This is the story of Dorian Lavender who has vanished from the party scene of music, stimulants and sex, and is now ironically beyond the saving grace of suddenly discarded friends of which there are many. (Perhaps you knew him too.)

As an emerging gay teenager, I attended Cass Technical High School where I was fortunate to soon discover there were others like myself in the process of coming out. Although back then there was no such thing as coming out, there was, however signaling — by dropping verbal hairpins — and exhibiting tell-tale touches of creative flamboyance.

As a recent resident of the Henry Ford Senior Retirement Village Community, consisting of some 800 units — I live in Berkshire Gardens — I have had some interesting, shall we say, metaphysical, perhaps psychic experiences. At separate dinner times, for starters, I've encountered three fellow diners — the food served at the St. Clair and Windows restaurants is excellent and varied — who are double takes for friends I have known for some time.

My brand-name watch battery quit after six years of service. I replaced it last week for another six years of second-by-second, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, month-by-month timeline reassurance. It occurs to me that the battery replacement is [...]

About a dozen days ago tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow — at my age how can I be sure? — I was gifted with a pair of John Lennon enchantment glasses. Gold-rimmed. Sunset orange. Autumn-tinted. Pre-Donald Trump, to be sure.

this column first appeared in BTL 12/20/17 Contrary to rumors circulating for years in Story Bookland Weekly Tabloid there never was any real friction between Dorothy, Cowardly Lion, Tin Woodsman and Scarecrow.(And those horrid pictures [...]

First published in 2013 and again Dec. 2016, one month after the election Donald J. Trump President of the United States If one person can be truly said to have single-handedly pushed this country into [...]

Just a few generations ago, the term homosexual was often qualified by adjectives. Alleged. Avowed. Rumored. Known! The descriptions were used by cautious media, police enforcement agencies and courtroom attorneys.

"Prophet Jones Jailed on Morals Charge" blared the Feb. 21, 1956 banner Free Press headline, with other papers gleefully tooting in. Thanks to a smart lawyer, the jury found Prophet Jones not guilty. It was a case of entrapment, pure (but not so simple)

This first appeared in BTL in Sept. 2012 Footnoted in the pages of Civil War history is the intriguing story of a "Mrs. Nash." First name unrecorded. She's listed in 1878 U.S. Army military records [...]

This column first appeared in BTL Oct. 2012. Almost 125 years before the birth of Jesus a handsome youth named Antinous was declared a god by the Roman emperor Publius Aelius Hadrian. Hadrian fell in [...]

This column first appeared in BTL in April 2014, when Charles was 77. He’s now 83 years young. At my advanced age I've come to realize I really don't exist. With the exception of the [...]

There is little conscious planning as I create my art. I work intuitively and rather quickly. I start with a geometric shape, a humorous or serious doodle, a fluid symbol fished from my subconscious, a newly minted hieroglyph or alphabet, sometimes a line expressive of energy and movement, and I proceed from there.

Somewhere pressed in my book of tattered memories is a green carnation, still remarkably fresh with the passage of so much time.

Fifty years ago when closets were leased for a lifetime, it was SOP – standard operating procedure – to go by a catchy nickname.

As a teenager I learned the lay of the land from word-of-mouth sharing from those who had navigated Detroit's watering holes years before me. I did however once venture - daringly - on my own into the Greyhound Bus Depot to check out noonday comings and goings. I was cautious. I had been forewarned.

Editor’s Note: Contributor Charles Alexander fell ill last monthand was unable to provide his usual weekly Parting Glances Column. This selection was chosen in honor of Pride month and Stonewall’s 50th Anniversary. Everyone at Between [...]

“Gay is good. You are not alone.” This was the slogan when the Affirmations LGBT Center opened its doors in Ferndale more than 20 years ago. It was a bold statement to make at the time: reassurance for many cautious, confused, isolated young people in need of understanding, trained organizational support and a place to hang out.

About a dozen days ago tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow — at my age how can I be sure? — I was gifted with a pair of John Lennon enchantment glasses.

GATORADE, Ariz.: I’m a skeptic concerning things supernatural; but the wonder-working weekend I spend reporting for BTL on the Drag Queens for Jesus confab is, well, miraculous – awe-inspiring. It’s also ecumenical, as the three-day [...]

1. In the year of the Trumpeted Mongrel 666 Beast of War endlessly chasing his flea-bitten tail, a prophet of restless dudes scaled Mt. Rush-No-More, seeking counsel with the electrifying powers that sometimes to Be (or, not to

During the Nazi reign of terror that ended only in Germany’s defeat by the American, English and French Allies in 1945, about 15,000 gay men were incarcerated in concentration camps from 1935 to 1944, where an estimated 60 percent of homosexual "schweinhund" were brutally worked to death.

Fifty years ago when gay ID closets were leased for a lifetime, it was SOP – standard operating procedure – to go by a catchy nickname.

The “Coffee Table Book of Astrology” tattles that “taurus is the astrological sign of sexual deviancy.”Or, as a friend of mine used to tell me year after year of our 40-year friendship, “Brandy” — his nickname for me, as in the alcoholic beverage, brandy Alexander — "May babies are gay babies.” There may be some truth to this observation.

