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 | Jun 28, 2024 | Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy, Trump
Honestly, I was flattered to see a photo of me on Jennifer Vaughan’s social media feed. She posted it a few weeks ago, during the first days of Pride Month, and it showed me at the 2013 Atlanta Pride parade. I was a Grand Marshal that year, and in the picture... by Mark S. King | Jun 3, 2024 | Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, Meth and Recovery, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy
A retreat being held this summer, known as SoberPoz, will welcome anyone living with HIV who identifies as participating in a program of recovery of some kind. This kind of safe space is terribly important and I want to explain why – and then encourage you to... 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 | Apr 4, 2024 | Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News, Prevention and Policy
(This interview between myself and Kerry Thomas appears in the April/May 2024 issue of POZ Magazine.) When Kerry Thomas began serving a 30-year sentence in Idaho for nondisclosure of his HIV-positive status in 2008, becoming a prominent voice for people living with... 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...