Monthly Archives: June 2017

Keep It Up!

June 30, 2017Article, Gay Interest, Health Information, HIV/AIDS, HumourCavaject, cockrings, erectile dysfunction, HIV related impotency, impotency, sexual health clinics, Sustanon, Viagratimalderman

This article on HIV-related erectile dysfunction was originally published in the December2002/January 2003 edition of “Talkabout”. Though possibly not as common a problem now as then, it is nonetheless still relevant! I don’t know that solutions have changed much, but they have certainly got cheaper! The end of the copyright on Viagra saw it drop in price from $80-$100 per script to a mere $10!

When I first decided to write a piece on HIV related impotence, I thought to myself “Hey, this is a pretty serious subject, and maybe you should treat it that way.” However, a visit to a sexual health clinic changed my mind on taking it too seriously, so here is a more tongue-in-cheek view on coping with impotence.

Firstly, don’t go onto the Internet and hope to find any information. I visited all my regular, usually reliable sites, and found absolutely nothing. There is plenty just on general impotence, but nothing on the HIV related. As usual with a lot of the more ‘delicate’ subjects (let’s face it, nobody likes admitting that ‘they can’t get it up’, there is bugger all information. As usual with a lot of HIV-related problems, nobody thinks it is really important, or perhaps that given the right length of time, the problem will just go away. But as we all know by now, that isn’t necessarily the case.

Visiting a sexual health clinic on the advice of my doctor – and clutching a referral – did come as a bit of a surprise to me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it seemed like the sort of place where you would tell people that you were Mr X, and you are just here to inquire for a friend who is having problems!

It wasn’t tucked away in a dark alley, nor was the impotency problem treated as something only related to very old men, nor just one of nature’s aberrations. It was treated like a serious medical problem, and perhaps this was the one huge realisation. There was almost a blasé flippancy associated with the consultation, which I wasn’t expecting! As to the real reasons for HIV related impotency. I’m probably no more an expert than the guys who are trying to assist those of us with this problem. Everyone does seem to agree that as people live longer and longer with HIV, it is becoming a more widespread problem, irrespective of your actual health status. The fact that there don’t seem to be any studies covering this area at the moment should be of some concern, as the one thing we can be relatively sure of is that the problem is not just related to HIV. Some experts think it is just a natural progression of advanced HIV disease; others see it as being a side-effect of combination therapy (plus all the other drugs needed to handle HIV); some think it is related to having had AIDS (if you have had AIDS); or that it is related to peripheral neuropathy, especially long-term PN. For some of us, it is a problem of having lived with HIV for 20 odd years, and getting older. My neurologist doesn’t seem to concur with the PN idea, but personally I know that it is a distinct possibility. If PN can affect the way I move and get around, if it can cause other sorts of neurological disorders, I see no reason why it could not be related to impotency. Let’s be real. Those of us who have lived with HIV for as long as the disease has been around, are still coming up with things that nobody had even considered, let alone know what to do with. And as we all know, we don’t usually fit into any of the general categories, and what happens with us, health wise, is often unexpected. So, it is a bit of ‘by guess or by God’ at the moment, in trying to pin down the causes of this type of impotency.

The clinician proceeded to ask me the usual questions – are you in a relationship? Yes! How does your partner feel about this? Well, pretty unimpressed! I don’t think anybody would be really happy with this problem, from either side of the fence! Have you considered an open relationship? Well, that helps his problem, but it doesn’t really help mine! It wouldn’t exactly be a situation where you could go home and compare notes later on about your trade! Have you considered using a cockring? Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but I always thought these gizmos were more about aesthetics than practicalities – you know, visual stimulation and all that (not to mention adding a sizeable amount to the actual dimensions of a cock), but here it was, out of the world of sex shops and mail order, and onto a clinician’s desk. Talk about taking the erotic appeal, and the mystique, out of an object! To be told that the good old studded leather contraptions are just not good enough for this sort of problem was very disheartening. Now as to the suggested alternative, well I have to say that perhaps we should go the way of eroticism instead of common sense. A very wide rubber band! Yes, you heard that right! I was given a sample to take home and try – or a ‘medically authorised’ cockring, which I have to say, still being the owner of black rubber and leather rings, left a lot to be desired. I could see the purpose to it, but God, was it ugly! A flesh-coloured ring with a small handle on each side of it, so that it can be stretched over the erect penis, it almost looked like some bizarre love-handled item, or perhaps a sighting feature for those who can’t aim straight!

There was also a plethora of information on ‘Viagra’ and ‘Cavaject’. Now, both these are good products, and anyone having used them as prescribed will attest to this. However, there are drawbacks. ‘Viagra’ is not on the PBS, and at $55+ for 4 tablets, is very expensive if you are on a pension (this us no longer accurate. The copyright on Viagra expired a few years ago, and it is very cheap). You also have to be careful with it if you are on protease inhibitors. If you buy the larger size tablets, you will need a tablet cutter to split them, as they are very hard to break. But perhaps their biggest drawback is that you have to – sort of – plan your sex life, which kills any hopes of spontaneity with sex. It takes anywhere from 30-60 minutes to work (depending on your metabolism), and once you’ve taken it, you’d better hope your partners still in the mood when it kicks in; or that there are plenty of available partners; or that everyone doesn’t suddenly change their mind, and go back to sleep, because if that happens, there goes $15 down the drain! On the upside, if your partner is in the mood, you are about to give them one hell of a good time, but there is always that element of the unexpected. And waiting can be frustrating. It’s fine to tell your partner that you have just taken the tablet, but if he is ready to get into it after 20 minutes of foreplay, you could be left well behind in the stakes. Unfortunately for some of us, headaches are a side-effect of Viagra…so the sex had better be worth it!

