R.P. Andrews's Blog, page 37

HIV Meds + Meth = Death

HIV Meds + Meth = Death

I don’t need some medical experts to tell me taking HIV meds and using Tina are a deadly combination  l recently had some living examples in my life to bring the message home perfectly clear.

The problem is simple: being a continual (read addicted) meth user negates much of the therapeutic powers of HIV meds which keep infections, the nemesis of a poz guy, at bay. Wipe out that wall of defense and you could be done for. Sooner or later.

Take two guys l knew who used to be partners, Ted and Cody, two six foot four burly hairy macho men. Ted, with a zoology degree under his belt, had a promising career at the Cleveland Zoo but traded it for the easy life under the Florida sun and minimum wage jobs. Cody, with a business degree, had operated a men’s clothing store in Boystown, Chicago, but had already hitched a ride on the Meth Train, destination Nowhere, when he decided to sell his business and move down to Fort Lauderdale where he reopened his shop just off the Wilton Manors gay ghetto.

The two of them, both HIV positive before moving to Florida, met in the late nineties at Lauderdale’s Club baths. Their lust was unbounded – Ted left his job at a local Walgreens to work side by side with Cody at the store – but once Lady T entered the picture, the sex never stopped. Nor the drain on what money the store brought in. Eventually the place went under and both were back at making what they could at odd jobs, occasion escorting, and dealing the shit.

It was obvious to guys like me who knew them both that Tina was taking its toll (their once rugged, manly looks were morphing into the faces of two men old before their times) despite them being supposedly good boys and taking their HIV meds when they remembered to. Ever know a genuine meth head? They always seem to be in a different time zone from the rest of us.

Fast forward to last fall. Cody nevers wakes up from a nap. Dead at 52. And just three months later Ted, totally destitute, moves back to Cincinnati to live with his sister and dies in the hospital of pneumonia, age 48.

Then there’s David, one of the top twenty handsomest men in South Florida who as pretty as he was held a good job as a VP in  local electronics company. How he held down a day job and still get high almost every night was a mystery to me from the first time we fucked. Now less than ten years since we met, Dave has been in the hospital half a dozen times with ailments that are slowly ravaging his insides. The last time I saw him out and about his infectious smile was gone and he was beginning to look like an old man in spite of the fact he could have been my son.

When l think of Dave or Cody or Ted all that comes to mind is: What a waste of prime man meat.

Stonewall and Me

Stonewall and Me

Today almost every gay pride event held in June mentions or evokes Stonewall. In fact, we have the drag queens to thank for many of the liberties we enjoy in 2016 since on that fateful night almost half a century ago  they were mourning the death the previous week of their beloved gay icon, Judy Garland, and when the cops came in to do their usual shake-down, the girls, instead of giving in, revolted. “Not tonight boys!”

For me Stonewall holds a personal connection for two reasons: it was the very first gay bar I ever walked into, and it was that night that I had my first sexual encounter as a gay man.

Living at home in Jersey while I was completing my degree, I was working to pay for college at a now defunct retail store chain called Two Guys where my boss was a dead ringer for Jackie Gleason, that rotund, wise-guy comedian. Only there was something a little peculiar about Charlie. When he said he wanted to do something special for me for my 21st birthday, I figured we’d go out for dinner at the local Italian restaurant where, for lunch, Charlie would have a gargantuan meat ball sub and a “diet Coke, please” since he was on a perpetual nowhere diet. I had convinced him to hire Rob, a crush of mine from college, but I was surprised when the two of them pulled up at my parent’s house to pick me up that Saturday night.

Driving into the City, Charlie revealed his true persuasions to me and Rob (we soon came out to him, too), and how he had been a headliner drag queen entertainer in the ‘50’s. So where did we end up but in Manhattan’s then seedy West Village and the Stonewall. I’ll never forget the beads you had to walk through after the bouncer let you in, and the go-go boys dancing on the bar. It was years later that I read how the place had been run by the Mafia and how it was constantly raided if the payoffs weren’t enough. Had I known then, I would have hightailed it to Port Authority Terminal that night and taken a bus home.

I had hoped I would make it with Rob, but in the end he fell asleep after his first drink, and I ended up getting picked up by some older guy (probably 25) in a white suit who took me back to his apartment a few blocks away. Naïve me, when he whipped it out my first reaction was, what am I supposed to do with it?

But I’ve always been a quick study.

Sure we’ve come a long way baby since then, but sometimes I still wonder if we were better off when we were all members of a secret society of brothers (and sisters), and not just another demographic for Mad Ave and politicians to hustle.

Hey, but that’s the price of progress, huh?

