Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone (2 page)
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Authors: David B. Feinberg
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BOOK: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone
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I’ve been straddling the line between fiction and fact for quite some time now. In
Eighty-Sixed
and
Spontaneous Combustion
I filtered my experiences through a fictional persona, B. J. Rosenthal. This mask allowed me to selectively reshape my past. Yet I found that the more I wrote, the fewer alterations of fact I made. I was moving closer toward the truth.
Eighty-Sixed
and
Spontaneous Combustion
I filtered my experiences through a fictional persona, B. J. Rosenthal. This mask allowed me to selectively reshape my past. Yet I found that the more I wrote, the fewer alterations of fact I made. I was moving closer toward the truth.
Now it’s time to come clean.
Queer and Loathing
is a collection of essays on AIDS. Somewhat less than half have been previously published, in somewhat different form; the opening pages of these indicate the place and date of original publication. I added endnotes to place them in context. I also added endnotes to some of the previously unpublished pieces.
Queer and Loathing
is a collection of essays on AIDS. Somewhat less than half have been previously published, in somewhat different form; the opening pages of these indicate the place and date of original publication. I added endnotes to place them in context. I also added endnotes to some of the previously unpublished pieces.
I’ve always attempted to tell the truth in my writing. I’ve tried to capture what is to me a painfully obvious reality that is rarely written about: what it is like for a gay man to live in the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic; what it is like to be HIV-positive in the nineties; what it is like to outlive one therapist, two dentists, two doctors, and one gastroenterologist. At times I’m shocked when I feel that no one else is documenting this personal history without transmuting it to some metaphoric plane.
There is no literal truth, of course. Truth is a philosophical invention one can only approach. All writing is lies. Good writing is lies skillfully told.
Some minor details have been altered in
Queer and Loathing.
Some names have been changed. As I dance at the border of fiction and fact, this is as close to the truth as I can get.
Queer and Loathing.
Some names have been changed. As I dance at the border of fiction and fact, this is as close to the truth as I can get.
Part One
Queer and Loathing
Queer and Loathing at the FDA: Revolt of the Perverts
I’m writing this down during the twilight of Western civilization as we know it. My editor has chained me to my personal computer. Periodically I doze off, and the keyboard, equipped with a simple mechanism, wakes me with a jolt of electroshock. The deadline is long past. The powers that be are feeding me a combination of legal and illegal stimulants, further deranging my normally irrational powers of cogitation. I sit here exhausted, suffering from a plethora of imaginary maladies and ailments, recalling October 11, 1988, the day some fifteen hundred fags and dykes and AIDS activists and sympathizers
seized control of the Food and Drug Administration.
seized control of the Food and Drug Administration.
There’s only one way to tell my story: eighties gonzo journalism. Let me take this opportunity to inform you from the start that I have complete and total contempt for you, my dear reader. I want to bite the hand that feeds me, and
surgical gloves won’t save you.
I’ve read the surveys in
Rolling Stone
and I know that 95 percent of you thirtysomething motherfuckers wouldn’t mind having an individual of the Negro persuasion move next door, but 58 percent don’t want a fag to date your brother.
I’ve
got
your number.
I know that most of you dungbrains are just chock-full of compassion for people with AIDS as long as they aren’t queers or junkies. Pity the poor, innocent babies and the unsuspecting wives of bi sexuals, but ignore the growing mounds of corpses right in front of your eyes.
surgical gloves won’t save you.
I’ve read the surveys in
Rolling Stone
and I know that 95 percent of you thirtysomething motherfuckers wouldn’t mind having an individual of the Negro persuasion move next door, but 58 percent don’t want a fag to date your brother.
I’ve
got
your number.
I know that most of you dungbrains are just chock-full of compassion for people with AIDS as long as they aren’t queers or junkies. Pity the poor, innocent babies and the unsuspecting wives of bi sexuals, but ignore the growing mounds of corpses right in front of your eyes.
Originally appeared in
Tribe,
Vol.
1,
No. 1, Winter 1989.
I’m sick and tired of all of this talk about innocent victims.
I plead guilty.
