A&U October 2018

OCTOBER 2018 • ISSUE 288 • AMERICA’S AIDS MAGAZINE

MUSIC & WORDS

• Poet Rafael Campo • Cabaret Artist Russell Deason • Singer Cody Bondra

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Reversed: HIV+ on TV • Poetry by David Lewis-Peart • Nigel Bray • Jonathan & Derrick Allen-Young • Artists Kurt Weston, Barbara Romain & Alexandria Allan

ben

CUEVAS Portrait of an Artist as an AIDS Activist

What is BIKTARVY®?

BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

What is the most important information I should know about BIKTARVY? BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects:  Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection.

If you have both HIV-1 and HBV and stop taking BIKTARVY, your HBV may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

Who should not take BIKTARVY? Do not take BIKTARVY if you take:  dofetilide  rifampin  any other medicines to treat HIV-1

What are the other possible side effects of BIKTARVY? Serious side effects of BIKTARVY may also include:  Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY.  Kidney problems, including kidney failure.

Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys.

If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking BIKTARVY.  Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death.

Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.  Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (5%), and headache (5%). Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking BIKTARVY?  All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection.  All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements. BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all of your other medicines.  If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY.  If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the following page.

Get HIV support by downloading a free app at MyDailyCharge.com

KEEP ASPIRING.

Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.

BIKTARVY is a 1-pill, once-a-day complete HIV-1 treatment for adults who are either new to treatment or whose healthcare provider determines they can replace their current HIV-1 medicines with BIKTARVY.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. BIKTARVY.COM

IMPORTANT FACTS

This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY® and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.

(bik-TAR-vee) MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including: • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.

ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults.

It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains: • dofetilide • rifampin • any other medicines to treat HIV-1

BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider all your medical conditions, including if you: • Have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis infection.

• Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

• Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: • Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-thecounter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

• Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY.

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY BIKTARVY can cause serious side effects, including: • Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section.

• Changes in your immune system.

• New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

• Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

• The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (5%), and headache (5%).

These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.

HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.

GET MORE INFORMATION • This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.

• Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5.

• If you need help paying for your medicine, visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, DAILY CHARGE, the DAILY CHARGE Logo, LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies.

Version date: February 2018 © 2018 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. BVYC0047 06/18

c o n t e n t s October 2018

34 Cover Artist Ben Cuevas Talks with A&U’s Sean Black About Queering the Personal & the Political in Explorations of the Body, HIV and Identity

Departments

Features 6

Frontdesk

8

Digital Footprints

10

NewsBreak

28 Gallery Kurt Weston, Barbara Romain & Alexandria Allan Team Up for World AIDS Day

14

Ruby’s Rap

32 Playing with Feeling Musician Cody Bondra Amplifies AIDS Awareness from the Stage

27 Poetry Of Prophets and Princes by Daniel Lewis-Peart

40 Tough as Nails San Francisco Cabaret Artist Russell Deason Finds Universal Themes in Long-Term Surviving

viewfinder 16

Our Story, Our Time

18

Brave New World

19

Second Acts

21

For the Long Run

22

Bright Lights, Small City

24

Just*in Time

lifeguide 50

Access to Care

44 Then and Now Poet & Physician Rafael Campo Interweaves Regimens & Rhythms

51

The Whole Perspective

52

Destination: Cure

53

The Culture of AIDS

48 Reversed: HIV+ A Reality TV Show Examines HIV & Wellness

54

Lifelines

56

Survival Guide

cover photo by Sean Black

Did You Know?

Your organization can receive FREE copies of A&U, America’s AIDS Magazine, to distribute to your clients!

Takes Creative Risks to Empower Others

MAY 2018 • ISSUE 283 • AMERICA’S AIDS MAGAZINE

JUNE 2018 • ISSUE 284 • AMERICA’S AIDS MAGAZINE

SUMMER 1993 & AFTER LOUIE VIEW GENERATIONAL LOSSES THROUGH DIFFERENT LENSES

FRONT

RUNNERS

• Dawn Averitt • Dan Nicoletta • Luna Luis Ortiz • Tori Cooper • Leo Herrera & The Fathers Project • The Billys • Christopher Costas • Ron B.

*plus

• Dr. Evan Antin • Larry Buhl on Keeping Sex Workers Safe • Rose Auslander

FILM FESTIVAL

*plus

Wilson Cruz

The Dedicated HIV Advocate Champions Youth Activism

Photog Suzanne Poli • Thomas Parker Harris • Will St. Leger & Hazel Coonagh • Stephen Ira • Alfie Pettit

JANUARY 2018 • ISSUE 279 • AMERICA’S AIDS MAGAZINE

HIV IS NOT A CRIME

Trevor Hoppe Talks About His New Book, Punishing Disease

Melissa Rivers

The Writer, Producer & Entertainment Correspondent Proves that Doing Good Is Never Out of Fashion

EVEN ME

LaWanda Gresham Inspires Others Living with HIV to Seek Support

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• Avram Finkelstein • Positive Parenting • Geoffrey Couët & François Nambot • DIVAS Simply Singing!

• Gina Brown

david

Arquette

A Sibling’s Love Re-Energizes the Fight Against Stigma

To make sure your clients don’t miss another insightful and thought-provoking issue of A&U, subscribe online at aumag.org

A&U Frontdesk

Night Watch

O

ver in Amsterdam, when I wasn’t helping to person the A&U booth at the International AIDS Conference, I had the chance to visit some art museums. The Van Gogh Museum. Stedelijk Museum. The great Rijksmuseum featuring Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, which depicts a group of militia men, charged with defending the city or putting down riots while citizens slept.

Visiting a city where art is emphasized reminded me that great cultures like the Dutch persist because art is at the center of their existence.

Empires come and go but it’s the art that lasts! Art has the ability to rise above the current babble and speak to future generations.

The sticking point of art in the age of AIDS has always been to address the situation at hand—the scarcity of treatment options during the early epidemic, or governmental negligence, or the emotional horror of living in a world that would make us invisible if it could— rather than gesture toward the timeless bubble of aesthetics, where truth matters more than need. Indeed the cultural basis of this very magazine has sometimes been called into question. Who needs a painting when homelessness abounds?

Who needs a sculpture when patients can’t access treatment?

Those questions miss the point, of course. Art can do both—tend to politics and the distribution of resources as well as embolden our daydreams and enrich our spiriutal lives. For what good is “life” if it is empty of contemplation about its meaning. Individuals living with HIV/AIDS are not simply bodies.

Activists recently protested at the Whitney Museum in lower Manhattan, charging that the institution’s retrospective of the AIDS-themed work of David Wojnarowicz [A&U, July 2018], who died in 1992, made it seem like HIV is in the past. And, although A&U certainly will pay tribute to an artist who has died, we are very cognizant to the fact that there are many artists working today who are keeping HIV at the forefront of our consciousness.

AMERICA’S AIDS MAGAZINE issue 288 vol. 27 no. 10 October 2018 editorial offices: (518) 426-9010 fax: (518) 436-5354 Editor in Chief & Publisher David Waggoner

This is certainly true of artist Ben Cuevas, openly positive and steadfastly offering sharp critiques with soft fabrics.

Interviewed and photographed by Senior Editor Sean Black, Cuevas defined the importance of activist art: “Art as activism is more important than ever. Given our current political climate, it is clear there is so much work to do still. Artists play an important role in making change, raising awareness, and engaging communities.

One positive of living in such trying times: people are paying attention to political art more than ever.” We will continue to create a space where artists can speak and readers can pay attention.

Alongside the vibrant writing of our columnists in this issue, we offer a gallery of three powerful artists, all collaborating for a cause: Kurt Weston, Barbara Romain, and Alexandria Allan; a grand and inspired poem by David Lewis-Peart; a thoughtful essay by Nigel Bray about living without knowing one is positive; and interviews with three wonderful performing artists. Contributing writer T.J. Banks interviews musician Cody Bondra, who uses his concerts to raise funds and awareness for people living with HIV/AIDS. Editor at Large Hank Trout chats with cabaret artist Russell Deason, who is living with HIV and weaves the realities of AIDS into his act with stunning results.

Lastly, Poetry Editor Noah Stetzer interviews physician and poet Rafael Campo, who for more than two decades has been penning verse about his experiences with HIV in his field.

Around 1990, I started A&U as an archive of cultural responses to the pandemic. Writers and artists were dead or dying and a space was needed to make sure that the past did not stay in the past. No, the past had to stay in the present. This was my way of protecting our community. This was my way of creating order out of chaos. This was my Night Watch.

DAVID WAGGONER

Managing Editor: Chael Needle Senior Editors: Dann Dulin, Sean Black Editors at Large: Chip Alfred, Hank Trout Special Projects Editor: Lester Strong Arts Editor: Alina Oswald Poetry Editor: Noah Stetzer Consulting Editor: Nick Steele Copy Editor: Maureen Hunter Contributing Editors: Sarah Churchill Downes, Reed Massengill, Kelly McQuain, Lesléa Newman, Robert E. Penn Contributing Writers: Noël Alumit, T.J. Banks, Larry Buhl, Ruby Comer, George M. Johnson, John Francis Leonard, Candace Y.A. Montague, Connie Rose, David Rosenberg, Corey Saucier, Stevie St. John, Justin B. Terry-Smith, Patricia Nell Warren, Jeannie Wraight, Rob Zukowski Art Director: Timothy J. Haines Contributing Photographers: Jordan Ancel, Davidd Batalon, Mark Bennington, Tom Bianchi, Sean Black, Adam Bouska, Brian Bowen Smith, Tim Courtney, Duane Cramer, Stephen Churchill Downes, Greg Gorman, Francis Hills, Renée Jacobs, Michael Kerner, Tara Lessard, Tom McGovern, Nancy Perry, Annie Tritt National Advertising Director: Harold Burdick, Jr. Sales & Marketing: David L. Bonitatibus Advertising Sales Office: (518) 426-9010 National Advertising Representative: Rivendell Media (212) 242-6863 Subscription Info: (518) 426-9010 Circulation Manager: Robert Schelepanow Bookkeeper: Richard Garcia Board of Directors President: David Waggoner Vice President: Harold Burdick, Jr. Secretary: Richard Garcia Founding Board Members: Mark S. Labrecque, 1961–1992, Christopher Hewitt, 1946–2004, Mark Galbraith, 1962–2011

In Memoriam: Bill Jacobson, 1939–2005 Rhomylly B. Forbes, 1963–2011 • Chris Companik, 1957–2012 Nancy Ellegate, 1959–2015 A&U (ISSN 1074-0872) is published by Art & Understanding, Inc., 25 Monroe St., Suite 205, Albany, NY 122102743, USA. For A&U advertising information please call 518-426-9010; for subscriptions and address changes please call 518-426-9010; for letters to the editor and unsolicited manuscripts write A&U Magazine, 25 Monroe Street, Albany, New York 12210; fax 518-436-5354; or e-mail: mailbox@aumag.org. All unsolicited manuscripts that do not have a S.A.S.E. cannot be returned and will not be acknowledged. ©2018 Art & Understanding, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. A&U may not be reproduced in any manner, either in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher. A&U and the graphic representations thereof are the registered trademarks of Art & Understanding, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. Individual Subscription rates: $24.95 (12 issues). Institutional rates: $80.00 (12 issues). For subscriptions outside the USA and possessions, $30.95/Canada, $49.95/ international, payable in advance in U.S. currency. First North American serial rights revert to contributors upon publication. A&U retains the right to anthologize work in further issues, as well as in microform or reprinting on the Internet within the context of each issue. Statements of writers, artists and advertisers are not necessarily those of the publisher. Readers note: subjects and contributors to A&U are both HIV-positive and HIV-negative. In the absence of a specific statement herein concerning the serostatus of any individual mentioned in, or contributing material to, this publication, no inference is made with respect thereto and none should be implied. Letters written to A&U or its contributors are assumed intended for publication. Art & Understanding, Inc. assumes no responsibility or liability for unsolicited submissions and does not guarantee the return thereof.

PostMaster: Please send address corrections to A&U Magazine, 25 Monroe Street, Suite 205, Albany NY 122102743, USA

Printed in USA • Visit our Web site at www.aumag.org

digital

mosttweeted Brian Sims, a state legislator from Pennsylvania, graced our September cover and garnered mostly positive praise for his HIV advocacy.

“A wonderful example of a government official creating positive change through policies and advocacy,” tweeted @ HIVHealthEducation.

“You deserve accolades for all of your hard work!”

@AmericasAIDSMagazine 8

mostloved on INSTAGRAM

Arts Editor Alina Oswald won accolades for her photography of activist David Mixner, who nabbed one of her shots for his social media photo, as well as Alliance for Positive Change’s Sharen I. Duke.

Both shoots appeared in the September 2018

mostshared

Reflecting on the power of disclosing one’s positive serostatus as part of advocacy, Josué Hernández wrote a Second Act column that became a magnet for readers to show they support the advocate’s journey. One commenter wrote: “Thank you for sharing your story and for constantly battling for others!” Another wrote: “Josué, this is so moving and brave of you to share. So proud of you!”

@au_magazine

Sims photo by Holly Clark; Duke photo by Alina Oswald

s t n i r p t o fo

@au_americas_aids_magazine A&U • OCTOBER 2018

NEWSBREAK A breakthrough pricing agreement, announced on July 25, 2018 at the 2018 International AIDS Conference, will significantly reduce the cost of diagnostic testing for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C (HBV, HCV) and human papilloma virus (HPV) for millions of people in low- and middle-income countries and will enable public sector programs to access the Hologic Panther system, an integrated molecular diagnostic instrument, at a price of US$12 per patient. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended such testing as the gold standard for monitoring the effectiveness of treatment for HIV. Today, only fifty-six percent of people living with HIV have routine access to viral load testing. The savings generated from the agreement will allow governments to improve treatment monitoring for hundreds of thousands of patients.

The agreement involves the U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID), Unitaid, MedAccess (backed by the UK government), the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), and the government of Zambia.

“The Hologic Global Access Initiative is a great step forward in expanding access to HIV testing across the developing world. Cutting edge initiatives like this are vital if we are to meet our commitment to end AIDS by 2030,” said Alastair Burt, Minister of State at DFID, in a press release.

At least five countries in sub-Saharan Africa—Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe—are expected to introduce this technology in 2018. Zambia is the first country to implement the Hologic Panther platform for routine viral load testing. Unitaid has selected Hologic to pilot the all-inclusive pricing in the other four countries.

The Zambian Ministry of Health plans to deploy Panther instruments at large regional hospitals to augment the existing testing network.

This approach, which will add much-needed capacity, lower costs, and help reduce turnaround time, is a key part of the government’s strategy for achieving epidemic control of HIV in the next three years. Dr. Aaron Shibemba, National Coordinator of Pathology and Laboratory Services at the Zambia Ministry of Health, said, “The fully automated platform enabled the Center for Infectious Disease Research Zambia (CIDRZ) to perform over 20,000 tests in just two months, thus assisting in the elimination of Zambia’s national testing backlog. As a Ministry, and with support from PEPFAR, we will be rolling out an additional six instruments in high priority testing sites as we work towards meeting our 90-90-90 targets.”

MedAccess, with the support of CHAI, has reached a price agreement with Hologic that will enable national testing programs to utilize the Panther system at a significantly reduced rate. The US$12 price applies to all qualified purchases made for public sector use beginning in August 2018; it is expected to save public sector purchasers at least US$50 million over the next four years. For over a decade, CHAI has partnered with DFID to improve access to high-quality, low-cost testing for HIV, tuberculosis, hepatitis and other diseases in low- and middle-income countries. Their work together has saved an estimated US$2 billion to date and has improved access to quality healthcare for patients in nineteen countries across Africa, India, and Southeast Asia.

