Bill Rosenberge

By Julie Coveney

When I met Bill, I was a shy girl from Orange County. He was just "Bill." He was uninhibited and unpredictable, and that's why I got along with him so well. There was a part of me that wanted to be just like him. But, I was young, and I really hadn't lived yet.

Bill had a certain appeal. When he entered a room, he had a way of engaging people. He was witty, with a great sense of humor. He had great passion for life. He took risks. Needless to say, I hung out with him more and more. We had informal dinner parties with friends, we'd enjoyed live concerts, we would get in the car and drive, with no real destination. We'd end up somewhere unusual, doing something pointless, but having a great time in the process. We had some amazing adventures.

Our conversations ranged from absolute silliness to very intimate secrets. I knew that I could always rely on him to tell me the truth. He definitely wasn't a saint. In fact, sometimes he could be a real ass. However, my love for him was unconditional, and he knew it, which is why we remained friends for over a decade.

Toward the end, he lost a lot of mobility. His trademark spontaneity was suddenly constrained. I began pushing him in a wheelchair. I know that not being able to walk bothered him, but he never lost his spirit. Maybe it's a bit dramatic, but sometimes I feel like his fearless spirit somehow transferred over into me. I know it did. Because, after I met him, I really started to live, and after he died, I realized how rare and precious souls like Bill really are. He really helped me find my true self.

Richard Rouiulard

By David Ehrenstein

www.ehrensteinland.com

Ten years ago today Richard Rouiulard died of what his Los Angeles Times obituary called "the complications of AIDS."

Yes, we know the drill: "Nobody dies of AIDS - they die from the diseases they become subject to because of AIDS." But it's more than a little silly to say that Michael Callenexpired from tuberculosis (one of the host of ailments he contracted during his lengthy struggle) or that a mere "liver disease" necessitated Larry Kramer getting a transplant. Yes, complications. It's like the REM song goes:

"Oh no I've said too much

I haven't said enough"

And there's far from an "enough" when it comes to Richard. Odd to think that I knew him a little less than 20 years. For looking back (memory invariably alters space and time) it seems like an enormous span whose beginning can't really be isolated and whose end will never truly arrive. People like Richard will always remain.

It was an otherwise unremarkable afternoon at the (late and much-missed) Los Angeles Herald-Examiner when he came up to me about something or other (who remembers what) when we began to talk. Right away it seemed less the start of a conversation than the continuation of one that had begun long before. For we didn't merely laugh at the same jokes or share the same frame of political or cultural references. It was in the timing and the inflections that we discovered we were, as Star Trek fans would say, in "Vulcan Mind-Meld." So we laughted a lot then, and laughed even more when we both found ourselves at The Advocate, which Richard worked long and hard to reshape into national phenomenon, rather than a "boutique" publication narrowed to gay "demographic" alone. The result was a number of important stories that caught the "mainstream's" eye - the most spectacular of which was Michaelangelo Signorile's "outing" of Pete Williams - then working as chief assistant to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. As the piece pointed out, his job was protected while those of gay and lesbian soldiers who had just served in "Operation Desert Storm" were not. And thus Gays in the Military was rocket-launched into the national consciousness.

That the Richard I knew (part J.J.Hunsecker part Walter Burns and a whole lot of Kay Thompson) would be the man to do this doesn't square with the "money graph" from the obit:

"Born to a French flight attendant who abandoned him, Rouilard was reared by adoptive parents in New Jersey who were horrified by the effeminate boy's emerging homosexuality. Certain he was 'this horrible thing,' he attempted suicide atage 13 and again at 14. he went through six years of psychotherary to learn to accept his homosexuality. When his parents spurned him, he returned to using his birth mother's surname."

What is it with flight attendants anyway - especially French-speaking ones? Yes it's a classically gay male profession, as Randy Shilts reminds us via his most famous invention "Patient Zero." But for little Dickie Katz, taking his mother's surname meant much more. Naturally, Richard Rouilard sounded absolutely fabulous. Moreover he could forgive the mother who put him up for adoption (she had her reasons after all) far more than the family that took him in, and threw him out. But all gays and lesbians are orphans at heart (Mary Cheney being the exception that proves the rule.) We are born into alienation, and spend the better part of our lives inventing familes of our own, sometimes reconciling with blood relations, sometimes not. Richard's family included his lover Bob Cohen, but extended to all sorts of people on both a professional and personal level. In fact it was often difficult to find out where one ended and the other began. Journalist Mary McNamarra captured Richard best in a Los Angeles Times piece about his last days.

