From the exhibit Life and Death in Black and White. Photographers Jane Philomen Cleland, Patrick Clifton, Marc Geller, Rick Gerharter and Daniel Nicoletta picture AIDS activists and actions from the key years between 1985 – 1990. More on this exhibit here. See this small show concurrently with the long-running sampler of the museum’s collection: Our Vast Queer Past. above: April 7th, 1989, UN Plaza, San Francisco. Unidentified member of ACT UP/SF in chains protesting INS exclusion of tourists and potential immigrants with HIV/AIDS. Photo: Marc Geller.
Old Leather; New Gear. Same fucking twisted kinky throbbing bobbing dripping ass-kicking mind-bending challenging pervert stuff as always. Of course. Style changes but stiff pricks and throbbing balls always rise to the particular season’s occasion. It’s about what got us hot and hard when we were young, and what does it now. N’est pas? See-see bone! Leather? Kevlar? Rope? Metal? Crazy new materials fresh out of R/D labs? All the wonders of modern technology? Or go way old school: kidnap a willing victim to the woods for some paleo-punk action in private. Way past medieval. Lots of room to get lost. Or…show off under the spotlight. Or…or…or. Sure. Why not? If it gets you hard and he’s game, have at it! Do the hokey-pokey. Because that really is what it’s all about…
Gear Up! is a Mens weekend party/run happening this weekend at Saratoga Springs. (The Cali Stagecoach Stop not the NY Resort!) This is the run’s first year and it is “geared” towards the younger set, to the post AIDS-crisis generation of men who lost most of the Men who would have been their generational elders and mentors – had more survived. Thankfully, some did! So…it’s a mixer. As the GearUp guys say: “amid open playspaces and numerous educational workshops, GearUp brings together the open-minded beginner with the trustworthy player.” Sounds like a plan! For more information on GearUp click here. More on Saratoga Springshere. Plus…if you are at the run and want a cool opportunity for a little silence and solitude in the midst of so damned much hotness, check out the Nishikigoi (Koi) Pond, here. Oh, oh oh, ommmm….!
Mumbai Gay Rights Parade - Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
We hear this over and over and over again from our gay friends in and from countries and regions that were once under colonial occupation. Homosexuality is cast as a disease brought in by European conquerers, foisted upon an unsuspecting population that had never know of such evils before. Sort of like smallpox-infected blankets.
As a Ugandan pal (not named here – for his protection) pointed out, in the case of sub-Saharan Africa, this nefarious discourse has the effect of making being gay not only a crime, not only a sin, but worse, a sort of Pan-African treason, a wholesale capitulation to the white man and his evil ways. In Uganda, the Anglican Church (which IS a Western import!) is the main vehicle for this evil propaganda.
This thinking is in full effect in India, too. Ghulam Nabi Azad, India’s minister of Health, addressed a conference on HIV/AIDS in New Delhi on Monday, saying: “Unfortunately this disease has come to our country too … where a man has sex with another man, which is completely unnatural and should not happen but does.” For the article published by The Guardian UK, click here.
Friend of this site Jorge Vieto is featured in the short film Ritual, directed by Jorg Fockele. He hangs suspended by hooks, his body swinging free in a ritual of body/spirit integration. Vieto is a well-respected young Leatherman, and a Fraternal member of The 15 Association. He uses extreme physical rituals in part to process the emotions evoked by a positive diagnosis. Vieto spoke with Scott Brogan of the Bay Area Reporter about the psychology of the scene here.
Filmed in the Dungeon at Mr.S, Ritual will screen in the afternoon at 1:15 pm at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, Friday June 24th, as a part of the film compilation entitled STILL AROUND from The HIV Story Project. Brought to you by Frameline and the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival.
It is the middle of the SF LGBT Film Festival, high holy days are underway in the City by the Bay, Pride is coming, and outside the festival’s host venues, gay film buffs are rubbing their bleary eyes after marathon sessions in the dark. The cinematic apparatus, not that other dark! There is something for everyone at this annual festival, now in its 35th year. The shorts programs are some of the best, and for those with short attention spans, are just the ticket. One film is not doing it for you? Wait 5 minutes. The next one could be all that.
