At Long Last: The HIV Travel Ban is Lifted.

Back in the old days, kiddies, there was a particularly racist, homophobic and utterly powerful man in Congress named Jesse Helms. Along with a lot of other carefully calculated statements of outright hatred of gay people, he managed, due to his powerful position in Congress, to ban all HIV positive people from entering this country.

This was a particularly egregious and obnoxious law because, first of all, most HIV cases at the time, came FROM the US. Also, it meant that no international meetings about HIV/AIDS could be held in the United States, because people with HIV couldn't attend unless they already lived here.

It also kept couples from different countries apart, one being unable to enter the country if they had HIV.

But, finally, it's over. President Obama has signed an order ending this ban.

It's about time.

"Muddy & Bo" by Paul Zollo.

I post this because I think it's a wonderful song, performed by my friend Paul Zollo, but also because I directed and edited the video. It was supposed to be a simple backyard, straight-forward video, but I was enjoying the music so much, I just kept shooting, and this is what we ended up with. He thinks I should do this for a living. I admit it is one of my favorite passions. I have 207 videos up on YouTube!

Health Update: Triglycerides.

Blood test: Triglycerides over 800, which means there's so much sugary, fatty sludge in my blood, they can't even test for cholesterol. I've been here so many times before. Once, it was as high as 2100. (It should be down around 150 or less). This is a side effect of my anti-virals.

Dr. Ruchi called Dr. Tony, my primary care infectious disease doctor, and told him she was worried about pancreatitis. So, Dr. Tony calls me in and we have a confab to decide what to do.

But we already know: diet and exercise. Diet and exercise. Diet and exercise.

Dr. Tony actually had a visiting doctor with him today and said for me to act gay because this doctor is studying gay men's health.

So, I flipped my wrist and said, "Gay, gay, gay!"

Dr. Tony said we could change my antivirals, but then I'd be back on three times a day, and he's not sure it would actually make all that much difference. Currently, I'm taking Atripla, which consists of three AIDS drugs all jammed together in a one dose per day pill.

So: Diet and exercise. Diet and exercise.

I told the visiting doc that we gone through this many times. I get on a healthy diet, and then I want pizza and then I want french fries and Popeyes, and the next thing you know, I forgot I ever ate healthy food.

I'm a Southerner, for god's sake! Fried food is comfort food! (And damn them for inventing fried Twinkies AFTER I became diabetic.)

So, diet and exercise. Diet and exercise.

Flash Forward "Does" The Bonus Round.

ABC has a new series called "Flash Forward," and I was watching it on Hulu. (Yes, that's a plug. No, they didn't pay me to mention them). In the pilot, everyone in the world has a suddenly 2 minute, 17 second blackout where they experience a dream, a vision. They see themselves and what they're doing exactly 6 months from the present day.

In other words, they know what they're going to be doing, and where they're doing it, six months from now.

But one of the characters intrigues me. He's a Korean FBI man who saw nothing, meaning he was either asleep or dead (though others said they saw themselves asleep or dreaming). More clues arrive and he learns he's going to be murdered in March.

His reaction, at first, was fear. So, he fought back against the investigation they're going through to piece together a "mosaic" of that day (from as many witnesses as possible).

Then, in this most recent episode, he suddenly began to get giddy and loose. They were all drinking together in a bar, for instance, and one of the characters cautions him about drinking too much.

He looks at the scold and says, hey, man. I know when I'm gonna die. I might as get some living in.

Other characters begin to act in the same way. Released from the normal, daily fears, they suddenly feel free and positive and without a care.

That feeling. That's what I called the bonus round.

I was aware of my giddy freedom, personally, but I wasn't aware of how much I weigh myself down with fear and anxiety until the day they told me I was going to live. I sang about this last week at Kulak's with my original "Lazarus" song. It's on the Bonus Round Sessions CD.

And I've written about it many times over the past years since coming back to life. It was almost visceral. I can tell you the exact moment of the epiphany, when I felt the weight of the world come back down on my shoulders. I was in the living room holding the vacuum cleaner and it descended like a thought, a feather of anxiety touched my clean mind. It flew in and out so quickly, I almost missed it.

For a moment it went away. But then, as if coming out of amnesia, the kind you only see on soap operas, I remembered "the weight." I could feel it pressing down on me. The pre-bonus round Steve. Like a child being reborn into a world of fear and anxiety, and yet created only by my mind.

One second I was carefree and had limitless potential.

The next moment, I was the worry rat thrown back into river of anxiety to drown.

The other night, at Kulak's, as I was about to sing "Lazarus," I was explaining to Tatiana, a young writer on the scene, that Lazarus, in the story, was brought back to life.

