[Beginning of TAPE 1]
[00:00:00]
Brandon Cook: So, can you just state your name and place and date of birth?
Tim Engles: Sure. My name is Tim Engles, and I was born in Wichita Kansas on the 27th of August, 1961.
BC: And what was your family situation like?
TE: My family situation, I have one younger brother, two years younger, and that's the only sibling. My mom, I mean my mom is still alive, my dad died 6 years ago, brother still alive... and he lives there, my mom lives in Kansas still too.
BC: Umm, and what did your parents do for a living?
TE: My dad was a farmer, my mom was a – well before she got married, she worked as a newspaper reporter and... reporter I think is the right way of describing what she did. She, a lot of her time she spent working on the women's section which, while she was out and a profesional, was covering weddings, stuff like that. You know, so and so's gonna get married, lets go get a picture let's get a story, where did the bride have her dress made, that sort of thing. She did that for a while – I mean she did other office work too, but that was her favorite job – and that was in Dallas in the mid to, the mid 50s I'd say. Then in about '57 she moved to Berkley with a friend of hers and she worked for the American.. AIA, American Institute of Architects maybe, American... I think that's it, American Institute of Architects for a couple of years and then her dad got sick and so she moved back to Kansas. And then she got married, and ya know, the typical story of the early '60s, stay home with the kids... so....
BC: Umm, so what drew you then out of Kansas?
TE: I came here for school to go to Brown, a friend of mine went to Brown before I did and I sort of heard about it but hadn't really thought much about it, and he said “Oh I loved it, you should consider it.” And I took some time off before I went to school. I graduated in '79, so I took a couple of years, well I took one year off and then I went to school in Texas for about a year and a half, then I went and spent several years in Europe and then I came back and you know, just worked in bookstores and the clerk type of situation. And then finally, I mean I knew I was gonna go back to school and I'd heard... I came to Brown as a resumed undergraduate as part of that program, so that was in '88.
[00:02:45]
BC: So how then did you get involved in ACT-UP?
TE: Well, I wasn't really out when I came to Brown, but very soon after it became, ya know I was feeling the need to come out. So that was about, well that was actually the fall of '88. So of course I, it took me a couple of years to really get, feel comfortable coming out, and at that time there was a group called Men's group which was for gay and bisexual men and it was part of the – well we didn't call it the queer alliance at that time, but what did we call it.... I guess it was just the LGB, probably the LGBT alliance... no, you know what we probably didn't have T, it was probably just the LGB, lesbian gay bisexual alliance at that time. And the women were more active than the men and so they had several groups for women, and there was only one for men and so that was Men's Group. And we met on Friday, on Friday afternoons and so I started going and it was great. It was not just Brown, it was RISD too. And so we umm... do you need to test [the mic]?
BC: No, it should be fine.
[00:04:20]
TE: So I started going, and it was there that I met the guy that I first started dating and who became my boyfriend, my first boyfriend. And he was involved in ACT-UP. That was like spring of '91 and we started going, started dating really in the summer and he kept saying “Oh, for about a year I've been going to meetings of ACT-UP Rhode Island, you should come.” And that sounded ya know, interesting, but school was keeping me busy – so that summer, summer of '91, I started going.
BC: And so when you started going, were meetings being held at the Rocket or had they moved at that point to...?
TE: They had moved already. They had moved to... the Providence Center? I think it's called, on Hope street? I think it's still – I mean it's still there, I think it's still called the Providence Center. Yeah, they had moved, they'd moved. I've heard about the famous Rocket days, and of course Bill [Jesdale] probably told you a lot about the Rocket. I've actually, I never went to the Rocket I'm really sorry to say, never went to the Rocket. My ex, Marc [Cohen] actually probably did. Anyway so it was great, well I dunno how long you want me to go on about this because it's not... it is, it is ACT-UP related now that I think about it, I was gonna say it's not strictly ACT-UP related but it actually is completely ACT-UP related.
BC: Go ahead.
[00:05:53]
TE: Umm, I was going to say it was not only a lot about supporting PWAs and fighting AIDS phobia and homophobia, it was also just really important for socializing and dating. And so that's I think, that was certainly true of ACT-UP when I was involved. And people who'd been there longer told me that was as much dating going on here as well as activism, and that's what I had observed too. So I didn't meet my boyfriend there, but I met... it was great for me because, this is what I was gonna say earlier, I'd only come out really a few months before and you know I knew a few people from Men's group and everything, but all of the sudden I was thrust into the middle of this really great group of people, primarily men but some women too, and it was... I mean I couldn't ask for a better group of people, I mean I'm still friendly with all of them that I can locate. And so it was wonderful, all the sudden I was thrust into this setting which for me, really given where I was, was as much about being gay as fighting against discrimination against people with AIDS.
[00:07:25]
BC: So did you guys socialize much outside of meeting settings?
