I can just remember standing in front of the big black-and-white TV set, rapturously watching Miss Patti Page, the Singin' Rage, perform. I guess she was my first diva. Here she very sweetly sings a number from the Broadway musical The Fantasticks in a beautifully edited video, very appropriate for the beginning of autumn. Though of course down here, the leaves won't be turning color for another couple of months, if they ever do.
PS -- What's a fantastick? Does that rhyme with hockey stick? Must be a Yankee thing.
A bouncy 1956 hit for British singer Eve Boswell, based on a South African tune:
Food note: last night, M.P., recovering from an arduous work week, made us a simple dinner of Chicken Fried Chicken - i.e., chicken breasts hammered flat, soaked in buttermilk, rolled in salted, peppered flour, and lightly sauteed to a golden brown - along with luscious cream gravy, and a mix of chopped turnips and collards cooked in a roux with cornbread dumplings on top. Mmmm-mmm! Scrumptious, I declare.
A few weeks ago, amidst a discussion of what I call Southern Standard English, my dear old British chum Tim roused himself from the languors of life on the Costa del Sol to contradict your Head Trucker on a point of English usage: to wit, whether the verb to reckon, in the sense of "suppose," is or is not still in everyday use by the inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
I was, I need hardly tell you fellas, much distressed at having gotten this wrong, according to Tim, a native speaker and stalwart Man of Kent who ought to know about such things. I have at one time or another taken some pains to inform myself about all manner of niceties of the Queen's English, and I could scarcely believe I had been so self-deluded.
But I was not, and I have the incontrovertible proof in hand: if you have half a minute to spare, boys, kindly direct your attention to the following marks in these episodes of the endlessly fascinating BBC art-investigation series Fake or Fortune? - one of the regulars of which is the eminent art historian Bendor Grosvenor (B.A., Camb.; Ph.D., E. Ang.) - a scion of the Dukes of Westminster, as anyone could guess by his heraldic name alone - whom I reckon no one could accuse of having an incorrect, or even an inelegant vocabulary.
Please listen for just a moment to him saying "I reckon" at about the 5:15 mark of this 2014 episode on a work by Gainsborough, and again at 5:30:
And likewise at about the 25:15 mark of this 2012 episode on a work by Van Dyck.
Presenter Fiona Bruce says it at about 2:00 in this episode on a work by Winslow Homer:
And ceramics expert David Battle uses the verb in the interrogative at about 3:45 in this clip from Antiques Roadshow:
Your Head Trucker has always been something of an antiquarian, but since arriving on the shady side of 60, he feels more and more the impelling current of Time, carrying us onward as leaves on a river: the irresistible, inescapable force moving men and civilizations from birth to maturity to death, driving us relentlessly from age to age and change to change, whether we would or not.
And in our great technological civilization, yesterday's marvels are always becoming today's mere commonplaces, and all the clamorous thoughts and passions of one age become as silent and insignificant as the dust on a tomb in the next. It is useful now and again to ponder these things, I believe, and in the midst of all our busyness to be reminded that all we go down to the dust; therefore, we would be wise to use the fleeting time we have to good purpose, with humility and humanity.
Here are some voices, long since fallen silent, recorded for the ages by Movietone News when sound motion pictures were the Big New Thing. I find it fascinating to watch and listen to these folks, who were born in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, when railroads and telegraphy were new and rare, and lived into the age of airplanes and radio. Instead of the stiff, stern stares we so often see in Victorian portraits, notice how very human, and even humorous, these folks seem - as indeed they were, just as much as we. There is a lesson there for those who want to learn it.
A century from now, what will the supra-modern children of the 22nd century think and say about our long-forgotten images, dug up by some digital archeologists, perhaps?
N. B. -- Rebecca Latimer Felton, seen from about 8:30 to 11:00, was born in 1835 in Georgia and had quite a remarkable life: among other notable doings, she was a college graduate, temperance leader, suffragist, and U. S. Senator for one day. Her Wikipedia article provides dates and details of her life that you may find intriguing - or appalling. Yet she was admired by many.
Today is the tenth anniversary of my little blog, strange to say. Where does the time go? I started it on a whim, and have continued it ever since on the same principle. Consequently, it has never amounted to much - a poor thing, Sir, but mine own - nevertheless, it has been for the most part a happy little hobby, an agreeable routine to pass the time with amid the changing seasons of life.
Your Head Trucker doesn't amount to much, either - just an old dog lying on the porch, watching the mad world go by. If any of my 3,690 posts has uplifted my truckbuddies, shown you something you didn't know, or raised a smile on your face sometime or other - then my small efforts have not been entirely in vain.
To mark the occasion, I am serving up once again one of my favorite slices of literature for your diversion: an excerpt from E. M. Forster's collection of essays, Two Cheers for Democracy (1951), which I posted ten years ago today. The waiters will be handing out glasses of champagne while you read - no tipping and no pinching! Enjoy.
I believe in aristocracy. . . — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.
I give no examples — it is risky to do that — but the reader may as well consider whether this is the type of person he would like to meet and to be, and whether (going further with me) he would prefer that this type should not be an ascetic one. I am against asceticism myself. I am with the old Scotsman who wanted less chastity and more delicacy. I do not feel that my aristocrats are a real aristocracy if they thwart their bodies, since bodies are the instruments through which we register and enjoy the world. Still, I do not insist. This is not a major point. It is clearly possible to be sensitive, considerate and plucky and yet be an ascetic too, and if anyone possesses the first three qualities I will let him in!
On they go — an invincible army, yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People — all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority, seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart’s affections, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.
Grateful thanks to all my truckbuddies for riding along with me in the Blue Truck.
Labor Day weekend has arrived to mark the end of the summer season in the US of A, and so we come to the end of our beach party here at the Blue Truck. I hope you all have enjoyed listening to my faves from the mid-sixties; there are of course many more great songs from that period that I haven't posted, but I've tried for the most part to feature those that have a good beat that you can dance to, as a good DJ should.
It took a bit of work, but it was a real treat for me to track down all these videos - live performances whenever I could find them in good, or at least bearable, quality. And truth to tell, in many cases it's the first time your Head Trucker has ever seen these singers and bands perform - or even just seen what they looked like. Today's children would be shocked and amazed, no doubt, to learn that once upon a time, still within living memory, one might go for years on end enjoying certain songs, but having no idea what the singers looked like. And somehow it just wasn't all that important to see the singers - the music, the sound, was the important thing, and that was enough.
I miss transistor radios. Hell, I miss radio - simple and free, radiating from out the aether to everyone, everywhere, endlessly emanating delightful sounds - a constant comfort and joy.
But I digress. We begin our final Beach Mix by dimming the lights for the sweetheart dance - which goes out to my truckbuddy Frank, because he is one (and that's all you need to know, ragazzi).
And this perfect updating of the Cole Porter classic is an oldie but such an elegant goodie - like my dear old chum Tim, living the beach life year-round on the Costa del Sol, the lucky blighter.
To end the summer with a bonus: Your choice of any stud in the Blue Truck catalog - free! - goes to the reader who can name all the TV shows featured in this brilliantly edited little video. Have fun, y'all.
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.
