VOLUME 6, ISSUE 5

¡SSUEP BI-WEEKLY

JULY 1—JULY 15, 1987

! going to li
f say. It is the last tim e I a m goin g
&

r to sa y it.

I'm m ak in g m y fare(Continued on page 58)

HELD OVER THROUGH AUGUST 8TH!
"Bingo! A splendid-voiced quicksilver imp whose mimicry spans whole scenes
from Broadway to opera spiced with sass and healthy camp."
N.Y. Times

"A sensitive, beautiful singer filled with comedic joy!"
N.Y. Post

‘‘The ultimate cabaret entertainer!"
Entertainment Today

THE

HOUSTON ALLRED
SHOW

WITH NIGHTLY “ SURPRIZING” GUESTS!
Broadway and cabaret star Houston Allred returns to L.A.
with his vast repertoire of over 400 songs, promising no two shows alike.

THE NEW MAYFAIR THEATRE SHOWROOM
(Located upstairs at the Mayfair Theatre)

2 1 4 S a n ta M onica Blvd. in S a n ta M onica
(at 2nd Street, free parking in 2nd Street lots)

PERFORMANCES THURS - SAT AT 9 P M . & 11 P.M.
Cover charge and two drink minimum apply.
Full bar, coffees and desserts available.

RESERVATIONS: (213) 451-0621

HOPELESSLY
ROMANTIC?
Introducing another alternative to meeting dynamic people for
today’s relationships. Personalized dating service for gay men
and women.
Professional
Friendly Staff

Ages 18 & Over
All Races
Non-Computerized
Gay Women Welcome

Private Interviews
Special Club
Events

HOPELESS ROMANTICS
"Committed To Lasting Relationships"

(213) 936-8900
(By Appointment)

MEET AND TALK WITH
ANOTHER GAY MAN

TH E GAY
C O N N E C T IO N
S 976-MEET

Gay and Alone?
"No matter who you are,
there is someone for whom
you are the perfect match."
Find that person through
the science of . . .

Computer Matching
• Discreet and confidential.
• No fees exceed $30.
Call for free brochure and application

iiiJ jiJ iiiJ iJ d i

f l

1- 800 - 633-6969
Toll free 24 hours

L.A. s Only

1 STOP
VIDEO STORE

He’s Waiting
For You . . .
At The End Of
O
o
v

or»

2o

-C

a.
E

è
o¡3
‘<

s

s

JO

3
j}

THE GAY
C O N N E C T IO N

LINE

Southern California's
First and Most Reliable
Gay Phone
Matching Service!

BUY IT!
RENT IT!
EXCHANGE
IT!

You’ll get up to 3 minutes for private, hot
conversation and exchanging phone numbers.
All for $2.00 plus tolls on your phone bill*.

(213) 662-3055
*You must be 18 years or older. No credit cards required. You may not get a matching caller everytime.

5209 Sunset Blvd

July 1, 1987-July 17, 1987

FRONTIERS 57

-well appearance. I am not overly tired. I am certainly not suffering from burnout. I have
a lot of piss and vinegar left in me— too much in fact. No, I'm not tired.
Not physically tired, at any rate. I am, of course, as are you, very tired of many things.
I am tired of what
th ey are doing to us. I am tired of what th ey aren't do
tired of seeing so many of my friends die— I'm exceptionally tired of that, as I know you are too.
I'm also tired of people com ing up to me on the street and saying "Thank you for what
you're doing and saying." They mean it as a compliment, I know. But now I scream back,
"Why aren't you doing it and saying it, too?" Why are there so few people out there scream ­
ing and yelling? You're dying too!
I'm telling you they are
killing us! We are being
picked off one by one and
half the men reading this
could be dead in five years
and you are all still sitting on
your asses like weaklings;
and therefore we, the gay
community, are not strong
enough and our organiza­
tions are not strong enough
and we are going to die for it!
I have come to the terrible
realization that I believe this
gay community of ours has a
death wish and that we are
going to die because we
refuse to take responsibilities
for our own lives.
Yes, most of all, I'm tired

37386

and still counting...

of you. I'm tired of the death wish of the gay community. I'm tired of our col­
luding in our own genocide. I'm tired of you, by your own passivity, actively
participating in your own genocide.
You do not have to have AIDS to acguire a system deficient and immune.
How many of you have given a thousand dollars or more at any one time to
any gay organization or gay charity? Ten thousand? (For the rich readers: one
hundred thousand dollars? A million?)
How many of you have spent at least an hour a week volunteering for a gay
organization? Ten hours?
How many of you have left anything in your wills to anything gay?
And if you don't like any of the gay organizations, how many of you have spent

. half the men reading this
could be dead in five years and J
you are all still sitting on your *4
asses like weaklings. . .