Similarly, problems exist for ‘Cavaject’, though initially, it works a lot quicker than ‘Viagra’, being injected directly into the penis. If you are needle-shy, forget this! You probably also don’t want to see the video the sexual health clinics give to help you decide. To start with, they use a female doctor in it. Now, don’t get me wrong! I know female doctors are every bit as good as male! It is just disconcerting that in a scenario where it is a male problem being discussed with men, it is slightly off-putting to see this poor guy in the video stretching his penis out, holding it as though it is about to spit poison, then aiming a needle at it as a female voice in the background goes ‘Very good. You are going well’. The fact that she looks a bit like everybody’s mother probably doesn’t help, either (no offence to whoever she is). Now, if this doesn’t put you off, the price, and the procedure, probably will. I managed to do a bit of stockpiling just before it went off the PBS, thankfully. It went from $3.50 for 5 injections to $80+ overnight. Again, you wouldn’t want to be wasting it on frivolous events. It does have the added plus, as I mentioned earlier, of working instantly. And boy, when it works, it works! We are talking rock hard to the point of impressive here! However, just make sure that you don’t hit any veins or capillaries on the way in, as a gusher of blood can be a bit of a passion killer. They show you how it is done to avoid this, but as with all things, we weren’t all cut from the same pattern. You also have to be careful with the needle, as you can get a bruise from a misplaced shot (or perhaps an over-eager shot!). It is a simple procedure, and it really doesn’t hurt, though I encountered a slight stinging for a few seconds just after the initial injection. I had a sexual encounter with a guy – in his home – prior to this revelation. I was already rearing to go…when he suddenly disappeared…only to return a couple of minutes later sporting a very impressinly hard erection! It is only now that I realise what he was doing.

I’m also sure that a lot of you HIV guys are now familiar with regular injections of ‘Sustenon’, a testosterone topper-upper. It is very effective if you have depleted testosterone levels, but doesn’t serve much purpose if you fall into the normal reading range, and your impotency is caused by other factors. ‘Sustenon’ is not cheap either, being in the $30+ range. I think this is a major concern with ‘Viagra’, ‘Cavaject’ and ‘Sustenon’, in that now, none of them are available on the PBS (unless, in the case of ‘Sustenon’, you can show depleted levels of hormone). Okay, if you are a vain person with no medical problems, and you just want to show off your sexual prowess, then you should have to pay for these products! However, when the PBS definitions and classifications of uses for ‘Viagra’ and ‘Sustenon’ went through reclassification, HIV disease was NOT defined as a reason for being able to have them prescribed. The definitions have never changed, despite research that shows these are problems often associated with HIV. So, to be HIV+, and to want a healthy, normal sex life means you have to pay through the nose. If you are on a pension, consider joining a monastery! The choice is 4 or 5 ecstatic sexual encounters, or starvation. On second thoughts, I may have to think about that!

Now, this brings me back to the brochure I walked home with after that little visit to the clinic. Not only pictures and order-form for a natty little injection kit for ‘Cavaject’, and the love-handle cockring, but also a vacuum pump. Now, last time I saw one of these items – and it was recently – was on an ‘adult only’ site (you know the sort I mean! The ones that require adult verification!), and the use it was being put to was not medical. Hell, when I used to manage ‘Numbers’ Bookshop (a lifetime ago), these were amongst my best selling items – from the cheapest, through to the elite models. I have to say that on this particular site I was on, they did show budget-wise reasons for using this devise, as two guys were using it at the same time. You could time-share with a friend I guess, but the fact of both of you wanting sex with different people at the same time is probably pretty remote, so it probably isn’t convenient to do it this way. I can see that they have a certain erotic appeal, and would probably be fun as foreplay, but imagine the extreme situations that could possibly occur. Over-pumping to start with, or getting the old boy stuck! Try explaining that in A&E, let alone telling them that you bought it through a medical catalogue.

Though, ideally, I don’t see any of these things – apart, perhaps, from ‘Viagra’ – as totally expedient ways of overcoming impotency, it is a ‘different strokes for different folks’ scenario, and in a lot of cases, doing something is better than doing nothing. We’d all like a reasonable sex-life, and if it means going to some sort of extreme, I guess most of us would be willing to swallow a little pride, and use whatever props we have to. On the upside, on ACA a couple of weeks ago, there was a story about this guy who has been successfully trialling a capsule that dissolves under your tongue, and guarantees pretty quick results. I did ask my pharmacist about this, and he claims it will probably be a couple of years before it is available. I say let’s try and get on the trial!

In the meantime, I guess we are going to have to either scrape up the money to go down the ‘Sustenon’/’Viagra’/’Cavaject’ road, or stock up on appliances. Whichever way we choose, as HIV+ people we are used to being creative, and I’m sure our imaginations won’t let us down in the sex department.

Go for it, people!

If all else fails, there is always this alternative…

The Fake News BEFORE Fake News! The Fascinating Story of Stephen Glass.

June 30, 2017Article, General Interest, Historyjournalistic fraud, New Republic magazine, plagiarism, Stephen Glasstimalderman

Anyone who has seen the movie “Shattered Glass”, will be familiar with the story of disgraced “The New Republic” editor & journalist, Steohen Glass. The fascination, at least for me as a blogger isn’t that he faked many of his articles, but that he got away with it for so long! And in so many articles! We now live in a mad media world of “fake news” and “alternate facts”, where false reporting, inaccuracies, assumptions, and outright lies are part of the journalistic jungle we must hack our way through daily. But even in an era renowned for it’s fakeness and excesses, Glass was an anomaly! The shame of it is…he has a great sense of humour; comes up with clever titles for his pieces; and he’s obviously got a great creative imagination…but used in the wrong way! There is a huge divide between reportage – especially when you are being paid to report accurately on events – and short story writing…something Stephen found out the hard way!

