RuPaul's DRUG Race There was once was a channel called Logo. Aimed at the GLBT community, it was a mixture of movies, travel shows, documentaries, reruns of Queer as Folk. Oh, Logo is still around, but in between out-of-order reruns of Buffy, Logo seems to have become all-RuPaul, all-the-time. Don't get me wrong, I like RuPaul, even saw him perform in his predrag days in a stage show of The Rocky Horror Show in the mid80s. But c'mon, between Ru's Academy and Drag Race and so on, give us a break!

Schwag from the Drug Companies When celebrities go to a premiere or an awards show, there's always a "Schwag" room, where (even they could afford the stuff anyway) they can help themselves to all sorts of freebies... Rolex watches, ski vacations, iPods, expensive cigars and so on. Now we folks with HIV usually don't roll in those circles, but drug company sales reps used to bombard doctor's offices with pens, tote bags, and other things, all for free, I've never been on half the drugs I have pens for.

Work History Gaps Many folks, especially in the days before the cocktail, left their full-time jobs as AIDS related diseases hindered their ability to do their work. Some collected Social Security, some were fortunate to have a long-term disability or pension as well. Now that folks are living longer and have better prospects ahead of them, they're ready to go back to work. It is illegal for a prospective employer to ask if you have HIV, but they can ask "So what have you been doing since 1998?," a bad answer would be "I still haven't gotten over Shakespeare in Love winning best picture over Saving Private Ryan."

Bite-Sized HIV News A German patient with AIDS and lymphoma was nearing death when his doctor tried to bone marrow transplant for the lymphoma. Surprisingly, the procedure cleared his system of HIV. Not being a scientist, I don't understand the "how" -- but that didn't stop news channels from doing a half-assed report on it, probably because no one on their staff understood it, either.

What's in Yor Basket? Now I know that since I did this strip, First Lady Michelle Obama introduced a new "food plate" to replace the "food pyramid." That being said, the healthier a diet someone with HIV+ eats, the better chance they have to fight infections and retain muscles mass.

Can a 15-Minte Phone Call... I had gotten a little tired of parodying insurance commercials, but fnally GEICO came up with one I didn't mind watching the first ten times.

Big Pharma: Nice Knowin' Ya Yeah, I was pissed when I did this strip. The drug I was on was from Scherring-Plough and it did something no other combo ever did... within five or so weeks my viral load plummeted to undetectable. Then Merck came along, They bought the company, continued the trial but started publishing press releases that it would go on. That lasted a year, about a month before the trial was ending, Merck said they would make the drug available to those who did well on it. I'm still waiting.

Those Crazy Pill Bottle Labels A friend of mine had one of these "advisory" labels stuck to his shirt sleeve, prompting us to get into a discussion of the varying warning labels we had seen over the years.

The Names Project AIDS Quilt I really can't do justice in describing seeing the Quilt, it really is something that one must experience for themselves. The panel shown in the strip is indeed the first panel I ever made. I have no sewing skills to speak of but I also couldn't think of letting anyone else commemorate Carl Sowell. You can see images of all the panels received by the AIDS Quilt/Names Project on their web site.

Chickens for Check-Ups