May 2, 2005

The Wizard of POZ

No AIDS scandal, dish or applause escapes the Blog Behind the Curtain!

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2005

Gay Men’s Health Crisis’ 20^th Annual AIDS Walk went off without a hitch on Sunday, May 15—but not without a bitch. That would be none other than the grande dame of AIDS activism Larry Kramer, who never founded an organization he didn’t grow to love-hate, including GMHC itself. The legendarily angry author (Faggots, The Normal Heart and The Tragedy of Today’s Gays) lambasted GMHC’s executive director, Ana Oliveira, in a Monday morning e-mail, when he heard that arch-enemy (and ex-neighbor), former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, had delivered a speech at the traditional AIDS Walk breakfast ceremony. “What an intense slap in the face that is to me and to many multitudes of others.… Who is behind this ‘rehabilitation’ of this Hitler?… How could you sanction this in any way? Jews are not meant to forget Hitler, and gays must not forgive or forget Koch," the famous fumer fumed.  
     In fact, Kramer’s The Tragedy of Today's Gays (just out from Tarcher/Penguin) pegs Koch as “the person most responsible for allowing HIV to grow unimpeded from 41 cases…to more than 70 million,” making a detailed argument that the Greenwich Village bachelor’s terror of being outed as gay prevented him from lifting a finger to fight AIDS. "Everyone, including Kramer, knows that AIDS was spread and continues to be spread today by people who engage in unprotected sex," said the octogenarian metrosexual ex-mayor, when cornered by the New York Post about the book.
     As for Ana O., she responded to Kramer in kindness rather than in kind, doing damage control by dialing direct. One version has it that she apologized for the affront by way of explaining that she had run into Koch and, at the spur of the moment, invited the Big Apple icon to GMHC’s cash cow for added pull. “It was all a big misunderstanding,” she told POZ. “It had nothing to do with sending a message that it’s better to forgive Koch" or better to fight the battles of 2005 rather than re-fight the battles of 1985.
     Want to know what the Wizard thinks? All’s well that ends on the phone, especially when GMHC’s AIDS Walk set records in participation (45,000) and fundraising ($5.8 million;see photo). Sure, Kramer had good reason to be miffed by the Koch invite, but he may also be a tad sensitive that hardly anyone but Richard Kim has bothered to take the bait and rebut the heartfelt hyberbole of his new opus It’s only $9.95 and worth the ride.

In the everything-old-is-new-again category, Sen. Tom Coburn (R.-Okla.) is expecting fresh-faced interns by the truckload at his "Revenge of the STDs" presentation next Thursday in Washington. Not only will the doctor-turned-PWA-basher present herpes from hell, chlamydia cliffhangers and other scare-you-sexless slides, but he's springing for pizza, too! These "educational" events used to be quite the hit—the abstinence crusader's last STD lunch, in 2000, when he was in the lower House, drew around 250 interns, Hill staffers and others—but, hey, that was before Fear Factor raised the bar on the ick! Factor.  "You'd be surprised at how many people go up to him after to have one-on-one talks with him as a doctor," Coburn's communications director, John Hart, told POZ. Actually, no, POZ is not surprised that Americans need medical help—but this film is strictly PG (for Patient Guidance): Coburn's advice about, say, HIV slipping through condoms' latex does not hold water

Across town from the Capitol but in the same morally shady hood, stands DC lobbying group AIDS Action Council (AAC), but for how much longer no one can say. This spring, you just can’t seem to smell Washington’s famed cherry blossoms—or are those anal warts, Dr. Coburn?—for the stink of the AAC scandals. Hot on the heels of AIDS Walk founder Craig Miller’s high-profile resignation from the org last month for stepping on the bodies of PWAs in its rush to hop into bed with Bush, AAC Foundation Board chairman Charles L. "Chuck" Henrywas canned this week as director of Los Angeles’ Office of AIDS Programs and Policy. As LA’s AIDS czar, Henry was in charge of doling out $82.5 million in HIV-prevention and -treatment funds to community groups—and then allegedly shaking them down for campaign contributions to Antonio Villaraigosa, who was elected LA’s mayor oon Wednesday. No one is yet saying that’s the reason he got the boot, but with today’s news that he lied on his résumé, claiming a law degree not in evidence, the Wizard of POZ predicts it won’t be long before the other shoe drops for old Chuckie over at AIDS Action Council. But even the Wizard can’t answer what it will take for GMHC or APLA to read the writing on the wall and tell AAC, “Smell ya later.” There’s a new game in town called Housing Works’ DC office, and they’re on our side.

Speaking of down the tubes, the mayor of Spokane, Washington, antigay bisexual James (“I wouldn’t characterize me as ‘gay’”) West, is almost there. In a turn of events that would make Roy Cohn proud, the longtime Republican pol was caught trolling Gay.com (his handle: "Cobra82nd" and "RightBi-Guy"), ultimately meeting up with someone who represented himself as a dude of 18 but was actually a private computer expert hired by a local newspaper in what was essentially a sting operation. Then West met the press to deny new accusations that he sexually molested two minors when he was a Boy Scout leader. OK, OK, this isn’t really an AIDS story (bi guys never get HIV, right?), but West did oppose HIV-prevention legislation in 1986 and proposed criminalizing teen sex in 1990!

Enough about Hitler, herpes and hypocrites! What the Wizard really wants to do is spread the love. So props to the Santa Rosa, California, school board for unanimously voting to allow Elsie Allen High School’s health clinic to distribute condoms and birth control. “It was wonderful…. The board talked to students, teachers, parents. This was not a political decision but a social and medical one. I have no doubt the health of our young men and women will improve,” the clinic’s medical director, Enrique Gonzalez-Mendez, told POZ. Score one for the true culture of life.

Hats (and shoes) off to high-dose capsaicin patches, the red-hot compound that has just completed Phase III trials with flying colors, soothing the red-hot pain of peripheral neuropathy (PN), one of the top tortures of med-taking HIVers. The chemical, which is derived from chili peppers, is on track to become the first remedy approved for HIV-related PN—but not for another year or more, says Anthony A. DiTonno, president of NeurogesX, the patches’ papa.

Finally, no week is complete without celebrity sightings. Ponytailed ass kicker Steven Seagal touched down in Accra, Ghana, to participate in the Save a Million Lives HIV/AIDS and Orphan projects. He’s also meeting with members of the Ghanaian film industry to give his flagging career—er, Ghanaian cinema—a boost.… Anyone who’s anyone in Cannes attended amfAR’s Cinema Against AIDS event: Celebs on the list included Sir Elton John, Liza Minelli and Sharon Stone. Try working out a seating chart for those three.… 

And with that, the great and powerful POZ has spoken. Now, as they say in Cannes, bon weekend!