Ed Crane and Kevin Koerner

00:00 Senor ninja those of you who are eavesdropping on our conversation. My name is Kevin and

00:17 My name is Kevin. Koerner. Actually, I am 61 and today is Friday, February 12th, 2021 and we are having this conversation at the Boston Living Center, which is a direct care aides service organization in Boston and my conversation partner here is Ed Crane and I have met him here at the center is what we call a member and he's possibly can look at friend.

00:58 Hi, my name is Ed Crane and I'm a very young 64 today is Friday the 12th of February 2021 and is Kevin said record Boston Living Center. Kevin. Koerner is my conversational partner and he is he said he also works and helps everybody out here at the center and he's also good friend.

01:30 John Muir, how did we start calling each other before cuz you were horrible and you were terrible but we we started this little job many years ago from murals wedding when they are and so Kevin. I don't know how it happened. But everybody here wants to be in on it. It's my birthday. So yeah, it's just stayed with us. You're the horrible anyway.

02:15 So what do you want to what do you want to get into if you want to talk about what's on your mind people know a little bit about us, you know.

02:32 Other than that were hiv-positive when there were both involved in the movement. What are your hobbies Passions?

02:48 Outside of working here. I

02:58 I can't on occasion when an expired oil and you know when I put my mind to it, I think I do some pretty good work. And you do as well and I'm very into gardening during the plants. I have a degree in Horticulture and then I went to grad school and Landscape architecture, but you know things change in one's life and this is what I'm doing now, but I have been doing these are they working here at the center for 21 years?

03:38 So, you know, sometimes it gets a little tedious and the time, you know, you're dealing with all kinds of personalities.

03:51 Things can go wrong. We just tried to maintain him and I

04:00 Deescalate any any issues that come up between people here?

04:09 I know sold artist I do mostly print work.

04:17 Until recently. I was showing my work at a gallery in Provincetown, but what I meant was an actor and studying acting and I moved here.

04:28 And I know he said the middle of them run in Provincetown when I found out he had AIDS.

04:35 And eventually I thought painting with much less stressful than acting so I continued to learn how to paint in my 30 and I'll get something. And I'm not always inspired and we're not one of those artists that paint every day. Unfortunately. Wish I was

05:02 So

05:06 Yeah, we had talked a little bit about carrying the AIDS epidemic pandemic and you know how we're dealing with all that y'all were kind of like learning from this happened to watch where you were when you first heard about the AIDS epidemic and where were you like around? What time when you heard about covid-19 oldies.

05:42 When covid-19 about you, I was working here and

05:48 Yeah, we

05:51 We pretty much I mean, I think I went home for one day in March when you know the kind of blew up and go to work the next day cuz I really I can't really do my job remotely. So I just started when I saying we were religious daughter pretty much.

06:20 Not pick us up a week or two to get the proper disinfectant for viruses. You can spray that around wiper things.

06:36 Where were you when you heard about love? You? Remember exactly when you do this is like a serious disease that was affecting only came up.

06:50 You know, I probably heard about it before I was diagnosed with.

06:56 You know.

06:58 I didn't think much of it cuz I didn't think that I would.

07:02 You know, I just didn't think that it was something that I needed to worry about, you know, a lot of people thought that and I was diagnosed in 1988 when my partner at the time you got to try to do and told me he was positive. So I got to leave at 10 in Massachusetts if everything was Anonymous, so nobody would know who you were there wouldn't be any problems with the discrimination and all that crap.

07:41 But yeah, I got a ride with positive and Chris closer to Miami.

07:55 They told me you know, they ask where I got my Medical Care New England Medical Center and they told me about this good doctor they are and I went to see my doctor and he said, you know anything about HIV next. Let me go see this other guy who's very smart.

08:12 So I was with him until he retired.

08:19 And I'm very fortunate to see you treated me not as a doctor-patient professional relationship. If you really got to know me and he wanted to know if it's going to be personally and I just talked to him the other day that we have a good relationship. I'm a little bit older than you but I remember with AIDS I was at a party.

08:49 Harbor Freight Riviera, Beacon Hill and get a Christmas party on New Year's Eve and I had just moved back to work and then I also heard about this.

09:05 Manager getting very ill in Los Angeles

09:12 Well, hello flag for me that something was not right.

09:21 Home good, I think early on I was experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome. Seriously. I remember reading about this in January and I'm going to go buy ology background. So I was really following too closely.

09:38 And I live in a building where people weren't wearing masks and you and all the things you shouldn't do in the gym was still open and I was like a madman telling people to put on the mask.

09:54 Turn on my building because I didn't want to go on the elevator with people.

