Sunday Drive: More from 1969

A few more hits from 1969 that I was fond of then, for one reason or another, some of which bring back poignant memories now.

The 5th Dimension had a big hit that year with this groovy medley of the opening and closing numbers - I only just now learned that from Wikipedia - from the smash Broadway musical Hair:




If you were alive in '69, you must remember how irresistible the theme from Hawaii Five-O was, the Ventures' last hit single, I believe - this, of course, was before instrumental tunes were outlawed on the radio.




This lovely song, by Jay and the Americans, reminds me of a girl I dated for a few weeks that year - puppy love, and of course impossible for all the obvious reasons, but a sweet little romance while it lasted - an awakening to the possibilities of life:




The Grass Roots, an underrated band in my view, were riding high that year, with the studly Rob Grill as lead singer - he's the mustached one in this cover photo:




And it was a banner year for CCR and their swamp-rock sound, which reconnected rock with its country roots. These guys weren't Southern boys, but they should have been - they sure sounded like they were:

Mystery and Magic in Marbella

A guest post by my truckbuddy Tim from England, now resident in Spain:

Tim’s Take on Spain:

Magic and Mystery in Marbella

Let me introduce you to Rubén Cortado, our guide for this trip. Model turned actor, Cuban-born Rubén has been a big hit lately on Spanish TV, playing the part of Faruq, a drugs baron in the mini-series El Principe. The series is set in Ceuta, one of the three Spanish exclaves in Morocco. Ceuta lies just a few miles across the straits from nearby Gibraltar, the two rocky promontories forming the ‘Pillars of Hercules’ in Greek mythology. The show is named after a working-class district in the small city. Ruben’s role as Faruq has set Spanish hearts fluttering, and why not? For some reason I missed the series on TV, so let’s hope for a repeat soon!

Just as an aside, I know a young policeman from Ceuta, he’s a dog-handler. We sometimes meet on the little hill when I’m walking Lulu, and he’s exercising his sniffer dog, Blas. However, that will have to be a tale for telling another day! But talking of dogs, the dog days of summer continue without letup here, each day seems hotter and more humid than the last, so joining Rubén for a cooling dip would be most pleasant – well, I can dream can’t I?

Continued after the jump . . .

Waitin' for the Weekend

It's Labor Day weekend, last chance to get your tan lines right:

Beat, Curse, Disown Your Gay Kid in Jesus' Name

What's love got to do with it? Joe.My.God. writes of this family in Kennesaw, Georgia:

440K views in one day of this YouTube clip in which a kid comes out to his family, only to have them curse him because Jesus, then physically attack him.

Dan Savage and others have set up a fundraiser to pay the kid's living expenses while he gets on his feet.


Update, 8/29, 9 a.m.: Donations for Daniel Pierce, who is staying with supportive friends, now exceed $50,000.

The Train-Plane-Trail

A little lesson in forgotten history:  85 years ago this summer, the fastest way to get from one side of the country to the other was by way of a startling innovation:  a transcontinental route that wedded trains with planes to deliver you from New York to Los Angeles in only 48 hours!  Which was a whole day and a half quicker than the fastest train connections at that time.

The 27-year-old Charles Lindbergh, still idolized by the public for his solo transatlantic flight just two years previously, was one of the organizers of this venture, the airline part of which was called Transcontinental Air Transport, working in partnership with two of the biggest and best American railroads, the Pennsylvania and the Santa Fe.

As with all the images, click to enlarge.

The first trip westbound from New York to Los Angeles commenced at 6:05 p.m. on July 7, 1929; one-way fare was $351.94, equivalent to $4790 in today's dollars (see measuringworth.com, a handy little site for converting money figures past and present).  Passengers travelled in Pullman sleepers overnight to a new airport near Columbus, Ohio, where they left the train and boarded a Ford Tri-Motor, a highly reliable, state-of-the art aircraft seating ten passengers in comfy wicker chairs with seat belts, each one next to an operable window.  While the pilot and co-pilot kept the plane on course towards stops in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Wichita, and Waynoka, Oklahoma, a uniformed steward served drinks and meals.  No stewardesses in those days - aviation was considered "a man's job."