“This agreement provides significant savings to our partners that are scaling up HIV viral load testing….Since effective treatments are available for these diseases, early detection will save lives,” said CHAI Vice President of Global Markets, Alan Staple.

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries: www.clintonhealthaccess.org. MedAccess (Private) Ltd, a subsidiary of CDC, the U.K. Development Finance Institution, is a U.K. social finance company with government backing that works to make medical supplies more widely available at affordable prices, particularly in Africa and South Asia.

For more information, visit: www.hologic.com/GlobalAccessInitiative.

Keep It Up! ` The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded an $8.8 million grant to Keep It Up!, the first online HIV prevention program proven to reduce sexually transmitted infections. The initial testing of the novel online HIV prevention program has been

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A&U • OCTOBER 2018

graphics by Hologic

Breakthrough Pricing

newsbreak shown to reduce sexually transmitted infections in young gay men by forty percent.

The Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing (ISGMH) at Northwestern University, which created the Keep It Up! program, will use the grant to implement the program in real-world settings as part of the next phase of the study.

Brian Mustanski, senior Keep It Up! investigator and director of ISGMH, said in a prepared statement, “We have effective HIV prevention and treatment approaches and now our greatest challenge is how to get them to the people who need them.”

The NIH has made a significant investment in developing “eHealth” HIV prevention programs like Keep It Up! However, there are no established strategies for implementing those programs even once they are found to be effective. Given the pressing need for effective sex education for young men who have sex with men (MSM), a group disproportionately prone to HIV infection that is forty-four times more likely to contract the disease, such life-saving implementation strategies are necessary.

The $8.8-million grant will enable Keep It Up! to put research into practice by testing two implementation strategies: 1) delivery by community-based organizations, and 2) delivery through a direct-to-consumer method. The first strategy will involve delivering the program through community organizations, including local health centers and clinics. The second, direct-to-consumer strategy will ship HIV/STI testing kits to consumers and make the Keep It Up! education program available to them at home. The strategies will be tested in fifty counties across the U.S. over a two-year period.

“The lessons learned from this phase will not only widen the impact of Keep It Up!, but also will set the path for the implementation of other life-saving eHealth initiatives,” Mustanski said.

The Keep It Up! grant is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse. and the Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health.

For information about the Keep It up! 2.0 version of the program, visit http://isgmh.northwestern.edu/keepitup/.

photos by Michael Blanchard Photography

ARTcetera: Discover Art, Change Lives The AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts invites you to attend ARTcetera 2018, a biannual art auction at. ARTcetera 2018 boasts unique surprises and an elegant 200-plus piece art auction including work by Juan Travieso, Danny Clinch, Salvador Dalí, and many more.

Put together every year by Rafanelli Events and The Catered Affair, ARTcetera remains one of Over the years, ARTcetera Boston’s best venues for art acquisition and one of has raised over $700,00 for the AIDS Action Comthe city’s best parties. Co-Chairs Laura Gassner Otmittee of Massachusetts ting and Ruta Laukien, Curatorial Chair Olivia Ives Flores, and Executive Director of AIDS Action Carl Sciortino promise an evening to delight and surprise.

Art collectors, philanthropists, bright new art world stars, and community members discover fine art, connect to one another, and support the work of AIDS Action, Massachusetts’s leading provider of AIDS-related services as well as prevention and wellness services for people vulnerable to HIV infection.

ARTcetera was founded in 1985 by a group of Boston-area artists who responded to the AIDS epidemic by donating their own creations to raise funds for research. These artists raised over $100,000 that year and generated a new space for the community to share in grief, in hope, and in celebration of the lives of the friends and colleagues they had lost to the disease. Over the last thirty-three years, ARTcetera has become an essential funding source for AIDS Action Committee. In years past, ARTcetera has auctioned off work by artists such as Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Annie Liebowitz, Keith Haring, and Domingo Barreres and raised over $700,000 for AIDS Action.

Some of the finest art institutions and curators in the Boston area donate works to this auction. They include: Abigail Ogilvy Gallery; deCordova Sculpture Park + Museum; Gallery Oh!; Krakow Witkin Gallery; Massachusetts College of Art and Design; Montserrat College of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Peabody Essex Museum; The Provincetown Art Association and Museum; The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts; and Uprise Art. The auction brings together entrepreneurs, bright new art world stars, and top philanthropists to support the vital work of AIDS Action.

For more information visit www.artceteraboston.org or call (857) 313-6735. AIDS Action is New England’s largest provider of services to people living with HIV/AIDS and populations at risk of infection. In 2013, AIDS Action (www.aac.org) became a part of Fenway Health (www.fenwayhealth.org) which works to make life healthier for the people in the city’s neighborhoods, the LGBT community, people living with HIV/AIDS and the broader population.

—Reporting by Hank Trout OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

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by Ruby Comer

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accidentally hangs up on them…thrice.

Ruby Comer: So sorry, I thought I had this darn thing down. Nuts! [they both smile and are patient.] Good. I finally see you! Nice to see ya, ‘young fellers’! How has the epidemic affected you?

Derrick: HIV is not something we openly talked about growing up. We only joked about it. As we’ve grown older, we see how it has made its way into people closest to us.

Jonathan: The epidemic has changed and shaped our culture—the black culture. As two young black gay men, we’re most at risk for HIV. We believe it affects all of us in a significant and individual way. It’s one of the few things black people are silent about, due to the stigma…and it’s killing us.

Wow, you stated it head on. You’ve got your pulse directly on the crisis. How did you first hear about AIDS? Jonathan: I was in school, or some community program, I recall.

Derrick: My mother was the first person to mention it to me. Her uncle died from an AIDS-related illness the year I was born. He was one of her favorite people, so she talked about him a lot!

Tell me about your great uncle.

Derrick: He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1992 and died a month before my mother gave birth to me in August 1993. My mom always said her uncle would always rub her stomach and say “That’s a boy; my boy.” I always felt connected to him and as a young kid, his memory sparked my commitment to HIV and AIDS advocacy.

Ahhh…Jonathan, who have you lost?

Jonathan: It was my cousin, a few years ago. My entire family experienced the pain of watching him suffer, while silently avoiding much discussion about it because he was gay.

My-oh-my. Sad. Sad. [There’s a knock on my front door. I excuse myself and return.] Sorry, it was a UPS delivery from Victoria’s Secret.

So, Jonathan, what attracted you to Derrick?

Jonathan: It was his caring nature, his suaveness, beautiful glow, and smile. I was smitten immediately.

Derrick, what immediately turned you on about Jonathan?

Derrick: His love and service for people instantly attracted me. His energy is one of a kind!

Ruby illustration by Davidd Batalon; photos courtesy the Allen-Youngs

S

omeone once sang, Love is a many splendored thing. Well, it seems it applies to these two doves.

Twenty-seven year old Jonathan Allen and twenty-five year old Derrick Young met by accident six years ago. They were students at Louisiana’s Grambling State University and were attending a debate for student body president. Jonathan was running for office and gave a speech. Afterwards, Derrick approached Jonathan to tell him that his campaign paraphernalia needed to be removed before the elections closed. They began talking—instant connection!

Both are now law students at Boston University. From the start, they have been activists. In 2006, Jonathan founded Futures Inspired by Youth with Aim (FIYA), empowering youth to make healthy choices. In 2008, he served as Special Projects Coordinator for a local health network, providing support to low-income families. He also coordinated a youth camp where health practitioners engaged over 300 local youths, empowering them about sex and STIs. He’s currently a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice.

In 2013, Derrick interned for the CDC, at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center (HARC) in Ypsilanti, Michigan. A year later, he was selected as an NMAC youth scholar at his Louisiana college. This year Derrick was appointed Harvard University Center for AIDS Research Community Advisory Board Membership Chair.

Eventually, the couple wants to start a family. They are huge travelers, having visited Mexico and Ghana over the summer. Their favorite city, thus far, is Washington, D.C. They also have an Internet show called The Bedroom (found on YouTube), which documents their times, travels, and journeys together. Each has lost someone to the epidemic and they have friends who are living with HIV, as well.

One afternoon, I have a Skype encounter with them. Still an amateur on this type of technology, Jonathan and Derrick are complete gentlemen, even when this old school lady

Jonathan & Derrick Allen-Young

So you’re interested in raising children, huh?

Derrick: Very. We can’t wait until it’s time!

Okay. Who first said, “I love you”?

Jonathan: Derrick.

Where did you first kiss?

Derrick: We were watching The Lion King.

Tender. How did you initially discuss STIs? Jonathan: Derrick discussed them right from the beginning of our relationship. (He pauses.) I was twenty when I first tested.

Derrick: I was eighteen. I’ve always been health conscious.

A&U • OCTOBER 2018

My gawd…you two are such social activists!

Thank you. What...drives…you? Where does that passion stem from?

Jonathan: We believe love makes change.

Our families have always taught us to love and respect people and God. God gave us our passion to change culture. [Derrick nods.) While in school for his Master’s in Public Health, Derrick worked as the Lead Tester and Counselor at Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

to see this vision through. [He looks away for a brief moment and returns with a wide grin.] Once our student leaders graduate college, they will be prepared to enter top graduate/professional schools, and make change for the greater good!

Luck be with you! Comment on the high rates of HIV infection in the black community.

Derrick: The majority of the black community does not have access to quality

Okay, I’ll bite. Why Franklin Jubilee?

Jonathan: Well, “Franklin” is named after the cartoon character and….

Derrick: A Russian tortoise can live nearly fifty years, and fifty years is considered a “jubilee.”

Clever! When I hear the name “Franklin,” I think of the protagonist in that Twilight Zone episode, who’s vacationing in Las Vegas, resents gambling, and ends up addicted—and dead!

Wow. Tell me, Derrick.

Derrick: The Dorchester Knows Testing initiative was modeled after one of the largest HIV testing initiatives in the nation, New York Knows. The experience was great. [He brightly grins.] We partnered with small businesses and community organizations to educate the workers and the community on HIV and AIDS. Through our partnerships, we were able to have designated testing areas in different locations throughout the summer. [Derrick takes a breath.] I left Codman Square to return to school, and the initiative unfortunately ended shortly after. Codman and Dorchester experienced a lot of structural challenges and barriers that prevent sustainable programming.

Your motivation inspires me.

I know you two established the nonprofit, The Leadership Brainery….

Jonathan: Yes, Ruby. The Leadership Brainery’s unprecedented National Ambassador Program funnels minority student leaders into diverse fields. Fifty-two first-generation and diverse college student leaders—who we call “Ambassadors”—are selected among a pool of nominated rising sophomores. One Ambassador is selected from each state, including Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, to create an essential network of different representations and perspectives.

During our three-year cohort program, we focus on long-term development, such as leadership, personal, and professional, and preparation for graduate/professional school—and a successful career.

education or wealth. The information and wealth gaps are real. We are not taught how to select insurance plans and cannot afford quality care. We are not taught safe-sex practices and cannot afford transmission barriers/contraception. [Derrick takes a beat, cupping his hand on his chin, and his tempo is now measured.] I think we can reach out by educating with a perspective. For example, when we teach about antiretrovirals, and PrEP and PEP, we must address the black community’s fear and distrust in medical science. We have had many unethical things done to our minds and bodies in the form of “treatment” and it shifts decision-making.

Captivating. Innovative.

Derrick: We also prepare them for the LSAT and help them navigate the law school admissions process. Currently, we are focused on developing and fundraising

Yes, yes, yes! Very well said my friend. I couldn’t have ticked this off better. Do you guys have any pets?

Jonathan: Yes. We have a tortoise! His name is Franklin Jubilee.

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

Speaking of dead, what historical person would you like to have a cuppa Joe with?

Derrick: [His eyes gleaming, he instantly replies.] Nelson Mandela! [Jonathan shakes his head up and down feverishly.] It would be incredible to personally experience him sharing his thoughts on justice. President Mandela’s legacy as a freedom fighter in South Africa and around the world inspires us to love others, with action.

Those interested in supporting The Leadership Brainery can donate at www.theleadershipbrainery. com/donate/.

Find Jonathan and Derrick Allen-Young on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @minjallen and @jr.derrick.

Ruby Comer is an independent journalist from the Midwest who is happy to call Hollywood her home away from home. Reach her by e-mail at MsRubyComer@aol.com.

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Dear Gemmel & Giovanni

I

wake up every day and I do about ten minutes of prayer. I sit on my yoga mat with my legs crossed, light some sage and do some chanting. I do it to center myself. I do it to ask the universe to provide cover for all my friends, family, and people unknown to me. I do it to pray for the lives that we lost like Gemmel and Giovanni, and for the hopes that we one day will lose people like you no more.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the two of you and what you both could’ve meant as change agents to this anti-black world.

How since your birth as Black queer people on this earth, the odds were stacked against you with a layered oppression.

How this world should’ve been better to you and for you—for you to have the ability to live, and thrive, and be loved. Most importantly that your names shouldn’t be headlines nor hashtags, but that you both should still be here with us in the physical world.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you view it, I and others spend our lives fighting for your names to always be remembered in an effort to create a society where the next people like you are never met with your fate. We fight against the systems of oppressions that continuously make Black queer folks choose the lesser of two evils—death in an instant or death by 1,000 paper cuts.

I often reflect on the circumstances around both of your deaths and am reminded that although you both left this world in two very different ways, white supremacy played the ultimate role in your untimely murders.

For you, Giovanni, it was the unfortunate circumstance that many people who are Black and Other face when trying to navigate the confines of our own community. A community that has for hundreds of years struggled with

16

the conditioning that was passed down through colonization that taught us to hate our own. Hate our own based on color, and sex, and gender, and approximation to whiteness.

I often struggle with the why of your father. Why you couldn’t have been born to a family with a father like mine, who

cared for me despite my identity. A family that surrounded me with love and care and based everything they felt for me on that emotion first. Your father’s words to the world will be forever etched into my mind “I would rather have a dead son than a gay son.”

There is no place for that type of hate in our community, or any community for that matter. There is no reason nor excuse that could make it ever okay to take the life of another Black person based on their identity.

And Gemmel. I am angry at the way the world treated you, especially in the media. Made you out to be something you were not. Made you out to be something devalued because of the correlation made between sex work and dehumanization.

Powerful white men have used Black people as pawns forever and they should have never been able to add your name to that list. Now a man walks free, your killer, and we have no justice for you.

There are still so many others like you who continue to walk the streets,

and deal with these same powerful men who can inject your body with poison for their pleasure and never be held accountable for their actions. Never concerned about your sexual health, let alone if you will survive the drugs. They made you disposable. No human should ever be that.

Unfortunately for people like us, this world is set up with hurdle after hurdle of a layered oppression that comes when you are Black and Other—with that Other being Queer. Higher rates of homelessness, bullying, and violence often plague our community. HIV is often correlated as our community’s issue.

Our numbers are at epidemic level and there doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight. The odds are that one in two of you would’ve acquired the virus in your lifetime—a number that should never be that high.

I often think about how even if we as Black queer people cross one hurdle there always seems to be another waiting to trip us up. The dangers that awaited you both should you still be here with us today—the dangers many of us continue to deal with and struggle through. It’s unfortunate that for people like us, it is either death in an instant or by 1,000 paper cuts. Life should never have to be this way.

I wake up every morning, Black, Queer, HIV-positive, and about fifteen other things and the two of you come to my mind. How your deaths will not be in vain, and how despite the constant attacks from this anti-black world we must continue to fight for boys like you.

George M. Johnson is a journalist and activist.

He has written for Entertainment Tonight, Ebony, TheGrio, TeenVogue, NBC News, and several other major publications. He writes the Our Story, Our Time column for A&U. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @ iamgmjohnson.