Stephen Randall Glass was born in 1972, to a Jewish family in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. As early as 1990, Glass was already proficient at the art of orchestration & fabrication! In 1990, as a high-school senior in the North Shore Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Stephen Glass—a theater-lover—had served as a technical director of Stunts, a group of talented students who produced their own work. (One production involved a Washington journalist caught up in a web of conspiracy and corruption.) The yearbook pictured Glass, directing the movements of the cast through a headset. “Stephen Glass,” read the caption, “peruses the script, ready to call the scenes, sets, and props.” Not that many years later, Glass would present other elaborate orchestrations of made-up scenes and characters, this time passing them off as journalism! (6). He attended the University of Pennsylvania from 1990-1994. His tenure as executive-editor of the universities student newspaper The DailyPennsylvanian wasn’t without its dramas! In one incident, an entire issue of the newspaper was stolen by the student body who objected to the commentsry & coverage by it’s columnists. According to Samuel Hugges in “Through a Glass Darkly” this storm in a teacup was no ore than that Glass hadn’t publicly praised his own staff, the scores of students who worked under him, “laboring to all hours in the night in their idealistic quest for truth, justice, and the American way.” (1). Then there was the ‘infamous’ water buffalo incident, a controversy at the in 1993, in which Jewish student Eden Jacobowitz was charged with violating the university’s racial harassment policy. The incident received widespread publicity as part of the increasing trend of political correctness in the United States in the 1990s. (2). Glass graduated from Penn in 1994, and then joined “The New Republic” in 1995 as an editorial assistant. Progressing to features writing, the 23-year-old, though employed full-time by TNR, also wrote for other magazines, including “Policy Review”, “George”, “Rolling Stone”, and “Harpers”. He also contributed to Public Radio International’s weekly hour-long program This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass (no relation to Stephen).

So what happened? What could have transformed the likeable, talented, high-minded young editor who was constantly asking people “Are you mad at me?” into a spinner of mendacious and increasingly whacked-out yarns about churches whose members believed that George Bush was the reincarnation of Christ and shopping-mall Santas whose fear of child-molestation suits led to a Union of Concerned Santas and Easter Bunnies? Not to mention less amusing brands of plagiarism and invention, one of which prompted George editor John F. Kennedy, Jr., to send a letter to Vernon Jordan, apologizing for a Glass-spun quote about Jordan’s sexual preferences. (1).

Despite being highly liked by staff at TNR, there were increasing rebuttals of his quotes, facts and events from the subjects of his articles. This lead to an eroding of his credibility, and a scepticism about his reportage from the nagazines insiders.

In December 1996, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) was the target of a hostile article by Glass called “Hazardous to Your Mental Health” (article not available online). CSPI wrote a letter to the editor and issued a press release pointing out numerous inaccuracies and distortions, and even hinted at possible plagiarism. The organization Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) accused Glass of falsehoods in his March 1997 article “Don’t You D.A.R.E.” (4).

In May 1997, Joe Galli of the College Republican National Committee wrote a letter to the editor accusing Glass of fabrications in “Spring Breakdown” (5), his lurid tale of drinking and debauchery at the 1997 Conservative Political Action Conference. A June 1997 article called “Peddling Poppy” (article not available online), about a Hofstra University conference on George H. W. Bush drew a letter to the editor from Hofstra reciting Glass’s errors. The New Republic, however, stood by and defended him. Editor Michael Kelly wrote an angry letter to CSPI calling them liars and demanding the organization apologize to Glass. (3).
When Glass was finally caught in May 1998, he had risen to become an associate editor at The New Republic. The story that triggered his downfall was “Hack Heaven,” (7), which appeared in the issue dated May 18, 1998. It concerned a supposed 15-year-old hacker who intruded into the computer network of a company called “Jukt Micronics,” which allegedly then hired the teen as an information security consultant.

As with several of Glass’s previous stories, “Hack Heaven” depicted events that were almost cinematically vivid and told in present tense, implying that Glass was there as the action took place. The article opened as follows:
“Ian Restil, a 15-year-old computer hacker who looks like an even more adolescent version of Bill Gates, is throwing a tantrum. “I want more money. I want a Miata. I want a trip to Disney World. I want X-Men comic [book] number one. I want a lifetime subscription to Playboy—and throw in Penthouse. Show me the money! Show me the money! …” Across the table, executives from a California software firm called Jukt Micronics are listening and trying ever so delicately to oblige. “Excuse me, sir,” one of the suits says tentatively to the pimply teenager. “Excuse me. Pardon me for interrupting you, sir. We can arrange more money for you.””

Fake Jukt Micronics website concocted by Glass

Upon the publication of “Hack Heaven,” Adam Penenberg, a reporter with Forbes magazine’s digital division, undertook the task of verifying it, initially to find out how The New Republic had managed to scoop Forbes. Penenberg immediately became suspicious when he was unable to find a single search engine result for “Jukt Micronics.” Further contact with several government agencies solidified his suspicions that Glass had fabricated the entire story. More suspicious was the fact that “Jukt Micronics” only had one phone line, and its website turned out to be an amateur AOL webpage, which seemed very odd for a supposedly big-time software company!
When Penenberg and Forbes confronted The New Republic, Glass claimed to have been duped by Restil. Lane had Glass travel with him to Bethesda, Maryland, to visit the Hyatt hotel where Restil had supposedly met with the Jukt Micronics executives and the room where the conference had supposedly been held. Despite Glass’s assurances, Lane discovered that on the day of the alleged meeting the conference room had been close. Afterwards, Lane dialed a Palo Alto number for Jukt Micronics provided by Glass and eventually had a phone conversation with a man who identified himself as George Sims, a Jukt executive. This was the first piece of evidence substantiating Glass’s article. However, Lane learned from a passing remark by another of his editors that Glass had a brother at Stanford University, located adjacent to Palo Alto. Realizing that Glass’s brother was posing as Sims, Lane immediately fired Glass.
Lane offered this explanation for the scandal:
“We extended normal human trust to someone who basically lacked a conscience… We busy, friendly folks, were no match for such a willful deceiver… We thought Glass was interested in our personal lives, or our struggles with work, and we thought it was because he cared. Actually, it was all about sizing us up and searching for vulnerabilities. What we saw as concern was actually contempt.”
— Charles Lane (8)
The New Republic subsequently determined that at least 27 of the 41 articles Glass wrote for the magazine contained fabricated material. Some of the 27, such as “Don’t You D.A.R.E.”, contained real reporting interwoven with fabricated quotations and incidents, while others, including “Hack Heaven”, were completely made up. In the process of creating the “Hack Heaven” article, Glass had gone to especially elaborate lengths to thwart the discovery of his deception by TNR’s fact checkers: creating a shell website, and voice mail account for Jukt Micronics; fabricating notes of story gathering, having fake business cards printed; and even composing editions of a fake computer hacker community newsletter.

