No sooner had POZ Magazine editor Oriol Gutierrez accepted my pitch to do a feature story about meth, gay men and HIV than a stunning Facebook post came across my feed. Someone I knew, Mark Wingo, had died of a meth overdose, and his roommate, Chuck Parker, posted the news and plainly said that meth [...]
Among the glittering nominees of Hollywood films, television and music honored at the annual GLAAD Awards, one category celebrates grassroots queer media like no other. The “Outstanding Blog” award honors ongoing blogs, typically written and curated by a single person, that exemplifies GLAAD’s mission to accelerate acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community and fight defamatory media [...]
Cover art detail from Never Silent by Peter Staley Activist Peter Staley's much-anticipated new memoir, Never Silent, opens with almost unbearable nail-biting suspense, sweeping us into the behind-the-scenes machinations of an ACT UP takeover of the New York Stock Exchange at opening bell. It's legitimately dangerous, timed to the second, and absolutely thrilling, [...]
Well, it had to happen, sooner or later, if my luck held out. This December, I’m turning 60 freaking years old. And what better way to celebrate during these insulated times than to throw a virtual party to celebrate all long-term survivors who are hitting major life milestones we never thought possible? Join me on [...]
Dr. Larry Mass (Adam Fredericks/GMHC) There are few nights more consequential in the history of gay men than the evening a group of gay men gathered at the home of Larry Kramer more than 35 years ago and began the business of creating the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (now known simply as GMHC). [...]
The ceiling fan isn’t twirling fast enough to cool our bodies, not after the cardio workout we just had. My husband turns the fan switch higher and begins a search around the room for his underwear. “Oh man. I am so crazy about you...” I say, a bit boastfully, because I’m actually thinking of the [...]
The 2020 GLAAD Award for Outstanding Blog has been awarded to My Fabulous Disease. The GLAAD Awards were established in 1990 to recognize “outstanding representations of the LGBTQ community in media.” Long-term HIV survivor and activist Mark S. King produces all content for the blog, which uses the tagline, "He's an HIV-positive gay man in [...]
Richard King and Mark S. King in November, 1989 My brother Richard will tell you stories about his long-time partner, Emil Matzner, with great enthusiasm. Emil’s endearing quirks, their adventures as a couple, things like that. Richard might even provide details about Emil’s death from AIDS thirty years ago, but those are the [...]
When a group of entertainers were creating an online fundraiser for the Triangle Club, a Washington, DC, facility providing meeting space for LGBTQ people in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, I knew it was time for Anita Mann to emerge from the duffel bag in the back of my closet. The result is a [...]
Somewhere well into Every Grain of Sand, the mesmerizingly sad and ultimately transformative new memoir by recovering addict and sex worker David P. Wichman, the reader might wonder just how much more they can take. There are harrowing accounts of childhood abuse, of the bottomless cruelty of parents and the heartless whims of child protective [...]
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