Just in time for Easter 2019, Fools for Christ (and Donald Trump) — an American Bible GOP group headquartered in Lumbago Falls, Texas — held a press conference on Palm Sunday to publicize “National Hate [...]

As a gay teenager, I hung out at the Hub Grill in downtown Detroit, a greasy spoon of a place, located at the corners of Farmer and Bates in convenient walking distance of four quite popular gay bars, City Hall and the 1st Precinct Police Station!

According to a tad too many fundygelical church know-it-alls, we LGBTQs are doomed to spend an eternity in hell. (Purgatory be damned!) So agree President Trump and VP Mike Pence, America’s hand-me-down present political and past-tense, self-styled saints.

For over 50 years Life magazine informed Americans about what was happening here and abroad. Photos and content were dramatic. Mostly conservative. Occasionally controversial. Once in awhile downright shocking.

A veterinarian funded study by People & Friends of Cats and Dogs, or P-FCD, reports that “persons of rainbow personality make the best dog owners, but have little influence on pussies, er, cats, although this [...]

For decades, a seeming legitimate requirement asked for admission to Detroit gay bars was three pieces of ID, including one with photo selfie (in or out of drag optional). The request was intended to keep [...]

I had my picture taken a year ago with actress Lily Tomlin, who was in Detroit — her native city — as speaker for an LGBTQ fundraiser. I was wearing a blue-patterned hoodie I had designed for ArtWear Detroit. And the juxtaposition of my design wear and Ms. Tomlin's vivid popularity was good PR. (For both of us I like to think.)

As a teenager in the mid-1950s, I listened faithfully to country and western music radio — especially Patsy Cline — and later ‘Senator’ Bristo Bryant’s rhythm and blues after high school class broadcasts. (A favorite [...]

Back in the “good old days” of Great Depression No. 1, following Stock Market Crash ’29 years and years – well, at least a galloping few – before my time, the arts with a capital "A" took a real financial broadsiding.

About a dozen days ago tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow — at my age how can I be sure? — I was gifted with a pair of John Lennon enchantment glasses. Gold-rimmed. Sunset orange. Autumn-tinted. Pre-Donald Trump, to be sure.

For five dynamic years — 1940 to 1945 — Detroit was America’s Arsenal of Democracy, a vital source of war materials and weapons. First for England’s defense. Later, for our own. Automotive factories focused on [...]

As an artist, I’m fascinated with the mental phenomenon known as channeling. In the mid-'90s channeling was a cultural fad with many fans. Channelers brought forth purported messages form ages-old entities and other twilight-zone dimensions [...]

My grandmother Lottie Lee Alexander lived with my parents and me from the time I was five until she died in 1954 when I was 18, and had just finished Cass Technical High School where I was a commercial art major.

How quickly the miles rolled and reeled by. And before they could finish their 12th joyful rendition of “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” they unexpectedly found themselves among a small crowd gathered in front of a tiny, makeshift manger. It’s bubble lights twinkled merrily.

Truth is, it was Rudolph, with his shiny nose so bright, that put Claus into the closet; but, to be fair to the antlered, addled-headed kid, it was all Santa’s doing.

Yes, Christmas may never be its gay old self again. And Mr. Gailey will forever be a delete from “Miracle on 34th Street.” (How gay, by the way, is Kris Kringle? He even looks a bit, well, you know, suspect. And what’s all this fascination with kids, anyhow? Has he ever had an authentic FBI security check?)

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1965 historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, for African-American voter rights changed the South forever. (Or, did it?) Few know that another King – William Rufus DeVane King – gave Selma its name 145 years earlier. (It means “high seat” or “throne,” and comes from an epic Ossianic poem, “The Songs of Selma.”)

Long, long before The Village People made "YMCA" — the song that would become the unofficial, persistent national anthem of Winter Olympian Brian Boitano – "Ys" played an important role. They were second only to gay bars, as places to meet available others of like-minded, body-mind-and-spirit, triune — me, you and the shower — persuasions. In the '60s and '70s there were four YMCAs in the Metro Detroit area. (The long-gone Grand Circus Park YMCA dating to 1904.) There's only one YMCA now, located on Broadway, in a totally revitalized, energetic, amazingly-changed, thriving new Downtown area.

Back in the mid-'80s a group of gay friends gathered monthly for dinner and sharing at Detroit's historic venue, the Scarab Club. We called ourselves "The Friends of Dorothy Kilgallen". Our campy title was a play on the old closet question, "Are you a friend of Dorothy?" Meaning, Are you gay? A friend of Oz's Dorothy. The title also referenced once-famous Miss Kilgallen, syndicated journalist, panelist for TV's 1960s popular "What's My Line?" guessing game show.

There are shared similarities between high-visibility personalities Pastor Joel Osteen and Republican Vice President Mike Pence. First off, each shepherds a flock of religious followers. Mike’s, however, is basically evangelical and/or fundamentalist. Osteen’s tends to be New Age, Power of Positive Thinking, Prosperity Gospel and devotees of his seven bestseller books, read by a goodly number of his weekly 7 million American TV followers.