PastOut

PastOut:14 Years Ago in OutSmart

Michael Wilson appears (and appears … and appears). And other events from the past.

By Donalevan Maines

Michael Wilson directed Broadway’s reigning Tony Award winner, Angels in America, at the Alley Theatre, in one of the few productions that playwright Tony Kushner allowed outside of New York. Calling the two-part, seven-and-a-half-hour “gay fantasia on national themes” the most important work of the latter 20th century, OutSmart contributing writer Steven Foster wrote a fascinating backstage report on the show’s technical challenges that was itself a work of art so epic that it spanned two issues of OutSmart.

Foster’s prose described 30-year-old Wilson as “handsomely rough, with strong coal-miner hands, brown, piercing eyes, military hair, and de riguer goatee . . . built solid, built tight, coiled body ready for a fight.” (For the current story on Michael Wilson, see “Directing the Estate: Michael Wilson handles with care the work of his late friend Horton Foote,” in this month’s OutSmart.)

 Another OutSmart contributor, Michael D. Wilson, movingly eulogized William A. “Bill” Scott, Gov. Ann Richards’ openly gay, HIV-positive appointee to the State Board of Health. Scott, who died on April 5 of complications from AIDS, “was to be admired, honored, emulated, and, most importantly, fondly remembered by those of us who remain behind.”

May 18 was the first anniversary of the death of Michael K. Wilson, who was fondly remembered by friends at A Moveable Feast, Spectrum Center, Awaken the Healer Within, and Uptown Express magazine.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Community Church of the Resurrection–Houston (MCCR) celebrated 20 years of “experienc(ing) God’s unconditional love.”

 Bering United Methodist Men sponsored ”Rainbow Day” at Astroworld.

 The Dizinger Foundation offered a free eight-week photography class for PWAs.

 Suzanne Anderson, co-grand marshal of the 1995 Houston Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade, held an open house at her new real estate office at 239 Westheimer.

 The Sunday summer barbecue returned to Plaza 9200 at 9200 Buffalo Speedway with the first annual Joan Crawfish Boil (or steak and chicken with all the trimmings).

 Eileen Hegar was chosen as the new president of the Montrose Clinic.

 The Houston Area chapter of the National Organization for Women celebrated its 25th anniversary as the largest and oldest NOW chapter in Texas. “Women are still subject to discrimination in all aspects of their lives,” said chapter president Deborah Bell.

 Angry readers debated Houston attorney Dale Carpenter‘s OutRight column stating reasons for not including transgenders in the gay movement.

 But this month in Houston 1995, no one fought back like Greg Jeu at OutSmart who was robbed at gunpoint in his driveway. He told OutSmart readers how he jumped in his truck and drove after the gunman, dodging bullets until the robber ran out of ammunition. Then he revved up the truck and rammed hard with a vengeance into the robber’s white convertible Miata. He said, “My motto is, ‘If you can’t put them away, at least put them in a neck brace.’”

 This is Donalevan Maines’ first column in a continuing series looking back at Houston’s GLBT history through OutSmart .

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Don Maines

Donalevan Maines is a regular contributor to OutSmart Magazine.

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