Sixty Years and Counting

It is gratifying to know that some few people, at least, get to live out the dream that many of us have had:



The New York Senate is expected to vote on a marriage equality bill today or tomorrow; the measure has already passed the Assembly.

Loving - and Loving

Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court case striking down all state laws against interracial marriage, was decided on June 12, 1967.  Attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies, representing the plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, have made this short video as a reminder of the fundamental right to marry.




And just to jog your memories a little further, thought I'd throw in this clip from October, 2008 - make of it what you will:

Penises Everywhere!

Anderson Cooper rocks.



But hey you guys, just to be on the safe side - stay out of Satan's Snack Shop.


Bonus video: Going from the ridiculist to the subprime, here's your bona fide update on American history.

The Neverdamnending Story

Sigh.  An excerpt from a very read-worthy essay at Daily Kos, check it out:

We as Americans often confuse technological progress with societal progress. Whether this is more pronounced in America than in other countries I have no idea, but it is difficult to sit in a state-of-the-art convention center and imagine a Roman-style collapse of the republic. We have HDTVs, damn it. We have iPhones. Surely we have advanced far beyond those past civilizations, yes? Surely we are better than any current country could be without those things? We have stealth bombers, you primitive bastards. That makes us better.

But people do not progress as fast as their tools, and societies do not even progress at the pace a single person might. Countries might have prodigious technology, and yet still harbor virulent racism. No matter what progress is made, we are still all subject to the self-inflicted effects of war. The environment itself still overwhelms our every invented protection, and easily, with a single tornado, flood, or earthquake, or volcano, or with a slight mutation to a random virus that has always been there, or with changes to the very climate of the planet. In the end we are the stuff of our biology, and harbor the same tribal suspicions and hatreds, the same greed and jealousies, and the same rough ambitions.

There is nothing that declares with (ahem) certitude that our society will always progress, and never regress. Or even collapse. There is no country that is immune to going batshit crazy, from time to time. We do it ourselves rather often: generationally, mostly. Each generation either repeats the same damn mistakes or, overcorrecting, repeats the mistakes from four or five cycles back. I expect we could mostly render history books as generic documents: During the year Y, an overwhelming fear of X assisted in Z's rise to power, after which all went to hell in a handbasket before the countering B movement succeeded in reversing the trend in year Y+N. Cut and paste, kids, cut and paste. All the rest can be done with footnotes.

Where was I? Oh, right. Progress. . . .

Waitin' for the Weekend

The late, great Jon King

Tired Old Queen at the Movies: Dinner at Eight

Steve Hayes reviews the campy, star-studded 1933 classic:

An all-star cast shows up at Lionel Barrymore and Billie Burke's penthouse for George Cukor's comic masterpiece, Dinner At Eight. On the guest list is an aging actress, Marie Dressler; a rich tycoon, Wallace Beery; his chorus-girl wife, Jean Harlow; and a faded movie star, John Barrymore, who's having an affair with their daughter, Madge Evans. Also in sterling support is fast-talking Lee Tracy as Barrymore's beleaguered agent, and Hilda Vaughn as Harlow's laconic maid who resembles a man in drag. Taken from the stage hit by the Algonquin Roundtable team of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, Dinner at Eight had the most star-studded cast since Grand Hotel the year earlier. Directed by a master, it's glamorous and witty; "They don't make 'em like that anymore!"

Groovy Guys: Rob Grill, The Grass Roots

Um, so this may or may not be the start of a new feature on the Blue Truck:  hot-looking dudes I remember from the days of my youth.  Implies nothing about their sexuality, of course.  But sure did something for mine.  Maybe some of you fellas will remember too.

Today's featured artist:  mustachioed Rob Grill, second from right in this line-up of The Grass Roots, circa 1970.



Rob peforming in 2004:

Waitin' for the Weekend

Oh fellas, the islands are callin' me big time . . . .

Now Boarding, Gate 56

 Today I feel like going down to the islands. Who wants to go with me?

WTF: Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman

Sigh. Now I know why my parents shook their heads at the crazy ideas of my generation. Some days it seems like the whole world is being super-sized . . . in reverse. Apparently the next thing to go is your mailbox, if this article from Canada is any portent:

End door-to-door mail delivery

. . . you didn't stop to make me feel better,
by leaving me a card or a letter . . . .

 

My Next Yacht

Just when you thought nothing could ever be as much fun again as rolling down the miles in a T-top Firebird . . . check out the Princess V62, which will do 37 knots per hour - that's over 40 fucking mph for you landlubbers.



Not too big to be vulgar, not too small to be cramped. Just right, as Goldilocks said.

Despite the gratuitous heterosexuality in the video, just imagine several young, hung, bronzed and oiled, nearly-naked studs lolling about on the sunbeds or mixing some ice-cold cocktails in the galley.

Sleeps 8. Any which way you want . . . . Grin.