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BALLADEER’S BLOG’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS FROM SEPTEMBER SIXTH

HEADLINES

NUMBER TEN TAKES A FALL – In NCAA Division Three the 23rd ranked GROVE CITY COLLEGE WOLVERINES were on the road against the number 10 team in the nation – the CORTLAND STATE RED DRAGONS. The Red Dragons led 7-0 in the opening Quarter but Grove City tied things up 14-14 at the Half. The Wolverines shut them out from there to win the game 31-14.

HILLSDALE ON THE ROAD – The storied HILLSDALE COLLEGE CHARGERS traveled to face the MCKENDREE UNIVERSITY BEARCATS. A scoreless 1st Quarter was followed by a 14-0 Chargers lead at Halftime. In the 3rd Quarter the Bearcats made it a 14-14 tie, then went up 17-14 in the 4th. Hillsdale then came from behind for a 22-17 victory. Continue reading

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ANYONE FOR A BUFORD PUSSER PLUS ED AND LORRAINE WARREN MOVIE MARATHON?

So, with Buford Pusser being exposed very recently and the Warrens being exposed long ago, yet movies still being made that depict the latter two figures in a positive light, watching any of the many movies about all of them seems in bad taste now.

Y’know?

Seriously, their movies individually are cringe-inducing these days.

I can’t imagine how it would feel watching multiple movies about any of the three.

What an ugly state of affairs this has turned into. Continue reading

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LADY JUSTICE

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the character Lady Justice.

LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #1 (Sep 1995)

Title: Hope & Dread

Writer: C.J. Henderson

Synopsis: The disembodied female epitome of blind justice is revealed to be capable of endowing superpowers on suffering women. Those ladies can then use their greater than normal strength, enhanced hearing and smell, plus their uncanny skill with enchanted swords and/or guns to avenge themselves on those who wronged them.

NOTE: The concept is like an exclusively female version of the 1989 creation the Crow, but in this case the people temporarily animated by Lady Justice are not dead. In this debut story Janine Farrell, a woman in a wheelchair, is inhabited by Lady Justice to get revenge for the murder of her two brothers.

LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #2 (Oct 1995)

Title: Stepp’d in Blood

Writer: C.J. Henderson

Synopsis: The incorporeal Lady Justice urges her formerly crippled avatar to now pursue the criminal bosses above the men behind the killing of her brothers and the innocent bystanders who got caught in the crossfire.

After leaving a pile of dead bodies in her wake, the avatar of Lady Justice resolves to follow the predatory chain of command all the way to the top of the particular organization she is currently at war with.  Continue reading

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BALLADEER’S BLOG’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS FROM SEPTEMBER FOURTH

NAIA

NAIA OVER THE NCAA – The only NAIA game last night was this one between the VALLEY CITY STATE VIKINGS and the visiting AUGSBURG UNIVERSITY AUGGIES from NCAA Division Three. This clash was over almost before it began as the Vikings seized a 19-0 lead in the 1st Quarter on their way to a 27-0 shutout of the Auggies.

NCAA DIVISION TWO

BATTLE OF RANKED TEAMS – The number 18 team in the nation – the CALIFORNIA (PA) UNIVERSITY VULCANS – welcomed the 21st ranked UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON GOLDEN EAGLES. A 10-7 opening Quarter advantage for the Vulcans became a 20-13 lead by Halftime. The Golden Eagles outscored Cal (PA) 6-3 from there, but the Vulcans won this 23-19 thriller.

ALL NAME GAMES – The HENDERSON STATE REDDIES trounced the SOUTHERN NAZARENE UNIVERSITY CRIMSON STORM 48-13   ###   Meanwhile, the UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT MONTICELLO BOLL WEEVILS won 32-10 at the SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA STATE SAVAGE STORM   ###   And the SOUTHERN ARKANSAS UNIVERSITY MULERIDERS dismembered the OKLAHOMA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY BISON 49-14. Continue reading

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RED SONYA AND DARK AGNES: ROBERT E. HOWARD’S FIGHTING REDHEADS

With the latest attempt at a Red Sonja movie having been released, here’s another Balladeer’s Blog look at Robert E. Howard’s actual Red Sonya PLUS his other fiery, sword-wielding woman warrior Dark Agnes. 