. !-- -----

1 1

how much time to make any of them better? Instead of just bitching them into
further weakness. Or helped raise them money to make themselves better?
How many of you have bothered to consider that by raising $80,000 a year
you could fund a lobbyist in Washington, to fight for us all year long—to join
with a network of other gay lobbyists, paid for by groups in other cities, so that
we could have as many lobbyists as General Motors or the National Rifle Associa­
tion, or the National Council of Churches or the American Medical Associa­
tion, all of whom get what they want?
Is it such a big deal to get a group together to raise $80,000 to save your lives?
(Did anyone notice that when Paul Popham died, he asked that contributions
be made to AIDS Action Council, a lobbying group, and not Gay Mens Health
Crisis, which he co-founded, and in whose ability to do anything but look after
funerals he had lost confidence and faith?)
How many of you have written consistently or even irregularly to an elected
official or testified to an official hearing on the subject of AIDS, or regarding
treatment, or official lethargy in this city and state and country?
How many of you really trust that NIH is capable of coordinating research
58 FRONTIERS

July 1,

1987-July17, 1987

around a crisis of this scope?
How many of you even know what the NIH is, or how important it is in your
life, and that your very own life is in its hands? You didn't know that did you?
That your very own life is in the hands of an agency you don't know anything
about.
How many of you believe there is sufficient education to contain what is
happening?
How many of you have children? How many of you have spoken to a school
board about sex education?
How many of you have had sex with more than one person in the last 10 years?
How many of you have protested actively against mandatory testing?
How many of you are willing to face up to the fact that the FDA is fucked up,
the NIH is fucked up, the CDC is very fucked up—and that entering the seventh
year of what is now a pandemic the boys and girls running the show at these
organizations have been unable to make whatever system they're operating work?
How long are you prepared to wait for these systems to work?
How long are you prepared to wait before our own AIDS organizations pro­
vide us with adeguate information on available treatments?
How many hours and days are you prepared to spend on the phone attemp­
ting, in vain, to find out what is going on where and how's it doing and why
can't my dying friends get it immediately?
How many of you believe you have no responsibility to take action on any of
these matters?
How many of you need to die or become infected before you feel you can take
action on why every single branch of government in charge of AIDS, both local
nd federal, is dragging its ass?
What's the number at which you can decide to stop just sitting guietly like

You do not have to have AIDS
to acquire a system deficient
and immunegood little boys and girls we were all brought up to be—and start taking
le, noisy, offensive political action?
t always amazes me when I tell people they have power, and they answer me,

"Power? Me? What power?" How can you be so conservative, dumb, and blind?
You know what is going on better than anybody; and yet you are silent, you con­
stantly, consistently, and continuously sit on your collective asses and refuse to
use your power.
Your voice is your power! Your collective voices! Your group power! Your
political power! Your names all strung together on one long list is your power!
Your bank accounts are your power, if you weren't all so devastatingly stingy when
it comes to funding anything gayer than a Halloween costume. Your bodies are
your power, your LIVING bodies all strung together in one long line that reaches
across this country and could reach to the moon if we only let it.
You know that this country is not responding on a national political level or
a local political level, and yet you sit by along with everyone else and watch
our men being picked off one by one by one by one by one.
No one is in charge of this pandemic, either in this city or this state or this
country! It is as simple as that. And certainly no one who is compassionate and

not being tested and were not legally available to us, I got in my car and drove
down to Washington. I wanted to find out what was going on. Like most people,
I have no notion of how the system works down there, who reports to whom, which
agency is supposed to do what. What I found out sent me into as profound a
depression as I have been in since this epidemic started.
My first meeting was at the White House, with the President's Domestic Policy
Advisor Gary Bauer, who advises Ronald Reagan on AIDS. I asked him if ig­
noring AIDS was intentional. He answered me that he had not seen enough
evidence that the Black Plague was going on yet. He was particularly interested
to hear from me that the current evidence indicates that the gay male popula­
tion of the major cities is on its way to becoming totally exposed to the virus.
He asked me if I thought female-to-male transmission was as potent as male-tomale. I said the statistics were about the same. He said his advisors told him other­
wise. I asked him if gay people who were AIDS experts could be on the Presi­
dent's Commission, and he told me NO. I asked him why the President had refused

