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An Interview with Demetre Daskalakis

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis administers free meningitis vaccines at gay bars and sex clubs throughout New York City.Doctor and gay activist Demetre Daskalakis administers free meningitis vaccinations at gay bars and sex clubs in New York City. (Photo)

Earlier this year, after New York City health officials urged “men, regardless of HIV status, who regularly have intimate contact with other men through a website, digital application (“App”), or at a bar or party” to get vaccinated against meningitis following a rise in deaths attributed to a particularly lethal strain, New York City-based doctor Demetre Daskalakis began holding free vaccination events at gay bars and sex clubs throughout the city.

“When I heard about the outbreak, I started putting together a plan about how I could help,” Daskalakis told MSN News last month. “It’s super easy. Once I set up, I end up vaccinating half of the people in the club. People are lining up at clubs to get vaccines. We get a lot of uninsured people, people of color and people who haven’t disclosed that they are gay.”

Inspired by his actions to ensure a healthier LGBTQ community, I reached out to Daskalakis recently to discuss his vaccination efforts, why Larry Kramer almost made him faint and Randy Shilts’ book And the Band Played On.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DEMETRE DASKALAKIS

CL: What are you up to these days?

DD: I am currently working hard to provide as much meningitis vaccine to men who have sex with men in New York City as possible. With the help of a lot of organizations like the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, I have been able to bring vaccine to the people who need it most, completely free of charge. We have done vaccine events at sex clubs, bars and at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis Testing Center and so far we have given out over 1,300 vaccines.

CL: How is what you’re doing making a difference in the LGBTQ community?

DD: I believe as a gay doctor that does work in HIV and STDs, my job is part medical and part activist. Having heard many stories of people who could not afford vaccine, I felt that it was important to mobilize municipal and private efforts by syncing them with the underground nightlife in New York City to get vaccine to men who need it. We have been able to vaccinate a diverse group of uninsured and underinsured men in their social venues of choice as well as at a well-regarded community-based organization in the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. I would like to believe that this effort and the attention I generated with my work has helped to control the outbreak of meningitis in New York City.

CL: What LGBTQ issue are you most passionate about?

DD: I’m passionate about HIV care and prevention as well as the prevention of sexually transmitted and related infection. I love public health in its rawest form. Like my colleagues that go to Africa or India to do public health service, my work in the clubs of New York City is my field work and my passion.

CL: Can you name the one person whose contribution to the LGBTQ community has inspired you most?

DD: Larry Kramer has inspired me most. Aside from being brilliant and controversial, he is a force for positive change and takes no prisoners. He recently told me he admired my work and I almost fainted.

CL: If you had to recommend one book, movie or song with an LGBTQ bent, what would your recommendation be?

DD: I’d recommend that young gay men read And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. It’s a bit sensational, but worth reading to get a sense of the history of HIV in our community.

CL: What do you hope for the LGBTQ community?

DD: I hope that the LGBTQ community stands strong to make it clear that their right to love who they want and access the services and healthcare needed to achieve the great things that LGBTQ people do are not debatable rights but part of being human.

I also hope that we use this meningitis scare in New York City to strengthen our political, financial and emotional support of the leaders and organizations that defend the health of our community.

To connect with Demetre Daskalakis, follow him on Twitter.

To read previous interviews, click here.

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John Green’s Commencement Address

The Internet is so vast that I feel lucky to come across things like this.

A couple years after I graduated from college, I was living in an apartment in Chicago with four friends, one of whom was this Kuwaiti guy named Hassan, and when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Hassan lost touch with his family, who lived on the border, for six weeks. He responded to this stress by watching cable news coverage of the war 24 hours a day. So the only way to hang out with Hassan was to sit on the couch with him, and so one day we were watching the news and the anchor was like, “We’re getting new footage from the city of Baghdad,” and a camera panned across a house that had a huge hole in one wall covered by a piece of plywood. On the plywood was Arabic graffiti scrawled in black spraypaint, and as the news anchor talked about the anger on the Arab street or whatever, Hassan started laughing for the first time in several weeks. 

“What’s so funny?” I asked him. 

“The graffiti,” he said. 

“What’s funny about it?” 

“It says, Happy Birthday, Sir, Despite the Circumstances.” 

