"Interview with the AIDS Monster," a Randy Boyd Blocks exclusive, continues as part of the AIDS Monster Movie Marathon, a blog special celebrating Halloween 2008.Randy Boyd: Count Randolpho, what were you saying about the night Rock Hudson shocked the world?
Randolpho: It was as shocking as finding out a huge celebrity of today has some mysterious, fatal disease from having sex with the wrong kind of people, as determined by the Bible and Bible-thumping Americans. Told you so. AIDS = Evil. Ooops. I know what you did last summer for the last 20 years, which means you could be the next Rock to crumble to death by AIDS. Very publicly, by the way.
Q: Speaking of “very publicly,” my next novel is coming out in 2009 and—
A: Enough with your shameless plug for a second. How many Americans were scared shitless on AIDS Night in America, 1985? Kids, go ask your parents! Really! Go talk about it with them. Ask them what it was like hearing on the news that there's a chance they could have AIDS like Rock Hudson. Parents, maybe you could share it with your horny teenagers, and the younger siblings who look up to them, maybe you could share with them how it felt hearing scientists on the news telling the world, “not much we can do about this strange new fatal disease right now, but we think it's sexually transmitted.”
Q: What good is bringing up all that again?
A: Ask them how it felt getting a wake-up call that said, “all that sex and experimenting you've been enjoying, you've been having that sex with all the people those people have been having sex with, too.”
Q: My next novel is about—
A: America was shared shitless for a very long time. Can anyone say Ryan White? Remember him? Remember the babies with AIDS who were shunned form the world? Remember the constant news footage of weak, sick, frail skeletons of gay men dying in hospital death beds, aliens on public display, abandoned by their loved ones, their neighbors, their landlords, their jobs, their co-workers, their medical staff, their schools, their daycares, their right to live and die in America?
Q: You're sweating profusely. Wanna take a break?
A: I'm an old black man with a mask on his face, you want I should not sweat?
Q: Why are you talking like a Jewish or Italian New Yorker?A: Trying to sound different than the crazy black author who created me. Can I finish my story? We'll get to your blessed next book soon enough.
Q: Please continue.
A: Hold on, need a break. I just flew in from doing Letterman last night, and boy are my wings tired. Is that the sound of the jpeg door creaking open?
Q: Sure is, AIDS Monster. It's time for a Halloween treat!