Your bank accounts are your
power, II you weren't all so
devastatingly stingy when It
conies to lundlng anything
gayer than a Halloween
c o s tu m e ,

understanding and knowledgeable and efficient is even anywhere near the top
of those who are in charge. Almost every person connected with running the
AIDS show everywhere is second-rate. I have never come across a bigger assort­
ment ofthe second-rate in my life. And you have silently and trustingly put your

F

How many of you are willing to
lace up to the fact that the FDA
is lucked up, the NIH is lucked
up, the CDC is very lucked
up -

lives in their hands. You—who are first rate—are silent. And we are going to
die for that silence.
You know—it's not even a guestion of government funding any more. For six
long years we fought so hard to get the money. Finally Congress has appropriated
masses of money. Can you b eliev e m e when I tell you that it is not b ein g spent?
Two years ago 19 official AIDS treatment centers, called ATEUs for AIDS treat­
ment evaluation units, were set up by the NIH—and they still aren't being utiliz­
ed beyond a fraction of their humane possibilities and intentions. One year ago
the NIH was given $47 million just for testing new AIDS drugs— an d they aren't
spen din g it! Why didn't we know that? Where have we been for these long two
years? Why didn't we know that this precious, precious time—during which how
many dear dear friends of ours died—was being thrown out in the garbage
because we didn't get on the phone and inguire politely: "Please, sirs, can you
tell me what you're doing with all that nice money Congress gave you last May?''
How could we have been so lazy and irresponsible—and trusting? We, of all peo­
ple in this world, should know better, and know how not to trust. Where were
our gay leaders? Where were all our AIDS organizations? Where were our peo­
ple in Washington? Where was I? For I blame myself more than I blame anyone
else. God fucking damn it, I trusted too!
When I found out about three months ago that $47 million was actually lying
around not being used when I knew personally that at least a dozen drugs and
treatments just as promising as AZT and in many cases much less toxic were

^

;

