A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Stories from the AIDS Crisis

00:00:00.000 Hello, hello, and welcome back to A Bit Fruity. I'm Matt Bernstein, and I'm so happy that

00:00:11.600 you're here. So by the time this episode is published, Pride Month will be over, but gay 1.00

00:00:18.360 people still exist, or at least that's what I've been told. I talk a lot online about

00:00:25.100 the AIDS crisis, and specifically the years between 1981, which was when the first mainstream

00:00:31.280 article on what they called then gay cancer was published in the New York Times. By the way,

00:00:36.680 it was called Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals and was published in a little column on page 20.

00:00:44.460 And 1996, which is when antiretroviral therapies, which are the drugs that keep people with HIV

00:00:51.240 living long and healthy lives became widely available. During these years, the people most

00:00:56.900 commonly associated with AIDS, gay men, intravenous drug users, were turned into pariahs by society 0.56

00:01:04.320 and by the state. You've heard the stories, you know, the government, the media, and the general

00:01:09.660 public moralized the behavior of people who contracted the disease so that they could feel

00:01:14.540 no responsibility at all for their callous attitudes towards what quickly became mass

00:01:20.420 death and the collapse of entire communities. Famously, it took Ronald Reagan, President

00:01:26.880 Ronald Reagan, rolling around in hell as we speak, four years to acknowledge AIDS in a press

00:01:33.560 conference, and that was only because his friend, closeted movie star Rock Hudson, had just been

00:01:39.540 diagnosed. As a gay man born in 1998, tell me I'm young. Just two years after antiretrovirals

00:01:47.380 became available, I feel like I live in the shadow of this crisis, which I think is why I fixate on

00:01:53.420 it so much. It's also because I will never not be jarred by the way that I learned about the AIDS

00:01:59.440 crisis. Like, I don't know about you, but it just was not taught about in my school system. We didn't

00:02:06.820 learn about the AIDS crisis in history class, and the extent to which we learned about it in health

00:02:12.180 class was they told us AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Don't get it. Good

00:02:18.200 luck. And so I did not know about this whole thing of like a generation of queer people dying. I just 0.97

00:02:25.240 wasn't aware until I learned about it through like an Instagram post when I was 17 or 18 years old

00:02:32.600 and continued to spend my senior year of high school ruthlessly researching every single thing

00:02:38.920 I could about this period in history, about this period in the history of my community that I had

00:02:44.700 previously been oblivious to. I made this episode a few months ago called Surviving AIDS in the 80s

00:02:50.600 with the brilliant Peter Staley, who lived with his diagnosis in the early years of the epidemic

00:02:56.660 and survived to see medication help him live a long life. That is one of my favorite episodes,

00:03:02.620 and if you haven't listened to it, I think it's worth the listen, not because of me, but entirely

00:03:06.780 because of Peter. But like, what about everyone who did not survive AIDS in the 80s? People who

00:03:14.600 died of AIDS in that time were rarely memorialized the way that we think is appropriate or normal

00:03:21.500 for when a loved one passes away. Parents were so often ashamed that their child was gay that they'd

00:03:27.480 lie about how they died to other people. They'd say it was the flu or cancer or something. 0.62

00:03:34.120 Deaths were swept under the rug, bodies removed from homes in literal garbage bags, no funeral,

00:03:40.840 no obituary, nothing. But this is also recent history. Many of the people who were taken from

00:03:47.520 us during this time would be like not even old, but like middle age today. They'd be at the pride

00:03:54.720 parades that just happened. They'd be our professors and shop owners and writers and

00:03:59.180 artists and actors and uncles and partners and friends. Some of them might even be

00:04:05.820 landlords. Over the last week, I told people online to send me stories about their memories

00:04:14.260 from the AIDS crisis. And today, I have compiled a series of vignettes sent from listeners of the

00:04:21.880 show who were the lovers and nurses and family members and students of people who died from AIDS.

00:04:28.080 This is a bit of a special episode as it's different in tone and format from my usual episodes, but I hope you'll find that in these stories there are still the same sometimes serious and sometimes lighthearted and meaningful moments I try to build this show around.

00:04:45.480 So without further ado. 0.83

00:04:50.240 Michael and I lived right off of Castro and 18th in the very center of the gay ghetto. 0.96

00:04:58.080 I got up early in the morning as I always want to do. 0.80

00:05:01.580 I walked by Cliff's Hardware in these big windows and I saw people congregating around

00:05:06.840 one of the windows.

00:05:08.740 It was two Polaroid photos that had been taken and a handwritten note.

00:05:16.240 The photograph was of a young man naked, dead, and his whole body was covered in huge lesions.

00:05:25.860 And this handwritten note said, this is my lover, John.

00:05:29.820 He died last night in our bed. 0.99

00:05:33.620 And I want to warn all gay people that there is a disease out there that's killing us. 1.00

00:05:41.040 Please be careful, if it can happen to us, it can happen to you. 0.98

00:05:47.240 And that's when I first realized that there was something that was killing gay people.

00:05:53.620 When Michael was diagnosed with AIDS, I went to bed for a year, went flat out to bed for 0.93

00:06:00.040 a year, couldn't handle it, couldn't face it.

00:06:04.100 The last six months, maybe a year that he was alive, every morning in the shower, where

00:06:10.440 he couldn't hear me because I was in the shower, I'd cry, I'd bawl my head off.

00:06:17.660 And finally he said to me, I know that you're crying in the shower and you don't need to

00:06:22.900 hide the fact you're crying you can cry whatever you want but i didn't want to cry in front of him

00:06:30.820 i have to say i highly recommend it if you're with somebody who is dying or terminally ill

00:06:37.780 nothing prepares you for it at all but if you can start to grieve before they die it's extremely

00:06:46.580 helpful. We were lucky in many respects. We had a house over our head. We had food. We

00:06:57.920 had people that loved us. I saw a lot of poverty. I saw a lot of people suffering. I knew people

00:07:07.580 literally, that died on the street from AIDS. I rented a house on the north side of Berkeley,

00:07:17.300 and the owner found out that Michael was ill and dying of AIDS, and he evicted us.

