inertia
Popscene is a lovely club, at least on Thursday nights, but a rock-star-sized hangover, plus men working jackhammers outside, makes an inauspicious start to Friday. Which rock star? Say that giant guy who played lead guitar for Soundgarden. I forget his name. He's inside my head and there's not enough room.
They're thinking about banning ads for AIDS drugs out here. The ads, which try to put a upbeat face on being HIV-positive, are apparently too upbeat, to the point where people assume AIDS is no longer a crisis and stop being careful. There's been an unusually large number of new infections this year.
The ad with the headline "Going the Distance" features four healthy hikers on a rocky mountaintop, gazing into space, a rugged outdoor scene fit for a sports equipment ad.
That's a phony and distorted image of what it's like to have AIDS, said Jeff Getty, who has fought the disease for years and is organizing opposition to the ads through the group Survive AIDS.
"On these drugs, you don't feel like climbing a mountain," Getty said. "They don't show people on toilets, with IV's in their arms, which is what it is like."
I have to go away now. I can't check email out here, incidentally, so if you wrote me in the last few days and I haven't written back, that's why. I'll be back in Iowa on Monday and everything will once again be in its right place.
