I Think We're Gay

Apparently this is from some TV show in 2003.  I never saw this before, but it's a laugh riot!

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To Tell the Truth - Undercover Cop, 1973

For several years now at dinnertime, M.P. and I have enjoyed watching episodes of To Tell the Truth from the early 1960s.  I remember it well from my childhood, and I think it is the most entertaining of all the old game shows - perhaps because, unlike with other game shows, neither the panelists nor the audience knows who the real featured character is, so it's fun to try guessing who it is.

This particular episode is perhaps the most entertaining of all, for reasons you will discover if you watch it.  Big laughs.

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Feel the Rhythm!

A lively excerpt from the Dean Martin Show, circa 1969:

Who knew Lee J. Cobb could dance?

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Boozy Carrot Cake

Vaughn Vreeland of the New York Times

Ya know, fellas, sometimes you just run out of steam.  I've been posting a lot here for the last 100 days and more, but yesterday I realized I just don't want to write about the horror anymore.  The stupidity, the craziness, and the absurdity are still growing, and going from bad to worse to beyond godawful - and it's breaking my heart.  

We are living through a great turning point in the history of the world.  The sunlit world of peace, prosperity, and progress - on the whole and in the main, despite all its flaws and failures - that our fathers fought for is disintegrating before our eyes.  Instead, hateful right-wing dictatorships are arising all around the world, hand in hand with fundamentalist religion, willful ignorance, arbitrary cruelty, and the worship of Mammon.  Liberty has dropped her lamp, and Justice her scales.

The human race, led by fools, frauds, and fanatics, seems to be in a race to the bottom, sinking back to a lower level of civilization that we thought we had left far behind us.  And worse is to come, perhaps.  I fear that the 21st century will make the 20th look like a Sunday-school picnic.

No one should take my words as a counsel of despair, but rather as an urgent warning.  In any case, I can't do anything about it, and right now I need to come up for air and clear my head.  So I'm taking a break from nausea, disgust, and political blogging - for how long, who knows.

*          *          *          *          *

In this mortal life, we have to take the bitter with the sweet, and we should certainly enjoy the sweet parts while we can.  It just so happens that a certain foodist in New York has got a sweet shade of orange for you to try - oh, Mary, don't ask!

We both love carrot cake, but I don't care for raisins.  M.P., however, thinks it would be super.

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"White People, Y'all Should Be Embarrassed"

Wanda Sykes provides the comedy relief we've been needing this week.

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Liberal Redneck: Tariff Talk

Trae Crowder breaks it all down for us:

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Today's Toon

Paul Noth in the New Yorker:

"We'll have to stop research now that the Neanderthals are back in charge."

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Jazz for Cows

If it works on cows, would it work on Republicans?

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OPINIONS, 3/6/25

The Liberal Redneck:  Nothing makes sense

Blue Dot in Texas:  Trump's loyalty is to Putin

 

 And again:  Treason, turmoil, and lies

 

Pissedoff Bartender: What if Maga was right?

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Big Cats Like Boxes

From bigcatrescue.org: 

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Old Men Tell It Like It is

Statue of Socrates at the Academy of Athens

 

Soon after you turn 60, it begins to dawn on you that you no longer count as a human being and fellow citizen.  From 16 to 40, you are in the groove; after that you are on the downhill run but making good money (you hope), so you don't mind.  But after you retire on a small pension, and you can no longer shake your booty without throwing your back out, you are just not wanted in the social whirl anymore.  A harsh truth of human life.  If you can't run with the big dogs, better stay up on the porch.

Old age is no fun, though between aches and pains it can be fairly pleasant as long as your body holds together.  A compensating factor is that, having lost your juvenile awe of authority figures, and having no job to protect, you feel free to say exactly where the cow bit the cabbage.  And old men who have paid attention through all the stages of life usually have some very keen wisdom to share, if anybody will put down the goddamn smartphone long enough to listen.  

Here's a few old guys like your Head Trucker who speak their minds and give some damn good advice.  I don't necessarily agree with everything they say, but I do like the way they say it.  They can be pretty funny, too.

First up, Tom Powell, Jr., from Illinois, gives a mini-review of a Canadian comedian's rant:

 

Blue Dot in Texas, down in the southern part of the state, doesn't mince words about the state of the country: 

 

Pissed Off Bartender, somewhere in Alabama, isn't quite an old man yet, but we'll grant him honorary status on account of his awesome beard and stache:

 

Finally, fired-by-Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton is a Republican with great expertise in foreign and military affairs; I'd never vote for him, but he really knows what he's talking about:

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Borowitz: The New Ballerina

 No comment.

