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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Leon Napok. I'm the host of Fiasco,

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Speaker 1: but you may also know me from the podcasts Slowburn,

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Speaker 1: Think Twice, Michael Jackson, and Backfired the Vaping Wars. I'm

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Speaker 1: excited to be sharing with you the next season of Backfired,

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Speaker 1: titled Attention Deficit, which is now available exclusively on Audible.

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Speaker 1: Backfired is a podcast about the business of unintended consequences.

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Speaker 1: In the first season, my co host Ril Pardess and

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Speaker 1: I dove deep into the world of vaping and how

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Speaker 1: the well intentioned quest for a safer cigarette went awry.

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Speaker 1: Now we're tackling ADHD and how the push to destigmatize

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Speaker 1: this hard to define childhood diagnosis has led to an

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Speaker 1: explosion of stimulant use in kids as well as adults.

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Speaker 1: It's a story about the promise of psychiatry to fix

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Speaker 1: our brains and the power of the pharmaceutical industry to

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Speaker 1: shape how we and our doctors think about what's wrong

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Speaker 1: with us. To hear both seasons of Backfired, go to

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Speaker 1: audible dot com slash Backfired and start a free trial

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Speaker 1: that's audible dot com slash backfired. Fiasco is tended for

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Speaker 1: mature audiences. For a list of books, articles and documentaries

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Speaker 1: we used in our research. Follow the link in the

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Speaker 1: show notes Previously on Fiasco.

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Speaker 2: It's mysterious, it's deadly, and it's baffling medical science.

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Speaker 3: A new deadly disease that no one understands, a great

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Speaker 3: medical puzzle.

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Speaker 4: There was virtually no coverage in the mainstream media.

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Speaker 5: I just thought that the more I talked about it,

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Speaker 5: the better it would be for other people in my community.

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Speaker 1: When Sean Strube arrived in New York in nineteen seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: what he found was a city full of gay men

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Speaker 1: having the time of their lives. It was exactly what

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Speaker 1: Strube had been looking for when he decided to transfer

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Speaker 1: from Georgetown to Columbia.

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Speaker 6: I really moved to New York to be free and

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Speaker 6: to be gay. I didn't know anybody there. I literally

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Speaker 6: been there a few weekends and met one person, spent

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Speaker 6: a weekend with him, and fell in love with the city.

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Speaker 1: Strube had only recently come out to his parents. His

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Speaker 1: mom had cried and his dad awkwardly asked him if

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Speaker 1: he was the man or the woman in his relationships,

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Speaker 1: but Strube still felt a lot better afterwards. He was

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Speaker 1: a twenty one year old fresh out of the closet

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Speaker 1: with an apartment in Hell's kitchen. Nothing his parents could

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Speaker 1: say was going to put a damper on that. A

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Speaker 1: few weeks after he arrived in New York, Strube attended

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Speaker 1: the Gay Pride Parade for the first time in his life.

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Speaker 6: I couldn't believe all these people were gay. I'm like

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Speaker 6: walking through and looking that one and that one and

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Speaker 6: that one, and I was astonished in Central Park. I

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Speaker 6: had no idea there were that many homosexuals in the world.

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Speaker 1: The first Gay Pride Parade had taken place about a

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Speaker 1: decade earlier. It celebrated the Stonewall Uprising of nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: a series of demonstrations that erupted after police rated a

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Speaker 1: popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Stonewall was a major

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Speaker 1: turning point in gay life, not just in New York City,

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Speaker 1: but across the country.

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Speaker 2: A gay liberation movement is challenging a society that abhors homosexuality.

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Speaker 7: Tell me, what do you feel about the Harliflow movement.

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Speaker 8: I think it's really dynamite, and I think the only

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Speaker 8: way to achieve it is from force and march is

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Speaker 8: like this.

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Speaker 9: You know, other groups have their own holidays, you know,

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Speaker 9: their own marshes and things like that.

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Speaker 10: This is our day.

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Speaker 1: The gay liberation movement was about civil rights and being

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Speaker 1: able to live openly. It was also about sex and

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Speaker 1: having as much of it as you wanted.

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Speaker 2: Freedom of sexual expression is as much an issue of

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Speaker 2: the gay movement as civil and legal rights are.

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Speaker 6: This was sort of the peak of the explosion in

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Speaker 6: gay male sexuality in the years after Stonewall, right after

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Speaker 6: this sort of intense repression and this new era of

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Speaker 6: liberation in the seventies, and everybody was getting it's axually

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Speaker 6: transmitted infections.

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Speaker 1: In my life, there were lots of different diseases circulating

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Speaker 1: around New York. With treatment, they were rarely fatal. That

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Speaker 1: they were everywhere.

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Speaker 6: Whether it was you know, goanrhea or crabs or herpes.

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Speaker 6: You know, at the time, herpes was the biggest concern.

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Speaker 6: You know, people say, oh, if I ever got herpes,

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Speaker 6: I'd kill myself. And then everybody got herpes and they

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Speaker 6: didn't kill themselves, so it was commonplace.

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Speaker 1: Not long after he started at Columbia in the fall,

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Speaker 1: Strube noticed the lymph nodes on one side of his

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Speaker 1: neck were badly swollen. He went to University Health Services,

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Speaker 1: where they told him he might have a contusion or

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Speaker 1: maybe even leukemia. It was concerning, but the swelling eventually

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Speaker 1: went down and Strube stopped worrying about it. Then he

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Speaker 1: started experiencing other symptoms.

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Speaker 6: I was having night sweats, and I'd lost weight in

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Speaker 6: the year after I moved to New York as well.

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Speaker 6: But I was a tall, skinny kid. My weight fluctuated.

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Speaker 6: I didn't pay any attention to that, and then I

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Speaker 6: got hepatitis and I ended up, you know, in bed

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Speaker 6: for about six weeks and had to drop out of Columbia.

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Speaker 1: After he recovered from his bout with hepatitis, Strube started

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Speaker 1: volunteering at a gay newspaper that had recently opened an

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Speaker 1: office on fifty seventh Street.

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Speaker 6: I was a volunteer copy editor at the New York Native.

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Speaker 11: Okay.

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Speaker 6: I was dating somebody who worked there, and I would

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Speaker 6: go in and read the you know, the galleys for

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Speaker 6: typos and things like that.

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Speaker 1: For years, gay New Yorkers had been without a major

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Speaker 1: news outlet of their own. San Francisco had The Bay

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Speaker 1: Area Reporter, DC had The Blade, Boston had Gay Community News.

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Speaker 1: The Native had sprouted up to fill the gap in

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Speaker 1: New York, and it became a hub of news criticism, advertising,

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Speaker 1: and local gossip. Did you get on newstands or were

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Speaker 1: there boxes or how did it get distributed.

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Speaker 6: I'd either get it free from the office, or I'd

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Speaker 6: get it at the newsstands. It was distributed everywhere. I

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Speaker 6: mean it was in Lower Manhattan anyway, it was everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Read the paper every two weeks. As soon as it

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Speaker 1: came out. In the spring of nineteen eighty one, he

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Speaker 1: came across an article headlined Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded. It

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Speaker 1: accompanied the first news story ever to be published about

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Speaker 1: what would turn out to be AIDS.

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Speaker 6: And I read it and had, you know, kind of

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Speaker 6: the gamut of reactions people had, you know, oh my god,

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Speaker 6: this is scary too, Oh my god, this is fear mongering.

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Speaker 6: You know, this can't be true.

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Speaker 1: The central takeaway from the article was that an exotic

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Speaker 1: new disease was said to have struck the gay community

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Speaker 1: in New York, but that, according to health officials, there

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Speaker 1: was for now no reason to panic. Soon there would be,

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Speaker 1: and as the disease spread, people like Sean Strub decided

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Speaker 1: they couldn't wait for scientists, doctors, and government officials to

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Speaker 1: help them. They were going to have to help themselves.

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Speaker 1: I'm Leon Napok from Audible Originals and Prologue Projects. This

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Speaker 1: is fiasco.

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Speaker 12: I know about this disease, and I know it may

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Speaker 12: strike me tomorrow.

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Speaker 7: I am there.

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Speaker 4: I have swollen glands, I had night sweats, I have fevers.

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Speaker 4: Am I dying?

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Speaker 11: We had no other resources but ourselves.

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Speaker 6: We started keeping up a list of who was sick,

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Speaker 6: and then when people die, you know, we'd cross him off.

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Speaker 3: Every gay man who was unable to come forward now

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Speaker 3: and fight to save his own life is truly helping

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Speaker 3: to kill the rest of us.

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Speaker 1: In this episode, how a handful of gay men in

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Speaker 1: New York improvised their own response to the outbreak. The

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Speaker 1: article in the New York Native Disease Rumors, Largely Unfounded,

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Speaker 1: was written by a physician named Larry Mass. Mass had

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Speaker 1: a medical degree, but he'd realized that he wasn't all

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Speaker 1: that interested in being a doctor, so he became a

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Speaker 1: writer instead, and he started using his expertise to cover

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Speaker 1: medicine and sex for the Native. In nineteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: Mass heard from a source that a few gay men

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Speaker 1: in New York had come down to the rare lung

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Speaker 1: infection numisistus pneumonia.

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Speaker 11: I got a call from a colonae in what I

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Speaker 11: call community medicine, trying to help these underserved communities, gay

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Speaker 11: men and rejects from mainstream medicine and health, and she

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Speaker 11: said there's something going on.

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Speaker 1: Mass's source sounded nervous and uncertain. She had been cautioned

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Speaker 1: not to discuss the issue, but according to Mass, she

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Speaker 1: thought that someone in the gay community should know.

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Speaker 11: She said, there's some cases in New York City intensive

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Speaker 11: care units and emergency rooms. There's been a couple of deaths.

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Speaker 11: That's it. I can't talk about it. They told me,

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Speaker 11: I can't talk about it. I could basically after talking

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Speaker 11: for a minute and a half like that, it was

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Speaker 11: basic hung up.

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Speaker 1: Mass followed up on the tip by calling a doctor

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Speaker 1: the New York City Department of Health. The doctor reassured

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Speaker 1: him that unless someone was severely immunocompromised, they didn't need

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Speaker 1: to worry.

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Speaker 11: They said, there are these cases, and there's a few

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Speaker 11: of them. We don't know if they're related to one another.

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Speaker 11: We don't know if it's just a coincidence that we're

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Speaker 11: seeing a few cases and if they are in any

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Speaker 11: way connected, And that was what became the first piece

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Speaker 11: disease rumors largely unfounded.

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Speaker 1: When Seaun Strew read the article, it didn't even occur

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Speaker 1: to him that it might have anything to do with him.

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Speaker 1: But then a few months later, a follow up story

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Speaker 1: and the native got his attention. This one was about

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Speaker 1: a group of gay men in Los Angeles, all suffering

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Speaker 1: from the same three symptoms, swollen lymph clans, weight loss,

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Speaker 1: and night sweats.

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Speaker 6: I remember reading that article and getting the feeling in

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Speaker 6: the pit of my stomach that that's me. I have

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Speaker 6: all those things.

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Speaker 1: Strube went to see a doctor who specialized in treating

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Speaker 1: gay men. Strube called him a classic clap doctor, someone

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Speaker 1: who prescribed antibiotics for things like gonn rhea and syphilis

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Speaker 1: and treated patients who, for various reasons, couldn't turn to

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Speaker 1: their regular physicians.

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Speaker 6: He had an office in the same building this apartment

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Speaker 6: was in. I think he had had difficulty holding on

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Speaker 6: to his license, and you know, he kind of showed

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Speaker 6: up at his apartment and his specimen jar for urine

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Speaker 6: specimens was a skipy peanut butter jar.

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Speaker 1: The doctor told Strube that he was probably fine, he.

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Speaker 6: Said, Oh, don't worry about it, that's nothing. He says,

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Speaker 6: just wash up after you. I think he used some

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Speaker 6: vulgar colloquialism for having sex, you know, wash up, be

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Speaker 6: a boy scout, you'll be fine. That didn't comfort me.

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Speaker 6: I didn't have that much of faith in what he

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Speaker 6: was telling me.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, Strube's experience wasn't unusual. All Over New York, gay

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Speaker 1: men were dealing with doctors who didn't have the slightest

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Speaker 1: idea what they were up against. Unlike the specialists you

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Speaker 1: heard about in our first episode, most clap doctors weren't

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Speaker 1: paying attention to the latest alerts from the CDC or

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Speaker 1: engaging in any organized effort to figure out how to

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Speaker 1: treat their patients. Mainly, these doctors were helping people maintain

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Speaker 1: their sex lives. At a moment when it seemed like

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Speaker 1: everyone was walking around with some variety of std there

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Speaker 1: were all.

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Speaker 4: These articles in the gay press saying, look, if you're

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Speaker 4: sexually active gay man, you need every three months to

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Speaker 4: go and get checked up to make sure you don't

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Speaker 4: have siphlist and connorrhea.

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Speaker 1: This is Richard Burkowitz. He was twenty three when he

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Speaker 1: moved to New York to study film at NYU.

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Speaker 4: The responsible gay man who cares about his community. Every

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Speaker 4: three months get to a clinic get tested because the

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Speaker 4: rates were skyrocketing.

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Speaker 1: Berkowitz was young, handsome, and and he quickly figured out

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Speaker 1: that he could make a lot of money as an escort.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't long before he had occasion to visit a

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Speaker 1: community clinic for gay men in Greenwich Village.

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Speaker 4: And I was really fortunate because my chart just happened

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Speaker 4: to be handed to whatever doctor was available at the moment.