For the rest of your life, you are going to have a choice about how to read graffiti in a language you do not know, and you will have a choice about how to read the actions and intonations of the people you meet. I would encourage you as often as possible to consider the Happy Birthday Sir Despite the Circumstances possibility, the possibility that the lives and experiences of others are as complex and unpredictable as your own, that other people—be they family or strangers, near or far—are not simply one thing or the other—not simply good or evil or wise or ignorant—but that they like you contain multitudes, to borrow a phrase from the great Walt Whitman.

The rest of author John Green’s wise and wonderful commencement speech to the 2013 graduates of Butler University can be found here.

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An Interview with Greg Sherrell

In 2005, after spending 10 years on the promotional side of radio, Greg Sherrell, then a resident of Dallas, burst onto Bay Area airwaves when he called into the San Francisco morning show of longtime friend Fernando Ventura. Three weeks later, Greg sold everything that wouldn’t fit into his car and drove from Texas to California to make his mark on Ventura’s show as Greg the Gay Sportscaster. A short time later, he and Ventura began co-hosting Fernando and Greg in the Morning, now one of the most popular radio programs in the Bay Area.

My first experience with Fernando and Greg in the Morning came during a segment dubbed “Homo vs. Hetero,” a twice-weekly contest pitting one gay player against one straight player in a trivia battle in which the gay player attempts to answer questions geared toward straight people, and vice versa. In the nearly two years since hearing them for the first time, I’ve come to value not only the humor Ventura and Sherrell bring to my morning, but the perspective they offer as the first openly gay co-hosts on American commercial radio.

Inspired by the energy and humor he exhibits during his morning show, I reached out to Sherrell this week to discuss what it’s like to be gay on the radio, his admiration for Charles Barkley and his hope for the LGBTQ community.

Greg Sherrell makes up one-half of Fernando and Greg in the Morning, the first morning show on American commercial radio to feature openly gay co-hosts.
(via)

AN INTERVIEW WITH GREG SHERRELL

CL: What are you up to these days?

GS: Professionally, I’ve been part of Fernando and Greg in the Morning since 2006 and we’re now in our fourth year on 99.7 Now, which covers the entire Bay Area. We also record a side show podcast twice a week.


CL: What’s it like to be gay on the radio?

GS: To be honest, I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s just Fernando and I coming in and doing the show. When we first started we were told not to be too gay. In fact, our first program director didn’t want to put us on the air together at all because he thought it would turn people off, and he was a gay man. Luckily, the owner, who was straight, thought Fernando and I were great together, so he really pushed for it.


CL: How is what you’re doing making a difference in the LGBTQ community?

GS: Growing up, I didn’t think that there was anybody else in the world like me. All I knew was that being gay was considered wrong. Now, when a young gay kid is on their way to school and they turn on the radio, they can hear Fernando and I and know that there are other people like them out there and that they don’t have to hide. I think our radio show gives us that voice in the LGBTQ community. Hopefully it gives others a positive perspective on being gay so they don’t have to feel like the only gay person in the world like I did.


CL: What LGBTQ issue are you most passionate about?

GS: Like a lot of people today, I’m most passionate about issues dealing with LGBTQ youth. There’s a lot of great work being done, like the It Gets Better Project, which I admire, but I think my passion goes past bullying. The worst thing for us is that we can hide our sexuality, and if you can hide a problem, there’s a chance that you’ll never deal with it. I know I wasn’t truly happy until I was living my true life, so I hope I can inspire young people to just be themselves.


CL: Can you name the one person whose contribution to the LGBTQ community has inspired you most?

GS: I wouldn’t say there’s one person who I look at and say, “Oh my god, look at what they’re doing.” I think what inspires me today is seeing gay and straight people working in unison for the same cause. They’re working for equal rights because they know it’s the right thing to do.


CL: As Greg the Gay Sportscaster, can you talk a bit about homosexuality in professional sports?

GS: When Jason Collins came out of the closet, sure his story touched me, but it was really the reaction of other athletes that got me most. Charles Barkley is one of them. He has been such a force in speaking for the gay community even before it was being talked about. His response has been amazing. One of the things he said is that as an African American he can’t imagine discriminating against other people because he knows what it’s like. Other players like Kobe Bryant and Tony Parker have been strong advocates and have supported the cause as well.