Trump Names Himself Principal Ballerina 

of Kennedy Center Ballet

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Snow Day at the Zoo

Filmed last week at the Cincinnati Zoo:

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Trae Crowder: Plumb Ignorant and Truly Insane!

The Liberal Redneck recaps the week in MAGA politics:

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Trae Loves Tim

Trae Crowder is excited about Kamala's VP pick, and why shouldn't he be?  I agree with everything he says here.  So listen up now.

P.S.-- M.P. has signed up for Ground News and says he likes it a lot, much better than the default news he was getting on his computer.  I'm afraid to change my settings, you never know what unintended consequences that will bring.  But I scan a lot of different news sources anyway.

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Trae Crowder Rips Vance

Your Head Trucker doesn't necessarily agree with every word that comes out of Trae Crowder's rude, crude mouth - but what he says about his old drinking buddy J. D. is certainly noteworthy.  Funny, too.

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Cajun Comedian: Jonathan Perry

M.P. and I are working our way through some of this guy's videos.  Very funny - and you wouldn't believe his resume if I told you about it, so go look at it yourself.  

You should understand that Cajuns are Southerners with a French twist and a splash of hot sauce.  They enjoy a bit more joie de vivre than their Anglo neighbors.  And like M.P., they are great cooks.

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Wah-Watusi!

Booklet of dance instructions, early 1960s.

Lately it's been hard to get my mind and body in gear.  Perhaps it's just hibernation time.  There's nothing wrong beyond the usual creaks and rumbles of old age.  Guess I'm just in a blah mood.

The state of the world being what it is, I've tried today to think of something I could blog that might give me a lift - maybe it will help somebody else, too.  So here goes.

I'm sure many of my truckbuddies remember the Watusi song and the dance of the same name - or do you?  Alas, by the time I started going to high-school dances, say about 1968 or so, all the cutely named dances popular in the early sixties had degenerated into miscellaneous twitches, jerks, and shuffles.  There were no steps to learn - you just stood there and wiggled as you pleased, more or less in time with the music.  A couple of years later, the Cool Kids in their puritan zeal declared that dancing was "not relevant" - and so there were no more dances, in high school or college.  They didn't return until the rise of disco, about 1976.

But I digress.  Just what was the Watusi?  I've tried to look this up before, and apparently nobody really knows.  I've seen comments from dance teachers on YouTube who say they can't find any actual steps to that dance.  Well, here are some historical videos that might give a clue.  See what you think - and I think you will smile.

1.  The lovely Lennon Sisters on the Lawrence Welk Show:

 

2. Wednesday and Lurch from The Addams Family:

3.  The KCTU Dancers from Wichita, Kansas, in 2014, having big fun with something that may or may not be historically correct:

4.  Luci Johnson and Steve McQueen certainly ought to have known what they were doing in Beverly Hills in the summer of '64, so perhaps this is the definitive performance:

5.  On the other hand, how can you get more authentic than these chaps?  From the 1959 film Watusi, I think:

Vote for your favorite version in the comments section.

 

P. S. -- Actually, there is documentation for how to dance the Watusi.  See it and try it after the jump.  And let me know how that works out for you.

Last Flight Home

Via Royal Air Force C-17 Globemaster from Edinburgh and via hearse to Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty the Queen returned to her capital today for the last time.  The very model of a modern monarch was carried to her London home, the very model of a royal palace, through streets thickly lined with onlookers lighting the roadway with their teleophone lamps, a distinctly modern touch.  

(Who knew cell phones had flashlights?  I can't keep up with all this newfangled stuff.)

Entering the Palace courtyard, the hearse passed directly beneath the famous balcony where Her Majesty appeared so many times to acknowledge the cheers of her people.  What a marvel it is that the 19-year-old princess who stood there on V-E Day in 1945, beside her parents, sister, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was still with us and still going strong until just the other day.

Now she belongs to the ages.

 

The Queen's coffin will rest in the Bow Room of the Palace overnight, providing a private viewing her family, as well as for the 400+ staff.  Tomorrow, Wednesday, the coffin will be taken in a ceremonial procession from the Palace to Westminster Hall, where the Queen will lie in state until the morning of her funeral on Monday the 19th.  Members of the public numbering in the hundreds of thousands are expected to file past the bier to pay their respects.

H. R. H. the Princess Royal, who accompanied her mother's coffin every step of the way from Balmoral, has released this statement:

Click to enlarge.

On a lighter note, one of the Queen's personal protection officers (Americanese:  Secret Service agents) recounts a very humorous story of walking with the Queen across the Balmoral estate:

Country Life magazine recounts more happy memories of the smiling Queen here.

The BBC schedule of the events to come, including maps and pictures, can be found here.

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Donald Duck: Bee at the Beach, 1950

I think we all need a nice, relaxing day at the beach, don't you?

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