I saw this floating around the internet, so here it is. I’ll have another post later today.
Tag Archives: blogging
COOL WEST COAST LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAMS
The West Coast League is a baseball league consisting of American and Canadian teams. For the U.S. Washington and Oregon are represented, and for Canada British Columbia and Alberta are represented.
College athletes hoping to enhance their resumes for potential pro careers compete in the league’s schedule of games from June through August every year so as not to interfere with their college team’s slate of games.
Here are some of the WCL’s coolest team names and logos.
WALLA WALLA SWEETS
Location: Walla Walla, WA
Founded: 2009
Comment: The team name comes from Walla Walla Sweet Onions. Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball, Cool names and cool logos
COFFIN JOE MOVIE POSTERS FOR HALLOWEEN SEASON
As Halloween Month continues, Balladeer’s Blog presents another seasonal post. Over the years I’ve reviewed plenty of the horror films made by Brazil’s King of Horror since the 1960s – Coffin Joe (Ze do Caixao) aka Jose “Mojica” Marins. I’ve even reviewed his colleague “Ivan the Terrible’s” movie The Secret of the Mummy from 1982.
This blog post will look at some of the more memorable Coffin Joe movie posters over the decades.
AT MIDNIGHT I’LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (1963)
“Filmed in glorious black and white” as they used to say, this was not only Brazil’s first ever home-grown horror film, but it also presented the debut of Marins’ iconic character Coffin Joe. I still believe that this master of menace deserves to be as well-known as the likes of Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, or even Coffin Joe’s fellow mortician the Tall Man. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season
JOHN CARPENTER’S “VAMPIRES” (1998)
JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES (1998) – Halloween Month rolls along with this look at John Carpenter directing James Woods as Vatican-sanctioned vampire hunter Jack Crow. As always, James Woods is like a force of nature. When he’s on the screen he virtually blows away most of the people with whom he shares that screen.
Years before the movie Van Helsing came this flick about a team of vampire hunters secretly working with the Vatican to safeguard the world from a threat the public believes doesn’t exist. Carpenter made a perfect choice in casting volatile genius Woods as the leader of the vampire slayers. Jack Crow’s hatred of the bloodsuckers and the suffering they cause is like a thing alive.
Jack, his right-hand man Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) and the rest of their team wipe out a vampire coven in Mexico only to have its elusive leader Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) come after them for revenge. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
BALLADEER’S BLOG’S OCTOBER 14th COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS
HEADLINES
KNOCKING OFF NUMBER ONE – In NCAA Division Two, the 4th ranked GRAND VALLEY STATE LAKERS welcomed the number 1 team in the nation – the FERRIS STATE BULLDOGS. The Lakers were on top 35-21 by Halftime, then the Bulldogs made it a 35-28 game to end the 3rd Quarter. In the 4th, Grand Valley State pulled away for a 49-28 trumph.
DOWN GOES NUMBER FOUR – Down in NCAA Division Three, the number 7 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN AT WHITEWATER WARHAWKS visited the country’s 4th ranked UW-RIVER FALLS FALCONS. A 6-0 1st Quarter lead for the Warhawks became 15-7 at the Half. After the break Whitewater held off the Falcons to win the game 21-14.
AND NUMBER SIX COMES TUMBLING AFTER – Back up in the NAIA, the FRIENDS UNIVERSITY FALCONS took the field against the visiting number 6 SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE MOUNDBUILDERS. The Falcons had the Moundbuilders faithful worried with a 12-0 Halftime advantage. Friends University pulled further and further away in the 2nd Half for a 35-20 Upset. Continue reading
Filed under college football
THE SPECTRE: SOME HALLOWEENISH COVERS
As Halloween Month continues, this week’s light-hearted and escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at DC’s character the Spectre.
ADVENTURE COMICS Vol 1 #431 (February 1974)
Title: The Wrath of the Spectre
Villains: Armored Car Robbers
NOTE: For people unfamiliar with the Spectre, here’s the basics. His secret identity is Police Detective Jim Corrigan who was killed in the line of duty. Through a special dispensation from Heaven, Corrigan’s soul was permitted to reanimate his corpse and resume his detective duties, but he was really an undead avenger carrying out God’s justice.
