Mark S. King stalked me. He did. Ask him.
It was about eight years ago when the long-term HIV survivor and much honored writer crept up in my DMs on social media. My production company was fundraising for the first season of my HIV-positive musical comedy web series, Merce. Mark was probably desperate for a topic to write about for his blog, My Fabulous Disease, and he found my pleading for cash on social media compelling enough to warrant an interview. My producing partner and I needed all the press we could get, so we scheduled a time with Mark. We did the interview over Skype (remember Skype?), the article came out, and I thought that was it.
But then, Mark kept calling me. Out of the blue. He would say hello, and after hello, he would ask how I was doing. I wasn’t sure what was happening or how to handle it, so I just said hello back, told him I was fine and asked about him. And he told me. It was unnerving.
Across time that weirdo with his peculiar calls worked his charm on me. Now, I can happily say that Mark S. King is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. We have shared tons of laughter, snarky remarks, gossip, dirty jokes, and carbs. Lots of carbs. Mark is a big ol’ fella—funny, smart, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and a giant, giant heart.
It’s a good thing that I didn’t know who Mark was when he DM’d me, because I might have been intimidated. He has been celebrated in the HIV and LGBTQ+ communities for his advocacy work since the start of the AIDS crisis. His popular blog, My Fabulous Disease, won the 2020 GLAAD Award for Outstanding Blog after five consecutive nominations. Mark was named the 2020 LGBTQ Journalist of the Year by NLGJA—The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, which also awarded him their Excellence in Blogging honor in 2014, 2016 and 2020.
My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor is Mark’s newly released second book, and it’s wonderful. The volume gives insight to the AIDS crisis from someone who was there with charm, humor and honesty. It also shows the strength and tenacity of a tough cookie who has not stopped living and loving as he shares the mean truths and surprising delights of getting older.
Since he’s in Atlanta and I’m in Queens, New York, we got together over Zoom. We talked about the book, life, love, HIV and more. And we teased each other too, because that’s how we do.
CHARLES: This is how I know that we are not of equal renown: When we are at USCHA [the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS] together, people ran up to you, screaming your name like you’re a movie star. They ran past me, pushing me to the ground and stepping over me to get to you.
MARK: I will not apologize. I love people and I love this work. And you know…
CHARLES: What.
MARK: I’m pretty.
CHARLES: That’s how you became America’s HIV sweetheart?
I wanted to write not just as a long-term survivor, which has been the bulk of my identity, but also as someone who has other facets of my life.
MARK: Yes.
CHARLES: I would say AIDS sweetheart, except…
MARK: I have never had an AIDS diagnosis.
CHARLES: Aha! You’ve been healthy this whole time! Did you ever get sick?
MARK: Weirdly, no. I was diagnosed in 85. There were no meds or anything. I feel like an underachiever somehow. But I went through the same sort of Sword of Damocles, Oh my God, will I find a spot [on my body] tomorrow? I kept feeling like it was coming. It never did. I’m grateful for that. It doesn’t negate the fact that I was traumatized every day for years and years.
CHARLES: I think an HIV diagnosis, even with the medications and everything else, is still devastating. When I was diagnosed in 2003, even though I was put on meds right away, I got healthy right away, I still would find spots and be like, oh my God! That fear was so ingrained in all of us from the AIDS crisis.
MARK: It’s also worth mentioning that you woke up from a coma and found out you had AIDS. That’s much more dramatic than anything I ever went through.
CHARLES: I have been through a lot of things more dramatic than anything you’ve ever been through.
MARK: Spoken like a drama queen.
CHARLES: From one drama queen to another. What made you decide to work on this second book?
MARK: I’m a writer. What I do are essays. I talk about myself, about my experience living with HIV, getting older, having sex, being gay, finding love, and all those things. I wanted the stories to live in one place.
These are the greatest hits. I wanted to write not just as a long-term survivor, which has been the bulk of my identity, but also as someone who has other facets of my life. There’s a lot of humor in it, a lot of sex that has nothing to do with HIV, addiction and recovery, and family. I’m just writing the truth and it seems to hit with a lot of people.
CHARLES: How did you pick the blogs that you chose?
MARK: They’re the ones that really have an impact because they’re particularly moving or particularly funny. I don’t want the story—our story, the what happened to us—to get lost.
I will often in my blog reach back and find pieces of history, a funny or interesting happening or figures throughout time that played a vital part. There’s still a lot of this history to unearth that is fascinating and reveals or reminds people who we are: a community that came together and decided to do something when nobody else cared.
CHARLES: Did you ever wonder about how you acquired HIV?
