Saturday, July 23, 8:00 PM - Midnight

The Client Community Center hosts regular activities and events every week.  In the interest of saving space and efficiency, all Community Center activities are now listed under the main D.A.P. website.  Click here for the full and current list of upcoming special events.  

 Regular recurring Client Community Center activities include:

D.A.P. Health Center changes:

an update from the Client Advocacy Committee 

On June 23, 2011, members of the Client Advocacy Committee (CAC) met with CEO David Brinkman and Director of Social Services Robin Johnson to discuss recent changes in medical providers at D.A.P.  The CAC felt that letters sent by D.A.P. regarding the changes caused concern and confusion among clients, including members of the CAC.  Because of this, we asked for a meeting with David Brinkman and staff to discuss our concerns.  We had a candid and illuminating conversation and felt genuine concern from Mr. Brinkman and Ms. Johnson regarding this situation.  The result was that numerous actionable items were agreed upon, including a forum which will be presented in an upcoming letter from Mr. Brinkman.   The CAC would like to invite other clients to join us on the committee to help implement future plans and continue to be a voice for clients in getting your ideas and concerns communicated and addressed.  Applications are available at the main reception desk.  Potential members may also apply by attending CAC meetings on the first Tuesday of each month at 2:00 PM in the D.A.P. Community Center or by emailing the CAC secretary at Cletus.Warren@yahoo.com.  (jl)

Meet our new Community Center Manager

Back to top 

Annenberg Theater summer free film series continues

Sitting in the cool and roomy Annenberg Theater at the Palm Springs Art Museum and watching terrific free movies is one of the best advantages of staying in town for summer.  The series began this month and through July will feature notable foreign films, including Soul of Sand from India, and The Tenants, from Brazil.  In August, the series switches to some classic American favorites such as A Night at the Opera, The Philadelphia Story and Some Like It Hot.  Films begin every Thursday at 6:00 PM.  Click here for the full schedule.  (sb)

Back to top

Get out of the heat, have some fun and learn a new skill!

Ever been interested in knitting, crocheting, latch hooking, embroidery or other needlecraft?  Stitch in Time is a group of D.A.P. clients and volunteers who gather every Wednesday in the Duane Johnson Room of the D.A.P. Client Community Center.  Many are quite skilled in a variety of needlecrafts and would love to teach you what they know.  The group was originally founded as a wellness program to provide therapy for hand tremors and neuropathy.  Along the way, participants found camaraderie, sharing and friendship.  If you'd like to join them, please call Rick at 760.323.1123 or email him at rfrdtux@dc.rr.com.  Better yet, just drop in and check it out any Wednesday from 10:00 AM to noon!  (sb) 

Back to top

Researchers close in on why HIV causes premature aging

People treated with first-generation nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) are more likely to show signs of premature aging than HIV patients who were not treated with those drugs.  This has been long suspected, but enough time has passed now to confirm the data.  Besides meds, the journal Nature Genetics further explores other explanations, such as presence of the virus itself, for other clues about premature aging in people with HIV.  Click here to read the full article.  (sb)  

Back to top 

Beyond 30 years--what happens now?

The 30th anniversary has brought a much-needed update and increased attention to  HIV/AIDS.  While looking back is instructive, it's more important  now to focus on what the future may hold--treatments, side-effects, longevity and the ever-growing issue of aging with the disease.  Longtime researcher Dr. Raymond Alvarez, of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, has published his informed predictions.  Click here to read his four-part report.  (sb)    

Back to top 

When AIDS turned 20 

Ten years ago your editor was a resident columnist at the late and lamented New York Blade, a weekly LGBT paper on par with Chicago's Windy City Times and San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter.  We were just a few years into anti-retrovirals, and they were still rough stuff to take: Norvir, AZT, Crixivan, Zerit, etc.  Life-saving certainly, but their side-effects  remain with many of us today.  At that time, public awareness seemed to be diminishing and some writers who ought to have known better declared  that meds had given us a "post-AIDS" world.  I couldn't resist that one and wrote a rather cranky commentary that  shows how things have changed somewhat and that today may be of some historical interest.  Unfortunately, most of the New York Blade archive has been lost (no website) so I include the column here from my own files.  (sb)  

June 15, 2001 

To the Point/Steve Bolerjack

AIDS comes of age

I'm not sure why America is so obsessed by anniversaries.  For some reason, we measure our lives by major events of the times in which we live, then categorize that human experience into neat little decades that stretch behind us like so many overstuffed shoeboxes.  The media knows this and feeds us endless docudramas, retrospectives and file footage of whatever disaster, trend, war or celebrity death occurred ten, 25 or 60 years ago.

But apparently, AIDS is the exception.  We now have two shoeboxes full of AIDS memorabilia to sort through, but the networks and cable channels have been very light in their coverage.  We've seen brief news stories and sound bytes but no major documentaries or retros--an odd response to an anniversary that marks the deaths of 22 million people worldwide.  Of course, sexually transmitted disease is not really sexy, and then AIDS always had that pesky gay thing attached to it.  Well, AIDS in America, while spreading among women and minority groups, will likely be perceived as a "gay thing" for many years.  And so be it.  AIDS has been our test, our war, our apotheosis.  Or at least it was for awhile.