Stephen Glass is still retracting his fabricated stories — 18 years later

As for the balance of the 41 stories, Lane, in an interview given for the 2005 DVD edition of Shattered Glass, said, “In fact, I’d bet lots of the stuff in those other 14 is fake too. … It’s not like we’re vouching for those 14, that they’re true. They’re probably not either.” Rolling Stone, George, and Harper’s also re-examined his contributions. Rolling Stone and Harper’s found the material generally accurate yet maintained they had no way of verifying information because Glass had cited anonymous sources. George discovered that at least three of the stories Glass wrote for it contained fabrications. Specifically, Glass fabricated quotations in a profile piece and apologized to the article’s subject, Vernon Jordan, an adviser to then-President Bill Clinton. A court filing for Glass’s application to the California bar gave an updated count on his journalism career: 36 of his stories at The New Republic were said to be fabricated in part or in whole, along with three articles for George, two articles for Rolling Stone, and one for Policy Review.

After journalism, Glass earned a law degree, at Georgetown University Law Center. He then passed the New York State bar examination in 2000, but the Committee of Bar Examiners refused to certify him on its moral fitness test, citing ethics concerns related to his plagiarism. He later abandoned his efforts to be admitted to the bar in New York.

In 2003, Glass published a so-called “biographical novel”, The Fabulist. Glass sat for an interview with the weekly news program 60 Minutes timed to coincide with the release of his book. The New Republic’s literary editor, Leon Wieseltier, complained, “The creep is doing it again. Even when it comes to reckoning with his own sins, he is still incapable of nonfiction. The careerism of his repentance is repulsively consistent with the careerism of his crimes.”[23] One reviewer of The Fabulist commented, “The irony—we must have irony in a tale this tawdry—is that Mr. Glass is abundantly talented. He’s funny and fluent and daring. In a parallel universe, I could imagine him becoming a perfectly respectable novelist—a prize-winner, perhaps, with a bit of luck.”
Also in 2003, Glass briefly returned to journalism, writing an article about Canadian marijuana laws for Rolling Stone. On November 7, 2003, Glass participated in a panel discussion on journalistic ethics at George Washington University, along with the editor who had hired him at The New Republic, Andrew Sullivan, who accused Glass of being a “serial liar” who was using “contrition as a career move.

“It was very painful for me. It was like being on a guided tour of the moments of my life I am most ashamed of.” Stephen’s reaction to the release of “Shattered Glass”

The feature film about the scandal, Shattered Glass, was released in October 2003 and depicted a stylized view of Glass’s rise and fall at The New Republic. It was directed by Billy Ray, and starred Hayden Christensen as Glass, Peter Sarsgaard as Charles Lane, and Hank Azaria as Michael Kelly. The film, appearing shortly after The New York Times suffered a similar plagiarism scandal with the discovery of Jayson Blair’s fabrications, occasioned critiques of the journalism industry itself by nationally prominent journalists such as Frank Rich and Mark Bowden.
Glass was out of the public eye for several years following the release of his novel and Ray’s film. In 2007, he was performing with a Los Angeles comedy troupe known as Un-Cabaret, and Ray told Vanity Fair that Glass was employed at a law firm, apparently as a paralegal.
In 2015, Glass again made the news after reportedly sending Harper’s Magazine a check for $10,000 – what he was paid for the false articles – writing in the attached letter that he wanted “to make right that part of my many transgressions…I recognize that repaying Harper’s will not remedy my wrongdoing, make us even, or undo what I did wrong. That said, I did not deserve the money that Harper’s paid me and it should be returned.”

References:

An Eye For An Eye – Life After Cytomegalovirus Retinitis (CMV Retinitis).

June 29, 2017Article, Autobiography, Gay Interest, General Interest, Health Information, History, HIV/AIDSCMV retinitis, cytomeglovirus retinitis, HIV/AIDS, visually impaired, Vitrasert implanttimalderman

This article, recently resurrected, was originally written in 2012, as I sat in the loungeroom at Ashgrove (Brisbane) after a panic attack drove me from my bed at 5am. I have revised & reedited the piece to cover the period between then and now. The original was published in “Talkabout” in 2012.

I shouldn’t actually be alive! And if it had been any time other than when it was – 1996 – that would have been the outcome. However, timing and medicine are everything, or so it seemed in that period of huge leaps in HIV care and treatment. As a 42-year-old HIV+ gay man who was admitted to Prince Henry Hospital (now closed) at La Perouse in Sydney, weighing in at 48kg, with chronic CMV retinitis, chronic anemia, chronic candida and 10 CD4’s I guess you could say I wasn’t well, and the truth be known my thoughts were more attuned to the after-life than being given a future. So, blood transfusions happened, heavy dosing of drugs happened (curtesy of my current regimen) and gancyclovir injections into the eyes happened – but perhaps most importantl…the new protease inhibitors happened and in combination with my other drugs created miracles. My severely depleted CD4 count did a small, slow rise, and my 100,000 viral load slowlt dropped to 10,000. Though still very weak and sick, I walked out of Prince Henry a couple of weeks later, then spent the next 18 months getting my health – physical & mental – back on track.

At this stage I could crap on endlessly about all the strategies that I used, the anabolic steroid therapy to treat Wasting Syndrome, the fears and uncertainties, the sheer strength of will needed to reconnect with life, not to mention the huge mental shift that drove my life off into uncharted territory and resulted in the man I am today. Blah, blah, blah!So instead of boring you with all that, I want to concentrate on the one aspect of all this that is still impacting my life today – the CMV retinitis.

Say CMV to most people these days and you will just get a blank look. It is an insidious disease, and one that was greatly feared in the era of rampaging AIDS infections. It is a virus that pretty well everyone has present in their body, but is usually only activated in immune-suppressed people. In its retinitis form it attacks the retina, and can spread to the macula by slowly destroying the cells. It is painless, though can be evidenced by a greying of vision and the appearance of floaters. If untreated it will eventually lead to blindness. By the time it was detected in my eyes a lot of damage had already been done, and I was aggressively treated with intraocular injections of gancyclovir…yes, that does mean injections directly into the eye. What fun! At the time this was going on, they were looking for guinea pigs to trial gancyclovir implants – called Vitrasert implants – in each eye. I volunteered, had two operations to insert them, then found that the 4% chance of developing cataracts turned out to be 100%, so back for another two operations to remove them, and replace the lenses, plus some laser work. The end result of all these operations and expectations for me was that they hadn’t caught it in time in the left eye, and despite a tiny sliver of vision I was effectively blind in that eye. Despite a lot of scar tissue, the majority of sight was saved in the right eye at that time.