 

“Love is Love is Love is Love…”: Mass Delusional Brainwashing

“Love is Love is Love is Love…”: Mass Delusional Brainwashing

You see and hear it everywhere, ” Love Matters” placards at Lauderdale’s gay pride parade this past weekend,  “Hamilton” star and author’s “Love is Love is Love …” in neon signs at the countless vigils around the globe. Even Broadway stars just recorded the old Dionne Warwick hit, “What the World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love,” all to make us survivors-at-large of Pulse somehow cope with the largest mass killing in this country’s history. And the largest mass killing of gays since the Holocaust.

Well, all l can say is this bullshit is opium for the masses.

There is no coping.

Fifty people are dead.

Dead.

And countless others maimed for life. Because of one madman, the lives of scores of families and millions of us have been changed forever.

Did any of the latest post-Pulse attempts in Congress to stop the sale of assault weapons or include background checks for gun sales at flea markets and gun shows pass?

No.

Will any of these measures even if they were enacted prevent another Pulse? Or worse?

No. These weapons will always be available on the black market.

Will all this feel good pabulum bring back one life or even bring back Mateem so we could slowly carve him up as vengeance earned?

No.

Will this stop some Mateem wannabe, confused crazy or determined terrorist, from striking again?

Will our stop making mental health a stepchild in this society when it comes to treatment make a difference?

Even if we did it all tomorrow, it would take years to see any effect.

Will reporting suspicious behavior or an unhinged friend or family member change things?

Maybe, but there will always be another crazy looming just around the corner, FBI watch list or no FBI watch list. (The FBI is great at investigating its fuck-ups AFTER the fact.)

Yet all this “Love” is exactly what the NRA and other wizards behind the curtains pulling the strings want. Let the stupid public lull itself into a heroin-like stupor with silly recantations of love this, love that…

No, instead we should all stand up like that character in “Network” and yell out on the top of our lungs, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

But will anybody be listening?

Come this fall, vote every NRA stoolie out of office, Republican and Democrat.

But you know that won’t happen.

Or maybe what we need is for one of these crazies to kill the wife or son of an NRA exec or some  tight-fisted Republican whose kids’ college tuition the NRA is paying for in exchange for their hardlined vote to see things change.

No, it’s not love we need right now, it’s unadulterated hate against the enemy within.

But in the end will even this do any good?

No.

The sad truth is this will continue.

All we can do is live our lives for the moment.

‘Cause that’s all we got.

AIDS At 35: Why are We Still Talking About It?

AIDS At 35: Why are We Still Talking About It?

It was in June of 1981 that the federal Centers for Disease Control reported on  would become the first documented case of the HIV virus caused Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS. I lived and worked and played then in New York City, one of its epicenters, and the crazy Sodom and Gomorrah scene l had known and enjoyed in the seventies came to a sudden halt, like a merry-go-round suddenly without power. For almost the next decade and a half many died, some of the handsomest and most sought after in our shitty little subculture. Then came the meds and many who once faced death sentences lived. Today an ever-increasing number of guys, many young, are turning to PrEP as the answer while research continues on a vaccine.

But why are we still talking about a remarkably preventative problem?

Why are four out of ten gay men, and that’s probably a conservative estimate, having unprotected sex?

Why are cases of HIV continuing to rise in hotbeds like lazy, hazy south Florida?

Why does a twenty-three year old kid who hit me up on one of the hookup sites  –  23 fucken years old – describe himself as “positive?”

I think we all know the answer.

 

Remembering Dad

Remembering Dad

While gay guys are supposed to identify more with their mothers and I guess that was true in my case too, my confidence in being the gay man I am today came from my Dad. Gone now twenty years.

No, I never had sex with my dad nor did my Dad want sex with me. But there were moments during my adolescence that I wish he had.

Though plain featured Eastern European in the looks department (my grandparents were from Slovakia), not a giant of man at 5-7, not very interested in sports, a high school drop-out, and not very demonstrative, he nonetheless impressed me with his naturally masculine demeanor and hirsute, stocky – not sloppy – physique in the days when gyms were reserved for bodybuilders.

It was that body – seeing my dad naked as he emerged from the shower – that awakened my sexuality and gave me my first hard-ons when I turned 12 and I began to see him emerging in me, particularly the fur. Then, I felt self-conscious, but years later as I entered gay life, I wore it like a badge of honor for it was my fur – much like my dad’s in texture and abundance – that separated me from other guys, taller guys, handsomer guys and, even as I got older, placed me in a sought after league of my own.

Again my father was not the sterotypical sports freak dad and I must lay blame for my disinterest in competitive sports at his doorstep. True, not having those skills so associated with being male in American society caused me grief in high school – had my high school featured gymnastics or wrestling I would have excelled – but that failing was more than compensated by other, far more important virtues he instilled and cultivated in me – patience and imagination.