A&U • OCTOBER 2018

illustration by Timothy J. Haines

life should never have to be this way

OCTOBER 2 - 10 2017

+

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O C

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TO THE BENEFIT OF THE BBCM FOUNDATION FOR THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS

INFO | TICKETS : BBCM.ORG

Whore Into Housewife

I

want to be someone’s housewife. Is that weird? I think it’s been almost three years since I’ve had a man in my bed that I called a boyfriend (and there have been so many men in my bed). Sometimes sexual promiscuity is the automatic default for so many of us who have found so many of our identities in the bedroom—scratch that! DO not say that out loud! Stop thinking the thought! That’s reductive, stereotypical, and fundamentally untrue. That’s the political brush that we were painted with in the eighties (as the sex-crazed hedonistic homos/low-lifes/ whores, punished with a disease born out of ”unseemly sexual connection”), but I refuse to internalize those lies. HIV is a pathogen, and like all pathogens they are only tangentially linked to causality. Being hungry does not cause food poisoning, nor does being Black cause malaria—just because things happen in tandem, it does not mean that they have anything to do with one another.

Here ends your lesson in Intermediate Logic.

So instead of generalizing, and adding to a dangerous and ill-conceived narrative of the “sexually promiscuous HIV-positive cis male,” I will speak from my own truth.

This has nothing to do with my positive HIV brothers, sisters, and non-binary in-betweeners. Not everyone with HIV is a whore (you’d be surprised at how many folks don’t know this simple fact (Thank God for our dear friend Ryan White or it would have been so much worse), but I personally am far too comfortable wielding my identity in the bedroom. My integrity is too tied to my penis; and I am struggling to grow out of it. I want to be a good little housewife in cheap g-strings I ordered online from China, but I also want to be so many other things...each as beautiful as the last.

My therapist says to make a list of things I’m looking for in a partner.

This makes me talk in circles for thirty minutes about the roles of Tops and Bottoms, and my ongoing fear of falling for a Versatile Bisexual Agnostic Gender-Fluid Mixed-Race person with two different eye colors—

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“Because I thrive in absolutes,” I conclude.

This causes my therapist to take a measured sip of his Starbucks frappuccino, scribble something in his notes, and say: “This conversation sounds a little scattered. Are you sure you want what you say you want? You may not be ready.

You say what you want is love, but all you have talked about is sex. It’s okay to just want sex.”

And I talk around in circles for another thirty minutes admitting that it’s easy to rely on structured gender roles because it’s familiar and validating and that in truth, I don’t really know what I want...but I want it now.

“I want it now!” I begin to sing in a posh British accent.

I wrap my pink chinchilla fur coat around me dramatically, and perform a cult classic musical number in an offkey falsetto about wrapping today and tomorrow up in my pocket, and having a bean feast!

Because I want an adorable Oompa Loompa to love me, and hold me, and call me beautiful....

“And If I don’t get the things I am after...I’m going to scream!!” And I hold the note for almost two days, masterfully playing the role of spoiled little rich girl, and I am pulling gold geese eggs and snozzberries (who ever heard of a snozzberry) out of my pockets like magic tricks! And I’ve even mustered a couple of tears.

And I am waiting for my therapist to stand up and applaud; to tell me how brave I am for asking for the impossible.

He doesn’t.

He takes another sip of his coffee and scribbles on his notepad for much longer than necessary, and stone face says: “Uh huh.”

I am not amused.

My therapist is a very young, very cute, very smart, very gay, bearded trans cub. If it wasn’t against about a hundred ethical rules I would be trying to seduce him. (I

kind of have a thing for gay trans cubs.)

But the reason he’s my therapist...(other than the fact that I’m poor and he needs the practice), is that he is intersectionally aware enough to see, but not be moved by all of my complex identities.

He stands outside the paradigm.

Sure, I’m Gay, Black, Fem, Bottom, Christian, Poz, and Smarter than 98 percent of the population, but he’s a man with a vagina. He’s not impressed by much.

So he asks me again, “Make a list and see if the list holds for a few days. The things that stick, will stick. The things that don’t, won’t.”

I still haven’t made the list.

I still don’t know exactly what I want.

But I want to be someone’s housewife.

And no matter what the world might say, I don’t believe that my sexual history (HIV-positive or not ) should preclude me from that.

I DO believe you can turn a whore into a housewife.

You just watch and see!

Love and Light Corey Saucier is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. He is a Lambda Literary Fellow in Fiction and Non-Fiction and is currently penning his first novel. His musings and wanderings on Love, Life, and Nonsense can be found at www. justwords.tumblr.com.

illustration by Timothy J. Haines

unpacking social myths, magic tricks and other silly misconceptions

A&U • OCTOBER 2018

by

II.II.II

NigelBray my war began that day

illustration by Timothy J. Haines

W

hat does that mean to most of us? Armistice, probably. The end of slaughter. Our boys, the ones that were left, coming home with varying amounts of limbs but still coming home. The memory of war. Poppies. Everyone in black. Mourning. Loss. One war ended.

Laurence Binyon.

Well, for me, apart from being the old man’s birthday (Oh! The irony!), it was the day, in 2004, I was told I was HIV-positive.

11.11.11. 2004. My war began that day.

Mr. Lucky was, it seems, shit outta luck.

Let me take you back….

1980. Met Rod. Faithful(ish). Met Ken. Faithful. Moved back home to Cornwall. Met David. Faithful (apart from a couple of mutual wanks here and there) for eighteen years. So I know, having met Rod since, he was not infected. Ken is alive and well, and although I don’t know his status, I do know, that as a very scared ex-Jehovah’s Witness, I was the first person he’d fucked. And David, as it turns out is one of the blessed few that carries the gene which prevents HIV. Therefore, this puts the date of my infection somewhere before 1980, those few months of glorious sex, when I was putting myself about a bit. It MUST’VE been then. The freedom, you see—I was able to be me, a gay man, a walking erection, a thirst for identity. But oh, what bad luck was mine—AIDS, as it was, all lilies, falling tombstones and BIG CAPITAL LETTERS, was barely in the country then, or at least not amongst the people I knew. Clearly, I was wrong.

Looking back through wiser eyes, I know now that I was POZ—look at those three letters, standing out from the crowd, with no other meaning!—for TWENTY-FOUR years, without knowing, having unprotected sex with David (lucky for CCR5, eh?). POZ when I lived in Leytonstone, POZ when I lived in Walthamstow, POZ when I lived in Bodmin for seventeen years, POZ when I was in Hungary, POZ when I was in Germany, POZ while I was teaching…who knew eh? I didn’t, that’s for sure.

So, you can imagine my horror that

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

morning on Armistice Day 2004 when the kind nurse said, “We’ve got your results…and I’m afraid to tell you that they’re positive….”

“HA!” I hear you cry! “What did you expect? We’ve read about your shenanigans! We know you were shagging in woods/cubicles/cars/junkshops/stranger’s beds… what did you expect? No more than you deserve, I say…”

But, no. Nobody deserves this. Not the sexually active, not the queers or the hetties, not the mainliners, not the whores, not the unwilling wives of African men, not the hemophiliacs, not the trauma victims needing blood. Nobody DESERVES it. Like cancer, it has no heart or soul, no freedom of will. It is just a bitty virus that some folks get—and yes, even straight ones—and their life choices or otherwise are irrelevant. It takes one needle from thousands; one fuck amongst many. You throw your hat in the ring and hope. Could’ve been a bus. At least you wouldn’t have judged me then, eh? Just be nice, eh? It’s hard enough as it is without you thinking I’m bad.

There then followed a thousand-year silence…funny that…not much earlier I’d been having a minute’s silence for my fallen ancestors…. I don’t remember much about it actually, other than saying, “But that’s impossible. You must be wrong.” in a very tiny voice, but knowing, judging by the looks of concern from the ring of nurses

looking down on me, that they weren’t.

But how? HOW? I hadn’t had sex with anyone else for seventeen years, and yet, and yet…I’d been feeling pretty shitty on and off for quite a while. Nothing definable, just a bit verk, a bit unwell, proper poorly.

Looking back at my old passport photo, which I’d had to have for Hungary, I can see, now, a ghostly pallor, a kind of sickness…nothing obvious, just...well, as I said, verk. Unknown to me of course, the virus was multiplying and killing me softly, with its deadly song. Apparently, as I found out later, I was a “long-term progressor,” which means I had been infected long ago but the virus had been dormant for years and years.

Why it begins its march toward victory and death is not known, but for me it was my salvation. Had I “converted” earlier, joined the church of the dying and the damned, I would have been given AZT which would have killed me sooner. As it was 2004 by now, the treatment and medication were exponentially improved and so, I was saved from the horror of cancers, blindness, dementia and death. For now, anyway.

Nigel Bray is an Englishman, writer and actor. Longterm survivor. Boyfriend, fiancée, now husband, and eloper to France, where he now lives in peace and love, with wine and cheese, his man and his dog.

Visit his website at: www.mrlucky-1956.com. E-mail Nigel at amiraculousman@gmail.com.

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Bringing hearts together since 1998

HIV+ Owned Since 1998

Ghosts, Goblins & Our Government by

Hank Trout the anti-lgbtq cabal in washington

H

alloween always reminds me of the curious fact that we all enjoy being scared. Whether it’s watching campy Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff movies on television, or re-reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Stephen King’s It, or cringe/binge-watching the Saw series of torture porn, everyone enjoys a little heart-stopping nerve-wracking terror from time to time.

We enjoy being scared because we know that we can make the terror stop at any moment. We can turn off late-night horror movies, we can close that book, we can cover our eyes when chainsawing off a foot becomes too hard to watch. We allow ourselves to be frightened for exactly as long as we’re enjoying it, no longer.

But there is a different kind of horror story emanating out of Washington, D.C., these days, one that I fear we will not be able to control.

To borrow a phrase, I ain’t scared of no ghosts—but the ghouls in the TrumpPence-Sessions cabal in Washington scare the bejeebus out of me. Just a quick run-down of some of their actions reveals this administration as the most virulently, relentlessly, vindictively anti-LGBTQ administration in history.

• The administration has repeatedly tried to reinstate the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, refusing to give up even when stymied by the courts.

• According to Lambda Legal, one-third of the administration’s nominees to federal courts have virulently anti-LGBTQ records on issues such as marriage equality, workplace protections for LGBTQ folks, and transgender individuals’ access to bathrooms.

• The administration has rescinded President Obama’s instruction to K–12 schools that they must respect transgender students’ rights to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity; this cabal killed that instruction, along with another Obama memo protecting transgender workers.

• In the infamous Masterpiece case, the administration filed an amicus brief siding with the bakery’s right to discriminate against LGBTQ customers; it has filed amicus briefs in other cases arguing that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is legal.

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

• On its very first day in power, the administration deleted all references to LGBTQ rights from the White House website and fired all the members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. • Demonstrating just how petty and vindictive this small-minded administration is, the president has refused two years in a row to acknowledge June as LGBTQ Pride Month.

For me, as a long-term HIV survivor, the two most horrifyingly ghoulish recent developments are the creation in the Department of Health and Human Services of the “Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom” and in the Department of Justice of the “Religious Liberty Task Force.”

The first of these purports to ensure that health care providers’ religious liberties are not violated, but its real-world effect is to give doctors, nurses, EMTs, and other medical providers, even ambulance drivers, the federally protected right to refuse service to anyone they perceive as LGBTQ so long as they claim religious or moral objections. As a long-term HIV survivor who has frequently relied on ambulance service and emergency care in hospital, this new “right” to refuse me service scares me a helluva lot more than Freddy Krueger ever scared me.

As for the new DOJ agency, let’s face it, the only reason it’s called the “Religious Liberty Task Force” is because “WE HATE THE QUEERS AND WANT TO MAKE THEM SUFFER” didn’t fit on the letterhead. Under the guise of protecting religious people’s rights, this task force threatens every achievement the LGBTQ community has made over the last forty years—say goodbye to marriage equality, to same-sex couples’ right to adopt children, to workplace protections for LGBTQ workers, to on-campus LGBTQ protections, and to every other advance we’ve made.

Finally, for me, the three scariest words

in the English language are “President Mike Pence.” As a member of the House of Representatives, Christian “Dominionist” Pence vehemently opposed funding the Ryan White CARE Act, insisting that the money be spent on “gay conversion therapy.”

Ryan White funds ADAP, the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. If Pence gets his way and ADAP is defunded, I and most of my friends will die. Plain and simple, without ADAP and access to our HIV meds, we will die horrible painful deaths.

If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you, what could?!

Who needs Boris Karloff or Stephen King, the Blair Witch or Michael Myers to scare us when our government has been taken hostage by hate-filled ghouls?

We LGBTQ folks are not the only ones who should be scared by the horror show in D.C. All of us marginalized under the current cabal—LGBTQ folks, African Americans, women, the elderly, Latino immigrants—have a real stake in shutting down this horror. I hope the resistance doesn’t come to pitchforks and torches—villagers chasing Dr. Frankenstein and his monster over the moors—but it could.

Will you be scared?

Hank Trout, Editor at Large, edited Drummer, Malebox, and Folsom magazines in the early 1980s.

A long-term survivor of HIV/AIDS (diagnosed in 1989), he is a thirty-eight-year resident of San Francisco, where he lives with his fiancé Rick. Follow him on Twitter @HankTroutWriter.

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illustration by Timothy J. Haines

scares me more than any monsters

Settling Down but i’m not going to settle

22

month. There were warning signs, but I ignored them. He worked seven days a week, totally wrapped up in his job. I’ve been down that road before, a successful man married to his work, not me. But, I decided I’d settle. He had some reservations about my status, but I decided I’d settle. I even questioned whether or not I was really all that attracted to him, but feeling insecure myself lately, I decided I’d settle. I love my cat more than anything and he’s deathly allergic. I resolved myself to finding her a home if things worked out. I still can’t look at her without feeling guilty. But I’m tired of being alone and here was someone who might just settle for me.

But it didn’t work out that way. He came for a night and we did have a nice time, but I felt him holding back. The next day as he was dropping me at home (we stayed in a hotel because of my cat) I asked him, a man I felt no great passion for, if we would see each other again.

He said he’d have to think about it. He continued to text me every day when he got home and I finally asked if he’d had time to think. He said he just wanted to be friends. He hadn’t felt “swept off his feet.” Does anyone really think they’ll be “swept off their feet” at our age, I wondered, but kept it to myself. He still texts me daily, so you figure it out. Here

I stand now, rejected by a man that I wasn’t so crazy about in the first place.

“If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry,” as my Irish grandmother so often said.

I know, I know, I talked about this in last month’s column. I talked about the fact that I needed to do some work on myself before I could really think about a relationship. I know that’s true, but wouldn’t the right guy love me just as I am? Do I really need to settle in order to have a committed relationship? The universe is trying desperately to tell me something here and these men are simply its messengers. I need to step back, take a long hard look and reevaluate my life. They say that you need to be happy on your own before you truly find a relationship that works and I need to take that to heart. The first step? Next month’s column will not be about another attempt at one that fails. I promise you that!

John Francis Leonard is an advocate and writer, as well as a voracious reader of literature, which helps to feed his love of the English language. He has been living with HIV for fifteen years and he is currently at work on his first novel, Fools Rush In. His fiction has been published in the ImageOutWrite literary journal and is a literary critic for Lambda Literary.

Follow him on Twitter @JohnFrancisleo2.

A&U • OCTOBER 2018

illustration by Timothy J. Haines

I

’m at a crossroads in my life. As I’ve written about before, I want a relationship. I’ve had opportunity, but something isn’t working. First of all, there’s the fact that I’m HIV-positive. Many guys I’ve met, especially locally, seem to be fine with that, but suddenly and for no other explicable reason, cease all contact.

