Posts Tagged ‘A Place Like This’
My sad and trivial night with Rock Hudson
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
Perhaps it is the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, and her connection to Rock Hudson, that brings this memory back again. Maybe I want you to know, because I’m still as star-struck and vain as when this happened. Or maybe the memory still brings back fear and melancholy, so repeating it here feels like sharing my favorite ghost story…
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.
(Edited from A Place Like This, by Mark S. King. Copyright 2008.)
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Julie Turkewitz from Housing Works has a blog posting about the new Broadway smash “The Book of Mormon.” Produced by the sly, irreverent wits behind both South Park and Avenue Q, it walks the thin line between hilarious and heretical. Meaning, I can’t wait to see it — and it actually manages to educate its audience about AIDS in Uganda!
A group is conducting a simple survey about over-the-counter HIV testing kits. It’s simple to participate and only takes a few minutes, by visiting this link at Who’s Positive.
The AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) crisis continues, with waiting lists growing and some of them eliminated altogether. For a sober update on the situation and an appeal to President Obama, I urge you to read this blog posting from the ADAP Advocacy Association.
Who knew that Ft. Walton Beach, Florida had one of the best conferences in the nation for those living with HIV? I know, at least I do now. I was honored to present at the Positive Living conference last month and would recommend it to anyone — well organized, a large group of people living with HIV, and an impressive set of speakers, including Paul Kawata, Sean Strub, Robert Breining and many others.
Tags: A Place Like This, aids, culture, gay, hiv, Sexuality
Posted in Books and Writings, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease | 13 Comments »
My Fabulous Disease: The Top Ten Postings of Year One
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
“The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”
– Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest
How was this judged, exactly? I was afraid you might ask. Not on the number of hits or any formal voting procedure. I relied purely on feedback received through the year and from posted comments, but mostly, umm, I picked my favorites. So there.
presented in reverse order
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#10. The Wisdom of Youth at AIDS2010. My skills (and physical stamina) were sorely tested when TheBody.com sent me to Vienna for the 2010 International AIDS Conference. Every day was a sprint around the massive conference center in search of stories that inspired or amused me. In this episode, I was blown away by a collection of teenage (!) activists from around the globe who gave a press conference and then chatted with me (try being nineteen and an HIV advocate in Afghanistan). Then I interviewed an actual muppet with No Strings, a program that uses puppetry to communicate with African children about AIDS, transmission, and grief. Awesome.
#9. The Real Poz Guys of Atlanta. Nothing has been more important to my long term sanity and well-being than the support of friends, so I decided to let you meet a few of them in this ongoing series of videos. In this, our second get together, my friends Craig, James, Antron and Eric and I (all of us are living with HIV) bake brownies — recipe included in the post! — and dish about our HIV, doctors, families and love lives. To top it off we all engage in some surprisingly moving “show ‘n tell,” by bringing things to our dinner that represent something about life with HIV. If you need to feel the love of friends right now, check this out.
#8. Locker 32, your room is ready… to be hosed and sanitized. Okay, so here’s my bawdy comedy side, in a farewell essay to the gay baths. In my former, youthful and/or drug fueled days, I was a staple in such establishments, and the value of how one looked sauntering about in a towel was a misguided priority that, frankly, I’m still working to shake from my world view. But there’s no such depth in this funny essay, just a final look at the baths on my very last visit, or as the piece begins, “the last time I went to the baths… I stepped in poop.” Hold your nose, and enjoy!
#7. The Price is Right, thirty years after coming on down. “When I was 19 years old, I vacationed to Los Angeles and won a car on The Price is Right.” So begins my book “A Place Like This,” my first-person account of my years in Hollywood in the 1980’s. I use the game show story to reflect on the young man I was and what dreams I had, while AIDS looms in the near distance ready to wreck the plans of a generation. I’ve always liked this as its own essay, though, and thought it would be fun to include the actual footage of my winning the car, so the reader can watch the little story come to life.