It takes ages to adapt to changed vision, especially when one eye is effectively blind, so over the next 12 months I became accustomed to having accidents, including several falls thanks to tree roots bulging through pavements and bus seats that were just out of sight range. It gets to a point where you no longer get embarrassed. Both eyes appeared to stabilise, I adjusted to the changed vision and in some respects life went on. Apart from the falling over, other negative issues included an avoidance of crowds and busy places, and 3-D cinema was a total waste of time. You do adapt strategies, but it is not yourself that you need to worry about, but other people. There have been a number of occasions where I thought a tee-shirt emblazoned with the words “Vision-Impaired Person” would have been handy.

It was 2008 before I had any further problems, and that was with my blind eye. It developed what I thought was a grain-of-sand-in-the-eye irritation, so off to the ophthalmologist at RPA hospital, who then passed me onto the Sydney Eye Hospital. When specialists start passing you on to other baffled looking specialists you know you have a problem! Evidently the blind eye didn’t realise it was blind, and decided to start creating a new system of blood supply to the eye, which in turn was in the wrong places as well as increasing the pressure in the eye. There was a new injectable drug around called Avastin which cuts off the blood supply to cancer tumours, and it was decided to inject this into the eye to stop the new blood system developing. So, off for another intraocular injection. It did the job, but I was also told that the interior of the eye was collapsing, and that in time it would change colour. Oh joy of joys. Over the next 18 months it changed from a normal looking eye that just had no vision to this oddly coloured eye which made many people think I had two different coloured eyes (a genetic variance). And this is how it still looked until 2014.

However, this is good old HIV we are dealing with here, and it doesn’t like being ignored. Just as you think the worst of your problems are over it throws another bit of shit at you. I had been told previously that with the amount of scar tissue present in my good eye that there was a real chance of the retina detaching. So, shortly after moving to Brisbane, when the good eye started swapping between clear and blurred vision and finally settling on blurred, I knew something was wrong. A visit to A&E (on ANZAC day 2012) resulted in no clear result, so off to the RBH Eye Clinic the following day. The retina was off, and floating around, and there was a scare, with them thinking the CMV had reactivated…hard to believe seeing as I wasn’t immune suppressed, had a high CD4 count and an undetectable viral load – and another scare when they realised that I had highly toxic implants in my eyes (though long inactive, as they discovered). Instead of collecting some eye drops and toddling back home as I expected, I was put straight into a ward, and within 24 hours was in the operating theatre. A bad recovery room experience with an Asian Nurse Ratchet, whereby they weren’t informed that I was blind in my left eye, and leaving me to come-to in total blackness, occasioning a major panic attack is something I could have done without. The ongoing problems of anxiety and panic attacks (and this article being written at 5am) is something I am slowly getting over thanks to counselling and a letter to RBH formally requesting they look at the procedures and communication in the recovery room. My vision is now officially classified as blind. Glasses help a bit, but it is now a matter of me adapting to a low-vision life and devising some new strategies to deal with it. I can still read, though the font is huge, obviously I can still write though currently using huge fonts to do it. In 2013 I attended Southbank Institute of Technology to do the Certificate III in Fitness. I am not only the first 59yo to do the Certificate…I am the first severely vision-impaired person to do it. Threw TAFE into a panic, as they had to develop strategies to deal with me, and make sure tutors were on-board and up to speed. As much as I loved the experience, and the youngsters around me were absolutely wonderful, I came to realise that I was way too slow at moving around a gym to be a PT, so went no further. Atthe same time, I had done white cane training, and though finding the canes handy in certain circumstances – like whacking my way through the city – it is, as a general rule, more a hindrance than a help. However, it is great for getting seats on public transport!

In early 2015, after ongoing problems with my blind eye, and not wanting to go on infinitum with drops, I opted to have my blind eye removed. Unlike the old days, they now put an artificial ball into the socket, and attach the muscles to it, so it moves like a real eye. I had a prosthetic fitted, and to date no one has detected that it’s artificial.
However, my vision in general is now very severely impaired. Every trip outside my front door is a potential suicide mission – not to nention ducking and weaving around two Jack Russell Terriers at home…but I still challenge the risks, and get out and about under my own steam as often as possible. If anyone wants to date me…I’m a high maintenance date these days. Being night blind, I need to be guided around, and I move very slowly and cautiously. However, it has been pointed out to me that I can still spot a hot butt from some distance away! Some Gay traits over-ride everything!

As for the future… who knows. I am trying to develop the “living in the moment” way of my dogs by just taking each day as it comes. I have had a lot of help and support, and despite whatever may happen that will always be there.

As they say, there are none so blind as those who will not see! I still walk my dogs every morning, I still read & write, still do my genealogy and my DJ mixes, go to gym, do the shopping, get around to local restaurants and cafes so I can’t complain. Life should always be an empowering experience, and the best way to achieve that is to own your disabilities – instead of letting both HIV and disabilities rule your life…YOU rule your HIV and disabilities! That is the road to freedom!

Tim Alderman.

A Brief (Personal) Memoir of HIV & AIDS

June 28, 2017Article, biography, Gay Interest, General Interest, Health Information, History, HIV/AIDSHIV history, HIV infection, HIV treatment, HIV/AIDStimalderman

I discovered this older article recently while rummaging through my article archives. I present it here with some edits and newspaper inclusions. HIV & AIDS (note the separation of the two) has an intricate, but morbidly fascinating, national & international history. I watched “The Normal Heart” again only a couple of days ago, and the hospital scene where Felix is in the hospital ward with the meal sitting outside the door of his KS infected friend, and being told not to go in without contagion gear raised a whole plethora of unpleasant memories with me. To understand where HIV is now, you need to understand where it was!