Texts go unanswered, I’m stood up on dates, they seemingly disappear. They seem fine with the news at first, but then it all hits a wall. No reason is ever given, but I know what it is by now. I forget about it quickly, tell myself that I don’t mind, but it hurts. I’m not even given a chance.

When we do meet, it’s obvious that the sex is stilted, they’re afraid of something.

I can’t change that, but there are things that I can change.

I’ve widened my scope and met some guys further afield online. Things progress, albeit digitally, and there’s a connection. I’ve met more than a few in person now. They come visit or I visit them, but nothing comes of it. They just don’t want to pursue things further and I’m left wondering what I did wrong.

Is there something at fault with me?

Sure, I’m not perfect, but I think it goes deeper than that. Sometimes, especially lately, I realize that I’m the one settling.

In my fear of being alone, I look to men that I’m just not that into. In the interest of security, of having someone to take care of me and for me to take care of in return I’m looking to men that I’m not all that attracted to in the first place and I’m selling myself short.

This past weekend was a perfect example. A man I met online on the train back from a trip to NYC caught my eye. His profile heading was “LTR.” Here was a guy looking for what I seek, a committed relationship. We texted everyday and talked on the phone for a

Justin B. Terry-Smith, MPH, DrPH, has been fighting the good fight since 1999. He’s garnered recognition and awards for his work, but he’s more concerned about looking for new ways to transform society for the better than resting on his laurels. He started up in gay rights and HIV activism in 2005, published an HIV-themed children’s book, I Have A Secret (Creative House Press) in 2011, and created his own award-winning video blog called, “Justin’s HIV Journal”: justinshivjournal.blogspot.com. Visit his main Web site at www.justinbsmith.com. He welcomes your questions at justinterrysmith@gmail.com.

photo by Don Harris © Don Harris Photographics, LLC. all rights reserved

H

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appy Halloween, everyone.

This month I’ll be addressing stigma and sex workers.

Sex workers can be of all genders, sexual orientations, races, and any sex. They face so many challenges created by people’s negative opinions of their professions, HIV stigma, police brutality, etc. We need to address these issues in our community as a whole to decrease discrimination, stigma, and HIV acquisitions.

According to the CDC (2016), sex workers are “people who exchange sex for money or nonmonetary items” and are at increased risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV and other STIs because they are more likely to engage in risky sexual practices and substance use.

So what are some factors that keep sex workers at risk for acquiring HIV/STIs? Police Brutality In a 2008 report, “Move Along: Policing Sex Work in Washington, D.C.,” by the Alliance for a Safe & Diverse DC, thirty-eight percent of the participants in the survey reported abuse (both verbal and physical) from police. Seventy-five percent of transgender and 82.4 percent of Latinx sex workers reported that their treatment while in jail was worse than others that were in jail with them. How can sex workers rely on help from the

police when they are constantly being abused by the very ones who are supposed to be protecting them? Also, after being abused by police, 8.6 percent of the survey participants said that the police took or destroyed their safer sex supplies.

Discrimination People often discriminate against sex workers because of the negative perception that sex workers are disposable. This is not true. We have to start looking at sex workers as members of our society who deserve the right to be known and counted. Consider supporting organizations that advocate for sex workers, especially those run by sex workers.

Access to PrEP Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an opportunity for sex workers to protect themselves against HIV infection. Luckily, according to the Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, the drug Truvada, which is the medication used in the only PrEP regimen currently in use, is available through most private insurance and Medicaid. Gilead Sciences, which makes Truvada, also has two programs that can help you pay for PrEP (Medication Assistance Program and Gilead Advancing Access program). But how can someone pay for or even have access to PrEP when their very livelihood is contantly being

attacked and there is no information available to properly advise sex workers of the benefits of this relatively new prevention tool? We must do more to ensure access to PrEP (and PEP).

Male Sex Workers As we know, men who have sex with men (MSM) are in one of the highest risk demographics to acquire HIV. In a 2015 study by Amanja Verhaegh-Haasnoot et al., in a group of 212 male participants who identified as male sex workers, forty percent tested positive for HIV/STIs. Fourteen percent of the 801 female sex workers who participated in the same study also tested positive for HIV/STIs. Male sex workers also reported having fewer clients in the same study.

Knowing this fact, it is very possible that fewer clients means the male sex workers were more apt to have raw sex because the client will give them more money.

Sex work is one of the oldest professions in our nation, and luckily technology has allowed sex work to go mainstream and, in some ways, legally. It is not up to us to judge anyone for the work they do. The more judgment you give, the more you should feel ashamed…not them. ◊

A&U • OCTOBER 2018

SOMETIMES, OUR HIGHEST HEIGHTS HAPPEN

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y Poetry tr e o p Of Prophets and Princes

our future needs prophets not princes, those that can usher in by way of sin and the sinewy celebration of bodies in dissent, not scribes. boys; them banjie, bougie and batty black balls, fell out and calling out ancestors from dance floors turned runway. snapbacks and snapped fingers trigger a refigure of masculinity over sounds of pastors speaking in tongues and tyranny, our future needs prophets, not princes; slain in, and drunk off Spirit(s) perhaps not sovereign, but Holy Ghost sanctified, picasso’s of a different kind. painting canvases black, like clenched fists blue, like b-boys and coloured contacts. oozing red remainders into queer ribbons tied tenuously, to times torn apart, from futures reproductive temporal temples made of melanin, and built on margins, by poets, PhDs, pansies and porn-stars— those prophetic performers of every (dis)order. our future needs prophets not princes.

—David Lewis-Peart David Lewis-Peart is an emerging Canadian writer and playwright and the co-founder and former coordinator of Sunset Service Toronto, an award-winning not-for-profit focused on spirituality and the arts. He has contributed to such publications as the Canadian Broadcast Company (CBC) Arts and Huffington Post Canada. David is presently undergoing residencies with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and Obsidian Theatre Company while also completing his first book of poetry, Pray You Break, crafted in collaboration with Trindian visual artist AJ Rogers.

“Of Prophets and Princes” was a Christopher Hewitt Award finalist.

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

27

Three Artists’ Work Commemorates Those Lost to AIDS in Their Prime

by Hank Trout

O

ne cannot help wondering whether, in 1988, when James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter, two PR officers for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and Dr. Jonathan Mann, Director of the Global Programme on AIDS (now known as UNAIDS), conceived of World AIDS Day, they envisioned that we would still be commemorating WAD on 1 December these thirty years later.

Here’s hoping they did.

As the World AIDS Day website says, the day reminds us “to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness.”

One of the most significant ways in which our community has done precisely those things can be found in the art produced during and in direct response to the pandemic that decimated a generation. I have written before that we preserve our history only when we write it ourselves as we are living it. The same applies to the historical record

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our artists have created, responding to and surviving the Plague Years, and remembering those who didn’t survive.

Opening on World AIDS Day 2018 and running through December 29, California’s Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (OCCCA) will present “REMEMBER: An AIDS Memorial Retrospective,” an exhibit commemorating those lost to AIDS while they were in their prime. According to a prepared statement from the OCCCA, “The exhibit offers a snapshot of the 1980’s underground, rife with counter culture indignation, sexual exploration and a resistance to the socio-political systems which marginalized alternative, queer lifestyles.”

Here, then, in their own gently edited words, the three artists showing in “REMEMBER”—Barbara Romain, Alexandria Allan, and Kurt Weston—share their memories of those lost, yet remembered, and the artwork they produced in response.

Barbara Romain The nature of perception is a theme in my work. My own perA&U • OCTOBER 2018

A&U Gallery

Barbara Romain,

ception is distorted due to “Swiss cheese” holes in my vision caused by a retinal degenerative disease which has rendered me legally blind. What I am able to see changes from moment to moment depending on changing light conditions and my own alertness and sense of well-being.

My paintings explore this state of flux—accidental encounters of forms and colors within a structure of layered symbols and texts. Texts are quoted from a variety of sources such as songs, news headlines, junk mail, fortune cookies, and works of literature. There are also original texts such as alphabet poems, haikus, reflections of personal experience and streams of consciousness. Themes are OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

FIRE BURN, 2012, acrylic, 72 by 72 inches

explored on many levels, from an urban, female viewpoint.

Inspiration for the paintings often comes from audio sources, particularly musical compositions. Elements of landscape and nature combine with urban graffiti, pop icons, pictographs, hieroglyphics and other ancient language texts in these often large color field acrylic paintings. The thrill of color upon color which I can see in varying degrees, drives layer upon layer.

The viewer is invited to traverse the canvas and create his/her own poetry.

Kurt Weston and I have shown together in several venues which featured artists who are blind or visually impaired. We had long discussed doing a show together. I

had some reservations as my work is really not at all about AIDS, but Kurt convinced me that some of my work does indeed relate to the theme. At first we considered using paintings which I had done in the eighties that reflected the underground lifestyle. We decided this colorful and lively work was not exactly right in the context of this show. I decided to use my text work, which is more current and from which I could find more relevant pieces. Although this work does not explicitly refer to the AIDS crisis, the themes of remembrance, death, resurrection, spirituality, hope and loss work for the show.

For instance, the painting ST. LOUIS CEMETERY contains the text of the poem

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Alexandria Allan, Look Out Mama, Babe’s Back in Town, 2015, acrylic with mixed media, 24 by 36 inches

Alexandria Allan, Red Shoes and the Erotic Life, 2015, acrylic with mixed media, 24 by 36 inches by that name written by my late husband C. Natale Peditto—inspired by his visit to the famous New Orleans site. That text is overlaid with the lyrics to “Walk on Gilded Splinters,” a voodoo song by Dr. John.

HOPE AND LOSS is a giant crucifix of canvasses covered with losing lottery tickets, overlaid with the words “Hope” and “Loss.” The painting, REQUIEM contains lyrics to the song by Laura Nyro, “When I die, when I’m dead and gone, there’ll be one child born in this world to carry on.”

My work, even when confronting sad or serious themes, I hope reflects a sense of life and joy in the face of sorrow.

Alexandria Allan My work as a painter has always been an exploration of the human psyche. As I slap paint onto my canvas, I dredge inspiration from the depths of the unconscious and from observation of humanity at large which at times amuses me and, more often, dismays me.

Art and magic, being closely allied, give us, as artists, power to act as a mouthpiece for subjects often considered taboo, sub-

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jects such as AIDS and sexual abuse and sexual identity issues. I move away from distorted images of sexual encounter as transitory, lurid or banal, into imaging a deeper realm of an ever-enduring erotic human connection. I attempt to present the current perilous views of sexuality as a challenge for mankind, that will enable us to find a refuge from the angst and peril faced by those touched by AIDS, sexual abuse or sexual identity.

I am hopeful that through my imagery, we will awaken to outlive the darkest, longest night of the soul in which we as humanity find ourselves. I use images that imbue sexuality in all its variety to act as an affirmation of life and as a vehicle of transformation toward developing a deeper understanding and compassion for those enduring the challenges of AIDS. Kurt Weston I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1991 when I was admitted to the hospital with Pneumocystis pneumonia and a T-cell count of three. The doctors said that my level of immune destruction

indicated that I had probably been living with HIV for at least ten years. After my third bout with PCP, my doctor put me on disability from my job as a fashion photographer. In 1993 I began to lose my sight due to Cytomegalovirus retinitis and I also experienced one of the most highly visible manifestations of the AIDS virus—Kaposi sarcoma—which produced purplish red lesions all over my face and body. I was easily identified as having the disease and experienced the stigmatization many people living with the virus endured during this time.

The illness and resulting disability have inspired much of my work. The arts provide me the opportunity to act as a political and social practitioner, representing aspects of my disabilities. Being disabled in society lends me a perspective on the specific human experiences of marginalization, exclusion and forms of oppression.

My most iconic work is my Blind Vision series of self-portraits. These photographs represent the physical, psychological and emotional weight A&U • OCTOBER 2018

A&U Gallery

Kurt Weston, Touching Infinity, 1985, black & white photograph, 22 by 28 inches of sight loss. The images illustrate an inner journey involving my fears about becoming totally blind. This is a journey towards infinite darkness. As a person living with AIDS, I face the prospect of a greatly reduced life span and deal with decay daily. I focus on the moments which have profoundly altered the course of my life, developing a relationship between personal experience and artistic expression.

One of my most prized experiences was collaborating with performance artist John Bussa, who would regularly perform at The Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago. John was a brilliant new talent in the performance art scene and was my first friend to be diagnosed HIV-positive in the mid-1980s. This was during the early part of the AIDS pandemic when there was still no treatment, no hope. John and I had many friends who OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

were becoming sick and fatigued with HIV. We both felt a sense of urgency to communicate through our art the terrible scourge of the AIDS plague.

John’s provocative performances were a bit too hard hitting for the average gay.

His apocalyptic songs and visions, in performances like “Songs from the City of Dead Umbrellas” and “Land of the Vampire Birds” were truly prophetic, even if the message was hard to accept.

Sadly, John succumbed to AIDS-related lymphoma in 2009 but his life, his music and performance art legacy continue to be an inspiration for my work.

The eighties were also the time of the Reagan presidency, an era which ignored the dying and did nothing in the way of treatment or prevention. It was a time rife with counterculture indignation.

So many young gay men had flocked to urban centers such as Chicago to develop

new communities and extended families to replace those from which they had been ostracized. Sadly, so many became infected with the virus which would take away their potential, their future promise, and ultimately their lives.

With “REMEMBER: An AIDS Memorial Retrospective,” these three very different artists hope to celebrate those young men and to mourn their passing. It is exactly the kind of commemoration the AIDS Generation deserves and needs.

For more information on World AIDS Day commemorations, check out www.worldaidsday.org.

Information on the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art and the REMEMBER exhibit can be found at www.occca.org.

Hank Trout interviewed cabaret artist Russell Deason for this issue.

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Playing wi W

hat strikes you first about Cody Bondra is his earnestness; what strikes you next is his instinctive feel for music. That’s not surprising: after all, the guy does vocals and guitar for his five-piece country rock and soul group, Cody and the Contraband. But for him, it goes way beyond simply playing the music—it’s about “focus[ing] on feeling the music… the rest will come naturally.

Listen to the music, don’t just hear it.”

Jack Lemmon once said pretty much the same thing about acting.

“Good music, to me, is storytelling,” the Avon, Connecticut, musician explains. “The song has a theme with all the characteristics of a compelling novel pressed into just a few minutes. You have to feel what you’re playing.”

But it goes further than that for Bondra. He is also an LGBTQ ally and an HIV/AIDS advocate; and as such, he makes a point of promoting awareness of the disease and of Project ACHIEVE at his band’s concerts.

Project ACHIEVE was started back in 1995. It is part of the New York Blood Center’s Laboratory of Infectious Disease Prevention and is located in the Lindsey F. Kimball Research Institute. The Project’s goal is, as its website puts it, “to effectively find ways to prevent HIV infection. To achieve this, we work with many populations in the New York City area, including men who have sex with men, transgender persons, and heterosexual women and men.” Part of the group’s thrust is working with the Columbia Research Unit on HIV-preventative medical trials. The other

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A&U • OCTOBER 2018

ith Feeling At Concerts and on Social Media, Musician Cody Bondra Raises Awareness About the Work of Project ACHIEVE

by T.J. Banks

Photographed Exclusively for A&U by Alina Oswald is educating the community at large about awareness of the disease and “build[ing] acceptance for HIV-affected individuals, and nationwide support for HIV research.”

Bondra became aware of the organization when he was checking out the vendors at an exposition at the Javits Center about four years ago.

He had worked at a hospital, but he hadn’t really given the disease a lot of thought.

“Growing up, my image of HIV was Magic Johnson and Freddie Mercury because I love sports and music,” he says now. “Fortunately, Magic Johnson’s still with us, [even though] Freddie Mercury has passed. We know now it’s not automatically a death sentence.”

His conversation with the Project ACHIEVE people lit a spark, and he began plugging the organization at his concerts outside of New York City. “We just try to spread the word. One of the reasons I like Project ACHIEVE is that they focus on the educational side of it, which is what turned me on to it.

“We’re becoming more enlightened about HIV,” the musician continues.

“For me, the stigma is the first thing to go. I don’t think that you could ever erase the stigma completely. Ideally, you want to, but you’re always going to have OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

people that don’t want to be educated, and they’re just going to have that set viewpoint.” Because of its emotional charge, “HIV might be the most powerful three letters in the English language.”

Bondra has been promoting Project

if nobody watches it or listens to it, does it really exist? For me, it all starts with wanting to learn about it.”

His advocacy work has made him more conscious and more cautious.

“It’s made me more conscious about what I’m doing. My whole approach is that as fun as sex can be, you have to be safe.” And he’s more cautious now because he realizes that “at any time, it can affect not only you but somebody you love.

If, God forbid, it does affect somebody you love, you can help them.”

Bondra’s not entirely sure why he was drawn to Project ACHIEVE’s work with HIV/ AIDS awareness. He doesn’t know why it “clicked” with him, but it did. “I think that part of me wanted to erase the stigma. It’s just something I became very aware of.

I mean, there are other diseases—STDs— but by learning more about it [HIV/AIDS], you understand how important it is. I’m trying every day to learn more, and every day, I’m learning the importance of it.”

“We’re becoming more enlightened about HIV, ...For me, the stigma is the first thing to go. “

ACHIEVE through social media for the last three years. He would “like to incorporate them into shows because we have an audience we can reach. We’re no celebrities by any means, but we can offer information. Whether they take it or not is, unfortunately, beyond our control.”

His next comment echoes his earlier one about music and listening. HIV education “also starts by being willing to listen,” he insists. “Because you can have all the facts, all the statistics, but you have to want to learn about it. You can film a great movie—or cut a great record—but

T.J. Banks is the author of Sketch People, A Time for Shadows, Catsong, Houdini, and other books.

Catsong was the winner of the 2007 Merial Human-Animal Bond Award.

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SEW

WHAT? Using fiber as one of his media, queer artist Ben Cuevas takes a softer route in his art practice to deliver hard-toswallow concepts on HIV/AIDS & more Text and Photos by Sean Black

I

n recognizing the work of artist Ben Cuevas in 2016 for his vital, creative contributions to the discourse surrounding the AIDS pandemic, New York Times heavyweight art critic Holland Cotter gave Cuevas a hefty nod. His art review, “Art of the AIDS Years: What Took Museums So Long?,” gave Cuevas a shout-out that cemented him as one of the artists who is

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“adding work that is politically complicated, referential without being nostalgic and absolutely unambiguous about the desirability of difference. Not bad.”

Good for Ben. He is making colossal strides by weaving into the mix, life-saving dialogue among hipsters and blue-chip artists alike and being rightfully lauded. The aforementioned article notes Cuevas alongside the ranks of A-listers such as Keith Haring, Ross Bleckner, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andres Serrano.

Originally, using knitting as a meditative practice which he learned from a close friend, Ben began to explore and challenge the gendered constructs and physical limitations of his craft

SEPTEMBER 2018 A&U • OCTOBER 2018

excerpted from his website. “From the orgasms, humor, death and more; during political to the metaphysical, my practice is this moment of political tumult, it’s a steeped in queer feminist ideologies, with provocative and political breath of fresh an awareness of the mind, body, and spirit. air.”

My work spans a wide range of disciplines As Cuevas is an active activist-artist on including installation, sculpture, photograboth coasts and places in between, I was phy, performance, video and sound. Often fortunate to attend one of his recent talks incorporating several of these elements about his latest PILLows project. into any given piece, I make “You are welcome to use of digital media as a touch them and to lay on means of documentation.” them—please interact As one of the more with them as much as you active member artists of would like,” Cuevas set the Visual AIDS’ Artist+ Regcomfy, relaxed tone at his istry (which is open to all recent artist lecture at ONE HIV-positive artists) Cuevas Archives Foundation Gallery is availing himself frequentin West Hollywood. As part ly to speak about his work of the closing walkthrough in order to raise awareness. of “Lost & Found: Safer Sex Artist+ Registry is the Activism Exhibition” on largest database of works Sunday, July 1, along with by artists with HIV/AIDS. fellow exhibiting artist/activThrough the electronic ists Kim Abeles (HIV/AIDS repository of works housed TAROT Cards) and memby Visual AIDS, it offers a bers of Clean Needles Now unique resource to inspire (CNN), the group discussed and educate the public. safer-sex practices and harm Visual AIDS assists artists reduction activism in the Los with HIV/AIDS, while Angeles metro area. preserving a visual record “The piece is called of their work and helping PILLows with a capital P. I. L. them reach new audiences.

L.” Word-play and thoughtful Its mission is to utilize art to puns are prevalent and very fight AIDS by provoking dimuch intended in Cuevas’ alogue, supporting HIV-poswork. PILLows was originally itive artists, and preserving created for Viral Illuminaa legacy, because AIDS is tion, a one-night, art event not over. curated and produced by EliVisual AIDS’ Program jah Mckinnon and Vasilios Director Alex Fiahlo has Papapitsios that intended to worked on a number of occelebrate the work of artists casions with Cuevas, notably and creative people living in the recent joint fundraiswith HIV/AIDS as well as ing publication DUETS: Ben their allies.

Cuevas & Annie Sprinkle in “Since it was a very Conversation. Recognizing celebratory atmosphere, I Cuevas for his efforts Fiahlo was imagining work that I shares, “Working with Ben could create that wouldn’t Cuevas has allowed Visual be overly serious, although AIDS to deepen our work it is a very serious issue and in important directions: we can’t ignore that. Luckfrom an intergenerational ily today we have so many perspective by highlighting advancements in treatment Ben’s experience as an artist and prevention. There is living with HIV born in the a lot to celebrate. We are 1980s, and as an extension very much carrying on the Twitterstorm (detail), 2017, of our network from our legacy of the work of artists wool on canvas, 8 feet by 4 New York office to Ben’s Los feet, 8 inches and activists who have been Angeles art worlds. Ben’s engaged in this conversaconversation with Annie tion since the beginning of Sprinkle ranges from topics including art, the epidemic. knitting, postporn, ecosex, HIV, love, loss, Rising up to the challenge of a risk, activism, feminism, go-go dancing, soft-sculptural work to be sewn rather than

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A&U • SEPTEMBER 2018

constructed through knitting (a first for him for Viral Illumination), Ben worked with his team of collaborators: Vasilios Papapitsios, Daniel Aston, and Danimal Oh. “They all have amazing insight and experience,” shared Cuevas.

“I think we all really had the intention of creating a space that made people feel comfortable talking about HIV and AIDS, and prevention in particular. There aren’t enough conversations happening around PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and TasP (Treatment as Prevention) and those are some of the most revolutionary tools that have come about in this epidemic.”

“Being an HIV-positive person, I feel that my existence is indebted to the work of those people who have come before me in helping bring about these pharmaceutical interventions; such as the work of ACT UP and all of the activism that happened around making early drugs available and then getting better drugs developed. I think there is still a lot of work that needs to happen, so I wanted to create a comfortable space that helps give people license to talk about all of these things. My work is influenced directly by my identity—all of the pills in this piece I have taken at some point—the blue one at the bottom is Truvada and the pink ones are Isentress, which was the first regimen I was on. The green ones are Genvoya which I am taking now. I like having that personal connection in my work. I also greatly admire and hearken to the work of David Wojnarowicz and Ron Athey. I love how confrontational their work is, especially in the context of the early years of the epidemic. This idea of confrontation was really important because the general public wasn’t confronting the issue of HIV. Since then, HIV/AIDS has become a part of the cultural conversation in a bigger way, but a lot of people still aren’t comfortable with it. There is still this fear that hangs over people’s heads around HIV and AIDS and it’s there for a reason—the epidemic caused a lot of harm— but I think today we live in a time that is much less scary and we can be a lot more comfortable talking about these things.

In a way, you could say I’m confronting people with comfort. So, those are some of the ideas that went into the creation of this work. Since Viral Illuminations PILLows has gone on to be shown here [ONE Archives Foundation Gallery]. Vasilios also took it to the festival, MIX NYC, and incorporated it into a large-scale video installation.

HIV remains a serious public health issue for the Hispanic/Latino community and because of the disproportionately high rates of new infections the Latino Commission on SEPTEMBER 2018 • A&U

37

AIDS (LCOA), the Hispanic Federation along with other service organizations put together this day of awareness to build capacity for non-profit organizations and health departments to reach these communities, promote HIV testing, and provide HIV prevention information and access to care.

For this year’s 2018 NLAAD (National Latinx AIDS Awareness Day) people are encouraged to use the hashtag #NLAAD2018 to remind us that “Ending HIV is everyone’s job.”

National Latino AIDS Awareness Day takes place on October 15, the last day of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which starts on September 15.

Informed about the facts, Cuevas shares, “Latinx HIV/AIDS awareness month is important to me because it affects my community and targets one of the cohorts most directly affected by HIV/AIDS today: Hispanic and Latinx men who have sex with men (MSM).

This group is one of the demographics with the most, new HIV diagnoses, second only to Black MSMs.”

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) further reports that Hispanics/Latinos account for about twenty-five percent of new diagnoses of HIV in the United States in 2015, despite representing about eighteen percent of the total U.S. population.

The CDC furthers that stigma, language barriers, and limited access to health care are among the factors that contribute to the higher rates of HIV infection in Hispanic/ Latino communities.

Gaining a respected and growing presence in the world of art activism, Ben was recently invited to be a visiting lecturer this past August for the 2018 Summer Fire Island Artist Residency Program, awarded to LGBT artists where he presented the trajectory of his work and its themes from his earliest knit anatomical sculptures to his most recent PILLows installation, and lots in between.

“It was great having an opportunity to delve into the politics and concepts that underlie my practice: the body, HIV, queer theory, intersectional feminist theory, pop

culture, etc. Meeting with the artists in residence was wonderful too. It seemed like my work really resonated with them, as their work resonated with me when I got to do studio visits and see what they were making. It was exciting to see what such a talented group of artists were doing with their time in residence at FIAR.” In his popular, visually and cerebrally intriguing Tweetables series, Cuevas creatively subverts our Commander-in-Chief’s seeming inability to restrain himself on social media. Through Cuevas’ exploration of identity, pop, and the Internet, which carries through these works, “The Tweetables Series: Knit Text in 140 Characters or Less,” revels in the interstices of language and syntax where Ben “merges contemporary language and aesthetics of social media with the anachronistic softness of knitting and yarn.”

He notes: “Art as activism is more important than ever. Given our current political climate, it is clear there is so much work A&U • OCTOBER 2018

Clockwise from opposite page: Ben lounging on PILLows, 2017, poly poplin, upholstery foam, batting, 6 by 6 feet; Ghosts of the Trucks of the Westside Highway, 2011, sound and photographic installation, 22 feet, 6 inches by 9 feet, 11 inches; Knit Veins, 2013, wool, silk, and cotton installation, dimensions variable (40 by 12 feet as photographed); Knit Veins detail; DUETS book jacket art to do still. Artists play an important role in making change, raising awareness, and engaging communities. One positive of living in such trying times: people are paying attention to political art more than ever.”

The final panel in his piece, Twitterstorm, takes a direct stab and pierces the President’s winning campaign slogan.

Stitched onto a Democrat blue-hued field, it reads “…all for some idea of greatness that never was. #NotMyPresident.” The pointed reality of these words masquerading as a sweet knitted sampler is unsettling. It pulls the “home sweet home” rug right out from under our feet or rightfully slaps us in the face.

Direct impact in order to affect political and social change is vital to Cuevas who contends that his work is influenced by his identity as a gender queer, male-bodied, HIV-positive artist. “I want people to think about the intersections between the body, politics, identity, and culture. Specifically, at this OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

point in time, if I may get on my activist soapbox, I want to get across that we still need to expand [and safeguard] government and private support for HIV/AIDS care and prevention. Testing, PrEP, and TaSP need to be freely available to all who need it. We need comprehensive sex education in public schools that teaches students about consent and goes beyond heteronormativity. Queer history and culture are worthy of preservation. People of all genders, races, sexual orientations, physical abilities, ages, and income brackets deserve respect, autonomy, and opportunity.”

Speaking about the new trajectory of his work he furthers: “It’s going in a few directions. This fall, I’m lucky to have been invited by BOXOprojects

to be an artist in residence with them in Joshua Tree. I’m looking forward to seeing how that unique location inspires me to make art and engage with the desert’s creative community.

Also, I’m working on a new photographic body of work called ‘Reinserted.’ For this series, I’m culling through archives to find images of sex workers and public cruising, and digitally reinserting the archival photos’ subjects into the images’ modern-day locations. This work will be included in the upcoming group exhibition ‘ON OUR BACKS: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work,’ curated by Alexis Heller at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, opening September 2019. I also plan to continue my Tweetables series of knit text in 140 characters or less, and likely do some more knit sculpture and installation exploring the body and identity.”

Thoughtful and ambitious. Not bad.

For more information about Ben and to see a wider breadth of his previous work—such as “Knit Veins,” a biologically intimate piece that underscores Cuevas’ fascination and interest in blood or “Jockstrap,” a performance piece where Ben sat nude in a men’s locker room and knit himself a jock strap from start to finish, thus exploring notions of woman’s work versus man’s work and appropriate activities within gendered spaces—log on to www.bencuevas.com. “Jock strap” was performed at the Queer Biennial exhibition, at the Hotel Gaythering, in conjunction with Art Basel Miami in 2014.

To learn more about Visual AIDS or to purchase a copy of DUETS: Ben Cuevas & Annie Sprinkle in Conversation for $10.00 go to www.visualaids.org.

Sean Black is a Senior Editor of A&U.

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A&U • OCTOBER 2018

Tough As

Nails

For Singer/Pianist Russell Deason, Surviving is a Cabaret

by Hank Trout Photographed Exclusively for A&U by Michael Kerner

W

hen Russell Deason was growing up in Ft. Collins, Colorado, in the 1960s (he was born in 1963), there was no hint of the winding musical path his natural talents would lead him down.

It began with piano lessons when he was five years old. The lessons lasted only two years; after that, he was on his own and became an accomplished self-taught pianist. He began playing at his local church, accompanying the choir and his mother, well into his high school years. At one point he was playing the organ at the largest evangelical congregation of its kind in Colorado.

“I grew up playing gospel,” Russell told A&U, “but I also came to love jazz and R&B and pop songs. I grew up listening to singers

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

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like Sarah Vaughn and Doris Day and the gay ones, were closing right and left. Oth- While that was satisfying in its way…it Rosemary Clooney—real singers.” In his er nightclubs were disappearing. I stopped wasn’t cabaret! early twenties, he began taking singing performing because there was no place to To make matters even worse, Russell Under the current leadership drum Mike Wong (front,was center) and two assistants, the Band marches up for HIV in 1987 when lessons.

