The Denver Principles Project

Way back in 1983 Hiv+ people in Denver got together and created a kind of Declaration of Independence for Hiv+'ers - The Denver Principles.

At that time all over the world Hiv+ people were getting their second wind and starting to challenge their medical and political status.

The Denver Principles Project is an attempt to blow life into that particular flame at a time in America where hope seems to be tempering the economic crisis in the shape of Barack Obama.

Here's the link to the original - 

http://www.napwa.org/denverprinciplesproject/denver-principles.shtml

- and because its (unfortunately) just as relevant today as 25 years ago here's the full version.

The Denver Principles Statement from the Advisory Committee of People with AIDS (1983) We condemn attempts to label us as 'victims,' a term which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally 'patients,' a term which implies passivity, helplessness, and dependence upon the care of others. We are 'People With AIDS.' RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS 1. Come out, especially to their patients who have AIDS. 2. Always clearly identify and discuss the theory they favor as to the cause of AIDS, since this bias affects the treatments and advice they give.  3. Get in touch with their feelings (e.g., fears, anxieties, hopes, etc.) About AIDS and not simply deal with AIDS intellectually.  4. Take a thorough personal inventory and identify and examine their own agendas around AIDS.  5. Treat people with AIDS as a whole people, and address psychological issues as well as biophysical ones.  6. Address the question of sexuality in people with AIDS specifically, sensitively and with information about gay male sexuality in general, and the sexuality of people with AIDS in particular. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ALL PEOPLE  1. Support & Membership in our struggle against those who would fire us from our jobs, evict us from our homes, refuse to touch us or separate us from our loved ones, our community or our peers, since available evidence does not support the view that AIDS can be spread by casual, social contact.  2. Not scapegoat people with AIDS, blame us for the epidemic or generalize about our lifestyles. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH AIDS  1. Form caucuses to choose their own representatives, to deal with the media, to choose their own agenda and to plan their own strategies.  2. Be involved at every level of decision-making and specifically serve on the board of directors of provider organizations.  3. Be included in all AIDS forums with equal credibility as other participants, to share their own experiences and knowledge.  4. Substitute low-risk sexual behaviors for those which could endanger themselves or their partners; we feel that people with AIDS have an ethical responsibility to inform their potential partners of their health status. RIGHTS OF PEOPLE WITH AIDS  1. To live as full and satisfying sexual and emotional lives as anyone else.  2. To receive quality medical treatment and quality social service provision without discrimination of any form, including sexual orientation, gender, diagnosis, economic status or race.  3. To obtain full explanations of all medical procedures and risks, to choose or refuse their treatment modalities, to refuse to participate in research without jeopardizing their treatment and to make informed decisions about their lives.  4. To ensure privacy and confidentiality of medical records, to receive human respect and the right to choose who their significant others are.  5. To die--and to LIVE--in dignity.

Ill

Here I am again with a seriously dreadful head cold. I hate it. its so debilitating without being so serious that I actually need tot take antibiotics.

Spending a week in the flat is not my idea of a fun time of course, and at times like these I thank god that I have no poor partner to inflict my frustration upon - or maybe that's what they're for?

So forgive me please if I'm not keeping up to speed with writing.

Depeche Mode - Wrong HQ HD (Live at Echo Awards, Berlin)

Oscars

The Oscars have been given out and the media is full of the 8 wins for Slum Dog, and the best actress Oscar for Kate Winslet .... and then .... nothing.

Oh, sometimes in passing then the Oscar for best actor for Sean Penn in Milk is referred to but I have yet to hear his name in a headline.

and oh yes, Dustin Lance Black won best original screenplay for Milk too. His acceptance speech was short but oh so sweet.

"Oh my God. This was not an easy film to make. First off, I have to thank Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg and all the real-life people who shared their stories with me. And Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, and our entire cast, my producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, everyone at Groundswell and Focus for taking on the challenge of telling this life-saving story.

When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California, and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life. It gave me the hope one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could even fall in love and one day get married.

I wanna thank my mom, who has always loved me for who I am even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally, across this great nation of ours.

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, God, for giving us Harvey Milk".

Roxy Music--Mother of Pearl

Ecstasy

www.wordle.net

Funerals, mine

I don't want anyone to panic, but I have been spending some time lately thinking about death, dying, and the practicalities of such.

It would be infinitely easier for all concerned if one gave a last gasp on one's death bed and then disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Or dust even. Glitter would be a nice option too.

No messy fluids, no deathly palor, well no body at all actually.

Because the point is, what on earth (forgive the pun) do I want to happen to my body after I've snuffed it?

Burial? Cremation? Recycling?

Starting with the last, I'm pretty sure that no-one will want bits of my body when I'm gone. Nothing will be of any use, except in a laboratory situation. I shudder at the thought that medical students would get to see even more of me after I'm dead than they do on a regular basis now.

