Apr 6, 20212 min read

Re-introducing Hook-ups Post-COVID

BAMMER47: How do you expect to recommence hooking up, or at least having sex with someone outside your COVID pod, once conditions permit?...

May 19, 20201 min read

Comparing the AIDS Crisis to COVID-19: AIDS Veterans Weigh-in

COMMENTARY: BAMMER hosted its first Zoom webcast “Reflections on the AIDS Crisis in the Age of COVID-19” on Saturday evening, May 9th,...

Mar 1, 20202 min read

Looking Back

STORY: Two recent developments refocused my attention on all the friends I lost to AIDS in the 80s and 90s. Recently, Peter Gorobetz, a...

Dec 4, 20191 min read

BAMMER and Me: Cliff Morrison, The First AIDS Ward (Part 1)

PODCAST—EPISODE 10: Cliff Morrison arrived in San Francisco as a nurse in the late 1970s, as AIDS was about to erupt. In 1983, while...

Nov 11, 20196 min read

The Dead, The Living, and The Inheritance

STORY: Fall is a time of sad anniversaries for me. When I tested positive for HIV in the fall of 1988, it was hardly surprising. Many sex...

Jul 19, 20185 min read

Marcus

STORY: 1989—I met Marcus Lutsky at Uncle Charlie’s Downtown Bar in NYC in the Spring of 1989. It was a Saturday night and I was on the...

Jun 9, 20182 min read

A Tribute to Jackie Yordan

STORY: Jackie Yordan was, according to many who knew him, an “incredible sweetheart and an amazing person… He was truly one of the...

Jun 8, 20181 min read

Me and Michael

STORY: A few pictures of Michael Dowell and me in the early-to-mid-90s. We lost Michael in 1995. This next shot is a self-portrait he...

Jun 8, 20181 min read

Fire Island Weekends

STORY: In all my years at the Pines, my housemates were always fellow worker bees who toiled hard for our time at the beach. Our delight...

Jun 7, 20181 min read

Speaking in Code

STORY: My second buddy was a florist who lived at home. I’d bring him to Ray’s and my house where we’d dangle our feet in the pool, and...

Mar 12, 20181 min read

Summer in the Pines 1981

STORY: 1981 – In this photo, I’m with my housemates and my weekend date from Boston (John Shade, with our arms around each other) on the...

Mar 11, 20182 min read

Hidden Costs

STORY: 1981-2017: If I had to select one photo from my archives which personifies the devastation wrought upon my generation by the AIDS...

Mar 11, 20182 min read

Eighties Envy

STORY: May 1983: From the moment the discovery of a “gay cancer” (GRID, or “gay-related immune deficiency”, later renamed AIDS) was...