•-*

to put anyone in charge—to appoint an AIDS czar? He told me the President
was the AIDS czar. I asked him why the President had not only not read Surgeon
General Koop's AIDS Report, or the National Academy of Sciences AIDS
Report—both of which were then over six months old and both of which beg
for immediate, all-out action. And why he hadn't even met with Koop personal­
ly, his own Surgeon General, and he answered me that the chain of command
dictates that, in matters of health, the President talks only to his Secretary of
Health and Human Services, Dr. Otis R. Bowen. It turns out that Dr. Koop has
absolutely no power; his position is simply that of figurehead, that they do not
like what he is saying, and I think that if you listen to what he is beginning to
say now, Dr. Koop is being pulled back into line.
Dr. Otis R. Bowen would not see me. He is Reagan's third Secretary of Health
and Human Services and he is supposed to be in charge of AIDS. Until he ap­
peared as the closing speaker at the Third International AIDS Conference, where
I am happy to say he was roundly booed—were any of you there to boo him?—
he had not been heard to say anything substantial at all about AIDS. The
Secretary of the main department of your government in charge of AIDS—the
one single man who can report to the President on the state of this nation's
health—had yet to be heard saying anything about AIDS—at the beginning of
the seventh year of this pandemic.
I discovered that Dr. Bowen had passed the AIDS buck over to his Assistant
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Robert Windom. Dr. Windom has
been in his job just about a year. He's never worked in government before. He
was a private physician in Sarasota, Florida, and he got his wonderful oppor­
tunity to work so close to his idol, Ronald Reagan, by contributing $55,000 to
Reagan's campaign fund. He is exceptionally ill-informed about AIDS. On a re­
cent NBC Radio coast-to-coast call-in show, he answered two of his questions
incorrectly. My favorite description of Dr. Windom comes from a top legislative
Congressional aid: "If his IQ were any lower, you'd have to water him.''
You laugh—and Dr. Windom is in charge of your life! An uncaring dumb
stooge who knows next to nothing about any of the drugs or treatments or research
is in charge of your life and you are laughing! Over half the men reading this
article could be dead in less than five years and you are laughing at this crack
about Dr. Windom!
Dr. Windom reports to Dr. Bowen who reports to the President.
Dr. Windom has passed the AIDS buck to his assistant, Dr. Lowell Harmison.
Dr Harmison is sort of the power behind the power behind the throne. Dr. Har­
mison does not like gays. Dr. Harmison has been described to me by several
Congressional contacts as "evil.'' "You cannot say enough bad things about Lowell
Harmison,'' I was told by more than one. He is so frightened of gay people that
he was terrified we would intentionally give blood in order to pollute the na­
tion's blood supply—on purpose.
Dr. Harmison reports to Dr. Windom who reports to Dr. Bowen who reports
to the President.
These are the four top men in charge of AIDS in the United States Govern­
ment, the government of all the American people. Your government. God (if
there is one) help us—because these four Satans won't.
I am here to tell you that I know more about AIDS than any of these four in­
humane men, and that any one of you here who has AIDS or who tends to so­
meone with AIDS, or who reads all the newspapers and watches TV, knows more
abut AIDS than any of these four monsters. And they are the four fuckers who
are in charge of AIDS for your government—the bureaucrats who have the
ultimate control over your life.
Next I went to the National Institutes of Health. The National Institutes of Health
July 1, 1987•July 17, 1987

FRONTIERS 59

receives $6.2 billion each and every year to look after the health of the American
people. To improve the health of the American people" is how the U.S. Government manual describes the NIH's mission. How many of you can tell me the name
of the head of NIH?
You don't know the name of the man who is given $6.2 billion each and every
year to help make you better if you have AIDS? You should be ashamed of
yourselves.
His name is Dr. James Wyngaarden, and he has never been heard to publicly
speak^out about AIDS either. $6.2 billion he is given every year and not only
sPeak out about AIDS, but you don't even know his name!
Dr. Wyngaarden reports to Dr. Windom who reports to Dr. Bowen who reports
to the President.

an old MGM musical. It's really made up of 12 institutes, which are sort of like
dorms, or fraternities, all part of the whole. The grounds are manicured and you
can't see any shit on the ground. Seven years ago, when AIDS was first noticed,
and you would have thought NIH would jump on it fast, this is what happened.
You would have thought that because there was a cancer involved, called Kaposi's
sardoma, it should have gone to the institute in charge-of cancer, the National
Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The National Cancer In­
stitute is the richest fraternity at NIH. In 1981, when AIDS first showed up and
should have gone into this rich fraternity, the head of this fraternity didn't want
it. He had one billion dollars of research money "to improve the health of the
American people," and the head of NCI didn't want it. Now how many of you
can tell me the name of the head of NCI, then and now?
The man who is in charge of the most important cancer research institute in
the entire world—and you don't know his name? You should be ashamed of
yourselves.
His name is Dr. Vincent T. Devita and I have it on good authority that he is
gay. In 1981, he didn't want AIDS, he didn't like the smell of it, and he didn't
want to spend any of his institute's $1 billion a year on it, so he too passed the
buck.
Dr. Devita reports to Dr. Wyngaarden who reports to Dr. Windom who reports
to Dr. Bowen who reports to the President.
Dr. Devita passed the buck to a poor relation, a much smaller institute named
the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes
of Health, which had a budget one-fourth of his and which was not nearly so
popular a fraternity to rush and was then run by a man named Dr. Richard Krause,
who didn't want AIDS either. Dr. Richard Krause is also a gay man. He subse­
quently resigned as head of NIAID, and he was replaced by—now I am sure you
can tell me the name of the man now the director of NIAID, the man who reports
to Dr. Wyngaarden who reports to Dr. Windom who reports to Dr. Bowen who
reports to the President—the single most important name in AIDS today, the name
of the man who has probably more effect on your future than anybody else in
the world.
How many of you know this man's name?
His name is Dr. Anthony Fauci. He's real cute. He's an Italian from Brooklyn,
short, slim, compact, he wears aviator glasses, a natty dresser, a very energetic
and dynamic man. After a recent meeting a bunch of us from New York had
with him, during which absolutely nothing was accomplished, he asked me what
we thought of the meeting. I told him: "everyone thought you were real cute."
And he blushed to his roots.
You are smiling and this is the man who has more effect on your future and
he is not spending those $47 million—which were given to him specifically to
test AIDS drugs—and you are smiling!
Everybody likes Dr. Fauci and everybody thinks Dr. Fauci is real cute, including
me, and every scientific person I spoke to whispers off to the side, "yes, he's real
cute, but he's in way over his head." Dr. Fauci is an ambitious bureaucrat who
is the recipient of all the buck-passing and dumping-on from all of the above.
He staggers, without complaint, under his heavy load. No loud-mouth Dr. Koop