I’m guilty of crimes against nature. I have done truly abominable things according to Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the collected works of Jackie Collins. I’m the Jew that poisoned the wells; I’m the pinko that passed the atomic spy plans to the Russ kies ; I’m the Toon that framed Roger Rabbit. I’m the one
my own parents
warned me against.
I plead guilty.
I’m guilty of crimes against nature. I have done truly abominable things according to Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the collected works of Jackie Collins. I’m the Jew that poisoned the wells; I’m the pinko that passed the atomic spy plans to the Russ kies ; I’m the Toon that framed Roger Rabbit. I’m the one
my own parents
warned me against.
I’m sitting here at my desk, tanked up on Heineken, amphetamines, and sugar at the four A.M. of your soul. I plead guilty with the Twinkie defense.
Yes, I have seduced fifteen-year-old boys on anti-nuke marches, I have blasphemed Christ Our Lord repeatedly, I have been a card-carrying member of the ACLU for longer than I care to remember, I have had sex in places both public and private that would shock most of Middle America, I have spilled my seed while watching videos that cannot be sold in certain states south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I have done all of the things you expected me to do, and much, much more.
Let me warn you: I am a pathological liar. Not a single word of this is true. What follows is an amalgamation of rumors, in nuendos, and gross exaggerations; hyperbole, paranoia, and third-stage dementia.
This is how far you have driven me.
Everything is subjective. Names and faces have been changed due to incontinence of the memory and a desire to cloud the past with a haze of hydrophobic rage. At this point facts are immaterial. To quote Lily Tomlin, reality is for people who can’t cope with drugs.
Sex and Drugs and Rock and RollThis is how far you have driven me.
Everything is subjective. Names and faces have been changed due to incontinence of the memory and a desire to cloud the past with a haze of hydrophobic rage. At this point facts are immaterial. To quote Lily Tomlin, reality is for people who can’t cope with drugs.
To make it simple for you pinheads out there, think of me as a junkie. Like any other addict, I’m prepared to slice your bleeding liberal heart into ribbons
in order to get my drugs.
These are some of the drugs that I need: aerosol pentamidine, acyclovir, azidothymidine, AL721, dextran sulfate, naltrexone, Antabuse, foscarnet, Imuthiol, CD4, and Ampligen. It’s
Valley of the Dolls in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
There are one hundred thirty drugs out there that show promise against the HIV virus, and at this writing the FDA has approved two. I have no intention of flying to France for Imuthiol, or Mexico for ribavirin.
I want my drugs
—
andI want them now.
The way things are going, I might not even be allowed to leave the country when the estimated one and a half million infected with the virus are quarantined to the United States. The way things are going, some crazed right-wing lunatic like Representative William Dannemeyer could try to turn Wyoming into a concentration camp.
in order to get my drugs.
These are some of the drugs that I need: aerosol pentamidine, acyclovir, azidothymidine, AL721, dextran sulfate, naltrexone, Antabuse, foscarnet, Imuthiol, CD4, and Ampligen. It’s
Valley of the Dolls in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
There are one hundred thirty drugs out there that show promise against the HIV virus, and at this writing the FDA has approved two. I have no intention of flying to France for Imuthiol, or Mexico for ribavirin.
I want my drugs
—
andI want them now.
The way things are going, I might not even be allowed to leave the country when the estimated one and a half million infected with the virus are quarantined to the United States. The way things are going, some crazed right-wing lunatic like Representative William Dannemeyer could try to turn Wyoming into a concentration camp.
How, you may ask, did I end up in this virulent state of desperation ? Was it
sex and drugs and rock and roll?
Did I sleep with an IV-DRUG abuser at Heartbreak Hotel in Loisaida, after sharing works with him? Am I an angry fetus, about to be born with a habit and a life expectancy
of less than zero?
Did I get the wrong transfusion five years ago? Or am I just sick and tired of watching my friends die?
sex and drugs and rock and roll?
Did I sleep with an IV-DRUG abuser at Heartbreak Hotel in Loisaida, after sharing works with him? Am I an angry fetus, about to be born with a habit and a life expectancy
of less than zero?
Did I get the wrong transfusion five years ago? Or am I just sick and tired of watching my friends die?
