Cole Tucker a gay-porn actor died earlier this month from "AIDS related illness" at the age of 61according to the website Queerty.
This may not be "need to know" news for many however in this day and age when young gay men are still performing unprotected sex and there is still a culture of "bug chasers" Tucker's passing deserves more than a footnote on some gay-porn blog.
There is still no magic bullet and ask those who now may live longer than those decades ago if they had the option of being disease free or have to live a life of taking meds to delay the inevitable which they would chose.
It's still important to put a face on AIDS all these years after it began regardless how the person became infected.
USA Todayreports Andy Williams died last evening after a year long battle with bladder cancer at the age of 84.
There were certain things to look forward to at Christmas and watching the Andy Williams Christmas shows was one and hearing all his Christmas songs being played on the radio and in stores during the Christmas season.
Williams who was a "crooner" much like Perry Como had one of those distinctive voices you only had to hear about three seconds and you knew it was him.
That of course was when you could listen to a song and understand what was being sung without a lot of crashing and overbearing sound from the accompanying band or shrill, screaming or nonsensical pitter-patter lyrics.
Long gone unfortunately are the variety TV shows I grew with and of course that age of innocence in TV when someone once said of CBS-TV "they've killed all the green shows" referring to shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith, Green Acres, Lassie and the like, real family shows in favor of All In The Family, Maude and so on leading up to the T & A era of shows like Charlie's Angels on ABC-TV.
There was no blood and gore, guys got shot in Westerns and you never saw where the bullet went in, and how did they fire so many shots from a six-shooter I always wondered as a kid. No vulgarity, networks didn't have to stand at the ready with a "bleep" button or delay switch during LIVE broadcasts in case some idiot said something or had a "wardrobe malfunction". Although I do remember well the streaker on the Oscars but the cameras were shooting waist level and up so we never saw his "short comings" as David Niven put it as he was on stage when the boo-de-aye bearing chap ran by.
Yep things were so much simpler back then, at least if you were a kid.
No wonder Conservatives in their own way would like to return America back to that time, and in many ways I agree with them and would like to say "Scotty beam me back".
A little while ago I went on the FB page of the niece of my best friend.
I rarely visit her page even though we're FB friends. Next to her name was "Bonach" something I and others always called Bill.
Seeing his nickname caused my eyes to well up and are still as I write this.
Last August while I sat in the recliner in the livingroom waiting for the ambulance to come when I was having a heart attack, I looked at the photo of Bill and I taken back in the 90's in the backyard of my house.
I looked at Bill and I said ... "I'm may be joining you soon ... be waiting at the gate".
Today I celebrate my 59th birthday, that's six birthdays without Bill and six very long years.
A day doesn't go by I don't think about him, the fights we had, the laughs we shared and as close to being brothers as two guys can be.
My Dad always called Bill his adopted son, and Bill always said he was the good son while I was the bad.
We were supposed to grow old together like two grumpy old men.
That wasn't meant to be.
But we had almost forty years of friendship, that's a long time to commit undying friendship to someone.
Best friends forever shouldn't be abbreviated because the true meaning is anything but short and lives on even when one passes before the other.
The memories I have will never leave and I believe we'll be together again one day.
There were many heroes on that fateful day in September 2001.
Firemen, policemen, EMTs and co-workers many of whom gave their life to help others.
And we’ve heard the stories of the brave and selfless act of many aboard United Flight 93 who must have known they were doomed whether they remained in their seats or acted as they did to overcome the terrorists who commandeered that plane which was speculated on it’s way to Washington, DC to create more mayhem and kill more innocents.
One of those heroes was Mark Bingham, a man who happened to be gay.
The fact that Bingham was gay doesn’t lessen nor elevate his status as a hero.
It does prove that anyone, on any given day, at any given time and in any given circumstance can rise above personal risk to themselves and act with great personal sacrifice to protect others regardless of who or what they are.
