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6/3/2013
What the hell is going on over at Cedars-Sinai? Last year it closed its psychiatry programs, eliminating 51 inpatient beds and sending 1,800 outpatient customers scrambling for psychiatric services. Now they have announced that on July 1, they will dismantle their Division of Infectious Diseases, thus decimating its research into HIV and AIDS. The nonprofit’s PR line is “it will be business as usual,” and there will be “some cutbacks,” however, eight jobs are being eliminated, including that of the division’s director, Dr. David Hardy. Two knowledgeable docs in HIV will remain to see patients, but both the experimental clinical ...
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5/15/2013
A West Hollywood Reality Check
This may be a tad of a buzzkill. Discussion of AIDS often kicks up fear, jittery emotions, memories, the agonies, the pains, the groans and gasps of a plague that a modern generation was ill-prepared to deal with. There are so many spokes on the wheel of HIV & AIDS evaluation; it can be a complicated matrix, much like trying to figure out why that Smoke Steakhouse even opened in the first place, or why Pinkberry debuted their first joint in a WeHo residential neighborhood.Seriously, the scheme of this missive is to plead with the army of AIDS service ...
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5/9/2013
As things settle about this very real recent meningitis scare—and we are given the benefit of a few weeks to separate fact from fiction—let's do a quick post mortem on the initial announcement of the death of WeHo resident Brett Shaad and the ultimate revelation that in fact four gay men had recently become infected from this hideous infection: John Duran got it right. It took Councilman Duran along with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to get our own public health department and its chief, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, to acknowledge the need to impart important information to the public that the ...
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4/19/2013
The world is just days away from the 15th anniversary of the death of one of Earth's greatest entertainers—arguably the greatest vocalist of all-time, Frank Sinatra. He passed on May 14, 1998. He was just 82, but he lived a rough, tough and tumbled life. His 82 was like 112 to you and me. His wife Barbara was at Morton's with friends when Old Blue Eyes went ill yet again. He had been sick for weeks. She rushed to his side and saw him briefly before he passed. He died in room 8016 of the VIP section of Cedars. ...
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4/5/2013
This issue also marks the 10th year of my column, Out & About, in this magazine. That roughly translates to 240,000 words over a decade. It's fairly easy reading yet hard writing. Mark Twain once wrote, “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you're inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” I have followed that advice, and I'm still standing. Over the past decade I have had truly talented and gracious editors who have put up with all my crap. My debt of gratitude to Jeremy Kinser, John Hobbs, Aaron ...
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3/28/2013
I have been staying with my mother as she gets over some surgery. It is a trip. I drive the street I grew up on every day and pass a house that has been haunting me. A kid lived there, though I cannot remember his name. He was four or five years younger than me, cute way beyond belief. Long after graduation, I used to see him at Drake's Bookstore at 7566 Melrose. Drake’s was once a straight porn theatre called Aladdin and turned to our dark side in 1975. Drake's became a gay porn store with very active video ...
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3/14/2013
Since January, my family has been to hell and back with death. Time heals all, and of course there is sun on the other side. Yet all of this turmoil has got me thinking about people I have lost. Taking care of my sweet Mom has led me back in memory to Jose and Kitty Menendez. They were friends of mine whose sons committed parenticide. These two cute boys who went to Princeton and whom I thought I knew well walked in and blew their parents’ heads off with Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns when Jose and Kitty were eating strawberries and ...
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2/26/2013
Editor’s Note: The comments expressed in this column are not intended to be endorsements. Frontiers does not endorse local candidates.Elections are such odd things. Well, perhaps I mean candidates are oddities. Running top speed for mayor of Los Angeles is openly gay republican Kevin James. Kevin has been my pal and lawyer for over 20 years. He has forever gotten me out of some lousy tough spots. I helped him as well during a rather turmoil-filled breakup. I also asked him to join the board of AIDS Project Los Angeles when we really needed him. He is my pal....
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2/7/2013
Love is so odd. How it falls on you and how we often fail to pull it off. I lost my brother this week. And it fell on me like a giant tree. Not so much as a kind kid memory, because I did not truly like him. He always called me faggot. Yet he was my brother. Love is odd. I am now trying to get close to his kids. Love is so odd.My other brother is stoic. I get it. He is trying to get through it. My mom is a steady mom. As is yours, right? ...
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1/24/2013
This missive is about the intensity of experience. I have been tossing about lately between jealously and admiration. Do you ever find you are jealous of a soul, saint, genius, prophet or madman only to realize that you really, truly only just admire them? Admiration being the penthouse and jealousy being the floor they offer up the cheap hookers, no ice cocktails and burnt canapés on.I do truly know through so many damn seasons of life I’d rather admire smart cads. Being on the top floor seems safer to me. That is why I called Tom Whitman and asked ...
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