It’s none of your goddamned business.
You’d probably be surprised to hear it, but at heart I’m a Puritan. I’m L-seven, square. I don’t drink, smoke, or do recreational drugs.
I don’t like to have fun.
So what the fuck am I doing demonstrating for drugs? Why am I mainlining AIDS activism in the form of ACT UP? The answer is quite simple.
I want to stay alive.
It’s the Basic Survival Instinct. I don’t want to have to wait eight to ten years to have the drugs of choice approved by the Food and Drug Administration so some lackey at a cemetery can infuse my rotting corpse with them.
Why I Went to Demonstrate at the FDAI don’t like to have fun.
So what the fuck am I doing demonstrating for drugs? Why am I mainlining AIDS activism in the form of ACT UP? The answer is quite simple.
I want to stay alive.
It’s the Basic Survival Instinct. I don’t want to have to wait eight to ten years to have the drugs of choice approved by the Food and Drug Administration so some lackey at a cemetery can infuse my rotting corpse with them.
I can’t argue
anything.
Throw me into a closet for three weeks and I’ll become a Symbionese Liberation Terrorist, but only if you rape me. It’s the Stockholm Syndrome all over. Arguments are so—so—
dissentive.
What I mean to say is that I am completely inarticulate in person. Shove a mike into my face and I’m more likely to fellate it than spout revolutionary drivel. My problem is that I can empathize with anyone; I look at
every
side of an argument, weigh
all
of the pros and cons, and then come to a decision. Just about anyone can sway me with the right techniques: charm, wit, style, grace, intelligence, physical attractiveness, penis size, oral technique, or large unmarked bills.
anything.
Throw me into a closet for three weeks and I’ll become a Symbionese Liberation Terrorist, but only if you rape me. It’s the Stockholm Syndrome all over. Arguments are so—so—
dissentive.
What I mean to say is that I am completely inarticulate in person. Shove a mike into my face and I’m more likely to fellate it than spout revolutionary drivel. My problem is that I can empathize with anyone; I look at
every
side of an argument, weigh
all
of the pros and cons, and then come to a decision. Just about anyone can sway me with the right techniques: charm, wit, style, grace, intelligence, physical attractiveness, penis size, oral technique, or large unmarked bills.
So once I’ve decided something, I stick with it. Even though I may not be able to recall the individual factors, even though my reasons are no longer clear, I remain steadfast. I am only articulate with explanations on paper.
I am going to have to burden you with some facts. I’m sorry; I don’t want to tax your minuscule cranial capacities. Don’t worry,
there won’t be a quiz.
I’ll spoon-feed everything to you.
there won’t be a quiz.
I’ll spoon-feed everything to you.
The Food and Drug Administration is set up to regulate and approve drugs that are both safe and effective. We don’t want any more babies born with flippers; scratch thalidomide, a sedative prescribed in Europe during the late fifties that caused severe birth defects. We don’t want any more sideshow barkers shilling snake oil; we don’t want people to go to Mexico for ineffective drugs like apricot pits to arrest cancer, while ignoring other useful therapies. But at this point in time, there’s AZT for AIDS, and that’s it. About half of the people with AIDS either can’t take AZT because it’s too toxic or experience no improvement, and AZT doesn’t seem to be effective for much longer than a year and a half.
And how does the government respond to this crisis?
By sticking babies with intravenous sugar drips so they develop as many infections related to the IV as babies that are receiving treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin: Wouldn’t want that nasty placebo effect to skew scientific results, would we?
By achieving homogenous sample populations for testing experimental drugs and then releasing them to women and children and people of color and present and former intravenous drug users who may metabolize these drugs differently.
By testing drugs against placebos for life-threatening disease where the best scientific result is having the control group die faster than the experimental group.
Are you convinced yet?
Okay, if I wait eight to ten years for good science to approve a drug, I’ll be dead. That’s simple enough, isn’t it? It’s tough being politically active from six feet under. If I remain silent in the face of this epidemic and the government’s unwillingness to act effectively, then I’m just as well as dead. SILENCE = DEATH, get it?
