Wedding bells will ring this summer for Marvel Comics’ first openly gay hero, super speedster Northstar, and his longtime boyfriend.I want Lee Miles to leave Fort Wayne.
As soon as possible.
That’s not the same as wanting him to be “run out of town on a rail” as they used to say back in the days when they had too much time on their hands and too many rails, apparently.
I want Lee Miles to leave Fort Wayne so people outside Fort Wayne can find out how good he is.
Miles’ latest CD, “The Leaving,” comes out Saturday, and there will be a release party at 10 p.m. at the Brass Rail on Broadway to commemorate the occasion.
“The Leaving” chronicles a bad year in the life of a good man.
Most of the songs were written in a five-month flurry of cathartic creativity, although catharsis was a consequence, not an expectation, he says.
Miles says his troubles – related to health, romance and employment – are of the type experienced by many. But writing about them did make him feel “about 50 percent lighter,” he says.
“It’s the sort of thing that once I am done and out selling copies, I will be able walk away from that place in my life,” he says.
“The Leaving” is a collection of gruff and gorgeous stuff, as intimate as whispers and as sweeping as anthems.
It is one of those local CDs that need not be graded on a curve.
Miles grew up in Fort Wayne but began his musical career in South Bend, where he attended Bethel College. He saw some success there but had to return to Fort Wayne when he started experiencing some mysterious physical ailments.
Even today, the reasons for his chronic fatigue, frequent dehydration and hormonal imbalances are still being pursued by doctors.
A geneticist based in Indianapolis has made some amazing strides in the past six months, Miles says, and this has renewed his hope.
“I haven’t given up on this,” he says. “I haven’t completely lost faith. The body is capable of miraculous things.”
His health is the main reason Miles has not tried to test his musical aspirations in vaster metropolises, he says.
Miles doesn’t want fame, fortune or name recognition.
“I just want to make a living writing music,” he says. “To me, that’s success. I have very little appetite for the other stuff.”
In the meantime, Miles’ friend, the music journalist Greg Locke, has decided to depart briefly from making his documentary on the Fort Wayne music scene to craft an intimate cinematic portrait of Miles, complete with visits to Indianapolis-based medical specialists.
The private Miles has agreed to all of this, but he’s “honestly not very comfortable with it,” he says.
This mini-doc should premiere in February, but don’t expect to see Miles there.
“Yeah, I told (Locke) I don’t want be there,” Miles says. “He thinks I am going to come. We’ll see how it pans out.”