Unfortunately, wheneverofhe triedmajor perform—there no choice.” had tested positive Street in the 2015 Pride Parade. out forMarket a choir or chorus, although he is an With the cabaret scene decimated, he was twenty-four years old. The damexcellent singer, they were more interested Russell put his career on hold. However, age of that diagnosis and the loss of his in his piano playing than his singing. “Evhe quickly met and was taken under wing cabaret career led to a twenty-year slump. eryone needed an accompanist more than by assorted drag queens in Colorado—and “Like a lot of us, I settled into shitty jobs, they needed another tenor!” for the first time, began performing in I owned a not-very-successful flower shop But he continued playing and singing drag himself, as “Ms. Bette Forrestt.” (He for a short while, I did some temp work, anyway. He turned to cabaret, playing clubs created another outrageous, extremely and eventually ended up working at this in Colorado. Unfortunately, his first venture politically incorrect drag persona who, architectural firm full-time.” into cabaret was cut short as the AIDS epialthough she was hysterically funny and That job led to the offer of a different demic swept across the country. a hugely popular sensation at the time, job in San Francisco. “A colleague of mine “I don’t think people remember or ever would get us both in trouble if I described was moving to San Francisco for work, and realized just how severely the AIDS crisis her here!) At the time, just as they are I jokingly asked her if she had room in her gutted cabaret in this country in the eighties now, drag queens were at the forefront of suitcase for a stowaway! We laughed about and nineties. Not only did we lose dozens raising money for AIDS-related charities it. Then about three weeks later, she called of cabaret artists to the disease, we lost the and service organizations, and Russell did and asked, ‘Were you serious about going venues for performing. Piano bars, especially his share of performing and fundraising. to San Francisco? Because I think I might

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A&U • SEPTEMBER A&U • OCTOBER 2018

showman photo courtesy SFLGFB

have a job here for you.’ Well, I had wanted to live in California all my life! So, three weeks later I was here for an interview, and three weeks after that I moved here permanently, in 1996.”

After twenty years of not performing cabaret, he put his act back together and began performing again in 2014 in San Francisco’s rejuvenated nightclub scene.

He also started taking voice lessons a couple of years ago, and continues those lessons today, with voice teacher Dr. Lee Strawn and with Bobby Weinapple who teaches an “Acting for Singers” course at Seydways Studios.

Our talk of singing lessons led me to ask him, “If you could take a Master Class from any cabaret singer you know of, whom would you want to study with?”

With absolutely no hesitation he said, SEPTEMBER 2018• A&U • A&U OCTOBER 2018

“Marilyn Maye! Hands-down the greatest cabaret singer around—and she’s in her nineties now! She wrote the book on communicating with an audience. I saw her earlier this year at Feinstein’s at the Nikko, and she blew me away. She didn’t sing a single ‘new’ song, only the old standards that she ‘owns.’ There’s no one better.”

I was intrigued by why, with such a diverse musical background, Russell was so strongly drawn back to the art of cabaret.

So I asked him. He looked at me as if I had completely lost my mind and blurted out— “Because I’m GAY!! Judy! Liza! Barbra!

How could I not love cabaret?!” After we laughed away my silly question, he got more serious.

“I love cabaret because the format reaches people in very personal ways, it touches people very directly and very deeply. Cabaret has the unique ability to incorporate stories and monologues into the performance in ways that other genres don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love jazz—and I still play jazz piano in clubs from time to time—and I love gospel and R&B and disco, but cabaret allows me to tell stories and move people in very intimate ways.”

And telling stories is at the heart of the new cabaret show that Russell is preparing for this fall, “Tough As Nails.” A long-term HIV survivor himself, he plans to incorporate a wide variety of songs—pop, Broadway, disco—to tell the story of the devastation wreaked by the AIDS crisis, and of those of us who survived. Starting with Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here,” through “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, and “Elegies for Punks and Raging Queens” by Bill Russell and Janice Hood, he plans to tell a tale of resilience, of surviving, of being “tough as nails.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly ‘tough,’” he said, “but when I look back over what I’ve been through, what I’ve accomplished, what I’ve survived, I realize that, yeah, I’m pretty damn tough, inadvertently tough—like all of us who survived those years. And continue to survive now. And it’s important to me to educate those who don’t know about those years, because they are too young, to make them know just how tough things were, what it was like to lose sixty of your friends before you stopped counting.” He said the show will also celebrate those of us who did live through those years. “I want to remind other survivors that they are tough as nails, too!”

A specialty of Russell’s is the “mashup” of songs to make a statement even bigger than its parts. For example, he plans to combine “Friends,” made famous by Bette Midler, with Freddie Mercury’s and David

Bowie’s Queen classic “Under Pressure”; he’s also planning to incorporate songs

by Steven Sondheim and Jerry Herman in dialogue with each other.

[I was thrilled recently when Russell debuted his mash-up of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” with a monologue I had written called “I Just Wanna Dance.” I’m very happy that he plans to incorporate that mash-up into “Tough As Nails.” (See “For the Long Run,” May 2018)] In one portion of the show, Russell plans to invite members of the audience to speak the names of people whom they have lost to AIDS. When his show’s director, Larissa Kelloway, asked him why he wanted to include an audience-participation segment in the show, he explained, “Because it’s important that we remember those people, that we memorialize them, that we speak their names. We promised our friends who were dying that we would remember them. This is one way I can make sure they are remembered.”

When our interview concluded and I began to contemplate this article, it struck me that Russell is indeed an expert storyteller. In the short time we spent together, he took me on a very emotional journey, through the Plague Years, through the devastation that continued for far too long, through memories of friends and co-workers and bedmates I lost to the crisis—but also through more joyous times, such as remembering the night in the late 1990s when I sat frontand-center in the Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill and heard the incomparable Barbara Cook sing “When Sunny Gets Blue”—also a favorite song of Russell’s. And I realized that if he can move me that deeply in a short time, our story, the story of pain and loss, of toughness and resilience that we survivors have lived, is safe in Russell’s musical hands. I plan to be front and center on opening night for “Tough As Nails.”

Russell Deason’s “Tough As Nails” will premiere on October 13, 2018 at Martuni’s, San Francisco’s premier piano bar, located at 4 Valencia Street; check them out at their Facebook page, www.facebook.com/Martunis.

You can contact Dr. Lee Strawn at www.sfsings. com; Bobby Weinapple can be reached at www. robertweinapple.com. And finally, you can watch Russell perform “Dance Me to the End of Love”/”I Just Wanna Dance” at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=LZoak75RO8g.

Hank Trout writes the For the Long Run column for A&U.

43

Then Now and

1994

is the year that Jeff Bezos founds Amazon.

It’s also the year that America Online first offers a gateway to the World Wide Web. The U.S. President is William Jefferson Clinton and he’s been in office for about a year; And the Band Played On author and journalist Randy Shilts dies at age forty-two from AIDS-related illnesses. Into this bifurcated scene, Rafael Campo publishes his first book of poems The Other Man Was Me. In that collection is the poem “Aida” where the poet reflects on his unknown, unmet neighbor he can hear through the wall. It’s a moment before location-based dating apps allow us to peek inside the lives right next door to us. It’s a moment before the Facebook wave ushers in a new form of sharing (over-sharing?). It’s from before.

“Aida” begins with these two stanzas:

In a Collection of New & Selected Poetry, Physician Rafael Campo Explores HIV in a Medical Idiom

by Noah Stetzer

Campo’s formidable skills with meter, rhyme, and line. The ten-beat lines keep a sturdy foundation without announcing themselves in awkward sentence constructions. Rhyme is another anchoring

I’ve never met the guy next door.

I know He’s in there—mud-caked shoes outside to dry, The early evening opera, the glow (Of candlelight?) his window trades for night— I think he’s ill, since once the pharmacy Delivered his prescriptions to my door: Acyclovir, Dilantin, AZT. He doesn’t go out running anymore.

Here we get a glimpse at some of

44

aspect for this poem; the familiarity of repeated sounds offers up a kind of stability, something we can count on. And they both happen in the background, subtly deployed they lend a musicality to a poem

that has music in its concerns. Finally, Campo’s choice to bookend one long seven-line sentence with two short ones— short ones that rhyme with one another—gives these stanzas a tight satisfying “introducing the facts” quality: everything we need to know going into this poem is here in these eight lines. The unknown neighbor, the opera heard through the wall, the nineties-specific HIV medications—and the poet’s relationship to all that as witness, truth-teller, and lone chronicler. In 1994 AIDS becomes the leading cause of death for all Americans ages twenty-five to forty-four.

Rafael Campo’s new and selected poems, Comfort Measures Only: New and Selected Poems, 1994–2016 (Duke University Press), is a powerful collection of this masterful poet’s work beginning with his first collection in 1994, including work from his subsequent five books of poetry, and culminating in thirty-one new poems chosen for this book. Born in 1964, Campo grew up in New Jersey and attended Harvard Medical School. Recognized for his poetry with awards from the National Poetry Series and Lambda Literary, Campo is also the recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. And while his work often centers on themes about illness, the body, and his role as a doctor, you will also find poems about his Cuban-American family and identity alongside poems that celebrate the erotic, love, and mystery.

In the selections included under “from The Changing Face of AIDS” (from Diva, A&U • OCTOBER 2018

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

45

photo courtesy Duke University Press

photo courtesy Duke University Press

2002) a poem of several parts, Campo addresses the changing conversation around AIDS and HIV that accompanied the new century. Here in the section “Elegy for the AIDS Virus” Campo’s poem echoes the sentiments that came with new drug regimens: “we vanquished you, with latex, protease / inhibitors, a little common sense.” And the poem echoes a growing sentiment that pushed back against evidence that while the new drug regimes were revolutionary there were still new infections and more deaths: “This elegy itself renounces you, / as from this consciousness you’ve been erased.”

This section is set against the section “Refinishing the Hardwood Floors” in which the poet hires a handyman living with AIDS to refinish the floors. Campo handles this interesting scene with an incredibly deft use of illustration. “I wonder which CD would better do / to drown their racket out” as if the racket is the reality of AIDS that needs covering over.

Also this line, “a stranger in the house you and I bought” could almost be a way to characterize how HIV was beginning to be seen inside the relationship between two people. The scene ends, “I paid in cash, then rushed Dex out the door; / I felt so clean I cried, and couldn’t stop.” Campo’s use of “clean” catches your breath—sure the hardwood floors are like new but the burgeoning (and pejorative) use of “clean” to signify an HIV-negative status cannot be overlooked.

There is something revealing in reading a living poet’s selected works. One cannot help but consider how the poet went about choosing which poems from each of his earlier works made the final cut. The poems in this collection vary into celebrations of family and heritage alongside lush poems of love and the erotic. And always regardless of the poem’s obvious concern is the poet’s attention to the body in the poem; the doctor perhaps always at work at the hospital but also at the page. Campo’s careful and precise depictions of our mortality not only in harrowing moments of medical crisis but also in the ecstatic moments of human connection serve as testimony to our human condition.

With Comfort Measures Only on its eve of publication, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Campo by phone about his latest collection and its intersection with HIV/AIDS. I had at first thought to weave his answers into a full review of the collection but instead choose to re-

46

print his responses whole-cloth to share the powerful insights and the refreshing candor of this successful practitioner not only of poetry but also of medicine.

Noah Stetzer: Would you talk about how you went about the work of selecting poems for this collection?

Rafael Campo: I struggled a bit with what to include in this volume….as I started putting the poems together, I realized that the poems of mine that speak to the experience of illness—in particular HIV and AIDS—emerged as central to my lifelong project and engagement with poetry…and I thought, in particular in this moment—when we are struggling as a society, as a culture, as a nation to find healing in the midst of all this incredible divisiveness—it seemed to me that pulling together the poems that had to do most specifically or most perhaps literally to do with healing were the most important poems for me right now to include…and along with that I’m troubled that in recent years, with the advent of more effective treatments for HIV and AIDS, we have in some ways lost sight of what is still an ongoing health emergency and I thought by bringing together poems that specifically address HIV and AIDS that would also perhaps help call attention again to what in my mind is still a crisis Can you talk about how the change in treatments for HIV and AIDS has impacted your engagement with HIV/AIDS in your work?

I find in the medical part of my life that, yes, there is much to celebrate in terms of these advances in treatment for HIV and AIDS and so there’s tremendous optimism and excitement and a sense of joy about offering these kinds of treatments to my patients; but the poet in me and the person who is engaged in the community with people actually living with HIV and AIDS still sees the impact on individual human lives that this disease still has and is reminded daily that there are new infections; there are still almost 40 million people on this planet who have HIV infection and many of them, most of them—unless we do more to make these treatments available to everyone more widely—many of them are still going to face some of those terrible complications and ultimately mortality from the disease.

I always want to be present in the human experience of this condition and I think that’s how in particular my poetry A&U • OCTOBER 2018

Can you talk a little about the collection’s title poem “Comfort Measures Only”?

It is a kind of distillation perhaps of the kinds of gestures that I hope that the poems make in this twenty plus years of looking back. I think that some of the repetitions and the forms is a kind of calling attention to the recurring themes that are so important: related to mortality, related to the ongoing struggle to make sense of our—at times—troubled bodies. And at the same time, I hope that the poem—and I did write it with some of this intention in mind—that the structure of the poem and the rhythms and the rhyming and the socalled “formal elements” do provide a kind of reassurance or a kind of comfort.

I’m interested in the idea that poetry through organizing and harnessing language and making it sing—that it can actually be comforting to us, can help us make sense of difficult emotions, even contemplating out own mortality.

It’s the comfort of language, it’s a song that we sing to ourselves when we are trying to fall asleep at night, that kind of engagement with language is ultimately healing even in the most difficult moments such as at the end of life.

It’s kind of ironic—this title for the poem and ultimately for the collection that I came to—it’s medical jargon for what we provide for patients when usually they’ve [the patients] decided that they don’t want any more medical interventions. They don’t want any more painful procedures or treatments with side effects and so that’s especially when we need poetry, is at those moments. We need its comfort and its reassurance that even at the end of life there’s understanding and ultimately hope. I hope that poem conveys that sense of comfort and hopefulness even in that direst of moments.

photos by DanCoogan.com

is so relevant in my day-to-day work in caring for people with HIV infection.

People with HIV infection still struggle to find our voice, people are still marginalized, people are still made to feel voiceless and invisible, and there are new pressures I would say around that.

There’s still significant stigma, people I think underestimate how stigmatizing it still is to be diagnosed with HIV infection; but also there’s a kind of silencing now around the treatments we do have for HIV and AIDS; you almost have to be on treatment, on PrEP, there are ways in which the experience of living with HIV and AIDS is still constrained or impacted by even these wonderful new treatments. And so you’re almost not allowed to be sick anymore, that’s I think really problematic as well. We can’t erase HIV and AIDS from our memories. We can’t pretend that it still doesn’t exist as a health emergency in our country and certainly in many countries around the globe. So there’s still for me that sense of urgency, that sense that we must give voice to this experience and help elevate, and make more visible, the experiences of people living with HIV and AIDS now in a much more complex way.

Would you talk about the inclusion of medical and clinical language and situations within the poetic and lyric environment of your work?

I’ve always been—even since my days as a medical student—fascinated by the language of medicine and some of those “medical-ese” terminologies are full of this kind of tension between the beautiful, the human, and what they can signal as artifacts of language…they have their own kind of inherent beauty but are also potentially distancing or markers of a kind of expertise. I love to kind of play in a sense with that tension and really expose that these medical terms—this medical idiom—actually do contain and can register human suffering, human emotion, beauty; that it can sing and reflect something essentially human about ourselves back to us.

I think that by placing that language in the context of poetry is one way of showing how it can actually do that—how it can sing—how it can speak for all of us.

That it doesn’t just belong to the doctor-authority figure who can sometimes “weaponize” it as a way of keeping patients at bay. I really love the idea of using that language in a way that empowers us all. I think that poetry itself is a call to community and by locating that kind of OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

language in poems I hope to expose it as actually profoundly human itself.