From my slightly psychotic mother, Russian in background (yes, I’m a Slavic pedigree), I inherited my wildness, short temper, and, yes, cynicism about people and life. Ah, but from my father I learned that listening got you further than shouting, a trait that served me well in my decades in public relations where learning how to get and give was paramount to success.

And while he never graduated high school and was a factory laborer all his life, with a brief stint in the Air Force where he bailed out over Nazi Europe and became a World War II hero in the process, I think if he had had the benefit of an education, he would have become an architect or engineer, someone destined to build things. He often helped me with those “hands-on” school projects where that knack to think outside the box was needed, and my curiosity about things and visual sense ( I still assemble thinks looking at the pictures, not reading the directions) blended well with my interest in reading I inherited by osmosis from my mother, an avid reader all her life.

Unlike with my mother, I rarely quarreled with my father – he was just not the quarreling kind – and I often wonder if his patience and holding back his frustrations with his wife, an unsettled and unsettling personality who often berated him, led to his early demise at 74 from a stroke. I blamed her for his death throughout the thirteen years she survived him, but now both of them are gone, lying side by side for eternity, and there is no use in crying over spilled milk.

I never discussed being gay with either of them nor did they ever really bring the subject up despite my disinterest in women. But I often wonder to this day how he would have reacted had he known or I placed whatever he might have thought squarely on the table.

Maybe, he might have just listened.

All I can tell you, incestuous as it may sound, I still subliminally remember my first sexual awakenings with my Dad every time I kiss a man.

9/11/01 ...

 

                         9/11/01

 

                         6/12/16

Okay, What Next?

Okay, What Next?

I live within a few miles of Wilton Manors, a burb of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale and the current gay capital and party town of the U.S. right now, not just for vacationers from across the country and around the world, but also for an ever growing number of gay baby boomer retirees – and young’ens looking for a sugar daddy.

As such we, more than any other city in Florida, and possibly much of the rest of the country, are especially vulnerable to homophobic psychotics. Some say business may be down in the theme parks this summer and moving forward as a result of the shooting (the shooter was considering Disney World before he decided on Pulse), and the gay bars and clubs here were already suffering the drought of off-season business before Sunday happened. You think some of the millions of gays who flock here for sun and fun between late fall and early spring may be thinking twice about their upcoming plans? Will this even affect the over-priced Wilton Manors real estate as snowbirds and retirees reconsider living in this high profile target? I mean, do you want to be blown up going to the supermarket for milk or meeting a would-be liaison at Java Boys?

And what will the bars and clubs, str8 and gay, not just here but across the country, have to do to create some sense of security?

Metal detectors at entrances? What about all those cockrings, piercings and leather men gear?

Right now most of the bars here maintain minimum wage bouncers. Will they need to put out the dough for security officers with guns who flash their weapons like a hottie flashes his nine inch dong in the gym showers? I mean a bouncer without a weapon is as useless against a perpetrator as an eighty year old without Viagra trying to have fun with his new twenty year old “friend.”

Will these retro fem boys l see more and more camping it up start toning down their swishy behavior so not to draw attention or antagonize? Supposedly what set off homophobic, and some say closeted Mateen (he was a frequent Pulse patron and chatted with guys on sites like Grind’r) was seeing two men kissing in Miami while he was there with his two year son. Could he have evoked Islam as a cover for his own internal conflicts? Nothing is worse than a homophobic religious zealot.

BTW, this is the same daddy/hubby who beat the shit out of his wife on a regular basis before she got out from under and divorced him.

Most of the clubs here have multiple entrances and exits clearly marked, but there’s a certain leather bar – those if you who live here or have been down here know who l’m talking about – that is configured so badly that it is a tragedy whether by fire or by gun waiting to happen. Will state and city authorities start cracking down on these death traps?

One other frustrating note: the FBI freely admitted the shooter had been on their radar screen for years and, in fact, had been interrogated a few times, but the Feds were unable to connect the dots. Officials say he had passed all the necessary background checks to buy the assault weapon about a week ago in Florida that he used to murder. But, given the FBI’s suspicions, shouldn’t his name have at least been on some type of watch list so maybe, just maybe, the gun shop owner, who sounds responsible, might have hesitated and reached out for a second opinion?

And why are such murder machines legally for sale in the first place?

But perhaps the people l’m most disappointed in are us.

True, there have been vigils here and around the world in support of Orlando. Yet Sunday night, except for Lauderdale’s iconic Alibi, the bars remained open and our leading dance club was filled with the usual Sunday Studio 54 disco patrons. Okay, they had a moment of silence then continued shaking their booties. Big fucken deal.

