By Charles Karel Bouley
Sometimes, writing on television, even on a procedural, can be great enough to inspire an internal dialogue in the viewer. Such was the case recently while I was catching up on NCIS: Origins on Paramount+ . Now, I’m not really the NCIS audience, but years ago I fell in love with the show when Tony and Ziva were on, with Ducky and all the rest. I’m not a Mark Harmon fan, but I loved Pauley Perrette and everyone else, so I watched.
Now, I watch Origins because the lead actor is gorgeous, and no, I don’t mean the character that plays a young Gibbs Austin Stowell. Oh, he’s gorgeous too, but it’s Kyle Schmid as Mike Franks that does it for me. You see, I knew I was gay in high school in the 1970s and then in the 1980s really came out, and men looked like his character, mustache, tight jeans, swagger. He’s all that, a bag of chips, and more.
So I was catching up on the first three episodes of Season 2 over the first weekend in November 2025 and episode three was all about Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino) and her car crash, the cliffhanger from Season One. The older Gibbs (Mark Harmon) does the narrating, which I do like, ties it to the original show nicely. As he was talking about the crash, he was talking about how after such an event, a life-altering car crash, you’re left with questions like “How do I get back to being the me I was before the crash?” and “What happened to the person I used to be, when will I feel like them again.” Then, at the end of the episode, he pronounces that after the crash, after a life changing event, you can’t go back. Because that person is gone, you’ll never be that person again. The event has forever changed you, and those around you, and there is no going back to what was before; it, and the you that you once were, are gone. There’s only what is now, someone new, someone changed, someone different, maybe in subtle ways or maybe in huge ones.
And I sat, staring, mouth open, at the 70” tv in my media room.
You see, we’ve all had our “crashes” in life; events that are huge, that happen out of the blue and bring us face to face with mortality in some way, be it physical or mental, our actual death or the death of a way of life. And extrapolate that out from the personal level, to that of the nation: events from 9/11 to January 6, from mass shootings to political violence, from economic woes to moral ones. As a nation, we’ve been through many crashes of late, life-altering, brain-bending events.
In 2001 I lost my partner and love of my life, Andrew Howard, right in front of me. He died while they were pounding on him in the ER to revive him, and I watched the entire horror unfold. I then had to fight for five years to get the right to sue because society didn’t deem gay couples worthy of such things, until I changed that law in CA in the days before same-sex marriage (which grants LGBTQ people such rights now). Before that, I watched a generation of my friends die of AIDS right in front of me, literally, as a nation turned away, a seated President dismissed it (Reagan, may he not rest in peace) and people didn’t care because it was “just the queers” dying. It was a pandemic far worse than covid and those of us that lived through certainly lived through a crash. In 2018 I left my home of 43 years, Long Beach, CA, for Las Vegas with just my service dog in tow, a life that was filled with friends daily in my house, social events, my own studio behind my house for my #1 radio broadcasts, entertainment industry events, a life I had built over 43 years…all changed in one night because of the economy. I had to move, I could no longer afford Long Beach, CA on what radio was paying. Even #1 radio wasn’t paying enough. It was a terrifying new chapter, and a lonely one.
Since then, in Las Vegas, I haven’t flourished. In Long Beach I was a star of the LGBTQ community, I’m even in the Harvey Milk Plaza there for my contributions to the community as a whole with my history-making stints in radio, TV, stage and print, breaking the pink barrier in all sorts of media. In Las Vegas, I am in no way part of the fractured, sad LGBTQ community that is here (and actually saying their is one is a stretch, there is no central gay community, no gay area with gay restaurants, coffee shops, patrons…there’s bars, but I’m 63 so…). I’ve tried, I’ve gone to Pride events, hikes, mixers, but it’s such a clique I couldn’t even volunteer my services for Gay Pride Festival to sing my latest charting single because they gave all the spots to their clique friends.
And as for friends, I made a great new one, Tyler, who then moved off to Reno in a few years after meeting. My BFF here is someone from Long Beach that followed me here, Steve. Thank god for him and his dog Tino, my biggest social outlet. Heath, Sheri, Jeannie, friends from the park where I walk my now 10 year old service girl Ember every day are great additions to my life, but I rarely see them outside the park. In fact, there are days where I walk Ember in the morning, see people at the park, and then don’t see anyone at all until the next day, as I do my podcast from my second bedroom converted to a studio. A house once filled daily with friends for lunch, dinner, evening gatherings…I haven’t had a social gathering here in over two years with more than one person. It’s a huge change.
So, I keep wondering, what do I need to do to get back to being me. The me that records singles, tours, does live comedy, does a bigger show than just my podcast, is a force in the gay community…how does this Stella get his groove back?
It’s on my mind daily, why can’t I be happier here. Trump hasn’t made it easier, either, dividing the nation, and Nevada is purple at best, so I’m not around like-minded liberals that often.
