Homosexuals in Dallas, 1984

From the SMU Jones Film & Video Collection, a report by KERA, the local PBS station, on some lesbians and gay men living more or less openly in the Dallas area in 1984, and the antigay officials at Southern Methodist University who had a problem with that.  It may be hard for youngsters to realize how very different the world was back then, but just the fact of seeing real, live homos on TV was still shocking to many straight people.  

(Just so you know, SMU is a very prestigious school, often considered part of the unofficial Southern Ivy League.  It's located in the top-drawer Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas, and is home to the George W. Bush Presidential Library.)

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Disussion Question:   A commenter on this video says, "You’ve gone from, 'We’re just two people that love each other and want to be accepted' to indoctrinating kids in school with drag queen story hour." 

Frankly, I see a great big difference between responsible adults and impressionable little children. I'm not on board with the drag queen story hour idea. I say there's something very insidious about that. But I'm an old man with no power to control anybody, not even M.P. -- oh, certainly not M.P! 

What do you say?

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The "How Hard Can It Be?" Gene

It is an enduring truth of human life that few things are as satisfying as watching other people hard at work whilst you sit comfortably at a distance, sipping your favorite brew.  

We enjoyed watching this play-by-play video the other night over dinner.  A young, unemployed civil engineer did a brilliant job from top to bottom over a four-year period.  It's a great way to take your mind off the state of the world for an hour, not to mention your own troubles. I suggest, however, that you lower the playback speed to about 80 percent if you want to keep up with Speedy Andy.

BTW, here at Blue Truck HQ, the plumbers are supposed to come today to fix our runaway toilet.  Somehow, the fasteners on one side of the base have disappeared.  You haven't really lived until you've taken a ride on a rock 'n' roll toilet!  I tell you what.

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Sunday Drive: Ravel, Boléro

This well-known piece was written in 1928 by French composer Maurice Ravel.  M.P. - who had some vocal training in his youth and loves operatic tunes - sent it to me the other day, and though I had heard the melody many times, I guess I'd never heard the entire work played all the way through.  I was astonished to realize it is just the same intro repeated over and over again, never leading to anything else.  WTF??

Frankly, I thought it was absurd.  Come to find out - Ravel himself agrees with me!  He planned it that way.  Oh well, you know how those highbrow composers are . . . .

Here it is, from the BBC Proms in 2014, under the baton of Daniel Barenboim:

FYI:  Boléro would seem to have been an inspiration for the popular tune "Andalucía," aka "The Breeze and I," written by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, which was a big hit for Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra in 1940, featuring a vocal by Bob Eberly:

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Waitin' for the Weekend: World's Best Nude Gay Beaches

Your Head Trucker shows off his treasure trail on a Florida beach, 35 years ago.  
My summer lover and I spent nearly every weekend at one beach or another.
We got quite brown and had a lot of fun while it lasted.  A happy memory.

Something different for this Labor Day weekend:  Experienced travelers Andy and Trai take us on a tour of their favorite nude gay beaches here, there, and yonder.  I hope all my truckbuddies have fun in the sun with the one they love, wherever you are.

And if you can't be with the one you love -- love the one you're with. There are only so many summers, babe.

Update 9/5/26:  Wow, this post has gotten a shipload of views.  Overnight, the count went from 725 to 9530 14,828, and more all the time.  At first I thought - Damn, I was hotter than I thought.  Aw, but then I remembered the f*kn video.

Oh well.  If it's the vid you like, Andy and Trai have lots more to see on YT.  On the other hand, if it's the pic of me in my glory days (?) you like, just stuff a bill or two in my Speedo.  *Grin*

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The World Our Parents Made

"You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

If you can put your modern-day complaints aside for a moment, here's a look at the glory days of the postwar era, when American civilization was at its height, a benign colossus bestriding the world without a rival.  As Shakespeare wrote, But me no buts.  Just hush up and watch - and then weep for all we have lost.  It wasn't a perfect country or a perfect world - but it some ways, it was the highwater mark of humanity.  

