Waitin' for the Weekend

"Looking Back in Time #2" by Clint Collide:

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Exploring Gay HIstory at the Smithsonian

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.

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Sunday Drive: Strauss, Roses from the South

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.

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"A Motley Mix of Men #2" by Clint Collide:

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What We're Watching: Miss Polly (1941)

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.

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Sunday Drive: Strauss, The Blue Danube

Click to enlarge.

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.

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Loving Them All #1" by Clint Collide:

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Famous Photo Found!

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.

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Sunday Drive: Summertime

Ella and Louis sing the Gershwin classic, recorded in 1957:

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"All American Boy" by Vintage Photomontage:

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Fifty Years Ago: Bay Gays, 1976

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.

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