Now with More AIDS Monster Movie Posters!

Happy Halloween from Randy Boyd's Blocks and the AIDS Monster Movie Marathon, a story told backwards in a car driving forward, now and forever at Randy Boyd's Blocks.

*Now with more AIDS Monster Movie Posters!*

Poz People Magazine's Scariest Man Alive!

It wouldn't be Halloween season on the Block without the infamous actor who starred in most of the classic AIDS Monster Movies of yesteryear.

Take a journey with Count Randolpho De St. Mark Boyd. Find out how America allowed another wave of AIDS Epidemic II on the youth of today. That's right, the bitch is back. See what you can do about it. Unless you want a threequel.

Go there, if you dare, with the AIDS Monster Movie Marathon, a story told backwards in a car driving forward, now and forever on Randy Boyd's Blocks.

*Now with newly discovered AIDS Monster Movie Posters!*

Best News on Television

Enjoy hearing about your worst dreams come true? Like knowing who raped, robbed and cheated whom in your local area? Get a thrill out of the Crime Report? The Scandal Report? The Hollywood Report? The Court Report? The Accusation Report? The Gossip Report?

Need to know the latest, intimate details of a movie starlet's breakdown? Dying to hear the feelings of the latest person voted off Dancing with the Stars?

If the answer is yes to any of the above, this message is not for you. However, for anyone interested in the real “news” of the day--the events outside your world that are important enough to warrant consideration and thought--there's only one place to go: The PBS NewsHour, weeknights on PBS.

"A stimulus, not a distraction, for the mind."

For one hour, a small cadre of old school, professional journalists break down but a few of the days' truly relevant events. You won't be bombarded with promotion of a product by a pusher who is constantly telling you: you need to know this or you may die, so tune in later at ...

If something is so dire, why trust someone that promises to tell you later?

The NewsHour makes no promises, just observations about things that affect all Americans. You get a brief summary of the day's news, then a small handful of stories broken down into deeper exploration and explanation. Qualified journalists doing quality interviews, presenting two sides of anything worthy of an opinion. And no screaming pundits!

In this day and age of “modern, 24-hour journalism,” the PBS NewsHour is like pure, sweet poetry. A stimulus, not a distraction, for the mind. Try it. You just might find this one hour of news actually worthy of your brief time here on earth. Oh, and don't worry. They also thought Michael Jackson's death was news.

Kids, Ask Your Parents About AIDS

AIDS Night in America, 1985. That was the hot summer night most of America sat in front of the news and learned about the new terror threatening to kill more Americans having sex than Jason in a hockey mask on Friday the 13th.

July 25, 1985. That's when most of America first heard about AIDS and the most famous person dying of “the deadly disease” to date. What people saw on TV was actor Rock Hudson, the formerly virile leading man thought to be straight, fading away by the second. What people thought in their minds was: oh, fuck. Who have I slept with in the last 10 years and am I gonna end up like Rock?

"Who needs to acquire a disease, manageable or otherwise?"

Young America was scared shitless. The era of free love was officially over. The news stunned a nation, a Sexual 9/11 no one could ignore. Coverage of AIDS was endless for months.

Kids, go ask your parents! Really! Go talk about it with them. Ask them what it was like hearing that they could die from sex. Parents, share it with your horny teenagers, and the younger siblings who look up to them. Share with them how horrifying it felt hearing scientists tell the world, “there's not much we know or can do about this virus right now, but we do know it's sexually transmitted.”

80s babies: ask older people how it felt getting that wake-up call. America: remember the sexual terror, talk about it honestly and openly. Why? Then maybe, just maybe, America can begin to get a grip on the AIDS Epidemic Part 2, happening this very moment all over the United States.

It's happening again, in part, because a new generation has grown up clueless about safe sex and the consequences of not having it. AIDS is still around. Sure some now call it a manageable disease, but ignorance abounds, and infection rates are highest among young men and women, especially those of color.

Who needs to acquire a disease, manageable or otherwise?

America needs to deal with AIDS, only this time armed with two decades-plus of knowledge, experience and information. So, kids, parents, America: get with the program, and start by checking out the AIDS Monster Movie Marathon, a story told backwards in a car driving forward.

The alternative is a future going back to the past.

Bucky the Bear and the Albuquerque Newsboy

"Bucky the Bear and the Albuquerque Newsboy" originally appeared in the April 24, 1992, issue of Frontiers Magazine.


“Oh, and I can't wait to see Basic Instinct,” my friend Jeff cooed excitedly over the phone.

Jeff is black and gay like me, though he is not politically conscious. He rarely thumbs through a gay publication, was barely aware of AB 101 and couldn't begin to tell you which politicians want to put us away. Yet every Oz needs its good-natured fairies who are adept at spreading good cheer, and he is a true friend.

