Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone Read Online Free PDF

community’s Days of Rage, against racism ; and the regular Monday-night meeting at 7:30.
    I went to the Waldorf demo. NOW was picketing around the corner; several gender-fucking fags pick up “I’M A WOMAN AGAINST BUSH” stickers. We carry signs: “ ____ KILLED BY GOVERNMENT NEGLECT” or “ STILL ALIVE DESPITE GOV ERNMENTNEGLECT.” We fill in the blanks with Magic Markers. That’s how I find out that Neil B. is dead. So that’s why he didn’t answer my phone calls. Boy, am I bummed out. The same thing happened in the spring when the New York Memorial Quilt was displayed in Central Park, and last year when the Names Project was in D.C. I’d see names of people I didn’t even know were sick. In San Francisco, people come across names of friends they haven’t seen or heard of in years in the obits of the Bay Area Reporter. I feel like punching out the nearest government official. I want to deck the entire Department of Health and Human Services. Why are they killing us through government inaction?
    I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can take only one demonstration a day. I have this limited tolerance for activism. I also have this job that appears to be more tenuous every day. They know I haven’t been paying attention for the past three years. Nonetheless, I must keep up the facade. This requires my physical presence in the office—in most cases, a necessary and sufficient condition to retaining gainful employ at this establishment. So after the requisite two-hour lunch, I return to work, and skip the Gays of Rage demo. People are testifying in Sheridan Square about their personal experiences of anti-gay violence. It’s fall in the Big Apple: open season for fag-bashing. Several queers have been beaten, and a few have been killed in the past few weeks. But it’s not really my style. If I wanted to hear personal testimony, I’d go to a twelve-step meeting, join a Baptist revival church, or buy People.
    So by the time the meeting starts, a lot of people are all fired up and ready for action. The new facilitators, elected chiefly for decorative value, are no match for tonight’s rabid brew.
    A member tells us about the Names Quilt fuckup. Cleve Jones is bringing the Names Memorial Quilt to Washington on Columbus Day weekend, a few days before our planned demo. He had applied in January with the National Parks Service to display the Quilt on the Mall. Due to the summer drought, the Mall has been closed for resodding. The Ellipse is the only other outdoor location large enough to display the ten thousand panels of the Quilt. But the Parks Service has committed the Ellipse to the Ukrainian Millennial Society, which is celebrating a thousand years of Chris tianity in its homeland. The Ukrainians had applied for their permit only three weeks ago. ACT UP will flood the phone lines to the National Parks Service until justice is done!
    The Issues Committee announces seventy-three more FDA teach-ins.
    The Media Committee tells us that ACT UP/ACT NOW has received great media response thanks to our press kits. The FDA takeover is even mentioned on the front page of USA Today.
    Our resident megalomaniac tries to disrupt the meeting for an impromptu demo, a continuation of the Gays of Rage. With inflammatory rhetoric reminiscent of a certain reverend associated with the Tawana Brawley case, the demagogue exhorts the group to leave and stop traffic on Sixth Avenue. “We have enough people here to really make a statement. We know that there are policemen attending this meeting. We have to leave right now!” A member dashes out, and Megamouth accuses him of being an informer. Energy is high. Blood is boiling. I am mad. I can focus on only one issue at a time. I’ll deal with fag-bashing after AIDS is cured, thank you. What does this have to do with AIDS? The facilitators, buffeted about by angry rhetoric in this baptism by fire, barely regain control. The meeting will continue with important business until ten; at