10:01 Who weren't wearing a mask and didn't really know how virus spreads you know, and to me I thought it was HIV. I had an apartment for three years who was positive and everything was fine. And we we broke up and I met someone and

10:31 Did something happen, you know, what was SpaceX if you did to me getting infected?

10:42 And that was in 1991.

10:46 Did I remember going to the Gay Men's Health crisis because previously had volunteered there and had a buddy is on the other side of the Zilla. Tater basically said it appears in order find a basement apartment and you could be better than here.

11:13 White basement apartment because if you go blind or you can't walk

11:18 You just ended a wheelchair. So I took an alternative route to the time. I was a Mac if I can get a macrobiotic and you know, because people I thought were also. But I didn't get the

11:35 AIDS diagnosis actually HIV was in 91 in diagnosis was in 90

11:49 Shower running time for the new cocktail luckily because my T cells were dropping quickly because

12:03 Are you people who died the same time around if you died taking an overdose today at ATT was?

12:21 Not that effective against HIV but you're right. They didn't know those are dosage the proper dosage to give people because they were just given it out. It was like a like a man on the Shelf cancer medication. I didn't wear and they pulled it off and you can have some effect on HIV. So they start giving it out of people but they didn't they hadn't done any tests about Africa see all that stuff that the FDA post has the pharmaceutical go through it turns out that they were giving way too much rain and making people sick that way we

13:10 HIV HIV initially was a pandemic and remember it was called in the early 80s gay related immune deficiency. You know, what size in a serving Community is already kind of oppressed.

13:44 What is the similarities do you see between

13:58 I'm just you know when this whole thing started with cumin.

14:02 I was struck by the fact that in years and we were you know, identify this positive and we got comfortable about it. We were public about being hiv-positive, but now it's not

14:28 Just because of the form of transmission, you know, it's not as selective and who gets it you breathe this stuff around on and anybody can get it tonight. So I join the club. Everybody was saying was only gay men turned out to be so wrong with their the marginalized groups inner city of black and brown people people who had a drug problem in having a president.

15:20 Who did nothing basically ignored what was going on? And he was borrowing to the social conservatives who have a lot of animosity together and it took him about five five and a half years invention. Would Aid, you know and he was he became president in 1980.

15:51 And and also know how people say always choose just Trump is just in that I think it was my personal use more than just I think he was more concerned about the economy and him looking good then find the cure for this epidemic that last you we have like a hundred people.

16:23 His political position as a conservative, you know, he it's all about him. He had to turn this around his Advantage. So you're saying, you know, you really need to wear a mask. You know, you don't know what the government tell you what you have to do. But you know, that's exactly what his crown wanted to hear. It's just so sad that people died.

16:54 Now I'm

17:02 So you I know you have been an activist over the years around HIV and other things just talk a little bit about that.

17:15 What have you review been up to over the years when I was a student at the University of Massachusetts and Boston and I got involved with the anti-nuclear movement, and I was arrested in Seabrook nuclear power plants in the 1978.

17:39 I need the hepatitis from the unsanitary conditions been with like a hundred and one Armory all around New Hampshire with only two bathrooms. So cool. Do I continue with that is in the 1979 my friend Greg and I we went to the actual first March on Washington and we reckon I stayed with some heterosexual friends who was squatting in an abandoned Embassy.

18:16 I remember the day we were all Gathering by state. The guy who is the leader of the band said what song should we play as we head to the capital of the first national day March in Washington and my friend Greg yelled out.

18:38 After colon from state-to-state, I think that my activism around HIV and AIDS is that I I worked in the field like work the AIDS action I've done.

19:00 Shopkin small chicken with HIV and aging I wasn't around on HIV in New York City various music, but I did go to some of the meeting but I wasn't going to the diet and you know, it was like the early nineties and

19:30 You know there was

19:32 And you had to get involved somehow you were positive done. Because the whole approval process to get drugs to people that need it now and I wouldn't actually, you know, it was there gay community that we were all dying, you know, we don't care you don't care if you don't know the efficacy or you know, anything else about the drug. If you have something that will help us at all. We want to yeah, so

20:16 I got invited get involved with backed up seriously, but I did find out about this Diane in.

20:26 On Huntington Ave in Boston right in front of the Harvard School of Public Health. And so I went and

20:39 You know, we all as one just as you know.

20:45 In a Diane across all of Huntington Ave, which has a trolley car that runs in the middle of it. And so I was laying on railroad tracks and until the cops came, you know, I'm leaving at least we made between the two viruses is Anthony. Anthony pouch to remember when it first Venturi beloved.

