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.
Apparently, the Old Gays were pretty famous on social media a few years back, but your Head Trucker was out of the loop - typical - and just came across some of their vids last week. The first one below was made in January 2019 and has had over 9 million (!) views on YouTube. Here are a few of their videos; I can relate to much of what they say.
Bonus: The group appeared on the Today program in November 2023, plugging their new book:
This was about the time I came out to my own mom, while I was in college. Mama was great, she was immediately supportive, but it took her a while to process it all. I brought her to a meeting of the gay rap group at school, where a lady who had started a chapter of PFLAG gave a talk, and that helped my mom a lot.
Times were changing, but in 1978 it was still quite a scary thing to come out to anyone. There were as yet no openly gay celebrities on TV or in public life, certainly not in the Deep South. Only Anita Bryant running her mouth about the "homosexual threat" . . .
Only recently has it come to your Head Trucker's attention that angel-voiced David Archuleta, age 32, came out sometime last year. (Why was I not informed?) Welcome, David. We all knew it would happen one day, even if you didn't.
And not only is David out, he's also a MAN now, and no longer a cherub-faced boy. Not my type exactly, but . . . I wouldn't kick him out of bed, either. I'm sure he's breaking all the hearts in his new hometown of Nashville.
In case you, like me, are out of the loop, here's an interview he did a couple months ago with fellow singer Jennifer Hudson, speaking very movingly about his coming-out experience - which of course is very similar to what all of us went through who grew up in ultra-conservative churches.
And here's his exuberant new single, "Faith in Me":
Good luck, David. I hope you find that blessed marriage you seek. Just take your time, enjoy your youth and freedom -- don't rush it.
The coming-out story of a young man who grew up in a Hutterite colony in Canada. Which is essentially the same story all of us had to go through: the conflict between the truths you were taught, and the truth you know within.
A mini-documentary from Australia about Ivan, a gay man going back to his roots in the homophobic small town of Tumut, New South Wales, shot in 2014. Ivan and his husband married in 2013 during a one-week period when same-sex marriage was legal in the Australian Capital Territory (like our District of Columbia) in 2013. The Australian Federal Parliament legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in December 2017.
The film may be set on the other side of the world, but it all seems very familiar, somehow.
Back in 2015, my truckbuddy Frank published Did You Ever See a Horse Go By, his memoir of growing up gay and coming out late; now he has released it on his blog as a free PDF file, newly revised and complete with color photographs.
The book is a vivid, poignant, sometimes funny, often brutally honest account of the fears, perplexities, and eventual triumphs of finding his way to adulthood as a gay youth in a straight world, before and after Stonewall - something we all had to go through in the 1960s and 1970s. Young gays today have no idea what a struggle it was. But Frank surmounted all the difficulties and went on to lead a productive, fulfilling life as a proud gay man.
I admire Frank's courage and diligence in setting down his detailed memories so plainly, exposing his inner life for all the world to see. I can't do it - I have the memories, and our experiences paralleled each other's, but it's still just too hard to write about, even after all these years. The scars have grown over, but they are still quite tender.
I heartily recommend Frank's book to all my other truckbuddies and readers. And I hasten to add, it does have a happy ending - very much so. Click on the link below to go straight to the PDF.
I can hardly believe it's August already. The year is speeding by, and the planet is speeding up - no wonder the world is going all to pieces. When M.P. made Sunday dinner this week, everything seemed to go wrong - the hamburger steaks were tough, the onion rings too crunchy, the biscuits didn't rise, and the cake fell. Now we know why.
If your nerves need steadying, here's a look at smooth and mellow Richard Chamberlain - yes, he's still alive and well, and living in Hawaii. I can't say I was a big fan of his as a kid - we watched Ben Casey at my house instead of Dr. Kildare (swarthy and hairy has always done it for me), but I loved his swashbuckling performances in the 1970s: The Three (or Four) Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask.
In this first video, Chamberlain talks about coming out at age 68:
I passed on his big miniseries hits like Centennial, Shogun, and The Thorn Birds - but here's a clip of Richard with a gorgeous beard talking up Shogun in 1980:
Admirers of the male form will enjoy this compilation of Richard's shirtless pics - turns out, he's actually quite hairy when you get right down to it:
And if you just can't get enough of Richard, you'll enjoy this wide-ranging interview, circa 2013:
I hadn't planned to run a series of gay documentaries on the Blue Truck, but I guess YouTube finally figured out that I am gay and is now pushing a lot of these in front of me. This one is an HBO documentary, first aired in May 1984: a very different time for gay people. Video quality is not great, but it's watchable, and still relevant to our experience in many ways.
By the way, the gay man in the screen shot below, identified only as Tom in this video, was Dr. Tom Waddell, founder of the Gay Games.
For the record: In 1984, President Reagan was starting his fourth year in office, the word condom had never been said on television, and the AIDS crisis was a growing menace, still largely occurring in the big, far-away cities. What we had heard about it down here was damn scary, but what caused it and what to do about it were still uncertain. There were no antiviral treatments, so the diagnosis was a death sentence. The term safe sex was not yet in common parlance. Rock Hudson's diagnosis was not made public until a year later, a few months before he died.
If you want to revisit the plague era, here's a compilation of gay-related clips from the NBC news archives spanning the whole decade. In some ways, it was a very different era; in others, not so much, maybe. We still have to deal with the haters and the homophobes, who nowadays are constantly inflamed by social media and fanatical "news" channels - but at least for now, the law is on our side. I sure hope it stays that way.
A moving, enlightening documentary by Emmy Award winner Kate Kunath, released in 2019. From the YouTube description:
The battle for LGBTQ rights hasn't only been fought on the streets of coastal cities; it has also taken place on the dirt roads, campuses, and in the homes of rural America. In this new short documentary‚ released 50 years after the Stonewall riots, which brought LGBTQ rights into the national consciousness‚ gay men living in central Tennessee, and their families, share stories of struggle and self-acceptance. We meet the retiree who spent his entire professional life in the closet, his devoted partner of 20 years, a pastor determined to overcome his own prejudices, and the pastor's gay son, newly in love and just starting to come into his own.
The location is Centerville, Tennessee, about 60 miles southwest of Nashville; Nashville is the home of Vanderbilt University, a large, prestigious private college.
BIG NEWS: You can't be fired for being gay or transgender, and the President has your back.
President Biden just issued an executive order protecting Americans against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity — a turning point in our fight for equality under the law. https://t.co/fSuxT8dF8w
On his first day in his new job, President Biden has signed an executive order directing all federal agencies and employees to enforce and comply with the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling last June that extended Title VII workplace protections to LGBT employees. Justice Neil Gorsuch - a Trump appointee - wrote the majority opinion, summarizing it thus:
In Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.
Hooray! The President and the Supreme Court have now extended the equal protection of the laws to gay people and trans people. Finally. But now is the time for the Congress to make it the law of the land in so many words; equal rights should not depend on the ruling of a court (which can later overrule itself) or on the stroke of a President's pen (which a later President can revoke). It's true, an Act of Congress can be repealed by a later Congress; but that would put a sort of triple lock on our equality, which is important. Perhaps we might even dream of a future day when equality is written into the Constitution - but for now we should look to the Democratic majority in Congress to seal it into law.
Nevertheless, thank you, Mr. President, for upholding justice for all Americans today. Proud of you!
A new Doritos commercial launched last month in Mexico - the dialogue is in Spanish with English subtitles. You'll like this, fellas - have a tissue handy.
Pro wrestling champion Pat Patterson has died at age 79. In 2012, he came out to his wrestling colleagues in this clip that was first broadcast a couple of years later:
I never heard of Pat until now, but God rest his soul. It just goes to show - we're everywhere.
It has only recently come to your Head Trucker's attention that country star Ty Herndon - who came out in 2014 - re-recorded his 1995 hit "What Mattered Most" for Pride 2019, but with changed pronouns.
It happens that Ty was one of my favorite singers back in the 90's, though this was not my favorite of his songs. Still, I sure do admire what he has done with it - haven't we all mentally transposed the pronouns in countless songs over the years? See what you think.