HI

Dr. Fauci has had this $ 4 7
million lor a year, and worse—
the beds in his AIDS wards are
empty!

he.
Dr. Fauci, with his devoted staff of several dozen—that's right, folks, no more
than a couple dozen doctors and scientists are fighting against AIDS at NIAID,
I guess $47 million doesn't buy what it used to buy—is chief administrator of
the 19 AIDS designated treatment units around the country, and of all AIDS
research and testing for the entire country and no major decision can be made
60 FRONTIERS

July 1, 1987-July 17, 1987

without him. He works 18 hour days, goes into the wards after office hours to
visit patients, his wife is an AIDS nurse in his hospital—yes, I am sorry to say
he is married, although his wife did look like a lesbian so perhaps. . ., he must
summon committees, preside over meetings, supervise the selection of drugs
to test, monitor their results, deal with pharmaceutical companies, keep up on
all the latest information (a new drug application can run to 100,000 pages of
evidence), attend conferences all over the world, and put up with complaints
from absolutely everyone.
Dr. Fauci, of all the names in this article, is certainly not the enemy; because
he is not, and because I think he does care, I am even more angry at him for
what he is not doing—no matter what his excuses, and he has many.
Instead of screaming and yelling for help as loud as he can, he tries to make
do, to make nice, to negotiate quietly, to assuage. An ambitious bureaucrat doesn't
make waves. Yes, Dr. Fauci reports to Dr. Wyngaarden who reports to Dr. Win­
dom who reports to Dr. Bowen who reports to the President.
Dr. Fauci has had this $47 million for a year, and worse—the beds in his AIDS
wards are empty! A whole floor in America's state-of-the-art hospital, $47 million
given him to test new treatments, and his beds are empty, just as the majority
of places on the treatment protocols at those 19 ATEUs around the country are
empty.
What the fuck is going on here? Are they actually afraid they might learn
something that might save us?
Research at NIH? I have not space to go into the gory details. Let me just say
that the research rivalries in and among all the institutes at NIH could make
a TV series to rival Dynasty" and "Falcon Crest" in competitiveness, hostility,
selfishness, and greed. (Why doesn't the press write about these scandals as they
do about all others? Why doesn't the press ever investigate NIH? Is it so h o ly like the Vatican?)
Now you know why NIH stand for "Not Interested in Homosexuals."
What the fuck is going on here and what the fuck are you doing about it?
If I use gross revolting language—go ahead be offended—I don't know how
else to reach you, how to reach everybody. I tried starting an organization: I
co-founded GMHC which becomes more timid as it becomes richer day by day.

What the luck is going on here;
Are they actually afraid they
might learn something that
might save us?
I tried writing a play. I tried writing endless articles in the Native and the New
York Times and Newsday and screaming on Donahue and in front of every TV
camera put in front of me. I helped start ACT UP, a small bunch of too few very
courageous people willing to make rude noises. I don't know what else to do
to wake you up!
I will tell you something else to try and wake you up: if AIDS does not spread
out widely into the white non-drug using heterosexual population, as it may or
may not do, then the white non-drug using population is going to hate us even

more—for scaring them, for costing them a fucking fortune, for our "lifestyle"
which they will say caused this. AIDS will stay a disease of blacks and hispanics
and gays and it will continue to be ignored, it will be even more ignored.
The straight world is scared now because they're worried it's going to happen
to them. What if it doesn't? Think about that for a while. If all this lethargy is
going on now, think what will happen then—just as you are coming down with
)

And how many dea
have to be piled up in a heap
in front of your faces before
you learn to fight back and
scream and yell and
demand. .
—~

it and facing death.
Who is fighting back in any and all of this? Twenty-four million gay men and
lesbians in this country and who is fighting back? We have a demonstration in
Washington and we have 300 people and we think we're lucky! We get our pic­
tures in all the magazines and newspapers for one or two days and we feel real
proud. 60,000 Catholics march in Albany. 250,000 lews march in New York against
the treatment of Soviet lews. One million people march for nuclear disarmament.
What does it take to get you off your fucking asses?
'You want to die, Felix? Die!" That's a line from "The Normal Heart." In his
immense frustration, Ned Weeks yells it at his dying lover. That's not only how
I felt about Felix, but how I feel about all of you.
What does it take to make people hate? I hate Ed Koch because he is the one
person in this entire world who could have done something in the beginning
and didn't and it took us two years to even get a meeting with him, (we must
always remember that, as Dr. Mathilde Krim tells us, "this is an epidemic that
could have been contained"). And he has put yet another powerless wimp in
place as his Commissioner of Health; and gay men and women in New York still
kiss Koch's ass, as gay men and women still think Ronald Reagan is peachy
wonderful. And gay people in Massachusetts think that Ted Kennedy is wonder­
ful and he is in charge of health issues in the Senate and he has been silent
and cowardly about AIDS for six long years. And how many dead brothers have
to be piled up in a heap in front of your faces before you learn to fight back
and scream and yell and demand and take some responsibility for your own lives?
I am telling you they are killing us, and we are letting them.
Yes, I am screaming like an hysteric. I know that. I look and sound like an
asshole. I told you this was going to be my last tirade and I am going to go out
screaming so fucking rudely that you will hear this coarse crude voice of mine
in your nightmares. You are going to die and you are going to die very very
soon unless you get up off your fucking tushies and fight back!
Unless you do—you will forgive me—but you deserve to die.
I never thought I would come to say anything like that. Nobody deserves to die.
I recently spoke at a Village Voice AIDS Forum in New York on a panel with
Dr. Ron Grossman, who has one of the largest gay practices in New York. "Larry,"
he said to me, "our most outrageous early pronouncements are short of the mark.
And so have been our efforts. We are so behind."
AIDS is our holocaust. Tens of thousands of our precious men are dying. AIDS
is our holocaust and Reagan is our Hitler. New York City is our Auschwitz.
Holocaust is another word for genocide.
"Genocide" is a word I hear myself and others using more and more freguently. You don't hear it as much as you hear words like "mandatory testing" or "no

You are going to die and you
are going to die very very soo
unless you get up oil your iuc i
ing tushi&umiLfight back!

4

sex education in the schools" or "no condom ads on TV!"
Why doesn't everybody realize that all the screaming and yelling going on
about "education" and "mandatory testing" is one whale of a red herring?
Why doesn't everyone realize that while all the hatred and fury from the right
wing, from the fundamentalists, ecumenicals, Mormons, Southern Baptists, bornagains, Charismatics, orthodox Jews, Phyllis Schlafly, Paul Cameron, Governor
Deukmejian, Rep. Dannemeyer, lesse Helms, lerry Falwell—and all their egually as vocal supporters goes on; that while they are screa.ming and yelling about
the naughtiness of condoms and sex education and homosexuality, the killing
culprit virus continues to spread and spread and spread and kill and kill and
kill. While Rome burns, the Falwells fiddle fanning their fundamentalists into
fury against the faggots—and the junkies and the niggers and the spies and the
whores and. . . .
And they know it!