This, however, was difficult. “You would see that?” I bristled.

“Don't tell me you're one of those,” he said, informing me that all the uproar concerning gays in the movies was the sole product of “a bunch of rich white gays who have nothing better to do with their time and who want every film to portray them as perfect, like in Longtime Companion,” while they don't care one bit about blacks, which is why they didn't complain about Paris Is Burning.”

“You could just go to a doctor or something and say: 'I wanna start liking girls.”

I countered by saying that the world views each and every one of us as Jeffrey Dahmers, or close to it, and if he read something besides the personals in Frontiers, he'd see that Hollywood's depiction of us as weirdos, killers and people to be made fun of only reinforces those beliefs.

We got nowhere. Except on each other's nerves. Never mind that the ultimate message of Paris Is Burning is that these folks may be different, but they're striving for the same thing every soul wants, to be loved and accepted by someone.

Never mind that it's not so much whether a gay character is portrayed as queeny or a lesbian as butch---for these types do exist in real life--but Hollywood's glaring lack of gay characters, no matter how they act, whose lives, dreams, hopes and goals are real, valid and productive, just like Kevin Costner's or Bill Cosby's.

Never mind any of this to Jeff. Basic Instinct was the newest, latest, hottest, sexiest thriller, and he just had to see it.

The conversation left me empty and hopeless. If we can't even get our own people to see the light ...

A few days later I found myself in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the annual college basketball tournament, jawing back and forth with three friends who were on hand to watch UCLA while I was there to root for my hometown Indiana Hoosiers.

“You see the movie JFK? I thought all gays were freaks like that."

The morning of the game, I stepped into the lobby of a roadside pancake house and was greeting by a tall, thin Latino boy selling the Saturday paper. “You play for a team?” he asked eagerly, his dark eyes as big as two moons. (At six-foot-four with black skin, I can't walk a city block without someone asking me if I'm an athlete.)

In a disappointed voice, I said, “No, sorry, I'm just a fan,” and he laughed. I bought a paper and while I waited for a table, we talked about the game, his job, his goal to become a pop singer. His name was Tony and he was 15 (half my age). Inadvertently he taught me the latest teenage slang: “That's sick,” meaning “that's cool.” He was exuberant and talkative, volunteering his life story and asking mine in return.

When breakfast was over, I returned to Tony's post in a secluded corner of the lobby, desirous of another dose of his youthful energy. As we said goodbye, he mentioned that when he became famous, he'd invite me backstage after one of his concerts so we could hobnob with the likes of Madonna.

“Except I don't know about her,” he said pensively. “She's a lesbian and all.”

I prodded innocently, giving him my theory that she was open-minded, if anything, which prompted him to further explain: “That kind of stuff, like gays and stuff, is against everything I stand for.” (News to me that you could stand for anything at 15.)

The lobby was sparsely filled; the only other human not just passing through was a bear. Or rather, a short person dressed in a bear outfit, the restaurant's idea of a promotion gimmick. Bucky was the name stitched across his chest, his big bear head 10 times larger than normal. And he couldn't have been more than five feet away when I informed my newsboy: “I'm gay.”

“What?” Tony uttered with staggering disbelief, and it took a minute or two to convince him I wasn't joking. “You're not gay,” he kept saying. “You couldn't be gay; you're not girlish. We've been talking all this time. You're cool. I didn't even know.”

Which is precisely why I told him.

“Why don't you just get it fixed,” he asked like a concerned friend, “go to a therapist? Tell him you wanna change?”

“It's not a choice,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” he insisted. “You could just go to a doctor or something and say: 'I wanna start liking girls.”

His reaction must have drawn the attention of Bucky the Bear, for he came over and plopped his squat body next to mine. “You're really gay?” Tony asked. For a moment I hesitated, but I couldn't back down in front of the bear.

“You mean to tell me my best friend could be gay?” How would I get him to admit it to me?”

“Yes,” I said, suddenly thankful Bucky was there to witness my lawful interaction with this minor.

“But you don't look gay,” Tony declared.

I tried to explain that all gays didn't look and act any one way, just like all Latinos and blacks didn't look and act any one way. He agreed with me on the Latinos and blacks part, even said he hated it when people expected him to act like a cholo; but the gay end of the deal was impossible for him to swallow.

“You see the movie JFK?” he asked. “I thought all gays were freaks like that. Man, they were doing all kinds of freaky stuff in that.”

