#larry kramer

[violentthunder]

Another resident of Kramer's Manhattan residential complex was Kramer's longtime nemesis, Ed Koch, who had been mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. […] On another occasion, Koch tried to pet Kramer's Wheaten Terrier dog, Molly, in the building's mail area, and Kramer snatched the dog away, telling her that Koch was "the man who killed all of Daddy's friends."

source

Larry Kramer, June 25, 1935 – May 27, 2020.

Photo by Robert Girard.

[andrewisdoing]

Things That Definitely Made Me GAY (Part 2):

MUSIC ICONS: Part of my Coming Out would be incomplete without the music that found me during that time. I’d wager my survival had every bit to do with the singers, songwriters and entertainers I was playing at the time. I especially credit Madonna, Janet Jackson, Barbara Streisand and Rufus Wainwright. They were the unexpected heroes in my ears everyday reminding me it was okay to embrace the dramatic, funny, complex, sexual situations of life in song.

FILMS: I am a firm believer that people are always searching for bits of themselves in the movies. So, being the teen I was, I wanted to find parts of my being in the movies to be affirmed that I wasn’t alone. Whether it was a documentary or rom-com, I wanted to escape into a potential future or an idea of what it looked like to be a gay man in 2009. Documentaries were a gift from heaven because I got to see where we had been and where we were going. I still feel that way as a 30 year old. I feel like I still am eager to see stories of us and find parts of myself on celluloid.

VOGUEING/PARIS IS BURNING: This movie quite simply changed and saved my life in a LOT of ways. When Madonna’s Vogue (BEST SONG FOREVER ON REPEAT) came into my life, my godmother introduced to me to the Houses of New York City, the Ballrooms and the origins of Vogueing. I had never felt so seen as a black gay person in a film prior to seeing PIB. It was the antidote to existing in a suburb in Washington. To know I wasn’t alone in the world and that there was a place beyond Washington where people like me exist, was (and still is) the greatest gift anyone, especially from kin, could’ve given me.

QUEER AS FOLK: THIS SHOW TOOK ME THERE. I remember hiding the box sets at many friends’ houses when I first had come out. While the show can be a bit dated, the stories and original characters really shaped what being a part of the LGBTQ+ community could potentially be as I grew into adulthood.

HISTORY: When I first came out, I made it my personal mission to read up on all things gay history to understand who came before me and whose footsteps I was walking behind. I found so much solace in the bravery we displayed as a community. I know that I am free to be me because of the folks who came before me. I hope that as time goes on, we discover more unsung gay heroes.

HEROES: I went out to of my way to find people who were like me and people who had the same interests as me. Finding people who made me feel understood and created the work to express all the facets of not only the human experience but the gay experience. Whether it be through dance, poetry, filmmaking or photography, I credit these artists for saving my life through their work.

FATSO: Some kids first cartoon crushes were Aladdin, Hercules, HELL, I could even bet that some had crushes on The Beast, BEFORE HE BECAME HUMAN! Me? Mine was (and still is) Fatso. Some have read him as a queer coded character and for my sake, I really hope that it’s true.

PORN & The Pornstars That Make Em’ : As weird as it may seem, discovering Porn really helped me feel liberated and free to understand my sexuality and what I really liked. Also..boy, oh boy, the men and the videos that still to this day..get me off is a list that’s too long to count. From Zeb Atlas to Tom Katt, these men served the fantasies that were so hot and beefy, I still can’t believe my eyes. Being gay certainly has its perks.

NOAH’S ARC: In the same vein as QAF, Noah’s Arc made me feel not only seen as a gay man but as a black man. I love that the show gave the community so many versions of our existence. Making us more than a side character or the uplifting and sassy character, at that. We were portrayed as human and proof that we exist.

[heavymetalyogi-blog]

Pride 2025 Day 2: Larry Kramer (1935-2020)

Larry did an immense amount of work for AIDS advocacy. He was a highly acclaimed gay Jewish screenwriter, playwright, and author. In the '80s as he couldn't just sit by and watch his friends die while the government did nothing. He first founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), which has gone on to provide more in home care for individuals with AIDS than any other private organization. Realizing that political action was needed to get the government to address the AIDS crisis he left GMHC and founded AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). ACT UP organized massive political protests including their infamous Die-Ins, where protesters lied down with signs in the shape of tombstones. ACT UP's Die-Ins disrupted Wall Street multiple times and forced the US Government to act. In 1988 after years of advocating for AIDS related causes he was diagnosed with HIV, which he survived for decades until passing from pneumonia in 2020. May we remember the two organizations he founded, one for service and one for advocacy, and go forth with a similar two pronged approach!

[philiponmycracker]

Fun fact, apprantely Tom had decided to officially come out during the Oscars as part of his acceptance speech should he have won for his role as Mozart (by mentioning the relationship he was in at the time, how sweet) but he didn't win so it never happened. Then during a press conference for The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer outed him unintentionally by saying how great it is to have a gay actor play Ned Weeks and Tom was like "oh, okay" but nobody wrote about it so nah?? lmao i just ahsksjasbeufhskanh

[gregorygalloway]

Larry Kramer (25 June 1935 - 27 May 2020)

[lazzarella]

 “ … men do not just naturally not love—they learn not to.”

The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer

[do-you-know-this-play]

[postersbykeith]

[philiponmycracker]

Tom Hulce as Ned Weeks, in The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer at the Albery Theatre, 1986

[dumb-cdc]

the Standpoint of being "Chosen"

It is a journey into distortion to understand the positionality of Evangelicals and Zionists, and their ideological siblings in MAGA under Trump and Hindutva under Modi.

This is a positionality not often discussed in Standpoint Theory™️, which posits that all knowledge of the self and the world is informed by social position.

Black feminists like Patricia Hill Collins describe Standpoint™️ as the place where one finds themselves within a 'matrix of oppression'—an individual's standpoint is located at a unique nexus of the intersecting systems of race, gender, and class. When this standpoint is located outside of hegemony, you have a clearer vantage point of the cogs in the greater machine and the contours of these intersecting oppressive systems. From these standpoints, we can better see the violent churn of bureaucracy down to the interpersonal mechanisms of violence.

What happens, then, when the 'matrix of oppression' is replaced with a 'matrix of exceptionalism'? A matrix where entities believe that they sit at the centermost nexus of race, gender, and class systems, a standpoint nestled within hegemony rather than one thrown to a distal area from it. A matrix where the resulting standpoint is one of being "chosen."

Not just exceptional by ordinary standards, but "chosen": singularly "chosen" by God and Nation. Now that is a data validation conundrum.

How does this standpoint of being "chosen" understand equality, equity, or justice? Human rights or humanness itself?

When trying to understand this, I think to a scene from the miniseries Midnight Mass. The series follows a congregation "chosen" by an angel (sorta vampire?) that is now tasked to decide which church members should survive to see the New World Order. A show 100% about epidemiological investigation (ie new incidence of vampires), featuring communicable and zoonotic diseases.

The scene is Annie (neighborhood mom) speaking to Bev ("chosen" church leader, vampire) after much of the town has been sacrificed for the New World Order. Annie to Bev: God doesn't love you more than anyone else. You aren't a hero. And you certainly, certainly aren't a victim. Bev: I wouldn't lecture Annie Flynn. [...] (Gives a bitchy read of Annie's parenting skills because her sacrificed* son killed a child during a DUI.) Annie: And God loves him. Just as much as He loves you, Bev. Why does that upset you so much? Just the idea that God loves everyone just as much as you. (Get her Jade!)

In the 'matrix of exceptionalism,' how does one conceptualize love from God and Nation? God and Nation can certainly love beings that aren't equal to the "chosen." God and Nation can certainly love them less. The love itself does not have to be equal.

Meanwhile, in the 'matrix of oppression':

*see above

All this to say: those of us scattered across the 'matrix of oppression' can look at hegemony and have an outside vantage point of the Master's House™️ per se (coined by Audre Lorde).

I believe that those inside the Master's House are scattered across the 'matrix of exceptionalism.' Nestled within hegemony, they have a proximity to something else.

And perhaps through a keyhole, a crack in the door, a few inches between the window pane and sill, we on the outside see what it is:

The Cuckoo Clock in Hell™️

This is how Kurt Vonnegut describes the innermost mind of the far-right in his 1961 book Mother Night. This mind is a machine so fundamentally broken, random, and pointless, that it functions only enough to simply keep its shoddy machinery operating and whirling.

Ostensibly able to 'make the trains run on time,' but always in a super fucked up way.*

*see above

In Vonnegut's words:

[The far-right] wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, thought mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell - keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. [...] That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase - That was how Rudolf Hess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers - That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important difference between civilization and hydrophobia - That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I've seen in my time.”

^^ a cuckoo clock, not pictured in hell

In respect to Black Lives Matter, Trans Rights, and Palestine, those of us glimpsing inside the Master's House through a keyhole or opening have seen the faces of friends, family, and community members in there.

More often than not, I see white queers speaking Zionist rhetoric while staring directly into the Cuckoo Clock in Hell™️ --

They agree with it. On the same day pro-Palestine protestors shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge, and Holland Tunnel using ACT UP's 1995 "bridges and tunnels" protest techniques. On the same day over 400 persons were arrested for this act of defiance. On the same day ACT UP NY announced fully-funding bus tickets for the ACT UP block going to the January 13th March on Washington.

I see white queers agree with the Cuckoo Clock in Hell™️ and listen to its dissonant whirling. To them, I want to ask: Why do you feel so safe inside the Master's House? You will eventually be evicted, displaced, and discarded. Do you actually believe you are "chosen," a credit to your kind?

When I think of Palestine as a Standpoint™️, I think of what the Castro district of San Francisco, CA has come to mean for queers across the nation (and even globally).

