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Book Review

11 28, 2016

The Compassionate Truce of Tim Murphy’s Novel ‘Christodora’

By |2018-03-23T11:41:48-04:00November 28th, 2016|Book Review, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, News|0 Comments

In the towering new novel Christodora, author Tim Murphy harnesses decades of personal and professional experience as an HIV journalist into a story that sweeps back and forth between the last several decades and beyond. It has the scope of great literature, but Christodora is also a deeply personal chronicle from a man who knows [...]

05 12, 2016

Into the Desert, After the Bomb

By |2018-03-23T11:42:14-04:00May 12th, 2016|Book Review, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News|2 Comments

Daniel Cardone’s essential but relentlessly grim documentary about longtime AIDS survivors, Desert Migration, is fascinated with the bodies of the gay men it profiles. The film begins with lingering shots of each of the subjects as they begin their day.  It follows them through their routine, some of them naked, as they prepare breakfast, shower, [...]

09 30, 2015

Recovering from Meth, Rebuilding a Sex Life

By |2018-03-23T11:42:26-04:00September 30th, 2015|Book Review, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy|5 Comments

For more than a decade I was an active crystal meth addict. They were the darkest years of my life. I suffered numerous relapses as I struggled to get clean, and my woeful journey back to crystal meth was always the same. First, small changes crept into my behavior; not about crystal meth precisely, but [...]

07 7, 2015

The Relentless Affections of Amy Ferris

By |2018-03-23T11:42:29-04:00July 7th, 2015|Book Review, Family and Friends, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News|1 Comment

“We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?” -- Marianne Williamson The first time I met Amy Ferris, several years ago, she cupped my jawline in her hands and gave me a kiss full on the lips. There were none of the usual [...]

04 20, 2015

IT’S NOT OVER: Signorile Rejects “Victory Blindness”

By |2018-03-23T11:42:33-04:00April 20th, 2015|Book Review, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy|3 Comments

On October 1, 1991, I joined furious LGBT protestors who took to the streets of West Hollywood, California. The newly elected Governor Pete Wilson, who had met with advocates during his campaign and assured them he would support AB101, a state-wide LGBT anti-discrimination statute, had just vetoed the bill. Thousands of us stalked the Governor at [...]

02 3, 2015

Our Transgender Teachable Moment

By |2018-03-23T11:42:37-04:00February 3rd, 2015|Book Review, Gay Life, My Fabulous Disease, News|1 Comment

The lobby of the Melbourne convention center at the international AIDS conference last July was packed with scientists, community educators, and activists. I was busy wrangling interviews for my daily video blogs. Across the room I spotted JoAnne Keatley and Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, two of the most visible transgender women in the world and experts [...]

01 28, 2015

Sean Strub and the Legacy of AIDS

By |2018-03-23T11:42:38-04:00January 28th, 2015|Book Review, Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, Prevention and Policy|5 Comments

Before my interview with activist Sean Strub, author of Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival, let me share a revealing story. It was late 2011 and my life was in shambles. The breakup of a long term relationship had sent me into a spiral, followed closely by a devastating drug addiction [...]

06 16, 2014

Sally Field, Rational Relating, and a Comedy of Life with HIV

By |2018-03-23T11:42:47-04:00June 16th, 2014|Book Review, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease|0 Comments

Charles Sanchez skips a lot. It is a natural, vivacious skip, an outpouring of unabashed joy that melds the cheerfulness of The Sound of Music with the bliss of the Pharrell Williams "Happy" video. Nothing stands in the way of his delight. Not even life with HIV. It is that joyful vibrancy that makes Merce, [...]

02 28, 2014

Our Problem with Being ‘CURED’ of HIV

By |2015-04-19T07:56:25-04:00February 28th, 2014|Book Review, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News|5 Comments

In the late 1980's, I let this odd, fussy man into my office at LA Shanti, my first AIDS agency job. He seemed earnest and harmless and he just wanted a few minutes of my time. "I have the cure for AIDS," he politely announced. Sadly, he wasn't the first person to say that to [...]

10 22, 2012

The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler?

By |2015-04-19T08:02:08-04:00October 22nd, 2012|Book Review, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease|5 Comments

Kearns’ story includes a bizarre intersection between us that I found so revelatory and disturbing that I had to actually put the book down for several days while I reexamined an entire section of my life.

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