:00:16. > :00:21.There was nothing extraordinary about the fact that you'd lose the
:00:21. > :00:24.people that you love, because it's going to happen to all of us. It's
:00:24. > :00:31.just that it happened in this targeted community of people who
:00:31. > :00:41.were disenfranchised and separated from their families. And a whole
:00:41. > :00:45.
:00:45. > :00:48.group of other people stepped up We are not some network of people
:00:49. > :00:52.who just like to have sex. We are not some ephemeral subculture that
:00:52. > :00:55.comes and dissolves and goes. This is a community that was tested in a
:00:55. > :00:59.way almost no community on Earth is ever tested, and succeeded in what
:00:59. > :01:02.it was trying to do, which is save as many lives of people as it could,
:01:03. > :01:06.stop the civil rights attacks and then try to use that example to
:01:06. > :01:09.transform the world. If you're ever facing a natural disaster as
:01:09. > :01:13.extraordinary as AIDS was in the last quarter of the last century,
:01:13. > :01:23.you should be so lucky as to be in a community like the queer
:01:23. > :01:26.
:01:27. > :01:31.When I talk to young people particularly, they'll say, what was
:01:31. > :01:38.it like? I mean, the only thing I can liken it to is a war zone, but
:01:38. > :01:42.most of us have never lived in a war zone, but it was...
:01:42. > :01:44.You never knew where the bomb was going to drop. I decided to do this
:01:45. > :01:48.interview because I've- I've been around for the entire epidemic, and
:01:48. > :01:56.I've seen so many parts of it, and I think there's a lot of people
:01:56. > :02:01.from, I mean, none of my friends are around from the beginning. So I
:02:01. > :02:11.want to tell their story as much as I want to tell my story. I think
:02:11. > :02:30.
:02:30. > :02:34.I came to San Francisco back in the late '70s. You know, there were
:02:34. > :02:39.more gay people coming here. There was all these love children. It was
:02:39. > :02:43.right at the end of the hippies. You know, and everybody... I mean,
:02:43. > :02:49.if you had a bus ticket, it better be saying San Francisco, you know,
:02:49. > :02:54.because that was the place to come. I was the dancer. I thought I could
:02:54. > :02:57.dance better than anybody on the West Coast. Centre stage, I would
:02:57. > :03:02.get up there. I'd climb up on that stage, and I'd dance myself into a
:03:02. > :03:08.frenzy every Sunday night at the tea dance. And if you got too close,
:03:08. > :03:15.you might slip off the stage because you were too close to me.
:03:15. > :03:21.But I thought I had it goin' on. My dad said one day that I should sell
:03:21. > :03:24.flowers. That's a good business. And I thought, I'm going to sell
:03:24. > :03:27.flowers in San Francisco because, you know, they got these songs,
:03:27. > :03:35.Where Have All the Flowers Gone and If You're Going to San Francisco,
:03:35. > :03:38.Wear a Flower in Your Hair and so I was ready for it. A friend of mine
:03:38. > :03:45.came up in a pickup and took me right over into the Castro on 15th
:03:45. > :03:52.and Noe, and I've been there for 28 years. Hey, I'm one of the family
:03:52. > :03:56.members. You know, come buy my flowers. So I would put up these
:03:56. > :04:02.rainbow flags, and I, you know... And you could see 'em from a block
:04:02. > :04:11.away. If you looked down the street, you could just see that little
:04:11. > :04:15.ribbon until all the colours faded. I always knew I was going to come
:04:16. > :04:19.out to the Bay Area. And I think a lot of us came out here because we
:04:19. > :04:23.didn't quite fit where we were. Back in college, I helped start the
:04:23. > :04:29.first woman's newspaper. Uh, we started the first childcare centre.
:04:29. > :04:32.Stuff like that. So I was very involved. We had a women's centre
:04:32. > :04:36.on Haight Street, so I started going to the women's centre, and we
:04:36. > :04:42.sat around and said, let's open up a women's clinic, and then we just
:04:42. > :04:48.did it. It was the era of illegal abortions. It was a time when we as
:04:48. > :04:52.women weren't as educated about our body. I was getting a little older,
:04:52. > :04:58.my later twenties, and I thought, Eileen, you might want a real job
:04:58. > :05:07.sometime. So I thought, I'll just go to nursing school and see how I
:05:07. > :05:10.feel about it. And I loved it. I loved bedside nursing. Once I
:05:10. > :05:13.started working in the hospital, there were all these gay men, and
:05:13. > :05:21.it was really fun, 'cause we'd go clubbing together, to the I-Beam,
:05:21. > :05:28.to the Stud. You know, places like that. I'd dance and go home and go
:05:28. > :05:38.to sleep. So, you know, we had a good time. It was like really fun.
:05:38. > :05:42.Unfortunately, none of those guys are alive today.
:05:42. > :05:46.You know, it's so the end of the hippie era in America, and I was a
:05:46. > :05:48.queer kid who knew he was different, didn't really know what to do...
:05:48. > :05:52.And basically left Buffalo, New York, and hitchhiked around the
:05:52. > :05:55.country for a number of years with the guy I was sleeping with, and
:05:55. > :05:58.deliberately tried to be free was our, sort of our goal, and I
:05:58. > :06:02.remember at one point, uh, thinking, well, I've got nothing but the
:06:02. > :06:06.backpack and my boyfriend, and we literally actually had nothing. Uh,
:06:06. > :06:12.I guess we must be free. And it was that sort of mentality that we were
:06:12. > :06:15.pursuing. A phrase that I've sort of come to like is crazy dreamers,
:06:15. > :06:18.and I would say at that time, I thought San Francisco and
:06:18. > :06:21.California was like full of crazy dreamers, and that was where I
:06:21. > :06:24.wanted to be. I belonged to a little commune of leftover '60s
:06:24. > :06:29.folks who were trying to establish an alternative lifestyle, and I was
:06:29. > :06:34.struggling with was I gay, was I bisexual. You know, what is going
:06:34. > :06:38.on? So I come out of the closet in this terrifying moment of coming to
:06:38. > :06:41.the gay student union at San Jose State in September of 1975 and the
:06:41. > :06:44.minute I walked through the door and I'm sure most gay men of my
:06:44. > :06:49.generation, most gay, queer people are going to have the similar
:06:49. > :06:52.experience, it was like you're home. It was like it all felt familiar.
:06:52. > :07:02.It all seemed like, oh, how did I not realise this is where I was
:07:02. > :07:05.supposed to be. My father really wanted me to get a
:07:05. > :07:08.master's degree, and I really didn't care. So the compromise was
:07:08. > :07:12.I would go to San Francisco State, because San Francisco was where I
:07:12. > :07:17.wanted to be. I liked the people here. They just seemed more open,
:07:17. > :07:21.and I always wanted to meet a nice blonde surfer. When I moved out to
:07:21. > :07:26.California, I was still in the closet. I didn't come out of the
:07:26. > :07:30.closet until after college. Um, I came out with a bang. I was in a
:07:30. > :07:38.production of The Boys in the Band For quite a few years, I was a bit
:07:38. > :07:41.of a workaholic. I was in my studio all the time. By the time I was 27,
:07:41. > :07:45.I was having one man shows in New York at galleries, good galleries
:07:45. > :07:48.in New York, and I didn't know it was supposed to be that easy. It
:07:48. > :07:56.was just easy, and I was pretty obsessed with my work, and I was
:07:56. > :07:58.for quite a long time, and until I got sick, really. I was first
:07:58. > :08:02.living in the Haight, and I remember walking down Haight Street,
:08:02. > :08:07.and there was this guy handing out leaflets on the corner, and it was
:08:07. > :08:11.Harvey. It was his first campaign, the first time he was running, and
:08:11. > :08:14.he introduced himself, and I talked to him. So I went to work for him,
:08:14. > :08:17.and I was handing out leaflets, and, you know, door hangers and things
:08:17. > :08:22.like that. And that was very exciting, 'cause I had been
:08:22. > :08:26.somewhat political in college. I had gotten sick of it because all
:08:26. > :08:33.my roommates were SDS, and it was very militant. And Harvey was just
:08:33. > :08:38.a lot gentler and a lot more fun. My partner at that time, Steve, was
:08:38. > :08:42.also fairly political. Any time there was a march or a
:08:42. > :08:47.demonstration or a candlelight thing, we were always there. Um, it
:08:47. > :08:57.was important to us. Those were the things that made us feel connected
:08:57. > :09:15.
