Soon, as many families take a seat at their Thanksgiving table, after the food is set but just before the feasting begins, a paralyzing moment will occur. What now? They'll wonder, glancing left and right. Should we pray? Uncomfortable seconds will tick by. Finally,...
My mega-blog week with The Bilerico Project
This week I am honored to be a "guest host" for The Bilerico Project, the leading online blogging salon for GLBT commentary, politics and culture. My job is to contribute three times a day and get out of my HIV rut! I'm having fun with pop culture topics you don't...
Examining death, including the one I caused.
My memorial service will be fabulous, I can assure you of that. I first outlined it during the initial, deadly wave of AIDS in the 1980's, and have edited it here and there over the years, updating the songs I would like played or the video footage shown. Focusing on...
The Price is Right, 30 years after coming on down
Within a few years of Coming On Down, there would be enormous differences between that video boy and myself, shaped by life events that would throw a wet blanket on my aw shucks optimism. I’ve tried to recover from them, to regain the hopeful, expectant glimmer found in the eyes of the kid from “The Price is Right,” with mixed success.
My Forbidden Love for Gay Monsters
Zombies are deeply misunderstood, in my mind. They're outcasts, picked on, and are the perfect stand-ins for things we fear or don't understand. Things like death. Or gay people. Or disease. Or getting a disease from gay people that could lead to death. Work with me...
Dueling Videos: Oprah in 1987 and AIDS activism in 2010
In 1987, I was a 26 year old living in Los Angeles and trying to face the horror of having tested positive with HIV. Television blasted daily reports of the death toll, the suicides of people with HIV, and even the deterioration and death of Rock Hudson. But nothing...
I am the man my father built.
Never in my short life had I been camping. I hated the grit of dirt and leaves, bugs, peeing outdoors, and the looming prospect of sleeping amongst it all. The woods looked like the terrarium for my pet alligator, and from what I could tell, Wally didn't sleep all...
A Dance to an Atlanta Night
Stephanie's feet are bare, and she is on a sidewalk, and she is dancing. And everything in the world is exactly as it is supposed to be. We've already been hanging out with each other all evening, our group of a dozen or so. I'm visiting Atlanta for the weekend and...
The Magic (and Gay Turks) of Istanbul!
My partner Ben and I are in Istanbul for five days. We're vacationing here until we move on to AIDS2010, the international AIDS conference in Vienna beginning on the 17th. I'll be producing daily video blogs from there as a correspondent for TheBody.com. In the...
My Pretend Life without HIV
My mother-in-law is visiting us this week. She's still active at 84, engaged in life, and accepts me completely as her son's longtime partner and a member of the family. So it's a shame she doesn't know the first thing about me. That first thing is the fact that I am...