Her first question was, "What did he think about that?"

In Flash Forward, some of the characters are saying, "The future saved me."

I remember when I could see my future. And like this FBI character, there was a certain comfort in knowing I had only just so much time and no more.

I'm reminded of the old Chinese saying about how a child who dies has the longest life and an old man, the shortest.

I know that that state of mind, of perfect freedom, is available. I know it is because it's only a state of mind. Having gone there, I know what it feels and tastes and smells like. The question is whether I have to know when I'm gonna die to get there again.

So Long, Geocities. And Thank You.

Its time has passed. It was a great idea, conceptually back in the early days of the very limited world wide web. "A place where everyone can have his own website," all organized into communities with virtual street addresses.

I set "The Steve Schalchlin Survival Site" up in the Broadway community because we had just finished our first staged reading of The Last Session and now I was Sondheim. In fact, I was Jerry Herman, Neil Young AND Stephen Sondheim. (It's a dead link now.)

And, because I was dying of AIDS, no one dared tell me different. I would go out of this life as the suddenly discovered genius that never was, except for this one last work, a testament to his own life.

And then I ruined it all by living. Oh, well. Can't lose 'em all.

Nowadays, with social networking, "having a website," is kind of meaningless unless you're trying to sell something. Virtual neighborhoods aren't really neighborhoods if the people "living next to each other" have no interaction. A nation of monks, as Dean Pitchford described songwriters.

My relationship with Geocities gets even more complex. It was the creation of a gay man, John Rezner, and his partner, David Bohnett. David said it was really John's vision. Until then, those who weren't schooled in computers had only email and listserves and BBS's. Having your own website was huge!

Plus, the interface, which improved over time, made it possible for non-html coding of webpages. I had already taught myself HTML by clicking on websites, picking it up randomly. So, I was slightly ahead of the curve in the early days and my website got some attention, especially because of its unique subject matter: Man dying of AIDS puts diary online.

David took a personal interest because John Rezner had died of AIDS some time before. "The Last Session" was about to, or had just become, a little mini-phenomenon.

So, when Geocities went public, the first big New York Times Business Section story began with three paragraphs about my online diary. I was always very proud of that, to feel newsworthy. I wonder if that article is archived?

But, Geocities just never made any money, and when the web went "social," it became "a cultural relic" (according to this article). And now, Yahoo is shutting it down.

The truth is, though, many people were helped by Geocities. Their lives where changed. I am a living testament to this. Thank you, David. And here's to the memory of John Rezner.

UPDATE:
Gabi sent this:

I did a search and on Sunday, March 16, 1997
http://www.bonusround.com/mar97.html
you wrote:

"MONDAY MORNING NEW YORK TIMES Business Day section. In an article about Geocities, they include my little Survival Site in the story. Of course, they spelled my name wrong, but, HEY! When ya got a name like Schalchlin, you learn to cope. Can't wait until people start typing "Schachlin" into Yahoo and coming up empty. Another brush with fame goes slipping through my fingers. *sigh*"

So I put "Schachlin" into search at the NYT archives and found it. :-)

New Neighborhood, No Money Down
By SREENATH SREENIVASAN
Published: Monday, March 17, 1997
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/17/business/new-neighborhood-no-money-down.html

Song Swap Saturday NIght

I'm singing two songs tomorrow night, Saturday, down at Kulak's Woodshed here in North Hollywood, as part of a song swap. Instead of singing my own songs, I'm going to sing one song that was a great influence on me, and one song from one of the songwriters there at the Shed, Marc Platt, who I've talked about a lot.

The song is "The Revolution Starts Right Here," which you might remember from earlier this year when I made, for him, a video, which got a lot of notice at the time since we tied it into the how the Internet was changing and helping to fuel the Iranian "green revolution."

I'm also going to sing "Birds" by Neil Young. The simplicity of both the lyric and the chord structure drew me to the song back when it was just an album cut on his "After The Gold Rush" album. It's one of the songs that inspired me to be a songwriter.

My Brothers and Me.

Our first time together since 1985. I would tell you stories, but then, I'd have to kill you.

Answers to Questions about New York.

1. Is "Zero Hour" really opening?

Yes. "Zero Hour" is really opening. It's a great little theatre over on the West Side. Theatre at St. Clement's. But, mindful of the times, we're not spending lavishly, so you have to go looking for it. The truth is that Jim could do this show in the dark and it would be just as powerful, so there's no reason to waste money on production values.

(We actually call it "show in a box." When he performed it out here in the desert, like a depression era actor, he literally had nothing more than a table, some paints, a chair and his desk lamp that doubles for a microphone for the investigation scene.)