00:07:24.440 This is 1992. Berkeley, California of all places. Rented another house. Did not tell the man

00:07:32.240 that Michael had AIDS

00:07:33.820 Michael died at

00:07:36.420 25 minutes after midnight

00:07:38.640 in 1993

00:07:41.440 and the person

00:07:44.600 at the mortuary said I'm terribly sorry

00:07:46.560 but we cannot pick up

00:07:48.680 Mr. James for 18 hours

00:07:50.780 because so

00:07:52.420 many men have died of AIDS

00:07:54.520 in the last day

00:07:55.440 that we don't have the personnel or

00:07:58.400 the transport

00:07:59.620 his body for 18 hours

00:08:02.360 you need to keep his body

00:08:04.520 in a cool place at your house

00:08:06.020 and we'll be there between

00:08:08.300 18 and 20 hours

00:08:09.420 the people came

00:08:12.480 20 hours later

00:08:13.440 they walked in the house with a plastic garbage bag

00:08:16.720 big one, black one

00:08:18.040 and I said what's that 0.96

00:08:20.120 well Mr. James died of AIDS

00:08:22.960 and that's very contagious

00:08:24.260 so we legally have to put him

00:08:26.780 in a plastic garbage bag 1.00

00:08:28.640 And I said, not over my dead body, you motherfucker. 1.00

00:08:35.720 And I was prepared for this because my ex-lover, Juan Diego Michel, Ray Vaughn, his lover, when he died, told me they just shoved his body in a plastic garbage bag. 0.99

00:08:47.880 And so I had a velvet throw, the color of burgundy wine, trimmed in gold fringe, and I put it over Michael's body and I said, when you're away from our house, you do whatever you need to do, but not in front of me.

00:09:10.040 and our house had views of Marin County and the Golden Gate Bridge

00:09:15.700 and they put him in this van

00:09:19.160 and drove off into the morning mist

00:09:23.700 as the fog rolled in over the Golden Gate Bridge

00:09:27.400 and that was the end of 21 years

00:09:30.320 when Michael died

00:09:33.040 his death notice did not appear in the San Francisco Chronicle

00:09:36.460 because the food editor thought that he was not renowned enough

00:09:42.220 and known enough to put his obituary in the Chronicle.

00:09:47.420 One of the subdirectors at the San Francisco Opera,

00:09:51.500 he called me up and he said,

00:09:53.460 I heard that Michael died.

00:09:56.520 I said, yes.

00:09:58.420 He said, oh my God, the magic has gone out of our lives.

00:10:03.480 And that's how he affected people.

00:10:06.460 and for me to this day.

00:10:11.100 But, you know, he's almost entirely forgotten.

00:10:14.440 He was a force of nature,

00:10:16.560 the crown prince of haute cuisine.

00:10:18.880 That's how he was built for 20 years.

00:10:21.100 To his horror,

00:10:23.020 some publicist in New York

00:10:25.160 clamored that name onto him.

00:10:29.180 There was a memorial.

00:10:31.980 It was called

00:10:33.340 Angel Food, Cake for an Angel.

00:10:36.460 And there were 800 people there. Five days before the memorial, the phone rang at our house in Berkeley, and it was somebody from Peter Jennings' office at ABC News in New York.

00:10:49.320 And they said, we've heard about Michael, and we would like to do a live feed of up to seven minutes at his memorial on the evening news.

00:11:03.160 They interviewed me live.

00:11:06.540 I had said that Michael had helped a lot of people to get ahead professionally, especially a lot of gay men and lesbians.

00:11:15.980 they sent me a copy of the piece that aired and the part about helping gay people was edited out

00:11:26.360 1993

00:11:29.440 of course it ran on tv a lot of people saw it week later there's a knock at the door of the

00:11:38.040 house that we rented in north side of berkeley it was an eviction notice

00:11:45.200 and I had to move. I had to move out.

00:11:51.920 It's June 29th, 2024. My name's Ann Butterfield. Thank you for your focus on an AIDS memorial

00:12:00.000 special and for asking for and sharing these stories. Sometimes it seems that these beautiful

00:12:06.360 men who we mourn are a lost generation. I was a lesbian in my early 20s in the San Francisco Bay

00:12:13.800 area in the 1980s when my friends were getting sick. As we saw the lack of support from our

00:12:21.440 elected leaders and fear among society, while people were suffering, I knew I had to help.

00:12:29.420 For the next several years, I, along with many in the lesbian community, volunteered with local

00:12:35.880 non-profits to provide care and support for our brothers in the Bay Area. It was a turning point

00:12:43.140 for me and helped shape the rest of my life. We were all learning about AIDS and HIV together

00:12:49.840 in the 80s, and we did what we could to talk with others to reduce the stigma and fear.

00:12:56.660 We helped find resources for those testing positive. We hugged and loved them. We danced

00:13:02.600 with them. We sat by bedsides. We gave rides to appointments and support groups. We brought them

00:13:09.880 meals. We marched for them. We wrote letters demanding more research and funding. We often

00:13:16.700 became their chosen family when they were not accepted by their own. We helped dress wounds.

00:13:23.800 We prayed with them. We read to them. We laughed and cried together, and we later mourned for them

00:13:31.000 and would honor their lives with beautiful squares in the AIDS Memorial quilt. I suppose

00:13:37.640 one of the silver linings is that I got to expand my circle of friends and loved ones and these

00:13:44.400 many men I got to know. They were artists, teachers, engineers, writers, students, and business owners.

00:13:53.120 They were fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, and lovers. Those who gave their lives to AIDS

00:14:00.220 are our heroes. We will never ever forget. Thank you.

00:14:07.640 I was about five or six when my parents got divorced.

00:14:12.660 My mom had been a stay-at-home mom, and she suddenly found herself thrust back into the workforce with two babies at home to care for, and no backup.

00:14:22.500 That Easter was our first holiday without my dad, so we went to visit our nearest family in the Bay Area, my aunt and uncle, and their son Don,

00:14:31.200 who i guess was technically my cousin but he was so much older than my sister and i that we always

00:14:37.160 just called him uncle don uncle don had sort of a freddie mercury meets burt reynolds vibe

00:14:44.180 he lived over in the castro in san francisco so cool he'd never been married he had no kids of

00:14:52.380 his own but he loved to play dress up with my sister and i and teach us how to twirl in our

00:14:58.540 dresses and have fashion shows with my aunt's jewelry. He called us his little princesses.

00:15:05.240 We were just kids. We didn't know what gay or straight was. We certainly had no idea this

00:15:11.360 behavior at the time might be considered strange to the rest of my Midwestern family.

00:15:17.200 To my sister and I, he was just Uncle Don, and we loved him, and we thought he was fabulous.

