I don't know if I will even hear from him today, but he is definitely in my loving and celebratory thoughts! I am so happy he was born and even happier that he found his way into my life.
Thank you, Carlos.
XOXO
PS: Everyone... use the COMMENTS link below to send Carlos your well-wishes! YAY!
Okay, I have to go to bat for support of KIRSTY ALLEY's new show FAT ACTRESS.
My boyfriend is again in another country with his best friend, Roxanna, having a great time! This time: Cancun. He was originally supposed to go to Rome, but half of the party cancelled their trip, so Roxanna and Carlos rerouted themselves to Cancun! I just realized it is Spring Break down there, too. I expect I will see one of them featured naked on Boys or Girls Gone Wild... LOL!
I am SO impressed and happy with the responses to my AIDS post! Everyone responded so thoughtfully and considerately! I am thrilled that there are some readers out there who are as interested in the truth as I am! YAY! And mind you, none of the responses unquestioningly AGREED with what I had written; there were just thoughtful interests in knowing more. This gives me a lot of hope that such a taboo topic can actually find intelligent, open debate. I don't need anyone to agree, but an intelligent discussion is really refreshing.
Okay, so I decided to create a separate entry to respond to the comments from the original AIDS entry.
Here we go:
Citrus said...
Wow.
You've put a lot of energy into this essay. I have to come back and re-read it because it REALLY challenges a lot of concepts that have solidified in my mind over the past 20 years. Can't respond now...
...except to wish the best to your friend. The confusion in test results is nothing short of harrowing. I thought that an initial positive result on the ELISA or Western Blot (antibodies) resulted in an IMMEDIATE re-testing of the sample using p24 (antigen). Perhaps policies vary regionally. No-one should have to live through that kind of fear. I'll check back to hear how things are going. In the meantime, my hopes for the best are with you.
Nick said...
Troy, my dear, one of the many things I've ALWAYS admired about you is your willingness to speak your mind --- even if you expect your words to be received with hostility (as they often have been). I don't have a lot of knowledge about this subject; I only know what I've always been taught and have never pursued more information. I DO know that the allopathic medical community is primarily money-driven and, therefore, loves to push dangerous drugs and unnecessary medical procedures. So your post doesn't strike me as very far-fetched, although it's still VERY thought-provoking and even shocking. I wonder if the knowledge of "The AIDS Myth" will lead to a lot more unprotected sex. (That's not meant to be joking or flippant). Anyway, I wish I had some wisdom to impart on the topic; thank you for the information...
-Nick
P said...Hi, P! These are great questions!
T-Rex:
I hope things turn out well for your friend, he's lucky to have you around to give him perspective. Still, as someone who came "of age" when ACT-UP was already wearing thin and AIDS education was everywhere, I have to question these claims.
What about monogamous spouses who've been infected by a philandering closeted partner? What about housewives and kids infected via blood transfusions? What about traceable infection patterns from person to person? What about "patient zero"? Isn't it established that blood, semen, or vaginal fluids have been passed from person to person in every case of infection?
Are you saying that the cataclysmic destruction of life among gay men in the 80's was not based largely on exchange of infected bodily fluids? Poppers are supposed to be to blame?
Clearly I haven't researched this anywhere near as much as you have, but it does seem a stretch. Maybe I'm just not cynical enough, but I don't believe that the entire medical profession globally is evil, and would invent a disease just to generate revenue. Is that what you're saying?
-P
Ugghh..
I have always dreaded writing about AIDS because to question the validity of AIDS is worse than belonging to the KKK, worse than saying you agree with Hitler, worse than actually being a white cop who beats a black man, and worse than being a homophobic murderer. Seriously, it’s worse than all of things, combined. It is absolutely socially unacceptable to question the validity of AIDS. To do so means you are “ignorant” or that you are “in denial” or that you are a crazy conspiracy theorist, or that you just don’t know what you are talking about. I rarely speak with anyone about the controversy in the medical and scientific community over AIDS because to do so unleashes a hostility that is completely disproportionate and unwarranted. This is the only issue that I am actually fearful of discussing.
Still, I cannot sit back and be spoon-fed a reality that is manufactured by corporate media and a miserable medical industry. Being educated about health and disease through the industry of medicine is about as smart as being educated about nutrition through the sponsorship of the Meat and Dairy Council (which is from where most of our assumptions about eating come).
