Charles Alexander
Parting Glances: Encounter With Someone 'Special'
It's been 60 years since I last saw the young man who sits across from me. He has, at 19, what a friend calls "the poetry of youth." An eager freshness that's a joy at my age to see. He hasn't changed much. Still thin as a rail. Tall as ever. Same [...]
Parting Glances: Looking Bassakwards (Pt. 4 of 4)
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 [...]
Parting Glances: Looking Bassackwards (Pt.3)
By Charles ALexander When I was 19, if I slept with a guy twice, I was "in love," and T.D., the lanky stud I met outside of the downtown Hub Grill gay teenager hangout, soon became my first summer-of-coming-out romance. Tall Dick — Richard Bowdy — [...]
Parting Glances: Looking Bassakwards (Pt. 2 of 4)
"Let's go to the Hub Grill for a bowl of chili and a trick," was our weekend rallying cry as gay teenagers. A dollar or two — and our youthful, reasonably innocent good looks — could get us through a promising Saturday night. Two sisters, Fran and [...]
Parting Glances: Looking Bassakwards (Pt. 1 of 4)
In the late-50s there weren't any nationwide advocacy groups. No newspapers like Between The Lines. No TV programs like "In the Life." No Affirmations LGBT Center. Gays and lesbians — considered a psychologically aberrant, innately suspect, very, [...]
Parting Glances: Sing Out! Gay Poetry Month
Who among us reads, scans, rhymes — knows by heart — poetry these days? Who among the "oh, so busy we" can name one poet for L, for G, for B, for Transgender T? Can U? Dare we? Ask I. Happenstance! There's many more poets than just a few. Proud, to [...]
Parting Glances: Inner Office Memorandum 2050
Well, there was Jay Hovah, CEO, minding his own damn corporate — military/industrial complex — business when along comes a cataclysmic stock market crash (Red, White, Blue Chip Shares wiped out) and, wouldn't you know it, Mr. Big Guy gets frantic [...]
Parting Glances: Remembrance Of Womyn Past
There were lots of kids in the apartment complex I grew up in at 444 Peterboro, ZIPPER code 48202. And, although — through the careless grace of God –I was born an only child, I was never without friends to play Kick the Can, yell "first to see the [...]
Parting Glances: What's Past Is Pretense
You can't judge a gay book by its cover. Its author. Or, its nom de plume. Case in point: Groundbreaking 1951 sociological expose, "The Homosexual in America." Gay name: Donald Webster Cory. Real name: Edward Sagarin. Cory's expose came three years [...]
Parting Glances: Render Unto Caesar's Pizza
Following an unexpected backlash — best described as a concerned public whiplash — Fools for Christ, Inc. announced on Easter Sunday its cancellation of their scheduled "Hate Someone Special for Jesus Week." Reluctant to admit it, recent media and [...]
Parting Glances: Well Bless Our Hate!
Just in time for Easter 2015, Fools for Christ — an American Bible group headquartered in Lumbago Falls, Texas — held a press conference Palm Sunday to publicize "National Hate Someone Special for Jesus Week." Fools for Christ spokesperson Rev. [...]
Parting Glances: Hobbits, Jeff, saints du jour
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 [...]