Sunday Drive: Massachusetts

My truckbuddy Frank and his hubby Leon have been enjoying a sentimental journey back to their old stamping grounds in Provincetown on Cape Cod - which put me in mind of this sentimental favorite from the Bee Gees in 2001. While you listen, go check out Frank's great pics of their sojourn on Reluctant Rebel.

Note:  the song ends at about 2:30; the rest is just chatter.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Home Alone: Gay Couple Rescues Abandoned Child

From USA Today:

Odense Zookeeper Sandie Hedgegard Munck said the zoo's male penguins, who she said are gay, took the chick while its parents were away, Denmark's broadcaster DR reports. The chick's mother was allegedly bathing at the time.

Munck told the station the male couple could have thought the chick's parents were neglectful and believed they could be better parents. So the same-sex couple nestled the chick and cared for it as if it were their own.

Later, the chick's parents confronted the gay couple and drama ensued, captured on video and posted to the Odense Zoo Facebook page. One of the chick's new foster parents squawk at the parents, keeping the chick between them and craning their necks. The zookeeper steps in and gives the chick back to its parents. Mama takes charge, securing the chick between her legs.

But the same-sex couple wasn't left completely childless. The zoo has given the males an egg from a mother who is unable care for it.

N.B. - The morbid journalists of the modern world, always out to terrify and horrify people, could have framed their own stories a little better, don't ya think?

This and That, Part 1

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

Another tale about Captain Chris Redfield and Lieutenant Piers Nivans, collectively known as Nivanfield, and soldiers in the war against bio-terrorism. They are partners both on and off the battlefield.

This started out as a writing exercise for me, just pure dialogue with little or no description. Once I'd finished it, it called out for a continuation, so it became a two-parter, with the second half written in my more usual descriptive style.

Don't worry about the references to people and places off the page. At heart, it's just a simple tale about two men very much in love; talking, caring and creating the bonds that bind them.

This and That

Part 1: Nothing really....but everything

Nivanfield by Alois Morgan at DeviantArt.
A wonderful example of the genre's fan-art.

The latte-topped head lay pressed against one broad pectoral, whilst slender fingers spread out across the other. But even spread out, they couldn’t span its breadth or depth. However, they could detect movement and the left ear, the one that wasn’t pressed between golden skin and hard muscle, could hear sound. Hazel eyes glanced upward and full lips opened. Piers spoke.

“Hello you.”

“Hello.”

“Been awake long?”

“A while I suppose….I’ve no idea of the time.”

“About seven thirty seven.”

“About?”

“Within two or three minutes.”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Within two or three minutes…..most people are lucky to get within an hour. Even after all my military service I can only guess within fifteen minutes or so.”

“I don’t know really. It’s like an in-built program, just ticking away.”

“Ticking. Ha!”

“You wanna get up?”

“Not especially.”

The slender fingers found a large brown nipple and rubbed the nub. “You wanna’….?”

"No, just happy lying here….with you….”

“Sure?”

“Yeah, very sure….and keep that hand where I can see it. I know you. Next thing I’ll be moaning and you’ll be groaning and the moment will have passed.”

“What moment?”

“This one, right now, at seven thirty eight, give or take…”

“….a couple of minutes?”

“Make it a couple of hours.”

“Shall I set the alarm?”

“No….let’s go for timeless, huh?”

“Ok, sounds good.”


Continued after the jump . . .

Sunday Drive: Try to Remember

Patti Page on her own TV show in 1958

I can just remember standing in front of the big black-and-white TV set, rapturously watching Miss Patti Page, the Singin' Rage, perform.  I guess she was my first diva.  Here she very sweetly sings a number from the Broadway musical The Fantasticks in a beautifully edited video, very appropriate for the beginning of autumn.  Though of course down here, the leaves won't be turning color for another couple of months, if they ever do.




PS -- What's a fantastick?  Does that rhyme with hockey stick?  Must be a Yankee thing.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Changing it up this week with some vintage men of film.  Can you name them all?

Answers below the jump . . .

What Is Golden Ratio?

