I Somehow Survived the Darkest Years of AIDS
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, welcome back.
So this week and last, we've been looking at viruses. Last week, we looked at the discovery of Ebola. That's a particularly nasty virus out of Africa. And this week, we're onto a virus that's probably a bit more familiar to you, HIV. HIV. Now, HIV came out of the same stretch of African forest and savannah as Ebola, and it was transported to the United States sometime around the year 1970. And by the early 80s, it was causing havoc, and particularly in the country's gay communities. One study conducted in 1989 actually found that up to 50% of gay men were HIV positive in some major US cities. We're talking New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. And at that time, an HIV diagnosis was almost certainly fatal.
The median survival after a positive diagnosis was only 11 to 20 months. Now, this is the period that my guest comes into the picture. His name is Mark S. King, and he'd moved to Los Angeles in the early 80s to make it as an actor. But instead, he spent the next decade burying his friends. In 1985, Mark actually tested positive for HIV. But his people died around him. He just somehow carried on. And he doesn't really know why he survived. He's kind of a medical miracle. He just never got sick. And doctors have actually studied him to try to figure out why. He is one of a very, very small number of people who tested positive as part of the LGBT community in the 80s, and he lived through it to tell the story.
Now, I'm going to warn you, this is quite a sad episode, but it's also a beautiful one. Mark has a way with words that I think is really special. You're going to find yourself laughing out loud one minute and then you'll be tearing up the next. So that's our main episode. That's this episode that you're just about to hear. But stick around because for subscribers this week, we're going to look at a virus much closer to home or certainly for me. I'm an Australian. I'm recording this in Australia. And we actually have an indigenous virus here called Hendra, the Hendra virus. And in 1994, there was an outbreak of in the racing community. It killed a bunch of racehorses. It killed a racehorse owner. And it could have spread.
It could have turned into our version of COVID. But the government acted quickly and it shut things down, which is why you probably haven't heard of this virus. I'm going to do a little story on that. It's really interesting. That's for subscribers this week. But for now, strap in, because here is Marques King and how he lived through the 1980s AIDS epidemic. Hey, Mark. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Julian. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining me today. So I want to start your story in L.A., and you just arrived, and you were a young actor, and I want you to set the scene for me. What were you like? What was the city like?
Well, I was 19 years old. It was 1980. I had traveled from Shreveport, Louisiana, where I grew up, military family, lots of kids. I was the youngest and couldn't wait to get out, by the way, of Louisiana. Being gay in the late 70s in Louisiana wasn't ideal. So I kept going to bigger and bigger cities and I'd moved to New Orleans already. And then it was on to L.A., I was a commercial actor, and by that I mean I did television commercials. And I had this all-American look. I was, you know, very Opie Taylor, very Howdy Doody, very all-American, very non-threatening. I kind of specialized in the counterboy, you know, welcome to McDonald's, you know, sort of stuff. And that was my lane. And so off to Los Angeles I went to pursue all of that and arrived there in 1981.
And I had by then a boyfriend, Charlie, who was a few years older than me and a little more settled, which was great because I needed that. I was still just kind of in young adulthood myself. And I thought I had my whole life ahead of me. I mean, in the best possible way. I had a career that was taking off. And so off we went to pursue my dreams and get to Los Angeles and start that life. And I was just filled with hope and anticipation and joy.
And where were you on sort of like your queer journey at this point?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–13:17
2
What was gay nightlife and hookup culture like in early-1980s Los Angeles?
13:17–38:19
3
When did the first AIDS cases appear and how did the community initially react?
38:19–59:34
4
What was it like to shelter and care for dying friends during the 1980s AIDS crisis?
59:34–1:10:12
5
How did Mark S. King discover his HIV status and what was that moment like?
1:10:12–1:11:32
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from What It Was Like
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