ACT UP's 39th

Today was the protest in Observation of ACT UP's 39th anniversay. I joined in 1990, so it's "only" been 35 years for me, but still hard to imagine that it has been that long. It's a protest about money for AIDS and healthcare, not warfare, a perennial theme, but it also has a theme of remembering Mark Milano. I pushed for a civil disobedience in honor of Mark, who did so much of it in his lifetime, and Ryan ran with that, so there was a plan to block 6th ave with banners at the very end. We started out at the AIDS memorial, an oddly shaped spot where the microphones tend to be set up so that anyone sitting is either behind them on the stone benches or too far away on the park benches closer to 7th Ave. The beginning of these things is always a lot of greeting and mingling, with activists you see all the time and some you see more rarely. Banners are hung, t-shirts get sold, and the speeches begin. I was half-heartedly following along on the planning chat and I knew there was concern about the number of speakers, but there really were way too many speakers. And some of them, instead of giving a pithy call to action, droned on sounding like lecturers in policy or the history or activism. "This would be better for a conference," I said to Ben during one speech. Towards the end of the speeches people who had been standing for too long began to leave. I was sitting with Andy, Cypress, and Ben and we started to yell "Let's march! Time to march!" Heckling doesn't work as well from behind, and Jay who was MCing stubbornly stuck to the program. At the end of the speeches, Jay invited the crowd to say the names of lost activists and people with HIV/AIDS. Without specifying a time frame, a hail of names from the whole epidemic came pouring out. "This could go on for a long time," I said. The reading of the names on World AIDS Day takes 24 hours and I don't even know if that's the whole country or just NYC. As we were gearing up to march, a young ACT UP member I don't know, came bustling over and asked if I could speak to a reporter. I had been warned there might be press looking to speak to us ACT UP dinosaurs. This guy was from The Advocate, so I answered his questions. Then I joined the March, chatting with various people as we made our way down the street. Not only was healthcare a theme of the march, it was a topic of many conversations. As we walked, one activist told me about her hip pain and her upcoming steroid shot. Having had steroid everywhere from my foot to my neck, I warned her about the burning pain o the steroid when its first injected. Another activist, when I invited him to block the street with us, told me couldn't because he had just started chemo and radiation for stage 2B colorectal cancer. Then, stooping for a beverage with Ben and a couple of activist friends, another activist told us about the emergency surgery for his bleeding ulcers and about the cyst on his kidney. People's health was a constant topic of conversation way back in ACT UP as people with HIV/AIDS compared notes and shared treatment research and anecdotes about things like bitter melon enemas. Now it's more about aging, and the wear and tear on our bodies. Bob Lederer turned up beside me in the march, and told me about the book he's writing. It seems like everyone is writing a book these days. His is about "activist heroes" - he is careful to include she-roes and trans people - which I appreciate since people tend to think of the men when they think about ACT UP. He says he is writing about people who faced real consequences for their activism and persevered. I promised to be interviewed at some point, but just send we arrived at Palantir and Ryan scrambled up the scaffold to hang a banner and I had to slip through the crowd to get in position for the die in. Lying on 6th ave, looking up at the blue, blue sky, I felt strangely relaxed. Once we had been down a while and the press had rushed into take their photos, Ben broke the pose a little to take a few photos of his own, hilariously winding up with one of both our legs, which he labeled and posted, although I"m pretty sure my rainbow sneakers probably didn't need the label. Once we got up, the small group of that had been planning, rushed to block 6th ave with the two main banners. I couldnt tell what was happening on the right side, I just saw multiple officers talking to Ryan, but then that banner was forced back, opening that lane. We all sat down in the remaining lane chanting,"we're queer, get rid of Palantir." A cop came along and gave us a first warning, but Ben and I had suspected the new, mellower NYPD might not arrest us. Sitting anywhere without back support is painful and lately I keep getting cramps everywhere but especially my hands and legs, so I keps having to change position, often kneeling instead of sitting. "None of them have plastic cuffs," Ben said to me. "They don't have buses, either" I said. They had one van, not enough for a whole group. We pointed out to the others that they were clearly not prepared to arrested us, "What should I do?" Ryan asked me. "Declare victory and then we'll go," I told him. Afterwards Ben and I and a couple activist friends wandered down 6th ave. to what for many years was a health food restaurant but is now kind of a japanese take out place. We bought various snacks and beverages, protesting is thirsty work, and settled down at one of the few tables. I had expected chatting, or debriefing, and there was a little of each but most of the conversation was unexpectedly dark. We talked about assisted suicide, and the underground forms it took during the bad years of AIDS, about the final parties. Ken, who knew Basquiat, talked about how his death was not the accidental overdose people think it was, but an escape from worsening symptoms. He also told us about a couple he knew who had a suicide pact but then one man did it without telling the other and the police conviscated the drugs so the other man could not do it. I told them about the Very Sick client, and how, unexpectedly, death has become such a theme of this blog and how it hovers around me, gossamer thin, so delicate I could put my hand right through. Cypress talked about a Buddhist group he attends where they focus on the five remembrances: I cannot avoid aging, I cannot avoid illness, I cannot avoid death, I must be separated from all that is dear to me, and the only thing I own are my actions. Ben was trying to write it down. "There are also four remembrances," said Cypress. "Four remembrances sound easier to remember," I quipped before I could stop myself. On the train on the way home, Ben and Ken talk about their college age kids, both of whom identify as LGBTQ, and Ken pulls up pictures to show us how his son throws big dinner parties and has a tribe of friends. When I switch to the R, I really start to feel the pain in my lower back intensifying. I know the cats have probably been busy knocking things over, and I also know whatever is on the floor is staying on the floor for now.