00:15:23.060 that easter my mom was seriously struggling my dad had failed to pay his child support

00:15:29.960 and she explained to us through tears before we left that she was so sorry to disappoint us but

00:15:35.900 that she just didn't have enough money to buy us new dresses that year it sounds silly now because

00:15:44.160 you can just run out to target and buy a dress but back then we didn't get many new things

00:15:49.420 and what we did get was really special and it was treasured and it was usually for a holiday

00:15:55.520 so to not be able to provide that for my mom then was a really big blow of course it didn't matter

00:16:03.280 to my sister and I we loved our mom and we were together and that's all that mattered

00:16:07.420 so we stuffed ourselves into last year's dresses and last year's shoes and away we went to my aunt

00:16:14.280 an uncle's house. When we pulled into the driveway of their little blue house in Tracy, my uncle Don

00:16:21.460 walked out to the car and said, hi girls, we're gonna go for a little drive first. He took my

00:16:27.780 sister and I to Macy's, that golden standard of a 1980s department store, and said we could pick

00:16:35.760 out whatever Easter dress we wanted money was no object he wanted us to get the fluffiest

00:16:44.300 pinkest most fairy princess dresses we could find and he was going to get them for us

00:16:51.140 mine had puffed sleeves and little pearls on the bodice and a tulle underskirt that twirled

00:16:58.060 it was so beautiful i loved that dress i wore it all the time after that first easter

00:17:06.360 only when my mom was at work though she never knew sometimes i would just sit in it and watch

00:17:12.320 three two one contact it was the first time since my parents divorced that it felt like things

00:17:18.020 might be okay again that we felt kind of normal and my uncle don gave that to us

00:17:24.620 he gave us a piece of dignity and love that we so desperately needed that year

00:17:30.900 i really loved him so much

00:17:33.860 i was about 11 or 12 when i first really became cognizant of hiv and aids and then suddenly it

00:17:42.580 was everywhere there was a national hysteria around it and we felt it it in our elementary

00:17:50.400 schools, at home. Everyone was talking with the news. Everyone was talking about it. No one

00:17:57.760 understood what it was. People thought you could get it from hugging, from sharing a drinking

00:18:02.340 fountain. And people were dying. So many people were dying. Images of hollowed out men covered

00:18:14.520 and sores and hospital beds flooded the news. 0.96

00:18:19.840 They called it the gay disease.

00:18:24.100 And then suddenly it was in my home.

00:18:28.140 I was 12 when my mom got the call from my aunt

00:18:31.140 that my uncle Don had passed away.

00:18:35.080 They said he died of a new type of cancer.

00:18:39.300 No one even knew he was sick.

00:18:42.580 No one.

00:18:45.340 There would be no funeral.

00:18:47.580 They didn't want Don's friends around.

00:18:50.460 They didn't want any kind of attention over his passing.

00:18:53.260 They weren't even going to write an obituary.

00:18:57.100 We weren't going to be able to say goodbye.

00:18:59.300 They'd already had him cremated.

00:19:02.820 And when I asked my mom through my tears, why?

00:19:06.940 Why had they not told us sooner so that we could see him?

00:19:10.500 she just took my hand and said quietly

00:19:15.220 sweetie you're old enough to know now you you know uncle don was gay right do you know what 0.57

00:19:28.180 gay is yes i said i lied well you've heard about aids right you guys have talked about that in 0.56

00:19:38.620 school? Yes. Well, I think it's too uncomfortable for your aunt and uncle to admit this, but

00:19:50.740 I'm pretty sure Uncle Don died of AIDS. And, um, and he has to be cremated because the funeral

00:20:02.500 Holmes won't handle

00:20:04.340 his body if he had the

00:20:06.340 disease

00:20:06.960 even telling this story now

00:20:22.000 it makes me sick

00:20:23.140 and I'm 12 years old again

00:20:26.120 I'm right there

00:20:29.920 I was so angry at the injustice of it then

00:20:36.340 and I didn't even fully understand what all of it meant

00:20:40.540 the way I understand it now

00:20:44.260 he was a good

00:20:50.180 kind, generous

00:20:53.780 wonderful man

00:20:56.620 and he died alone

00:21:00.400 without his family around him

00:21:06.200 wasting away in some hospital bed

00:21:09.900 and his death was hushed out a side door

00:21:15.840 without the dignity or the rights

00:21:19.580 he so deserved

00:21:21.280 because his parents were too ashamed of who he was

00:21:25.060 he'd be 72 now

00:21:32.140 he is a part of the lost generation 1.00

00:21:37.740 of our queer history 0.99

00:21:39.180 he would have really made an awesome great 1.00

00:21:43.780 gunkle to my daughter

00:21:45.400 and I would give anything to wrap my arms around him again

00:21:51.760 and give him the acceptance and the love he so deserves

00:21:55.040 before he left this earth

00:21:57.980 hello um so my name is sage and i'm a trans man and when i was coming out on my journey on

00:22:11.540 self-discovery and dealing with um everything that meant for my family for my relationships for

00:22:17.840 my life uh discovering this a little bit later in life one of the people i really wish that i could

00:22:23.720 connect with was my Uncle Eddie. I unfortunately didn't get to meet my Uncle Eddie. He died a

00:22:29.480 little over three years before I was born of AIDS. And he was alive during a time where he didn't

00:22:36.120 know how the family, you know, was going to react to him, to what he calls his lifestyle, to his

00:22:42.880 partner. And he ended up kind of cutting off the family more or less for a really long time so that

00:22:50.440 he could live his life and it's heartbreaking to me to know like how much fear he lived in and so

00:22:58.480 much of what he went through I feel like really just paralleled a lot of my own story it's

00:23:02.880 heartbreaking you know that I don't get to connect with him about that today he would be in his early

00:23:09.000 70s today and when I was asking my family questions about him my aunt his sister sent me a letter that

00:23:17.060 he had written her um it was the first you know real communication that they had gotten from him

00:23:22.860 in a really long time um telling them about who he was and you know what was going on so for the

00:23:29.800 stories that you're collecting on aids on you know people that you knew i thought instead of me

00:23:36.760 telling my uncle eddie's story i i actually am just going to read this letter that he wrote yeah

00:23:43.200 so here goes. Dearest sis, well here goes. This is the hardest letter I've ever had to write.

00:23:49.120 Harder still because I've been dumb by delaying and delaying the inevitable, and because I love

00:23:53.240 you so much. You and the whole family, I do love you, as much as always or more. Mom and dad and

00:23:59.200 the boys too, more than I could ever say. Try only to understand if you can that people do stupid 1.00

00:24:04.820 things when they're scared, and I am scared. I'm sick, Jan. Very sick. And while today I feel good, 1.00

00:24:10.900 tomorrow, who knows? How do I explain all this? Hard enough if I was just trying to drop on you

00:24:16.680 my lifestyle, harder yet for me. I just got out of the hospital after two weeks in there and they

00:24:22.340 don't know what's wrong with me. Thought every single specialist, every department, had damn 0.98

00:24:27.300 near every test devised to torture a patient and they just don't know. Basically right now my

00:24:32.680 spleen is enlarged to the bursting point, my liver is enlarged, and some of my lymph glands are

00:24:37.000 enlarged. They've biopsied my lymph nodes and found nothing. They nearly killed me drilling

00:24:41.820 through my back doing a bone marrow biopsy, and again, nothing. A thousand x-rays and CAT scans,

00:24:48.820 bronchoscopy, skin biopsy, and a lot of blood drawn. The doctors can't diagnose anything

00:24:53.980 officially, but inside I know what it is. It's AIDS, Jan. I know it. As of yet, I don't meet the

00:25:00.720 strict terms for that diagnosis. My doctor said I may have ARC, AIDS-related complex, but I know

00:25:07.400 what I know. Maybe today they can only call it ARC because they can't detect any PCP pneumonia

00:25:12.920 or KS cancer or any lymphoma, but it's just a matter of time. And I think it's the lymphoma

00:25:18.980 that I do have as my feet and legs are filling up with fluids and not draining properly.

