Charles Alexander
Parting Glances: Save A Dolphin For Jesus
An overly zealous biblically based consortium called Noah's Ark Angels is spending big tax-free bucks providing dolphins with bodysuits to stop that species' penchant for gay activity. Dolphins are one of 450 animals known to enjoy same-sex [...]
Parting Glances: Our Apostle Of S-S Marriage
Unions, weddings, ceremonies, celebrations uniting same-sex couples are not uncommon in the ancient world. Written records in Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, India, Greece, Rome tell of honored pairing of important, regal, occasionally commoner [...]
Parting Glances: Nuthin' Bout Birthin' No Babies
It's been 75 years since Margaret Mitchell's classic novel of the Civil War South, "Gone With The Wind," had its movie premier in Atlanta, Georgia, Dec. 15, 1939. I saw GWTW for my first time during a 50th anniversary showing in Chicago. How I [...]
Wrong Stall, Right Poo
Parting Glances This from Waccoff, Texas. Source: Lone Star Police Gazette & Badge Polisher. Headline: Under Cover Cops Make Sunday Surprise Restroom Arrests! Mark your activist desk calendar… "While thousands of church members were inside the [...]
Parting Glances: Remembering Mr. George
As a teenager in the mid-1950s, I listened faithfully to Country & Western music radio, and later 'Senator' Bristo Bryant's Rhythm & Blues after-high school class broadcasts. (A favorite group was Billy Ward & His Dominoes.) At age 19, [...]
Little Bigger Than A Metronome Minute'
When Detroit-born, Cass Tech graduate Bernard Johnson died of pneumonia in January 1997 at age 60, the New York Times carried a quarter-page obit celebrating his life as "a Renaissance man in dance." Little bigger than a metronome minute – at 5-foot [...]
And I Dream In Color, Too
From time to time I keep a dream journal. Last year I recorded over 50 dreams, which is pretty good considering that dreams are like exotic butterflies: unless netted quickly, they flutter and vanish back into the twilight zone. Every sentient being [...]
Parting Glances: Days Of Wine And Roses
"It's a pity that youth is wasted on the young," said George Bernard Shaw, whose play "Pygmalion" was given a fresh start and a heart pacer as the Broadway musical "My Fair Lady." Shaw — who married late in life but didn't care tuppence for romantic [...]
Art History Gets In Drag
Parting Glances One of the most sensational art heists in history took place Aug. 11, 1911. It was spontaneous rather than planned. The theft — the most famous picture in the world — Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," valued at over $100 million. The [...]
A Spank-Spank In Time...
Parting Glances A few years ago I was invited by one of BTL's many creative editorial associates to attend what might best be labeled as an exclusive "Kink Collective Party." It was being held during Good Friday week in a rental room at Detroit's [...]
My Imperfect Indicative Remembered
It took me a while to get the hang of learning a foreign language. During my undergraduate study at Wayne State University, I tried Spanish, German and Italian, dropping out after half-hearted samplings of the sounds, vocabulary, nuances, richness [...]
Parting Glances: When Fairy Tales Cross
There are paths that by strange chances on Christmas Eve mix up in time, space, thought, crazy activation. Some fact. Some fantasy. Who knows? So it happened once upon a near but distant whimsical time in a universe that was hoodwinked into [...]