Charles Alexander
Parting Glances: Private Journal, 25 Years Away?
BY CHARLES AlEXANDER JAN. 4, 2041 — Another same-sex couple has been "relocated." My neighbors two doors down. Gus who did a wonderful job of gentrifying that old house on Wells Street. Didn't really get to know them, but they always waved. Yelled [...]
PARTING GLANCES: Who's Behind Our Gay Waiters?
It almost goes without saying, but the world's second oldest profession is that of the gay waiter. According to U.S. LGBT Census 2015, there are 4 million gay waiters. While this seems somewhat high as far as this time-honored table serving [...]
Parting Glances: A John by Any Other Name
SOURCE: Lone Star Police Gazette & Badge Polisher (Waco, Texas). HEADLINE: Undercover cops make Sunday surprise restroom arrests. Mark your activist, Sunday-go-to-meeting desk calendar … "While thousands were inside the Hallelujah Handclap of [...]
Parting Glances: Our Forgotten Transgender Hero
Tamara A. Rees is 92. She leads a quiet, uneventful, grandmotherly life with her adopted children's children somewhere in Los Angeles, California. In 1954 — two years after serving as a Bronze Star wounded and decorated World War II U.S. Army [...]
Parting Glances: You Name It, Mary!
I was in the Sunday habit a few years back of taking a SMART bus to Ferndale. Riding with me were regulars, most of whom were off to church, or gave that halo'd impression by their dress or demeanor. Motivated by whimsy from a half-hour drive of [...]
Parting Glances: No Oz Is Good News, Toto!
If stars are auspicious — and on this glorious Night of Nights, one star shown brightest of all — there are star-crossed paths that magically switch in time, space, crazy activation. So it happened once upon a whimsical time when five companions on [...]
Parting Glances: Yuletide Soup Testes, Anyone?
"Freaks of nature, odd crimes, shocking deaths, devastating disasters, bloodcurdling rites, crazy conspiracies & much, much more …" Golly. Gee! Who could resist the "Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists: fascinating facts and shocking trivia on [...]
Parting Glances: Gay Grinching It ...
I hate to play the Gay Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but there's a movement afoot by the Southern Comfort Baptists to do away with all suspected gay references in Christmas carols and holiday traditions. (Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Veterans' Day [...]
Parting Glances, AIDS: Lest We Forget, Pt. 2
Though perhaps unspoken among gay men and doctors 30 years ago when the AIDS crisis started, the presumption of a death sentence was understood. When the HIV-3 retrovirus was identified and infection modes publicized — unprotected oral and anal sex, [...]
Parting Glances: AIDS, Lest We Forget (Pt. 1)
It's been over 30 years since media stories began to appear about what seemed the onset of a pandemic among gay men (and drug users). The acronym for these puzzling outbreaks on the East and West coasts was GRID. Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Later [...]
Parting Glances: Getting Plymouth Rocks Off
DRUMSTICK #1: If you're looking for a ploy to come out to your family this Thanksgiving, you might casually remark that according to "Biological Exuberance" by animal behavior specialist Dr. Bruce Bagemihl, the female domestic turkey often engages [...]
Parting Glances: Show Us Your Left Behind, Mary!
About 137 years before Good Ol' Charlie Brown waited hopefully on Halloween Night for the Great Pumpkin to appear, William Miller, a Baptist preacher, convinced his flock that Jesus would return Oct. 22, 1844 to take them all to heaven. Miller's [...]