Cremation? Scares the shite out of me to tell the truth. Just the thought of waking up in that shoddy coffin whilst the flames lick around my ankles is enough for me to break out in a cold sweat (no pun intended). Maybe I could just get skewered beforehand, like some huge shish kebab, so that everyone can see that I'm actually, really, well and truly dead before they fry me to a crisp.

Ashes in an Urn? It had better be bloody Faberge if I have to reside like some dehydrated genie in a bottle for the rest of eternity.

Burial? Brrrrrrr. Cold, damp, worm infested earth. Lying under the sod should really only appeal to the more innately morbid amongst us. Like the Scottish. Or the Fries.

So do I care? Not really. Just make sure I'm as dead as a door nail first before disposing of in an adult way and I'll be happy (or not if there's no afterlife).

P.S.

I would quite like a funeral please. Samuel Barber 'Adagio for strings' (and anyone who dares to play the Tiesto version I will personally come back and haunt). Delibes, 'Lakme' all that kind of stuff is good. Its moving and emotional and doesn't drown out the crying (forgive the pun).

There's Always a Woman - Carol Burnett / Ruthie Henshall

Its always the woman
The hand in the till
The five dollar diamond
The three dollar bill
A genius for trickery,
that's second to none
There's nothing as low as a woman
Isn't this fun?

Christina Aguilera - Beautiful

beautiful

Bugger the money

Yes I finally did it, I broke down, breached my own defenses, and, spent money on something I wanted but don't need ......

an iPhone

and I don't regret it one moment. (Almost).

Spending money is one of the things that still doesn't come easy to me after my relationship with Gerard. I was so used to him spending his (and more often my) money on ridiculous over the top 'stuff' that money became something tarnished, something to be frightened of, something to despise; filthy lucre.

Although I didn't know it at the time, I was the only one really paying any of the serious bills. There were several serious bills. A 2 week holiday in Crete that cost me 12.000 guilders, an afternoon in the P.C. Hooftstraat that cost me 6.000 guilders, etc, etc .... 

All the while being egged on by Gerard .... 

"I've paid enough this month, this one's for you"

"Just pay this for me will you, I'll put it back into the joint bank account later"

"I hate credit cards - use yours"

It should be easy for me to see which one of us couldn't handle money. After all, I am still here and relatively debt free, his was the personal bankruptcy.

But it was about power and control of course. The house was the ultimate weapon in his arsenal. The house was in my name with a mortgage so high I had nothing left of my salary after the monthly payments. Literally, nothing. I was financially in his power and in his eyes therefore totally under control. Then he stepped up the game when I started to fight back by mortgaging the house again and letting me sign for that too (he did this in total 4 times but without me finding out until after I'd left him). Financial debt that I would never be able to pay back on my own, therefore financially his prisoner.

What he'd failed to take into account however was my slowly blossoming self-awareness, my deep felt sadness, all leading to desperation.

Add to this his need to keep everything secret from me and it was a bomb that was bound to go off eventually. If he'd told em everything he'd done I might have been too scared to leave. I know that after I left and started to find out everything were some of the darkest in my life.

But I did leave, and I survived, and blossomed in my own way.

Time enough to let go the fears and sorrow of old pain.

The Whore Of Babylon

The Protestant Church is ripping itself apart over the subject of 'homosexuality'. A schism not seen for many centuries between fundamentalist conservatism and liberals.

The Pope, in a spirit of divine opportunism, has set a course with the Roman Catholic Church of hard-core conservatism hoping to glean the crop of disillusioned right wingers from the Protestant Church.

He's willing to go as far as necessary to get the RC Church back on the 'straight and narrow'. Far enough indeed to re-ordain a bishop who believes that the Holocaust didn't really happen.

Revelations - the end of the world is close at hand, for the Whore Of Babylon truly does sit on the throne in the House Of God.

MSM

The New Year's reception of the Aids Machine was this week. I sent my Auntie.

Of course she embarrassed all and sundry by not being able to hold her tongue on certain issues. She wasn't embarrassed herself, far from it.

A woman from Los Angeles cornered her towards the end of the evening and introduced herself as one of the members of the 'MSM' Congress. She'd just been told wittily by a (probably very drunk gay) man that it stood for 'Men Sucking Men'.

This was Auntie's response ....

"Men who have Sex with Men? Is that what we are supposed to call them these days? Isn't that just a tiny bit irreverent towards all those Gay men who have suffered, and sometimes died, for the right to express their sexuality?"

"Does a Bi-Sexual Man have Bi-sexual Sex when he has sex with a Man? No, He has sex, and because its two (or more) men, then its gay."