:09:15. > :09:21.Castro Street was just starting to happen, and you would always run
:09:21. > :09:31.into people you knew. And it really felt like a village, and the Castro
:09:31. > :09:40.
:09:40. > :09:44.just started to feel like the If you took a bunch of young men
:09:44. > :09:54.and said, have as much sex as you can have, how much sex would they
:09:54. > :09:59.
:09:59. > :10:03.The sense was if gay is good, gay sex is good, you know, and more gay
:10:03. > :10:13.sex is even better. And people often say of my generation that we
:10:13. > :10:28.
:10:28. > :10:31.I remember, like, January 1977, I went right down to Castro Street.
:10:31. > :10:35.Here I've lived in Greenwich Village all these years. This is
:10:35. > :10:39.going to be amazing. I went down and, you know, as you know, it's
:10:39. > :10:43.like one block long and like a block in either direction, and like
:10:43. > :10:47.there were a lot of gay men, and as with any group of people, it was
:10:47. > :10:50.already pretty quickly falling into little cliques. You know, there was
:10:50. > :10:55.like this kind of military look, and the kind of the outdoorsman
:10:55. > :10:58.look. And there was a preppy look, and there was already this like
:10:58. > :11:05.kind of western look and a leather look. It was already starting to
:11:05. > :11:09.happen. People quickly identifying as certain male images. And I, you
:11:09. > :11:13.know, I just didn't like fit in. There wasn't like a longhaired,
:11:13. > :11:19.high voiced, basketball look or something, you know? I was just
:11:19. > :11:25.kind of me. I mean, I tried. I would go and pick up guys and bring
:11:25. > :11:33.them home, and like they would go, want to go from zero to 60 so fast.
:11:33. > :11:39.I couldn't do it. I was terrible at anonymous sex. I didn't know how to
:11:39. > :11:45.go like, or, you know, I just, I couldn't do it. I was like, hi, my
:11:45. > :11:53.name's Ed. Who are you? You know, and it just, it didn't, it didn't
:11:53. > :11:57.click. I tend to be somebody who has a
:11:57. > :12:01.partner almost my whole life. I've always been in open
:12:01. > :12:05.relationships, so my sexual outlet was always the bathhouses. And they
:12:05. > :12:10.were there, and they were fun. And I would go with my friends. It
:12:10. > :12:13.wasn't like something I would sneak out and go on my own. It was this...
:12:13. > :12:16.It was something of an outing, we would go with friends. I remember
:12:16. > :12:20.coming out of one bathhouse at, like, three o'clock in the morning
:12:20. > :12:23.and walking home across the city in the middle of the night and just
:12:23. > :12:29.thinking, gee, if my mother could see me now, she'd be just shocked.
:12:29. > :12:36.But it just felt so good. It was like a club, and we called it
:12:36. > :12:41.church. It's going to church. Part of it, you're having sex to
:12:41. > :12:44.have fun. Part of it, you're having sex to find love. Part of it you're
:12:44. > :12:47.having sex to rebel against the people who said you couldn't have
:12:47. > :12:53.sex. All of America was feeling very confident that you could be
:12:53. > :12:56.much more sexual, and that was OK. Venereal diseases and unwanted
:12:56. > :13:06.pregnancies, it's all curable with a shot or a pill or something to
:13:06. > :13:17.
:13:17. > :13:20.It's May of 1979 and the verdict has come down, a verdict on Dan
:13:20. > :13:24.White for the murder of Harvey Milk, and we're all at City Hall
:13:24. > :13:27.protesting. There's this enormous rage. Thousands of people arrive.
:13:27. > :13:31.The police attack. We're tear- gassed, we're beaten. Police cars
:13:31. > :13:36.are burned. So this is not a community that's feeling really
:13:36. > :13:42.good about the political establishment going into the 1980s.
:13:42. > :13:45.The next night is Harvey's birthday party. And so the streets close off.
:13:45. > :13:49.Tens of thousands of people show up, and they give very, very angry
:13:49. > :13:53.speeches. Anne Kronenberg gives a very fierce speech and at the end
:13:53. > :14:00.of her speech she starts a chant. Welcome to the '80s, welcome to the
:14:00. > :14:03.'80s. We couldn't know, of course, that even then, HIV was present.
:14:03. > :14:09.HIV arrives first in San Francisco probably in '76, and by 1979,
:14:09. > :14:12.probably 10% of the gay men in that crowd were infected. And by the
:14:13. > :14:16.time we discover that there is such a thing, AIDS is even happening, in
:14:16. > :14:19.June of '81, roughly 20% are infected. And by the time we
:14:19. > :14:29.actually get the test, so people can find out if they're infected,
:14:29. > :15:08.
:15:08. > :15:12.close to 50% of the gay men of San '81 was a big year. I landed a
:15:12. > :15:18.really good job, and for the first time, I was part of a large office
:15:18. > :15:23.staff with a lot of other gay men. I was finishing my graduate degree
:15:23. > :15:29.in creative writing. I went to Europe, I had this great job. All
:15:29. > :15:34.these new gay men I was working with, and, um... I felt like, oh,
:15:34. > :15:41.the '80s, something's gonna shift. I moved to New York in '71. Now I'm
:15:41. > :15:45.really here in San Francisco in '81. And... And so that is when
:15:45. > :15:51.everything changed. Because that was... You know, that was the year
:15:51. > :15:55.in the Castro, running down. I will never forget it. I went to the
:15:55. > :16:00.Castro Theatre. Great double feature. I think it was like Now
:16:00. > :16:04.Voyager and Casablanca on the big screen. And I remember running down
:16:04. > :16:14.to the old Star Pharmacy cos we were gonna smoke some pot and we
:16:14. > :16:16.
:16:16. > :16:18.didn't have any papers. And I I remember looking in the window of
:16:18. > :16:21.Star Pharmacy, and there were these little Polaroid photographs that
:16:22. > :16:31.this young man had made of himself. There were at least three, maybe
:16:32. > :16:40.
:16:40. > :16:44.The first one was like this. And And then there was another picture,
:16:44. > :16:49.and he had taken his shirt and pulled it up like this. It was of
:16:49. > :16:56.his chest. These big purple splotches. And they were just on
:16:56. > :17:03.the window, and underneath it was a There's something out there."
:17:03. > :17:07.Something like that. And, uh... Oh my God, it made a huge impact on me.
:17:07. > :17:13.And then I was really stoned, and I went and watched the movie, and
:17:13. > :17:20.with the whole movie, I was just thinking about that. It really made
:17:20. > :17:23.I went to see the movies with a friend of mine named Michael, and
:17:23. > :17:32.he and I worked together, and he had woken up kind of recently with
:17:32. > :17:38.this red splotch in his eye. And he kept going "What is this? What is
:17:38. > :17:48.this?" And he had been going to the eye doctor, and they hadn't been
:17:48. > :17:52.
:17:52. > :17:56.You know, it turned out to be KS. He had KS in his eye. So it was
:17:56. > :18:04.right there in the movie lying with us, like already. Like it was
:18:05. > :18:08.REPORTER: The pictures show the progression of a few red bumps into
:18:08. > :18:11.Kaposi's sarcoma. It's a rare cancer normally found in the
:18:11. > :18:15.elderly, but now it's striking young men, most of whom are gay,
:18:15. > :18:20.like Bobby Campbell. Tests are still being done on the red bumps
:18:20. > :18:24.on his foot. I don't know how I got it. I fit
:18:24. > :18:34.the typical Kaposi's patient in my age in that I'm gay and... But I
:18:34. > :18:36.
:18:36. > :18:39.The first time I heard about AIDS, I think it was called the gay
:18:39. > :18:45.cancer. It was KS. It was terrifying. And we had friends who
:18:45. > :18:48.were dying right at the beginning of the epidemic. I mean, this one
:18:48. > :18:51.person who helped my career greatly, who was a curator of the Brooklyn
:18:51. > :19:00.Museum, gave me a show at the Brooklyn Museum, and he died before
:19:00. > :19:09.the show happened. And that was... Looking back, I know he died of
:19:09. > :19:12.AIDS, but back then there was no I was hanging blood one day in the
:19:12. > :19:15.hospital, and this was before the times that you wore gloves, and the
:19:15. > :19:25.infectious disease fellow came in and said, "Eileen, put gloves on.
:19:25. > :19:32.
:19:32. > :19:37.I was selling flowers at that time, and there was a guy down the street.
:19:37. > :19:46.Five days. One day, he went to the hospital. Five days later, he was
:19:46. > :19:51.dead. I'm looking through the gay periodicals, and in one of them,
:19:51. > :19:54."new cancer described". And so I'm aware something has occurred. I
:19:54. > :20:04.think everybody who was paying attention to the community noted
:20:04. > :20:13.
:20:13. > :20:18.this could be something to pay People were coming in with
:20:18. > :20:20.pneumocystis pneumonia who were quite well, you know, one day. You
:20:20. > :20:30.know, out there swimming, playing tennis, you know, buffed, coming in
:20:30. > :20:32.
:20:32. > :20:36.and were dying. I mean, were dead People would come in with Kaposi's
:20:36. > :20:41.sarcoma. There might be one little lesion or two little lesions, then
:20:41. > :20:45.they would grow. And maybe a lesion would cut off circulation in their
:20:46. > :20:55.leg, and their leg would balloon up. Or it would get into their lung,
:20:56. > :20:56.
:20:56. > :20:59.and they couldn't breathe, and Very early, certainly within the
:20:59. > :21:02.first 18 months, I assumed that a number of my friends were likely
:21:02. > :21:12.infected, and probably myself and all the people in my group were
:21:12. > :21:51.
:21:51. > :21:59.From the beginning, I just couldn't stand the homophobia and the
:21:59. > :22:07.And the fear. There was incredible fear that these people were coming
:22:07. > :22:16.in and dying, and nobody knew what There were people who were afraid
:22:16. > :22:19.to go into rooms, and so I found If you were not a family member,
:22:19. > :22:23.they wouldn't talk to you. So if somebody's partner was in there,
:22:23. > :22:32.the doctors might not explain to them what was going on. So I found
:22:32. > :22:35.It was a weird time in the hospital because they didn't want to be
:22:35. > :22:41.associated as an AIDS hospital because no one would want to come
:22:41. > :22:51.to the hospital if they knew we were an AIDS hospital. So there was
:22:51. > :22:53.
:22:53. > :22:57.I remember my mom. She was saying, "Why do you have to do this?" You
:22:57. > :23:06.know, cos I've already put my mom through lots of stuff. And I
:23:06. > :23:10.remember saying to her, "Mom, I Cos you're there, and this terrible
:23:10. > :23:14.thing is happening and you're a nurse and you can help. And
:23:14. > :23:24.sometimes that's just helping somebody die. But you know, I
:23:24. > :23:32.
:23:32. > :23:38.Something was happening. These gay men were showing up at places like
:23:38. > :23:48.United Way, looking for a support group or um... Social services,
:23:48. > :23:49.
:23:49. > :23:52.because they had no... They had no I saw an ad in the Bay Area
:23:52. > :23:58.Reporter. Shanti Project was looking for people who'd be willing
:23:59. > :24:03.to be a buddy to someone with this illness. And I took the second
:24:03. > :24:08.Shanti volunteer training that occurred here in San Francisco. And
:24:08. > :24:14.I got matched with someone immediately. I hadn't met a person
:24:14. > :24:24.with AIDS yet who was just kind of like off on his own and... Like
:24:24. > :24:30.
:24:30. > :24:35.expecting that someone was gonna I just remember going to his
:24:35. > :24:45.apartment and here's him opening the door. And he said his name was
:24:45. > :24:48.
:24:48. > :24:58.And, you know, lo and behold, my way of being with gay men suddenly
:24:58. > :25:08.
:25:08. > :25:14.Like, hi. Like, who are you? How I took my training in July of '83,
:25:14. > :25:18.and of course I was close to all these gay men. There were seven gay
:25:18. > :25:23.men working in this office, and I was coming in and telling them,
:25:23. > :25:26.like, "Oh my God, you know, they think it's transmitted sexually."
:25:26. > :25:34."And they're thinking condoms is a way to protect us, and they're
:25:34. > :25:41.And I was already disseminating information. Back then especially
:25:41. > :25:47.there was this whole dynamic about how are you getting it? Who are you
:25:47. > :25:51.getting it from? Who's giving it to who? And in that little office,
:25:51. > :25:55.some of that feeling... I'm pretty sure they had all sex with one
:25:55. > :26:05.another. But once again, in my kind of mismatched way, I hadn't had sex
:26:05. > :26:15.
:26:15. > :26:19.They all got infected, and they all My partner, Steve, was an
:26:19. > :26:24.immunology researcher. We'd been together for quite a while,
:26:24. > :26:27.probably about eight years. And all of a sudden, people were coming to
:26:27. > :26:31.him and asking him to explain what's going on, and it was
:26:31. > :26:37.interesting. I mean, his self- esteem sort of turned around
:26:37. > :26:40.because he was a holder of very important information. He ended up
:26:40. > :26:48.working in Jay Levy's lab, one of the most important AIDS research
:26:48. > :26:53.We got tested because Steve took my blood and brought it into Jay
:26:53. > :26:59.Levy's lab. So we were some of the first people who knew we were
:26:59. > :27:09.positive, because the test wasn't When Steve came back from Jay
:27:09. > :27:11.
:27:11. > :27:17.Levy's lab and told me that we were My life changed completely. I had
:27:17. > :27:27.had five people working for me. And I let them go, and luckily I had
:27:27. > :27:36.
:27:36. > :27:39.saved some money, and I just Here am I, the kid from San Jose,
:27:39. > :27:42.come up here. I'm now the vice president of some little gay
:27:42. > :27:45.Democratic club where maybe 15 or 20 people show up. And suddenly,
:27:45. > :27:48.the community starts to die of these extraordinary, horrible
:27:48. > :27:51.diseases. And they want help. How do we, you know, how do we keep
:27:51. > :27:53.them alive? How do we make sure they don't die of starvation
:27:54. > :27:56.because they can't cook? And meanwhile, there's all these
:27:56. > :27:59.attacks that are occurring. Meanwhile, there's this tremendous
:28:00. > :28:03.debate within the community. Maybe these are all wrong decisions.
:28:03. > :28:07.Maybe we shouldn't be sexually free. And all these other debates are
:28:07. > :28:12.occurring. But the leadership, such as it is, is guys like me, who are
:28:12. > :28:14.suddenly in this little group. We're forced to deal with this
:28:14. > :28:18.unbelievable circumstance of a community that, in addition to
:28:18. > :28:28.being hated and under attack, is now forced alone to try to figure
:28:28. > :28:30.
:28:30. > :28:35.out how to deal with this People would see my picture in the
:28:35. > :28:43.BAR and come up to me and say, "I was diagnosed. What do I do? Do you
:28:43. > :28:45.know a doctor? Is it true this We held a series of town hall
:28:45. > :28:49.meetings, and a group called Mobilization Against AIDS was
:28:49. > :28:54.created. And I was their first ED, and that's how I formally enter
:28:54. > :29:00.into AIDS work. Mobilization's purpose was to demand a greater
:29:00. > :29:05.response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The first response was to try to
:29:05. > :29:10.take care of the sick. The second response was to try to stop people
:29:11. > :29:14.from getting infected. The third response was how do we advocate?
:29:14. > :29:19.How do we now get other people involved to be able to generate
:29:19. > :29:22.resources? We're here to try to spark across the land general
:29:23. > :29:26.support for the actions that are being led by people with AIDS to
:29:26. > :29:34.try to get the nation to move into an effective response to this
:29:34. > :29:37.We lead a delegation of people with AIDS to Washington. Now, here's
:29:37. > :29:41.guys, very sick. By definition, they're end-stage AIDS. There's no
:29:41. > :29:45.treatments to speak of. Maybe there's some experimental
:29:45. > :29:48.treatments they're starting to get. And here they are flying on planes,
:29:48. > :29:53.going across the country with no money, sleeping four to a room, to
:29:53. > :29:58.be able to go do lobbying. And my belief is, all those folks thought
:29:58. > :30:01.they would die. None of them thought they would survive AIDS.
