AHC: Mick Fleetwood, imagined background as paramedic, successful activist regarding AIDS?

PDF file --> http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/aids_activism_S.pdf

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' . . . In their early activism on behalf of safer sex, gay men insisted on making it erotic, both to encourage its practice and to celebrate male-male sexuality. Practicing safer sex allowed gay men to continue to participate in gay male sexual culture and still protect themselves from infection. . . '
This is something people have to do for themselves. 'Of course we're going to make condom use erotic and incorporate it into sex play.' But this is something medical professionals would have a heck of a difficult time doing. And even good-hearted outsiders like Mick would have a difficult time talking about this.
 
So, what is Mick going to do?

1) On the basis of ongoing relationships with fellow activists, someone that Mick knows recommends that GMHC looks like a solid group. He easily and comfortably writes a check for $5,000. Mick figures that as he gets more and more involved, he'll write more and more checks, and he's happy to do so. He doesn't want to take over a group, but he's happy to do his part.

2) Mick an early public figure who speaks up, we shouldn't blame people with AIDS, any way it's useful to blame anyone else who gets sick. He keeps it simple and straightforward.

Other band members admire Mick's activism, at other times are merely tolerant of it. They don't quite get how he makes it such a large part of his life (a lot of people might not get this about Bono either).

3) Around '83 or '84, Fleetwood Mac might do "The Heartland Tour," say seven dates through middle America to directly raise money for AIDS care, treatment, and research.

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Again, this is a flight of fancy in which Mick Fleetwood is a really big into activism. Most people aren't, and that's perfectly okay. In real life, Mick's into his music and is not a particularly big activist.

Open TL, feel free to jump in.
 


the Stratosphere!!!


Fleetwood Mac released Rumours on February 4th, 1977. But in following albums, because of regression to the mean if nothing else, you can't always have the same huge level of commercial and cultural success.


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Fleetwood_Mac_-_Tusk.jpg


Fleetwood Mac released Tusk on Oct. 12, 1979.
 
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Fleetwood Mac: a timeline

The Telegraph, 8 June 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/9319203/Fleetwood-Mac-a-timeline.html


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1979

The quirky 20-track double album, Tusk, is released and the band embark on a huge 18-month tour, travelling to the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In Germany they share the bill with reggae superstar Bob Marley.

1982

Mirage is certified double platinum in the US.

1983

The band go on hiatus, allowing members to release solo albums. Nicks' became the most popular but she is admitted to the Betty Ford Clinis for addiction problems. McVie suffers an addiction-related seizure. It is rumoured that Fleetwood Mac had broken up, but Buckingham commented that he was unhappy to allow Mirage to remain as the band's last effort.

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A shitload of musicians have had substance abuse problems. I wish they didn't, but often they do.

I think Mick has struggled with substance abuse, too. Let's say his activism breaks even in this regard. Yes, he has more to do and his whole emotional everything doesn't ride up and down with his music. But on the other hand, more stress and more people with perhaps unrealistic expectations of what he should do. So, in this imagined whole concurrent second career, largely the same substance abuse problems.
 
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Mick Fleetwood

"Hey, I'm just a regular guy," he might say.

But in this ATL, he's surprisingly successful as an activist.
 
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gmhc-hotline-peterschaaf-1990.jpg


http://www.advocate.com/health/2016/8/11/gay-mens-health-crisis-35-visual-history#slide-12

Somehow I like the idea of Mick working the phone lines. In fact, worried about whether new volunteers will be trained in time and feeling the press of a tour scheduled to start. John McVie comes through as peacemaker and suggests the early tour dates be rolled to the end. We've done it before, he says.

If asked, Mick says, yes, I'm from the UK, I worked a year and a half as a paramedic, I like to think I know my stuff. I'm a musician, I'm not gay myself, I know people who are, I think everyone has the same rights, whether gay or straight. Mick doesn't say that he's famous, and hardly anyone calling in figures it out. Occasionally, a gay person doesn't feel comfortable talking with a heterosexual guy and that's perfectly alright.
 
https://books.google.com/books?id=q...tics were disruptive and destructive"&f=false

' . . . in January 1962 . . . '

' . . . Kurt Flascher was an incredibly committed member of Brooklyn CORE, but some felt that his prickly personality and conservative politics were disruptive and destructive. . . '
This is about civil rights activism and equal rights for African-Americans.

Illustrates that activist groups certainly are not perfect and have many of the same problems any other human organization has!
 