21:33 You know I was talking about.

21:37 My family and I we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot and they're very conservative and they watch Fox News and they're just like, you know, that's where they get their news nickel leave it and my dad on the phone yet the other night he was saying that how dr. Fauci during the Obama Administration with working on viruses because during the Obama Administration they had Stars they had Ebola come about and they were trying to deal with these viruses, but

22:18 My dad says

22:21 He just falls into these conspiracy theories and it just really frustrates me. He said that.

22:28 During the Obama years Anthony fauci was working with the Chinese on the viruses that were happening over there and that he work with them and

22:43 I don't know. He didn't say deliberately, but kind of an inferred dad.

22:50 That he would his you know, he had some malevolence about, you know, releasing this virus into the world so he could make money off the vaccine and I'm like

23:05 Really? You should check your sources dad because he has no interest as far as I know in pharmaceutical companies that are creating these vaccines and you know, he's only been a very professional person in in in the Spiel infectious disease, and I don't know I just don't understand why people well, I believe these unfortunately I think fox has been instrumental in making a cult on other people who believe other Trump the representative. I think her name is Jackie speier who was in town and was shot and other people have to take the Kool-Aid today. The Trump is like a cult leader and I think that he was Hell by people like your father like my aunt on my mother who would listen to the elderly people who basic

24:05 At home of soaking up things that the rest of us are not aware of.

24:12 And in its fuel such misinformation and it is so sad. I just know I mean

24:24 I don't visit my parents that often but everytime I'm visiting them. That's the only new source other than local news is box and now they have a way in which is right and conspiratorial on Newsmax. That's another crazy one. Crazy. What do you think about me girl really want to know?

24:53 Anyways, I think you're very very talented. I think you should get back on your artwork and I should to yes, you know, I love wearing one of your t-shirts that you gave me a lot of fundraising for the a support group of Cape Cod.

25:14 A pick an artist every year to display their pieces of art to raise money and I've been selected twice.

25:23 And I was showing for a while it's a really good gallery and I sort of feel lost but I have no place to show right now, but I think a lot of people are feeling lost right now this past year. Some people are probably using the tundra productively and painting like crazy.

25:43 I haven't been this is bothers me. I also used to do some acting and I feel like in a way I left a stop me from continuing Screen Actors Guild but I do mostly extra work that's on a commercial but that was that was my true. Love.

26:06 What the auditioning for me was stressful.

26:13 But I'm thinking about you know, what else do I have to lose? No, no.

26:24 I totally get that and you know, we stopped ourselves. You know, what years is HIV is an excuse or some other gentleman is an excuse to stop believing in ourselves and what we are capable of and so

26:50 Truth be told I in.

26:53 I've kind of lived and let things happen to me over the years and I turned 60 last year and I just decided like what the fuck do something with your life change it around you got to get out of this rut and I saw this ad on Facebook for this gay. It's called gave me a thriving and cancer male coaching.

27:24 Crew and it's led by a couple in Austin, Texas and numb.

27:30 You know, it was expensive but you know, I felt like I got to do something and so I took a leap of faith and I

27:41 Part down the money and

27:44 You know, I have virus remorse and all that stuff if I didn't start it right away, but I you know, I can't I talk to them some more.

27:52 And I continued with it and you know, I'm still still do it to this day. We had a group call last night on zoom and

28:04 It really is help me. It's help me.

28:08 See myself and love myself.

28:13 I wasn't doing before and I was just kind of on autopilot and not enjoying life and

28:22 Never having confidence in myself and in United States like this bear existence not there's no joy.

28:36 So

28:39 If it's done a lot for me, and I know I have a lot more work to do, you know if it's a continuous process, but you know, they specifically designed this program for gay men because there is a really high prevalence of depression and suicide amongst game in because you know, I mean things are getting better but in our area when we grew up there was something weird about it because I didn't know about us they didn't know people that were gay as friends and so they could you know, what, you don't know who you're afraid of exactly what I'm comparing. Our generation is were closing age, but they called the Great generation went through the Depression and World War II, but we did go through it if I remember looking

29:39 Try to find something positive in a college library 1975. Just looking up the word homosexuality and all I could find at the time or medical diagnosis copper Oaks Behavior. Now, I see my nephew has a business.

30:00 His lover comes to the house when you know, it was just so different.

30:09 I thought you funny story. Yeah, you may have heard this my brothers and my sister kept telling me this is like 19 and 25 years ago. I keep asking, you know.