#6. My T-cells Could Use a Facelift. I’ve probably posted the heart and soul right out of this poor video, using it more than once this year, but it remains a favorite of mine because it strikes the heart of my issues as a gay man, a man with HIV, and an aging one at that. We’re the guys that can still remember being youthful but we just don’t quite hack it in the cruise clubs anymore. I know I shouldn’t miss it, and yet… The video also lets me show off my butt pads and discuss my not-so-subtle tactics to avoid growing up. Maturity is hard won in my household, my friends.
#5. A Facial Wasting Update. This is when I realized the real potential of my little digital camera: when Dr. Gerald Pierone agreed to let me film our consultation about my facial wasting (lipoatrophy), and the procedure to remedy it. This episode is actually our second video together, when I returned for a follow-up treatment — it reviews footage from the first visit but also gives a more accurate look at the treatment results. At the end of the first episode, I was so pleased with my new face that I shot my closing with such bright light I looked like I was voguing in a Madonna video. I don’t make that mistake again.
#4. I am the man my father built. Why are there passages in our life that we return to, again and again, those milestones that shape us and serve as references points our entire lives? Camping in the woods would seem an unmemorable scenario for a young gay boy like me (behold my pubescent self, right, in repose). Dad wasn’t trying to butch me up, he simply reveled in being different, like pitching a clear plastic tent when all the other fathers and sons on the campout had normal ones. But every time dad instilled in me the value of being different (”that’s the beauty of it,” was his most common exclamation), he was preparing his son for the world in a way he never imagined. A love letter to my dad, and I hope you’ll read it.
#3. Examining death, including the one I caused. To be honest, I thought I was doing my ex-partner Chris Glaser a favor by reviewing his most recent book. But that blithe arrogance evaporated when I read his elegant book about death, “The Final Deadline.” Chris devotes chapters to manners of death and their lessons for the living, and to my surprise includes one about the death of our relationship and there, suddenly and in black and white, was the wreckage of a romance, and the crushing hurt I had caused when I chose my escalating drug addiction over my partner. Reading this book would enlighten anyone, but no one more than me. Chris’ capacity for forgiveness and finding teachable moments is more beautifully rendered in his book than anything I might conjure.
#2. Once, When We Were Heroes. Another one I’ve posted to death — the video version has been on my main page for ages — but it’s as if I’m afraid I’ll never write something quite like it again. It sprang from my observations about so many of us that lived through the horror of the 1980’s and how mundane our lives are today. So many of us were called upon to do courageous things, or withstand terrible grief, and today we’re shopping at Macy’s and planning brunch. Which is a miracle and perfectly allowed, of course. It just makes me realize that you can never know what the man on the treadmill at the gym might have once withstood, or how resilient our own spirits are, when we once thought they might never survive.
#1. The Day Larry Kramer Dissed Me. Pure whimsy, no doubt about it, and the funniest part of this fictional account of a disastrous trip to the mall with Larry Kramer was how many people didn’t know I made the damn thing up. Not until they read the footnote. Reactions were all over the place: how dare I ridicule an icon, they wanted to know. I would be dead if it were not for him, they wailed. And “this is hilarious, please do HRC next!” I have not had the honor of meeting Larry Kramer but idolize him as an activist and as a writer. And if my “six degrees of Larry Kramer” friends are telling the truth, the man himself got the joke and liked it (and even left a posted comment for all to see).
Honorable mentions: My provocative chat with activist and POZ Magazine founder Sean Strub, “Five Things About HIV They’re Not Telling You,” had prevention advocates either impressed or aghast, and that’s a good thing. My favorite little video was the Gay Pride PSA That Will Never Air, which begins with funny stories before it punches you in the gut with a message about drug addiction. And speaking of addiction, there’s a precious vision of recovery is in the simple essay “A Dance to an Atlanta Night,” in which I enjoy some simple pleasures with friends who have seen me at my worst.
I feel like I’m hitting my stride. Thanks to all of you for your words of encouragement, and I mean that. This has been an awesome adventure because of you. As always, please be well.