00:25:24.000 I'm taking Lasix to make me urinate and help drain fluid, but so-so results. They can't treat

00:25:30.100 what they can't diagnose, so I'm home in bed hoping the spleen will shrink by itself. I go back

00:25:35.320 to see the doctor in two weeks to see if there's been any change. My only other option is a

00:25:39.860 spleenectomy, and neither the doctor nor I am in favor of that unless we have to. Taking the spleen

00:25:45.120 out may still not tell them what's wrong, and I'll be minus the spleen, which is just one more line

00:25:49.900 of defense in my weak immune system. He doesn't think I'm strong enough to go through major

00:25:54.260 surgery right now. So many things to lay on you all at once, Jan. So many. Through it all, I do

00:26:00.700 love you all. Please believe that. Now try to understand I also love someone else, someone you

00:26:06.300 don't know. His name is J.R. Peters. You can call him my roommate or anything you want, but he is

00:26:12.240 the one I've chosen to live my life with, however long or short that may be now. It is his ring I

00:26:17.780 wear on my left hand. Yes, a wedding ring. I can't ask you to understand, only to accept, and if you

00:26:24.520 can't accept him, then don't try to understand or accept me. He and I are one. If it weren't for him,

00:26:30.240 I'd have no place to live nor nothing to eat. He takes better care of me than any nurse, and being

00:26:35.300 with him is a tremendous medicine in itself. Now please, Jen, get any tears out of the way first

00:26:41.600 if you call me. I don't need them, and they won't change anything. I'm also too tired to write this

00:26:47.040 all out more than once. So when you do calm down, can I impose on you to call mom and dad and Bob?

00:26:53.100 I just can't take great strain right now. I mean, I get real tired just going from the bed to the

00:26:57.740 bathroom. So getting choked up writing this drains me lots. Crying leaves me more drained than

00:27:03.540 anything. And JR and I have gotten all of our crying over with and can't take any more for now.

00:27:08.780 So please tell mom and dad I love them more than life, but cannot bury crying session on the phone.

00:27:14.880 Crying just leaves me exhausted and out of breath,

00:27:17.180 and my breathing is short already and labored when I exert myself.

00:27:21.400 Also, I'm not going anywhere, period.

00:27:24.160 I will not leave Louisville.

00:27:25.860 I will be treated here as best they can for as long as they can.

00:27:29.260 I'm not going anywhere else for any treatments or experiments.

00:27:32.220 This is my home now.

00:27:33.220 This is where JR and I live and where we stay.

00:27:36.860 Oh, Jan, I know I've screwed up badly,

00:27:39.280 not staying in closer touch all these years.

00:27:41.820 I don't know what to say.

00:27:43.460 It's hard to say anything through the tears.

00:27:46.040 I love you all.

00:27:47.100 Didn't know how to tell anyone I was gay.

00:27:49.380 Didn't know how to tell you anything when I first suspected I might be sick

00:27:52.780 or when I first tested positive to HTLV3.

00:27:56.900 But now, blam, I have to hit you with everything all at once.

00:28:00.740 Don't cry, at least not too much.

00:28:03.040 First of all, I have no regrets, believe it or not.

00:28:05.340 My 36 years, I wouldn't trade or do differently.

00:28:08.480 My family I love so much and my friends.

00:28:10.700 and for 18 months JR and I have been so very happy. Now he's taking care of me as I would

00:28:16.520 have him if it were the other way around. Don't for a minute think I'm giving up. Oh no. You may

00:28:21.980 remember that I can be a thick-headed Dutchman and stubborn fighter and with JR I intend to fight

00:28:27.020 long and hard and I may make it. And if I don't I will have lived and loved well and been loved by

00:28:35.060 the best. All of you. J.R. has your number to notify in an emergency, Jan, if that's all right

00:28:41.880 with you. I'd like you to read this to mom and dad because I couldn't cry that much. Ask them too to

00:28:48.300 cry first before they call. I mean it. The strain exhausts me. I'm too weak for a lot of tears. In

00:28:54.640 an emergency, I think you can be calmer and I'd worry about him calling mom and dad in an emergency

00:28:59.740 because I'd worry about their hearts. This has taken me two days to write so far. I can't do a

00:29:05.360 lot at one time. J.R. has my absolute power of attorney and medical authority to decide for me

00:29:10.880 if I can't. He can sign consent or refuse it for me, and he knows I forbid extraordinary life

00:29:16.400 prolonging machinery. I will not be kept going by machines, and he alone has my authority to

00:29:21.940 decide if I cannot. I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry, I tire so easily these days. Can you try to

00:29:28.800 understand and accept me still, sis? Can you help everyone else in the family? Can you try to tell

00:29:34.080 them how much I love them and just didn't know how to tell them all this? Oh God, how I love you all.

00:29:39.560 I will always have that. If you do talk to JR on the phone, try to love him too, knowing how much

00:29:46.160 I do. I've got to stop for now and leave everything else for later when I've had some time to digest

00:29:52.760 all this and calm down. Above all and through it all or despite it all, I love you all. You will

00:29:59.760 always be in my heart and prayers, always. Let me rest. Call me in the evening, around 9 p.m. is best.

00:30:06.740 I love you, Jan. I love you, Mom and Dad. I love you, Bob, Jim, Steve, and I love you, Russ,

00:30:12.460 Kristen and Megan, Eddie. And after he wrote this letter, my family was able to reconnect with him

00:30:24.720 and they flew down to Kentucky to see him and be with him. And so he died knowing that his family

00:30:34.940 loved him and accepted him. And I'm glad that he had that, but it really breaks my heart that he

00:30:41.660 lived all of those years without them just because of what he was seeing with everyone around him

00:30:48.700 you know losing their family and people disowning their sons for having AIDS or being and just you

00:30:56.640 know the fear that he lived in that his family would reject him and that he didn't get to have

00:31:01.740 their love and support through a really really hard and scary time of his life so he only he

00:31:10.400 only lived for you know about maybe up to two months after this letter was written things

00:31:15.380 progressed really quickly in a way that they weren't expecting but he was able you know to

00:31:24.120 to make that peace and to be able to reconnect with his family and just as as I was going through

00:31:31.880 everything myself it's it's just really tragic that the one person who could understand me wasn't

