Your Guide to World AIDS Day 2012: 1) Explore Tom Leger’s digital archive of Diseased Pariah News, dark and humorous reporting from the front lines of the AIDS crisis. 2) CANCEL YOUR FUCKING MANHUNT ACCOUNT <-not a link to Manhunt (this one might also help your sex life). 3) Watch this video, then write to John C. Martin, CEO of Gilead Sciences, Inc. (of Truvada and Atripla fame). Ask him three questions, for which I will provide each answer: How much money have you taken home from Gilead in the past five years (over $204 million)? How much money have you made in total for shareholder Donald Rumsfeld (up to $15.5 million)? How does Gilead’s monopoly on their antiretroviral recipe translate to an annual retail price for someone living with HIV (recently increased to $20,000 a year)? Happy World AIDS Day! xxooDW
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Your Guide to World AIDS Day 2012:

1) Explore Tom Leger’s digital archive of Diseased Pariah News, dark and humorous reporting from the front lines of the AIDS crisis.

2) CANCEL YOUR FUCKING MANHUNT ACCOUNT <-not a link to Manhunt (this one might also help your sex life).

3) Watch this video, then write to John C. Martin, CEO of Gilead Sciences, Inc. (of Truvada and Atripla fame). Ask him three questions, for which I will provide each answer:

  • How much money have you taken home from Gilead in the past five years (over $204 million)?
  • How much money have you made in total for shareholder Donald Rumsfeld (up to $15.5 million)?
  • How does Gilead’s monopoly on their antiretroviral recipe translate to an annual retail price for someone living with HIV (recently increased to $20,000 a year)?

Happy World AIDS Day! xxooDW

Okayso:

I know reading on Tumblr is super boring. We’ll return to our regular programming shortly, I promise…

I get a pill every day for free, because I ain’t got no money and because I was living in the right state at the right time.

This drug retails at about $25,000 a year. The most I’ve ever reported on a tax return is $21k.

In a year, I might get kicked off this sweet ride. Government funding is being cut every year for my free pill program. And if, God forbid, I ever graduate from food service to an actual income, I’ll be forced to pay the retail price.

Currently, 10 states (with over 200,000 residents with HIV and over 61,000 living with AIDS in those states alone) have waiting lists to enroll people onto this federal program…

…all to get a drug that costs less than a dollar to make.

Ever seen that commercial with Bono, kneeling in a village of mud huts in Africa, saying that for less than a dollar a day, you can save a life? He’s actually right. So can American drug companies. So can the American government.

The retail price is so high because of a patent held by Gilead Industries, which doesn’t run out until 2018. John Martin, CEO of Gilead and #10 on Forbes’ 2012 CEO compensation list, made over $200 million in the past five years. That could pay for over 9000 years of my drug regiment at its ridiculous retail cost.

We’ve stopped calling this disease “an epidemic.” But in a few years, I won’t be able to afford a pill that keeps me from dying.

You want to talk about affordable health care? End the patent monopoly on prescription drugs.

Oh and REBLOG THIS.

xxooDW

cruiseorbecruised: Don Silvas, 1958 by Bob Mizer The bulk of photographer Bob Mizer’s estate was unceremoniously thrown in the dumpster in 1992 after he died in Los Angeles. Fifty-year-old boxes of correspondence, studio props and personal artifacts from one of America’s most controversial artists are gone forever.  Luckily the core of his life’s work, consisting of about one million photographic negatives and thousands of 16mm films and videotapes, survived this irresponsible action and was boxed up and locked in storage for the next decade.   Now that is where you come in.  Together, we can get proper archival storage materials and save it!
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cruiseorbecruised:

Don Silvas, 1958 by Bob Mizer

The bulk of photographer Bob Mizer’s estate was unceremoniously thrown in the dumpster in 1992 after he died in Los Angeles. Fifty-year-old boxes of correspondence, studio props and personal artifacts from one of America’s most controversial artists are gone forever.  Luckily the core of his life’s work, consisting of about one million photographic negatives and thousands of 16mm films and videotapes, survived this irresponsible action and was boxed up and locked in storage for the next decade.  

