I wrote a lengthy reply to you but I couldn't send it for some reason. I can't remember what I said.
It was something like that: after forty years or thereabouts my grief is brief. I have recycled it each year. It is diminished each year.
I have also formed opinions about life and death:
1. Death of the body is not death of the person
2. We live on in those that remember us with love.
3. Unless we are famous for some reason, no one will remember us at all in 200 years from now.
4. The soul, or what you think it is, has existed since the beginning of time. It is eternal and will exist for another eternity. It is indestructible.
5. We are all (I mean everything) part of a unified soul.
Read my longer stories to know more about my mystical beliefs.
I love everybody, whether I know them or not, though I do not always like what they say, do or believe
I love you Clint because i see the brightness in your soul, undimmed by your fears and insecurities.
I knew about GRID (gay related immunity disorder) in the mid70s. I was writing with my penfriend and academic mentor, Mark Freedman, at Berkeley. He thought it might be recreational drug use impairing the immune system. I met him late in 1976 when he came to London and Europe for coordination meetings about a cross-cultural piece queer research. He was severely breathless. "You have GRID" "I haven't used a fraction of poppers and other drugs as most bathhouse users in SF. It must be a viral chest infection" "Then, in that case, it must be a viral infection that is causing GRID." He died in early 1977.
I went to California in 1981 to finish and present my doctoral research on (roughly - how men decide that they are gay, straight, bi or whatever). I was in SF when GRID had previously been translated into AIDS and they had found in SFGeneral Hospital a virus they named HTLV3. (Human T lymphotropic virus type 3). Very soon after they named it HIV. Being right in my belief that AIDS was due to a viral infection gave me no satisdaction because of the problem of AIDS in SF at that early date.
I came home to the UK and tried to mobilise an educational program to inform queer people in the UK to prevent AIDS in the UK. It wasn't well received. I wqas attacked for suggesting that gaysex was the cause of people dying. I tried countering this with the fact that sex is good but that viral infection could be passed unless people used a barrier. No one wanted use condoms, gatsex didn't lead to pregnancy and who wants to wear a condom anyway.
Cases were appearing in the UK and some people were feeling personal concern and my core group increased. We formed a telephone support team to answer people's concerns confidentially on the phone.
By 1987 the UK government was taking AIDS as serious risk and played the tombstones and funerals approach to make people fearful. By this time, some of our volunteers had become ill and died of AIDS. The Civil Service of the British Government contacted me and said that they were "aware of my interest in this health problem".. They wondered if I would advise tham about creating National AIDS Counselling Training Units to train doctors, nurses, social workers, proson officers, outeach workers to drug users and sex workers. I wrote a job description and the necessary wxperience and qualities to appoint people as Clinical Directors or Consultant Directors of such national training units. They set up three such units and asked me to apply for the directorship of one of them. This is what I did. I chose to focus on attitudes and feelings much more than clinical facts. Thus it followed a personal transfomational model of education. They were given the factual information but I constructed my courses to dissolve homophobia, to sissolve negative attitudes about drug use and sex workers. Doctors and other healthworkers see death as their failure so I wanted them to see death as part of life, a release from suffering, and to see the role of healthworkers to make the dying process as comfortable as possible. Of course, my team and I dealt with testing and feeding back on test results but I also set up courses to train people in counselling skills do that they could help partners and AIDS patients deal with homophobic parents, damily members etc.
I had clinical time built into this to do supportive work with those affected (not only those infected) by HIV. I heard about the deaths of some of my ex-sex partners, amy of whom I still oved. I have colleagues in the HIV workers world who 'came out" as HIV+ and then died. The average time between being diagnosed and dying was as short as 3 or 4 months. I had 3 deaths per week on average to deal with at work, sometimes with me holding a person's hand as they took their final breath and no one else od significance to be with them. I went to SF again and met HIV workers who were facing the deaths of 30 or more people each week of people that they knew in one capacity or another.