Golden ratio make ideal male body.  Listen charming young Curly explain how.

Very smart man Curly.  Teach very good.  But I have no mathematic mind.  Have to watch film again and again.  Sigh.

Sunday Drive: Pickin' a Chicken

A bouncy 1956 hit for British singer Eve Boswell, based on a South African tune:




Food note:  last night, M.P., recovering from an arduous work week, made us a simple dinner of Chicken Fried Chicken - i.e., chicken breasts hammered flat, soaked in buttermilk, rolled in salted, peppered flour, and lightly sauteed to a golden brown - along with luscious cream gravy, and a mix of chopped turnips and collards cooked in a roux with cornbread dumplings on top. Mmmm-mmm! Scrumptious, I declare.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Special Peacekeeping Policy: Davis gets first pick this week, then the rest of you can choose from what's left.

I Reckon They DO!

A few weeks ago, amidst a discussion of what I call Southern Standard English, my dear old British chum Tim roused himself from the languors of life on the Costa del Sol to contradict your Head Trucker on a point of English usage: to wit, whether the verb to reckon, in the sense of "suppose," is or is not still in everyday use by the inhabitants of the United Kingdom.

I was, I need hardly tell you fellas, much distressed at having gotten this wrong, according to Tim, a native speaker and stalwart Man of Kent who ought to know about such things. I have at one time or another taken some pains to inform myself about all manner of niceties of the Queen's English, and I could scarcely believe I had been so self-deluded.

But I was not, and I have the incontrovertible proof in hand: if you have half a minute to spare, boys, kindly direct your attention to the following marks in these episodes of the endlessly fascinating BBC art-investigation series Fake or Fortune? - one of the regulars of which is the eminent art historian Bendor Grosvenor (B.A., Camb.; Ph.D., E. Ang.) - a scion of the Dukes of Westminster, as anyone could guess by his heraldic name alone - whom I reckon no one could accuse of having an incorrect, or even an inelegant vocabulary.

Please listen for just a moment to him saying "I reckon" at about the 5:15 mark of this 2014 episode on a work by Gainsborough, and again at 5:30:




And likewise at about the 25:15 mark of this 2012 episode on a work by Van Dyck.




Presenter Fiona Bruce says it at about 2:00 in this episode on a work by Winslow Homer:




And ceramics expert David Battle uses the verb in the interrogative at about 3:45 in this clip from Antiques Roadshow:

I. Rest. My. Case.

Sunday Drive: September in the Rain

By the incomparable Doris Day, now 96 years old:

Waitin' for the Weekend

Voices from the Past

An early newsreel crew, givers of immortality.

Your Head Trucker has always been something of an antiquarian, but since arriving on the shady side of 60, he feels more and more the impelling current of Time, carrying us onward as leaves on a river:  the irresistible, inescapable force moving men and civilizations from birth to maturity to death, driving us relentlessly from age to age and change to change, whether we would or not.

And in our great technological civilization, yesterday's marvels are always becoming today's mere commonplaces, and all the clamorous thoughts and passions of one age become as silent and insignificant as the dust on a tomb in the next.  It is useful now and again to ponder these things, I believe, and in the midst of all our busyness to be reminded that all we go down to the dust; therefore, we would be wise to use the fleeting time we have to good purpose, with humility and humanity.

Here are some voices, long since fallen silent, recorded for the ages by Movietone News when sound motion pictures were the Big New Thing.  I find it fascinating to watch and listen to these folks, who were born in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, when railroads and telegraphy were new and rare, and lived into the age of airplanes and radio.  Instead of the stiff, stern stares we so often see in Victorian portraits, notice how very human, and even humorous, these folks seem - as indeed they were, just as much as we.  There is a lesson there for those who want to learn it.

A century from now, what will the supra-modern children of the 22nd century think and say about our long-forgotten images, dug up by some digital archeologists, perhaps?




N. B. -- Rebecca Latimer Felton, seen from about 8:30 to 11:00, was born in 1835 in Georgia and had quite a remarkable life: among other notable doings, she was a college graduate, temperance leader, suffragist, and U. S. Senator for one day.  Her Wikipedia article provides dates and details of her life that you may find intriguing - or appalling. Yet she was admired by many.