Right then I knew I had to make a valiant effort to undo what Oliver Stone and Jim Garrison had done, and felt at that singular moment that if they had included one positively functioning gay character, or made some sort of creative disclaimer acknowledging that for every Kennedy-killing patsy, a hundred “good” gays existed, maybe I wouldn't be trying to convince this kid that I wasn't a freak by mere virtue of my sexual orientation.

I tried telling him gays were just like anybody else, that we were good guys and bad guys, that we were doctors, lawyers, teachers, friends, etc. “You make it sound like you're everywhere,” he said, eyeing me warily.

“That's 'cause we are,” I said.

“Not here in Albuquerque, huh-uh.”

It was about this time that Bucky the Bear gave up his silence. “Gays are everywhere,” he said to the boy. “And they're people just like you.” From underneath the costume came the voice of a 40ish white man with the calm resonance of a school teacher; like a well-rehearsed duo, we spouted off the virtues of not judging people by labels and stereotypes.

Tony debated us every step of the way, regurgitating his homophobia adamantly, proclaiming he'd disown a future child of his that ever “turned gay,” not caring if that child then turned to suicide. But in return, he listened to my side of the story with awe and curiosity, relentless in his adolescent pursuit of the truth.

“You mean to tell me my best friend could be gay?” he asked at one point. “How would I get him to admit it to me?”

“Do you suspect that he might be gay?” I asked.

“Kinda, sometimes,” he reflected. “Certain hints he'll drop, but I'm not sure. Could I just ask him?”

“I bet you go around joking about fags, don't you?” I asked; he fessed up to it with a sheepish laugh. “Well, even if your friend is gay, chances are he wouldn't tell you because he's afraid you wouldn't accept him.”

“I wouldn't,” he said flatly.

“Then you'll lose a friend.”

He shrugged as if to say, So be it; but in his worried face I saw him struggling with that one.

From an adult this kind of attitude would have ignited the angry cords of my soul. But in Tony's big brown eyes I saw a naïve boy grappling with territory he'd never dreamed of, territory that said gays were more than assassination-plotting freaks. He still couldn't get over the fact that he had talked to me for close to an hour and decided I was cool before finding out I was gay.

“I can't believe I told you I'm against it and you still told me,” he said half a dozen times.

“That's because I'm comfortable with who I am and I've got nothing to hide,” I countered.

“That's sick,” he said, using his teenage slang.

“Good sick or bad sick?” I inquired. He shook his head, staring out the window.

“Just astonishing sick.”

For Tony, meeting a tall black dude who he thought played for one of the teams in town and finding out he's gay and not girlish and not a freak was like an earthquake.

“This is really something else,” he said, dumbfounded. “I can't believe I”m going through this.”

He told me he had so many questions now and that maybe he would bring them up in Health and Safety on Monday so that all the kids in school could discuss it. (Yes, the young are that frank. Innocence still exists.) Yet I never got the feeling he was ready to change his homophobic ways, although it was evident that now, because of Bucky the Bear and me, he was going to think.

Before I left the pancake house Bucky wished me good luck. I patted him on his brown-carpeted arm and told him, “Keep educating thew world.” I never got a glimpse of his human face.

Tony was still processing as I parted, so much so that he barely said goodbye. But I walked away feeling that the religious experience called “March Madness” scheduled to take place at the basketball arena that afternoon was senseless in comparison to opening a child's mind concerning gays.

Yet I couldn't help wondering how much impact I'd had on Tony, and if anyone would hear his best friend's cry for help. And what about all the other young “future leaders of the world” who are more likely to be exposed to JFK and Basic Instinct before they get a chance to talk openly and honestly with a gay man or woman? Even if they do come face to face with someone gay, will they be as willing to listen and debate as Tony, or will the images of Hollywood scare them away?

Visual AIDS: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

“Anybody have anything else?” asked the person in charge of the Monday morning staff meeting.

“I do,” I said to my handful of co-workers around the conference table. I had been working with many of them for five years. Our job was writing and producing promotional material for one of the big Hollywood studios. It had been an uneventful meeting, but the department's only black employee was about to change all that. “I'm taking a leave of absence.”

The year was 1991. The life was being sucked out of me due to the AIDS virus. At the time, there was no medical hope and I was preparing for the beginning of the end, like so many others I had seen die of AIDS.

"No one dare eat a birthday cake on which a person with HIV/AIDS had blown out the candles."

“The reason is because I have HIV,” I told my co-workers. Stunned silence. White faces turning even whiter. Usually personal announcements were about weddings or newborn babies, but I was determined to go out on my own terms, not the subject of rumors and speculation, like so many others I had seen die of AIDS.

After the initial shock wave, I fielded questions about the virus within, patiently giving them a course in AIDS 101. After the meeting, it wasn't long before dozens others knew: Randy has HIV and is leaving at the end of the week. Secretaries, bosses, editors, production assistants, sound technicians, the voiceover guy.