2. Is Jim gonna be in it?

Jim Brochu will be playing Zero.

3. Is he really gonna paint a new painting every night during the show?

Yes. And he has pledged them to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS to auction off, just as we have done in DC and Houston.

3. Are you gonna do some music while you're there?

I'll be looking for a piano and a mic. But we're going to be focused on getting Jim up and running on Nov. 22. However, we have saved a theatre space (NYR Studios) for December 16.

4. Why? What's happening December 16?

A piano, a stage, and maybe an audience. Plus, several members of the original cast of The Last Session, along with yours truly (and Jim). It could be anything from a concert to a panel discussion to a staged reading or all of the above. More information soon. At heart, it's just old friends getting together.

West Side. 45 east 33rd at NYR theater in the Workmen's Circle Building.

BIDDING OVER for Brochu/Zero Painting Auction.

Jim and I watched the auction online and saw that Theater J raised $386 from the fundraiser.

Hooray!

Full story here.

Schwartzenegger Signs Gay Rights Bills.

Schwarzenegger signs gay rights bills

By Dan Smith
smith@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Oct. 12, 2009 - 8:17 am
Last Modified: Monday, Oct. 12, 2009 - 9:24 am

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed two gay rights bills, one honoring late activist Harvey Milk and another recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states.

In the last of hundreds of bill actions taken before midnight Sunday, Schwarzenegger approved the two bills by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

The governor last year vetoed the measure declaring May 22 a state day of recognition for Milk, suggesting that the former San Francisco supervisor be honored locally. But he subsequently named him to the California Hall of Fame.

Leno's SB 54, meanwhile, requires California to recognize marriages performed in other states where same sex marriage is legal.

In a signing message, Schwarzenegger said California will not recognize the couples as married but will "provide the same legal protections that would otherwise be available to couples that enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships out-of-state. In short, this measure honors the will of the People in enacting Proposition 8 while providing important protections to those unions legally entered into in other states."

The Closet & Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

A number of years ago, I was participating in a debate/discussion board where a number of extremely conservative people dominated a number of threads. One, in particular, was apoplectic about "homos" being "out."

He said, affirmatively, that if he was a homosexual, he would hide it from the world, and that it would be no problem whatsoever to make that happen.

My argument to him was that, in this day and age, it is utterly impossible to live in the closet. If you're the new person at the office, for instance -- and, yes, I have worked in a few offices -- people start talking about you the moment your books hit the desk. "Who's in the picture frames?" "Is he wearing a wedding ring?" "Does she seem a little butch?" "Is he dressed a little too well?"

And they won't stop until they find out.

That's just life. It's just human nature. I don't think people generally do it out of spite, as much as information for the dating pool. After all, if you're single, and someone is attractive to you, you want to know if they are taken, and whether you'd have a chance with them. Sexuality is part of that equation. The soldier, Joseph Rocha in this Washington Post op-ed knew he was gay, but he was a person of duty :

However, I chose to put service above my personal life. My understanding of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was that if I kept quiet about my sexuality and didn't break any rules, I would face no punishment. I was wrong.

Once I joined the Navy, I was tormented by my chief and fellow sailors, physically and emotionally, for being gay. The irony of "don't ask, don't tell" is that it protects bigots and punishes gays who comply...

...Within days of arriving at my duty station in Bahrain, I decided that I wanted to earn a place among the elite handlers working with dogs trained to detect explosives. After passing exams and completing training, I went from serving among hundreds of military police to serving in a specialized unit of two dozen handlers and 32 dogs. I was responsible for training and working with two dogs throughout the region. Our goal was to keep explosives and insurgents out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

But, when you're gay and in the military, and you have to keep it a secret because the rules require you to keep it a secret. But how do you keep it a secret in a locker room where the only conversation during down time is sex and parties with hookers?

My higher-ups seemed to think that gave them the right to bind me to chairs, ridicule me, hose me down and lock me in a feces-filled dog kennel.

I told no one about what I was living through. I feared that reporting the abuse would lead to an investigation into my sexuality. My leaders and fellow sailors were punishing me for keeping my sexuality to myself, punishing me because I wouldn't "tell."

When a new soldier joined the troop, she witnessed the constant abuse being heaped upon this soldier, so she reported it, an investigation started and, finally, with the abuse still happening.

After receiving a letter of caution, the military's version of a slap on the wrist, my chief was eventually promoted in rank and position.

In the course of that investigation, the Navy decided to charge my best friend, Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Valdivia, a 27-year-old Sailor of the Year and second in command of my unit, for failing to put an end to my chief's tyranny. The idea that she could have stopped the abuse is, to me, unfair and unreasonable. The Navy itself failed to stop him.