When I participated in peace and anti-war activism in 1990 and '91, well, I'm a nerdy guy who's most probably Spectrum. I came through activism in large part through philosophy, which I still think has things to offer, and I occasionally broached these topics.

And people often shied away from me. Yes, I rather understand, but it was still disappointing.

And to some extent, government surveillance and use of informers has "worked" in that activists are less trusting of each other than they otherwise would have been.
 
http://www.hivplusmag.com/people/2015/02/24/gmhc-honors-founder-it-once-ousted-larry-Kramer

'In 1983 Larry Kramer, one of the founders of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, was kicked out of the organization he helped create, due to his loud and often controversial methods of raising public awareness about the AIDS epidemic. . . '
The Normal Heart (2014 HBO movie) depicts a letter being read to him.

As with our Mick Fleetwood as an imagined experienced, seasoned activist, not that he could prevent this, but how might he help the divorce go better, so to speak?
 
holball_2007_christopherbarbosa_missj.jpg


http://www.advocate.com/health/2016/8/11/gay-mens-health-crisis-35-visual-history#slide-14

GMHC hosts the annual Latex Ball, featuring categories for competition, HIV testing, and prevention materials for the House and Ball community, which consists primarily of black and Latino LGBT youth and adults.

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20...nton/gmhc-gears-up-for-25th-annual-latex-ball

The Latex Ball started in 1989 when members of the House and Ball community partnered with GMHC to improve HIV/AIDS services. Members participate in fashion-forward runway competitions, and create much-copied trends such as vogueing.

Yes, great idea to reach out to various minority communities, but this event wasn't started till 1989? ? Apparently, not.
 
https://www.poz.com/article/Boys-Night-Out-10631-5638

“We were accused of being too white and too rich,” Kramer says. “The usual. There were no lesbians or people of color. We tried to get them—they wouldn’t come. Popham and I would go to black groups and literally beg them. Forget it. After a while, we were doing such a good job that people shut up. Also, I became very adept at telling the critics to fuck themselves: Join us or get lost. Shaming them by asking, ‘What the fuck are you doing to help save your brothers?’ GMHC was an upper-middle-class white place for a long time, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.”

GMHC eventually grew into an institution that, at its zenith, wielded an annual budget of $30 million and deployed a paid staff of 300 and a volunteer corps of 8,000 to serve some 10,000 men, women and children with HIV.
Yes, you need friends you can bitch and moan to about how things aren't working out. But then, you keep trying different things and it might surprise you what works out.

And activism needs a variety of different people.

Larry Kramer kind of takes a tent revival evangelist approach, and you definitely need that especially at the beginning. And once you start to get big, you need people who are strong on the organizational side. And once money's involved, you need solid cash management almost like a casino. We're not casting aspersions that anyone's dishonest. We're just keeping honest people honest. We have the controls in place so everyone has confidence that no one else is skimming off money.
 
https://www.poz.com/article/Boys-Night-Out-10631-5638

Their first fundraiser, an April [1982] benefit dance called “Showers,” was turned down by Flamingo, the hot gay disco, and held instead at the Paradise Garage, a less popular club with a primarily black clientele.
This could have been a lucky accident. But apparently it wasn't enough for GMHC to start winning over a goodly number of African-American members and volunteers at the beginning.
 


This is the rock band Asia from the early '80s, just to spread the blame a little. I don't think they engaged in activism regarding AIDS either.
 




In the early '80s, Olivia Newton-John experimented with music with a harder edge, including singles such as "Physical" (1981) and "Heart Attack" (1982).

Doesn't mean she has to be the savior of the universe!
 




Billy Joel released The Nylon Curtain on Sept. 23, 1982 including such songs as "Allentown," "Pressure," and "Goodnight Saigon."

Well, just because a person is an activist in some areas does not obligate him to be in others.
 




Dr. Ruth Westheimer talked about using condoms and safer sex in the mid-'80s, as she did so as comfortably and easily as she talked about any other matter sexually!

But I don't think she was out in front in the early '80s. Was she even famous then?
 
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comedian Andy Kaufman on Letterman

Dr. Ruth appears 29:06 into episode.

https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=6vPe4SV93f0
[bare link works great on older iphone, gives youtube search page on desktop, don't get it)

11-17-1982 Letterman Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Andy Kaufman, Alec Baldwin

Plus, Dr. Ruth had a radio and TV show in New York, which of course was the place in the U.S. where AIDS hit the hardest. This may be in the category of a missed opportunity. But I don't know if she didn't frankly talk about AIDS.

People are good at some areas of activism and not others, that's basically the fact of the matter, and this is for people who are activist at all.
 
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