00:31:37.420 here today because of that. So thank you for listening to his letter. Whether you use it or

00:31:44.660 not, it means a lot to be able to share his story. Matt, I have a foster mom whose name is Cece,

00:31:53.840 who is a woman in a trans lesbian couple who raised me, who has been living with HIV since

00:32:00.380 she contracted it from a blood transfusion as a teenager. I think that her story is really

00:32:06.400 important and um I'll just give you the bare bones she was born in very rural Minnesota to

00:32:12.280 very conservative parents and when she contracted HIV you know they thought it was because she's a

00:32:19.160 bit fruity which you know she is she came as a trans woman much later in life but obviously you

00:32:25.520 know HIV is not a consequence it's not something that happens to people who are gay it's something

00:32:29.840 that happens to everyone and it was just incredibly bigoted and she put up with a lot of prejudice

00:32:34.800 from her family they alienated her and made her feel very alone during what we all know is an

00:32:40.740 incredibly horrific medical journey but she she has been undetectable for it's got to be 10 15

00:32:49.540 years now but she had to go through every one of the trials in the 80s and 90s which were again to

00:32:55.740 use the word horrific you know she went through chemotherapy radiation treatments drug trials

00:33:01.160 everything under the sun while they were trying to formulate a cure she watched her friends and

00:33:06.880 her found family die around her and she came out of it just this incredibly badass strong

00:33:14.140 warrior of a person a few years ago she got in a really bad motorcycle accident she broke a couple

00:33:20.460 of bones in her neck and I think it was the first time in her entire life that she'd really had time

00:33:27.140 to sit around and really think about who she was and who she wanted to be and she came out as

00:33:33.520 a trans woman which was incredible to see and incredible to witness and I feel like

00:33:38.320 we all knew that it had it had always been there and we're like so proud of her

00:33:43.420 oh man but in very short succession after Susie's accident both of her parents passed away who had

00:33:58.800 been you know just horrible to her and she got to come out and really spread her wings

00:34:04.540 which is something that you know you're lucky to live if you contracted HIV at the time that she

00:34:11.280 did. And it's not a life sentence now, but it used to be. And I don't think that Susie's story hinges

00:34:18.000 on coming out and her parents passing and finally being able to be herself. Like that is not at all

00:34:23.880 the conclusion of her story. I think she has many, many more years of proving us all wrong and being

00:34:28.420 a badass biker chick. But it's an entire lifetime that she spent being judged, facing incredible

00:34:39.580 prejudice from every angle and being just blatantly 100% authentically herself in the

00:34:47.700 face of all of it and I think that her story deserves to be told. Taking just a moment's

00:34:54.720 break from the show to thank the sponsor of today's show Blueland and yes I'll admit running

00:35:03.480 any kind of advertising on an episode like this does feel a little strange to me, but I can explain

00:35:11.300 in two parts. One is that advertising really does help the show run and make it possible for me to

00:35:18.260 spend a day just going through emails, listening to voice memos that strangers have sent in to me.

00:35:24.020 And number two is that I have a little thing called contractual obligations. But you know what?

00:35:31.240 I do feel grateful to be contractually obligated to discuss a brand that has been so supportive

00:35:38.800 of this show and whose products I also really use in real life every single day. In fact,

00:35:45.580 my laundry is running downstairs right now and I just got out my Blueland laundry tablet. So you

00:35:51.720 know what? Shout out Blueland. You're a real one. Did you know that it's plastic-free July?

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00:36:00.660 And it's also not Plastics Month.

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00:36:07.300 This kind of blew my mind.

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00:36:35.140 It's also really economically friendly because instead of buying, you know, a big bottle of cleaning solution over and over again,

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00:36:54.020 Again, that's blueland.com slash fruity for 15% off.

00:36:59.240 Thank you so much to Blueland for sponsoring the show.

00:37:01.700 And now let's hear some more stories.

00:37:06.940 On August 18th, 1988, just shy of my ninth birthday, my mom came to tell me that my uncle

00:37:14.040 Dave had died of pneumonia.

00:37:16.300 At that young age, I wasn't familiar with death, but I remember feeling very sad since

00:37:21.720 it was the first time I had known someone who passed away. The funeral and those who attended

00:37:27.180 are a blur to me now, but I do recall that it was devastating to my grandma, and my dad never

00:37:32.920 really talked much about it afterward. I have some vivid memories of my Uncle Dave. He was a second

00:37:39.480 grade teacher, and his apartment always seemed so cool to me, filled with neon lights and awesome

00:37:45.680 decorations that screamed the 80s. I remember his auburn hair, his full mustache always hiding a

00:37:53.620 smile, and his bright blue eyes. Decades later, my sister and I began speculating about his death.

00:38:02.480 No one had talked about it for so long. My grandma eventually passed away, and my dad,

00:38:08.120 who has the emotional intelligence of a sea slug, always deflected any time we brought up Uncle Dave.

00:38:14.160 As we grew up and moved out of our small farm town in central Illinois to places like Chicago

00:38:20.920 and California, we made friends who were gay. They were our neighbors, they ran the best restaurants,

00:38:27.540 and they became parts of our lives. We often thought about Uncle Dave and the slivers of

00:38:33.800 memories we had of him, how he died so young and from quote-unquote pneumonia. It just didn't add

00:38:41.020 up. Yet the years kept passing and we thought only about him occasionally. Our family never

00:38:47.360 talked about him at Christmas or any other holidays. Then last year on my birthday, August 26,

00:38:55.980 2023, I was at my mom's house. I saw the little tea sets in her china cabinet that Uncle Dave had

00:39:03.020 brought back from the UK for my sister and me shortly before he died. I turned to my mom and

00:39:08.720 I said, I remember getting these right before Dave died of, holding up my quote fingers, pneumonia.

00:39:16.880 My mom's eyes widened. She herself had been battling cancer, perhaps feeling that she didn't

00:39:23.840 want to hide it any longer, just in case. She spilled the truth. My uncle Dave had died of

00:39:30.520 histoplasmosis, one of the big killers of those with HIV AIDS. He had been sick when he got back

00:39:37.320 from the UK and died within two weeks. My jaw dropped. Finally, 35 years later, we were told

00:39:46.160 the truth. It had been covered up by everyone in my family. Because we lived in such a conservative

00:39:52.640 town, particularly during the 80s, a time when such a truth could not be openly acknowledged.

00:39:58.920 I went into the bathroom and just cried and cried.