During my weeklong farewell tour, I received tons of support in the form of pledges and promises, even offers for financial assistant. I'll call you for lunch sometime. We'll go to a movie. Let's not lose touch. I'll be there for you.

The week coincided with our monthly practice of “celebrating employees birthdays this month” with a cake at lunchtime. It was January, my lucky month. Midweek, we gathered in the conference room, unveiled a cake and sang Happy Birthday. When it was time to blow out the candles, I resisted. But there were only two birthday boys. I felt I had to go along with it.

"The longer I lived, the less interested those friends became in me and my journey."

After the candles were extinguished, the rest of my co-workers--more than a dozen people--stood against the wall, all refusing cake. There were excuses about diets and such, but the real reason was evident: no one dare eat a birthday cake on which a person with HIV/AIDS had blown out the candles.

Then Lisa, a well-liked female employee, entered the room. She was running late and had missed my “contamination” of the cake. Eagerly, she cut herself a slice. I watched the faces of my co-workers, all of whom seemed on the verge of blurting out: Don't touch that cake!

On Friday, I was outta there, finally free of a stressful job that was killing me, quite literally. In the subsequent weeks, there were a few well-intended phone calls, even a lunch or two. But for the most part, my co-workers faded from my life and I from theirs. That is, until Magic Johnson made his famous HIV announcement later that November.

Those calls, however, were not about me. They were about a celebrity and his breaking news. “What do you think about Magic?” asked my former co-workers, as if I had some great nugget of wisdom to help them process their shock and disbelief.

“What happened to all the love and support you had for me back then?”

In truth, all I had was my virus, my t-cell count, my fear and my journey, which, at the time, had little to do with a pro athlete and the compassion the world offered him. During those “Magic” phone calls, I received the same pledges of support my co-workers had given me some 10 months earlier. Promises left unfulfilled soon after Magic's journey faded from the front page.

Two years later, I had the opportunity to ask a former co-worker who had been a good friend of mine: “What happened to all the love and support you had for me back then?” His answer is what I remember most about that friend and our friendship:

“Out of sight, out of mind.”

It must be a sentiment shared by some of my friends. After leaving my job, it seemed only natural to tell them why. They, too, offered pledges of love and support. One even envisioned keeping a guest room in her home, just for me in my time of need, aka, my dying.

But the longer I lived, the less interested those friends became in me and my journey. By the late 1990s, it was beginning to look as if some people adopted me as friend because I had AIDS. As if I had become their personal feel-good project. They swore they'd be there for me when I was dying. Thing is, I've yet to play my part.

It's almost as if, because I didn't meet their expectations, because I'm still here, some friends no longer had any use for me. I couldn't play the role of the dying friend. I still have AIDS. I'm still gonna die someday. But when I didn't follow the script in the AIDS movie in their minds, I was let go, like an actor who is no longer needed on a soap opera.

It saddens me to think I wasted so much time worrying about the reactions of other people to my having HIV/AIDS. In reality, I didn't owe any of them any insight whatsoever into my personal medical information. You don't think about that when you're desperate and think you're dying. You just crave some small measure of comfort.

Now, my comfort comes knowing I'll never survived too long for me.

Four Novels, Four Black Gay Men with HIV/AIDS

As a child, I imagined stories and movies starring someone like me. Rare was the chance to see a black man who thought like me, acted like me and with whom I could identify. And that was just in real life! On television, in novels and in the movies, I simply didn't exist.

Today, the entertainment world still turns a blind eye, as if they can't imagine someone like me being worthy of a plot.

Fortunately, they don't have to. As an adult, I can imagine it for them. Here now, my four novels to date, all featuring main characters who are more or less, just like me.

A young black man living with HIV/AIDS dreams of an alternate life where he is HIV-negative and lovers with pro football's greatest quarterback. Or is that, a young black man who is HIV-negative dreams of an alternate life where he's living with HIV/AIDS and never meets pro football's greatest QB? Your ticket is your imagination. Walt Loves the Bearcat, a Lambda Literary Finalist for Best Romance.

A famous but closeted black pop singer tests positive for HIV and plots to assassinate a homophobic US Senator, while a straight white FBI agent goes undercover, as a gay activist, to stop him. Which side will you be on? Uprising, a two-time Lambda Literary Finalist for Best Mystery and Best Small Press Title.

An HIV-positive, black gay businessman must save his business and a friend's life by uncovering a sinister plot to demonize all homosexuals. The mind is a terrible thing to fuck with. The Devil Inside. A Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, and a Gaylactic Spectrum Awards nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel.