There are certain scientific and medical facts about the entire AIDS “epidemic” that very few people actually have the luxury of time and/or the ability of research to know. I call these things "facts" because they are offered from reputable scientists and researchers who have everything to lose, and the only responses I have found to contradict these facts are dismissive and flippant without actually proving the facts as wrong or inaccurate. I cannot say what is TRUE because I am not a researcher or a doctor or a scientist, but I offer to you what I have found so that you can question for yourself, as I have. Most of what I will write below will be in my own words, but some parts may be excerpts from other educational sites. An excellent site that organizes and references all of its facts can be found at ALIVE AND WELL.
A huge portion of the medical and scientific community is just beginning to stand together and create organizations to help transform the massive level of potential misinformation we have all accepted for years. Unfortunately, many doctors, researchers, and students are threatened of losing their licenses, status, credibility, etc. if they even suggest there is something wrong with what we have accepted as true. My friend in medical school regularly updates us as to how the system is in place to encourage the students NEVER to question the validity of the practices, but to more importantly learn how to impose them. For instance, it is not common knowledge that a doctor who has received a patient as being diagnosed HIV Positive or with AIDS is expected under a rule called “standard practice” to then begin enforcing the intake of immuno-suppressant drugs. If the doctor refuses this standard, he will lose his license; he must AT LEAST work hard to encourage the use of drugs as treatment.
But why am I writing about this now? Because a very dear friend of mine was just diagnosed as being HIV Positive. Why would I dispute this common verdict? Because he was also diagnosed as HIV Negative… within the SAME month, different place. Because he was then also diagnosed as “we can’t tell” and is now going through a 4th and 5th HIV Test.
When my friend told me he was diagnosed as HIV Positive, I encouraged him to get tested again through someplace else. He got tested again because I encouraged him to question and educate himself beyond the courteous fence of popular media. If he did not know me, he may very well have concluded himself as being someone who lives as an HIV Positive person, immediately succumbing to the intake of immuno-suppressant drugs. Instead, he is now paying attention to the contradictions and inconsistencies in regard to this so-called "epidemic." He continues to be tested and re-tested in a bumbling industry full of drones who know a lot less than what you would think about what they are treating. It’s absolutely infuriating and absurd at the same time. In addition to the diagnosis that he was HIV-Positive, he was immediately under pressure to send out anonymous cards to anyone with whom he has ever had sex, alerting them that they, too, were now possibly HIV-Positive and should get tested. It is frightening to me to see the parallels between the medical industry's process of education and successful scare-tactic marketing schemes.
So all of this has led me to reducing speculation and hysteria to just the FACTS of AIDS and HIV as presented by Nobel-prize winning researchers and doctors and scientists who have everything to lose and only the truth to gain. The following bits of information are solid and however controversial, they are still true. If anyone has any information to counter the facts listed below, I welcome them as part of our seeking the truth.
Again, I present all of this as FACTS, but not necessarily as a conclusive truth about what is happening. I only encourage you to question and learn beyond what is given to us as the truth. Look beyond what we are fed, and always question the motivation of the source.
Here we go...
HIV TESTING IS ABSOLUTELY INVALID AND USELESS
Fact: HIV testing is NOT STANDARDIZED. This means the test is based on the varying interpretations of varying doctors across the various states and countries. This means that if you test HIV Positive in one state, you can also be HIV Negative in a different state! Most people do not realize this arbitrary means of being tested and they live with a verdict that then leads to a monstrously painful reality.
Fact: HIV HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN TO EXIST. Why is the testing not standardized? Because you can’t validate or standardized a test that is testing for something that hasn't been proven to exist. Most people do not know that no HIV has ever been found or isolated by any valid scientific standard. This is a scientific fact. There is NO Human Immunodeficiency Virus on record to-date. If this virus exists, SO FAR there has been no proof of it in any way. To be fair, it should not be said that HIV "does not exist" as much as it should be that HIV has simply never been proven to exist. At best, it is only a theory. There simply is no proof that a retrovirus HIV does exist. Not in test-tubes, not in AIDS patients and not in anyone who is "HIV" positive. By most disidents, it is freely conceded that the assertion may be wrong, but to date no HIV expert has responded with any argument that has ever proven otherwise.
