My 5000th Post - Happy Pride!

Do you know that June 26 is a momentous day in gay rights history?  On this date in 2003, 2013, and 2015, the United States Supreme Court made three major rulings that firmly established our right to love whom we love, serve in the military, and get married.  Look those up here.

And today the Blue Truck has passed a big milestone - 5000 posts, over 9000 comments, nearly 4 million pageviews, according to my Blogger dashboard:

Click to enlarge.

So instead of the usual Friday men, here's a rerun of me and M.P. back in June of 2010, cooling off and splashing around at Chickasaw National Recreation Area, a beautiful big green park up in Oklahoma.

Now much less adventurous in our 70s, we're content just to stay home, out of the sun and under the a/c.  We well recall a time when "homosexual" was a dirty word, a mortal sin, a major crime, and a psychotic disorder, and are very grateful that we have lived to see gay couples living together openly and happily just as all other ordinary people do.

Hope all my truckbuddies are having a great weekend wherever you are.  Life is fleeting - enjoy what you can while you can. 

-----

Southern Pride Chicken

We didn't think to take a picture, but it looked like this,
with an even coating of golden brown crust.
Photo by David Reber from Paschal's restaurant in Atlanta via Wikipedia.

If you're wondering what to make for Sunday dinner this coming weekend, why not treat yourself to some honest-to-God Southern fried chicken?  I learned how to cook it from my grandmother, and made it a couple of weekends ago for M.P., who raved over it.  I was proud of my chicken, M.P. was proud of me, and it's Pride Month - hence the name.  It's a simple thing, but as all us Southern boys know, the best thing in the world!  Mmm-mm.  I tell you what!

So here is the recipe as my dear Grandma made it (minus the tenderizer and hot sauce) nearly every Sunday when I was growing up.  Read everything before doing anything.  Enjoy!

SOUTHERN  PRIDE  CHICKEN

by Russ Manley, June 2026

Ingredients:

4 leg quarters, disjointed

(= 4 thighs and 4 drumsticks)

1½  to 2 cups flour

salt and pepper

celery salt

Adolph’s meat tenderizer

Louisiana Hot Sauce™ or cayenne (optional)

2 eggs, beaten to a froth

1½ to 2 cups canola oil

¾ cup milk (for gravy)

Allow 2 or 3 pieces per serving, depending on age and appetite.

Prep time, about half an hour.  Rest time for chicken, 1-2 hours.  Cooking time, about an hour.

Directions continue after the jump:

As Boys Grow (1957)

Sixty years ago, I saw this film, or one very like it, in my high-school P. E. class.  Quite well-made for the time.  There was much nervous laughter in the room: the shock of recognition.

Since puberty had already begun for me the previous summer, this was a timely message.  But even more helpful was the book Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy, one of Dr. Kinsey's associates.  It told me everything I needed to know and more, simply and clearly, without moralizing.  A great help to a gay boy just beginning the long, often painful journey of self-discovery in an uncomprehending world.

-----

Sunday Drive: Barber, Adagio for Strings

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  --I John 1:5

One of your Head Trucker's all-time favorites, which speaks to me of spiritual things.  I would like to have this piece played at my funeral one day.  It is performed here by the Vienna Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel conducting, in the gardens of the Schönbrunn Palace on June 20, 2019.

The Adagio was written by American composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981) in 1936; thirty years later, he used the music for his choral arrangement of the Angus Dei.  He was partnered with the composer Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007) for more than forty years.

-----

Waitin' for the Weekend

"Falling Slowly" by Vintage Photomontage. Summer's here - time to strip down and get wet!

-----

Why Young Men Sound Less Manly

Your Head Trucker has noticed in the last several years that many girls and young women have developed the irritating habit of ending every sentence on a higher note - as we normally do when asking a question.  For example:  I live in Boston?  I am majoring in biology?  I want to work in hydroponics?  This is a childish habit born of insecurity, it seems to me:  as if the speaker is asking permission to say something, or unsure if she is saying the right thing.  A careless, highly annoying habit they should have gotten over by third grade.

Recently, I've noticed boys and young men - straight guys - adopting this same rising tone at the enf of their sentences, which is different from the "gay voice" that some gay boys and gay men have.  We know it came from unconsciously imitating the cadence of our mother's voices, and other female relatives; some of us grew out of that, while some embrace it.  To each his own.

Whatever the case may be, grown men and women should speak clearly and confidently, not like shy little kids; that's just my opinion - you can take it or leave it.  But here is Dr. Taylor Jones, a linguist who explains what the research shows about this "unmanly" speech phenomenon.  I don't have the experise in that field either to agree or disagree with him.  See what you think.

-----

Sixteen Going on Seventeen

I'd always wanted to see this delightful scene from The Sound of Music played by a couple of gay men - and whaddaya know, somebody else finally had the same thought.  Here are Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Jay Armstrong Johnson flawlessly performing the scene at the Broadway Backwards benefit in 2017.  Both were about 30 at the time.  Johnson, the taller one, is a Texas native and rather studly, too.  Enjoy.

For comparison, here's the lovely 1965 original, played by Charmian Carr and Daniel Truhitte:

What I Say:  The lyrics don't quite work between two boys, though it's all in good fun.  But I dare say, they wouldn't work between a boy and a girl either, in this modern age.  For a couple of generations now, girls have been raised to be as tough and indpendent as boys.  How well that has succeeded, others may judge.