Val, as I called her, was set to return home when she was told of the charges and that she wouldn't be leaving Bahrain as planned. She was afraid that she would never see the United States again. My mentor ended up taking her life.

This is "don't ask, don't tell." This is the policy now undermining our military.

But it also points to the more obvious fact that it's impossible to live in the closet and not drive yourself or someone (or everyone) else to the point of insanity. To live a dishonest life, intentionally. Covering your every move, your every thought. Insane.

Obama, this weekend, promised (again) to end the military ban. It's time.

The Unselfish Gene.

Could it be true that the most selfish thing you can do for yourself is to be unselfish with others? I think so. From Seed Magazine:

In his latest book, The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that social darwinists like Skilling have learned the wrong lessons about the natural world. The nasty, brutish existence dominated by “savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit” that Dawkins describes is far from the norm for animals that live in social groups. They thrive because of the cooperation, conciliation, and, above all, the empathy that they display towards fellow members. The support and protection they receive from living in a group more than compensates for any selfish advantage they might have achieved on their own.

In other words, the “selfish gene” has discovered that the most successful approach is to behave unselfishly. De Waal thus argues that the age of empathy is far older than our own species and that we must keep this in mind as we try to apply these lessons ourselves.

Todd Rundgren & Daryl Hall Kick Ass

If you haven't already discovered "Live from Daryl's House," you're missing a great treat. The premise is that Daryl Hall would invite great singers and musicians over to his house and then record the session.

The newest episode is with Todd Rundgren, and I'm in blue-eyed Philly soul heaven. Take a taste of "Expressway to your Heart," originally by the Soul Survivors. (The individual songs are available via links on the page). Also, Rundgren's "Sweet" is pure bliss, as is Daryl's vocals, and the band's kick-ass performance of "Why Can't We Be Friends."

I guess I live with my head in a basket, but I never realized how much Philly Soul is in Rundgren's music. You can really feel it, though, when he and Daryl start trading licks. It's like they're two halves of a whole. It's spooky and spectacular.

Great music. Put on your head phones or crank up the volume. This rocks.

Nice Article on Sean Strub and Longterm Survivors of AIDS

Sean Strub is featured in the NY Times. He created POZ magazine and was an early AIDS activist, one of the few who survive, and I met him a couple of times during the New York/TLS days. POZ did a really nice feature story about me, "Living in the Bonus Round" (both as the title of my online diary and as a phrase I coined) and The Last Session, which was making its New York debut. (And then, in the next issue, the critic panned us. Oh well.)

If not for people like Sean, I wouldn't be alive today. He retired from activism shortly after receiving the Bonus Round diagnosis that he would live. (Every issue used to feature a report from Sean's doctor. It was one of the most educational and illuminating parts of the magazine).

From the article by Michael Winerip:

...by the time he was tested and his disease formally diagnosed it was 1985. “The doctor held my hand, looked into my eyes and said, ‘Sean, these days you can have a good two years.’ He was trying to cheer me up.” That doctor, Nathaniel Pier, died of AIDS, as did another who treated Mr. Strub, Dr. James Nall.

Five of the six men he had roomed with in New York City during the 1980s, including Andre Ledoux, Michael Misove, Bob Barrios and Paul Friedman, died of AIDS.

Early on, Mr. Strub helped support himself by building mass mailing lists of people involved in gay causes. (“If a gay travel agency went out of business, I’d buy that list.”) In those pre-Internet days, his lists made him invaluable for fund-raising and political activism as he joined groups like the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Act Up.

I was on the road as a musician in those days. The "gay cancer" wasn't really on my radar. All I knew was hotel rooms.

And then in January 1996, protease inhibitors that stopped H.I.V. from replicating were approved by the Food and Drug Administration; Mr. Strub started on a daily dose of 16 pills.

In one week, he felt better. In a month, others noticed.

This moment for me happened in real time during the writing of the original online diary, which you can access from this blog. I believe the drug arrived, for me (late because of a screw-up in some office -- almost too late) in May of 1996.

Then, I began documenting when I'd gain a pound. The transformation was almost immediate.

“For the first time I thought I’d be alive in a year,” he said. “My planning window changed.” He bought a new suit, visited the dentist again.

He worried that the drugs, like others he had taken, would stop working. But as lesions disappeared, the weight returned, his energy remained good and time passed, “I crossed the line.” He grew accustomed to good health, though he’d changed. “I was more reflective, grateful, guilty, thinking about the ones who were so close, who’d made it to ’94 and ’95 and just missed being saved.”

