Ride on

For months, the headline on my AIDS/LifeCycle page has said "Won't Let Cancer Keep Me Out of the Saddle" of this year's ride.

Well, gang, it did.

But I'm not beating up on myself about it.

This weekend, I realized that whether I ride in AIDS/LifeCycle or participate in the event as a volunteer roadie is not the point, and never was. I'm still a citizen of the broader AIDS/LifeCycle community and that counts for a lot.

I spent Saturday afternoon at the Veterans Administration grounds in West L.A., watching riders complete the last mile of their seven-day ride from San Francisco to L.A., and then viewing the closing ceremonies for the event, which drew thousands of spectators.

As one of those spectators, I got a perspective on the event that I don't get to see as a rider, and that is how beautiful each and every cyclist looks as he or she spins toward the finish line.

All last week I had been following the progress of the ride on the AIDS/LifeCycle website, where thousands of photos and several blogs were documenting the ride as it wound its way south toward L.A. Experiencing ALC online was almost like actually being there, but seeing the riders and the roadies in person was thrilling.

A few of my friends in Positive Pedalers invited me to join them in the closing ceremonies as a flag bearer, but I wrote them a note explaining I wanted to watch. They smuggled me into the staging area where I was allowed to watch a rehearsal of the ceremony and then stand with VIPs beneath a canopy to the left of the stage.

I dumped my backpack and jacket on a seat in the second row of the VIP section and then flitted about with my camera and pom-pon, snapping photos of riders and roadies, many of whom I hadn't seen since last June. When the actual ceremony got under way I cleared the seat and offered it to a VIP, explaining that I was going to stand, but as it turned out all of the VIP seats went unused. Everyone was standing, because the real VIPs at the V.A. on Saturday were the ones with the bicycles and helmets and roadie hats.

When Lorri Jean, the CEO of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center gave a shout-out to the Positive Pedalers, I waved my orange Pos Ped flag. It was the first time in six months that my Pos Ped flag had felt sunlight, and man, did that feel good.

There was at least two fewer riders arriving in Los Angeles than who began the ride seven days earlier in San Francisco. On Mile 13 on the first day of the ride, a cyclist who is the brother of a friend of mine in Pos Peds suffered a serious accident, and remains unconscious in the hospital in San Francisco, surrounded by family members. His progress is being reported on his ALC home page blog by his brother, who left the ride to be with him.


And there are hundreds of cyclists in AIDS/LifeCycle or its predecessor, California AIDS Ride, who were absent from ALC 8 because they have died from HIV/AIDS. A riderless bicycle represented them in the closing ceremonies, just as it did in the opening ceremonies in San Francisco. In the photo at left, I'm standing with Mr. Goodman, who escorted the riderless bike to the stage on Saturday, joined by his wife.

Meeting the Goodmans was an incredible moment for me. Their late son, Jeffrey, is the namesake of the Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. Becoming a patient of the Goodman Clinic in 2005 after losing my health insurance was the catalyst for my involvement in AIDS/LifeCycle in the first place.

So cancer kept me out of the saddle in AIDS/LifeCycle 8, but it didn't keep me out of the ALC community.

Not even 10 cancers can keep me out of ALC.

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Photos of Positive Pedalers at ALC 8 Closing Ceremonies

Taking it to the streets

Angry protesters demonstrated in Hollywood on Friday against Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts in HIV/AIDS programs in California. After a rally across from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, we marched through the streets of Hollywood to raise awareness of the governor's dangerous proposal. More photos

Remembering Bill

William Randall Coady
November 23, 1959 - June 6, 1991

The Muppet moral

As the lights in a theater at the Arclight went down last night, my buddy told me that I would not possibly find anything in the movie we were about to see remotely upsetting.

"I promise," he said, flashing the Scout's honor gesture.

Two weeks ago, he and I saw a movie about a World War I soldier named Joe who ends up in a hospital bed with no arms, no legs, no face –just a torso and a brain– and the only thing keeping Joe alive was a trach that looked suspiciously like mine.

Last weekend, on my own, I saw a horror movie in which the lead ghoul wears a set of gamy dentures that she uses projectiles and at other times removes them to gum her victims with slime –just like I could if I were possessed by Satan and wanted to drag people to hell.

It was assuring to hear my buddy certify "The Muppet Movie" as safe fare for a guy like me with a tracheotomy and a G-tube and four months of tongue cancer under his belt. And because the movie originally was released in 1979, I knew that none of the Muppets were going to die of AIDS, either.

In minutes, we were watching Kermit the Frog squatting on a log in a swamp, plucking a banjo and warbling "The Rainbow Connection" and I was under the Muppets' spell. All of my real-life woes had been tucked away and forgotten.

Then the song ends, and Dom Deluise, playing a talent agent named Bernie, floats by. As Bernie tempts Kermit with a star-making role in Hollywood, a fly buzzes by and Kermit snaps at it with his tongue, but misses.

"First thing to go on a frog, his tongue," Kermit sighs.

I didn't bolt from the theater. I didn't even kick my buddy in the shins, though I was tempted.

I just reminded myself that recovery for my tongue may be just downstream in this cancer swamp I'm in; I just can't see it yet because it's hidden in the kudzu.

Like Kermit says: "Life's like a movie, you write your own ending."

In the ending to my movie, no fly that buzzes near me has a chance of surviving.

AIDS/LifeCycle: Day 3

There are campsites in six cities along the 561-mile route of AIDS/LifeCycle and I have a mnemonic device to help me remember them:

"Santa Claus Knows Comet, Prancer and Rudolph Secretly Mock Lazy Vixen."

Repeating that sentence in my head as I rode in ALC helped me make sure I rolled into the right campsite on the proper day (the cities are Santa Cruz, King City, Paso Robles, Santa Maria, Lompoc and Ventura).

On Tuesday, the 2,200 cyclists and 500 roadies of AIDS/LifeCycle 8 stayed in campsite 3: the Mid-State Fairgrounds in Paso Robles. Day 3 is one of my favorite days on the ride because that's the day when Positive Pedalers are featured in the evening program in the dining hall at camp.

An award is presented to one Pos Ped, and another Pos Ped delivers a speech about what it means to be living with HIV/AIDS and participating in an event like ALC. At the end of the speech, the speaker asks everyone who is living with HIV/AIDS to stand up and be acknowledged.

The guys and gal of the Pos Ped Board gave me the honor of asking people in the dining hall to stand, even though I knew that I wouldn't be in Paso Robles on Tuesday. Here's what I sent to them:

"This ride is all about helping people with HIV/AIDS and raising awareness about the disease. That is no small task: In California alone, there are more than 184,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.

"I had hoped to ride in ALC 8, for the fourth consecutive year. Unexpectedly, I had to place my health ahead of my desire to ride.

"But I know that many of my brothers and sisters with HIV/AIDS are on this ride, and that gives me great strength.

"At this time, I'd like to ask everyone in this room who is living with HIV/AIDS to rise. Riders and roadies, if you are living with HIV/AIDS, please stand up and be recognized."

Wish I could have been there to deliver those words in person. Of course, I wouldn't have been able to speak myself, but I would have figured out some way of communicating.

Instead, Tuesday night found me curled up on my couch continuing my private Jake Gyllenhaal Film Festival (last night's feature: "Donnie Darko") when a text message arrived from my buddy Nathan, one of the two co-chairs of the Pos Ped Board.

"The Day 3 speech went well, with an amazing amount of people standing," Nathan wrote. He went on to say that he has ridden every mile in ALC 8 with another Pos Ped friend of mine, Beau.

That was great news. In November 2007 Nathan had a serious accident while cycling and he wasn't able to ride in ALC 7. The fact that Nathan is back in the saddle gives me hope that I'll be in good enough shape to ride sometime soon, too.

In just a few days, the riders and roadies will arrive in Los Angeles. I can't wait to see them. And you're invited, too.

Assault on battery

Who knows what the sales associate at Planet Beauty thought when I staggered into her store on Monday and stepped up to her counter?

My expression was one of desperation. If I had stepped into Planet Beauty to get prettified, this young lady, whose badge read Jackie, would not know where to begin.

Jackie probably had had a long day matching her female customers with moisturizers, foundations and spray-on sun tans. She may not have been up to waiting on a man with no voice and a swollen tongue who looked like he was wearing one of the wigs that Phil Spector left behind before he went into the pokey.

I slapped a piece of paper on the counter and wrote, "Please show me all of your tweezers."

Jackie disappeared to check her stock, and I contemplated what had brought me to Planet Beauty.

A tiny battery was jammed inside my left hearing aid –again.

A few months ago, I had a mishap when the battery carriage broke on my right hearing aid, leaving the battery stuck inside, and I worsened the situation by stepping on the plastic that holds the battery inside the aid. Since then my hearing has been at half-strength, at best.

With the other aid now useless, too, I had the congeniality of a two-by-four.

But I had a shot at fixing the aid and getting half of my hearing back if only I could find the right pair of tweezers to remove the battery.

A pair of tweezers I had at the office didn't do the trick, so I decided to try again with a second set of tweezers I had at home. For more than an hour, I had been trying to capture the battery with the tweezers when I decided that maybe I just needed a more precise set of tweezers.

Jackie returned to her station with two fists full of tweezers and spread them on the counter.

The points on the $6 pair she showed me were too thick. Then she showed me a $22 pair, which looked fine enough to get the job done, but did I really want to spend $22 plus tax just to pry a battery out of my hearing aid? Do people actually lay out that kind of dough to pluck eyebrows and nose hairs?

Jackie handed me a third pair, and I studied it closely. These tweezers not only looked like they would be up for the task; they were marked at $14.

I gave Jackie a thumbs up and handed over my debit card.

As she rang up my purchase, I opened the package and tried in vain to clasp the tweezers on the battery and lift it out of the aid.

"Here, let me try," Jackie said, taking the tweezers and the hearing aid out of my hands.

She leaned into the challenge with the precision and confidence of dentist working on an abscessed tooth. Sweat beads formed on my brow, but Jackie's was dry.

After a few minutes, she successfully clasped the tweezers around its prey and expertly lifted it out of the hearing aid.

I whooped and hollered as loudly as my speechlessness permits. I gave Jackie a thumb's up and all but genuflected in appreciation before waving goodbye and leaving Planet Beauty.

I wonder if Jackie does cancer tumors, too?

AIDS/LifeCycle: Day Two

My body is planted in L.A. today, but my heart is somewhere between Santa Cruz and King City with the heroic riders and roadies of AIDS/LifeCycle 8.

Spend some time with my friends Stefan and Gabo –a first-time ALC roadie and a longtime ALC cyclist– as they blog from the road. In today's post, they recap the opening ceremonies and first day of the ride, which took place on Sunday.

Sure wish I were with them now instead of beginning a day at the office.

Gabo and Stefan and the rest of AIDS/LifeCycle will arrive in L.A. on Saturday afternoon.