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Speaker 4: And in that moment, it was doctor Joseph Sonoband who

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Speaker 4: became my personal e Moses.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Sonoband was a virologist originally from South Africa. He

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Speaker 1: was gay, and he had dedicated his practice in New

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Speaker 1: York to helping men like Richard Berkowitz stay healthy. Berkowitz

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Speaker 1: became close with Sonoband after getting infected with hepatitis A.

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Speaker 1: Sonoband told him that he needed to contact all of

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Speaker 1: his sexual partners and tell them to come see him.

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Speaker 4: Most guys when he said that would just like roll

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Speaker 4: their eyes. It's like, how do you contact a guy

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Speaker 4: from the bath? How do you contact a guy from

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Speaker 4: the Saint Balcony. You couldn't do partner tracing when you're

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Speaker 4: going to the baths and having affected five different people.

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Speaker 4: But I had a sex worklog of every client I'd seen,

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Speaker 4: and I had a lot of phone calls to make

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Speaker 4: that day.

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Speaker 1: When Sonoban looked at Berkowitz's blood work, he noticed that

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Speaker 1: his patient was showing signs of immune deficiency. He called

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Speaker 1: Burkewitz back to his office, at which point he also

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Speaker 1: noticed a number of swollen glands.

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Speaker 4: He started putting his two sets of fingers under my neck,

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Speaker 4: under my arm pit. He said, Oh my god, there's

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Speaker 4: another swollen glen here. There's another swollen glen here. There's

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Speaker 4: another swollen glan here. And I'm like freaking out, getting

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Speaker 4: like gnauseris.

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Speaker 1: Sonobin suggested Berkowitz get a biopsy, and at first Berkowitz refused.

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Speaker 1: He was scared, and he avoided going back to Sonoban's

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Speaker 1: office for several months.

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Speaker 9: Hello hello, Hi, are you huh?

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, Berkowitz and his friends would talk on

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Speaker 1: the phone about the gay cancer And I.

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Speaker 13: Had this big article in the paper about this this

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Speaker 13: gay cancer con man. Yeah, will you say this for.

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Speaker 1: The Burkowitz recorded many of his calls and collected them

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Speaker 1: in a personal archive. He and his friends would talk

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Speaker 1: about people they knew who were getting sick and what

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Speaker 1: they were going through.

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Speaker 7: He's got it, but he's not saying he's got it.

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Speaker 7: He's keeping it a secret from everybody.

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Speaker 13: And you do something you don't want to tell people

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Speaker 13: when you have cancer. They don't want you in your house,

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Speaker 13: they don't want you know what I'm trying to say.

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Speaker 7: If you have cant catchy want they can't belive in catsne.

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Speaker 13: Yeah, but still there's a stigma that goes along with

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Speaker 13: having cancer. It's like, you know, stay away.

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Speaker 1: Burkowitz heard about other people who seem to be developing

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Speaker 1: symptoms of the new disease. The stories hit close to home.

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Speaker 4: I had a lot of the escorts who were friends

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Speaker 4: of mine, and one of them was Hibiscus, and I

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Speaker 4: heard that he was sick from other escorts.

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Speaker 1: Berkowitz was told that Hibiscus had gone to a hospital

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Speaker 1: in the village. Then the news spread that Hibiscus was dead.

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Speaker 4: And that freaked me out because we shared a client.

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Speaker 1: After that, burke Whitz finally got his biopsy. When he

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Speaker 1: got home, he decided that his days as an escort

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Speaker 1: were over. He and Hibiscus had advertised in the same magazine.

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Speaker 1: Their ads were right next to each others.

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Speaker 4: I walked over to the phone. I called near a telephone.

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Speaker 4: I said, disconnect both my phone numbers. I'm done. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I thought that said I'm going to die twenty six.

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Speaker 1: Berkelwitz asked Sonoban to level with him.

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Speaker 4: I said everything I'm reading everyone with AIDS dies. You know,

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Speaker 4: I have swollen glands, I have night sweats, I have fevers.

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Speaker 4: I had epichatius. Say it eppatatus, b am I dying?

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Speaker 4: And he looked at me and said, well, actually no.

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Speaker 1: Sonoban then shared his theory of the new disease. Unlike

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Speaker 1: some doctors and scientists who were convinced from very early

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Speaker 1: on that AIDS was caused by a virus, Sonoban believed

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Speaker 1: that gay men living in cities like New York and

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Speaker 1: San Francisco had simply burned out their immune systems. They

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Speaker 1: had had too much sex with too many partners, done

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Speaker 1: too many drugs, and gotten too many sexually transmitted diseases. AIDS,

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Speaker 1: Sonobin told Berkowitz was the cumulative result of too many

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Speaker 1: bad decisions, and he.

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Speaker 4: Said, Richard, you need everything possible to protect your immune

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Speaker 4: system and stay as healthy as you can to fight

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Speaker 4: off whatever's causing this. You know, this notion that you

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Speaker 4: know it's just a virus, it's just stupid. You're getting

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Speaker 4: repeatedly infected with hepatatus say hepatatus be, syphilist gunner rhea,

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Speaker 4: stomach parasites. I mean, do I have to go down

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Speaker 4: the list? Herpes a, herpes be? I mean it was

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Speaker 4: like exploding, he said. Anybody who thinks that there's not

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Speaker 4: a cumulative consequence to constantly be infected with this, he said,

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Speaker 4: they're you know, they're in denial.

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Speaker 1: Whatever this new thing was. Sonoban said it was not

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Speaker 1: just one virus that you could catch from a single

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Speaker 1: sexual encounter. Rather, it was an avoidable outcome of certain behaviors,

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Speaker 1: one that might even be reversible.

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Speaker 4: He said, you need to understand that it's not a

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Speaker 4: hopeful situation. And if you stop exposing yourself to all

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Speaker 4: these things, you know, I think you're going to be

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Speaker 4: all right.

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Speaker 1: Sonobin wanted to get the word out about his theory.

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Speaker 1: Here he is talking about it on a local news broadcast.

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Speaker 14: I suppose the most simplistic and easiest way to view

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Speaker 14: this is that there was a new biological agent that

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Speaker 14: was being transmitted from group to group.

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Speaker 4: You believe that, of.

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Speaker 14: Course, not on this absurd It's just totally absurd, and

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Speaker 14: it's based on the whole superstructure of conjecture.

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Speaker 1: Berkowitz embraced Sonoban's theory wholeheartedly. He excitedly told his friends

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Speaker 1: about what he'd learned.

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Speaker 13: Well, I spoke to my doctor with this week. I

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Speaker 13: just wanted to talk to him. Yeah, for he said,

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Speaker 13: first of all, the only people who get this are

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Speaker 13: that hardcore, heavy duty you know, Friday Sunday, every weekend

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Speaker 13: drugs and fucking baths and orgies back rooms. And you're

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Speaker 13: trying to say this cancer comes from a good ten

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Speaker 13: to fifteen years of every weekend drugs, multiple sex, and

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Speaker 13: kinky sex. That's what this comes from, every weekend.

