Last night I watched this documentary on BBC 4 – WE WERE HERE: Voices From The AIDS Years in San Francisco – and it brought back so many memories. It opened up a part of me that I shut tight so long ago. It was a moving story about the AIDS epidemic and particularly the impact on and galvanization by the San Francisco community. I was affected by the AIDS crisis. In 1986 I lost my uncle Diggie (Stuart Baker Bergen) my mothers brother. It was devastating to say the least. He was and still is the most amazing person I have ever met. So talented, he could paint, write musicals, design costumes and sets, make comic strips, he modeled for GQ; and he made my childhood the ultimate fantasy by making these amazing costumes from antique lace and feathers with matching parasols and fox stoles. They were out of this world! But he didn’t stop there, even the boxes were decorated with drawings and rhinestones and sequins! It would be layer upon layer of jewels until the last layer revealed the most out of this world ensemble. He traveled the world in the 60′s with ground breaking avant-garde theatre company – Cafe La Mama, with their production of Medea. He hung out with Olivia De Havilland and Pierre Cardin. But he was also very spiritual and positive. I never heard him say anything negative ever. Even at my Grandpa’s funeral, he was walking around saying “it’s so wonderful! Grandpa’s in heaven with Grandma!” I wasn’t so convinced how great it was, my grandpa died on my 13th birthday! To get my mind off of the death, my uncle took me to a play he was in, The Music Man. The lead was played by Brad Maul aka Dr Tony Jones from soap opera- General Hospital! I got made up back stage with false eyelashes and a sequined dress and watched the show in the front row. Afterwards hanging out in the piano bar drinking virgin daquris with Dr Tony Jones until 2am! I forgot all about grandpa dying. Diggie was so incredible, words do not do him justice! And since I first met him as a baby, I planned my entire life around him. Once I graduated, I would move to New Orleans to live with him and be an actress/ bohemian, and have all the fun in the world. This is him at Mardi Gras 1981. 
In 1985 he had been living in Morocco working as an entertainment director at a resort hotel. They mainly catered to Germans, so he wrote musicals in German, spoke to the locals in French and Spanish, and wrote us letters in English (btw – his letters were amazing, works of art on their own, beautiful penmanship on lovely stationary, always funny)…Then in Sept 1985, he got sick and came home. Mamma was vague about what was going on. She just cried a lot. I only found out he had AIDS from reading people magazine. Since his illness, he had become very close to this woman named Louise Hay and spent sometime at her center in LA. The article was about how it was a haven for AIDS patients. I confronted mamma, and she confessed. We made a pact to not tell anyone as we lived in a very small minded bible belt town. It was hard enough dealing with the dying of the rock of the family, we didn’t need harassment on top of it. So we suffered in silence. We visited him Nov 85 for Thanks Giving, that would be the last time we saw him. 86 was a painful year. Diggie faded, he asked that we not come back to visit as he didn’t want us to see him weak. He was the strong one in the family. So we didn’t go. He had an amazing network of friends who cared for him. He called us regularly, eventually not making much sense. It was so hard. I refused to go to school, Mamma didn’t force me. In fact by April, the school said if I missed one more day they would hold me back. And when he died in May, we had to hold the service back just so I would’t fail sophomore year.
After Diggie died I became close to my cousin Sean. He was an incredibly talented painter/ illustrator living in NYC. I went to visit him during the summers. He took me to the Tunnel Club and King Tut’s Wah Wah hut. We went to The Metropolitan Museum and stared at the miniature boxwood carvings from the medieval period for hours, wondering how on earth people could carve such intricate pictures in such a small space. We walked around the East Village and he was one of the first artists living in Williamsburg. This is my favorite painting of his – Jack & Eudena Fighting – from his Texas series.
We became really tight. I had alot of fun with Sean. And then 2 years after I lost my uncle, he confided in me he had it. I was so mad. Diggie’s death had devastated me, now he was dying on me. I pushed him away to protect myself from the hurt. I feel bad about it now, but I was still a teenager. That is how I processed it. He moved back in with his family in Texas and passed in 92.
I lost a good friend Kevin in New Orleans in 89, my friend David in 91. My friend Grady in 95. And in 97 one of my best friends ever, Mark Coile, died a week to the day after my father’s death from of cancer. I didnt get to say good bye to Mark as I was too busy caring for my dad.
AIDS has robbed me of family and many friends. It’s so great that it’s not a total death sentence now, and it’s thanx to the people in this doc. They were at the forefront of the crisis in the early days. They gave their time & their effort to band together for change and end the genocide of the gay community. They are true heros! Click the pic to watch the trailer from the doc. Try BBC iplayer to watch the full length version! oxo gd
This is an amazing record! It is always in my record box where ever I go. Released in 1962 on Bandy Records (a local New Orleans label) it features New Orleans musicians doing killer classics. Jessie Hill & Ohh Poo Pah Doo, Ernie K Doe & T’aint it The Truth, and one of my all time faves – Aaron Neville’s – Over You, which is a super dark track about murder! Bandy also issued the same year an album with a similar cover called “We Sing The Blues”, which has some of those same trax, plus Irma Thomas doing It’s Raining, Benny Spellman – Lipstick Traces On a Cigarette, Chris Kenner – I Like it Like That, and Eskew Reader & Green Door. I’m talking super mega awesome sounds. That put you in such a great mood too!