"The nurse was still there when I arrived, unhooking the IV from the shunt that protruded from Richard's chest from his heart. Richard had been diagnosed with HIV long before I met him, had suffered from a seemingly endless variety of AIDS-related illnesses for as long as I had known him, but because of who he was, I don't think it ever occurred to me that he would die. Until I saw that shunt. It stopped me in the doorway. It took my breath away. It still does.

"Free at last, thank the Lord, I am free at last," he said, pulling on his shirt. The nurse made noises about taking it easy, which he waved away like the smoke from his cigarette. In minutes it seemed we were getting into the car. There were no seat belts. "Seat belts?" he said. "Honey, this car ain't built for seat belts." And with an almost redundant squeal of rubber, we were off.

By the time we hit Wilshire, I swear we were doing 60. I had braced myself, feet planted, arms locked, for the crash I knew was inevitable, but Richard, Richard was sailing along, one hand on the wheel, the other waving off anyone-pedestrians, other drivers-who seemed even close to getting in his way. One light after another flashed amber, and he floored it, his head thrown back, his mouth wide in a great roar, like a lion, like a warrior. He turned to me and the roar became laughter, huge laughter, unassailable, unstoppable, unquenchable laughter."

That laughter was infectious-in manner far more potent than HIV. We laughed a lot in his last year, when Richard and Bob rented a house right on the boardwalk in Venice. On Sundays he have Gaywatch. Margueritas would be served as Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall and Callas intoning "Ebben? ne andro lontana" from La Wally blasted from the stereo while we rated Les Boys as they paraded by in all their meag-muscled glory.

And who could forget "Crossover," that fabulous passover service where Richard, doing the honors, would replace ever mention of Jehovah with Anne Baxter, in honor of her performance in The Ten Commandments ?

But then there was the non-fun. For the 1990's was an enormous parade of funerals. Most of it's a blur now. I remember the memorial for Paul Monette - where we all expected him to walk right in just to have the last word. Most heartbreaking was the one held at Atlas, for that marvelous restaurant's owner, Mario Tamaya. He was one of Richard's oldest friends and I remember at the service's end Richard clutching someone (can't recall who) and sobbing as I'd never seen him sob before. Clearly he knew he was next.

And being supremely practical for all his seeming flightiness, Richard had made plans. He was to be cremated and his ashes speand at sea.

"Just drop me off in the 'Bu,' right between David Geffen's and Sandy Gallin's."

The boat ride (as we all came to call it) was a lovely occasion. Very simple, very relaxing, very Richard. And it perfectly encapsulated what Patrice Chereau was talking about when he said his Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train was about "the positive side of funerals."

Funerals can be messy - especially if the deceased was gay, and the family who rejected him in life wants the corpse as a trophy. That all-too-frequent occurence didn't happen with Richard. Only is his friend - his real family - were there. And such was his life, that in death there's no place for Auden's "Funeral Blues" - The Memorial of Choice

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,

For nothing now can ever come to any good."

Rather with Richard's case the Stevie Smith poem read by Nathan Cogan in Chereau's film (evoking the voice of the deceased rather than the mourners) more tellingly applies:

"In my dreams I am always saying goodbye and riding away,

Whither and why I know not nor do I care.

And the parting is sweet and the parting over is sweeter,

And sweetest of all is the night and the rushing air.

In my dreams they are always waving their hands and saying goodbye,

And they give me the stirrup cup and I smile as I drink,

I am glad the journey is set, I am glad I am going,

I am glad, I am glad, that my friends don't know what I think."

I wonder what Richard would think of the recent Newsweek AIDS cover story with its de rigeur lede.