"Being Black isn't about the colour of someone's skin. Being Black is about the discrimination because of the colour of someone's skin. The moment one is not discriminated against because of their skin colour then they have no need to call themselves Black."

"Being Gay isn't about having sex with other Gay men. Being Gay is about being discriminated against because of that sexual identity. The moment a Gay man stops being discriminated against because of that then he loses the need to identify himself as being Gay."

"Re-claiming words such as 'Black' and 'Gay' are responses to oppression, discrimination and apartheid. When these things no longer exist then there will be no need for the oppressed minorities to distance themselves from the rest of the world. There will be no need for a 'Black Mentality. No need for a 'Queer Consciousness'. No desire for a 'Woman's Culture'. Why? Because there will be no more fear."

"But until that day I think its wiser to call a spade a spade. Don't you?"

Of course the LA woman explained that the government had demanded its use in order for them to qualify for subsidy. There's an answer to that of course, but thankfully Auntie kept it to herself for once.

MSM is infinitely oppressive and discriminatory as a term. It is repulsive and degrading and it is doubly disgraceful if 'so-called' Gay organizations use it.

DUFFY RAIN ON YOUR PARADE (FULL VIDEO) HQ

Duffy does Judy ....

All aboard the Atheist Bus Campaign

"They have to take offense, its the only weapon they've got!"

Hibernation

I feel like a bear in winter sleep the last few months. Like today I can sleep anything up to and including 15 hours at a stretch. No, that's not a good thing I know, but its just one of those 'small' side effects of my medication.

How I'm ever supposed to do a full time job again I do not know.

That saddens me.

Not because of the job, I've learnt over the last years that I really can exist as a person without the emotional crutch of a career, but because it means my energy level is so low its almost non-existent.

Ah well, I'll just call it beauty sleep and say I need it more than most.

(before somebody else does) ....

Demons

"Nothing's gonna harm you

not while I'm around.

Nothing's gonna harm you, no sir,

not while I'm around.

Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays.

I'll send them howling,

I've got ways."

"No-one's gonna hurt you,

no-one's gonna dare.

Others may desert you,

not to worry,

whistle, I'll be there."

"Being close and being clever,

ain't like being true.

I don't need to,

I would never hide a thing from you.

Like some ...."

From 'Sweeney Todd'

This is the song I used to sing to myself in my head when things got really bad during the 'Herman' days. When he was being raped every day by his German ex and I was helpless to intervene. Herman had decided that resistance was futile and had forbidden me to intervene. He had, in fact, emasculated me. In this way he forced me to watch, or at least listen to his degradation in a state of utter despair.

Every night I would lie on my stretcher bed in the attic and listen to the shouting and screaming below. Formless words in a language I did not understand. 

Then the silence. 

Then the grunting. 

Then sleep.

In Memoriam

Edwin van der Knaap

30 November 1968 - 20 November 2008

I should read the Poz + proud Blog more often I know, but I seemed to have missed this sadness too.

Poor Edwin. Life was not easy for him in very many ways.

In Memoriam

Gerard Boels

7 March 1957 - 1 November 2008

I only found out today when I emptied the mail box and found the new Hivnieuws.

Gerard is finally dead. Why finally? Because he fought it all the way. From the moment I first met him almost 30 years ago up until the last moment I saw him just before his birthday, his unique mix of stubborn refusal to accept defeat and hysterical enthousiasm have always typified him for me.

We met when we met, we didn't when we didn't. We weren't friends but we definitely weren't strangers. I think we both knew more secrets about each other's lives than most people close to us.

I remember his refusal to even entertain the idea that he might have aids, so long ago, I'd already lost Herman to aids and he knew that but still he wouldn't talk about his own vague symptoms, aches and pains.

He'd disappear for months on end when he felt ill (ugly), and then re-appear as if nothing was wrong.

I found him again years ago at the Aids Fund, a different person.

Poz + Proud.

I won't miss him every day, because I never saw him every day, But the world will.

Old Year

As many of you know I really hate New Year's Eve.

And for those of you who don't -

I really, really, really hate New Year's Eve.

Its the start of a long Winter which no-one except the penguins are looking forward to. Mentally disturbed people everywhere cower behind the curtains clutching their bottles of anti-depressants until the sun rises again sometime in April (if we're lucky). Previously boring stay-at-home people go out to clubs and bars where they meet all the other previously stay-at-home people who they only see once a year on New Year's Eve and promise to keep more in touch with next year which of course they don't.

The alcohol flows, nay, gushes through the emotional gutters of the soul resulting in a thick phlegm of pseudo soul searching, looking back on a year of missed chances, mistakes made, resolutions broken.

I'm staying home - Auntie Dottie is on the Angel Cruise and good luck to all who sail in her.

The Queen's Christmas Speech 2008

Watch and shiver ....