A young black man tests positive for HIV, then escapes to Cancun, Mexico, where he meets two white teenage brothers who idolize him, not knowing he is living with HIV/AIDS. It's a friendship that will change all their lives forever. Bridge Across the Ocean, a Lambda Literary Finalist for Best Small Title.

Welcome to my world.

Why Pet the Dog When In Doubt?

When I was age seven, our family got its first-ever family dog. We had just moved into our new home in suburban Indianapolis. The four kids were attending new schools in Washington Township, which still has a great reputation among public school systems. Like the Jeffersons, we had moved on up. The excitement within our family was palpable. We had arrived.

Naturally, we needed a family dog. Being the youngest, I had the least amount of say in our canine of choice, a black Scottish beagle that one of my older brothers named Clancy (after a schoolmate's dog).

Dare I say--I had the closest relationship with Clancy. After all, it was me he leaned on that first scary night in his new home. He came to my bed, whimpering. I gently carried him back to his brand new dog bed in the family room.

"My father's beating up on my mother and it's not getting any better.”

Clancy bit me once. I tried to pick him up after he broke his leg when sleeping underneath my father's soon-not-to-be-parked car. The adults assured me the bite was Clancy's natural reaction to the pain in his leg. I never doubted them or Clancy.

It was Clancy who first taught me: when nervous, anxious or full of doubt, pet the dog. The lesson occurred when my parents were arguing, my mother with words and tears, my father with brutality.

“Should we call the police?” I asked my older sister, the only other sibling home at the time.

“Let's wait and see if it gets any better,” said my sister. We were both scared of my father's anger and what that anger made him capable of.

A short time later, my mom tried escaping by locking herself in her bathroom. Didn't work. What's a flimsy wooden door to a man who hits the mother of his children? I decided to call the police on my own.

“My father's beating up on my mother and it's not getting any better,” I told the emergency operator. She promised to send someone out, something I knew would make my father even angrier.

Clancy was a barker. He barked at any stranger coming up our driveway. I knew this would tip off my father that the police had arrived, so I joined Clancy in the backyard, sat on the back porch and held him in my lap, stroking him. I told Clancy I was doing this to avoid alerting my father, but in reality, I was holding onto my dog out of sheer fright. I had no idea what else to do except pet the dog.

A short time later, a burly white cop knocked on the front door. My father answered, talked his way out trouble, then told me and my sister: “If you ever call the police again, I'll kill you.”

The law let me, my mom and my sister down that day. But Clancy didn't. Not only did he not bark at the officer, he provided me a good deal of comfort during the whole ordeal.

Clancy died when I was age eleven. He chased after a car that didn't bother to stop after hitting him. The owner of the car, a female, had driven down our street daily, usually after 5 pm, but never again. It would be another 25 years before I had another dog, Boomer, whom I found at the exact same location we had found Clancy, the Humane Society of Indianapolis, not far from the family home.

I'll never stop loving Clancy and I'll always be grateful for what that little black beagle taught me: when in doubt, pet the dog. A measure of calm will come to you, and no matter the challenge, life won't seem so bad.

• When In Doubt, Pet the Dog, a periodic memoir or blog feature or journal thingy, now and forever at Randy Boyd's Blocks (.com).

Yo', Homos: Get Off Obama's Back!

To all the queers huffing and puffing and threatening to blow the White House down if the Obama Administration doesn't capitulate to the Gay Agenda STAT:

Don't ask the president about your rights or tell Mr. Obama what do do!

Gay rights, equal rights, marriage rights--they're all important, but not if the country is free-falling towards total economic meltdown.

Remember how things were a year ago? The financial sky was falling, ready to blanket all American dreams, gay or otherwise, in a gloomy cloud of Great Depression dust.

Remember how, a year ago, the rest of the world hated America? Remember how much America hated itself?

"If gays and lesbians want to march for a better world and demand it of our president, they should demand it of themselves as well."

President Obama has had a lot on his presidential plate, possibly more than any other president in history, and you want him to wave a magic pen and strike down Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

Historical reminder: Don't Ask, Don't Tell was the end result of newly-elected President Bill Clinton's first official blunder: assuming he could automatically do away with the military's anti-gay monolith. Don't Ask, Don't Tell was the tail-between-the-legs compromise, which, like the horrific economy and two wars, President Obama inherited.

Fact: The Obama Administration doesn't rush to judgment about troop deployment, let alone gay issues. The Man is a thinker before he's a doer. The president is a coalition builder and a diplomat. He's also Tiger Woods. Do you tell Michael Jordan when to shoot? Do you tell James Bond when to spring into action?