00:40:02.280 a week later curiosity got the better of me since no one else was going to talk about it

00:40:10.700 i started digging the internet holds a lot of old records newspaper articles

00:40:16.420 graduation announcements and even findagrave.com i knew my uncle was buried in a grave

00:40:23.340 behind a little church in the country next to my grandparents i hope someone might have taken

00:40:29.400 pictures of that little church and to my surprise, they had. There was a picture of my uncle's grave

00:40:35.860 and I noticed that you could send virtual flowers to a loved one. I found two comments below his

00:40:42.240 picture, one anonymous and the other with a name. I turned to Facebook to type in that name and I

00:40:50.520 found a match. I friended him, figuring if he knew my uncle, he would recognize my last name and know

00:40:57.480 we related. If not, no harm done. It'd be just some random person friending him.

00:41:06.760 To my amazement, Mark messaged me and told me he was one of my uncle's best friends.

00:41:12.800 Through him, I got connected with two more of his close friends, James and Bob. It opened up a whole

00:41:18.920 new world for me. I got to know Uncle Dave like I never had before. Mark, who happened to live

00:41:25.320 close to me in California had met my uncle at a bar called The Bushes in Chicago in the early 80s.

00:41:32.660 They became close friends and shared a love for collecting antiques. I learned that my uncle's

00:41:38.900 nickname was Miss O and that he was always fashionably light. He loved divine, always had

00:41:45.280 the latest stereo systems, and was adored by his students. His friend Bob, who passed just a few

00:41:51.560 months ago once told me, if I had to describe your uncle, all labels aside, I would say he was one of

00:41:58.200 the best friends we all had. Not a mean bone in him, but he lived life to the fullest, used to

00:42:03.700 make us all smile. He was a good guy. I even got the truth of his last moments on this earth.

00:42:10.940 With a tube down his throat, he wrote a note to Mark that said, I don't have much time. And it

00:42:17.100 was Bob who was with him when he passed, holding his hand. All these secrets hidden for so many

00:42:24.380 years made me realize there was no doubt I was meant to find these men, my uncle's best friends.

00:42:30.240 They had lost dozens of friends during the AIDS epidemic and were grateful to have made it out

00:42:35.060 alive. My uncle, David Jeffrey Unkin, born September 18, 1952, died August 18, 1988.

00:42:47.100 He would have been 72 years old this year.

00:42:51.080 Truly remembered by his family 35 years later, but loved for who he was by his friends for a lifetime.

00:42:58.840 A teacher, a happy-go-lucky soul who left us too early.

00:43:03.340 We miss you, Uncle Dave.

00:43:05.380 Miss O, you are not forgotten.

00:43:11.400 Hi, my name is Avila, and I am 20 years old, and I'm from Illinois.

00:43:17.100 and my connection with the AIDS pandemic in the 80s and 90s stems from my biological uncle.

00:43:26.020 I'm adopted so I have never met my biological family in person however I was lucky enough to

00:43:32.540 have contact with my biological mother via email and when I was in high school I was opening up to

00:43:39.660 her about my sexuality and being queer and she responded saying that she is not frightened by my

00:43:47.840 sexuality and that she is very understanding and open to queer people and queerness in general

00:43:56.260 because her brother, her older brother, my uncle, was gay and he was diagnosed with HIV and later

00:44:05.120 on AIDS and he was never treated for it. He didn't want to rot away in the hospital, she said, but

00:44:12.180 she didn't know about any of this at all because he didn't tell anyone in the family. She told me

00:44:20.920 that she told me that him and his boyfriend went to Germany together, and she hadn't heard

00:44:36.640 from him since because he ended up taking his own life in Germany before the aides could

00:44:43.740 kill him essentially and after she had told me this it honestly like really really broke my heart

00:44:54.880 it made things really complicated because I see photos of him and he was such a handsome man and

00:45:03.180 he looks a lot like me oddly enough I'm not used to seeing people that look like me because my

00:45:09.400 biological family is you know in another continent ever since i've just had a new outlook on life

00:45:16.980 honestly i wish i had the opportunity to speak to him and every day i pray that one day i'll be able

00:45:25.020 to speak to my and meet my family in venezuela yeah so that's my my experience thank you so much

00:45:32.740 for listening. Hey Matt, this is Emily from Redondo Beach, California. I want to share the

00:45:40.460 story of my late Uncle Carl, my mother's brother, who died of AIDS in 1989. Before I get into the

00:45:46.860 story of my Uncle Carl, I have to tell about how my uncle's coming out led to my mom and dad

00:45:52.600 becoming a couple to where they have now been married for 41 years. My parents were servers

00:45:59.100 at a restaurant in college where they became friends and developed a tight-knit friend group.

00:46:04.700 My dad's best friend and my mother's brother became very close, and while we can all see where

00:46:10.660 this story is going, it was quite a shock in 1980 when my dad caught his best friend and my mom's

00:46:16.740 brother getting hot and heavy at their apartment. And they both admitted to my parents that they

00:46:21.580 were gay and had fallen for each other, but it was still a lot for everyone to take in.

00:46:28.080 Being friends who needed to process this new development, my parents went out to El Torito for dollar margaritas to discuss how two of their closest people in their lives had been able to keep the secret for so long.

00:46:40.940 The margaritas kept flowing, one thing led to another, and my dad woke up the next morning in my mom's waterbed, and he's never left.

00:46:48.660 Their friend group remained strong, the newly out gays were welcomed with open arms, and while my grandparents were raised good old-fashioned Eisenhower Republicans, they also accepted my uncle for his true self

00:47:01.760 Years past, the 80s did their thing, and my uncle got sick

00:47:06.480 I was born in 1986 and had the pleasure of being my uncle's first niece

00:47:12.900 Unfortunately, a couple years after I was born was when my uncle was diagnosed with AIDS, after being well for some time.

00:47:20.760 His story goes like many other stories in the 80s.

00:47:24.580 He was a pariah, doctors couldn't and didn't want to do anything and treat him, and he progressed very quickly into a painful disease.

00:47:34.780 My grandmother, who was unable to have children of her own after being sterilized when she had tuberculosis as a young woman, adopted my mom and Uncle Carl at birth from separate families.

00:47:47.900 She was a good, strong, community-oriented, loving woman who brought many people into her life that needed love and a place to call home.

00:47:58.260 And that didn't change when my Uncle Carl came out as gay, or even when he got sick.

00:48:03.900 My Depression-era conservative grandmother did everything in her power to care for her son. 0.98

00:48:09.580 When he was in pain, my grandmother would drive her giant Buick down to South Central LA and buy

00:48:15.660 marijuana from drug dealers because it was the only thing Uncle Carl could take to help keep

00:48:21.140 the pain away. She stayed by his hospital bed every day and every night until the day he died.

00:48:27.260 after his death she hand stitched the most beautiful quilt to add to the national aids

00:48:33.740 quilt where she went yearly and even took me and my sisters with her one of my earliest memories

00:48:39.860 is running around the Washington Monument lawn where the aids quilt was spread out and touch

00:48:45.620 all of the fabric and imagine that the quilt would put everyone in the world to bed at night

00:48:50.200 like a big safe warm place to sleep to this day my mother and sisters and I will continue to be

00:48:56.820 activists in the gay community to honor my late grandmother and my late uncle who endured that

00:49:02.320 horrible time with as much grace and love for others as anyone could possibly have. Thank you

00:49:08.800 for listening, Matt. Growing up, I had always heard the stories of my mom's best friend, Charlie.

00:49:15.560 They met in junior high in the late 70s when my mom transferred from Catholic school to the public

00:49:20.320 school system. There, she was the self-proclaimed awkward fat Catholic school girl that the kids in 0.99

00:49:26.780 the city public school would bully. She found solace in her new best friend, Charlie. Son 0.68

00:49:33.680 of a Methodist minister, the kids at their Massachusetts public school didn't know what

00:49:37.780 to think of him either. He was also, as my mom would call him, effervescent and would

00:49:43.420 be relentlessly bullied for his more effeminate ways. Charlie had golden curly hair and a

00:49:49.920 quick witty sense of humor. He also had a rebellious streak in him despite his desire

00:49:55.460 to follow in his father's footsteps. Charlie and my mom almost didn't graduate high school

00:50:01.060 because they ditched so many days their senior year. Instead of just ditching to get drunk at

00:50:05.860 the beach, which they did do a lot, Charlie also dragged her to art museums, orchestra performances,

00:50:11.060 and many other cultural events happening in Boston. My mom often credits Charlie with

00:50:16.760 filling in her education where the Lynn public school system failed. Charlie also had a very

00:50:22.960 distinct sense of style, as evident by his bright periwinkle tuxedo he wore to the senior prom.

00:50:28.760 I had the best dressed to date, my mom would say. Shortly after they graduated high school in the

00:50:34.820 early 80s, Charlie finally came out as gay to her. She was surprised when he first told her,

00:50:41.200 which I still think is the funniest thing. Rumors started going around that Charlie was

00:50:46.620 light in the loafers, and my grandmother warned my mom to not sort herself with that crowd.

00:50:51.340 who knows what they'll think she would tell her later that night she went to her first gay bar

00:50:58.160 charlie introduced her to drag culture and my mom remembers tearing up she had never seen

00:51:05.080 femininity celebrated that was plus size nor felt as accepted as she had in her life while at these 0.97

00:51:10.680 bars to her this wasn't a gay club this was a gathering of the outcasts of society and my god

00:51:18.060 were they fun. Charlie was fun and an amazing friend who always accepted my mom for who she 0.99

00:51:23.640 was. Knowing who my mom is, I know she did the same for him. Then the AIDS crisis began

00:51:32.700 to develop. All of a sudden, people were going out less and Charlie's friends were getting

00:51:38.060 sick. Really sick. The bar started to shut her down due to lack of business and Charlie

00:51:44.860 my mom lost their safe space. What horrified my mom and Charlie the most was how the apathy

00:51:51.320 of gay people turned into straight up fear and anger. People would be scared to even

00:51:56.980 touch Charlie. When Charlie finally delivered the bad news that he had gotten sick too,

00:52:03.720 my mother became terrified for him. He reassured her it was going to be okay and that he was

00:52:10.740 going to continue to live and love life, which he did. He traveled around the world. Paris was

00:52:17.980 his favorite city. He was also able to get an art history degree from UMass Boston.

00:52:24.020 One of Charlie's life goals was to be a college graduate.

00:52:28.760 He made amends with his family and father, and even made amends with his belief in God.

00:52:34.240 While he never became a minister, his belief in God strengthened at the end of his life.

00:52:38.120 as a fellow queer christian hearing this part of his story was amazing

00:52:42.720 that we could be both that he had the courage to be both

00:52:46.300 charlie died in the early 90s right before the miracle cocktail came out

00:52:53.860 it's been over 30 years and my mom still talks about him but about the love she felt for him

00:53:01.380 the fun they had and the connection she felt for the first time in her life

00:53:05.220 she doesn't have many pictures with him

00:53:08.140 and all I've been able to learn about him

00:53:10.180 is through her

00:53:10.960 Charlie lives on though

00:53:13.840 when we go on drive through Lynn

00:53:16.160 she remembers their fun

00:53:17.260 when her birthday comes around

00:53:20.000 she remembers him as his birthday

00:53:21.960 was only two days after hers

00:53:23.500 she also remembers him

00:53:26.960 and one of my best friends

00:53:28.080 who on more than one occasion

00:53:30.580 has stated how similar of people they are

00:53:32.340 it's a tragedy what the AIDS crisis took from us and how the echo of its pain can still be felt

00:53:38.700 today my mom still misses one of her best friends and I mourn a man I never even got the chance to

00:53:44.580 meet my great uncle so my dad's uncle um had AIDS and died my extended family has always been

00:53:56.280 very conservative and Christian and a lot of them are like Trump supporters not all but

00:54:01.280 a lot of them so for a little while I thought I was like the first queer person in my family

00:54:07.360 about two-ish years ago I found out about my great uncle I didn't know about him as a kid at all my 0.96

00:54:14.280 family never talks about him and now it's like really too late to talk about him because everyone

00:54:19.860 who knew him is either dead or really really old my mom my dad my aunt and I my aunts I found out

00:54:28.700 later than my aunt's gay as well it's great we've been trying to secure as many like pictures and

00:54:33.480 stories about him as we can but there's not a lot because nobody talked about him and I don't know

00:54:40.080 if they didn't talk about him because of homophobia or grief or a mixture of the two because he was

00:54:44.900 really like young when he died he was the baby of the family I think about him a lot like did he

00:54:50.040 have a partner are they still alive did their family scrub him from their memory too I'm not

00:54:58.460 the first gay person in my family and I'm not the only one anymore but I feel like if I had you know

00:55:06.100 my great uncle Danny with me still alive it would be so much easier to be gay and I think I would

00:55:12.900 have been less nervous to come out and I think I actually would have come out to everybody because

00:55:17.780 I'm not out to half my family and I wasn't I was born 20 years after he died but I think it's still

00:55:28.180 weird that I grieve.

00:55:34.920 Hi, Matt. Long time listener for Stumpcaller. My name is Ian. I'm 26. I live in New York.

