In Which We Go Back A Bit

For those of you who missed them the first time around, or those who still miss them, here is the 1980s wrapped up in one video:

Let’s see, do we have all the parts?

• Bleach blonde, pouty lipped pretty boy singer?  Check,
• Hyper stylized clothes that make you look like you got dressed in a hurry, in the dark?  Check.
• Synth laden music ripping off better, more original music (in this case, Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive)?  Check.
• Ronald Reagan’s poisonous spirit looming around?  Check.
• The terrifying mystery of AIDS just off camera, but very present?  Check.

Turns out the last is more important to this bit than was originally intended since the singer, Paul Lekakis, admitted in an interview with POZ magazine that he had lied about his HIV status to his customers while turning tricks in Los Angeles in the 90s.  The interview and, maybe, Lekakis makes this sound unpardonable and shocking.  Sweetie, I was there and I remember that by the late 90s when Lekakis was working West Hollywood what AIDS was was unquestionable and how it spread was well established. What he did was bad, but was it that shocking?  If you ask a rentboy about his HIV status and then take his word for it, you are simply too naive to be hiring one.

In other 80s news, Buttocks of the Past:

Mike Timber

Buck Hayes

Mike Betts

Better Late

December 1, World AIDS Day, bloggers were requested to write about AIDS. And I was going to, a jaunty little piece about living with HIV in these hip now modern times, but I got sick that evening after I got home from work; I believe the AIDS meds I’m taking turned on me, the little bastards. It’s things like that which make me so hate cheap irony.

I know I’m lucky, my T-cells are high, my viral load is undetectable, I have no symptoms, I can recite the names of all seven dwarves by memory (can you? I didn’t think so.) and I only have to take one pill a day, as opposed to some of my friends who choke down a couple of handsful every day. So on the very rare occasions when I can’t stray too far from my dear pal the toilet because of medicine reactions, I remember the friends who died and I concentrate on being lucky.

How Hard Could It Be to Cut off Your Own Foot, Anyway?

Why do minor medical problems during the day wait to turn into monster crises in the middle of the night? For that matter, why do they always schedule themselves for Friday after work, when your doctor is gone, to rear their ugly heads? It’s 3:00 AM, my foot hurts, has done so with increasing shrillness all weekend and I have lots to do tomorrow. On the bright side… wait, there is no bright side. Oh, I know. The bright side is that tomorrow I can blame this post on the Valium I took and which seems to be having the same potent effect of a blue M&M. I’ll stop now before this turns into one of those Andy Rooney-esque cries for euthanasia. I’ll go find a humpy boy picture to post instead.

Everybody like humpy boy pictures.

Klaus Nomi Says "It’s a Total Eclipse"

I had to have a procedure yesterday at the foot doctor. No details – it was unpleasant and I know no one wants to hear about my Adventures in Podiatry. Instead, our story today focuses instead on that time last night when I woke up with my foot hurting and couldn’t go back to sleep so I decided to get up, cause what else are you going to do at 2:00 AM with an achy foot? Also, as I was lying there, I remembered there was a total lunar eclipse visible here last night so I went out to the patio to watch. Very cool. We live in a canyon right in the middle of San Francisco, but a fluke of neighborhood planning has put a patch of unbroken green around us, so it was very quiet and perfect for watching the earth’s shadow swallow the moon. The moon turned a murky yellow and I was one with the cosmic ticking of time and then I got bored and went back to bed. Thank god for vicodan and valium.

http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/

Details, details, details

First, I want it clearly understood having Detail magazine in my house is Not My Fault. It’s one of these subscriptions thingies where you join one thing and suddenly your home is the target of a barrage of odd magazines, like Details and Golfing Today and Forward Thinking Feminists and Knit Now. Anyway, having Detail thrust on me did force me to see the horrifying cover of Clive Owen this month. Is there a more gorgeous man than Clive, anywhere? Oh, you know there isn’t. Could you tell it from this cover? Nope. But then, it’s, you know, Details.

Positive bidness

Today is the class I put on a couple of times a year for HIV positive entrepreneurs on how to start a business. Normally, we have about 20 -25 people show up, but today it’s only 9. I’m disappointed; it’s the same amount of work for 9 people as it is for 30. Still, I’m wearing a beautiful tie R Man gave me for some Christmas, so instead of paying attention to the class, I keep looking down at my chest. Sort of like Paris Hilton.

I gotta go.