Charles Alexander
Parting Glances: Heil Trump! And the 23 LGBT Per Centers!
There's a scene in the popular film/musical "Cabaret" where several German, blond, Aryan youths seated at an outdoor cafe, prompted by Nazi zeal and bombastic music, leap up one by one, and contagiously sing, "Tomorrow the world belongs to us!" As [...]
PARTING GLANCES: You May Say I'm a Dreamer
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. Reflected in my [...]
Parting Glances: Five Arfs & a Who Cares? Purr
A federally funded study by People & Friends of Cats and Dogs (P-FCD) reports that "persons of rainbow personality make the best dog owners, but have little influence on cats, although this should not be misconstrued as homophobia on the part [...]
Parting Glances: Memory goes back to school
Thirty-five right. Twenty-five left. Fifteen right. Click! After 60-plus years I can still recall my locker combination at Harry Burns Hutchins Intermediate School, located on Detroit's west side. I can also rattle off 30 names of my Homeroom 223 [...]
Parting Glances Getting rocks off for Jesus
PG Friends: I'm sitting in on a meeting of Gay Bashers for Jesus Anonymous with — unknown to the bashers gathered here — my pocket-size recorder, surreptitiously "taking notes." I'm calling my self Big Bruiser Bruce. (Yeah, sure you are, Mary!) I'm [...]
Parting Glances: 1964: It seems a lifetime ago
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. Life folded in 1973. Circulation 13 [...]
Parting Glances: Wrinkle, Wrinkle 'little star'
There's nothing quite as ho-ho-hum as other people's sex lives. Unless, of course, they're young, pretty, age legal and available of their own good-natured free will (or by tax-free monetary inducement.) In the course of my four score – and still [...]
Parting Glances: Genesis 20:16 (Rainbow Translation)
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 be. 2. Thus spake the Prophet Dude: [...]
Parting Glances (Remembering Jeff #3 of 3)
I've had two occasions — as an innocent bystander, I assure PG readers — to meet former Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, now living as a rather restricted, extended-care resident in Arizona until 2041. (Reservations fully confirmed recently by [...]
Parting Glances: Remembering Jeff (#2 of 3)
I waited 'til the last Christmas carol was sung, the last bit of New year's confetti was thrown, and the last champagne cork was popped before seeing "The Return of the King," part three of the 1949 J.R.R.Tolkein literary masterpiece. The complete [...]
Parting Glances Remembering Jeff (1 of 3)
It's amazing what one can do with a wooden spoon, a shoe lace, a bare neck, and a twist of the wrist (occasionally limp). Play asphyxiation games. Commit suicide. Perform a deuce of a murder. Or create a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes and his [...]
Parting Glances: My Nearly Forgotten Gay Twenties
I went to my first gay bar, the Silver Slipper, a dyke bar on Grand River, near downtown Detroit. Just 19, I used borrowed ID, escorted authoritatively by two 'stone butches': Speedy and Draino. Lesbians sat in an upstairs balcony. Gays and [...]