-----

God Is Good

Today I just want to share an excerpt from a poem I happened to come across that speaks to me in the midst of this foolish, frantic, fractured, frightful modern world, so cruel and so cynical.

Excerpt from "God Is Good" from Bees in Amber by John Oxenham, 1913.

God has been good to me and M.P. here in our little bungalow, and I am deeply grateful.  Gratitude is one of the secrets of happiness.

-----

Sunday Drive: Begin the Beguine

 One of my all-time favorite tunes, from MGM's Broadway Melody of 1940.  Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell were the top dancers of the time, and it shows.  Consider this:  there is no animation or special effects in this film.  All the music was performed by human beings on real instruments, and all the dancing was done by human beings who rehearsed and rehearsed for weeks on end until every step, every move was perfect. 

Computers hadn't been invented yet - hell, even transistors hadn't been invented.  There was no videotape. either - all that you see was created by light and sound on 35 millimeter film, which had to be bathed in chemicals before it could be projected and viewed.  A great collective work of artists in many fields, in front of and behind the camera.  Human creativity at its peak.  I'm afraid we will never see such a thing again. 

Part 1 is slow and languid as a tropical night:

Part 2 picks up the pace:

-----

Trooping the Colour, 2026

The King's Birthday Parade, also known as Trooping the Colour, live from London on what the news commentator says is "a perfect summer day" there - temperature 68 F:

Bonus, 4 p.m.:  It's 93 degrees here Texas on a beautiful sunny afternoon.  English historian Allan Barton, who styles himself The Antiquary, gives an in-depth explanation of the Trooping and its history, if you can stand it:

-----

Waitin' for the Weekend

"Born in Brazil," a male-nude drawing demonstration by artist Douglas Simonson:

-----

Sandow the Magnificent

Life-size bronze statue of Sandow, taken from plaster casts of his body in 1901.  Better views of the statue can be seen here.

An excellent documentary about the Father of Modern Bodybuilding, whose physique and feats of strength awed the Victorian world:

 

In other places, I have read that he had a longtime male partner the public did not know about, but you'll have to look that up on your own.  It's my nap time here.

-----

Sunday Drive: Baby Blue

This song recalls for me another springtime and the bittersweet memory of my first love, more than half a century ago. I've written about Pat before, if you care to read the story - that chaste and secret love we shared came to a sad ending, but I've never forgotten the sunshine days of fun and friendship - that special cameraderie of boys becoming men together.

Other loves and other disappointments followed; but at this late age, living contentedly with M.P., I realize how blessed I was to have those friendships and passing joys. How true the saying is - better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Yesterday, I happened to come across this recording by the Mike Faraci Band, a local NYC group, which is an amzingly good cover of the 1972 Badfinger original.  Huh.  How do those young'uns even know about such antique music, I wonder.

By the way, Mike is a man of parts: lead singer, guitarist, composer, artist, interior designer, and is highly skilled at carpentry and other DIY projects.  Rather studly, too.  Check out this tour of his New York City apartment - his aesthetic is not mine, but I can appreciate what he's done with colors, textures, and light:

-----

Waitin' for the Weekend

Hooray! June has returned with beach weather and fun in the sun.  Here's "He and Him" by Vintage Photomontage:

-----

Why Pride Month?

This was my "coming out music" - reminds me of happy times, hot summer nights, and one very hot guy in particular.  Much fun.

Today's Google doodle celebrates the beginning of "Pride Month" with a spinning disco ball:

I got to wondering, just when did this Pride Month business start, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.  To my surprise, I find that Bill Clinton first recognized Pride Month in 1999.  I must have missed the memo.

I've never changed my belief that gays and lesbians make up about 3 percent of the population; that's 3 out of 100.  You can look at the whole field of statistics on this subject and debate it all you want to, but I'm not going there.  So by very simple arithmetic, that tells me there are about 10 million gays and lesbians in the United States, the population of which is 342,543,550 as I type this sentence.  

(See the  U. S. Census Bureau's Population Clock for up-to-the-second figures on the U. S. and world population.  See Statistics Canada for Canadian figures.  And here's a cheat sheet for you:  roughly speaking, the U.S. population is about 8 times bigger than Canada's, and about 3 times bigger than Mexico's or Russia's.  However, both India and China have about 4 times more people than the United States.)

Well, anyway, is a whole month of Pride really necessary?  It matters not to me, because I'm an old man who doesn't get out of the house much anymore.  I've never been to a Pride parade.  M.P. and I did go to a Pride celebration at the county fairgrounds on a June night in 2019 - we got there in the cool of the evening about 9 p.m., when it was all winding down.  

We nibbled things from the food trucks, listened to a few speakers and singers, and bought some trinkets to take home:  a friendly, pleasant, down-home crowd of all ages, very like what you'd find at a real county fair - plus a lot of rainbow flags.  There were even some straight couples there, pushing babies in strollers - why, I have no idea.  The next year, it was cancelled on account of the pandemic, and we've never heard any more about it in this vicinity.

But I guess there has to be a Pride Month, because you just know that 10 million screaming queens could never agree on a single week, let alone a single day!

P. S. -- M.P. is offended by the disco ball.  He says it only represents the little twinkly barflies, and leaves out the butch gays and the lesbians.  I guess he's right.  We are thinking of suing Google now, and we will certainly file a discrimination complaint with the Grand Gay Cabal.  Stay tuned for further updates.

-----