30:27 White chicken girls just don't tell her why I should know. I'm going to tell her I really really want to tell her she's asking why you don't date girls. Yeah, because I did it first. It's so I said to them all I'm going to tell her and I told my mother and you know, she was a conservative Italian woman a good woman. She didn't take a gray but you didn't like throw me out. So the next time I saw my mother she had this is a true story sunglasses here and hang up currency in her face was swollen and my siblings called me and sexy chill in plastic surgery.

31:17 So she wasn't the revelation of your brothers and your brothers and sisters. Did you think that any night of brother who recently passed away at which one who came out many years after did and how easy it was for him and accepted. It was my mother became like the pflag mother of the world. But anyways.

32:01 I think we got a lot of negative messages when we started to feel good about herself.

32:07 B a striper people are the only and maybe some of our hopes and dreams were put by the wayside and what's up with that?

32:25 Nobody even nobody saw this coming. I you know, we have Begley heard about an epidemic back in 1918. Think about it like we've gone we would come much further than we were back then and we have medical, you know expertise to take care of these things. Obviously. We were kind of living in a dream world Amen thriving you tell us a little bit more about

33:06 Turn off the tech D or is it from The Law of Attraction which people know about or maybe not.

33:21 But and also uses some cognitive behavioral therapy, which is widely accepted to change behavior that sucker school again. So, you know when you when you join a program, I mean that have free and they have a free website, you know, you check it out. Yeah, but then when I get on it, they want to find out more, you know, they encourage people to sign up for one of their programs and I did and it's it's been awhile for me. It's changing the way you see yourself and and yourself in the world in society.

34:11 It's raining. You know why I can't say enough about it. I mean, we always I think everybody deals with what we call our own Gremlins our thoughts in your head, you know, human beings have the biggest brains but we use them too much we think too much and we you know, you strategize and in him make assumptions and drives our Drive ourselves crazy with the best thing we can do in most occasions like that is just did like meditate and live in the moment and just sit there and you know,

34:49 Yeah, I think when we were hunters and gatherers, we didn't think too much about what people thought if I were so paranoid about people knowing about us and our lifestyle and how weird we are. You know it, you know, thinking what are they thinking about me right now, you know all that.

35:21 Wow, okay. We just recovered a lot.

35:28 What what would be?

35:30 No, you're never than me. You'll always be done within me 20 25 30 if you could just

35:52 You know.

35:55 I'm dating somebody now my past relationships kind of fell into my lap. I didn't necessarily go looking for that. I didn't find people that are wanted to be with Sabrina through this program. You know, it's giving me confidence and I started dating somebody who's not like me but and I never would have dated somebody like this in the past, but do what I've learned about myself. I think, you know getting somebody that's very different from you is The Learning Experience you learn from them and may you know, it's a give-and-take and you learn from each other. So we'll see what happens with that. But if it doesn't work out, I know that I'm going to be okay because I'm happy with myself and I love myself and you know, it's hurtful when somebody dumps you but you look at it.

36:52 In a positive look at life in a positive way. You can't hurt you this much.

36:58 I'm editing looks like a really nice guy guy told me that they need for anyone but not everybody is not like

37:15 Do it outside. I preferred the old way in the seventies in the eighties of meeting someone in the bar so I could see them here I could.

37:26 Stanhope Co sometimes that's what it takes to meet people, you know, most of us get a little inebriated and now online people are using drugs, you know, and if they are using drugs are just a sorry not interested cuz you can't have a meaningful relationship when you're inebriated all the time.

38:02 Inviting now, I do remember those finished, you know, if someone turned this. You're very lucky. I don't know many people who who started dating successfully. Yeah congratulate you and your don't leave yet. I mean, I've started this program a year ago rhyme with covid restarting in you know, part of the program is to get out and and didn't get out of your box in in in in feel comfortable meeting people, but we couldn't eat people crazy.

38:38 So I feel very fortunate and I feel very fortunate in so many ways and that's another thing we all need to learn to be grateful for what we have in life. And you know, you have so much to tell my parents the other night. I have been on so many HIV medications over the years and I've had no side effects because I know a lot of people would have bad side effects. So I feel so fortunate in that. I feel fortunate that I was still alive, you know, I feel you that I probably do too I mean

39:12 But

39:16 Yeah, it's just

39:19 The way you look at life in the mindset is huge.

39:23 What's it all about Alfie?

39:31 I just know that.

39:34 I wish for you.

39:36 All the things that you wish and dream up. I wish the same for you.

39:45 Your special person you want to

39:49 Everything else about down before you I'd like your sweatshirt and kiss your range.

40:00 I was a little nervous about this.

40:18 Girl, are there any competitions?

40:27 Show the back of the hotel.