But is any protest effective? Did political protest stop the Vietnam war, or was Nixon hiding out in his bunker, on his knees with Kissinger, praying for guidance? Am I a sacrificial lamb to a futile cause?
Here are a few other reasons for getting arrested at the FDA: I used to be a whore; now I’m a
whore for publicity.
I’m going to the FDA for the visceral thrill of being surrounded by the media. The camera bulbs flashing. The more people that get arrested, the more media coverage! And according to John Waters, everyone looks sexy behind bars. You’d be surprised. And who knows: I may be held for a week, and that way I’d avoid a wedding—that vile, hideous celebration of
heterosexuality
designed to
completely negate me.
Of course, if I had tix to the Prince concert in D.C. on October 11, I’d probably skip the demo, like one of Brad’s friends is doing.
You see how complex the decision-making process is?
True Stories, Part Iwhore for publicity.
I’m going to the FDA for the visceral thrill of being surrounded by the media. The camera bulbs flashing. The more people that get arrested, the more media coverage! And according to John Waters, everyone looks sexy behind bars. You’d be surprised. And who knows: I may be held for a week, and that way I’d avoid a wedding—that vile, hideous celebration of
heterosexuality
designed to
completely negate me.
Of course, if I had tix to the Prince concert in D.C. on October 11, I’d probably skip the demo, like one of Brad’s friends is doing.
You see how complex the decision-making process is?
After Michael Morrissey was diagnosed as HIV-antibody-positive, his doctor told him that he should drink only one alcoholic beverage a week and avoid the sun. Michael was extremely fond of his preprandial cocktail. As a matter of fact, Michael was extremely fond of cocktails at any time of day.
What kind of vacations does that leave him? Should he go to the Land of the Midnight Sun in the off-season, when the bars are all closed?
Advertisements for Myself: The Whore for PublicityOkay, I confess, the real reason I went to D.C. to get arrested was so I could write about it and
publicize
my soon-to-be-released novel
(Eighty-Sixed,
Viking/Penguin, January 1989, $18.95) to the
masses.
I planned on hiring helicopters and dropping
thousands of press releases
on the Names Quilt; I planned on leafleting the FDA, the police station, the FBI, the CIA, and any other governmental agency I could find. I would do just about anything to become
famous.
I planned to
seize the day
and write the homo version of Norman Mailer’s
Armies of the Night
and be the
Great Fag Hope.
I was
willing to go to extraordinary lengths
to ensure my notoriety. But how could I possibly compete with the supreme male chauvinist of our time, in terms of vanity and vulgarity? Could I marry someone, stab her, then write a book about it? Could I have a murderer paroled into my personal care and then have
him
stab someone, then write a book about it? Could I write yet another masturbatory fantasy about Marilyn Monroe and call it art? Could I learn to pee standing up?
My T-Cellspublicize
my soon-to-be-released novel
(Eighty-Sixed,
Viking/Penguin, January 1989, $18.95) to the
masses.
I planned on hiring helicopters and dropping
thousands of press releases
on the Names Quilt; I planned on leafleting the FDA, the police station, the FBI, the CIA, and any other governmental agency I could find. I would do just about anything to become
famous.
I planned to
seize the day
and write the homo version of Norman Mailer’s
Armies of the Night
and be the
Great Fag Hope.
I was
willing to go to extraordinary lengths
to ensure my notoriety. But how could I possibly compete with the supreme male chauvinist of our time, in terms of vanity and vulgarity? Could I marry someone, stab her, then write a book about it? Could I have a murderer paroled into my personal care and then have
him
stab someone, then write a book about it? Could I write yet another masturbatory fantasy about Marilyn Monroe and call it art? Could I learn to pee standing up?
I keep forgetting to call my doctor for my T-cell results, and I keep telling myself, “This is not a Freudian slip.” Normal T-helper cells can be anywhere from 600 to 1,500; right now my count is somewhere in the penumbrous region between abnormal and nonexistent. Every three months I call my doctor to hear the dispiriting news that my T-cells have dropped a statistically insignificant amount. I extrapolate: By the year 2020 I’ll have a negative count. I complain to my friend Joe and he tells me he has a friend in Philadelphia with four T-cells. “He’s given them names: Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice.”
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