When I reflect on experiences of my patients who on one hand feel like they need to master this alphabet soup of meds and all the technical language they have to contend with while at the same time they make something truly beautiful and human of it in how they grapple with it and how they speak it and how by speaking it ultimately own it themselves; that to me is a kind of joy—to recognize that and to contextualize that within poetry. It’s a way of recognizing that very human struggle and I think poetry is just the place to do that.

For more information about the work of Rafael Campo, visit: www.rafaelcampo.com.

Noah Stetzer is the author of Because I Can See Needing a Knife, a collection of poems published in 2016 by Red Bird Chapbooks. His work has received the 2015 Christopher Hewitt Award for Poetry and the 39th New Millennium Award for Poetry. Noah’s poems have appeared in the New England Review, Nimrod International Journal of Prose & Poetry, Green Mountains Review, and Bellevue Literary Review. He is a 2014 Fellow from the Lambda Literary Retreat and a current work-study scholar at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Noah now lives in Kansas City and can be found online at www. noahstetzer.com.

47

Reversed: HIV+

Reversed: HIV+ A TV Show Addresses Testing & Treatment

by Justin B. Terry-Smith

T

he first series of Discovery Life’s Reversed was geared toward changing views on diabetes, educating viewers and inspiring them to know how to prevent and fight against the disease. Produced by Emmy-nominated actor, author, producer, chef and philanthropist Charles Mattocks, Reversed now seeks to change views on HIV. The nephew of Bob Marley, Mattocks has had a successful musical career. He has also starred in several films, as well.

His most noteworthy performance came with the title role of The Summer of Ben Tyler, with James Woods and Elizabeth McGovern, and he has appeared on CNN, Dr. Oz, and The Today Show, among others.

A&U had the chance to find out about this new HIV-centric iteration of the show.

Justin B. Terry-Smith: Charles let me first say the show is an awesome idea. I don’t think this has ever been done before. Why have you decided to change gears and focus on HIV? Is this a spin-off or will both shows broadcast at the same time?

Charles Mattocks: One of the reasons came from the first season of Reversed.

Jerome was a guest on the show who did

48

amazing with his diabetes. He was able to lose about forty pounds and come off insulin. He also has HIV. He did not mention this to me on the show; we had become very good friends but he only shared [his status] with someone else. I wanted to understand why he didn’t share it with me, not that he had to, but I wanted to know and understand more about what he was dealing with....I felt whatever the reason was, I was very ignorant about HIV and felt it could be a great format to tackle.

I have also been an advocate for not only diabetes but people in general. I love helping. I love giving back. I feel it’s my mission; like Martin Luther King was to civil rights, this is my calling. I didn’t want to limit Reversed to diabetes as the concept is about taking people who are dealing with health issues and bringing in the best experts to help them; I felt that could be any issue, condition or disease.

Can you tell me the format of the show? Is it a form of reality TV, like Real World meets Inyanla: Fix My Life?

There is not much to compare it with, but when you think of some of these shows I guess you can say it has elements of some of them. We are about helping with love. We are not a “jump out of the bushes and surprise you” style show; we are not about hard tough love. We want to meet people where they are. We don’t create any drama or unnatural issues. People have issues and deal with things before they come to the show and at times those issues may come to the surface but unlike many other shows like this we don’t create any or even look for them.

This show is about healing. We are all dealing with something and some more than others. We can all use a getaway where we can have people help us with our walk-in life. Fix My Life seems to cater to people who have serious issues and she in my opinion can be very hard and I’m not sure the [guests] leave or walk away better people. We want people to walk away with something gained. We want them to be

advocates for themselves and others.

The format is to take five or so people and I bring them to Jamaica and we help them to look into the mirror and help them make changes that can improve their lives. When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I had to do the same. I looked in the mirror both physically and mentally and said, “I have to change today or I will not make it.” So, when I thought of the concept I knew people had to do a deep soul search at times before they can make the changes in their life and health.

I checked out the show’s website and it’s wonderful, I saw that you shoot on location at Montego Bay in Jamaica. Not that I’m complaining, but why Jamaica?

My parents are from Jamaica and [as previously mentioned] I am also the nephew of the late reggae legend Bob Marley.

His life was also very much about giving back and helping, and that’s what inspired me in many ways. I knew I wanted to change the world or touch the world in my own way and this love of health and helping is my way. I also choose the island because at times people need to get away from their issues; they need a break from their surroundings. At times they need to get away from negative people or persons that can hinder their growth. It’s also a lovely country and has amazing foods and locations where people can feel good about waking up each day.

Why did you decide to change the focus of the show from diabetes to HIV? The main reason was Jerome; we have become very good friends and I wanted to understand more about that side of him. I was also very ignorant and thought about how many more are like me. Then I thought about how hard it could be, living with HIV and other health issues, and felt this could allow more exposure and push people to get tested and get treatments. I also looked at the HIV community and felt this was needed; the community seems very strong and very loving. I know a few A&U • OCTOBER 2018

mattocks portrait by Elle Mattocks; stills courtesy Reversed

others with HIV and they have impacted me because they are also advocates and we have something in common.

When I think of Jamaica, only thirty-two percent of people with HIV are getting treated; we know this needs to be addressed. The stigma is causing many to not get the help they need and lives can be affected because of fear and stigma. I also felt if I can do something good for the community then why not. Our time we have here is very short and if we can help someone other than ourselves then why not. My uncle once said, “If my life is just for me I don’t want it.” I feel the same, if I am just here for me then why am I truly here?

Before you decided to change the focus of the show from diabetes to HIV, what did you know about HIV? To be very honest, and I am okay with being honest, one thing I can say is that I will work with some of the best in HIV advocacy to make sure the message and the wording is perfect for the show and what we put out. I want to make sure the community is represented to the fullest.

But back to that question.

I didn’t know much. I want to be honest and hope this can be a great reason for why a show like this can be so powerful. I recall thinking I wish Jerome would have said something, not sure if that was a health risk or issues for me or others. I hope my honesty is taken the right way, I was just not aware of what I have come to know now....I had no idea of someone being undetectable; I had no idea there were treatments that could prevent a partner from contracting the virus if one partner has it. I had no idea that people lived as long as they did with HIV. I also think that’s one good thing in making the show, seeing it through the eyes of an outsider, so to speak. My role on the show will be limited to more of a house mentor.

I will bring in amazing people that can also educate myself and the audience as we see the show unfold.

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

When you do a casting for a show like this what are you looking for in the participants (staff/guest)?

For guests we want to target ones that have great personalities, of course. We want people who are okay being open and sharing. We want demographics that many

can relate to. So, we want Latin, we want a black male, we also may want a couple that has HIV. Maybe the husband [transmitted] it to the wife and they are dealing with that. We also may want someone who is new to HIV and maybe just looking at taking meds and going through those choices. continued on page 54

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LifeGuide

PrEP Factors

by

Justin B. Terry-Smith what influences use of the hiv pre-

vention tool among msm?

P

rEP, PrEP and more PrEP. PrEP has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration since 2012 and prevents the transmission of HIV from one person to another up to ninety-two percent, with others saying ninety-nine percent.

Men who have sex with men whose sexual activities were categorized as high risk, a demographic that is most vulnerable to HIV infection, was one of the populations for which PrEP was first indicated. However, not everyone who is gay or bi, or same-gender-loving, has heard of PrEP. While in Chicago for an event that catered to MSM, I noticed a young gay man who seemed very curious to know others in my group. So I befriended him because I was curious to know where he was in his life and where his head was at.

He was an early twenty-something and I asked his profession and he said he was a server at a restaurant and had dropped out of college. I then asked, “Have you heard of PrEP?” He replied, “No, what is PrEP?” I was shocked and surprised.

I wondered why this young man had not heard of PrEP. When I started my doctoral study and thought about a possible public health dissertation topic, I wanted to focus on something other than HIV. There were several options such as childhood obesity, drug abuse, smoking, etc., but my mind would not stop thinking about that young gay man who had no idea what PrEP was. I couldn’t get him out of my head.

At the end of my classes I began the dissertation process. I started listing possible factors that might influence a MSM to use PrEP. I had over twenty factors that I decreased to four. In my cross-sectional study I was determined to examine the association between education level, employment status, number of sexual partners, and access to health resources and the use of PrEP among MSM. After the dissertation was all said and done I found out a lot. My abstract starts out with stating: “Prevention is key

50

to keeping men who have sex with men (MSM) protected from Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Despite new and innovative HIV prevention resources such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), factors such as education level, employment status, number of sexual partners, and access to health resources may inhibit certain populations from using PrEP. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the association between education level, employment status, number of sexual partners, and access to health resources and the use of PrEP among MSM. The fundamental cause theory was used to examine how socioeconomic barriers are associated with the use of PrEP among MSM in the United States. Secondary data from 217 surveys were collected from the Public Library of Science. Findings from multiple regression analyses indicated that employment status, access to health resources, and number of sexual partners were not associated with use of PrEP among MSM. Those who had at least some high school or a high school diploma were 3.98 times more likely to be likely to extremely likely to use PrEP, compared to those who had less than a high school education (OR = 3.98, p = .048). Those who had some college were 6.91 more likely to be likely to extremely likely to use PrEP, compared to those who had less than a high school education (OR = 6.91, p = .028). Findings may be used to assist public health professionals in identifying factors that prevent the use of PrEP. By addressing these health threats, and social barriers, specialists could have the ability to increase HIV prevention activity in populations that are more susceptible to being infected with HIV and may decrease HIV infections not only within the MSM population but also in other populations.”

We need to research several other factors to explain why MSMs are not using PrEP as much as they should. For example, believe it or not in this country there is still a language barrier. There needs to be a bigger push for public health orga-

nizations to market towards the communities of color, and particularly more of a marketing push in language and culture to make sure that Latino MSM are more informed; after all English is not the only language we speak in this country.

According to CNN (2018) the Latino/ Hispanic population makes up the largest minority in the United States. The Census Bureau predicts that in the year 2060 the Latino/Hispanic community will make up 28% of the total population at 119 million residences. Today the Latino/Hispanic community is estimated to have 55 million persons residing in the United States, which is second to Mexico in Latino/Hispanic residences worldwide. Also, the Black community needs to be more informed on PrEP and its benefits. These are populations vulnerable to HIV infection, especially if you look at MSM of color, being a minority within a minority within a minority.

According to the CDC, “Black/African Americana gay, bisexual, and other MSM are more affected by HIV than any other group in the United States. In 2016, Black/African American gay and bisexual men accounted for 26% (10,223) of the 39,782 new HIV diagnoses in the United States.”

We need to make PrEP more accessible to populations of color, especially to those who are uninsured and underinsured. PrEP is a pretty penny for those that do not have the income or insurance to go on the prevention regimen. The only factor that my research found that influenced a MSM to go on PrEP was higher education. The more education a MSM had, the more they were influenced to go on PrEP. The other factors of employment status, number of sexual partners, and access to health resources turned out to be not significant influences.

Terry-Smith, J. B. (2018). Factors Influencing Use of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Among Men Who Have Sex With Men. Retrieved from https:// scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/5273/.

Justin B. Terry-Smith writes the Just*in Time column for A&U. A&U • OCTOBER 2018

Good Karma through an array of practices ayurveda seeks to maintain overall good health

illustration by Timothy J. Haines

W

hen I see our options for my own healing and wellness, I am a firm believer that I should branch out and explore the wide range of possibilities that exist. I am also a firm believer that wellness is not just a straight and narrow path. As I have said before, I am a full-on fan of traditional, conventional western medicine. However, I also think it is highly beneficial to explore healing and wellness options that fall outside my usual routine, personal knowledge, and scope of practice. Recently, I have had the opportunity to delve into some Ayurvedic medicine. The practice is called Ayurveda for short and it is considered one of the oldest whole body healing systems in the world.

It is said to have been developed between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago in India.

Ayurveda fits well into the “whole perspective” theme of this column as it is based on the idea that your overall health and your greater wellness come from an essential balance between the mind, the body, and the spirit. The goal of Ayurveda is not to fight disease, but to promote overall good health. However, depending on your specific ailments, the treatments you receive may be specifically geared towards your individual health concerns, goals, and problems. With an experienced practitioner, you will receive a Siddha diagnosis. This is a pulse reading which is used to determine problems and imbalances.

There are many different aspects to Ayurveda: panchakarma, for example. The word panchakarma comes from two root words—pancha which means five, and karma which means action. Within panchakarma there are five different treatments, hence the name. It is an in-depth detoxification treatment involving massage, herbal therapy, nutrition, and other procedures.

It was explained to me as fresh start or a reboot of the mind, the body and spirit. I have yet to delve into the entire panchakarma program, which I look forward to doing, but I did start with something called

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

Shiro Abhyanga.

Shiro Abhyanga is an Indian Ayurvedic head massage that focuses on the shoulders, neck, face and head. These are areas that often tend to be the most vulnerable to stress and tension that we face. This treatment brings about a feeling of relaxation,

peacefulness and calm. In addition, it promotes increased levels of alertness and concentration. In my experience with more western-based massage of the head, face, scalp, and shoulders, a minimal amount of oil is used. That is not the case with Shiro Abhyanga. During the treatment, oil will be kept for a suitable period on the head of the client. This is called Moordha taila, or, the oiling of the head. There are four different types of oil use, application and/ or process. Shirobhyanga is the anointing the head with oil, shirovasti is a process where the oil is kept on the head with a holder, shirahapichu refers to the process of keeping a cloth dipped in oil on the head, and finally shirodara or shirahsheka is simply pouring oil on the head. Common massage oil or gel is not used in this practice. Many practitioners use an herbalized sesame oil, but other oils or liquids, such as coconut oil, olive oil, milk or even buttermilk are used.

In Ayurvedic head massage there is also a focus on marmas. Marmas are also commonly known as life centers or energy points. It is said to be where energy is stored and processed for use in the mind, body, and spirt. In Ayurvedic medicine there are 108 marmas said to be dispersed around the body. Twelve of the marmas are classified as vital life centers and six of those vital life centers live in the head and neck region.

Head massage can help the whole body. Yes, oiling and massaging the head is good for the scalp and hair. In addition, it is helpful with eye strain, which is common in a world where we stare at screens all day, it helps with achy jaws, that could arise from TMJ, and can be helpful with some sinus conditions. Massage of the head is also helpful with lymphatic drainage and to increase the flow of cerebro-spinal fluids, which can help strengthen the nervous system. It can be helpful to improve the circulation of blood, to oxygenate the brain and help release toxins. Ayurvedic head massage is especially useful when dealing with anxiety, chronic fatigue, coeliac disease, colitis, constipation, Crohn’s disease, depression, diarrhea, headaches, high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, indigestion, insomnia, pain relief, peptic ulcers, and stress.

As always, I urge you to explore the wide range of wellness opportunities and remind you to always see licensed and trained practitioners.

Rob Zukowski is a New York State licensed Massage Therapist, a Certified Medical Massage Therapist and is certified by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork. In addition, he has advanced training in Sports Massage and sports-related injuries, various relaxation therapies, and massage for oncology. His experience includes working in medical facilities, corporate health environments, wellness centers, and spas. In addition to his hands-on work, he is a writer, manages a wellness center, arranges corporate wellness events, works in private practice and lectures in the field of therapeutic massage therapy. You can contact him directly at robzlmt@gmail.com.

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LifeGuide

RIVER Dry

L

atent HIV resides in cells in blood and tissue which we collectively call the HIV reservoir. The virus lays dormant in these cells, which can live for years, unlike most HIV- infected cells which die in a few months. Antiretroviral therapy destroys HIV in the blood but is unable to locate reservoir cells as these cells do not express viral proteins on their surfaces, making them “invisible” to ART and to the immune system. When ART is discontinued, virus from the reservoirs can awaken and begin replicating. With this eventuality, it’s hypothesized that destroying reservoirs could effectively eradicate HIV from the body.