And I agonize daily, why aren’t I doing more? Being more “me.”
And then, I hear the words from the NCIS Origins and I think of myself and exclaim, “Because you’re not the same you, you don’t want the same things, you’ve changed. All of that has changed you, all the crashes you’ve had over the years, and you haven’t figured out who this knew you truly is and what he wants for this part of his life, truly, deeply.” Not what I think I want based on what I’ve wanted from my past, entertainment industry success, a husband, and a house full of friends, a full day planner and social calendar. Oh sure, I still want some of those things, but not in the way I once did. The importance of each has changed, shifted.
And suddenly I felt optimistic, I felt, well, lighter. Because suddenly I knew what my job was, I knew what I needed to do. Instead of chasing the dreams of who I used to be, instead of living by the standards and desires of the me 10, or 20, or 30 years ago, I needed to discover who exactly I am right now and what this new survivor of multiple crashes wants out of the life he has left. Do I really want to do a daily podcast and/or radio? Or do I want to go more in to TV and film even though it’s harder now than ever to do so? Do I want to stay an on-stage entertainer or move more in the background? Do I want to sing, write songs, or do both? Do I want to pursue my passion for vegan food, healthy living and merge that with entertainment goals? Do I even want to live in Las Vegas any more, or am I ready to move on?
Suddenly, it was as if I were an infant, with an entirely new world to discover. Because, I am, and there is. I’m different now. I’m not the Karel of the 80s, 90s or early 2000s. I’m a survivor of so much, like laying in the ICU in April with a heart beating wrong and fast for 36 hours after being brought there in an ambulance or being at the ALS clinic at Cedars Sinai Los Angeles to see if I have a fatal illness because a vaccine caused my leg to twitch, put me in the hospital also in April but of 2024 with meningitis and hasn’t stopped twitching since. These are life-altering, frightening events by themselves, and for me, just another crash in a life full of them like a cosmic bumper car.
And yes, I’m damaged from the crashes. My medical anxiety runs amok at times, and I catastrophize every symptom of mine, or my dog’s. Everything is life or death, because for decades it was with two parents that were disabled, a late husband with HIV/AIDS, a generation of sick friends who every single time had to ask is this just a spot, or Kaposi’s cancer; is this just a cough, or Pneumocystis Pneumonia? In the 80s and 90s friends didn’t just get sick and recover. Many got sick, and died, within weeks or even days of the first symptoms. And my parents being disabled and ailing the same, thing. One moment dad was home, the next, in the hospital. He died before turning 60 of a medical mistake. And mom died in early 70s right in front of me from COPD.
So I know why I do it, but it always happens worse when I’m stressed. And it seems like I’ve been stressed, well, for a decade, or even since Andrew died. Floundering, trying to find my way. At first, it was through a haze of drugs, Oxycontin, 100mg a day for decades for my own disability, cannabis and alcohol. Once I quit most of that in 2016 and the fog cleared, I’ve floundered. Looking for the life I had, searching for the me that was, and never allowing myself to become someone different, the new me, the me after the crashes.
And it took hearing a simple bit of dialogue on a tv procedural to make me realize these things. I am trying to rebuild the me, and life, that was, instead of building the new one, and the new me, and truly embracing him and loving him for what he wants now.
Like you, I have survived many crashes. And like many of you, I need to not reinvent, I simply need to embrace; embrace the person I am now and stop trying to Make Myself Great Again (wouldn’t make a good hat).
I am great, because I’m here. The me that’s here is not a me that needs to regress. Like America, we don’t need to rebuild the institutions Trump is tearing down, we don’t need to “go back” to anything. We need to move forward, accepting we’ve been forever changed as Americans, deciding who we are in the now, and allowing ourselves to build a new, better system, a better country, from the rubble of the crash that has been the last 249 years of our country. We are not out founders, we are something new. We are not our parents, or grandparents, we are newer versions, versions that have lived through a multitude of crashes and have come out changed. We want new things, different things, better things.
Being new is terrifying. Having to discover the new things I like and the old things I don’t, saying out loud the new life I want and the life I don’t, is not easy. But recovery from a crash never is, rehabilitation isn’t a piece of cake. And when you come out of rehab, you’re not the same person you were before, you’re new, with new possibilities and new limitations.
Letting go of who you thought you were and looking at yourself honestly for who you are now and then acting upon it is perhaps the scariest thing one can do. But I, and the country, need to, and that journey starts today. I am not going back to anyone or anything. I am only going forward, new, flawed, afraid, unsure, strong, open and focused.
Obviously I still like to write, that’s good. Now, back to NCIS Origins. Let’s see if Gibbs can make me think about something as profound again, and even if not, at least they’re pretty to look at, because I know I still like handsome men!