"At a time when the mere threat of avian flu or SARS can set off a coast-to-coast panic-and prompt the federal government to draw up contingency plans and stockpile medicines-it's hard to imagine that the national response to the emergence of AIDS ranged from indifference to hostility. But that's exactly what happened when gay men in 1981 began dying of a strange array of opportunistic infections. President Ronald Reagan didn't discuss AIDS in a public forum until a press conference four years into the epidemic, by which time more than 12,000 Americans had already died. (He didn't publicly utter the term "AIDS" until 1987.) People with the disease were routinely evicted from their homes, fired from jobs and denied health insurance. Gays were demonized by the extreme right wing: Reagan adviser Pat Buchanan editorialized in 1983, "The poor homosexuals-they have declared war against nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution." In much of the rest of the culture, AIDS was simply treated as the punch line to a tasteless joke: "I just heard the Statue of Liberty has AIDS," Bob Hope quipped during the rededication ceremony of the statue in 1986. "Nobody knows if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." Across the river in Manhattan, a generation of young adults was attending more funerals than weddings."

Yadda, yadd, yadda

"As AIDS made its death march across the nation, killing more Americans than every conflict from World War II through Iraq, it left an indelible mark on our history and culture. It changed so many things in so many ways, from how the media portray homosexuality to how cancer patients deal with their disease. At the same time, AIDS itself changed, from a disease that killed gay men and drug addicts to a global scourge that has decimated the African continent, cut a large swath through black America and infected almost as many women as men worldwide. The death toll to date: 25 million and counting. "

But who's counting? Surely not BushCo. Surely not Andrew Hot Milky Loads Sullivan

or many others who fall under the heading of that ever-comforting fiction, "the gay community."

I've written about AIDS' first stirrings and about how things stood at the time Richard died.

A lot has happened since then. The "Protease inhibitor cocktail" has proven a success for many of those who've been lucky enough to have acces to it, less so for others. And then there are the millions world-wide who can't even dare dream of such medical treatment.

Clearly there was a "hump" of sorts in the late 90's. Some seropositives were able to jump over it and are happily with us today.

And that's why the last word belongs to the man Newsweek probably would have preferred to avoid, Larry Kramer:

"Don't you dare tell me there's any good news in this," says Larry Kramer, who has been raging against the disease-and those who let it spread unchecked-since it was first identified in 1981. "We should be having a national day of mourning!" ... "The only thing that makes people fight is fear. That's what we discovered about AIDS activism," Kramer says.

You're only right, Larry. That's why Richard loved you. No "complications" about that.

Remembering Rick Saslaw

By Assemblyman Paul Koretz

Over 200 friends and acquaintances of mine have died from AIDS, but one in particular stands out. Rick Saslaw was an old and dear friend of mine and a phenomenal individual who died from AIDS around 1994. I first met him when we were both involved with the California Democratic Council (which represented the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party) in the mid-1970's. As I recall, he was the administrative director of the CDC at that time. He was one of the first openly gay men I ever met.

Rick spearheaded the effort to create a Gay Caucus in the California Democratic Party in the 70's. He was one of the founders of the Stonewall Democratic Club, was an early President of the Club, and he signed me up in 1975-I believe I was the first straight man to join. He was a real bridge between the LGBT and straight community back then. Rick was largely responsible for my becoming aware and active in LGBT issues, which I have continued to be for the 30+ years since we met.

Rick was active in many political campaigns for progressive Democrats. He ran Wally Albertson's campaign for State Assembly, and was very active in Congressman Allard Lowenstein's campaigns in New York, and Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign, among others. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in 1980.

Rick was a realtor, working for George Elkins and Gayle Wilson & Associates. He was very involved in the creation of a major mixed use/senior housing project in Beverly Hills.

He was very involved in the West Hollywood community. He was my City Council appointee to the West Hollywood Transportation Commission near the end of his life, serving with distinction despite the struggles with his illness.

Rick had a significant effect on my life, and was a good friend whom I will never forget.

Remembering James Sakakura

By Noel Alumit

In 1987, an Asian man died alone in his apartment in Los Angeles. He opted to die by himself than let anyone know that he had that dreaded disease known as AIDS. That man was a member of the social organization Asian Pacific Lesbians and Gays. When others in APLG discovered that one of their very own members had HIV and didn't bother to tell anyone, they were beside themselves. If a gay Asian man couldn't disclose that he was dying of AIDS among his peers, something was definitely wrong. They decided to start a taskforce dedicated to helping Asians and Pacific Islanders. The task force was called the AIDS Intervention Team. It eventually became the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team, an organization that I've been working with for thirteen years.

Having an Asian or Pacific Islander talk openly about his or her HIV status to educate the larger community is still a difficult task. Twenty-five years later, with millions of Asians and Pacific Islanders worldwide having contracted or died of HIV/AIDS, I personally know only a handful of Asians know who are willing to tell their stories about living with the disease. One of those of people was James Sakakura.