I had previously "adopted" a young teenager of 14 years of age as my gay baby brother. I told him how to protect hijmself and others from HIV. He went to London when he was 20 years old to join the showbiz crowd. He was a minor actor, an accomphlished musician in several instruments and a perfect pitched baritone. He had jobs in musical theatre and also became an assistant theatre manager in the West End. We remained in touch and his biolofical older brother had become a theatre lighting technician. I had little or no contact with his brother until he contacted me by phone to say that his brother was in hospital with an opportunistic infection. I went ot London see my gay baby brother when he came out of hospital. He was feeling that he had let me down. He had drunk a lot of alcohol, used a number of recreational and sexual enhancing drugs. It was part and parcel of the theatre culture. These actions had clouded his judgement and he had unprotected sex on many occasions. It wasn't necessary for me but he needed me to forgive him. His death came when he was 27 yers old and I was 46 and six years into my role as Consultant Director of a antional AIDS training unit. His death hit me hard, harder than the death of my mother three years earlier. It was like me, as a parent, losing one of my sons to HIV. I honour all of my triumphs and losses each World AIDS Day. I end this account of part of my personal journey in a flood of tears and heartache. Thank you for reading this. Much love and much hope.
I read your comments as I went to bed and was a little breathless. The love and pain in your experiences were palpable. My condolences for all the loss and grief, Ray. I’m sure you realize your gay brother wanted you to bear witness as much as anything to his life and humanity, the good, bad, and sometimes ugly sides of it. It sounds like there was much love and much respect between you both. Unsurprising, based on my limited and virtual experiences with you. Thank you for sharing this. So many for too long have run from the grief and trauma those years caused. While it would be nice to “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” most of it, mankind doesn’t work like that…and no matter how fast we run or how hard we try, grief usually catches up and finds us. In my book, it’s not a bad thing at all. It’s what helps us heal if we’re willing to sit with it and make friends with our past. At least I hope so. You know far better than I about how our brains work—or don’t—but I wanted to share my thoughts on the matter. To your continued physical and emotional healing….
Like Mr. Thompson, I was there, though I was living in San Francisco. I remember the before, during and sort-of-after, which is now I guess. I took classes at a hospital on caring for affected individuals. Spent a year in the '90s taking care of my best friend who lost his lover the year before, to AIDS. He passed after a year of mourning was over of...AIDS. As he planned, I might add. We went, he and I, to the first spreading of the AIDS quilt in D.C. and reading of names. It's fitting to remember our lost friends and relatives.
I'm so sorry for all the lives lost, but I am grateful you shared your and your friends stories. Thank you. It's how we keep the candle lit in my book. Hugs, Clarke.
It's amazing that you came up with this today, as just last night, I was thinking how wonderful it would be if you would do an NSFW video of great poses by as many performers as you could that died either of AIDS or suicide, both of which have disproportionately impacted the industry. I know it would take time to find the right photos and compile them, but what an impact the video could have. I would guess it would become your highest viewed video so far. Just my thought and recommendation.
Thanks, David. I'm in the final stretch of a SFW video of men from all walks of life. I don't know how many I could find NSFW photos...or if I'm emotionally up for that tribute video yet. Maybe next year. Cheers to you.
With ♥️ for all the pain, humiliation, acts of defence against the pain that HIV/AIDS brought into our LGBTQ lives. The narrative from Leo describes it succinctly.
I am of an age and time before and after it reared it's ugly head. Thank goodness for modern medications and lives can be fulfilled. A downside is it's diminishing individual responsibility again.Look at the adult entertainment industry they highlight the latest tests with the fastest exposure times that doesn't hamper filming and earnings. And, so it reflects on modern sex acts as a 'oh well if I catch something there are pills now, I'm all right Jack attitude'
Yes, I've lost friends all too often in the past. Thankfully, with new health care/regimes the funerals are not as often now.
Thank you for sharing your pov. I too think the pendulum has swung in the opposite camp, though I am relieved fewer are as deeply impacted. For now. Sending all my best to you today and always. Cheers, Doug!
I wrote a lengthy reply to you but I couldn't send it for some reason. I can't remember what I said.
It was something like that: after forty years or thereabouts my grief is brief. I have recycled it each year. It is diminished each year.
