The aids closet

A 50 year old in 2003 decided to treat his HIV via herbal "medicine"? Da fuck!?

didn't Nabisco come out with an herbed Ritz?

Ritts was kind of cute. I was expecting a Bruce Weber type.

Wait. There was a magazine titled POZ???!!

R4 Yes, and there still IS, hence the article. It was the foremost means of dissemination of treatment and medical information about HIV/AIDS outside the industrial medical complex. Many people owe their lives to the information they gained access to through the magazine.

Back then, before social media and people generally assumed one had a right to some amounts of privacy particularly concerning death/HIV status.

Well, as any fourth grade Californian knows who read Esperanza Rising in school, those deserts are filled with Valley Fever spores that are breathed in through dust and activated by the moisture in the lungs and cause particular havoc in persons with compromised immune system. This is very well document and know way beyond the medical community.

Pause. Paws. POZ. I’ve heard of undetectable HIV but I’ve never heard of people being in an AIDS Closet. I guess that makes sense if you don’t want to disclose your personal business to the world. Wouldn’t that make for a lonely, reclusive life? I imagine the wear and tear that AIDS inflicts on your body would prevent you from having an active social life. Or is that just something that happens in the later, more severe stages? It used to be called the Gay Disease until it was medically classified and medications were prescribed to help lessen the symptoms. It doesn’t carry the same stigma that it used to, which is nice, I suppose. But it’s still out there and it seems just as prevalent from the looks of the website.

Go scrub some toilets at Resort World, homophobic bitch R8.

What about Jim Henson? He died of pneumonia too.

Jim Henson was into fisting.

[quote]It used to be called the Gay Disease

Not in Africa where it came from, it was a Straight Disease.

Don't you know? Nobody famous ever died from AIDS during that period. AIDS deaths were covered up by inane substitute illnesses. "A respiratory illness." "Liver cancer", " a long illness". Euphemism after euphemism for years. Too many could face death, but not coming out. It was a very sad time. Family members would lie. The death of Rock Hudson helped somewhat, but AIDS continued to be covered up.

One of his pick-up lines was "Everything tastes better on my Ritts."

First time I heard of him was when he was on original The Arsenio Hall Show promoting a book of celeb photographs.