World AIDS Day &#&

             Being a “movie Queen” I can relate so much of my life to life as it was lived on the big screen. The 1930’s was such a magic time for the cinema. There were such great actors and actresses who played the “character parts”. Early in her career Lucile Ball was often cast as the wise cracking best friend of the principal beautiful leading lady. The leading lady always got her man while Lucy made the comic exit. I so often compare myself to Lucy in those movies, making everyone laugh but never getting a man.

I lost the love of my life to the AIDS virus in 1992. That part of my heart has never healed. I’ve seen too many people shut down and retreat into booze, drugs, or depression under such circumstances. I nearly hit that path in 1998.  It hurts too much to go there. That is part of my life I keep locked away.

I think back to the early 1980’s when I attended a meeting of “The Gay Professionals”. This was a group of gay men who met monthly in Buffalo. I was just emerging from the closet at the same time as AIDS was making itself known.

There was a speaker one meeting who was a health worker from New York City. He was in Buffalo to give a progress report of the research on the emerging health crisis. He made the statement that it was estimated 50% of the gay men in New York City were carrying the HIV virus. There was no treatment at this point of time.

My good friend Brian who is pretty outspoken, stood up and said, “You mean to tell me that in ten years half the people in this room will be dead?” The answer was “Yes”. There was an uneasy silence and undercurrent present for the rest of the meeting.

That meeting was over 30 years ago and I have no earthly way to fact check who survived, but I think it is a safe assumption most of the guys who attended are gone now.

The AIDS virus hit Buffalo hard in those early years. People’s Express had $29.00 air fares to New York City. It was common for boys to take off for the weekend to the city to “slut it up” and then return home to live their respectable lives.

There are not many Gay men of my generation who survived. I’ve read articles which state those who survived the AIDS plague of the 1980’s can be compared to soldiers today who are suffering PTSD. At least military PTSD sufferers can find some support from the VA and the public in general.  

Today is World Aids Day. It will be a day of introspection. It hurts so to relive those days of angst and uncertainty of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. I’ve been reading my old journals from that time and as I’m typing this out I’m playing the soundtrack of “Dirty Dreams of a Clean Cut Kid”. Here is a link to the site which gives a bit of the history of this now obscure production. http://www.queermusicheritage.us/gm-dirty.html  Buried on this page is another link to an interview from 2003 with the producer John Karr: <a href="http://www.queermusicherita

ge.us/SEPT2003/KARR.MP3″>http://www.queermusicheritage.us/SEPT2003/KARR.MP3

Back in 2010 I did a journal entry on my E-blogger account on this show and the effect it had on my life. Here is a copy and paste from that entry:

I was cleaning out and found my cassette soundtrack from “Dirty Dreams of a Clean Cut Kid” I saw this show in San Francisco back on August 31, 1991. It had a profound effect upon me.

Folded inside that cassette box was this ad.

 

 

 

 

1992 was a watershed year for me. The AIDS virus was wiping out my friends and acquaintances. I think I lost half my address book that year. It seemed as if every week there was another funeral or memorial service to attend.

One thing that helped me through this grim period was listening to the soundtrack of this musical. I made a couple copies to keep at work and in my car. I knew I’d wear out the original. There were times I’d be listening in my car and would have to pull off the road because the tears would flow and I could not see.

Using the internet I was able to track down one of the performers of the production I saw. We met back in 1991, and I never thought I would have contact with him again. It gave me a sense of closure to be able to convey to him what an inspiration the show and his performance were to me.

I started posting journal entries to an E-Blogger account so they would show up on my Facebook page. This way I could share journal entries to the public.

One thing I forgot to take into consideration was: this journal on E-Blogger was searchable. Some two years after I posted this entry on “Dirty Dreams” I found this note left for me on May 7, 2012:

My name was Henry Mach (after I moved to San Francisco and shortened it), tho I’ve gone back to my full-length last name. "Dirty Dreams" feels like an experience from a previous life, it was so long ago and I’m so different. The content of that show was written over a period of more than 10 years — as I lived it. The repeated refrain "This isn’t how it was supposed to be" was what I was hearing on the street at the time.

I’ve found fulfillment in my new life/new career. I have a boyfriend for the first time in decades. Tonight, I told him about "Dirty Dreams" and his Google search came upon your blog post. It was a good feeling for me to know my writing had touched you and that it had meaning for you. Thank you.

This response pretty much brought me to tears. Writing is therapy for me. I like to think I’m leaving behind some kind of tangible proof that I was on this earth. I never expected to get this kind of feedback.

I’m hoping to transpose my old paper journals to Word in the near future. As things now stand those books are nearly impossible to research. They are just an account of my everyday life from that period of time. There are accounts of long forgotten friends and acquaintances. These people who lived and breathed don’t deserve to be

forgotten.

World AIDS Day comes too close on the heels of Veteran’s Day. The words of Eric Boggles “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” is still too fresh in my memory. I can relate too closely to the lines:

But as year follows year,

more old men disappear.

Someday no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

And their ghosts may be heard as they march by that billabong, who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?