Tag: louie ortiz-fonseca
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songs that soundtracked the AIDS crisis: sinéad o’connor’s “nothing compares to you”
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is she a skinhead or is she not? why is she bald? why is she all about? these were the questions i remember people asking upon the release of the video for sinéad o’connor’s “nothing compares 2 u.” without any historical context, these questions seem odd, but with sleekly produced…
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DIANA ROSS
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on july 21, 1983, diana ross staged one of the highly significant concert events of the decade. organized by the city and the parks department, with support from ross herself, the benefit concert was a free, open-air performance held at the great lawn in central park, new york city to…
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louie on LATV’s “Living Y Ready” Series
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Throughout the month of June, LATV has been celebrating Pride Month with their Queer original series, Living Y Ready, a storytelling series that reframes the narrative around HIV through candid conversations and queer expression. Thank you LATV, for providing a platform where I can share my story and express my truth. Watch…
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TINA TURNER
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i dreamed about my mother for the first time in a long time last night. waking from those all-too-real dreams used to leave me wallowing in the quicksand of regret over the loss of control over things we had no control of. but not this time. i spent the rest of…
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SALT-N-PEPA
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On November 28, 1993, The New York Times published journalist Jeffrey Schmalz’s last article, “Whatever Happened to AIDS?,” three weeks after his death due to AIDS complications. In the piece, Schmalz wrote, “…AIDS has become normalized, part of the landscape. It is at once everywhere and nowhere.” Although AIDS had…
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Songs That Soundtracked The AIDS Crisis: LaTour’s “People Are Still Having Sex”
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By 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had spent over $7,000,000 on mass media public service announcements since launching their HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign in 1987. However, despite these efforts, the AIDS crisis continued to escalate, with over 120,000 AIDS-related deaths reported since 1981. In this…
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JACKIE SHANE
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the last time jackie shane graced a stage was in toronto, canada in december 1971. after decades of swirling rumors that she had been murdered, miss shane reemerge in late 2017 with her grammy nominated “any other way”, a comprehensive double album of her musical catalog. jackie shane’s story began on may 15, 1940 in nashville, tennessee.…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Crisis: Jody Watley’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”
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in november 1993, pop music architect jody watley released her fourth solo album “intimacy.” a departure from the r&b/dance oriented sound that was prominent on her previous albums, “intimacy” was a boundary-defying body of work that in some ways predated the neo-soul movement that would take hold a few years…
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For Christopher
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christopher collins left this world in 2017. he was my first love and for years, my only love. he was an integral part of HIV prevention youth program development in philadelphia. we met in the mid-1990s. we were part of a group of black & brown queer & trans youth…
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In Gratitude for My Aunt Carmen
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growing up, i never believed adults were god. i was always curious about their ways and their secret jokes like what “NEWPORT” really meant. i knew they were flawed beyond belief. i had my own lived experience to rely on as scientific data. but one of the things that made…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Crisis: Miquel Brown’s “So Many Men, So Little Time”
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“So many men, so little timeHow can I choose,So many men, so little timeHow can I choose” On March 14, 1983, Larry Kramer published his now historic essay entitled “1,112 and Counting” in a bi-weekly gay newspaper, The New York Native. The blistering essay, which also served as an urgent call to…
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UNCANNY ALLIANCE
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in the early 1990s, there was no shortage of dance groups from new york garnering national notoriety at both the club and radio level. but only a few were able to brilliantly fuse the complicated feelings of joy and isolation, self discovery, camp and humor into catchy pop hooks the…