There is a tradition in science that those who propose theories must also provide the proof. According to this tradition it is up to the HIV protagonists to come up with proof that HIV does exist. A scientist cannot employ the "Martian" argument, which goes that Martians MUST exist because there is no proof they do not exist. It is a long-held view by dissidents that the laboratory phenomena documented by Montagnier and Gallo in Science in 1983/84 (which are still the best papers on this particular topic) are not specific for retroviruses and do not constitute proof of isolation of a retrovirus.
Luc Montagnier's group of scientists from the Institut Pasteur in Paris first claimed they had found a new virus in samples taken from a gay man at risk of Aids. Their paper was rejected by Nature, the British science magazine, and by Robert Gallo, the leading American virologist, on the grounds that there was no clear evidence of a genuine, disease-inducing virus having been isolated.
"Isolation" means freeing the suspected virus particle from all other cell products so that it can be clearly characterized. It is an essential step in demonstrating the presence of an infectious agent, and producing a reliable diagnostic test for it.
Gallo's own subsequent claims to have isolated a new virus from several patients, and his simultaneous patenting of a diagnostic test, were accepted by the scientific community, and what came to be known as HIV was launched at a press conference by the American government in 1984.
However, Gallo's claims of isolation have subsequently been demonstrated to have been untrue as a result of inquiries arising out of a dispute between France and the US over who was first to find the virus. What he had claimed as his own virus turned out to be the same particle Montagnier's team had found which Gallo had previously not accepted as the “Aids virus.”
There are several organizations offering financial rewards to anyone who can isolate and prove the existence of this virus. To date, no one has been able to claim any of the rewards.
When you are tested for HIV, you are basically “testing” for ANTIBODIES that are theorized as having something to do with indicating the presence of a virus that has never been scientifically validated!
The frightening part of this is that these very antibodies are the same antibodies that show up when you have a common cold or if you have been exposed to someone who is sick with any number of common diseases.
Prior to the notion that HIV causes AIDS, viral antibodies were considered a normal, healthy response to infection and an indication of immunity. Antibodies alone were not used to diagnose disease or predict illness. Before HIV, only ELISA and Western Blot tests that had been shown to correspond with the finding of actual viruses were used to diagnose viral infections. There is no credible scientific evidence to suggest that these rules should be disregarded to accommodate HIV.
AIDS IS NOT NEW, NOT A DISEASE, and NOT an “Epidemic”
Fact: AIDS is a collection of common, familiar illnesses and conditions including yeast infection, herpes, diarrhea, pneumonia, cancer, salmonella, tuberculosis, etc. A person is diagnosed as “having AIDS” only if he has one of these common ailments AND shows signs of disease-fighting proteins or antibodies against those ailments. So if you have a yeast infection, you simply have a yeast infection. If you have a yeast infection and you have antibodies they assume are related to the phantom HIV, then you are diagnosed as having AIDS.
The numbers of AIDS victims continue to rise because the umbrella of AIDS continues to grow to include more and more common illnesses and conditions. In fact, many of the sharp rises in AIDS cases do not come from anything new, but from a RE-definition of what AIDS is. For instance, in 1993, it was determined to include anyone whose T-cell count was below 200 to be considered to be suffering from AIDS, even though there were absolutely no clinical symptoms of any disease. This caused the number of cases to literally double overnight.
It is only through expansions of the AIDS definition that the number of new AIDS cases has grown. The definition of AIDS in America has been expanded three times since 1981. Although each addition to the definition has caused significant increases in the number of new AIDS cases, AIDS had leveled off in all risk groups by 1992 and has been declining steadily since the second quarter of 1993.
If the CDC had continued to use the first three definitions of AIDS, new American AIDS cases for 1997 would have totaled just over 10,000, making AIDS a relatively insignificant health problem. Using the 1993 definition, 21,000 new cases of AIDS were added to the year's total, and of these, more than 20,000 cases were counted among people with no symptoms or illness.
There is no epidemic, only alterations of statistical data.
In 1998, the CDC ceased providing information on what AIDS diseases or definitions qualify people for an AIDS diagnosis each year. This means that the public will no longer know how many new AIDS cases are diagnosed in people who are not ill.
