The Thing About AIDS

I wrote this paper in a film class awhile back and I thought since the remake of "The Thing" is coming out in a few weeks, I should share it.

Recently, I was flipping through the channels and happened to catch a few minutes of one of my favorite horror/science fiction films, John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” Kurt Russell was right in the middle of testing each member of the camp’s blood to see if they were the ‘thing’ or not. My fiancé disinterestedly leaned over and asked me why I like to watch “these” kinds of movies all the time, to which I responded, “Because this movie isn’t about what you think it’s about.” She smirked and asked, “oh yeah, what’s it about then?” I thought for a second, knowing this film inside and out, and realized I had no idea. I quickly put on my bullshit goggles I’ve developed from many hours spent in film analysis classes and quickly dissected the film. I then smiled, looked her confidently in the eyes and said, “AIDS.” By the look on her face I could see she was either dumbstruck by my superior knowledge of all things film, or she thought I was full of shit. “I can prove it,” I said, and this is how I did just that.

The first cases of AIDS appeared in the United States in 1980 and were largely misunderstood, misdiagnosed and scared the living shit out of everyone, especially Republicans. AIDS is a mutation of HIV, which is thought to have originated in simians before it jumped to humans and mutated to the virus we know and love today. HIV had been steadily infecting people all over the world since the 1960’s, but HIV’s deadly mutation had only killed in Africa until, in 1975, a Norwegian sailor mysteriously died of the disease. It was later discovered that he contracted AIDS while in Africa in the 60’s, presumably boning monkeys at an all night “let’s all try to get Ebola” sexfest orgy. It is widely believed that this Norwegian sailor was the link between the cases in Africa and the first cases in San Francisco in the 1980’s, hence making sailors even more of a stereotype for the rest of time.

In the film, an American research team comes across a group of “crazed” Norwegians chasing after a dog in a helicopter. The Norwegians are shooting wildly at the dog, and seem to have no regard for their own lives or the lives of the researchers. Dumbfounded, the researchers watch on as the Norwegians accidently blow themselves up with Termite, but not before the dog escapes into the American camp. Not knowing what to make of the incident, the researchers let the dog roam freely amongst them, thinking that the Norwegians must have snapped due to the isolation of Antarctica and simply didn’t want to share their canine love slave with Americans. We find out later that the dog is carrying a disease that infects the blood of its victim. This disease inwardly changes a person into a monstrous alien hell-bent on infecting everyone around them while keeping the outward appearance of its victim. Sound familiar yet?

The nature of the AIDS virus is that it kills its victim slowly, and the carrier may not know that they have it until it is too late. The American people were becoming acutely aware of this fact by the time of the film’s release in 1982. By the end of 1981, 121 people had already died of the disease in the United States with thousands more thought to be infected. The only thing keeping the “average” U.S. citizen from freaking the fuck out was comfort in the fact that the disease seemed to only be affecting the homosexual community. This eventually changed, but in 1982 it was widely believed that AIDS only killed gay men, and the disease was actually being called “GRID” or “gay-related immune deficiency”.

In the film, there are absolutely no women. The closest thing to a woman we get is a computer voice, and even that is quick and easy to miss. The ‘thing’ sweeps through the men quickly and quietly as each of them become increasingly suspicious of one another due to the fact that they can’t tell just by looking at one another if they are infected. In other words, basically the movie reverts to 10 dudes not making eye contact in the locker room hoping not to be raped in a cold shower stall. The only real scientist in the film has no explanation as to what causes the virus to spread, so he is put into quarantine out of fear that he may also be infected.

This all reflects the same fears Americans were having at the time of the films release. The disease was only happening in men, AIDS and homosexuality are impossible to detect by simply looking at someone, and scientists had no idea how the disease was spreading. They knew that the disease was infecting the victim’s blood but had no idea how it spread. The film seems to suggest, as with 85% of all science fiction films, that scientists had failed us and that this killer disease was out of their control. It also shows a fear that anyone could be a carrier, no one is safe, and this “plague” could be the end of all mankind. It seems crazy to think this now, but there was a genuine fear that AIDS was a sign of the apocalypse. In the film, the researchers estimate that if the disease makes it to the mainland, all life on earth would be assimilated in just three years, and at the rate AIDS was spreading at the time, scientists believed it would grow to pandemic proportions in about the same time period. The parallels are hard to miss.

This film is a classic case of our fears making their way onto the big screen. AIDS is now relatively under control, but when it first arrived on our shores, people were literally in a panic. We wanted the disease to go away the same way the flu appears and disappears each year, but when science failed us, we panicked even further. In the film, a lowly helicopter pilot figures out how to test for the disease by checking everyone’s blood. His only idea for a cure however, is to burn the infected person so the disease cannot spread further. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is how many Americans felt about people showing up with AIDS or possibly even about the homosexual community in general. The same prejudices that exist today about the gay community were much stronger back then and when AIDS showed up they become reviled to a Hitler-esque quality.

At the end of the film, two men sit freezing to death in the snow after blowing up the compound. They eye each other suspiciously having been out of each others site for a short time. It is only after resigning themselves to the fact that they will both be dead in a few short minutes that they let down their guard. We are left wondering their fate, the fate of the ‘thing’ and the fate of all human kind, just as in 1982 no one knew what would become of us, AIDS or the world in general. Yeah, take that woman! I think I won my argument.

9/11 Wackiness! ('Cause I Too was Alive That Day)

I'm sure everyone on Earth is sick to death of hearing 9/11 stories, but I figure if I'm ever gonna talk about it then today is the day to do so.

I was 19 in 2001 and was the epitome of the phrase, "Young, Dumb and Full of Cum."  Since I was fresh out of High School, I now had the power to completely ruin my life and was trying to figure out if I was stupid enough to move in with a girl I met on the internet who lived in Florida.  Turns out I was stupid enough, but that's another long, painful and idiotic story I'd rather not discuss....ever.  Point is I was in Florida, which means I had flown a few days before the attacks and would  have to fly again a few days after.  It also meant that I was on the east coast during the attacks, where everyone was shitting their pants in unison for some reason.  Like George Carlin said, proximity to horrible events somehow changes how it affects your view as to how much you should give a shit.

In 2001 I was convinced that life had big things to offer me and that I was going to strike it rich as a famous musician.  Did I mention I was dumb?  Anyways, I spent morning, noon and night honing my skills.  I'd write music every chance I could get and on that morning I happened to be all alone in an empty house.  Rather than masturbate like any sensible 19 year old, I pulled out my "poetry" book and started jotting down verses for a song I couldn't quite figure out how to finish.  I know what your wondering, "had he already masturbated or what, 'cause no one is that.....faggy....right?"  No I hadn't!

I'd re-written this song like four times and never felt like it was any good, so I decided to try again that morning.  My strategy at the time was to write the most simplistic lyrics I could think of about, what else, the girl I was with and the distance I felt between us when I was 3,000 miles away from her in Washington.  Did I mention full of cum?  For some reason I really loved the lyrics this time around.  They were a little stupid, simple, and gay but so was I at the time, but oddly enough I was really happy and excited with how it turned out.  Just as I was reaching for my guitar to belt this masterpiece, the door of the apartment burst open.  My girlfriend and her Dad came running in with a frantic and excited spring to their steps.  Well hers was more of a gimp.  Did I mention she had down syndrome?  Joking!  But you wouldn't put it past me would you?  

The girl, we'll call her "Muse" rather than "Sperm Dumpster" or something less poetic, asked if I had been watching TV.  Did I mention I wasn't watching TV either?  No spanking.  No TV.  Poetry book.  So deep and brooding!  I said no and again reached for my guitar to play my new opus for her, but before I could she flipped on the TV just minutes before Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.  Bitch!

We sat there all day watching the events every channel on TV channel still exploits on an hourly basis unfold.  I remember thinking the whole day that things would never be the same in this country.  Not because we'd been attacked but because we are a nation of huge, unbelievably narcissistic, cry baby pussies and everyone in this country feels like they were somehow "wounded" by these attacks.

Horrible shit happens everyday in just about every country in the world, but when it happens to Americans it's epic on a Biblical scale.  Picture you're at a bar and someone says, "My mom, wife, daughter, grand parents, and dog were hacked to death by a serial rapist in a clown costume."  Then someone next to them says, "My fifth cousin was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11."  Which one gets the TV deal?  I knew on that day that I'd never hear the end of this and that one day I'd write about my experience on 9/11 because I am a huge, cry baby pussy as well.

I can say with all honesty that it has affected me in the following ways: I felt horribly sad for the people who died, the families they left behind and the people charged with trying to sort through the rubble for about as long as I felt horrible for the people fucked over by Hurricane Katrina or the people who died in the Tsunami in Japan last year.  About a month or so.  That's about how long I feel you should grieve for strangers before you get on with your life.  It made air travel a pain in the ass, dumped our economy down the shitter and forced me to listen to other people recall how horrible their lives have been since 9/11.  Even people who weren't there and didn't know anyone involved in any way with the attacks, the subsequent war(s) that followed, or with the clean up.  They were just "traumatized."  This country hasn't had anything truly bad on a global scale happen since World War 2 and for some reason we thought that after dropping two horrible bombs that will probably kill our children's, children's, children of cancer, that we were still the biggest bad asses in the world.  It scared the shit out of this country and should have been the thing that knocked us on our pompous asses to make us realize that maybe we should start helping others instead of hoarding all the cash in the world.  Seriously, Derek Jeter makes more for playing one game of catch than the entire GDP of half the countries on the planet.  Is it really so hard to believe a few people are pissed about that fact?

I knew the day it happened that the country was going to have to face a decision between love and fear.  As a nation we chose fear and we're still too "traumatized" to move on.

I flew home from Florida out of the New Orleans airport on September 17th, just after the airports reopened.  It was a ghost town with scattered armed guards around every corner and heightened security, which by the way was about a thousand time more relaxed than it is now.  The flight had about 15 people on it.  I had all three seats.  They had plenty of pillows.  The flight attendants were super nice.  It was honestly the best flight I've ever had, and I've flown hundreds of times.  I'd like to believe that flight was empty because people weren't able to book flights during the grounding of the airlines but I think the truth is no one wanted to be "next."  Like days after the biggest blunder in American history we'd just let it happen again.  Then again, George W. Bush was the president.  ZING!

In the ten years since 9/11 happened I've thought about it a lot.  Mostly because it is shoved down my throat on television everyday.  I love this country but I'm afraid that the terrorists got exactly what they wanted.  We were a soft/full of shit nation who felt entitled to everything before 9/11, but since we've become a scared/full of shit nation that thinks the world owes us everything.  The fear we felt on that day is natural and founded.  If you weren't scared there's either something wrong with you or you were stoned and thought you were watching Independence Day.  The problem is that for some reason that fear is being perpetuated hourly in this country and no one seems to want to get over it.  It was tragic.  It wasn't the Holocaust.  It didn't actually happen to you.  Move on.  We will never be able to regain the former "glory" this country had before 9/11, but perhaps that's a good thing.  Maybe it's time we let someone else have a chance at the "top."  Or we could do the right thing and try to live as equals, but that would be totally against the American way!

On the other hand, who the hell am I and what do I know?  I'm just telling you my story the way everyone else has felt inclined to do for me.  By the way I finished the song and even made a music video for it (see below).  It always reminds me of 9/11, my 'Muse' and of being "Young, Dumb and Full of Cum."  Catchy tune!

No Shave November 2010

Last year I partook in the annual tradition of "No Shave November" or "Movember" as some call it, and I decided to document the experience.  So here it is, only 10 months late, my 30 days of face in video form.  May it bring you inspiration to not shave this November, you too ladies!

Video & Music by Me