On the Rag, Vol. 620

A weekly look at what's making news in the gay magazines:

POZ: Remembering the legacy of Larry Kramer

HotSpots: Meet model/actor Shaun Melady

Dallas Voice: Spiritual leaders seek to fulfill MLK's dream in the shadow of Black Lives Matter

Out: Ricky Martin, the family man

Grab: The return of the Chicks

Between the Lines: Michigan trans man named teacher of the year

Gloss: Slick Chick Natalie Maines

HIV Plus: Dr. Anthony Fauci on Covid, HIV, and being an 'alarmist'

Did AIDS Activist Larry Kramer Die of Covid-19? -- UPDATE

UPDATE: Larry's husband confirmed no Covid-19. (How surprised would you be to know that they both used AOL email addresses?)

Also, Chris Hayes corrected himself later in the program (my DVR cut off). 

I feel much better now!

There was quite a bombshell on tonight's episode of "All In With Chris Hayes," when the MSNBC newsman almost in passing mentioned that Larry Kramer had succumbed to Covid-19, something I had not heard hitherto. When the legendary writer and AIDS activist died on May 27, his husband, David Webster, said the cause was pneumonia -- and I vividly remember breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't related to the current situation. (If you’re anything like Damian and me, the coronavirus angle is the first place you go when just about anyone died these days.)

Kramer -- who took on the Reagan administration when it failed to seriously address the AIDS crisis in the 1980s -- had been living with HIV 32 years and battled various ailments, successfully undergoing a liver transplant in 2001, yet continued to thrive. He was less than a month from his 85th birthday, and I think the queer community collectively felt he just couldn't die while another recalcitrant White House repeated so many of the mistakes he had fought so hard to correct.

I haven't been able to speak with anyone I know who was close to Larry to confirm this news. But if true how sad -- and more than a little ironic -- would it be if Kramer or his survivors had opted to hide this information, perhaps out of shame or anger that it would end this way?

Just a few months ago, as the coronavirus pandemic grew, Kramer was reportedly sheltering-in-his-place in Greenwich Village, working on a timely new play called "An Army of Lovers Must Not Die," about “gay people having to live through three plagues.”

According to the New York Times, the three plagues were HIV/AIDS, Covid-19 and the decline of the human body -- "specifically, a broken leg that Kramer, 84, suffered last April, when he fell in his apartment and lay on the floor until his home attendant arrived hours later."

“The government has been awful in both cases,” Kramer told the Times. “They were terrible with AIDS and they’re terrible with this thing. One wonders what will become of us.”

Indeed.

Will update if I get more information.

P.S.

Poignant thought, from Jon Barrett.

Larry Kramer, Playwright and Famed AIDS Activist, Dies at 84

The New York Times reports that Larry Kramer, the noted writer whose raucous, antagonistic campaign for an all-out response to the AIDS crisis helped shift national health policy in the 1980s and ’90s, died on Wednesday morning in Manhattan. He was 84.

His husband, David Webster, said the cause was pneumonia. Mr. Kramer had weathered illness for much of his adult life.

Among other things he had been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, contracted liver disease and underwent a successful liver transplant. An author, essayist and playwright -- notably hailed for his autobiographical 1985 play, “The Normal Heart” -- Mr. Kramer had feet in both the world of letters and the public sphere. In 1981 he was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first service organization for HIV-positive people, though his fellow directors effectively kicked him out a year later for his aggressive approach. (He returned the compliment by calling them “a sad organization of sissies.”)

He was then a founder of a more militant group, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), whose street actions demanding a speedup in AIDS drugs research and an end to discrimination against gay men and lesbians severely disrupted the operations of government offices, Wall Street and the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Keep reading HERE.

Activists and Celebrities Honor Larry Kramer’s Brash Advocacy

Larry Kramer Says AIDS Is 'Worse Than Ever'

Larry Kramer is circulating a "renewed call to arms." But rather than making me want to put my activist boots back on, it has me wondering if at 84 the legendary writer and AIDS activist isn't beginning to suffer from dementia. He writes:

“WHERE ARE WE NOW? 

I think we are in a terrible place.

I think AIDS is worse than ever, we are told otherwise, and no one is facing the reality of this situation. I think gay people are being made victims by our entire government from the president on down through the entire political system.

The state of both gay and AIDS activism -- fighting back -- is in the toilet.

The organizations we have started and funded (with only a few exceptions like Broadway Cares and Lambda Legal) are weak and bordering on the useless.

All parts of the gay population‘s main activity is squabbling with each other. We are totally not united on anything.

The sex lives of gay men, with the arrival and availability of second-rate medicines, is rapidly returning to the behaviors that got us into trouble in the first place. Unprotected sex, sex parties, back rooms, on line searches for sex partners, have led to record-high numbers of all infectious diseases.

Meth has returned as a drug of choice, leading to addictions.

Long-term survivors of AIDS are treated like outcasts.

Gays seem incapable of angrily responding to any example of homophobia. We allow people in power to say hateful things about us. Few are the politicians who will fight out loud for us, particularly at this election time.

I do not see our bodies on the streets protesting in unison against every attack on us.

Please distribute this message to everyone you can.

Larry Kramer

My response:

--No, AIDS is not worse than ever. Earlier this month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declared that New York, once the epicenter of the epidemic, is on track to meet its goal to end the AIDS epidemic in the state by 2020. Did you forget you wrote the seminal play "The Normal Heart" in which everyone dies, which was based on real life?

--Protease inhibitors, pre-exposure prophylaxis and post-exposure prophylaxis are not second-rate drugs. They’re lifesavers and they’re preventing a new generation from going through the horrors ours did.

--Long-term survivors are beloved and more visible than ever. People are writing bestselling memoirs about living with HIV.

--PrEP is what we've been fighting for. Sex negativity was quasi-understandable when we didn't even know what was killing us. But now it smacks of just shaming people for the sake of shaming.

--LGBTQ people are fighting the Trump administration every step of the way

--Are you OK? Your brand of outrage helped get us where we are today. It’s time to take yes for an answer. 

Remains of the Day (04/08)

Twitter: Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims was not amused by how I captioned this other photo of him with Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Daily News Journal: Bar patron who brutalized gay man and bragged about it in bloody selfies on social media pleads guilty

Instagram: Is this Speedo-clad twink the identity of today's Morning Wood?

Dlisted: Open post and site announcement hosted by a woman proving that you should never throw an axe at the floor

The Hill: Top Republican calls on Nadler to have Mueller testify

The Randy Report: Mayor Pete wows the crowd at LGBTQ Victory Fund brunch

ICYMI: Larry Kramer is on the mend following surgery for a broken hip

Variety: Human remains found in search for missing gay Mouseketeer

Towleroad: Cock tease Shawn Mendes gets mad when people speculate that he's gay "because you hurt so many other people"

Instagram: Your afternoon workout with hunky Jordan Morello

The New York Times: Chinese woman arrested at Mar-a-Lago had cash, additional electronics and a hidden-camera detector, prosecutors say

Boy Culture: Trust me, you're gonna want to see what happens to the men of NYC when the temperature jumps 40 degrees!

The WoW Report: Marc Jacobs weds Charly Defrancesco in New York City, followed by a star-studded reception

TPM: Felicity Huffman, 12 other parents will plead guilty in college bribery scheme

Instagram: Miss Aaron Schock is back at Barry's Bootcamp

Back2Stonewall: Beverly Hills hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei -- whose gay son I had already outed was just outed again by Perez Hilton -- lose major charity functions

NewNowNext: Don Lemon gets engaged to his real-estate agent love, Tim Malone

Greg in Hollywood: South Africa rugby player Pierre Spies might have the hottest body I've ever seen

Hot Cat of the Day: Barsik's body type is what we call "more to love" in the world of online adoptions!

To Larry Kramer, Thanks for Everything! Kenneth Walsh

If you're looking for something to watch this holiday weekend, I recommend HBO's "Larry Kramer: In Love and Anger," which we saw last night on demand. Although I'm well versed in the "How to Survive a Plague" years of the documentary, Larry's pre-activism life in Hollywood was an eye-opener for me -- as was his segue into writing novels. (The backlash against his "Faggots" sets up the greatest gay told-you-so moment in the history of the world.) So many familiar faces are included -- Mike Signorile, Peter Staley  Vito Russo (who also has a great doc about him) -- and it was so bittersweet seeing a young Rodger McFarlane in action. Larry Kramer rubbed a lot of people the wrong way over the years -- he scared the shit out of me the first time I was near him -- and I think it's fair to say we should all thank the stars above that he did.

Here's the trailer:

The Normal.Dot

Is Larry Kramer the new face of Microsoft?

When Kim Kardashian Met Larry Kramer

The reality bombshell reportedly told the legendary activist: "I loved you on 'Seinfeld.'"

Gov. Cuomo Backs the Other Pill

What a strange world we live in where Larry Kramer is against PrEP, and the governor of New York supports it. Dare we call it progress?

Josh Barro writes:

On Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious goal: Ending the AIDS epidemic in New York State by 2020. Governor Cuomo does not mean he expects the state to find a cure; he wants to cut new infections so drastically that the number of New Yorkers living with H.I.V. goes into decline. He has set a goal of 750 new infections in 2020, down from about 3,000 in 2013 and 14,000 at the epidemic’s peak in 1993. To that end, he has embraced a new and controversial treatment for people at risk of contracting H.I.V. He wants to put more H.I.V.-negative people on Truvada, a drug originally developed to treat those who already have the virus, and which the F.D.A. approved in 2012 as protection against new infections. 

When I asked why the governor had made PrEP a key part of his anti-H.I.V. strategy, a top administration official involved in developing the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity gave me a remarkably frank answer. “Some people use condoms, some people don’t,” the official said. “You can’t offer condoms to people who don’t want them.”

Read HERE.

The 'Normal' Routine

People magazine spotted "Normal Heart" hotties Matt Bomer and Taylor Kitsch were being human beings in Manhattan and wanted us all to know about it.

Kramer vs. Kramer

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni writes that with HBO's adaptation of "The Normal Heart," a complicated hero gets his due:

I dreaded Larry Kramer, and sometimes I even detested Larry Kramer, but always — always — I knew that he was on the side of the angels and that we needed him there, in all his unappeasable and obnoxious glory.

Read HERE.

Next to 'Normal'

It took me a quarter-century to see the play, but I plan to watch the HBO adaptation of Larry Kramer's groundbreaking AIDS play, "The Normal Heart," when it premieres May 26. Hard to believe it's been nearly three decades from Barbra Streisand to Ryan Murphy getting this made. Read HERE.

HBO Teases 'The Normal Heart'

Has there ever been a film production that took as many twists and turns as Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart"? ("Evita," maybe?) HBO's adaptation looks like it may be worth the wait.

The Day Larry Kramer Kissed Him

Congrats are in order!

The New York Times reports:

Larry Kramer, the award-winning playwright of “The Normal Heart” and longtime gay rights advocate, married his partner, David Webster, on Wednesday in the intensive care unit of NYU Langone Medical Center, where Mr. Kramer has been recovering from surgery for a bowel obstruction. Mr. Webster, in a telephone interview on Thursday, said the couple had set the wedding date a few weeks earlier, before Mr. Kramer’s health flare-up.  

The original plan – to be married on the terrace of their Greenwich Village apartment with two witnesses and the officiant, Judge Eve Preminger – was scrapped in favor of the intensive care unit, where two dozen friends and relatives attended the noontime ceremony led by Judge Preminger.

Full story HERE.

Pucker Up

I loved "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me' when I saw it in a warehouse theater in Crystal City, Va., back in the '90s. Now to celebrate the landmark play's 20th anniversary, it will be re-imagined from a one-man show to one featuring an all-star ensemble cast. The special performance on Monday, May 20, is produced by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and benefits BC/EFA and Sero Project. The one-night-only benefit performance features an ensemble of talented actors including author David Drake, Brandon Cordeiro, two-time Tony Award nominee Robin De Jesús, two-time Tony nominee André De Shields, Claybourne Elder, Tony nominee Rory O'Malley, Anthony Rapp, Chad Ryan, Donald C. Shorter Jr., Wesley Taylor, Aaron Tone and Tony winner BD Wong. Robert La Fosse directs. For tickets and more information, click HERE.

Keeping Pace

Jim Parsons and Lee Pace get cozy with Larry Kramer, whose play "The Normal Heart" they're starring in on Broadway. Haven't decided if I'm going to go -- the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, but you know how I am about The Theater -- but I did love Pace in "Soldier's Girl." With his scruffy, retro gay look he's currently sporting, it's hard to believe he played a transgender beauty opposite Jane Fonda's son, Troy Garity nearly a decade ago. (As expected, "The Normal Heart" just got a slew of Tony nominations.)

Decked out for the opening night after-party