Another surprising fact is that you can receive a diagnosis of AIDS without ever having an HIV test. This is referred to as a "presumptive diagnosis." According to CDC records, more than 62,000 American AIDS cases have been diagnosed with no HIV test. Even though the only difference between "pneumonia" and "AIDS" is a positive HIV test, the test is not required for a diagnosis of AIDS.
THERE IS NO AIDS EPIDEMIC IN AFRICA
FACT: Because there is little funding for actual HIV Tests in Africa (not that they would be valid), not only is HIV Testing not required as a factor, but there are only four common clinical symptoms that are used to impose the diagnosis of AIDS: Diarrhea, Fever, Persistent Cough, and Weight Loss of more than 10% over two months. The four clinical AIDS symptoms are identical to those associated with conditions that run rampant on the African continent such as malaria, tuberculosis, and parasitic infections, the effects of malnutrition, and unsanitary drinking and bathing water. These symptoms are the result of poverty and other problems that have troubled Africa and other developing areas of the world for many decades. Now we call those same symptoms and conditions, AIDS.
FACT: AIDS is not the leading cause of illness or death in any African Nation. While Africa is the frequent subject of dramatic media reports, actual numbers of diagnosed AIDS cases on the continent are relatively unremarkable. For example, 1981 through 1999 cumulative AIDS cases for South Africa, the new epicenter of AIDS, total just 12,825.
Unfounded estimates, rather than unprotected sex, are responsible for the alarming number of AIDS cases said to occur in Africa. United Nations' AIDS estimates were cited as the inspiration for news reports claiming "a Kenyan dies of AIDS every three minutes." If Kenyans were dying at this rate, there would be more than twice as many dead Kenyans in just one year than have ever been diagnosed with AIDS in the entire period of time known as the AIDS epidemic.
SO WHY ARE PEOPLE DYING
FACT: They have always been dying. There are no more people dying today of anything spectacular or rampant than usual that can be attributed to AIDS. More people die every day from Heart Disease than do from what is called AIDS. More people die in traffic than do from AIDS. That is a scientific fact when you strip the numbers of speculation, artful interpretation, and hypotheses.
FACT: Prior to the designation of "AIDS," the commonly-known 29 diseases had no single, common cause. In fact, all have recognized causes and treatments that are unrelated to HIV. For example, yeast infection is a widespread problem due to an imbalance of natural bacteria. The yeast infections that occur in people who test HIV positive and in people who test HIV negative are caused by the same imbalance of natural bacteria. All of the opportunistic illnesses called "AIDS" have various, medically-proven causes that do not involve HIV.
FACT: Immune deficiency can be acquired by several risk factors that are not infectious or transmitted through blood or blood products.
The following factors are widely recognized causes of immune suppression, compromised health, and opportunistic infections, as documented in the medical literature for more than 70 years. Chronic, habitual and multiple exposures to the risks below can cause the group of symptoms called AIDS. In fact, there is no case of AIDS described in the medical literature without one or more of these health risk factors.
These risks include:
Is there no end to the absurdly comical nature of my life?
ABUSING TROY
What WOULD have been cool is if I actually liked the music, but noooo...
Unless I hear differently, I have been officially shunned and rejected by mom. There is always the possibility that she has no access to email; I don't know. All I know is that her emails continually got stranger and more hostile. In my attempt to roll with her newly-gained footing in my life through email, I simply kept responding with requests for an adult approach to the past, letting her know that I love her, no matter what happened. She never responded to anything I ever wrote in an email. She just lashed out... as if I were the invisible punching bag I always was to her.
For instance, after not hearing from her for 18 years, and after an initial 18 years of serious abuse, it is less-than-inviting to read this kind of email from her:
"Troy, who gave you permission to exploit my picture on a computer. I didn't. Are you wanting another one to use the same way? This will never happen. But I am going to find out if you are doing this illegally. Why did you tear our picture in half? The way you would laugh in your dad and my face when you were told to do something or not to do something that was really funny to you and your friends back then wasn't it? Quite hurtful to your mother."
This is where I found the picture me [note: referring to sugarhiccuphiccup, my blog]. A picture of the four of us, under this picture you wrote cut in half. If you feel the message happy birthday I email to you on 20 January 2005 was cold. I will never send you another one.