I can’t believe it has been about thirty seven years since we first started hearing about HIV/AIDS. I find it even harder to believe that I have been infected for thirty five years. Over half my life has been lived with this virus! In personal retrospection, I could say that compared to the bad, bad old days of 1981, life is a bed of roses today. But then I am aware that quite a lot of people would still not share that sentiment, so out of respect to them, I will avoid such romanticism.

I was living in Melbourne at that time, and I believe that HIV/AIDS got its first mention in the gay press a little earlier than 1981, though I could be wrong. There were only snippets, overseas briefs if you like, of a strange STD that seemed to be selectively attacking the San Francisco gay community, or more specifically, those members of that community who frequented the baths and back rooms of the famous city. I know that no one here was particularly concerned. We thought it was just another of ‘those American things’, or just a mutated form of the clap. Nothing that a pill wouldn’t fix! By the time I returned to Sydney in 1982, we had started to think quite differently. Some of us were getting very scared!

The media began drowning us in information, mainly from the United States. There was the dramatic scenario of ‘Patient 0’, from whom it was assumed the whole epidemic had spread like an out of control monster. The USA and France argued over who had discovered the virus, and made the link between HIV infection and AIDS (watch “Dallas Buyers Club” for an inkling of what this was all about!). A debate raged as scientists tried to decide what to call it and which acronym to use. We had GRID (Gay Related Immune Disease) and HTLV 1 & 2 (Human Transmitted Lymphoma Virus – if memory serves me well). They eventually settled on HIV for initial viral infection, and AIDS for any subsequent illnesses that resulted from the breakdown of the immune system. The original Center for Disease Control (CDC) classification system for the various stages of HIV and AIDS progression was so complicated that you really needed a university degree to be able to decipher them. To make things more manageable they finally settled on four classifications.

Then came ARCs (AIDS Related Conditions) but that was considered politically incorrect, so we settled on OIs (Opportunistic Infections).

The argument over names and classifications wasn’t half as frightening as the reality of the disease itself, which started to hit home in 1985. Official testing began in that year, and is still the earliest date that medicos will accept as a point of diagnosis with HIV. Any date earlier than that is declared to be a ‘self-report’. Like many others, I assumed I was HIV+ long before testing started. Virgin and chaste were not words to be found in my life resume. Sydney’s Albion Street Centre was the first here to begin testing, and it was done very discreetly and anonymously. We all used an assumed first name, and were issued with a number to identify who we were. (In 1996, when I needed to tap into my first HIV test results done at Albion Street, they were still there.) Counseling was atrocious. You were given your HIV+, or HIV- (if you were lucky) status very bluntly, then quickly shunted over to a counsellor before the shock had a chance to set in. You were also told, almost apologetically, that you probably had about two years to live. That was HIV diagnosis circa 1985.

A number of our conservative politicians, and some of our outraged Christian clergy started to say that they wanted us placed in quarantine. It was very specifically a gay disease, according to them, and they truly believed that fencing off the gay areas of Sydney and leaving it to run its course could contain it. These people wondered why we got tested anonymously!

By 1985 people were starting to die. There were no dedicated HIV wards in any of our hospitals, and patients were shuttled between temporary beds in wards and the emergency department. Reports started to filter through of hospital staff wearing contagion suits around patients with HIV. Worse still, meals were being left outside the doors of rooms, and would often be cold by the time the patient managed to get them. Cleaners refused to clean the rooms. There were scares of infection by contact with everything from a toothbrush, to a glass, to cutlery, so patients were offered very disposable forms of hygiene. Even mosquito’s copped some of the blame.

Then, of course, we had the living daylights frightened out of all of us with the “Grim Reaper”television ads. From 1985 to 1995, death lived with us on a daily basis. If you weren’t visiting sick friends, lovers, or partners in hospital, you were visiting them at home, or attending their funerals and wakes. Most of us lost the majority of our friends, and for most of us those friendships have never been replaced.

Around that time, the gay community took charge of what was quickly becoming an out-of-control situation. Tired of seeing friends dying in emergency wards, and getting only the minimum of care at home and in hospitals, we established our own care, support and advocacy groups. Out of the pub culture grew groups as diverse as BGF, CSN, ANKALI, ACON, and PLWHA. Maitraya, the first drop in centre for plwha was founded, and we raised the first quarter of a million dollars through an auction at “The Oxford” Hotel to start to improve ward conditions at St. Vincent’s Hospital. The gay community can forever take great pride in itself for bringing about great changes, not only in the care of plwha, but in the way the disease was handled, both politically and socially..

The Department of Social Security streamlined people with HIV/AIDS through the system and onto Disability Support Pensions, and the Department of Housing introduced a Special Rental Subsidy so that those on a Pension, and unable to wait interminable amounts of time for housing, were able to live in places of their own choice, at greatly subsidised rent. Home care became available through CSN, which, at that time, was not a part of ACON. By 1992, there was a perceived need for improved dental services for HIV patients, especially considering the high incidence of candida. The United Dental Hospital led the way with a HIV Periodontal Study, which at last provided reasonable dental care to plwha.

The first vaccine, p24VLP, was trialled with absolute zero results. There were quite a number of scares with HIV contaminated blood, and screening of blood donors was tightened. Discrimination reared its ugly head in the Eve van Grafhorst case, which forced this poor little girl to not only leave her school because of the hysterical reaction to her HIV infection, but to flee the country with her family.

In 1987, the first therapy for AIDS – azidothymidine (AZT) – was released in the USA, and its use in patients with HIV/AIDS was fast-tracked through the approval process here. In France a huge trial called ‘The Concord Trial’ was conducted – unethically – and its findings were found to be inaccurate. The resulting announcement that AZT was ineffective in the control of HIV, and the drug nothing more than ‘human Rat Sak’, caused a universal outcry. The damage was done. Many had no faith in the new drug at all, and local activists and proponents of alternative therapies tried to encourage people not to use the drug. Many of us chose otherwise. True, the effects of AZT were short-term only – maybe six to twelve months – but many saw it as a way to keep the wolf from the door long enough for some other drugs to come along. And come along they did. AZT was quickly followed by what are referred to as the ‘D’ drugs – d4T, ddi, ddc, and the outsider 3TC. However, these were all drugs from one class called Nucleoside Analogues and all had short effectiveness. Some doctors tried giving them in double combinations, but the effectiveness wasn’t much better. Despite their short life span, these drugs were being prescribed in enormous doses, which resulted in problems such as haematological toxicity, anemia, and peripheral neuropathy. We needed a miracle! Add travel restrictions in many countries, blood transfusion infections, and some babies dying as a result of this and things weren’t looking good!