00:55:41.500 I did not live through the AIDS crisis, if my age didn't make it obvious, but I'm lucky that I

00:55:46.300 live in the legacy of people who were alive during the AIDS crisis. My middle name is after my dad's

00:55:52.820 cousin, Bob. They both grew up in rural Ohio together and ended up moving out to the East

00:55:57.680 coast separately bob was kind of a wanderer he hit his 20s late 20s and he didn't quite know what

00:56:05.600 he was doing with himself and he got a botany degree at one point and just tried a lot of things

00:56:11.240 not all of them worked out um but something that you know he was able to do openly more on the east

00:56:16.800 coast was be gay and he was in a relationship he had a boyfriend and he believed it to be a

00:56:21.900 monogamous relationship but his partner cheated on him and the partner was asymptomatic and Bob was

00:56:28.400 not. So Bob deteriorated pretty quickly and my parents who I don't know if they were the only

00:56:35.580 family members to really stick by him but I think they were one of the few. They at the time they

00:56:40.680 were very cool and I'll get into that in a second about gayness in the 80s for a straight couple but

00:56:45.420 they had my two older siblings as toddlers at the time and while Bob was dying they took

00:56:51.780 the kids to go hang out with him and the way that it was told to me was Bob was laying on the couch

00:56:58.520 doing bad and having two toddlers next to him just be curious about the world and playing like

00:57:04.940 nothing was wrong and and interacting with him like nothing was really wrong with him except

00:57:09.960 for the fact that he was just laying on the couch and was low energy brought a lot of life back to

00:57:14.440 his eyes and I just think that's a really good image but um I feel really lucky to carry Bob's

00:57:20.920 middle name with me, or my middle name of Robert with me, in that, you know, I'm a gay man here

00:57:27.780 now. I like to think that he's kind of getting a second chance. I think of him a lot. I also think

00:57:32.760 of him whenever I take my prep, which I think is, you know, what a miracle that is. But I think

00:57:39.320 it's fun that I'm also in my late 20s, and I don't really know what I'm doing, but botany is pretty

00:57:45.320 cool and yeah it's it's this really interesting connection that i i have this guy who i never got

00:57:51.360 to meet but um my dad has all these really cool t-shirts from living in new york at the time he

00:57:57.260 was a book salesman and he has all these shirts that are like shakespeare was gay and it has

00:58:01.320 lists of gay authors and pink triangles on them and it's really interesting and my mom worked in

00:58:06.320 the death ward in hell's kitchen as a social worker and she was one of the people who would

00:58:10.600 like sign lovers and boyfriends and partners in as cousins and not you know so that they could

00:58:17.100 get in to see the people of dying of AIDS and so that's very cool what interesting residue that that

00:58:23.840 had is when I came out as a teenager I didn't get a homophobic response necessarily or one that was

00:58:33.120 rooted in religion like I was kind of expecting when I came out I got the response if you live

00:58:39.820 out and openly you're gonna die and i think that's just a really interesting response i think we talk 0.79

00:58:48.420 about the age crisis like this this vacuum seal of gay men experienced it and reagan didn't 0.98

00:58:56.520 acknowledge it and that's kind of the main things that we talk about with it um and obviously most

00:59:02.940 of the accounts that we have about it were people who lived through it you know not the people who

00:59:06.900 died but obviously people of all sexualities genders AIDS still exists in the world like AIDS

00:59:10.940 was not siloed like that but I feel like the conversations keep going to that and especially 0.73

00:59:14.880 you know centered on on white men but I think it's interesting to to see the residue of straight

00:59:19.860 couples who also saw people die and how it affected how they saw gayness especially when

00:59:25.500 their son came out as a a threat to his life not as a um a sin but I also on a a lighter note I

00:59:36.080 guess. I just took up playing tennis here in New York because I watched Challengers and I wanted

00:59:41.020 to play tennis. My dad sent me his racket from when he played and he went to NYU and he said

00:59:46.280 there was this guy Ralph who was the second gay man out gay man who he ever met who he played

00:59:50.780 with and Ralph taught him tennis and my dad taught Ralph racquetball and that's how they spent their

00:59:54.640 time and I guess they were just really good confidants in each other and as my dad puts it

00:59:59.460 Ralph was turning tricks which is just very 80s to me to pay for school and that's how Ralph got

01:00:05.220 AIDS and died. But apparently he was very, very good at tennis and like placed in New Jersey and

01:00:10.580 Newark competitions or something like that. But I feel, I feel very honored to have a racket that

01:00:14.860 was adjacent to him, you know, that got to play with Ralph. And I feel really honored that I get

01:00:19.040 to carry Bob's name with me and carry these two really cool gay men who, well, I mean, Ralph was

01:00:27.540 clearly like, he was very good at tennis, but Bob, I think I like his story best because he's not

01:00:32.520 super exceptional. You know, he was this guy who was curious and didn't necessarily succeed

01:00:39.780 constantly and was still a person who had value. And I get to carry on his value and carry him

01:00:46.200 with me. And I really like that. He's a guy and I love him and I get to have him with me.

01:00:56.120 And that, my friends, is our show today. Thank you so much if you've gotten this far for listening.

01:01:02.520 I realized listening to this back that this was, you know, I'll say it, this was a brutal one.

01:01:08.340 And in making this, we're documenting and discussing a frankly brutal period of time and a brutal thing to reflect back on. 0.98

01:01:17.940 Like, how the fuck did we as a society behave this way? 0.98

01:01:20.940 How did we let this happen? 0.99

01:01:22.280 And to be clear, we let this happen.

01:01:25.480 And that, to me, is a stain on humanity that will never be washed out.

01:01:32.520 I'm sorry, I know I usually end these episodes on like a joke or a pun or a meme or like, you know, try to be cute.

01:01:40.300 And I'm trying to think if I if I have that this time.

01:01:44.500 Oh, actually, you know what? I do. I do have a quip to end this on.

01:01:51.180 So in one of my recent posts about the AIDS crisis, you know, oftentimes the language of we lost a generation of gay men is used. 1.00

01:02:00.320 and I think that there is a reason that we say things like that because in many ways it's true

01:02:06.900 but obviously not every single person in the generation died and I do have some older gay

01:02:13.420 men who follow me on Instagram and uh and I can understand why if you survive that period of time

01:02:19.300 and you're still you know hanging around on Instagram that you'd be like well you know not

01:02:23.780 all of us died and you know you have every right to feel that way and so I was reading the comments

01:02:28.580 on this recent Instagram post I made. 0.93

01:02:30.500 And one of these older gay guys wrote,

01:02:33.320 not all of us died.

01:02:34.600 Some of us are still here.

01:02:35.920 And just so you know,

01:02:37.340 we own all the property.

01:02:39.980 And that,

01:02:41.000 and you know what?

01:02:43.780 They deserve it.

01:02:45.460 If you like today's show,

01:02:47.080 feel free to send it to someone

01:02:49.320 who might enjoy it or find it meaningful

01:02:51.560 or go have a good cry 1.00

01:02:54.300 or go talk to your old gay neighbor 0.99

01:02:57.360 or you know i'm in no position to tell you what to do i'm a podcaster i'm in no position to tell 0.98

01:03:03.540 anybody what to do i love you so much thank you for being here today happy pride and until next time

01:03:10.740 stay fruity

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - July 03, 2024

Stories from the AIDS Crisis

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