In Memoriam

Ms Eartha Kitt

1927 - 2008

Alternative Medicine

For the last few months I have been seeing a Chinese Herbal Doctor. There's a large surgery, dispensary, and training college just on the other side of my canal. Hey, I live in Chinatown, what did you expect?

Its been an eye opener to say the least.

My problem with the general (Western) Practitioners is their inability to treat me as a whole person, holistically. For example I know that certain of my ailments are caused or at least aggravated by my mental state of health, and/or vice versa.

My Chinese Doctor(s) don't seem to bat an eyelid when I reel off my list of symptoms ranging from joint ache to an infected fingernail that won't heal. Blurred vision and backache. Constipation and dry eyes. They seem to regard all these seemingly unconnected symptoms to be a part of the way the body communicates and displays illness.

It was a relief the first time to have a Doctor actually take interest in all of my symptoms, and offer a plausible reasoning afterwards for their connection. And also say when they had no connection. To them, the patient is absolutely responsible for their own well-being and as such must take responsibility thereof if any positive state of health is to be achieved.

Its very empowering to me to be told that I can make a difference to my health in a positive way. Negative influence is also (up to a certain point) my own responsibility, that is made very clear at the beginning of the treatment - well-being can be achieved, but will take longer to achieve if advice is not taken.

All this is a far cry from the hospital hit and miss diagnosis technique.

Nurse:

Doctor, the patient has lost his arm!

Doctor:

But I'm a heart surgeon, tell him we can't do anything about that until I've got his heart started again!

Angel Cruise

Dottie counting the Old Year Out and the New Year In on the Angel Cruise.

http://www.engelamsterdam.nl/angelcruise.html

Angel Cruise

Onno got Sir David (Attenborough) and my Auntie Dottie together to make this infotainment clip for the Angel Cruise this New Year’s Eve.
It’s one of many more to come I'm afraid .... Its Sunset Boulevard all over again ....

anyway, if you haven't got tickets yet I'd hurry if I was you - they seem to be going fast ....

De Engel Van Amsterdam 'Angel Cruise'

It's the Little Things

I'd just like to say that for us Hiv+'ers it's not the big things that do our heads in.

Being in hospital is not pleasant, but somehow we rise to the occasion and find the motivation to keep smiling and laughing our way through the pain and humiliation.

Being winched out of a window on the second floor in broad daylight was extremely embarrassing, but it had to happen and as such I know that there is really very little point in moaning about it.

No.

It's the little things that do our heads in.

It's an irritatingly painful infected nail that won't heal.

Day to day stuff.

Lily Allen - Smile

Thanks to Leo for reminding me that Lily Allen is not just a pretty face.

The Untouchables

Its not something any of us like talking about, especially the english, but intimacy is an important part of our lives.

Or the lack of it.

I do feel untouchable a lot of the time. This is very difficult for me as I am by nature a very tactile person. I like to keep physical contact with loved ones around me.

Something about touching other people calms and reassures me, and I hope them. Its my way of saying non-verbally that they are a part of my life.

Real intimacy, down dirty intimacy, full insertion intimacy is something I miss very much. Sex was always my way of being close to other men when there was no emotional bond. Having sex with them meant I could feel their skin, smell them, taste them.

Since my sex life has become so dramatically reduced, I can't help but feel a sort of deadening happening in my body. I'm not used to people touching me unawares. My body goes into shock almost if someone tries to get too close, especially 'down there'.

Alcohol and drugs helped to loosen my inhibitions, but since I have to be careful about that now I'm afraid the sex has gone completely out the window.

So I bought a Teddy bear for the first time in my life, and I sleep with him, and that's okay as long as I don't feel the need to fuck him.

04:00 am

04:00 am and I feel wide awake.

I feel like I'm jet-lagged.

I feel like a cigarette - and that isn't funny after 8 years of abstention.

It's lack of stimulation of course. Watching television for hours on end will tend to dull any nerves had. Anyway I can't do that, its boring.

Dressmaking involves standing and sitting for hours on end so that's out of the question for the time being. Although I have been doing some of course.

Computer? Trying to make a 'mix' on the new software I downloaded but its very complicated and mysterious. It gets me frustrated that I don't understand how it works, or even how the manual works. I know it can do all the things I want it to, but how?

Anyone got any experience with this sort of thing?

I'm trying to speed up 'Too Funky' to match 'Flawless' - but its beyond my skills at the moment.

Ah well, I'll just keep trying ....

Next?

A person goes to the GGD, or the local doctor for the Hiv test.

Or they end up in the emergency ward of the local hospital and end up giving permission for a Hiv test.

Or any number of scenarios.

And the result comes back within 45 minutes, a week, 3 weeks, as positive.

What's next?

I think most people will be surprised to hear that the answer to that question is:

Nothing.

Or at least very little.