Sometimes it felt as if he was the last one out before the building collapsed.

Funny, before I read this article I thought of a song I hadn't sung in a very long time. It was called "Lazarus," but it's not the "Lazarus" from New World Waking. It's on the "Bonus Round Sessions" CD. It's about feeling betrayed by death, after it had soothed me for so long with his promises of sweet comfort and respite from the pain.

The first "Lazarus" was written shortly after I received my "you're gonna live" diagnosis in the summer of 1996, just as we were finishing up the last performance of the month-long workshop here in Los Angeles. I remember I stood on the stage and revealed that I had pulled the I.V. tube out of my arm that very day.

Sean Strub, however, at just about that time, retired from the scene. Ironically, he moved to Milford, Pennsylvania, a place Jim and I lived right after we decided to make a life together. Stunningly beautiful but economically depressed, Milford is a town up in the Poconos. Sean bought an old hotel there and began promoting the area as a bed and breakfast haven for people who love trees and fresh apples and all the lovely things one finds in forested hills. (We left there in the late 80s to come to Los Angeles).

You know, it just occurred to me that someone from the town told us that "some gays" had bought the place. I never put two and two together. Isn't that funny.

But now Sean has moved back to Manhattan.

So many longtime advocates he’d known from the ’80s and ’90s now suffer from substance abuse and mental health issues like depression, that he has come to think of these problems as a form of post-traumatic stress caused from being so immersed in death.

The book that most brings back the feeling of that time to him is not about AIDS, but about Vietnam: Michael Herr’s “Dispatches.”

“You lived never knowing who would die next, where the next bomb would go off,” Mr. Strub said.

It’s probably a sign of his own trauma that as bad as things were then, “I miss the camaraderie the epidemic created,” he said. “An incredible clarity of purpose. An incredible sense of community.” He finds making new friends easier if it’s someone H.I.V.-positive.

That's probably natural. When you share things in common, especially a disease, you have instant common ground.

Having moved back to Manhattan, he's witnessing the aftermath of the war. He's working with people again and giving them the benefit of his experienced life.

When we get to New York next month, I'll try to hunt him down, cuz it occurs to me that I owe him a great, big hug. Glad to have you back on the scene, Sean.

RIP Shelby Singleton.

Shelby Singleton, who produced "Harper Valley PTA," a song that turned into an industry, died.

Mr. Singleton was a colorful Nashville record producer and entrepreneur who resurrected the historic Sun Records catalog.

Link to NY Times obituary.

SFGMC Benefit with Donna Sachet.

Chorus Boys Step Up For Cabaret

- Chorus Presents 8th Annual Cabaret Production

- Donna Sachet To Host

On October 23rd and 24th at The Regency Center, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus presents its 8th annual Cabaret, which this year takes its name from the Louis Armstrong classic, “What A Wonderful World.”

“Even when storm clouds gather, music can lift our hearts and inspire us like nothing else,” said Artistic Director, Dr. Kathleen McGuire.

Directed by Carl Pantle, the program features soloists from the chorus and ensemble, Vocal Minority, performing touching, humorous and exhilarating selections made famous by the likes of Cat Stevens, Sam Cooke, and Burt Bacharach. The production also includes hits from musicals such as Moulin Rouge, Kiss Me Kate, and Carousel, together with classic songs by Irving Berlin, “that have been given the world-renowned gay men’s chorus twist,” according to McGuire.

Topping the bill, as emcee, is Chorus alumnus, Donna Sachet, whose character was born at a Chorus retreat. “I had created the character Donna Winter in reference to a well-known diva, but when folks commented ‘just look at that sachet,’ the character was born,” said Donna, adding: “The Chorus has made this a wonderful world for so many and I am really looking forward to taking the stage with these amazing men once again, especially at such a landmark venue.”

What A Wonderful World is being presented in the sumptuous Lodge of the Regency Center. “We invite you to glide into the luxury zone,” said McGuire: “Glorious wood paneling and intimate table seating for all patrons form the basis for a rich, musical treat.”

Seats for the concert start at $25 and are available from the Community Box Office at the LGBT Community Center, by phone at (415) 865-2787 or on-line at www.sfgmc.org. A special $10 ticket is available for “unwaged” supporters e.g., students. Showtime is 8 p.m., with a special 2 p.m., matinee performance on 10.24.09 benefitting Larkin Street Youth Services.

“What a wonderful world we live in! Love, community, song, Donna Sachet - there’s so much for which to be grateful. Battles remain, for sure, but we are closer now to freedom than at any time in our history. Take some time-out to relax and join us as we celebrate in song,” concluded McGuire.