Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth interview with Lee Tannen about his friendship with Lucille Ball:
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I just want a reality check here: is everybody in the world turning gay? Or has the YouTube algorithm finally got my number? I'm like, WTF man? Lately, it's been throwing lots of homo-centric videos my way, so I figure I should share them with my truckbuddies.
Intervewer Harvey Brownstone is a most unusual person. After 25 years as a family court judge in Toronto, he retired and has made a second career for himself as a celebrity interviewer. And most of the people he interviews are people I would like to hear from. Gay minds think alike, I guess. There's lots more interviews and commentary to be found on his blog.
This 2000 documentary about America's favorite redhead was produced by WNET for the PBS American Masters series, and won an Emmy Award. I discovered it only the other day, and highly recommend it to all you Lucy fans out there.
Of course I love Lucy - who doesn't? I'm not obsessed with her as some people are - I once knew a fellow who had a whole room of his house devoted to Lucy memorabilia. (I knew another fellow who turned his whole house into a Wizard of Oz wonderland. It's a gay thing.) But even after 70 years of reruns - the first I Love Lucy episode was broadcast on October 15, 1951 - I still laugh out loud at all of Lucy's comic turns and jibes, even though I know the routines by heart. Few other comedians are still quite so funny after so many years have gone by. A welcome antidote to the all-pervading sour-pussism of the deadly serious modern world.
So I note here a couple of new productions that extend our interest in Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (without whom there would be no "Lucy") even further. The first is a podcast on Turner Classic Movies by Ben Mankiewicz, successor to longtime TCM host Robert Osborne. There have been nine weekly pocasts already and at least one more is yet to come. You can listen to them for free on TCM, or on YouTube, as of the date of this post. These are fascinating because TCM has scrounged up numerous never-before-heard sound clips of Lucille, as well as family, friends, and co-workers, talking about her life and career from childhood to old age.
And on December 21st comes the debut of Being the Ricardos, an Amazon Prime production starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. I am always a bit wary of such latter-day reinterpretations, but I will reserve judgment until I've seen it. Here is the trailer, and a backstage interview with the principal players broadcast a few days ago on CBS Sunday Morning. Enjoy.
Beloved movie star Van Johnson died Friday in New York at the age of 92. Millions of moviegoers will remember his likeable all-American personality from a career that spanned six decades. Although he played a lot of dramatic roles, as pictured in the screen shot above from The Last Time I Saw Paris, he was also a superb singer and dancer. The clip below is from one of my favorite I Love Lucy episodes; in real life Lucille Ball and Van Johnson were old friends, having known each other on Broadway before they made it big in Hollywood.
A side observation: I always wondered if he might be gay. (I once briefly dated a former actor who looked a lot like Johnson.) It appears that he was, though like Rock Hudson, a convenient marriage was arranged for him by studio brass anxious to preserve the heterosexual image of one of their big-box-office stars. Pity.
Well, let's remember this greatly talented guy at the height of his fame. Here he is with Lucy, who was no slouch at dancing herself, from the episode "The Dancing Star," 1955:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
and welcome to the Blue Truck, a blog for mature gay men with news and views on gay rights, history, art, humor, and whatever comes to mind. Plus a few hot men. The truck's all washed and gassed up, so hop in buddy, let's go.
CAUTION: For mature gay men only beyond this point. Some posts and links may not be suitable for children or the unco guid. You have been warned.
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My Story
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Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.
