by Mark S. King | Oct 2, 2016 | Anita Mann and Acting Gigs, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News
(This essay appears in my collection of essays, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor, available now at online outlets or your local bookstore.) Over and over, footage of Rock Hudson standing next to Doris Day was playing on television, and he looked... 
by Mark S. King | Apr 4, 2016 | Family and Friends, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease
When the health of my close friend Ron began to rapidly decline in 1987, he made the decision to leave Los Angeles to return home to rural New York to be near his family. “Just long enough to feel a little better,” he told me at the time. It was a common trajectory in... 
by Mark S. King | Jul 7, 2015 | Book Review, Family and Friends, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, News
“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.... 
by Mark S. King | Mar 20, 2015 | Family and Friends, Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease
It wasn’t easy keeping my composure when I interviewed for my first job for an AIDS agency in 1987. Sitting across from me was Daniel P. Warner, the founder of the first AIDS organization in Los Angeles, LA Shanti. Daniel was achingly beautiful. He had brown eyes as... 
by Mark S. King | Jan 13, 2015 | Gay Life, Living with HIV/AIDS, My Fabulous Disease, Prevention and Policy
One of the times I contracted gonorrhea, which in my day was affectionately called The Clap, I was 20 years old and had just moved to West Hollywood, California. It was 1981, disco was still thumping in the bars, and the bath houses were packed. My dance card...
