In 2010, I Thought It HIV/AIDS Was Over, But That’s When the
Were Just Beginning
NOTE: This Tuesday, December 1st, 2020, is both World AIDS Day AND Giving Tuesday. So please take a look at the evolution of STORIES: The AIDS Monument, below, and if you feel so inclined, please donate to support our work in your GivingTuesday Pledges by visiting My Donation Page.
In the summer of 2010, I was at the beginning of what, in hindsight, can best be described as an awakening. Just over 30 years old, I had recently begun my journey of meditation, which led me to discover a plethora of great things about myself, and about the world around me. This discovery wasn’t one of those ones you see in TV or read about in books, filled with bright lights and exciting changes, or at least, it didn’t seem so at the time. Instead, it resulted in the ending of a 6-year relationship, moving into a furniture-less apartment, was accompanied by an abrupt loss of income, and one of the most important realizations of my life:
I knew nothing.
But from not knowing, and accepting it, comes the beginning of learning.
One example of this awakening of my unknowing came in the form of a casual date, one of many, which was actually a fun byproduct of this period of my life. One such casual date began at the Crunch Gym on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood, CA, a place that could best be described as a nightclub with beautiful people and some gym equipment. It had an equal number of mirrored reflective surfaces as it had machines, a small ramp that served the dual-purpose of handicap access and catwalk, and was complete with opaque glass-walled showers butting up to the entrance to the gym. So while you could definitely get a great workout in, and meet some really cool people, it was also a great place to meet guys.
One of those guys I met was this tall, handsome dark-haired Latino man a few years my junior. We did the stereotypical glance-across-the-gym, a slight smile, then I went up and started a conversation. I flirted, we made a date. It was all pretty routine.
We met at my apartment and what I lacked in furniture I made up for in charm, or at least that’s the way I remember it. We started talking, and there was a clear, palpable connection there. It was fireworks and excitement and that part was a lot like what you see in the movies. As it was clear we were quickly progressing this from a casual date to sex, I candidly threw off a statement that used to be common for me:
“You’re negative right?”
His response was confident and quick.
“No.”
It took me a second to register that response, and I kept moving forward. It was 2010, a full decade after “AIDS ended”, or at least that’s what I thought at the time.
“Wait, what?”
“No, I’m HIV Positive.”
We continued making out, but then I stopped, not out of fear, rather because I had a bunch of questions for him. We took a break, and this angel sat with me and answered a ton of questions about his status, ones that I am embarrassed that I asked now, instead of knowing them at the time. Questions like:
“How long have you been positive?”
”What does that mean for sex with people who are negative?”
”How long have you known?”
”Can you contract HIV through (fill in specific sexual position?”
Look, this was 2010, and here’s the thing about that period: there wasn’t a plethora of overt information or commonplace conversation about HIV/AIDS anymore and/or yet. There wasn’t a lot of talk about PREP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) because it didn’t exist yet. in retrospect, this period of time was a great limbo in the global conversation of HIV/AIDS. For me, and for many of the people I knew, especially many of the young gay men I knew, HIV/AIDS was a thing of the past. Something we “beat”, and because everyone used condoms, it had kind of gone away.
Naive, party of one, your table is now available.
The lack of seemingly-readily available information at the time doesn’t prevent the wave of shame that washes over my body in vividly remembering both that way of thinking and the ignorant barrage of questions I asked my date that night. I liken my questioning of him to the type of questioning “well-meaning White people” ask their Black friends and co-workers, a level of ignorance so grotesque that in addition to showing their severe lack of education, it shows a lack of compassion in that they, or in my case, he, should be the one to educate me.
But my date was gracious, answered all my questions, and was really sexy, too. We ended up having a really fun, intimate, safe evening. When he left, I meditated, tapping into my then-newfound passion, and one of the things that came clear to me was this: I had a lot of work to do, and I was making a commitment to doing it.
Getting to Work
The thing about meditation and setting intentions is that when it comes from a clear place, the Universe starts to respond. Within days of my date, I sat down beside my friend Craig at the same Crunch gym on Sunset where I met that handsome teacher. Craig is tall (I swear I’m not a height-ist), handsome, and at the time in his early 50’s. He and his husband, Tony, have been together for 30-some years and are this really cool, smart, kind couple.
Craig and I were stretching before a spin class, and I casually asked what he was working on. As I remember it, he mentioned the idea of working with another friend to enhance the AIDS Memorial Walk, the plaques on Santa Monica Blvd, part of the original memorial to AIDS victims in West Hollywood.
These plaques were produced and maintained by the Alliance for Housing and Healing as part of their AIDS Memorial Walk, and often accompanied a palm tree and are a beautiful tribute to the people who died from AIDS and lived in - or had an impact on -this city that lost nearly 1/3 of its entire population in the 10-year span beginning in 1984, when the city was founded.
Craig and many others described that period of time, walking through the streets of WeHo, as walking through a war-zone. Recently-healthy, vibrant, and often young bodies and faces were rapidly replaced with the gaunt, thinning, and hollowed-eyed stares of people who were succumbing to the brutal impacts of AIDS.