:30:01. > :30:06.They were doing it because they thought they would make it so other
:30:06. > :30:09.people from the community and beyond were able to live. And that
:30:09. > :30:19.happened many times, where people with AIDS would do extraordinary
:30:19. > :30:27.
:30:27. > :30:30.things. That's who was, in fact, When he went to the hospital, I
:30:30. > :30:33.followed him there. So I went to 5B, which was right here at San
:30:33. > :30:37.Francisco General Hospital to- to visit him as his Shanti volunteer.
:30:37. > :30:39.And 5B was a seven-bed unit in the old intensive care unit that had
:30:39. > :30:42.been turned into the first AIDS- dedicated hospital unit in the
:30:42. > :30:45.world. And everybody who worked there was there on a volunteer
:30:45. > :30:47.basis. 1983, which they weren't sure how it was transmitted.They
:30:47. > :30:50.didn't want anybody working there who was gonna have contagion
:30:50. > :30:53.issues.So they wanted to make sure here at San Francisco General that
:30:53. > :31:03.you were not going to be coming from that kind of fear.You'd be
:31:03. > :31:16.
:31:16. > :31:20.This is where I started encountering like lesbians coming
:31:20. > :31:23.and working on the AIDS unit with all these gay men who were dying.
:31:23. > :31:26.It was so moving, because certainly gay men were- were not making a
:31:26. > :31:30.whole lot of room for lesbians. Let's put it that way, back then.So
:31:30. > :31:40.I got this sense of this group of people who were really caring for
:31:40. > :31:57.
:31:57. > :32:00.Steve became more and more obsessed with trying to find out what the
:32:00. > :32:03.latest treatments were. He wanted to save our lives. He wanted to
:32:04. > :32:07.figure out, you know, how we were gonna beat this thing. And he found
:32:07. > :32:10.out about a study that was done in Africa with a drug called Suramin.
:32:10. > :32:20.And they were doing- they were doing the study here at San
:32:20. > :32:20.
:32:20. > :32:25.Francisco General. And he got us both into the study.Across the
:32:25. > :32:29.country, there was like three study sites. There were like 80 people in
:32:29. > :32:32.the study, and the drug was hideous. It was, you'd go in, and it was
:32:32. > :32:37.like two hours of IV, and for the next two days, you literally felt
:32:37. > :32:40.like you'd been run over by a truck. And I was a wuss, and I could, I
:32:40. > :32:50.just... After a month of this, I just said, I can't take this. It's
:32:50. > :32:51.
:32:51. > :32:54.just, you know, I'd... I was just, it just made me so sick, and I
:32:54. > :32:57.hated it. But Steve just kept on going, and he had had chronic
:32:58. > :33:00.hepatitis B from a needle stick that he'd gotten in the lab when he
:33:00. > :33:04.was working in a lab. And it activated his hepatitis, and
:33:04. > :33:14.within-- We started, I think, the study in July. He quit the study in
:33:14. > :33:35.
:33:35. > :33:44.October, and he was d- He was dead It was really quick. Uh, and
:33:44. > :33:47.everybody in that study died except for me. Cos I was a wuss. I
:33:47. > :33:51.couldn't take it. And I'm so glad I took care of myself that way.But I
:33:51. > :33:53.talked to a doctor in the study afterwards, and he, they had a
:33:53. > :33:57.meeting of all the doctors and people who had researchers across
:33:57. > :34:00.the country, who had been involved in the study. They said he never
:34:00. > :34:02.he'd never been in a room of doctors sobbing before. They had
:34:02. > :34:05.lost all their patients very quickly.So that was one of the
:34:05. > :34:07.first disasters in AIDS treatment.I think it really made everybody
:34:07. > :34:10.really careful afterwards.Steve was 35.Two weeks after Steve died, my
:34:10. > :34:20.best friend died, Peter.Two days before Steve died, another good
:34:20. > :34:53.
:34:54. > :34:58.friend died. I mean, it was just, Steve was 35. Two weeks after Steve
:34:58. > :35:08.died, my best friend Peter died. Two days before that, another
:35:08. > :35:08.
:35:08. > :35:51.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 42 seconds
:35:51. > :35:54.friend died. There was just this Within a mile of epicentre of
:35:54. > :35:57.Castro and Market, large numbers of people died. And not just your
:35:57. > :36:00.friends who died, but, you know, the people you didn't know, the
:36:00. > :36:03.friend of the friend. You know, you'd go get a coffee, and the
:36:03. > :36:13.person who used to give you coffee has died. You would, you know,
:36:13. > :36:14.
:36:14. > :36:17.whatever it was you were... Your banker, your mailman, your... All
:36:17. > :36:20.that mass, mass death, to the point where you, to some degree, would
:36:20. > :36:24.stop asking if people weren't around, where they were. Unless you
:36:24. > :36:27.wanted to get into a discussion of them being dead or them being sick.
:36:27. > :36:34.So for a number of years, people are all assuming we've got this
:36:34. > :36:36.disease and it's very likely we'll be dead soon.
:36:36. > :36:40.Everybody was reading the obituaries because they went from
:36:40. > :36:49.like this to like this. You know, it was just like, oh my God, and
:36:49. > :36:53.everybody would get the BAR every week just to see who's gone. Being
:36:53. > :36:56.the flower man, I was thrown into the middle of it because a lot of
:36:56. > :37:00.people would say, "Guy, uh, my friend died, and I don't have
:37:00. > :37:03.enough money to buy flowers, and I need some help. Can you help us?"
:37:03. > :37:06.They wanted to bury their friends with a lot of dignity and beauty
:37:06. > :37:09.and I came to you to help me out.You know, I'm emotional because
:37:09. > :37:19.it's the first time I thought about it.I can't even count the funerals
:37:19. > :37:32.
:37:32. > :37:36.that I did, you know, and if it You know, some people would bring
:37:36. > :37:40.me a vase, and they said, "Guy, this is all I can afford. Can you
:37:40. > :37:43.put some flowers in it or?" You know, and I did that, and I, you
:37:43. > :37:46.know, it was never about money, it was about love. You know, it was
:37:46. > :37:56.about these people, not letting my friends down. You know, just
:37:56. > :38:07.
:38:07. > :38:13.Today I have ordered the closure of 14 commercial establishments which
:38:13. > :38:16.promote and profit from the spread of AIDS.
:38:16. > :38:19.There was a broad view that there was a sexual transmission component
:38:19. > :38:23.of the disease. So here we are debating, how do we continue to
:38:23. > :38:26.have sex? How do we continue to love each other? How do we continue
:38:26. > :38:30.to be- to pursue the dream of the community that we want to have in
:38:30. > :38:32.the midst of this plague? And so then comes the discussion, well,
:38:32. > :38:35.the government would like to shut down some institutions, and some of
:38:35. > :38:37.these are old, core institutions, which is the bathhouses.There've
:38:37. > :38:41.always been bathhouses. They precede the gay community as we
:38:41. > :38:44.know it, where gay people would go and meet and have sex. And some
:38:44. > :38:46.people thought that was a good idea. The bathhouses are run by
:38:46. > :38:49.irresponsible business owners who are just- don't care about the
:38:49. > :38:52.pandemic and are ripping people off. And other people thought this is a
:38:52. > :38:55.dangerous precedent, that your friend the government would like to
:38:55. > :38:58.shut down these institutions. Is that OK with you? A majority of the
:38:58. > :39:08.community felt that we were in a crisis right now, and the baths
:39:08. > :39:17.
:39:17. > :39:20.And a lot of people were very afraid of it. And so the community
:39:20. > :39:24.divided. And to some degree a split also between the women's community,
:39:24. > :39:26.the lesbian community, and gay men, where gay men uh, uh, kept being
:39:27. > :39:30.controversial to a degree by insisting on having as much sex in
:39:30. > :39:33.as many places as they were doing. And the women's community was you
:39:33. > :39:36.know, to some degree saying, you know, we don't know. This is not
:39:36. > :39:39.the commu- this is not the core definitions of the community, that
:39:39. > :39:42.we should think the community should be fighting over. We don't
:39:42. > :39:52.think the central battles of GLBT liberation should be about, you
:39:52. > :39:53.