Scenes of the trusty Ford Tri-Motor in flight.

In Waynoka, reached after a full day of flying at about 2500 feet and 100 miles per hour, passengers boarded a Santa Fe train and slept again in Pullmans while speeding through the night to Clovis, New Mexico, where again they boarded another "Tin Goose" to fly to Albuquerque, Winslow and Kingman, Arizona, and finally landing in Los Angeles late in the afternoon. There, passengers bound for San Francisco had the choice of taking an overnight train or going by a connecting flight the next morning.

Unfortunately, the airline never turned a profit, and business was not helped by a couple of ugly crashes - due to bad weather or mid-air collisions in those pre-radar, pre-FAA days - that killed all aboard.  Critics and scoffers said TAT meant "Take a Train." Nevertheless, in the first year of operation, 30,000 undaunted passengers made the trip.

In November 1929, TAT merged with a competing western airline, and the result was, several mergers later, the very successful, globe-spanning TWA system. However, by 1932 aviation technology had improved to the point that night flying was possible, making the coasts only 24 hours apart, so the partnership with railroads quickly became unnecessary.

Still, it was the latest, greatest, coolest swellest thing for its time - now merely a quaint memory, but no doubt pretty amazing then for those who could afford the fare.  For further reading, see this 1975 American Heritage article.

Donald Duck: Modern Inventions (1937)

In the mood to have a duck fit today? Just sit back and let Donald do the work:

You Bet Your Life, 2/18/54

Sixty years ago, the inimitable Groucho Marx held court every week on his game show, You Bet Your Life, where the comedian's ad libs were more entertaining than the actual game play.  In this episode, the old lady who appears at about the 19:00 mark is a real hoot - the only guest who ever made Groucho put away his trademark cigar!

The duck.

Marriage News Watch, 8/25/14

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reports:

Sunday Drive: The Cowsills

The Cowsills - six brothers, a sister, and their mom - were dismissed by some as just bubblegum rockers, but I always liked them - the family harmonies were, as with the Beach Boys, always great to listen to, happy sounds. And they were, of course, the inspiration for the Partridge Family TV series, very popular in its day, but which I didn't care much for.

Here they are singing their 1968 hit, "Indian Lake," on a Buddy Ebsen TV special:




And the namesake tune from the hit Broadway musical, 1969:




Finally a video of the remaining group members performing their big 1967 gold record, filmed last year up in Massachusetts:

Men, Women, and Clothes: Sense and Nonsense in Fashion

The second episode in the BBC color series, written and presented by fashion expert Doris Langley Moore. First broadcast on April 28, 1957, using all original costumes from the various periods.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Federal Court OK's Marriage in Florida

The ruling is stayed, pending appeal.  Freedom to Marry reports:

Today, August 21, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle ruled in favor of the freedom to marry in Florida, the first federal judge to strike down Florida's ban on marriage for same-sex couples. His ruling follows four previous state court rulings in favor of marriage for same-sex couples in Florida earlier this summer. . . .

Some excerpts from the ruling:

•The founders of this nation said in the preamble to the United States Constitution that a goal was to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. Liberty has come more slowly for some than for others. It was 1967, nearly two centuries after the Constitution was adopted, before the Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriage, thus protecting the liberty of individuals whose chosen life partner was of a different race. Now, nearly 50 years later, the arguments supporting the ban on interracial marriage seem an obvious pretext for racism; it must be hard for those who were not then of age to understand just how sincerely those views were held. When observers look back 50 years from now, the arguments supporting Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage, though just as sincerely held, will again seem an obvious pretext for discrimination. Observers who are not now of age will wonder just how those views could have been held.

•Just one proffered justification for banning same-sex marriage warrants a further note. The defendants say the critical feature of marriage is the capacity to procreate. Same-sex couples, like opposite-sex couples and single individuals, can adopt, but same-sex couples cannot procreate. Neither can many opposite-sex couples. And many opposite-sex couples do not wish to procreate. Florida has never conditioned marriage on the desire or capacity to procreate.

