Charles Alexander
Memento Mori Pt. 1
Parting Glances 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 [...]
Who Bothers To Count?
Parting Glances They slide down so neatly; 75 calories per quickie. I find myself indulging in the delectable savoring of one, two and sometimes three of what in the greasy spoon trade are called "sliders": small hamburgers with cheese slices, [...]
A As In Zilch
Parting Glances There's been a bland addition to the soup. (Or is it stew?) The label on the can now reads LGBTA. The LGBT stands for the usual spicy noodles and meatballs; the A stands for asexual, as in "An asexual is someone who leaves the room [...]
1 Million Say Happy Pride!
Parting Glances I'm sitting on a concrete corner fence at the edge of Walgreen's pharmacy outlet, Belmont and Broadway. I'm an hour early for the start of Chicago's 44th Gay Pride Parade. In front of me are some Chinese children passing out [...]
How's Your Telomere, Mary?
Parting Glances This month's issue of Brain World (Humanity's New Frontier) carries articles of amatory, ecumenical interest for those of us fascinated and/or obsessed with sexuality preoccupation. Count me in. In spite of my advanced years, I [...]
Sneak Preview: E-Bay Collectible
Parting Glances One of my pleasures as an artist, apart from being told that my art is "appreciated" – maybe because it's annoyingly rumored about that each piece has a phallic symbol in it somewhere, somehow (note: many don't) – is the rare [...]
Bigots Do It Better
Parting Glances I don't know how you feel about bigotry, whether it's innate or a choice – but if you have someone special in your life who's a closet bigot, or know someone who's concerned about this mental, quasi-spiritual condition – tell them [...]
Sirens At A Distance Sound
Parting Glances This Motor City Pride 2013 I am closing my eyes – I invite you to mentally close yours as you read – and counting back 44 years, 35 years, 20, 10, five years, cold months, heated days to June 28, 1969, when in a Sunday morning's [...]
Here, there, everywhere!
Parting Glances I've been rereading Irish author Colm Toibin's book "Love in A Dark Time," as Motor City and Ferndale's Pride 2013 events take place one week apart from each other. For those unfamiliar with Toibin, his novel "The Story of Night" [...]
Whose Nose Knows Best?
Parting Glances In the movie "The Ten Percent Solution" master sleuth Sherlock Holmes visits shrink Sigmund Freud for some desperate psychoanalytical advice on how to break a cocaine addiction. (Whether Holmes' up-the-nosegay 10 Percenter is [...]
How's your lipogram, Mary?
Parting Glances It's one of our crazy, straight cultural givens that a high pitched "s" sound is associated with being gay. It's the lisp that goes with the limp wrist. Any male who lingers a nanosecond too long in his pronunciation of out 19th [...]
My Past, Our Prologue
Parting Glances I will in three days, as this Parting Glances again makes its weekly welcome appearance – number 650 in a long, long series of fascinating, and occasionally improbable, columns – turn 77. I have lived 59 of those years as a member [...]