:39:53. > :40:03.know, public sex, for example. We think it... There should be a
:40:03. > :40:07.
:40:07. > :40:13.broader discussion. So it was a Since I did sit on the corner for
:40:13. > :40:17.20 years, I just saw the progression of people, you know, it
:40:18. > :40:22.was so scary. All of the sudden, they were walking down the street
:40:22. > :40:29.and the next time you see them they would be walking with a cane, or
:40:29. > :40:39.they would be in a wheelchair and that was devastating. There, I
:40:39. > :40:41.
:40:41. > :40:45.remember him. -- oh, I remember him. Here is the gay community who are
:40:45. > :40:50.concerned with appearances and here comes this disease that destroys
:40:50. > :40:59.your physical appearance. That is the first think it does and people
:40:59. > :41:04.were just losing many pounds. It look like we were looking in a
:41:04. > :41:10.concentration camp. People were losing so much weight in their
:41:10. > :41:15.faces and bodies so quickly. They did not know what part of the
:41:15. > :41:21.disease was causing it. So it it was these very physical
:41:21. > :41:26.manifestations that were horrifying to people and were very scary to
:41:26. > :41:34.people, especially if you had AIDS and saw someone who was worse off
:41:34. > :41:40.than you, you almost have to turn away. It was too scary. I was
:41:40. > :41:45.losing all the fat in my face and everywhere and I would walk by a
:41:45. > :41:50.store window and see myself and just jumped. It was like, who is
:41:50. > :42:00.that? I remember my mother saying, could you stand on your head and
:42:00. > :42:06.make some of the stuff flowed down to your face? Q Our skin and bone.
:42:06. > :42:14.-- you are skin and bone. The AIDS epidemic allowed me to move into
:42:14. > :42:21.the community and in many ways I began to thrive. It was like being
:42:21. > :42:30.in the army. For the first time, other than being involved with my
:42:30. > :42:39.family, I was involved with something else. I rolled up my
:42:39. > :42:47.sleeves and I wanted to be a part of this. The AIDS ward was a
:42:47. > :42:53.terrible and beautiful place at the same time. My primary role was to
:42:53. > :43:01.be one of the Shanti councillors, which is someone who is trained to
:43:01. > :43:07.sit and be and witness and have conversations and supports people
:43:07. > :43:17.through their processing. I work with people there who were 18 years
:43:17. > :43:26.old. We had people there who were in their sixties, but in their --
:43:26. > :43:36.but in general, they were sexually active young men. There were people
:43:36. > :43:41.coming in with diseases that were unbelievable and they were
:43:41. > :43:45.susceptible to so many things. It had to be a controlled environment.
:43:45. > :43:50.There was this idea we were there to cure and heel and not to
:43:50. > :43:54.minimise any of that, but really, back then what people were doing it
:43:54. > :44:04.was they were dying of AIDS and we were trying to help them as best be
:44:04. > :44:05.
:44:05. > :44:15.called. You could go at a couple of days and no-one would die. And then
:44:15. > :44:16.
:44:16. > :44:22.in one day, six people could die. And we saw many couples come in.
:44:22. > :44:29.One would die, at the other partner would be there, go to the whole
:44:29. > :44:39.process. Some time but pass and then the next lover would come in.
:44:39. > :44:41.
:44:41. > :44:51.There was a mum who came there and one, two, three times she lost her
:44:51. > :44:56.
:44:56. > :45:02.I would stand in the hallway are visiting and talking to a mother
:45:02. > :45:06.and father who had just stepped out of a room who had just found out
:45:06. > :45:13.about their son had three months to live or whatever, and the father
:45:13. > :45:17.would stand there and go, you know, it is harder for me to find out
:45:17. > :45:27.there but my son is a fag then to find out that he is going to be
:45:27. > :45:31.
:45:31. > :45:34.dying soon. And there I would be When Steve died, my friends were
:45:34. > :45:44.there for me. I felt so supported. My family was very, very much there
:45:44. > :45:44.
:45:44. > :45:48.for me. Also, I had other friends who were sick, and so I... It
:45:48. > :45:52.pulled me out of myself cos I could go help take care of them. And I
:45:52. > :45:56.think I mentioned Peter, who was one of my dearest friends. He's one
:45:56. > :46:00.of the first people I met when I moved to San Francisco. He was tall
:46:00. > :46:03.and handsome and grew up in a trailer park. And he... He used to
:46:03. > :46:09.keep these diaries, and he always wanted them published after he died
:46:09. > :46:19.as "Diaries of an Illiterate Homosexual". Peter was such an
:46:19. > :46:22.
:46:22. > :46:25.original. He was just amazing. He He had moved back here to die. He
:46:25. > :46:29.and his lover. I had introduced he and his lover, George, and then
:46:29. > :46:32.they moved to Rhode Island where George was from. And then when
:46:32. > :46:36.Peter got sick, they moved back to San Francisco cos care was better
:46:36. > :46:41.and their core group of friends was here. And Peter was getting sicker
:46:41. > :46:45.and sicker, and they told him he had four or five days to live. And
:46:45. > :46:52.he was just in so much discomfort that he decided to take his own
:46:52. > :47:02.So we got together all the drugs and the cocktail that was gonna
:47:02. > :47:03.
:47:03. > :47:08.kill him, and we had a party at his house. He was in bed, sort of like
:47:08. > :47:11.a queen holding court. And we each got to go up and say our goodbyes.
:47:11. > :47:21.And I remember him saying, "You know, when I was single, you were
:47:21. > :47:30.married, and when I was married, you were single." "Do you think if
:47:30. > :47:40.we'd both been single at the same And I said, "Yeah, I know we would
:47:40. > :47:50.And then he gave me one of the most passionate kisses I've ever had in
:47:50. > :48:24.
:48:24. > :48:33.I was the charge nurse in the medical clinic, and we were
:48:33. > :48:37.starting the first AZT trials, and Doctor Jay had come on to help that.
:48:37. > :48:43.And he looked at me one day, and he said, "I think we could do this. We
:48:43. > :48:51.could do clinical research." And so we started the Quest Clinical
:48:51. > :48:57.Research Centre together. You know, both of us had never done research.
:48:57. > :49:04.We just kinda did it. You know, back then there weren't as many
:49:04. > :49:09.regulations. The reason that you wanted to do research back then was
:49:09. > :49:15.because there was nothing. And all you were doing was helping people
:49:15. > :49:18.die. And you felt like you had to work on these trials and figure out
:49:18. > :49:23.what was working, figure out what the problems were and get these
:49:23. > :49:26.drugs approved so that everybody could have 'em. By doing this and
:49:26. > :49:36.working really hard and getting these drugs on the market, maybe we
:49:36. > :49:37.
:49:37. > :49:40.In the early days, I would go to people's houses. They were too sick
:49:40. > :49:43.to come in to get their medicine. I'd go to their house, I'd draw
:49:43. > :49:49.their blood. They would come in very educated, wanting the newest
:49:49. > :49:59.treatment. Sometimes they would know more than I did cos they had
:49:59. > :50:01.
:50:01. > :50:05.And I would learn from them. There You know, of course, we made
:50:05. > :50:09.mistakes. Uh, you know, when we first started the AZT trials, we
:50:09. > :50:17.were giving way too much. You know, that's why people got so sick on it,
:50:18. > :50:21.If you ever come to our office, we have this picture of this guy who
:50:21. > :50:29.is almost like a skeleton, and he's holding a sign, "man cannot live on
:50:30. > :50:39.And every time I see that picture, it brings me back to those days of
:50:40. > :50:46.
:50:46. > :50:50."We need more than AZT, and we need I remember one fellow said to me,
:50:50. > :51:00."I'm at the end of my chemical rope." And I thought, boy, what a
:51:00. > :51:01.
:51:01. > :51:05.These doctors were coming up with every kind of pill you should take.