Thank Gawd for James! He couldn't have come at a better time. In those early years, APAIT struggled with the Asian community, trying to convince them that Asians could get infected, too. There was a lot of ass kissing on our part, trying to persuade leaders in Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Koreatown that we were a legitimate health organization that needed to be in their communities. We were dumbfounded when an Asian pastor said we shouldn't have our AIDS awareness campaign in his Asian neighborhood. An Asian American political figure in a predominantly Asian American part of Los Angeles said that HIV was not a concern to her community.

Then came James Sakakura, a handsome, amiable man. He didn't look like those outrageous AIDS activists storming the streets. He looked like the kind of person you'd want your daughter to marry. People picked up on his sweetness and sensitivity. He was, in a word, charming.

He spoke publicly about his status. He allowed himself to be photographed, providing an Asian face to a disease that supposedly only got white people. And when you heard his mild voice on the radio crack with sadness at how difficult his relationship was with his father, your heart broke.

He was our first staff person to die of AIDS. A room at our agency is named after him. My favorite picture of James (the one on the in this magazine), is black and white and he's looking off to the distance. I donated the picture to the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention so that a new generation of AIDS workers could see who The James Sakakura Family Room was named after.

Sometimes I still think of him and words simply can't say how much I miss him because I'm 38-years-old, two years older than he was when he died, and I believe that my life is just beginning and I think how unfair it was that he didn't have a second half of a life to lead and it bothers me, bothers me to tears.

Dean Sandmire

By The Reverend Dr. Troy Perry, Founder, Metropolitan Community Churches

Of the thousands upon thousands of memories I have around HIV and AIDS, the most lasting and powerful is my first. It was the early '80s. The terms "HIV" and "AIDS" did not yet exist.

I received a call early one morning that Dean Sandmire, a young member of our Metropolitan Community Church, had been admitted to Orange County General Hospital. His diagnosis was called GRID-Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, a new disease about which little was known.

I made the drive south from Los Angeles and I'll never forget the site as I stood outside his door. Warning signs were posted everywhere and I remember thinking that it looked like a nuclear accident site. And everywhere, signs warned visitors to wear masks, robes, and gloves before entering the room.

I ignored the signs and walked in without any special clothing-but it wasn't because I was brave. I intuitively knew Dean needed to see me as his pastor, and not bundled and hidden and separated from him.

I had taken no more than three steps into his hospital room when Dean broke down. He began sobbing-deep, primal, fearful, uncontrollable sobs. Slowly I moved to his bedside and cradled him in my arms. At least 15 minutes passed before he could speak.

And when he did speak, his first words were, "I'm dying. The doctors give me five months to live."

I continued to hold him in my arms. I looked directly into his eyes and I said, "Dean, you must remember this: Doctors are not prophets. You are living with this, you are not dying with this." Over and over I repeated these words. "You are living with this, you are not dying with this."

Then the conversation shifted, and I asked him if there was anything I could do for him-and he had two requests. He asked that I bring him a Bible, which I readily agreed to do.

But what he told me next made me angry, or more accurately, it was what the Scriptures call "righteous anger"-that is, anger that is directed at injustice.

He said, "The hospital refuses to feed me. The hospital staff is afraid to come in to my room and they won't bring me my food; they're leaving my meal tray out in the hall and I'm not able to get it."

I reminded myself that some matters require prayer. And some require action.

So when I left his room, I took the elevator up to the administrative offices and asked to see the hospital administrator. They buzzed me in, and I didn't wait for the usual pleasantries. The words tumbled out of me. "You're the administrator of this hospital, and I have a church member on the first floor who is so ill that he can't get out of bed, and your staff won't even take his meal tray in to him. Now, you probably don't know me, but here's what you should know: If you want publicity for your hospital, I can get it for you. If your staff doesn't immediately begin taking meal trays to my parishioner, I'll have every TV station and newspaper reporter in Southern California down here to cover this story."

And I'm pleased to report that Dean's next meal, and every meal thereafter, was delivered directly to his bed.

Here's what else I remember about Dean Sandmire: He didn't live five months. He lived for four years. And he made those years count. And he became the first person with HIV to testify before the U.S. Congress.