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Speaker 1: Sonobin's theory of AIDS came to be known as the

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Speaker 1: multi factorial theory. It was wrong, and though Sonoban eventually

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Speaker 1: did soften his views and allow that AIDS was caused

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Speaker 1: by a virus, his longtime skepticism earned him a somewhat

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Speaker 1: uneasy place in the history of the disease. It's important

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Speaker 1: to realize, though, that back in nineteen eighty two, Sonoban's

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Speaker 1: ideas weren't competing with some widely accepted scientific consensus. As

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Speaker 1: you'll hear later in the series, the theory that AIDS

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Speaker 1: was caused by a virus took years to confirm. In

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Speaker 1: the meantime, Sonobin distinguished himself by being one of the

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Speaker 1: first doctors anywhere to start researching AIDS and treating people

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Speaker 1: who had it, and his faith in the multifactorial theory

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Speaker 1: led him to advocate for an idea that even his

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Speaker 1: critics acknowledge was right on the money. Gay men needed

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Speaker 1: to start having safer sex. In Richard Burkowitz, Sonoban found

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Speaker 1: an enthusiastic messenger.

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Speaker 4: When Sonoman told me that I was going to live,

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Speaker 4: that there was a good chance I could live, I

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Speaker 4: said to him, I just quit my job. I never

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Speaker 4: told my escort it. I said, I just quit my job.

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Speaker 4: A good all this time? What had you to help?

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Speaker 4: And he said, well, I have another patient I wants

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Speaker 4: to help. I know it was rough for you and

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Speaker 4: your brother.

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Speaker 1: Sonoban's other patient was a twenty seven year old named

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Speaker 1: Michael Callen. He was a singer who performed at piano

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Speaker 1: bars around New York.

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Speaker 12: If you could see through my eyes.

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Speaker 1: Like Berkowitz, Callen had recently been diagnosed with AIDS. Berkowitz

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Speaker 1: actually recorded the first few seconds of his first ever

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Speaker 1: phone call with Callen from nineteen eighty two. Sadly he

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Speaker 1: taped over the rest, but it's still kind of magical

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Speaker 1: to hear it.

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Speaker 7: Oh yeah, Michael Callen, Callen, Hi, my name is Rich Burkowitz, right, yeah, Yeah.

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Speaker 4: We had both been woken up to Sonobin's ideas that

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Speaker 4: it was actually possible to survive this thing that everyone

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Speaker 4: was calling the end of the world. Once you get it,

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Speaker 4: you're dead. It was the first way of hope, and

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Speaker 4: so in that moment we connected.

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Speaker 1: Berkowitz and Kllen bonded over the energetic sex lives they

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Speaker 1: had led prior to their diagnoses. After Berkowitz told Callen

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Speaker 1: he'd been an escort, Kllen confessed he had been with

381
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Speaker 1: approximately three thousand men. He had done the math because

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Speaker 1: the CDC had just recently interviewed him for a study.

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Speaker 4: He said, well, I've had three thousand minute my butt,

384
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Speaker 4: You're a whore. What are the perfect ones? Start writing?

385
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:40,960
Speaker 4: About Sonomin's ideas.

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Speaker 1: Berkowitz and Callen got to work right away. At the time,

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Speaker 1: Callen was a full time paralegal, and when he left

388
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,719
Speaker 1: the office at five o'clock every day, Berkowitz would meet

389
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Speaker 1: him at his Greenwich Village apartment. Together, they started writing

390
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Speaker 1: an essay, a kind of open letter in which they

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Speaker 1: would address their fellow gay men.

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Speaker 4: In between the writing, he would sometimes bake the most

393
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Speaker 4: delicious cookies. He had a beat up piano in his apartment.

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Speaker 3: I know, I said, it would be a kid.

395
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Speaker 4: He would like play some music and I would sit

396
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Speaker 4: on the fire scape and I'd look at it at

397
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Speaker 4: the city Scotland and think, oh my god, just like

398
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Speaker 4: a storm coming. It's gonna kill so many people. And

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Speaker 4: it's up to us to try to weak people up,

400
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:24,480
Speaker 4: to get, you know, to duck for cover. Honey, I

401
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:26,800
Speaker 4: know you must go.

402
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Speaker 1: As they worked on their essay, Berkowitz and Callen attended

403
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:36,639
Speaker 1: an early support group for gay men with AIDS. There

404
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 1: they found like minded people who also didn't want to

405
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Speaker 1: resign themselves to an inevitable death. The experience informed Burkowitz

406
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:46,640
Speaker 1: and Kwen's writing, and after a few months they came

407
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:49,159
Speaker 1: up with a piece that was straightforward, a little funny

408
00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:52,359
Speaker 1: in places, and full of knowing references to the lifestyle

409
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Speaker 1: the authors have been enjoying until recently.

410
00:21:54,760 --> 00:21:57,159
Speaker 4: Michael said to me, we're gonna call this we Know

411
00:21:57,160 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 4: Who we Are. We live this lifestyle, we loved this lifestyle,

412
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:04,199
Speaker 4: and we're going to talk to you like sluts, like

413
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 4: gay men of our generation, and we're going to tell

414
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:08,920
Speaker 4: you like it is, and we're going to talk to

415
00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:11,919
Speaker 4: it in a language that you'll recognize and understand as

416
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,679
Speaker 4: part of your community. Not the whole community, but the

417
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 4: sexual active community.

418
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Speaker 1: When Berkowitz and Kallen were done with We Know Who

419
00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 1: We Are, there was really only one publication they could

420
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:23,959
Speaker 1: imagine submitting it to.

421
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Speaker 4: We knew we had to go to the Native, you know,

422
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 4: to try to get published, because it was the only

423
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:33,600
Speaker 4: newspaper in town that was the outlet for getting information

424
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Speaker 4: about the ads out to gay men.

425
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: We Know Who We Are ran in The Native in

426
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Speaker 1: November of nineteen eighty two with a subtitle two Gay

427
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 1: Men declare War on Promiscuity. In it, Berkowitz and Kallen

428
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 1: urged caution the obvious and immediate solution to the present crisis.

429
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 1: They wrote, is the end of urban gay male promiscuity

430
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 1: as we know it today?

431
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:56,240
Speaker 6: Can I get you to read from We know who we.

432
00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:03,440
Speaker 4: Are as we must care enough about ourselves to begin

433
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:08,199
Speaker 4: this reevaluation. Gay men are dying as a community. We

434
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:12,679
Speaker 4: must initiate and control this process ourselves. Be assured that

435
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 4: if we aren't willing to conduct it, others will do

436
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 4: it for us. The federal government, to the Centers for

437
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 4: Disease Control is already taking a long, hard look at

438
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 4: our behavior.

439
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 1: The article wasn't all bracing rhetoric. Berkowitz and Kalen also

440
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: shared some pragmatic advice about how gay men could have

441
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 1: safer sex. For example, they suggested that the concept of

442
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 1: fuck buddies could be modified to become pods of healthy

443
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: people who only had sex with each other. But ultimately,

444
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 1: Berkowitz and Kalen were unequivocal.

