Was really moved by this World AIDS Day post by Michael Goff, so wanted to share it. For those who aren't familiar with him, Michael founded OUT magazine, was a columnist for the infamous OutWeek, and is currently a driving force behind Towleroad.com. He's also a longtime AIDS activist, dating back to the ACT UP era, whom I'm happy I've gotten to know better in recent times.
(Click to ENLARGE)
3 comments:
it seems unimaginable it's been over 30 years since i came across a 1-2 paragraph write-up in science magazine as a teenager, among the various front page news mentions, briefly describing a deadly new immune disease under investigation.
within 15 years i would say goodbye to almost 45 friends and acquaintances, 17 of whom i considered close friends and adopted family. having become knowledgeable in treatments, pharmaceuticals, nutrition & supplements, home health care, and government housing & disability, i'm still unable to explain how i managed to survive.
one of my primary concerns at the time was the reagan administration's silence. as i watched close friends and co-workers slowly, painfully, wither and die, the white house was seemingly unmoved, ignoring the impending worldwide health crisis. the failure of acknowledgement could only be logically explained as the result of victims being gay, and the political, social, and religious stigma attached. i was angry for many years.
only recently was i able to complete watching the documentary "how to survive a plague”. i started many times, but was unable to make it more than a few minutes before stopping the video, the pain simply too great.
i appreciate the post by michael goff, and hope the vanity fair video is a vivid reminder for younger generations of why politics matter. many political decisions have life and death implications, but few so close to gays as this failure addressing the aids crisis early on, when so many might have been saved.
Happy Fucking AIDS Day indeed. Well done; thanks Kenneth for publishing this. I get a growing anger in my gut every fucking time I hear "AIDS Day" and "AIDS Conference" with lifts in journalists voices that it somehow marks some bright luster of overcoming a challenge. And Goff has quite simply put a voice to that anger.
"What northalabama said"!!! Ken, you were in an Arizona jr high and high school when some of us started to see our friends mysteriously ill, then deathly sick, then dropping like flies. My only real criticism of "The Normal Heart" (besides the miscasting of Jula Roberts, done to get financing, I think) was how GOOO the sick men looked. Matt Bomer, 5 minutes from death, looked half as bad as guys you saw walking on the street -- once proud studs or ordinary guys, now with incredibly sunken faces and disgusting blotches, sunk into delirium, and nearly killed by the shame, before the disease. They could not have shown it realistically on TV as the audience would have not been able to take it. "Who will be next?" "Are we all going to die?" "What if I had a bleeding gum when I sucked him, will it kill me?" "I love, you, please don't die, I can't face losing you" -- and so on. THAT is what is was like, and worse. .... And the politicians making clear we deserved it and did not deserve
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