Alliance for Housing and Healing (AHH), Sponsors the AIDS Memorial Walk in West Hollywood
As Craig shared more of what he hoped a new, reimagined memorial could be, I added the story of my recent-encounter/educational experience. I shared that while I considered myself to be somewhat educated, I had a lot to learn, and I ventured a hypothesis I was not alone in that need. We made a plan to meet to talk more about the opportunity to create something together, and we did. An AIDS Memorial would be great, but one of the things I was adamant about, and Craig concurred, is that it had to talk to youth, it had to be a resource of educational experience and the need for HIV/AIDS to be part of a conversation, to both educated AND to remove stigma around HIV/AIDS.
I started informal research, asking my mother, a high school English teacher, and my brother, then a junior in high-school, what their schools taught about HIV/AIDS. It was grim - there wasn’t much. It was in fact a history lesson, and part of a safe-sex curriculum during a week of Health Class. I reflected on my own experience in school “learning” about HIV/AIDS. What I remember, and what some friends corroborated, was a brief discussion that AIDS killed, it mostly affected drug users and gay men, so if you were to avoid both of those things you would be fine.
Uh… yea that explains a lot of internalized homophobia, fear of coming out, and lack of a complete understanding and/or willingness to talk about it.
It was important for me to make sure no other gay kids endured that self-torture, and to make sure there wasn’t a “death sentence” or other fear-based stigma associated with people who were now living healthy, full lives as HIV+ Men and Women thanks to advances in health-care, prescription drugs, and a better understanding of what it meant to be HIV+ Non-Detectable.
We began inviting others into the fold, like our friends Hank Stratton, an acclaimed film, television and stage actor, Conor Gaughan, a political consultant and digital strategist, and Ruth Tittle, who moved to WeHo to take over the pharmacy her brother owned when he began losing his battle with AIDS, and who became a compassionate force in AIDS Activism as a result. We had great advisers like pioneering Lesbian and AIDS Activist Ivy Bottini, and our friend David Mixner, both of whom helped remind us - subtly and not-so-subtly - the importance of celebrating the activists of the movement. Did you ever hear about how ACT UP put the giant condom on Senator Jesse Helms House? Talk about Good Trouble.
We formalized our vision in 2012 into a board of directors, a registered non-profit, and added prominent voices to the board like:
Mark Lehman, a West Hollywood attorney and activist;
Peggy Callahan, a journalist/producer, and global anti-slavery activist who has been instrumental in content development, including the award-winning short film “The UNIT: Lessons in Living and Dying”;
Rogerio Carvalheiro, an architect and Todd Williamson, an artist, both of whom worked closely to secure our design and our relationship with the cities Arts & Cultural Affairs Commission;
Irwin Rappaport, an entertainment lawyer who has managed many-a-contract;
Bobby Heller, a LA-based photographer agent who was instrumental in developing our PHOTO__ Fundraisers
Michael Nutt, a wealth-management executive passionate about making a difference in our world.
Stephen Simon, LA AIDS Task Force and City Government Official
Mark Itkin, philanthropist and recently-retired WME Executive
Jorge Mellado, real estate agent and development executive
J. Hobart, an incredible NY-based trial-attorney instrumental in our governance
Bruce Brown, retired Microsoft executive and tech expert who has steered us in many great digital, along with former board-member Dimple Thakkar, social media guru
Irene Kim, world-reknowned surgeon at Cedars-Sinai
Sherri Lewis, AIDS-Activist, performing artist
Phi Wilson, founder of Black AIDS Institute/AIDS Activist
Etienne Maurice, Activist and Actor, and founder of WALKGOOD LA
Paris Chong, Art Curator and Consultant instrumental in PHOTO__ Events
Dr. Christine Tangalakis, Higher-education specialist who will be a huge asset in our programming moving forward
Abdi Nazemian, author and screenwriter
Lane Janger, Therapist and Former Entertainment Executive
We’ve been supported by generous donors, many of whom have been brought in by development-expert and AIDS Activist John Gile.
And we crystallized our vision:
STORIES: The AIDS Monument seeks to remember the lives lost, celebrate the advances, and educate this and future generations about the current and future states of HIV/AIDS
We’ve filmed incredible interviews, celebrated with amazing fundraisers filled with people passionate about our vision, and have led awesome discussions in our STORIESTelling Series, like the impact of HIV/AIDS on Music at Grammy Museum, and the impact of HIV/AIDS on Hollywood at Neuehouse.
HERE’s THE GOOD NEWS
I’m so inspired by the work of this board and the community involved in making this vision a reality. My ignorance didn’t lead to this, but my willingness to overcome that ignorance certainly played a part in creating this lasting monument to remember, celebrate and educate. The lesson here is this: keep seeking to understand, and great things will come.
See a fly-through of STORIES: The AIDS Monument, opening in West Hollywood Park in late 2021: