Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone by David B. Feinberg Page A

sip of Chablis and I continue.
    Originally appeared in NYQ, February 23, 1992.
     
    Mother Hale sends me a paperback about Hale House written by her daughter, which goes straight into the recycling bin. Mothers Against Drunk Driving have printed up return-address labels for me with only one minor typo. AmFAR includes a personally licked stamp on the return envelope, which is too difficult to steam. GMHC is like an overly attentive boyfriend, with weekly reminders and progress reports on the AIDS Walk and Dance-A-Thon; sometimes I wonder whether eighty percent of the money I may raise will be spent on our “relationship.” I got at least seven copies of last year’s ACT UP acquisitional fund-raiser: Luckily for me, they had weeded out duplicates; if not, I’m sure I would have received twenty-seven. I wonder whether by not checking the box to ensure that my name won’t be traded I’m inadvertently killing rain forests. Several of my gay male friends, all in their early thirties, regularly receive postcards from Trinity Memorial, advertising cemetery monuments and funeral plots. Did they steal Wonder Bar’s mailing list? “Your first-class stamp will help us save money,” claims the envelope, with “No postage necessary if mailed in the United States” printed where a stamp would be affixed. Conflicting signals. The year-end fund-raising letter I receive on December 30 is almost immediately followed by the plea to renew my annual support on January 2.
    I used to get so excited knowing that Elizabeth Taylor, Harvey Fierstein, and Mary Tyler Moore were writing to me personally. Alas! There is no tooth fairy! And everybody knows that professional fund-raisers write the letters, not the signatories. I found this out when a candidate for public office who coincidentally ran a direct-mail operation sent out fund-raising letters that were almost identical to ACT UP fund-raisers using the signature of an activist who hadn’t even read the letter.
    So what I do is ignore the letters, stuff the perforated forms into the return envelopes, and periodically go through them, maybe once a month. My cousin has MS, so I’ll send them something. Everybody supports cancer research: Why should I? Conversely, I try to support every AIDS organization I find, because I really don’t think they’re that “popular” in terms of charities. I can justify not working in an AIDS-related field by donating money to AIDS organizations. I’d probably completely burn out if I worked for one. Let’s face it, some days I’m sick of AIDS. Can’t we go to the movies instead?
    But occasionally the letters will be so appalling that I have to respond.
    I recently received two letters so atrocious that I was compelled to write to the senders. I’m still not sure which was the more odious. The Los Angeles Shanti Project sent me a mailing with the note “... AIDS has improved the quality of my life ...” in 30-point lavender on the envelope. The temptation to California-bash was irresistible: Anything would improve the quality of life in that cultural wasteland, wouldn’t it? The enclosed letter was thoughtfully printed in large type for the visually impaired. It was the usual shit about achieving some fuller understanding of life and love. For some reason, as an HIV-positive person, I didn’t get it. I’m just dense, I guess. I know, there’s a silver lining in every cloud and a Louise Hay ready to make an economic killing finding it, and I thank God every day that She chose me to be sacrificed for the sins of the heteros, and as I’m rotting on the cross of CMV retinitis and pneumocystis and toxoplasmosis and a host of other viral and bacterial infections and dementia strikes, I’ll still consider myself lucky. Not! I really find such asinine shock tactics as using the pathetically misguided quote “... AIDS has improved the quality of my life ...” extremely offensive. But, then again, I’m a cynical New Yorker with virtually no inner