I visited thousands of clients in their homes - mundane settings mostly, but the people were far from mundane.  And it was the simplicity of the setting, and the matter-of-fact nature of our talk, that made the conversations so compelling.  In those quiet rooms we covered existential issues of life, death, love, hope, time – and the lack of it.

Many clients were eager to tell their stories.  They were living out their often solitary lives in quiet dignity and determination and wanted to share their experiences with others, to explain to those who were unfamiliar with the issues, and to help people who were facing the same challenges.

And so I took many of the clients, one at a time, to a small TV studio and we talked – just as we had talked in their homes – one on one – heart to heart.   The result was a collection of over 250 thirty-minute tapes that gathered dust in my garage for many years, until I took them out, converted them to digital format and posted them here.     

From the start I decided we would not edit the tapes.  They were unscripted, no notes, just spontaneous conversations as simple as they had been in their home.  There have been many dramatic depictions of the AIDS years in movies and TV which were useful in bringing the AIDS saga to the general public.  But the real story as lived by the people I met needed no dramatic effects.  The story itself, quietly told, was the real drama.

So here they are – simple talks, unvarnished, no muss, no fuss.  I received a reaction from one viewer who best expressed what we had tried to achieve.  She wrote:

Even though the subject matter is very sensitive, the questions are presented in a relaxed tone (not stuffy or formal).  There is no sense of feeling sorry for the gentlemen, but one of caring about conveying the topic in a straightforward factual way. It would not have been as affective had there been a play on the heart strings, or presented in a formal and clinical way. Just talking about the realities of how AIDS was affecting the person’s life conveyed enough.

A couple of caveats:  Most important, the shows deal with an era that has passed.  What was, in those years, a usually fatal disease, became a manageable condition today after the introduction of increasingly effective medication,.

Also, the tapes were old, transferred to disc and then to this site, so the quality may have suffered as a result.  The process of cleaning up and posting 250-plus shows was long and laborious, and some of the earlier tapes may have glitches that still have to be corrected.  In the meantime, feel free to browse the many other shows.

I hope they will make a fitting tribute to the courage and determination of the people who participated.  For most of them, it was their epilogue.