When situations demanding greater than human intervention arose, Jim could become the Spectre, his ghostly form in which he wielded vast powers that he used against earthly villains as well as supernatural menaces.
Synopsis: An armed gang robs an armored car loaded with money. The criminals kill four guards while carrying out the robbery, so Homicide Detective Jim Corrigan is assigned the case. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season, Superheroes
AUTOLYCUS (420s B.C.) – ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY
AUTOLYCUS (420s B.C.) – Balladeer’s Blog examines the ancient Greek comedy Autolycus. This play was written by Eupolis who, along with Aristophanes and Cratinus, constituted the Big Three of Attic Old Comedy. As with so many comedies of the time period Autolycus has survived only in fragmentary form, unfortunately.
THE PLAY
The title character of Eupolis’ comedy Autolycus was an Athenian athlete who earned a high degree of fame for his performance at the Great Panathenaia in 422 B.C. To simplify the concept the Great Panathenaia was sort of a “local” version of the Olympic games and did not have participants from all over the known Western World. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Greek Comedy
CONRAD VEIDT: NEGLECTED SILENT HORROR FILM STAR
Halloween Month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog with this look at the silent horror films which starred Conrad Veidt – Major Strasser from Casablanca.
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928) – I have no idea why Conrad Veidt doesn’t get the silent horror film love that Lon Chaney and Paul Wegener receive. In this final silent horror movie for Veidt, he shines once again in another landmark film. This one is based on the neglected Victor Hugo story about a figure who, like Hugo’s Quasimodo, has a monstrous disfigurement that causes him to be shunned and feared.
The title character, Gwynplaine (Veidt), was tortured and mutilated by lunatics as a child and, in addition to other bodily scars, his face is distorted into a permanent, hideous smile. Mary Philbin portrayed Dea, the blind girl who cannot see Gwynplaine’s terrifying face and is therefore the only person who does not treat him like a monster.
Dea falls in love with Gwynplaine’s poetic nature in fact, but when the grotesque smiler is discovered to be of noble descent the pair are separated by villainous figures involved in aristocratic court intrigues. Olga Baclanova co-starred as Duchess Josiana, the lead heavy in this forgotten Gothic horror classic. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
RAFFERTY (1977) – FORGOTTEN TELEVISION
RAFFERTY (1977) – Before House there was Rafferty! The great Patrick McGoohan, still praised for his multiple creative contributions to the 1967 series The Prisoner, seemed to have found another show ideally suited to his unique talents.
McGoohan starred as Dr. Sid Rafferty, who had just retired as a colonel from the Army Medical Corps after 20 years of service. Rafferty was now an MD in the civilian world, and though he was impressing many with his masterful diagnostic skills, his gruff, cranky demeanor and impatience with lesser minds led to clashes with hospital administrators. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television
LUCIO FULCI TRIPLE FEATURE FOR HALLOWEEN
Halloween Month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog with this look at three notorious – but not necessarily all that good – horror films from iconic Italian director Lucio Fulci.
As always, because I review everything from mild horror films to extreme, I will give notice to Fulci newcomers that his movies are known for very, very graphic violence and stomach-turning special effects. If that’s not your type of horror, avoid reading anything below the “continue reading” line.
THE BEYOND (1981) – A woman inherits The Seven Doors Hotel, a run-down inn outside New Orleans in the Louisiana countryside. It was once the site of an infamous murder in the 1920s and supernatural activities break out as our heroine Liza Merrill (Katherine MacColl) tries to refurbish the place.
The 1927 slaying involved an outraged mob forcing their way into the hotel, dragging the artist and occultist Schweik down to the basement. Once there they killed him in three graphic stages for practicing Black Magic.
Meanwhile, a soon to be blind woman reads The Book of Eibon and foresees a time when the hotel may be used to unleash nightmarish forces from the beyond. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
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