It is perfectly clear to me—no matter what Ronald Reagan and his henchmen
say—that no substantial battle for a cure will be mounted while he is in office
and that we must endure, at the least, another eighteen months of untended in­
tended death.
Very consciously they know that the more noise they can make, the more stall­
ing tactics they can put into action, with the aid of his staff and his Cabinet and
his Vice-President and his Attorney General and his Justice Department and his
Supreme Court and his Secretary of Education and his various Secretaries and
Assistant Secretaries of Health and Human Services and his director of the Na­
tional Institutes of Health and his Centers for Disease Control—the more gays
and Blacks and Hispanics will die.
They know this. I believe it is as conscious an act as this.
And we are allowing it!
We have fallen into their trap!
Our leaders—such as they are—their energies are consumed fighting these
battles against mandatory testing and for better education; and no one is fighting
the NIH for drugs and increased protocol testing and faster research. I am tel­
ling you that there are drugs and treatments out there that can prolong the guality
of our lives and you are not getting them. No one is fighting for them; and these
drugs and treatments are caught up in so much red tape that they are strangled
in the pipeline and the Reagan administration knows this, knows all this, and
does nothing about untangling the red tape and half the men reading this can
die because of it.
Yes, by our own passivity we are actively colluding and participating in our

m

*

4

AIDS is our holocaust an
Reagan is our Hitler. New York
City is our Auschwitz.

own genocide.
We are allowing ourselves to be knocked off one by one. Half the men reading
this could be dead in five years.
Our gay organizations are weak and still don't work with each other and our
AIDS organizations have all been co-opted by the very systems they were form­
ed to make accountable and you all sit by and allow it to happen when it's your
lives that are going down the tubes.
Politicians understand only one thing: PRESSURE. You don't apply it—you
don't get anything. Simple as that.
And it must be applied day by week by month by year. You simply can't let
up for one single second. Or you don't get anything. Which is what is happen­
ing to us.
For six years I have been trying to get the gay world angry enough to exert
this pressure. I have failed and I am ashamed of my failure. I blame myself:

4

Politicians understand only one
thing; PRESSURE. You don't
apply it—you don't get
anything.

somehow I wasn't convincing enough or clever enough or cute enough to break
through your denial or self-pity or death wish or self-destruction or whatever
the fuck is going on. I'm very tired of trying to make you hear me.
I'm shutting up and going away. The vast majority of the gay world will not
listen to what is so simple and plain. That around this country there are so few
voices as strident as mine is our tragedy. That across this country there is not
one single gay leader who has any national recognition like Gloria Steinem or
Cardinal O'Connor or Jerry Falwell or Jesse Jackson is also our tragedy. Why
is that? Why does every gay spokesperson finally just collapse under the apathy
of trying to make you listen—and failing, failing utterly.
Don't you ask yourselves quite often the Big Question: Why am I still alive?
Untouched? At some point I did something the others did. How have I escaped?
Don't you think that makes you obligated to repay God or fate or whomever or
whatever, if only you conscience, for this miraculous fact: I am still alive. I must
put back something into this world for my own life, which is worth a tremendous
amount. By not putting back you are saying that your lives are worth shit, and
that we deserve to die, and that the deaths of all our friends and lovers have
amounted to nothing.

I can't believe in your heart of hearts you feel this way.
I can't believe you want to die.

Do you?

July 1, 1987-July 17, 1987

FRONTIERS 61

HEPATITIS?
YOU CAN HELP US HELP OTHERS

EARN EXTRA INCOME
Have you ever had Hepatitis?
Do you nave Hepatitis now?
Have you been in contact with
anyone who has had Hepatitis?
Have you ever participated in
a Hepatitis plasma program?

if you a n s w e re d yes to
a n y o f th e a b o v e q u e s tio n s
FOR

FREE TESTING
AND MORE INFORMATION CALL

M D LABO R ATO R IES
LOS ANGCLCS

8225 santa Monica Bivd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

650-4880

■■■■il i i i r t

(213)

62 FRONTIERS

July 1, 1987-July 17, 1987

SOUTH BAY AM A

23642 Main street
Carson, CA 90745

(213)