Those of us who had managed to survive to 1996 were starting to give up hope. Most of us were on a pension, had cashed in and spent our superannuation and disability insurance, had a declining health status, and didn’t hold out much hope for a longer survival time. Prophylaxis for illnesses such as PCP, CMV, MAC and candida had helped improve most people’s lives, but they didn’t halt the progress of the virus. The first of the Protease Inhibitors, Saquinavir, was introduced that year, and evidence started to emerge of the effectiveness of combining the two classes of drugs into what came to be known initially as ‘combination therapy’ and later as HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy). The results were astounding; those close to dying suddenly found their CD4 counts rising, accompanied by a return to reasonable health. Viral Load testing was introduced and people were finding not just a raising of their CD4 counts, but a drastic lowering of their viral load, often to the point of its being undetectable. This became known amongst doctors as ‘the gold standard’. Ganciclovir Implants to assist with the control of CMV retinitis were trialled the same year, and Albion Street Clinic started a trial using decadurabolane, a steroid, to assist in controlling Wasting Syndrome. The new drug combinations (NNRTI’s – Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptease Inhibitors – a third class of drugs, were introduced shortly after) were not without their complications and problems. Most combinations still required huge quantities of pills to be taken daily, not just of the HAART drugs, but also prophylaxis and drugs to help control side effects such as nausea and diarrhoea. Their use required time and dietary compliance. Other problems such as lipodystrophy, lipoatrophy, and renal problems appeared, but we were, despite any drawbacks, a lot better off than we had been ten years, hell even two years earlier.

People’s health changed drastically, and suddenly new services started to take prominence. Some people required lots of counselling to help them reconnect with the life they thought had been taken from them. Others went to peer support groups or turned to treatment management groups, and some to the larger range of support services being provided by The Luncheon Club, The Positive Living Centre, NorthAIDS and other similar groups. There was recognition that there was a need for services to assist people with an improved health status, as some of them were contemplating returning to work. Despair had, to a large extent, been replaced by hope. Organisations concerned with people’s changing needs reassessed and changed their services to meet the demand. Those that changed have survived, and are still prominent in our community.

The war is far from over. New generations require new strategies, and while everyone seems happy that infection rates for HIV have remained steady in Australia (despite rampaging out of control in Third World countries), many feel it is still not good enough that, at this stage of 37+ years into HIV/AIDS, countries like Australia with high levels of education and accessibility to media and information should be seeing a decline in infections. Remembering my own youth I find it difficult to comment on the attitudes of young people. I grew up through the very worst that HIV/AIDS had to throw at us, and the lessons it taught are not easy to forget. I have to ask myself had I not had that experience, how would I be viewing it? It is no longer just the responsibility of the gay community to guard against new infections. Responsibility also rests with the straight community, and the IDU community, as infection rates remain at their current level. Some scaremongers have ventured forth theories of a ‘third wave’ of infection, but I trust we are too wise, and too educated to allow that sort of irresponsibility to happen.
Many of us (certainly not all) are going on to lead relatively normal lives. Many have returned to work either as volunteers, or in casual, part-time or full-time employment. Many like myself have returned to tertiary education, determined not to leave this world without at least fulfilling some gnawing ambition. However, we are not living in a ‘post-AIDS’ world, and to think so would be foolish. Even if the battles have been won at home, they still need to be fought elsewhere. We still need new drugs, and we still need people to trial both the emerging antiviral and opportunistic infection drugs and the immune-based therapies. We now have a fourth class of drugs in the form of Nucleotide Analogues. Many medical practices have adopted a holistic approach to medicine, and this can be judged to be a direct spin-off from the HIV/AIDS wars. Hopefully, soon please, a new vaccine will appear.

I really don’t know how much longer I will live now. Certainly with the standard of health care I get, and the close monitoring, I may live out whatever my allotted time was to be. Time will be a better judge of that than I will. For me, HIV/AIDS has been a two-edged sword. It has taken good health from me, I have permanent disabilities from AIDS, and I have seen far too many friends, lovers and partners die from this hideous disease. At the same time, it has presented me with opportunities I would never have grasped if it had not come along. I am re-educating myself, taking myself off along strange paths. It has given me a whole new understanding not just of HIV, but of disabilities in general, and a great respect for those who overcome difficulties and recreate their lives.

At a university tutorial last semester, a young woman asked me if I thought every day about having HIV. I don’t! It may have taken thirty five years, but it is now so integrated into my life, that I have trouble remembering the time when I didn’t have it. The pills are just pills now (and thankfully a lot less of them than even 4 years ago), and most of my current medical problems have more to do with ageing than with HIV.

I can tell you, that really gives me something to think about!

Tim Alderman (C © Revised 2017)

1950s Closeted Gay Couple Share An Illegal Kiss In The Safety Of A Photo Booth

June 26, 2017Article, Gay Interest, General Interest, History1950s closeted gays, 1950s gay couple in photo booth, gay kiss in photo boothtimalderman

For many young LGBT people, it’s hard to imagine what life would have been like for a young gay couple growing up in 1950s America.
At the time, many states had statutes on moral, lewd , or disorderly conduct, that allowed police to target and arrest gay and lesbian “deviants.”
“Such transgressions as wearing items of clothing of the opposite sex, propositioning someone of the same sex, or even holding hands with a member of the same sex” could land you in jail, as TIME points out.
A photo booth picture, taken by a young daring gay couple in 1953, captured a beautiful moment of affection between the two love birds that could have also resulted in their arrests.