And how shall our works and words be judged by generations yet unborn? ¿Quién sabe?

Ten Years on the Road in the Blue Truck

Today is the tenth anniversary of my little blog, strange to say.  Where does the time go?  I started it on a whim, and have continued it ever since on the same principle.  Consequently, it has never amounted to much - a poor thing, Sir, but mine own - nevertheless, it has been for the most part a happy little hobby, an agreeable routine to pass the time with amid the changing seasons of life.

Your Head Trucker doesn't amount to much, either - just an old dog lying on the porch, watching the mad world go by.  If any of my 3,690 posts has uplifted my truckbuddies, shown you something you didn't know, or raised a smile on your face sometime or other - then my small efforts have not been entirely in vain.

To mark the occasion, I am serving up once again one of my favorite slices of literature for your diversion:  an excerpt from E. M. Forster's collection of essays, Two Cheers for Democracy (1951), which I posted ten years ago today.  The waiters will be handing out glasses of champagne while you read - no tipping and no pinching!  Enjoy.

I believe in aristocracy. . . — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.

I give no examples — it is risky to do that — but the reader may as well consider whether this is the type of person he would like to meet and to be, and whether (going further with me) he would prefer that this type should not be an ascetic one. I am against asceticism myself. I am with the old Scotsman who wanted less chastity and more delicacy. I do not feel that my aristocrats are a real aristocracy if they thwart their bodies, since bodies are the instruments through which we register and enjoy the world. Still, I do not insist. This is not a major point. It is clearly possible to be sensitive, considerate and plucky and yet be an ascetic too, and if anyone possesses the first three qualities I will let him in!

On they go — an invincible army, yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People — all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority, seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart’s affections, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.

Grateful thanks to all my truckbuddies for riding along with me in the Blue Truck.

Beach Mix, 9/2/18

Somewhere . . . a place for us

Labor Day weekend has arrived to mark the end of the summer season in the US of A, and so we come to the end of our beach party here at the Blue Truck. I hope you all have enjoyed listening to my faves from the mid-sixties; there are of course many more great songs from that period that I haven't posted, but I've tried for the most part to feature those that have a good beat that you can dance to, as a good DJ should.

It took a bit of work, but it was a real treat for me to track down all these videos - live performances whenever I could find them in good, or at least bearable, quality. And truth to tell, in many cases it's the first time your Head Trucker has ever seen these singers and bands perform - or even just seen what they looked like. Today's children would be shocked and amazed, no doubt, to learn that once upon a time, still within living memory, one might go for years on end enjoying certain songs, but having no idea what the singers looked like.  And somehow it just wasn't all that important to see the singers - the music, the sound, was the important thing, and that was enough.

I miss transistor radios.  Hell, I miss radio - simple and free, radiating from out the aether to everyone, everywhere, endlessly emanating delightful sounds - a constant comfort and joy.


But I digress. We begin our final Beach Mix by dimming the lights for the sweetheart dance - which goes out to my truckbuddy Frank, because he is one (and that's all you need to know, ragazzi).

Don't Worry Baby, Beach Boys, 1964




The next tune goes out to my faithful truckbuddy Davis, to remind him of those sunny days of innocent youth.

I Can't Help Myself, Four Tops, 1965




And this perfect updating of the Cole Porter classic is an oldie but such an elegant goodie - like my dear old chum Tim, living the beach life year-round on the Costa del Sol, the lucky blighter.

I've Got You Under My Skin, Four Seasons, 1966




And to all my truckbuddies around the world in these troubled times - if you ever need a lift, this song is guaranteed to provide it:

Dancing in the Street, Martha and the Vandellas, 1964




To end the summer with a bonus: Your choice of any stud in the Blue Truck catalog - free! - goes to the reader who can name all the TV shows featured in this brilliantly edited little video. Have fun, y'all.

Keep on Dancing, Gentrys, 1965