Now that is where you come in.  Together, we can get proper archival storage materials and save it!

(via tumblingtumblrweeds)

Source: kickstarter.com

thebrianproject: James Dean’s Home 19 West 68th Street June 10, 2012 Dean rented a 12-by-12 room on the top floor of this building; one of those porthole windows would have been his. I don’t know if he was gay like we think of it today, it’s difficult to know if he was much of a sexual being at all. He died in his early twenties and in 1950s America, where did a gay boy go to get laid? Where did a straight boy go to get laid for that matter? Still, it would have been nice to see what kind of man he turned into.
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thebrianproject:

James Dean’s Home
19 West 68th Street
June 10, 2012

Dean rented a 12-by-12 room on the top floor of this building; one of those porthole windows would have been his. I don’t know if he was gay like we think of it today, it’s difficult to know if he was much of a sexual being at all. He died in his early twenties and in 1950s America, where did a gay boy go to get laid? Where did a straight boy go to get laid for that matter?

Still, it would have been nice to see what kind of man he turned into.

thebrianproject: Montgomery Clift’s Home 217 East 61st Street June 10, 2012 Clift lived here from 1960 until 1966. Supposedly, he had fourteen-foot medicine cabinet for all of his “pain relievers,” and would call out from a window at men passing below, inviting them in for a drink or “what not.” Clift died of a heart attack on July 23, 1966. He was forty-five.
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thebrianproject:

Montgomery Clift’s Home
217 East 61st Street
June 10, 2012

Clift lived here from 1960 until 1966. Supposedly, he had fourteen-foot medicine cabinet for all of his “pain relievers,” and would call out from a window at men passing below, inviting them in for a drink or “what not.”

Clift died of a heart attack on July 23, 1966. He was forty-five.

coltcuts: Whoagirl. Just got a crazy lead on a Colt model after months of crickets. Several all-caps  ”DO NOT MENTION ME”s and warnings to “be very careful with this one”! Sounds intriguing, no? If you’ve been following me here for a few months, you know that this site also serves as a possible forum to ask for any-and-all help getting in touch with former Colt models. I’ve posted about it a few times and actually gotten some leads and a few interviews out of my calls for help. I’m working on a book about Jim French’s Colt, told from the perspective of former models. These men are notoriously difficult to pin down. If you have any info at all, please message me on Tumblr or e-mail me at either dionnewarlock@yahoo.com or steve.p.drum@gmail.com. You’ll have complete anonymity, I promise. I hate writing in an imperative voice, but please: REBLOG THIS. Thanks, gumshoes! xxoocoltcuts
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coltcuts:

Whoagirl. Just got a crazy lead on a Colt model after months of crickets. Several all-caps  ”DO NOT MENTION ME”s and warnings to “be very careful with this one”!

Sounds intriguing, no?

If you’ve been following me here for a few months, you know that this site also serves as a possible forum to ask for any-and-all help getting in touch with former Colt models. I’ve posted about it a few times and actually gotten some leads and a few interviews out of my calls for help.

I’m working on a book about Jim French’s Colt, told from the perspective of former models. These men are notoriously difficult to pin down. If you have any info at all, please message me on Tumblr or e-mail me at either dionnewarlock@yahoo.com or steve.p.drum@gmail.com. You’ll have complete anonymity, I promise.

I hate writing in an imperative voice, but please: REBLOG THIS.

Thanks, gumshoes!