Tim Hardaway is another strong advocate. And if you look up Tim Hardaway, you’ll see that he has said some horrible things about the gay community in the past, but he recanted on his own and apologized for what he said and now he works with transgender youth who have a higher suicide rate than everybody else. For someone to realize that they did or said something wrong and actually showed that they were sorry, that’s the kind of stuff that truly inspires me.


CL: If you had to recommend one book, movie or song with an LGBTQ bent, what would your recommendation be?

GS: I would recommend a pair of books called One Teenager in Ten and Two Teenagers in 20 that were put together by a couple of therapists and feature personal stories of LGBTQ youth coming out. The story that I remember most from these books was written not by the person coming out, but by the mother of a young lesbian. Her daughter had tried to come out to her many times, but the mom just couldn’t understand it or deal with it and her daughter ended up committing suicide. The toll that it took on the mother realizing what she did made her share her experience as a way to help others. It’s an incredible story about how people’s reactions to the differences of others can impact somebody to the point of suicide.

I would also recommend anything by David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day is a must-read if you’re gay and grew up in the 60s or 70s or 80s. It’s so easy to connect with and it assured me that there were others out there just like me. It was like Sedaris was telling my story. While I was reading it I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is my life.’


CL: What do you hope for the LGBTQ community?

GS: To be honest, the strides we’ve already made are amazing. I remember the first person I knew who was an advocate for gay marriage. She drove us all freaking nuts because she was so into it when nobody else cared about that issue because we didn’t think we deserved it or we weren’t conditioned to the idea that it was even possible. And now it’s so talked about. It’s incredible that it’s on the lips of everybody in America, from the President of the United States on down. In a way, she and the people like her were visionaries.

To answer your question, I guess my hope is that one day it won’t be a big deal to come out anymore. I remember when I was a kid and I didn’t know what gay was yet, I asked my mom why everybody was making such a big deal out of Billie Jean King. My mom told me it was because she was a lesbian. Not knowing what a lesbian was at the time, I asked my mom if it was illegal and when she told me it wasn’t I said, “Then what’s the big deal?” So I hope that people will just feel comfortable coming out and it won’t be a very big deal.


To connect with Greg Sherrell, follow him on Twitter.

For more info about Fernando and Greg in the Morning, visit their website.


Note: Every week I post an interview with someone who I believe is making a positive impact on the LGBTQ community. Previous interviewees have included athletes, authors, businesspeople, entertainers and politicians. For a complete list, click here.

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An Interview with Fred Sainz

In 2010, Fred Sainz joined the Human Rights Campaign, the largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, as its Vice President of Communications and Marketing. Earlier this year, Sainz’ work made headlines when nearly three million Facebook users changed their profile pictures to a modified version of the HRC logo to show support for marriage equality in the days leading up to the Supreme Court hearings on cases affecting the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8.

“Red, which is the color of love, was selected, basically, to represent the fact that what we are looking for is for the Supreme Court to recognize long-term committed and loving relationships of gay people,” Sainz said of the new-look logo, which received an estimated nine million views and 60,000 shares in the campaign’s first 24 hours. “There’s a lot of serious conversation going on and there’s an awful lot of important concepts that the Supreme Court justices are discussing. What this logo going viral means is individuals have reduced it to a very straightforward concept. It shows the enthusiasm and the passion.”

Inspired by the fact that his work is helping to unite people, both gay and straight, in the spirit of equality, I reached out to Sainz earlier this week to discuss his work with the Human Rights Campaign, how he’s making a difference in the LGBTQ community and Alan Downs’ book The Velvet Rage.

Fred Sainz is the Vice President of Communications and Marketing for the Human Rights Campaign.
(via hrc.org)

AN INTERVIEW WITH FRED SAINZ


CL: What are you up to these days?

FS: Today I’m preparing for the mark-up of the immigration reform bill, working with reporters on the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s support for marriage equality and getting ready for the Supreme Court decisions on the two marriage cases, DOMA and Prop 8. I’m also taking press calls and answering hundreds of emails.


CL: What role does the HRC play in assisting with issues like immigration reform and the Supreme Court’s decisions on the two marriage cases?

FS: The Human Rights Campaign is a partner in the coalition effort aimed at LGBTQ inclusion in the immigration bill and my boss, Chad Griffin, the President of the Human Rights Campaign, was the founding president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the sponsor of the Prop 8 case, so my job is to lead the messaging efforts from the HRC’s perspective on these issues.