•The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized the fundamental right to marry. The Court applied the right to interracial marriage in 1967 despite state laws that were widespread and of long standing. Just last year the Court struck down a federal statute that prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages lawfully entered in other jurisdictions. The Florida provisions that prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages lawfully entered elsewhere, like the federal provision, are unconstitutional. So is the Florida ban on entering same-sex marriages.

The ruling is in Brenner v. Scott; full text here.  Or see Freedom to Marry's website for an updated (though hideously ugly) map of where marriage laws and rulings now stand.

Here's a great video of two of the plaintiffs in the case, Steve Schlairet and Ozzie Russ, who live in Chipley, a small town way to hell out in the backwoods middle of the Florida Panhandle:




In other news:
After a 10-hour public hearing that lasted into the wee hours, the Fayetteville, Arkansas, city council yesterday passed an LGBT rights ordinance 6-2. Joe.My.God. has a great clip of Mayor Lioneld Jordan's passionate defense of equality, inclusion, and diversity here: it's worth your time to hear a straight white Southern man speaking up for the gays.

And next door in Tennessee, Mayor Karl Dean of Nashville has also come out for marriage equality.

How Many British Accents?

Episode 5 of Anglophenia:




Bonus: From BBC America, five ways to improve your British accent, if you're not British.

ARMAGAYDDON

From Irish activist group LGBT Noise:

Vito Russo's Our Time, Episode 6 - Writers

Broadcast on public television station WNYC on March 16, 1983.  Includes a tribute to Tennessee Williams, who had died just a couple of weeks previously.

Marriage News Watch, 8/18/14

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reports:

Sunday Drive: Summer of '69

Atlanta skyline, 1969.
Click to enlarge.

Though strange and fateful things were happening around the nation and the globe, August 1969 in my corner of the world was a golden afternoon of slow time and drifting thoughts - a calm before the storm - brilliant sunshine over the green fields of the South, the sultry summer heat, electric fans, and open windows - airports, railroad stations, and zipping through Atlanta at freeway speed in a Mustang convertible, top down, no seat belts, no worries, no fears.

Like the chambered nautilus, our lives advance from one compartment of experience to another, and another. Then, in that bright season, there was yet a mystery and a glamour about the larger world, as yet unexplored by me - and naïve faith that somehow the future would always be bigger and brighter still, unblemished and sweet as a fresh peach from the Georgia orchards.

Or so I thought.  I was old enough to shave (weekly) but not to drink (publicly).  It was another time, childhood's end, a land unreachable now by any means - but sometimes I remember that August in the heart of the South, my beautiful, tragic homeland - and feel again the thrill of youthful hopes vibrating in the air, hear again the sounds of tunes that made me smile or sigh - and think bittersweet thoughts of loved ones and home, where I can never go again - where none of us can ever return.

Perhaps you can relate. Take your pick, if any of these mean something to you.









And one by the late, great Joe South - an Atlanta boy made good, he was immensely popular across the Southland during his all-too-brief recording period - handsome rascal, too:

Night Mail

1937 advertisement for the L. M. S.

How the Royal Mail was delivered from London to Scotland on the L. M. S. is shown in this fascinating 1936 documentary, with poem by W. H. Auden and score by Benjamin Britten.  Classy.  And what an amazing amount of work those postal fellas did.

1935 system map of the L. M. S.

Waitin' for the Weekend

What's My Line? 6/6/54

I'm sure many of my truckbuddies will, as I do, remember What's My Line fondly - the original series ran on CBS from 1950 to 1967, and was always entertaining, always elegant.  It's hard to watch these shows now and not weep for the decline of intelligence, beauty, and civilized behavior.  But if you need an antidote to all the sad, distressing news of late, try this delightful episode featuring, as a stand-in, the lovely young Margaret Truman - and some surprising guest occupations!