Researchers believe that even if we cannot completely eliminate viral reservoirs, we may be able to achieve a functional cure by reducing the size of reservoirs. Doing so may allow for years, even decades, of treatment-free remission. Thus far, much of the efforts to do so have been centered on the kick and kill strategy, learning where the latent (resting) HIV hides, how big the reservoir might be, and how we identify, wake up and kill latent HIV. With kick and kill, one or more drugs/ vaccines would be used to prime the immune system, teaching it to recognize and destroy HIV. A separate drug would “wake” the virus from its resting or latent state and produce HIV viral proteins on their outer surface, enabling the immune system and ART to destroy the infected, once-latent, cells.

Highly anticipated results from the RIVER study provided more questions than answers in the first randomized clinical trial studying the kick and kill strategy. Researchers hoped to see a significant decrease in the amount of HIV in viral reservoirs. However, reservoir levels from those receiving the three-drug regimen in addition to ART were the same as those on ART alone.

The RIVER study recruited sixty male participants who had newly acquired HIV and who began an integrase-based regimen soon after diagnosis. Of the sixty, thirty participants then began a regimen of two therapeutic vaccines and vorinostat—a latency reversing agent (and cancer-fighting drug)—along with their ART regimen.

The study ran from 2015 to 2017.

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Initial data in April demonstrated that only half of the men who had received the full drug regimen had experienced a decrease in reservoir size.

During the 2018 International AIDS Conference this past July, researchers additionally reported all of the separate components of the regimen functioned as expected, despite not achieving a drop in the size of the viral reservoir.

In the RIVER study, two therapeutic vaccines, hAdV63.HIVconsv and MVA.HIVconsv, were used to prepare the immune system. These vaccines were shown to be effective in producing immune responses in participants. Vorinostat was utilized as a latency-reversing agent to wake the latent HIV. Of note, the RIVER study investigators spoke of the altruistic dedication on the part of the study participants, with all sixty participants completing the study with a 100-percent adherence to all study drugs and scheduled appointments. In many HIV-related studies, recruiting the full targeted number of participants, as well as ensuring a high level of adherence to study visits and medications, has been an ongoing problem for over a decade and a half. It’s heartwarming to see the dedication exhibited in the RIVER study and bolsters hope that cure studies will receive the commitment that they need to succeed.

The failure of the regimen used in the RIVER study doesn’t necessarily mean that the kick and kill theory is flawed. More studies are needed using different compounds to determine whether kick and kill is a viable course. Researchers are considering various options for a follow-up study. These include adding additional boosts of the vaccines and swapping out vorinostat for a more potent latency reversing agent. Vorinostat was the best option in 2014, when the study was designed; however, newer, more effective latency-reversing agents have since been

researched. Another option suggested by the study investigators could be to utilize the next generation of the same vaccines, which are currently being studied.

With much of the cure/remission efforts directed towards the kick and kill strategy, the study of many other potential strategies and drugs have had difficulty gaining financial support and attention. Other possibilities such as gene therapies, monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic vaccines and novel classes of drugs such as APOBEC3G Inhibitors, are competing for sparse funding. One potential therapeutic that may also double as a cure component, FH5051, is a first in class translation inhibitor targeting the DDX3 RNA Helicase, a human host factor that is fundamental in HIV replication.

FH5051 and the Netherlands company who created the compound, First Health Pharmaceuticals, have a unique story which will be highlighted in next month’s column.

Jeannie Wraight is the former editor-in-chief and co-founder of HIV and HCV Haven (www. hivhaven.com) and a blogger and writer for TheBody.com. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Health People, a community-based organization in the South Bronx and an advisor to TRW (Teach me to Read and Write), a community-based organization in Kampala, Uganda. She lives with her husband in New York City.

A&U • OCTOBER 2018

illustration by Timothy J. Haines

kick and kill strategy study yields disappointing results

E R U T CUL S THE

D I A OF

BOOKS

1980

by David Cornish, MD BookBaby

I

t’s the dawn of the eighties and Dr. Arthur Noble, a young medical resident, is facing a mystery. A disparate group of patients, including a startling number of young, San Francisco gay men, are presenting themselves at his hospital with a similar set of symptoms, all of them leading to their early demise.

He and a group of physicians in a number of major cities are alarmed as they notice the patterns. Arthur works tirelessly as he completes his residency to make sense of so many deaths.

1980 is a fascinating read written with the medical professional in mind. There is a lot of it that is difficult for the layperson to comprehend, medical terminology, and professional diagnostic language that can be tricky for the average person. For anyone with an interest in medicine and a medical dictionary at hand, however, it’s a fascinating read. Real-life medical heroes of the early AIDS pandemic, such as Dr. Michael Gottlieb in Los Angeles, are among the book’s supporting cast members. Arthur fights not only a medical mystery, but an entrenched system rife with prejudice for some of the plague’s most marginalized victims. One of the book’s strengths is its full picture of the various groups and persons affected by the disease. There are hemophiliacs, other recipients of significant blood transfusions, IV drug users, and various ethnic groups such as Haitians. It paints a complete picture of the early days of the crisis.

There were more than a few doctors who were at the forefront of diagnosing AIDS early on and this fascinating book offers a fictionalized portrait of their tireless work. It is an interesting, if techOCTOBER 2018 • A&U

nically heavy read, that gets to the heart of one of the most frightening mysteries of modern medicine. Medical professionals will find it fascinating and the the general public, compelling.

—John Francis Leonard

well-researched information about the prevention tool to others like him—gay men still on the fence about a medication that has a very high success rate in preventing HIV in men who don’t always use condoms, among others.

Joey visits all the places where modern gay men go for uninhibited sex: Southern Decadence, San Francisco’s leather street fairs, bathhouses, or the back rooms of European bars.

He’s perfectly honest and forthright about his sexual choices, some of them extreme. There’s no shame here, nor should there be. Too often stigma and shame prevent sexually active gay men from seeking testing and treatment and this story of someone who despite their very active sex life, often on the fringe, can bring others out into the light and compel them to seek that treatment, get tested, and use one of the best protection tools we now have available. Joey Wagner is a highly educated and successful military veteran and he avoids

Corrupted: One Gay American’s Story of Breaking Bad on PrEP

by Joey Wagner Amazon

I

t would be easy when reading this brief, frank memoir about one young gay man’s sexual odyssey for some readers to slut-shame its author; men on PrEP so often are stigmatized in this way. But that would miss a valuable point. It would also be easy for its targeted gay male audience to read of Wagner’s series of sexual adventures and see it as a sexy piece of erotica, which in some ways it is. But don’t sell the author, or his first attempt at writing a book, short. Wagner has an important tale to tell about a young man who knew he was taking too many risks with his health sexually and decided to go on PrEP—he was one type of individual for which the drug was intended. He does his homework, providing valuable and

a lot of the pitfalls of self-publishing.

He not only writes of a series of sexual encounters in a rather vivid diary, he develops a narrative. My only criticism is that the book’s ending did not wrap up that narrative with any important conclusions. But it’s a fun, sexy, and informative read nonetheless.

—J.F.L. John Francis Leonard writes the Bright Lights, Small City column for A&U.

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A Calendar of Events

Reversed: HIV+

continued from page 49

For the experts we want people who help treat those living with HIV from the emotional side to the health side. We will also add some advocates who are living with HIV as their support system. At times, there is no one better than someone with your condition who can relate to your issues.

Do you have any ideas on what the show might focus on in the future?

I think I will be looking at depression and obesity. I hate to share that because I’m sure someone will try and steal our concept, but, you know what, there is room for us all.

[Laughs.] But yes, I also think smoking could all be very powerful shows. I do intend to do a few seasons for HIV. I want this one to do very well and then come back with other stories that need to be addressed. Let’s face it, we won’t be able to cover all we need in one season.

After doing research on HIV have you discovered any important facts you can share with me about the HIV epidemic and Jamaica?

Jamaica has a stigma against people in the gay community [and causes people not to seek treatment or share their status.] We must address this, and I am hoping we can spread this and air in other islands also. We are also working on doing a HIV benefit concert in

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This year’s Lifetime of Commitment Honoree is longtime AIDS activist and outgoing MAMG Board Chair, Michael Shriver. Mr.Shriver has been intently involved in HIV/AIDS advocacy, activism, program development, organizational development and public policy efforts at the local, statewide, national and international levels for more than thirty years.

Information about the National AIDS Memorial Grove, as well as information on getting tickets to Light in the Grove, can be found at https://aidsmemorial.org/light-in-the-grove-fundraising-gala/.

Jamaica and growing that, so we can reach thousands. I think this could be the start of something very good in the islands in general.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the concert?

The concert will be held in Negril and will have some major names in music and entertainment. We want to bring in some of the HIV nonprofits in Jamaica and some movers and shakers in healthcare to be able to start the process of educating people. We have some major names attached now and think this can help open the door to other islands.

A one-day concert that we hope can grow to thousands coming out after the first one.

What do you think people will walk away with after watching Reversed?

I am hoping this can become a platform to educate and inspire. To allow the companies and the non-profits that are doing great work in HIV to have a platform where they can reach the people they need to reach in one space. That when you see the show and see others like yourself you can get tested, open up if that’s something that has been holding you back, maybe to a loved one or family member. Seek the help and treatment that you need, understand how treatment works for you and what may be the best treatment for you. Understand the complications and

how to cope with them. Get the support from others that you can reach out to and know you are not alone. Meet friends and see others that are doing amazing and living a great and healthy life and know that this is a condition that you can thrive with. That it’s not the end of your road and you won’t just die with it.

There are people living amazing lives with HIV and have lovely families and great relationships and healthy children.

I hope the community embraces the show and we want to work hand in hand with many of those in the community to make this program powerful. This should be a team effort and we welcome anyone that wants to add or share with us or be part of the show to reach out. Once again, I am not an expert but someone who was inspired by what has come to be a good friend and his story and just want to use my platform to get the word out.

To keep up with details on the show, go to the website www.reversedyourhealth.com Note: Dr. Justin B Terry-Smith will be appearing on the television show Reversed as an expert in Public Health.

Justin B. Terry-Smith writes the Just*in Time column for A&U. A&U • OCTOBER 2018

photo courtesy National AIDS Memorial Grove

T

he National AIDS Memorial Grove invites you to join them at their annual Light in the Grove fundraising gala on Friday, November 30, 2018, the eve of World AIDS Day 2018. Money raised from Light in the Grove gala will fund the care and upkeep of the Memorial, helping to guarantee that the stories of AIDS will forever be remembered. Your attendance at Light in the Grove and other generous support will help to maintain this breathtaking National Memorial for all future generations.

The National AIDS Memorial Grove, located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, is a hallowed space where people touched directly or indirectly by AIDS can gather to heal, hope, and remember. Its mission is to provide, in perpetuity, a place of remembrance so that the lives of people who died from AIDS are not forgotten. Considered sacred ground, this ten-acre living memorial honors all who have confronted this tragic pandemic, including hemophiliacs with the new Hemophilia Memorial, those who have died, and those who have shared their struggle.

Always a sell-out, the Light in the Grove gala treats guests to a moving candlelight reflection at the Circle of Friends, the heart of the Memorial, and then a walk through the spectacularly-illuminated Redwood Grove to a warmly-lit banquet tent. Inside, they enjoy cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and a buffet dinner with special musical performances.

OCTOBER 2018 • A&U

55

Survival Guide

[a portrait by sean black]

“Living publicly and very visibly with HIV is not always easy.

Unplugging, finding calm and some quiet is as much a part of the fight as fighting.”

—Greg Owen

Greg Owen is co-founder of iwantPrEPnow. He is a world leader in PrEP advocacy and ushers in a new wave of HIV and prevention activism.

Sean Black is a Senior Editor of A&U.

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A&U • OCTOBER 2018

HOW DO WE HELP STOP HIV? A. PREVENT IT. B. TEST FOR IT. C. TREAT IT. D. ALL OF THE ABOVE. Learn how it all works together at HelpStopTheVirus.com © 2015 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. UNBC1856 03/15

In adults with HIV on ART who have diarrhea not caused by an infection

IMPORTANT PATIENT INFORMATION This is only a summary. See complete Prescribing Information at Mytesi.com or by calling 1-844-722-8256. This does not take the place of talking with your doctor about your medical condition or treatment.

What Is Mytesi?

Mytesi is a prescription medicine used to improve symptoms of noninfectious diarrhea (diarrhea not caused by a bacterial, viral, or parasitic infection) in adults living with HIV/AIDS on ART. Do Not Take Mytesi if you have diarrhea caused by an infection. Before you start Mytesi, your doctor and you should make sure your diarrhea is not caused by an infection (such as bacteria, virus, or parasite).

Possible Side Effects of Mytesi Include:

Tired of planning your life around diarrhea?

Enough is Enough Get relief. Pure and simple. Ask your doctor about Mytesi.

Mytesi (crofelemer): • Is the only medicine FDA-approved to relieve diarrhea in people with HIV • Treats diarrhea differently by normalizing the flow of water in the GI tract • Has the same or fewer side effects as placebo in clinical studies • Comes from a tree sustainably harvested in the Amazon Rainforest What is Mytesi?

Mytesi is a prescription medicine that helps relieve symptoms of diarrhea not caused by an infection (noninfectious) in adults living with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral therapy (ART).

Important Safety Information Mytesi is not approved to treat infectious diarrhea (diarrhea caused by bacteria, a virus, or a parasite). Before starting you on Mytesi, your healthcare provider will first be sure that you do not have infectious diarrhea. Otherwise, there is a risk you would not receive the right medicine and your infection could get worse. In clinical studies, the most common side effects that occurred more often than with placebo were upper respiratory tract (sinus, nose, and throat) infection (5.7%), bronchitis (3.9%), cough (3.5%), flatulence (3.1%), and increased bilirubin (3.1%).

For Copay Savings Card and Patient Assistance, see Mytesi.com

Please see complete Prescribing Information at Mytesi.com.

NP-390-9

RELIEF, PURE AND SIMPLE

• Upper respiratory tract infection (sinus, nose, and throat infection) • Bronchitis (swelling in the tubes that carry air to and from your lungs) • Cough • Flatulence (gas) • Increased bilirubin (a waste product when red blood cells break down) For a full list of side effects, please talk to your doctor.

Tell your doctor if you have any side effect that bothers you or does not go away.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Should I Take Mytesi If I Am:

Pregnant or Planning to Become Pregnant?

• Studies in animals show that Mytesi could harm an unborn baby or affect the ability to become pregnant • There are no studies in pregnant women taking Mytesi • This drug should only be used during pregnancy if clearly needed A Nursing Mother?

• It is not known whether Mytesi is passed through human breast milk • If you are nursing, you should tell your doctor before starting Mytesi • Your doctor will help you to decide whether to stop nursing or to stop taking Mytesi Under 18 or Over 65 Years of Age? • Mytesi has not been studied in children under 18 years of age • Mytesi studies did not include many people over the age of 65. So it is not clear if this age group will respond differently. Talk to your doctor to find out if Mytesi is right for you

What Should I Know About Taking Mytesi With Other Medicines?

If you are taking any prescription or over-the-counter medicine, herbal supplements, or vitamins, tell your doctor before starting Mytesi.

What If I Have More Questions About Mytesi?

For more information, please see the full Prescribing Information at Mytesi.com or speak to your doctor or pharmacist.

To report side effects or make a product complaint or for additional information, call 1-844-722-8256.

Rx Only Manufactured by Patheon, Inc. for Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. San Francisco, CA 94105 Copyright © Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mytesi comes from the Croton lechleri tree harvested in South America.