LET’S TANGO A LITTLE
With dawn I decided to bypass San Diego and see if I could track down Susan Resnik who had moved to Delmar, California with her husband and had been a major contributor to the project, both in information and food. Our entire relationship had been over the phone and fax with occasional e-mail. Of course, her dissertation on the social history of hemophilia had been a major breakthrough in my information gathering about hemophilia. Because of contact with her and access to her interview with Doctor Brinkhaus that final hit of post-production money enabled the film to be finished. The long film became nothing but a pipe dream, no longer a quest, unless the positive receptivity for further funding happened at the meeting. That seemed like a very silly pipe-dream at the time, looking at the amount of money that would be needed to film a national social history on hemophilia and the sparseness of the hemophilia community. I called Susan Resnik from a corner payphone near an active coffee shop and sidewalk cafe. She fetched me and fed me at a patio bagel shop which was owned by a couple of lawyers, lawyers in love. After breakfast, I followed Susan back to her condo where I met her husband, a Jewish accountant, spoke to him briefly and was given access to a real shower and a place to change into fresh clothes. Susan planned to attend the meeting. I really wanted her to see the film on the big screen. That film and video difference was hard to impress upon people who had only seen the VHS video copy. Dominique told me to keep the bar of soap I used for my shower. The condition I was in after my 2900 mile-three day journey, this didn’t surprise me. She probably burned the towels after I left. It was probably the cigars. After all, she was a Doctor of Public Health. I’m surprised I wasn’t quarantined on the spot. I made my way to the resort on the fringe of San Diego where the Meeting was being held and staked out the territory. I didn’t have a ticket to get in so no one gave me a name tag or anything. I managed to pick up a program and the film wasn’t on the agenda. But none of that surprised me because The National Hemophilia Foundation was funded by the Pharmaceutical industry, the same industry that poisoned so many hemophiliacs with HIV and didn’t really care to say much more than it wasn’t their fault. Nah, there was no chance for a larger independent project. I was just hoping to get gas money back home at that point. The fact that I had no place to crash indoors didn’t seem that big of a deal since the fold down back seats of the Cavalier allowed me to sleep partially in the trunk and had been adequate to a point. There was no running water and that hygiene thing is important.
The resort was spacious and spread out with sporadic shuttles and you could spot the hemophiliacs painfully dragging their legs behind them. Brent was there on the ticket of the company that had poisoned him–A company which had told me that their priority in funding was a web site and they couldn’t see putting any money into a film about hemophilia. Their USA headquarters was in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. They had recently changed their name from Armour to Centeon for their USA operations. Everyone who is paid by them swears that they’re the good guys of the industry. Brent and I were soon joined by his colleague, Bollero, a twenty-something HIV positive hemophiliac who was on Brent’s Board of Directors for his hemophilia organization CHAPS. He also claimed to believe that HIV didn’t cause AIDS. Bolero was an independent graphic artist and he wasn’t funded by the pharmaceutical industry–Go figure. I didn’t know if it was his wishful thinking or just his close friendship with Brent. Brent continued to insist that HIV didn’t cause the disease, claiming that more discussion was needed, even after over four thousand members of the blood community had died of AIDS since the early 80s.
I was there. I was back in the blood, still alienated from a community that felt that it had been betrayed by the industry that served it. Why should they trust anyone when our society has evolved to the profit motive being financed by big business, while public figures claim volunteerism is the path while being financed by big business that thrives on death–Life feeds on death feeds on life and so on.
The Boss appeared at the bar where he grabbed some late lunch and I passed him an invitation to view the film. He hadn’t gotten one previously and he was an exhibitor, so I wondered what had happened to the invitations I Fed Exed the Prince. As far as anyone was concerned, this was to be an undocumented non-event viewed by several hundred people who just might happen to show up. 2000 people from 14 different countries were to attend the Meeting. Several hundred showed up for the opening session. I sat with the North Carolina delegation: Dale, the Roman, Richard Atwood and the frizzy haired blonde. The Executive Director gave a rah-rah speech about cooperation between the community and industry. The Executive Director had neither hemophilia nor AIDS. The community was divided within itself with more factions than members, some belonging to multiple factions. The film was introduced and it was shown. The reaction was great in my eyes though the hall was only half full. . The president of the World Hemophilia Federation was the next speaker. He spoke glowingly of the film and how valuable a tool it was in bringing the message to the public. He was from Dublin, Ireland. A reception followed at the exhibition hall and the positive response continued. I was looking for gas money. I spoke to the president of World and he mentioned the possibility of worldwide distribution to treatment centers. He was an HIV positive hemophiliac. I found Agnes Ofgod at her booth and hugged her for ten minutes and she introduced me to Woman, a glowing red head with a smile that melted my heart. I saw Susan Resnik and Laureen Kelley the well funded Dish.
“Do you Tango?” I asked Laureen.
“A little,” she said. And we made a date for a dance at the Ball on Saturday night.
The responses continued along a positive line with the only hitch being that most of the exhibitors, the ones from where additional funding would come, didn’t see it. They didn’t know about it. It had been an undocumented non-event. It never really happened. They gave it no value–With the exception of Vickie Strange from Caremark a national homecare company who I had been speaking to for a year about funding. She said that she had sent a check for two thousand dollars to Hemophilia of North Carolina for the film. She said that there were a few sections of the film that were not in sync. The lips moved and the voice followed. I didn’t know how that could be with the professionals I had working in post-production. This was the first time I had viewed the new prints and I was in the back of the room. I fucked up. I thanked her for the money but still had to figure out a way to get gas money for the ride home. It was still a good thing. So a celebration was in order.