For you non-country fans, here's one of his hits that really shows off his smooth, sexy baritone:
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, shared in frank terms his very moving coming-out story in a speech at the LGBTQ Victory Fund in Washington, D.C., last Sunday, a story that your Head Trucker can relate to:
Your Head Trucker has not quite given up hope that the American ship of state will right itself instead of capsizing under the howling, shifting gales of fanaticism coming from both right and left; but he is very nearly there. The oh-so-pure, oh-so-righteous snowflake generation of young Democrats now coming to power in the party (the mirror image of their Trumpista equivalents in Bizarro world) makes me feel rather seasick, to tell you the truth.
It is, however, heartening to see an openly gay politician throwing his hat into the presidential ring for the first time ever in our history. But is he gay enough? And if not, just who is? Is it RuPaul or nothing? What bar must we clear now to be really and truly gay?
And will the new Kweer Kommissariat take away my pink card?
Frank Bruni has something to say about these matters in his New York Times column this week. Excerpt:
It’s nonnegotiable that Democrats hold their presidential aspirants to high standards on issues of racial justice, gender equality and more. It’s crucial that the party nominate someone who can credibly represent its proudly diverse ranks. But it’s also important that the party not demand a degree of purity that nobody attains.
I’m not recommending the Republicans’ course in accepting and protecting Donald Trump, which was to bury principles so deep that they may never be exhumed. I’m saying that to turn the Democratic primary into a nonstop apology tour when the nominee will be going up against a president never expected to apologize for anything is a risky strategy. It obsesses over the flaws in candidates who have many strengths, defining them in terms of what they seek forgiveness for. It blurs the line between job interview and inquisition. Taken too far, it rips contenders to shreds before Trump even takes out his scissors.
As for the mini-debate about Buttigieg’s gayness, it arose principally from this column in Slate, which included the following paragraph:
“A marginalized sexual orientation can remain unspoken and unnoticed for as long as a queer person desires. A gay man who conforms to a critical mass of gendered expectations can move through life without his sexuality attending every interaction, even after he comes out. Buttigieg, for instance, would register on only the most finely tuned gaydar. Most people who are aware of his candidacy probably know he’s gay, but his every appearance doesn’t activate the ‘Hey, that’s that homosexual gentleman’ response in the average brain. That doesn’t mean he’s not gay enough — there’s really no such measure. It just means that he might not be up against quite the same hurdles that a gay candidate without such sturdy ties to straight culture would be.”
The author is asserting that Buttigieg, 37, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., doesn’t come across as particularly gay, meaning . . . what? That he lacks stereotypical mannerisms? That his voice isn’t high-pitched? I’m kind of floored, because I and other gay people around my age (54) or older spent most of our lives educating people about the bigotry and inaccuracy of those very stereotypes and trumpeting the message — the truth! — that gay people can be every bit as buttoned-down and strait-laced as, well, Pete Buttigieg! Now his divergence from those stereotypes is deemed remarkable and in need of dissection? Strange days indeed.
Also, I guarantee you that Buttigieg’s adherence to “a critical mass of gendered expectations” and failure to “activate” the homosexual-alert siren don’t mean that being gay has been incidental to his life and is incidental to his perspective. That he didn’t come out until he was 33 is all the proof you need that he wrestled privately with his sexual orientation and with fears about how the world would respond to it and to him.
I like what little I have seen of Pete Buttigieg so far - his Oxford degree and Navy service are big plusses in my book. But I think he needs some experience in national politics before trying out for President; he's a big fish in a little pond right now, but that's just a starting point for any candidate.
And I will say this about good old Joe Biden - a great guy with a big heart and a fine political record, but simply too old. If by some twist of fate he did win the 2020 election, he would be 78 on election day, which would be worrisome for several very good reasons that should be obvious to anyone.
I thought it very curious during the election campaign of 2016 that both of the major contenders - and a couple of minor ones - were right at 70 years old. Why was that?
Why is there no Democratic figure of statesmanlike character between the ages of 40 and 70? I ask you.
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.
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