed as “Cousin Zaca” if spotted in the fields. He dresses in denims and a straw hat just like the rural Haitians do. In addition Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