MARK: There were many, many possibilities. A lot. It never occurred to me in 1985 to try to figure out who I got it from. That was not a thing for any of us because there wasn’t any time to place blame and figure it out. We were all doing our best to tread water and care for one another. That’s something very interesting that has changed over the years, I guess, because people are embarrassed about becoming HIV-positive in this day and age.
You brought up something important, and that is for people who are newly diagnosed, even those diagnosed this afternoon—it’s a major life event. If you need time to freak out, be my guest. It’s certainly worth freaking out over, but not for too long. Then get to work and find a doctor and get on meds and enjoy the rest of your life.
CHARLES: And reach out to the community. That’s one thing that you helped build. I loathe to give you any sort of compliment, but you did help build a community that is now nationwide, worldwide. I don’t know anybody in this HIV circle that wouldn’t welcome someone who’s newly diagnosed, who needs help, who needs an ear.
MARK: Tragedy is not a contest. Sometimes long-term survivors tend to keep score of how terrible it was for me or how much worse it was for me or how many friends I had that died.
CHARLES: All I want is a cure and to have my friends back.
MARK: We’re all a little wounded, there’s no doubt. Every single day someone is coming of age or having sex for the first time, and they didn’t get this information about risk and whatnot. It’s not like they’re born with this knowledge. Education is a continuous thing and it doesn’t reach everybody. That’s how HIV happens. I can’t stand to hear a long-term survivor say, if you’d only seen what I saw. No, I don’t want anybody to see what I saw.
CHARLES: One of the things that always bugs me, when people talk about abstinence, we forget how overpowering the sex urge is, especially when you’re young. For me, when I was young, I was like Toucan Sam. I would follow my penis wherever it goes!
MARK: People should know that the 1980s were not a period of some great sexual austerity. People must think that we all stopped [having sex] and the bars cleared out and nobody hooked up anymore. If that had been the case, we would’ve stopped HIV in its tracks! We were fucking our brains out. It may be hard to wrap your head around this: it was a big fuck you to AIDS. It was a feeling of I’m doing something that feels like I’m alive at a time where we were just choking on mortality.
CHARLES: And we had George Michael telling us, “Sex is natural, sex is good. Not everybody does it. But everybody should!” Even the media gave us mixed messages, telling us, “No glove, no love,” and “condoms, condoms, condoms,” and, “abstinence only,” while we also had pop stars telling us to have sex and to “choose life.” That’s two George Michael quotes in as many minutes.
MARK: I’m impressed. Throughout the years, I had this voice in the back of my mind that said, “don’t hurt anybody. Be careful.” That can screw with you when you’re trying to have a good time. Then U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) comes along, and we get the all-clear signal for those of us on successful treatment. Just as I’m reaching late middle age…
CHARLES: And you’re married…
MARK: And I’m married. Sex has gone from three times a week to Saturday night after Netflix. But if there’s a good episode on, maybe we’ll put it off. I don’t want anybody who is older to believe that everybody’s out there, U=U-ing their brains out, because we’re not too much. If you slow down, that’s OK. It’s not all about sex at my age, it’s about writing and friends like you and other choices of life.
This whole book thing and the release of it has given me a lot of time to think about what I’ve done and what am I leaving and what it all means. All the corny things turn out to be true. It’s about finding a meaningful existence.
It’s about helping somebody else through this life, through this scary ride. And it’s about telling your friends you love ‘em, and hopefully making the trip a little easier for somebody else.
This whole book thing and the release of it has given me a lot of time to think about what I’ve done and what am I leaving and what it all means. All the corny things turn out to be true.
CHARLES: How do you wanna end this conversation?
MARK: Buy the book. My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor. It has a foreword by Greg Louganis.
CHARLES: I don’t know why it doesn’t have a foreword by Charles Sanchez. I have one more very important question.
MARK: Yes?
CHARLES: What is the color of your hair? What’s the name on the box?
MARK: It’s called Ginger. Now, my hair on the top of my head, this is my actual color hair. It’s not as red as it used to be.
CHARLES: Are you telling me you don’t have any gray in your hair?
MARK: It’s my natural color. Honey.
CHARLES: I don’t believe you.
MARK: Go through my medicine cabinet. Now, I do dye my beard. You’ll often see me in photos with a very distinctive ginger beard. Especially if I just dyed it. You can bet that in whatever pictures accompany this interview, my beard will be delightfully, wonderfully ginger.
CHARLES: I love you. I don’t always show it because sarcasm is our love language.
MARK: It is. I love you, too, and I’m glad that we’re friends on this crazy journey.
CHARLES: Amen, brother.
Read Stop bludgeoning young gay men with our AIDS tragedy, an excerpt from Mark S. King’s new anthology, here.