Matt Nadel has quite a connection with the viatical settlement industry – the cottage industry created to purchase life insurance policies from largely gay men dying of AIDS. Based on their life expectancy, policies were purchased and a settlement offered the client, and investors collected the rest when the person died. Matt, a gay man […] The post Remember Viatical Settlements? A New Film Brings It All Back. appeared first on My Fabulous Disease ..read more

Honestly, my meth addiction still haunts me. It intrudes on my waking hours and sneaks seductively into my sexual fantasies. The wounds are deep, even after so many years of my recovery process. Dr. Dallas Bragg isn’t coy when it comes to addressing these issues. As a gay recovery coach, his social media and video […] The post The AfterMeth: A Frank Conversation about Meth, Sex, and HIV appeared first on My Fabulous Disease ..read more

After ten cities, dozens of organizational sponsors and thousands of attendees, my book tour for My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor will end the evening of August 8th in Atlanta. It feels wonderful to be ending the tour in my hometown, where much of the book was experienced and written. Sponsored by Atlanta Pride, the free event will feature a stellar line-up of Atlanta talent performing essays from the collection at Out Front Theater on Thursday, August 8, 2024. The event is co-sponsored by Out on Film, the Counter-Narrative project, and GLAAD. Admission is free but seat reser ..read more

Recovering crystal meth addict Doug Rose As Chuck Parker stood over his room-mate’s dead body trying to process what he was seeing, a 911 operator on the phone urged him to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Parker would have done it, if he had thought there were any chance he might revive his friend, but he knew the time for emergency intervention had long since passed. Mark Wingo, Parker’s roommate of more than 12 years, had been dead for several hours. “I worked in a hospice,” he tells POZ only two days after the horrific episode, “so I have seen someone who has just passed away ..read more

  Honestly, I was flattered to see a photo of me on Jennifer Vaughan’s social media feed. She posted it a few weeks ago, during the first days of Pride Month, and it showed me at the 2013 Atlanta Pride parade. I was a Grand Marshal that year, and in the picture I’m wearing an HIV POSITIVE t-shirt and waving a sign that says “How Gay is THIS?” I was living out loud, reminding revelers that people living with HIV exist, and having some cheeky fun. The photo was the first image in a video clip she had recorded. I didn’t watch Vaughan’s video post, at least not then. I figured it was a suppo ..read more

Skip Sams, chair of the 2024 SoberPoz Retreat A retreat being held this summer, known as SoberPoz, will welcome anyone living with HIV who identifies as participating in a program of recovery of some kind. This kind of safe space is terribly important and I want to explain why – and then encourage you to share this retreat with anyone who might find it helpful. The disease most likely to kill me is not HIV/AIDS. It is the disease of drug addiction, for which I have been in recovery for more than twenty years. Dealing with my addiction has been an uneven path, as it is for most folks who atte ..read more

Shanti farewell video to Mike Kennedy in 1992 This is a story about how the staff at the very first HIV/AIDS agency in Los Angeles managed to handle the stress of that time without falling apart – and a random, whimsical twist of fate that followed many years later. My first job in the AIDS arena was at the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation. It was 1987, I was 26 years old and HIV positive, and I figured it was the last job I would ever have. I have written often about those brutal years and the work of L.A. Shanti, but suffice it to say that its mission to provide emotional support to those wit ..read more

Kerry Thomas of the SERO Project (This interview between myself and Kerry Thomas appears in the April/May 2024 issue of POZ Magazine.) When Kerry Thomas began serving a 30-year sentence in Idaho for nondisclosure of his HIV-positive status in 2008, becoming a prominent voice for people living with the virus was the furthest thing from his mind. But that changed when a few years into his sentence, he was notified that someone wanted to meet with him to discuss the injustice of his prosecution. Thomas wasn’t interested at first. He was just trying to serve his time and not make waves. As he wa ..read more

Mark S. King (center) with a group of Oklahoma queer activists and allies. When an audience member gives a dollar bill to a drag performer in Oklahoma City, they bow ever so slightly in a kind of reverent curtsy when handing it over. Here at the County Line nightclub on a recent Saturday night, I watch it happen again and again. Maybe it’s just how they do things here. Or maybe this sign of respect is not just an empty gesture. I am sipping my Diet Coke and watching the show with a dozen new friends I have met over the course of the last two days. Officially, I came to town to speak at a com ..read more

If there is anything I love sharing, it’s my opinion. I just love taking surveys. And talking to therapists. And writing blogs about myself. I think you see the pattern here. But my favorite kind of opinion-sharing is when it helps my community in a really tangible way. The LGBTQ + Aging survey is exactly just such an opportunity, so I hope you will take part in this and/or share it with someone who can. The deadline is February 29, so get busy, folks! SAGE, a national advocacy organization dedicated to making life better for LGBTQ+ seniors, has partnered with the University of Nevada, Las Ve ..read more