445
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 4: We could continue to deny overwhelming evidence that the prison

446
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 4: health crisis is a direct result of the unprecedented promiscuity

447
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 4: that has occurred since Stonewall, but such denial is killing us.

448
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,440
Speaker 4: Denial will continue to kill us until we begin the

449
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 4: difficult task of changing the ways in which we have sex.

450
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 4: Let me tell you that paragraph. It's not me, that's

451
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 4: Michael talking with depressing urgency of disease and death.

452
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 1: Sean Strube, the young Columbia student turned copy editor at

453
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 1: the New York Native, remembers when the article came out, every.

454
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 6: Gay man who had any consciousness about being gay or

455
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 6: part of the.

456
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:25,760
Speaker 11: Gay read that article.

457
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:28,440
Speaker 4: You know, it was absolutely read by everybody.

458
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 1: The article resonated, even if some people didn't want to

459
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: hear what Burkowitz and Callen were saying.

460
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 6: It was like a splash of cold water in this

461
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 6: community because people couldn't read that article and not see

462
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 6: themselves in it. To one extent or another. There was

463
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 6: a lot of denial. You know, I'm not that promiscuous.

464
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:47,359
Speaker 6: I don't go to that place. I don't do that

465
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 6: particular sexual practice. But underneath it they knew.

466
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: Many readers were furious at berkowitzen Callen for what they

467
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: saw as a demand to halt their sex lives altogether.

468
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 12: I'm a gay man. Took me years to bring myself

469
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 12: to say that openly and with pride.

470
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: One columnist for The Native published a rebuttal to Callan

471
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: and Berkowitz, called in defense of promiscuity. He went on

472
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:11,919
Speaker 1: local television to make his point.

473
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 12: Certainly, my sexuality is only a part of my gayness,

474
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 12: but it is the central part. If I can't join

475
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:19,920
Speaker 12: another man's body to mind, then how am I gay?

476
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 12: Liking Bet Midler isn't enough.

477
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 4: Make no mistake.

478
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 12: I know about this disease, and I know it may

479
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:30,159
Speaker 12: strike me tomorrow. I'm scared. The crucial question is how

480
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 12: will I let my fear affect me? I know what

481
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 12: I won't do. I won't give up the physical expression

482
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 12: of intimacy and in my sexual encounters, we won't start

483
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:41,959
Speaker 12: out with a health quiz, Nor will we limit our

484
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 12: love making to certain acts I refused.

485
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: Sean Strew remembers the prevailing feeling among his friends during

486
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 1: this time as being as much about indifference and avoidance

487
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 1: as it was about fear and anger.

488
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:55,719
Speaker 6: Wats of my friends didn't want to hear about it,

489
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 6: you know? I mean I can remember being at events

490
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 6: for or a host would say, Okay, let's let's not

491
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 6: talk about AIDS tonight. You know, let's not talk about

492
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 6: the gay cancer tonight, where they kind of like put

493
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 6: that out as something that couldn't be discussed.

494
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: Strube told me that at this point he didn't have

495
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: a clear sense that some people had aids and others didn't.

496
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 1: He experienced it more like a growing ominous presence, one

497
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: that called the future of everyone around him into question.

498
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 1: Do you remember when that turned into a feeling that

499
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: there was a death sentence hanging over you?

500
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:31,679
Speaker 6: Yes, in those first years I knew it had something

501
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,680
Speaker 6: to do with me, but huge numbers of people had

502
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 6: stolen influence. You know, it was a massive community. I

503
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 6: wasn't singular, This wasn't any sort of secret. It wasn't

504
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 6: you know whatever. You know, you would be in bed

505
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 6: with somebody and.

506
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:45,680
Speaker 11: You know, and do you have someone?

507
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 6: Look, yeah, I do, feeling each other and you know,

508
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:49,360
Speaker 6: talking about it, comparing it all the time.

509
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 4: Is that right?

510
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: You remember you remember being in bed with someone and

511
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 1: like feeling each other's.

512
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 6: Absolutely multiple people. I remember the night I met Michael

513
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 6: Misso was my part who died in nineteen eighty eight.

514
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 6: The night we met, we were both talking about having,

515
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,919
Speaker 6: you know, lymph clients that swelled at times, and we

516
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 6: talked about the epidemic and and I guess by then

517
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 6: the idea that this was something, you know, potentially contagious

518
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 6: had emerged.

519
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: As more and more people got sick, news about who

520
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 1: had the disease and who was dying of it would spread,

521
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 1: almost like gossip. Strube and one of his friends started

522
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: keeping a written tally.

523
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 6: We talk on the phone every day, and we just

524
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 6: started comparing notes, and you know, I heard, did you hear?

525
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 4: You know?

526
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 13: I don't know.

527
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,439
Speaker 6: Bobby went back to Minneapolis to you know, see his family.

528
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 6: But it's been like a month.

529
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 11: I don't know.

530
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 6: Do you think something's going on? And we put Bobby

531
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 6: down question mark, And we started keeping a list of

532
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 6: everybody we heard who was sick or who had you know,

533
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 6: had lost weight. We were, you know, wondering about and

534
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 6: when people die, you know, we'd cross them off.

535
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: Larry Mass, the physician who wrote the first article about

536
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: AIDS for the New York Native, looks back on this

537
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: time with some regret. He was too worried about stoking panic,

538
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: he says, and too hesitant to make recommendations to his

539
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: readers while the science of the disease was still so uncertain.

540
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 11: I was someone who, you know, had all these misgivings,

541
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 11: what about our civil rights? What about you know, what

542
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 11: exactly we're going to tell people? I wanted clarity I

543
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 11: felt that go tell everybody just to stop havingly. That

544
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 11: wasn't going to work. You know, I look back on

545
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 11: it now, I mean we were too cautious. I was

546
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 11: too cautious.

547
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: Not everyone in massive circle was so cautious. Mass had

548
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: one friend in particular who was more than willing to

549
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: sound an early alarm. That friend was a writer named

550
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: Larry Kramer, who would become probably the most famous name

551
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: in the history of AIDS activism.

552
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 4: Plague. We are in the middle of a fucking plague.

553
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 3: We are in the worst shape we have ever, ever

554
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 3: ever been in.

555
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 11: I have a fifty year friendship with Larry, going way back.

556
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 11: Larry was one of the people I knew in New York,

557
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:19,959
Speaker 11: one of the people I first came to see. Larry

558
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 11: was my first inspiration as a writer. Had a lot

559
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 11: of feeling in regard for Larry, but even I really

560
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 11: didn't know where Larry was coming from. He was extremely angry,

561
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 11: volcanically incessantly angry.

562
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: It was a disposition well suited to the moment. From

563
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: the very beginning, Kramer saw the new disease as an

564
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: existential threat to gay life, and he took some decisive

565
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: early steps to bring attention to it.