Mark Bingham’s mother Alice Hoagland was interviewed by Aliene Voisin for an article in The Sacremento Bee in 2011 as she reflected on her son, the causes she now fights for and that day in September.
“On Aug. 27, 1991, Mark mumbled a bunch of words, then told me he was gay. As a parent, of course, that’s never easy to hear. But you love who you love, and I would support Mark no matter what, so that (gay rights) is one of my causes.”
In a day when so many look for inspiration from those in the LGBT community who are comfortable with who they are for all the world to see, they need look no further than Mark Bingham, hero and gay man.
But in the 70's a new doctor was called to medical duty, this time Chad Everett in the leading role of Dr. Joe Gannon on the TV show Medical Center.
Unlike Chamberlain who not too many years ago officially, after many years of speculation, came out as gay, Everett was anything but in fact married to his wife, the late Shelby Grant for 45 years.
So it is that news has been announced by Everett's daughter that he had died Tuesday after a year and a half bout with lung cancer.
For many of us boomers who were in pubescence during the days of Dr. Kildare by the time Dr. Joe Gannon showed up with the full head of 70's hair and short mutton chop sideburns, when he came along many of us were beginning to realize our future destiny and Everett became a heartthrob for many a guy.
Many I'm sure hoped that Everett like other male stars of the 70's and 80's would appear nude in an issue of Playgirl magazine but alas that didn't happen and we had to wonder what beef was under those clothes and to .. ahem .. what extent.
You know you're getting old when the heartthrobs of your youth start passing on, but Chad Everett helped me realize I not only liked the gals but also the guys.
It wasn't long after Medical Center began its run that I never watched TV the same way again.
It's never easy to report or now write about illness or death. If I were still in sports broadcasting I would have been reporting on the death of Penn State's legendary coach Joe Paterno.
But now with doing this blog about all things (or most) LGBT to do this posting is just as hard.
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning I watched a two hour bio on the Biography Channel about the Bee Gees. Although aired in 2010 I'd not seen it before.
To say the Bee Gees have not been a part of my life would be to say I don't breathe air. The biggest part was in the 70's when the Bee Gees made a dramatic comeback with the music soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever and many of their songs on the album became the craze in disco clubs and gay bars.
Listening to those songs bring back many memories of that time for me, some sad but mostly it was a happy time. It was in fact a time when I was trying to decide "who I was" and how I fit into our Rainbow community.
Wednesday afternoon I decided to Google the Bee Gees and found the usual links to bios and videos then I switched the search to "news" and what I found was to say the least devastating as I had not heard and somehow missed the news which I now saw headlines for.
The Brothers Gibb have known their share of tragedy over the years what with losing younger brother Andy in 1988 at age 30 succumbing to his demons of addiction. Then in 2003 brother Maurice died unexpectedly after having a heart attack at age 53 while he awaited having emergency surgery for a strangulated intestine.
Now brother Robin is in the battle of his life against liver cancer which was first reported in November of 2011. He is currently undergoing intense and aggressive chemotherapy which caused him to miss a charity event on January 18, His old friend and spokesman Mick Garbutt told fans that he was in the best hands and said: 'He would have absolutely loved to be here in person, but unfortunately that simply hasn’t been possible with his health. That from an article in the newspaper The Daily Mail.
It is hoped Robin will attend the April 10 concert performance of a classical piece Robin collaborated with his son RJ to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic the BBC has reported.
Should you click on the links to articles be warned some of the photos of Robin today are very sad and difficult to look at as his cancer is taking a toll on his physical appearance. So damn sad this is. To think that the Bee Gees effectively ended with Maurice's death and now this which could very well leave Barry as the only surviving brother, he himself having his own health issues over the years. All too damn young to die from my perspective of age and touch with mortality back in August last year when I had a heart attack brought on by a blood clot.
It's said when it comes to film and recording artists we will always have them on film or their music, the sad fact is it isn't the same without them.
