Hucksters and charlatans know their cue: their traveling salvation shows typically arrive when we are at the nexus of public panic and willful ignorance. It should have come as no surprise, then, to find Dr. Judy Mikovitz' dusty wagon come creaking into sight this...
Circus of Books, the Netflix documentary premiering Wednesday, begins with old home video footage of a large and boisterous family during domestic mealtime chaos. Children are tugging sleeves for attention while parents shoo away the camera. It is a fitting opening...
There are trials by fire, and then there are trials by wildfire. Nursing student Brian Thomas never imagined his on-the-job education would transform into fighting on the very front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, or that he would be forced to take extreme safety...
The flyer was in my mailbox, folded and placed by an unknown neighbor. “NEED CORONAVIRUS HELP?” it read, explaining a local “Self-Quarantine Response Team” was here to support those “with compromised immune systems, those in quarantine – or even those who must work or...
People ask me if our lives today feel like the early years of HIV/AIDS, and I want to scream. There is no comparison. Just stop. No one cared about people dying of AIDS in the early years of the pandemic. The stock market didn’t budge. The President didn’t hold news...
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...
First things first. I don’t believe the national HIV agency, NMAC, acted thoughtlessly toward people living with AIDS – only one of the accusations leveled against them -- when NMAC decided to change the name of their annual conference from “the United States...
The gay men online who get off on seeking HIV infection (“bug chasers”) aren’t exactly known for their thoughtful introspection. After all, they are eroticizing something that works exactly once -- and has life-long consequences. So, a tweet posted a few weeks ago...
What would the lives of gay men be like today if AIDS never happened? Filmmaker Leo Herrera’s answer to that question is a genre-busting web series Fathers. A dreamlike mix of actual historical information and clever wish-fulfilment -- with plenty of sex for good...
Charles Sanchez has audacity, you have to give him that. Not only did he create a web series, Merce, drawn from his own life as a gay New Yorker living with HIV, he made it a musical comedy, people. With original music and a cast of lively singers and dancers. Oh, and...
To receive notifications on my latest posts.