Go read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

Power Behind the Nation, 1947:

Your Head Trucker remembers well how the tiny tots of this peaceful era - some of them - grew up to hate and despise and cry down "the world our parents made." But now, just what kind of world have we made?  

And in particular, I refer to the 80-year-olds who have, collectively, sat in the seats of power and wealth for forty years now - they were once the golden boys and girls of the sixties.  What have they done with that power?

"We can change the world, rearrange the world" . . . "we" certainly have. For good or ill?  

Are we happy now?

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It's Time

Here's a sweet treat for you, fellas. Yesterday, YouTube threw me something I'd never seen before:  a beautiful ad for marriage equality from GetUp! Australia that aired in 2011, starring studly actor and filmmaker Julian Shaw.  After years of debate and campaigning by both sides, the Australian federal parliament finally legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in December 2017.

And here is the making-of video:

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Sunday Drive: Words, Barry Gibb and Dolly Parton

Recorded in Nashville for Barry Gibb's 2021 album Greenfields:

The finished version:

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Hims + Thems #4" by Clint Collide:

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In Memoriam: Dolly Parton, 1946-2026

America has lost a national treasure.  The incomparable Dolly Parton, singer, songwriter, actress, and philanthropist, died today at age 80 after a life well lived, rising from the hills of Tennessee to the summit of world acclaim, but never losing the common touch.  She will live on in the hearts of many millions whom she touched with beauty, joy, and a generous, loving spirit.  She was also a friend and supporter of the gay community.

1.  A message from Dolly's family:

2.  NBC News reports on Dolly's true-life rags to riches story:

3.  In this 2025 interview with Dan Rather, starting at the 4:00 mark, we learn the secret to her success:  she's not a floozy, she's a sharp, shrewd businesswoman:

See the full interview here.

4.  Dolly was also a deeply spiritual person who lived her faith, as she explains in this wide-ranging interview with Norah O'Donnell in 2024:

5.  I believe Dolly always closed her shows with this beautiful song:

Bonus: The Empire State Building was lit up in sparkling pink tonight as a tribute to Dolly.

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Sunday Drive: Once Upon a Dream

The unforgettably romantic theme from Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, 1959.  I never got to see the film until I was grown, but this little gay boy did play the song on a little yellow record over and over and over . . . .

The music is, of course, lifted directly from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty ballet, 1889:

By the way, Resident Artist M.P. did get to see the movie as a little gay boy, and fell in love with the stylized artwork, which he still thinks is very, very cool. Check out this fascinating video about the artistic development behind the finished film:

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Waitin' for the Weekend: Friends of Walter F.

Beach forecast:  sunny, warm, and studly.
Kenneth Carson, Galveston, May 14, 1938 --
one of Walter's many friends.

Something different this week:  a poignant series of photographs of handsome young men at the beach and elsewhere, taken between 1937 and 1941.  The photographer, who appears in some of the photos, was one Walter R. Ferguson, who apparently had a job that enabled him to roam the South as "your TAFT representative," whatever that means.  He stayed in very nice hotels, too.

The photos record his travels, first to seaside towns, starting with Jacksonville, Fla., and westward along the Gulf Coast to Beaumont, Texas.  Next he shows up in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Miami, then travels up the East Coast all the way to Norfolk, Virginia.  The following year, he visits Charlotte, Birmingham, Jackson, and Dallas, then goes up to Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville in Tennessee.  And meets studly guys everywhere.  And they gladly let him take their pictures!

It's obvious that Walter was good at striking up friendships wherever he went; he must have had a charming personality.  The smiling young men he photographed seem to be enjoying his company, too.  Apparently, nothing more is known of Walter and his friends, but the photos seem to tell a story.  What do you think that story was?

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

These vids were posted on the YouTube channel homosexualhistory.

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