“All that glitters is indeed gold in this wonderful collection of shorts featuring several gems from our very own Bay Area filmmakers… Take a look at disgusting alien bodies and eavesdrop on the deaf relay system. Follow a camera off a bridge in a memorial for lives lost. A dispute on the high seas can only be settled by a dance off (of course), and we’ll see just how campy an AIDS camp can be. Rounding out the program is a silent comedy set to Tchaikovsky and starring Peggy the Peg-leg Ballerina.” via festival director Jennifer Morris
“Glitter Emergency” shows at the Victoria Theatre, 9:30 pm on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011. The Victoria is located at 2961 16th Street in the Mission district. Built in 1908 as a Vaudeville House, it is the oldest operating theatre in San Francisco.
But does it? Well-known Leatherman and friend of this site Peter Fiske has made an “It Gets Better” video and posted it on YouTube. We are, of course, re-posting. Kudos, Peter! It is fantastic. Of course. Messages of future promise are great, and can be just the thing to turn despair into hope. But. But. But. The “It Gets Better” video pep talks, started by columnist Dan Savage last year in an effort to curb high rates of suicide among queer youth, have really taken off. Cool. More on them here. Great campaign, but…it is not enough. Not nearly.
By all means, keep these positive messages coming. But. But. But. There are a few problems here. First off, it does not always get better – and we know that. If it always got better, dead friend of this site and Frameline co-founder Mark Finch would not have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. A popular, successful adult gay man kills himself. Or: youthful co-conspirator WRG, handsome, smart, set to inherit two fortunes, dead in a hotel room in Rio with a spike in his arm, the body stripped of valuables. They had to identify him by dental records. Just two examples. It did not get better for either of them, and they were pretty well set to overcome the past.
But. But. But. Another problem: The most vulnerable queer kids may be those least likely to be able to respond to these messages. Consider two scenarios:
One: You are 17, a junior in high school, with loving, educated PFLAG parents, a nice group of theatre friends, early acceptance to UC, and a problem with the school bully who taunts you with calls of “Faggot!” and elbows you in the hallways to the amusement of his toadies. It makes your stomach churn.
Two: You are 17, living on the periphery of San Francisco’s Castro district. You left Idaho and your violent Christian Identity family at 13 when your mother caught you with another boy. She broke a bottle over your head as you fled the house. See the scar? Arriving in SF, you met guys who turned you on to meth and fucked you raw. Already shell-shocked from childhood, you seroconverted at 14, have been on the streets for four years, and look really rough. Half-crazy with rage and despair, you kick trash cans and shout in frustration, sometimes sit on the curb sobbing. Everyone avoids you.
These are two pretty extreme, but true, examples. “It Gets Better” is a good message, but it is not enough. The kids need more than words. Even the UC-bound good gay kid needs more than words. And seriously damaged youth need a lot more. They also need the tools to survive a world which will continue at times to be hostile. Food. Shelter. Protection. Health care, including mental health and substance abuse help. Access to education, job-training, connections and good adult mentorship. Spiritual support, including services for survivors of religious abuse. They do not need to be encouraged in magical thinking: “Oh…if I can only get to San Francisco! It’s like Oz! Everything will be fabulous!” Yes, sometimes it gets better. But: it does not always get better, and it does not automatically get better. If we actually want to see the kids flourish, we need to open our eyes to the full scope of the horror under which some queer kids come up – and add real resources that are equal to our encouraging words. We need to get real.
The AIDS Ribbon on Twin Peaks in San Francisco – commemorating 30 years of AIDS, and remembering all of those we have lost.
Seen from Civic Center/Market Street.
-AidanAbroad
Doubt the death of the author? At art.com, visitors can choose images from the library and preview them framed over the couch in a choice of living rooms or stretched over canvas above the toilet in the bathoom. It’s the ‘view-in-room’ option, a database-driven, semi-automatic and very interactive shopping experience. Most of their images are drawn from the visual arts canon, but they also offer medical stock photography and other arcane scientific and historical subjects, which make for some very strange interior design possibilities. Pictured here: AIDS Virus, Black Background Photographic Print, 32′ x 24″ framed, displayed in the #2 children’s bedroom option. Get it here. Or not.
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