In Memoriam: Lauren Bacall, 1924-2014

The New York Times reports on the death of screen legend Lauren Bacall at age 89:

Her voice comes at you low and flat, wildly insinuating, electric and lingering. In another age, Lauren Bacall’s voice might have been called mannish. When she opened her mouth in To Have and Have Not — taking a long drag on a cigarette while locking Humphrey Bogart in her gaze — she staked a claim on the screen and made an immortal Hollywood debut. But in 1944 at the exquisitely tender age of 19, she was also projecting an indelible screen persona: that of the tough, quick-witted American woman who could fight the good fight alongside her man.

[Film critic Parker Tyler] pinpointed an androgynous quality in Ms. Bacall that helped distinguish her debut and made it such a playful gloss on the classic femme fatale: “Her Hepburnesque Garbotoon, clearly confirmed in her subsequent pictures, equals Dietrich travestied by a boyish voice.” Like Garbo and Dietrich, two other goddesses that Tyler invoked, Ms. Bacall’s on-screen presence in To Have and Have Not draws on both feminine and masculine qualities that suggest an excitingly capable woman. Guided by [director Howard] Hawks, Ms. Bacall calmed her trembling chin, gave Bogart a sexy little slap and filled out her character with so much personality that she transcended her third billing (after Walter Brennan) to become an erotic emblem of American wit and war-ready grit.

It’s been said of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that he gave her class while she gave him sex. There’s another calculus in the Bogart and Bacall pairing. Ingrid Bergman may have warmed Bogart up in Casablanca, but it was Ms. Bacall who lit him on fire. She later complained about being in his shadow; in truth, each burnished the other’s legend, as all four of the movies they made together prove. She made some good ones without Bogart, who died in 1957, including the fizzy How to Marry a Millionaire. But after the 1940s, as pneumatic blondes blew up and gender roles were re-established, she didn’t often find the film roles that suited her cool, steady gaze. The movies couldn’t see it, but she was born to go quip to quip, curled lip to lip, with a man.

Bacall in a famous pose - risqué for the time - atop a piano with then-Vice President Harry Truman in February 1945 at the National Press Club Canteen for servicemen in Washington, D. C.

Marriage News Watch, 8/11/14

Sorry, fellas, I got distracted with some projects and just haven't had a chance to post anything the last couple of days.  Here's Matt Baume to bring us up to date on marriage cases around the country.




Updates, 7 p.m.:

Virginia:

Unless the Supreme Court steps in to postpone marriages for same-sex couples in Virginia, they could begin getting licenses to wed as early as next Wednesday, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit refused a delay Wednesday morning. If the procedure that has been followed in similar cases is used again, however, the Justices would be likely to order a postponement, if asked. . . .

Tennessee:

For the first time in nearly fourteen months, a state’s ban on same-sex marriage has withstood a constitutional challenge in court. A state judge in Tennessee ruled last week that “neither the Federal Government nor another state should be allowed to dictate to Tennessee what has traditionally been a state’s responsibility.” The decision, issued last Tuesday, has just become available in electronic format. . . .

Also worth reading by Lyle Denison at SCOTUSBlog: "The marriage ruling “streak” and what it means, made simple"

Sunday Drive: Carrie Anne

Love the bridge with the steel drums in this.

Whirlybirds, Wetsuits, and Wet Dreams

A guest post by my truckbuddy Tim from England, now resident in Spain.

Guest Post: He’s so Fine

Prequel III – Whirlybirds, Wetsuits & Wet Dreams

Today I’m hanging up the saddle and leaving the cowboys in the bunk house till later. I do hope they behave!

In this post we’re getting all technical. Helicopters and submarines replace horses and stagecoaches. And we swap rugged guys in Stetsons and leather chaps for modern-day action heroes, muscles in neoprene and Ray-Bans. Kids’ TV in the late 1950’s was moving away from fixed-location, historical genres to technology-based series. Atomic power and space rockets were now science fact; science fiction and fantasy were becoming the new frontiers.