ROBERT E. HOWARD’S REAL RED SONYA

THE SHADOW OF THE VULTURE – This story by Robert E. Howard, the ONLY Howard story to actually feature Red Sonya, was first published in the January 1934 issue of Magic Carpet Magazine. As I’ve mentioned in many other reviews of old pulp characters, Howard’s REAL Red Sonya was indeed a warrior woman, but not one from his fictional Hyborian Age.

It was Marvel Comics who distorted Red Sonya into “Red Sonja” and placed her as a guest star in assorted Conan stories as well as her own series. That Red Sonja has more in common with female author C.L. Moore’s warrior woman Jirel of Joiry than she does with Robert E. Howard’s Red Sonya.

The Shadow of the Vulture is one of Howard’s historical adventures and it’s set during the 1520s, largely at the Siege of Vienna from September 27th to October 15th in 1529. Red Sonya of Rogatino is a Polish-Ukrainian woman who is more skilled than most men with swords and guns.

The storied red-haired woman has a personal grudge against Muslim Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who was besieging Vienna with over 100,000 soldiers against Vienna’s 21,000. Red Sonya was glad to serve against Suleiman’s armies whenever she could.  Continue reading

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KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK (1978) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Before MST3K there was … The Texas 27 Film Vault! (I often point that out to cut down on hearing from people who don’t notice the broadcast dates and angrily claim this show imitated MST3K, which is impossible since this Texas show came first.)

In the middle 1980s, way down on Level 31 Randy and Richard, machine-gun toting Film Vault Technicians First Class (EO6), hosted this neglected cult show that debuted on February 9th, 1985. Balladeer’s Blog continues its celebration of the program’s 40th anniversary year.

EPISODE ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday May ??, 1987 from 10:30pm to 1:00 am. Exact date is still being debated. Any Vaulties with further information please feel free to contact me.

SERIAL: None.

This movie was long enough that with commercials plus Randy, Richard and Ken “Tex” Miller’s comedy sketches and Host Segments it filled the whole two and a half hour running time for that episode.  

THE MOVIE: KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK (1978) – Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley stumble their way through this notoriously awful and unceasingly hilarious excuse for a movie. It’s like a feature-length Josie and the Pussycats cartoon but with KISS of all bands in the lead roles. The only thing missing from this movie is El Santo as the four members of KISS are depicted possessing super-powers … yes, SUPER-POWERS!

Those super-powers do or do not emanate from their special talismen as the movie absurdly contradicts itself about this as well as about nearly everything else. Our super-powered Knights In Satan’s Service (as panicked parents were fooled into thinking KISS stood for) are performing at AN AMUSEMENT PARK (?) for three days because dammit, nothing says “family friendly” like these guys! The park is unnamed in the film but was really Magic Mountain. Continue reading

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DEADBEAT AT DAWN (1988) ULTRAVIOLENT INDIE FILM

DEADBEAT AT DAWN (1988) – Four years in the making, Deadbeat at Dawn is rightfully called America’s Street Fighter – as in the 1974 Sonny Chiba movie, NOT the later video game. Writer and director Jim Van Bebber also starred in this 81-minute film as street gang leader Goose. 

That antihero wields a self-taught bone-crushing, blood-spurting, throat-ripping mongrelized form of martial arts that makes Sonny Chiba’s beatdowns in Street Fighter look almost gentle by comparison.

Audiences not only wince at the violence in Deadbeat at Dawn, they thrill to the stunts that Van Bebber and his collaborators were able to pull off without the benefit of professional stuntmen or fight choreographers.

The risks taken by our auteur and his cast embody the ballsy guerilla filmmaking spirit as surely as Jorg Buttgereit’s efforts on both sides of the Berlin Wall in the early 1980s. The makeup and special effects for the butcher’s shop of injuries and dismemberments suffered by various characters are more like horror films than action flicks. Continue reading

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CITY OF ANGELS (1976) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

CITY OF ANGELS (1976) – Wayne Rogers starred as 1930s private investigator Jake Axminster, a hardboiled detective plying his trade in corruption-filled Los Angeles, hence the ironic title. Sadly, this series was no more successful than the decade’s earlier attempts at launching a 1930s crime show – Banyon and Manhunter.