566
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 3: We have found a complete and utter lack of interest

567
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 3: in it on part the gay and the medical and

568
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 3: straight communities altogether.

569
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 10: Or do you think that is I think it's scary.

570
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 3: I think in terms of the straight community, it's because

571
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 3: basically it's homophobia, or not even homophobia. I do not

572
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 3: think that heterosexuals are interested in homosexuals. I don't think

573
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 3: it's homophobia. I just think it's a complete and utter

574
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 3: lack of interest. And that's okay. I mean, what can

575
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 3: you do.

576
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: Kramer is usually described as the co founder of act UP,

577
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: the transformative protest group he helped start in nineteen eighty seven,

578
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: but all that came much later. In the early eighties,

579
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: Kramer was just a screenwriter and author. One of his

580
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: screenplays have been nominated for an Oscar, but he was

581
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: perhaps best known for a polarizing novel published in nineteen

582
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: seventy eight, in which he satirized the sexual politics of

583
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,959
Speaker 1: post liberation New York. We have here this morning Larry Kramer,

584
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: the author of the controversial novel Fagots.

585
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 4: Good morning Larry, Good morning Randy.

586
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 3: I would just like somebody to say introduce me as

587
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 3: being other than controversial.

588
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 1: If Richard Berkowitz and Michael Callen put themselves forward as

589
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 1: young libertines, Larry Kramer had earned a reputation in gay

590
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: circles as someone who was hopelessly old fashioned, even squeamish,

591
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 1: about certain aspects of the gay liberation movement.

592
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 3: Well, I do think that one of the problems that

593
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 3: we're going through now is that we treat ourselves almost

594
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 3: exclusively as sexual beings. And while I think sex is fine,

595
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 3: and I'm not promulgating that we don't do what we

596
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 3: want to do, I think we've come to look upon

597
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 3: ourselves strictly in sexual terms, treating each other as only

598
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 3: a sexual objects.

599
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 1: Larry Mass regarded his friend's novel as a judgmental text,

600
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: a condemnation of a lifestyle that Kramer disapproved of.

601
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 11: Faggots is basically a great warning to the gay community

602
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 11: that you're on the precipice, and you know, the character's

603
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 11: name in Faggots is fred Lemish, and basically the images

604
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 11: of a lemming going with all these all these other lemmings,

605
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 11: you know, off the cliff, because you know, it was

606
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 11: like a suicidal lives that we were living.

607
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: I can't decide if Kramer's posture towards the gay liberation

608
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: movement made him an awkward fit for AIDS activism, or

609
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: if it made him the perfect man for the job. Regardless,

610
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: he was motivated and connected enough to get people's attention.

611
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty two, Kramer and five other men, including

612
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: Larry Mass, co founded an organization called Gay Men's Health

613
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: Crisis or GMHC for short. At first, they mostly raised

614
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: money for doctors studying the new disease, but as the

615
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: outbreak got worse, some GMHC members became more focused on

616
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: providing care to people who were sick and had nowhere

617
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: else to turn.

618
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 11: We had no other resources but ourselves, you know, the hospitals,

619
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 11: but especially the government, the city, the City Department of Health.

620
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 11: Nobody was, you know, really there for us.

621
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: As they brought on more volunteers, GMHC filled the vacuum

622
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: in the city. All over New York, there were men

623
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: who were suffering and dying alone. In many cases, they

624
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: had been rejected even by their families.

625
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 11: They had nobody to help them at home, they had

626
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 11: nobody to talk to, nobody to help them at multiple levels,

627
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 11: and most of them were dying.

628
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 8: Hello Hi, Bill, Hi, Hi. This is Roger McFarland from

629
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 8: the Gay Men's Health Crisis. Oh hi, Hi, what can

630
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 8: I do for?

631
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: One of GMHC's earliest volunteers, Roger McFarlane, turned his home

632
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: phone number into a hotline for people who thought they

633
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: might be sick. On the first night the hotline was up,

634
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: McFarlane sat in his living room closet and took more

635
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: than one hundred calls.

636
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 8: Hi Bill, Hi, I'm sorry I just connected this.

637
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's okay.

638
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 8: So you talked to the social worker and you're still

639
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 8: able to work, and they're going to start treating you

640
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 8: at Saint Vincent's in a protocol there with doctor Combe.

641
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know if they're going to treat me as

642
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 3: such or.

643
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: Over the coming months. People called in with questions about

644
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: which doctors to see, which hospitals to go to, and

645
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: how to pay for medical care.

646
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 8: Then there's a couple of things I can suggest. First

647
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 8: of all, we do need to see where they're going

648
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 8: to refer you. If she doesn't know where to refer

649
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 8: you to, I can certainly give her a call.

650
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: And sometimes the calls were less about what to do

651
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: and more about how to cope with what was happening.

652
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 13: I am so scared and.

653
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 7: Be so scared.

654
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 11: I'm only twenty four years old.

655
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 15: If I have this, I'm going to die and I'm

656
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:36,439
Speaker 15: going to freak out.

657
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: It was in part to help people with the emotional

658
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 1: toll of the disease that GMHC created a buddy system

659
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: that paired the healthy with the sick. Mass himself was

660
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: never officially part of the buddy system, but he did

661
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: his fair share of visiting friends in the hospital, and

662
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 1: when he did, he tried to do for them the

663
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: kinds of things that buddies tended to do. One friend

664
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: wanted to spend his last days in drag, so Mass

665
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: brought him jewelry to wear in his hospital bed. Another friend,

666
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: Vito Russo, a gay activist and writer for the New

667
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: York Native, wanted Mass to rub his feet.

668
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 11: I had a kind of gmac buddy moment with him.

669
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 11: I said, Veto, I said, you know, you've you've been this,

670
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 11: you know, fierce great activist, and you know there's so

671
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 11: much that isn't being done, and there's so much that

672
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 11: so many of us could have done. And and I

673
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 11: broke down. I started crying. I said, you know, I'm

674
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:48,760
Speaker 11: so sorry. That I wasn't the activist that you all needed.

675
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 11: They needed people like Larry and Veto. Not everybody was

676
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 11: a Larry or Veto. I mean I wasn't. I'm just

677
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 11: not in that league. Larry never accepted that. He said,

678
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 11: why aren't you angrier? You know you have to. You know,

679
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 11: Larry wouldn't accept that. You know, he was this special,

680
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 11: great leader person. He felt that everybody could do lots

681
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 11: and lots more and you know, should have been doing that.

682
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 11: So I broke down with Veto and I cried, I

683
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 11: was I said, I'm so sorry that I wasn't more

684
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 11: and better. And he looked at me with that sparkle

685
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 11: as I says, I love you, Larry. A lot of memories,

686
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 11: a lot of stuff.

687
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 15: With me in New York is Larry Kramer. He's co

688
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,840
Speaker 15: founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis task for how

689
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 15: many friends have you lost to this disease? Twenty twenty?

690
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 3: Yes, those are.