Once again I’ve selected three television classics, which, although from my childhood, strangely parallel my later adult life - though whether by co-incidence or design I’m not sure as yet; perhaps a little of both. So this could become a tale of discovery - see what you think.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Remember last time I left you a series of clues for one of the shows in today’s post – wetsuits, submarines and actor Mark Slade? Well, if you haven’t guessed it yet, read on to discover the answer!

This is the sort of thing I have in mind today, our friend Brian Kelly (of Flipper fame) in a scene from the film Around the World under the Sea.

No Brian, not that sort of wet suit! Go and change, please . . .

. . . yes, that’s better . . . although . . . I did kinda like that first one too. . . .

First off is the Whirlybirds - I was 5 when it started its 4 year run in 1957. It’s hard to understate how exciting I found this series as a small boy, with the whirr and clatter of the little bug-eyed helicopter, as my two heroes Chuck and PT took off on yet another daring escapade. Here they are:

Continued after the jump . . .

Waitin' for the Weekend

Beefcake memories:  my best friend M.P. and my truckbuddy Tim have contributed these pics of some handsome faces from the silver screen for this week's WfW.

Above and below:  Montgomery Clift.

Above and below:  Dewey Martin.

Above and below:  Farley Granger.

Martin, so Wikipedia indicates, is now 90 years old and retired; as far as I know he is straight, but the other two - both have passed away - certainly weren't. While your mind's in the 1950's, just for fun here's a recollection by British writer and artist Ronald Wright on his first visit to a gay bar in Picadilly, in the early years of the decade:

What I'm Watching: Who Were the Greeks?

Dr. Michael Scott, classics professor at the University of Warwick in England, wrote and narrates this excellent BBC documentary covering many aspects of ancient Greek life and society, the ultimate source of our own civil culture. If you are into this sort of thing, you can search around on YouTube for several other documentaries the studly Dr. Scott has done for the BBC.

Anglophenia: The Real Sherlock Holmes

Vito Russo's Our Time, Episode 5 - Parents

Nowadays, many among the younger generation may find it hard to believe that there was a time when gay people were rarely seen and never heard by most Americans, and coming out to your parents was a fearful thing requiring great courage. PFLAG was a great resource in those days, and although there was no local chapter where I lived, I did take my mom to hear and meet a guest speaker who came to my university campus about this point in time; though Mom was supportive of me from the get-go, I think it gave her a lot of reassurance to talk with another mother.

This episode, broadcast on WNYC-TV on March 2, 1983, is marred by some unfortunate skips in the videotape, which become less frequent as the episode proceeds.

Marriage News Watch, 8/4/14

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reports:




And there's more good news today from the Sunshine State, Freedom to Marry reports:

The ruling in today's case, Brassner v. Lade, from Broward County Circuit Judge Dale Cohen, is the third marriage ruling in three weeks, following a July 17 ruling in Monroe County's Huntsman v. Heavilin and July 25's ruling in Miami-Dade County's Pareto v. Ruvin. In all 3 cases, judges ruled that banning same-sex couples from marrying is unconstitutional. All three rulings are stayed, and the two previous rulings have been appealed by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

For now, today's decision only applies to Broward County. The next step for the Miami-Dade and Monroe County decisions is review by Florida's 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Last week, the plaintiffs in both cases moved to consolidate their cases and filed a motion seeking review directly by the Florida Supreme Court.

Freedom to Marry applauds the legal team behind today's case, which was filed this year by lawyer Nancy Brodski on behalf of a woman, Heather Brassner, seeking respect for her marriage for the purpose of dissolution.

The Washington Blade quotes Judge Cohen:

“To discriminate based on sexual orientation, to deny families equality, to stigmatize children and spouses, to hold some couples less worthy of legal benefits then others based on their sexual orientation, to deny individuals tax credits, marital property rights, the ability to dissolve their unions from other jurisdictions is against all that this country holds dear, as it denies equal citizenship,” Cohen writes. “Marriage is a well-recognized fundamental right, all people should be entitled to enjoy its benefits.”