Relax, LGBT people of America. Let the President deal with the deep shit he inherited before he gets to the fags. What--you think you'd be better off by now with John McCain or Sarah Palin? Think you'll be better off with any republican?

"How about a dialogue within the gay community about the WHITES AND LATINS ONLY racism rampant on the gay internet?"

It's a courageous thing to march for gay rights, and I love a good pep rally. After all, I was a cheerleader at two major universities. But there's bigger fish to fry right now. Hey, queers, how about visibly supporting Obama's health care reform? The sooner that's over, the sooner we can get back to our gay makeover of the country.

And since so many homos are being so politically active and socially contentious--at least when it comes to gay issues--how about we take a good look at ourselves?

How about a dialogue within the gay community about the WHITES AND LATINS ONLY racism rampant on the gay internet? How about some personal reflection on the DISEASE-FREE, UB2 attitudes among gay men, the very same attitudes that are partly responsible for the new AIDS epidemic? How about some attention to the new AIDS epidemic itself?

If gays and lesbians want to march for a better world and demand it of our president, they should demand it of themselves as well. And while waiting for marriage rights and military rights, I suggest that all gays and lesbians ask themselves: how can I make the gay community a better place for all gay Americans?

Jock Blocks

I love sports, but I hate the homophobia perpetuated in sports. When I was a kid, I quit playing sports because I was a fag. As an adult, I refuse to quit writing about homosexuality in sports because I'm not a fag. I'm a man. Who loves men. And sports. Here now, a few of my blocks about Homos in Sports, now and forever at Randy Boyd's Blocks:



College Football Players: Lighten Up on Your Gay Teammates!

Dear NFL Players: Tear Down This Wall

Homophobia in the NBA: Who’s To Blame?

NFL Coach Dungy's Homophobic Dreams

Guess Who's Coming to Halloween

Just when you thought the AIDS crisis was over, along comes a whole new generation of disease-free trick or treaters looking for love and sex in all the wrong ways.

They're horny, they're ignorant about safer sex and they're fucking their brains out, bareback-style--all while demonizing that which they know nothing about: HIV/AIDS. It's a recipe for disaster. It's a horrifying nightmare. It's a repeat of the 1980s.

But have no fear, the AIDS Monster is here. See how this “creature of the fright” views the AIDS epidemic, then and now, in Interview with the AIDS Monster. Relive those worst dreams come true in the classic AIDS monster movies of yesteryear. Face your fear of HIV. See newly-discovered AIDS monster movie posters!

It's all part of the fun, and fear, of the AIDS Monster Movie Marathon, a Halloween tradition now and forever at Randy Boyd's Blocks.

What Makes a Man Straight or Gay?

The difference between a gay guy and a straight guy is simple: a gay guy is honest about fucking around with other men, a straight guy isn't.

A gay guy admits to pursuing mostly men to get his nut; a straight guy admits to nothing, not even to himself.

Still, that doesn't stop either man from having sex with other men--in his lifetime, every once in a while, when opportunity knocks, when drunk with a best buddy, when the wife's outta town, when the alter ego takes over, and so on.

Someday, men will not have to define themselves by the gender of their sex partners. It's happened before; it will happen again.

Just as male athletes made it acceptable for men to concern themselves with grooming products in the 1970s, so too will athletes someday make it acceptable for men to admit to fucking around with other men.

The admission will only make a man more of a man in society's eyes, because only a real man will be man enough to admit to something so bold and honest.

Someday, male athletes will be bigger heroes for being completely honest about their sexual nature. I look forward to that day

• Also check out: The Grapefruit Theory, or What Men Really Do

Black Album

Once upon a time, the artist who will always be known as Prince had a Black Album. It was full of darkness, violence, anger. It also went unreleased, except to bootleggers, for years. Being an obsessed Prince fan at the time, I had a bootleg copy of the Black Album--what was it?--within 48 hours of its canceled release date, December 7, 1987.

The “unofficial” story had something to do with Prince canceling the release of his dark dreams because he had seen the light, more or less. Still, several years later, the Black Album was released and on the shelves of the last of those old record-turned-CD-music stores.

Instead of the Black Album, Prince's next release was Lovesexy, a joyful romp, the opposite of dark. He appeared nude on the cover, which caused an uproar. Some stores only carried an altered version of the CD cover.

Cut to 20 years later. The violence in rap music has far surpassed that of Prince's Black Album, while celebrities, both male and female, pose nude every chance they get. Many of them are babies of the Purple Rain-ed on 80s.

The Devil Inside is my black album. Not the literal journey, nor the literary themes. The identification comes from the artist's descent into the darkness of his world, which is to say the world around him.

