Fascinating artifacts from the the Smithsonian Institution trace the stories of gay Americans, famous and obscure, from the 1800s till today in this 2024 documentary. It's fairly good, though as is so often the case with such broad summaries, it sometimes glamorizes and dramatizes a bit more than is necessary - but worth watching anyway.
We've come a long way, baby; I just hope I don't live to see the pendulum swing back the other way. But it can and does sometimes, as history has shown many times in many places.
It bugs me when people talk about being on "the right side of history" - that's a misnomer. What they really mean is the right side of the future; but the future is unknown and unknowable. It hasn't happened yet. And there are no guarantees in this universe.
All we can ever know for sure is this little stepping-stone of time we live on - the present. So make the best of it.
André Rieu conducts a very cool performance of this old favorite of your Head Trucker's at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, 2013. Sixty years ago, I used to play this on the piano.
One would have liked to go to a ball, a real ball, just once. Sigh. Alas, my fairy godmother never showed up! Which is just as well, I suppose - my big Texas feet would never have fit into any glass slipper.
We are sweltering through some mighty hot weather down here in Texas, boys - Tuesday it was 104 degrees, and the heat index was a whopping 119! The temperature inside the house was 85, even with the a/c system and all fans going full blast. We had a serviceman come out yesterday who cleaned and recharged the a/c, which helped; and also, the outdoor temp cooled off to a mere 98 degrees.
When we hear of silly-ass people in France or wherever agonizing over whether it is "ethical" to use air conditioning in extreme heat, we just laugh. The question here in the Lone Star State is: You want to live or die? It's that simple.
I hope all my truckbuddies are staying cool and comfortable. If you need something to take your mind off the weather, here's an amusing B movie from 1941 made by the Hal Roach studios - they also made the Our Gang comedies in the 1930s.
We like to watch old movies or TV shows during dinner at the kitchen bar; and it seems I have made a convert of M.P., who wasn't quite sure who Zasu Pitts was until I started playing some of her movies. Now he thinks she's swell. See what you think.
To help beat the summer heat, I think I will play some waltzes and other delightful things in the next month or so. The beloved "Blue Danube" is of course at the top of the list, and Strauss wrote many others. Here it is, as performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1961, with Eugene Ormandy conducting.
My mom used to pick up a record album from a thrift shop or discount store now and then, and though I never remember her playing any of them, they were exciting to discover as a lonely only child. And what little gay boy wouldn't be entranced by the lush music and the fairy-tale picture on the album?
I played and replayed it countless times over the years. When it had gotten rather scratchy in the mid-1970s, I searched the record stores until I found an 8-track version of the same, which I could play in my car while driving along the blue waters of the beautiful Gulf coast. Fond memories; I hope you fellas enjoy the inspiration of this masterpiece recording too.
From more than 60 years ago, I remember this fascinating photo of moving day in an American suburb that appeared in my World Book Encyclopedia, which my mom got me when I was 7. (The World Book was an education in itself - thanks, Mom!) I always did wonder how they got those all those big trucks in and out of that narrow street.
Now somebody has done the research to find out where this photo came from: it was taken in 1953 for an article in Life magazine about the booming Lakewood suburb of Los Angeles. The researcher uses Google Maps and his own video to show what the neighborhood looks like now. A fine job of sleuthing.
May 1st was moving day up north; I never heard of such a thing down south. This article from the Brooklyn Public Library gives the legal and historical background of the event, with some humorous period pieccs about the hustle and bustle. See also this Wikipedia article.
A compilation of news reports on the burgeoning "homosexual community" in San Francisco, in the freewheeling carnival days before Harvey Milk, before the riots, before AIDS and all that. I was still in the closet, and though I knew I was gay I didn't feel any kinship with the screaming queens out there. The two quiet, polite, monogamous guys interviewed in the first clip here were more my speed, and still are. But San Francisco was in the vanguard of the gay rights movement, which has benefited us all from coast to coast.
BTW, David Goodstein, who appears in the first clip, was owner and publisher of The Advocate, which I later subscribed to for several years.
I've thought and thought, but I just can't come up with anything to say or show to mark our national day.
I love my country, and there are still good people in it - but when I look beyond our little home and neighborhood, what I see is a nightmare version of America, a Bizarro world turned upside down, inside out. Not the country I grew up in.
Instead of a republic, we live now in a corrupt and corrupting dictatorship centered on the worship of a conceited egomaniac without a conscience, supported and sustained by supine legislators and venal judges. He is the complete antithesis of everything an American president should be, a monumental disgrace to the office held by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and so many other honest, honorable, decent men.
The dictatorship is not yet total, but his lickspittle lackeys, verminous henchmen, and deluded supporters are straining every nerve to make it so. If they succeed, we shall have, not the blessings of liberty, but the scourging of a theocratic and plutocratic autocracy. Which is just what the Founding Fathers feared and tried to prevent.
The truth is, both the right and the left have gone far wrong, and no matter how the politics turn out, the old order of thing in this country and abroad has been shattered to pieces and will never return. The clock never runs backward.
This old man has outlived his time. Things may get better eventually, or they may get worse - either way, there's nothing I can do to affect the course of events. With the infirmities of advancing age, it's all we can do here just to keep ourselves and our little home in working order.
I could say many other things about politics and society, history and morality, but that's all I can manage for now - except a prayer: God bless America and God help us all.
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I don't feel like singing today, but here is the late, great Kate Smith with the song she made famous when my dad was in England serving with the U. S. Air Force, and my mom was working in a defense plant here in Texas, turning out artillery shells:
Bonus, 5 p.m.: Former President Bill Clinton has issued an encouraging statement on America 250 and the state of the country. Excerpt:
Our Founders were wise when they gave us our mission to form a more perfect union. They knew America would never be perfect but could always be better. That’s what they meant by “more perfect.” We’ve done that by being courageous enough to acknowledge our flaws and missteps—and then bold enough to leave them behind for brighter tomorrows.
That’s the lesson of our first 250 years: we can always do better. In how we treat one another, in person and online; in building a better future for ourselves, our families, and our communities; and in standing up, showing up, and speaking out for our democracy.
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.