I have also formed opinions about life and death:
1. Death of the body is not death of the person
2. We live on in those that remember us with love.
3. Unless we are famous for some reason, no one will remember us at all in 200 years from now.
4. The soul, or what you think it is, has existed since the beginning of time. It is eternal and will exist for another eternity. It is indestructible.
5. We are all (I mean everything) part of a unified soul.
Read my longer stories to know more about my mystical beliefs.
I love everybody, whether I know them or not, though I do not always like what they say, do or believe
I love you Clint because i see the brightness in your soul, undimmed by your fears and insecurities.
I knew about GRID (gay related immunity disorder) in the mid70s. I was writing with my penfriend and academic mentor, Mark Freedman, at Berkeley. He thought it might be recreational drug use impairing the immune system. I met him late in 1976 when he came to London and Europe for coordination meetings about a cross-cultural piece queer research. He was severely breathless. "You have GRID" "I haven't used a fraction of poppers and other drugs as most bathhouse users in SF. It must be a viral chest infection" "Then, in that case, it must be a viral infection that is causing GRID." He died in early 1977.
I went to California in 1981 to finish and present my doctoral research on (roughly - how men decide that they are gay, straight, bi or whatever). I was in SF when GRID had previously been translated into AIDS and they had found in SFGeneral Hospital a virus they named HTLV3. (Human T lymphotropic virus type 3). Very soon after they named it HIV. Being right in my belief that AIDS was due to a viral infection gave me no satisdaction because of the problem of AIDS in SF at that early date.
I came home to the UK and tried to mobilise an educational program to inform queer people in the UK to prevent AIDS in the UK. It wasn't well received. I wqas attacked for suggesting that gaysex was the cause of people dying. I tried countering this with the fact that sex is good but that viral infection could be passed unless people used a barrier. No one wanted use condoms, gatsex didn't lead to pregnancy and who wants to wear a condom anyway.
Cases were appearing in the UK and some people were feeling personal concern and my core group increased. We formed a telephone support team to answer people's concerns confidentially on the phone.
By 1987 the UK government was taking AIDS as serious risk and played the tombstones and funerals approach to make people fearful. By this time, some of our volunteers had become ill and died of AIDS. The Civil Service of the British Government contacted me and said that they were "aware of my interest in this health problem".. They wondered if I would advise tham about creating National AIDS Counselling Training Units to train doctors, nurses, social workers, proson officers, outeach workers to drug users and sex workers. I wrote a job description and the necessary wxperience and qualities to appoint people as Clinical Directors or Consultant Directors of such national training units. They set up three such units and asked me to apply for the directorship of one of them. This is what I did. I chose to focus on attitudes and feelings much more than clinical facts. Thus it followed a personal transfomational model of education. They were given the factual information but I constructed my courses to dissolve homophobia, to sissolve negative attitudes about drug use and sex workers. Doctors and other healthworkers see death as their failure so I wanted them to see death as part of life, a release from suffering, and to see the role of healthworkers to make the dying process as comfortable as possible. Of course, my team and I dealt with testing and feeding back on test results but I also set up courses to train people in counselling skills do that they could help partners and AIDS patients deal with homophobic parents, damily members etc.
I had clinical time built into this to do supportive work with those affected (not only those infected) by HIV. I heard about the deaths of some of my ex-sex partners, amy of whom I still oved. I have colleagues in the HIV workers world who 'came out" as HIV+ and then died. The average time between being diagnosed and dying was as short as 3 or 4 months. I had 3 deaths per week on average to deal with at work, sometimes with me holding a person's hand as they took their final breath and no one else od significance to be with them. I went to SF again and met HIV workers who were facing the deaths of 30 or more people each week of people that they knew in one capacity or another.