For me, that world was the gay world and the dark side of existing in a somewhat safe sovereign nation within the United States, where men can be with other men and women can be with other women, while simultaneous living in an overall nation that demonizes gays as perverts and child molesters.

Kordell, the main character in The Devil Inside, is a successful black gay businessman. His business caters to families and kids. He's well-respected in the community and seems like the perfect catch. That is, until a pure evil enters his life.

For 72 hours of Kordell Christie's life, I put him through all kinds of hell. This once proud man faces demons real and imagined, as he ultimately asks, “Do all gays have the devil inside?”

Like Prince, my follow-up work was a joyful journey, the romantic Walt Loves the Bearcat. No nude artist on the cover though. Just flying football stadiums and a teddy bear. In novel number four, I saw the light and in it, better dreams.

But for novel number three, I went dark, so dark Unzipped Magazine called The Devil Inside, "a psychotic little pulp novel.”

I just call it my third child, and my black album.

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Read Chapter One

Is AIDS Still Around?

Sometimes, living with AIDS in America is like being an alien from another world. Older people forgot about AIDS. Younger people barely know of it.

Still, we're here, older people and younger people, living with HIV/AIDS in America. See life from my point of view in the blocks labeled HIV-P.O.V., now and forever at Randy Boyd's Blocks:

That's So Gay, and Dirty and Disease-Ridden!
AIDS Is More Than a Deadly Disease
The Most Important Thing AIDS Has Taught Me
How To Love Someone with AIDS
Your Choice: AIDS = Love, or AIDS = Hate
Kiss Me, I Have AIDS
My Own Personal AIDS Tattoo

Feeling Randy

The following interview originally appeared in the November 23, 1998, issue of IN Los Angeles Magazine, in conjunction with my first novel, Uprising.

Feeling Randy
Probing the mind of new author Randy Boyd and his Uprising
by Alan Carter

Imagine Prince, Ted Turner and Michael Jordan are secretly gay. Then imagine they conspire to fund a covert operation to bump off a homophobic U.S. Senator (think Jesse Helms.)

Such is the story in a provocative and compelling new tome by Randy Boyd, a black, openly gay and HIV-positive writer, who has fashioned Uprising, a story that is decidedly not politically correct.

Prince, Turner, Jordan and Helms do not appear by name, of course, but the characters---the single-named Othello (a black, HIV-positive rocker), Jasper Hollinquest (a billionaire), Deon Anthony (a streetwise basketball hero) and Sen. Jimmy Herman are all archetypes, says the author. Boyd has also created the character of Raider Kincaide, a strapping, blond, homophobic FBI agent who is sent undercover (both literally and figuratively) to try to stop the movement.

Boyd, a UCLA grad, divides his time between Indianapolis and Los Angeles. The story---part thriller, part love story---adds up to a morality tale that basically asks the reader: is violence ever justified? IN Los Angeles recently sat down with Boyd and asked about the journey that got this book published.

IN LA: Reading the book, I was torn. I'm a pacifist, but I wanted the Senator to get killed. A lot. [Laughs] And that disturbed me.

Randy Boyd: That was kind of the point behind the book. Being a black gay man with HIV is one thing. Hearing the kinds of things the Jesse Helmses of the world spout only add to [the difficulties we as gay face.]

"Could I point a gun at a homophobe?"

IN LA: Jimmy Herman and Jesse Helms? No need to be subtle there, huh?

RB: [Laughs] Othello was actually three people in my head: he had the success of a Michael Jackson, the sexuality of Prince and the machismo of Bobby Brown. I'm not saying any of these men are gay; it's just a novel.

When I started writing, Ellen Degeneres hadn't come out. Really, no highly prominent gay men have. I would love for this book to [inspire] some high-profile male celebrity to say, 'I have enough money and power. Okay, why not?' I think gay men need a Jackie Robinson like that. Someone---he doesn't have to be black---to come out and take the heat and the torture.

IN LA: You seemed to be equally at home writing about sex and politics.

RB: [Laughs] Well, I'm much more into the sex than the politics. But even sex becomes political when you're a black gay man---with or without HIV.

"No one knew anything about my sexuality. I was wearing a mask."

IN LA: When I saw people protesting at Matthew Shepard's funeral, it made me and a lot of people, ballistic.

RB: We're all torn. In a civilized society, you can't go around thinking about bashing someone's head in, but when you hear about Matthew Shepard or the other acts of hatred, doesn't it make you angry enough to want to bash someone [back]?

I kept asking myself while writing the book: could I point a gun at a homophobe like a Jesse Helms or a Rev. Fred Phelps? If I'm on the jury, I couldn't convict anyone who got rid of Phelps. I mean, picketing someone's funeral?