549-5475

Stoicism Marks Third
AIDS Conference
by Garland Richard Kyle

Toth, who coordinates an international
espite the colossal headlines, data base which provides AIDS information,
the booing of President Reagan thought that “ there was little communica­
at the American Federation of tion between groups of people even among
AIDS Research (AmFAR) din­ physicians. It was far too large.”
terms of the conference’s content,
ner as he announced mandatoryIn HIV
Toth,and
like Mahon, felt that the information
testing for immigrants and prisoners,
available
the arrest of 64 gay activists demanding
in­ primarily “confirmed what has
creased funding for AIDS, many Los already been written or published.”
While newspapers from throughout the
Angeles-based AIDS service providers
found this year’s Third International AIDS world reported daily on the conference pro­
ceedings and various scientific presenta­
Conference disappointing.
tions, most of the news failed to reveal any
Held in Washington, DC, and drawing
more than 7,000 participants, the con­ major breakthroughs. Bob Lein, director of
Health Education for the Edmund D.
ference was touted as being the largest
Edelman Health Center, described the in­
formation provided at the conference as
“ nothing earth shattering.” He said, “Those
Lein believed that one panel,
of us who are responsible for transmitting
(AIDS) information have been providing in­
presented by Persons W ith
formation that is basically state-of-the-art ”
Lein did, however, feel that there was
AIDS provided conference
some interesting information coming out of
participants w ith the
the conference including genetic issues
among hemophiliacs, certain co-factors in
dimensions o f the disease"... .
the transmission and development of AIDS
including diseases such as herpes and
conference ever held on AIDS. Thousands syphillis and several panels addressing the
of scientists, physicians, government of­ issue of ethics. He believed that one panel,
ficials, public health professionals and jour­ presented by Persons With AIDS provided
nalists from throughout the world gathered conference participants with the “ human
anxiously for some hopeful news about one dimensions of the disease” which was lack­
of the world’s most frightening epidemics. ing in much of the conference program.
“ It (the conference) was a bizarre com­
Although literally hundreds of presentations
bination
of politics and science. It did a bet­
were made at the five-day event, most of
the scientific research data provided in­ ter job bringing up political issues than
conclusive evidence in the fight against scientific findings,” remarked Lein.
Although the scientific conference at­
AIDS. Instead, the conference seemed to
provide an opportunity for scientific grand- tempted to avoid politics, Reagan’s and
standing, for researchers to get their names Vice President Bush’s comments, the ar­
in the paper and for drug companies to rests of gay activists and the presence of
Paul Cameron, a right-wing anti-gay
hock their wares.
“ It was like a year in review,” remarked crusader at the conference booth, politiciz­
Richard Mahon, a nurse clinician with the ed an otherwise stoic event. Cameron,
Philip Mandelker AIDS Prevention Clinic. whose booth donned a sign reading “ The
“A lot of scientists were advocating their ap­ Way to Stop AIDS is to Stop Gay Travel”
proaches and their research,” noted Mahon outraged many AIDS service providers and
of the highly competitive nature of this gay participants, prompting numerous com­
year’s event. Mahon, a five-year veteran in plaints to conference organizers about the
the field of AIDS care, felt the conference presence of the conservative Cameron and
lacked practical information for service his followers. In addition, Surgeon General
C. Everett Koop and the Reagan ad­
providers.
“ I was disappointed that there wasn’t ministration’s position on mandatory testing
enough psycho-social issues addressed— seemed to differ greatly. Despite both
especially relating to HIV testing. There was Reagan’s and Bush’s remarks, Koop re­
nothing at the conference on direct services mained opposed to such a drastic measure
which he felt was both unworkable and
or nursing care; it was purely scientific and
unproductive.
medically oriented,” he explained.
“What was inspiring was seeing Europe’s
Russ Toth, director of the Los Angelesbased Computerized Information Network health education programs,” noted Toth. “ In
(CAIN) felt the conference fell short of its Denmark and Germany they are much
more direct in their approach to sex,” stated
goals as a truly international forum.
“ For an international conference, I was Mahon. Both insisted that Europe’s ap­
very disappointed. There was no transla­ proach to sex education and condoms was
tion available except for the hearing im­ far more effective in reaching people than
paired,” remarked Toth. “ There wasn’t a their counterpart in the United States.
While more AIDS service providers and
large enough scope of scientific papers out­
side of the United States and Europe— members of the gay community who at­
nothing from South America or Asia. The tended the Third International AIDS Con­
conference just didn’t have an international ference came away from the proceedings
disappointed and feeling alienated from this
flair,” insisted Toth.

D