Mark
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Tags: A Place Like This, acting, Aging, aids, barebacking, culture, drag, family, gay, help others, hiv, lipo, meth, physician, politics, recovery, Recreation, serosorting, Sexuality
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 | 2 Comments »
The Price is Right, 30 years after coming on down
Monday, October 18th, 2010
When I was nineteen years old, I vacationed to Los Angeles and won a car on “The Price is Right.â€
In the following years, if I really liked you and wanted to impress you — or give you a small, wacky glimpse of my life — then at some juncture I’d say “So hey, have you ever been to Los Angeles?†Or, “Did I ever tell you about the car?â€
It was a long time ago. Thirty years. I have a videotape of the entire episode and it gets trotted out and viewed from time to time. Well, maybe not as much anymore.
Year after year I’ve seen that video and find myself pulling farther away from the image on my television screen — the oldest tape I have of myself on TV, although, make no mistake about it, I have many.
On the tape I’m impossibly cute, with a tall lean body and a freckled face straight out of Howdy Doody’s Peanut Gallery. There is bright orange hair on my head, blown dry to late-70’s perfection and parted in the middle between two feathered, astoundingly symmetrical sides.
Anyway, here’s the “Price is Right†story.
It’s Spring 1980. My lover Charley and I are visiting my old college friend Charles, who lives in Los Angeles. Charles takes us to CBS studios for a tour, but once there we find out they don’t give them anymore. But we can go wait in line for “The Price is Right†if we want to, the lady says. Why not? A live game show taping. Cool.
We stand in line and this producer comes by with an assistant in tow, and he’s chatting with everybody in the line. One by one. And the assistant is taking careful notes. Get it? They’re picking contestants. So the producer gets to me and whereas everybody’s been kind of shy and polite and maybe a little perky, I grab his hand and shake as hard as I can and just about bust a gut beaming, saying “Hi there, I’m Mark King and I drove all the way from New Orleans Louisiana just to be on this show!â€
I watch TV. Everybody knows what they’re looking for.
Portions of The Price is Right Story are deeply ingrained, as frozen in my delivery as they are on that old Betamax video tape. Hearing Johnny Olsen shouting “Mark King! Come on down!†and galloping down the ramp to bidding stations in front of the stage, jumping up and down, my sprayed hair jolted above me in two feathered clumps, lazily floating back down to my head like snapping an orange sheet over a bed and watching it descend.
Or when I won the very first prize that came up for bids—an Amana Range. “And to the winner of that range goes,†I can hear Johnny Olsen saying, “Kentucky Fried Chicken in an insulated tote bag. It’s so nice to feel so good about a meal!â€
“And the original retail price of that range is … six hundred and eighty nine dollars and Mark, you’ve won it! Come on up here!†Bob Barker declares, and I scramble up for a chat with Bob that holds no memory or recollection, just what I’ve seen on the tape, because I truly had no idea what the man was saying, such was my shock. But I nod and grin in the right places.
Bob asks me where I’m from and I tell him I’m a student at the University of New Orleans. Really? What year? he asks. I say I’m a senior — a lie, I was a sophomore, but couldn’t have told you my middle name at that point — and say that I’ll go “right on to graduate school to get a masters in Arts Management.â€
Today when I see the tape, I want to wipe the idyllic grin off that skinny boy’s face and correct the error I made years ago. I had it all wrong. “Well Bob,†I would say instead, “I’ll finish college through the mail after I move here to Los Angeles and work for a heroin-addicted mail order sleaze bag. Then I hope to make it big as a sexual entrepreneur.†“That’s marvelous!†Bob would then reply, “A prostitute perhaps?â€
The cameras would turn to the audience, all of them glued to the monitors and nodding expectantly. “Aw, you flatter me, Bob. Seriously, I was thinking I’d be good at getting people off over the phone.†Bob’s most winning game show host smile would appear. “What a talented young man!†he would say with fatherly pride. The APPLAUSE light would flash again and again. The audience would react like stadium fans witnessing a touchdown. “There’s even more, Bob. I’ll go on to watch some friends die horribly of a disease we haven’t even heard of yet, fight my drug addiction, and then spend years searching for life’s greater meaning. You have anything up for bids that might help me with that?â€
But back to reality — or, at least, “The Price is Right.â€
Bob stops talking for a second and Johnny Olsen announces what I just might win—a shiny new Pontiac Coupe! The audience absolutely screeches, and the camera flashes to my lover Charley whistling with his fingers in his mouth, wearing exactly the same jeans and red t-shirt as myself. We were in that early, wearing-matching-outfits stage of our relationship.
On stage, Bob inspected the car with me before the game began. “Just look at these wire wheel covers here, Mark. Say tell me,†he questioned as he put the microphone to my lips, “do you have a girlfriend back home?†No, Bob. But your camera man must adore my homosexual lover because he’s given him every reaction shot since I stepped up here.
“Aw, several!†I offered with a laugh and an adorable but practiced shrug. “Well, you’ll have several more if you win this one!†Bob said. The game was something called “Lucky Seven†and Charley screamed out every last thing for me to say and do, which was a great help since I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. After going step by step through the game, with tension building and Bob reminding me how close I was to winning every three seconds, I get to the last question. After Charley’s prompting I give the winning answer, the audience goes nuts, and the camera man goes to Charley for even more shots as he explodes from his chair and waves his hands and dances about. “You’ve won that car!†Bob shouts. If I had won a fur coat Charley would’ve jumped to the stage and thrown it on, so help me.
I furiously shake Bob Barker’s hand and notice how much make-up he has on. Thick, like a paste. And his hair dye has left a brown stain across his hairline. He introduces the first sponsor while the camera returns to me, beaming, all shocked and happy. I pick my teeth with my tongue and they break to a commercial. The show went on to other contestants of course, but I’ve never watched the tape that far. The beginning of the show has been played ragged, however. About six minutes of my life, run countless times on the TV in my living room, after some dinner with friends and maybe coffee and dessert.
I sold the car to my sister Nancy for what the income taxes cost me — I was in college and didn’t need one anyway. The Amana Range went to my brother David as a wedding present. I kept the insulated Kentucky Fried Chicken tote bag — my lone trophy from the event — and store it in the laundry room. It’s nearby if there’s a showing of the video and it makes a great prop during the viewing.
Within a few years of Coming On Down, there would be enormous differences between that video boy and myself, shaped by life events that would throw a wet blanket on my aw shucks optimism. I’ve tried to recover from them, to regain the hopeful, expectant glimmer found in the eyes of the kid from “The Price is Right,†with mixed success.
He was fearless, I have reservations. He believed, I suspect. A few years in the life of a gay man living at the dusk of the sexual revolution and during the dawn of a terrible disease does manage to bring about some striking changes.
I have a few stories about those times, too. Some of them aren’t very attractive, and I definitely haven’t shared them at parties. I wonder if they have any value, if they define something more than myself, if they sound familiar. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to decide if what I’ve been through has helped me, if it “made me a better person,†if it was, in fact, a gift.
And wondering, of course, if the price was right.
Just like the old video tape trotted out for the occasional viewing, I like sharing this (slightly revised) prologue from my book A Place Like This. It may have been thirty years ago, but winning the car remains one of my life’s milestones. Can I still approximate that young man’s happiness today, or reconcile him with the man I have become…? — Mark
Tags: A Place Like This, acting, Aging, culture, family, Recreation
Posted in All Other Video Postings, Books and Writings, Family and Friends, Gay Life, My Fabulous Disease | 9 Comments »
Dueling Videos: Oprah in 1987 and AIDS activism in 2010
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
In 1987, I was a 26 year old living in Los Angeles and trying to face the horror of having tested positive with HIV. Television blasted daily reports of the death toll, the suicides of people with HIV, and even the deterioration and death of Rock Hudson. But nothing frightened me more than an episode of Oprah Winfrey, when she visited a West Virginia town living in hysteria over an HIV positive man using the public pool.
Watching the fear and anger on the faces of these people is scarier than their Dynasty-era hairstyles (Oprah’s amazing ‘do could house her next academy for girls).
I’m getting the shivers again. In a new segment, Oprah revisits the town and the people there who cried out for the banishment of their HIV positive resident.
There are actually two videos I want you to see, and they are fascinating bookends around that ignorant time and our lives today. First is the Oprah piece showing her return to the community (her site also has a follow-up with the town’s angriest man, Jerry Waters, who is older but not much wiser).
Then watch a public service video, produced as part of the recent United States Conference on AIDS, that joyfully shows how far those of us with HIV have come, and what a community that supports its members really looks like.
Here’s the Oprah segment:
And here is the PSA from the United States Conference on AIDS, produced by the National Minority AIDS Council:
Thanks for watching, and please be well.
Mark
Tags: A Place Like This, aids, family, hiv, Oprah, physician
Posted in Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy | 6 Comments »
Secrets of the Masturbatory Male
Saturday, May 22nd, 2010
May is National Masturbation Month – Hurry, folks! Only a few days left to celebrate! – and I’ll admit to feeling smug, because I have more experience with masturbatory gay men than anyone else I know.
During my years in Los Angeles in the 1980’s, I owned (and oh yes, operated) Telerotic, a gay men’s “phone fantasy†company. As a struggling young actor I had begun this odd vocation by working for an outfit as one of their “fantasy callers,†and as it turns out, I had a way with words. Within a year I struck out on my own.
My job was to sound credible (in roles ranging from cocky Venice Beach bodybuilder to friendly firefighter to surfer dude), manipulate the customer toward the prime objective within the typical call duration of thirteen minutes, and convince him that our connection was mutually mind-blowing to ensure he would call again.
And they did. Over the years I spoke to thousands, maybe tens of thousands of men, some of whom requested me faithfully every week, uttering secrets they had never spoken aloud before. It was amazing insight into the realm of fantasy, loneliness and desire. It was a social anthropologist’s dream.
They were usually men trapped in a life without physical connection. Some were married, true, but most of them lived in small towns and were helpless to locate male companionship. Their desires weren’t so bizarre that they were forced to resort to phone sex to speak of them. Their requests were simple and almost touchingly mundane. Stroke me there. Let me tell you what I think about. Take care of me.
My interest in them was a lifeline to many of my regular customers. They would reveal loves lost or found, the pain of isolation and their dreams of having a home with the right man someday. Occasionally their patronage would end after news of a potential boyfriend, or resume when it didn’t work out. Sometimes our calls ran long, as I gently led a faceless, suffering voice away from his grief and embarrassed tears.
Truly revealing myself, however, was an occupational hazard I didn’t risk. I was as callous as I was ambitious, and their intimacies meant little more than new material to plumb for future calls. No way would I compromise my fantasy stud persona to admit I was actually a skinny redhead trying to make a buck in Hollywood.
When AIDS headlines increased, so did business. And at last, something jolted me from my shallow priorities.
Maybe I’d had enough of continuing the charade, of being taken into their confidence and giving them bullshit in return, of representing a bogus sexual ideal for the sake of my continued prosperity, of being an incredibly convincing lie. Maybe I could no longer reconcile the dream world my phone calls inhabited with the encroaching nightmare real life was becoming.
Maybe it was the customer who, in the midst of our graphic phone sex call, helpfully offered to get a condom from the drawer so I could put it on. AIDS had permeated this man’s psyche so completely it had pierced his very fantasies. His presence of mind to protect himself – and by extension me, the phone whore on the other end of the line – was a gesture too filled with grace to comprehend. It stopped me in my tracks and broke my cynical heart.
It wasn’t long before I sold the company and ended my stint as a sexual entrepreneur. For a while I entertained friends with the sexy secrets and lessons learned from the disembodied voices of strangers – perhaps as I have implied I would do here – but that exercise no longer holds my interest. Call me reformed, but it feels like betrayal.
Today what I remember most is listening to the sound of profound longing, of men chasing a glancing, counterfeit intimacy because it was all life would afford them, and hearing their desire for something familiar and their doubts about finding it. I’m ashamed of my calculated exploitation of their hearts’ desire, sexual and otherwise.
And I am haunted, deeply and forever, by the sound of trust in their voices.
————————————-
This period of my life is covered in more detail in my book, A Place Like This.
Tags: A Place Like This, acting, aids, culture, gay, hiv, politics, Recreation, Sexuality
Posted in Books and Writings, Gay Life, My Fabulous Disease, Prevention and Policy | 4 Comments »
My Pretend Life without HIV
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
My mother-in-law is visiting us this week. She’s still active at 84, engaged in life, and accepts me completely as her son’s longtime partner and a member of the family. So it’s a shame she doesn’t know the first thing about me.
That first thing is the fact that I am living with HIV. And she has no idea.
After some debate in the family it was decided that she not be told. The revelation would likely produce more questions than anyone could comfortably answer, and her own son’s safety and health would almost certainly become a concern for her. I have enough to shoulder without her fears that I might harm her boy.
I had initially wanted her to know. How could she understand my work, my interests, and my capacity to care for my community if she didn’t know I was living with this disease? She doesn’t know I wrote a book about surviving AIDS in the 1980’s. She doesn’t know about this blog you’re reading, or the fun videos I produce about which I am so proud. I even take my meds away from the table or in the restaurant bathroom (it feels a little like my old, drug addict behavior).
I’ve never been in the closet about anything. I came out as gay to my family when I was 16. I’ve never had to play the game of pretending “he” was a roommate, or removing pictures from the dresser before family visited. And I’m famously impatient with those who insist on behaving that way. But I’m more understanding of HIV disclosure, because it feels more volatile, the consequences more dangerous. So being a voice for those living with HIV has been that much more of an important identity to me. It has defined me, by my own acts and words, for most of my life.
If I am stripped of my HIV identity… who am I?
To her, I am the convivial partner of her son, the very nice man who makes funny jokes and has some sort of online business and is going to the International AIDS Conference in Vienna this summer because he writes well. She loves me, I do believe, despite not really knowing anything about my vocation or the passion I have for it. That has had to be enough.
My own mother has known of my status since I tested positive in 1985. But this isn’t my mother and every family makes their own choices, and my AIDS activism doesn’t trump their valid reasoning for keeping my mouth shut.
So I pretend. That my health is unblemished, that my partner and I serenely support Democrats and AIDS Walkers with equal passion, and that my vocational role is that of a supportive house husband who occasionally dabbles in writing. I think my work ethic might cringe at the perceived arrangement most of all.
Yes, I suppose she could know more about my HIV work, because people both positive and negative have devoted their lives and careers to this issue. But I won’t tread there. I’m afraid to have the topic floating around the house too often.
Because, what if she asks? She just might come right out with a question, even indirectly, about how my own health has fared, and let me be clear. I refuse to lie about it. I have tried to help people understand this disease my entire adult life, and I would never deny that I have HIV.
At that point, all pretending would have to come to an end.
Tags: A Place Like This, aids, culture, family, help others, hiv, politics
Posted in Books and Writings, Family and Friends, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease | 1 Comment »
Positive Lite: Humour and Living with HIV
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Brian Finch knows a thing or two about “humour” and HIV. As a fellow HIV positive gay man (and addict in recovery) he has applied his entertaining world view to serving as editor of PositiveLite, an uplifting HIV/AIDS oriented site, and to his personal blog, Acid Reflux.
The internet brought Brian and I together almost as soon as My Fabulous Disease launched, due to our obvious affection for mixing humor with our health challenges. This month, Brian interviewed me about my own site and what role humor plays in my recovery. He includes some fun links so I hope you’ll check it out.
Brian is Canadian but manages to be funny anyway. Most recently he went on a shameless, ego-crushing quest to win a meaningless (to most) prize from Kathy Griffin. Brian produced a video begging to win a contest for a personal meet-and-greet she was doing. He did everything in the video but film himself in the shower naked. Okay, he did that too. He lost the contest anyway.