A judge appointed by Republican former Gov. Jeb Bush, Cohen draws heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision against the Defense of Marriage Act in his reasoning for striking down Florida’s marriage ban. “Further, so long as opposite-sex couples can marry without government analysis of their right to procreate, then so can same-sex couples marry without an analysis of their right to procreate,” Cohen writes.

And the Dallas Morning News today published an editorial opposing the efforts of the Texas Attorney General to maintain the state's ban on same-sex marriages:

Attorney General Greg Abbott often makes the point that government should tread lightly in matters of personal liberty. Yet in a legal brief defending Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage, the GOP candidate for governor treads heavily.

Abbott is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that found Texas’ voter-approved ban in 2005 on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. In legal documents filed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans recently, his legal team argued that Texas can ban same-sex marriage based on the state’s interest in couples having children.

Abbott notes that Texas law recognizes marriage as being between a man and a woman and argues that, in turn, a heterosexual marriage “increases the likelihood” that they will produce and raise their children in “stable, lasting relationships.” Therefore, the brief continues, “because same-sex relationships do not naturally produce children, recognizing same-sex marriage does not further these goals to the same extent that recognizing opposite-sex marriage does. That is enough to supply a rational basis for Texas’s marriage laws.”

That is a legal reach. Actually, state marriage laws are not rooted in establishing “stable, lasting relationships” that produce children but are designed to clarify property and inheritance rights. Creating children has never been a state goal, nor is it a credible argument against same-sex marriages. There also are many reasons heterosexual couples get married that may or may not include having children. Certainly, they would be surprised to learn Abbott thinks Texas has a vested interest in whether they have offspring.

Sunday Drive: Bus Stop

I know you guys have enjoyed listening to the Beach Boys in recent weeks here, but they have started to annoy me, I'm sorry to say - despite the magical sound of their music, at this late age I can no longer see them as Olympian troubadours but as ordinary American straight boys, with all the adolescent flaws that implies.

So let's continue our mid-sixties stroll through Memory Lane with a still-magical but somewhat different sound from across the pond:

Tired Old Queen at the Movies: Summer Stock

Steve Hayes reviews the Judy Garland musical:

Forget your troubles and just get happy as Judy Garland and Gene Kelly tear off the barn roof in 1950's "Summer Stock." With able comic support from Marjorie Main, Phil Silvers, Eddie Bracken, and Gloria DeHaven, directed by Charles Walters and shot in the grand MGM musical tradition, it's the perfect way to spend a long, hot summer evening.

Catch more fabulous movie reviews at Steve's YouTube channel.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Ugandan Anti-Gay Law Overturned

The Constitutional Court of Uganda in session

The New York Times reports:

A Ugandan court on Friday struck down a punitive anti-gay law that has strained Uganda’s relations with the West, but the court ruled on narrow technical grounds, preserving the possibility that the measure could be revived.

In front of an overflowing courtroom, a panel of five judges announced that the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which punishes some gay behavior with life in prison, was invalid because it had been passed by Parliament without a proper quorum.

“We’re very happy,” said Sylvia Tamale, a Ugandan law professor who has supported gay rights despite constant threats and harassment. “But it’s unfortunate that the court did not deal with the substantive issues that violate our rights.”

Uganda’s government, which is tightly controlled by President Yoweri Museveni, a former guerrilla fighter who has ruled for 28 years, did not immediately indicate if it was going to appeal.

Uganda’s vehement anti-gay movement began in 2009 after American preachers came to Uganda and worked closely with Ugandan legislators to draft a bill that called for putting gay people to death.

After an international outcry, with several Western countries threatening to cut aid, the Ugandan government modified the bill to make “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by life in prison. The bill was passed by Parliament in December, with advocates calling it an “early Christmas gift.” Mr. Museveni publicly signed it into law in February.

In June, the Obama administration announced it was cutting back on aid, imposing visa restrictions and canceling a regional military exercise as a message to “reinforce our support for human rights of all Ugandans, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.” Several other countries also suspended assistance to Uganda.

Proponents plan to appeal the ruling, however.