City of Angels lasted for just 13 1-hour episodes, with the first 3 installments being one long serialized epic. Elaine Joyce co-starred as Jake’s eccentric blonde secretary Marsha Finch, who also used his office to run an escort service by telephone.

Jake and Marsha shared all 13 episodes with crooked L.A. police detective Lt. Murray Quint (Clifton James), while Axminster’s lawyer, Michael Brimm (Philip Sterling) appeared in 10 episodes. Mystery novelist Max Allan Collins (The Road to Perdition) called City of Angels “the best private eye series ever.”

Stephen J. Cannell and Roy Huggins, of Rockford Files and Maverick fame, were the creative forces behind this example of forgotten television.   

THE EPISODES:  Continue reading

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JOE MAGARAC: THE STEEL MILL VERSION OF PAUL BUNYAN

Joe MagaracLabor Day weekend is the appropriate time to post this look at neglected working class folk hero Joe Magarac. This figure was the Steel Mill equivalent of Paul Bunyan and John Henry.

Though mostly associated with Polish-American steel workers in Pittsburgh, PA the general figure of a literal “man of steel” helping and protecting his coworkers can be found from the East Coast through the American Midwest. Sometimes the figure is Croatian or some other ethnicity instead of Polish. 

Written versions of Joe Magarac and/or similar steel worker tall tales seem to have started around 1930 or 1931. Oral legends about such figures – but not specifically Joe Magarac – have been dated as early as the 1890s.

Vintage advertisements from tattered old newspapers indicate that such Man of Steel imagery may have been used for the steel industry prior to World War One. This “Which came first, the chicken or the egg” dilemma for Joe Magarac and other Steel Men puts one in mind of the quandary surrounding Billiken lore.        

Joe Magarac statueAs a lame play on words since this is Labor Day season I’ll present Joe Magarac’s origin and then depict his tales as “Labors” like in The Labors of Hercules.

BIRTH – Joe Magarac supposedly sprang into existence from a mound of iron ore and – depending on the version – that mound was either in Pittsburgh or the Old Country. Magarac emerged from the melting mound fully grown and spoke broken English like so many of the other Polish steel workers. He was called into being by the urgent need to catch up on production since the current shift had fallen dangerously behind.

Joe was 7 or 8 feet tall, his flesh was like solid steel, his torso was as wide as a smoke-stack and his arms were as thick as railroad ties. His surname Magarac meant “mule” in the workhorse sense, referring to his stamina. Joe’s appetite was such that he carried his lunch in a washtub instead of a standard lunch box.

Magarac’s favorite leisure time activity was polka-dancing and halushkis were his favorite food.

THE LABORS OF JOE MAGARAC:   Continue reading

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COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS FROM AUGUST THIRTIETH: BALLADEER’S BLOG

HEADLINES

NAIA TOPPLES NCAA DIVISION ONE – The WEBBER INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY WARRIORS from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics played giant-killer at the higher division NCAA DIV. ONE STETSON UNIVERSITY HATTERS. At the Half the Warriors led 17-7, then went on to consummate the Upset by a final score of 31-21. 

KNOCKING OFF NUMBER THREE – In the NAIA the 4th ranked BENEDICTINE COLLEGE RAVENS welcomed the number 3 team in the nation – the MORNINGSIDE UNIVERSITY MUSTANGS. The 1st Quarter ended with the Mustangs on top 14-7 but by Halftime the Ravens held a 17-14 edge. The 4th Quarter started with a 31-27 lead for Benedictine College and ended in a 38-34 Ravens win.

ANOTHER NUMBER THREE TAKES A FALL – Over in NCAA Division Two, the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT THE PERMIAN BASIN FALCONS played host to the number 3 UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA BRONCHOS (their spelling). The Falcons put UCO on Upset Alert with their 13-7 edge at the midpoint, then coasted to a 34-14 victory from there. Continue reading

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