For many gay men old enough to remember June 1981, when The New York Times first reported an ominous "gay cancer" out there, the most striking realization on this melancholy anniversary may be sheer surprise that they're still here to observe it.  However, as a long-term survivor, I can attest that surprise is only one of innumerable and deeply lodged reactions, fears and memories about AIDS that need no particular commemoration to come to the surface.  When you've watched it up close from the beginning, managed to live through it as everyone around you died, and finally accepted that it will be your constant companion until...well, it all makes AIDS anniversaries seem somehow...unnecessary.

But as long as people do take stock at such times, I hope this anniversary wakes up a gay community that has--inexplicably and inexcusably--become appallingly complacent about AIDS and HIV infection.  We've comforted ourselves with the preposterous myth of a "post-AIDS" world, believing that magic morning-after pills will prevent us from getting sick, that benevolent government agencies and sympathetic pharmaceutical companies have our best interests at heart, and that a president previously hostile to the gay community has suddenly seen the light with the appointment of a gay Republican flunky to head the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.

Have we forgotten that AIDS policy is largely about profit and politics?  Have the drug regimens suddenly become as easy as taking aspirin?  Are poz people really going mountain-climbing after taking Crixivan, as the Merck ads would have us believe?  Sure!  I know that's the first thing I feel like doing after downing four anti-virals every morning.

The absurdity of post-AIDS thinking should be as obvious as that of the drug companies' ads.  In fact, it's hard to miss.  There are daily reports of increasing drug failures, rising infection rates in young black gay and Hispanic men, and burgeoning unsafe sex among the still (for the moment) HIV-negative.  And AIDS-related obits remain in nearly every issue of The Advocate.  For the next four years of the Administration of so-called compassionate conservatism (which just announced its intention to discontinue Gay Pride Day presidential commemorations) we should be camping on the doorsteps of the few gay people with the effrontery to serve in it.  While it's fun to watch the religious right sputter at Bush for Scott Evertz' appointment to the AIDS Policy Office, it's more important that we stay on Evertz' back, demanding his support for increased funding for medical and pharmaceutical research, civil rights and legislative protections, and while we're at it, some true indication of his place in and relationship to the gay community.  Having a gay AIDS czar (I really have to laugh at that word) two decades into the plague would seem to be a major advance in progressive thinking.  So why am I not convinced that's what it means?  Paging ACT-UP....

But beyond politics and strategizing, there are many ways to mark 20 years of AIDS and to remember our friends who died in their prime.  Glancing back in sadness must surely be balanced with looking ahead with hope, but for anyone who cares to remember, or perhaps wasn't there, I recommend reading or re-reading Borrowed Time, by the late Paul Monette.  It's neither an easy nor comforting read, but rather an unsentimental distillation of what life was like for many of us in the horrific pre-protease era, what AIDS was like at ground zero.  Essentially, we did two things: watched helplessly as everyone around us fell, and then wondered how long we could remain standing.  Never before have I needed to put down a memoir and compose myself before I could read on, but I did with this one.  Like gay people everywhere, however, the book is not without flaws and excesses.  Monette was eloquent, but hardly economical; he could take pages to make a point.  And his elitism and narcissism could be irritating.  But Borrowed Time remains among the best depictions of an unexpected and unprecedented era, made all the more poignant by the author's death from AIDS in 1995.  Let's just hope the book remains a period piece.

So when you get right down to it, 20 years of AIDS is about what most war anniversaries are about: to remember our dead and if necessary, to continue the fight.  And trust me, the fight is far from over.

###

Back to top 

Tell us your story

Just like you, your editors have been through it and lived to write about it.   In our ongoing series highlighting 30 years of AIDS, we've run a couple of stories on fellow survivors, one or two local, some from elsewhere.  But since we prefer to focus on D.A.P. clients, we'd like to hear from you.  What did you go through upon diagnosis, starting meds, becoming ill?  What were reactions from family, friends?  We all have our own individual stories and we'd like to run some of them here at DAPCAN.  Of course, the more unusual and instructive the better, but if you're an HIV/AIDS veteran, have worked on the front lines, or have any interesting tale to tell, we'd love to hear it and publish it.  Please email us at info@desertaidsproject.com with anything you'd like to share.  (sb)

Back to top 

Latina transgender beauty queens raise HIV/AIDS awareness

Yes, you read that right.  Who knew that Orange County, one of the most conservative counties in the state, is also home to one of the nation's oldest gay and lesbian centers?  Or that the center sponsors an annual pageant for transgender Latinas that benefits HIV/AIDS programs and services?!  "Miss Hermosa y Protegida" (Beautiful and Safe) is one of the longest-running, Latina transgender events in the country.  Click here to read about it in a fun article and a link to a video of backstage pageantry.  (sb)

Back to top 

Brain impairment with HIV may be slightly less severe

Back to top   

Affordable Care Act to improve data, remove disparities

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (pictured) recently announced new standards for collecting and reporting data on race, ethnicity, sex, primary language and disability status, along with Administration plans to include health data on LGBT populations.  The efforts are to help researchers, policy makers, health providers and advocates better identify and address health disparities afflicting these communities.  Click here to read the HHS summary.  (sb)

Back to top  

Help with healthy aging

The National Resource Center on LGBT Aging is the country's first and only technical assistance resource center aimed at improving the quality of services and supports offered to older LGBT adults.  The center is led by Services & Advocacy for LGBT Elders (SAGE) in partnership with 10 leading organizations from around the country.  Its website offers information on everything from health and wellness to elder abuse.  It is also an excellent resource for those aging with HIV.  (jl)

Our Sponsors

The Bottom Line

Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians