Family and Friends
What It Feels Like for a Mom
Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
“A boy’s best friend is his mother.”
– Norman Bates, Psycho
I was standing at the ticket counter of the movie theater and couldn’t believe my ears. They were telling me that “Theater of Blood,” with the great Vincent Price, was rated “R” and they were not letting me in without a parent. I was a horror-movie obsessed boy of 12, and was inconsolable. “I won’t look at any sexy stuff,” I remember pleading, “I just came for the gore!”
With visions of decapitations fading like an old blood stain, I made the long walk back home and exposed my broken heart to Mother, who made one of the grandest gestures of my childhood: she took me back for the late show. On a school night.
It wouldn’t be the last time she had my back. Over the years she proved a trustworthy ally, and this was never more true than in the 1980′s, when gay men often lost their mothers — hell, their entire families – when an AIDS diagnosis was revealed.
Mom never abandoned me or my gay older brother, Dick (is there no gayer name than Dick King? Did my parents consult the Falcon Video Book of Baby Names?). I tested positive in 1985, and Mom immediately went to work educating herself on HIV.
My brother was spared HIV infection but suffered its cruelty nevertheless: his lover of 13 years, Emil, died of AIDS in the early, scorched-earth years of the epidemic.
In this special Mother’s Day episode of my ongoing video series “My Fabulous Disease,” I sat Mom down to find out things I’ve never asked before. What did she really feel when she found out I was positive? Did she believe I would die? Do mothers have a right to know? What advice would she offer other families? We also talk about the loss of Emil and the repercussions from it we still feel today.
Mom is no expert. She isn’t an AIDS researcher and she doesn’t march on Washington. She just loves her kids and tries to understand what is happening in their lives and how she can help. If your mother is like mine, we have a lot to celebrate (or remember) this Mother’s Day weekend.
Enjoy the video, and please, stay well.
Mark
(This post originally appeared on Mothers Day, 2010, and I’m happy to report that Mom is doing just great. I wanted to share this with you again. — Mark)
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PLUS…
While Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart has been getting the Broadway love the last few years, another, equally stunning AIDS play from that era is getting a deserved remounting. The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, a one man show about being gay and AIDS activism by the engaging David Drake, is being performed for one night only in New York City on Monday, May 20, at Gerard W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College. It’s a benefit for Broadway CARES and The SERO Project. Even more exciting, Broadway stars have joined the effort and have made David’s one man show into a ensemble piece. If you are anywhere in the area, follow this link and get your tickets now! For a terrific interview with David about the transformation of his historic show, read his interview in POZ Magazine.
Posted in Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease | 5 Comments »
Revisiting My Sad and Trivial Night with Rock Hudson
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
This memory still brings back fear and melancholy, like a ghost story that stubbornly haunts me after all these years…
Over and over, footage of Rock Hudson standing next to Doris Day was playing on television, and he looked ghastly. His skin was wrinkled and sunken as if by very old age. It was 1985, and it was one of the last close-up images most of us would ever see of the movie icon. And it was terrifying.
My heart was pounding, and I tried to listen to the voice-over, which spoke of the sudden illness of Rock Hudson and speculation that he might have AIDS. Throughout the newscast, memories of a night in 1982, nearly three years earlier, sprang to life. The images taunted me and screamed at me and said gonna getcha gonna getcha gonna getcha …
Charley and I had recently moved to Los Angeles and the city still held such mystery and promise for us. We were excited about spending our anniversary at the gay restaurant New York Company, where you got a candle on your table and mushrooms on your prime rib and they would probably sing to us or bring a special piece of cake.
No sooner had we settled at our table and ordered drinks than Charley started nudging my arm and staring at something behind me. I glanced in that direction, and was stunned to find Rock Hudson seated there, talking with another man.
In our short time in Los Angeles, I had developed the attitude that famous people deserved their privacy and one shouldn’t ogle them. I thought it was cool not to care they were there, even though I was dying to look. In any case, Charley was staring across our table in a gay restaurant directly at Rock Hudson and I wanted him to stop right this minute.
I was definitely jealous, not only of being upstaged by a movie star at my anniversary dinner, but because I wanted to look at him so badly myself, and Charley had the perfect view. So I pestered poor Charley for the next ten minutes about how rude he was and how I couldn’t believe he found the man so fascinating and why couldn’t he pay attention to me on this special night and all sorts of other such lies.
“You men having any fun?”
There was no mistaking the voice, and I looked up from my pouting stance to Charley, who was grinning across our table at the man behind me. “Sure,” Charley managed to say. I turned around and Rock Hudson was smiling at me. I was a star struck boy and there was no hiding it now.
“Yeah, me too,” I said. How completely embarrassing.
“You sure?” he asked, “Because my friend and I were just discussing it, and I was saying that the two of you were having a fight.”
Rock Hudson was discussing me. Rock Hudson was discussing me.
“Uh no, not at all,” I lied, jumping in before Charley had a chance to say what a bitch I was and how I thought you shouldn’t ogle movie stars. “I think we’re just kinda tired. As a matter of fact, today is our anniversary and we’re celebrating.”
“Yeah,” said Charley, “we’re doing fine. How are you tonight?” He was playing along, had forgiven me, and was asking Rock Hudson a question. This was unbelievable.
“It’s really wonderful that you two are having an anniversary. How long have you been together?”
“Three years,” we said in unison.
“That’s just great. Congratulations.” At this point he introduced his friend, who went “way back” and who’s name I couldn’t tell you in a million years, and then he offered an invitation. “Come sit with us, boys. Have a drink. It’s a special occasion.”
I looked at Charley, holding on to my “protect their privacy” stance for a few more seconds, but he had already risen to join them. What the hell. Like I would have refused. I took my spot beside Rock Hudson because I would have broken Charley’s arm if he had tried that seat and he knew it. Another round of drinks appeared, and the star launched into clever stories that I don’t quite remember but were more than fascinating at the time.
The conversation wandered onto Trivial Pursuit, the game which was then new and all the rage.
“Yes, I’ve heard of that,” Rock said. “I haven’t played it yet.”
“We’ve got the game, Rock,” Charley said. “You should really come over some time and we’ll play it with you.” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. He actually called Mr. Rock Hudson “Rock.” Furthermore, my partner had just invited this man “over some time,” like that was really in the realm of possibility.
More drinks arrived. This man can drink like a cow, I thought, and not even show it. He was playful, though, and shot a few looks my way that I would have taken quite differently if it weren’t clear I was celebrating my anniversary with the man to my immediate left.
“It’s a great game,” I found myself saying. “You wanna come over and play it with us?” I was a teensy bit smashed, no doubt about it.
“Yes, I would.”
I’m sure there was more to it, more of a rationale as to why he felt comfortable crashing our anniversary evening, but I don’t remember. His friend kindly begged off of the event, and it was decided that Charley would take his friend home while I rode with Rock so he had no problem finding our apartment. I still will never believe he parked his classy import on Edgewood Avenue, because it made me nervous parking my car there. Once inside, I found a full bottle of Scotch, poured him a drink, and gave him a tour of our tiny apartment until Charley got back.
I was no fool. What we had here was a prescription for something… unseemly. But I was barreling through these bizarre circumstances and wasn’t weighing the specific possibilities. That’s a lie. I was pursuing it because I suspected what was to come.
We played the game for a couple of hours, Rock winning and drinking. Before it was over the Scotch would be history and I would offer to roll a joint. “Pot makes me horny,” he said, “so I don’t know if I should–” and of course I was passing him the joint faster than you could say Star Fucker.
He talked about movies. And sex. And people he loved and hated. The juiciest tales began with “I was really drunk one night when” and the meanest had to do with people he thought had treated him badly professionally (“You need Julie Andrews like you need a knife in your back,” said he).
Charley had taken it all in, but knew when enough was enough. He excused himself quite late to go to bed, Rock offered to go, I wouldn’t hear of it, and we continued sitting in the dining room passing the joint.
I knew what was being played out. Questions floated about in the back balcony of my head, just within earshot. What kind of guy was I? Was I going to have sex with this man right here in the living room? What about my anniversary? What about the man I loved asleep in the bedroom? Was Rock Hudson as well hung as everyone said? Some questions got my attention more than others.
Rock made motions for the umpteenth time that it was time to go home, so while he whispered another insincere goodnight, I drunkenly opened the pants of Mr. Rock Hudson. The fact that this was a famous escapade had overruled the anniversary etiquette issues.
Thirty minutes or so later, I stood in my robe outside the bathroom, wondering what Rock Hudson thought about the rust stained bathtub in which he was quickly showering. The sex had been in near dark, and without the pretext of romance — no tender caresses or meaningful glances.
I can remember only one direct look from the man. I stared down upon his face after the exhaustion of labored sex — too much bourbon, too much pot — and my eyes tried adjusting to his face in the dark. And then there it was, staring back at me, with a surprisingly impatient look. Stern and almost elderly.
“Are you done?” he asked blankly.
Well, life ain’t the damned movies, I suppose.
I would make small talk with him as he toweled dry and dressed, and then me, in a final act of staking my claim, asking for his autograph. Yes, so help me, I asked the damp, drunk and spent star to scribble “All my best, Rock Hudson” on a piece of notebook paper before his hasty exit down the duplex stairs and out to the dingy street below.
I watched the car pull away and walked slowly back to the bedroom, where Charley was sound asleep and snoring. I laid down in the dark and the night replayed in my mind. Was I triumphant? Excited, thrilled, guilty? I had just bedded the ultimate male screen icon of a generation, and I hadn’t the slightest idea how to feel about it.
Rock Hudson was now a ghastly figure on a television screen in my living room. My heart raced every time the evening news began and some new tidbit of information about his disease, his sex life, his kiss with Linda Evans on “Dynasty,” his lovers and his drug treatments were reported with morbid tones and oh-my-God urgency.
I had not yet been tested for HIV. In 1985, what was the point? There were no known effective treatments, the first drug treatment, AZT, was just being introduced and people with AIDS were dropping like flies. It was politically incorrect to get tested because it could lead to discrimination, brand you as terminal and assure you that every pathetic image of a dying AIDS patient applied directly to you.
And that is exactly what the Rock Hudson coverage was doing to me, test or no test. Magazines and Dan Rather news stories were talking to me specifically. ROCK HUDSON HAS AIDS, the headlines screamed, AND MARK KING WILL DIE AS WELL.
“Rock Hudson is now resting in his Los Angeles home beyond a doctors care,” reported Mary Hart on Entertainment Tonight, “and Mark, you’re an idiot if you think you can escape this now. You’re dead as a door nail, buddy. What were you thinking?”
I would stare at the coverage without a word, and nod my head at parties when someone said how tragic it was and excuse myself.
My parents had been told the censored version of the anniversary night story that very next day, and called me in Los Angeles shortly after Rock was reported ill. “Why not go down to the hospital?” my father asked. “You could try to cheer him up, maybe bring Trivial Pursuit!” I explained the man had a million fans and wouldn’t remember me, without mentioning how trivial the pursuit had been.
In October of 1985, Rock Hudson died in his home. News reports tortured me for months to come.
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(Edited from A Place Like This, by Mark S. King. Copyright 2008.)
I love checking the analytical data produced by my blog software. It tells me what pages of my site you are visiting, what link sent you here, and even where you live (Hello, Cleveland! G’day, Sidney!). It also tells me what keyword searches bring people to my site, and once I sort through all the porn references (that piece on porn star Dawson still reels in the readers), the most popular Google search that brings people to my site, still, is the two words “Rock Hudson.”
Since interest in him remains so high, I don’t mind sharing this piece again (it appeared on my site in 2010). It allows me to provide a perspective on AIDS, celebrity, and our communal fear during the 1980′s that those Google visitors might never have expected.
Thanks for reading, and please be well.
Mark
Tags: A Place Like This, acting, aids, culture, gay, hiv, Recreation, Sexuality, testing
Posted in Books and Writings, Family and Friends, My Fabulous Disease | 8 Comments »
Hurting Mom on My First Gay Christmas
Monday, December 17th, 2012
There is so much distance in my mother’s eyes that I fear she may never come close to me again. Circling her stare are wrinkles of pain, betrayal even, and in her hand she holds the watch.
It was December of my senior year of high school, and things had calmed down considerably after my having burst forth from the closet that Fall, wearing go-go boots to school dances and openly flaunting my twenty-something boyfriend. But these were all healthy choices, I told myself.
If there was nothing wrong with being gay, then there should be nothing defiant about letting my family know about it. And my friends. And my teachers. And people at church. Never mind that we lived in Bossier City, Louisiana. Or that it was 1977.
But there was something about that look in my mother’s eyes, in that moment. It took all my arrogance to protect myself from it, to seek refuge from the shocked stare, the battle in her face between heartbreak and fury. She was squeezing tightly to the silver watchband, and her hand shook imperceptibly.
The boyfriend had been my downfall, of course. He was both too old and too immature for me, and Mom knew it. She also knew that spending so much time with him that previous summer wasn’t usual for a 16-year-old. So when she spotted a letter I’d written to him, she figured it would tell her what she wanted to know. She opened it.
It never occurred to me to place blame for that indiscretion. I was relieved when my parents found out, actually, and once that suspense was over I could get on with the business of scandalizing my high school.
There were brief exchanges between us following my big gay reveal, tense moments crowded with frustration and unfocused love. “What’s your problem with it?” I would ask, adorned with multiple pooka shell necklaces or sporting a man-made hickey without shame, “What’s your problem with me being gay?” I possessed more self-righteousness than an HRC dinner.
She would sigh with resignation, hand leaning on the kitchen counter. “Mark, it’s just that I know this won’t be easy. It’s your whole life, and this will just make it difficult.” There were no scripture readings or ignorant signs of homophobia. Just a mother’s perfectly legitimate concern that a child’s life could be tougher.
I didn’t appreciate her enlightenment. I would reply with a teenage shrug, just before some eye rolling and a saunter out of the room that must have made her want to strangle my pretty little gay neck.
As Christmas approached that year, I made it known that there was a gift that would be just swell for a certain high school senior. Something sophisticated, to show his increased maturity.
A watch.
But then, on my birthday two days before Christmas, I walked through the front door prancing like the Queen of Sheba — meaning, more prancing than usual — and on my wrist was a glimmering gold watch, a shiny new gift from my boyfriend. It was not a quality timepiece, not that I knew it, and the gold was destined to fade faster than the relationship. But it looked quite fabulous as I strutted and posed like I had just discovered that I could vogue.
Mother didn’t betray her emotions. She waited. And two days later, wearing a robe and a gold wrist, I opened a Christmas present from Mom and Dad that had been hidden behind the tree and saved for last.
It was a Timex, and it was beautiful. Silver.
There was more than the standard holiday tension as I slipped off my gold watch to try on the Timex. True to form, Mom kept her own counsel, but something told me that I wasn’t simply being presented with an additional watch, but with a choice. And I didn’t want to make it.
All that year I had been trying on a confident young gay identity for size — and that included a boyfriend who had given me what I wanted for Christmas. I valued him and I valued his gift. But family emotions were fairly clear: his gift was a bit much. After all, Mom and Dad could have had the man arrested for taking up with their 16-year-old. Seeing him shower me with jewelry had to push the limits of their patience.
But such concerns were beyond a self centered teen like me. I was convinced that flaunting his gift was about my new-found gay pride, and about respect for my sexuality and all sorts of other lofty, misdirected ideals.
Later that day, after the mountains of wrapping paper had been cleared, Mom and I sat near the tree. “So, this is a bit strange,” she began, as casually as she could muster, “having two watches… what will you do?” She had never had to compete with another gift giver for my gratitude. Someone outside the family. And a man.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, knowing.
“Maybe you should talk to your friend, and…”
“And what, Mother?” I snapped back, propelled with a little too much righteous indignation. “Look Mom, I have an idea…” I slipped off the Timex and handed it to her. “I think you and Dad should return this. Silver isn’t really my color. You should know that.”
It is then, that moment, which continues to replay in my mental catalogue of regret. I wanted to collect the words from the air and gobble them up, but of course it was too late.
Her face was blank at first, and then a stunned, hurt expression flashed across it that was as heartbreaking to me as it was utterly foreign. She looked like she was the target of some cruel joke. And then suddenly her vulnerability was abolished for her usual calm. Her face made the whole journey in an instant.
I moved to say something more but thought better of it. Instead I reached for the watch in her hands and took it back, my face a silent promise never to give it up again. Mother withdrew without further words.
It was a milestone, a snap of the apron strings, a selfish or brave gesture of independence, depending on your point of view. I can consider whether it was an important step for a gay teen or simply the self-indulgent act of a child, but the debate doesn’t interest me. My minds eye only remembers her face.
Even now, more than thirty years later, I want to take it all back.
Mark
(This posting first apppeared on My Fabulous Disease on December 7, 2010. — Mark)
Tags: Aging, family, gay
Posted in Books and Writings, Family and Friends, Gay Life, My Fabulous Disease | 4 Comments »
On Board the 2012 HIV Cruise Retreat
Thursday, November 15th, 2012
Richard is handsome and adorably shy. His sister began emailing me a few months ago, wondering if her brother might enjoy the HIV Cruise Retreat, because he isn’t able to disclose his status comfortably in his fairly small town.
On the last night of the cruise I gave him an award for “Sweetest Backstory,” explaining to the crowd that his cruise ticket was a Christmas gift from his sister, who clearly loves him very much (the awards are really just a silly way to acknowledge various people on the ship). He accepted the award with tears streaming down his face, while dozens upon dozens of new friends applauded heartily.
It is that fellowship, that embrace of our lives and all that we are, that best describes the week-long event on the high seas.
For seven days, I lived in a state of enhanced gratitude. For my life, my health, and for the people who organize the retreat.
Sailing from Ft Lauderdale to various islands of the Caribbean, the Cruise Retreat included more than 200 gay men, women and our supporters. We feasted on non-stop food and the loving embrace of friends old and new.
Along the way, there were games, shore excursions and even budding romances. The protective walls that often surround those of us living with HIV came crumbling down, replaced with new relationships, email addresses and phone numbers. By the time we docked back in Ft Lauderdale, hugs were long and new confidants had been established.
I don’t expect that everyone has the ability to afford the trip, but the message of the event – reach out for support and friendships where ever you might find them – echoes in my mind and heart today.
Thanks for watching, and please be well.
Mark
PLUS…
The amazingly prolific HIV advocate and criminalization expert Edwin Bernard has announced the launch of the new web site for the HIV Justice Network, and it is the most comprehensive internet site devoted to the global issue of criminalization. Please join their site for updates or “like” their Facebook page. If you have any doubt that criminalization is the defining HIV issue of our time, then please read (and share!) the recent Huffington Post article by Sean Strub (founder of The SERO Project, which also has a Facebook page). Sean succinctly lays out the insanity of non-disclosure laws and why they should make us all nervous (and how we can participate in advocacy efforts).
Tags: gay, gratitude, help others, hiv, Recreation
Posted in Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News | 5 Comments »
On Being Among Instinct Magazine’s “Leading Men of 2012″
Thursday, November 8th, 2012
Recently I got a pop-up message on Facebook from a name I didn’t recognize. “Hi Mark,” it said. “We went to high school together in Bossier City, Louisiana, and I remember you very distinctly.”
“Uh oh,” I replied. Statements like that always make me nervous. Whatever popularity I had in high school evaporated when I revealed in my senior year that I had a boyfriend. Only my defiantly gay posturing kept the bullies at bay; they didn’t know what the hell to do with me.
“It was apparent you were gay,” the messenger went on, instantly winning Facebook’s Biggest Understatement of 2012, “and that helped me deal with my own sexuality. So I wanted to thank you. You helped me and you didn’t even know it.”
I melted. More than thirty years later, someone I couldn’t pick out of a lineup thanked me for making his life’s journey a little easier. Because I chose to reveal, without shame, a basic fact about myself.
There are rewards for revealing our truths, my friends. They come in the form of instant messages decades after the fact, or can be seen in the face of someone to whom you have just revealed something intimate and real about yourself.
And sometimes, as ridiculous as it feels for me to mention, Instinct Magazine names you as one of their “Leading Men of 2012.” The acknowledgement has floored me, and did something else that’s rare for a self-obsessed, anxiety-ridden man such as myself: it humbled me. Because this recognition is really about all of us who are living with HIV and doing it openly.
There are examples of us everywhere. People like Nick Rhoades and Robert Suttle, who recently testified before the Presidential AIDS Advisory Council and shared their stories of being sent to jail for not disclosing their HIV status (check out the links of their moving testimony). They exhibit a courage that I doubt I could muster. Robert Breining has devoted his time and modest livelihood to creating and maintaining POZIAM, an online poz community. And then there are scores of people with HIV, perhaps like you, that speak out in their communities, write blogs, give interviews, and otherwise speak their truth in ways that affect more people than they can ever know.
If you have the privilege and ability to share your story of life with HIV – or as a gay or lesbian person, or as someone living with disability or hardship – I urge you to do it. The rewards may not be immediate but are nevertheless held in life’s cache.
Until the day, when you least expect it, that an instant message on Facebook appears.
Mark
ALSO…
If you are living with HIV and in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction, I’d like to plug an amazing weekend retreat, Pozitively Fabulous, coming this Spring from April 4-7, 2013 (don’t be fooled by the dates; it’s closer than you realize and they are already nearing capacity) at Cloudland Canyon, a gorgeous retreat center in the majestic Blue Ridge mountains. The retreat is designed for anyone who is HIV+ and dealing with recovery, and is 12-step based. I know and deeply respect the dedicated people organizing this event and plan to be there myself. Check it out!
Posted in Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy | 10 Comments »
AIDS2012: The ‘My Fabulous Disease’ Video Collection
Tuesday, July 31st, 2012
AIDS2012 was exactly as I had hoped: an enormous “summer camp” for advocates from around the globe, and I had a blast bringing their stories to you. Let others cover the medical updates and the big name speakers. I wanted to give you a sense of the people who are doing the work on the front lines – with a few bigwig interviews along the way.
Every day I sought out stories I thought would interest you and took a ton of footage (with the help of my talented camera person and schlepper Tina Robles). After a bite of free food from whatever reception was happening, I tried to make it to at least one evening event. And then back to my hotel, where I reviewed the footage, did my best to conceive a theme for the day, and then started editing. I’m quick at the editing part, but it still took 4-5 hours, into the wee hours of the morning. Then I’d sleep for a couple hours and start again. I’ll need the two years between now and AIDS2014 just to catch up!
Here are links and a review of each of the six video blogs I produced during the week. Simply click the title to see the posting and watch the video.
The MSM Pre-Conference (“Gay Day”)
Since less than 5% of the programming for AIDS 2012 is targeting to MSMs (Men who have Sex with Men), a special one-day pre-conference is held the day AIDS 2012 convenes to address the needs and issues of this population.
My report includes a chat with United States Rep. Barbara Lee (right), who has just introduced comprehensive HIV prevention and anti-stigma legislation; the advocates fighting laws that criminalize people with HIV (like Sean Strub and Edwin Bernard), a little social research on Grindr (the gay man’s cruise phone app), a chat with Positive Frontiers editor Alex Garner about getting rejected (and rejected others) during the dating process, and a visit to an AIDS2012 Reunion poz social event.
Opening Ceremonies at the AIDS2012 Conference
In this brief video episode from the first official day of AIDS2012 the party is rolling, with an outdoor concert (steps away from the AIDS quilt) featuring Weyclef Sean and Cornel West (!), dancing dignitaries, and a somewhat surprise ending!
The fact is, Day One was a light day, the calm before the storm, as people poured into DC and braced themselves for the busy week ahead. And it was my last chance to get a decent night’s sleep.
AIDS2012 Day Two: Stigma, Singers and Subways
Day Two of the international AIDS conference (AIDS2012) roared through its first full day on Monday, and there are sights to behold. This episode is a lot of fun.
I spent some time in the exhibit hall critiquing the fashions (and the issues) of various attendees with fashion maven Jack Mackenroth (poz and proud veteran of “Project Runway”), started a YouTube rivalry with inspirational singer Jamar Rogers (“The Voice,” right), and learned about HIV and aging from an expert with the Terrence Higgins Trust. I also had the chance to speak with the head of the CDC’s HIV/AIDS Division about their new “Let’s Stop HIV Together” campaign, in which Jamar and myself both participate.
And, with all the talk at the conference about the devastating effects of HIV stigma, I found validation of my own HIV status in the unlikeliest of places: the Gallery Place subway station.
AIDS2012 Day Three: The March to End AIDS!
I know my tank top looks kinda slutty, but it was damn hot, people.
Several contingents marched and protested separately throughout the city – marching for housing, and civil rights, and in protest of the pharmaceutical industry’s “intellectual property” policies – and then convened in front of the White House. Whereas the march and rally at AIDS2010 in Vienna was a peaceful affair, our proximity to the White House, the aggressive crowd and the police on horseback all lent an air of old time activism circa 1987.
The people included in the video can speak for themselves, and quite eloquently. Maybe it was the emotions of the event — anger, nervousness, pride — but it was an exhausting day. I felt the residue of grief for lost friends in a way I haven’t experienced in years.
This is my favorite, no doubt, and I’m proud of the visual and audio techniques I employed to give some historical context to the event.
AIDS2012 Day Four: The Global Village
It was time for a tour of the heart and soul of AIDS2012: The Global Village. This massive hall is the only part of the conference open to the public, and it has a grass-roots feel, crafted from the love and devotion of hundreds of community groups who are doing “the work on the ground” in cities and small towns throughout the world.
Thank God I’m a video blogger, because words escape me when trying to describe the colors and displays and most importantly, the committed people behind it all. You’re about to meet drag queens who make their living handing out condoms, sex workers demanding an end to criminalization, young prevention workers from far-flung corners of the planet, a stunning photo exhibit from the Ukraine… the list goes on.
AIDS2012 Day Five: Farewell to the Voices of the World
Our little summer camp for global AIDS advocates (and physicians, and commercial interests) had come to a close, and there are images that will be knocking around in my head for weeks to come (and some, forever).
I begin this video with the astonishingly talented performance poet Mary Bowman, a young woman with HIV showing us her heart and soul on stage. It’s a jumping off point for this final, brief video, in which I pay tribute to the people on the front lines who are the very essence of this conference. They are the ones with the “star power.”
This opportunity to share my experiences at AIDS2012 was a distinct honor and privilege, my friends. My deepest thanks to you all for the many cross-postings and shares and tweets. This was a week I will never forget.
Enjoy the videos, and please be well.
Mark
Tags: Aging, aids, barebacking, criminalization, culture, drag, gay, gratitude, help others, hiv, physician, politics, recovery, Recreation, research, Sexuality, testing
Posted in All Other Video Postings, Books and Writings, Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy | 5 Comments »
Bridging the HIV Viral Divide with Friendship
Wednesday, July 18th, 2012
Lynne Rhys and I were never supposed to become friends. It was just too unlikely.
She is a divorced woman raising a teenaged daughter, and was barely aware of a “gay community” until she stepped tentatively out of the closet in midlife. She has a quiet and soft-spoken grace. She has manners. She readily burdens the blame if it means saving your feelings. She’s one of those people who apologize when I miss a turn while driving us somewhere, as if it must have been her fault.
When she walked into an audition for a play I was directing a few years ago, she was certain she wasn’t good enough, but her insecurity was unacceptable to her – the struggle between her ferocious talent and her painful modesty has been waged her entire life – and she gave an audition of such humanity and pathos that I changed the script I had written to showcase her gifts.
“Stand slightly more to your left,” I would ask as we rehearsed. “I’m sorry,” would be the reply, to that or to any request or observation, including the weather. How could a creature of such obvious worth have such an absence of ego? I often wondered, before immediately returning to other, more important thoughts. About myself.
Two months later her performance was the kind that required the audience to listen closely, and they leaned in, drawn to her in the same way I was throughout the rehearsal process. She broke their hearts with such deliberate precision that people still speak of it.
Lynne doesn’t like talking about herself. But oh, how she loves to hear stories from Mark, and that’s when our budding friendship began to make sense to me. For hours I blather on, towering over her small frame, fluffing the curls on her head below me as she indulges my excesses and wonders when I will take my hands out of her hair. Please. I’m sorry.
I am the closest friend she has ever known to have HIV. Her personal knowledge of the crisis was largely limited to watching it unfold on television and thinking that people treated “that young boy Ryan White really badly.” So our friendship has meant lessons for her on t-cells, viral loads and why my medication bag is the same size as my gym bag. She listens and learns, and no longer believes that she must keep her distance when she has a cold or else I could die.
She has now had conversations with her daughter about safer sex, and then for good measure had the same conversation with her daughter’s boyfriend.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked me to participate in their new campaign, “Let’s Stop HIV Together,” I was impressed with their concept of pairing people living with HIV with an HIV negative member of their support system. The message is clear: we all share a responsibility for curbing HIV infections and supporting each other, positive and negative. And I knew right away who my “negative” would be.
Lynne was flattered and then questioned my selection, certain I must have better options. I knew that the woman who modeled humility to me every day was my only choice, and I insisted. The campaign involved visiting a production facility complete with wardrobe decisions, make-up artists, a photo shoot and an interview on video with both of us. She felt like the Queen of Sheba. Watching her was the very best part of the day, and the memory of it has brightened many days since.
In the photo of us, my cocksure grin and her enveloping embrace are the very essence of a friendship that I treasure deeply today. Seeing it in print has also brought to mind the many friends that came before Lynne who are now lost. But Lynne is not a placeholder and she is not a substitute. She is a gift of my survival, and the right friend at the right time to help me conduct my advancing years with more maturity than I might muster alone.
Moments after the photo was taken, Lynne slipped from the box on which she was standing and fell hard. Several of us rushed to help her, but she didn’t fret or make a sound. That is, except to say “I’m sorry.”
After a few days of pain, Lynne visited the doctor and discovered her foot was broken. “Why didn’t you say something?” I asked her, disbelieving, when she admitted it was hurting that day during our video interview. “Because I was afraid they might stop,” she said, “and I was having so much fun being with you.”
Much has been written by me about the “viral divide” between those who are HIV positive and those who are not. But not today. Today, the CDC has a new campaign with hopes of bridging this divide. On one of their posters, Lynne Rhys is beaming beside me, luxuriating in the joy of friendship, and confident that she is right where she belongs.
And she doesn’t look the least bit sorry.
Mark
(My thanks to the good people at the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS for their work on this campaign. Please visit the Let’s Stop HIV Together site, where you can watch videos from other pairings, download posters and other materials, watch the public service announcement, or “like” the Facebook page.)
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PLUS…
Brace yourself, my friends. Beginning on Monday, July 23rd, I will be posting new video blogs daily, for the week of AIDS2012, the international AIDS conference in Washington, DC. I can promise you some lively, inspiring and colorful reports from the proceedings! This would be a good week to join us email list for alerts (at the top right of this page) or just keep a close eye on this space. I can’t wait!
Posted in Family and Friends, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy | 5 Comments »
I am the man my father built.
Thursday, June 14th, 2012
“Now, people have their bat kites and their regular shaped kites,” Dad said to me when I was ten years old, “but the box kite, Mark, now there is the most aerodynamically sound of them all.”
He demonstrated by making a box kite out of balsa wood and brown paper. We took it to the park on the Air Force base where Dad was stationed, just behind the theater where I saw horror movies whenever I could get Mom to provide the parental guidance suggested.
“But it looks so weird,” I told him about the kite. “It’s just a box, Dad.”
“That’s the beauty of it!” he exclaimed, and he let out one of his big laughs, a roaring Santa Clause laugh that shook his whole body. He held the box high above his head, I at the other end of the string, and I ran across the grass, looking behind to see it climb high above the movie theater. The box soared for an hour as Dad stood behind me, explaining the principles of flight through the eyes of a B-52 bomber pilot.
Box kites became his obsession, and he engaged Mom and the family in his quest to build bigger kites capable of higher altitudes. Our next one stood six feet tall, made with wooden dowels and light fabric. Mom and my sister Nancy sewed to Dad’s specifications while the boys stayed in the garage, piecing together the frame with hot glue. The glue gun seemed invented especially for Dad, who used it liberally for every project. “Lots glue!” he commanded to me and my brother David, hard at work to bring the box kite to life. “You can never have enough glue, boys. Lotsa glue!”
We took the kite – placed atop a Volkswagon convertible – to the spring kite flying contest held in the fields behind Louisiana State University in Shreveport. They had a category for largest kite, and Dad intended for us to win it. One of the entries was an enormous bat shaped contraption made with layers of newspaper and a wing span of at least twenty feet. “Not aerodynamically sound,” Dad said, eyeing the competition. “Won’t fly. Can’t fly. Shoulda tried a box kite.”
Sure enough, the massive bat kite took one fast swoop upwards and then veered down again, demolishing itself. The contest rules stated that kites had to stay aloft for a full three minutes, and our box kite soared perfectly, winning the King family a sparkling trophy presented on the windy lawn of the college.
It made Dad hungry for more.
“Never worry about making a fool of yourself,” he would say, “if it means taking a risk, Mark.” He would recognize my adolescent need to simply fit in with everyone else and he would deny me of it, locking his eyes onto mine. “You gotta take the risk.”
Over the summer the six foot kite became ten feet, built with heavier fabric and stronger wood. We tried it out on a field on the edge of the Air Force base, and I remember Dad forgetting the gloves that protected him from the slick nylon string, and the kite fighting for higher altitude and the nylon going whizzzzz! across his hands, cutting deep into his palm. He looked at his hands with a shrug and then, predictably, laughed. He had lost his grip in the process, though, and the kite escaped to sights unseen.
We jumped in the car and chased it across the base, both of us with our heads craning out of the car and shouting visual sightings to one another, only to find its taught nylon cord snagged on a nursery school swing set. The box kite had dragged the set twenty feet from where, until recently, it had been embedded into the ground.
The air force police would soon arrive to inform us that our “craft” had been picked up on base radar and was a “menace to aviation.” Dad (or “Colonel King” as the uniformed men called him) sheepishly explained and then laughed with the cops as we carefully pulled our menacing craft, foot by foot, back down to earth.
The following year the Kings would risk it all, creating what would become the mother of all box kites. We built it in the driveway for a couple of weeks, using yards of nylon material and cord strong enough for a box kite approximately the size of a Winnebago. We transported it to the annual contest by securing it to a chartered flat bed truck, and the driver – after taking the monstrosity across the Jimmy Davis Bridge to the university – swore he could actually feel the truck lift a little as the kite fought to respond to invitations from mighty spring breezes.
The fabled hush fell over the crowd as the kite was driven onto the contest grounds. Three eight foot box kites – all larger than our original entry – were brought along, and the crowd stood incredulously as each of the three were launched into the air. Then we secured the cords of the three airborne kites to the top of the Mother Kite, and the crowd watched aghast as the King family coordinated their efforts, releasing thick rolls of nylon cord, until the massive kite lurched off the ground and up to stronger winds that would carry it back and forth above the riveted, gasping spectators.
For two minutes and twenty seconds.
Later, on the evening news, Dad would stand amid the wreckage of a violent descent, knee deep in plastic, wood, nylon cord and innumerable remnants of hot glue. It looked like the aftermath of a commuter plane tragedy.
“And how do you feel, Mr. King,” the reporter would ask my Dad, “about your creation not flying for very long. Are you disappointed?”
“Of course not!” Dad replied in the midst of a belly laugh already begun. “Didn’t you see it? It was a spectacular crash!”
Those days, and that glorious moment, are lost to time now, and so is my father. Not long after our kite flying adventures, our personas traded places. I embraced my sexuality and my misfit charms, while Dad struggled to understand a son who was turning out to be more different than he could have imagined. Worst of all, he was made to contend with a teenager who saw him as something abhorrent: typical.
We had many years, later, when our outlooks merged again and we reveled in his various projects and my work as an outspoken gay man. Ultimately, Dad raised exactly what he valued, a man who steps up and asks stupid questions and knows that to soar you must risk the occasional, spectacular crash.
On my best days I live happily as the man my father built, writing and living as an HIV positive queer for all to see and never afraid to take a risk. And on the worst of days, my mind’s eye conjures up a hearty laugh coming from nearby, maybe the garage, where something is being cobbled together that will solve absolutely everything.
Usually it’s a box kite, crafted from unlikely supplies and fatherly magic, that carries me far, far away.
(This story has been adapted from my book A Place Like This, which chronicles my life in Los Angeles during the dawn of the AIDS epidemic and which includes childhood flashbacks like this one. My late father is very much on my mind during Father’s Day weekend. I love you, Dad, and I miss you so much.)
Tags: A Place Like This, Aging, family, gratitude
Posted in Books and Writings, Family and Friends, My Fabulous Disease | 8 Comments »
Remembering, and Saying Her Name
Monday, April 9th, 2012
In the Summer of 2008, I received a curious package from Bonnie Goldman, the editor of TheBody.com. Inside was a Flip video camera, what was then a new-fangled device that allowed you to take video footage with a camera the size of a pack of cigarettes.
It came with a simple note. “I think you should try this,” it said.
How did she know? I wondered. I had never mentioned to her that I once taped a special for my newborn niece, back when video cameras were the size of footballs and editing consisted of painstakingly recording segments from one VCR to another. “Carly’s Video” consisted of magic tricks, songs and a dramatic reading of “Yurtle the Turtle.”
And yet, Bonnie had the notion that I might have some fun documenting my life as a gay man living with HIV. Immediately, I bought editing software online and started to learn it. But I had my doubts.
There wasn’t anything particularly special about my life, I complained to her in a phone call to her New York office. And a lot of it, like my ongoing struggle with drug addiction, was downright seedy.
“Tell the truth,” she said. “The more honest you are, the better it will be.”
I trusted her judgment. In my writing for TheBody over the previous years, Bonnie had always demanded the best of me. We regularly debated topics and my approach to my written pieces, and anything that sounded too easy, that contained more platitudes than honest emotion, was questioned. The same would hold true for the video episodes that I quickly began producing.
In September of 2008, “My Fabulous Disease” premiered on TheBody.com. The first episode was an introduction to my life, and already I was being playful with the camera and the potential of video. It concluded with the mantra that Bonnie had instilled in me. “I can’t promise this will always be entertaining,” I said. “But I can promise I will always be honest. So. Let’s see what happens…”
Since then, plenty has happened. When I spent time in Michigan caring for a brother dying of cancer, the camera was there. When I was treated for facial lipoatrophy by getting injections of facial filler, I brought the camera. For everything from my thoughts on barebacking to touring a gay sex club to drug relapses to HIV criminalization to the international AIDS conference in Vienna, I documented everything using the inventive gift sent to me by Bonnie Goldman.
When Bonnie left TheBody a few years ago, I missed her counsel and her friendship. She was maddeningly hard to reach in the two years after, and I wondered if our friendship had been purely professional.
And then the news, in January of this year, that Bonnie had died after a long struggle with cancer. She had fought it privately, and I felt ashamed for having wanted more contact during what was clearly a difficult time.
Only now, months after her passing, am I finally writing about her death, something so deeply felt I haven’t found the words. I am searching for them still.
Life keeps showing up. New people populate it, projects come and go, video episodes of My Fabulous Disease are made. And it has been too long since I have said her name out loud. Bonnie. Bonnie Goldman.
We all come across things, tokens from a person, from a life we treasured but has faded from view. A photograph on a shelf that we pass in the hallway. A shirt in the closet. A book. A recipe.
A broken video camera that has outlived its purpose, that I cannot bear to throw away.
Posted in Books and Writings, Family and Friends, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease | 5 Comments »
Dealing with Shame can be a Drag
Thursday, March 15th, 2012
When I was nine years old, I took my parents’ album of the Broadway musical “Damn Yankees” and memorized every syllable of Gwen Verdon’s show stopper, “Who’s Got the Pain When They Do the Mambo?” Once I was satisfied with my lip-synching and choreography (I decided that a mambo was a dance in which young boys gyrated and flung themselves on and off the living room sofa), the number was ready for public display.
The premiere was a simple affair, exclusive and unannounced. Mrs. May from across the street had stopped in for afternoon coffee, and opportunity knocked when Mother busied herself in the kitchen for a few minutes.
Not a smart move, Mother, leaving Mark alone with the company.
“Mrs. May, would you like to see me do a song?” The unsuspecting woman gave a polite “yes, that sounds nice” and before Mother could run interference I had turned on the stereo and dropped the needle at the precise moment where Gwen breaks into song.
Mrs. May stared and stared, her hands folded neatly in her lap, as I brought out every sashay, twist and thrust in my dancing arsenal. My moves may have been imperfect but I vocalized brilliantly, thanks to Gwen. As I struck my final pose, arms reaching for the heavens, frozen and triumphant, I saw mother standing in the doorway, holding a plate of cookies and breathing heavily through her nostrils.
Future performances would be limited to my bedroom, where I could conjure an audience cheering with acclamation and mothers wouldn’t put you on restriction.
It is that boy, the cheerful but feminine performer, that I always feared would creep out of me as I navigated young adulthood as a gay man. I worked to shed his characteristics, to replace every soft gesture with a wooden one, to embrace the gym and tank tops and Levi jeans with the same fervor I once had for my beloved Broadway musicals, with mixed success.
And then, a lifetime later, as I worked for an AIDS agency in Atlanta in the 90’s, destiny called. An upcoming drag contest to benefit our agency was suffering from poor participation, and my boss asked if I would consider entering.
Being a drag queen, even for a night, terrified and delighted me. But the performer in me won out, wouldn’t you know, and Anita Mann was born. I created an interactive video rendition of Donna Summer’s “This Time I Know It’s for Real,” (even then, long before this blog, I was toying with the possibilities of video) and won the contest.
Soon I was performing with “the camp drag queens of the south,” The Armorettes, who hosted a Sunday night show to raise funds for AIDS organizations. Over the years they have raised over $1 million dollars, and their show was a sellout every week. But my own phobic notions lingered.
I didn’t want to be known as a drag queen (“It’s comedy! I’m a performer!” I would insist). I never appeared anywhere in drag but on that stage – I would always get dressed at the show, and was often out of drag for the final curtain call, in a bid to display whatever masculine credentials I had to offer.
I would hear other gay men make disparaging remarks about drag and I withered, unable to admit I was playing to a packed room every Sunday.
The nexus of shame and shamelessness is a complicated one. Each week I put on full display the very things about myself that I had worked so hard to reject – my femininity, my silly pursuit of acceptance through laughter and applause. And just as I gained confidence in what I was doing and why, I would lose a potential boyfriend when he learned of my weekend talents.
As a growing drug addiction encroached on my free time, I abandoned Anita Mann to its demands. For many years thereafter, Anita’s dress and wig would be relegated to a duffel bag hidden in the back of the hallway closet. I had found a vocation in drugs that offered twice the shame and every bit of the need to keep quiet about it.
It took a few years in recovery from my addiction before Anita would make her comeback. Armed with a TV set and a sense of the absurd, Anita performed at a benefit for those of us in recovery, in what may have been her finest hour. Her rendition of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” grows more insane by the moment, and perfectly embodied my interest in multi-media performance.
And yes, I am aware that I speak of her in the third person. Maybe it is because I view her as a character I have created, and perhaps it is the remnants of shame, and of my need to keep her at a distance.
It’s strange, how those things about which we have drawn the most shame are also able to liberate us, not to mention help others. My HIV status. My drug addiction. My drag personality. As I have embraced each of these, I’ve found self-acceptance and a way to carry a message of hope, and even joy, to others.
Anita Mann limits her performances these days to recovery related engagements. It seems fitting that these two aspects of my life, both once secretive, have found their place together. Anita has a voice now as well, doing a sort of recovery stand-up and even singing live when the occasion permits. Anyone in recovery might enjoy watching the highlights of her recent stint at the Crystal Meth Anonymous conference in Atlanta, which includes her bittersweet rendition of “Happiness is…”
Meanwhile, I still struggle with the need to project as much masculinity as I can muster. I swagger more than I sashay. I sport a beard when possible. And I work to maintain a strict gym regimen.
It’s important for me to stay in shape if I expect to fit in that dress.
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PLUS…
The HIV Cruise Retreat is going to be sold out early this year, because the cruise ship, unlike previous years, is taking back unsold cabins from the cruise organizer that are not sold within the next week. In years past, cabins for our group could be sold much closer to departure. This is probably due to the popularity of the Halloween voyage, and it means you must act now to get a spot. I love this event. Contact Paul Stalbuam at 888-640-7447 or visit www.HIVCruise.com.
Tags: acting, culture, drag, gay, help others, hiv, meth, recovery, Recreation
Posted in Anita Mann and Acting Gigs, Family and Friends, Gay Life, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease | 9 Comments »