CL: Speaking of messaging, can you share a bit about the movement back in March that saw millions of people change their profile pictures to a modified version of the HRC logo in support of marriage equality?

FS: First of all, I think the show of support went well beyond just marriage equality. It was a moment when people from all walks of life, not just LGBTQ people or even our straight allies, were looking for a way to show their support for equality. That event allowed everyone to have a role and to show their support. Supreme Court deliberations are so highbrow that I think the genius of the moment was giving people something to do that everyone could accomplish.


CL: How is what you’re doing making a difference in the LGBTQ community?

FS: I don’t think of it that way. I would like to think that I make a difference, and I certainly believe that the HRC’s work is strategic and impactful, but I think things go horribly wrong when you are convinced that you are the difference. I think it’s important to be respectful and inclusive of a broad array of perspectives and work plans. We’re a social justice movement and it has and will continue to take the efforts of all of us to achieve full and legal equality for every LGBTQ American.


CL: What LGBTQ issue are you most passionate about? 

FS: All of them, really, because there’s no one issue that solely guarantees us equality. We have to pursue multiple and simultaneous paths to make sure that we get it all. And that’s why I love working for a multi-issue advocacy organization like the Human Rights Campaign.

If you nailed me to a wall and said I had to choose one, I would say issues that affect our youth are most important to me. I remember being a scared 13-year-old gay kid with feelings of isolation wondering when the cavalry would arrive and come to my rescue. I’m now that cavalry and it’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly.


CL: Can you name the one person whose contribution to the LGBTQ community has inspired you most? 

FS: I think about Harvey Milk virtually every day. Eight out of every 10 Americans know someone who is LGBTQ. In my opinion, we have come as far as we have because it’s virtually impossible to continue to discriminate against us the more you know us, so I see the genius of Harvey’s strategy and thinking every day.


CL: If you had to recommend one book, movie or song with an LGBTQ bent, what would your recommendation be?  

FS: It bears mentioning, and the author is very upfront about this, that it’s a book intended solely for gay men, but I would recommend The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs. It should be required reading for every gay man in America. A friend of mine gave it to me two years ago and it has changed my life. I now understand so many of my actions as a gay man.


CL: What do you hope for the LGBTQ community?

FS: I hope for full and legal equality within my lifetime for all LGBTQ Americans. It’s a tremendous privilege to be working on these issues at this point in history and I never forget that we stand on the shoulders of so many amazing people who paved the way for what is now possible.


To connect with Fred Sainz, follow him on Twitter.

For more information about the Human Rights Campaign, visit hrc.org.


Note: Every Wednesday I post an interview with someone who I believe is making a positive impact on the LGBTQ community. Previous interviewees have included athletes, authors, businesspeople, entertainers and politicians. For a complete list, click here.

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An Interview with Ben Rimalower

Ben RimalowerBen Rimalower wrote and stars in Patti Issues, a one-man show now playing at The Duplex in New York City. (Photo)

In 2010, theater director Ben Rimalower penned an autobiographical monologue about a childhood shaped in equal parts by his father’s tumultuous coming out and his discovery of Broadway legend Patti LuPone. After workshopping the piece for nearly two years, Rimalower’s aptly-named Patti Issues opened at The Duplex in New York City last summer in a performance The New York Times called “a tight hour-long monologue that pairs a well-honed script with an engagingly spontaneous delivery and a nose for sharp, observational comedy.” After a West Coast tour that included stops in Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, Patti Issues is back in New York City with performances planned in Fire Island Pines and Provincetown this summer.

Having caught a showing of Patti Issues during its West Coast swing back in March, I was awed by Rimalower’s engaging story about coming to terms with his own sexuality in the shadow of a father struggling to do the same.

Moved by his very personal tale of self-discovery, I reached out to Rimalower earlier this week to discuss the future of Patti Issues, the Broadway shows that inspired him and his hope for the LGBTQ community.

AN INTERVIEW WITH BEN RIMALOWER

CL: What are you up to these days?

BR: Right now I’m performing Patti Issues in New York City, but I’m gearing up to bring it to Fire Island Pines and Provincetown this summer, which I’m pretty excited about.