TE: Well, we started to slowly. We, maybe this can give you kind of, I dunno if other people have told you similar things but maybe this can be valuable because it's not so strictly, not so much about the work of ACT-UP but it gives you like the social dimension. We would always go out for dinner afterwards. And often we'd go dancing too as a group. And so we umm, and it was in the summer and oftentimes people have more time during the summer, certainly students do, I did. My boyfriend had just graduated in May of '91 so he was sort of like, ya know, honestly trying to find a job but hadn't found one yet. So it was just a little window where we had a lot of time and we could just say “Oh yeah, definitely we're gonna go dancing until the bars close” and it wasn't a problem. I mean, the bars close in Rhode Island at like 12:30 or 1, so it wasn't like 4. But it was wonderful because we'd just go out to dinner and we'd go dancing, and some people would drop by the wayside I mean there were some people who actually had jobs or careers and they had to say “Sorry, I'm not going dancing tonight.” But that was a very important component for me, and frankly – and this is, telling you this honestly – that was probably what kept me in it as much as the activism. I never really took, as I told you before in an email exchange, I never really took a leadership role in ACT-UP, I would go support actions... I was always more, and continue to be more drawn to just political action in general which fighting against discrimination against people with AIDS certainly is, no question about that...
[00:09:21]
TE: ...but I found myself a little less sure than I think other people did, just because I felt like I didn't really know that much about the medical issues behind HIV and AIDS and I didn't feel like I could really talk as intelligently about it for example. Well, happy to go to demonstrations, happy to hold a sign and say “Stop discriminating against PWAs” You don't need to be an MD to figure out if you are in favor of that struggle. But when there were meetings set up with the health department. You know, there were people here in ACT-UP who had done a lot of work, a lot of background investigation into the medical issues, some of these people were HIV positive some were HIV negative as far as I knew, but several of them really delved into these issues and could really have what i gathered must have been fairly productive discussions with for example the state director of the Health Department. I didn't feel like I could just go up to the guy and say (it was a guy at that time, I don't know who it is now), “You need to change the way you're responding to this and let me give you five concrete medical reasons why.” I could go up to him and say – although I wouldn't have been granted a meeting, it just makes more sense to give his time to people who will say “We want to talk about your totally inadequate response to the AIDS crisis and these are the medical reasons that support our position. You need to listen to us because this is not being done and the result is this.” You know, I could understand that but I never really felt I was as good at articulating it as other people in the group were. And that was fine with me, I didn't have any conflict with that, I would just go if we needed a demonstration, umm...
[00:11:21]
BC: So do you remember any specific demonstrations that you did participate in?
TE: Yeah, there were more than I can think of, more than I can recall I'm sure. Yes I do remember one, one was at the health department that was in '93, that was probably late summer early fall of '93 and I was there just sort of for moral support. I don't know that was had anybody inside the building talking to the director at that point. But another demonstration, and I can't remember... this was certainly ACT-UP related but we were very disgusted, and this is an example of the type of thing with ACT-UP, more confident about telling my opinion, articulating my opinion; we were very disgusted with the coverage by the Providence Journal of AIDS issues. And their AIDS phobia and their homophobia. So we organized a wonderful demonstration really, it was great street theater. But we marched outside up and down outside the street at the Providence Journal at one point and they knew why we were there. And we had made, somebody had made I hadn't made, I give other people credit for this, the artists in the group – had made big paper mache heads that looked like several, like the senior editor or the editor in chief whatever, maybe the publisher, maybe a... there was a really obnoxious, we thought, editorial page writer, you know he constantly and for all I know he may still be having his Thursday and Sunday columns in the Projo.
[00:13:24]
TE: And his name was Phil Turzin... Turzin I think? I think that's Trzian, and I think it's pronounced “tur-gin”. I think I've got that right, but it would not be impossible to figure out what the actual spelling is if it's wrong, and the actual spelling would actually be in the ACT-UP records someplace. But just you know constant, “Let's, why don't we handle this epidemic the way we would every other epidemic if it weren't for this stupid political correctness we have; we need to quarantine people with AIDS.” And we were like “No. We don't think so.” And so we would write letters, sometimes letters would get in. And quite often I think they wouldn't, I couldn't give you the statistics about that. But at a certain point we just felt that we weren't being listened to, and ACT-UP as you know was partly about street theater and that kind of public performance, and that was one of the things I think that made it so great, that's my opinion. Just because in dealing with this horrible epidemic and the AIDS phobia and homophobia in society there was room for this kind of light, in a way really light hearted response on some levels. I mean, when you're meeting with the head department of health that's not light hearted, when you're doing street theater... anyway, so to finish the story about this demonstration, what made it so great is people would, people marching, the demonstrators would put on the heads of these people and then we had this fake guillotine. And so we'd say things like, somebody would read out “PHIL TRZIN! Guilty of homophobia in his February 22nd 1992 article calling for the quarantine of people with AIDS. Phil Trzin guilty of AIDS Phobia in such and such and such, and what's the verdict?” And we'd all shout “Off with his head! Off with his head!” And then the person with the paper mache head would stick his head in the guillotine and this little you know very rickety little thing would come down and we had a basket and he'd push the head off and everybody would clap. It was a lot of fun, we got – I think it was covered by television stations.
