Charles Alexander
Parting Glances: Remembering 'Honey' Combs
Mart Crowley's "Boys In the Band" opened Off-Broadway 47 years ago. I bought a copy of the play in Chicago in 1968 and read dialogue aloud while driving back to Detroit with my then partner Larry. (We saw a local production a few years later at the [...]
Parting Glances: All A Matter Of Perspective
My friend Jon Strand is a pointillist artist. His art consists of near-micro dots of ink coloration, layer upon layer upon layer. It's no exaggeration that Jon has dotted in his art career spanning over three decades anywhere from 50 to 80 million [...]
Parting Glances: Billboards For Caitlyn J
Two months ago it was a Caitlyn Jenner's transgender media triumph presented by Vanity Fair magazine. High fashion photos – public, private, family commentary, details of important M-to-F, F-to-M harbingers, interlaced with a concise review of sex [...]
Parting Glances: Pitwool, Peter Is 7
He lives with his mommy, Wanda Jean Buttercup. His daddy, Darnell Prince Pitwool. And a dog named Nebuchadnezzar. Nezzar, for short. Peter's home schooled. Living in Topelulu, Alabama, famed sin-free domain of Lou "Lulu" Seldom's Fracas in the [...]
Parting Glances: Gay Divorcees, Anyone?
Human nature being what it is – and sometimes mostly what it isn't – those who marry in haste, straight or gay, usually repent at leisure by visiting an attorney to file for a divorce. It's time consuming. Costly. But it also keeps a substantial [...]
Parting Glances: Five Thousand States Of No Return
My favorite coming out story concerns a computer hacker — actually a brilliant graphic designer of science texts — named Dennis. We chanced to meet at Motor City Pride after many, many years. I knew him when he worked for Detroit's legendary Gale [...]
Sister's bra 5Ks Madoff
I usually spend New Year's Eve alone. Just for old time's sake. Yes, hard to admit – popular raconteur and egad-about Spell Checker that I am – I sit in my art studio with a party hat on my neatly shaved head, a stopwatch in my well-manicured [...]
Parting Glances: Anita, Who? OJ Cheers!
When I was a kid, my mother would dose me with castor oil for what she perceived as alimentary crankiness on my part. This extract of the humble castor bean tastes horrid. Its end result: to leave its victim as clean as a penny whistle. (Toot free.) [...]
Parting Glances: Other Voices, Other Back Rooms
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: Your Wrinkle Room, Or Mine
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 [...]
Parting Glances: Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow
"Your problems can be solved with this box of amazing cure-alls," hooty hooted Exodus P. Barn Owl, Q.D., shoving a package of Miracle Elastics, Assorted Colors, Funny Farm, LTD., across his polished oak-apple desk to Reginald Rabbit, referral [...]
Parting Glances: Pass Me A Mantra, Mary!
I have a friend who meditates 20 minutes morning; 20 minutes, evening. He's been at it for 30 years. Not that it's done him a lick of good. He drives waiters crazy. Zooms up and down expressways like he's doing the Indy 500. Alpha Male by choice [...]