xxoocoltcuts

ONE Memory (I&#8217;m tired) I&#8217;m in an acting class with the one member of the Stella Adler Conservatory&#8217;s staff who actually worked with Stella Adler. It&#8217;s the last week of the semester and we run out of stuff to do and we all ask for a Stella story, like she&#8217;s our famous grandma: &#8220;Okay. Well. Stella&#8217;s directing two students on the stage. It&#8217;s the balcony scene from &#8216;Romeo &amp; Juliet.&#8217; And the actor is - well - he is one of our more obvious homosexuals. And the whole thing is just a disaster. She walks onto the stage and starts screaming and waving her cigarette around. &#8220;She&#8217;s saying, &#8216;This scene is about heat! Hormones! The stage should be on fire with sex! And, honey, if the audience doesn&#8217;t even believe Romeo is a man, well&#8230;they may as well kill themselves! You&#8217;re prancing around like Audrey Hepburn and they&#8217;re gonna see you&#8217;ve got no interest in the girl from the back row. Get off the stage.&#8217; &#8220;So, the boy and the girl sit down. And everyone is very quiet. And Stella just moves on to another scene. But the boy is obviously quite upset - trying not to cry, his shoulders are shaking. &#8220;So she stops. She calls him back onto the stage and he&#8217;s just standing there, all sad and scared thinking she&#8217;s going to ream him out some more. And we&#8217;re all scared for him, of course. &#8220;And Stella just says, &#8216;Pick me up.&#8217; Very lightly like that. &#8216;Pick me up,&#8217; she says. And he says, &#8216;What?&#8217; And she turns to him and says, &#8216;Pick. Me. Up.&#8217; Very serious. &#8220;So he - very gently - lifts Stella into his arms. One arm under her knees and the other around her shoulder. Cradling this woman like a baby. &#8220;And she looks to him and grabs his cheeks with both her hands and says, &#8216;See?&#8217;. &#8220;And he says, &#8216;What?&#8217;. &#8220;And she says, &#8216;See how strong you are?&#8217;&#8221;
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ONE Memory (I’m tired)

I’m in an acting class with the one member of the Stella Adler Conservatory’s staff who actually worked with Stella Adler. It’s the last week of the semester and we run out of stuff to do and we all ask for a Stella story, like she’s our famous grandma:

“Okay. Well. Stella’s directing two students on the stage. It’s the balcony scene from ‘Romeo & Juliet.’ And the actor is - well - he is one of our more obvious homosexuals. And the whole thing is just a disaster. She walks onto the stage and starts screaming and waving her cigarette around.

“She’s saying, ‘This scene is about heat! Hormones! The stage should be on fire with sex! And, honey, if the audience doesn’t even believe Romeo is a man, well…they may as well kill themselves! You’re prancing around like Audrey Hepburn and they’re gonna see you’ve got no interest in the girl from the back row. Get off the stage.’

“So, the boy and the girl sit down. And everyone is very quiet. And Stella just moves on to another scene. But the boy is obviously quite upset - trying not to cry, his shoulders are shaking.

“So she stops. She calls him back onto the stage and he’s just standing there, all sad and scared thinking she’s going to ream him out some more. And we’re all scared for him, of course.

“And Stella just says, ‘Pick me up.’ Very lightly like that. ‘Pick me up,’ she says. And he says, ‘What?’ And she turns to him and says, ‘Pick. Me. Up.’ Very serious.

“So he - very gently - lifts Stella into his arms. One arm under her knees and the other around her shoulder. Cradling this woman like a baby.

“And she looks to him and grabs his cheeks with both her hands and says, ‘See?’.

“And he says, ‘What?’.

“And she says, ‘See how strong you are?’”

I love it. I’m all about it. 

For those who haven’t kept up, some Bubba has been bubbin’ around North Carolina pulpits proposing a concentration camp for all the homasectionals and lesbonyms. Just like Jesus said to do.

So instead of hiring some analyst with a PhD in religious studies to translate the fiasco into a sensible argument, Anderson Cooper drove around back to the church dumpster and found this episode of ‘Hoarders’ picking through the trash for suede scrunchies and gave her the opportunity to deliver this fetal-alcohol-love-child of Miss U.S. American’s  economic analysis of the Iraqs and Serene Branson’s unforgettable burtation of the veray veray hevay diggity doobop bow.

I think it’s safe to relate the slow demise of our country to ‘Jenny Jones’ going off the air. Jenny stood as a daily reminder that these people do exist and when they aren’t asking their step-cousins for paternity tests and putting their babies in the washing machine, they are voting.

For better or Miley, these people are America. And if we don’t hear their voices and listen closely to their wants and needs, we’ll never find an efficient method of extermination.

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