^^ photos taken by me, 2023

When you're in the Castro, you know you're in Castro-- Rainbow crosswalks, rainbow banners on lampposts, a historic 'rainbow walk' with plaques dedicated to famous LGBTQ+ figures, and a giant rainbow flag (20ft x 30ft) flying over Harvey Milk Plaza.

The SF AIDS Foundation has a beautiful multi-story wellness center serving the community. The historic Twink Peaks Tavern sits atop Castro St.; its large panoramic windows were uncovered in 1973, making it the first gay bar to stop hiding its patrons from the public.

The graffiti says 'Protect Trans Kids' and 'Dykes Hate Techies.' There is an ease around queer public displays of affection and sexuality. The Castro 'Welcome Center' plays Kim Petras' album Slut Pop over the sound system.

The historic Castro theatre visually distinguishes the neighborhood's main drag from anywhere else.

Harvey Milk's old photo shop is now an art space called Queer AF.

Dildos are in a fair amount of store windows. And you will probably pass a nudist on your morning coffee run.

^^ photos taken by me, 2023

The Castro's response to Palestine was immediate and visible.

After Israel's retaliation to Hamas' October 7th attack had begun, Palestinian flags went up in storefronts. Sandwich boards said 'Free Gaza' and 'Let Gaza Live.' Messages of solidarity were written on printer paper and taped to windows. Residents hung Palestinian flags out of their apartment windows. We marched to the Civic Center.

^^ photo taken by me, 2023

And so, when I see white queers parroting the Cuckoo Clock in Hell™️, I want to ask: What would it mean for the queers of Castro to become forcibly displaced?

Would it be a stretch of the imagination for windows to be broken, residents to be threatened, stores to be trashed, or pedestrians to be beaten? Would it be a stretch of the imagination for the few franchises among the queer-owned local businesses to pull out of the neighborhood with enough political pressure?

What if you heard that queer residents on the outer blocks of Castro had their homes bricked. They left in fear. The city quickly seized the property. Squatters and developers moved in. The violence may move inwards towards the heart of the neighborhood.

Now more people want these dykes, fags, trannies, groomers, pedophiles, and perverts out of here.

And they found a system for doing so.

^^ graphic design is their passion

So let's just stop here. This is the most benign level of forced displacement. This will not create refugees or a humanitarian crisis. This isn't even on par with raiding gay bars like in the good ol' days.

This isn't police beating up queers in the street or arresting them for now being 'unwanted traffic' in public space. This isn't vigilantes telling "the queers" to get out of their homes and businesses at gunpoint. This isn't throwing all of your belongings out of the window and into the street.

This isn't making flying the LGBT flag illegal.

This isn't tearing down the sign for Harvey Milk Plaza.

This isn't defacing the Castro Theatre.

This isn't even a loss of life.

This isn't even war.

I want to posit this to all the white queers fixated on the Cuckoo Clock in Hell™️. I want to ask why they feel safe from state violence that, given the current anti-LGBTQ+ landscape, is only one move of the needle away.

When you are no longer "chosen," how will you return to and face your community again? And better yet: can you? We protect us, after all.

This article is dedicated to you.

[qualityavenuejellyfish]

AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)

ACT UP, 1990

[1000rh]

Audio Clip:

Now Kramer became increasingly frustrated with ACT UP. He gave a speech in 1991 where he said, “ACT UP has been taken over by a lunatic fringe. I deserve a little fucking respect for what I’ve done in this world, and I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know what kind of organization to start. I don’t know how to give advice. I don’t know how to lead anyone should they want to follow. I don’t know what to write anymore. I don’t know how to write any more articles because I’ve said what I’ve said to you tonight in one form or another for ten fucking years. We’re as good as dead.” Now this is a speech to Act Up which, in 1991, they’re doing a lot. [...] It’s totally un-inspirational, and I think it’s exactly the kind of things that so often you see coming out of movements, and people who are so burned out in movements, that what they feel they can do is to raise the rhetorical stakes ever higher, and to describe both themselves and everyone around them as having endlessly failed and failed and failed, instead of seeing how wins build wins and power builds power. Right? [...] And it can actually be really damaging, when it grows.

[expandinghorizonslgbt]

Heavy stuff. Still not done.

[qualityavenuejellyfish]

Laurence David Kramer (June 25, 1935 – May 27, 2020)

“Don’t lose that anger. Just have a little more patience and forgiveness. For yourself as well.” 

~ R.I.P. author and AIDS activist Larry Kramer (1935 - 2020)

[trendynewsnow]

Remembering Morgan Jenness: A Pioneering Theatrical Force

Remembering Morgan Jenness: A Vital Force in Theater Morgan Jenness, a distinguished dramaturg, educator, and theatrical agent, who played a pivotal role in the development of numerous playwrights — including notable figures such as Taylor Mac, David Adjmi, David Henry Hwang, Larry Kramer, and Maria Irene Fornés — passed away on November 12. In recent years, Ms. Jenness began to use the pronouns…