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CCCAA COLLEGE FOOTBALL RANKINGS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG

The divisions of college football covered here kick off their 2025 season on August 23rd, so here is my last look at preseason rankings.

CCCAA (California Community College Athletic Association)

*** 1. MT. SAN ANTONIO COLLEGE MOUNTIES    ###    2. COLLEGE OF SAN MATEO BULLDOGS (defending champs)    ###    3. RIVERSIDE CITY COLLEGE TIGERS    ###    4. BUTTE COLLEGE ROADRUNNERS    ###   

5. GOLDEN WEST COLLEGE RUSTLERS    ###    6. EL CAMINO COLLEGE WARRIORS    ###    7. BAKERSFIELD COLLEGE RENEGADES    ###    8. COLLEGE OF THE SEQUOIAS GIANTS    ###    Continue reading

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KARATE GIRL (1973) BAD MOVIE REVIEW

KARATE GIRL aka Karateci Kiz (1973) – As fans of Psychotronic movies know, Turkish cinema’s imitations of B-movies from around the world are known for very eccentric acting and for ignoring international copyright laws.

Turkish Star Wars has long been a favorite of Turksploitation fans but most of us were introduced to the country’s Psychotronic cinema via their home grown costumed crimefighter called Killing or through the movie 3 Dev Adam (1973). Three Divine Men or Three Giant Men as it’s called in English featured the U.S.A.’s Captain America and Mexico’s El Santo teaming up against Spider-Man, who for some reason was depicted as an international criminal.

The Turkish “screw you” attitude when it came to the fact that they didn’t own the trademarks to those three figures added to the bizarre charm. Similarly, Turkish films appropriated whatever music they wanted to use in their productions. For instance, Karate Girl shamelessly uses the Shaft music to accompany its martial arts revenge storyline.

Turkish superstar Filiz Akin stars in Karate Girl as Zeynep, a beautiful young woman who sells flowers to raise money for an operation to fix her vocal chords so she can talk. Zeynep lives with her good-natured father, who verbalizes to the viewers what his mute daughter’s personal sign language means. Continue reading

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NJCAA COLLEGE FOOTBALL RANKINGS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG

August 23rd is when the divisions of college football covered here kick off. Previously I posted my preseason rankings for the NAIA, NCAA Division Two and NCAA Division Three.

NJCAA – 1. HUTCHINSON COLLEGE BLUE DRAGONS (Defending National Champions)    ###    2. IOWA WESTERN COLLEGE REIVERS    ###    3. NORTHWEST MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE RANGERS    ###    4. GEORGIA MILITARY COLLEGE BULLDOGS    ###

5. SNOW COLLEGE BADGERS    ###    6. COFFEYVILLE COLLEGE RED RAVENS    ###    7. EAST CENTRAL COLLEGE WARRIORS    ###    8. MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST COLLEGE BULLDOGS    ###    Continue reading

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BAPTAE (C 415-413 B.C.) ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

Here is another fragmentary work by Eupolis who, along with Aristophanes and Cratinus, was one of the Big Three of Attic Old Comedy.

Dr Frank N Furter

BAPTAE was a comedy satirizing the latest faddish belief system to hit Athens: the cult of the Dorian and Thracian goddess Cotyto. Just like Kabala or transcendental meditation and other systems have enjoyed a brief vogue with entertainers and even some movers and shakers various foreign deities would periodically develop a following in ancient Athens.

Eupolis was lampooning the fashionable appeal of one such cult and also ridiculed other elements of Cotyto worship as we will see.

The title Baptae came from the fact that the worshippers of Cotyto would immerse or “baptize” their garments in blue, green or purple dye, an expensive and very ostentatious indulgence for the time period. And yes, Baptae and baptizing are from the same root word, since it originally referred to immersion in any liquid, not just water.

The main element of the Athenian version of the cult of Cotyto was the fact that her devotees were exclusively male and all of them dressed as the goddess as part of their rites of worship. Continue reading

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COOL NAMED SPORTS TEAM: SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE

Another team name that’s outside the Eagles, Tigers, Bulldogs and Wildcats zone.

SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE Continue reading

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RED NAILS (1936): MARVEL’S CLASSIC ADAPTATION OF THIS ROBERT E. HOWARD CONAN STORY

This weekend’s escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at Marvel’s 1970s adaptation of one of Robert E. Howard’s best Conan the Barbarian stories, published shortly after his suicide in 1936. 

RED NAILS – I always like to emphasize that – despite the way Marvel Comics’ 1970s and 1980s Conan stories kept the character’s name alive and introduced new generations to him – the Cimmerian was not a mere comic book figure. Iconic author Robert E. Howard introduced Conan on the printed page in his 1930s stories featuring the character. 

That being said, I acknowledge the excellent adaptations that Marvel did of many of Howard’s works. They also adapted REH’s King Kull and Solomon Kane. Previously Balladeer’s Blog examined the company’s version of Queen of the Black Coast and others.

And that brings us back to Red Nails. With Barry Windsor Smith’s art and Roy Thomas adapting the story, this three-part work originally appeared in the black & white Marvel magazine Savage Tales #2-3 (Oct 1973-Feb 1974). Full-color versions of the tale were later reprinted in the Conan Treasury and elsewhere. 

I. This first installment introduces readers to a blonde female pirate – Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. She is the only female pirate among them and is as notoriously deadly as the others. NOTE: Yes, this is the character that Sandahl Bergman played in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film. That movie made her a standard thief instead of a pirate and – sadly – gave her the “ghostly return” scene that actually belonged to Conan’s true love Belit (Bay-LEET) from Queen of the Black Coast.

In the Stygian city of Sukhmet Valeria was in between seagoing adventures and was forced to use her sword to kill a powerful man who tried forcing himself on her. She fled to avoid arrest and Conan, already attracted by her beauty and fighting skill, rode after her. While following her he slew the brother of the man she killed to prevent him from avenging himself on Valeria. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: THE QUEER SIDE OF THINGS (1890s)

StrandTHE QUEER SIDE OF THINGS (1890s) – Written by James Frank Sullivan.  Straight from the Gay Nineties, it’s a selection of Sullivan’s contributions to the Strand magazine’s short fiction column The Queer Side of Things.

So, before we all find ourselves on Queer Street just because some Dick wants to arrest us for seeming as queer as a clockwork orange, here’s a snatch of J.F.’s work from The Queer Side of Things column. 

OLD PROFESSOR WILLETT (December 1892) – Professor Willett announces to his family that his latest invention is going to make all of them rich but refuses to elaborate. Willett disappears after a few days without revealing any more details.

Foul play is suspected and the story’s narrator investigates. It turns out the Professor had devised a highly advanced explosive made from natural fibers. The explosive goes off with no sound and is so rapid its victims seem to simply vanish.

Willett was the first to go during an accident with his invention. Other family members have been perishing/ vanishing, too and the narrator is desperate to save his fiancée – one of the Professor’s daughters – from meeting the same fate. Continue reading

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TERROR TRAIN (1980) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Before MST3K we had The Texas 27 Film Vault! Before Joel and Mike we had Randy and Richard! (I often start my reviews of this 1985-1987 cult show this way to cut down on messages from people who don’t pay attention to the broadcast dates and try insisting that Randy and Richard “ripped off” MST3K. That’s impossible since their show came first.) 

Balladeer’s Blog continues its salute to The Texas 27 Film Vault‘s FORTIETH anniversary year. My research through VERY old newspapers, my interview with the show’s co-star and co-creator Randy Clower plus emails and comments from my fellow fans of the program helped piece together fragments of the program’s history. 

ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday December 27th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 1:00am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma. 

Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault

FILM VAULT LORE: Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, as machine-gun toting Film Vault Technicians First Class and members of the fictional Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) had two and a half hours to work with each week.

Interviews with figures like Vincent Price, Ben Johnson and others were featured and the movies being shown and mocked were often preceded by episodes of old Republic serials like Radar Men from the Moon and others.

SERIAL: For this episode the movie was preceded by a chapter of Mysterious Doctor Satan, about a mad scientist trying to conquer the world with a very goofy- looking robot. Another extra was Randy and Richard’s interview with Ben Johnson at his ranch. Johnson appeared in the episode’s film as well. 

HOST SEGMENTS: Outside of the Ben Johnson bit, Randy and Richard did some comedy playing to the New Year’s-themed horror film being shown. As Midnight Dallas Time approached, they staged a countdown and then a raucous celebration of the arrival of … December 28th, 1986. Ken “Tex” Miller, Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley, Laurie Savino and other Film Vault Corps members joined in the festivities in a great example of the show’s wry humor.

THE MOVIE: TERROR TRAIN – A New Year’s Eve slasher film set on a train carrying a load of partying passengers who plan to ring in the New Year in each time zone of the United States.  As required by law at the time, Jamie Lee Curtis starred since it was a slasher flick with a seasonal theme. (Look under the Federal HalloweenHalloween II and Prom Night Act of 1980 if you don’t believe me.) Continue reading

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NCAA DIVISION THREE COLLEGE FOOTBALL RANKINGS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG

The divisions of college football covered here kick off their 2025 season on August 23rd. Here’s my preaseason rankings for D3. NAIA is HERE and D2 is HERE.

*** 1. UNIVERSITY OF MOUNT UNION PURPLE RAIDERS    ###    2. NORTH CENTRAL COLLEGE CARDINALS (defending national champions)    ###    3. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY BLUE JAYS    ###    4. SAINT JOHN’S UNIVERSITY JOHNNIES    ###   

5. SUSQUEHANNA UNIVERSITY RIVER HAWKS    ###    6. HARDIN-SIMMONS UNIVERSITY COWBOYS    ###    7. UNIVERSITY OF MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR CRUSADERS    ###    8. SALISBURY UNIVERSITY SEA GULLS    ###    Continue reading

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ETRUSCAN MYTHOLOGY

The Etruscan people, who were a bit of a bridge between the ancient Greek world and the emerging Roman world long ago, remain a historical enigma in so many ways.

Fans of Jeopardy may recall that “Those Darn Etruscans” was the tongue in cheek title for categories dealing with these people whose works are not yet fully understood.

TINIA – The Chief of the Etruscan deities, like Zeus to the Greeks and Jupiter to the Romans. In the Etruscan creation myth Tinia separated the Earth from the sky and delineated borders between nations. Tinia ruled the sky and wielded three sorts of lightning bolts – one sort for warnings, one sort for intervening in affairs of gods or men for good or ill and one sort for inflicting catastrophes. 

Unlike Zeus or Jupiter, Tinia needed the consent of a Council of the Gods (Dii Consentes) in order to wield the second and third categories of lightning bolts. There were separate deities who wielded other classifications of thunderbolts but they wielded only one category each, not three like Tinia.   Continue reading

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