691
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: By the fall of nineteen eighty two, nearly six hundred

692
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 1: people in the United States have been diagnosed with AIDS,

693
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: and two hundred and forty three had died. Larry Kramer

694
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: was only getting angrier.

695
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 15: And you have still more friends who are sick, very ill.

696
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 3: Jane, can you imagine what it must be like if

697
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 3: you had lost twenty of your friends in the last eighteen.

698
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 15: Months and you don't know why.

699
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 3: No cause, no cure, people in hospitals, we can't. It's

700
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 3: a very angry community. We feel like a disenfranchised for community.

701
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,280
Speaker 3: We can't seem to get the government, the National Institutes

702
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 3: of Health to accelerate the research.

703
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 15: That's going on.

704
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 3: We can't even get the mayor of New York City

705
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 3: to acknowledge publicly that there's a health emergency crisis going on.

706
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,439
Speaker 3: We feel very isolated down in Atlanta.

707
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 1: New York City was the epicenter of the growing crisis,

708
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: but local government was doing almost nothing about AIDS. Activists

709
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: pleaded with the city for funding to pay for things

710
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,720
Speaker 1: like housing for people with AIDS and a health clinic

711
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: in the village and a hospice center for all the

712
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 1: people who were dying. Mayor at Koch rejected each of

713
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 1: these requests, and the longer the mayor dragged his feet,

714
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: the more confrontational. Larry Kramer became.

715
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 3: I'm a member of an organization of two hundred volunteers

716
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:16,719
Speaker 3: doing things that the city should be doing that. The

717
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 3: Red Cross should be during the Cancer Society will not

718
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 3: give us twenty nine cents. Mayor Koch has not yet

719
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 3: given us twenty nine cents. We have to do it ourselves.

720
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 3: We're fighting to get funding.

721
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: On March fourteenth, nineteen eighty three, Kramer published an article

722
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 1: that ran on the cover of the New York Native

723
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: under the headline one thousand, one hundred and twelve and

724
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: counting it was a true creedcur in which Kramer declared

725
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: that homosexuals had never been closer to extinction. Here is

726
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: Kramer reading from the piece.

727
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 3: Unless we can generate visibly numbers masses, we are going

728
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 3: to die. I am sick of everyone in this community

729
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 3: who tells me to stop creating a panic. How many

730
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 3: of us have to die before you get off your ass,

731
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 3: get scared off your ass and into action.

732
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 11: Every straight person who is.

733
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 3: Knowledgeable about the AIDS epidemic can't understand why gay men

734
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 3: aren't marching on the White House.

735
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: For Kramer, the situation was so dire that even the

736
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: volunteer care work that GMHC was doing struck him as

737
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: beside the point. Eventually he left the organization.

738
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 11: He said, it's good that GMAC is providing these services.

739
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 11: It's good that GMAC is helping these people. There's no

740
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,440
Speaker 11: question that these are good people doing good work. But

741
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:39,320
Speaker 11: what GMHC is doing is helping them die rather than live.

742
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: Kramer thought he needed to scare his fellow gay men

743
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: into awareness and action. Meanwhile, Richard Berkowitz and Michael Callen

744
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 1: were trying in their way to reassure them. Two months

745
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: after Kramer's essay came out in the Native Berkowitz and

746
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: Kalen put out a scorcher of their own, a pamphlet

747
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 1: called how to Have Set in an Epidemic. Once again,

748
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: it was based on the ideas of doctor Joseph sonoband.

749
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 4: We had sonoband walking us through the microbiological consequences of

750
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 4: every type of sex act. It was my experience as

751
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 4: a sex worker that turned into a forty page pamphlet

752
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 4: because I had seen everything gay men would even consider

753
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 4: calling sexual expression.

754
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,399
Speaker 1: How to Have Sex in an Epidemic picked up where

755
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: Berkowitz and Callen had left off with we Know who

756
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: we Are, but this time they wanted to emphasize that

757
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: they weren't calling for an end to gay sex altogether.

758
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: The pamphlet was full of frank, practical advice about how

759
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 1: to have sex without incurring unnecessary risk.

760
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 4: We gave people every possible shred of information we could

761
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 4: think of so that they can make their own journey,

762
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 4: make their own decisions, and not have people telling them

763
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 4: what to do. And we did it in a language

764
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 4: that sexually after gay men spoke. We did it with humor,

765
00:40:59,000 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 4: and we did it clearly.

766
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:04,839
Speaker 1: How to have sex in an epidemic was a hit.

767
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 1: Burkowitz and Kallen delivered copies to doctor's offices in the

768
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: West Village and handed them out at events and local fundraisers.

769
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: They found it hard to keep up with demand. At

770
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: one point, Burkowitz attended a forum on AIDS and ran

771
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: out of copies before all the attendees who wanted the

772
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 1: pamphlet grab one. Afterwards, Burkwood's told Callen about it over

773
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: the phone.

774
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 9: I'm telling you people, just the title people were laughing in.

775
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 9: When you sit there and you listen to all these things,

776
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 9: it hits you in the gut. You're in this auditorium

777
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 9: with two thousand gay men and all they're talking about

778
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 9: is death and you, no matter what they say, what

779
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 9: really hits home is the parties over.

780
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 13: What are we going to do then?

781
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 9: And the reaction you tend to see is that, well,

782
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 9: if I can't be promiscous and don't want to be gay,

783
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 9: who needs all this?

784
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 13: Who wants these people? Who cares about this?

785
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 9: I mean, I want my party? How many I had?

786
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:51,800
Speaker 13: Nine hundred may As.

787
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: The pamphlet raised their profile, Burkowitz and Kallen heard about

788
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:59,320
Speaker 1: an upcoming gathering of AIDS activists in Denver, Colorado. It

789
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: would turn out to be a foundational event in the

790
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: epidemics history. The idea was for a delegation of people

791
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: with AIDS from around the country to show up at

792
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: a medical conference focused on gay health and address the

793
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: doctors and scientists in attendance. One of the organizers of

794
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: the gathering was Bobby Campbell, the nurse from San Francisco

795
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: who had emerged as one of the first people ever

796
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,240
Speaker 1: to speak publicly about having AIDS.

797
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 5: I encourage you to contact through the doctors to find

798
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,399
Speaker 5: other brothers who have this illness, so that we can

799
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 5: talk to each other and support each other through this.

800
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 4: So you are forming support networks. That's right. It's easier

801
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 4: to be positive together.

802
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 5: That's certainly true.

803
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: Basically, Campbell put out a call on the gay press

804
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: saying that anyone who had AIDS should consider flying out

805
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:46,760
Speaker 1: to Denver for the conference. After raising some money for airfare,

806
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:48,800
Speaker 1: Berkowitz and Callen made the trip.

807
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 4: You know, we knew when we got there that this

808
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 4: is going to be a momentous coming together of gay

809
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 4: men at the forefront in the first wave of battling AIDS.

810
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 1: Callen immediately hit it off with Campbell and they started

811
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: collaborating on a written statement to present at the conference.

