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fighting like hell since the beginning of the pandemic until his death years ago, said something I’ll never forget: “Question: What does a decent society do to people who hurt themselves because they’re human; who smoke too much; who eat too much; who drive carelessly; who don’t have safe sex? I think the answer is a decent society does not put people out to pasture to let them die because they’ve done a human thing.” The third viewing also made me see how battle-weary those of us who have lived with this monster taking over our bodies truly are. Thirty years of non-stop, head-on war has made the troops very tired. Some of us feel so lost and alone. And most are left wondering what to do with ourselves now? There’s an entire generation of homoand heterosexual people who can’t or don’t relate at all to this catastrophe, an enormous chunk of the population around the world that doesn’t pay any attention to the messages most of us lived by in an effort to save our lives.
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to [not] withhold, the more you talk about [and] saturate people around you with information, the less scary it becomes. It loses that fear...in a good way. How do people respond to you when you approach them? JK: Every person is different. The best thing that I got [from the film] is that people shared important moments from their lives with me. It shows you that if you open up to people, people open up to you. And the reason I wanted to do [the documentary] and show myself is because young people hear [about HIV/AIDS] either in a book with statistics or as something that happened in the eighties, and don’t connect to it because this is not going on now. I’m also very young still. [HIV] just happened to me, someone who could have been their friend in high school. You are a young person, only twenty-four years-old. Many young people often believe that they are invincible...that things like HIV/ AIDS don’t happen to them. How can we
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They hear and latch-on to the word “CURE,” thinking it’s either been accomplished with an arsenal of medication, or it’s just around the corner, so why worry? Meantime, vultures hover overhead snickering and waiting, knowing there are plenty of unsuspecting victims to pick off when they drop. And we watch as the next generation, sick of hearing the battle-tales of the elderly (in gay years), ignore all warnings as the virus outsmarts and claims more and more of them in the name of freedom or choice or being human. It has become an exhausting circle that never seems to end. I’ve written columns in the past with data proving that infection rates are climbing again among young gay men and African-American women at an alarming pace, again because the tried and true warnings are being ignored. It appears that no one is willing to take responsibility and communicate with their partner(s) in order to not only protect themselves, but protect their partner(s) as well. New “glamour cocktails” are making it much easier not to face reality, to pretend that if one does become infected, all s/he has to break through to them, other than with films like Walk On? JK: It really is [about] having an open, honest discussion, and allowing them to see what I see happen living with disability and HIV. [Also,] I think we don’t give teens enough credit; the society has a stigma and a stereotype for teens just as for everything else. We help create and feed that ignorance by not allowing them that information because we think they are not mature enough; hence, we’re creating immature people. I mean, when I was younger and my mom was talking to me about sex, we were having an open and realistic conversation, because, if you don’t, you’re just allowing trouble to occur. It makes you [feel]awkward, uncomfortable, [but] to have that conversation is much more important than to avoid awkwardness. And as a society, we’d like to avoid that awkwardness. What are your thoughts on a possible AIDSfree generation? JK: It’s something that I hope I’m around for, but I think the conversation should always be there. We have a duty to continue with the education, in general, beyond HIV. MB: I think that if you are mature enough
do is pop a pill now and carry on as if nothing is wrong. This is already creating a fresh feast of victims: careless, selfish—omnipotent. I DO NOT have any answers. I’m just another human being treading water, infected with a virus because I did a very human thing. I just want to wake up some morning and realize that I’ve had a dream that quickly spanned a thirty-year period, a dream from which I can wake and pinch myself and know that everything is just fine. And I can bounce out of bed, brush my long, blond hair, dress my toned, healthy body in my favorite Levi’s 501s and boots, and take my dog, Buddy, for an hour-long walk. But the reality is there is still far too much work to be done. And we need to continue the fight for a cure; for better access to life-saving drugs for everyone who is infected. And even though we can easily be tuned out, we still need to spread the word that this PLAGUE IS NOT OVER YET! THIS BLASTED PLAGUE IS NOT OVER. Along with being a contributing writer for A&U, Chuck’s had other work published in journals, magazines, anthologies, and e-books.
to take your clothes off with multiple people, if you are mature enough to stick a needle in your arm, you should be mature enough to know you should be educated enough about this before you do it. If that means watching our film, reading a book, doing some research, then I think that people should take that level of responsibility beforehand. To reach that AIDS-free generation, those types of education need to be implemented in such a way that we’re not worried about how it’s going to come across. The message has to be clear, across the board. Before hanging up, I have to inquire about New Year’s resolutions. Joseph Kibler hopes Walk On will open doors for all disabilities and HIV demographics. His personal goal for 2014 is to do a tour of AIDS Walk events. Find out more about the Walk On documentary by visiting www.walkondocumentary.com; on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/WalkOnDoc; or on Twitter @WalkOnDoc. Also, find out more about Joseph Kibler at www.josephkibler.com, and about Mark Bashian, at www.bashfilms.com. Alina Oswald is a writer, photographer, and the author of Journeys Through Darkness: A Biography of AIDS. Contact her at www.alinaoswald.com. A&U • FEBRUARY 2014