Trooping the Color, 2026

The King's Birthday Parade, also known as Trooping the Colour, live from London on what the news commentator says is "a perfect summer day" there - temperature 68 F:

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Born in Brazil," a male nude drawing demonstration by artist Douglas Simonson:

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Sandow the Magnificent

Life-size bronze statue of Sandow, taken from plaster casts of his body in 1901.  Better views of the statue can be seen here.

An excellent documentary about the Father of Modern Bodybuilding, whose physique and feats of strength awed the Victorian world:

 

In other places, I have read that he had a longtime male partner the public did not know about, but you'll have to look that up on your own.  It's my nap time here.

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Sunday Drive: Baby Blue

This song recalls for me another springtime and the bittersweet memory of my first love, more than half a century ago. I've written about Pat before, if you care to read the story - that chaste and secret love we shared came to a sad ending, but I've never forgotten the sunshine days of fun and friendship - that special cameraderie of boys becoming men together.

Other loves and other disappointments followed; but at this late age, living contentedly with M.P., I realize how blessed I was to have those friendships and passing joys. How true the saying is - better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Yesterday, I happened to come across this recording by the Mike Faraci Band, a local NYC group, which is an amzingly good cover of the 1972 Badfinger original.  Huh.  How do those young'uns even know about such antique music, I wonder.

By the way, Mike is a man of parts: lead singer, guitarist, composer, artist, interior designer, and is highly skilled at carpentry and other DIY projects.  Rather studly, too.  Check out this tour of his New York City apartment - his aesthetic is not mine, but I can appreciate what he's done with colors, textures, and light:

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Waitin' for the Weekend

Hooray! June has returned with beach weather and fun in the sun.  Here's "He and Him" by Vintage Photomontage:

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Why Pride Month?

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.

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Sunday Drive: Chopin, Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2

Gleaming Waters by Henry Scott Tuke, 1911

As performed by Vadim Chaimovich, 2010:

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"The Love We Are" by Clint Collide:

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I Think We're Gay

Apparently this is from some TV show in 2003.  I never saw this before, but it's a laugh riot!

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Footprints in the Sand

I came across this little story about forty years ago, when I was returning to the Christian faith after a long period of agosticism.  It meant a lot to me then.  It means even more now, looking back across the years.  

There are things you can't really understand until you have lived a long life, travelled a long way, loved much and lost much.  And then you see the footprints.  Thanks be to God.

Click to enlarge.

And in the wilderness (as thou hast seen) the Lord thy God hath carried thee, as a man is wont to carry his little son, all the way that you have come, until you came to this place.

--Deuteronomy 1:31 (Douay)

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Sunday Drive: Over the Rainbow

It was Judy's song until Eva gave it a whole new interpretation - poignant and beautiful beyond words.

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