CL: Can you give a quick synopsis of the show?

BR: Patti Issues is an hour-long monologue about how my obsession and eventual relationship with Broadway legend Patti LuPone helped me navigate a difficult relationship with my troubled father, who is also gay. I had originally intended to create a show all about Patti, but what came out when I began writing was much more about me. It basically had two threads, one about me and Patti and one about me and my father, and I kept writing until I saw how they were linked.

CL: How do you think the message in Patti Issues impacts the LGBTQ community?

BR: I think the show really digs into how each of us needs to find acceptance within ourselves, not from our parents and not from our heroes, whether they be Patti LuPone or Lady Gaga or Jason Collins.

CL: What LGBTQ issue are you most passionate about?

BR: I’m most passionate about the issue of visibility. I still think as a community our greatest enemy is the closet, self-imposed or otherwise. People can just write-off our humanity if we’re some faraway media concoction, so it’s important that they see gay men and women in their communities and in positions of respect in the world. We’ve come so far, but there’s still a long way to go.

CL: What areas of our culture do you think still lag behind in terms of fostering that visibility?

BR: Ironically, I think the entertainment industry, despite its leadership in this area, still lags behind because it has so much visibility and so many gay members. I only believe in outing closeted hate-mongering politicians, so if there’s someone in Hollywood who is genuinely struggling with their sexuality, I don’t begrudge them their privacy. I do, however, judge all of the actors and directors and producers and writers and athletes and musicians who are in the public eye who lead out gay lives in private but stay closeted in the media to protect their image and maintain their career. So many brave individuals have said the vital words “I’m gay” and fought for our rights while all of the closeted stars just sit back and enjoy the fruits of this liberation without holding up their end of the bargain.

CL: Can you name the one person whose contribution to the LGBTQ community has inspired you most?

BR: I could answer this question by naming so many of the people working in theater in New York City in the early 1990s when there was still so little LGBTQ representation in mainstream culture. It really started to show on stage just as I was coming of age, so the artists involved in shows like Angels in America, Falsettos, Jeffrey, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Love! Valour! Compassion! were inspiring to me. I was very lucky to get to experience those plays at such a crucial point in my development.

CL: Is there a specific actor or character from one of those shows that had a particularly big impact on you?

BR: Playwright Paul Rudnick was a big inspiration to me. He wrote Jeffrey, which I was lucky enough to see in its original Off-Broadway run in 1993. He was becoming very prolific at the time and his sense of humor spoke to me very personally. He had had several big screenwriting jobs, including The Addams Family and In & Out, he was writing a hilarious column as Libby Gelman-Waxner in Premiere Magazine and he had already released a screamingly funny book called I’ll Take It, so you’d see him on talk shows and read his comments in magazines and he just struck me as this successful, creative, talented, funny gay man living his life loud and proud in the full light of day. I think so much of my own shame from growing up gay was thinking that that wasn’t possible, so seeing Paul do it was a real inspiration to me.

CL: If you had to recommend one book, movie or song with an LGBTQ bent, what would your recommendation be?

BR: I love the 1995 movie Stonewall. It contains some cheesy dialogue and overwrought scenarios, but it’s a wonderfully theatrical dramatization of the events around the Stonewall riots and it’s worth a lot to be able to connect to individual characters at that turning point in our history. It also touches on another component of visibility which is that, unlike Jewish or black children, LGBTQ youth aren’t raised with any immersion in the history of their people.

CL: Because your show focuses so much on Patti LuPone’s music, in addition to the movie Stonewall, can you name one musical theater song that speaks to you from an LGBTQ standpoint?

BR: It’s not hard to see why it affected me because it’s so applicable to my own life situation, but I am extremely partial to “My Father’s A Homo” from Falsettos. The lyrics are so conversational to the point and the tune is just pure vaudeville. It’s so great.

CL: What do you hope for the LGBTQ community?

BR: I hope that we find the balance between gaining ground and winning power within the system while also remembering where we came from and embracing the diversity that made us who we are. The greatest gift gay people have to share with the world is how we’ve had to let go of so much bullshit to accept ourselves for who we are and that’s what modern life is about and we are among the pioneers of it. I hope we don’t lose sight of that.

To connect with Ben Rimalower, follow him on Twitter or visit his website.

To read previous interviews, click here.