Ideal scenario:-

Person gets referred to a hospital in Amsterdam by their friendly local doctor. Person ends up in the capable hands of one of our wonderful nursing specialists. CD4 levels, viral loads etc are all discussed, treatment methods suggested, next appointment made.

What's next?

Well, nothing really.

Or, once again, very little.

Anything that happens next will have to be on own initiative.

Hopefully said person will find other Hiv+'ers, especially if he/she is Gay but they will take sometime to find.

In the meantime, all the feelings of remorse, pain, grief, fear, loss etc. will have to be worked through on their own or with partner(s), friends etc.

I don't think it should be like this.

Do you?

Exhaust pipe needles

Dear reader, you of all people know that the last thing I wanted was to be rushed into hospital again, for whatever reason. But there I was again last week in the emergency ward of the OLVG, and don't tell anyone, but in my usual bed too. At least I was in a new ward afterwards, although Neurology is one of those departments that always sounded very vague, and nothing has happened to change my mind on that one.

I'm a fan of the OLVG as everyone knows but not a fan of some of the specialists and/or doctors. God help me, the female ones.

I don't know why it works like that but it does. 

The man in the bed next door to me was recovering from a craniotomy, that's skull surgery to you and me, and had a wound over half his head held together with stitches that would not have been out of place on Frankensteins monster. The doctor decided that he needed a lumbar puncture there and then, in bed, in a full ward. Now the man was obviously not completely 100% in our world and the insertion of what is laughingly referred to as the 'needle' didn't go as planned. Three times. 'Needle' my arse, its a fucking piece of steel as big as an exhaust pipe that they try to insert into your back without painkillers.

He of course screamed the place down, I had to leave the ward, there's just so much pain and suffering I can listen to. But not before I had heard the doctor reprimanding the patient that he wasn't being very helpful by responding in that way, and that if he didn't co-operate it would only take longer because she was determined that it would happen today.

This is the best hospital in the Netherlands. Still, doctors, specialists, surgeons treat patients like small petulant children.

Not all. Dear lord, no. There are wonderful people in the OLVG.

I'm just saying, once again, that although the powers that be try to represent our Health Care System as having no problems whatsoever, its not true.

In particular an Aids Machine that denies that patient care for Hiv+'ers falls short.

So long a hiv+'er stays within his or her own department (usually Internal Medicine) then they are usually treated with the utmost care by doctors, specialists and nurses who are worth their weight in gold. But if they stray to another department for whatever reason there are no guarantees.

On the Neurology ward I kept my Hiv Meds on the bedside trolley so that I could get at them easily. Visible to all. I don't see that as a problem, the only people who would know what they were, were other hiv+'ers and doctors. No big deal.

Yet nurses still referred to them in whispered tones as 'your other medication', and remembering to take them was my own responsibility, not theirs, that was made clear very early on.

Health.

Its a subjective opinion.

To me its one thing, to you another.

But to a health care professional it means a completely different thing.

Finding the median between the two (three) is something we all need to work on.

But do we all want to?

Men of Inseam

Joe Oppedisano for Inseam

Beautiful

Dark

Its 8 am and its cold, wet and dark outside.

Inside its warm and cozy and I'm already bored.

So I'm afraid dear reader that you are going to be the object of my distraction for the next few weeks. That should please at least 1 person I know (I'll get round to writing you a mail today).

My routine is back to what it was a few years ago - sleep wake take pills eat sleep wake take pills eat .... you get the jist of it ....

Sometimes it really does feel like 3 steps forward and 4 steps back - but that's not quite true of course. Essentially I'm healthier than ever, just chronically ill etc.

The whole 'health health health darling' thing is difficult to comprehend when you are Hiv+. I'll try later to get a handle on it.

Sneezing Can Seriously Damage Your Health

Well that was a bummer to say the least .... bloody hell .... I sneeze and then suddenly I'm on the floor screaming in agony unable to move in any direction at all for 2 1/2 hours.

Winched out of my flat through the hole where the window used to be by the ambulance men and the fire brigade (after receiving so much painkiller that i can't remember any of it or them) and then coming round in that 'oh so familiar' lime green OLVG emergency room ....

So Love Dance went ahead without Auntie Dottie and she won't be up and about for another few weeks.

Now I'm at home, drugs, drugs and back up drugs to kill the pain.

The Doctor said "Its just bad luck".

Grrrrrrrrr

But many thanks to everyone who is helping me to get back on my feet, all the sms's, mails, telephone calls etc. Wonderful and very, very much appreciated, thank you :-)

P+P again

Oooooh that was comfy last night ...... like slipping on an old shoe ..... like finding your favourite sweater behind the sofa after you thought you'd lost it ..... and I'm not quite sure whether that was a good thing .....