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I took this interesting test called BELIEF-o-MATIC and it determines from among the many belief systems and religions, the one with which you most naturally resonate. My top three were:
1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (93%)
3. New Age (91%)
My bottom three (surprise!) were:
25. Eastern Orthodox (13%)
26. Islam (13%)
27. Roman Catholic (13%)
TAKE THE TEST and post your results in the COMMENTS section, please?
Last night I had an Astral Reunion with Pluto! For the regular folk, that means I had a dream about him. Considering my line of work, you would think that after Pluto died, I would have "sensed" him, dreamt about him, felt some kind of lingering energy... SOMETHING. But I didn't. In the years since he died, I have only had two vague dreams. You don't know how empty and strange it felt for me to truly assume I would still feel connected to him and then he's just... GONE. For those who don't know, Pluto died of a bone cancer at only 7 years old. I have still to fully recover from that sudden, terrible loss.
Well, last night I dreamt of him and it was amazing. I dreamed I was taking him outside to walk. I never had to walk Plut on a leash because he and I were so close and bizarrely capable of communicating in small sounds, movements, etc. When I walked with him, my voice was all that was needed to help watch out for him.
As we walked out the doors and into the dusk for our walk, he just took off! He took off and RAN. He just ran really hard and I could hear his nails scraping as he did his U-turn back toward me. Now this is something he DID do when he was alive, but only when I would instigate it. Because he did this of his own volition, I was enticed to see it as so cute, but I was also worried about his safety. I started to intervene, but he was already U-turned and running away again, but this time INTO THE STREET! He was stepping in gutter muds and water and running really far up the street and then back. He was totally out of breath and had that huge "smile" he would always seem to have. At one point, I thought he was hit by a big truck, but he had just run really hard into a giant dumpster on the street (the kind they use for construction jobs around here). He hit it and I winced, but then he was back up, "laughing" and running back toward me.
Finally, as the tension in me welled up, that's when I actually realized I was DREAMING! In that same moment, I realized I was actually with PLUTO!! I disengaged for a moment and looked around...
That's when Pluto stopped. Right at my feet. Looking up at me, panting.
At that moment I totally got it that I was in a rare moment with my best non-human animal friend in the entirety of my existence! I kneeled down to hug him and he was so happy. The ground shifted into grass and he nudged me to lie down. As I did, he rolled around, writhing on his back, tongue flapping from his upside-down head. With this sudden awareness that I was dreaming, I couldn't believe I was was with Pluto again.
I looked up into the air to see if "I" was "seeing" all of this. It was as if the body of me in my dream was looking to see if the "observer" (the body sleeping) was catching all of this. As "I" looked up at "me," I smiled down at me with Pluto and as I did, I woke myself up,... smiling.
Wild.
Although I am certain I have some Irish in me (and I don't mean it THAT way), I don't really get the whole Saint Patrick's Day thing. Isn't it a celebration of a driving of snakes from Ireland? Didn't Saint Patrick bring Christianity to Ireland? If so, why celebrate THAT? He sounds ignorant and cruel. I dunno; maybe he didn't realize he was imposing the most ANTI-spiritual belief system into the masses that would forever reward war, division, oppression, and justification of an assortment of atrocities. And what's wrong with snakes? They probably didn't understand the ecosystem back then. Oh wait, he was Christian. He probably didn't care.
And hey, when are they going to let gay people march in that stupid parade? How idiotic a battle is THAT? What the fuck are they trying to "preserve?" Gay people like to dress stupid, get drunk, and act stupid just as much as any dumbass hetero jock. Uggh...
Whatever.
I get very riled up over the absurdity of religion and the hilarity of some persistent holidays. Like Thanksgiving. I was at FEZ (one of my favorite places) at the last Va Va Voom Room show for 2004 and the dominatrix hostess commented in her German Vaudville accent about how Americans sure know how to P.R. She commented on how we turned a massacre into a reason to celebrate. She continued to comment on how that just would not work in Germany: "Millions of Jews have been slaughtered! LET'S EAT!"
See how absurd it is, now?
Anyway, I take these absurdities like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and St. Patrick's Day and just make my own holidays from them. I LOVE participating in the fun and the feeling and the tradition, but I just find the origins disturbing and annoying.
So today, I will still raise a cocktail to the cornball who scared away snakes and was a cult pusher.
