Happened to come across this amazing clip from the 1936 Australian film (they made movies in Australia? who knew), Rangle River. And it's w-a-y g-a-y for the thirties, y'all. Check it out:
Victor Jory (at right), btw, played overseer Jonas Wilkerson in Gone With the Wind - you remember, the guy who after the war came rolling up to the front door of Tara with that white-trash Emmie Slattery, wanting to buy the place. And Scarlett threw a clod of Georgia red clay in his face.
I heard this some years ago on the classical station late one Sunday night - when they play the really unfashionable music - and at once fell in love with it. By English composer Albert Ketelby, 1921:
Are you really as butch as you look, or just a big ol' queen? Before you answer that, stud, take this 1948 personality test from Look magazine, from Copyranter via Joe.My.God.:
Click to enlarge.
I scored 10, with two split scores - what about you?
A few years ago I came across the site of the Vindolanda Tablets, a huge cache of what we might call postcards written by Roman soldiers and their families who were stationed along Hadrian's Wall in the north of England. And it's an absolutely fascinating story, this astonishing find of all sorts of everyday communications between Roman citizens in the heyday of the Empire, at a remote outpost on the far frontier.
Party invite from Claudia Severa to her sister, Lepidina
And yet, as humans always manage somehow to do, they made the most of it. Here's a link to one of the most charming messages, a note from one officer's wife to her sister, saying in effect, "Do come to my birthday party, it'll be fun." These are everyday messages, not formal inscriptions or ponderous manuscripts, but scratched out with pen and ink on little thin slips of wood: nothing meant to be saved for the ages, although by great good luck, they were.
On that same site is a little crib sheet to help you decipher the Roman cursive handwriting - one of their least successful inventions, I might add - and I have to tell you, fellas, it was a real hair-on-end moment when, poring over the letter with the help of the crib and my long-ago high-school Latin, I suddenly realized I was able to actually read it - and in that moment, the veil of antiquity fell away and it seemed the lady herself was right in the room with me, no distance between us. Sperabo te soror: "I'll be looking for you, sis."
If your Latin is even rustier than mine and you can't make heads or tails of the letters, here's a very cool BBC video that gives you the whole picture of where and why the wall was built, and who lived there and how they lived - which was pretty comfortably for the times, with running water, central heating, designer shoes, and everything. Enjoy.
I've never heard of columnist Tommy Christopher before now, but here's an amusing piece by this presumably straight dude I just came across while surfing from hither to yon:
I used to be a bigot, by that definition, on this very issue. When I first heard about the idea of gay marriage, in the early 90s, it just sounded absurd to me, like jumbo shrimp, or compassionate conservative. I thought it was a capricious demand, something gay people wanted just to have, like a paraplegic demanding a bicycle just because someone else has one. What possible use could they have for it? I just did not get it.
At that time, I said all the stupid things people like that say, like “Well, they can get married, just not to each other, and I can’t marry a dude any more than they can. Boom. We’re equal.”
The first step in my “evolution,” as the President calls it, was to realize that it didn’t matter if I got it. They’re either equal human beings or not, endowed with the same rights, or not, whether I understand or approve of them or not.
Eventually, I came to understand that, duh, gay people want to get married for the same reasons anybody does; because they love each other, they want to raise children together, they want to spend the rest of their lives together and/or bitterly divorce after ruining each other’s lives. My personal view on marriage has evolved, too. Now, I’d advise anyone to run the other way, but I wouldn’t try to make a law against it. If you must get married, just make sure you have an open bar and a decent beef dish at the reception. And I’d like to be able to do some karaoke, if that’s possible.
To be clear, I don’t think a personal view of marriage as between a man and a woman is necessarily bigoted; if you don’t ever want to marry someone of your own gender, you should never have to, and you will always think of marriage that way. Lots of religions strongly prefer that you marry within your faith. That’s fine, as long as you don’t try to make a law about it. If you think same sex relations are yucky, that’s cool; lots of them think we’re gross, too. Just think of it all as a big Doritos factory: it’s nacho business.
Came across this today, which I wish I could have posted for Mother's Day: an interview with Zach Wahls, who last year at age 19 made a poised and ringing defense of same-sex marriage before of committee of the Iowa House of Representatives.
Below, his speech in full:
Zach's book, My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength and What Makes a Family, is now available at Amazon and other booksellers. He also has a website, if you want to learn more about this remarkable young man and his family.
Perhaps today it's appropriate to give a little shout out to all the gay parents who are doing such a great job raising kids - many of whom would never have had father or mother otherwise. A quick peek at one amazing family in Arizona:
Read more about how this family grew - and grew - and grew - in this article from their hometown newspaper: 2 Gay Dads, 12 Happy Kids.
I can still remember when I was a wee lad my mother singing her favorite old forties songs to me as lullabies. This one was a particular favorite - so this is for you, Mom:
Yup, it's all the fault of dear old Mom and Dad for not teaching you how to behave. So says Tony Perkins, who gets promptly bitch-slapped by Chris Matthews - and Barney Frank rips him a new one. You'll love this, guys:
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.