Going to the Poz & Proud meeting last night for the first time in a very long time was no different than going to the last meeting. It felt wonderful to be with the boys again, arguing, discussing, sussing, encouraging, debating, moaning at the Schorer as usual, and I love them dearly.

But it didn't feel like a lot had been achieved in the in-between time.

There we were again, just like last year, just like the year before, complaining about the Schorer Stichting and their horrific Press handling of the Schorer Monitor 2006/07/08 etc.

I suppose its because the Schorer has never actually cared whether the people it is supposed to serve are happy or not. I suppose its because they've never had to. Or have never been made to.

It was good to be together again but it was depressing to be reminded of the lack of change.

Grace Jones - Corporate Cannibal

tip from GJ ....

RAPIDO laser show amsterdam november 2008

I'm somewhere in there .....

Rapido!

Just to prove I was there ....... me and Taco.

AMEN

Next Sunday in Church ....

democracy

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that there's a Democrat in the White House.

I just don't want you all to forget that it is a man who, because of his religious convictions, opposes same sex relationships.

That's all.

Health Care for the Rich

Its getting so that only the rich can afford to be ill these days, and I'm afraid it doesn't seem to be getting any better in the near future.

As chronically ill person it was distressing to hear that next year all the small tax deductibles will no longer be available. So no writing off extra medication, therapy, hospitalization etc that is not covered by the insurance companies. Its more than unfortunate of course that insurance companies these days have decided that even with very expensive policies usually not more than 75% of this kind of thing is claimable anyway.

Psychiatric help has also been dramatically reduced to a maximum of 12 sessions a year with any kind of psychiatric practitioner, psychiatrist or psycho-therapist. As if the government/insurance companies can determine that's enough. "Sorry sir but although you are chronically ill and have mental health issues that may or may not be related to this, you are officially healed after 12 sessions with a shrink".

Imagine my distress a couple of days ago when I found out that as per january 2009 all medication used to treat anxiety disorders, stress disorders, sleep disorders and the like will no longer be paid for by the insurance companies.

No, not even the most expensive policies will honour a prescription. People with mental health problems will have to pay for their own medication.

The logic?

According to the leaflet ....

"This sort of medication is only meant to be used for a short while. Having to pay for it yourself will help you to keep its use to a minimum."

On a day that one of the largest countries in the world decide who will be their leader, where one of the crucial questions is a National Health Care Plan, on the other side of the water what was the most liberal of all countries is rapidly demolishing its Health Care.

.... and no-one says a word ....

I'd start saving up for your HAART medication if I was you - after all - it was your own fault now wasn't it ....

Silence = Death

Bjork (Play Dead)

I play dead
it stops the sting
I play dead
and the hurt stops
its sometimes just like sleeping
curling up inside my private tortures
I nestle into pain
act suffering caressing me now

Hate Crimes

Although we tend to think that we are the only ones with problems here in Amsterdam its not true ....

(Edinburgh, Scotland) 

An examination of police complaints across Scotland reveals a tripling of hate crimes against members of the LGBT community, The Daily Record newspaper reported Monday.

The paper said that the situation may be worse than what it uncovered. A spokesperson for one police force admitted to The Record that it does not keep records on crimes based on the victim’s sexuality.

Of those forces which do keep records, the number of hate crimes has jumped from only a handful three years ago to the hundreds this year. The worst area was Strathclyde, where 50 crimes were reported in 2005, but so far this year, 216 have been reported.

Scottish civil rights leaders called the results of the study “horrific” and “appalling.”

source: 365Gay

Obesity mantra

Danny said something very strange last night when I, as usual, started making excuses for my being overweight.

"Its to protect you. When you don't need the protection anymore then it will go."

It just struck a chord somewhere in me.

flyer boeklaunch Schaduwland

GJ's Masterpiece

Worthy

"My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important."

“A Woman of No Importance” Oscar Wilde

What is a person worth? and how is that measured? What is self worth?

As a child it was expected of me to be successful in all I did. Assumed even. This didn't inspire me, or even motivate me. It wasn't a support or even a comfort to know that my parents expected excellence. On the contrary. It gave me the attitude in life that whatever I tried to achieve I would always fall short. In fact, why try at all knowing that I would always fail.

So what is a pretty boy worth?

Status, pride, bloodline .... an investment for old age?

What is a beautiful young man worth?

Status, sex, vitality .... to be bartered and traded? Shared and handed round?

And a handsome man?

Status, sex, money .... to be invested in, collecting dividends until he is sold on.

So how much is self worth? In cash? In pride? In status?

Normal

I don't know about you, but I get the feeling that the hiv+ emancipation wave has petered out and died.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of men out there working hard for all kinds of rights and against all kinds of rules.

But emancipation?

We've settled back into being 'normal' again.

Being 'normal' is the natural dutch state of being. 