IN LA: I was also struck in the book by the search for love. Othello, for example, is very popular yet he is alone.

RB: I was a cheerleader in college and that made me known on campus, but I went home to an empty bed and no one knew anything about my sexuality. I was wearing a mask. That's one reason Othello goes out in disguise. He thinks he can't be seen as a gay man and realizes--later--that being in disguise is a complete waste of time.

There's a part of me in all the characters. Even---if I have to be totally honest---the anti-gay people. I mean, we all grew up internalizing homophobia.

"I did this book for the soul."

IN LA: Did you take Uprising to mainstream publishers and find resistance?

RB: I definitely wanted the quote unquote legitimacy of the big N.Y. Guys. I shopped the book around, and many of them liked it. But they were scared of it. It didn't fit into any of their niches, they didn't know how to sell it.

IN LA: Well, in their defense, there aren't many novels about rich gay black men who conspire to kill a U.S. Senator while falling in love with a white homophobic FBI agent.

RB: [Laughs] You're right. One of the “big guys” wanted to make it Raider's story. They were also talking about a movie. You know, the straight white guy going undercover into the gay world. I'm sure that would be a wonderful story, but it's not my story.

IN LA: Most new writers would find that hard to turn down. Especially since many new writers want to make money.

RB: [Laughs] If I really wanted to make money I wouldn't be writing stories about gay people, period. I'd be writing Jurassic Park or The Firm. I did this book for the soul.

IN LA: How does your soul feel now?

RB: [Laughs] I gotta tell you, I get so much wood looking at this book. From birth, we as gay people go to the movies and we read books and it's all boy meets girl and they have told those stories thousands of times---so many times [that] they've run out of ways to tell it. And I was so tired of seeing that.

I want to see boy meets boy and black boy meets whatever kind of boy. And I want to see us in danger, and having comedy and romance in our lives. I loved Titanic, but I said to two gay friends, “Wouldn't that have been great if it was two men falling in love instead?” And they were like, “noooo.” We're conditioned to not want to see ourselves.

"I knew a lot of black men might be upset."

IN LA: Could you see Uprising the movie happening the way you want it, with the story being told from the black and gay perspective?

RB: I can already see [the ad campaign.] The story isn't just about whether or not the assassination takes place, it's about, 'Will these two guys sleep together? I'd say, 'If you haven't seen it, don't ask. If you've seen it, don't tell.”

IN LA: The book also heavily promotes interracial romance.

RB: Othello had to have a weakness for blonds for the story to work. There's a line in the book, where Othello is running his hand through Raider's hair, and he said it was like God combing a field of wheat.

I knew a lot of black men might be upset [at the idea that their hair wasn't as good as a white man's.] But that wasn't what I was saying. I debated taking the line out several times, but ultimately left it in.

IN LA: You also know L.A. Very well from this book. There are really involved references to the Pride parade, the Spike ...

RB: I grew up in L.A., basically. I came to L.A. In 1980 when I was 18. And I was sexually active, naturally. And it was a hell of a time to be out, really, before we knew anything about AIDS.

IN LA: But I love how the Spike had a black bartender. Never when I've been there.

RB: [Laughs] He must be on vacation when you go. I've seen a black bartender in the Spike. I haven't been in a while. But all the L.A. Touches in the book came from real observation.

"We'll all rise up together. We'll be better people."

IN LA: While some of the story might be implausible, I was struck about how much of it could be real. Obviously, a novel can take poetic license. Did that help or hamper you?

RB: The great thing about a book like this is that you can truly make anything happen. But it's hard to compete with real events. I mean, look at Iran-Contra. Or Clinton and Lewinsky. You couldn't make up stories like that.

The rich and powerful are very capable of doing anything, certainly things beyond our scope. Anything is possible and that's the approach I took in writing this.

IN LA: Did you discover more about yourself by writing this book, or did your pre-existing beliefs make it an easy book for you to write?

RB: I have to commend you on that question. [Laughs]. That's one I've never been asked before. That one I have to think about. Hmmm, I have to say, off the top of my head, it was a combination of both.

The themes in Uprising reflect my past growth, more than anything I'm going through now. But then seeing Rev. Phelps protesting at Matthew Shepard's funeral brought up a lot of this old feelings in me again

IN LA: Ultimately, what is the message of the book?

RB: Take the mask off. We're all wearing them. We've all been in those relationships, some romantic, some business, where we're not being totally real. Take off the mask and start your own personal uprising. We'll all rise up together. We'll be better people.

I came out when I was 26. I didn't see the need to come out before. And now I know it was pointless to hide. That's why I'm open about everything now. My sexuality, my HIV-status. Why hide it? I don't have time for that anymore.


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