Here is something else I carry with me every day: When he did come to the end of his life, in his final hours, as he was surrounded by friends, among the last words he spoke before he slipped into unconsciousness were these, "Be sure to tell Rev. Perry that I lived with it, I didn't die with it."

Like many in our community, my first experience with HIV involved a fight. And regrettably, it's still true. We're still fighting for funding, and for access to medications, and for government attention to a global crisis, and for understanding about HIV.

But I should tell you this: This is a part of Dean's story that I love. After my first visit, every single day member of our MCC congregation went to spend time with him. I was out of town on speaking engagements, and when I returned two weeks later I went to the hospital to visit Dean. And I again asked if he had any problems with the hospital staff?

And Dean said, "I've only got one problem now, Rev. Perry. Every time they come into my room now, they bring another meal tray. They won't stop overfeeding me!"

It's the way of memories: One memory invariably leads to another. As I think of Dean, another memory comes to mind. It's the memory of 17 years ago, when my partner Philip and I went together for an HIV test and we discovered that Phillip was HIV positive. HIV has lived with our family, and in our home, all these years.

Dean Sandmire set me on the road to fight for AIDS. He taught me a lesson I still preach everywhere I go: I contend that we all have AIDS. If not in our bodies, we carry it in our hearts.

The Reverend Dr. Troy D. Perry Founder, Metropolitan Community Churches

Rand Schrader

By David Bohnett

Rand Schrader, my former partner, was a lawyer and criminal courts judge in Los Angeles, California. He was one of the first warriors on the front line of the war against AIDS.

Rand was a pioneering activist for lesbian and gay civil rights, having been one of the early founders of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and other legal and social service groups formed in the late '70s and early '80s. He was among the first openly gay judges in the country, and I remember Randy telling stories about policemen staring in disbelief at an openly homosexual man sitting up on the judge's bench.

Rand was a leader in the pursuit for lesbian and gay civil rights, and a vanguard in the fight against AIDS during a time when it wasn't easy or popular to do so. During our ten years together, he taught me that there was no room for compromise when you are fighting for an equal place in society and that one person can make an enormous difference if you bring to the table a sustained level of passion and commitment to social justice.

I learned from Rand there is no 'someone else' that will speak up and take action on the problems confronting us all. During his very public struggle with AIDS and upon his death in June of 1993, he inspired me and countless others to become that "someone else," in honor of his and the countless number of others who struggled, and ultimately died, with such courage and dignity.

Peter Scott

A community hero... Tough, political, smart, astute, realistic-first chair of the first LGBT political action committee in the world, MECLA (Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles)... On the board of NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) and APLA (Aids Project Los Angeles)... An activist... With David Mixner, his business partner in the firm of Mixner/Scott, handled the day to day management of Prop. 6 (the fire all gay teachers initiative) and, amazingly, we won driving the right wing out of California and buying us time to grow stronger...

When people met him, the first thing they saw was his incredible good looks...the Marlboro man...It fit...Born in Texas to a founding Texas family who insisted he play football instead of the piano he loved... Raised on the family ranch... Devoted son, brother and uncle... Groomed to be governor of Texas, but for... Partner in a prestigious Texas law firm until someone guessed... And then... to California... Room to breathe, to grow, to be... to be open... to be a leader...to make an incredible contribution... to make a huge difference... To make friends... A great friend... My best friend... A great listener... Advisor... Teacher... Supporter... A great cook... A lover of dinner parties... Candles... Great conversation... Great food... Great wine... Great books... The News... Franklin Delano Roosevelt... Political Debate... A sweet gentle man with a surprising Texas twang and the manners of a Texas gentleman... A true feminist... A man who believed and made it happen... Texas' lose... the community's gain until... 1989... Mourned... Missed... Thought of every day... The gentle smile... The humor... The generosity of spirit... the caring... So much more he would have done... So much more he could have done.

Singer

Spencer's competitive temperament has included being a starting player in high school football, baseball, cross-country, and basketball. Being crowned Mr. Razzle Dazzle Dallas 1991 led to placing second runner-up for Mr. Gay Texas, as well as a bid at Mr. All-American.

His stellar pageant career included the Mr. Gay Southwest title. In 1995, Sid Spencer became one of the most successful performers to emerge from the gay community, easily able to go hat-to-hat with any of the contemporary cowboys on country radio. In 1996, he lost a valiant struggle against AIDS.