Being 'normal' is not being out of the ordinary, is being like everyone else, being the same.

Being 'normal' is also not being troublesome, not making a fuss, not being a pain in the ass.

Take a look at the Hiv Vereniging, 'normality' taken to extremes.

Washed, bleached, and sanitized. The douche has been in their ass for years making sure there is no awkward shit floating around inside.

But being 'normal' also indicates stagnation, and with stagnation comes decay, rotting, and ultimately an inevitable, albeit painless, death.

'Normality' - the Dutch disease

In Memoriam

Paul Newman

1925 - 2008

The only male actor in Hollywood not too scared to play the lead, Brick Pollitt, in Tennesse William's 'Cat On a Hot Tin Roof' in 1958.

Brick: One man has one great good true thing in his life. One great good thing which is true! I had friendship with Skipper. You are namin' it dirty!

A man who gave more than $250 million away to charity.

God bless his soul.

Denial

Are Hiv+ Gay Men really ill?

I know it sounds contentious, but honestly, do we look ill? sound ill? act ill?

Well, no. Or at least no-one sees us when we are. And when asked, we will sometimes acknowledge the fact but will almost always deny the results of being ill.

Its hardly surprising.

Chronically ill people can choose to accept or deny their chronic illness. 

Even though for a short while being 'Poz' may have had its heyday as 'trendy', being chronically ill does not fit into the traditional lifestyle of a Gay Man. 

Denial is in fact the only way out for many Hiv+ Gay Men.

Not denial of being hiv+, nor of the disease itself, but of being 'ill' because of it.

As a sub-sub-sub-culture, we have developed this extraordinary schizophrenic atitude towards our own 'Poz'ness'.

On the one hand we are chronically ill and in need of a constant supply of high end highly toxic expensive designer drugs to keep us alive, and on the other hand its 'life as usual'.

Not withstanding the Dutch tendency to minimise emotion, I find it incredible how our mind's self-defense mechanism kicks in when confronted with something of the magnitude of 'life threatening disease'. 

What does the mind use to avoid overload, you've guessed it, denial.

Its amazing to me how the media manages to present us as victim and perpetrator. What's even more amazing is the Aids machine in the Netherlands that manages to do exactly the same. But with one exception, the emphasis of the 'Prevention lobby' is on perpetrator and not victim.

We, as Hiv+ Gay men need to see ourselves as neither. 

We are not, always, sometimes, never have been patients, clients, victims, perps, murderers, crazies, junkies, drug abusers, sex addicts, pathetic, needy, healthy, hypochondriacs ....

We need to create our own image.

We need to stop the denial.

Optimism

No, I refuse to be optimistic about hiv and/or aids.

And no, that doesn't mean I have to be cynical either.

Realistic.

In New York, the third leading cause of death in men under the age of 65 is still aids.

People with hiv climb mountains, swim rivers, dance the tango .... and die.

Don't be silly. Honestly, who still dies from AIDS?

And no, I don't mean all the little brown babies in Africa.

In a world where people are still dying of opportunistic diseases as a result of suppressed immune systems I see no reason to lie.

I mean all the Western European Gay men whose HAART medication fails to handle the virus, whose liver gets eaten away by cancer because they are more at risk than non-hiv'ers, whose lungs rot because they smoke/have smoked and are 3 times more at risk of acquiring lung cancer.

Men who have never been tested and now see themselves as too old to catch hiv, die because the medication comes too late. Because they only find out they are infected when they wake up in the Emergency Room of their local hospital.

Men who have religiously taken their medication for 10 years or more and now die of rectal cancer, lung cancer, heart disease, stomach cancer, lymphoma's, liver and kidney failure etc. All or none of which may or may not be related to the hiv virus and/or medication against it.

Men who were infected with a hiv strain that is resistant to known drugs, who live day by day until the next new aids drug comes on the market. Brave men who sometimes just can't hold on long enough.

Men who lose faith in medicine, who turn to non-western doctors for a gentler way of surviving, who are tired of medication, tired of fighting.

No,

Being a Gay man with hiv is not something to be optimistic about.

I can live till I'm 90, but I will probably still have the problems to face that I face every day.

Chronic tiredness, swollen glands, diarrhea, opportunistic infections.

The anxiety of discovering a bruise, a mark, a sore, a pain, an ache. What is it? Its nothing. Its everything. Its nothing.

Optimism is a word we use to ignore hiv and aids.

Optimism makes it all go away.

It won't go away.

reference: New York Times Magazine

Leo

Has it really been 2 1/2 years since the beginnings of Poz + Proud? My lord, where does the time go? Especially when we were having so much fun ....

What did we start with?

Leo and his enthousiasm, energy, and bloody mindedness. Plus a small but vocal group of Hiv+ Gay men who were (are) very unhappy about how the world treats/handles/copes with them (us).

What has been achieved?

I'll leave that over to others now that I am no longer actively involved.

But the driving force was always (and I don't think Ton will mind me saying this), Leo.

Dear god I haven't/don't always agree with what he says, but I damn well listen when he says it.

X

Sorry ....

Sorry, sorry, sorry ...... Auntie Dottie has been taking over my life completely the last few weeks and leaving me little inclination to vent my feelings here.

Her new website is up and running thanks to Mike - www.dorothyglamour.com 

Lots of pics in 'Dottie's Albums', history in 'Dottie Herself', a blog in 'Dottie Rambles', and 'Ask Dottie' (because she's been dying to do an agony aunt column).

Have a look and see for yourself, but look back here once in a while ;-)

Archive

23 / 05 / 2006

Tired, sore, worried about my health in general.

I think the meeting went well and I presented myself well.

Waiting for Spaghetti Bolognese here in Terminal 1 at Heathrow.

Its cleaner than I remember but that's hardly difficult to achieve. So I'm trying to do the right thing by eating something.

Trying also to be nice to myself, gentle on myself. I've got the starting of a cold and it worries me more than I thought it ever would. Of course I wish I was home. Couldn't sleep last night in the hotel in spite of the sleeping pill (which has been knocking me out like a light lately). Strange environment? Airco? Whatever ....

Feeling sad now - maybe just the muzak, the tiredness.

If one thing has been proved the last 2 days in London is that I can still do this sort of job better than most other people .... and I'm not much older than some of the people in this company.

I wanna go home ....

I find myself looking at men and thinking 'is he?' .... 'the cheeks are sunken but does that mean ....?'

I can't feel like this the rest of my life and expect myself to function normally. One night away from home and I'm already ill. Sore throat, cold sores, bitten the inside of my mouth too .... and my arse .... its a bloody massacre down there.

I've got to find a doctor and probably get treated quickly because this is not what you would call normal, but how?

Damn it! How do I solve this?

My greatest concern is staying healthy enough to do this new job properly, and keep it.

Even my arm pain has returned, has to be stress, doesn't it? And the clicky joints, what's that all about? Is it all related? Possible? Probable?

Pull a mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally .... get me the fuck back to Amsterdam ....

Julee Cruise - Rockin' Back Inside My Heart

So this is what that wedding guest meant ....

MOOI MAN Groningen

Lieve René

Milk Trailer (HQ)

At long last

Gay Weddings

"I knew something had to replace Disco, but I never dreamed it would be Marriage!"

Bette Midler

Of course that's not quite true. After all, if you want to do camp then there's nowhere campier than a church now is there?

Miles of lace, acres of flowers, kilometers of ribbons, buttons and bows.

Men looking like men and women looking like women.

A public display of affection.

An official piece of paper declaring love, honour and obedience (okay, that one's optional).

A Gay marriage is everything a relationship 'should' be, as a black on white binding contract.

So all the years we have spent as Gay men working on alternative relationship forms, all those nights of fighting down the jealousy in a bar, all those lonely days when he was with his 'fuck buddy' are gone in one flourish of the pen.

Of course they're not, but hypocrisy works in Gay marriages just as well as in Straight ones. The wedding certificate makes a wonderful blindfold to all your husband's (and your own) indiscretions.

Ah, hypocrisy! Now there's a word we can relate to ....

Seks in de Sauna

The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

Classic

mister sandman

"Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci,
but not as closeted as Liberace"

CAZWELL - I Seen Beyonce At Burger King featuring Jonny Makeup.

Fabulous

Her Royal Highness ....

.... Ms Dorothy Glamour

Queen of the Zeedijk 2008

"Thank you all - and world peace for everyone!"

Dottie

Perfect Day

Memories

Rain - Madonna

no apologies

Gay Pride Week

Happy Gay Pride Week!

Candyman - Christina Aguilera

Summer

BROMANCE

sweeeeeeeeeeet .........

Busy, busy, busy ....

Sorry men but life just got that much busier ....

Hartjesdagen is next week and 

all manner of stuff has to happen before then ....

including the ever-demanding 

Ms Dorothy Glamour and her dresses ....

sometimes I wish I'd never let 

Auntie Dottie move back to Amsterdam ....

thank god her sister's not in 

the Netherlands to see any of this ....

Rapido!

What better way to end the best Gay Pride for years but with wall to wall pulsating men in Paradiso!

 

Next Rapido .... On the Beach!

Canal Parade

80 Boats

1 Minister for Gay Rights

8 Cabinet Ministers

1 Mayor

500,000 People along the route (i.e. 4% of the whole population of the Netherlands)

+

1 City full of the most gorgeous men I have seen in a long time ....

I love Amsterdam