Business or no business, every place on the strip should have shuttered. If we don’t show respect for one another, what can we expect from the world?

P.S.:  They’ve just announced the Wilton Manors Gay Pride Parade scheduled for this Saturday will go on as planned, complete with drag queens, muscle boys, and face painting for the totally oblivious.

 

Hypocrites

Yesterday, I caught Florida US Senator Marco Rubio and Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi on TV deploring the Orlando shooting and adding that sexual orientation is not a reason to kill.

Okay, well Blonde Bimbo Bondi fought gay marriage in Florida even after the Supreme Court made it legal and Rubio during his ill-fated Presidential campaign said numerus he would repeal gay marriage if he became President. These are exactly the kind of hypocrites who stoke the fires of homophobia that psychotics like the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, pick up on.

So Young …

So Young …

Courtesy of Fort Lauderdale’s Sun Sentinel.

Hypocrites

Hypocrites

Yesterday, I caught Florida US Senator Marco Rubio and Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi on TV deploring the Orlando shooting and adding that sexual orientation is not a reason to kill.

Okay, well Blonde Bimbo Bondi fought gay marriage in Florida even after the Supreme Court made it legal, and Rubio during his ill-fated Presidential campaign said numerous times he would repeal gay marriage if he became President. These are exactly the kind of hypocrites who stoke the fires of homophobia that psychotics like the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, pick up on.

Are We on the Verge of our Own Russian Revolution?

Are We on the Verge of our Own Russian Revolution?

A few weeks ago l caught an interesting cable series on World War l for which today’s world is marking its dubious one hundredth anniversary. It seems the monarchs and empires they ruled over, the Germanic Empire, the Russian Empire, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire of central and eastern Europe, and the Ottoman Empire of the Middle East all were in a land grabbing frame of mind. But after four years of devastating destruction, everyone of their empires collapsed and their monarchs either killed or exiled because the proletariat or common man whom they had shit on for centuries and had used as fodder for their mindless conflict finally rose up and said, “Enough!”

Well, now let’s take a look at our upcoming Presidential election which may be one of the wildest our country has ever seen.

We’ve got Trump, a certified megalomaniac who looks at women as Barbie dolls, and minorities as housekeeping help for his hotels and yet who despite all his bullshit swept virtually every Republican primary. Why? Because the people the common man (and woman), the proletariat have had it with the Establishment (today’s Monarchy) on both sides of the political aisle who have done nothing. If you can say anything good about Trump it’s that he’s beholden to no one. That’s why even women like him and blue collar workers, as far away from his billionaire’s lifestyle as you can get, adore him. Routinely politically incorrect, he spits out what many of them are thinking. In a word, he’s the outsider they feel we need right now before it’s too late.

On the Democratic side we have Hillary, yes, part of the Establishment with her own excess baggage, but who right now is the most qualified person of any gender for the job of any who tried this time around. Obviously she would also make history as this macho country’s first female chief executive, something that’s been almost commonplace elsewhere in the world for decades. So, for all her ties to Washington, including sleeping with a former President (at least some of the time), she can also be viewed as an outsider, indeed a trailblazer.

And then there’s Bernie, whose socialist, some say even Communistic doctrine (hell, he even looks like Lenin) has captured a significant portion of America’s youth (just like Lenin won the minds of Russia’s youth) who feel disenfranchised and even angry toward the Baby Boom generation which they feel enjoyed the last vestiges of America’s Golden Age. Many have said that if their man doesn’t get the nomination, virtually impossible at this point, they won’t vote for Hillary, just as some tight assed Republican right wingers won’t vote for Trump.

Now just let’s say Trump wins, though the political pundits feel Hillary has the edge (you gotta win the Latino vote to make it and Trump has done everything to antagonize that demographic), and Congress remains Republican dominated, yet resistant to let Trump have his way since most of them consider him either a terrible ignoramus or a dangerous psychotic. How do you think the common American will feel then when things still remain an impasse?

Or let’s say Hillary gets the job. Will Congress fight her tooth and nail because many don’t like her or her hubby or because she’s a woman? My own opinion is that a lot of the distain thrown at Obama by Congress has been racially motivated though, God forbid, anyone admits to that in these overly politically correct times. So will we have another four years or more of Do Nothing D.C.  How much more bullshit will Americans take before there’s an insurrection?

As for us gays, we certainly have a better shot at seeing our agenda move forward under Hillary. Some of my friends have only half-jokingly suggested that if Trump gets in they will be building concentration camps for us in North Dakota.

To paraphrase iconic Bette Davis in “All About Eve,” “Fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”