[00:15:50]
TE: And umm the thing about newspapers in this town, at least it used to be true, is that I think there's a healthy rivalry between the Providence Journal and now the Providence Phoenix which used to be called the New Paper. So all you had to do, and we had people who were much more media savvy than I was in the group, so they were usually the ones to call; call these other people and say “Hey, we're having this demonstration at the Projo” and so four journalists at the New Paper, they were there. They loved it. And especially the TV stations, rivalry or not, especially if it's a boring afternoon and there's not a lot happening. Five o clock, you'd time it so there's rush hour traffic going by and there's the occasional honk of support. So that was a lot of fun. There were other demonstrations that I just didn't make it to. There were demonstrations at the office of a certain state representative who was also a lawyer, so people went to his office. Bill would have a better idea of that than I do. So there were demonstrations certainly that I missed. I can remember, umm, I can remember one – and I dunno if this is too background for you – but this is before I was involved in ACT-UP and really before I was out, but I was also involved at Brown in Amnesty International and a couple of friends and I were pretty horrified at what was going on in Central America in the '80s and so we... and early '90s, our US government's support for far right wing death squads... and so we went down, and as part of something, I can't remember what, we were demonstrating in Kennedy Plaza, had our placards ya know. Oh, I know why we were there! Now I remember, because I think, and this is gonna take you back – Dan Quayle was here for a fundraiser, Dan Quayle was the vice president of George Bush Sr.
[00:17:57]
TE: So he was in Rhode Island for a little fundraiser, he was at the Biltmore. And of course we never laid eyes on the man but he was inside so we decided to have a demonstration, various groups you know and it was nothing huge it was fairly small scale. But I can remember being there with my sign saying “No support for state terrorists in Central America” or something like that, no US dollars for that. And I can remember this group of guys, of people – men and women, primarily men – walking around the perimeter of the Biltmore and several of them had whistles and they were making a lot of noise. And you know I just, I had a feeling that they might be gay, and i thought “Plenty of reason for them to be here” with Dan Quayle and the Republican party here, and... and I'm pretty sure now that it was ACT-UP... and so that was a demonstration that I saw from afar that I'm pretty sure was ACT-UP. But various demonstrations. So I went to a lot of demonstrations, and as you can probably tell because I'm getting a lot more excited about this than meetings with the director of public health, Department of Health, that turned me on a lot more than the nitty gritty of well here's what you need to do with the policy part of it. I think I would've been interested in the policy part of it just as much if I had felt like I had a firm enough background or solid enough background to really go toe to toe with the guy, which is really what was necessary in those days to say... well I'm sure Bill and Duncan [Smith] talked about this because they've had so much more experience than I've had, but one of the things that we were really fighting for was anonymous testing as opposed to confidential testing.
[00:19:37]
TE: And it seemed to, from what I was hearing reports back from people, ACT-UP members who would talk at the weekly about having met with the director of health, department of health... they would say “My god, this guy just really doesn't get it, doesn't get why confi-” we're not really sure he even really understood the difference. Why wasn't anonymous, why wasn't what we were doing now good enough? Well A it's not confidential, I mean it's not anonymous – people won't feel comfortable getting tested, there is homophobia and that's a big issue for them. So I think that was something that was probably hard for, perhaps may have been hard for him to... for all I know the guy may have been gay. And I say that because there's something in my mind that makes me think that somebody may have said “Oh yeah, he's gay, he's just not really on the page.” I'm not sure about that. His name was Paul Loberty, L-o-b-e-r-t-i. And Bill could give you more info about that, or Duncan. But umm in any case, gay or not he wasn't getting it. And another issue was not enough testing sites. As you know, lots of people who are affected by this, even back then tended not to be rich. So the fact that you might've had one testing site that was open noon to 3 Tuesdays and Thursdays in Newport, and another that was open 9-12 Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays in Pawtucket or somewhere wasn't necessarily all that PWAs or people at high risk or people at high risk in Rhode Island needed to see whether they were HIV positive or not. But the confidential vs anonymous was a big thing for us.
[00:21:30]
TE: And umm... I'm very proud of that struggle, I think ACT-UP, I think we can take a reasonable amount of credit. I dunno who else was working on it if any, but really to raise the issue I would suspect that there were probably a lot more people in places such as New York City or San Francisco, public health officials who may have gotten is sooner than people in Rhode Island. Nevermind Kansas. [laughter] I mean you know, Rhode Island is sort of close to New York and the epicenter. If you're talking about the midwest, Chicago probably would've been, Chicago or Houston or big places like that would've been the equivalents. But even in Rhode Island, and it surprised me why being so close to Boston to New York, it seemed that people were very insular here, I mean public officials about getting it? I mean, you're 4 hours away from one of the epicenters of this thing. So you might want to talk to somebody. Maybe you're even at conferences in New York occasionally as head of the Department of Health of Rhode Island, you know? Take somebody out for coffee. But it's that kind of lack of initiative that I thought was so reprehensible, speaking for myself.
BC: Do you remember, speaking of which, much of any interaction with say the New York chapter or the Boston Chapter of ACT-UP? Or did they seem to function kind of independently?
[00:23:00]
TE: Umm I need to tell you at this point, and this is the perfect time to tell you about, when I graduated from Brown in may of '92 a year after my boyfriend I – after some temporary summer housing – moved into a house that was populated by a bunch of Brown graduate students. And one of those people was somebody that I had met I think in Men's group, but certainly by the time that I started going to ACT-UP. A graduate student in AmCiv named Peter Cohen whose name must have come up already. Peter F Cohen wrote a book about ACT-UP which you're probably familiar with. Peter was I think probably one of the biggest assets of ACT-UP. He worked really hard, I don't know where he found the time. He worked really hard and for one summer, maybe all of one summer, he went to New York – and he was working on his book – but also to spend time with New York ACT-UP, ACT-UP New York. And so he was a good bridge for us. That was I think in the summer of '93 already, so a little after my most, the time I was most active in ACT-UP. So it was more like at that point hearing from a friend about what he's doing, and then hearing from other friends here about “Oh yeah, Peter was saying they're doing this in New York.”
BC: So would it seem like he would bring in ideas and techniques? Or...?
[00:24:30]
TE: Umm, I at that point wasn't going to ACT-UP Rhode Island meetings anymore; totally supportive of what they did, if they had a demonstration I'd go, but I just wasn't making the time commitment to go on a weekly basis. So that's where that kind of reporting back would've happened more. I think when I... and I can remember going to the gay pride parade in New York in June '93 and so I ran into Peter and you know we had lunch after the parade, dinner. So I asked him what was going on in ACT-UP New York, and to be honest now I can't remember what he told me. But he was of course working on his book and he wanted more than a Rhode Island view, which is the only responsible way to approach it since New York is one of the epicenters. So was he, was he bringing back ideas about techniques... you know, I don't have a sense. I don't have a sense of that. I wish I could give you a contact for Peter. I dunno if you've contacted him, if you've been able to find him. I have lost touch, he moved back to the Boston area and I... Bill knows somebody, he's in closer contact with this guy named Fred who's very good friends with Peter and stayed in touch with Peter longer than Bill or I did. I don't know if Fred has his contact information, I don't know if you have time to go into it anyway. But I think he was, I think Peter not only worked really hard and really pushed our agenda and would go to talk to the director of health, the Health Department in Rhode Island... He was very good, he's not the only one, but he was very good at chairing a meeting. He would keep us on track, and we would tease him about it, but he would keep us on track. He did a lot of work, as did Bill, as did Duncan. there was a certain point at which there was a women's caucus at ACT-UP, that was very important and I felt it was especially important because – I'm sort of veering off from what we were talking about just before in your question – but I thought that was important because I felt that there was some sexism in the Rhode Island chapter of ACT-UP that was not acknowledged and I was a little disappointed that we couldn't just, we men, couldn't just acknowledge it. And like ya know, people were saying to other people, “Get over it” or at least deal with it, let's do so ourselves.
[00:27:15]
BC: Can you elaborate a little bit, when you say sexism? Or can you talk a little bit more about the membership itself?
TE: Yes, uhh, first thing to say of course is that meeting attendance varied a lot. Numbers who would come, we had a fairly – I would say we in the time that I was there I was one of the “we”s – had a good solid 8 or so people who would come every time. And among them for part of the time I was there were a couple women, maybe it's fair to say several women maybe 2, 3 or so maybe 5 or 6 men. And umm, I would just, I found that some of the ideas that women... I found some antagonism between certain women and certain men in the group that I found certainly not productive. And I just, I really, it seemed to me that personal issues – not personal issues between person A and person B but personal issues about person A's sexism – were coming up in person B's response to that. And I felt a little frustrated and not so overwhelmingly disappointed that I had to like leave or anything, but I just wished that we could have... it seemed like if we couldn't get over this and really work together and get beyond this, acknowledge that it exists and work in a respectful way with one another, and I'm talking primarily about the men... other people may've thought that some of the women were kind of hard nosed and the type of lesbians that weren't gonna take it from men, and my response to them would be “Good for them, they shouldn't. They absolutely shouldn't.” I didn't have any complaints about the way any women interacted in the meeting, I had some complaints about the way certain men interacted with the women.
[00:29:13]
TE: So I dont' think, my perception this is just my perception I really want to underscore that – I don't think that hampered specific actions that we did, but since I wasn't leading any of those actions maybe I didn't see the way it did hamper them. Umm, my impression was that we were able to do a lot of what we were focusing on doing. And remember I was a footsoldier, not ya know the general leading the charge. We were able to do what we were planning to do. It just seemed to me that there would've been a lot more, there would've been room for creative growth and collaboration and maybe even some people confronting some feelings they had, sexist feelings they had, there was that potential and I'm not sure I think it was met. I don't think it was met.
BC: Would you say the constituency was mostly queer identified?
[00:30:13]
TE: Yes I would. Overwhelmingly. I can think of one women who, well everybody would always ask “Well is she gay?” “Is he gay?” Do we... and my impression, but maybe this is my faulty memory, was that she was not gay. So I'm trying to, I'm just saying that because I'm trying to think of people who were not queer identified – that's a better way of saying it, that's definitely a better way of saying it, queer identified not gay, even better than gay or lesbian. Umm, I can't think offhand of anybody else who was not queer identified. There was one woman who for whom, I think of this person as a woman, and that's how she presented herself while I was there, for whom that description would be especially important. That was Thayer Dietricht. And I think Thayer was at some points certainly difficult to work with. She had a lot of issues that I felt I was never going to be able to understand because she wasn't going to let me. And that was her prerogative, I respect that. Umm, I... inspite of the fact that she seemed very serious and almost never light about things, I think that she was a tremendous asset to the group. She was HIV positive, was / is HIV positive. And she had that to deal with in a way that a pretty lucky white gay boy like me who was HIV negative just didn't have to deal with. And I tried to listen to that. I think that Thayer had such issues that even if you were willing to... if you were not HIV positive, I think that she felt a barrier between herself and you. And I was conscious of that very soon after I met her. Not that she wasn't nice, she was nice. And just very serious, and this was a life or death thing for her. So I didn't, I didn't ever feel as comfortable with Thayer as I did with everyone else in the group.
[00:33:00]
TE: And my biggest regret about Thayer is that she really at a certain point cut many of us off, just totally cut us off. And umm, I don't harbor any real anger about that. It puzzled me, I was pissed off for a brief period but not majorly and I just thought “Ok, she has her issues, she has lots of issues.” Umm so, that was a less than happy story. You know even if she had decided “I can't deal with this anymore, I need to take a break from ACT-UP” My god you know, nobody needs to explain that to me, I never really got into it to the extent that other people did and I didn't stay very long. But if she had felt that way, by all means fine Thayer, do what you need to do; you're fighting a very hard battle. It just seemed unfortunate that we couldn't, even if we weren't going to see one another very often or almost never, that we couldn't just sort of end it on a friendly note. But you know, people have issues to deal with and I really can't, I certainly don't judge her. But umm there was, her anger was really palpable and... don't blame her, don't blame her at all. It was good actually, I think it was good for me and other people to have to deal with that. In addition, she did a hell of a lot of work. You know she knew, she was living with AIDS and she knew about – if you want to talk to somebody about the medical aspect of it, she could tell you.
BC: Did umm, did much of the other membership seem to be HIV positive, or... how did that play into meetings? Did it seem to affect someone's status if they were HIV positive?
[00:34:53]
TE: Umm I think it... I think to answer your question my impression is that it did somewhat affect your status in the meeting. People too Thayer, I think, very seriously. Thayer was a very serious person, a very interesting person, very serious person and she knew a hell of a lot and she was fighting a battle that we were trying to support her in and a lot of other people in her situation. And I say “we”, you can tell who I'm identifying with because I'm HIV negative and as far as I knew most of the people at the meeting at any given time were HIV negative. Primarily, and Peter Cohen this is part of his book, I think we were primarily in Rhode Island HIV negative middle class white gay men who maybe weren't rich but most of us weren't poor. And you know, we could do things like go to Province Town. Maybe not every weekend, but you know we could get there it wasn't a matter of “Ok, I can afford my medications barely this month” for most of us “Or... I could, well there's no choice I have to take the medications I can't go anywhere.” And I, Peter has thought a lot more about how class played into it than I have. I was... he was just much more reflective about, and I loved to talk about that kind of thing, availability of services – but not just class, of course gender, race... There was one woman who was Latina, and I liked her a lot. And she was a lesbian, she had a partner. Her HIV status I don't know. I had a feeling that she was negative, but I don't know. And umm, I thought it was very good for the group to have her for the short time it did. She made us confront some things that I think it would be just too convenient for us not to confront about our own sexism. Umm, I'm sort of sharing that burden right now even though I don't think I was one of the really, a terribly bad offender.
[00:37: 13]
TE: I mean I really, I liked... her name was Maria, Maria Christina... I can't remember her last name, but Bill Probably does or it's probably in the records. It was great to have her there, she had a son a biological son and I guess she had custody of him. And I can remember one time, and this is just background, but she invited us over – and this was not even before she started having some problems with sexism she felt in the group – she invited us over afterwards instead of going to a restaurant to her house for dinner. And it was, you know we just had simple stuff, and “Ok bring chips, bring salsa, bring soda, I'll make something simple.” Very nice, I just thought... I just wondered if that was her way of finding a way to participate in the after meeting socialization because I gather that she probably wasn't affluent. I wasn't either, but maybe I was enough of a spendthrift just to say “Sure, I'll go to dinner” - and of course this was an important social group for me so there was no way I was not gonna go to dinner with this group of people because I was just coming out and it was like “Wow, there are all these nice gay men in Providence” and it just sort of happened magically for me, just effortlessly. And I met, I have met so many wonderfully people through these initial contacts. Umm, but I loved the way Maria Christina sort of made that effort, I really appreciated that. And as, it would've been too easy for us to say “Ok, we're going off to a restaurant now.” Even if it's not expensive, maybe she couldn't have afforded to come. I don't know, I'm just speculating. She had a kid, who knows if she had anybody helping her raise that kid. She had a partner, I can't remember what she did for a living. She just, I dunno, she never impressed me as having a lot of money but that was just sort of my brief impression that I had.
[00:39:20]
TE: And so I really, I wanted us as a group to umm... to pull together and to be inclusive and to... and for me, I don't think anybody else would've objected to this either, but if it meant going to some really really really really cheap place for food afterwards, what the hell does it matter? Nobody would've objected to that. I think it's hard for somebody from the outside to come in if this group has a pattern, a socializing pattern that they do afterwards, to go in and say “Well, can I make...” yes, of course you can make another suggestion, you know what I mean. It's just a little difficult if you're the new person on the block to say “Why don't we all just go someplace much less expensive instead” not that we were going to expensive restaurants, but... So you know there were issues of economic stability or status, there were issues of sexism or you know issues of I guess race class and gender, those classic, the classic three things that groups deal with. But anyway...
BC: How were meetings themselves run?
TE: Umm, we would, we would start by... somebody would offer to be coordinator – or maybe we called it facilitator, I can't remember. I'm sure that's in the records, because we would take attendance. Were we religious about that, no I'm sure we won't I'm sure that sometimes it got skipped. But somebody would volunteer or somebody might say “Oh, Peter you haven't done it in a while, why don't you do it?” And then the person would lead. And of course to state the obvious, some people were better at it than others. And Peter for example was very good about it I thought. We would tease him about constantly saying, when we would go off on tracks, you know “Focus! Focus!” I loved Peter cause he was just such a little, he was sort of a diminutive person first of all but he was just so sharp and so... so committed. Very committed. So he, it was, that was just ya know, that's a side note. There were many things I liked about personal traits about many of the people there.
[00:41:47]
BC: Umm, did you go on to do any other political action work after you left ACT-UP?
TE: Umm, I... yes. I didn't really remain involved with HIV aids stuff, you know my, I certainly still support it still support people who are really leading the charge in that fight. I have always found myself more interested, and this is even true when I was in ACT-UP, more interested in working for progressive political candidates. So I do that. I'm in a union at Brown and so I do, I do work for that too when necessary. So yes, the answer is yes. It's not like “Yes, and the answer is my involvement in the Democratic party which started this date and has never stopped” or whatever. It's just been like work for this candidate, work for that candidate. And I like that, I like doing that, I like working for more than one person.
BC: Do you recall much of any interaction between ACT-UP and the other similarly affiliated groups in Rhode Island? Like with AIDS-Project Rhode Island or any of the other communities?
TE: I... when I came into ACT-UP I sort of got a quick education about The Project and how frustrated most ACT-UP members were with the Project. So my impression is that we did a lot of stuff on our own that people who would go to meetings with the director of the health department would, I'm sure would talk to people from the project and yes of course there had to've been back and forth. But co-organizing things with the project? I'm not going to say it never happened, but rare in my during the time I was there. Usually we were like “Oh my god, look what they've done now, what can we...” It was like...
BC: What kind of frustrations?
[00:44:00]
TE: Ahh, now that I say that I'm.. it's the natural question to ask and I'm trying to think of what they were. Peter Cohen could tell you right off. Umm... I don't, I'm not sure that the Project was strongly behind anonymous testing enough o suit the people that were involved in ACT-UP. I think that the sense was... I sort of feel that I'm on thin ice here... but my memories from 13 years ago, 14 years ago or more, are that.... the sense of the Project was that they, for an activist organization... well I'll put it this way – compared to ACT-UP they had a lot of money, what do they really, what do they have to show for it? What are they really doing with that that makes positive, makes real, contributes to the quality of like of people with AIDS? I think that the sense that – well I'm sure about this one – there was a real sense that some people at the Project probably in a management role, leadership roles, who were being paid... you know not a lot of money because that's not where you make a lot of money but who were being paid salaries full time salaries, and legitimate real job full time salaries, who were just really incompetent. And I think there was a fair amount of anger about that as there should've been. I couldn't' quote you a lot of their, a lot of examples of where they went wrong. You know, “they did this they didn't do that they did this they didn't do that”, the way people who were more involved could. But there was definitely that sense. I mean there's no question, that was the sense of what was going on at the Project, one of the problems of the Project at ACT-UP meetings. Not that we're saying they're getting too much money from the Department of Health or wherever they get there money, no no no by all means put more money into this fight against AIDS. But use it effectively and don't have people who are incompetent...
[00:46:43]
TE: I think another thing, and Thayer would be a great person to talk to about this because she really could quote you chapter and verse, would be that they're just not at all up on the latest some of the latest medical procedures. And also, perhaps more than that, they weren't advocating for people, for people with AIDS the way they should've been, in an edgier sort of push the envelope way. That they may have become too comfortable as an institution, ok we get our x amount from the department of health and we lob some mild criticisms at them, and “Oh you know, come on, we've told you you need to be doing this.” But I think that a lot of people that were involved in ACT-UP were really drawn to kind of an edgy not suit and tie approach to things, but... no, you people are dying because you people, meaning not only the Project but especially the Department of Health and certainly State and National federal government, aren't doing your job Centers for Disease Control aren't doing your job... For example, and this is something I'd better mention before I forget it, a concern of all of us and espcially I think of the women's caucus was “Ok, you're doing all this testing on men. Hellooooooo!” The end of the sentence doesn't even need to be finished. How many, it doesn't even matter if overwhelmingly – and maybe that wasn't even true at the time – the overwhelming number of people infected were men I'm not even sure that was true. But even if you have 20% of the people infected in the United States who are women, why would you not do women specific tests?
[00:48:33]
TE: That's where I get on shaky ground and I can't articulate it as well as people who.. somebody like Dr Kenneth Mayer who has you know fought the fight against HIV and AIDS for many years and I think done some pretty outstanding research. He could, and I'm sure he has given lectures on it, but I do know that there were, there were tests that people in ACT-UP felt should be done on women who might be at risk people who were HIV positive or you know had full blown AIDS that weren't being done. And just, incomprehensible. And I'm willing to bet money that it still hasn't changed. So that's something, that's an example of incompetence that... I can't say that we were directing that criticism in any way shape or form against the Rhode Island Department of Health or the Project, I just can't say. Somebody who knows more about it could tell you. But certainly against the CDC, absolutely. People very angry about it, and there was no male female divid in ACT-UP about that. We all knew they needed to be doing these tests, and they weren't.
BC: Do you remember much interaction with Brown University and College Hill?
TE: Umm...
BC: Or with any of the other educational institutions in the area? Was much of the membership made up of college students or was it primarily community based?
TE: I would say, i would say there was a very strong connection. When you first asked that I was thinking about actions organized together and stuff like that. Maybe fewer of those, but where did the membership come from? I would say, and this is a generalization, I would say 35, 40-50% would be Brown or RISD affiliated. I mean Peter Hocking went to RISD and then of course was the director of the Swearer Center [at Brown University]. I don't know that he was director back then, he may have had another position in the Swearer Center at that point.
[00:50:40]
TE: But yeah, so... Brown Students, staff I guess I became staff in '92 and I was kind of still involved... so yeah, students, staff, primarily students, graduate students, undergraduates or recent alumni – like my ex Marc [Cohen], like Bill [Jesdale], like Duncan [Smith]. You know, as far as actions go... I always got the impression, let me see if I can come up with a concrete example... we would always let the LGB Lesbian Gay Bisexual Alliance know about actions, of course, I mean why wouldn't we? Of course we would. If we were going to go downtown and protest, if we were going to go over to the Department of Health and protest... the Department of Health protest that I'm thinking of in '93, and I want to say you know september of '93 maybe early October, we did have some another group from Brown the International Socialist Organization came to support us. They very well may have been involved in others too, I know they were involved in that one. They sent a good contingent too, maybe like you know 6 or 7 people. It wasn't a huge demonstration so 6 or 7 people was a big contingent. For the umm, for the beheading thing, I'm not sure that they were there. But they may have been, they may have been.
[00:52:30]
TE: So we didn't, I don't think that we were able... it wasn't like we had all of these undergraduate or graduate students from Brown or RISD or PC or URI or wherever coming and joining us. I found, I hope I'm not forgetting something, but I found my impression was in general that it was primarily people from the community and Brown students, alumni, staff. You know, with a slight majority of people from the community in general. But umm... so... another person, I'll just mention his name incase nobody else has, who was important and I think a little bit contentious, is Marc Paige, M-a-r-c P-a-i-g-e. And he was a man who was very open about being HIV positive, I mean he was living with AIDS he wasn't just HIV positive he had AIDS. Umm, and umm I think he had AIDS at that point he was HIV positive at least. And he was, he was a community activist and he had lived in New York in the '80s had lived in the fashion industry. And moved, was from Rhode Island, moved back home, found he was HIV positive and moved back home to Rhode Islane (not home home living with his parents) and was involved in ACT-UP for a while. Now I'm not going to, I'm not going to say, I can't speak for him as to why he stopped coming. Maybe he was frustrated with some of our methods. I got the impression that Marc may have thought that we were a little too unwilling to put on a suit and tie and meet with the mayor.
[00:54:48]
TE: Actually, an interesting thing that makes me think... one time back in the days of Vincent Cianci our infamous former mayor... infamous, colorful, fascinating, sinister... Marc Paige, who was involve din ACT-UP at that time and knew that I was involved in ACT-UP that's how we met – I don't know why he picked me, maybe he just thought “You know maybe this one will clean up better than the others or isn't going to throw bricks through the window quite as quickly” or something. So he said “I want to met with Mayor Cianci,” whom he'd met with before he was a community activist he was very politically connected and he's a very good friend of David Cicilline's too, and he's now Marc's in Ft Lauderdale. He wanted us, several of us, and he I think he was out of ACT-UP at that time so he probably wanted a representative of ACT-UP Rhode Island who wasn't going to you know jump up on Cianci's desk and shout “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at him. Not that I would've done that, because I don't know that he was necessarily so bad as far as we were concerned in the battles we were fighting. But I think he thought, Ok Tim from ACT-UP Rhode Island, somebody else I can't remember who, Marc Paige, and this wonderful activist – and these activists are in another class from me I mean they're hardcore I'm like “Oh it's election time I've gotta go volunteer for...” These people did it like a parttime job. The other person he brought into this meeting, and I think she might've been president or vice president of the Rhode Island Alliance for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights whatever it was called at that time, was Julie Pell whose name you've probably heard, late daughter of senator, former senator Clayborn Pell of Rhode Island. She was a very dedicated activist and she passed away earlier this year of cancer. But she worked very very hard for many years and she was quite an asset to the community not only because she worked so hard and because she was a very nice person, but because she had political connections like nobody's business. In a small state like Rhode Island too, even more so. The type of person who could go up to the governor and...
[00:57:19]
TE: ...there was some point, I think it may've been in her obituary, there was some point at which (as a little sidetrack here) she was trying get in... and she was probably wearing her Rhode Island Alliance for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights hat at that point... there was some like state democrat convention. And this was when Bruce Sundlun, governor Bruce Sundlun a democrat was in office or had recently left or something. And she wanted the democrats to hear that it was time to pass a civil rights bill for lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people - although of course we didn't get transgender until a couple of years later. And so she, Bruce Sundlun arrived, the alliance people were outside, the story I've heard goes, were outside picketing and protesting or whatever. And so she just wen up to her, “Bruce. Bruce, Hi! You know can I just, is it ok if I just walk in with you?” And he's like “Oh, absolutely. And apparently a couple of the guards who had already seen her out with the protesters were sort of like “blar bllll buhh” But Mr Governor, he said “She's with me, it's ok.” And so she got in and I'm sure she was able to just network with a lot of people on the state level. And umm, so that kind of really star power really helped a lot. And so anyway to get back to the point though, Julie Pell and Marc Paige and somebody else unfortunately I can't remember who and I, met with Buddy Cianci and what we wanted was – this was fairly soon after Colorado had passed amendment two which I think was going to really basically write discrimination into the state constitution. This was long before the days of equal marriage rights, this had to do with civil rights bills and you know can right wingers in Colorado just pass an amendment in the constitution that will void all civil rights bills that had been passed a few had been passed at municipal levels, Denver, Boulder, maybe somewhere else in Colorado. So the right wing wanted to undo this with an amendment. Which passed.
[00:59:40]
TE: And I can't remember the numbers, but it passed. This is probably like early, maybe it was '92 when Bill Clinton was elected. Probably before '94, but I'm guessing. And so Marc wanted, Marc Paige, to go to Vincent Cianci and ask him to declare that there would be no official Providence city travel to Colorado until this was overturned. And it was fun, it was fun. Cianci had no problem doing that, he said “You know, this is an easy one, we never do that anyway. I've no, so I can easily grant you what you want. And by the way I'm going to be up for reelection so it'd be great if you can work on my reelection campaign.” And I was like “Yeah, that's definitely, be in contact with me about that...” But it as fun, no need to go on about that meeting so much, but that was just, that ties into Marc Paige and another activist who wasn't – Julie Pell wasn't involved in ACT-UP she was involved in the Rhode Island Alliance for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights – and some of the other organizations such as the alliance I think at some point felt, or some of their members may have felt, that we were a little too... again edgy, unwilling to ever put on a shirt and time, for godsake sometimes you have to talk to power, to put on a shirt and tie, be there promptly at 5. And it's not that we wouldn't do that. People for example like Peter Cohen were quite able to do that, very articulate. I mean when asked I was quite happy to go meet the mayor. But I think that there was that sense of ACT-UP among the gay community, amongst some members of the gay community, other people who were working more quietly... although not always quietly at least for LGBT and sometimes, or LGB Lesbian Gay Bisexual and sometimes Transexual civil rights. I think ACT-UP was sometimes viewed as the people who ya know, you just can't really talk to them. Or if you can they're certainly not going to be using the methods you're going to be using. And so just don't expect people in power.. you know better how to talk to power than they do. And I think that was the impression. There was brief point at which we had a queer nation chapter here too, and I think that was seen more like ACT-UP certainly than the Rhode Island Alliance.
BC: I actually need to switch tapes real fast.
TE: Sure, sure. If you want to continue? I don't know if...
BC: Yeah, yah certainly.
[01:02:28]