It's a jam-packed evening tonight:
Meeting several of the gang in midtown for a quick, Happy Hour cocktail at PIG N WHISTLE (what an ugly name), then off to East Village for some excellent Vegan food at PAN PANGEA, then back to Broadway/Midtown for the bizarre and creepy hit "Shockheaded Peter" featuring the nightmarish Tiger Lillies. The play is a treat from my boyfriend. Awwww... and he is still recovering from a NASTY attack of the Flu! But he is still crawling out of his abode and into the seat next to me...
I love him so...
Okay, I have set up, re-set up, and posted about 10 voice posts through audioblogger and I still can't seem to get it to work. Customer Service is non-existent, and no one seems to have posted anything about the service not working. What am I doing wrong? Anyone?
I am working on adding several audio/video enhancements to 7paths.com and SugarHiccup, so I am very excited! IF THEY WOULD WORK.
We had hilarious, romping fun at TRAILER PARK the other night. $5 Margaritas that actually have alcohol in them!?? YOWZA! Happy Hour was set up by Cyprus upon Aileen's suggestion that we all find some time to just chill and hang out for a change. SO on this rare occasion, Cyprus is liquored up and you will see she is actually in a photo! Haven't seen her in a long time 'round here, huh!
So here are some pix to document our fun!
Well, to say the least, having contact from my abusive mother after about 18 years was enlightening. There is definitely a closure to a major chapter from my history; like a chapter that kept having to be referenced as I continued on with my life, but now has no real relevance anymore. I'm done.
There are three things that have brought me to a point of great healing:
1. The current good people in my life. Carlos is one of the most amazing guys I could EVER have dreamed possible as a boyfriend; Nick who has transformed from an excellent Boyfriend, not into an Ex, but into a Best Friend; and of course, Cyprus... Each of these people have directly taught me the meaning of Trust and Love in a way that got through to me.
2. My recent reunion with my Brother over the phone. For the first time in 18 years I finally "got it" that the kid who endured so much... was ME. Part of my healing process was naturally dividing my current adult self from the little kid, and I felt SO bad for "him." But I felt almost as if the past had happened to someone else. In talking to my brother, something clicked in me and I realized that the little kid was actually ME. Everything that had happened to him, had actually happened to ME. I know that may sound very strange and simple, but it was very profound for me to experience that acknowledgement and integration. It was as if my little kid self was no longer trapped in the past for me to feel sorry about, but that he was brought forth into adulthood with me where it is safe.
3. And finally, this recent reunion with the actual monster who was my mother. To make a long story short, her contact simply picked up where she left off 18 years ago. No love, no warmth, no interest in healing our past... she simply started attacking and antagonizing. I think I did hope for some kind of softness to have come to her over the years, but the energy and expression of who she is, is just stuck in a place that does not allow for us to have a relationship of any kind. Instead of greeting me with a long-coming embrace, she immediately launched into threats of legal repercussions for my mentioning her in my blog and showing pictures of my past. She dismissed my efforts to show her updated pictures of myself since "she already knows what I look like." She has not responded in any way to my gentle search for healing of our past. Just attacks, threats, and accusations as if I am completely invisible and merely a punching bag.
Well, I include this reunion with her as part of my final healing because I realized with such absolute relief that my healing is not dependent on her acceptance of me. Her brief return to my life is almost comical, even if a bit sad. With this recent opportunity, I can quietly, genuinely just say goodbye to my mother and leave her behind.
I am not even angry or even very sad about this (though I did mourn the reality of that loss a little bit). I feel she is beyond my ability to help, and I see her more as wounded than as evil.
I do love her, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to feel so peaceful and understanding, but I do wish for her some kind of freedom from the hostility she experiences so powerfully.
It's strange that I lived in hell for 18 years before escaping, and then I lived for 18 years building my own heaven before she found me again. I like what I became and what I wish to continue toward.
So that's that...
Now let's go play!!
After 18 years, my mother has contacted me. A quick, cold message in email with no mention of love or warmth or hope, but it is contact, nonetheless. I find it strange to have contact with her after all of this amazing inner work I have been doing with Carlos and my friends.
This must be the next/last step to retrieving all of me, healing ancient scars, and embracing a new way of seeing my worth.
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