My AIDS memoir soundtrack

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 18:00:00 +0000

In the spring of 1972, the sexual culture was cracking open. David Bowie released "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust" and Lou Reed released "Transformer." Openly bisexual, the two musicians infused pop culture with a kaleidoscope of strange beauty. Along with Iggy Pop, they were an androgynous space-age force in silver lamé and black nail polish. Listening to "Ziggy Stardust" and later "Transformer" — on which Reed sang, “We’re coming out … out of our closets” — Dad was energized by the possibilities of post-Stonewall homosexuality. He didn’t see his wife and small baby girl as an impediment to sexual liberation. As the student government president at Emory University in Atlanta, he wrote a column for the student paper in which he publicly came out and urged his straight brothers and sisters to join the cause for gay rights as they had joined to fight the war. My mother supported him. Both took lovers on the side. They were living the revolution.

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My AIDS memoir soundtrack