Undeterred, Brian continues his blogging and produces a video series called “The Real Hags of Cabbagetown.” If you think his sense of humor is odd, you may be mildly disconcerted to know there are more like him, whom he features in the offbeat series.
Cheers, Brian!
Tags: A Place Like This, culture, drag, gay, help others, meth, recovery
Posted in Books and Writings, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, News | No Comments »
The Bilerico Project: The Fabulous Disease of Mark S. King
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
“Someone stepped in and helped me out. I was not capable of getting that needle out of my arm on my own. I’m the one who wouldn’t leave the dance floor. I’m the one who couldn’t get enough of anything. I tried every new drug that came along. I brought that attitude into my new life. Now I can’t get enough of the good stuff.”
– Mark S. King
The Bilerico Project — the largest gay blog on the net — has just picked up a story that originally appeared in the South Florida Gay News. It’s a profile on me by one of their editors, “Father” Tony Adams, and it was a complete pleasure to do.
I met Tony at a seminar I attended last month on blogging (he was on the panel and I was in the audience taking copious notes). Tony was friendly and generous with his time and knowledge of the gay blogosphere. We’ve hung out a couple of times and it’s great to be developing a new friendship with someone also working as a writer. And then there are perks, like Tony asking to do an interview about my fledgling blog site!
At any rate, check out Tony’s fine writing for yourself, and you’ll hear some of the crackerjack slogans I created for the phone sex company I owned in the 1980’s. Aw, don’t tell me you haven’t read my book…
Tags: A Place Like This, Aging, aids, culture, gay, help others, meth, politics, recovery, Sexuality
Posted in Anita Mann and Acting Gigs, Books and Writings, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, News | No Comments »
Win a car, bed a star in “a place like this…”
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
When I was nineteen years old, I vacationed to Los Angeles and won a car on “The Price is Right.â€
And so begins my first book, “A Place Like This,” about my years in 1980’s Los Angeles. The book has been on my mind lately because of my work preparing a new one. Since the book is a true, first person account of working as an actor, becoming a phone sex entrepreneur 
and drug addict, and then watching as AIDS changed the landscape (and me) beyond all recognition, well, the memories are never very far away.
Why does my tryst with a movie icon seem more pathetic than ever, while the AIDS years have a whiff of romance and heroics? The prism of time does some strange editing to our life stories, do doubt. At any rate, if you remember that perilous time, or weren’t in the thick of it, the book has been called a “poignant, darkly funny” ride.
If you’re curious, you can read the prologue here on my site (and watch me win the car in question), see a review from Southern Voice, or visit the Amazon page for reader reviews (and damn, is my book actually selling “new and used” for as low as $6.43? I need a new agent. Okay, an agent.).
I must admit I like the cover. I suppose it could have been better (and what’s with the Wagon Train font for the title?), but I do so love the image of the Hollywood sign being snorted up. It’s perfectly descriptive of the book: funny if you let it be, tragic because it can end no other way.
Tags: A Place Like This, acting, aids, gay, hiv, recovery, Sexuality
Posted in Anita Mann and Acting Gigs, Books and Writings, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease | 1 Comment »
My television commercials from the 1980s
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
In my distant youth, I did television commercials as a young actor in Los Angeles (described in my book “A Place Like This”). I specialized in nerd, dorks and geeks, as this video clearly demonstrates.
Everything from McDonald’s (the director kept asking me to place less emphasis on the word “fabulous”), Denny’s (my favorite geek freak-out moment), and Golden Flake Potato Chips. But the real cheers should be the girl from the Barq’s commercial, who stands there patiently holding a 50-pound packet of root beer as I blather on and on!
My performance days are now limited to the occasional drag performance, unless you count the videos I produce myself for this blog (I’m most proud of the “mock Gay Pride PSA,” which skewers gay culture). But oh, in my day, I was the best dork in town!
Tags: A Place Like This, acting
Posted in All Other Video Postings, Anita Mann and Acting Gigs, Books and Writings, My Fabulous Disease | 5 Comments »