by Mark S. King | Jul 19, 2024 | Book Review, Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy
After ten cities, dozens of organizational sponsors and thousands of attendees, my book tour for My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor will end the evening of August 8th in Atlanta. It feels wonderful to be ending the tour in my hometown, where much of the... 
by Mark S. King | Jul 8, 2024 | Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease
As Chuck Parker stood over his room-mate’s dead body trying to process what he was seeing, a 911 operator on the phone urged him to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Parker would have done it, if he had thought there were any chance he might revive his... 
by Mark S. King | May 29, 2024 | Family and Friends, Film Review, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News
This is a story about how the staff at the very first HIV/AIDS agency in Los Angeles managed to handle the stress of that time without falling apart – and a random, whimsical twist of fate that followed many years later. My first job in the AIDS arena was at the... 
by Mark S. King | Feb 27, 2024 | Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy, Trump
When an audience member gives a dollar bill to a drag performer in Oklahoma City, they bow ever so slightly in a kind of reverent curtsy when handing it over. Here at the County Line nightclub on a recent Saturday night, I watch it happen again and again. Maybe... 
by Mark S. King | Dec 6, 2023 | Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease
As I say in my recent interview for Dennis Hensley’s podcast (“Dennis, Anyone?”), it’s hard to talk about this without sounding like a total dick. But really, when has that ever stopped me before? Dennis has a way of entertaining his audience with zippy one-liners... 
by Mark S. King | Nov 30, 2023 | Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy
(I will never explain the early days of AIDS better then this, so I post this essay to commemorate World AIDS Day every year.) My brother Richard smiles a lot. He has an easy laugh. But there was a time, years ago, when he held a poisonous drink in his hands and...