I had previously "adopted" a young teenager of 14 years of age as my gay baby brother. I told him how to protect hijmself and others from HIV. He went to London when he was 20 years old to join the showbiz crowd. He was a minor actor, an accomphlished musician in several instruments and a perfect pitched baritone. He had jobs in musical theatre and also became an assistant theatre manager in the West End. We remained in touch and his biolofical older brother had become a theatre lighting technician. I had little or no contact with his brother until he contacted me by phone to say that his brother was in hospital with an opportunistic infection. I went ot London see my gay baby brother when he came out of hospital. He was feeling that he had let me down. He had drunk a lot of alcohol, used a number of recreational and sexual enhancing drugs. It was part and parcel of the theatre culture. These actions had clouded his judgement and he had unprotected sex on many occasions. It wasn't necessary for me but he needed me to forgive him. His death came when he was 27 yers old and I was 46 and six years into my role as Consultant Director of a antional AIDS training unit. His death hit me hard, harder than the death of my mother three years earlier. It was like me, as a parent, losing one of my sons to HIV. I honour all of my triumphs and losses each World AIDS Day. I end this account of part of my personal journey in a flood of tears and heartache. Thank you for reading this. Much love and much hope.
I read your comments as I went to bed and was a little breathless. The love and pain in your experiences were palpable. My condolences for all the loss and grief, Ray. I’m sure you realize your gay brother wanted you to bear witness as much as anything to his life and humanity, the good, bad, and sometimes ugly sides of it. It sounds like there was much love and much respect between you both. Unsurprising, based on my limited and virtual experiences with you. Thank you for sharing this. So many for too long have run from the grief and trauma those years caused. While it would be nice to “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” most of it, mankind doesn’t work like that…and no matter how fast we run or how hard we try, grief usually catches up and finds us. In my book, it’s not a bad thing at all. It’s what helps us heal if we’re willing to sit with it and make friends with our past. At least I hope so. You know far better than I about how our brains work—or don’t—but I wanted to share my thoughts on the matter. To your continued physical and emotional healing….
And on a somber day let's hope this period in time never resurfaces
https://youtu.be/-DGY9HvChXk?si=JLlO29XUwMUzfhIe
No jolly cheery ending to my message, DougT
A beautiful, haunting song and cautionary tale for sure…thanks, Doug.
Like Mr. Thompson, I was there, though I was living in San Francisco. I remember the before, during and sort-of-after, which is now I guess. I took classes at a hospital on caring for affected individuals. Spent a year in the '90s taking care of my best friend who lost his lover the year before, to AIDS. He passed after a year of mourning was over of...AIDS. As he planned, I might add. We went, he and I, to the first spreading of the AIDS quilt in D.C. and reading of names. It's fitting to remember our lost friends and relatives.
I'm so sorry for all the lives lost, but I am grateful you shared your and your friends stories. Thank you. It's how we keep the candle lit in my book. Hugs, Clarke.
It's amazing that you came up with this today, as just last night, I was thinking how wonderful it would be if you would do an NSFW video of great poses by as many performers as you could that died either of AIDS or suicide, both of which have disproportionately impacted the industry. I know it would take time to find the right photos and compile them, but what an impact the video could have. I would guess it would become your highest viewed video so far. Just my thought and recommendation.
Thanks, David. I'm in the final stretch of a SFW video of men from all walks of life. I don't know how many I could find NSFW photos...or if I'm emotionally up for that tribute video yet. Maybe next year. Cheers to you.
With ♥️ for all the pain, humiliation, acts of defence against the pain that HIV/AIDS brought into our LGBTQ lives. The narrative from Leo describes it succinctly.
I am of an age and time before and after it reared it's ugly head. Thank goodness for modern medications and lives can be fulfilled. A downside is it's diminishing individual responsibility again.Look at the adult entertainment industry they highlight the latest tests with the fastest exposure times that doesn't hamper filming and earnings. And, so it reflects on modern sex acts as a 'oh well if I catch something there are pills now, I'm all right Jack attitude'
Yes, I've lost friends all too often in the past. Thankfully, with new health care/regimes the funerals are not as often now.
With love to all your followers. DougT 🇫🇴
Thank you for sharing your pov. I too think the pendulum has swung in the opposite camp, though I am relieved fewer are as deeply impacted. For now. Sending all my best to you today and always. Cheers, Doug!