The divisions of college football covered by Balladeer’s Blog kick off their 2016 season on August 25th!
To help satisfy our gridiron hunger between now and then here’s a look at the brand new helmets for the College of Idaho Coyotes. Pretty sharp!
Tag Archives: glitternight.com
COLLEGE OF IDAHO COYOTES: NEW FOOTBALL HELMETS
Filed under college football
COOL-NAMED TEAM: VANCE-GRANVILLE COLLEGE
VANCE-GRANVILLE COLLEGE VANGUARDS
Location: Henderson, NC
Division: NJCAA
Comment: Kudos to the folks at this institution for showing some creativity with the name of their sports teams! The Vanguards definitely stand out and their logo is very, very eye-catching! Continue reading
Filed under college sports, Cool names and cool logos
SALLY SKULL: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER
Frontierado is Friday, August 5th!
SALLY SKULL – Sara Jane Newman, the future Sally Skull, was born in Illinois in 1817. In 1823 her family moved to Fayette County in Texas, which was then part of the area that Mexico had seized from Native Americans.
Like all the other ranch families in the area, whether from Mexico or the U.S., Sally and her family lived a rough life managing their land and surviving periodic assaults from the American Indians in the area. Sally killed her first man – an attacking Indian, when she was 11, using a rifle. At age 12 Sally was proficient with all firearms and provided plenty of food for the family table by hunting.
In 1831 Sally’s father died and she began running the ranch for her grieving mother, even registering her father’s old brand in her own name. 1833 saw the 16 year old married to a Texas Ranger named Jess Robinson and settled in Gonzalez, TX, still part of Mexico.
Over the next 10 years, as Texans rebelled against the tyrannical Mexican government and broke away to form their own Republic, Sally and Jess had 2 children who survived – a son and daughter. In 1843 the couple divorced and 11 days later Sally married a gunsmith named George Skull (or Scull), whose last name she would keep throughout all her future marriages. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
FOOLKILLER 19: NEW SOLO SERIES ISSUE TWO
** THIS WAS ENTERED REMOTELY – FAMILY TRAGEDY
A Foolkiller action figure, complete with Purification Gun
With superhero-mania surging, Balladeer’s Blog’s “Script Doctoring” of Marvel’s handling of Foolkiller (Greg Salinger) continues with Part Nineteen.
FOR PART ONE CLICK HERE
Foolkiller issue two continues the antihero’s battle with the obscure Marvel villain the Monster Maker, who is using patients in his insane asylum as human guinea pigs to create monstrous abominations. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
KID RUSSELL: GUNSLINGER TURNED ARTIST
** I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CRISIS INVOLVING A LOVED ONE. THIS BLOG POST WAS PRE-WRITTEN.
Self-portrait by Kid Russell
Frontierado is Friday, August 5th! My most popular Frontierado articles over the years have been the ones about neglected gunslingers of the American West. Here is another neglected western figure whose life was at least as interesting as those of the bigger names.
KID RUSSELL – How cool is it that an authentic, acclaimed international artist spent some of his younger years wandering the Wild West, even earning the nickname Kid Russell? Charles Marion “Kid” Russell was born in 1864 in St Louis, Missouri. As with Klondike Kate Rockwell, most of this figure’s life story is outside the purview of this article.
Since Frontierado is about the myth of the Old West I’ll focus on the legends about Kid Russell’s wild, wandering younger years full of guns, ranches, saloons, cattle drives, bordellos and sketches drawn on any nearby flat surface, sketches that showed the nascent talent that would one day make Russell world-famous.
When he was age 16 Charles’ well-to-do parents gave up trying to force him to continue his schooling and let him move to Montana, where, clad in a brand-new buckskin outfit, he worked on a friend’s sheep ranch north of Helena. It took skill with a gun and a true survival instinct to live through encounters with rustlers, hostile cattlemen and their hired gunmen but Charles, already being called Kid Russell, thrived and felt more at home in this rough and tumble lifestyle than among his family’s hoity-toity friends in St Louis high society. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
CLARIDRYL: THE FUTURE OF HORROR?
*** *** *** *** You’ll NEVER miss the out-of-focus figure in the background after your initial viewing.
Before elaborating on this eerie “broadcast from Hell” let me set the stage. Evolving technology has repeatedly facilitated the restaging of ages-old tales including, of course, horror stories. Silent films and eventually sound films provided even further ways of restaging dramatic themes.
Orson Welles took radio “meta” by adapting H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds in the way it would unfold via news broadcasts. The familiarity of the technique disarmed many listeners and their discomfort was compounded by the way the horrors of the tale invaded their own homes.
You don’t even want to know …
In a way this legendary broadcast packed a bigger punch than movies because of the way it took people by surprise at unguarded moments. Horror FILMS are always at a disadvantage because the audience is already several steps removed from being caught off-guard by the simple fact that they made the conscious decision to go attend a story they knew would be “scary.”
Not even the original Cannibal Holocaust or The Last Broadcast or The Blair Witch Project could truly take viewers by surprise in the way Welles’ radio project or televised imitations like Special Bulletin could.
And that’s my roundabout way of getting to Alan Resnick’s truly disturbing Claridryl ad. Technically titled Unedited Footage of a Bear/ Claridryl Ad if you’re looking for it online, THIS brilliant bit of Pirandello television set the new standard for taking viewers by surprise in their own homes. In this case in the middle of the night as an advertisement. From somewhere Orson Welles must have smiled. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Forgotten Television
NAIA & OTHER DIVISION FOOTBALL PLAYERS ON TO THE NFL IN 2016
Here’s a look at 2016’s crop of NFL players taken as draftees and free agents from the NAIA and other divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog.
School – UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI WESTERN GRIFFONS
Name – MIKE JORDAN
Position – Safety
NFL Team – Rams Continue reading
Filed under college football
BALLADEER’S BLOG IS SIX YEARS OLD TODAY
Balladeer’s Blog
THANK YOU once again to all of you readers for making Balladeer’s Blog so enjoyable to write. As I always say the weird and controversial items I churn out here mean that readers have to be very secure in their own beliefs not to just take offense and leave. Here’s a look at Glitternight.com’s six biggest hits since lastJune 21st:
MOST POPULAR MYTHOLOGY POST OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS: TOP GODS OF THE NYANGA PEOPLE (AFRICA)
Gods who gamble, river gods, star gods who run a celestial courtroom and much, much more including the semi-divine hero Mwindo. This one barely beat out the Philippine Epic Myth about the god Baybayan.
MOST POPULAR ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY POST OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS: THE BIRDS BY ARISTOPHANES
There was an EXPLOSION of controversy over this post which examined the original work AND explored how The Birds could be applied to the anti-intellectual madhouses called colleges here in America. Aristophanes wrote “In Cloud Cuckooland things become what they are called rather than being called what they are.” I made that “In Ivory Towerland things become what they are called rather than being called what they are.” And off I went …
MOST POPULAR CONTINUING FEATURE OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS: THE SONGS OF MALDOROR (1868)
Technically this feature began in February of 2015 but was so lengthy it didn’t wrap up until August of 2015, thus putting it within the past year, at least partially.
This work of horror was the darkest, most deranged and graphically violent item I’ve ever covered here at Balladeer’s Blog.
MOST POPULAR “LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES” POST OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS: LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES AND ART
This item took a look at one of the many ways that the hypersensitive, judgmental and censorship-crazed American Liberals have become even more intolerant than the worst Christian Conservatives.
And that’s the truth.
MOST POPULAR POST ABOUT MUSLIM FASCISM IN THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS: WOMEN WHO FIGHT MUSLIM OPPRESSION
A look at Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and many other women who show the backbone to take on the greatest oppressors of women in this day and age: the Muslim World.
These women deserve much more notoriety than they currently enjoy.
MOST POPULAR TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT POST OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS: THANKSGIVING TURKEYS ON THE TEXAS TWENTY-SEVEN FILM VAULT
A Turkey Day look at some of Randy and Richard’s most storied episodes, featuring movies like It! The Terror From Beyond Space, The Giant Claw, The Party Crashers, Return of the Fly and many, many more!
Filed under Neglected History
COLLEGE BASEBALL CHAMPIONS FOR 2016
One last round of congratulations to the college baseball champions from the nine divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog.
NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics)
National Champions – LEWIS-CLARK STATE WARRIORS
Runners-Up – Faulkner University Eagles
2015 Champions – Lewis-Clark State Warriors
NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association)
National Champions – OKLAHOMA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY BISON
Runners-Up – Bethesda (CA) University Flames
2015 Champions – Fresno Pacific University Sunbirds Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
AMERICAN KAIJU: THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN VS THE CYCLOPS
Glenn Manning’s impersonator.
Episode Six of cult director Eddie Wozniak’s hot new cable show American Kaiju airs tonight!
In this episode the 60 ft tall Glenn Manning gets summoned from his Area 51 home to disprove reports that “he” has been marauding around Mexico. The Amazing Colossal Man crosses the border and soon encounters the real figure responsible for the reign of terror. Continue reading
Filed under Fantastic Movie Reviews