:51:05. > :51:10.It seemed like every day they were coming up with a new cure. But my
:51:10. > :51:14.friends were guinea pigs, and those cures didn't work. And they were
:51:14. > :51:23.still dying, and they were still dying. And not even just my friends,
:51:23. > :51:29.my relatives. You know, my cousin, he died of AIDS. You know, and it
:51:29. > :51:32.was like the whole family kept it, you know, zips the lip. Nobody
:51:32. > :51:41.wanted to say that people were gay, you know, and we didn't speak about
:51:41. > :51:51.it. We just said Romeo was sick. And he just succumbed to AIDS and
:51:51. > :52:19.
:52:19. > :52:25.I think my biggest fears around There was a lot in the early days
:52:25. > :52:32.of AIDS of CMV, cytomegalovirus, which attacked the eyes. And people
:52:32. > :52:36.were losing their eyesight in a short period of time. And, you know,
:52:36. > :52:41.I could deal with pain, or they could, you know, they could manage
:52:41. > :52:50.pain and all that, but the idea of losing my eyesight was really... I
:52:50. > :52:57.We worked on this trial for CMV retinitis. It infected people's
:52:57. > :53:07.eyes. We wanted to do research, so we would ask them if we could take
:53:07. > :53:11.
:53:11. > :53:14.And... You know, that was a hard conversation to have, but people
:53:14. > :53:22.were into it. They were going, "This awful thing is happening, and
:53:22. > :53:26.if I can give my eyes to advance Any time anybody is ill, you're
:53:26. > :53:32.meeting them at a very vulnerable place in their life. And these
:53:32. > :53:35.relationships can grow very intensely, very quickly. So it was
:53:36. > :53:45.my job to go into the autopsy room when the pathologist would come and
:53:46. > :53:49.
:53:49. > :53:59.And I would have to put them in this little urine container, and
:53:59. > :54:02.
:54:02. > :54:05.then put them in a paper bag and And that was really, really hard. I
:54:05. > :54:15.mean, these were people I really knew and loved, liked, whatever you
:54:15. > :54:15.
:54:15. > :54:20.want to say. And it was really hard And something that I'll never
:54:20. > :54:23.forget, actually. But one of my patient's sisters really helped me,
:54:23. > :54:33.because she said to me something like, "It makes me feel better to
:54:33. > :54:36.
:54:36. > :54:39.know that you're gonna be with him That I was there to watch over
:54:39. > :54:49.these people and make sure they were treated with respect and that
:54:49. > :54:59.their body was handled with love. And I just was so grateful for her
:54:59. > :55:36.
:55:36. > :55:41.How deeply are Americans worried about AIDS? A Los Angeles Times
:55:41. > :55:45.poll found that 50% of Americans favour quarantine for AIDS victims.
:55:45. > :55:53.48% said they should be issued special identification. 15% said
:55:53. > :55:58.We were preoccupied for those first four years with extraordinary civil
:55:58. > :56:02.rights attacks. In 1986 in California, there was an initiative
:56:02. > :56:08.put on the ballot by Lyndon LaRouche. It was an initiative to
:56:08. > :56:13.enforce the quarantine laws relative to HIV in California. And
:56:13. > :56:16.it was written in such a way as to sound medical. But the intent, as
:56:16. > :56:19.interpreted by the queer community and everyone else, was this is to
:56:19. > :56:27.stigmatize people with HIV/AIDS and could go so far as to have them
:56:27. > :56:33.quarantined under doctor's orders. And when that ballot initiative
:56:33. > :56:35.first was put forward, it was overwhelmingly favoured. And a
:56:35. > :56:44.state-wide campaign formed, and we organized throughout California to
:56:44. > :56:51.defeat the initiative and defeated it. And it came again two years
:56:51. > :56:55.later. It was put forward a second time, in '88. And simultaneously
:56:55. > :56:58.there were laws that people could be fired for being HIV-positive.
:56:58. > :57:02.People could be mandatory tested. In other words, you could be tested
:57:02. > :57:08.without your consent. And then those results made available to
:57:08. > :57:12.The Reagan administration has been criminal in its response because
:57:12. > :57:15.they thought it was a disease of the gay community. What needs to be
:57:15. > :57:18.done is a federal programme equivalent to our effort to get to
:57:18. > :57:22.the moon or develop the atomic bomb. If we implement that, we can stop
:57:22. > :57:25.AIDS. But the way to go is not to start violating civil rights. It is
:57:26. > :57:28.not to start turning American against American in times of crisis.
:57:28. > :57:31.And I believe that when you live immorally, heterosexual or
:57:31. > :57:41.homosexual, and you violate the laws of God - and homosexuality
:57:41. > :57:43.
:57:43. > :57:46.does - you become wide open to I think the country as a whole
:57:46. > :57:52.understood that the queer community was taking care of each other, that
:57:52. > :57:56.our principal response was food banks and care programmes. And that
:57:56. > :57:59.it was a response that America should be proud of. And that maybe
:57:59. > :58:05.the Pat Buchanans and the bigots who were attacking us and who
:58:05. > :58:10.basically just wanted us to die, were wrong. And at a certain point,
:58:10. > :58:20.those attacks just stopped. They just couldn't get traction to
:58:20. > :58:23.
:58:23. > :58:27.continue to stigmatise people with AIDS organisations were just
:58:27. > :58:30.popping up everywhere. It was called the San Francisco model. I
:58:30. > :58:32.think one of the reasons the San Francisco model worked was cos of
:58:32. > :58:36.the size of San Francisco, and because of Castro Street itself,
:58:36. > :58:43.that there was a centre. San Francisco, people came here not for
:58:43. > :58:48.career. They came here because they wanted to live here. And when AIDS
:58:48. > :58:55.came along, the community was sort of inherent in that. All it needed
:58:55. > :58:58.was the AIDS epidemic to really make it coalesce. Whether it was
:58:58. > :59:04.taking care of people's pets when they were in the hospital, or
:59:04. > :59:09.bringing them food like Open Hand. Everybody wanted to do something.
:59:09. > :59:14.It was a way the community came together in an amazing way that...
:59:14. > :59:16.You know, politics had never done that. And it brought together the
:59:16. > :59:26.women's community, the gay women's community and the gay male
:59:26. > :59:27.
:59:27. > :59:34.community in ways that had Again and again, in every situation,
:59:35. > :59:38.every circumstance, there's lesbians there leading the fight.
:59:38. > :59:42.All the women had friends who were gay guys who were sick. I was
:59:42. > :59:46.walking up Castro Street one day to my apartment, and in the early days
:59:46. > :59:49.of these horrible tests, people would become severely anaemic.
:59:49. > :59:54.There was also a blood shortage because of the HIV in blood.
:59:54. > :59:58.Lesbians weren't at risk of HIV, and could donate blood, and did.
:59:58. > :00:01.And so I'm walking up Castro Street, and I see a poster. And I believe
:00:01. > :00:04.it was from the lesbian caucus of the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club.
:00:04. > :00:07.And it said, our boys need blood. Lesbian caucus blood drive for
:00:07. > :00:17.people with AIDS, San Francisco. And I remember thinking, this is
:00:17. > :00:27.
:00:27. > :00:37.People came to San Francisco to go, what is happening here that the
:00:37. > :00:42.response is so heartfelt? We make the hospital such a fantastic place.
:00:42. > :00:52.It is also true of the Shanti Project. Literally, there were
:00:52. > :00:53.
:00:53. > :01:00.thousands of people who volunteer thousands of hours. Every other
:01:00. > :01:09.Sunday, there is a party here. The hostess is a travel agent called
:01:09. > :01:17.Rita Berger. She came at Easter and offered to do and eastern branch.
:01:17. > :01:22.It went so well, it turned out that she would come every Sunday, and
:01:22. > :01:32.she would come this whole group of men, who spent a good part of the
:01:32. > :01:42.week baking all the food that was going to be eaten. I got together
:01:42. > :01:42.
:01:42. > :02:26.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 42 seconds
:02:27. > :02:33.with some friends and we started an We should have the place where we
:02:33. > :02:39.could sell these things. I had an idea to sell a store. I put
:02:39. > :02:43.together a board of directors and they wanted to call it AIDS Mart. I
:02:43. > :02:50.said we can't. I pulled rank. I was the President and it was not going
:02:50. > :02:59.to be called that. They said how about AID-Smart. I said no. No-one
:02:59. > :03:03.is going to shop there. I remember working the cash register and when
:03:03. > :03:09.you are working at a store you usually say thank you to the
:03:09. > :03:19.customer. Every customer would say it. They would say thank you for
:03:19. > :03:29.
:03:29. > :03:33.doing this. To them, just buying a teacher or a mark would help. A lot
:03:34. > :03:43.of people on disability, but they would come in one day a week and
:03:44. > :03:44.
:03:44. > :03:48.were the cash register. It was the only time some of them left the
:03:48. > :03:53.house. I felt we were more compassionate. We were going
:03:53. > :04:01.proving its other people did not understand. It went over
:04:01. > :04:05.everybody's head. I just remember how close that brought everybody it
:04:05. > :04:15.together. You know, it was just, or we did not care who you work, but
:04:15. > :04:15.
:04:15. > :04:23.we all had the same burden and that was just like the clue. Gay people
:04:23. > :04:29.were never seen as care givers. They were seen as good time people,
:04:29. > :04:34.having fun. All of a sudden, we were the ultimate care givers. It
:04:34. > :04:37.changed people's view of the gay community in a huge wave. I
:04:37. > :04:47.remember my father saying, because I was spending so much time taking
:04:47. > :04:57.care of my friends, he said, these on family. I said, yes, they're off.
:04:57. > :05:07.This is my family. He got it. He ended up taking care of my friends
:05:07. > :05:07.
:05:07. > :06:00.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 42 seconds
:06:00. > :06:08.When I was in the thick of it, I became, and I suspect many people
:06:08. > :06:15.do, I found it hard to imagine a future. I did not look much further
:06:15. > :06:22.than the next week or two because the whole thing was just so it
:06:22. > :06:31.impossible to grasp, but all this was really happening. I went
:06:31. > :06:38.through a long period of been isolated, been very sad -- being
:06:38. > :06:46.sad. All of the death and dying had taken its toll on me. I had been
:06:46. > :06:56.there for three years and it did cross my mind, how do you stop? How
:06:56. > :07:06.do you stop working in a place like this? We have a local newspaper
:07:06. > :07:06.
:07:06. > :07:13.here in San Francisco called the BAR and there was one issue where
:07:14. > :07:23.they ran up the photographs of all the people that had died that year.
:07:24. > :07:24.
:07:24. > :07:34.It was just page after page after page after page. All these people
:07:34. > :07:38.
:07:38. > :07:45.died on the unit. I just felt something right here. It was a
:07:45. > :07:55.physical quick. I saw all these faces and I was stunned by how many
:07:55. > :07:58.
:07:58. > :08:08.of them I knew from working on the unit. And I, you know, I realised I
:08:08. > :08:09.
:08:09. > :08:13.couldn't, I just couldn't do it any more. There are times when you
:08:13. > :08:22.think, I cannot take it any more. I don't want to watch this, I don't
:08:22. > :08:27.want to see it. There are just too many images I don't want in my head
:08:27. > :08:32.and, you know, you're feeling of wanting to run away. It was my
:08:32. > :08:39.generation that was being infected and so that, of course, made it
:08:39. > :08:49.even heavier because, you know, we were too young to die and I felt
:08:49. > :08:54.like I was too young to go all through this. All this loss. When
:08:54. > :08:58.you are doing this work, you have to figure out how to take care of
:08:58. > :09:05.yourself and not feel it all the time, but sometimes when somebody
:09:05. > :09:11.would die and I'd find myself crying, I would feel like I was
:09:11. > :09:18.crying for everyone. It wasn't just that person, it just felt
:09:18. > :09:25.overwhelming and I just... Because sometimes you just had to cry. You
:09:25. > :09:32.had to let it out. I think there were times to the epidemic when I
:09:32. > :09:41.would hear someone was sick and it was just, I would not call them, I
:09:41. > :09:51.could not see them, it was too much. I somehow knew my limits and I
:09:51. > :09:52.
:09:52. > :09:59.couldn't take one more sick friend on. It felt bad, but it so easy to
:09:59. > :10:05.become part of a care givers's group and that is your life for
:10:05. > :10:11.many months and sometimes I could not do it, especially in the late
:10:11. > :10:21.1980s and early 1990s. I was sick. It was just about enough to get out
:10:21. > :10:26.
:10:26. > :10:31.of bed. A lot of times it was the side-effectss of the drugs. He did
:10:31. > :10:38.not have time to worry about what else was happening. Tim was my
:10:38. > :10:43.partner during this time, but he was also HIV-positive and I did not
:10:43. > :10:51.think I could lose another partner, and I told him that. But we liked
:10:51. > :10:59.each other and we kept seeing each other and after six months he said,
:10:59. > :11:08.I'll weep together or aren't we? I just that, you know, I'd really
:11:08. > :11:13.love this person and what happens happens. We would take turns been
:11:13. > :11:18.sick. I would be sick and he would take care of me and vice-versa.
:11:18. > :11:22.Thank God we were never sick at the same time. He was not feeling well
:11:22. > :11:32.and I called the doctor and I said, I am going to the hospital. I
:11:32. > :11:33.
:11:33. > :11:43.bundled him into the car and we were driving down the street and I
:11:43. > :11:44.
:11:44. > :11:54.guess he had an aneurysm. I was driving Atmph, trying to open his
:11:54. > :12:01.
:12:02. > :12:09.mouth and telling him to breathe. - - driving Atmph. I ran every like.
:12:09. > :12:19.Thank God I didn't kill anybody. By the time we got to the hospital, he
:12:19. > :12:22.
:12:22. > :12:31.was dead. It was so quick. I was in a total state of shock. I thought I
:12:31. > :12:35.was going to lose my mind. It just felt like it would be really easy
:12:36. > :12:41.to not be here any more. Most of my friends were dead and there did not
:12:41. > :12:46.seem to be any reason to stick around. But I didn't, and I am glad
:12:46. > :12:53.I did not kill myself. It is the only time I had been suicidal, and
:12:53. > :12:58.it was odd. It wasn't a crazy suicidal. It just felt very light,
:12:58. > :13:08.I don't need to be here. There is no reason for me to be here. It
:13:08. > :13:42.
:13:42. > :13:47.seemed very logical. I still can There was some hope on treatment
:13:47. > :13:53.and research. Some of the money was flowing. Experimental drugs were
:13:53. > :14:03.more accessible. The activists were meeting the pharmaceutical
:14:03. > :14:05.
:14:05. > :14:15.companies to talk about medicines. And then Act Up came along. There
:14:15. > :14:19.
:14:19. > :14:29.were political artists. -- they were. It transformed the dialogue.
:14:29. > :14:34.Fight back, or fight AIDS. -- fight AIDS. He is the first time I
:14:34. > :14:39.crossed a picket line. I wanted to go into the AIDS Conference because
:14:39. > :14:44.it was information I wanted to get. What they were screaming and
:14:44. > :14:49.hollering about, I agreed with, but then I realised that everybody is
:14:49. > :14:54.doing what they need to do. They need to be out there screaming and
:14:54. > :14:58.hollering and pushing because things don't happen unless you push
:14:58. > :15:08.and I needed to go in and get that information so I could take care of
:15:08. > :15:11.
:15:11. > :15:15.them. Once I figured that out, it I mean, that was when drugs weren't
:15:15. > :15:25.on the fast track, where it took ten years to get a drug approved,
:15:25. > :15:28.
:15:28. > :15:32.and the activists really worked for Neil Yeager. James Martin Case.
:15:32. > :15:39.One of the way I came back into the world was through the Names Project,
:15:39. > :15:45.which was the AIDS memorial quilt, which Cleve Jones started. And my
:15:45. > :15:51.friend Marvin Feldman. He came up with the idea that people would
:15:51. > :15:54.make panels memorialising their friends and children and lovers. It
:15:54. > :16:04.was a creative, positive way to focus their grief then sew it all
:16:04. > :16:06.
:16:06. > :16:09.together and make a powerful When they went to Washington and
:16:09. > :16:14.unfolded those blankets, it was like, you know, lotus flower after
:16:14. > :16:22.lotus flower after lotus flower. And each petal was a person, you
:16:22. > :16:32.know? And it was so powerful. It was so powerful you didn't even
:16:32. > :16:37.
:16:37. > :16:46.have to say anything. The tears How are you? I'm good. Nervous, but
:16:46. > :16:50.good. Sure. The results are negative. OK. Good. Good. I still
:16:50. > :16:53.wanted to be involved. After my work in the hospital, it was fairly
:16:53. > :16:56.easy for me to translate, take those skills and move into working
:16:56. > :17:06.in testing clinics and working with people who are at risk for HIV, as
:17:06. > :17:09.well as occasionally having to tell people that they were infected.
:17:09. > :17:15.When the test occurred, we could see how we're doing on prevention,
:17:15. > :17:20.and we were able to turn that around. So the likelihood that more
:17:20. > :17:27.and more people were being infected had changed. So less despair, less
:17:27. > :17:36.sense of absolute crisis. We're now getting into a sense of maybe
:17:36. > :17:40.there's a place to go here. Something seemed to be working. I'm
:17:40. > :17:48.not saying that there was a cure, but there was a slowdown. People
:17:48. > :17:53.weren't dropping like flies any more. Some people were hanging on.
:17:53. > :17:57.And there was this one guy, he was in a wheelchair. He used to come by
:17:57. > :18:02.on a bicycle, and then he was in a wheelchair, and then he had a patch
:18:02. > :18:09.over his eye. And I hated to look at him because I remember when this
:18:09. > :18:13.guy used to come by on his bicycle and buy flowers for his sister. And
:18:13. > :18:16.we would just laugh and everything. And I couldn't laugh at him any
:18:16. > :18:22.more because he was coming by in a wheelchair, and it was like he was
:18:22. > :18:31.almost on his way out, and I just thought, "God, where are you?"
:18:31. > :18:38.And he was one of the first who, the next time I saw him, he wasn't
:18:38. > :18:43.in a wheelchair. He was walking. He had a cane. And then the next time
:18:43. > :18:47.I saw him, he didn't have that eye patch on anymore. And then, hey, I
:18:47. > :18:54.swear to you, yesterday I saw him at my flower stand, on his bicycle,
:18:54. > :19:00.and he was back. He wasn't back like he was in the beginning, but,
:19:00. > :19:07.you know, I'm not the way I was 20 years ago either. But he was there
:19:07. > :19:10.and he had gone through the storm. And he had weathered the storm, and
:19:10. > :19:20.his spirit was just as bright and effervescent as it was in the
:19:20. > :19:21.
:19:21. > :19:25.The Washington Post came out with a headline, and it showed death from
:19:25. > :19:35.AIDS, and it was a graph going down. And it basically said cocktail
:19:35. > :19:56.
:19:56. > :20:00.This means that AIDS work as we I remember my friend Ben saying in
:20:00. > :20:03.the old days that he would never go to Costco and buy one of those big
:20:04. > :20:07.things of toilet paper, cos he didn't think he'd ever use it all
:20:07. > :20:10.up. And now he can. That's the difference. I would never take a
:20:10. > :20:14.commission more than five or six months out, cos I didn't think I'd
:20:14. > :20:20.be able to finish it. Now I'll take a commission that's, you know, a
:20:20. > :20:25.year out. And now I have a partner whom I love and whom I hope to be
:20:25. > :20:30.with for a very long time. And so I'm imagining a future. I'm
:20:30. > :20:33.allowing myself to imagine a future. And that's scary, too. I mean, I
:20:33. > :20:37.can feel it right now. There's like butterflies in my stomach. It's
:20:37. > :20:41.like I'm hoping. I'm feeling that hope again. And I could lose it,
:20:41. > :20:51.and I have to remember that. Cos you get sick and, bam. You just
:20:51. > :20:52.
:20:52. > :20:55.My friend John, who has studied Buddhism, talks about this metaphor
:20:55. > :21:05.of people who have been through some huge experience of loss, who
:21:05. > :21:09.
:21:09. > :21:15.cannot find their way back, if you But they still walk the Earth
:21:15. > :21:24.hungry. Hungry for connection. Hungry for some way to regain a
:21:24. > :21:29.sense of life and balance. And I do, when I walk through the Castro
:21:29. > :21:32.sometimes, I see people who haven't been able to do that. And that's
:21:32. > :21:38.something that could have easily happened to me, in that I could
:21:38. > :21:48.have, you know, become one of those hungry ghosts. And, luckily for me,
:21:48. > :21:50.
:21:50. > :21:53.I met someone, and I encountered life again. Here was this man
:21:53. > :22:03.walking down the street, and thank God I got it together, and I said
:22:03. > :22:04.
:22:04. > :22:06.hello. And he's younger than me. Like much younger than me. And it's
:22:06. > :22:10.been a powerful, powerful experience to love and be very
:22:10. > :22:19.close to someone who's younger than me, who did not have the experience
:22:19. > :22:25.that I had with the AIDS epidemic and all that terrible loss. And go
:22:25. > :22:35.on with my life having that inside me, and... And it not be the all-
:22:35. > :22:35.
:22:35. > :22:39.consuming experience that I had had. And as much as I think about my
:22:39. > :22:49.father and what he went through in the war, I don't want like my war
:22:49. > :22:51.
:22:51. > :22:59.In January of 2007, I became the executive director of a GLBT
:22:59. > :23:02.Historical Society in San Francisco. And it surprised me that the
:23:02. > :23:05.conversation about AIDS that I had been having for so many years
:23:05. > :23:11.wasn't still going on in that group or in the community of the GLBT of
:23:11. > :23:16.San Francisco. For me it had continued, cos I was doing
:23:16. > :23:19.international AIDS work with AIDS groups. So suddenly no one was
:23:19. > :23:23.talking about AIDS. There weren't people with AIDS who everyone was
:23:23. > :23:27.sort of... If they were around, it took me a while to figure out who
:23:27. > :23:37.they were. And an entire part of how I had perceived the community
:23:37. > :23:41.
:23:41. > :23:46.I don't have to worry when I'm old, you know, in looking back at my
:23:46. > :23:54.life, that I didn't do anything. And in terms of my politics, this
:23:54. > :23:57.was the thing that I got to do the most. Without all these people
:23:57. > :24:06.participating in these clinical trials, we would not be where we
:24:06. > :24:16.are today. And I really wish that some of them were around today to
:24:16. > :24:24.
:24:24. > :24:28.see where we are, because I don't This tragedy, it taught us how to
:24:28. > :24:35.be humble. It taught us how to be honest. It taught us how to love in
:24:35. > :24:44.spite of what's at the end of the tunnel. How to be a little bit more
:24:44. > :24:48.considerate of another person. It showed us how to find spirituality.
:24:48. > :24:58.It taught me. I can only speak for myself. It taught me how to find my
:24:58. > :25:01.
:25:01. > :25:07.spirit and how to make my flame You know, it's like the AIDS
:25:07. > :25:12.epidemic is not over. I still have friends who are living with HIV.
:25:12. > :25:17.Every once in a while, someone I know becomes infected. I mean, it
:25:17. > :25:20.continues. What has stopped continuing, at least in San
:25:20. > :25:30.Francisco and in most of the developed world, is the vast amount
:25:30. > :25:34.
:25:34. > :25:42.I would really like to be able to live long enough to know how does
:25:42. > :25:47.the epidemic actually come to an end. Like will the treatments come
:25:48. > :25:50.and finally and effectively stop people from becoming sicker? And
:25:51. > :26:00.will the vaccine come and stop people from being able to transmit
:26:01. > :26:08.
:26:08. > :26:13.and acquire it? And will it all You know, when people say how did
:26:13. > :26:16.you get through it, I don't know. You know, you just do, and
:26:16. > :26:19.everybody does. I mean, anybody who's got cancer or AIDS, and
:26:19. > :26:24.there's like, "Oh, you're so amazing, you've gotten through
:26:25. > :26:28.this." It's like, do I have a choice? You know, I want to stay
:26:28. > :26:35.alive and I'm gonna take care of myself the best I can. And you just
:26:35. > :26:40.do it. And it's not heroic. You just do it. And same thing with
:26:40. > :26:44.losing a partner. It's, you know, so many, you know... Most people in
:26:44. > :26:48.the world lose partners, you know, at one time in their lives or
:26:48. > :26:58.another. And you just... You live through it, and it's horrible, but
:26:58. > :27:02.
:27:02. > :27:08.I know I have so many friends who died so young. That's... I mean,