812
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,240
Speaker 4: Michael and Bobby Campbell were like the two top dogs

813
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 4: of the group, the two control queens, so they took

814
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 4: control of writing this document, and they would write together,

815
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 4: and then all of us would get back into this

816
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 4: hospitality suite and listen to what they read and give

817
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,919
Speaker 4: our feedback. And after a couple of days it turned

818
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 4: to the Denver Principles, and when it was done, it

819
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:28,720
Speaker 4: was just breathtakingly brilliant.

820
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: The Denver Principles opened with a declaration, we condemn attempts

821
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: to label us as victims, a term which implies defeat,

822
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:43,720
Speaker 1: and we are only occasionally patients, a term which implies passivity, helplessness,

823
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 1: and dependence upon the care of others. The activists said

824
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 1: they wanted to be referred to as people with AIDS.

825
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:55,720
Speaker 1: Standing on the conference's main stage next to a banner

826
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 1: that read fighting for Our Lives, each of the eleven

827
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:04,759
Speaker 1: men took reading the Denver Principles out loud, line by line.

828
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: It amounted to a kind of bill of rights.

829
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 4: The rights of people with AIDS to as full and

830
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 4: satisfying sexual and emotional lives as anyone else. To quality

831
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 4: medical treatment and quality social service provision without discrimination of

832
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 4: any form. To full explanations of all medical procedures and risk,

833
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 4: to choose or refuse their treatment modalities, to refuse to

834
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:33,359
Speaker 4: participate in research without jeopardizing their treatment, and to make

835
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 4: informed decisions about their lives, to human respect, and to

836
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 4: choose who their significant others are, to die and to

837
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 4: live in dignity, Denver, nineteen eighty three.

838
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 1: Before Denver AIDS, activism had been happening in separate silo

839
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: around the country in cities like New York, San Francisco,

840
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:08,240
Speaker 1: and Los Angeles. Now those early activists had come together

841
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: and staked out a position on how they planned to

842
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:15,760
Speaker 1: fit in to whatever was coming next. Afterwards, Berkelwitz continued

843
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: doing media appearances to publicize the message.

844
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,760
Speaker 11: You don't like the term, Richard, victim of AIDS.

845
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 7: I guess it's also a response to the media coverage

846
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 7: which keeps saying that all victims of AIDS are dying.

847
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 7: That has a mortality rate of eighty two hundred percent,

848
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 7: and that's pretty demoralizing when you're trying to fight a

849
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:36,760
Speaker 7: life threatening illness for which there is no proven treatment

850
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 7: or cure.

851
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 8: What's the prognosis for you, Richard, Well, I'm still immune deficient,

852
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 8: but my blood tests are all getting better.

853
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 7: My fatigue and my fevers are gone. I don't believe

854
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 7: any more than I'm going to die. I've stopped checking

855
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 7: for lesions.

856
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 1: The meeting in Denver led to the founding of the

857
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: National Association of People with AIDS, and to this day,

858
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 1: the Denver Principles remain embedded in the mission states of

859
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: many AIDS organizations around the world. Perhaps most importantly, the

860
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:08,320
Speaker 1: Denver Principles gave people who got diagnosed with AIDS or

861
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 1: reason to not give up. Sean Strub, for example, was

862
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: inspired to go into AIDS fundraising and to start a

863
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:19,760
Speaker 1: magazine called Pause for and By People with HIV and AIDS.

864
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 6: Every time you'd hear about the epidemic, it was inevitably fatal,

865
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 6: dread disease, no survivors, no cure, terminal illness, one hundred

866
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 6: percent fatal. You were bombarded with death sentence messages, It's

867
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 6: all anybody heard, death sentence, death sentence, death sentence, including

868
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,399
Speaker 6: within the gay community. And yet those of us kind

869
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 6: of in the middle of the activism saw something different.

870
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 6: You know, we saw unspeakable levels of pain and loss,

871
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 6: but we also saw a vitality and purpose. You know,

872
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 6: some of the happiest times in my life were also

873
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 6: times when I had the the least confidence I was

874
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 6: going to be able to survive.

875
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 1: So much of early AIDS activism was directed inwards at

876
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,239
Speaker 1: the people who were at risk and the people who

877
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 1: were already sick, but that was only part of the picture.

878
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: Slowing the spread of AIDS would require measures that went

879
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: far beyond any one individual's personal behavior or decision making.

880
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 1: AIDS activists would have to reach beyond their own communities

881
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,760
Speaker 1: and contend with government officials who could not be trusted

882
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: to have their best interests at heart. On the next

883
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 1: episode of Fiasco, we leave New York for San Francisco,

884
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 1: were a push to shut down the city's gay bathhouses

885
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 1: in order to slow the spread of AIDS ignited a

886
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,800
Speaker 1: battle over public health and civil liberties.

887
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:13,360
Speaker 10: This whole debate was occurring in this context of many

888
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 10: people from the radical right expressing really extreme measures. It

889
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 10: was unreasonable for people to fear how slippery that slope

890
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 10: might be.

891
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 4: Say what is not?

892
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 3: Change?

893
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 1: Fiasco was presented by Audible Originals and Prologue Projects. The

894
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: show is produced by Andrew Parsons, Sam Graham, Felsen, Battlin,

895
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 1: kaplan Ula Culpa, and me Leon Napok. Editorial support by

896
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 1: Nour Waswas and Jessica Miller. Our researcher is Francis Carr.

897
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: Archival research by Michelle Sullivan. This season's score is composed

898
00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: by Edith Mudge. Additional music by Nick Silvester of Godman,

899
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: as well as Billy libby Joel Saint, Julian and Dan English,

900
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:06,719
Speaker 1: Noah Hecht and Joe Valley. Our theme song is by

901
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: Spatial Relations Music Licensing courtesy of Anthony Roman. Our credit

902
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 1: song this week is How to Have Sex by Michael Callen,

903
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 1: courtesy of Richard Dwarkin. You also heard Can He Find

904
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:22,800
Speaker 1: Another One? By Double Discovery courtesy of Eugenia Publishing Company,

905
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 1: an Era Recording Studio. Audio mixed by Erica Wong with

906
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:30,799
Speaker 1: additional support from Selina Urabe. Our artwork is designed by

907
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 1: Teddy Blanks at Chips and Y. David Blum is the

908
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: editor in chief of Audible Originals, Mike Charzik is the

909
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 1: vice president of Audible Studios. Zach Ross is the head

910
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: of acquisition and Development for Audible. Thanks to the LGBT

911
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:48,440
Speaker 1: Community Center National History Archive for giving us access to

912
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 1: the Michael Callen collection. Thanks also to Archive dot Org,

913
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 1: Ginny Apuzzo, Henry Waxman, Michael Bronski, Victor Bumblow, and Brian Erstadt.

914
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Peter Yasse. See you next week for

915
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 1: episode three.

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Speaker 10: Work Back It's Healthy s