According to TIME:

The image is part of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries – the largest repository of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer materials in the world. The picture was once owned by the young man on the right-hand side of the image above, Joseph John Bertrund Belanger. Belanger, for most of his life, was a devoted collector of LGBT history. Born in Edmonton, Canada, in 1925, he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was a member of the Mattachine Society – an early instance of what today would be called an LGBT organization — in the early 1950s. It is thanks to his passion and foresight that the image survives today.

Here, in the midst of the 2014 pride season, what remains so remarkable and moving about this particular image is how quietly radical it feels all these years later. Belanger and another man have found a private safe-space in the unlikeliest of places — an ordinary photo booth – where they felt so at ease, and so themselves, they could kiss each other far from the prying eyes of a disapproving public.

Reference

https://www.thegailygrind.com/2014/06/25/1950s-closeted-gay-couple-share-illegal-kiss-safety-photo-booth-photo/
Tim Alderman (2017)

‘Sleep well my love’: A Beautiful Tragic Gay Love Letter From WWII!

June 26, 2017Article, Gay Interest, General Interest, Historygay in the military, soldiers in love, wWII gay love lettertimalderman

Hans-Joachim Marseille and his fellow soldier

This amazing letter Brian Keith wrote to another soldier named Dave one year after falling in love with him overseas in 1943. Keith recalls the time the two shared while stationed together in North Africa. He writes about their chance encounter during World War II, waking up in his arms and the tears that flowed when they separated, and expresses regret that Dave never made it home after the war. The letter was reprinted in September of 1961 by ONE Magazine and the original is supposedly preserved in the Library of Congress.

Transcript of the letter above:

Dear Dave,

This is in memory of an anniversary — the anniversary of October 27th, 1943, when I first heard you singing in North Africa. That song brings memories of the happiest times I’ve ever known. Memories of a GI show troop — curtains made from barrage balloons — spotlights made from cocoa cans — rehearsals that ran late into the evenings — and a handsome boy with a wonderful tenor voice. Opening night at a theatre in Canastel — perhaps a bit too much muscatel, and someone who understood. Exciting days playing in the beautiful and stately Municipal Opera House in Oran — a misunderstanding — an understanding in the wings just before opening chorus.

Drinks at “Coq d’or” — dinner at the “Auberge” — a ring and promise given. The show 1st Armoured — muscatel, scotch, wine — someone who had to be carried from the truck and put to bed in his tent. A night of pouring rain and two very soaked GIs beneath a solitary tree on an African plain. A borrowed French convertible — a warm sulphur spring, the cool Mediterranean, and a picnic of “rations” and hot cokes. Two lieutenants who were smart enough to know the score, but not smart enough to realize that we wanted to be alone. A screwball piano player — competition — miserable days and lonely nights. The cold, windy night we crawled through the window of a GI theatre and fell asleep on a cot backstage, locked in each other’s arms — the shock when we awoke and realized that miraculously we hadn’t been discovered. A fast drive to a cliff above the sea — pictures taken, and a stop amid the purple grapes and cool leaves of a vineyard.
The happiness when told we were going home — and the misery when we learned that we would not be going together. Fond goodbyes on a secluded beach beneath the star-studded velvet of an African night, and the tears that would not be stopped as I stood atop the sea-wall and watched your convoy disappear over the horizon.
We vowed we’d be together again “back home,” but fate knew better — you never got there. And so, Dave, I hope that where ever you are these memories are as precious to you as they are to me.
Goodnight, sleep well my love.
Brian Keith
Reference:

By Brian Keith. Found on HyperVocal. Image courtesy of ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries. ]

Article curtesy of https://www.thegailygrind.com/2013/09/13/read-beautifully-tragic-gay-wwii-soldiers-love-letter-wwii-sleep-well-love/

Tim Alderman (2017)

WWII Gunner: A Provocative Photo Taken During Action at Rabaul.

June 26, 2017Gay Interest, General Interest, Historyerotic male photographs, naked WWII gunner, Rabaul, Rabaul harbourtimalderman

In the heat of battle, photographer Horace Bristol captured one of the most unique and erotic photos of WWII.

Bristol photographed a young crewman, who was a part of the US Navy “Dumbo” PBY rescue mission, manning his gun after having stripped naked and jumped into the water of Rabaul Harbor to rescue a badly burned Marine pilot. The Marine was shot down while bombing the Japanese-held fortress of Rabaul.
Rare Historical Photos writes:

Since Japanese coastal defense guns were firing at the plane while it was in the water during take-off, this brave young man, after rescuing the pilot, manned his position as machine gunner without taking time to put on his clothes. A hero photographed right after he’d completed his heroic act. Naked.
Photo taken by Horace Bristol (1908-1997). In 1941, Bristol was recruited to the U.S. Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, as one of six photographers under the command of Captain Edward J. Steichen, documenting World War II in places such as South Africa, and Japan. He ended up being on the plane the gunner was serving on, which was used to rescue people from Rabaul Bay (New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea), when this occurred. In an article from a December 2002 issue of B&W magazine he remembers:
“…we got a call to pick up an airman who was down in the Bay. The Japanese were shooting at him from the island, and when they saw us they started shooting at us. The man who was shot down was temporarily blinded, so one of our crew stripped off his clothes and jumped in to bring him aboard. He couldn’t have swum very well wearing his boots and clothes. As soon as we could, we took off. We weren’t waiting around for anybody to put on formal clothes. We were being shot at and wanted to get the hell out of there. The naked man got back into his position at his gun in the blister of the plane.”
Photo curtesy of https://www.thegailygrind.com/2014/06/01/photographer-captures-nude-navy-wwii-hero-gun-battle-nsfw/

Tim Alderman (2017)

A Photo Essay of Male-To-Male Affection: 1800s-Mid 1900s.

June 26, 2017Gay Interest, Historyaffectionate men, gay affection, male to male affection, vintage photos of mentimalderman

These beautiful photos of men showing affection to other men do not necessarily denote their sexual orientation. Because of the photographs age, and the lack of information about these unknown people, we do not actually know if they are gay, friends, brothers or relatives. But the lack of knowledge about each photograph does not detract from what are quite obvious, intimate relationships, and a daring – for the period – lack of restraint.

Where possible, references & attributations have been given.