leftovers

  Glen Ernest Strecker November 10, 1948-September 19, 2026  My dad took his final breaths on a Saturday evening surrounded by family. It was a peaceful end to a beautiful life, and a hard-fought battle with cancer.  On October 23, family and friends gathered in Manhattan, Kansas, to celebrate his life. From tales of his childhood on the farm in Paradise, Kansas, to stories of his time as Willie the Wildcat at Kansas State University, to his later years as Papa to his two beloved grandchildren, there was much to celebrate.  I was comforted to see so many people there to toast my father, and my wonderful cousins and one of my best friends who has been there for me since we were kids, joined the gathering to support us and show how much dad meant to them. It was truly an amazing tribute to someone who touched so many lives in a positive and meaningful way. Here are the comments I shared at the celebration of life.  My dad, Glen, and I were very different people. F...

  It's been almost 10 months since I released "The White Tomato," my first original album in this decade. I've told the story before of how I had pandemic-induced writers block for several years, no motivation to write new music, let alone record and share it.  When the floodgates finally opened, I experienced a blur of creativity and productivity which resulted in not only the 9-track album, but four new b-sides and a slew of remixes. Then came a holiday song, and a couple of live shows where I got to perform a couple of the new songs for small crowds of friends in both my new home of Sacramento, and my adopted hometown of LA, where I lived for most of my second (gay) childhood.  Welp, as happy as I was releasing an album on only digital/streaming format, I finally decided I needed to release a definitive physical version of this album along with the bonus material. As much as I would have loved to go with vinyl, CDs are much more affordable and also able to fit much...

In the late 90s when I was coming of age, and coming out of the closet (slowly), there was a little explosion of gay indie films. Some of the ones I remember the most are Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Trick, Beautiful Thing, and Edge of Seventeen. Oh, and of course, To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar, which inspired my brother and I to have a party where we dressed in drag.  In the years since, there have been huge milestones in LGBTQ+ representation in film and television, with grounbreaking shows like Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and Call Me By Your Name. One that really hit for me was "Brokeback Mountain" in 2005. I was obsessed with that movie and saw it several times in the theater. However, that movie was really very sad. So many LGBTQ "romance" stories have sad endings. Either the lovers couldn't be public about their love, or they couldn't be honest and open with each other, or one of them gets sick or dies.  So when I first st...